When 6 becomes 4

When my mom left here following Christmas, she explained to Nathan that when we got back from Boone he could come to her house. Well as they say in Roxboro, this little guy is smart. At least once a day while we were in Boone, Nathan asked if we could go home so he could go to Granny's house and feed Maggie (their dog). Although there were many tears from him as we were packing up and preparing to leave "his Boone house", as soon as we pulled into our driveway he declares that it's time to go to Granny's house. Thankfully, my parents were open to the having Ryan and Nathan spend some time with them this week. I don't know if I could have held Nathan off any longer.
Ryan got to join in on the fun while promising to serve as interpreter and to do all his school work that I sent along! It's been a long time since Philip and I have had just Peter and Emma to ourselves. It's been such a blessing to spend these few days with just the big kids. I miss my little guys. I'm thankful that they are soaking up some undivided attention from their grandparents and I hope they are filling up their grandparents hearts with love. It's been really quiet around here. The Lord has used this time and extra room in my brain to speak gentle words of encouragement to me. I am thankful.

Ruff Ridge

While eating our lunch on the parkway, we say the park ranger passed by us about 3 times. On his third time past us, he graciously stopped and explained himself. They were patrolling the area in search of a certain suspicious vehicle. In our brief conversation he did give us the suggestion of driving down the parkway a bit and trying out the Ruff Ridge trail. As soon as he mentioned the trail, I recognized it from my college days. Refreshed from our lunch, we hit the trails again. I'm glad we took his advice because it was a beautiful place.

Hiking

We welcomed the sunshine the following day with great enthusiasm. It's our tradition to hike the Viaduct so that is where we headed to after we had breakfast and packed a picnic lunch. Again, we were greeted with beautiful and unseasonable warm Boone weather.
Our normal entry point to the trail was blocked off so we improvised by walking down road until we found a way to enter the trail. Luckily there wasn't much traffic!Nathan was a champ on this hike. He was determined to be like the big boys and walked for close to an hour.
After a wonderful time in the woods, we found a way out of the woods and back to the road to lead us to the car and to our lunch.I'm quite sure that money could not have bought a more beautiful setting for our lunch.
I love how Nathan knows that these are the blue ridge mountains! Can you tell we had Cheetos with our lunch.

rainy days

After a great weekend with friends who joined us at the cabin and a refreshing visit to the church of my college days, we greeted Monday morning with a down pouring of rain. What's to do in Boone when it's raining? We camped out at Chick-fila while catching up with another friend from college and then hit the bowling alley!It was a fun way to spend a rainy Monday. We stopped by Goodwill on our way home and Philip scored a $6.00 pair of skis and I scored a $3.50 hiking/backpack! Good times.

Vacation recaps

Day One: We set out to experience Howard's Knobb. It's a landmark in Boone and a site I remember visiting while in college. It was a mere coincident that the landmark is named for a man connected to the Revolutionary war times. Check mark for field trip! Unfortunately, after we drove there we find that the park is closed during the winter months. However, we borrowed the drive way of an abandoned house to see the view.

A question

I'm not sure why but I can distinctly remember a woman asking Philip and I this question about 11 years ago, "If you don't watch TV then what do you do?". A lot of time has passed since we had that conversation and for the most part we still don't watch TV. We have come a long way since then. Back then our TV was in a closet and we only brought it out when we had a movie to watch. Now, the TV does sit in the living room and it gets turned on more than it did 12 years ago. We still only watch it on occasion more than I would really like. Nathan has probably watched more TV in his 2 and 1/2 years than Peter watched in 4 but at least he knows how to sing along with the best of them.
This video - this night - of a spontaneous dance party with friends reminded me of that question.

Gingerbread house

The kids received a Gingerbread kit for Christmas from a friend. Our Christmas celebrations have been quiet and low key.
I am thankful for the change of pace and the opportunity to just enjoy the season.

Coming to a mail box

near you....
The kids and I worked from 11am - 3pm yesterday folding, stuffing, addressing, sealing and sorting 450 Christmas cards. Some families "go big" on gifts; some on decorating; some on food and feasting. About the only thing our family goes big on during the Christmas season is Christmas cards. Each year our total number creeps higher and higher. I am not really sure what possessed Peter and Emma yesterday but they were on fire. They truly wanted to work on the Christmas cards. They were on a roll and didn't want to stop until we were finished. I never intended to complete the entire task; we even had some helped lined up for the next day. They were determined. It made me super proud. We had Pandora going on the computer; we even opened the windows. Ryan and Nathan played together just about the entire time except for lunch and a nap.
If you get a Christmas card from us and the fold isn't perfect or the mailing label is a little crooked or even upside down, just know that it was done with love from us.
I hope you enjoy it! If you don't get one in the next day or two, let us know and we'll add you to our list. There's always room for more.

Sleep over

Last week Peter and Emma had friends over to spend the night. We all had a great time. Philip built a fire; we roasted marshmallows. We had a dance party. They played outside and read stories inside. All through the evening, I kept having visions of what is to come for our family as our kids keep getting older. Philip and I want our kids to invite friends over. We want our house to be filled with kiddos on weekends. We are thankful for the friends that God is providing for our kids. We realize that it's our job as parents to help our kids cultivate good relationships. What better way to build relationships than to have sleepovers.I just need to start figuring out who to feed everyone!

On to Animals

We've about learned all we want to about the American Revolution, the Native Americans, the Pilgrims and all that history stuff. I have decided that we would move from history on to science. I will admit that it Peter who did the majority of the American History studies so far this fall. I did my best to bring it down to all levels but I found that to be quite challenging. I also have a hard time balancing history and science so I decided I would just alternate the subjects. We are going to be studying Animals. I know this is a subject that all the kids can enjoy and learn from together.

I knew that the concept of the animal classification system would probably be a bit to complex for Ryan. I figured he could always understand something having to do with candy!I dumped all the Halloween candy we have left in the center of the kitchen table and divided it amongst the three. I sent them off to private areas to categorize the candy as they saw best.I loved seeing how they each had their own system, each being age appropriate.It really worked out to be a great introduction to classification. The following day, I did some teaching on the classification system. Remember: King Philip Called Out For Goodness Sake. Then I dumped all the stuffed animals I could find into the center of our living room and gave them the job of sorting between animal, reptile, amphibian, bird and fish! It was a fun start to hopefully a great learning semester.

Christmas Tree

With Thanksgiving right behind us, help from my parents and friends, we gave into the kids request of putting up the Christmas tree before it was even December.

Admittingly, I think it took longer to get everything out of the attic than to actually decorate our little tree.

I don't think that deterred the kids excitement one bit.

Thanksgiving

One of my favorite holidays of the year: Thanksgiving. I love it because the roots are undeniable. A time to gather; a time to give thanks; a time to be with family and friends. It has yet to become tainted and tarnished as other Holidays have - at least in my opinion.
This year we gathered with the Chryst family in Charlotte.
Needless to say we had a big or should I say huge time!
Charlotte has an annual Thanksgiving parade Thursday morning. There were horses, camels, marching bands, puppy doges and floats. Great times.
It was a special time to celebrate for the Chryst family with a new child to join our family and a wedding in the future. My heart is full with things to be thankful for. I'm thankful that all my children could find something to share when we circled the room and shared each of our own our thanks. God has been gracious to us this year and it is to Him that my thanks goes to.