We've been getting back to normal since New Year's. We've all enjoyed listening to the random records I have on my record player I got for Christmas. It's become a ritual almost to listen to music on it during meals, and the girls like to listen to the classical records while they do school work. The favorites so far are the My Fair Lady soundtrack and Handel's Water Music.
We've tried to get outside as much as possible. It has been chilly, but we missed the snow. We did go on a walk down the NCR trail and the girls found frozen snow along the sides in the shade. They thought it was great fun to try to scrape the snow up. For some reason they didn't believe me that it would be a bad idea to get your hands wet when it is so cold outside, so we had to go home after a short while. We've also been exploring the "woods" behind our apartment. Deer often come right behind our balcony - we've counted 7 at a time before. So we followed the deer path. Along the way we found 3 more fox holes, a discarded deer antler, 2 golf balls for Lyla to treasure, giant vines to swing on, and an ivy entrance to "fairy land."
In other news, Jason and I, and now Gwyn as well, have gotten in to playing Dominion. This is a card game with actions, attacks, buys, treasure, etc. It's pretty fun and I'm excited that Gwyn likes to play with us!Celee lost another tooth. Gwyn is working on one. My girls all got their teeth late, and I guess they are going to loose them late. Maybe they'll still have them when they're 80!
I've been busy trying to get the girls homeschool portfolios together. I have our first review on the 30th and while I keep being told it's not that bad, I'm still nervous. There's always that fear that someone is not going think that my kids are getting what they should, much less the more than they would in school that I strive for. I also found out that they are going to look at the whole semester, not just from Nov. 15th when I officially came under the school district's jurisdiction. So prior to that I wasn't keeping up with everything like physical education and every little art thing we do. So I'm just praying for some understanding from the reviewer to consider the regulations of Illinois while we were there (none) and the craziness of moving in their judgement of our homeschool.
The weather was so very nice here on Saturday that we decided it could not be wasted. We went to try out the hiking at Gunpowder Falls State Park in Hereford. I had read that one particular trail was good for children, so we took off on the 4.2 mile hike along with Tinkerbell. It was awesome! Everything is so beautiful here, even in winter. We hiked up and down rocky hills, saw moss covered trees and rocks, traversed streams and tree bridges, sketched cool bark, trees, and fungi, found salamanders and other fresh water fauna, climbed "mountains" (rocks), saw evidence of beavers on the trees and stumps, and took in the beauty of the river. We all got dirty and loved it! I didn't want to carry Tinkerbell across some of the streams, so she ended up swimming a good bit. The girls kept remarking that they didn't know she could swim! The girls were real troopers too. Lyla got really tired around the last 1/2 mile, but she made it the whole way on her own two feet. (probably because Jason and I were too tired to tote her!) I think it helped that we didn't really investigate the trail more than a perfunctory glance at a map before we left, so the entire time we had no idea how far from the car we were. This was for the best because in retrospect, when we thought we were pretty close to the car on the way back in, we really had 2 more miles to go! Tired as we all were, everyone agreed it was an awesome time and we all want to go back.... with rain or hiking boots this time. And to top it all off we home, watched the Ravens beat the Broncos (something I never thought we'd care about) and had oreo pie. Can't beat that day!
A friend asked me if there were any words that God had put on my heart for this year. There is actually. And He started putting them on my heart before I knew that there was a "Word for 2013" challenge out there. As I contemplated what I wanted to do this year, or do differently, or more, or less, I keep thinking of Submission and Intentionality. Not submission in some archaic "do whatever your man tells you too" type way. More like submit my ugly to God. Give Him my selfishness, vanity, expectations, but also my desires, hopes, prayers. I want to own up to and submit these things and then allow God to give me peace with it. I also feel like in the blur of this past Fall, I let the tide of busy-ness carry me along too much. I want my thoughts, actions, and time spent to be intentional. I want to have margin in my day to respond to the immediate, whether that be chatting with a friend, playing a game with my daughter, having a long (hopefully fun and silly) conversation with Jason, or responding to a need or witness opportunity. A speaker today at church commented that you can't always prepare for the opportunities that arise for you to talk about your faith or God or just life, but a discipline of reading and studying God's Word can help prepare your heart for such occasions. I want to intentionally read the Bible so that I may be of more use to God, so that His Words will be on my heart and lips. I know I am amazed at what comes out of my mouth at times (not in a good way) and I would love for God's words to come out more than the crazy mess that could splurt out. So I want to be very intentional in the way that I guide my daughters' education, for them to have the freedom and confidence to be creative and pursue things that interest them. I even rearranged our writing supplies tonight to be more available and conducive to creative expression. I am realizing that a smaller space is no excuse for bad planning. We are here and I can do more to create a home space that is comfortable and energizing. So that's as close to resolutions as I'm getting this year. I did join a gym here that is awesome, so that'll do for the usual "resolution-y" type thing.
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