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Kathy, Project 365

Project 365 – Day Fourteen (Sun-K)

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Project 365 Continues!! It has been an excellent week of blogging and picture taking. I am learning so much about my camera and lighting and what makes for interesting, creative pictures.

Today’s excitement was centered around a piece of furniture. No, I’m not going to post more pictures of the lovely Orange Chair. A dear friend’s grandparents recently bought some new living room furniture and wanted to sell their other pieces. They gave us an excellent deal on their cream leather couch and recliner. This afternoon we picked up the couch. We will return and get the chair next week. Hooray!!! I’m so excited to have some gorgeous leather furniture. Thank you, M and K!!

couch

The couch is in wonderful shape. It looks lovely in the family room. J.’s grandmother graciously gave me several throw pillows as well (at least one for each child, she said). We feel very blessed to be able to buy this handsome piece. It’s a nice, long couch–you can stretch full out and have plenty of room.

kathy's couch

I love the neutral color–it will go with anything. Tim thinks we should maybe put the recliner up in our bedroom. He said it is incredibly comfortable. I think the kids will fight him on that one.

These next pictures are of some of my favorite coffee things. I use my French Press almost every day. I like my coffee STRONG with lots of milk. The French press delivers a wonderful, robust flavor.
french press

Lately I use a mix of Starbucks French Roast (regular) and Starbucks Verona (decafe). I can’t handle full strength caffeine these days so I make my coffee half and half (order it that way as well, when I’m out).

coffee

In my attempt to save money and make delicious coffee at home, I’ve been working on perfecting my barista skills. I have a nice routine figured out that results in a wonderful home made latte. I fix my coffee in my French press then heat up 3/4 cup (or so) of 2% milk in the microwave for a minute. After it’s hot, I whip up the milk with my AWESOME milk frother.
aerolatte

My sister in law bought me this Aerolatte to Go for Christmas. What a great present!!! I should probably keep track of how much money I save every week being able to make my own fancy coffees at home. Thanks, Jenn!!

And of course, no coffee blog would be complete without a picture of my favorite coffee travel mug. A friend in our small group Bible study saw me ogling this cup at Starbucks and surprised me with it the next week. Merry Christmas indeed!!! I use this all the time and it keeps my coffee HOT for hours.

kathy's mug

I did not set out to be a coffee snob and I don’t claim to be a coffee expert, by any means, but I guess, when you live so close to Seattle you can’t help but be influenced by the coffee culture. I also don’t mean to favor Starbucks so strongly but I do really enjoy their coffee. Yum!

That’s all for my Special Day–see you next week!
Kathy

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Project 365, Tim

Project 365 – Day Thirteen (Sat-T)

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It’s Tim’s day. Do grown ups get Special Days? Hmmm. That bears closer investigation. Certainly weekends are special around here. We often have friends over, play lots of games, watch movies and just generally relax.

Tim got up this morning and went straight to work on my computer. He knew I was eager to play with the blog template and needed some help so he set about researching things. It took quite a bit of time but yielded all sort of interesting information on how to get around wordpress. I pulled up my wonderful, garage sale Orange Chair next to Tim and read a cookbook I checked out from the library.

orange chair
Truly this chair has great potential! I can’t decide if it’s retro or terrible. Don’t answer that–it wasn’t a question. LOL It’s very comfy and will someday, hopefully, be recovered in something a little less eye-popping.

The cookbook I’m reading is wonderful. It’s by Pamela Anderson, called Perfect Recipes for Having People Over. I love the way the author has a section in each recipe for further notes–when you would want to serve this recipe, any short cuts you could take, appetizer, drink and dessert suggestions, etc. I can’t wait to try out some of her recipes. I love cookbooks but never seem to actually cook from them. I don’t know if it is possible to be a homeschooling mother of five with a somewhat tidy house and still be a creative chef (without snapping by the end of the first week).

Back to Tim. This is his blog day, right? Let’s see. Tim worked forever on the blog, changing things, tweaking colors, adding borders, adjusting headline fonts, etc. He even taught me how to do some of the (easy) managing as well so I can modify some of the simpler settings myself. He is a good husband!!!

I’m not sure where the rest of the day went. In the afternoon we had some dear friends over. They are leaving this week for a new Army assignment. We will surely miss them!! Josh just returned home from a year abroad in Korea. It was fun/interesting to hear the two men comparing stories as Sunday School teachers and children’s leaders. We basically threw Josh into the Cities and Knights Settlers of Catan game this evening with no time to work his way into it. The rest of his family has played with us several times on the easier level. No such luck for Josh. He did great and definitely held his own.

Josh and Tim

Tracy and I taught a US President’s class together at the homeschooling co-op last semester. She was an excellent co-teacher and I am so sad she won’t be here for the rest of the year. It would have been marvelous to work with her again. How am I going to teach Civil War without her???

tracy and K

The L boys have been great friends to our boys. Phillip and Joshua are definite kindred spirits. They spent part of their evening swapping logic, mind-bender stories.

philip and J

Daniel and David played with the two younger boys throughout the evening. The night wouldn’t have been complete without a group hug.

group hug

Things that occupied Tim’s time this Saturday–worked on his Sunday School class (studying I Corinthians 4 and 5), wrote and actually sealed and addressed several thank you notes, played Pirates, prepared lunch for at least 3 of the children, read his book, helped fix toppings for our pizzas, entertained guests, disciplined children, make us laugh and laughed with us, and on and on.

tim and rj

I was gone when this picture was taken–I’m not even going to ask what sort of game they were playing. Looks a bit silly for me!

It was a good day!

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Project 365, Sarah

Project 365 – Day Twelve (Fri-S)

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It’s Sarah’s (age 4 1/2) Special Day! Hooray, that means it’s also Friday and the weekend is upon us.

S closeup

Sarah has been working on a letter for a little friend who lives around the corner. She colored several pictures, wrote notes (with help from Mom) and included a tasty treat. Today we were finally able to pass it along.

sarah's letter

I always find it interesting to see how the children develop friendships. Although we haven’t lived there in over two years, David and Sarah immediately list people from the Duckabush when asked to name their good friends. We were very blessed, in particular, that one family had children whose ages matched almost perfectly with ours. It was a special time of friendship.

Sarah played with this neighbor girl recently and, I guess, she has been on her mind. She wanted to send her a letter. Sweet.

Book Review Time!

gneedle book

I think Sarah has convinced at least two different people to read her this book today. David loves its companion tale, Buzzle Billy, so it’s not surprising Sarah would choose this one as her current fave. I wish we had more books from the Building Christian Character series by Michael P. Waite. They are great–funny, told in rhyme, full of cute illustrations, and in the end, teach an important Biblical principle. The older three read them for years and it is fun to see the younger two pick them off the shelf.

bw gneedle
This is obiviously a serious tale!

Sarah worked for a long time creating a picture on our new whiteboard.
whiteboard

The rest of us were doing our history and read-alouds while Sarah sat in the dining room and drew her picture.

still drawing

Of course, I wasn’t doing much reading since I kept jumping up to take more pictures of Sarah. I couldn’t resist!!

sepia Sarah

Ta Da!! The final master piece. Truly a picture is worth a thousand (or at least several) words. Most of them escape me at this time.

final picture

Daniel and Rachel discovered some big blocks of ice in the back yard. They carried them over to the door to show me. When I went to grab my camera they quickly had Sarah hold the ice. “Cause it’s your Special Day, Sarah.” How perceptive are they–knowing I was trying to take lots of pictures of Sarah today. Of course, later on Rachel called me a Photo Maniac so it’s obvious how quickly even your family can turn on you. Ha!

sarah's ice

Doesn’t this girl EVER wear gloves? Where IS her mother?

Sarah has long been a very careful and creative little artist but lately she hasn’t shown much interest in coloring. I bought her a new coloring book for Christmas and she has barely noticed it, much less done any coloring. Well, David has gone overboard in his coloring, spending long moments sitting at the table with his Prismacolor pencils and Dover coloring books. Sarah pays keen attention to that which interests her older brother. So when Rachel borrowed her new book during our reading and colored a beautiful mermaid page, I wasn’t surprised to find Sarah on the floor later in the afternoon, working hard on a picture.

sarah colorsmore coloring

For her Special Day game, Sarah chose Feed the Kitty. She knew that it was HER Special Day and was determined to have everyone play a game with her. She was quite enthusiastic in rolling the dice.

feed the kittyyessleeping kitties

Every time she rolled two sleeping kitties she would throw her arms up into the air and say, “Yes!” It was hysterical. She was definitely an entertaining part of the game. Ha!

And, yes, we did have hot cocoa again this evening. If we’re not careful, the children will think they get hot chocolate on every game night (a dangerous, if yummy, tradition to start).

hot cocoa

Happy Special Day, Sarah!

Kathy

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Project 365 – Day Eleven (Thurs-DW)

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More snow last night. This time I made sure the children got a good start on their school before letting them rush outside. Several schools were closed again today. It’s David’s (age 5) Special Day.
David outside

The neighbor boy shared his sled with the kids. They made sled runs down the yard, complete with a jump at the end.

David and the sled
David takes his turn.
going down
Going down.
down
All the way down
All the way down–somebody help that boy!

Yesterday David got very cold, playing outside. He came in and told me, “If it snows again I am NOT ever going outside!” He was one of the first out this morning. Ah, youth.

David's cold

Why don’t these children wear hats and scarves? Brrrr!

d and s

For his Special Day David really wanted to go off and do something with Tim (as they used to do). Since he knew this wasn’t the current plan, David tried another tactic, “How about Daddy and I play Age of Empires. That isn’t going out and having an adventure.” Poor kiddo. The New Plan for Special Days is that we play a family game and read a book — chosen by the child of the day. Resigning himself to a family game, David requested we play a “new game” (aka something he hasn’t played yet). He is a very interesting child. We decided to try Five Crowns.

five crowns

David, in a last ditch effort to make his Special Day special, decided he didn’t want any extra people playing. I begged a spot as did Joshua. When Daniel turned up to play, David got a little bit upset. Life is hard. He and Tim had a little chat on the steps.

tim and david

sad boytwins

Fortunately the game turned out to be fun and someone (whose initials are Mommy) came up with the great idea of having hot cocoa with little scoops of ice cream added (to cut the heat, you understand). Joshua gladly fixed the hot drinks.

joshua and david
Thanks, Joshua, for being such a servant!

The hot cocoa was too much for the girls to resist, they rushed downstairs to join in the fun and Rachel even decided to play some rounds with us. By this time, chocolate euphoria had settled in and David was more than happy to let Rachel enter the game. Ha!

A silly boy!

david's cocoahamming it uptoo hot

This boy knows how to hold his cards and drink hot chocolate at the same time. He is definitely an Edgren/Moore! Not sure which side of family deserves the credit for the silly faces.

hot cocoa

thumbs up

David and Sarah begged to be allowed to stay up late “and clean for you, Mommy.” They ran around picking up toys, putting away trash, and just generally ‘helping.’ At one point David said, “I don’t know why I’m so happy to be working.” They would have continued cleaning and tidying if Tim hadn’t called for the Bible chapter reading and sent them all to bed. Helpful worker bees!

Another busy day.

Kathy

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Project 365 – Day Ten (Wed-DJ)

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Daniel (age 9) knows how to start the day right–breakfast and a good book.

Daniel's breakfast

Tim meets with his men’s accountability group at Panera Bread. They used to meet at Starbucks but, as none of the men were particularly coffee drinkers, Panera Bread seemed a better fit. Ha! Occasionally he will bring us home a big container of delicious bagels. The kids have their favorite flavors. Daniel loves Cinnamon Crunch. I’m not sure these are bagels or fancy cookies.

The big news of our day was SNOW!!!! We woke to an inch or so of beautiful, white snow. The kids did their math and then headed outside to play.

daniel snow

All of the children (except for Joshua) have snow pants but we don’t really have proper footgear or gloves for snow play. When I ventured outside to take some pictures, Daniel proudly displayed his snow covered gloves.

D's mittens
Would you like shake my hand?

The kids played with friends and had quite the snow fight. It wasn’t really a ‘snowball fight’ as I think the snow was too powdery to be made into anything resembling a ball. It was, however, perfect for throwing or flinging.

snow hits Daniel
That looks cold!!!!

Daniel continues to enjoy his Nathan T. Riggins book. He’s almost finished, one chapter left. “If you’re doing my school chart, Mom, I wouldn’t put down just one chapter a day for my Nathan reading. I read, more like, 3 chapters a day,” he said to me this evening. Ah, truly words to warm a homeschooling mother’s heart. Thankfully there is another volume, with books four through six, waiting for Daniel on Joshua’s shelf. I have to say, once again, that I am absolutely delighted with Daniel’s fascination with these books. This year he has enjoyed The Littles Series as well as some of the Magic Tree House books but nothing has quite grabbed his attention and turned him into A Reader like these adventure stories by Stephen Bly.

Nathan T

Rachel and Joshua have recently become Garfield fans, checking them out from the library. Daniel picked up one of the books and laughed and laughed over an interaction between Garfield and his hapless owner, Jon.

D and Garfield

He showed it to all of us.
Daniel shows Garfield

For his Special Day, Daniel chose to play Apples to Apples: Bible Edition. We have the basic version (it’s one of Rachel’s favorites) and were eager to try out the Bible edition. There was much laughter as we played the game. I won the first game and Tim the second–Parents Trounce Kids! I like this new version–it has the same flavor and feel of the original game but with a Biblical focus/direction. It’s not heavy handed. Fun game. Thanks, Posie!!

apples to apples

Daniel requested another game instead of a read-aloud for the end of his Special Day, so four of us stayed at the table to play Castle Keep. Rachel and David ran off to play computer games. Sarah sat with us and worked on a coloring page for a friend.

castle keep

The kids, getting into the swing of things, are helping me with my goal of ‘photographing life.’ Daniel thought it would be terribly funny and sneaky to take a picture of his game pieces in the middle of play.

daniel's cards

I had to try out the self-timer on my camera while we were gathered together. Even without a tripod (we’re missing a crucial piece on ours) I can still get some nice family shots.

family game

There were some difficult moments in the day. Daniel did NOT want to finish school. He didn’t understand why we couldn’t have the entire day off as a ‘Snow Day.’ The idea that we have a certain amount of work that has to be accomplished in a school year and taking time off doesn’t eliminate the work it only prolongs the duration we will be schooling, is not one that he understands easily. I was worried he might lose his Special Day (which would be sad for everyone). Thankfully, he managed to cheer up and complete the rest of his assignments. The day ended on a VERY joyful note.

Kathy

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