Tag! I'm it!

I feel loved today, as I have been tagged in the blog world! Thank you Ganeida! Now I will try and play along as best I can seeing as how I have few readers, but here goes:

1.What is the one moment in your life you would love to live over again & why?
The one moment in my life I'd love to live over and over again, well this is going to sound quite generic but the moment would have to be when I met my husband for the first time face to face. Yes I know that was a typical answer but it really meant so much more to me than you could imagine, and he is after all, my best friend here on earth.

2. Which historical figure would you like to meet & what is the one thing you'd really like to ask them? [yes, I know I'm sorta cheating. lol]
Historical figure huh? Well, I guess I'd most like to meet the Apostle Paul and ask him how he found the strength and courage to do all he did even through adversity. Though I suspect I already know some of the answer I'd really like to hear it 'straight from the horses mouth' so to speak.

3. What is your Heart's Desire?
My Heart's Desire is simple, I want to see my children to grow both physically and spiritually and become responsible, respectable young men who love and serve the Lord.

4. What is your most irrational fear ~ & are you game to share it here?
My most irrational fear? Well, I suppose all fear could be called irrational in some way or another but I have two fears that can stop me in my tracks. One is spiders, even tiny ones, I am terrified and can not bring myself to get close enough to step on them with my shoe even, I run the other way and send my hubby in to get it. The other is thunderstorms, this I suppose is more irrational than spiders because it is my most crippling of fears. I can not drive in a thunderstorm, I can not think straight during one, and when one stirs up I can be found cowering under my dining room table with a pillow and a blanket pulled up over me.

5.Cat person or Dog lover?
Both! I love animals in general. I love cats because of their strong independence, and because if a cat greets you when you arrive home it is usually because the cat in genuinely happy to see you, where as when a dog greets you it is usually because you will now let him out to relieve himself. I love dogs because they are fiercely loyal (one could learn something from a dog) and genuinely aim to please their 'master' (again one could learn something here).

6. If you could be a tree what would you be & why?
I think I would like to be a Maple Tree because they are big and strong on the outside providing shade from the heat of the sun, and yet they are soft and sweet on the inside giving sweet sap for food.

7. When you meet Jesus what is the one thing you really, really want to say to Him?
Assuming I am even able to speak when I meet my Lord and Savior the one thing I would most like to say would be "Thank You" for loving me enough to die for me, and loving me despite my flaws and sins. Though thank you is not nearly enough for all he's done for me, and continues to do for me it is the one thing I'd most like to say.

And now as per the rules I must 'tag' 7 other people. Seeming as how I don't know 7 other people who blog I'm going to bend the rules a little and simple post 7 questions that you may answer if you so desire.

1. What one talent do you not have, that you very much wish you did?

2. What is the one thing people do that bothers you most?

3. Where is the one place you'd like most to visit before you leave this earth behind, and what about that place most draws you to it?

4. What flaw do you most dislike in yourself?

5. What career did you most want as a child, and if you are not doing that now, what changed your mind?

6. Why do you blog, what purpose to you hope to achieve by blogging?

7. What one modern invention would you mind giving up the most, and why did you choose that one?

Ok, so that's it for the questions let's see some of your answers! If you decide to play along would you please be so kind as to leave a comment letting me know you've accepted my 'challenge' as it were?

A Confession

I confess, I am not a great housekeeper. If there is an excuse to be found for not cleaning up I will find it. I have not done a very good job of keeping things orderly as of late, and I have also held onto things far too long.

This past 'weekend' (which for us is Tuesday - Thursday, the days my husband is home from work) the hubby and I decided that since our baby has decided he prefers to sleep in the room with his brothers than with us that we would clean up and clean out our bedroom and our living room. Our bedroom had become cluttered with endless amounts of laundry (clean and dirty), and things that had been displaced from their intended spaces for whatever reason, of course it also had the baby's crib until last week. Our living room had become cluttered with Cabinets and Drawers that were purchased in an attempt to declutter our space, ironic isn't it?

So we tackled our bedroom first, removing from it all things that we did not have an immediate need for or that were not important to be saved. Total we removed 2 trash bags full of stuff...shamefully I admit that at least half of it was papers and other trash that were shoved under our bed. Once we removed all that didn't need to be there we rearranged what was left to produce a more functional space. There is now enough space in my bedroom for the bean bags I've been wanting to get for the boys to do their reading in my room away from the noise of the rest of the house. My bedroom is clean, neat, and organized (though my standards are not as strict as some).

Once space was cleared in our bedroom, I was able to remove all homeschooling books and supplies from the living room and put them on a wall of my bedroom (where I originally wanted them to begin with), and that being done, My living room now has much more space for the baby to play. I prefer to keep the baby playing in the living room because it it central to the house and therefore always supervised, because we all know that 15 month olds are not to be trusted. After arranging things I discovered that I really did not have adequate storage for the baby's toys, so a quick trip to the local Goodwill yielded me a perfect cabinet for only 1.00 (SCORE!). His toys are now contained, the living room is now decluttered, and I now feel like I can breathe in my own home.

I confess I am not a housekeeper, and I tend to 'collect' things simply because I *think* they may be useful someday. These are qualities I need to work on, and with the help of constant reminding (hence this blog post), fervent prayer (my own and otherwise), and the desire to have a liveable space for my children I will get better, I have to else my children grow to be like me, and we wouldn't want that now would we *wink*?

Thank you blog readers for allowing me to share my mess with you.

All in time

I am not a good swimmer at all. I can swim enough to stay afloat in a pool, I can even swim in a lake if I must. I am confident that I could swim enough to stay safe should I accidentally fall into some deep water and I'm not weighted down or tangled up. That being said, the reason for my swimming deficiency is because I grew up with a fear of water, one that was only overcome because of a desire to graduate High School. You see in my high school one semester of swimming was required to graduate, so I took the non-swimmers course and learned enough to get me by.

Now, because of my experiences as a child I took a very different approach to teaching my children to swim. I kept their swimming experiences positive allowing them whatever floaties, suits, and vests that they felt they needed in order to be confident and feel safe. My oldest boy has done well over the years, he's always been a bit of a fish and loves the water. He has always been the one that jumps right in as soon as swimming season hits, and he's always been the more daring one when it comes to jumping into the water, going under water, and trying to swim without floats. My middle boy however, was always the child that took a full month to decide it was safe to come off the second step and into the water, he has always required that we give him a life vest to wear in the water to keep him from drowning. He was the child that I thought would never learn to swim.

As it turns out, this summer they both learned to swim on their own time, at their own pace, and without floaties. It is quite an accomplishment for them, and they are very glad to have learned. They now swim both under and above the water, and at the rate they are going will be better swimmers than their mama in no time at all! I know that some don't like floaties for children, but for us allowing them to use the floaties until they were confident in their abilities was the best choice.

I am one happy mama, I have two swimmers now, who love the water and never had to overcome a fear of it just to graduate high school!

What was that again?

Today I had the pleasure of visiting a local attraction The Boyce Thompson Arboretum which of itself is simply beautiful. To walk among God's Creations and see the variety and the purpose for each plant is just amazing to me. The whole point of the trip today was to attend a tour offered by a friend of ours all about the Plants of the Bible.

Because of the similarities in climate, many of the plants that are mentioned in the Bible grow well here in Arizona. I was fascinated by the many plants we saw today, and I enjoyed learning some intresting facts about these plants. For example did you know that a date palm tree can produce 24 Tons of dates in it's lifetime? This makes for a very profitable orchard if you have a few date palms within it.

Another very interesting fact I learned during our 2 hour walk was that there is no such thing as a Gopher tree...from which the ark was built, and so scholars began trying to decide where Gopher wood came from. I suppose I always thought that when the Bible said Gopher Wood, I just took it as exactly that. Now there is some disagreement as to where exactly the Gopher Wood comes from, and there is no way to know here on earth who is correct but there are two possible sources that we discussed today, one seems to me highly unlikely. Now the first of the two possible sources is an Oleander, this to me seems highly unlikely because an oleander is a bush like plant, though it can grow quite tall, with very thin whiplike branches. Oleander looks like this:

As you can see the branch of this plant does not look like much to build a large boat from. The second possible source, which seems more likely to me, and again this is nothing that can be proven but meerly an educated guess based on available information. The second possiblity is Mediterranean Cypress, now this tree is very tall, fairly large around and would likely make the perfect planks for building an Ark. The Cyprus looks like this:






















As you can see this particular tree is very tall, with a big round trunk. If I had to choose between the two I'd certainly choose the cypress tree!

The Gopher wood is believed to come from the fact that in translating from the original Greek text, there was no English word for the Greek word Kupar so the word Gopher was used. Gopher however actually refers to the process used to get the wood, a process of lamination involving shaving thin piece of the tree and then gluing them back together (think modern plywood). Now this Mediterranean Cypress is very common in the Mediterranean area, it is a very hard, sturdy wood, and was commonly used for boat making by the Cretans and Greeks. This seems a much more likely canditate for the Ark to me.

Again this is all opinion, as no person alive today can say for sure what Noah used to build the Ark. I simply wanted to share a little bit of trivia with you that I found interesting. I hope to take this tour again soon and learn even more!

Mummy's boys

Today's lesson was just too cute not to share! We are using Mystery of History this year and I must say it's quite a bit of fun, today however was both fun and adorable. Our study was on Ancient Egypt and this was the result...

These are Mummy's Mummies! The most fun part to them was tearing themselves out of the toilet paper wrappings. I just love when history is fun!

Summer Days

Well, the heat is finally beginning to wind down here and so we are able to play outside some. Yesterday I took the boys to play in the grass, forgetting that Little One has never been in grass before. Oh, the fun they had! The big boys made hideouts in the bushes, and Little One well, he just ran in circles and tried to eat rocks. I thought I'd share a few photos of the fun, as they came
out better than I expected.



















I especially love the one where the baby is running down the hill, it almost kinda reminds me of Little House on the Prairie in the opening where the children are running through the field, only our field is freshly mowed. It's nice that we have some grass to play in where we live, as most everything is usually either sand or pea gravel. They had so much fun, and today after lessons we have planned to go swimming. Hopefully I'll remember the camera~

Birbit thinks there is just something so peaceful in watching children play!

Can I keep him?

Little that is. Yes it's true my sweet, loving, snuggle bug has turned 6 today. I wish I could keep him little forever, ok maybe not forever but I'm certainly not ready for him to grow up just yet! This is my very emotional child, he's sweet and loving, fierce when defending his brothers, the first to hug you when you are sad, always comforting, caring, clingy, VERY clingy, but he's also the first one to make friends, fearless when it comes to meeting people, literal in everything, and frankly having him around makes me sure God knew what he was doing giving me boys because if having a teenage girl is anything like having my 6 year old around I am certain I would not survive it!

As it was his birthday he got to choose what we did today, what we ate for supper, and pretty much be in charge of the whole day. First thing this morning he requested a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast (which I knew last night so I was prepared), then he said he wanted to go swimming...however me being the more practical person that I am suggested that we either go to the zoo and see animals and play in the water, or go to the splash pad at what USED to be Tempe Town Lake (click the link if you want to know why it used to be the lake). He chose the zoo, not surprising if you know him at all. So we packed up some water (couple of gallons), sippy cups for the baby, changes of clothing, diapers, wipes, sunscreen, and snacks and off we went!

We saw few animals today because it's still too hot for most of them to 'play' outside. However they were well pleased with the few we saw and mostly we went to enjoy Yakulla Caverns, which is a water play area with two slides, 15 or so water squirting ground spouts, a waterfall, and a cave area to explore and splash in the small puddles. They played, they splashes, they slid, they ran, they hid, and then my birthday boy fell and konked his head! He is fine, but he was none too happy with the rubber playground surface with which his head made contact. We spend about 2.5 hours at the zoo today, and then we came home for what I had thought would be a rest.

Nope, he had other ideas, he wanted to play the wii! So the older boys played wii while baby slept and I went to pick up his cake and prep for his supper. He decided that he just wanted a small cake this year and so we got him a small, but very colorful 1/8 sheet cake. For his supper he requested hot dogs, burgers (which he insisted daddy put on the grill), chips, and pickles. So we had supper and then he wanted to go swimming!

We got all dressed for the pool, put on more sunscreen (this is Arizona after all), loaded the stroller, and headed to the pool. We get to the pool only to discover that it is closed, and there is no sign of explaination so the reason will remain a mystery. He was disappointed, though he tried not to show it, the disappointment could be read across his face. I felt badly, but there was nothing I could do.

So what did we do, we had cake! And presents! Then it was off to the tub and into jammies for a date with their beds. As I write this I have three sleeping children, and two grown folks who very much wish to be sleeping!

Here are a couple photos because I love to show off my boys, and well what's a blog post with no pictures?

Yes, that is ketchup all over my oldest boy's shirt, I never once claimed they weren't messy eaters!

Birbitt is too tired to think tonight, so for this once you'll have to forgive me. :)