Grandma

This morning, I was woken up with a phone call. It was the phone call that I knew was coming, but wasn't looking forward to hearing. At 4:53 this morning, my sweet grandma went to be with her Savior. While I am so glad that she isn't suffering with dementia, I am heartbroken at her passing.  Now that the day is winding down to a close, I am able to open up this box of emotions and sift through my memories of her.

Grandma had the softest pajamas. Every morning that we visited Grandma and Grandpa, my sister and I would race from the neighboring cabin to Grandma and Grandpa's cabin so we could snuggle up to them while they were enjoying their morning cup of coffee.

Grandma loved her coffee. I always think of her whenever I smell Folgers.
 
Really, I think of both of them when I smell Folgers because you really can't think of one without the other. Grandpa and Grandma were married for over 72 years and their commitment to each other has been breathtaking to watch especially in their later years.

I remember the excitement of seeing Grandpa and Grandma walk into my school for Grandparents day.
I remember being allowed to have chocolate milk when we ate at the conference center where they worked and lived.

I remember walking with Grandma to the bookkeeper's office at the conference center and seeing her neat handwriting throughout the account books on her desk.

One of my most treasured memories of Grandma was the day she took me on a surprise day trip to Seaside. My parents and sister were at a youth conference in Portland and my Grandpa was off running errands for the conference center, so it was just me and Grandma. Grandma looked at me and said, "Let's go to the beach today!" This is not typical Grandma behavior. But off we went down Highway 26 towards the coast. We stopped off for lunch at Camp 18, which is a great restaurant that displays old lumber mill equipment. From there we drove on to Seaside, where we enjoyed rambling around through the shops and sampling some saltwater taffy. Saltwater taffy has to be one of my favorite candies because of how much I enjoyed this trip.

I remember the low sound of her voice as I would play beauty shop and comb her hair.

 "Mmm. That feels good! If I were a cat I could just purr."  

She loved to have her hair played with.

I remember the way her eyebrow raised in such a way that you knew that you crossed the line. Usually, that eyebrow raise would be followed by a "Chuck!"  My Grandpa is an ornery man.


My Grandma was so full of wisdom and had a deep faith in Jesus Christ. I wish, I wish I could go back and record some of our conversations that I had with her while I was growing up.

Beniah and his Great Grandma - October 2009

Elijah and his Great Grandma - February 2012

Isaac and his Great Grandma - August 2014

I look forward to the day when I can see her once more.

First Day of School

Our family is entering a new adventure this fall. Today, we officially started homeschooling Beniah and have already reaped the benefits of being a homeschool family (namely sleeping in after having a rough night with the baby).  Beniah has been super excited about starting school and waiting for September 22nd to finally arrive.  Yes, I know that it has been 3 weeks since "regular school" started, but we were in the middle of a move and there was no way on God's green earth that I was going to start homeschooling while unpacking multiple boxes and figuring out where things should go.

The first day of school finally dawned (way too early for this tired mama) and after breakfast and 1 1/2 cups of coffee, we finally started our day.

 

Beniah loves lists and schedules, so I made up a schedule for the day. I thought I was being oh so clever when I made the blank time cards that I can write down the times that we start each activity. Unfortunately, when one activity goes a bit longer than expected or you start your day late, it throws off the rest of the schedule which causes Beniah to insist that every card gets changed to match the correct time. That is going to change!

Oh well!  Beniah did enjoy the arts and crafts time where he colored a picture for the front of his Kindergarten binder.

Elijah wanted to join in too.

Isaac just wanted to be put down for a nap.

 Later, Beniah hopped onto Khan Academy to work on some math. So far, I'm pretty impressed with that website, especially since Beniah can go as slow or fast as he wants through the math lessons. There are a couple of kinks to work out, but I think that this will be a good fit for him.

One nice thing about homeschooling is being done with school after a couple hours of work and being free to play with your baby brother.

There are a few wrinkles in my planning for our school days, but I think we'll be able to work past them in the next few weeks.

Life with Boys

Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys. 

- Unknown

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero. 

- Marc Brown

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. 

- Plato

 

Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.

- James Thurber

There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life that he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.

 - Mark Twain

A boy's story is the best that is ever told.

 - Charles Dickens

The Blueberry Problem

At the beginning of July, we decided to head out and pick some blueberries with our boys. They were fairly good especially since this was the first time we picked our own produce at a farm. The boys had a blast hiding from us in the bushes and then yelling "boo!" whenever we said, "Where are the boys?"

We ended up picking almost two buckets worth of blueberries by the time the boys started talking about going home. Since I didn't have a specific amount of blueberries that I wanted, we decided to head back home to prep the blueberries for freezing.

On the way home, Beniah asked how much a blueberry weighed. So, once we were home, out came the kitchen scale, four ramekins, and Beniah's notebook. Tim had Beniah count out 30 blueberries per ramekin.

They then measured each group and wrote down the weights.

Then came the adding up of the weights of the four group of blueberries.

Beniah worked out the math problem in his head. I noticed that he figured out the math if he marched around the front room. (Mental note to self: Remember this when homeschooling starts in September!)

Elijah did not enjoy the math portion of the experiment, but he did like figuring out how the scale worked.

In the end, we figured out that one blueberry was approximately 1.8 grams.

And now you know a random fact about blueberries.

A Rainy Summer Day

A couple of weeks ago, we had some summer rain. It was the kind that is warm, but also cools everything off. 

The boys became restless and bored, as little boys are prone to do when they've been cooped up in the house too long. I decided to initiate a treasure hunt so I hid their toys and made them maps. I then basked in their happy squeals as I returned to my housework certain that I would not be interrupted. Oh silly Mama! In less than a minute I heard, "Mama, help!"

I first helped Elijah to read the map and figure out where the toy was hidden.

Then came Beniah's turn. 

This game was so fun that they wanted to play it over and over and over....
Unfortunately, I realized that our carpet was turning into lava, so blankets and pillows had to get brought out which ended the treasure hunt game and gave me time to finally clean the kitchen.

Company Picnic

The company that Tim works for doesn't have a Christmas party for their employees, so they opt for a large family friendly picnic in July. Beniah and Elijah had been anticipating the picnic for days.

Finally, it was time to leave and battle the Portland traffic as we drove to Oaks Park.  The boys were so excited and annoyed that I took a picture of them in the suburban.

"Mama, let's go!"

Once we got to the park and met up with Tim, we were given ride bracelets and set off to have some fun before the barbecuing commenced.Of course, the boys wanted to ride the train right away.

There were rides that looked really cool, but required a bit more height to ride on.

There were other ones that required more height or an adult. Those are the fun ones!

Well, maybe more scary than fun.

Next came the carousal ride that was much tamer!

Once we got back to the picnic area, one of Tim's coworkers made Beniah a really cool sword while another coworker made Elijah a really lame dog.

There were tears until another sword was made (actually two swords because the first sword wasn't like his brother's sword).

It was all fun and games until the red sword popped. Fortunately, the coworkers made another sword for Elijah. For those of you keeping count, that is the fourth balloon animal/toy that was made for Elijah.

Post dinner rides included another train ride.

And Motorcycle rides. Four times in a row.
The first round, Beniah got off the bike before the ride started (leaving Elijah by himself in the sidecar) because he was nervous about it being like the spinning Tilt ride.

Then he realized it was AWESOME and wanted to ride the motorcycle.

Again...

And Again...
  However, I didn't get a photo of the last ride because Tim and I were trying to figure out why there was a flying cellphone that almost hit Tim in the head. I totally didn't laugh about it.... At all...

The boys ended their night on the rocking tug (another scary ride for poor Elijah).

All the way back to the suburban, the boys were begging to know when we are going back to the amusement park.