Weekly Roundup: Damsels, Knights and Pumpkins

When we last left off, the family was drowning its sorrows in frozen custard at Freddy's. As it turns out, we were able to make the Sermon on the Mount that Sunday evening.

It was nice to get out and even nicer to feel the breeze in the South Texas Hill Country. The temperature was so nice in fact, that we toyed with the idea of moving northwest just 30 miles--until we realized the commute would be up to an extra 2 hours/day, round trip--because everyone and their 6 children who drive cars have been moving north for acreage. And the road up there is still 2 lanes in each direction.

And we're liking our life with all its time together and flexibility! So, we'll stay put. See? I just saved myself oodles and oodles of packing and my first nervous breakdown? How frugal of me.

Somehow, after we made it to the horse exhibition, we ended up at Cheesy Jane's for burgers, fries and...malts! Didn't we do something like that 2 nights ago because it didn't work out?

How does that work?

And...maybe that's why I've been losing the same 30 pounds for 5 years. Ya' think?

Other than the Tuesday's full day of folks in long white coats, it was a wonderfully uneventful week...

There was the routine of music practice, reading lesson and copywork...

And here, Fifi is diligently looking up the unknown words to a poem she chose for recitation. It's all about germs. And she thinks that's pretty funny, being a self-proclaimed germaphobe. It is, and so is she. A germaphobe that is. And funny too. But mostly, for this context, a germaphobe.

There were many opportunities for my little ones to play the damsels in distress. Here is the piano teacher's son fixing their swing for them.

If you could see Dumpling's smile, you would see that she looks like she was just made for such moments as these, and it has me thinking right past our courtship plans toward a full-fledged betrothal. And marriage. As soon as puberty hits.

I'm kidding, of course.

*cough* Of course.

Here's another episode. I'm guessing it's Cuddlebug's day to play the "husband."

We finished the Joseph story in Genesis last week to give a little background to the opening of Exodus since we're studying the Ancients again this year.

A little farther toward the front, Cuddlebug.

The girls and I are really enjoying the story--straight from the Scriptures. But, it's all I can do to button my lip (at least until the end of the chapter) and let God teach them as He wills from His own narrative. I never cease to be amazed at how the Lord can show me something new and exciting with a passage I've read a dozen times before. I was especially struck by the plague of gnats, "All the dust of the earth became gnats through all the land of Egypt."

That's a lot of gnats.

Wednesday I took my painfully slow point-and-shoot digital, along with my heavy, prehistoric Pentax 35mm to the pumpkin patch. It's a tradition, except I think we missed it last year. And maybe the year before that too.

There was also the Thursday excursion to the park down the road. Notice the sweaters? Niiiiiice.

Now, let me tell you that Charlotte Mason-recommended nature walks have always been strangely foreign to me--because I grew up in the desert suburbs where it was too hot most of the year to do anything but marvel at the new invention of the microwave and feel rich and spoiled with the power of a television remote control. Both were very new back in the day. And we all thought we were "all that."

But, alas, I must rise to the occasion, because I think Dumpling is intrigued with geology and Cuddlebug loves all the little creatures. On this day, we read about trees, bark and photosynthesis. Be nice to the trees, girls; don't break off their bark or scratch the surface underneath it.

During our exploration time, Dumpling found what turns out to be a deer jawbone--to which Fifi quipped something about someone slaying someone else with the jawbone of a deer. Biblical humor. She finds it somehow.

And as much fun as the lesson under the trees with a picnic lunch was, they didn't take much coaxing to go out to the playground.

I used to really dislike the playground. All that walking around, spotting little kids in their efforts to climb things that I didn't really want them climbing was just fatiguing to me.

Can I tell you that watching your 12, 7 and 5 year olds pretend, and climb, and play and chase one another while you sit on the sidelines is the BEST! Run, Dumpling...run!

Dumpling even conquered her fear of the fireman's pole with a bit of coaxing from me.

*grumble*

O.k, o.k., alright!....I might have commanded her to get on with it...in a firm tone...loudly. But it had to be done! She was dangling in mid-air with hands and arms wrapped around the pole and feet still back on the platform like a gravity-defying Looney Tunes episode. That's it; no more Looney Tunes!

But you should have heard her on the way down. She. was. so. delighted!

Quote of the Week:

Goes to Husband, who--after he asked me one night if I wanted to watch the "Stupid News," (which is what we call our local newscasts) and I said yes--complained, "Why?! Why do you want to hear about the car accident on the South side and the shooting incident on the West side and why do you want to hear the Kitchen Cops reveal who has been making tacos with. their. feet?!"

I'll never eat another taco out again. Ever.