"Warm" Weather

My Summer Kitchen :)

It seems we can't quite find a happy medium, we either need jackets or are sweltering in 

PA's wonderful humidity. I'm one of those people that does not feel good in air conditioning and since DH works in the heat everyday, he doesn't really mind.

So when the one AC unit bit the dust last summer, we chose not to replace it and we replaced it with

This..

and this

and this. My DH was very tired of ceiling fans. Some are very easy to install and some...not so much

and it didn't make a difference if it was a discount fan or the most expensive one.

Of Graduations and End of School

Should you be worried when one child comes home with a certificate honoring him as "Mathamagician" because as his advanced math teacher said, "He manages to figure out the correct answer, but I can't understand from his work HOW he did it."

and the 2nd certificate labeled "Master Physicist" because as that teacher said, "He writes his notes in strange hieroglyphics but his answers are right."

Then older brother asks, "So are you still working on that alphabet?"

Son #3 says, "Yeah, now I'm working on the grammar."

Son #2, "When do you get time to do this?"

Son #3, "During class."

Son #2, "Yeah, Mr Physics teacher used to keep an encyclopedia behind his chair, to read when he got bored."

Son #3, "Well I'm writing one."


During another conversation Zeke was asking Hope what she remembered of geometry and she grabbed a piece of paper and wrote E= MC2.

Zeke took a step back and said, "What is THAT?"

Hope, "The cotton gin......Henry Ford invented it....for ...something."

Must be what happens to all the left-over pieces of information that she stored in her head and didn't use in those final tests. She opens her mouth and it falls out.


In other news,
And Shekinah took the preschool test and passed! She finally needs uniforms! Thing is, she had her teacher in a fit of giggles in the short hour she tested her....oh my!


In order to be organized this summer I printed out a schedule ....weekly and daily...have two "willing volunteers" that will be cooking supper one night each. A long list of boredom busters for those days when the one hour of screen time and the one hour of reading time are not long enough. Yes, I did limit their reading time because we are fast running out of books...especially if you read a 400 page book in one afternoon!


Joseph graduated from 8th grade and in his words " I can't wait till next year! I will get something done in study hall and finally learn something!"

(wonder what he was doing this year?)

Fast Forward , Pause

This post has been rolling around in my mind....

Two women I know would probably wish for one of these buttons.

The one dear lady was fighting that beast called cancer, her journey started about seven years ago. At the five year mark, we celebrated with her. A few months later it was back, she fought for nearly 2 years. It attacked the lining of her brain, but it didn't win, she ran to Jesus. I have to remember the last time I saw her, I had stopped in on the way home from school and dropped of flowers. I left the children out in the car because I didn't think the shear mass of humanity that follows me would have been restful. She was awake but kept her eyes shut, the headache had been harder and harder to keep under control. I ended up chatting with her friend and as I was heading toward the door I said, "Now if you guys need anything, just yell."  Immediately, we heard a... yeah...I guess even she would have called it a squawk ,  from the bed. We both sort of jumped and turned toward the bed  to see the sick person's shoulders shaking with silent laughter!
When I got in the car with the children, they asked how she was doing. I wasn't sure what to say because just about a dozen days before she had been at church and looked not much different than in the past year.  I told them, "I think that Mary is wishing there was a fast forward button to get past this part. She knew for awhile that Heaven was coming soon, but to get there she had to go through this last part."
(side note: A woman who would choose Isaiah 54:5 for her funeral text was an interesting woman. We will sorely miss her sense of humor.)

Now the "Pause" button

Another woman, she is a foster mother - a good one. If anyone tells me again, "these Mennonites just foster for the pay."....well.... I hope I can keep my hands in my pockets, and be sweet.

This mother has a little one, for almost a year, she has sat up with him at night, nursed him through a hospital stay. Stayed home most of the winter because of his fragile immunity. Attached to him, so he knows what unconditional love looks like. Through all that she  knew there was a good probability that she would say "good-bye" one day.  That day is coming soon. We hope that the birth mother can keep her side of the bargain, the little one needs a big person to take care of him for awhile yet. This foster mom is wishing for a "pause" button.... time just slow down a little bit, one more giggle, one more lop-sided grin, one more "first".  That big world out there looks so cold and heartless and scary for 1/2 pint-sized people.  Prayers little one....that's all we can do.

Mother's Day Etc.

This is how you eat breakfast at grandma's house.

First thing is "ball" he has to bring a basketball along is as they come in the kitchen door, 

from then on who has time to sit?

He wasn't too sure about Shekinah taking over his stroller.

I wish our driver in China could see the use we are getting out of this stroller.

He thought it was so stupid to buy a stroller while in China.

First ice cream cone at grandma's house. Grandma needs to get some real bibs,

but homemade cloth napkins and a clothes pin works just fine.

Then it was Mother's day. Ben helped the little girls pick some flowers (May apples).

He wrote a poem.

Hope baked oatmeal sandwich cookies AND cleaned up  afterward!

Demetrius and Glenda brought a flower basket ( I need to take another picture, this was right after they were watered) and visited awhile on Saturday.

Then Sunday we went for a walk and the neighbor man had a "bike" to get rid of. We assumed that Shekinah would be too little to ride it well,... Wrong!

Right after she did a 180...laughing, not crying.

Finished some quilt projects that have been in the works for awhile.

I did not do the applique on here...I'm way too slow.

Quote from Shekinah: During mealtime prayers "and help this food to be good for us". I love that thought much better than "and bless this food to our bodies".