Boys with free time (plus a camera and computer) can come up with some very creative ideas.

Aunt Judi and Uncle Dave took Ruthie shopping on the morning of her birthday (after she finished eating her pink pancakes).

They bought her the most perfect shoes: pink, flowery, colored rhinestones, rainbow shoelaces, glitter, AND lights.

And to go with the shoes, they found a pink sequined hat.

Ah, the wonderful age of three!

Over the past several weeks, whenever someone asked Ruthie what she wanted for her birthday, she would answer, “PINK!”  So in honor of Ruth’s birthday, we are adding the very first pink entry on the family blog.

Just to show how far the boys have come along (and how much they love their sister):  three years ago, they could barely look upon the color pink without cringing. But this morning, you could find:

Derek hanging PINK streamers all around the house,

Jeremy  posing with the pinky girl,

Peter cooking up PINK birthday pancakes,

and all of them eating those pancakes up.

Happy birthday, Ruth Christine! We love all the pink you’ve brought to our family.

Molly turns up the patience when she sees that it’s Ruthie’s turn to feed her dinner.

Dinnertime for Molly

It’s that time of year when Ruthie spends approximately two-thirds of her life watching her brothers play football. As she gets older, she is realizing that she is different from her brothers, as she occasionally will proclaim, I am a girl and my brothers are boys.

Because of this understanding, she observes that while her boy-brothers play football, the cheerleaders at the games are girls.

So out came the pom-poms. And Peter assisted in cheer stunts.

Peter has been busily baking and cooking these days, and the rest of us are benefitting from his work.

The other day, he put together yogurt/granola/fruit parfaits for breakfast:

After Ruthie accepted the fact that she was not allowed to eat out of a glass like everyone else, she could hardly wait to dig in.

This morning’s fare was monkey bread. The creation of it began yesterday, with Peter making the bread from scratch. It was sweet yummy goodness.

Thankfully, he shared it with the rest of the family.

Growing up, I wanted to be a cashier. When I was really young, the cashiers didn’t have fancy computerized scanners; they punched the numbers in by hand. And I thought that would be the most fun job in the world.

Then I grew up some, and stores introduced computers with scanners (with the exception of Hobby Lobby, who still punches prices in by hand), which made it even more appealing. But alas, somewhere along the growing-up timeline, I changed course.

As an adult, many grocery stores are pandering to my never-realized dream of being a cashier by offering a self-checkout option. You mean I can scan items myself? Well, you can imagine my excitement over introducing my little girl to this process.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if she aspires to the same career I once aspired to…

Ever since we brought Molly home, she has lived with the belief that she is more human than canine. One of her favorite things in life is to be included in kid-games as though she was just one of the kids.

Jeremy strongly dislikes tomatoes.

Refuses to touch his mouth to one.

But he has curiously nominated himself with the task of picking the ripe ones from the garden.

Almost every day he pulls out a bowl and goes out to harvest.

I’m convinced that one day he’ll acquire a taste for them.

It’s the newest rage. It’s the game Pit on steroids…or wires.

This child has been practicing his microcontrolling skills.

(As an aside, he came up from the basement the other day holding a speaker with wires coming out of it. I asked where the speaker came from. The Thomas the Tank engine ride-on toy, he said. One of these days Ruthie will wonder why all her noise-making toys no longer make any noise.)

So, back to RC Pit. Everyone was dealt their cards according to the usual Pit rules.

But here’s where it got unusual: every player was also dealt their own remote control. It didn’t matter what the RC went to, as long as it was powered by infrared.

The play proceeded as usual, except that when a player had nine of the same commodity, rather than push the bell, they pushed any button on his remote control and the bell would ring.

This reminds me of the recent real-life transition from floor (pit) trading to electronic trading. Hmmm, makes me wonder how the idea began in the first place…

RC Pit, anyone?

When I was scanning cookbooks at the library last Friday, this one was especially appealing, not only because of the beautiful pictures, but also because I wondered if it would spur a child on to cooking.

It did.

When Peter spotted it in the pile of checked-out library books, he picked it up and exclaimed, “Maybe this will inspire me!” Then he brought it upstairs to read before bed.

Immediately after returning from church today, he announced that he would make lunch. He turned to this recipe:

and got to work.

I enjoyed the tastiest sandwich I’ve had in a long time. This could be the start of something beautiful.

One generation commends Your works to another; they tell of Your mighty acts. (Psalm 145:4)

There is no better way to leave a legacy.

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
    are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
    whose quiver is full of them. (Psalm 127:4-5)

We love fall at our house. Time to harvest.

Guess what we’re harvesting today:

Stumped? Here’s another clue:

When the sunflower begins to droop due to the heavy weight of its head,

it is time to cut the flower off and shake the seeds off for roasting.

Yum!

Hard to believe this big guy turned 12 years old yesterday! He kindly reminded me that he’ll be driving in 4 years. Let’s not rush things, I told him.

His favorite verse right now is Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.

Run fast.

Be tough.

Hit hard.

Be agile.

Cheer loudly.

Celebrate a job well done!

With the nice weather this week, when Jake leaves for class, the rest of the kids have had free time outside. Derek soloed on the lawn mowing job they had yesterday.

Ruthie mimicked.

Meanwhile, Peter and Jeremy had to clear the front yard a.k.a. football field of doggie doo. Look at that balance of Jeremy’s! And what a responsible older brother Peter is to supervise the cleanup.

I know what you’re thinking…gee whiz, how hard can it be to throw a picture or two up on a website every now and then? Evidently, much harder than it seems, because these days, just to sit down at the computer for a few minutes has been a challenge. Did I mention school has started? :)

Jake is taking a couple classes at the local high school, as well as competing on the cross country team. After lunch he walks to class.

When he walks, he reminds me of the Mr. Men character, Mr. Tall. His long legs take one step for three of mine.

The fact that someone leaves in the middle of a school day is a big deal around here. Being home schoolers, we are accustomed to doing virtually everything together, or at the very least having everyone under the same roof.

When it was time for Jake to leave for class after lunch today, Ruthie was not fond of the fact that he was leaving by himself. She took it upon herself to follow after him and “go run wif Jake”.

Unbeknownst to me, she walked out the front door and started down the sidewalk after Jake. When I looked out the front door, there she was.

Don’t worry, Ruthie. He’ll return the same way he left.

Thanks to Aunt Sarah, Ruthie has a new stack of shoes to try on and walk around the house in. She especially likes the clicky ones that make noise on the hard floor.

Seems like just yesterday she was learning how to walk around the house. I was reminiscing about this day in particular:

Fact: it is 95 degrees outside. I’m sure there’s a heat index that makes it feel like 110 or something.

Fact: there are two activities going on simultaneously outside our house. In the back, we have your traditional summer pastime–swimming.

And in the front, we have an activity which requires layers. And layers. And layers…of plastic and polyester–football.

Hot? Who’s hot?