Sheep Field Trip

About a month ago my friend Joelle invited us to go on a field trip to see a sheep sheared. It ended up being the last field trip this couple did as they are getting too old to host field trips. There were homeschoolers and family friends of this couple there for the last field trip. We read some books about the process of making wool including Charlie Needs a Cloak. Lamb 1 was afraid of their dogs and didn't get too close. Lamb 2 and 3 didn't appreciate the special chance to see this. Farms just aren't doing this very much any more. I thought it was a fabulous opportunity to see all this instead of just reading about it.

Beginning to shear the sheep

Almost done shearing

Lamb 3 with a baby lamb

Lamb 2 with a baby lamb

Lamb 2 feeling how soft the sheep is after shearing

She was so good at showing and telling the kids about what they do with the wool after the sheep is sheared.

Showing how to spin the wool into yarn.

Next we went to their shop and bought a few souvenirs of our field trip including lamb meat which we ate for supper a few weeks later.

Vote for Harrison, part 3!

It has taken me 3 days to say what I want to say about Rev. Harrison. If you haven't read the past 2 days of my blog, go back and read those now.
Even if I try to take out my bias because Rev. Harrison is my former pastor, I still say vote for Harrison. I believe just like the U.S. President, his first term is just the beginning. Harrison and his staff had a ton of work to do to implement all the changes made to Synod at the last convention. But now that the staff has done all that work to change the structure of Synod, if he is reelected, his next term can work harder on other things especially to get his Witness Mercy Life Together plans going better. 
One thing I really like about Harrison is that in addition to being Synod President he is also an assistant pastor at one of the St. Louis churches- he is still making shut in calls, leading Bible study and preaching there occasionally. I think this is so important for both the church and Pastor Harrison and his family. He is not just stuck in an office and occasionally gets out of the office for big Synod events. I think this keeps him grounded in what is important to LCMS people. 
This is an important time in the life of LCMS. I believe Rev. Harrison should have a chance to continue doing work as LCMS Synodical President.

I will be praying for the clergy and lay delegates that are voting. VOTE FOR HARRISON!

Rev. Harrison, his family, and the staff at the Synodical office remain in my prayers too.

*All views and opinions blogged at daybydayathomeaway.blogspot.com over the past few days are proudly expressed by Ewe.

Vote for Harrison part 2!

Today's post will be similar to what I blogged a few years ago. What I said then were my memories and perspective of Rev. Harrison. Here I will add my new memories from the past few years.
Rev. Harrison was my pastor from 1996-2001 and his oldest son was in my first grade class at Zion Lutheran Academy, Fort Wayne. When you are a teacher at a dayschool, you see the pastor in all kinds of settings, maybe even more than the the other members of the congregation. He was truly concerned about our Academy not only surviving in inner city Fort Wayne, but also that it would succeed beyond expectations and that it would remain a strong LCMS school. He (along with our headmaster) made daily chapel a priority. The students learned about the church year, hymns and liturgy and much more in this daily chapel. Rev. Harrison could have easily given all the responsibility for the teachers and Academy to our headmaster. But Rev. Harrison found time in his busy schedule to often participate in faculty meetings and do other things at the school.
Pastor Harrison had excellent sermons and Bible studies. I remember once during a Bible study about Lazarus, he actually laid down on the table and "acted out" the Bible study. It stuck with me and that was years ago!
Rev. Harrison did an excellent job all over the world at LCMS World Relief for about 10 years. I really appreciated A Little Book on Joy.
After Rev. Harrison was elected Synodical President, I was able to see him several times in his first year as President while we still lived in MN. Since we moved to ID I have not seen him. I went to one of his first conferences he held after being elected, that was in Fargo, ND. I was so impressed with his Witness Mercy and Life Together plan after hearing about it there. 
Ram and I attended the pastor/spouse session of Doxology in St. Louis in August 2011. Rev. Harrison asked his entire staff at the Synodical office to attend this Doxology session. It was so neat to have time over the weekend to talk to Rev. Harrison, his wife, and his staff. It was clear from talking to them that Rev. Harrison and his staff were working very hard to implement all the changes that were passed at the last convention. His staff was working so hard to do this with a small staff, account for money spent, and spend money wisely. Their real goal was to find money to send more missionaries and give more money to the Seminaries. 
I was very impressed with Rev. Harrison's speaking at the Congressional Hearing and his stand for life. I was proud to be a member of LCMS by what he said there.
I did not attend our last District convention, but Ram did. He was impressed with Rev. Harrison's answers to some tough questions from our district, especially questions about LCMS youth and questions about Holy Communion. Some times his answer to questions was that it isn't about what he personally thinks or feels, his answer has to be what the Bible says about that issue.

Vote for Harrison part 3, which will be the final part, will be posted tomorrow.

Vote for Harrison!

Before the last LCMS Synodical President election, I blogged this. That ended up being posted here.
This year Ram is not a delegate to Synodical Convention. I wasn't planning on blogging about LCMS politics again. I was content to continue my important every day tasks of being a LCMS wife, mother, and homeschool teacher.
Then this past weekend my dad forwarded an e-mail to me from a lay delegate that wisely e-mailed LCMS friends and clergy and asked for their advice on whom to vote for in the Synodical President election.
When I received that e-mail I responded with an e-mail that was probably much more information than he expected or wanted. I had to try to convince this delegate to vote for Harrison. That got me to thinking that there are probably more candidates like him that would like advice on whom to vote for.
So I'm going to attempt to blog about Harrison again over the next few days.
Delegates, you are in our prayers. Don't forget to vote during the correct times. Vote for Harrison. Check back here over the next few days for more about Harrison.

Greece and Rome Festival

A few weeks ago a group in the area sponsored a Greece and Rome Festival. This was the perfect way to have fun while we learned a little more about what we studied in history this year. It meant that we missed a day of speech therapy for Lamb 2, but all the Lambs had a good time and asked if we can go again next year. I don't know if they do this every year but we'll find out. This was such a good idea and so well planned, I wish that our school would have thought of this when I was teaching at a classical Lutheran school.

Lamb 2 at Discus throwing

Lamb 1 as Zeus

Lamb 1 and 2 at chariot racing

Lamb 1 relay races

Lamb 2 long jump

Lamb 1 with his Greek money

You had to pay for snacks with Greek money

In line for flatbread with honey or hummus and grape juice.

Lamb 3 Roman numeral toss-kids had to add up own scores.

Lamb 2 javelin

Lamb 1 with his laurel wreath

Lamb 2 with his laurel wreath

The Greece and Rome festival was really designed for school age children. At the end we let Lamb 3 play on the playground because he wasn't allowed to do all the events. It was a hot day and we all got sunburned. 

I keep forgetting

that we live in the city now. We have lived here for 1 1/2 years. I still think ____ would be nice to make for dinner, but we don't have ____ ingredient. When Ram offers to run to the store that thought didn't even enter my mind until he mentions it.
Tonight I said, "It would be nice to drink wine while we watch a movie." Before I knew it, Ram was off to the store to get a bottle of wine!

Play Kitchen

The play kitchen was a popular toy when we lived in MN. Since we moved here it was rarely played with. For a few months I put it in our entryway hoping that when other children came to our house they would all play with it. It didn't get used much more there. Lamb 3 enjoys playing with the toy grill so we kept that and some of the play food. I snapped a few photos of the Lambs before we sold the play kitchen and some of the play dishes. Some of the Lambs cooperated with photos more than other Lambs...

If your children are still the right age for a play kitchen, I would recommend keeping it near your real kitchen. I know the mess they make with play food all over makes you tempted to put it in the playroom or the basement, but they want to cook when and where you cook. Time will fly by and they will be cooking in the real kitchen before you know it.
And now our play kitchen is in our memories and photos... and Lamb 3 isn't part of most of those memories and photos so I'll have to take pictures of him the next time he "grills out".

Our book cart

I bought the book cart at a church moving to a new location sale. I think they had used it in their kitchen. The boys did a thorough job washing it for me and sanding the rusty spots. The paint was on sale at Walmart and after much family debate I decided on green which did not make some of the Lambs happy. One Lamb said, "Who ever saw a green cart at the library?" Then we were at the public library (to vote in the city election) a few weeks later and we saw all colors of book carts including green!
I used the cart to organize our science books that we will be using next school year on the top two shelves and our history books on the bottom shelf. The book cart is in our home library. If I ever see another cart at a garage sale, I'll buy another one for our school room.
Some of our church members are truly concerned about the weight of our books in our house after helping us move. We need to have them over to see our home library now that we have a book cart too! Plus they would see that the books are mostly in the home library but also spread through our whole house.

Only homeschooled boys...

would run through the hallway without any clothes on screaming, "Eureka!"

*My Lambs have been taking about 2 showers a day because of swim lessons and swimming at our pool. I'll let you guess how often this is happening at our house.

*Book highly recommended and enjoyed by Lamb 1 and Ram, Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick.

Bird houses

At the event our city put on a few days ago, the Lambs were able to build bird houses. Home Depot provided some of the tools to borrow and the bird houses to build. The Lambs had to fill out a form to get a building permit from the city. Then they built the bird houses. Then they returned to the city for approval of their building. It was all planned very well and so cute for the Lambs to go through the whole building process. All 3 Lambs want to be builders when they grow up so this was perfect for them to see how the process works. Ram helped Lamb 2 build his, I helped Lamb 3, and Lamb 1 built most of his with some help at the end from Ram because it was taking him so long as compared to the other Lambs. The hard hats were from the city, the aprons and birdhouses were from Home Depot. Lamb 1 was especially excited to put his apron in the garage by his woodworking tools for future projects. I forgot my camera so we waited until we were at home to take photos.

After we built the birdhouses the city had free hot dogs, lemonade, and popcorn. Then the boys enjoyed walking around all the tables and loading up on sticky candy like taffy and lollipops and other free things. Since Lamb 1 had his front teeth with caps removed now all 3 Lambs are allowed to have sticky candy. Lamb 1 doesn't remember ever having a sucker before now as he was 3 years old when he got caps. It was a fun evening for our family. There were people there but it wasn't nearly as crowded as I expected in our big city after it was advertised in our city water bill and signs up all around town. I don't know what we are going to do with 3 birdhouses that aren't on posts, but we'll try to figure it out.

"Natural" Winner

We tried a new chiropractor and she had a drawing in May that mothers (or women) could enter each time they visited her office. I put my name in twice. I'm not sure if she had one winner at each of her two office locations, or just one winner. But I won one basket! It had natural body products-soap, shower gel, bath salts, etc.

Yesterday we went to an event our city put on. I thought the boys would enjoy seeing the trash truck and other big machines from our city, but they were too old for that. I filled out a survey of how the event went so that I could enter a drawing. I was hoping to win a tote bag to give as a gift. I won a basket of natural cleaning products. Almost everything in this basket is used regularly at our house and the other supplies are used occasionally. The caddy and extra spray bottle may help me to get all my cleaning supplies organized too!

Dishwasher soap, Super Washing Soda (to make homemade laundry soap), vinegar, and baking soda are used regularly. Murphy's oil soap, all purpose cleaner are used occasionally.

Ram was kind enough to go pick all this up for me so I didn't have to fight traffic or find a parking space downtown. It was fun to get all this in the same week!

Camping in the back yard

One of Lamb 2's birthday presents was for the whole family, a tent. The Lambs insisted grandpa put it up in the backyard right away. The spent most of the afternoon playing in the tent and brought all kinds of toys and books and "camping necessities" out there. We told them they could bring their clean clothes inside and didn't need to bring them to the tent when it was in the backyard.

They were determined to sleep out there the first night they had a tent. We allowed them to. Lamb 2 didn't listen and wore a tank top. Lamb 3 wouldn't get inside his sleeping bag, just on top of it. So two mean parents made the decision to bring them all inside at midnight. It was 40 degrees when we made that decision. Lamb 1 could have stayed out there but we didn't think he would want to be out there by himself. Lamb 1 was angry in the morning when he woke up in his own bed. They are all young enough that they sleep right through being moved from a tent to their beds! The following day we took the tent down so Ram could mow the lawn. The Lambs sure enjoyed two days of playing in the tent!

We had planned on participating in National Backyard Campout Day, but I don't like the idea of camping out on a night before church, so we'll have to participate a few days before or after. I think I will love camping this way-we can make all our favorite foods and cook them on our grill, eat at the picnic table on our patio, and if someone (my back?) can't make it in the tent all night our beds are upstairs waiting for us! I especially like the idea of not packing and unpacking the car for a camping trip.

Aunt Hannah's birthday gifts for the Lambs

Aunt Hannah made piano bags for Lamb 1 and 2. After Lamb 2's birthday he was able to use it for a couple of lessons before summer break. They will have lessons just once a month during the summer.

His favorite color is variegated so his name was written in different colors.

Since Lamb 3 does not take piano lessons yet, he received a plastic shoebox decorated with his name and things he likes. I did not take a picture of it because the letters of his name that were glued on keep falling off. Lamb 3 loved the goodies inside the box (toy fire engine, magnifier, etc.)

10 years

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. John 16:22

Planted Today

Hoping the danger of frost is finally gone...

* zucchini
* cucumber (Lamb 1's favorite!)
* 4 green pepper plants
* 2 tomato plants
* 1 eggplant
and 2 pumpkin plants are hanging in there and just might make it after our frost last week.

How much do you think will grow? I actually kept my promise of a small garden this year!