Happy Birthday Dear Alden!

Wow, am I behind on blogging. We have had one thing after another of minor catastrophes...but that is for the August post...SO

Alden had quite the birthday celebration. The weekend of his birthday, Wally decided to cash in on our Groupon to Wheels Fun Park, and they all had a blast riding go-carts, climbing, and roller skating.

Feelin' so cool.

Does anyone find this video hilarious? I remember loving roller skating and wonder if I thought I was speeding around when I was really just doing this:  

I had to put all 3 (feel free to skip, it was just too funny to me):

Happy birthday to our 6 year old! We are singing to him first thing in the morning.

So happy.

Matchbox cars/motorcycle and a track to run them on. He's been asking for this for a year.

Super pleased.

Blowing out 6 candles! I cannot believe it :( :)

Then it was time for a Star Wars/Clone Wars party. No, he has not seen any movies or cartoons, but he reads the easy readers from the library (blah...I hate them, but let him read the boring poorly written things occasionally just b/c he loves them so very much). His friend Micah gave him this totally awesome helmet.

Hand to hand combat with Uncle Christopher.

Creating their own light sabers. THE easiest craft I have ever organized. They used red and green masking tape and various sharpies to create a personalized light saber.

Of course we used them! On each other and those bad storm trooper balloon guys who kept popping up--sadly it was very difficult to annihilate them. If you want balloons to pop get them from Walmart not Party City ;0) However, the young Padawans did not seem to mind learning the skill of perseverance and team work.

Then it was warp speed on the slip and slide---Han Solo aka Wally used a rope and his own brawn to catapult them into deep space:

Yes, he was sore the next day...and the next.

Chewbacca aka Grandaddy helped keep everything running smoothly.

We again did a treasure hunt this year. It worked nicely with the Bible verses from I Corinthians 13 b/c so much of Star Wars/Clone Wars is about the choice between power and love and has plenty of actions like prophetic powers, understanding all knowledge, power to move mountains etc. It segued nicely.

 Getting a clue.

Then the kids had fun with their blasters (water guns). It  mostly was just a squirt fest.

Ze cake. He had a clone wars rice paper picture. I tried a fat free cake, and I got comments about it tasting kind of like apple muffins, burnt, or yucky. Point taken, point taken...sigh. :) It mostly got devoured anyway.

We were so happy to have Grandmama and Grandaddy stay with us and go to church with us the next day!

I am so thankful for my first boy Alden. He has a servant's heart and is almost always willing to help especially if he views the task as unique or special or truly important. He loves daddy so very much, and there is almost nothing better than spending time working on a project or participating in an activity with him. He is very creative with Legos and K'nex but can also follow detailed instructions for construction. He has become much more musical this year, can carry a tune pretty well, and is making progress in piano. Reading is coming along. I think he thinks he cannot read very well, but, when he is motivated, he can read anything he puts his mind to. He told me this year he would like to learn to carve and to build things with a hammer and nails and wood. For his birthday he asked for a Bible study book similar to what I have been doing with Rhianwen. I pray that he will continue to desire learning God's ways of wisdom as he has this summer. 

 The treasure map we made with God's words of wisdom leading the way. Alden LOVED this visual depiction and idea.

Put Me in Summer and I'll Be a---

Fullness. That is how I'd describe summer. Full of life, unpredictability, spontaneity, and motion.

Corwin and a little friend enjoying dinner together.

A kind of big change in our house the past month or so is that Wally watched Forks Over Knives 
and decided to try going what I call vegan+ and what Wally calls whole-foods, plant-based diet. 
Basically, vegan with little added salt, sugar, oils, or processing. No, we aren't dieting. Obviously, 
if you've seen Wally, you know he doesn't need it, and personally, I think I'm just about perfect ;0)
 My parents have tried to convince us of the benefits for a while, but it took some time and the 
documentary, and, shall I say prayer on my part, for Wally to buy it. I found him watching the movie 
on his own one night, and I didn't even know there was one. Anyway, if anything, it shows me that 
prayer works even if the diet doesn't solve our health problems :) Now, for those of you who are
 thinking, "Well, scratch them off the list of people to have over for dinner." Please don't. We will 
eat what we are served and enjoy it without guilt. This is just a lifestyle/health change for us; not 
something moral. And if you choose to make a foray into vegan cooking for us, we'll be happy 
about that too. We understand from experience how difficult it is these days to satisfy every diet
 in even one family. 

Surprisingly our kids have barely noticed. They still eat and enjoy, but might comment about how 
they only will get special sugary rich foods on their birthdays or at other friend's houses now. 

Alden and Corwin making crepes for our little book study on France.

Alden's "soft house" inspired from a book. He built it each day for rest time for almost 2 weeks.

 The kids had fun at VBS, and, as always, one of their favorite things were the puppets.

When they got home, they put on puppet shows and made their own scenery. If you think Alden has
drawn a disproportionately large figure in blue, you'd be correct. He is supposed to be a giant.

And now that we have Pippin, our rowdy day occasionally continues past the kids' bedtime. This time
 it was pretty hilarious. Sorry about the garish yellow floor. It looks especially bad in the camera at night.

Somehow he got his head stuck in the dog toy. I probably should have spared him the embarrassment,
 but I had to get a clip; it was too funny.

Other Pippin fun:

"FREEDOM!". If you don't know, watch Braveheart.

Catch with Daddy. Or should I say, throw with daddy, since catching would be the part that happens
the least.

I finally had a hankering to go camping after having kids. So we went over Independence Day. The
kids were SO excited. Especially Corwin. This is how our conversations went leading up to the big
day: 

M: Corwin, sit down and eat your supper.

C: I want to go camping. 

M: What do you say when I tell you to do something? 

C: I want to go camping.

M: (SIGH) Sit down and eat your food.

C: I WANT TO GO CAMPING!!! Boo hoo!

M: I know you want to go camping. We will go camping tomorrow. But if you want to go camping tomorrow, you need to sit down and eat your food now.

Daddy exits line of vision.

C: Where did daddy go? Did he go camping? I want to go camping!!!

M: No, daddy just stepped out to get something out of the car. Daddy will not go camping without
you. 

C: I want to go camping.

Imagine similar conversations every, oh, 15 minutes for 3 days. I was already insane before we go
there.

Then when we got to the campsite: 

C: I want to go to bed.

M: We need to set up the tent and eat supper, then you can go to bed.

C: I want to go to bed

Ad infinitum...

The first night went great until Corwin somehow managed to dump a whole cup of water in his
 face while he slept. You can imagine the cacophony that ensued. Mommy ended up with the
wet pillow in exchange for blessed silence.

The next day, we went canoeing. We saw osprey and these neat little birds that built their nests
from mud under the bridges. I have yet to find out what they were. The kids' favorite thing was
 to ride the wake of the motorboats after they passed. Pippin didn't know what to think of the
 water. We think he thought it was a solid surface because he jumped out of the boat almost
right away, sunk, swam, got dragged back in, and never tried that again. He ended up really
enjoying canoeing with his little front paws hanging over the side of the boat.

We had some good friends come to camp that night. Everyone had a great time.

Alden and his friend playing soccer in an empty camp site.

Testing the weight capacity for our canoe. Didn't max it out! It actually made me think of the Sound 

of Music with the boat that capsizes.

Throwing rocks.

The camping trip was a bit of an experiment to see if we thought it would work to camp for a week 
in Acadia National Park in Maine in September. We made reservations when we got back. Hopefully it won't rain!

We started up our little mom and me Bible study for the summer. This time we are going through A Girl after God's Own Heart. On the cover it is labeled for "tweens". I hate that term. I don't care if
 there are varied stages of childhood, you don't need to give it a special label and marketing. I
 think it is so harmful to the little psyche to start labeling yourself into a category like that...as if 
you were expected to fit a mold of attitudes, interests, and struggles. Anyway, the book is fine, 
and the girls are taking charge going through their answers together, which has been fun to see.

Bwackbeywies, as Corwin would say, unless he calls them stwawbeywies or bwuebeywies. 
The kids came in with a little less than 1/2 cup and begged me to do something with it. So I 
said we'd need to get more. Our park is full of them, even more so than our back field, so we 
gathered some one morning. Corwin was like Little Sal and ate nearly every berry he picked.
 He came up to me and said: 

C: Wook! I got 1,000 bwackbeywies.

M: Oh! Wow! Let's count them!

C: One, two, fwee!

It really was three. He didn't seem to note the discrepancy.

Another cute conversation:

M: You're getting so big!

C: Yeah, my potty is gone. 

M: That's because you are so big. 

C puts hand on head: Yeah, I get all the way to my head. 

We're trying to memorize the love verses from I Corinthians. This was week 2 on verse 1. So 
proud of him!

Rhianwen on the big slip and slide daddy made in preparation for Alden's birthday party. I just 
pray no one will get injured. She had 2 teeth pulled this month and took it like a champ. This 
month she also found out that her "best friend", a girl friend next door, moved away without us 
knowing that the last goodbye was the last. Rhianwen was very sad. The boys are sad they lost 
their cool older boy friend who also lived next door. 

Pure joy.

Busy Living

End of year performances, traveling to a conference, finishing school, starting summer, getting a puppy, getting caught up on all kinds of Dr. appointments, and praying hard for friends. My dad would call that burning the candle at both ends, and we are feeling it. But thankfully difficulties often birth joys. 

Rhianwen had a very cute observation day in jazz. She has come a long way!

"You've got that one thing."

My fave part, when Ms. Kirstie had all of the dads dance with the girls and taught them a little routine. I was thanking the Lord that I am a mom b/c I would NOT have been comfortable doing this :)

Ballet. I just love it. So pretty. Grandmama was able to come to this one. 

So sweet.

I was very disappointed that I hadn't completely figured out my camera, so I don't have any good video clips from this!!!

Nature walks almost always happen in our backyard. They were drawing pictures of the baby cardinals in their nest. Do you like Corwin's technique?

Nanny Kim, Grandpa, and Uncle Skipper all came to watch the kids while we went to a homeschool conference. Our favorite thing is just getting away, the 2 of us, free to feel like we're back to normal relational life.

And then I was insane enough to want a puppy, and Wally was insane enough to say yes. His name is Pippin and his theme song is Zippity-do-dah except it's Pippity-do-dah. His arch nemesis is Alden's batman cup. If it's on the floor, it's lights out for it. He also likes to eat my rug...any suggestions to stop this behavior? Yes, my girl has shorts on, no, she's not quite got the lady-like thing down yet. She likes to ride the dirt track in skirts.

Dirt track????

Uh-huh. Thanks to Wally. Sometimes I wish I could see his thought process...wakes up in the morning, yawns, stretches, makes breakfast, wanders outside, thinks, "I think I'll make a dirt track today." Done.

Except, Wally thinks the track is the perfect size for Corwin's Strider bike, so it may NOT be done, quite. Guess who got a BMX off of Craigslist? No, not me!

Some of the fun sans Wally who was taking the video.

This summer some things I've decided to do are a little bit of Five in a Row, cooking with Rhianwen, art, and maintaining some knowledge of math facts. Since it's Wally's job to cook breakfast, he helped her make Eggs in a Frame (I call it Eggs in a Basket). Grandmama gave her a Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls which she is using. Tuesdays are her day to cook. Alden and Corwin now whine and feel left out. I told them if they wanted to pick out a recipe, we could do it. So far, they haven't.

Happy birthday dear daddy! I'm still trying to figure out my camera, as you can tell. But I am enjoying it! Can you tell that Alden just absolutely adores Wally? He wants to be just like him when he grows up. I tell him that is a great aspiration. We finally gave Wally the particular frames he wants for his office desk. So now he can put some updated pictures of his family on it along with the ones that are 13 years old. 

Watching World Cup. Usually Pippin is way too excited to see Corwin, but this was at the end of a long day of playing, so he's calm and sleepy. I've been told this breed will become couch potatoes once they become adults/they are happy with lots of activity or little, so we'll see!

Corwin was singing a song that Grandpa had sung the week he was here. He's a little unsure in this video clip, but, previously, he was belting it out on the swing, in the car, all over the place :)

Corwin has been making up fantastic stories. I love that stage when they can start being creative with their words! 

Some funny moments: 

Me: "Corwin, if you spill water on the floor, you need to clean it up."

Corwin: "That wasn't me. It was the pee."

Corwin: "I born right now."

Alden: "Of course you are. You are way way borner now!"

Corwin (on being told that Daddy was at the dentist): "Aftah he get his teef paint, he get a bouncy ball!".

If only it were as fun as their visits!

Yeah. Lots of Corwin, but my older 2 provide many fun conversations too. They are just often way too complicated to write down. :)

Celebrations

May is full of birthdays on the Tinsley side of the family. Celebrating Mother's Day gets tucked in neatly along with it. So, May is a favorite month of mine :0) My sweet husband gave me a new camera, so I am learning how to use it. Here are some of the first pics from it.

Talking with Farmer Bob while looking for the queen bee at the Bush-N-Vine in York, SC. If you are ever in the Rock-Hill area, this is a fun farm to visit, and my husband worked there growing up.

Feelin' right at home on the farm. Wally says his memories here are tied to crop rotation.

Fun in the tunnel.

If you are wondering where Rhianwen was, she was back at the homestead fixin' up some vittles with Grandmama which has been a wish of Rhi's for quite some time. She says Grandmama is the best cook in the world and has wanted to cook with her.

It was delicious! 

Then it was off to Greenville for my niece's, Kallie's, birthday celebration. Despite the fact that there was an awesome playground 5 feet in front of them, the cousins decided to monkey around in the bushes for a while. 

They got to go on a little train ride. This was after the tunnel with lots of high pitched happy screaming from Benj. Corwin is now assuring him that there are no monsters.

"Smiley" aka the birthday girl aka Kallie with her awesome mommy.

Sharing the joys of cupcakes.

Enjoying the birthday girl and Uncle Robeson.

Back in York for Mother's Day. We got to see Mary Ruth and her sweet mama and daddy. We had so much fun visiting with them!

Happy Mother's Day, Grandmama!

So thankful to be part of such a sweet, kind, wise family. I'm so thankful for Ruth's mothering to my husband and for always being available and valuing our relationship.