7 Years Ago
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I received my First Holy Communion
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Landon
Pysanky
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A few weeks ago, Maria, Landon, and I had the privilege of going to a class were a woman gave a lesson in decorating pysanky. (pi-san-kee) Pysanky is a Ukrainian method of decorating eggs by dipping them in dye, covering the areas you want to be that color with wax, and then dipping it in another color and repeating the process. The finished result is gorgeous. Here are some photos of eggs not done by me to show you how elaborate these can become.
Pysanky is also very symbolic. This lovely egg features designs of three lines meeting and three ovals meeting, and represents the Holy Trinity
This egg has fish, a symbol of Jesus and Christianity since the Roman times.
Now, for pictures of my egg. On our eggs, we did two different designs. On the first side, we did a design that was taught to us by the woman who was doing the class, and on the second side we did what ever we wanted. Here is the first side of my egg.
The other side.
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Hands On
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- When baby starts bouncing, children come running!
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P.S: Landon says he wasn’t ready when this picture was taken.
A Charmed Day
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It all started yesterday when I invited my friend Rebecca over for the afternoon. Right from the start, everything worked out just the way I wanted it to. Rebecca wasn’t doing anything that afternoon and her dad (her mom was gone for the weekend) consented to letting her come over to my house. When Mom and I went to pick Rebecca up, her dad said, “Stay as long as you want.”
A few hours later, Rebecca and I were tracing outfits with Maria’s fashion design kit. I commented, “Hey, when your dad told you to stay as long as you liked, you should have grabbed your pajamas.”
“Yeah, that would be a good idea. You should ask your mom if that would be okay,” Rebecca responded.
“It would be unlikely that she would say yes, but it wouldn’t hurt to try.”
Maria was in the room while we were discussing our far-fetched idea, and she liked what she heard. When Mom came down to tell me that I would be babysitting because she was going to take Landon to swimming, Maria piped up, “Mom, Rebecca wanted me to ask you if she could have a sleepover.”
“MARIA!” Rebecca and I exclaimed simultaneously, laughing.
Mom said, “I have to go now, but we’ll talk about it later.”
“Well, that was more encouraging than a no,” I said, “but we shouldn’t get our hopes up.” I calmed an excitement that was growing inside me.
When Mom came back, however, I pressed for details. “So, what about the sleep-over thing?”
“Well, I actually talked to Rebecca’s dad already.”
“-And?” three voices in the room prodded for more information.
“He wants Rebecca to call him.”
So Rebecca was on the phone, and Maria and I listened anxiously. For a while it seemed the conversation was going to turn out for the worse, and Maria was making sad faces and thumbs down at me. But when Rebecca hung up the phone, she said, “It’s a yes!”
So, Maria ran up to tell Mom, who got on the computer to chat and ask my dad if it was okay. He said yes also, and we jumped up and down around the room with glee. Then we jumped into the car and Mom drove to go get Rebecca’s necessities. John Paul shouted after us, “Don’t forget clean underwear!”
When we reached Rebecca’s house, we ran inside and collected her pajamas, a book, clothes, and toothpaste and a toothbrush, and of course, clean underwear. “Is there anything we are missing?” She asked me.
“Movies!” I responded.
We collected the movies and ran back to the car. As we were pulling out of the drive way, Landon asked, “Did you remember your sleeping bag?
“Oh, that and a pillow would be good,” Rebecca exclaimed as she jumped out of the car and hurried back inside her house and momentarily returned carrying a sleeping bag, a blanket, and her pillow. Then we drove home.
Since everything was going so well for us, we decided to try to get our friend Grace, who lives three blocks from my house, over with us. We called, she asked, and we got a surprising yes from her side as well.
That evening, after the kids had gone to bed, we decided to goof around taking pictures. First Grace was the photographer.
- This is what happened when Rebecca and I tried to take a sleeping pose picture. GIGGLES!
- This one is much better. We finally got our faces to stay straight.
- Grace and I hear the popcorn Landon is making for our movie, Prince Caspian.
- Grace and Rebecca.
- Splits!
- Three friends. In the left corner of the background you can see naughty Alex peeking out of bed
Devouring popcorn! YUMMY!!!!
WARNING: never leave three teenage girls unattended for an extended period of time. They may end up like these poor demented girls, who have now been moved to an asylum. :~)
ZZZZ... sleeping beauties
- It’s morning! That was fun!
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Epiphany
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My nativity scene set-up is completed today, Epiphany, which commemorates the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. This nativity was a Christmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa on Mom’s side.
This was also the day we opened up presents from Mom and Dad. We didn’t do it on Christmas because with our trip to Florida and the sickness that struck immediately when we got back, Mom had no time for shopping. We have thought about opening gifts on Epiphany for a couple years, since that was the day Jesus received his gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but we had never done it.
Dad handed out the first presents to the four boys. They were small, identical square boxes about two and a half inches on every side. Dad built suspense by making the boys count to seventeen in a painfully slow manner before they could open them. After the number ten, Alexander tried to say seventeen at the beginning of each number. “Sev- eleven, sev-twelve, sev-thirteen,” etc. etc.
Finally, the boys reached seventeen, but not before sixteen and a half, sixteen and three quarters, and sixteen and seven eights. When seventeen was reached, the boys tore into the wrapping paper and opened the box inside. Alexander declared, “Springies!”
“Slinkies,” I corrected him.
“Oh, I knew that,” he mumbled.
Dad has a fondness for slinkies. I remember him showing me how they worked when he found one at his friend’s house a long time ago.
It wasn’t long before Dad and the boys had the slinkies lined up on the stairs for a race. Unfortunately, our stairs are too wide for slinkies, so the race was abandoned and attention was turned to the other gifts.
The first present I opened was a calendar. Dad made me guess what was inside the wrapping paper, but the size and fact I get one every year gave it away. I got it right on the first guess.
This calendar has some beautiful pictures inside.
Maria and I each got one of these sun catcher kits. She got butterflies and I got a parrot.
This is a cross stitch pattern. I can’t wait to get started.
This is a pair of sun conures. They are not pets, they are two year old breeder birds. I got one for Christmas and I bought the other bird. Aren’t they the most beautiful thing in the world?
Well, that’s all for now. I will post more later as I get going on the cross stitch and sun catchers.
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How to Fit Six Children into One Bed
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Joseph and I were playing one morning on my bed, when he told me he was tired. So we got under the blankets and laid down, pretending to sleep. Just then, Maria walked into the room and decided to climb on board the bed. One by one, the rest of the children followed, Landon, John Paul, and then last but not least, Alexander. It was a miracle that everyone stayed still long enough to photograph.
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Hello
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Hello, it has been a while! I am going to start posting some pictures from the trip we took with Grandma and Grandpa Frederes. There are so many pictures I won’t possibly be able to post them all, so I will begin a series of post with those pictures I think the most worth looking at. I shall start with some pictures of our family in the airport and arriving in Florida.
When we arrived at the resort, Grandma and Grandpa met us and helped us take our luggage to our rooms.
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Halloween
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It is the tradition in our family to go to the St. Margaret’s Homeschool Group all saints eve party, but this year, it was cancelled, so at the last minute we decided to go trick or treating for the first tim in our lives. Joseph and I had costumes from the store, but Landon, Maria, John and Alex were wearing homemade costumes.
Joseph is dressed as the High King Peter from the Chronicles of Narnia. (I love the books and the movies so I told Mom to get that costume for him. Isn’t he cute?)
Maria and I put together this bride costume.
Johnathan made this costume out of boxes all by himself. Later Mom puts tin foil on his costume.
I am dressed as a Japanese geisha.
Alex is Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier.
Landon made this Obi-wan Kenobi costume.
Here is John being outfitted in tin foil by Mom.
This is my candy pile after coming home from our trick or treating. Much of the candy was things that will give me a headache so I ended up giving most of it away.
Maria had more candy than any body.
Landon’s candy.
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Wooly Bear Caterpillar
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Landon found this little guy curled up in a corner of a friend’s barn. His stripe was brown rather than reddish, I was surprised to see. I took it home to take some pictures, but as it turns into a boring creamy white moth after hibernating all winter, I decided to let it go out in the back yard.
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Corn Season
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It’s that time of the year again. Corn time is very welcome at our house, both by the eaters of corn, and the peelers of corn.
Joseph made himself very useful in peeling corn, as long as we could keep him from eating the corn after he peels it. :)
Joseph is working his best to get the last piece of corn husk off.
Alex loved this new game. He was very concerned that other people were peeling corn to fast and there wouldn’t be enough for him to peel.
Many hands make light work!
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Flight School
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Penelope’s flight feathers are in, and she likes to use them. She will fly to places that are up high for a good view, or she will fly to Clover’s cage to play with Clover’s toys and eat Clover’s food. Dad and I thought it would be fun to teach my bird to use her wings on command and fly to me. I am working on this with her, and Penelope is cooperating nicely. She will fly back and forth from Landon or Dad to me and back again. It is fun to train her to do tricks, and I am sure she benefits from the exercise. This picture is the closest Mom could get to Penelope in the air.
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Happy Fourth of July
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Happy Birthday America!
This Fourth of July, our family went to Dad’s parent’s farm to shoot off fire works. It was a good show, and though I can never capture the brilliance of fireworks, I did get a few good pictures.
Bad picture, cute subject.
We had water balloons to play with. I got completely drenched. Everybody was aiming for our grandpa. Landon eventually got him, but every time I threw a balloon at him, they rolled off his back. I needed to throw harder.
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The Zoo
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We went to the zoo last Saturday. It was extremely fun and interesting, for the zoo had added many new animals including peacocks, meerkats, and bats.
These peacocks are lovely, aren’t they?
This snow leopard decided to check Dad out.
This tiger doesn’t look very fearsome.
Joseph found some bird poop on the fence.
He accused this bird of doing it:
Now we were in the African Savannah.
These meerkats are the foraging team.
This meerkat has been assigned the job of keeping watch for predators.
This is the regal trumpeter swan.
The camel was chewing his cud.
King vultures are grotesque looking.
The mother gibbon is nursing her baby. Can you see it?
What good posture they have!
The mother gibbon is baring her teeth at the other gibbon for getting too close to her baby.
This swan does the same things Clover and Penelope do.
They have a really nice merry-go-round at the zoo. I helped Joseph
I can remember a few years ago, this baby rhino was nursing.
This is a huge stuffed walrus in the museum.
These are stuffed wolves. They did have live wolves in the zoo, but all the pictures turned out blurry. There were even pups.
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The Keebler Two
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It was the afternoon Monday, June 16. One moment I was planting tomatoes, and the next moment I was running around the house like crazy, getting ready to go chase Mr. Wilson’s balloon. A little while later, we were in the car driving to the park in Brandon where we would soon launch the balloon. For a detailed description of the launching process see http://sarah.frederes.com/2007/11/09/the-keebler/. This post will be mostly pictures. Mr. Wilson’s children, Jacob, Adam, and Anna joined us for this launching adventure.
It’s amazing to think that the huge balloon fits into this tiny bag. Well, at least the bag is tiny for the size of the balloon.
I caught Joseph in a cute yawn.
Setting up the basket.
Landon and Adam were assigned the job of getting the balloon out of the bag.
This is the fan.
Joseph observes the goings on.
Dad and another lady are holding open the balloon for the fan to blow into.
We aren’t the only ones setting up balloons.
Jacob and I are velcro-ing the top to the rest of the balloon.
Maria is going to try to hold the balloon steady until Jacob and I are done. I am not sure how much the balloon was pulling her, but it looks like the balloon is dragging her. Anna is behind Maria
The balloon is more rowdy this time than last time. It was swinging from side to side, and Jacob and I, who were now holding the rope Maria held earlier, did our best to steady it. Easier said then done.
Dad and Adam took a ride this time. He got into the basket, and it began to lift off the ground.
If you look closely, You can make out Dad’s hand waving at us in the car.
Night is falling, and it is time to land.
Maria and Anna climbed over the fence you can see in the picture to join Mr. Wilson and Dad. Unfortunately, they had a dilemma. Anna was caught on barbed wire by the seat of her pants. Landon climbed through waist-high grass to the girls, and he freed Anna.
Afterwards, we went back to the park. Mr. Wilson had cookies, carbonated juice, and champagne for the adults. The cookies were from the Keebler brand. Mr. Wilson explained the history of the hot air balloon.
A few hundred years ago, people noticed smoke rising upwards when fire burned. They also noticed that little bits of grass and sparks would be carried upward with the smoke. They wondered if they could harness the smoke and use it to carry people. They believed that the blacker the smoke, the more weight it could carry. So they would pour dirt, tar, and other black filth into the fire, and then they caught some of the smoke in a bag attached to a basket. Because of the hot air, the basket went up. Eventually, they sent up some farm animals inside the basket. They also put a bottle of champagne in the balloon to prove that the ballon wasn’t a dangerous animal from the sky, but was actually made by men from earth. Each bottle of champagne from France included the name of the town it was made in. To this day, people still take up a bottle of champagne with them to give to farmers as a gift for using their land to land the balloon.
Just before we left the park, I am pretty sure I heard a coyote howl. We ate Taco John’s for supper. and then it was time for bed.
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