Sunday Evening Pictures
J+M+J
Can you tell he has been eating chocolate cookies?
First Joseph told me to get the camera, then he became grumpy and said he didn't want me to take a picture.
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Mom
Wild Bird Sightings for March
J+M+J
Early this March, I saw a bird of prey I had never seen before. It was smaller than a red tailed hawk, and had a redder breast than any other hawk I had seen. Later, I identified it as a peregrine falcon. I was exited to have another bird to add to my bird life list. (A list of all the birds I have ever seen.)
Mid March brought a HUGE bird to our backyard. It was a turkey vulture, which I have seen before, very far off. They circle a TV tower in Sioux Falls, and I can see them from my ballet studio, but I never realized just how big they are. (A wingspan of up to six feet!)
This doesn’t quite count as a sighting, but throughout March Mom, Dad, and I have been hearing a Great Horned Owl that has been living in a group of trees behind our house. The great horned owl has the famous ‘who, who’ call, and is the only owl living in South Dakota that does. I am fortunate to have heard it.
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Silly Joseph
Joseph has a little neck massager under his shirt. He put it there, and then started walking around the house saying, “I’m going to have a baby.”
Sit on My Yap
Mom and Alexander were working on Alex’s reading lesson and Joseph and John Paul were listening. Then Joseph invited John to “Sit on my yap.” (All l’s are y’s in the Josephian dialect.) It was to funny not to take a picture.
Hands On
J+M+J
- When baby starts bouncing, children come running!
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P.S: Landon says he wasn’t ready when this picture was taken.
Dull, Drab Winter
J+M+J
Nothing has happened in the last few weeks that was important enough to devote a whole post about it, so I am going to collect the small events of the past week into one post.
Friday the thirteenth:
I went to the physical therapist and got a bunch of new exercises. I originally went to the physical therapist for a pain in my arch when I walked a little over a year ago. We found a muscle that was very weak and strengthened it, and the foot pain quit except when I have walked long distances or stood a long time. (It is getting better all the time because I am still doing harder exercises.) Now I am going to her for the beginning of tendonitis in my shins, which is caused by the same muscle being weaker than the others and not doing its job when I jump or run. The physical therapist, whose daughter is training to be a professional ballerina in Pennsylvania/New York City, also likes to help me strengthen muscles to improve my ballet skills with exercises, so I got a bunch of exercises for my gluteus maximus to help lift my leg higher in the back. Ooh, my rear end is sore right now.
Friday the 13th-Sunday the 15th:
I counted birds for the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. I counted: 23 pigeons, 1 red tailed hawk, about 30 geese, a mallard duck, and a great horned owl, which has been around our house for a while. Well, actually Dad saw the owl. I heard it a couple weeks ago, but I haven’t seen it.
Today, Monday the 20th:
I went shopping with Mom and Maria at the mall. I needed long sleeved shirts since I only had a couple of shirts that were long enough for me to move my arms around freely. We went into three stores and found absolutely nothing that fit me, because all the stores were stocking spring clothes. Phew! I can’t believe how long it takes to find nothing. Finally, we found something, but not long sleeved shirts. We found my Easter dress, which is really amazing, because it is extremely hard to find nice dresses for my age that aren’t to little girly. Then it was back to the tiresome chore of finding shirts. Just when we had about given up, we went into a store and found five shirts, just like that!
Then we went to Claire’s, a girly store in the mall, and Maria picked out earrings for herself. (She just got them pierced six weeks ago.) I will have pictures of her with them on later.
Well, those are the only things really worth mentioning. I am getting really tired of winter, it’s so uneventful. If it was summer or spring and I didn’t know what to write about, I could go outside and take pictures of my garden. Sigh. Oh, well, at least the first day of spring is only 29 days away.
A+M+D+G
Epiphany
J+M+J
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.
A+M+D+G
Hello
J+M+J
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.
A+M+D+G
Mom’s Shirley Temple Birthday
J+M+J
This is definitely a late post, (Mom’s 33rd B-day was on the seventh), but I just remembered I had these pictures on my camera. Mom went to the hair salon on her birthday, and she had her hair done up in temporary curls. Naturally, I was taking pictures of the it as soon as Mom walked through the door. Clover decided to fly to Mom to get in the picture as well.
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Halloween
J+M+J
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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Echo
J+M+J
Mom was leaving to take Maria and Landon to ballet and tap. Joseph was protesting strongly, as usual. Mom walked out the door, and he began to cry. Exhausted, I pleaded with him, “Don’t cry, be happy, please.’ Joseph looked up with a puzzled look on his face. I had used a new phrase and he just had to try it out. With the reason he had been crying gone from his mind, he asked slowly, “Be-e-e, ha-a-appy-e-e?” I smiled, thinking to myself, I will use this trick more often.
Pictures of Joseph and Mom
J+M+J
The shirt says it all!
Clover has found somewhere to nest. She flew to Mom’s head herself with her newly grown-in flight feathers.
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Scattered Tidbits
J+M+J
It just seems that nothing around here has happened that is worth writing a whole blog post, so I’ll just mention them all in a breif summary of the last few weeks. On September twenty seventh, Landon, John, and I slept out in a tent in the backyard. I peeked out the tent window and saw the constellation of Orion, which is only visible during the cold months of the year, gleaming in the South-East sky. This, along with the fact that I just pulled out my first long-sleeved shirt today, is a sure sign that winter is coming.
Landon turned twelve on October 1st, and he got a radio controlled car for his birthday. He couldn’t make up his mind about what kind of cake to have until the last minute, so Mom had to pick him up a cheese cake from the grocery store.
Tuesday I am going to get a pair of new pointe shoes, because i have grown out of my old shoes. I can’t wait to dance in the new shoes, the satin outside of the shoes is so shiny when they are new. We are now doing exercises away from the barre (without holding on to anything) in my pre-pointe class.
That’s all the things I can think of, so I shall close this post.
A+M+D+G
Stinky Sight
J+M+J
It was dark outside because it was late at night. The little kids had left their bikes outside, so Landon and I went to put them away. When we were almost finished, I noticed something moving in the neighbors yard a few houses down the street.. I thought at first it was a cat, then I noticed the black and white stripes, bushy tail, and unmistakable waddling walk. I knew it was a skunk. I ran inside to get Mom and Dad to come see, on my way in telling Landon that I saw a skunk. Landon was scared out of his skin, and he ran in faster than me to get away from the skunk. When we got back with Mom and Dad, the skunk was nowhere to be seen. It probably wanted to get out of the open and headed for some bushes. Having seen one skunk in the neighborhood, I wonder how many other skunks patrol the streets at night.
A+M+D+G