A flower for your hair!

I've made a few more of these...and the girls have been helping, too. Sewing is a great skill to learn, at ages 5 and 7.

Learning

I try new things, whether I am excited about it or not. In school, I just loved art class & math, wanted to do more and more. I didn't care for history, but now, I enjoy it. We have to learn a myriad of things in school & later on, you will pick the things you like the most to make your life. Hopefully, you will love your job, whether it's fixing trucks, teaching others about oil paints and how to stretch canvas, or cooking up a new recipe. Maybe you will become a spouse and parent...for me, I have decided that homeschooling is the best thing for us. I want to pass my love of learning new things on to my children! I also think they need a firmer foundation of strong morals, compassion and respect towards others, than they would get in your average school.


My sister and her family came over for a bit yesterday. All 4 of the girls ended up swimming in our jacuzzi. I would add some of my favorites here, but blogger is asking for my login EACH time I try to add a photo...arg!

I've been sewing a bit. I made this scarf for one of Hannah's friends from church. I made a few tiny pillows with pouches, the dentist told Olivia she has a wiggly tooth! That rosey lace was from Kim (all the way from Capetown, South Africa)! I sewed this brooch, inspired by Heather:

You may notice some new TUNES....I thought it was time for a change, some good old songs I used to listen to with my sisters on the record player in the basement. One of our favorites were the Village Stompers, who I couldn't find, they played "Moscow Nights." Gotta listen to Telstar, it's a funky tune from 1962. I love the sound of it, I think you can even hear the needle on the record in the beginning!

Inspired by Joscie

So this is the start of a mini album inspired by Joscie. I painted the flower freehand, and am overall happy with the way the paint looks. That's kraft-colored chipboard is a cereal box! I'm recycling, too. As I worked on this, Olivia got out a container of play dough and asked me if she could have some of that flat stuff to use as a mat for play! Then she rolled it and it stuck, we got out my library card and used it to scrape it up and then she proceeded to make "pizza." We have been making magazine collages to paste into our homeschooling journals, to write about things we like. I'll have to share some here.

Church this morning...

Lighting the candles, originally uploaded by mama_marfa.

It is a tradition to bless baskets of fruit after service. This is one of my favorites!

This weekend...

Cousins...

Rob tried to teach Hannah how to dive.

Aaron said "It's just what I wanted!" after opening the origami set we gave him. He is so sweet.

We celebrated quite a few birthdays lately...this was the pool party! Olivia wore those goggles almost the whole time. I swam a lot, too. I'm an old lady already, breaststroke is my favorite. It was really fun, perfect weather!


This girl is an awesome designer. I'm going to try to make some flowers like those!

Sugar cubes

Yesterday, after peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread that Rob made (his mom gave him a bread maker machine, which I have yet to use, but it's a really good thing in that we know all the ingredients that are going into the bread and it's small, better than heating up the huge oven and the whole house, eh?)...we had tea together. I brought the old silver tray outside with teacups, the teapot and blackberry tea from Trader Joe's and instead of the usual honey, we had sugar cubes. I decided to buy a box of them, just for fun.
Now, last summer, we went to Vermont for vacation, there our friend Joanne, took us to see the Lipizzaner horse show. One of the women there explained that they give the horses a sugar cube as a reward after performing, because an apple slice or carrot would produce colored foam and the sugar cube keeps them looking clean for the show!
So, back to our little tea, Olivia asks me, "Why are we eating horse food?" I had to laugh and explained to her that it isn't horse food, necessarily, mostly humans eat sugar cubes.

You have to swim a lap in the deep end in order to go on the diving board. It's 12 ft. deep and thus it takes longer to warm up than the 4 ft. area in which we usually swim. It took a bit, but Hannah braved the waters, doing a mean freestyle! Then, her swim instructor even watched her as she jumped in. I'm so proud of her. She went in over and over...

(I'm feeling frustrated, because I took a video of Hannah jumping off the diving board and blogger lets it upload, and then said "processing" for like an hour and never completed the processing!)

We're babysitting Cleopatra, my sister's cat. She has been on her honeymoon and is now waiting to hear about her status as a Canadian resident, before she can move up there officially. So, she's living out of a suitcase for the time being...and we're enjoying this time with her playful & affectionate kitty.

Friends and family...

We've had a full weekend! It's been fun, I tell you...

It was my weekend to prepare a meal for "trapeza," the lunch after church service. I made a few quiche & carrot salad.

Our friends came from Missouri to visit. It was their first time in an Orthodox church. Samuel (who is 7) did a great job, he venerated the icons, lit a candle, stood for most of the service, was quiet, wanted to cross himself when we did...and made friends with the other children after church! They played baseball in the backyard.

Me watching Lusy play with Daniel. Lusy's previous owners came over to visit her, they still haven't sold their house. See our sunflowers? They're HUGE, the tallest one is 10 feet!

Later, we celebrated my niece's 3rd birthday. We brought a cooler full of (over 50) waterballoons. Believe me, I'm a pro at filling and tying them up! They were a lot of fun and we cleaned up all the bits and pieces quickly!

Juliana loved the castle cake my sister made!

My parents with their youngest grandchild, Emmelia!

St. Panteleimon

15 years ago, we went to St. Panteleimon's in Hartford, Connecticut. Today is the day we remember this saint, someone I always ask to intercede before God when I or someone I know is sick. He was a physician of body who came to know Christ, the Physician of our soul!
I think these icons that show the life of the saint around a larger, central image are the best. It's great for visual people like me, and for those who probably can't read the story of his life, like my girls!
Rob is working on his CJ today....it's an old Jeep, I forget what year it is, but it's over 30.

Olivia carries around "Elephante" most places now, her great grandpa gave it to her last week!

Ella and Larissa...I love the colours they were wearing together, very summery!

Spent some time with our friend, Emilia, on her 7th birthday!


Tuesday, we remembered St. Hannah (Aug 5/July 23 Old Calendar), the mother of the Prophet Samuel, so it was a special day for my daughter, who shares her name. My parents took us out to get ice cream after dinner. Look at those pink cowboy hats! A family friend who used to be our next door neighbor when we lived on-post, Fort Stewart, Georgia, gave them to the girls.

Mr & Mrs...

The groom and lovely bride (my sister, Mary)! God grant them many years! They are going on a Caribbean cruise this week, and then they will live in Canada (better than in Ukraine, as originally planned, at least we're on the same continent, eh?)!

Gosh, I sorta missed the kiss...the zoom wasn't working how I wanted it to....sorry about that!
Even more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7861221@N07/
I've kinda gone backwards, by showing the end photo at top!

Waiting for the bride to arrive!

On our way to the wedding!

Just after lunch at our house with family, my cute aunt (more like a sis) just got back from Costa Rica, she drove from New Jersey with her mom and dad (yeah, the girl's GREAT grandpa, he's 85 - doesn't he look great?), Aunt Ellen...and me.

Beauty is not on the outside....

My cousin is here from NY for Mary's wedding. Lots more family and friends arriving today and tomorrow. We met up for lunch and ice cream...
The girls were wearing their ice cream. Her daughter is Harriett named after our Grandma who passed away in 2002.
Just 10 cents for a handful of feed.

Emmelia, Hannah, Olivia, Juliana, Harriett and Maddie at Young's dairy.Driving down the street, I spotted a beautifully knitted sign post:Rob blanched 70 ears of corn to freeze. That's a mere $14 worth and a whole lot of sweet corn to enjoy throughout the year! A photo from our hike on Tuesday:"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and so it really isn't what's outside that matters, but what's inside, BUT this man that I love has shaggy hair... Now that he wants a haircut I'm thinking that I like him the way he is and JUST realized that it's because of who he is, not what he looks like, so however he chooses his hair, he's the best husband I could ask for!