Welcome
Welcome to our place...just two steps away from the funny farm! To explain this name, whenever things get crazy at our house, I always say "Well, we are just two steps away from the funny farm!" As a very busy homeschooling family, things DO sometimes get a bit chaotic. But we love this life of living and learning together and there is never a dull moment!
The picture of the beautiful Amish farm on this page was taken while we were on the Strasburg Railroad.
These days are flying by, but I'm exhausted! We are having a great VBS with over 350 children in attendance. I have 18 in my Kindergarten class and I'm the "head coach". Each day begins bright and early and we get home 4 hours later about 1:00 in the afternoon. Jaden has been going to a special class just for toddlers, but is very happy to have Joel stay with him as a helper. Joel is a great big brother!
Ivy sure is enjoying these busy days. She was at camp all last week so having VBS to go to every day this week has helped her not to be bored. And Saturday is her 11th birthday so she is very excited about that!
When VBS is over, we are going to do some family days - go to the beach, maybe the zoo.... and have fun! Then it is time to buy the books I need for school soon. I'm really looking forward to starting our new school year with Tapestry of Grace.
Well that's all I have time to write for now! If I had more time, I'd tell you about Joel's hilariously funny story about his ride home from the Phillies game on Sunday. That will just have to wait.
Next Monday begins our church's VBS and I've been feverishly getting ready for it! Even though I've never been there for a VBS (we started going to Westminster in September), I'm teaching this year! It is all new for me and I'm actually a bit nervous! But I will have 5 helpers assisting me and I'll be teaching one of the kindergarten classes which is my favorite age to teach. I'm also responsible for decorating my classroom so I've been busy making flags, banners, medals, etc. Joel has been a great help, using his artistic talent to draw some posters of athltetes. I'm excited about the program and I think it will be a great week for the kids as they go through the book of Joshua and learn about being on God's team. Please pray for me and my "athletes" as we go through the week (July 28-31). Pray that God would work in their hearts and many would have their faith grow in Jesus.
We recently checked out a DVD called Animusic 2 and we love it! Mark and the kids were especially entranced by this movie that appeals to all ages. You really have to see it for yourself because it is hard to describe, but it is a computer animation music video with virtual bands and imaginary instruments with digitally created music. Unlike anything ever seen before! At least it was for us - we had never seen the first Animusic video. Perhaps there are many of you who already know about this! It was really neat to watch and we have watched it repeatedly! We highly recommend it for some great entertainment and cool music too! This is a great movie to add to your netflix list! For more info, you can go to
www.animusic.com
My mom knows how much I LOVE blueberries so the other day, she brought me a 20 pound box of them!!! Twenty pounds of big nickel-sized blueberries! YUM! I froze several bags of them and I'm eating quite a bit of them too! Last night I made the most delicious blueberry crisp. Even Mark liked it and he's not really crazy about blueberries (I just can't imagine!) Jaden loves blueberries too, of course. When I was pregnant with him, blueberries were about the only thing I could eat at one point because of terrible morning sickness. I even took bags of them to church to eat during the service when I felt nauseous! I must have eaten quite a few of them those months because Jaden has blueberry colored eyes!
Here is my recipe for blueberry crisp. If anyone has any other good recipes for blueberries, please let me know!
Combine 4 T. sugar and 3 T. flour and toss with 5 cups of blueberries. Place in baking dish. For topping, in a mixing bowl combine: 1/2 cup regular rolled oats, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon. Cut in 1/4 cup butter. Stir in 1/4 cup coconut. Bake in 375 oven for 30-35 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream.
Summer camp is a tradition at our house. For the past 5 years, at least one of our children have headed off for a week of fun and adventure. Ivy was SO excited to be going this year for her third time. She was particularly excited this year about going so that she could be with her friends from our former church whom she hasn't seen very much over the past year. As it turned out, she only knows one girl in her cabin and she won't be with her best friend at all. Sometimes God has other plans! As her mom, I shared her disappointment. But God is sovereign and He has a purpose and plan for Ivy this week. Even though things worked out differently than what we would have hoped for, I am praying that she has a terrific time. We pick her up Friday night and I'll be so happy to have her back home again. I miss my girl!
We are so blessed to have so many libraries to choose from. In the past 2 weeks, we've been to 3 different public libraries as well as a large church library! This morning we visited the small Manheim Township library near our church since we had to take Joel there for his Junior High boys Bible study and lunch. It is perhaps one of the smallest public libraries ever! We still managed to fill a bag of books to bring home with us. I found a novel by Ann Tatlock called All the Way Home about a woman who reunited with her Japanese childhood friend years after they were separated by the changes brought about after the bombing of Pearl Harbor during WWII. Because we just studied the WWII years and the Japenese incarceration in the internment camps, I am looking forward to reading this novel.
We got some potty books for Jaden! The potty training days will soon be here and our lives will change again with a few more visits close to the funny farm! It is SO MUCH EASIER when they wear diapers! (If you are scratching your head by what I said and don't know what I mean, you probably aren't a mom, haven't reached this stage yet with your child, or its been too long to remember!)
From time to time, I will be posting some reviews of books that I really love. I ordered
Material World, A Global Family Portrait by Peter Menzel from Queen's Homeschool Supply to use as a supplement to our study in geography this year. It is a wonderful resource! It is a beautiful, large 256 page coffee-table sized book that shows families from around the world standing outside of their homes with all their possessions beside them. It was incredible to see the possessions of different families. Some only had a few jars and little else, whereas families from other parts of the world, including the U.S. had so many possessions that it was hard to fit them all in the picture. The photographer spent a week with each family to interview them and get snapshots of their daily routines. It is fascinating to read and look at. I wanted to get this book so that our children would be reminded of how truly blessed we are. We have so much, and we have the responsibility to be generous and share our blessings. Also, so much can be learned about the countries and cultures represented by the families in this book. I highly recommend this as an excellent teaching tool for everyone!
Just a reminder to anyone who would like to go see a show, we can get you tickets at 50% off for "Abraham and Sarah" (Joel plays the role of Ishmael) or for "In the Beginning". To get the discounted tickets, we need to purchase them within 2 weeks of the show that you would like to see. "Abraham and Sarah" runs through September and I have his schedule for the rest of the season if you are interested in seeing a show when he is in it. Just let us know!
"Abraham and Sarah" is a beautiful show! I've seen it twice this season and I will be going a few more times before the end of the show run. Joel has been absolutely enjoying himself there and its been great for him to play the role of Ishmael after having been Isaac there 5 years ago! He loved acting in "Ruth", "Miracle of Christmas" and "Psalms of David", but we all agree that "Abe and Sarah" is our special favorite.
Ivy read a book, actually one of the Boxcar children books, that was about geo-caching. Well that made her really want to try it herself! Mark has a GPS on his blackberry phone so we printed out some clues to nearby caches and went off exploring today at a nearby park to look for one. It was supposed to be an easy find near the bocce courts.... and we looked and looked and looked, but didn't find the micro-sized container anywhere! We'll have to go back another day and try to find it. I was amazed at how popular this "sport" is and how many caches are within a mile or two of our house!!!
Since we were at the park anyway, we decided to take a guided tour of the Amos Herr house that is open to the public on Sundays. It was a nice tour and the house reminded us very much of the house we lived in in East Petersburg. I love old houses! The most fascinating part for me was the library room where there was a collection of very old school books. I want to start a collection like that myself since I have a few very old ones already. My mom came along with us too - here are some pictures I took.
After dropping off Joel at the theatre Saturday, I took Ivy and Jaden to the Global Fair sponsored by Eastern Mennonite Missions at the Lancaster Mennonite High School. They had all kinds of booths set up from around the world and lots of crafts for the kids to do as they learned about other cultures. Jaden and Ivy liked the animals best! Ivy loved petting the alpaca. The other girl in the pictures is one of the daughters of our youth pastor. Notice Ivy's cute new haircut! Jaden liked the goats and even got to feed the mama goat from his hand.
Wow, how exciting! I am writing my very first blog. Who knows if anyone will actually read our posts, but I thought it would be fun. I want to have Joel and Ivy write on here from time to time too. And maybe even Mark will share his thoughts from time to time. So come back now and then if you'd like to keep up with what's going on at the Espenshade house!
I love summer time! We've been really busy, but it's been really nice having a change of routine and sleeping in later is really good too! We picked out a new curriculum for the coming year and I'm very excited about it! My days have been busy researching Tapestry of Grace, looking for books online from the library system, cleaning out the school closet and getting all my file folders ready for next year.
We are hosting a cook-out tonight and having some friends over so I've got to get busy cleaning this house! Nothing cleans a house like company!
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