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Maple Syrup Video Cuteness
Last spring we had the opportunity to accompany Kevin on a business trip which included Pennsylvania and New York visits. It’s precisely one of the reasons I have loved this season of Kevin working from home coupled with home schooling. Kevin’s main work purpose for that trip was to get video footage for Cornell University and the New York Maple Producers for a project they were tackling to promote maple syrup education. One video had been completed before the journey and now a second one is finished. My personal favorite bits are the ones that include our kids, of course – particularly the cute eye-widening expression of one young Otto Fox Wilder. …
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now available for you ….
I’ve watched Kevin’s hands with pencil in place for decades. Just over two of them now, in fact. I love his art. His style has really grown and morphed during these years. I’ve witnessed him engage in the struggle of The War of Art or The War with Art. And he has come out on another side and he’s a better artist for the battle and his art is better for the struggle. He’s often experimenting with how the art gets from his mind and his fingers to anyone else in real life. So – a bit of Kevin’s work is right now available at Society 6 – a website marketplace…
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The Beautiful Burden of Fatherhood
This is a picture of the weighty privilege of the calling of Fatherhood: Otto Fox Wilder. Four years old. He hears Kevin open the front door. Otto slaps his boots on his size 12 feet and leaps out the front door, literally jumping directly into Kevin’s footsteps. He reaches for his dad’s hand, grins a wild straight-toothed smile and says, “Wherever you going, I going too.”
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38 years.
Happy Birthday Buddy. Happy Birthday!
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Next up for the Revolution
Revolutions aren’t undertaken alone. I mean, I guess they aren’t. What am I? A history teacher? Oh. Yeah. I guess I sort of am. So, ahem, as I was saying. Revolutions don’t happen alone. And at our house, in our current Low to No Revolution, Kevin has now officially joined the ranks. Not that he wasn’t already on board. But last weekend he upped the ante and created a little Something From Nothing. We drink raw milk at our home now. (Thanks to a pick up/drop off arrangement where I serve as the middle man(woman) for our home school co-op, we receive three gallons of raw, unpasteurized, unhomogenized, un-anything else…
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I Want To Be More Like Daddy Today
I imagine a lot of homes are structured like ours. Mom’s primary job is Keeper of All Things Home and Dad’s main daily occupation is his . . . well, occupation. It’s not that it can’t be reversed and work just as well and it’s not some special requirement for Mom to work full time at home. This post is not a social commentary about your family’s choices. It’s really just an observation about our family. And the difference between the way my husband and I tend to spend time with our children. I am home alone with the kids a lot. I handle the majority of their educational planning…
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An Early Birthday
Do you like surprises? I heart surprises. Really, I do. (Well, good surprises. I seriously love good surprises. I’m like a surprise junkie. I can never get enough.) And it seems like for birthdays I usually find myself giving people what I want – surprises! Kevin’s birthday is this weekend and I have a few family surprises up my sleeve for him. But I couldn’t wait until Saturday. So I had a little early birthday date night last night for just the two of us. (I had been crazy sick all morning. As in, not even rising from the bed until after 3 p.m. But Kevin’s gracious help allowed me…
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Date Night
Our lunch table. Any day of the week. Normal. Wilder crying about something. Anything. Conversation about Legos and puppies being tossed back and forth and requests for more milk and another sandwich and do I have to eat all of this banana? Kevin trying to finish a story about his morning at work. Me ignoring milk pooling up around my ankle from a leaky sippee cup or something. Kevin just stops talking, takes a bite, then sighs and looks me earnestly in the eyes, “I love date nights.” And I get up from my end of the table (why do we sit at the heads?) and I walk over and…
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The Cereal Survey
Apparently, the Keigleys eat cereal in an odd manner. And by “apparently” I mean Emma says we do this. We’re kind of fastidious about the temperature of the milk. And by “we” I think I might mean Kevin. And by “fastidious” I mean that the milk must be at maximum possible coldness. As in, the pattern is always the same. Leave milk in fridge. Choose cereal. Pour cereal in bowl. Get spoon out of drawer. Face your body in the direction in which you plan to sit with your bowl of cereal. Quickly grab milk and quickly pour milk. Do not be the last person to get milk poured. Even if…
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remember
You know how sometimes you just want a sign for what you should do? You ask God to make it clear what direction to move or to let you know what He would have you to do or how He would have you act or whatever? You know how we pray like that? (Or, I pray like that.) But then we (or, wait – I) don’t even look for the signs that I just finished asking for? I don’t even listen for the voice. I don’t keep my eyes peeled (as my kids say) for what God is showing me. Do you ever do that? Well. Okay. This isn’t about…
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Because you asked
The watermelon-cut-with-a-sword really was an event not to be missed around these here parts. And my husband, the funny guy who owns a sword that he keeps stashed under our bed, has done a play by play of the sword swiping event. It actually was pretty impressive. (And a better method of cutting watermelon than my weak little kitchen knife ever provides.) Seriously – he sliced the whole watermelon. First in half. Then in slices. And then, because he doesn’t play around, he came at the sliced watermelon from an angle and cut the whole thing in half lengthwise again. If you really want to see the pictures for proof…
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We interrupt this season . . .
You already know a little bit about how Bergen plays soccer. (Or doesn’t.) But Kevin posted about it in an even funnier way. It made me laugh. And I bet you will laugh too. Read it here.
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Berg Is All Boy
I cannot say that I remember much about high school biology. (Sorry Mrs. Hendricks, it’s just true – okay?) And my final thoughts are still on hold about the entire nature vs. nurture argument. But this I do know. My son Bergen Hawkeye is all boy. All boy. I have done very little, if anything, to directly influence boy-like behavior in this four year old wonder. I have not personally ever purchased a toy gun for my son. Nor a bow and arrow. Or a toy hatchet or knife or whatnot. (Of course, Berg does own these items. I have just never thought to purchase them.) But, listen (especially…
