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Afternoon
This past weekend Riley volunteered to help at a local Farm Day with her classmates. The farm was beautiful. The barns and the mountain views made me miss sweet Virginia. The smell of the hay barn even made me miss the dairy farm on which I grew up. London, Mosely and Bergen passed around bunnies that were so cute I almost wanted one. Almost. Because I had bunnies when I was a kid. My little brother and I had matching white fluffy ones. Trapper and Whatever-Douglas-Named-His. My cousin Mark jumped into their pen once when he was visiting. He landed on Trapper, my bunny. Hard. It died. Since the bunnies…
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seriously.
Oh Man. After this morning’s Bible study, I had a small window of time to get back to our house, grab a quick lunch for everyone (and by “grab” I mean “Mommy has to assemble”) and get everyone back in the car and headed in the opposite direction to the afternoon’s art lessons. It was raining. Time was limited. I had five children with me. I knew it was a recipe for disaster. But I had no idea how violently it would all break down. The kids got corralled in, stepping in each puddle and muddy inch in the yard and splash their wet selves across the sun room floor.…
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One Thing Leads To Another
Ups and downs. Highs and lows. This and that. A chain of events that connects one thing to another. We were in the car on the way to the bank. Piper threw up in the car again. (Is this a pattern?) I turned the car around, errands never completed. I unbuckled the entire car seat, with the sticky, smelly two-year-old still buckled in, and set it all on the driveway. I left the car seat outside and carried the little Finnian directly in to the bathtub. I forgot about the car seat. Magnus did not. Riley (or as our kids call her – Girl Staff Riley, not to be confused…
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London Elizabeth Scout Keigley: The Interview
Based on the popularity of my last interview with a young man about town named Bergen Hawkeye, I thought I might ride the coattails of that success and present another interview. This interview was a bit easier to attain, as this child is less inclined to bolt midway through a sentence. This small one is a thinker, a philosopher, a leader of her many young siblings and just a darn cute little gal. She is prone to unusual proclamations such as the one that was pronounced during last evening’s bath time. She had a rather large scab on her ankle from a fall across asphalt. As she was bathing and…
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Speaks For Itself
I’m not sure I run a great homeschool. Although I don’t think I run a bad one. There are a lot of things I do poorly. (It would be too detrimental to my psyche to list them.) But I think I do one or two things pretty well. (Probably because they are my favorite so they’re easy for me.) This is what we do well. We read. A lot. And a vast variety considering my homeschool’s median age is probably four. (Math is not something I do well.) I love Charlotte Mason, a British educator whose philosophy I have snagged as my own. A major part of her educational foundation,…
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I Knew Her When
A gifted student. A kind junior high girl (more a rarity than it should be). A godly young lady. Our favorite Virginia babysitter. A great soccer player. A dedicated worker. A faithful finisher of assignments. A considerate friend. A joyful spirit. A reliable actress on the high school stage. Jamie Newton. What a good kid. That’s what we used to think. And now we can say . . . What a great grown-up. It was so much fun for our family to load up the Suburban this weekend and drive a little bit into the North Carolina hills to meet Jamie and her equally cool husband of four months, Cole,…
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Constant
Really, this post is about chaos. And I think the photo demonstrates that fairly well. And it’s funny. And Leanne said she will only read my posts if they are accompanied by a photo. Our house is lived in. It’s comfortable. And we like that. But comfortable can ooze into cluttered faster than Bergen can ride a bike down a hill. And cluttered can morph into chaos with a speed faster than Riley’s fingers can text. Last weekend Kevin and I looked around our home. And it looked like chaos had settled in. I was tired of messy children’s rooms where a child could not play with any particular item…
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Remember When?
This is a recent photo of the Little Willow. The “bigger” kids dressed her up one day. For no reason. And yesterday was Halloween. Which, at the Keigley house, did not imply anything out of the ordinary this year. Kevin and Riley ran a race. The rest of the kids and I had a less-than-financially successful yard sale. We relaxed in the afternoon, went to the store, had tacos for dinner and watched a movie with friends. You know – the regular. But this Halloween made me think of last Halloween. And that made me laugh. And since yesterday was so . . . . normal, I thought I might…
