A Bewitchingly Ordinary Life!

I know I've shared before how my children love Earth Day, and they love crafts!  Especially my youngest son Aaron.  He's the resident artist.  You could buy him crayons, tablets, paints, anything artsy, during every shopping trip and he'd be perfectly happy. Well for Earth Day, after having made recycled paper with their Bill Nye kit, he decided he wanted to make it for his class.  Then we read you could add flower seeds into it! So that's what we did.  They simply have to plant the biodegradable paper, keep it moist, and watch it grow!  We printed out a cute quote from "The Lorax" with planting instructions and put it all in a ziplock bag.  He will hand it out on Earth Day! You can easily make recycled paper.  Just Google "easy paper making" or something similar.  You really don't need much. And it's a cheap craft!   Essentially you need: Paper [newspaper, tissue paper, construction paper, copy paper] Big bowl wat...

We love Earth Day in our home!  Especially when the boys can get messy. learn something new, and help save the trees! All week Aaron has been reading me his library book The Lorax.  And we've been watching the old school 1972 cartoon of the book. They both really get the idea of speaking for nature because "trees have no tongues".  Our good friends Brooke and Mitch gave the boys a Bill Nye Paper Recycling Factory.  So this past week, we worked on recyling old paper into new!     The process is easy, but time consuming.  And you can do so much with it. During this first run we recycled  a lot of our old tissue paper we've had put up from past gifts.  They were perfect colors, green and white! From making the pulp, to grinding, to using deckles, to drying, the boys LOVED it! And we talked about what else we can do next time we make a batch.  We're going to make biodegradable wildflower paper! Making up the pulp and adding in a wi...

I love Earth Day!  I've loved every since I heard about it and stumbled upon an Earth Day Birthday celebration Almost 25 years ago! At the time I was living in Dayton, Ohio and often went Downtown to shop at the now defunct department stores.  [Aww memories, but that is another post.] One April day, as I headed to Elder Beerman, going through the Court Yard, I noticed this festival.  Unsure of what it was I stopped at the various booths to check out what was going on. To be honest, this was the first time I ever even realized that we needed to care for the earth.  Sad but true.  The movement was gaining big momentum back then [It started in 1970], and I credit that festival for helping to open my eyes.  I have to admit I'm not doing as much as I could, or as much as I have in the past.  But maybe it's time to revisit some of the things I used to do.  I know as I've grown older, learned more about my own ancestral roots, and had chi...

I remember so vividly the moment I met my oldest son’s soul in a dream.  The dream began in a foggy darkness with my best friend and I walking along a lone sidewalk.   Ahead of us I began to see a bit of light, not sunlight but some kind of pale light.  As we drew closer I saw a tall streetlamp, with its artificial light casting a triangle type beam of light down through the fog onto the sidewalk.  There beneath the streetlight a child stood with his back to us and hands in pocket.  Walking past the child I looked at him.  He had an adorable face, with glasses and this kind of bowl shaped haircut.   I turned to my friend and said, “When I have son, he will look like that little boy.”  At that moment the little boy turned towards me, looked up, and said “Hi mom!”  Something deep in my being knew instantly that I had met my future son. I woke up filled with a sense of peace and wonder.  My husband and I were not trying...

The knocks come on the door. "Can Aaron come out and play?" Often, and with joy! But the knocks rarely come for David.  I take that back, occasionally they do come.  Usually preceded first by seeing if Aaron can play.  If he can't, or he's busy, they sometimes ask for David.  Sometimes.  But he's rarely a first thought. And this shatters my heart in a million pieces. I want to say I get it.  I want to say I somewhat understand.  But another part of me wants to say it shouldn't be that way.  He's just a child, and he wants to play and be included as well. That can be the heartbreaking part of children with special needs.  David is quarky, he's loud, he doesn't understand personal space, he has a hearty laugh, he may laugh at inappropriate times, he may add to the conversation, but not in the way one would expect.  He'll believe you if you joke with him and say you're taking over the world.  He's deathly afraid of bugs so he'll get ...

This morning at Palm Sunday Service, I learned something old, that was like learning something new! Yes that can happen. You can hear something a thousand times, yet it may not "click" until one day when... I will say in today's societal climate, this can true whether we share the same faith or not. At one point in the reading from the Christian Holy Scriptures, a few that were followers of Jesus wanted to resort to violence to silence His [Jesus] protesters. In the blink of an eye, one cut off the ear of a protester. Jesus told them that it would stop RIGHT NOW! Basically that he'd have none of that, that it wasn't the way to spread his His message essentially. And then Jesus did something even more amazing. He HEALED this protester. An ear restored. It would be interesting to know more on the story of the protestor, what became of him. But we don't know. What we do know and what we learned in that instant is that the mark of GR...

[ David, Dec. 2009, 3 years old ] Lately [and by lately I mean months, and months, and months, and...well you get the picture], David has been singing Opera.  His whole life is in Opera style right now.  If he needs to brush his teeth. It's act one of the morning Opera! Take a bath? Closing act..."BAAATTHH TIMMMEEE!!!!"  Do homework?  Okay maybe he doesn't sing then, he just grumbles like an old man. And as much as it can get on my ever loving nerves, a part of me is so thankful that he does it!  Even at 6am! Christmas Season 2009.  This year will forever stand out to me.  Now I adore Christmas.  It's my favorite holiday, so every year is stands out.  However this one?  This one is when everything changed.  David sang for the first time!  Now I know what you are thinking.  Okay, kids sing, so what made this one special?  It was special because honestly, I never thought he'd sing.  I never even thought he's...