Life is a Zoo

It's been quite a month for animal antics. We have a nest of three robins growing outside our window. The mama bird is fiercely protective, chirping and flitting from branch to branch when she detects us in the window. Despite her protests, we have managed to get some baby bird pics and footage. Gracie has been delighted with oohs and ahhhs as she checks on them everyday. See how they grow! Today, the nest is quite full and they stand up to meet mama's meal and stretch their wings. We'll see how soon they are booted out of the nest.

If birds weren't enough, Gracie discovered an alligator snapping turtle, an endangered species here in Illinois, while riding her scooter today.
Likely a she on the move to lay her eggs, the snapper was about 12 inches wide and 14 inches long. She had a pile of mud on her back about 7-8 inches thick.  At the urging of some FB turtle lovers, we found her in the ditch and rinsed/pushed off some of the mud from her back so she could move easier.  However, she did quite well crossing the road and getting into that muddy ditch. She had quite a powerful lunge and snap on her! OUCH!

Right along with the animal antics at home, we had a duck parade at school last week.  It seems that a mother duck nests each spring in the courtyard at my school.  The staff outfit the courtyard with a pond and all the corn the duck and her brood can eat.  However, after some time, the ducklings must be allowed out of the courtyard to find food on their own if they are to survive. Sure enough, the mama duck led her ducklings out of the courtyard, through the school hall and outside to find a new home. There was a complication as the runt of the brood was hiding behind the door and was separated from his 11 brothers and sisters, as well as mama.  The trusty custodian had to bring him out by hand. You can hear him the loudest and finally see him catch up to the others once released by the custodian. In fact, he is in such a hurry to catch up, he passes them up speedy quick. I love how the kids, especially my kiddo, gets a kick out of watching the ducks. Their giggles make it even more delightful.

River Child

Gracie performed the River Child with her fellow classmates, as well as 3rd & 5th graders.  They were amazing. Check out a snippet from their performance:

Tulpen Time

What a time we had in Holland, Michigan with our sweet friends, Kelly and Tom (the poser).  You were on a mission, Grace, to capture the essence of the tulip from every angle. It made me smile and I would venture a guess that you might score a camera for your birthday for your creative picture taking pleasure. =) Here are a few shots from the day.

Grace Speaks

Grace speaks:  Today I am thankful for my mother, who provides a home for me.  I am thankful for a roof over my head and I'm thankful for God, who created this world and cares for me.

Today we are visiting with good friends - fremly (friends who love like family) really- Uncle John, Aunt Kristin, UB, & Nick, Ben, Natalie. To Uncle Julio's we go with birthday cake in hand. Happy Birthday, in advance, to our dear UB.  It is a good day to celebrate. If only we had a sunny spring day with NO snow.

Gifting

Photo by Valerie Wicks Photography
 

One of the greatest gifts we can bequeath our children is a passion for reading~

I'm All Ears

“Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”  ― Catherine M. Wallace

And a Child Shall Lead Them

Months later and here we are busy as ever preparing for the most wonderful time of the year. The Gracie girl has one of the leads in the play at the CUMC, Hotel Bethlehem. As a stable girl at the Hotel Bethlehem, Grace sings about miracles and encourages Joseph to "never forget there is hope." She invites the hotel owner and the Samaritan visitor to offer the Christ child their heart and love as gifts to welcome the Savior. I am thrilled that Grace has an opportunity to shine and share the love of Jesus with others through this children's play. I'm so proud of her and praying for God to use her little...her big voice to point the way from the manger to the cross.

No One Should Go Hungry

This has been a week of helping. The Great Chicago Food Depository put out a call for help to harvest a field of squash donated by a Morengo farmer.  This is a cause near and dear to our hearts so we volunteered. About 30 people picked over 33,000 pounds of squash in about 4 hours. This provided over 100,000 servings of delicious and healthy squash to Chicagoland families. What is not to love about THAT? Here are a few pics from our Grace FULL Day:


happy helper

baby squash
 

Grace is learning to use the clippers

Soaking

I recently read that we have only 18 summers with our kids. That's not very many summers when you really think about it. Not many at all. While we LOVE the summer theater camp, it really eats up a big bunch of our summer days. Sadly, the school calendar says summer is over and we have not yet been to the beach!! Got to get there! What in the world is school doing when we still have so much summer to live out? Now we must squeeze in summer where we can - while we can. In the three short weeks since school began, we have visited three new beaches including our first Michigan beach adventure. There's not much time. We have to soak up these summer days!

Learning Cursive

Gracie hopped in the car today all excited! "Guess what! We started learning cursive today in school! Finally!" Wow - she is really thrilled to do this "grown up" writing. In fact, we stopped in to get my time sheet signed by my boss and all it took was one question about how school was going. Gracie laid it all out how she is learning to write all cursive swirly. My boss, the Special Ed Coordinator, was thrilled right along with her.

Interestingly, a colleague posted an article from Psychology Today about the benefits of writing in cursive including the integration of sensation, motor movement and thinking. In fact, one of those benefits are likened to the those of learning to play a musical instrument. That is music to my ears! Studies show kids "wrote more words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versus with a keyboard." Fact is, cursive writing makes kids smarter and I like the sound of that. See the link here for the full blown article.