My, How They Grow

Earlier I was looking at my pictures on facebook for a picture and I came across this one from the summer of 2009:

they were so little!

I had taken that picture of the kids with the mule boy outside the Erie Canal Museum downtown early on in the time that we lived in Syracuse. I took in on purpose because I wanted to see how much the kids would grow over the time that we lived in Syracuse and grow they did.

The picture below was taken just after we moved from Syracuse when Glenn had to be back in town for orientation or something:

It was cold and windy that day.

I laughed when I saw that I had had the kids do a silly picture each time so here are their silly pictures as well:

I've always been told "Don't blink, they grow so quickly." It seems like it was just yesterday that the girls had those pink keens that we'd bought when we thought we were moving to  the Caribbean (for more info on that read posts from the summer/ fall of 2008 - I've stood in awe, once again as I read over some of those posts at what God did back then) and those funny Crocs on Lydia we'd bought at Ollies when we lived in Rochester. That shirt that Abigail has on was a favorite of all 3 girls and was ragged long ago (like most clothes when Abigail gets done with them!) And my Caleb, he's almost as tall as the mule boy. I kind of figured he would be.  They do grow quickly. I want to seize every moment.

Five Minute Friday: Identity

It's Friday again. Time to write for 5 minutes :)

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Who am I?

That question of my identity has been answered many times over the years.

At first I was "Roger and Sandy's baby."

As I grew I was often known as "Mrs. Nelson's daughter" since my mom was a teacher.

Later, I was often known as "Russ Nelson's big sister." My brother was more athletic than me and was more well known.

Throughout school I was known as a quiet one. My friend Molly told me once that her family asked what we did when we got together, sit around and not talk?? Even in my senior yearbook I was labelled as the quiet one and pictured with a boy who would only whisper, not really speak aloud.

A blast from the past from my senior yearbook

Today I am often known as "Glenn's wife" or as "the mom of Caleb, Hannah, Lydia, & Abigail." I am the cook, teacher, laundry lady, and nurse (though I usually pass that off if possible) in our home. Many others who have followed my life know me as "that lady that moves a lot."

My favorite identity though is "child of the King of kings," "a forgiven one." This is the identity that I am most unworthy of and most thankful for!

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Beautifying Lowville

Today, as we were going on our walk around the block, we were kicking and picking dandelions and got the idea to try to use them to beautify Lowville because all of the street signs we walk past have holes in them.

Our first attempt - you can't see them all that well when tucked in the inside of the pole

Pole #2

It looks a little funny from the back!

 I tried to convince the girls that they should use dandelions as their flowers for their weddings so they came walking up to me singing, "Do do do-do, do do do-do."

Our trail looked a bit like Hansel and Gretel as flowers dropped out of the kids' hands.

This one was particularly fun because it had double holes :)

The man who lives by this stop sign asked if we'd keep fresh flowers in it all season for him :)

another bridesmaid shot

Caleb said that we should do this again next week to decorate for Mother's Day.

It's so much fun being a part of this family! Many of the cars slowed down as they passed us wondering what we were doing. (I can't help but wonder how many people see us out on a regular basis and wonder what silliness we are up to now.) As the dandelions look wilty later in the week we'll take them all down but, for now, many of the street signs around our block are yellow :)

Our 6 Mile Evening Adventure

 Tonight we decided to go for a walk at around 6pm. We weren't really hungry because we've eaten too much lately and we haven't gone on a walk in about 3 days so we decided to take a bit longer walk. We have gotten used to our 2 mile walks. Tonight Hannah was saying that when we lived in Syracuse if we'd told her that we were going on a 2 mile walk she wouldn't have thought that she would have made it but now 2 miles is nothing ;). In April, the first month that we lived in Lowville, we took a walk that was at least 2 miles on 14 different days, most of them around our block.

Today we decided to go around a different block that Glenn had mapped to be around 4 miles. At the beginning of the walk we walked up hill for about a mile and Lydia was practicing her entomology skills because many bugs had been hit by cars and were dead on the side of the road and she needed to check them out :)

A butterfly Lydia found

We walked and walked and finally saw a stop sign on our left. Was that East Rd? The picture doesn't give justice to how rough the road is. Googlemaps on my iphone said that it was the road that we were looking for so... we turned down it.

Are you sure this is the right road??

We wandered down the very rutted road (I wouldn't want to take our van down that road!!), picked up some cans, and saw some flowers. We were having fun and singing, "We are lost in the woods, we are lost in the woods," "We are going to starve, we are going to starve," and other verses from Jungle Jam and Friends. (I love those crazy creatures!!) When we came to the sharp curve to the left we knew that we were on the right road. (We knew that we were heading in the right direction and knew that, even if we had to walk cross lots across a pasture, we could get home.) Eventually we came to the paved part of the road and saw some houses again and walk past a farm that had some cows and sheep.

pretty flowers - looking forward to walking here again to see them in bloom!

We stopped by WalMart on the way home to cash in our cans and bottles and wash our hands. We got $1.10 - it would have been more if we had bags to carry them in. Note to self - always bring bags on our walks to pick up trash (there was LOTS of trash) and cans along the road. The trip from WalMart to home was fun because we were back in familiar territory (it's part of our normal walk) and we all had fun kicking dandelions and sending them flying.

Our 5th mile was the fastest at 9:25. Our 3rd mile was our slowest at 24:13. I wish we would have walked just .05 miles more so that we could have done exactly 6 miles. I am proud of the kids. They did great and didn't complain at all. I love hanging out with my family and I think that we are ready for a backpacking trip! Can't wait!

Our route. Note: don't turn onto East Rd from 26 in your vehicle unless you have really high clearance ;)

Five Minute Friday - Real

It's Friday again... time to write for 5 minutes and link up with The Gypsy Mama. Since it's Glenn's birthday I wanted to share about some special time recently with him :)

Glenn's "baby cone" from last week

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One thing that I am real(ly) thankful for is that for the last 3 weeks Glenn and I have been able to go on a date. Our kids were invited to a church about 15 minutes away for AWANA on Wednesday nights and we have taken the kids out for it. Normally, because I am such a people pleaser and because I know that there is always a need for extra help with any kind of kids ministry, I would stick around and offer to help out - listen to verses, help with games, clean up messes, etc. Instead Glenn and I have dropped off our kids and left, which  is hard for me, but our marriage is important.

The first week we drove around town, saw that there was nothing open and drove to the next town, Croghan, because there were more places that could possibly be open. We decided to check out Good Ol' Wishy's, an ice cream shop in town that we had heard of. Each week we have gotten cheaper. The first week we got a sundae to share, last week we got 2 baby cones (and there is nothing baby about their baby cones) and this past week, because we were so full from dinner, we just got one baby cone to share.

I am thankful for this time to reconnect with Glenn in the middle of the week.

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Fort Stanwix Homeschool Day

Before we left Syracuse there was an announcement on a couple of local homeschooling yahoo groups about a homeschool day at Fort Stanwix in Rome, NY. I mapped it and discovered it would have been about an hour from Syracuse (where we were living at the time) and about an hour from Lowville (where we would be living when the event happened) so I registered and pestered Glenn that I needed to have the van on the 25th.


We drove down for the event and ran into some homeschooling friends from Syracuse as well as a family that we have met since moving to Lowville. It was a fun day. At each area of the Fort there were stations set up for the kids to learn or do something related to what was going on at the Fort back around the time of the American Revolution. We got to trade our beaver pelts for supplies to last through the winter, built our own fort out of food to defend ourselves, practice using muskets, learn about  living at the fort and some of the chores that would have been required of us, see medical instruments and hear about medical practices, hear music from the time period and play with time period toys. We also got to try our hands are archeology because, until the mid 1970s when the fort was rebuilt, the place where the fort currently stands (which is where it stood back in the second half of the 1700s) was covered with buildings and parking lots. The only original thing in the whole fort is one fire place hearth that was uncovered. They will be having more archeological digs this summer that we'd like to go and check out.

I would highly recommend a visit to Fort Stanwix if you've never been. We are looking forward to taking Glenn down there one day this summer so we can explore some more!

Archeologists in training

Look what I found! (Uncle Doug would be proud!)

The girls made this fort out of graham crackers, pretzels and frosting (the cannon out of a tootsie roll and mini oreos can't be seen)

Musketry training

trying out the yoke in "Family Life"

tricorn hats

Lydia dressed up to go get water for the family

Fun at the parade ground

Model of Fort Stanwix

Cute kids after a fun day!

Old Forge & Game Night

The weekend after Easter we decided we needed we wanted to go exploring. We weren't sure how far we wanted to go but finally decided to go and check out Old Forge on Saturday because it was only about an hour away. Like most touristy towns in the Adirondacks, Old Forge is pretty dead off-season. One thing that we wanted to do while we were there was check out the Goodsell Museum. There is an exhibit there until October called "Medicine Up North" that we thought sounded interesting. The museum was in an old house that was donated to the historical society and was pretty fun to explore with interesting things from the north country. There was a woman there who gave us a lot of the history of the house and told us extra information about the different exhibits. The doll house that they have there is pretty fun to see was the girls' favorite thing. They change the decorations in the doll house for the season (there were lots of Easter decorations when we saw it) so if you make it to check out the museum be sure to check out the seasonal decorations. :)

While in Old Forge of course we had to go to the Old Forge Hardware, "The Adirondacks' Most General Store," which was fun to explore.

The kids posing with a big stuffed moose in Old Forge Hardware

A big moose outside the Life is Good store

On Saturday we also went on two walks around our block, one before and one after dinner. The earlier one we invited some friends from down the street to come on with us. We invited them to come on a walk with us again on Sunday afternoon and then, since they also just eat popcorn for supper on Sunday nights, invited them over for popcorn and games.

We had a great time playing Whoonu

The younger 3 girls had been "playing school" while the rest of us were eating lots of popcorn and playing Whoonu then, when we went to find out what some strange sounds were, we found them sliding down the stairs on a tarp - creative silliness.

sliding down the stairs

Our first full weekend home in Lowville was fun. I'm thankful for a chance to explore and fun with new friends.