Setting Up the Pins

Sweet new music from Sara Groves...

Thanksgiving Poetry

Here are the two poems we've been working on for Thanksgiving. The first one Ben has memorized; the second is Cameron's.

01 - We Thank Thee

For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

For blue of stream and blue of sky;
For pleasant shade of branches high;
For fragrant air and cooling breeze;
For beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

~~Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

(from) The Supper of Thanksgiving

For the bread and for the wine,
For the pledge that seals Him mine,
For the words of love divine,
We give Thee thanks, O Lord.

For the body and the blood,
For the more than angel's food,
For the boundless grace of God,
We give Thee thanks, O Lord.

For the chalice whence we sip
Moisture for the parched lip,
For the board of fellowship,
We give Thee thanks, O Lord.

For the feast of love and peace
Bidding all our sorrows cease,
Earnest of the kingdom's bliss,
We give Thee thanks, O Lord.

For the paschal lamb here given,
For the loaf without the leaven,
For the manna dropt from heaven,
We give Thee thanks, O Lord.

Only bread and only wine,
Yet to faith the solemn sign
Of the heavenly and divine!
We give Thee thanks, O Lord.

~~Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

Overheard

The "Maybe You Shouldn't Say Exactly What's On Your Mind Every Time" Edition

Scene: Mom and boys praying before breakfast the morning after Cameron threw up in the middle of the night.

Andrew: Dear God, please let Cameron stay safely away from us today. Amen.



Scene: Ben and Cameron drawing in the schoolroom one afternoon.

Mom: Wow! What beautiful drawings!

Cameron: Mom, I really think I'm exceptional at drawing.

The Biltmore House from a Home Educator's Perspective

Yesterday David and I packed up the kids and took them out to Asheville for the day. As annual passholders of the Biltmore House, we've visited several times, but we've never been there when it's decorated for Christmas.

And OH MY, do they ever decorate for Christmas. Trees everywhere. The tree in the banquet hall made me feel like Clara in the Nutcracker (remember? The tree grows and grows to show that Clara is the size of the toys?). It's over thirty feet tall and who knows how big around.

Not to mention the GIANT gingerbread house that covered the table in the kitchen...it was a replica of the Biltmore House and apparently took 18 people and 150 man hours to complete.

Wouldn't a photo or two be nice here? Unfortunately, they do not allow indoor pictures. So you'll just have to go see for yourself.

But this post is not for me to ramble on about the Christmas decorations. It's for me to pass along some encouragement that I received from my children yesterday as we walked the halls at Biltmore.

As we entered the front doors, I teased the boys' minds a bit and said the following: "Boys, while you're walking around in the house, be sure to keep an eye out for paintings by a man named John Singer Sargent. He's our artist for our new term, and he knew the Vanderbilts."

By the time we were heading into our fourth room on the tour, the boys (mostly Andrew) had spotted several paintings by Sargent and had made the leap that he was a portrait painter. They saw Frederick Law Olmsted (right), Richard Morris Hunt, and members of the Vanderbilt family.

As we entered the library -- one of my favorite rooms -- on the first floor and looked up at the mural on the ceiling, Cameron asked me, "Did John Singer Sargent paint that?". I replied that Mr. Vanderbilt had found the mural in Venice and wanted it in his home. Cameron already has a concept for Venice in his mind, because we've explored the city online as we've studied Marco Polo this year.

On we went up to the upper floors, where the bedrooms are for Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt as well as those for their honored guests. Each suite has a name: "The Louis XV room," "The North Tower Room," and so on. We entered "The Madonna Room," and the boys knew who "Madonna" was -- no, not who you're thinking, twisted person -- because of our study of Raphael Sanzio. They had seen many of the paintings already, including the one to the left, which is mostly famous due to those cute little cherubs down there at the bottom. But Andrew remembered from our study that the clouds behind the Madonna are actually more cherubic faces (if you enlarge the image, you'll see them). What encouragement to my heart to hear him pipe up with that little nugget of information!

There's also an entire "Raphael Room," which I had forgotten. The boys perked up when seeing familiar images on the walls. (The art found here are etchings based off of Raphael's paintings, not originals.)

We trekked outside and let the kids run across the huge lawn, adorned for the season with a giant evergreen covered in white lights. As we headed back towards our parking spot, we turned the corner at the entrance to the drive. We stopped in our tracks and leaned on the stone wall to watch a squirrel munch an acorn. Cameron looked down at his hand resting on the wall and exclaimed, "MOM! LICHEN!". Our study of Botany this year has exposed him to that particular area of knowledge.

We drove to the other side of the property and visited the farm, where Cameron held a baby chick MORE THAN ONCE (this is the child who used to scream at earthworms and bugs). We toured the winery and the boys excitedly explored "a real wine cellar," just like the one we recently read about in George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.

On and on our visit went, and at every turn it seemed the Lord was showing me how the kids are absorbing so much of what I'm teaching them. Perhaps the most encouraging thing was that I didn't have to drag it out of them...they expressed their learning out of pure delight in what they'd learned.

"Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests." - Charlotte Mason

A Christmas Carol Review (not by me)

My new favorite movie reviewer is Thomas McKenzie, an Anglican priest from Nashville. He posts his reviews over at The Rabbit Room.

"Home Schooling"

CHARLOTTE - More parents who are upset over teacher cuts, and other issues with public schools, are turning to "home schooling". But, some people questions whether home schooled kids get the same experience and social skills.

The upside: the news piece was positive! How refreshing! We know some of those rope-skipping girls!

The downside: it seems the writer of the piece above could have used some "home schooling" to teach him to avoid "excessive quotation marks," and extra commas, so that it doesn't appear that "home schooling" is something that happens, only in "fairy land," conducted by "wizards," and "elves."

For more comical grammar mistakes, look here.

What to Expect...

In my opinion, the picture above is one of the up sides of the swine flu pandemic.

What to Expect When You Have the Swine Flu:
a Brief but Perhaps Upsetting Summary
(King James Version)

Day One (Tuesday): In the beginning, there was an infected church building or member, and lo, many legions of church members were filled with woe. For behold, their limbs ached abundantly and the fever burned with the fire of a thousand suns. The thermometers ventured forth towards one hundred three as the quivering quaked beneath their blankets. Sleep was not had -- nay, the night loomed on full of doom and shivering.

Day Two (Wednesday): As the infected multitude whined and moaned upon their beds -- yea, even their facebook status updates -- there arose a great divide amongst the brethren. And the non-infected said unto the infected, "Thus far you shalt venture, and no further. If thou shalt choose to venture closer unto me, I shall smite thee with Purell." Wives and husbands were torn asunder. Husbands kept close unto their vocations and far from their contaminated progeny. Wives constrained children from their ill forefathers for fear. Friends absconded -- yea! They vamoosed and skedaddled. Behold, the misery and trembling were great, and still the temperatures remained enkindled.

Day Three (Thursday): Thursday dawned full of promise, but nay, the hopes, they were dashed like weak piglets upon the rocks of despair. For when the infected assembly attempted any task of import -- bathing, washing garments, feeding offspring, or even cleaning drinking vessels -- lo, the fever would afflict them greatly and drive them back unto their pallets. The ibuprofen, it flowed like water as the younger generations fell prey unto the vile sickness. And there arose a great whining from the homes and laptops of the afflicted.

Day Four (Friday): On Friday, the multitudinous host began coughing. They coughed with such a grievous cough that they speculated that a great evil C-clamp had been affixed to their windpipes as they slept. Their abdominal muscles were strained -- a blessing in disguise, for they had not ventured to exercise in a great many days. Still the fiery fevers lingered, though not as blistering as before.

Day Five (Saturday): The great day of candy consumption had arrived but lo, the coughing assembly did not partake. The appetites, they had forsaken the people. The first few survivors attempted an escape from the lowly imprisonment of their homes, but the suffering was great for them. The fevers returned with volcanic fury and for some, the vomitous anger of the swine sickness was felt. Again, discouragement and despair settled across the land.


(...and after that, finally, we started getting better.)

Hi!

Just popping in here to say hello! We are all mostly recovered. All that remains is a beastly cough for most of us. The kids all sound like smokers and we've been pushing the mucinex.

Never a dull moment...in about an hour we'll be leaving for the airport to pick up my mom, who will be staying with us this week.

But I do want to get back to blogging more this week! I haven't updated you on how the concert was....I plan to give you a rundown on "What To Expect When You Have the Swine Flu"...and I've been rolling around some plans for a couple series.

From the House of Pig

We're still here! As it stands right now, we have all been infected except for David. Maddie is running a fever now and started throwing up in the middle of the night. We're both pretty exhausted today. I am battling hard to avoid feeling overwhelmed. We have a busy two months ahead...the usual holidays, as well as school (which, of course, we're now drifting behind in), and two out of town weddings in December. In other news, the laptop is sort of better, but the enter key doesn't work... which explains my one paragraph post! Thanks for your prayers and well wishes.