Missionary Visit

This is amazing to me.  I had been reading a few books about missionaries and others who share their story of persecution and survival as a Christian all over the world.  I was excited to find out a few weeks before that Don Richardson was planning on visiting our church and share his experience in New Guinea during the sermon time.

We attended the 8 o'clock service that day as we usually do every week.  All four of the older kids sat and listened intently through the whole service as Mr. Richardson is a very engaging story teller.  As we were ready to leave Dawn wanted to go past the book table where he had his books and DVD's.  She asked me for one of each!  We settled for two since I had one already on my Nook that she could read.  She stood asking questions and finding out more from Mr. Richardson as she had him sign the books and introduced herself.

The next week, for her extra reading time at school she brought his book "Eternity in Their Hearts" to have at her desk to read.  The week before as a birthday gift, she had used a gift card at JoAnn's and bought some clay to craft with.  As the week progressed, I made my way downstairs to see what she was up to.  There in a used shoe box she had constructed a jungle village with all kinds of details.  I wish it was easier to see all of the detail of her creation in this picture.  It is awesome!

Home Again

Home again after a dreamy few days by the bay in Wisconsin.  Yesterday was the first day home and we hit the ground running.  It was Thursday and Thursdays are the craziest days of the week!

Today is moving a little slower and I am excited to get to the cleaning up and organizing done so I can work on some of my afghan.  I spent a lot of time on vacation knitting and reading which I love both but don't have a lot of extra time to do while at home in the middle of the rest of our lives!  I want to get finished with this afghan because it is a really great pattern.  I am never bored because there are so many stitches and seven different colors.  There are 152 rows that you repeat three times and for me there are 2 down and 1 more round to go!  That means I am 2/3 of the way done.  I am excited too because as David says, you make some great things, are WE ever going to keep any of them, or are you going to give them ALL away!  This one is a big project that WE are going to keep!  Hopefully not too far down the road, I can post pictures and move on to the next great project!

A Little Guidance

Homework sometimes turns into a discussion on life at the Sloan house.  I love these times and I especially love them when I can observe from the outside looking in!  It is awesome to watch the kids ponder more than the questions on the page.

You never know where the discussion will end when the homework comes out!

Baby Morgan's Blanket

I meant to post this in July after the last post with the arrival of Baby Jonah.  Here it is October and I have been distracted by all kinds of life.  So, back to the blog, here is the blanket that I sent for Morgan a couple days after the last post in July.  The colors in this kit were so fun and I am excited to have a good bit left over to make another, or a totally different project.  I am a pro at flying geese after this!  There can never be enough quilts to put on the floor when a little one needs to move around a little bit!

BABIES, BABIES, BABIES!

It has been a summer of babies!  Well, actually it started back in late March when Cousin Jacey was born. Matthew is loving holding babies, playing with babies and seeing babies for the first time.  Just last week, Jonah was born and we were able to go to the hospital and see him.  

Yesterday David's cousin Rachael had her baby girl and we were able to show the kids the pictures on Facebook.  Matthew again was enamored by the sweet little baby Morgan who came out of Cousin Rachael's big belly.  He got to meet her last month when we went down south for a long over-due visit to some of David's family.

Here's to US!

The largest set of wine glasses we received for a wedding gift was a set of four.  It is true that we got THREE sets of four wine glasses, but none of them matched.  I remember doing a registry and thinking about my colors and all of the things I would need to set up housekeeping the summer before our wedding on August 9, 1992.  Yes, that is 20 years ago!  Hard to believe!

I wanted a black and white kitchen with red accents.  The truth is, I got one set of dishes from my registry and nothing else that matched.  It is also true that I have never had a black and white kitchen with red accents.  I don't even want one someday anymore.  So, you could say a lot has changed in 20 years.

One thing that has changed is the state of our stemware collection.  We currently have four wine glasses left out the three original sets, with none that match (we got a set of two about 5 years ago in a silent auction along with a hotel room and a Melting Pot gift card).  Imagine my surprise when I was in Hy Vee yesterday picking up some extras for the weekend and saw the Drugtown (Hy Vee Drugstore) liquidation going on.  If you don't mind shopping out of blue tubs, there was some great deals!

I bought some great new wine glasses (two MATCHING sets) for six bucks!  It is nice to replace some of the things that have become tired and out of date.  It is also fun to go shopping and pick out the things that match the life we have built over the last 20 years.  Sitting and enjoying a glass of wine with my best friend and love of my life is most definitely something that I do on a regular basis.  I can't think of a better way to spend six dollars!

School Supplies

It is that time of year again.  The time when the children start getting excited about finding out who their teachers are and anticipating the start of the next school year.  I think they need to just chill out and enjoy the rest of their summer, but there is always a little bit more excitement as we pass the fourth of July and summer's half way mark.

Instead of telling them that we would wait a couple weeks and take care of it like I normally do, I loaded the girls in the car and headed to Staples.  I had a coupon, a rewards certificate and of course 15% school supply pass in hand for the occasion.

EXHIBIT A: Here is the stash of goodies we were able to obtain!  I just have to say that school supplies have CERTAINLY changed since I was a child!  I know this will date me and make me sound like I am getting old but when you can pick from 50 different patterns of composition notebooks and about the same number of differently designed zippered pencil cases and still can't find one that is "perfect" for you, I have very little sympathy.  I tell my children every year that I got to pick from three different notebook and folder colors usually...RED, BLUE or GREEN.  That is all they had back then, and composition notebooks - BLACK, just BLACK!  Don't even get me started about ball point pens.  BLUE or BLACK and that was ALL (they made RED but you could only use red if you were the teacher)!

Which brings me to EXHIBIT B...the ball point pen pack! These are Bic crystal pens...the same ones we used to buy but were only available in the traditional colors, BLUE, BLACK and RED.  It was either Papermates or Bics in the 80's, the only two pen companies out there.  I picked out the pen pack for the children this evening because I wanted my own Bic pen in two different shades of green, two different shade of blue, purple, pink...and the list goes on!  The triplets each needed three pens apiece NOT black.  Well, I think this should take care of it!  Stacey took the three pink ones, Dawn took the three purple ones and Ryan, my sure and steady child picked classic blue.  The same classic blue that I got to take to school when I was his age!

These pens brought back a memory for me.  About my sophomore year in high school, Bic broke out of the mold and came out with GREEN ink in their crystal pens!  A friend of mine could get them in the town she lived in but they hadn't hit the stores in my community.  I gave her my money and she stocked up on green Bic pens for me.  After all that trouble, my teachers asked me to stop using my green pens because because blue or black were the only acceptable colors to use for homework.  (that was back when we used to have to write out our final copies of term papers because not everyone had computers or typewriters in their homes).  Boy have times changed!