The Beautiful Life

Eyes to See

We bought the kids each a magnifying glass for nature study this year. It’s our first day and they have been playing with them for the last two hours and are currently on a bug hunt. Today we’ve seen: a fly, a mosquito, a jumping spider, a wolf spider, ants, a grasshopper, a beetle and an inchworm. It’s funny how that stuff is always there, but you don’t notice it because you aren’t looking…(well, except for the mosquitoes). Isn’t that how it is with God?

First Day of School

Well, after a five week break that involved lots of video watching and outdoor exploring while I re-painted several rooms in the house, we are back to school. It almost seems like a vacation for things to be so simple. I love it!

Audrey started second grade and is looking forward to school for the first time ever. Owen is in kindergarten and looks adorable sitting at his desk. Graham is in preschool and loves acting like a big kid.

Slowing down

Today was another one of those days. We just couldn’t get started doing anything. There were lists of things to check off, things to catch up on, school work to be done, it was cloudy and cold and I just couldn’t do it.

So instead we spent the morning hanging out in our pajamas, reading emails and looking at pretty things, making sandwiches, just taking time to hug and love on these sweet kids of mine.

After a humble, thrown-together lunch involving 2 carrots, some leftover pepperoni, cheese and sliced apples, we got to work.

But instead of starting at the top of the list and working our way down, I began with something fun. And messy. And colorful. There was paper everywhere and there were sticky fingers and big smiles. We didn’t rush, taking our time to sort and cut and paste. We didn’t clean up as we went along, or multi-task by listening to a story or reciting a verse. We were in the moment. And it was nice. Over an hour later, this is what we had:

(And we did eventually get to the not-so-fun stuff.)