By amy on January 20, 2025
Hi everyone! This is Ivy. Mom was short on time but I have lots of time so I may be doing more posts soon. We have been studying ww1 so mom asked one of the neighbors if we could dig some trenches on their dirt mound. They said yes and we set to work. The older kids (cousins included) did most of the digging while the younger ones anticipated the completion and ran around. While we weren’t digging we made props, I made gas masks for the little boys while Flora and Mom made some grenades. The others made some smoke bombs. The three boys got army uniforms for christmas so they wore those. The other kid scraped together costumes from our dress-up cloths boxes. We had black cats left over from New Years and used those as well as the smoke bombs.The cousins and some friends joined us and we all marched out to the dirt mound to make war.
Trench foot
Skye was in charge of the messenger dogs.
The rat hunters, Kalmar……
And Betsy!
The Yankees!
With gas masks
Man the machine guns!!
A French soldier
The Germans
With gas masks
Germans are cheaters!
A Christmas truce
Victory!
The casualties
Gas victim
Cutest sniper!
Posted in Family News |
By amy on November 30, 2024
Hello subscribers – if I have any left! I have not posted much in the last few years because the platform I used had some issues that made it extrememly time consuming to post. At our Thanksgiving family gathering a brother-in-law put some time in troubleshooting and we may have a fix, so I’m testing it out.
A brief summary of our month:
History unit on Inventors – Wright Flyers
Digging sweet potatoes from the garden.
Getting boxes ready for Operation Christmas Child (OCC).
Church packing party!
Lance lands a temp job with Samaritan’s Purse at the OCC processing center in Dallas. He’ll be gone for a month, working alongside his Grandfather.
Enjoying a build and grow workship with cousins!
‘Twin’ cousins celebrate their 14th birthday with a day of crafting and games.
Visiting the Museum of the American G.I. as a preview for our Winter semester on the World Wars.
Presenting Inventor reports at the “World’s Fair” – Wright brothers.
Demonstrating the Tesla Coil
Eden’s Fall concert.
Jones Thanksgiving gathering!!
Posted in Family News
By amy on January 5, 2023
Thursday morning a week ago, I was just finishing chore check when a child comes in the house crying in a way I don’t often hear. I rush to meet the child, expecting to see blood or something but it’s Iris holding her wrist, crying how it hurts! One look and I know it’s broken. I call out to Brian, and I guess the others hear something new in my voice as well – everyone comes crowding in to see what is going on. She tells us she fell off the monkey bars and hurt her arm. The next bit is a bit of a blur of stabilizing, grabbing pain meds, her body responding with a little bit of shock, each kid grabbing supplies as I give direction, Brian calling to figure out where to take her and gathering items for a trip to the ER!
Flora rode along with us to keep Iris company and help her while I drove. The meds had kicked in enough by this time so while she was still hurting, it was bearable.
Once at the ER we were shown a room fairly quickly. A Dr. examined the wrist and ordered x-rays. Here the technician explains what she is about to do to a somewhat worried patient. Fortunately, x-rays don’t hurt – except for the part where you have to hold your hand a certain way.
Sure enough, a broken radius.
A good local deadening and the Dr. set the bone with minimal pain for the brave patient. Nurse helped with wrapping and splinting.
Then I read aloud to Iris while she was in traction for about 30 minutes. The local pain block helped so much that she was fairly chipper as we left so we picked up some more tylenol, some lunch and a movie from the library before heading home. She was welcomed by her siblings as a hero and played happily the rest of the afternoon.
After waiting a week for the swelling to go down, we went to the bone Dr. and got her hard cast. Bless those cast companies that make dressings in different colors – what fun! Iris chose her favorite color. The nurse was super kind and encouraging, but also lay down the law – no trampoline for the next month!
We had to make a special stop on the way home to pick up a paint marker so siblings, cousins and friends could sign her cast. This had been highly anticipated all week.
Say hello to the new arm for the next month!
Posted in Family News
By amy on December 3, 2022
Garrison recently celebrated 2 birthdays on the same day! Let me explain.
This summer he saw his cousin follow Jesus through baptism and had a lot of questions. We had multiple conversations on sin and the choice to either reject or accept Jesus’ death as payment for that sin. During one of these conversations, I could tell he was under conviction of his sin but not sure how to proceed. I asked if he wanted to repent and ask Jesus for forgiveness and follow Him. Garrison said yes and I had the privilege to lead him in a prayer of faith. The change was immediate! He went from squirming discomfort to radiant joy! He went to tell his Dad and then the rest of his siblings.
We talked about baptism, and he thought it would be neat to wait until his cousin visited and be baptized then – so that put the date as the day after Thanksgiving! Then as we discussed his upcoming birthday (Dec 18) he thought it would be fun to celebrate that with his cousin as well, so we put both events on the same day!
Garrison wanted a lego party, so we borrowed a big tub of legos from a neighbor, spread them out on the floor and let them have at it!
Easiest party ever!
The Uncles had more fun than the kids I think 🙂 My two brothers would toss each other a random piece and challenge the other to work it in to their ship design.
That afternoon family and some friends gathered for the baptism.
We sang some Hymns, including Garrison’s “theme” song “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” and Garrison gave testimony and was then baptized by his father.
Garrison with his cousin – may these two be the friend that sticks closer than a brother, the iron that sharpens each other and spurs the other to love and good works!
We celebrated with birthday cake that symbolizes both the lego interest of a 6 year old boy and the start of a new life in Christ.
Garrison – you are my strong tower, a defender of the weak and fatherless. May you follow the Lord with all of your heart, for all of your life and may you courageously fight the kingdom of darkness as a warrior of God’s kingdom here on earth.
Posted in Family News
By amy on November 17, 2022
We just finished up the fall semester for our co-op! I was in charge of history class and we covered ancient Greece. For part of our class, we worked on drama presentations and were able to perform them for the parents on our celebration night.
Ivy coached the 6-9 year old class in several of Aesop’s fables. Click on the link if you want to watch a particular production.
The Dogs and the Hide
The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
The Lion, the Bear and the Fox
The Boy who Cried Wolf
The older class did a Greek drama of the myth “Pandora’s Box” from Drama notebook.
We made theater masks – a tradition started by the Greeks – to represent the emotion of each character.
Zeus tells Epimethius and Prometheus that fire is only for the gods.
Hope, the last to escape the box, gives comfort to the distraught Pandora.
The entire cast! Enjoy the production here.
Posted in Family News
