Category Archives: the children

Clothing, clothing, baby and mama’s

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I am so tired of late, of course, being in the first trimester of a new pregnancy. I’m finding it hard to do so many things, motivation to cook is fairly nil. I’m not having “morning sickness” but just feel anti-to-making-food. :( Well, that’s alway’s worse when the night before is a bad one, or, as in the case of yesterday, I didn’t get a nap and when on a ride with Frank on a couple of appoindments he had … the whole family went, of course. We stopped in a little store we’d seen before, that has nice clothing for babies, and up to size 6x in girls and 7 in boys, plus nice wooden toys and such kinds of stuff. Then we decided to go to the mall and see what kind of maternity clothing was there. Ah, the bad day afterwords is alright, for I know how painful the journey was and the worstmentless of it, or doing it again.

Yes, eBay is the place for shopping for maternity clothing!

I have been going through my stuff, and having a hard time with most of it, memories, but I will not wear most of it again. I only wear dresses now, and hate wearing “shorts” or “pants”. (plus, my stance on modesty keeps me happily in dresses!) I do wear tights or leggings under dresses, that’s just not the same as “pants” or “shorts”. So then, I have a nice black jumper from 1995/96 Motherhood Maternity, it needs dry cleaned. Then I need to find my blouse I usually wear with it, but probably need a new one. Anyhow, that was one of my farorite things to wear in the past pregnancies, and I find now, looking at it, that it’s rather short ;) My tastes have changed remarkably. Anyhow, it’ll work alright, as it is below the knees.

Another favorite is a dark blue dress with white polkadots. It’s a long dress, nice coller,swingy skirt, and it’ needs dry cleaned too. It was folded on a shelf, and I took it down and was looking at it, and found a funny spot of white on it and there next to it was a worm (the white must be a webby thing that it hached out of). Uh Oh. It was probably about to start eating clothing. Yikes! Good thing I was prompted internally to look at doing something with my maternity clothing.

So that leaves me with shirts and weird stuff.

I have three things coming to me that will be great to wear out and to church. eBay, another “of course”. Very good deals, all of them.

I’m watching another auction right now, and it has 4 dresses in it, and oh I’m hoping to get it. They’ll be the things I wear at home or some of them also out.

I’ll be seeing about putting some of my stuff I don’t want up on auction soon. Plus I have a load a particular brand of Chr. Romance books that I’ll sell in one or two huge lots.

What I make in those things is funding for other eBay purchases.

All things listing on eBay are more difficult for me now that we don’t have a digital camera again (the one is out for repair, hopefully warranty in full effect and coverage!) So that’s why I’ve not been listing things since the first few I did, as the camera has been unreliable when it was here, and now is gone. I may gather a great amount and take the fewest pictures I can muster with my film camera … a thing I don’t want to do.

I find it interesting that I was starting to sell baby clothing, and considering how much of it to sell … when the camera was then oblesy not working right, and then one buyer left a nasty feedback without contacting me … and my heart wasn’t in it anymore … then just some weeks later, I find that selling my good baby clothing isn’t the best thing to be doing ;)

I’d been wondering for a couple of years if I should give away or sell my baby things … and was reticent to do anything about it at all until December finally. Hmmm.

This is mostly due to our belief of leaving our family size to God’s planning. We don’t “try” to have more children, nor “try not to” have more children. Considering that, we at this point have 3 children, and one on the way, in over 12 years of marriage. It’s wonderful that God is blessing us with another child, which I’m so thrilled with, as I love babies and “at least four” is what I’d considered all my life long as “being right for me”.

So all this coming together, baby clothing, feeling able to give it up finally, then finding I will need it afterall if all goes well. It’s just very interesting to consider.

Another thing, I had the crib set up as a daybed in our bedroom last year. We moved our bedroom furniture around over New Years, and the daybed has been apart, and I was going to set it up in the dining area. I hadn’t gotten to it yet. With the resent advent of our news, I now can save that set-up time and just put it up elsewhere as a full fledged crib instead, later. :)

Please understand any mis-spelling I’ve done in this post particularly. Sometimes I just don’t spell well, my fingers fly and my mind speaks the word, but my fingers spell it wrong. Pre-old-age-disease? Lack-of-mineral-or-vitamem? Not-enough-good-literature-reading-these-last-few-years? Ah, my new excuse — Pregnancy-brain? :lol:

I’m too tired right now to attempt spell checking, when my spelling don’t work so well with any spell-check I’ve got on my computer ;)

I’m in need of posting. I’ve done very little the last week. So here are my thoughts! It feels good to get them down on a page of something, whether paper or internet. I love blogging. :)

Movies for Family

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Elizabeth G. asked me about movie suggestions in the comments under Updates and Rambling Talk. So here goes: For Elizabeth G. and anyone else who may care about this!

In our home we have several Disney movies, mostly the “older” ones, Toy Story, The Little Mermaid, and the ones before that. I’ve been alright with it, but mostly do not consider them the BEST to do, since many of them are built on Classic Stories that are far superior to the Disney-ized versions.

That said, I love “Sleeping Beauty” of all the Disney versions of fairytales, it has a sweeping musical score and good triumphs over evil most definitely in a battle of evil vs truth.

Other than that, most of the Disney movies I really think are better suited to adults, really, who have the actual tales in their minds, and can understand them a bit better as Disney versions. I think children should be grounded in the truer versions before seeing adaptations on screen. FWIW

I love watching movies, but have always, since I can remember nearly, have loved to read. Reading filled my childhood and teen years, with little TV compared to most peers. This is something that I’ve failed at to some degree with my family so far, letting them see way too much movie-ism. But I’ve tried to be sure it was certain things only. In the past we had the Dish (satelite) and we watched alot of Babies being born, houses being built, houses being decorated, and food being prepared or talked about. Since September 2001 we’ve been without that, and so it’s these movies mostly, in this post, we’ve spent time with as a family. Russell is reading, but not super duper yet, not devouring, and I’ve not been diligent enough in reading aloud. I read aloud “The Velveteen Rabbit” a few months ago. I’d never read it, nor had it read to me. Oh, I got to the end and started bawling. My children looked at me, like “What’s wrong with YOU?!!!” and Russell asked, “Daddy, why is Mama crying?” \0/ Certain emotional issues are certainly not meant for THEM yet. I must do more reading. :) Joel Chandler Harris is some of my favorite stuff, and it’s kind of over their heads right now too. :( I do firmly believe that stories are grand for chlildren and adults alike, but that children NEED classic tales and fairy tales. True stuff, the Bible for one, is dry and exciting and firmly on level with any human to read and understand, with the grace of God. But if a child grows with it, it sinks in, the beauty of the drama, and fairytales properly approached add to the wonder.

Other than that, then there are classics that can be read, and films of them viewed:

National Velvet -rated G, 124 minutes 1944 Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor. It’s a classic that can be viewed as a family and discussed. Rights, wrongs, and what drives one and what should drive someone …

To Kill a Mockingbird – not rated, 2 hrs. 10 mins., 1962 Gregory Peck (Oscar winning performance) Not for the very young, but for maturing children with parental guidance, it’s a classic tale of a sleep southern town, Peck defending a black man accused of rape, and Boo Radley … it’s a sweet story, grippingly told, but not for children to watch alone.

Both of the above movies you may or may not want your boys to see at their ages, we have both on DVD, and you are welcome to borrow them and preview them, Elizabeth, if you’d like to.

Then there’s the classic “Quiet Man” John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, 1952, not rated.

I guess what I’m getting at with the movies so far is that fluffy childrens’ stuff is pure candy, and that’s a bad diet. So a good movie to chew on is more in order, IMO.

Then there is a movie that is different, it’s a western type, but really different … “The Rare Breed” is about an Englishwoman (Maureen O’Hara) who brings over a prized English Hereford bull, to America in 1880, he is sold to a wild Scotman, and [O'Hara] hires [James Stewart] to help her and her daughter transport the bull to the new owner. It’s an interesting tale of what one family did to change the fate of the Texas Longhorn. So it’s sort of dry, yet not, very educational, and worth a peek to take a leap into learning about the history of what happened, if one would like to in their home or homeschool.

Then lastly, there’s a sweeping epic with many lessons to learn in it. “Big Country” starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charleton Heston, and Burl Ives. 1958 2 hours, 47 minutes, not rated. It’s about a western ranch and water rights and a sort of feud over them with another ranch. The first rancher, his daughter brings an Easterner home, to marry him. That’s Gregory Peck. He is a different character than the rest, and branded eventually a fool and discarded … but the story is about being honest. And seeing what happens to old men in their folly of feudism. It’s a gripping story … hard, honest work is applauded in this movie. It’s a good tale for boys, IMO.

I like all the above movies particularly. They are for adults, and children with supervision.

Other things then, for children, we have some Pooh Bear stories on DVD, which I like too. And Beatrix Potter “Peter Rabbit” which are classic tales brought to animated life very real like her own drawings. Perhaps your boys are “too old” for this kind of stuff, but maybe not. This is stuff that I really like to watch myself, and if your boys every have read Peter Rabbit or Pooh Bear, they might really like to see these.

As I said before, all these movies we have on DVD and you are more than welcome to preview them.

There’s rather a derth of “decent films out there”. Oh, well one new one “Finding Nemo” by pixar studios, an arm of Disney, is actually sort of cute, and very pretty to see. We have that. The children enjoy it.

That’s a start. Let me know if this is the kind of thing you are looking for, or is there another angle you’d like? I am not recalling the exact ages of your boys Elizabeth, but know they are older than Russell, so … :)

Oh, some other reading that has good movie adaptions is Jane Austen. Sense and Sensability, Pride and Prejudice in particular. Good reading for the whole family, read it then see the movies together, yes, we have them. Emma, Persuasion, too. I admit to not have read them before these past months. I love the movies, I love the books so much more. These are written by a woman in the early 19th century, but that’s not stuff just for women. My husband likes S&S, and P&P, the last one the more, the movie that is. Our pastor likes S&S the movie and the book … for one. Really nice character portrayals in word, and in the acting.
:)

Little Flock in our yard

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Victoria called me to her room a bit ago, said there was a red-headed bird, like a woodpecker that she was looking at. I asked her if it was on a tree, and she said “No, it’s on the grass”.

So I went in there and lo and behold, it wasn’t a woodpecker … it was 25+ American Robins looking for worms in our front yard. This is the biggest batch of them that I have seen this year (so this isn’t particularly scientific data). I counted, definitely, 25 and there were more coming in when I stopped counting, not too many more.

So what this means in terms of Spring? We have rain forecasted for today through tomorrow, off and on. The radar is showing quite a large mass of rain heading NE, so whether it actually hits us or not … we are forecasted a high temp of 53 today, and tomorrow a high of 60 degrees F. :) No sun though, not much at the least.

Dear Victoria was happy to learn the real name of the bird, and didn’t bat an eye when I remarked that there were so many of them, not just one. It seems one bird, twenty-five birds, nah, same thing practically speaking :lol:

It’s still early in the day. Must be a morning thing, she DOES know what a Robin looks like, and has ID’d them fine in the past.

Well, if she feels remotely like I do, she’s not in top form … :(

Conversations of the young

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Overheard:

Asa was in Victoria’s room early this morning.

Victoria said “That’s zero. Asa it’s zero. Do you know what zero is?” pregnant pause, silence.

“It’s nothing” said Victoria, answering herself.

I imagine that whatever it was they were referring to, Asa must have been standing there with his right-hand thumb in his mouth, just watching. Victoria was being very know-it-all. Asa was polite listening, but didn’t care much for the delivery. :)

The players: Victoria, female, 5-years-old; Asa, male, 3-years-old.