Elise.....you will be so proud.

So, my dad is an artist. His career was a furniture designer. He's retired, and now he paints. He's always painted, but never had the time. Now he does, and my house is filled with his art--I love it. While I am creative with some things, I do not have this gene anywhere in my body. I cannot even draw stick figures well. So far, my children have been quite deprived of a humanities education--I avoid doing art or even teaching them about it. I skip the poetry reading in our curriculum and have not taught them one spec of anything about music. My youngest son loves to draw and color. I suspect he may have my dad's artistic talent. My oldest son loves music and regularly asks for guitar lessons and even sleeps with music playing in his room every night. I am a bad homeschooling mother for not cultivating these loves in my children, so things are going to change around here.

You are aware that I recently switched curriculum to My Father's World and thankfully we will be doing lots of artsy fartsy stuff (that I will actually do). As part of their art this coming year, I had to purchase some nicer art supplies for them. My dad was in town, so we went over to Art Mart in STL and got what we needed. My dad was in a state of complete bliss while we were in that store. It made me want to do a math problem.

Anyway.

Yesterday the boys wanted to paint because they knew the new supplies were there. Although I did not get out the new stuff, I did give in and allowed them to paint. They were so happy. Here's what they painted:

A Spidey costume always helps get the creative juices flowing.

So, now I can actually say that I'm excited about doing these subjects with my kiddos this fall. Are you ready for this? I even played classical music for Michael while he was painting.

So, what else is going on? I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do with the boys this summer. I will be struggling every day just holding myself back from starting with my new curriculum. But I really do need to get Cal reading just a little bit more, so I'll wait. I was thinking about doing an extreme weather unit study, but Michael has been having crazy nightmares about earthquakes and the house ripping apart, so I'm thinking that's a really bad idea. I'm considering doing Potato Chip Science because one of my friends is doing it and it looks fun and easy. I'm also considering a Grossology book of experiments. I have it on hold at the library and am waiting patiently for it to be available for me to check out. I think the boys would absolutely love making snot and blisters and fake poop. Why do I even say "think"? I KNOW they would.

I scored big today over at a friend's house. Just this morning, I was looking at this book on Amazon.

I almost added it to my cart and bought it, but I kind of ran out of time and needed to go, so I figured I'd do it later. I get to her house and she says she has two bins full of stuff she wants to give away. I'm welcome to go through it and take whatever I want. What do you think was RIGHT ON TOP?

I'm considering going through this book so that I can obtain a well educated mind. I really don't have one. Yes, I have several degrees, but I was not educated classically and I feel completely inadequate about it. I have not read hardly any of the classics--those book lists that are floating around that are like the "100 books everyone should have read" type things?--yeah, I've read like 6 of them. So, anyway--I'm considering. It will take me out of my comfort zone, but I think it will be good for me.

I once almost made my friend Elise pass out when I told her I had not read "Anne of Green Gables"--tragical, huh? Can you tell I'm reading it now?

My oldest son, Michael, was baptized on March 20th. He was ready. My husband actually baptized him, which was just unbelievable to watch. Thank goodness I was distracted by my youngest son waving at himself on the big screen. You can see in one picture that I have this "do that again and you will regret it" look on my face. Had I not been slightly distracted, I would have really made a mess of myself in front of the entire church. Here's the face.

I went to church before the rest of my family that day because I was running the lights for all three services. As I sat up in the booth listening to the sermon at the first service, Ian read one of the 52 Stories. These are stories that are told each week about someone in our church that has a neat story to tell. I had no idea what the story would be that day, but I'm sure my mouth stood agape as I listened to him tell the story for the first time. My eyes welled with tears knowing what was to come for my family at the next service--Michael's baptism. I cried every time I heard the story read that day. I'm going to copy her story here word for word. She gave me permission. I couldn't have said it better. Here we go.

"The day I gave birth to my son and I was able to hold his tiny little fingers, and count the ten perfect toes, and feel his tiny heart beat in his chest I was hit with two profound truths. The first, there was no way I was ready for what was in store for me. And secondly I realized God loves me. I am human and I am overcome with joy and happiness and love for this tiny little person who will undoubtedly hurt me, reject me, and ultimately leave me. But the joy at that moment, the love and the pull of my heart told me that if I being merely human felt this much, just imagine how God the Father feels when one of his children comes to him in baptism, committing for the rest of their days to accept the responsibility of being the heir to their Fathers world.

When after 15 years the tiny perfect child I gave birth to comes to me and tells me he feels he needs to be baptized, the first reaction I had was the same one I had when I found out I was going to be a mom in the first place. The anticipation of great joy, the future of growth, of new learning experiences to be had. All these emotions ran through my body, my heart leapt and I could feel my eyes tingling with the threat of tears. There was a two week period between the decision to be baptized and the actual baptism, in that time I asked him questions and we talked about the decision. I prayed and I asked him to as well. The morning he was baptized I was so elated. I felt like a new mom all over again, my son knows that Jesus is the Son of God and has accepted His authority, entering into a relationship with the Living God. My relationship with God is the most precious thing I could teach my son about, it's also the one thing I cant wrap up and give him or go out and buy for him and now he gets to have his very own relationship with God to grow and develop and learn through. There is nothing in this world that he could accomplish that would make me more proud to be his mom than the day he chose to enter into the family of God through baptism."

Oh, I just well up again reading it now. Amazing, isn't it? Not just the eloquence of this passage, but the reality of it, the truths that are embedded in it--for me, for my children, for anyone who will accept.