My nap was shiny

The mind of a three year old! Sometimes Jenna says things that really don't make sense. How can a nap be shiny? Sometimes she asks good questions (to which I can give her an honest, sensible answer) and other times she asks random questions. For example, today she asked why her middle finger was taller than her thumb. My reply was that "God made your fingers that way". What would I do if I was an athiest? How do they answer questions from three year olds? "billions of years of evolution involving mutations in genetic code and natural selection resulted in the design of your hand". No - that wouldn't fly.

I'm a big fan of lifehack and found this list of 10 skills you need to succeed at almost anything to be a good post. Public speaking is the top of the list. While I'm a teacher, I know I'm terrible at public speaking. I get flustered so easily, even when talking with a few people. This is something I need to overcome. I'm a teacher for goodness sake!

I got the second Mistborn book from the library because I couldn't wait until I saw Jon again to borrow it :). Thinking through this book I realized why I like it so much. I enjoy stories in which the protagonist is a female. This is often lacking in fantasy literature. The Deed of Paksennarion is one of my favorite fantasy novels with a heroine. Also, there is a forbidden love romance (she is poor and he is rich). This is a relationship I like to read in novels or see in movies (like Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, and Underworld - a movie I watch often and is very different from Pride and Prejudice!)

56 on Quiddler today!

Grandada

Erik's Grandfather passed away on Sunday. He lived in Colorado Springs and was something of a renaissance man. He was the pastor of a small church for many years, a beekeeper, and he climbed mountains (well into his 70s!). Since he lived far away he had never met the girls and I had only met him a handful of times. Even so, Erik was close to him and will fly out tomorrow to go to the funeral. We will miss him!

Switching gears, I made this blueberry crisp and took a picture of it. Yum. Blueberries are in season and so delicious! We warmed it up with a big of ice cream - fantastic!

I stayed up until 4:30 am on Friday night and 3:30am again last night reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. He will be completing the last book of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and I'm very excited. This book was fun and enjoyable and (obviously) I could not put it down. I highly recommend Mistborn - it's magic system is unique and while not as complex with as many plot turns as a Martin book, it was well written.

Down to my prepregnancy weight! Yea!! Erik has a goal to lose 32 pounds now too. We've all got the fever!

I got 65 on Quiddler today and did not even make any extra point words - bummer :(.

Bountiful Harvest

Check out this massive harvest I got from my garden! Two cherry tomatos and a pepper. We could just skip going to the grocery store now and live off the land - I'm a gardener!!!

Sarah is 7 months old today - she's over the hill. I (of course) got a picture of her with the lamb and one of her outside on her swing. She loves her swing. She's really this happy all the time. I'm so blessed!

We went camping last weekend at Alum Creek State park and had an awesome time! There were nature programs for kids and I learned that a daddy long legs is actually not a spider. Could have fooled me! During camping I worked through several chapters of my Battlefield of the Mind study. It has encouraged me to abide in the Word. And God impressed on my heart to encourage our whole family in this. So I am going to try and have weekly memory verses for our family. Since Jenna has shown her memory ability with the Lord's prayer - I think she can memorize Bible verses too!

Books:
Well I'm about finished with the first Thomas Covenant book but I don't think I'll read the next two in the series. It's like reading a book narrated by Marvin.
Erik bought me New Spring which is the prequel to Wheel of Time. I'm excited to read this one! And I've also started on Mistborn, a book written by Brandon Sanderson - the author who will finish the last Wheel of Time book.
I read part of Michael Pollen's book "In Defense of Food" but couldn't finish it before the time expired - I had downloaded it as an audio book for my mp3 player.

Speaking of my mp3 player. I decided to go running last night. When I was in my 20s I weighed less than 110 lbs and used to run all the time. I was in decent shape (not great). Well Jon has inspired me to try and get back in shape. I ran last night and managed 1 1/2 miles even though I haven't run in years!! I'm also having fun tracking my eating habits on the daily plate. Here's my profile.

Hello Sunbeam

I had to capture this picture of Sarah reaching for the sunbeam. This just embodies all that is good and cute in the world. She is always trying to reach and grab for things and how sweet that she is trying to grab the sunbeam. She is definitely more of a mover and a shaker than Jenna.

Jon and Michelle got us two Ravenwood Castle cookbooks - yum! So I had to try this lemon rosemary cake from one of the recipes. It had 4 lemons zested and juiced as well as so much rosemary that my plant looks pitiful now. The flavors melded together nicely. In between layers of cake was a lemon curd that was tart indeed!

So I have a number of videos to share:

Jenna and Mommy saying the Lord's prayer. She knows it entirely but needs some encouragement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgjSzbYa9zc

Jon flipping an egg - this is completely awesome!! He does it with such expertise! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_D7TKyFdw

Two videos of the girls laughing. Jenna was trying to make Sarah laugh and I just had to capture the cuteness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29NRFSSa2A8 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb__kJh5ofg I love how Sarah looks at Jenna like she's crazy :)

Got 58 points on quiddler today but made the word "raisin" pretty cool!

Email? Where did it go?

My birthday was Saturday and it was a great day. Erik and Jenna baked me a cake. First they went to the store and Jenna picked out the cake for Mommy and they both baked it. When they came back Jenna said "we also went to buy a present for Mommy". I said "really?? Where did you go?" She didn't know. Finally I stumbled upon Circuit City and asked her if I would be getting an MP3 player. Yes - that was it! And I can download books on tape from the library - score!! By the way, the cake was very good!

In other news:

1. I am way old and way out of touch. This semester I'm teaching during the day. Day students are significantly different from night students. For one thing, they are all fresh out of high school. As an assignment, I have them email me a file telling me about themselves. Several of them did not have email accounts/addresses. WHAT??? They were even mentioning that email is outdated and nobody uses it anymore. While I am intrigued by text messaging, twitter, and the like, I did not realize that this generation was so "textually active" as to abandon email. Maybe I'm out of the loop. Apparently I'm old. Too bad - the business world still uses it.
2. Sarah puts her hands over her ears whenever she eats. It is so cute I had to post it.
3. Jenna's ballet is beyond cute. You must watch videos here and here.
4. I'm now reading Michael Pollen's book "In Defense of Food" as well as 10 other ones. Hopefully I'll finish them all before the library summer reading program finishes.
5. I got 71 on quiddler today and made the word Daring. I love the ING combination!