From Silence to Peace

"The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace."--Mother Teresa

Summer Birthday

Happy 8th Birthday!!

Growing up, the birthdays in my family were from late August-early November.  So, I had no experience really planning and celebrating summer birthdays until my miracle baby was born.  There happen to be some differences between celebrating a summer birthday and celebrating fall birthdays.

Having a summer birthday means no one looks at you strange when you take ice cream sandwiches for your school birthday treat.  :)  Although I think that ice cream is good ANY time of year, there are those people out there who think it is too cold for ice cream at certain times of year.  Not at the end of the school year.   Remembering to bring treats may be difficult for summer birthdays (especially when the parent has a TBI)  They are not in school on their birth date, so it requires some other kind of reminder to make sure a birthday celebration happens before the end of the year.  I think every school party includes the game "Heads Up, 7 Up."  It must be the favorite of every grade school aged kiddo.

Summer birthdays also have some other great opportunities.  Our son chose to spend his birthday at the swimming pool.  He has had birthday celebrations in the past the have included water activities and a lot of playing outside and parties at the park.  It is much more difficult to plan those things during other times of year.  Summer birthdays can also involve fun trips to places away from home--Chuck E Cheese (closest one is 3 1/2 hours away), Omaha Zoo, etc. This year our son will get to celebrate at Six Flags over Texas.  I guess you can take a trip on  a weekend at other times of the year and do something special, but it probably won't be an outside activity or amusement park.  :)

Birthdays are great any time of year!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Look at the Great Monster Truck Tracks on the Cake!!!

Not everyone gets to celebrate their birthday at Campmeeting!!

Astronomy

Transit of Venus--taken by Eric through the sun safe glasses

Astronomy has seemed to be the theme of our summer this week.  We started by attending a program at the Norton Library called Astronomy for Everyone: Size and Scale of the Universe.    It was a very informative program and Eric would have loved it.  It was chock full of information.  Even I learned that there are 88 named constellations--I only learned that because there are 88 keys on a piano and he made that comparison.  :) Who out there already knew that?  With my TBI, I have difficulty following along closely with any informative lecture.  I think that must be related to the fact that I can't read nonfiction without getting a headache.  With lectures, I've found my coping mechanism is just to zone out.  I did enjoy watching the videos and the slides.  (Is that what you call them when they come from a computer??)  The kiddos even sat through the lecture and learned something.  They were looking forward to getting to see sunspots through the telescope.  They were quite disappointed when that did not happen and their current review of the program is not positive.  He did send us home with a daily observation log that I hope we get to use sometime soon.

Yesterday, we got to have an astronomical experience that gets a much more positive review from them.  We got to see the Transit of Venus.  :)  This will not happen again until 2117, so this was our once in a lifetime experience.  Thank you to the Sternberg Museum for making this possible.  http://sternberg.fhsu.edu/  The kiddos first got to go into an inflatable planetarium set up in the lobby and see what they would be looking at later.  I don't know if a wheelchair would have made it safely into the planetarium, but I was afraid to try.  I could just see myself knocking the whole thing down.  :)  Later in the day, we all got the opportunity to view the actual transit of Venus through a telescope and through sun safe glasses.  We couldn't actually see the Transit of Venus without some sort of magnification--so we were glad they had telescopes set up for us.  And, I was thankful that they were able to adjust the telescope so I could use it from my wheelchair.  Thank you Sternberg Museum.  The cool thing was getting to keep our sun safe glasses so we can use them for the next Solar Eclipse.  We even got to see some sun spots this time.

All this astronomy has gotten me thinking about He who created it.  Thank you God for such a creative world and allowing us to experience Your wonders.  It made me think of a talk I had heard from Louie Giglio.  Check out the following video and look him up on YouTube to find even more videos.  Thank you God for this amazing universe.  

What astronomical experiences have you had?  Did you get to see the Transit of Venus?  How do you feel when you look at the Heavens?  How do you feel when you learn more about the Universe?

Change Yourself

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” -Leo Tolstoy

Our Heroes

Don't Stifle the Creative Spirit

I had forgotten just how creative my children could be.  They are each given a chore or two to do each day before they can have any screen time.  Although they've chosen to go without screen time for most of the week, they have been "working" today.  They chose to work together and there has been an awful lot of giggling coming from their rooms.  They have been inventing games to make cleaning more fun.  Sure wish I could learn some of those games.  :)

There have also been some other creative activities taking place.  Every few minutes this afternoon our daughter ran to record a new verse of her song.  She was inspired suddenly this afternoon and every little bit she was inspired even more.  The day ended with a complete song, recorded on a cell phone.  When she played it for her dad this afternoon, even I knew most of the song.  We have a song writer on our hands.

May I never stifle this creativity  I know part of the inspiration was cleaning their rooms and finding precious treasures that had been missing for weeks/months (like a microphone).  I've always said, if something is lost, spend some time cleaning and you'll be amazed what you can find.  ;)  May I never let cleanliness and order take priority over creativity.  How do you balance order and creativity?  How do you make sure kids have the freedom to express themselves and maintain a sense of family responsibility?  How do I make sure the kiddos have a fun summer and the ability to express their creativity while not turning the house into a junk yard?   Maybe, they just have too much STUFF and not enough "blank space" to really encourage creativity.  Maybe our garage sale this weekend will help them find more "blank space." 

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Memorial Day