Sweet Ending

My day started by walking in to the kitchen where I found David surrounded by a large puddle of apple juice with little balled up napkin "islands" floating where he had attempted to clean up the mess. His cup and the apple juice bottle were both empty. Before I could get it all cleaned up, he came running through the kitchen, slipped in the juice and fell on his bottom. Needless to say, it wasn't the best morning for either of us. But not to worry. It ended sweetly... with homemade ice cream (1 batch of peach and 1 of real vanilla bean).

Things I like

Colorforms

It's pretty common on mommy blogs for the bloggers to do reviews or share products which they recommend. I don't plan to turn this blog into that. But this particular set is something I bought with more hope than actual expectations, but have been happily surprised. We have had at least 2 different Colorforms sets of the variety I played with and remember - the sets which are of some well-known cartoon character and have character pieces and a background scene to stick them on. Around here those were played with very little and I got rid of them.
So, I wasn't sure how this Colorforms set would be received, but I was looking for quiet activities the little kids could do while the older kids worked on school or that the big kids could do while I was reading aloud. (We do lots of reading aloud and it is commonly recommended to let kids color or play with Legos. Well, I would certainly love to find those quiet Legos. Ours are so noisy and irritating when the kids are shuffling through the box looking for pieces. And because my kids seem to prefer colored pencils which are also kept in a box, those are noisy too when they are looking for a specific color.) Colorforms are quiet, they are not messy, they encourage creativity, my kids use them, and they have been good quality. What's not to like?

Human knowledge is limited

I've had these articles bookmarked to share for quite a while.

The first, "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin" is an article about exercise and weight loss. A quote from the article:

"In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless," says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher. Many recent studies have found that exercise isn't as important in helping people lose weight as you hear so regularly in gym advertisements or on shows like The Biggest Loser — or, for that matter, from magazines like this one.

The second is "Inadequate vitamin D levels common in US children". A quote from the article:

Parents can help their children get enough vitamin D by making sure they spend at least 15 to 20 minutes in the sun without sunscreen [emphasis mine].

I share these articles, because we often hear the professionals making bold declarations about what we should or should not do. But human knowledge is always growing and changing. Good advice last year might not be good advice this year. I value the opinions of doctors and scientists and I understand that these articles are not telling us to quit using sunscreen and exercising. But they are a reminder that true wisdom comes from God and human knowledge is limited.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom. Isaiah 40:28

Top 5 List

I feel absolutely uninspired about what to write about, but the longer I put it off, the more I feel like I need to say something grand. So, just to get back into the world of blogging, a list:

1. Sometimes getting away is worthwhile just for the welcome home.

2. After washing all the glass globes from the ceiling fans, I'm appreciating my mother's sage advice: "you don't have to dust recessed lighting".

3. Kids would rather do schoolwork than clean.

4. I'm about 95% sure Sam is going to be an engineer. While shopping the other day, he asked me if the conveyor belt carrying our groceries was a big circle. He then proceeded to tell me that there were wheels in there that turned and made it go around. I asked him who told him that and he said, "Just myself. I just can look at things and know how they work."

5. Even if you have 6 kids, you'll still miss the one that's gone.

Hope to be more regular in my blogging now that we're getting back to a more structured school schedule.

Just pictures

I finally have some pictures and a bit of time to blog, but don't actually have much to say. So just pictures of our day at the zoo will have to suffice. We went with some friends, so you'll see them in the pictures as well.

Not too many pictures actually in the zoo, since I find the pictures of animals that I take are never very good.

Rebekah watching the giraffes: Sam with his favorite animal - the "Toucan Sam":
The boys (waiting on the girls to come back from the bathroom... get used to it boys, you'll be doing that the rest of your lives).
On to the playground:

Finally off to Reedy River Falls in downtown Greenville:

To play in the "interactive" (oooh, so high-tech sounding) fountain:

Got my new zoo membership cards in the mail that I paid for while we were there and when the kids saw them they were already asking to go back. A very fun day.