God's Artwork

If you read my stampin' blog, you know that I was in Chattanooga, TN last Saturday. The drive home down I-75 was SO GORGEOUS! There were many times I wished we could have pulled over so I could take pictures. On our drive to church on Sunday I was in the same predicament. The Autumn colors are so beautiful right now and I wished I had had my camera. So I told myself I needed to keep my camera in the van from now on. This week has been pretty busy, as usual, but I wrote on my schedule that we were going to the park today to take pictures before all the leaves are gone. I was a bit worried yesterday when I woke up to rain. It rained all day yesterday and was still raining when I went to bed last night. I lamented to the Lord before falling asleep and basically whined to Him and said, "Lo-o-ord, You knew I was planning to go to the park to take pictures tomorrow. And You knew Wednesday was the only day I could do it. Why did You have to make it rain today of all days? What if the rain washes all the leaves off and I'm too late?" Well, I should know by now that I can trust Him with little things like wanting to enjoy His wonderful creation. I awoke this morning to sunshine and guess what...the leaves are still on the trees. If anything, they're more beautiful today than they were on Saturday. I decided God must've wanted to give them a bath before being photographed. He always thinks of those details, doesn't He?

Abbi had an orthodontic appointment this morning and I was sure to take my camera with me. We made several stops on the way home...some were planned, others were little detours so I could take pictures. The first photo was one of those...it was in a grocery store parking lot, but it's so pretty! I think the second one was in the same parking lot. I love the trees that have so many different shades in them. Green, yellow, orange, red...beautiful!

This gorgeous tree was in the post office parking lot. Now do you see why I'm keeping my camera with me everywhere I go?

The red trees above were in the gas station parking lot. I just sat and stared at them while my gas tank filled up.

On our way to the park, I saw these trees and slammed on my brakes. A little whip-lash never hurt anyone, right?

We were at a stop light when I took the above photo. I just rolled down my window and snapped my camera before the light turned green. I think these are my favorite Fall tree. They look like they're on fire. Especially when you drive down a street that's lined with them. Simply stunning!

Okay, now we're at the park. I took over 70 pictures today and told myself on the way home that I'd only share my favorites. You have no idea how hard it was to narrow them down. But, it's not like I'm forcing you to sit and look at my pictures. I hope you will, though. You won't be disappointed.

I love the reflection on the pond.

I was so enjoying taking pictures and admiring all the different colors when, just because He could, God caused this Crane to fly into my picture (above). What a fun surprise! Do you see it?

We also got to see many critters...chipmunks, turtles, lots of grasshoppers and bugs. But the most impressive was this snake we came upon. He slithered across the path while we all stood and watched. Pretty cool!

I took the above photo by looking straight up. Gorgeous!

Genesis 1:11 & 12 "Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good."

Good indeed!

Jacob's Story Starter

You must be wondering why I haven't yet posted Jacob's Story Starter. We had Justin & Tonya with us for a week and Jacob just now finished his final draft. Since it's been awhile, let me remind you how the story started...a father and child go fishing. The father catches a trout. As he's reeling it in, a fish hawk comes out of nowhere, grabs the trout and flies off taking the father's fishing rod with it. The next Saturday, the two head fishing again but this time they take their dog, Chipper, along.

Here's Jacob ending...

When we arrived at my dad’s favorite fishing spot, Chipper (unfortunately) saw a goose. He leaped into the water and tried to grab the goose, but the goose was too quick for him and flew away before Chipper was even in the water. When Chipper got out of the water, he shook it off and right onto us and our supplies. We both laughed, but also realized we would have to pick a new fishing spot since Chipper scared all of the fish away. So we got our supplies together again and set off for a new fishing spot. After about twenty minutes of walking, we found a good fishing spot. We got our fishing poles ready and threw our lines in the water. “I think I caught something,” I yelled. “Great! Reel it in,” Dad said. “I can’t, it’s stuck,” I shouted. Just then we heard a splash. When we looked to see what made the splash, we saw Chipper in the water. At first we didn’t know why he jumped in, but then we saw it. A remote controlled boat was skimming along the surface of the water. Chipper loved to chase anything that moved by itself and was small enough to fit in his mouth. He chased after the boat, but right when he was about to grab it in his mouth, the boat put on a burst of speed, leaving Chipper behind. This, of course, scared all the fish away. By now it was lunch time and we were starving, so I went to get the lunch we packed, but I couldn’t find it. So I asked Dad where he put the lunch. “It should be in bag,” Dad said. So I double checked. I still couldn’t find it. Then, for some reason, I looked where Chipper had been lying while we were fishing, and I saw what remained of our lunch. A half eaten sandwich, a torn bag of chips, and two broken cans of Sprite. “Dad, Chipper ate our lunch,” I exclaimed. “Well, I guess it’s time to go,” said dad, disappointed that we didn’t catch anything. We packed everything up and left. On the way to the car we passed some woods. We saw a rabbit, and so did Chipper. Before we could stop him, Chipper dashed into the woods. By the time we caught up to him, we had gone a long way. Then, to our horror, we realized that we were lost! “Well, at least I have a compass,” Dad said.

Yes, Jacob meant to leave us on a cliff-hanger. I hope you enjoyed the kids' stories!

Caleb's Story Starter

I know you've all been waiting for Caleb's Story Starter after reading Abbi's yesterday. Remember that all their stories started the same way...to refresh your memory, a father and child go fishing. The father catches a trout. As he's reeling it in, a fish hawk comes out of nowhere, grabs the trout and flies off taking the father's fishing rod with it. The next Saturday, the two head fishing again but this time they take their dog, Chipper, along...so the kids have to finish the story. What will happen this time?

And here is Caleb's take on the rest of the story...

Just then, Chipper saw a fish and jumped in after it. Of course he caught it. “Look’s like we’re going to catch a lot of fish today,” dad said. Just then a bear came out of the woods. He smelled fish. Chipper came to the rescue and fought off the bear. D ad said, “Let’s fish.” I said, “Okay.” A few minutes later I caught something! As Dad walked over, he said “Let me help you, Son.” Just then I pulled out a huge trout. Dad smiled as he said, “Well, I guess you don’t need my help anymore.” Just then Chipper saw a sea turtle. He got ready to pounce. When the turtle got close, Chipper turned, jumped in and caught it. Just then another dog came up and tried to grab the turtle and did. Chipper and the other dog played tug-of-war with the turtle for a few seconds. Then they both dropped it and it landed back in the water unhurt. “I don’t think we are going to catch any more fish. Let’s go home,” Dad suggested. I agreed. “Where’s Chipper?” I asked. “Let’s go look for him.” Just then we heard a splash. We turned around and saw Chipper in the water with a fish in his mouth. ”Come on, Chipper,” I said. Then we marched off to the van with two fish. They would make a delicious dinner that night.

I was very proud of Caleb for this story. Writing is one of those things that his APD tends to hinder. Caleb was the last one finished and didn't really complain until it was time for the final draft. He's still learning grammar, punctuation, and capitalization and really struggled with that part. I could tell that he was getting frustrated when we did the 'fixing.' I just kept telling him that it was okay and these are all things he's still learning. I'm currently reading "When the Brain Can't Hear" by Teri James Bellis and am learning so much about Caleb's brain and how it works. It's fascinating to me.

Anyway, next time I'll share Jacob's story with you. Don't miss it!

Abbi's Story Starter

Last week I assigned the kids their first Story Starters writing assignment. Story Starters is an AWESOME book filled with...well, story starters! The point is to "stoke the fires of your child's imagination and awaken the creative writer within!" From the back of the book - "A story starter suspends a student in the middle of a predicament. He is then faced with the question, 'What happens next?' This is his cue to expand and embellish the story however he wants. He learns to write freely, with imagination and zest - and with far more boldness than he may be accustomed to." Last year, most writing assignments I gave the kids were met with anxiety, tears, procrastination and the inevitable, 'I don't know what to write about.' It got to be so draining and frustrating for me that I quit with the writing and said to myself, "we'll work on it next year." Lucky for me, one of the keynote speakers at our homeschool conference in May was Andrew Pudewa...and several of his talks were about writing. He was just the inspiration I needed! My notes from the conference are here somewhere on this blog. Anyway, my goal was to assign one writing assignment per week this school year. So far, we've done one poem and one 'source text' story. Both went over better than I expected without one single tear from any of us. To learn more about source text writing see this post.

So, last week was our first experience with Story Starters. I decided to give the kids 2 weeks for this assigment. We started last Tuesday and I told them they had until Friday to turn in their rough drafts. And this week would be spent fixing errors, polishing, and writing/typing the final draft. On Wednesday night over dinner I asked the kids if they had started on their stories and when all eyes looked down at their plates, I knew the answer. So I announced that instead of turning their rough drafts in to me, they would hand them in to the principal...Daddy! Jon was very happy to take this on for me and I went about my week not thinking again about the stories that were due. Friday came, we had dinner and then Jon announced we would be reading the stories out loud. Oh, what fun! I was filled with excitement as I saw the kids scramble to get their notebooks. Much to my amazement, they had each completed a story! They each took turns reading their stories to us and I must confess, I got teary-eyed listening to them. They did it! They actually wrote stories without tears, without frustration, without anxiety and best of all, not one of them complained about having nothing to write about. I think Karen Andreola (author of Story Starters) is on to something.

So, would you like to read their stories? I thought you would! Let me start by summarizing the Story Starter. The one I chose was about a father and child who go fishing. The father catches a trout. As he's reeling it in, a fish hawk comes out of nowhere, grabs the trout and flies off taking the father's fishing rod with it. The next Saturday, the two head fishing again but this time they take their dog, Chipper, along...so the kids have to finish the story. What will happen this time?

Here's what Abbi came up with. Her final draft was typed, so I just copied and pasted her work.

Just then Chipper saw a trout and jumped in after it! Of course, the trout got away. “Dad, look at Chipper!” “Well it looks like we're not going to catch any fish today, son.” All of a sudden, Chipper ran off into the woods chasing a squirrel! “Chipper, come back!” I said. “Just let him be, son,” my dad was laughing now. “He’s enjoying this.” Just then Chipper came back, looking defeated. “Lookey there, Dad. First the trout got away, then the squirrel got away.” Then Chipper saw a flock of swans swimming a few feet away. He started swimming quietly, slowly, and sneakily toward them. But, as you can imagine, the swans saw Chipper coming and flew off. “What’s Chipper going to see next?” I said laughingly. “I don’t know, but it might be that beaver coming this way,” my dad said. Just as he was finishing this sentence, we heard a series of barks coming from the river. As I turned around, I saw Chipper coming out of the water with the beaver in his mouth. He looked so proud of himself that my dad and I had to laugh. “Well lookey there, it looks like Chipper finally caught something,” I said. Just then the beaver slapped Chipper in the face with his huge tail! Chipper was so startled he let go of the beaver. Then a sad, dejected look came on Chipper's face. Then Chipper gave a yelp of pain, for he had stepped on a thorn bush. “Chipper, what happened?” I cried as Chipper came limping over to were I was standing. With a sigh he plopped down on a bed of moss. I went over to him and checked his paws. I finally found a thorn and pulled it out. “There you go, boy.” I said. Chipper jumped up and plunged into the water. When I looked into the water, I saw a turtle having a nice time swimming alongside the shore. Chipper was cocking his head at it when I got there, wagging his tail too. I picked up the turtle, which was in its shell, and inspected it to make sure it wasn’t hurt, and set it back down in the water. Then I held Chipper's collar until we couldn’t see the turtle anymore, and then I let go of him. Then I walked back to were my dad was sitting, finally with his fishing pole out. Then I got out my fishing pole and put some bait on it. I had just put my line out when I felt a tug on the other end of the line! I started reeling my line in. But, to my dismay the fish was too small and we had to throw it back into the water. Then my dad pulled one in, but it was too small also. Then I heard Chipper bark. It sounded far off. When I went to find Chipper, my dad stayed behind to fish. When I found Chipper he was looking at some berries, still barking. I picked one and put it in my mouth. It was juicy and sweet. It tasted so good that I called my dad and asked him to bring the fish bucket. (We hadn’t caught any fish yet), when he came, we started filling the bucket with berries. We filled it to the brim, but it was only half full by the time we got home. Then we realized that Chipper wasn’t with us, so we went back to the berries, and by that time the bucket was empty so we refilled it calling Chipper all the while. We finally heard a bark coming from the river. So we tramped back to the river and found all our fishing supplies, with Chipper guarding it. So we got all our stuff together and stopped one last time at the berry bushes, and then the three of us and the fishing supplies, went home.

Wasn't that fabulous?! Tomorrow I'll share Caleb's story with you.