We finally had a free weekend so I decide we need to fill it up with stuff for Rebekah. She's wanting to ice skate so what better activity to do than go ice skating with a friend. To that end we drove down to Columbus and went skating.
Rebekah and Adelaide are such good friends.
So glad we live close enough that we can still get together every so often.
Such fun.
Oh, and they also skated too.
Rebekah taught Adelaide how to do some spinning.
After the skating Rebekah went to Adelaides and played for a while while Don and I got something to eat. Kind of a pre-Valentines / the Indy game is on and he needs a screen and food date. They ended up loosing but the food was good.
Rebekah decided we needed Minecraft monuments. She started with herself. Note the tribute to space with her Saturn shirt. Also, highlighted here we see a crown on her head and she is holding a trident. And lastly notice the black hair. Rebekah still has blond hair but apparently has a thing for black hair and to that end her monument has black hair. Also next to her on the left is a puppy with his own humongous bone.
Next she did me. I got to help. She asked my preference in pant and shoe color. She gave me an orange shirt with a chocolate bar on the front. I have brown hair with streaks of grey which were only kept at my insistence. I'm embracing the grey. She put a crown of flowers on my head and I'm holding a bone for my dog on the right in begging position.
Don was next. She did this basically on her own while I helped with the back side. Don is sporting a blue shirt (he is always wearing blue shirts) and white shoes - the same white shoes he always wears, which currently are incredibly worn out and yet he still refuses to use the new pair I got him for Christmas... but I digress. In one hand he has a cookie. The other hand he has a basket ball.
And finally we have grammy. Grammy's wearing a sweater with a bird on it. I think Rebekah did a fabulous job with the bird. (Again, I only helped fill in the back side.) She's also holding a puzzle piece in her hand.
Joseph took mom on a late birthday lunch. He was kind enough to send me a picture pre-meal.
I'm slightly frustrated with Rebekah's teacher. I'd be more frustrated but I've been a teacher and know how hard it is to keep up with everything, and doing so in a pandemic with kids quarantined and who knows when the next wave will hit and everything shuts down. So I'm only slightly frustrated. So when he didn't give Rebekah a spelling test like he said he would, and Rebekah, who struggles tremendously with spelling, was starting on the next week's 20 words, still trying to remember the old weeks 20 words I decided to take matters into my own hands and give her the test. I sent him a picture of said test and said he was welcome to take this as his test but if not I would appreciate him giving her the test as soon as possible. It worked: she took the test with him the next day. It's amazing what I've turned into as a mom.
Some of Rebekah's assignments:
And then we had the big snow storm. Rebekah's starting to get attached to some kids in the neighborhood. On our way to play with them I made her stop for this picture of how insane the snow was.
After she played the day away I went to get her and she showed me the forts they built. So glad for neighborhood kids.
And then, the day finally came when Rebekah was officially 57 inches tall which meant NO MORE CAR SEAT!
Rebekah has friends much shorter than she that ride without car seats. But I, being a rule abider, made her stay in the car seat until the doctor's recommended / legal height. When we went for her yearly checkup she was 3/4 an inch off and was mortified. I told her we would measure every month until she was there and:
Ironically I had Don check just in case, full knowing she was 57 inches. Then Don said he didn't think she was quite there yet. Rebekah was crushed. So I overruled him. Maybe it's because I'm shorter and am looking at it from a different perspective, but to me she's 57 inches on the dot.
And finally, while waiting for dad to be ready to go somewhere, Rebekah and I took the opportunity to do a little stairs photo shoot.
Considering February is almost half over I figure I should finish January's posts. So, January looked like this:
An adorable picture of a little girl and her daddy.
Doing laundry with Rebekah around. Some times we polo our laundry experience for family members:
We don't get art projects home a lot. The art teacher uploads them to a site who promises to make mugs, shirts, blankets, key chains, etc out of your kid's artwork. Kind of just want the art work. But here's one that made it home. She told me it was a giant candy machine on the International Space Station. If you look close you can princess Rebekah on the right. To the left are people are doing space walks. If you notice on the bottom left the machine takes credit cards, however on the bottom right you'll notice Rebekah brought some money. And there are stars on both sides of the bottom of the paper, and to top it off on the top right you'll see an alien space craft abducting a cow. Yep. That's my girl.
Speaking of my girl, we watched Encanto in January. Rebekah decided she needed to be part of the Encanto family. So on Minecraft she made a room for her and her twin sister Isabella. On the right you read "Isabella aka Flower Gail (girl)" and on the left you read "Rebekah aka Ice Queen & Talinted (talented) Kid." Nothing wrong with her self esteem.
Rebekah got play dough for Christmas. At some point we made fun creations. Since Rebekah is into Minecraft these days I decided to try and make a Mooshroom. It's part cow, part mushroom. Minecraft can be weird. But I think I nailed it.
I decided I needed some California rolls. Turns out I'm out of practice. Need to do this more often.
Two weeks of break with Rebekah almost drained what sanity I have left. To that end I decided to be somewhat proactive about her Spring break. My brother has 3 girls around Rebekah's age. And it may take all 3 to keep her entertained.
The glen sunrises are still captivating.
My mom's birthday was coming so I asked Rebekah to draw her some pictures with me. Rebekah suggested I draw a hummingbird and mom's dog Chester.
Rebekah's picture was much more meaningful. The top left flowers are her grandchildren, complete with names by the flowers, top right is a birthday bear that sings happy birthday which mom keeps in the room we stay. Every year when we visit Rebekah plays with it enough to make us wonder when the batteries will die, and yet they never do. Bottom left you have Darth Vader, which Rebekah still refers to as Dark Vader. Why is he in there? Good question. Then there are 5 dogs and one giant dog, the 5 representing each of her kids (notice the dog representing me is reading a book) and the big dog representing mom. I like how the Spencer dog is climbing on mom's head. All in all I was quite impressed with her thoughtful drawing.
Not sure why but I went back and showed Rebekah the blog posts I did on her birthdays. Her earlier birthdays I use to interview her, each year giving the same interview question so we could see how she changes. I stopped doing that somewhere before the move and so I told Rebekah I felt bad I didn't keep it up. She responded there's not time like the present. So I give you her birthday interview:
Rebekah's homemade pizza has to have character.
I finally talked Rebekah into finishing up on her room. We hung the photo light strings.
And put her glow in the dark space pictures up.
And last but not least, Rebekah decide we needed statue / monuments in Minecraft. That's Rebekah on the right. She likes black hair right now, so she gave herself black hair. And a crown. And a scepter. Oh, and a space shirt complete with Saturn and stars. Me? I'm on the left. I've got a chocolate bar t-shirt and I'm holding a bone for the dog standing up in a begging position. I kind of pressed the grey streak in my hair 'cause I'm pretty grey these days.
I'm pretty impressed with how much she's grown creatively on Minecraft. I am not one for screen time but her creations are becoming more symmetrical and more thoughtful. It's been like a giant art scratch pad.
And there's January. I think total she spent about 7 days of January in school. Some of that was quarantine but others the school did a hybrid schedule to cut back on the possibility of virus spread. And then there was the big snow storm that closed the schools for 3 days. So here's to February. And here's to the first month of 2022 and the possibilities of the rest of the year. Bring it on.
This year we are hoping to get Rebekah highly involved in something. To that end we are trying several things.
First, she expressed some interest in archery. Apparently C. S. Lewis is to thank for her portrayal of Queen Susan. It's a good thing Rebekah hasn't read The Last Battle. So while Queen Susan is still the ideal, we will try archery.
Her first arrow:
Of course I had to get a video:
When the session was done:
Her first target sheet. She did rather well. We discussed lessons but the place we called wanted to wait until after the month's competitions to sign up for lessons. As I write I realize the month is up and we should probably call back. Guess I should get on that.
Martial arts with daddy has been interesting. I believe Rebekah is somewhat apathetic about the whole thing. I think she likes her friends in there and she likes the ribbons / different belts. But as far as the whole experience I don't expect her to continue on for too much longer. I hope she proves me wrong.
This is her and Don's first belt test. They are practicing before the test begins.
Rebekah feels her daddy needs much more practice than she does.
Rebekah going through her stances in the test.
Don doing his test.
They also had to break a board with both foot and hand.
The succeeded and were raised to the yellow belt.
Ice Skating. Rebekah did quite well until the pandemic came and we had to quit. And then we moved. Pandemic is still here - doesn't look like it is going anywhere anytime soon - so we found a new teacher at a new place and got her back in it.
Rebekah started out slow but gradually got back into her comfort zone. The teacher seems great too. She's more about learning and enjoyment than competition. Works out perfect for the Bee.
She is still talking about soccer. We'll see if that still goes in the spring. Here's hoping by then she hasn't outgrown the cleats we bought her.
First book of the new year. I loved his A Gentleman in Moscow; I loved that I was familiar with and therefore could understand the literature references (both book and music) and also I have studied enough of the history of Russia that I could follow along with the conversation as well as understood what was going on while the story was being told. I had high hopes for The Lincoln Highway but it had non of those aspects. It's a good story with several converging story lines. Main character group (older brother / young brother) decide to head west and restart a life. Trouble ensues and they end up heading the wrong direction to resolve some conflicts and meeting several people along the way. His character development was so fantastic I was drawn to all the characters. Consuming story line.
Middle grade "magical realism" fiction - it's amazing what genres authors come up with. It's a fun story about a little girl found in the elephant sanctuary at a zoo after a tornado. She had no memories and no family claimed her. Book follows her life in the zoo as she discovers who she is. Oh and she can talk to the wind and commune with Nyah the elephant who saved her. I will not be reading this to the Bee on account of the tornado that started the story and the tornado that ends the story.
So this is WWII historical fiction, but also French Revolution and present day as well. And, much to my delight, the modern day portion was set in Marquette, Michigan: good old U.P.! Having read so much WWII, I appreciated the French Revolution getting thrown in there to give it another aspect. I suppose the story can be viewed as the story of a castle / vineyard, and therefore a family throughout periods of time. I think it's filed under Christian fiction although I didn't really see it as such. Enjoyable.
Middle grade fiction about a girl who grew up not knowing her father and whose mother just passed as the book opens. She is struggling to live with her aunt who seems cold and hard. She also sees ghosts therefore gets to help a ghost boy find his way. It's a interesting and even intriguing storyline.
Fascinating lectures on the great explorations dating 12th century to modern day exploration of space and oceans. I'm a fan of the lecturer. In this series he discusses the explorations but also pauses to talk about the why, the how, and the impact. Professor Liulevicius is easy to follow and makes an enjoyable listen.
Enjoyable story about an elderly woman and how she finds love and the desire to feel emotions again. The back story is told in journal form as well as main character recollection. It's a good reflection on how life can change someone into something hardened as they try to protect their self. Colorful language is somewhat present but for the most part it's pretty clean.
I was enjoying this read when I accidentally stumbled on the picture of the author on the back flap. She looked way young. Turns out she was born in 1990. All the sudden I had a hard time thinking how good the book was in relationship to the age of said author. Seems like it shouldn't have been that good.
It's a story of two patients in the hospital, one very young but terminally ill and the other in her 80's. They bond together and decide together they have lived 100 years. They take turns telling each other stories about their life. But there's so much else going on. Quite a worthy read. (Full disclosure: the older lady turns out to have an alternative life style, and language is somewhat colorful at times.)
The story of a spy serving the British MI6 while working as a Russian KGB officer. Discussed the general unrest Gordievsky experienced and his decision to become a spy, which ironically wasn't as easy to get into as he originally thought. It ended with his struggle to be smuggled out of Russia which was an incredible story. It's painful what happened to his family, with all the deception, lies, and so forth, and even though they are eventually reunited the damage remained and eventually separated them. A good read especially if interested in the Cold War era.
A dual timeline novel: one in the 17th century concerning Jewish survivors from the Spanish Inquisition and their life in England, the other in modern times in the academic world. Helen, the main character in the modern time period, is called upon to oversee a cache of 17th century documents found in home someone is remodeling. In the 17th century we follow a girl who is allowed to scribe for a blind rabbi. She seeks education, knowledge, and philosophy, all of which is not a Jewish girl's lot. The book encompasses the plague as well. It's a pretty amazing read however there are language issues and some sex scenes.
Harry Potter meets Men in Black. Also a lot of color of skin, poverty, and "I'm better than you" kind of stuff. Some people will love it. It was too predictable and too close to the previous mentioned stories for me to totally get on board.
Sometimes you read a book, get half way through and wonder what you are reading, then finish and wonder why you finished. I had high hopes but in the end this book left me sad that I invested so much time into it. The story is about a girl who has a father from the Appalachians and a mom from high society. The mom never lets the girl know about the father's family. The girl gets married which turns into awfulness so she takes the two kids and runs towards her father's family. It could have been much better if it didn't go down the trial it did. She ends up in bed with her cousin and then the cousin's wife kills the cousin and it just spirals down from there. And then she returns to her husband and it gets worse so she leaves again and turns into the crazy woman living in the broken down house. Her kids can't pull her back into life. Yeah, it's not pretty.
I read this because of the author and my love for Boys in the Boat. Facing the Mountain is about Japanese Americans and their lives through WWII. It encompasses racism, interment camps, Japanese Americans trying to prove their loyalty, and so forth. The author expands on how these Americans were treated and how many struggled hard to gain a life in America only to have it taken away and have to start over after the war. He also follows several Japanese Americans through their battles in the WWII European front. Very informative.
As I've been reading the Old Testament with my mother I chose some reading material to supplement my study. One of which was this on the Persian Empire. It discusses briefly the fall of Babylon which is what I was looking for but I found the history of the Persian Empire fascinating. The lecturer suggests the Persian Empire was the predecessor to the modern world - even more so than the Roman Empire. Completely fascinating.
