Strawberries

Strawberry season snuck up on us in May, but we were able to get out once with some friends to go picking.  Even though we went early in the morning, it go so hot so soon that we were content to just buy from the farmers markets and stores for the rest of the season, especially for the kids and baby!

SEVEN!

Elsa is now seven.  This year she has learned to read, can easily add up double and triple digits, and can sing most of the periodic table.  She loves all bugs (and is still curious about why I will pick up a shiny June bug in the parking lot for her but I won't let her keep cockroaches) and reptiles, and will listen to Daddy's funny British accent read any book from the Rainbow Magic Fairy series whenever she gets the chance.  (I think the books are complete twaddle, but they have inspired her to illustrate and write her own fairy adventure stories so I've stopped complaining about them!).  

I loved working with her to plan her Chameleon birthday last year, and we had so much fun planning her Rainbow Magic Fairy party this year.  It ended up being a bit of a production, but almost everything we used was stuff we already had or could make together.  She did much of the decorating herself:

These are not generic fairies and goblins - each one has a name and designation: e.g. Georgia the Guinea Pig Fairy and Ally the Dolphin Fairy:

We made rock candy to be the Fairy Wand party favors so of course I was sneaky and turned this into a bit of a science activity since we had just studied and grown crystals earlier in the year.  We had several big flops until we found a successful method, but the ones that did turn out were so pretty I kept taking pictures of them!

We helped each guest turn into a fairy (or gobin, in the case of our friend Sam) when they arrived with facepaint, various wings, and a few fancy face masks.  King Oberon and Queen Titania (my father and mother) were also in attendance, much to the delight of all the little fairies!

Of course, Jack Frost couldn't help but poke his nose into the fun and disrupt the party...

He was jealous so he hid the rainbow key to the cupcakes!

The girls had to find the pieces of the rainbow while Jack Frost and his goblin sidekick played freeze tag with them.

He also hid the party favors and the Fairy Wands!  Thankfully King Oberon had scroll with a riddle full of clues that led them to the gift bag high up in a tree...

Which also had another scroll that led them to the Fairy wands!  The final scroll explained that goblins hate the "Happy Birthday" song, so they all sang really loud to Elsa, which caused the goblins to run off shrieking,

leaving the the box of rock candy wands behind!

We had so much fun, and it was especially neat to celebrate with the new friends we've made this year.  Even Nora had a good time, though I'm learning that she prefers simpler, quieter parties for herself (she remarked at the end of the day that for her birthday she wanted a "quiet love party at home with just our family").

Queen Titania and the girls:

Seven years!  She's growing and changing everyday and we work hard to keep up with her and stay connected.  I am thankful that for now she still is not too self-conscience that she still enjoys dancing among the trees and singing to herself.

Calm

It had been getting harder and harder to get a nice, smiling picture of Nora.  When I got this shot after Elsa's birthday party, I realized that, though Nora is most often a very cheerful, silly, and happy girl, she has a very calm, thoughtful disposition, and she can look very beautiful with what might be considered a boring, "straight" face on someone else.  

Finished with First Grade

I am surprised at how well our first year homeschooling went.  We all really liked it, and Elsa did so well.  I especially loved getting plugged into a Classical Conversations campus - it provided just enough structure help me organize our time and material, but still gave me complete freedom about curriculum and how we chose to focus on each subject.  

Elsa was quite proud during the closing presentation of our CC group.

She loved working with her Tutor each week,

and especially loved getting to know her new "school" friends.

Art Museum

We've done our best to explore what Birmingham has to offer this school year, and I know we've barely skimmed the surface.  In May we visited the Birmingham Art Musuem for the first time with two other families from our homeschool group.  They have free, docent led children's tours scheduled every week, and they even do it on demand, and will focus the tour on whatever topic you want!  The docent was excellent and the children were quite engaged during our tour about animals.  We went from early Native North Americans and Mayans...

...all the way to a present day sculptor from Birmingham.

After the tour we spent some time in the children's rooms, where there are various art activities for them (still for free!) like sculpty clay,

... a big touch-screen finger-painting canvas, and several other activities.  My little artists loved it.  Elsa was really curious about all the other rooms that we didn't see, so I'm sure we'll be coming back for more!

Symphony Marches

We studied the Orchestra towards the end of our school year and even got to attend a free Birmingham Symphony concert in the park with some of our homeschool friends (plus we got to watch the boys' baseball games, which was also an educational experience for our non-sports-oriented girls - my friend and I tried to explain the game to them, but even so after the game Elsa asked if we could watch them play "basketball" again sometime... anyway, back to the symphony...)

The Orchestra played a lot of familiar "family friendly" music like the Blue Danube, the Can Can, some John Williams theme music like E.T., and they ended with a few popular marches.  When they started "Stars and Stripes" as their final piece, a couple jumped up and started marching with imaginary batons back and forth across the stage!  After a few measures a few more enthusiastic audience members joined them...

including Elsa! (in the pink shirt)  She asked me if she could join and then jumped right in!

Nora was quick to follow (in the purple dress)...

Soon there was a whole parade weaving around the front of the bandstand and the terraces.  Nora was quite dramatic with her imaginary baton, though I don't think she's actually seen a marching band before so I don't think she really knew what she was pretending to do!

Easter

I am relieved that Lent and Holy Week and Easter are over.  I hope that over time the grief I feel throughout the season will ease.  This year felt different from last year but just as hard.  I didn't cry as much. but I also distracted myself more, and, having moved across the country, there were not as many direct reminders of our last season with Oliver.  I was so very thankful for everyone who prayed for us and checked in on me throughout the last weeks.  Even if I didn't reply to you, thank you for remembering us and Oliver.

Like happened last year, on the day before Easter, I came across an idea in my reading that helped me through the day.  In Kierkegaard's Works of Love, he posits that "Christian consolation... is the consolation of the eternal, it is older than all temporal joy.  As soon as consolation comes, it comes with the head-start of the eternal and swallows up, as it were, pain, for pain and the loss of joy are momentary-- even if the moment were a year- and the momentary is drowned in the eternal.  Neither is Christian consolation a substitute compensation for lost joy, since it is joy itself."

It gave me the feeling and image of a great gush of joy flowing over a hard cliff of pain.  The image is comforting to me- the pain is not ignored, but both validated and put it its place by its juxtaposition against the powerful ever-flowing rush of God's promise of eternity.  Comfort in eternal joy continuously covers, drowns, and erodes the pain.  As eternal joy comes from God, it is older than any temporal joy or pain and will outlast any temporal joy or pain.  It is of such a different character that, unlike other temporal joys we may seek to replace joys that we have lost, it actually has the power to console.  Beatrice is a delightful source of joy for us (except when she keeps us up at night or bites me while nursing), but she does not replace my longing for my son, nor would another son fulfill that longing either.  She is a very sweet child and has brought us comfort and many smiles when we needed it, but the consolation she offers is limited and the bite of Oliver's death is still sharp.  But to think of God's love and joy pursuing us from before and after from the depths of eternity gives direction to my longing.  Not just for my son, but for my son whole and healed, for my son in eternal joy and perfection, for eternal joy itself, from which my desire for perfection and peace originate.  

And there is joy in this too: that this longing is not in vain, because the eternal has been given to us, in spite of our unworthiness.  Not only given to us, but given to us with a desire that we might accept it, like a banquet invitation from our dearest friend, because we are loved.   

My Easters will be always filled with mixed emotion and painful memories, but hopefully too a that deep consolation that only eternal joy can provide.