Family Life
When we were growing up, my brother (love you, hon!) was the pickiest eater ever. He didn't like cheese. He didn't like eggs. He didn't like most vegetables, just green beans, English peas and corn. .” (more…)
One of the surprising discoveries of our family life has been the usefulness of keeping a journal or diary -- at least one per family. I tried keeping a diary when I was a kid, with limited success. My English teacher in high school introduced us to "journalling" for literary practice -- an idea…
From time to time it's helpful to ask, and try to answer, the question of just what is a "real man." I recently saw a book criticizing the commercialization of boyhood. The cover artwork showed a hapless young man about ten or twelve years old. He was wearing a football helmet, shoulder pads, and Superman…
Last night at 3am there wasn't a flake to be seen, but by 6am snow was absolutely everywhere. No big deal if you live in Maine, but in eastern North Carolina, it's a very rare occurrence. The biggest snow we'd had was the snow-icaine of 2000. We got 11 inches, which is about 5 times…
Welcome to the last post in our series on Hark the Herald Angels Sing. If this is the first one you've seen, you may want to begin with our Introduction. [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="399"] The Garden of Eden, Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1615[/caption] Come, Desire of nations, come, Fix in us Thy humble home; Rise,…
As we mentioned the other day, one of our Thanksgiving traditions is to talk about the things we are thankful for during the feast. Today was kind of different. Usually there is a slow start, then an increasingly interactive conversation about all of God's blessings. Today when we asked the question, "What are you thankful for?" everyone…
Yesterday while I was writing about our Thanksgiving traditions for this blog, I looked up George Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation in preparation for suggesting you share it with your family. As I read it, I felt increasingly sad. George Washington thanked God "for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed." I thought…
We just love Thanksgiving! What a wonderful holiday! Leading up to the day, we teach our children great hymns of Thanksgiving, such as "We Gather Together," "Come Ye Thankful People, Come," "Count Your Blessings," and "Now Thank We All Our God." We particularly love "We Gather Together," because it was a Dutch song of the proper…
A few years ago, we used the book Jotham's Journey during the Advent season to build up anticipation for Christmas. The children loved it, so the next year, we used the sequel, Bartholomew's Passage. That one seemed a bit more contrived to me, but it was still a lot of fun for the children and…
The problem of books and boys has been in the news lately. It's a known fact that boys generally read less than girls and seem to enjoy it less when they do read. Teachers and librarians have worried about it for years, and some of their suggestions border on desperation. Should we embrace comic books and…
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