Tim WON!

His poem (posted below) won! details at The Beehive.

What did he win?

This virtual chocolicious award! We're thrilled to have received such an honor from one of our favorite blogs!

Okay, it took a couple of days

But I think I "get it" now. The Beehive posted a challenge, they listed some neologans (neologs?), which are made-up words. Shakespeare made up his own words , so it's nothing new. And they challenged their "Beehive Faithful" to write a poem using all the words. This is Tim's poem. Today it hit me that, in this poem, the Neologist makes up words, and Strunkenwhite is the proper language itself. And now I get it, and it's really funny! You'll have to click on the Beehive link to see their original post and a list of the words that had to be included in the poem.

Long ago (three days, you know)
there was a dreadful fight
between a Sir Neologist
and one Sir Strunkenwhite.

First "Snoitatulas, sirrah!"
said Sir Neologist.
Sir Strunkenwhite spoke not a word,
but only clenched his fist.

Then fully clad in armored plates
(spendiferously bought)
those two aku-akued across
the field, and staunchly fought.

Up and down the field they fought
and took dismayful wounds,
smiting not with swords alone
but eke with piercing words.

"Do improbe your strokes, Sir Strunk,
or else you've lost the fight:
loserish attacks ne'er yet
availed a losing knight."

"Nevermind, Neologist,
just keep your own defense:
neologistic tendencies
don't prove linguistic sense."

But in the end Neologist
defeated Strunkenwhite
and laid him out upon the ground
with sound like dynamite.

"Aha, sirrah! Gahbooleah!
you're at my mercy now."
And, speaking thus, Neologist
let fall the fateful blow.

"Gahbooleah! Gahbooleah!
O frabjous day!" cried he--
and quickly turned hysterious
in his excessive glee.

Alas for Sir Neologist!
He overdid his mirth,
and soon he lay by Strunkenwhite,
quite dead upon the earth.

Therefore friend beware, lest you
should suffer Neo's lot;
play with language if you will,
but see you kill it not.

If You Give Your Mom Some Bubble Bath

"Does anyone else enjoy the 'If You Give A Mouse/Moose/Pig a Cookie/Muffin/Pancake' books?"

I can't say that I've ever really read those books, just skimmed one once. But I did enjoy this! Katie at CM, Children and Lots of Grace wrote it, you must read it! :)

Deck the Blogs!

We were tagged by The Common Room to share some of our favorite Christmas ornaments and tell their stories. We've switched to a smaller tree, so some of our ornaments aren't used any more. These are my picks; Tim may have others.

This is a nutcracker ornament. It commemorates the years the boys were into the Nutcracker, the music, and the ballet their friend was in, and the figure skating one.

This one is just cute, and it's my very favorite.

This is a teeny, tiny church.

This reminds me of my childhood in Rhode Island, when we used to get sleds for some Christmases and go sledding during our Christmas vacation.

We had a friend who used to make these egg ornaments and give them out to our church group every year. I had three, but this seems to be the only one I have left.

These are actually napkin holders. Dad got three of them, one for each boy a few years ago, because they were like Narnian crowns. They're solid and heavy, so we don't hang them on the tree, we display them around the tree instead.

Some Pictures

Demolition of the gingerbread house. I was determined that we wouldn't let this house sit and harden because nobody wanted to ruin it. I encouraged the boys to eat it during the evening.


Miss M has been begging for "candy house" all day. So I broke her off a square of roof. She tasted it, but had more fun playing with it than eating it. I nibbled a corner of the gingerbread, and I wasn't impressed. It was pretty hard and not especially tasty.


J and a napping Miss M earlier today


Our tree with lights but still waiting to be decorated

Blog: Reporting From Iraq

I learned of this from The Common Room. It's a news junkie who is in Iraq, and, as far as I can gather, is reporting on how things look from the perspective of the soldiers. Her blog is HERE, and she says "Everything I thought I knew was wrong...If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one."

I'll be keeping an eye on what she has to say.

Our Gingerbread House

We made our first-ever gingerbread house! This is a kit we got from the grocery store. We followed Mother Auma's tip and made sure our icing was really thick and stiff, and it worked really well.





I've been reading with interest the posts about how various AO/CM families celebrate Christmas. Just to add our own personal variety to the pot, we try to keep the focus on Christ's nativity and family fun. We know He wasn't born in December, but Christmas seems as good a time as any to us to commemorate it. We don't do Santa, but we do have a small tabletop tree. The intent is to take our focus off the tree and instead make the nativity that we set up on the fireplace mantle our focal point. Dad loves the traditions he remembers from his own childhood, so much of our season is pretty mainstream-conventional. With influence from our CM education and other CM moms, we're discovering more classical Christmas music and older traditions. I've enjoyed reading about the different ways that families have found to honor Christ in the way they celebrate Christmas.

Vote for Your Favorite Homeschool Blogs (and some Quotes)

We aren't in any of the categories, but we did nominate some of our favorite blogs. You can place your vote here.


Two Talent Living posted some quotes about truth under the title "Thoughts on Truths I’ve Reaffirmed Recently" (thanks to Mother Auma for pointing these out!) Here are just the two I liked best; there are more:

Everyone may be entitled to his own opinion but everyone is not entitled to his own truth. Truth is but one.
Doug Groothius

The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity.
Robert Anthony

Costume Picture

This is us boys in our costumes at the theater. We got a couple compliments on them, and it was hard not to notice the stares...

Mom's Narnia Movie Review

Could be spoilers --

Tim and I agreed to write and post our reviews before we talked to each other much about it, and before we read any other reviews.

I thought the movie was great! Georgie Hensley is perfect as Lucy. There were a few changes, but nothing enough to change the gist of the story. I did miss one of my favorite quotes, but it turned up later in the movie.

My minor criticisms: Some dialog between the children was missing. My own fault for knowing the book too well, I guess! Susan was more . . . Susan-ish? They really seemed to want to emphasize her practical side. I guess they're thinking ahead. If you only read the books, you'd be surprised at Susan later, but the movie seems to be setting things up for later. In general, the children seemed to squabble more and have some real issues that I hadn't seen in any other productions or read in the book. I assume that was an attempt to modernize them and make them more believable to modern movie-goers. Is it really so hard to believe that siblings can have warm feelings for each other and not have underlying hostilities towards each other? I thought it was a good idea to expand the antagonism between Peter and Edmund, it makes it more believable that Edmund would have been resentful enough to feel okay about going to the Witch. But it seemed that that was more the norm for the Pevensie sibling relationships.

The major thing I noticed was that Aslan wasn't 'fleshed out' enough for me to feel any connection with him, or to feel the same sense of desolate hopelessness when he died that I'd felt in other productions. Maybe it was just me having an off night? The battle and the kings and queens and the prophecy seemed to be more of a focus than Aslan himself. Maybe that's just because they showed more of the battle, and I'm used to it being de-emphasized or pretty much left out altogether in an attempt to put the focus on Aslan?

On the plus side, seeing Narnia come to life, and the creatures and the battle so realistic was unbelievable. Making everything seem so real overrided any minor changes. Still, I don't think that seeing the movie will replace reading the book. More than ever, it makes me want to read LOTR to see what I missed from seeing the movies. ;)