Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

March will mark one year since we downsized from a large home into our current apartments. One year later, this is what I still love: The space itself.  We've realized our family of seven can easily function comfortably in 1700 square feet.  And if you take away Ken's office space, that really leaves 1500 of our actual living space.  We've had a house-full of friends over for Christmas Eve and for small group.  While it's not as spacious as our old place, it still works and our friends don't mind being a little closer. The freedom. No worries over broken blinds, broken AC units, and even clogged toilets.  All of this and more have been repaired or replaced by our apartment staff at no extra cost or hassle to us.  The lawn is kept manicured, the pool sparkling, the roof patched.  Gates, wood trim, and other cosmetic details are painted frequently. That, my friends, has been completely worth it! The location.  We truly enjoy this area of town.  We're a few mi

In the last couple of weeks, we've seen a lot of the "What Society Thinks I Do" and "What I Really Do" posters.  We've seen them for lawyers, homeschoolers, interpreters, Mormans, and just about any other people group you can think of. Ken and I decided to make one entitled "Deaf."  Without even thinking about it, the poster ended up with photos of men only.  It was quickly brought to our attention, so we made another one with women*. The real issue is, I could have filled 100 posters with photos of Deaf people in a wide range of roles.  Ken and I are thinking about creating one.  Here are a few of the people that come to mind.  Who would you add?  I know there are SO many more. This was just my initial list off the top of my head.  If you think of someone, let me know in the comments section and, if you can, link me to their website or some online photo of the person. Adrean Clark: Cartoonist/Homeschool mom Matt Diagle: Cartoonist Paul Ru

Continued ... Book one, Twilight , was a sweet story, fairly innocent, and better than the movie.  Big surprise. The book is not, however, a literary masterpiece. Book two, New Moon , was my least favorite.  I skimmed through a chunk of it, not really caring about all the vampire and werewolf history.  I didn't seem to skip over anything too crucial, because the rest of the series continued to make sense.  That may speak to the caliber of the writing, but I'm no writing critic.  I am, however a major Harry Potter fan and couldn't help but compare the two series.  There is no comparison.  The literary quality of Harry Potter is in a much higher universe than that of the Twilight Saga of books.  However, the Twilight Saga story in its entirety  is an enjoyable one to read.  I say "in its entirety" because if you take any one of the books alone without seeing how it ends, the characters' choices can be frustrating. What jumped out at me in this book was th

I know that in light of what I normally blog about here, these next couple of entries may seem totally random; but as a mom of young girls, this blog post has everything to do with parenting.  It may also tell you a thing or two about my worldview. When the first book, Twilight was released at the end of 2005, I had absolutely no desire to read it.  I didn't even know much about it until the movie came out three years ago.  When the movie came out on DVD, Ken and I rented and watched it.  I remember feeling like it was highly romantic, yet cheesy movie and was quite astonished that many of the young girls my kids knew, even girls as young as 10 years old, were reading the books and watching the movie. At that time, I made my judgement based on the first movie and what I heard about the books and decided I didn't want my girls reading anything that encouraged rebellious, dangerous love.  In the first movie, Bella pursues Edward even after warnings from trusted adults, her b

My blogging time has recently been overtaken by a more dense school schedule, my working outside the home part time for the first time in years, and by editing video for our YouTube page . The most recent video shows Ken and Travis looking at mostly names and a few words.  I could blog about the boys' language development, but the videos speak for themselves, so check out out page if you haven't already. So, how are we all doing almost seven months after the littles were added to our family?  The boys have attached well.  So well, I have to keep reminding myself to continue to be purposeful in attachment activities and behaviors on my part.  The boys are almost inseparable. They are each other's best friend, playmate and brother.  It's been a sweet joy to witness. The older three Brownies continue to adore and help care for their new brothers.  They are also sometimes irritated by them, which almost makes me as happy.  They treat them like siblings, not like gues