A City Life For Me

We closed out March with a smashing fun day at the Bronx Zoo!  The kids and I used our membership from Christmas to tour the zoo in the lovely sunshine while Ben was meeting with a contact for Bible Study in the Bronx.  Our last stop at the zoo was a bust…not many animals out and a cold day.  Today we saw everything we wanted to – even heard the lions roar!  Aside from the million public school kids also taking advantage of good weather, it was a lovely trip.    Baby turtles in the reptile nursery :: Lunch by the baboons and mountain goats! One of the membership perks is that the bug carousel is free!    Henry wasn’t too sure at first…   …But then he loved it! By the rhino statue Watching the flamingos.  Henry was thrilled to do everything his siblings did.   I’d call that a successful trip!

We planned an outreach blitz for our Kingsbridge neighborhood in the Bronx.  Things were so up in the air with the house and possible closing date that we didn’t invite many people, but Ben’s parents did come down to help us distribute special invites.  They looked like this… I have never really made a big deal out of St. Patrick’s Day.  After all, I’m not Irish, not a big fan of green, and I don’t drink.  But I saw some cute craft ideas online and decided to teach the kids about the real Patrick – the one who evangelized Ireland in the 5th century. Elaine’s drawings I set the kids up with some how to draw videos for festive leprechauns and pots of gold.  They did good, huh?     Nolan’s Drawings    I made these candy jars for the kids with Rolo’s and sorted Skittles.  The tags say “You’re My Pot of Gold at the End of My Rainbow!   We finished the day off with homemade Shamrock Shakes!  (Ben wore this green outf...

Ever since we have been living in this tiny town of Mountainville, NY, a lot of people pull down our driveway looking for the state park.  Schunnemunk State Park.  It’s actually the mountain behind our house (and there is I-87 between us and the mountain), but a lot of GPS have the coordinates wrong.  We decided we should check it out before moving back to the city.  We had a nice day and the kids were itching to get out and move, so we took a hike down the trail in Schunnemunk Mountain State Park .  It was mostly cow pasture and field that we walked through that day, but we found a great clearing for kite flying.  We came back a couple of days later for a picnic and kite flying day off of school, and then we hiked farther up the trail and crossed the train tracks.    Selfie with Henry during lunch :: These two!  Their imagination!  They were riding a horse together, and Nehemiah kept falling off the back! Let’s Go Fly a Kite! Amtr...

One of my goals this year was to teach my kids a new hymn each month in our morning pledge and prayer time for school.  I want my kids to learn the rich doctrine in the good old hymns that the church has used for so long in corporate worship.  Through our travels we were in many kinds of churches.  Some were big and had lots of kids programs, and some we small and didn’t even have a nursery worker, much less a children’s program for every age group.  I also got the impression that many times in church we feel we have to have something to entertain the kids in every service, or some program or activity “on their level”.  After a couple of struggles in church with four, and then five kids, who didn’t want to sit still or be quiet while their daddy was preaching, we set out to teach our kids how to sit in church, and proper “etiquette” for the worship service.  The twins were very young, and Elaine and Nolan had never sat through church because they were alwa...

Henry always lets us know when it’s time to eat.  Sometimes I find him getting out the cereal boxes or raises as a “hint-hint” that he’s hungry.  He’s also developing quite a sweet tooth…   He’s not too happy when I say “no” to more cinnamon rolls!  (He already had two!).  He loved the candy package from Grandma Godby for Valentine’s Day!