We lived in D.C. (both inside and outside the Beltway) for 5 years, and during that time we always had at least 2 preschoolers, sometimes 3. If it wasn’t at the ‘Space Museum’ or the ‘Dinosaur Museum’, we couldn’t stay long. Art museums were terrifying to even attempt with them, so like most parents, we just didn’t.

One year I sent the boys to stay with their grandparents for a week, and I had the rare opportunity to wander the District alone. It was a BLAST!! I adored every minute of it.

That was the year I walked into a genealogy conference at the National Archives and became hooked. It was also the year that I discovered the under appreciated jewel that is the Smithsonian art galleries. My favorites were the National Gallery of Art, located on the Mall, and the National Portraiture Gallery, located closer to Chinatown.

While browsing through the National Gallery, I came across Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life Series. I was frozen to the spot, studying each individual painting. It’s a series of 4 enormous canvases, packed full of meaning and inspiration.

When we went back to D.C. this summer, Alan photographed all 4 of them for me to share on my blog, and I got to explain them all to the boys and their friends.

Do you know what tells the story of life, both present and past fathoms better than any museum full of relics??

Our art!!! I felt far more in touch with American history at the American Art and Portraiture Gallery than I ever did at the American History Museum. It’s a genuinely moving experience. I highly encourage you to visit an art gallery of this caliber if you ever get a chance!

The Voyage of Life, painted by Thomas Cole, located in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Beginning of Life 

In this first painting, the baby is arriving to earth, escorted by his guardian angel. Heaven is dark and unimportant to him, but the earth is in full bloom, filled with endless possibilities. The cave behind him shelters him from harm.

Me, explaining the paintings

Youth

I love this one. Youth on the river of life…lovely and green with a brilliant castle in the sky. Life is a grand adventure.

Manhood…..life’s not so easy anymore..

This man is not in his 20s anymore. The river of life has gotten rocky, and there are dangerous rapids and rain all around. His focus turns upward as he prays for help.

Old Age

Now he is an old man. Things of this world have grown dark and no longer hold their appeal. He is headed towards Heaven. It is the light at the end! The plaque beside the painting explains more:

Next time you tour D.C., don’t skip the National Gallery of Art. There are actually 2 original sets of this series, as Cole painted TWO. The other one is kept in New York.

This series has my heart!! I cannot fully explain it. I hope you enjoy it too.

The post The Voyage of Life: My Favorite Art Works in D.C. appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Check it out. We found photos of all four boys wearing this gray jacket. We own two of these jackets, both in a size 5/6, so that made it a little easier. I think it’s fun to see them all side-by-side wearing it. There are striking similarities. I think Joshua and John David look the most alike here.

In case you’re having trouble telling who is who, it’s JD, age 3, Daniel at age 5, Caleb at age 3, and Joshua at age 5. I’m a firm believer in buying clothes with wiggle room.

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We spent the weekend in Alabama for DaddyO’s birthday. (Photos of that to come soon.) All went well. It’s amazing how much more pleasant it is to take a road trip now that our age range is 11 to 3!!! The difference is astounding.

No one wore diapers. No one peed in their car seat. No one needed a sippy-cup or a bottle. Best of all, no one cried.

On the way home I had to stop to get gas. It was just Joshua, Daniel, JD, and me in the car. Alan and Caleb rode separately. I had promised the boys that I would buy them each one snack at the gas station, as a treat. My dad used to do that for us on road trips when I was a child, and I remember how special that always was to us.

But when we pulled into the gas station, John David was fast asleep.

Years ago, that would have been a problem, especially since Daniel had to pee, but JD was asleep. A couple of years ago, I would have built Daniel a barrier, and he would have watered some grass and gravel. The last thing I want to do on a car trip is wake up a toddler or a baby!

But this year was nothing like that. I have an eleven-year-old now! Joshua said, “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll take Dan in, and I’ll buy us some snacks.”

Y’all!!! The joy!!!!!

Poor John David was a little confused when he woke up an hour later and went straight back to the gas station search.

“There’s one, Mom! There’s one, Mom!”

“Oh, sweetie, we already stopped and got gas, and now we’re almost home.”

“Oh!…hm”

Children that sleep on car trips are such a blessing.

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The OCD Workshop

Many people in our family are OCD. Not me. I probably annoy the OCD people to no end. One of them is our little Daniel. Daniel was going through a phase where he was clipping his fingernails every single night!

They were starting to look a little hurt, so we made him stop. The other day, he asked permission to clip his fingernails, and lo and behold. Look! He actually had nails to clip!

I was so proud of him! I mean, yes, I am also proud that he clips his own nails. Daniel is very grownish for a five-year-old. It’s funny because people look at him, and he’s a little short, so they often think he is four, and they wonder that I give him so much freedom. But you see, not all five-year-olds are equal, and this child…..I don’t suppose I know of too many things that big boys can do that he can’t handle.

One day a friend of Caleb’s was over here playing with Caleb and Daniel, and Caleb’s friend said, “I never let my kindergarten brother ever touch MY Legos!”

Daniel quietly pointed out, “Yes, but your brother is *Ziggy.* (name changed, of course.)”

Caleb and his friend all quietly agreed that yes, that was completely different from playing with Daniel.

But Daniel’s still human. Many mornings he is the very hardest one to wake up:

Out of bed and right back to sleep in the hallway floor

My husband’s theory is that we non-morning people types are simply not happy or excited to start our day, that we are perhaps a little depressed.

While that can be true, I can assure you, even if this is the day I’m going to Disney World itself, I don’t want to get out of bed.

Now I’d love to tie these three stories together with some sort of brilliant……um POINT, rather than be yet another story with no point at all, but folks, that’s about all I have today. I’m laying in my bed on a hot pad as we speak because I completely over-hauled, scrubbed,  de-cluttered, and re-organized Dan and JD’s room today. By 4pm, my right hip was SCREAMING at me, so here I am. We will be having pizza tonight.

Wall-E by Caleb

And now here’s little JD, rolling all over me, making typing quite impossible. How thankful I am for him! We wish you all a wonderful week!

“Life’s limitations are God’s invitation to change our expectations.”  –Kristen Strong in Girl Meets Change

“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”  Mark 6:31

The post The Gray Jacket, The Road Trip, and The OCD Workshop appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

I have been taking a blog coaching class, taught by Crystal Paine. I never realized exactly how much I don’t know about the blogging business.

One of the things Crystal has taught me is that it’s important to do videos sometimes. Apparently, videos should help my audience connect with me better. So I am making my very FIRST DIY selfie video. The video skills are horrible. It’s literally like my talking head showing you some Bible journaling pictures. But hang with me, we’ve all got to start somewhere, right?

Have you heard about Bible journaling?

I want to show you my own Bible journal: (Just watch the video below. If you read this in your email, you will need to go to my website to see it.)

Here are a few more photos. I did NOT draw these. I got these pictures from the speaker who came to our MOPS group:

I gotta say. These bold images DO help me remember the scriptures better. It gives a brilliant visual.

Fruits of the spirit! Love this one!!

So, in my next post I will share my very first attempt at drawing in my Bible. It is extremely amateur, and it wasn’t over the top fun for me because drawing is not my thing. But it wasn’t unpleasant either.

If you are interested in trying your hand at Bible journaling, I found a few excellent resources for you:

This blogger did a how-to post on Bible journaling that was good: How to Start Bible Journaling

And here are some cool supplies you can buy from Amazon. (Yes, these are affiliate links.)
This would be a great instructional book, if you have no skills (like me).

This is a devotional book that actually has built-in room for your masterpieces.

These are colorful pens like the pros use.

And if you just want to do good ol’ alphabetized dividers like MY journal, well, that’s a lot easier. You’ll just need a large binder, paper, and a few packs of dividers! My favorites are the write-on tabs. People with arthritis don’t do folding up tiny pieces of paper and sticking them in a tiny little sleeve.

I can see why Bible journaling is so popular right now. You can express yourself, learn scriptures, and create a visual in your mind that helps you learn your Bible better, all through your own art work. It’s definitely something worth trying out.

I dare ya to try it! I’ll show you my attempts in my next post. I’ve done 1 so far, but I want to try a couple more first because my first attempt was….not that good…Be sure to share pictures with us if you do try it!! I’m on Instagram now as well as Facebook!

Excellent verses

The post What’s this Bible journaling craze all about? appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

This week is our Spring Break. Wahoo! That’s something to celebrate! I have about 5 billion goals to accomplish and all of 5 days to do it in. Mostly, we are prepping for the big move. It’s three months out, but hey, that’s like three weeks in Mom years.

I could tell you what’s been going on around here, but I thought it’d be more fun to show you, so today’s blog is a photoblog:

My Raynaud’s syndrome has been acting up lately. 

 What happens is that the blood vessels constrict when you’re cold, cutting off blood supply to the extremities. First, the finger tips go purple and then they go white and extremely numb. I suppose I should start wearing gloves. This would happen to you too if you were freezing in Alaska or something, but this happens to me if I’m even in a building with too much air-conditioning. My cold threshold is crazy low. No worries. We’re moving back to the land of sweat and mosquitoes. 

The other day I put Daniel down for a nap. He’s five now, and he rarely ever naps, but sometimes he gets so sleepy and grumpy that I deem it a must. This was a must-nap day. However, once he was upstairs all quiet and alone, he got down and had a BALL playing in the hallway with cars and who knows what else.

As I came up the stairs, I heard that classic boy-running-to-bed to pretend to be asleep sound. Because apparently he thinks I’m deaf.

Now that Caleb and Joshua are too tall to fit into any of their costumes, they have taken to putting these size 8 superhero costumes on JD and Daniel. Who needs pets when you have little brothers?

This is a Velociraptor.

Woody and Buzz.

Because finding gluten-free pizza was one of the happiest things that happened this week. It is a big deal.

Don’t tell Daniel these are weeds. I think he is the sweetest thing in the world, always bringing his momma flowers.

One of my neighbors gave the boys a bag full of snacks, from the “Easter Bunny.”

Dan painted this at Cubbies this week. He even said, “I put blue on this side, and red on this side, and put it together to make purple in the middle!”

Daniel made this “shapes” bird-house at home-school this week. We do preschool at home two days and regular preschool three days.

Dan took his new Star Wars ships everywhere the last couple of days.

Actually, he’s already broken one ship. He explained, “Mom, that’s because he was shot in battle. Mom, that’s why he’s broken. He’s supposed to be.”

People are always giving us stuff! Our homeschool umbrella school director gave this set to Daniel, and he LOVES it.

But someone really should follow Dan around all day with a vacuum cleaner.

Guess what I did yesterday…..

Oh, yeah, I took my birthday money shopping. It was GRAND. (No, I did not buy a cooler. I keep that in there to hide the large amounts of Easter chocolate that I’m saving for some special people.

And guess what I found near the stores??? SONIC!!! I didn’t know these existed in California.

That afternoon I also took Caleb to a Star Wars-themed birthday party. She themed it out so well, y’all. They got to fight Darth Vader, hop on a tree-stump obstacle course, shoot a Star Wars ship with Nerf guns, and last but not least, they threw pine-cones at these clone troopers:

I totally wanted to play this party game. The kids were not able to pop them all, so the adults DID get a shot at it. It was fun!

close-up

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend as well. We have basically zero plans for Spring Break, other than to catch up on all the work we have to do, but that’s okay. Even work can be fun when you tackle it with the right attitude, with a little happy music playing, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAsG__XjU8Q

(Enchanted move clean-up scene: You gotta watch it.)

The post Fun Times Photoblog appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

JD’s first move— He seems to be having a pretty good time.

 Today Alan and I kissed our children good-bye and set back out–alone this time–on our big cross-country road trip.

It’s really been fun so far.

 Over the last few days I have gotten to visit both sides of our families, swim in the backyard pool with my two oldest boys, celebrate JD’s first birthday, visit a Pioneer Museum in Alabama, and even revisit the University of Alabama campus, where Alan and I got our undergraduate degrees!

Whew!

Seriously, one of the ‘funnest’ (totally SHOULD be a word) things I have done this whole summer is swim in the wading pool with Joshua and Caleb. I highly recommend it. If you haven’t swam with your kids this year, you have just got to go do it, even if it’s only a wading pool!!

***Disclosure: When you click on Amazon ads and purchase through links on this page, I do earn advertising fees.***

Photo Highlights:

I love it when they look all sweet and brotherly like this.

This is why you don’t let your husband pick out your baby’s birthday cake.

Just for the record, if I had the whole ‘baby parenting’ thing to go back and do over again, this is the ONE big tradition I would IGNORE.

Giving a one-year-old nasty sugar-laden RED birthday cake and letting them just go for it….this idea could not have come from any mother ever. Horrible idea. If I were to have any more babies, they would learn the beauty of a nice birthday bag of gummy fruit snacks–delicious and clean.

Yep. He did all the messy-baby-lovers proud. Even after the bath that followed this immediately, I still found some stray red icing–in his ear. Terrible idea. Seriously.

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And the road trip resumes! We made it through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas today.

We are now on the western side of the Mississippi River! More photos to come in the next post.

For today, I’m going to focus on the Pioneer Museum that we visited in Alabama.

Alan and I love history stuff. I have throughly enjoyed researching my ancestry and reading history books. 1796, a Thomas Jefferson biography, an Andrew Jackson biography, The Mayflower, Rose Kennedy’s autobiography, and Ronald Reagan’s autobiography are a few of my favorites.

Therefore, this side trip was perfect for us.

Do you see the tall loblolly pine tree behind the triangular sign? That is the ‘moon tree’, grown from seeds that traveled to the moon on Apollo 14.

Beautiful. Alabama is beautiful.

This place had a collection of around 20 carriages and buggies. Love!

I have an ancestor listed on this plaque!!  So cool!

 I’ve always loved American history, but I got into the genealogy thing on accident!

A few summers ago, the two oldest boys were spending a couple of weeks in Alabama with their grandparents. I was kid-free, so I took a couple of days to just explore D.C. on my own. It was heavenly.  While I was out, I happened upon the 1st Annual Genealogy Conference at the National Archives building. It was free, so I just went right in, attended a couple of classes, and brought home a whole bunch of information. Then I got to work!

 I rarely get to do any research now. Okay. Actually, I never do any research now, but I do miss it. One day!!

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This was an especially exciting day because we also got to visit our old stomping ground: The University of Alabama. The thing is, I have a whole lot to share about that too, so it will just have to wait until tomorrow!

Visit this link for our UA pics and stories!!

Denny Chimes

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