Pictures of Our Babysitting

On Monday afternoon, we had all 3 of the B. kids, instead of just Lincoln because the girls were off school. Jason, Emily, Faith, Hope, and I went to the Letford Elementary School playground, and there we played tag. It was warm, but windy!

L-R: Emily, Hope, and Faith posing


Faith and Emily playing tag -- neither of them was "it" right then


Me on the run playing tag...


Hope touching "base"

Lincoln last Friday

Our Week

We had a pretty busy week this week with school, babysitting, and life.

We had a game-playing afternoon activity with some home schoolers at our house last Monday because it was too cold to have the regular PE time in the park. Also on Monday afternoon, we babysat Lincoln as we also did on Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday morning we had another babysitting girl, Kara, here.

Friday Jeff drove Jason, Emily, himself, and me to a field trip at a sewer plant in Greeley, while Mother stayed home and babysat Lincoln. Friday night our other "babysitting" kids Lily and Sam M. came over. After they left I did a little "Saturday" cleaning.

Saturday we finished cleaning the house and Mother and I worked 1.5 hours cleaning the local Chamber of Commerce. After a relatively quiet afternoon, we had Bible Study with the Hinkle family. We finished our almost 2 year study of the Book of Mark.

After Bible Study we watched a very well-done, evidential documentary named: Unlocking the Mystery of Life. It was a blessing to us. It was fun for Jason and me especially (we are taking biology) to see things we've studied about, (such as: amino acids, proteins, cells, flagellum, etc.) put together in a big picture (literally) and explained. It is exciting how many scientists' eyes are being opened to the truth of Creation and the Creator!

Today we had church with a wonderful message on the sanctity of human life by Dr. Dave Gordeuk. We also enjoyed a walk in the sun-shiny, 60 degree, windy weather we had.

Alphabet of Thankfulness...

...or at least most of the alphabet.  :)

A few of the things I'm thankful for, written alphabetically:

Bible to read and live by, Brothers
Clothes to wear; Computers, (Digital)Cameras, Christmas presents from my dear family
Daily bread; Dr. Brown family; Dr. Jay Wile
Eyes, Ears, Electricity
Fingers and Feet, Flowers
God in 3 Persons - Blessed Trinity, God's Girls Newsletter
Home
Ice-cream - a cool treat
Jobs to do
Kenfolk
Love
Missionaries - to preach and teach the Gospel
[going to] Noah the Musical this year
Operation Christmas Child ministry
People - parents, family, friends, God's Girls; Pastors
Quil - my only nephew at present
Sister, Sisters-in-law, (home)School, and our Studio piano

It seems like there should be a very easy "thing" for me to be thankful for starting with the letters A, R, and T.. but at the moment I can't think something good for it..  (Also.. not quite as easy, but I lack letters U-Z as well.) So please leave a comment if you think of something that I should be thankful for with A, R, and T, or the letters U-Z...

A note from Lincoln - November 17, 2008

Hi, Linkydude here. Linkydude is just what they call me; my real name is Lincoln. Today I spent my afternoon at Miss Theophilus's.

There are a few interesting things about the Albertsons that I'd like to tell Miss Theo's readers:

- One of those things is the fact that they are pretty easy to entertain. I do the simplest of things and they clap and laugh like it was something special! Simple things like telling them I see flowers, leaves, birds or copycatting them.

- Mrs. Albertson was so goofy when they were having their lunch today. She broke a chip and put part of it in the back of a toy pickup truck I was playing with.. I humored her and hauled the chip around in the bed of the truck. After that was disposed of I decided to be responsible and pick up the crumbs of the chips in my truck so as not to leave a mess.. all they did was laugh. I just don't get it sometimes... but sometimes I laugh with them at myself just for fun.. Their humor at my expense!

- Another thing.. Miss.. um.. Theophilus just doesn't understand my love for cars, trucks in particular. You see if I'm not driving vehicles, I'm talking about them, and when I'm not talking about them or driving them I'm thinking about them.. and just about to talk about or drive them! I am coming to the conclusion that Miss Theophilus has never been a boy.. or a car lover girl either.
Whenever I meet someone the first thing I ask them is "Truck?" to see if they are on the same wavelength as me.

- Being the youngest of three I get pushed around some.. and so a lot of the time I comply when asked to do something. So the Albertsons ask me to say there first names, and they cheer when I do. Of course I know them forwards and backwards... so sometimes I say them backwards.

- Lady just doesn't have the creativeness that comes with youth. You know, some trucks have the right width between the tires for them to ride the Albertsons' train track rails just fine. So I do it, but Lady just wasn't bright enough to think of that herself!


On another note, I am learning how to put together the train tracks, about how the ends hook together. I haven't yet learned how to build bridges or fanciness like that.

I learned a new word today. It's a pretty cool word to. It's "algebra".. I am not quite sure what it means, since I didn't get a full dictionary definition, but I think it is when Miss Theo is writing a lot of stuff on her paper, and not playing train track with me. She kept saying Y=1/2X+5/2 and stuff like that. I s'pose I'll be learning all about it in time... who knows?

I have enclosed a few pictures.

^ Yes, trains can go on the carpet just fine (remember Tootle?), and trucks can go on the rails just fine!




^ Miss Theo. and I doing Algebra

Love,
Lincoln

P.S. Won't Miss Theophilus be surprised when she sees how I've posted this note on her blog? HA! I'd like to be there to see her face.

This past week's adventures

Well, I've had a busy week. Besides school, I've babysat and cleaned and helped set up a quilt show.

On Monday, I babysat Linkydude all day rather than just afternoon, and babysat Hope, as well, in the morning.

Last Friday, we got a call from some people we know only as an acquaintance. They asked if I could come clean for them this week, so that's exactly what I did Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. It was a mess! I think I helped the problem.. for a little while anyway. Oh, and on Tuesday I got stung on my finger at their house (Mrs. W. thought it was probably a yellow jacket.) The big deal with that is that I haven't ever gotten stung by anything, ever.. We got the stinger out, and Mrs. W. sprinkled some baking soda on the sting, and wrapped my finger in a bandaid. In a little while I could barely tell I had gotten stung.. no swelling or anything. So, that was good. I could really go into details about the cleaning, but let's just say that it took perseverance and elbow grease. Oh yeah, and I "thought of" a "new" motto for cleaners, "Always leave a place cleaner than you found it."

On Thursday evening I babysat Faith, Hope, and Linkydude while their parents were away. Every time I babysit them at their house there is something new to learn - like how to end sibling squabbles. As I separate those involved in the fussing, and give lectures about how quarrelling doesn't please the Lord (their parents are Christians, so they know who I'm talking about :)), a sudden pang of guilt comes to my conscience... Anyway..
Then I had to make up a bedtime story right on the spot.. ask me if you want to hear it. It was the first time the girls asked me to tell a story extemporaneously. (Did I spell that right Mike?)

Then on Friday night I helped with the quilt show set up, hanging lots of quilts on the lines after Daddy, Jeff, Jason, and some others got all the lines up in the high school gym. I am sure the Johnstown Albertsons will blog about it.

So I have had a busy week.

A post by Lady T

In the past two weeks I've babysat Linky-dude and his sisters four times. It has been slightly difficult to get enough school work done on those days, but everybody helps with the keeping of, entertainment of, and care of the trio, and so everything has gone well. Mother introduced Linky-dude to "ponyrides" this week. A definition has been written below for the amusement of the reader.
"Ponyride" - A child's ride to corresponding sound (horse noises, the Lone Ranger song, made up songs, etc.) sitting on an older person (the pony)'s ankle (facing the pony) and holding hands with the same.
Lincoln seems to like ponyrides, so that kept him occupied for a few minutes each ride. Mother notes that she supposes it's probably some kind of exercise for the pony as well!

Other than babysitting, we have kept quite busy with school. School is pretty self explanatory--so that's why Jason's, my family's, and my blogs have all been on the bare side throughout the month of September.

Last Sunday, we went to the Littleton Church of God (Holiness) for church in the morning. It was enjoyable. If you read my family's blog you probably know about Mike D., who has come to see us several times recently. He attends the Littleton CoG(H) and his parents and he invited us to come to church and then have dinner at their house. So that's what we did. We had a great time. Our friends the Cruzes (half of them anyway) also came for church and dinner at the Durkees. After dinner we enjoyed some games of ping-pong. (We used to have a ping-pong table, paddles, and balls, but got rid of it before us littler folks were big enough to really play. Mother used to play a lot growing up, so she got right into it. It was really fun.)

Tomorrow, it looks like we will be having church with the Hobe Sound Bible Church as we do most Sundays, and having Bible study with the Hinkle family here tomorrow night. We look forward to both of those activities with great joy.

Yesterday I had a birthday, and we had some activities around that. I don't want to go into detail since Mother already has on our family blog.  Thank you to those who made it such a special day for me!

Miscellanious news

I have a list (of 6 things) before me, all of which potentially could be blogged about. (I didn't want to forget anything during the time I didn't have time to blog.)
It is as follows:
-Sewing machine
-Blood donation
-Babysitting
-Out of personality - school
-Finished book
-Our "perfect" day

There you go. If you're interested in any of those topics, read on! ;-)


Sewing Machine - I purchased a new sewing machine a about a week and a half ago, due to the fact that we couldn't (after searching high and low) find a belt for my sewing machine from Aunt Hazel. My new one is a Singer, and has several cool features. I hope it will be good for me for many years to come. Mother and I haven't had enough time together yet to work on figuring out how to use the 35 stitches, or how to just sew. We are planning on going to a class in early October to learn about it.

Blood donation - Although it is ill-legal for children of my age to donate blood in CO, I had mercy on poor blood starved insects and gave blood. That's right, just like thousands (or millions) of people across our country and around the world I was a victim of mosquito bites. I thank God that I have not (yet) contracted West Nile virus from my generous donations!!! (By the way, I hate mosquitoes, if you couldn't tell.)

Babysitting - I babysat Linky-dude again last Monday, but I won't today because of Labor Day.

Out of personality-School - We started our home-school year last Monday. I did something totally out of personality for me (people usually say 'out of character', but this is more of a personality thing than character, I believe.). I covered both my 3 ring binder and my notebook I use for my Algebra 2 studies with stickers. We have had a wide variety of stickers in our collection: Sunday School stickers, goofy cartoon ones, and miscellaneous others. (The BJA is a homemade-handmade paper thingy, taped with double back tape. The rest are stickers.)



Finished book - (I am so proud of myself! -just kidding- but it is very rare for me to read a whole book by myself.) I finished reading a book within the past two weeks, entitled "Tortured for His Faith" by Haralan Popov (Zondervan 1975). I really enjoyed it, and believe that I benefited from having read it. It tells the story of a man who gave his very life and all for Christ. He could have easily died in the 13 years of torture, but God preserved his life, for a purpose: God used him greatly in the salvation of, and ministering to many fellow prisoners and later in help to the persecuted church. It is amazing to me how God can, does, and will help Christians be true in terrible times and come out of it serving the Lord with far more fervor.

Our "perfect" day - Well, I really enjoyed our day in the mountains on August 23rd. You can read about it and see pictures... (if you haven't already)... on my family's blog. We had a picnic in a perfect little spot on the St. Vrain River we had never picnicked before. The only problem was all of the bees and ants who wanted our food! But it was beautiful. Then we drove and drove looking for a specific place on our map, and we finally found it. Most of us (not Mother) went on a hike there. It was absolutely beautiful. There were several campers taking advantage of the beauty and nice weather. While on the hike, we took pictures, waded in the water, and you guessed it - hiked! It was a lot of fun.

Ok, that's all the news on my list.

In other news - Today, some of the family is making grape jam, in celebration of Labor Day. Dad is off of work and we kids are off of school (except for Jeff and Jason who are trying to catch up from last week when Emily and I started school while they were still working for ABE LAWNS. They are now pretty much off of work... on "school break" :-)). I have been working on God's Girls Newsletter and all that goes with getting that out every month.

All of us kids (including the ones in MO) are working on plans for a 25th anniversary celebration for our parents in October- so I have been working on invitations for that.

I wanted to share some cute/fun/whatever pictures we stole from my cousin, Rebekah!
This is my sis-in-law, Brenda, and Bren's and my mutual nephew Quil.

This is my cousin, Leah, and my nephew, Quil. I thought it was so cute of him peaking around the fence.

This is Tim standing by Bren, who's in a hammock. I love this picture.

Cousin, Rebekah and Quil in the hammock. What a cute look on that boy's face!!


So long!

Cleaning and babysitting

I got to clean on Friday as was planned. The main thing I did was clean the living room of the house. I also cleaned a couple of other smaller areas. Cindy, the friend I was working for, and I had lunch at Subway.

Yesterday, we started a new babysitting job, caring for Lincoln B. We call him Linky-dude (like dinky-dude). He is a sweetie. He liked playing with our (usually used as a bathtoy) toy duck. He says "duck, duck, duck". Emily was wearing a tee-shirt yesterday that had some ducks on it and he pointed to them and said "duck".

Me reading to Lincoln. (Notice the clench-fist duck.)



playing with a ball.

Work? who me?

Emily and I got to babysit together on both Monday and Tuesday.
On Monday we babysat a 6 1/2 year old, Gage, at our neighbors' house. We haven't ever watched him before. I was glad Emily was there with me, because of not having even met him before! What did we do? We played with a plastic bat and ball in the backyard, went to the park, colored; he played the computer and played with Lincoln logs; and we watched a DVD about sheepdogs. We only watched it after we could finally figure out how to get the channel turned to do DVD rather than the TV, which was showing the Olympics in China. Since I don't have experience with TVs, I couldn't figure it out; plus, I had the wrong remote, so it was quite the adventure! Oh, and we played the old game "Tiddly Winks" twice with Gage.

Yesterday, I got to babysit for the Browns, for whom I have babysat several times. Their 5 1/2 year old and 1 1/2 year old, needed to be here while their mom and older sister went to a movie. Lincoln, the 1 1/2 year old, slept for a while, while Emily and I played with Hope. Hope and I put a puzzle together, and Em played with us a Go Fish Bible character sort of game. Hope was a lot of fun to play with. We played Hide-N-Go-Seek too. Then Hope wanted to play with our matchbox cars, and a few she had brought. By that time Lincoln was up from his nap and ready to play with toys too.

I am scheduled to help a friend (who Mother babysits for often) clean a house (which her family has been renting) this Friday.

I thank the Lord for the jobs He's given me!