What I Learned This Week: A new shape

It's been a while since I participated in the "What I've Learned This Week" blog carnival hosted by Jo-Lynne at Musing of a Housewife.

It's been a while since I posted much of anything over here...but I knew I had to share this. It's big news, folks. Big news! I learned that there is a new shape out there that I have never heard of before.

Really, I thought I knew all the shapes there were to know! But that was before my 7 year old told me he had invented one.

This, my friends, is called a vench, and it is a new shape invented by Josiah, age 7.

You're welcome.

Josiah also told me about another new shape he has invented called a var, but he said it was very hard to draw. He's still working on drawing that one for me.

Now, head on over to Musings of a Housewife to see what others have learned this week! I'm pretty sure there won't be any posts about new shapes. ;)

Click here to see what else I’ve learned in other weeks.

Oh, hi! Remember me?

It has been quite a week or two. I've missed you! :) I will write a rambling post soon with pictures from our church's VBS as well as Josiah's birthday party, but first I have to take care of some bloggy business.

You might have seen the button on my left sidebar for Uprinting, an online printing company (and if you get my blog posts by email, you can click here to see it). I recently became a sponsored blogger with Uprinting, which basically means I advertise for them and, in return, they will offer some generous giveaways to my readers as well as some extra perks for me.

I’ll let you know as soon as I have any of those generous giveaways to offer to my readers. :)

This week they are offering me 500 free business cards to help promote my blog! How awesome is that? Thank you, Uprinting!


Why UPrinting.com isn't your average printing company:

Blog Sponsorships:
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You Capture: Emotion

This week’s theme of the You Capture blog carnival hosted by Beth over at I Should Be Folding Laundry is Emotion.

Emotion? Yeah, we've got that.


Sad...

More sadness...the hide-your-little-red-face kind...



Content and happy...

This is the only staged one. I asked Grace to show me her mad face...Her real mad face isn't quite as cute. ;) But she really does crinkle her forehead and nose like this.

Sad...




Excited...





Happy to be with the Wii...



Calm...

Silly... (Is silliness an emotion? It is around here. And we see a lot of it.)

Check out I Should Be Folding Laundry for more You Capture participants.

Click here to see my previous You Capture photos.

Majestic

O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8:1

Majestic

O Lord our Lord how majestic is
Your name in all the earth
O Lord our Lord how majestic is
Your name in all the earth

The heavens declare Your greatness

The oceans cry out to You

The mountains they bow down before You

So I'll join with the earth
And I'll give my praise to You

Lyrics from Lincoln Brewster's song Majestic.

Wordless Wednesday: The bus stop

A bus stop in Athens, Georgia, on Broad Street/Atlanta Highway.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom or Wordless Wednesday for more Wordless Wednesday participants.

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Click here to see my previous Wordless Wednesday photos.

Overheard: Feelin' the pain

Josiah was complaining a few weeks ago about how he didn't sleep well with Grace in his room the very first night, since she was repeatedly rolling over and hitting the wall and the sides of the bed. Robert apparently made one too many jokes about this…

Josiah [totally serious]: After I get tired of having her in my room, she'll sleep in your room, Robert. Then you can feel the pain.

~~~~~

Grace found the chewable Benadryl I had decided to keep in my pocketbook just in case she gets an insect bite while we are away from home, since I've seen further proof of how badly she can react. I explained the purpose of it:

Me: It’s so I can give you medicine if you get bit by ants--

Grace [interrupting]: Or a dinosaur, or a croc-ah-di-yal, or a bay-yah…

Hmmm…I have never seen even one dinosaur, crocodile, or bear in our county. I was really thinking more along the lines of ants and bees.

~~~~~

Josiah: Is it OK to look in the toaster oven when it’s on?

Later…

Josiah: It’s a good thing we don’t have the kind of oven door you can see through--this way, we don’t see the lasers.

Me: There are no lasers in our oven.

Jason Slade: Yeah, we did away with those years ago.

Why the endless questions? (Because, believe me, there‘s more of his questions I can‘t even remember at the moment.) Why the fascination with lasers? Because while Josiah was with me during The Great Swimsuit Quest of 2009, he looked into a price checker at Kohl’s. He immediately got a severe headache as well as blurry vision for about 10-15 minutes. I sat him down until it passed, and then walked with him back to Customer Service to ask what one might expect when one’s child looked into one of the price checkers. The clerk looked bewildered and said, “Ummmm…I don’t know. No one has ever done that before.”

To which I thought, “Yeah, right!"

(Josiah's not the only one to do this. Right? I mean, I don't personally know of anyone who has done this besides him, but...uh, oh...)

It has made such an impression on him that he did it again that same afternoon with another price checker.

In actuality, he didn’t really look into the second price checker; he was about to take another look but merely saw the red laser zigzagging. He was traumatized all over again, prompting another severe headache. Since that time, Josiah has occasionally had recurrent but very short-term headaches whenever he recalls this traumatic event…or whenever he imagines lasers in our toaster oven. I have checked with his pediatrician, explaining that he is my little hypochondriac on the dramatic side, and she said that the headaches are brought on by his panicky state in recalling the event…especially since the headaches only last a minute or less.

~~~~~

Jason Slade [going over some ground rules with Grace]: You don’t hit the people you love. You don’t kick the people you love.

Grace [completely serious]: No. You hug dem, you kiss dem, and you bake for dem.

Back home in Athens again

On Saturday, we went to Athens since Jason Slade needed to do some research at the UGA library. The kids and I headed over to Grandad and Miss Kathleen's house for a visit. (I'm sorry--This is going to be a series of photos or else I will never get this post done!)

Grandad reading to Grace.

Looking at photos with Miss Kathleen, who is recovering nicely from knee surgery.

Grace sitting among the stuffed animals on the hearth.

Where's Waldo?

Enjoying a Mr. Bean DVD the kids brought for the trip. It's amazing and just a little scary how often we hear the kids--even Grace--quote Mr. Bean.

We also visited with Shirley while we were in town.

Shirley said it'd been a long time since a little girl "fixed" her hair...and I wonder if a princess has ever been the one holding the comb?

Robert and Josiah both enjoyed playing on Shirley's Wii. He was too distracted to stop me from taking pictures while he was bowling. He tried to convince me what a great idea it would be to buy a Wii...His main selling point was that I would be able to take great pictures of him. Ha.

Shirley attempted to get a group shot of the kids before we left (She had the better angle on these shots):

Of course, it got goofy all too quickly...




We picked up Jason Slade from the library at closing time and stopped to eat before getting back on the road. Grace started doing a Mr. Bean impression over and over again while eating her black beans one by one:

"Uh...Bean."