Ben and I like to ask each other what we learned from the sermon during our drive home from church. Tonight we got distracted, recounting our conversations after church instead.

image :: original artwork by Fred R Shepard

When we got home, Nikki took it upon herself to ask me what I learned. I told her, and then she asked me to ask her what she learned! Of course I asked and she told me that she learned about “growing our hearts to be more like Jesus, and prayer [Pastor Mike talked about Jonah's prayer in the belly of the big fish].”

A few minutes later Michael asked me to ask him what he learned (“Mama, what Michael learn?”). So I asked him and he sat up very straight in his chair and forcefully enunciated his answer: “worship God!”

With sharp-eared small children around, adult conversation can be a bit limited. Sometimes Ben and I spell things rather than say them.

That means, of course, that when we’re spelling, it must be important.

Nikki heard some spelling and thought we were saying “S-N-O-D”. She now thinks that S-N-O-D is very important.

Ben and I have no idea what we were spelling when our daughter heard S-N-O-D, but the acronym has clearly taken on a life of its own.

Sometimes when we’re about to eat, Nikki will ask if we’re having S-N-O-D. Or she’ll ask if we’re going to get some S-N-O-D. Click here to listen to Nikki’s imaginary phone conversation about S-N-O-D (transcript below).

Uh, hello?

I’d like to get S-N-O-D, and Mama wants it too.

So… uh… we’re pretty nice, so…

Have you any S-N-O-D?

Yeah? OK.

Bye bye.”

If anyone, uh, has some S-N-O-D, I think my daughter’s expecting some in the mail…

Vi has a way of making those around her feel special.

She smiles so much when people talk to her that she is a natural choice for hosting her own chat show.

Six months into the series, the producers have just released several new head shots to meet growing demand from all of Vi’s fans.

For those of you who haven’t seen the show, Vi insisted we include a sample from her favourite segment: “Fashion DOs”. Bottom ruffles are very NOW.

Nikki and Michael thoroughly enjoy the Rebecca Johnson / Steve Parish books Kent and Loni brought when they visited.

But mostly I took this picture so you could see Nikki’s groovy trousers!

UPDATE: I have posted a review of our first year with Pear Budget.

A scientist and an engineer fall in love, get married, create a budget.

Fast-forward ten years later, and our budget-tracking spreadsheet has at least 50 different categories. Despite this level of detail, I have no real idea of where we stand unless I look at our bank account balance.

photo my mum took of my dad with a pear at Apple FunPark

Pear Budget stood out as an alternative to our spreadsheet madness, and I signed up for a free 30-day trial in December which convinced me to purchase a full year of online service. Here are a few reasons why I love it so far:

1. super easy to enter (and edit) expenses and income – I admit I now enjoy entering receipts
2. convenient “tags” field to add notes – much easier than adding a comment to a cell in Excel
3. you never have to press a “save” button or worry about backing up any files
4. enter that month’s income and that month’s expenses – if you purchase something you’ve saved for before starting Pear Budget, you can put in a receipt with a negative amount to show that you already had the money saved
5. owners Charlie and Sarah are very responsive and love to answer questions – they really do want to make it easy to keep track of your budget

I will continue testing this online budgeting service to see if it stands up to real life, irregular expenses and all. Stay tuned for a more thorough review in a few months. If you have any questions you’d like me to try to answer as I’m poking around, just let me know.

Please note, this is not a compensated review, just a product I like. However, if you would like to subscribe to Pear Budget using this link, I will receive a free month of the service.

We just finished the fifth week of our homeschooling journey, which we have begun with catechism memorization. Nikki and Michael both enjoy it and I think the Catechism for Young Children in particular does a great job of (a) breaking down complex doctrine into understandable pieces and (b) satisfying the endless curiosity of preschoolers and toddlers. The question and answer format is a natural learning style for curious littlies.

We have our lessons during lunch or immediately after, with Vi on my back in a baby carrier most days.

To begin, I open Starr Meade’s book, Training Hearts, Teaching Minds and ask each of the questions we’ve studied to date. Nikki knows the answers so this is a review. Here is a video of her answering the first four questions of the Shorter Catechism in Modern English:

I then read the current week’s question and answer several times. After that, I read the paragraph for that day (there are six short lessons, one each for Monday through Saturday). If things are going well, I will read two day’s worth of lessons, because we don’t homeschool on Saturdays, and usually there will be one or two weekdays where Vi needs extra attention or something else comes up.

Each of the daily lessons contains several Bible references to look up. As I was searching for a verse today, Nikki asked me, “Mama, what will happen when I can read?” Then she answered her own question, “I will be able to look up verses in the Bible!”

Following the paragraph lesson, I read the current week’s question and answer two or three more times. Then I pull out the Catechism for Young Children and start at the top. Nikki has it memorized up through question 21, and Michael knows the answers to the first three questions. You can hear him in this video:

Recently I have been able to answer some of Nikki’s questions about God or sin with catechism answers that she already knows. It’s fantastic to see her fit the pieces into place, and it makes my job easier to have answers ready to give.

Six months old tomorrow, and Vi took her first bite today.

Robin asked for a review of the LIKEaBIKE we bought our children for Christmas.

The short answer is that the LIKEaBIKE is fantastic! A stress-free child-led introduction to cycling.

Nikki gained confidence by riding around and around the living room. Then one day she asked to take her LIKEaBIKE outside.

She practiced in the back garden, and later I shot some video as she maneuvered around a parking lot, down a grassy hill, and along a wetlands trail.

This short clip shows her riding, turning wide circles, and stopping.

Please note, this is not a compensated review, just a product I like.

Vi surprised us this weekend by pushing herself up into a sitting up position on the playmat. She continued to sit up while snacking on Duplo and grabbing a book.

Note: the video doesn’t have any sound. I decided it wasn’t the time to stun the world with Nikki’s and my rendition of We Gather Together.