Cincinnati Convention

On Friday the 9th, my family and I went to the Cincinnati Convention. This was our first time to attend the convention. My mom had three friends that were there, So we went out to lunch with them on Saturday. Two of the mom's brought some of their children with them. Daniel and Andrew hung out with the boys while Rachel was with the girls.


On Saturday I ran into Grace Atherton and her family. Neither one of us had any idea that the other was going to be at the convention. So I was able to walk the convention hall with Grace and her sisters and go to one of the workshops together.

We had a lot of fun and I hope we can go again next year.

Easter Vacation, Part 2

Monday afternoon we arrived in Columbia, Kentucky at my Grandma and Grandpa Wallace's house. For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant. When the waiter took my Grandma's order she told him quietly that three of the children had birthdays and she wanted to know if they could do something for them. So, after dinner, four guys came to our table with three sombrero hats and fried ice cream with sprinkles. They then sang "Happy Birthday" in Spanish.

The sombrero hats are actually pretty heavy.

After they left we all took turns trying on the hats.

Once we finished, we went back home. We watched a movie that my Dad's older sister, Lynn, put together. The movie was a whole bunch of video clips that my Grandpa's mom, Clista, had taken in the '50's, '60's, and '70's. I was able to see my grandparents when they were in their twenties, my Aunt Lynn from when she was a baby to a young girl, my dad when he was a baby to a young boy, and my Aunt Missy when she was a baby.

Shortly after my Aunt Lynn was born in 1957, Great Grandma Clista would come over to my grandparents house and watch Aunt Lynn while my Grandma went to work. Clista had bought a new video camera and recorded almost every day she babysat Aunt Lynn. She had bought a top-of-the-line camera. It did not record sound and had a very bright light, so every time little ones looked at the camera that would blink a lot, close their eyes or look away. Some times they ran away.

The next day Jessica left early to go back home so she could work. Andrew's birthday was that day. He turned 14. He opened presents from Mom, Dad, Grandma and Grandpa. Rachel also opened her gift from Grandma and Grandpa because her birthday is three days after Andrew's. She turned 12. Other than that, we pretty much just relaxed and played around the house.

Wednesday morning we left for home.

Easter Vacation, Part 1

On Saturday the 3rd my family and I headed down to Knoxville, Tennessee to spend Easter with my mom's side of the family. My grandparents had already been down there for a couple of days. My mom only has one sibling, a brother, who is about three and a half years younger than she. He is married and has five children; Elise (14), Zachary (12), Olivia (9), Joshua (6), Abigail (2).

Saturday evening almost all of the cousins played a game of kick ball with some of the neighborhood children. Then later we all went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. After that we went back to my Aunt and Uncle's house to play around some more before Mom, Dad, Daniel and I went to our hotel.

Zachary looking thrilled about getting his picture taken. Not sure what Andrew was doing.

Abby, Elise, and Olivia.

Jessica joined us early Sunday morning. We went to Uncle Joe and Aunt Mindi's Church for the Easter service. Afterwards, we headed back to my Uncle's house for a big dinner. While it was cooking we took our Easter pictures.

Front row: Matthew, Rachel.
Back row: Andrew, Jessica, Me, Daniel, Mom, Dad.

All of the Lambdin grandchildren. Front row: Matthew, Olivia, Joshua, and Rahcel. Back row: Andrew, Jessica, Zachary, Abby, Elise, Daniel, and me.

After dinner all the grandchildren, minus Jessica, participated in the Amazing Easter Race that my grandma put together. On the red team was Rachel (next door neighbor), Joshua, Olivia, and Andrew. Blue team consisted of Zachary, Rachel, Jonah (next door neighbor, Rachel's younger brother), and me. On the Green team was Daniel, Elise, Abby, and Matthew. The Amazing Easter Race was based off of Amazing Race. Each team received their first team clue and inside their was a road block. My teams road block was to go to the back yard and count all of the beans in the container and then tell the number to my grandpa. We counted 267 beans. Then we had to do the detour. For the detours you have to pick who is going to do it before opening the envelope to read what you have to do for the detour. Zachary chose to do the detour. He had to look through the basket of plastic eggs next to the beans for an egg with a small blue dot. Once he found the dot he showed it grandpa and then we ran to the back patio to receive our next clue.


Matthew and Joshua

Another one of our roadblocks was that we had to go inside to the breakfast table and sit down and eat a hard boiled egg. Everyone had to do it and you had show your empty mouth to Aunt Mindi to prove the you completely ate it. You could not use salt. Then we had to do a detour. We had to pick two people who still had an appetite. That was Zachary and me. What we had to do was one person had feed baby food to the other person. Zachary immediately elected himself to feed the baby food to me. The baby food was Fruit Medley. I do not know how those babies like that food. It was gross. What made it worse is that Zachary was feeding me big spoonfuls really fast. But it was a fun experience.



Abigail and Rachel

My team (blue) got second place, the red team got first, while the green team got third. But that was partly because the green team had to wait twice on my team to finish a roadblock before they could then do that same roadblock and their first roadblock got messed up so they ended up doing more they were supposed to do.


Olivia, Abigail, and Rachel

Once we finished we played three games of kickball before dinner. Lots of fun. Monday at lunch time Grandma and Grandpa and my family went to Chick-fil-a for lunch then they left for home and we left for my Grandpa and Grandma Wallace in Columbia, Kentucky.

My Ballet Girls

Last Thursday I took some pictures of my ballet girls for our co-op's yearbook. Here is my first class.


Anna and Trissity

Grace and Sydney


Mrs. VanEyk, my assistant.



My second class.


Grace

Kelly and Baylee

Rebecca and Elizabeth

Bethany and Grace

Claire and Heather

Amy Grace and Erin

Last night was amazing!! My church put on a concert called "We Believe". My music Pastor, Scott Apple, knows Shelly Harris (google her name) to come and sing with our choir. She did a wonderful job. For about an hour I held Esther, Scotts' youngest daughter, who is almost two. She was tired and fussy and had a runny nose, so at the beginning she would cry a little. We worship in the gym, so one little noise can sound loud. She did not want her water or her crackers. So I set her down after a little while and she walked over to the carpeted area between the kitchen and the bathrooms and found some basketballs. Esther loves balls. She played with them for quite awhile. Terry, Esther's mom, gave a testimony during that time. She talked about when Esther was born and how she had to rely on her faith to carry her through until Esther was healthy enough to come home. She then sang a song, Revelation Song, one of my favorites. By that time I had Esther in her stroller with her sippy cup and crackers. When Terry was singing several hands were raised. You could really feel the Spirit of God moving last night.

We did something that I had never done before. Everyone got a plain popsicle stick. Pastor Scott asked us to look at the stick and think of the biggest problem in you life right now and picture the words written on the stick. Then give it over to God and break the stick. Scott prayed and then Shelly Harris sang a song. While she was singing you could hear lots of popsicle sticks breaking. It was very moving.

They are talking about doing another one soon. If they are, I will let you know the date and time.

Moving Things

Well, we got Jessica completely moved in to her new apartment yesterday. She now lives 25 minutes away from us. :( She moved in with one of her friends whom we have known for several years. Everyone helped her move. We packed things in Jessica's car, the mini-van, Dad's truck, and my car. We got quite a work-out moving her futon, dresser, computer, table and chairs, and heavy bags of clothes from the vehicles to her room at the back of the apartment on the third floor. And getting to the front door was no easy chore either. We only had to make one other trip with her car and the truck. It is a very nice apartment. My favorite part is the big fireplace and her walk in closet.

Jessica used to sleep in the back room of our house. We have eight tall bookshelves back there and we lined them in up in the middle of the room for a divider. Four on one side and four on the other. But now we have rearranged the room. On the left side on the room is my Dad's office, the kids computer, and my Mom's scrapbook stuff. On the right is our new family room. We brought the couch down from the Andrew and Matthew's room (they have the biggest room in the house) and put it in the back. So now I can watch my movies without disturbing the younger ones while they are doing their school work.

The Indianapolis Home School Convention

This past Friday and Saturday my mom and I went to the Indianapolis Home School Convention. It was great. I went to Sarah Mally's Workshops' Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends, Raising Pure Daughters in a Generation of Darkness, and Alternative to College. It was so encouraging. I have read both her books, Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends and Before You Meet Prince Charming. Very good books. I highly recommend them.

This was my second tear to go to the convention. Last year the main speakers were Doug Philips (from Vision Forum) and Ken Ham. It was so neat to hear the them speak.

My good friend, Grace Atherton, runs a booth at the convention for the movie Pendragon. She is best friends with the main actress in the movie. Grace and I email each other a lot, but we do not get to see one another very often. So the convention is one of the ways we get to see each other.

The mom the I nanny for, Carrie Thifault, was at the convention Saturday. We ran into each other at the Lamplighter booth (I highly recommend Lamplighter). I was buying some books (Self-Raised, The Wide, Wide World vol. 1&2) there and she was asking me what books I have from them. I told her the three that I have; The Hidden Hand, Ishmael, and House of Love. She asked me if I had read The Basket of Flowers? I replied no, but I was wanting to buy it eventually. She said that she has the book but was currently loaning it out to someone. So a little later I got a call from Carrie asking if I could meet her at the Vision Forum booth because she had something for me. Mom and I made our way over there. Once we got there she handed me The Basket of Flowers. She suggested that I read it to Rachel since it is geared toward her age. I asked Rachel today if she would be open to it. She said yes. We will try to read it today but we are a bit busy at the moment.

On Saturday morning we were walking in the Exhibit hall when we were stopped by a young lady who works for The Home School Channel. She asked us if we would be willing to do an interview about purity. We said yes. We walked over to were the camera was set up and she asked some questions before she taped us. She hooked us up to the microphones and she put on the headset and started recording. She asked us questions like what purity meant to us and how we were living it? Did we date or court (we court)? How do we do courtship, why do we not to dating? And a whole bunch of other questions. Once they finish editing they will email us the video to watch. When we give them the approval they are going to publish it on their website. If I can I will post the link for it later. I am a little nervous to see the video but I am sure it will look great.