Showing posts with label My Girl. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Girl. Show all posts

Our First Graduate

Posted by My Heart Song

 6/7/2021



We have a graduate! Our oldest daughter is done with high school! 


We've homeschooled all the way through, so this feels as much like our victory as it does hers! 



We participated in a homeschool graduation ceremony with 9 other graduates. It was a lovely ceremony. 



And we hosted an open house as well. We had 10 family members from Wisconsin come down for the weekend to join us. 





It was a long and busy weekend, but a lot of fun celebrating!

Congratulations, Bright Eyes! 

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Senior Pictures

Posted by My Heart Song

 5/6/2021

My oldest daughter. A senior. Class of 2021. A beautiful young lady ready to fly!


These pictures evoke so many memories! We've homeschooled all the way through, so as much as this is her moment, her graduation, it is also my moment. To graduate my first student. To make it from kindergarten through 12th grade is no small thing. One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is learning alongside the kids. All the hours we've read books together and all the discussions generated by those books. I have grown up as I've been teaching them. It's been a beautiful process of education for them and for me too.




There's a special story behind these senior pictures. They were taken last fall as a complete surprise to me during my cancer journey. The kids were in Wisconsin staying with grandparents for the week right after my surgery. Totally unbeknownst to me, they planned this whole thing and surprised me a few weeks later with these beautiful pictures. What a great surprise and a load off my shoulders! 




Thank you to all the extended family who were a part of making this happen, including my niece Danielle who was the photographer behind the camera! 

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Happy 17th Birthday!

Posted by My Heart Song

 8/6/2020

My oldest daughter turned 17 this week! 


We enjoyed cupcakes and ice cream bars for birthday dessert. Here she was eating her birthday burger lunch at a local park. It was a beautiful day!




She received a piano keyboard bench (to go with the keyboard she got last year). 

She also received some paints and a paint-by-number kit, which she was quite excited about.

Happy birthday!

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Oldest Daughter's Creative Side

Posted by My Heart Song

5/16/2020 


 
My oldest daughter was inspired to be artsy a few days ago. 



Through some creative photography and Photoshop, she created these. 


Very creative mind!

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Daughter to WinterFest

Posted by My Heart Song

3/2/2020 


Recently my oldest daughter attended Winterfest - a youth weekend retreat our church participates in. Here's a picture of the whole group from our church that attended - youth and chaperones included. The theme of the teaching time was Rest. 


This is just the 11th grade girls group from our church (plus chaperones/small group leaders). 

My daughter loves youth group and hates to miss any youth event, whether regular Wednesday night meetings or special parties or retreats. I am thankful that she's leaning in to relationships with her peers and with Jesus. 

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Being 16

Posted by My Heart Song

10/12/2019


Being 16. I've mentioned before that my oldest daughter is now 16. She's got her first job. She has her learner's permit for driving. She's growing up.


Here are some other fun things she's into lately. 


She's been doing a lot of canvas painting this year. This was a painting she did for Grandma K's birthday. Its city lights are based loosely on the Chicago skyline. She's very creative and talented. 


She's also silly, carrying around towels on her head. But she's also enjoys playing around with Photoshop editing. 
Here's the Photoshop version of the above picture.


Funny girl.


She tends to have whims of inspiration that occupy her free time for a season (from a few days up to a month), such as genealogy research, for example. Recently she learned about a local train wreck that happened in 1859. She was fascinated with this topic for weeks, researching online and at our local library to learn as much as she could. She was able to pinpoint the location of the wreck and we drove there one evening to see it for ourselves. She loved this, feeling a bit like she'd solved a mystery.


Another whim was related to the Sears Tower. She watched a documentary that inspired her to build a scale model of the building with Legos. The colors may be off but the architecture is on point!

In some ways, the Photoshop editing and the canvas painting are also whims that come and go according to her inspiration of the moment. 

She's so carefree and creative! 

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Happy Birthday, Bright Eyes

Posted by My Heart Song

8/5/2019


This girl has turned 16! 

Sixteen feels like a big birthday on the road to adulthood. 
Last week we opened up a checking account for her. 
She'll be getting her driver's permit this week. 
And she's on the look-out for her first job. 

So we celebrate her! 
For her birthday menu, she chose: 
fried potatoes for breakfast, pancakes for lunch, watermelon and Pringles for a snack, Hardee's for supper and ice cream cake for dessert. 

We took time to share, each one in our family, some of the things we love about the birthday girl. She says that words of affirmation is her love language, so she should be filled up after hearing all of us share things we love and appreciate about her. The little ones also shared some favorite memories and activities they enjoy with big sister.

She received some gifts from her siblings, including silly string, an Emoji cup, a coloring book, gum, a homemade slime kit and a keychain. For bigger gifts, she received an art easel (for her canvas painting, which she is really into these days) and a keyboard stand (to hold the full-size piano keyboard she got a few months ago). 

A few weeks ago Grandma K visited from Wisconsin and gave her some gifts at that time, including blank painting canvases and some blank canvas shoes. She pondered how to decorate the shoes and came up with this design. Very pretty and colorful!




Just for fun, here are some pictures through the years. 


2 months old 


9 months old and full of smiles 


flower girl at age 3 


welcoming baby brother at age 4


age 9 or so... starting to look more grown up


age 15 - last year's "school picture"

Happy Birthday, Bright Eyes! 
We love you and are so thankful 
that God placed you in our family!

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Braces - Done!

Posted by My Heart Song

3/13/2019


This oldest girl of mine has now finished her 2 years in braces. Off they came this week! Beautiful smile!

Here are some pictures of the process.


A good shot showing teeth before braces.



During braces.

And now it's done! 

The challenge when doing anything cosmetic, in my opinion, is to keep it in perspective. A beautiful smile is nice. Straight teeth are nice. But God's Word cautions us  "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord should be praised" (Proverbs 31:30). A woman who fears the Lord is far more beautiful (with an eternal, lasting godly beauty) than anyone with a perfect outward appearance. 

1 Peter 3:3-4 also warn us about beauty. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hair styles, gold jewelry or fine clothes (we might add straight teeth). Rather, your beauty should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." God's opinion matters, while this world's opinion doesn't. And He defines that is beautiful in a woman - it is a gentle, quiet spirit. He is not impressed with smiles, jewelry, clothes or hair. He looks at the heart. 

And so the prayer of my heart is that my daughters would work hard at developing that inner beauty that is beautiful and valuable in God's sight. May He find them beautiful!

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Drama Camp

Posted by My Heart Song

3/4/2019


My 15-year-old daughter participated in a week-long Drama Camp recently. This was specifically for homeschoolers and was held at a nearby church. The group met from 9 am until 3 pm each day, extending to 9 pm on one day. We figured that the group put in over 45 total hours during this 6-day camp. They start from almost scratch (roles had been assigned and students with speaking parts had memorized their lines) and 6 days later performed a 1.5 hour well-done drama. Students learned about costumes and make-up, as well as set assembly and technical elements. 


Here's my daughter showing off some make-up wounds...


And old-age make-up. 


In costume on the day of the performance. 
The setting was Bible times. 


With a friend


Cast picture

It was a tiring week, requiring her to be up earlier than normal. But she really enjoyed the experience overall and is already looking forward to doing it all again next year! 

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