Blast Off - Seth's Birthday Dinner!

Seth blows out his candles/rocket engines. We sang him Happy Birthday during supper and then when we lit the candles we all did a very loud countdown until Blast Off and that's when he blew his candles out.

Kyle and Katie from next door shared Seth's birthday dinner, etc with us. It was a special night as Scotty started it off praying a special blessing over Seth (he does this with each of the children on their birthdays). It was also neat to hear Katie say, "Mr Nowlin are you going to read a chapter from a book to us tonight?". Scotty couldn't resist that and so read from the book Rascal which he's been reading to the children at night.

Happy Birthday Seth! Seth loves God's creation (especially birds and their songs), cooking & baking, imaging he's all sorts of characters in history, looking at books, classical and irish music, racing Jonnie on his bike, hard work towards a useful end, a good battle, snuggling, playing all sorts of sports, and protesting when told to do something that goes against what he wants to do at the moment (we continue to work on that one!). We thank God for Seth in each of our lives!

Seth is 4 Today - April 1st!

We just finished his cake. Seth loves to help me in the kitchen so we did it together - a great birthday treat for him. We got the idea for the cake out of a book Scotty's mom recently sent me. Her sister Carol sent it to her when Scotty and his brother Mark were little boys.


Seth and I used a cake mix and baked it in a standard 13 x 9 pan. Then we cut up the baked cake into the shapes we needed. We then assembled them into our basic rocket shape.

Way to go Seth!

Glueing the cake pieces together with frosting.

Frosted and decorated. We took some liberties on the decorations as Seth isn't a fan of the licorice and gumdrops suggested in the book. Faith and Christy made the US flag for him.

The book suggested red licorice for the engines, but we thought it would be very fun to put his four candles there and light up his cake for lift off tonight!

Tadpole Update

Yesterday, March 31st, we decided we had better stop talking about reducing the number of tadpoles in our 10 gallon tank and actually take some action. So, on an overcast, misty day we transfered about 40 of our tadpoles to a water pitcher and drove to our local reservoir.






Saying our goodbyes :-)

Ready to put them in!

We chose this location as it had shallow water and lots of rocks for the tadpoles to hide under. Little did we know that a duck was lying in wait to munch on the tadpoles! As soon as Faith put them in the water, the duck pounced and ate up two of them. We sprang into action and stirred up the water to make it cloudy so the tadpoles could find hiding places. The children meanwhile kept the ducks away. When we were satisfied that all of the tadpoles were out of sight, we headed for home. I didn't intend to give them a real life lesson on the food chain yesterday - lol!




Keeping the ducks away!

As an aside, we had a robin thumping on the window near our tadpoles for two mornings. He would steadily thump, thump, thump for over an hour. Scotty finally put some butcher paper up on the window so the robin would stop "seeing" another robin in our window. We read up on why the robin was doing this and discovered its fairly common behaviour this time of year. The male robin gets territorial as it considers the needs of its upcoming babies and so it assumes a dominant position when it sees another male robin. If this doesn't work, it actually butts up against the other robin. When that robin does the same thing back (i.e. its reflection) the robin gets very agitated and can leave blood and feathers on the window. Ours didn't get that bad as Scotty got the paper up and it stopped. As I was upstairs listening to the thumps, I started thinking of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Shiver!!!!

Putting up the butcher paper...

Holland two springs ago...

...we enjoyed England, Scotland and Wales so much (we didn't make it to Ireland - sigh!) that we didn't travel Europe very often. We did visit Holland in the Spring though - we were so glad we did. Its hard to describe or show with photographs just what acres of tulips look like to the eye - or how they delight the soul. I am very thankful that we have the memories tucked away in our minds and hearts. A very small taste of heaven.


Our favorite visit was to Corrie ten Boom's home at the ten Boom watch shop in Rotterdam. Her family helped as many Jewish people as they could before they themselves were sent to Nazi concentration camps. I'll put together a separate post describing this experience.


Our second favorite experience was to see and walk amongst fields and fields of flowers.


Thirdly, the girls and I spent 2+ hours in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.


Fourth, there is a cathedral near the ten Boom home which has the most amazing, beautiful organ we've ever seen.


Fifth, we watched the annual flower parade.


Sixth, we got to explore some windmills.


Seventh, we enjoyed our bed and breakfast with soft boiled eggs and toast for breakfast (and many other wonderful foods) and the children enjoyed playing in the back garden with the proprietors grand daughters.

Eighth, we all crammed into a small cabin on the overnight ferry and I fretted all night that I would fall from my very narrow, high bunk and fall on my boys on the floor! It was a very fun experience despite my falling fears :-)



Street signs for bikes were just as common as for vehicles. Families riding for miles to get somewhere together was a common site. In Rotterdam I saw woman with a small child in a seat behind her, another small child on the handlebars, and an umbrells stroller slung across the mom's back so they could switch to walking when need be.
A pretty nice view for these Hollanders we saw riding their bikes! Daffodils!

We ate lots of cheese whilst in Rotterdam - yum!






Uh, Daddy, our highway seems to be lifting up!





Exploring the field of tulips up close.
















Some big shoes to fill :-)

No matter the weather, we visit the local beach wherever we go.


Flower parade!




A tribute to Rembrandt


Selling flower bulbs...

Not all of the beautiful colors were from flowers...


One of the windmills we explored was used to grind up powders for paints.

LOVE these colors too! Yum!

A visit to Ferry Farm on Wednesday...

...George Washington's childhood home. George lived here from about age six (1738) until he moved to Mt Vernon as a young man in 1752 (after his brother Lawrence, who owned Mt Vernon, died). George's father died suddenly when George was 11 years old. George's mother, who never remarried, stayed at Ferry Farm until she was 64 and then moved into a home in nearby Fredricksurg. Ferry Farm is about 40 minutes from our home, on the Rappahanock River. The legend of the cherry tree most likely did not happen, but if it had it would have been here at Ferry Farm.

There is an active archeological dig at Ferry Farm from May through August to, among other things, search for evidence of the Washington farmhouse. We, of course, are hoping to participate this summer.


Colonial era games. The "darts" are very cleverly made out of corn cobs with goose quills stuck into one end.




The checkers are made out of "sliced" corn cobs. The darker checkers look to be burnt on top with a candle. The checker board and table are half of a barrel.



George Washington in known to have thrown a rock across the Rappahanock River! The River was much wider than it was now, too. It is now narrower due to dredging and other works on it during the Civil War. The Union troops camped here and bombarded the city during the Battle of Fredricksburg. Later, the Army of the Potomac built a pontoon bridge on the site of the ferry. There are quotes from some of the soldiers indicating that they knew the significance of the land they were camping on - that it was the childhood home of their first President: "First in War, First in Peace, and First in the hearts of his countrymen. "

BTW, none of our rocks made it quite across the river. On G. Washington's birthday, Ferry Farm has a contest to see who CAN throw a rock across the river. We were told that one or two local high school baseball players usually make it each year.

Fery Farm gets its name from a public ferry which crossed the Rappahanock River from the farm over to Fredricksburg during George's boyhood. There is still evidence of the public ferry road going through the farm.

We ended our visit with a nice walk through the forest along the river. The children stayed in a line playing a new game they invented called "Bee Patrol". They'd have to tell you all of the rules!

Share the Fun

The Prince William County 4-H held their annual Share the Fun in early March. It was really a great night of watching different 4-Hers share their gifts. There were puppet shows, scenes from well known plays, several instruments, recitations, dances, etc.

Faith performed two Irish Dances - one a soft shoe reel and the other a hard shoe hornpipe. Christy performed a soft shoe jig, a hard shoe hornpipe, and also recited the Gettysburg address & several of her favorite bible verses. Jonathan also recited two poems by Robert Louis Stevenson - "Bed in Summer" and "The Swing". We took video on our camera of the girls' dances but sadly we didn't get the recitations.

Seth perfectly spectated and was a good sport watching for 2+ hours. It was a very fun evening and a good forum for the children to display some of their gifts which they work consistently put hard work into.

Each child is judged against a set criteria and not one another. 90 pts and above = blue ribbon 80pts and above = red ribbon, etc.

The judges also wrote down several helpful, constructive comments. I read all of the comments on our drive home - it was a very special time for the children.

An ovation for all of the participants after they are awarded their ribbons. The Nowlin 3 are in the front on the left hand side. Faith is in her dancing sweatshirt with a celtic cross on it.

Jonathan and his friend proudly display their green cloverbud participation ribbons. Ages 5-8 are cloverbuds and they all get the green ribbons. They do get constructive comments though. Niyah played two songs on his recorder - precious!

Waiting for Scotty to finish helping with the heavy lifting required to get the school auditorium put back together properly. Seth is in the background being the doorman for everyone - good man Seth!