At least I have my light saber...

Elijah heard some fireworks and came in a little excited.  We have fireworks almost every day somewhere in Yerevan...  but these he couldn't see;  he could only hear them.  So he was pretty quick to come inside to find me after he heard the loud booms that fireworks make.  I told him I was glad he was close to the house and that he could (and did) come to me when he was nervous.  He smiled and ran back to the door.  Then he over his shoulder he called, "At least I have my light saber!"  "How would that protect you from fireworks, Lijah?"  "I dunno...  I'd throw it at them!?"

Ah, the light saber.  It is the ultimate protection, no?

I kinda chuckled to myself over the wisdom of my five year old as he went back outside feeling a little braver.  He'd talked to me, the noise had ended, and he'd grabbed up his light saber-time to go take on the world again!  Then I thought wouldn't that be nice.  To have a light saber make everything alright and to give you courage to go back out there again.  Then verses about swords popped into my head:

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Hebrews 4:12


Ephesians 6:17 - Armor of God...
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.


Revelations 1:16  (about Jesus)
... out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.


 As Christians, we do have a our own sword, or light sabor, if you will...  It is the very Word of God.  Sharp and powerful.  Awesome enough to speak the earth into existence.  (Gen 1)  To call to Lazarus to "come forth" to life again.  (John 11)  To send the devil on his way!  (Matt. 4)  Pretty powerful stuff.  When we read it, and learn it, and hide it's words in our hearts, and SPEAK it (out of his mouth came a sword...), we are making sure our protection and our courage is always at our side, ready to go!  Perhaps it's even better then a red, plastic light saber that my five year old believes can rescue him from anything?!  

Happy Water Day 2010

So in Armenia they celebrate Water Day every July.  People dump buckets of water on strangers and cars.  Last year we got some dumped on our car but we didn't walk around downtown!  Heh.  We did play in the water outside at our own place.  So this year, we kept the tradition of just playing outside trying to get each other with the mountain water from our outside hose!  Good times.  It's kind of a fun tradition...  I think we'll bring it back to the US with us!  :)  Happy Water Day! 

Where would you like to live?

Okay, so I asked this question to all four of my children tonight:  Where would you like to live?  We're not sure what our future holds right now or where we will live in a year!  So I just threw it out there to see their input.  They don't really know details of the future so they weren't thinking like I was.  Ruth's first response was, "Here!"  :)  Where ever you are, that's where you are, right?  Well, then we got a little more into it...  here's their responses.  (I should have had the video camera... it's so interesting to hear them answer...)

Benjamin:  Maybe Norway since that's where we're from.  (My grandparents are Norwegian).  I kinda like France, too, I don't know why...  and Australia.  And in America, I'd like to live in Wyoming.  There's not too many people there and there's a lot of cool National Parks.

Hannah:  I'd kind of like to live in Russia.  I like the neat buildings and churches there.  (I think she's interested in learning the Russian language, too...  and that's where we were planning to go before we came to Armenia.)  In America, I'd like to live in Maine because the weather is cool and I like the way it sounds.  I like their state bird, too.

Ruth:  I want to live in Texas!  ~Why?  It's big and there's cowboys.  I want to meet a cowboy and his cows.  (ha!)  And then maybe I'd live in India.  I don't know why...  (we have a few friends at church who are from India...?)  I'd like to meet Indians.  ~Did you know that there's lots of people in India?  Benjamin quoted some facts and numbers for her that I can't remember...  Oh yeah!  I'll make LOTS of friends!  ~And they wear pretty, colorful clothes.  Oooohhh......  (The clothing comment made Hannie stop and think...)  Then as we looked at the map she decided India is also a good place because she will go see the ocean, too.

Elijah:  North Dakota, North Dakota, North Dakota!  ~How come, honey?  I miss North Dakota.  I'll live at Papa's house.  Done, and done.  He didn't care to talk about any other place.  ND.  Period.  (Sounds like my grandma/Bestamor...  "I don't know why anyone would want to live anywhere else?!")  :)

In the end we decided there's a lot of places we want to visit.  I'm not sure if we really nailed down where we want to LIVE!  Heh!  Except for Elijah...  North.  Da. Ko. Ta.  :)

Happy First Birthday, Emma Joy!

July 8th was Emma's first birthday... Next year we'll have to double celebrate?! :)

I love my one year old niece! See you this winter, baby girl!!

Emma's 11 Months old here (above).

Emma eating her daisy cake... they celebrated her birthday on the Fourth of July!

My brother, Blake, his wife, Crystal, and their baby girl, Emma.

Love you guys!

The girls' Armenian Dance Recital!

Our girls have taken Armenian dance classes this year. We started taking them with Nadela's daughter, Iren. She stopped going this spring, but we decided to finish it out. (Iren started taking a singing class instead...)

So last Sunday, the girls performed their dances in a recital with lots of other little girls. They did so great.

I'm proud of all they've learned and how they kept up with classes, even when they couldn't really communicate well with anyone! (Everyone spoke Armenian... the girls and the teachers!) Hannie can understand more than she can speak, so she did catch some of it... but the nice thing about dance is that you can watch and do! And they did!

So proud of them!

This day was 100 degrees and they were very warm! And it was about 4 hours long (including all the other dances). Their dance was about 15 minutes long! They did their best and it was great. Ruth (Rutik) came away from it with snagged tights, lost barrettes and a lost shoe (during the performance!)... Hannie (Ani) came away from the performance looking just the same as when we sent her back stage! Our girlies. Love 'em. Apres, apres!!

I love that this is something that will always be a part of them... something they will always "have" from Armenia.

Hannah says this is her favorite dance. They are way in the back... look close!
Plus, we only had two seats for Kev, me, Benjamin, and Elijah... so it's a not the most steady shot!

This dance kinda has more of the Armenian sound to it... but it's their last one and if you happen to see Ruthie... she's tired and ready to be done!

blogger has been making it difficult to upload these videos...

summer schedule

It's summer time in the Crawford home! We're excited for a break from homeschooling. At the same time, I don't really want to just stop learning, if you know what I'm saying! :) So, I had the kids help me come up with a little schedule for us to have a little bit of loosely structured time in the afternoons during the summer.

So from roughly 1:00 to 2:00 this is what is out to play with:

Monday - Math and Bible Trivia (JBQ)

Tuesday - Phonics games and Art

Wednesday - Puzzles and Games

Thursday - Play doh (or other feely things...) and possibly baking!

Friday - Computer learning games and Music (which we really do every day... heh.)

Saturday we go to the orphanage and we decided we'd like to try to write a letter to someone back home on this day, too.

Sunday is, of course, church day!

(Okay, I totally wrote the week out like an Armenian would... starting with Monday! Ha!)

So I've just been putting these things on the table (or on the floor) and it'sbeen an easy and fun way to do "something" and something good, too! The kids have liked it. Then we've also been trying to have quiet time before supper, too. If it's "their day" (they each get one day where they get to do anything helpful or special... make decisions or say prayers, etc...), they get 15-20minutes of their quiet time alone with me. Just to hang out. I really want to spend individual time with them once in a while. So that's been fun, too! Quiet time especially is good for right now since it's been super hot around 4 or 5 in the evenings anyway! They play outside in the morning when it's cooler!

Besides that, our kids have been loving polly pockets, computer games, water stuff outside, playing games with the obsidian rocks around here, writing songs, and recently they've been making up their own pretend countries with maps and flags. Benjamin has even written out his country's history with wars and conquering, etc... I love their imaginations!

We've also been trying to keep up our morning Bible time. We're learning about Paul, finishing memorizing Hebrews 11 and reading Window on the World (which is also great for geography!). Kev reads Narnia after lunch and I just finished reading Harriet Tubman to them at bedtime. Now we just started Marley and Me... a little different story than Harriet Tubman, but still fun... especially since we have our own crazy puppy now!

There you have it. Fun in the summer.

I love that when they're "bored" they go to our homeschooling drawers. Awesome!