Tea, Tedium, and Toddlers

This summer, our family is enjoying food flavored with fresh basil from our very own basil plants. Matthew waters the plants everyday and recently pruned two of the plants, washing and trimming the leaves, coating them with olive oil, and freezing them in ice cube trays for future use. That little project inspired him to put them to another use. He tore up some of the leaves and put them in a cup of water, letting them steep in the warmth from the sun for awhile. Sophie and Evan also requested that he make them some "basil tea." I tasted it and it was slightly sweet and actually good!

Now that Evan is back to square one with learning new piano pieces, his attitude and quality of practice has crashed. He gets so easily discouraged when learning anything new and doesn't put his heart into the hard work that it takes to get to the point where he can become proficient. He doesn't want to quit piano, but he is just spinning his wheels as far as making progress in learning new pieces. He is driving his piano teacher up a wall. Unfortunately she resorts to nagging which isn't helping. James are praying and discussing alternate methods of external motivation to encourage Evan until the internal motivation kicks in (as it did eventually last year.) I'm attempting to be an example to Evan by practicing one of his songs myself to demonstrate good habits (in all my spare time :). At least the kids see me applying myself to something that I require of them.

Last weekend James and I watched the movie Rudy. (Unfortunately the movie included a lot of taking God's name in vain.) The movie is based on a true story and shows how a devoted heart can overcome seemingly impossible obstacles in ability. Of course, it is all from the perspective of purely human effort, but it is an interesting study in human nature. Rudy is Evan's antithesis right now.

Since Aunt Beth was babysitting her grandson Elijah on Friday, she brought him over to spend time with our kids. Logan and Elijah are both at the same stage where they get far more interested and excited over pictures of people than the people themselves. They both point happily to pictures of each other, but when they are right next to each other, they look everywhere but at each other!



We enjoyed watching the boys play side-by-side, and someday they will enjoy actually playing with each other. (Click on the pictures to view larger. You can see a video by clicking on "My Recent Shots" in the sidebar.)