First of all, let me just say that Willa went into her second year firing on all cylinders. In one brief morning, she played in the potty, pulled all the magnets off the calendar TWICE, emptied several baskets of laundry onto the floor, and demonstrated varying degrees of consternation over her increasing age. I fear for us when this child turns two.
So I’m not quite ready to give you a post full of cake and parties yet. Because I’m still recovering mentally from the assault of this birthday. Instead, I’ve got a video for you. The kids spent all of November memorizing Psalm 92. I meant for them to memorize Psalm 100, but in a moment of not reading my lesson plans, I got confused and we ended up a few chapters back. Ah well. It’s still Scripture, right?
It took us three tries to get a video that is somewhat presentable. Every last second of it is totally representative of life here at the House of Vitafam, including my utter lack of compassion when my children hurt themselves and a screaming baby in the background. If you can’t stand to sit through the entire video, please promise me you’ll watch until about a minute and thirty seconds. Keep your eyes on Ellen. You won’t regret it.
Untitled from Lora Fanning on Vimeo.
The reason the child fell? Because her pajamas are two sizes too small and she can’t completely straighten her body while wearing them. She also can’t lift her legs properly to sit upon an object. Polyester stretched that tight across a person is bound to bounce.
And it’s okay if you want to just watch those three seconds over and over again.
We did.
12.1.2009
Have I told you lately how much I LOVE your family???
Ellen falling had me in STITCHES!!! This is priceless!
12.1.2009
Adorable! Those are some PASSIONATE reciters!
My standard answer when someone hurts themselves is, “You’re fine! Shake it off!”
12.1.2009
The boys did a great job memorizing! Maybe Ellen will be agreeable to wearing pj’s that fit better now
12.1.2009
So how excited were they that they had permission to say “stupid?” My kids would have been shocked to know that word was in the Bible.
I think if we were to ever do something like that, our video would be quite similar to yours.
12.1.2009
That’s so precious! You’re always an inspiration.
12.1.2009
That is awesome!!! I love it!!
12.1.2009
Precious! I love Scripture memory. I think there’s something really special about the Psalms, too. I can’t tell you the number of times we’re driving down the road and need to take a Psalms break.
12.1.2009
That looks just like what my 2 yo daughter would do !
However, that does not look like what my boys (4 and 5) would do ! We have trouble teaching them one verse ! How did you do that ?
12.1.2009
The house of the Lord is flourishing indeed! Great job boys!
And I love the exhortation to “Keep going” - pay no mind to the screaming child beside you. That’s pretty much how we roll in our house too
My goal is for the kids (and I) to memorize Luke 2:1-20 this Christmas season. I hope we do as well as you guys did!
12.1.2009
Kendra - Hand motions are key. And you saying it as dramatic as possible, changing inflection. I noticed the kids did better on verses where I changed my inflection and the words were dramatized. Start now and you will have no problem!
12.1.2009
Rebecca - We started early. We did about two verses a day and I tried to be regular about it. Even if we didn’t add a verse, we said it every single day. I made up silly hand motions to help the kids remember things. And I said the verses with lots of drama and inflection, which you can tell they mimicked. But it also made it less dull and more memorable. You have to allow for some silly (most of the other videos, Ian jumped up and down with every verse) but if you expect them to rein it in some and do it right, they will!
12.1.2009
wow…american sign language is clearly missing out on some hand motions. that was priceless!
12.1.2009
Love the video!I was watching it with my 18 mos old boy sitting on my lap. He started imitating your older boys, flew his hands up in the air and poked me in the eye! Painful, but sweet!
12.1.2009
That was funny!!!
If I babysit for you again, I would love for the boys to teach me the Psalm 92! Seriously!