A Birthday Surprise–For All of Us!

In yesterday’s post about Brock’s birthday, I wrote that we all had an unplanned surprise for his special day!  Well, here it is:  meet our newest guinea pig, Chip!
Now for the story:  We got our first two guinea pigs back in May as part of John’s pets merit badge requirements for Boy Scouts.  Dan brought [...]

Read Full Post »

Brock’s 11th Birthday

It’s Birthday season at the Prairie Family house again!  This past Thursday was Brock’s 11th birthday.  He had been counting down the days for weeks–I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so excited about his birthday before!
He had a nice day.  Grandma made him a birthday cake featuring his most-recent favorite game, Harvest Moon.   We [...]

Read Full Post »

A Beka Academy Week 12 Update: School Pictures

 

Well, this is long overdue!  I actually took these pictures several weeks ago, but I just got time today to get them edited and sorted through!
Anyway, I used to have the kids’ school pictures taken professionally each year, but it just got to be too expensive.  So a couple of years ago, I started taking [...]

Read Full Post »

Wisdom Beyond Their Years

A common bedtime occurence in the girls’ room is nighttime chatter.  They get snuggled in their beds, the lights are turned off, and then the chatter begins.  Sometimes it’s serious, but usually it’s a bunch of silliness and teasing!
One night this past week, I had the privilege of listening in on one of these bedtime [...]

Read Full Post »

A Beka Academy Week 9 Update

Well, this picture is a common sight these days:  John sitting on the couch with his books and note cards.  He is making great progress on his DNA research paper, and this phase will soon be over (hopefully!)  I think he only has 15 more cards to do before he will be ready to begin [...]

Read Full Post »

The Prairie Family–Plus One

Our lives have been anything but dull lately!  Between school, selling scout popcorn, cleaning the church, and, oh yes, having an extra girl in the house, we have not lacked for things to do!
This week we have had the privilege of taking care of this precious two-year-old who is one of my Sunday School class [...]

Read Full Post »

Three Years with Kara Joy Mincui

Three years ago Huang Min Cui from Huangshan, Anhui Province, China, became my daughter.  We changed her name to Kara Joy Mincui O’Brien because “Kara” means “pure,” and we were confident that God was bringing our family pure joy when He saw fit to bless us with her.  He has truly done that, and I [...]

Read Full Post »

Wanted: Digital Camera Advice

I have never been terribly happy with my digital camera.  It’s ok, I guess, but it is somewhat disappointing.  The auto-focus is slow and often does not get the pictures in focus at all, and the pictures are consistently too dark.  So, I find myself taking a lot of shots just because I know most [...]

Read Full Post »

Another Year of Caravan

This week the girls and I started back with our weekly Caravan meetings.  We had taken off most of the summer, but since the boys are getting back into scouts, it was time for the girls to start up again too.
We still have a couple of badges to earn from our first book, and then [...]

Read Full Post »

Mandie and the Secret Tunnel Movie

Back in an earlier entry of The Prairie Family Chronicles dated June 9, 2008, I wrote a book review of  Mandie and the Secret Tunnel .  We enjoyed this book, and continued reading the first eight books in the Mandie series.  I knew at the time that we read the book, that a movie was [...]

Read Full Post »