My Big Little Guy

Philip has now been five for a whole month. It seems we've really entered into the next level of childhood. For his birthday, he received money from my grandparents and his aunts and uncles. We headed out to Target in search of some legos. He spotted the Star Wars sets and we thought, "Too many pieces!" After a few minutes of deliberation, we said ok to him purchasing the Tie Fighter set and decided he could put it together with Matthew the next night when he got home from work. Well, it was too much of a temptation and Philip put the whole thing together HIMSELF while Matthew was at work! Wow, notice the age suggestion on the box. We might have a future engineer or architect on our hands.







After asking Philip what kind of cake he wanted, here's my best attempt at a Lego cake! Not the prettiest but he thought it was great. Note to self: never ice a dark chocolate cake with light-colored icing.

Time's just a' slipping away...

So many things to post about and yet I can't find the time to devote to it. The last few weeks have been fun yet so busy. The last weekend of January brought a snow / ice storm which made for great sledding and plenty of family time around our fireplace! The following weekend, we took a trip to Greenville to visit a new children's museum. We were celebrating Philip's birthday since he was sick the weekend of his actual birthday. On Friday, Feb. 12, we attended our first LINK event. LINK is a local home school support group. They were having a Valentine's party at a nearby church. It was great making connections with other home school parents and plus the kids decorated lunch bags and brought home about 40 Valentines each!! That afternoon and night brought in a beautiful 5 inches of fluffy snow. Another great day of staying home together as a family and building a snowman bigger than Matthew! To finish the weekend, I left Sunday morning with Philip, Braewyn and my mom for a week-long vacation to visit family. We drove to Georgia to see her parents and sisters and then on to Florida to visit my grandma and aunt on my dad's side. It was great seeing loved ones again after so long but the drive also was so long! Home on Friday night only to have another action-packed Saturday with Philip's basketball game and a short drive to Grandma Mary's town for a quadruple birthday party! I think the youngest of the bunch was 62! Fun times. Pictures to come.

And meanwhile in my spare time... Matthew and I have decided to homeschool Philip in the fall for Kindergarten. I'm so thrilled knowing that all the dedication and habit-building struggles of this year will pave the way for a greater next year. A friend recommended that I begin researching the philosophies of education (a topic I didn't even know existed last year) and it has been so refreshing and inspiring. There is classical education which focuses mainly on memorization and developing one's mind (including studying the ancient languages of Latin and Greek). Then there's the method based on an English school teacher named Charlotte Mason. She felt children learn best through hands-on education including exploring outdoors with a Nature Journal and having books read to them only then to narrate back what they have understood. It's just fascinating me so much as I have never attended one education class in my life. I am grateful and daily reaffirmed by Jesus that this should be our current path. He continues to let things fall perfectly in place. For instance, this month's manners emphasis in our K-4 material has been on caring for the family pet. Yes, I read the kids a few books about pets and asked them what they thought however there wasn't a real-life interaction. Last week we spent Tuesday through Thursday with my Grandma Allen and Aunt Maureen in Florida. Grandma has a little dog named Buddy which Philip and Braewyn enjoyed tremendously. Jesus provided the kids with a hands-on opportunity to experience caring for a pet! Maybe that seems trivial to some but I just smile!

Daddy's name is...

I was talking with Braewyn about some friends of ours. She asked what the kids' mom and dad's names were. I told her and then asked Braewyn the following.

Mommy: What is Braewyn's Daddy's name?

Braewyn: Daddy Faith Brooks

Mommy: What is Braewyn's Mommy's name?

Braewyn: Mommy Faith Brooks

Mommy: What is Braewyn's Bubba's name?

Braewyn: Philip Faith Brooks

In case you didn't know, her middle name is Faith!

Almost suckered!

Please agree with me when I saw we all have our moments of studipity. Well, the phone rang a while ago and the caller ID read a (321) number and Not Available. That means telemarketer in my mind but since they had called a couple of times before when I didn't answer, I did answer this time planning to say, "No thanks" and end the calls. Well, a very friendly guy is on the phone telling me he's with Miller Plant Inc. and asks if I have a septic tank. I say yes and he proceeds to tell me about their great product which not only breaks down the waste better than the store products but also keeps the runoff pipes free from buildup. I know nothing about septic tanks other than the smell of one being pumped when I was 7 or 8. He says the Dept. of Agriculture uses this product and it's the best thing available. Blah blah blah. Well, yes, I should have said what I planned to, "No thanks" but then he snagged me with the honesty card. "We are refreshingly old-fashioned and actually work on the honor system. We'll send you the product free of charge and you can return it in 30 days if not satisfied. Only 2% of our products are ever returned!" I was suckered (for the moment) and said ok.

After hanging up the phone, I typed in Miller Plant Inc. on the web. SCAM!!! I found a website which identified who actually calls from unknown numbers and MANY people have received calls from "Miller Plant" offering supposed septic tank products. I saw a link to a Ripoff Report article with this as it's title, "Miller-Plante & Jerry Plante ripoff employs convicted felons and drug addicts to sell bogus septic helper". Great, I might be helping to put money in a druggie's pocket.

Thankfully, the man on the phone said someone from the shipping department would call back to verify the order. The phone did ring again about 10 minutes ago. Lo and behold, the caller ID read "Miller Plant"! A woman started in with her "speech" about verifying my address and I kindly said "I've decided not to order the product." She surprisingly asked why and I said we will continue to use the store brand. She said something about the quality level and I said, "Actually I don't think you are an actual company." She gasped and said, "We've been in business since 1982, of course we are a real company." I then said, "There is no website online and other accounts of it not being a real company." She said, "You can go to millerplant.net and maybe order online." I said, "Ok" and hung up.

Guess what? When you type in "millerplant.net", you find, Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage!!

Yes, I am embarrassed by my over trusting nature, but I am appalled by people who try to swindle others. The Ripoff Report article was from 2004, that's SIX YEARS these losers have been running this Miller Plant thing. It's one thing to be a thief and just break into someone's car. Argh, but another to sweet talk people out of their money. I'll quit now because I'm beginning to feel like an ad warning the elderly against sweepstakes scams. I wasn't even getting tricked into the possibility of millions, but simply a clean septic tank. That's sad! I pray they don't send anything.