Nine!

Happy birthday Sophie! We all hope you have a wonderful day on you're birthday- nine years old! We all love you so very much, sweet girl!
-Hanna and all of you're siblings

My Lincoln Log Fort

This is an overall view of Boonesburrow, my fort. The blue is supposed to represent a small stream running through the settlement. And there is alot more behind the tower.

This is the view out the front door.

And this is the gateway to the open prairie.

Tagged... Again!

I was tagged by Moriah:

The rules are...
1. Pick up the nearest book- it has to have at least 123 pages.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other people.

The book that is closest to me now is my Science book, titled Science of the Physical Creation, by Abeka. The four sentences read,

"These reactions may be described as A +BC - AC + B. In a single-displacement reaction, the element B in the compound BC is replaced, or displaced by element A; the result is a new compound, AC, with element B left on its own. For example, the bromine in the compound sodium bromide (NaBr) may be replaced by chlorine (Cl), yielding sodium chloride (NaCl) and bromine: 2 NaBr + Cl2 - 2NaCl + Br2. In a more spectacular single-displacement reaction, aluminum (Al) displaces iron from a type of iron oxide ("rust," Fe2O3) when a powdered mixture of rust and aluminum is ignited: Fe2O3 + 2 Al - Al2 O3 + 2 Fe.

My science book isn't always so hard to understand, its just that page number 123 fell into the chemistry unit! I don't think I'm going to tag anyone else.

*Note* I recently went to Florida for a few days, and I'm hoping that tomorrow will give me a chance to post about my trip.

Ramblings of a 13 year old

I am finally taking the time to post, lest you think this blog has been abandoned. I'm really sorry we haven't been blogging lately and I know that you've probably heard this before but, we are literally swamped! School takes up a fairly big chunk of my day, and afterwards there's always something to be done: laundry, cooking, cleaning and school corrections. Plus, our dad finished the master bedroom in our house, and then, much to the delight of my siblings and I, he started working on our 2 bedrooms upstairs. My dad decided to start on the boys bedroom first so they had to move into my bedroom, which included them taking all of their numerous belongings into my room (a.k.a. two hefty dressers, two boxes a piece of items that were too precious to throw out, two twin mattresses, and all of their extra paraphenalia.).
It was actually okay and very livable, but I can tell you it was a relief when they moved down into the living room for a while. Then dad thought he might as well do both of our bedrooms at the same time, so out we went into the living room, dressers, beds and all. Now the boys had to move down to the basement and we took over the living room, which is where we are at this moment. Dad has almost finished mudding the walls so we will soon be able to prime and then paint the walls which means that soon we will be able to move back upstairs! Hooray! - because the living room does all very well to sleep in, but it is rather crowded and when you have 3 little siblings who tend to be very destructive, and your "bedroom" is the first thing people see when they walk into your house, um, well, let's just say it makes for an interesting life!
Well, I think I'm going to head to bed now, seeing as there is school tomorrow. I am earnestly going to try to post a little more often, but I'm not going to make any promises! Until the next post (whenever that is!).

Curly Tops

Here is a picture I took of Viv, Soph, Rach, and Lil after a night spent with rollers in their hair. Rach spent the night with Soph and we had a lot of fun taking out their curlers and doing their hair. Aren't they cute?

Introducing... Helpful Hints!

Okay, so my mom and I were talking about things to blog and my mom had the idea to do a post every week on "helpful hints" - we'll include in each post a tip that we've found useful at our house. So, today I'm going to do the first one!

How many of you have dishwashers? Quite a few of us do! (We do mean the kind that run on electricity - not just two hands :) We have found that when you go to fill up the cups (both the pre-wash and the wash cycle cups) in the dishwasher with detergent, you don't have to fill them up all the way to have clean dishes. My great-grandpa once told my mom that he only used a tablespoon of dishwashing detergent in each cup and it was enough soap for the whole dishwasher. Well, we tried it and, to our surprise, it actually worked! Not only does this tip save going through dishwashing detergent so fast (especially for those of us who do copious amounts of dishes), but it also saves money! We've been using this tip for quite awhile now and none of our dishes come out dirty!

100 Dollars... Over

The other day I had to cash a check at the bank. I walked up to the lady teller that we've known for a long time. After asking her to cash the check for me, the lady proceeded to count out the money. I didn't hear her count the money out really well but it almost sounded to me like she was counting out more cash then what my check was for. Thinking either she was saying the wrong number or I am hard of hearing at the age of thirteen, I thanked her and went out of the bank. (It never crossed my mind that a bank teller could miscount money!) I walked outside to my bike and the thought came to me to check the amount of cash I was given. I quickly discovered that she really had given me the wrong amount of money - $100 dollars over the check amount in fact! Immediately I went back inside to give back the extra hundred. Our bank lady looked surprised to see me again but after I explained to her the situation, she took the money and re-counted it. "Thank you so much!" she exclaimed. "I would have been looking all over for it later!" It made me feel really good to have done the right thing. Later my mom told me that sometimes God gives us situations like this to test us. She also said that when we do the right thing, it is a testimony to the people around us.

French or German?

German or French? French or German? This is the question I've been thinking about as the school year approaches. I'm entering high-school this year and so I'm obligated to learn a second language. Not that I mind as I've always wanted to learn another language! So far I have narrowed my list of languages down to two and, you guessed it, it's French or German!

Eiffel Tower in France.
On one hand, French is a beautiful sounding language, whereas German has a harder sound to it. Plus, if I ever went to Europe again, a lot of places speak French although a lot of people in Europe speak German as well. But, I could also speak French in some parts of Africa as well as in some parts in Spain. Then again, German is more widely known in Europe. What to do?

The Rhine River in Germany.
What say ye?

New Template

We decided to change our template and profile picture. I found it on pyzam and and my mom and I really liked it. Is it okay to read? Leave a comment telling us what you think about it! God bless!

Ring Around the Tub!

What do you get when you add to one two year old boy: sand, fried chicken, cantaloupe, baked beans, cake, juice, mud pies, water, and did I already mention sand?! By the end of a fun-filled day, we had a major ring around the tub at our house! By the way, have you ever taken a two year old boy wearing overalls and tipped him upside down after playing in sand for hours? You should try it - it's amazing how much sand comes pouring out!

Flowers... Again

I know I just did a post on flowers but on my way to work the other day I noticed how pretty some of the flowers are. Here are a couple pictures I took.

Camp!

We had a totally awesome time at camp! My mom was able to go this year and she brought Sam with. The theme was Pilgrims Progress- which I think is a good theme. Plus, a lot of my friends were there, and it was great to be with them and to talk with them. We had great meetings, fun activities such as water balloon throwing, races, volleyball, kickball, bean-bags (which I'm horrible at :), charades, a bonfire, talking, staying up late in our cabins (and I mean late!), we had wonderful food- did I mention dilly bars? Group pictures, Camp shirts, God's word, life lessons, I could go on and on about all of the things we did at Camp, there's so many!
Something that really blessed me- when we came to the end of the Wall of Salvation, there was a cross and, like Christian, we knelt in front of it and had a quiet moment with the Lord. It was at this point that we were freed from our burdens. It was great experience and when I knelt down and prayed a wonderful feeling crept in, like I had just done the best thing I've ever done. Anyway, this picture is of Viv, kneeling in front of the cross. (special thanks goes to Mrs. W for this picture :)

Overall Camp was great, I learned a lot, had fun, and was blessed. Hopefully more posts will start to come... we're swamped right now! Maybe as school starts back up again I'll have more time to post.

Happy Birthday, Si!

Wishing you a very happy birthday, Si! We are so thankful that the Lord has brought you into our lives. You bring much excitement, conversation, and joy to our family. With all our love,

The Captain, Maria, and the rest of the von Seven

What We've Been Doing

As you can probably tell by the lack of new posts, we are extremely busy. I am doing a summer waitressing job at my grandparents local Cafe, -which keeps me hopping! Si and Chris are doing outside work for right now and Soph is visiting our other grandparents. And with our house being remodeled, our house is quite chaotic! Between that and the little girls being little girls (i.e. making messes, running around the house, making more messes :) we are swamped! Mom and I finally found the time to give Sam a haircut (which he badly needed). Note: make sure you have time for this activity, especially if you're giving a young child a haircut! Twisting and squirming to get down to play, Sam was difficult to entertain enough to sit still. But, in the end, he was finished and it turned out pretty well. Below is a picture of the finished product:

He's really cute in this picture, so concentrated on looking out of the window, he didn't even know I was taking the picture! Well, hopefully we will find more time in which to post, but for now, this will have to do!

You Are Special!

The other night mommy had to go to a meeting, my dad was working in his garage and I had the girls and Sam in the house (the boys were still up at Grandpa and Grandma's house). Soph and I were put in charge of cleaning the kitchen up after supper and the little kids were watching a show in the living room. Soph was supposed to sweep the floor while I loaded up the dishwasher. When I turned around, there was Soph sitting in the living room with the kids - watching the show. I was frustrated that my only helper decided to 'take a break' (as she put it) and desert me to do all the work.
"Soph, you get up here right now and start sweeping the floor. Why is it that I am the only one up here?! Stop watching the show and come finish your job." I have to admit, I didn't talk to her in the best tone of voice but she came up looking pretty remorseful. I turned back to my job, satisfied that she would do hers.
"Hanna," Soph said in a quiet voice at my side. "Here. You are special." She handed me one of our refrigerator magnets that has a picture of a rose on it with the words "You Are Special" written below it. It was so funny that it was all I could do to not laugh out loud! Instead, I said while trying not to laugh, "Well, Soph, thanks alot! I love you, Soph. Now, let's get back to sweeping the floor." I reached out and hugged her. Little people can be so funny. Let's just say that with lots of kids around, life is NEVER boring!

Pecan Torte

My Grandma's birthday was this past Saturday and I made this yummy Pecan Torte- although instead of corn syrup I substituted maple syrup to make it a Pecan Maple Torte. Everyone liked it and grandma said it was 'one of the best cakes she had ever had'. This is a picture of the cake below. Enjoy! Go HERE for the recipe.

Bella!

Isn't she adorable?

Over the past weekend Ri watched a dog for her aunt. She's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy, only 2 months old and her name is Bella. As you can see, she is so adorable! Her floppy little ears and big brown eyes are really cute and her fur is so soft, the minute you see her you want to hold her! Excuse the scrap of me in the background; the zoom in wasn't working on the camera.

Here's Ri holding Bella. No, she's not choking her, merely petting her!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go e-mail these pictures to Ri.

Awww... Cute!

The other night, Sam was in his high chair eating dinner when Mommy said to him, "Sam, show Daddy your shoes." Sam, who was wearing a new pair of tennis shoes, proudly stuck his feet up in the air and said, "Look, Daddy, shoes!" Before daddy could even respond, Sam continued, "Aww... cute!" His sincerity was so adorable that we couldn't help but laugh. He's just started to put words together to form sentances and it's so fun to hear him talk. In the words of Uncle Pete, 'little people' are a lot of fun to be around! I love our Sam!

God is so BIG!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! The sky was a deep blue and the clouds were so white and fluffy. I was driving home from the grocery store when I heard Viv in the back seat say to her sister, "Did you know that God stands on the blue, Lil?"

Immediately I knew that she was talking about the sky so I asked her, "Why do you think He stands on the blue, Viv?"

In Viv's characteristic scratchy little voice she replied, "Mommy, He stands on the blue because He is so big!"

Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord God, Thou art very great; Who maketh the clouds His chariot: Who walketh upon the wings of the wind!

Psalm 104:1,3

You're a Mouse!?!

Prince Caspian finally came out and I was able to go see it yesterday! I really liked it, the acting was superb, and I loved the extras such as the storming of Miraz's castle.

The movie had a lot of funny lines such as when a Telmarine first saw Reepicheep and exclaimed, "You're a mouse!?!"

To this Reepicheep replied, "You people have no imagination!"

Lots of action made it very exciting. If I had to give my favorite

Narnia character though, I would have to say it is still Lucy.

Lego Land

Si and I have been at Grandpa and Grandma's this week. While we've been there we started building the Lego sets that used to belong to our uncles. We built a lot of them. It was a lot of fun. These are the Robin Hood, Knights and Pirate series. It took us 3 days to build them. My favorite so far is the Viking Ship. We still have more to build.

Lego Land Continues

When we first started building the Lego sets, we had Lego pieces all over the family room floor.

We enjoyed building the Legos so much that I think it is even more fun to build them than to play with them (although that is a lot of fun, too!).

Another Viv-ism

For a while Viv was having trouble going to sleep at night so my mom would lay her down in my parents' room until she would go to sleep. However, this soon became a habit that Viv enjoyed and mommy had to break. Since then, come bedtime, Viv has come up with some interesting and often hilarious reasons why she can not go to sleep in the bed that the two of us share. For example, just the other night she informed mommy that she couldn't go to sleep with me because, "I have a disease and Hanna will get sick from it if I sleep with her." Needless to say, life will never be dull with Viv around!

Bruchko

What happens when a nineteen-year old young man from Minnesota leaves his home to go to the Native Indians of the jungle in South America with a desire to bring the Gospel to them? This is what we found out recently as our mom read the book Bruchko to us. Bruce Olson left the USA to go to Brazil with a heart to evangelize the Indian tribes in South America. While in Brazil, Bruce learned about the Motilone tribe and felt quickened that they were the ones that God wanted to send him to. The Motilones were an ancient tribe of Indians living deep in the Columbian jungle; they were known for their fierceness to outsiders. Oil company workers testing the soil on Motilone land had either been shot at with long, sharp arrows or had mysteriously disappeared to never return. Bruce knew all this but still wanted to go and minister to these people. After traveling for days, weeks and months he finally contacted the Motilones - but not on pleasant circumstances! Bruce was shot in the leg by a five foot long arrow and then surrounded by tribal men. He was taken to their communal home where, surprisingly, they kept him alive and fed him. When he told them his name, they could not pronounce it properly. Instead, what came out was ‘Bruchko’ and this became his Motilone name.
This book is so fascinating and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already, and even if you have, read it again because you will surely be blessed!

Bake Sale

Things have been so busy for us that we have not been able to post about all the things that have been happening here as we would have liked to! A little over a week ago our church had a bake sale at the local grocery store. Our family made cherry pies, cinnamon rolls, zucchini and pumpkin chocolate chip bread.
At the sale our tables were loaded with so many yummy looking things - just looking at all the delicious things made my stomach start to rumble! To name a few, there were brownies, cakes, wheat breads and sweet breads, cookies, bars and pies. We stayed fairly busy as many people came to the store and there were so many exciting things going on at the store's parking lot at the same time (check out the post below). It was a really fun experience to see lots of different people and help sell baked goods - I would definitely help do it again!

In The Army

It was such a busy day at the local grocery store when we had our bake sale. A group of soldiers in the Army and another group in the National Guard were there along with their hummers, trucks, and other vehicles. They passed out t-shirts, hats, stickers, pens, and other paraphernalia (Chris' favorite word :). They also grease painted kids' faces - one of which was Si's! We were able to talk with them and they even let me take their picture. It was a good reminder for us to keep all of those who are in the armed services in our prayers.

A Beautiful Promise

Isn't this absolutely gorgeous? The picture isn't of the best quality but last Monday Ri and I were outside after it had rained and this is the sight that met our eyes. When I looked at the rainbow I was reminded of the verse in Genesis 9:12 that says, And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations. Isn't it marvelous how God's promises are everlasting!

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

Today is our mom's birthday! To us, she is the best mom in the world and we love her very much! Happy Birthday mommy! Love, Hanna, Si, Chris, Soph, Lil, Viv and last but not least, Sam

Tagged... Again!

My friend Ri (http://joylikeanocean.blogspot.com/) tagged me. The object of this "tag" is to:

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2.Post it on your blog, and include a visual illustration if you so desire.

3.Link to the person who tagged you in their post.

Since most of my friends have already been tagged, I will probably leave it at this!

My six word memoir is: I'm the oldest of seven kids!
(p.s. as an explanation of my visual illustration, I used to be a thumb sucker :)

Narnia Fun

I took a quiz that was on a Narnia website to see what character I would be in the Narnia books and I turned out to be most like Susan Pevinsie! The description of me/Susan ran thus: As Susan, you are mature and respectable, yet with your 'motherly' role you can be quite bossy. Still, you can always be trusted to be loyal and faithful. Does that sound like me?! To take the quiz and find out which character you are, go to:
http://narniaweb.com/
and click on "Personality Quiz". Have fun!

Mr. Pegelow

Have you ever read the book Mr. Pegelow? I was reading it last week and it really blessed me. It is a story about a young man whose name is Bob Streblow. One night Bob was going to church and he walked past a man whose name was Mr. Pegelow. Now Mr. Pegelow was the town drunk and God had given Bob a vision about what would happen to Mr. Pegelow if he died and went to hell. So when Bob passed by him, he felt the urge to take Mr. Pegelow to church. Mr. Pegelow was not only drunk, but he had not had a bath in a very long time. That night God touched Mr. Pegelow’s heart while he was in the church service and he became born again. From that point on, Mr. Pegelow’s life was so drastically changed that people who knew him before hardly recognized him. A couple weeks later, when Bob and his dad went to pick up Mr. Pegelow at his workplace to take him to church, they found out that he had died that same day. One of his coworkers had heard him say, "Thank You, Jesus. I’m coming home." With that Mr. Pegelow went to be with the Lord.
I was very blessed to read this book, and if you have not read it, I would encourage you to read it. The book, Mr. Pegelow, is a very good book to give to people who do not know Jesus Christ. Just the other day I gave one to one of my friends that we have been telling about the Lord.

Gospel Coins

Today I would like to share with you about gospel coins. Gospel coins are about the size of a silver dollar and they look a lot like one, too. On them are written Bible verses such as John 3:16 or, it might say, “WHERE WILL YOU SPEND ETERNITY?” Some of them have a cross behind a flag and around it it says, “Thousands died for my freedom... One died for my soul.” They also have gospel coins in Spanish. The purpose of gospel coins is to give them to people, or put them in places where they might find them. Personally, I have put them in places where people could find them. Once I balanced one on a parking meter in Dubuque, Iowa. One time I even put one on the floor in the library foyer when we arrived and when we left, it was gone. Another time, I was in the fabric store with my mom and put one on a shelf. As we went around the corner, a lady approached the shelf and we heard her say, “What is this?” The thing that is really neat about gospel coins is that they attract people’s attention and so they are a great way to tell people about Jesus. God Bless! Si

Spring, Spring, Spring!

When the snow starts to melt

And warmer breezes blow,

Trees begin to blossom

And farmers start to sow

I know that spring is here!

When I see the little violets poke their heads
out of the ground,

And the robins return to fill

The neighborhood with their cheerful sound

I know that spring is here!

When I see a frisky squirrel

Out gathering food supplies,

Or a bunny rabbit eating dandelions

And friends calling out "Hi"

I know that spring is here!

When I see all this beauty around me,

I think of what God has done for me

so undeserving of His love,

My heart fills with joy when I see

That spring is here!

-Written by Hanna

Smile!

Yesterday we went to the dentist to get our teeth cleaned. I liked it a lot! When my hygenist finished cleaning my teeth, she gave me a new toothbrush, some toothpaste, floss, a mirror and some pink sunglasses! I liked going to the dentist and getting my teeth clean and white!

Paul Bunyan

This week in English I read about Tall Tales. I really enjoyed reading about Paul Bunyan and his big, blue ox, Babe. Today I had to make up my own tale about Paul. Here it is:

Paul's voice was the loudest sound in the forest. His voice could be heard ten miles around. When Paul spoke, he was so loud that the animals shivered with fear. When Paul snored, five trees would fall down.

Loggers say that Paul built the largest pancake gridle in the entire world. Paul's griddle was 15 feet wide and 20 feet long. Whenever Paul made a pancake it would take 100 men to eat it. The griddle was so big that 65 men could lay on it!

Is this California?

You would have almost thought that we lived in California by the 5.2 earthquake that we experienced this morning. Much to my consternation, I slept through it and didn't even know what had happened. At 4:30 in the morning both of my parents awoke to their bed shaking and the glass candles on my mom's dresser clinking together. My parents got up and turned on the TV and the computer to find out what happened, only to discover that an earthquake had hit the Midwest. When mom told Chris what had happened he said that "he had been woken up early this morning to his bed shaking, and he called to Si thinking that Si was shaking his bed!" Soph and Lil share a bed and Soph said that she woke up about the time of the tremor to Lil bumping her. Anyway, the rest of us slept through the whole thing, but Si and I wished we could have been awake during the earthquake!
The following site shows a map of the US and where earthquakes have hit in the past hour, day, and week.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/

Take care and God bless!

Indian Teepee

I was outside playing with Rach the other day when we saw some nice long branches from our Magnolia tree that my dad had pruned. I thought that we could make a really neat teepee with the sticks. We had a lot of fun being Indians!

As a side note, big sister helped Soph type up this post. When looking up the word "teepee" in Wikipedia, she found that it can also be spelled "tepee" or "tipi." Neat, huh?

The Count Down Is On!

Hi, this is Si! I'm so excited because today, April 16th is exactly 1 month away from May 16th which is the opening day for the new Narnia movie, Prince Caspian.

This is the poster picture from the movie. I can hardly wait!

The Traveling Von Seven

In case you've been wondering what we've been doing lately (considering there haven't been any new posts) we have been -as always- very busy. A cousin of my dad's who lived in Arizona passed away recently so my parents decided to go to Phoenix for the funeral. This meant that all of us kids were able to go to our grandparents house for the weekend - including Sam! Sam is a very cute and sweet little boy, but as he is getting older, he is becoming more of a handful to watch. You literally have to watch him every minute to make sure that he is not getting into anything he shouldn't be!

My mom also has some relatives living in Phoenix so while they were there they visited them, also. The pictures are from their trip - it's really pretty there, isn't it?

We've been home less than a week now and this past weekend was Chris's birthday. Happy Birthday, Chris! Now we are back at school again. One other big thing is that Ri bought a new bike and we have been enjoying riding bikes together. Today is really warm and sunny out so we are heading outside to play. Have a great day everyone!