Tag: excitement

Making the Team!

June 11, 2020

Making the Team!

(I know, picture is Kimberly w/Baby Thea, but it’s one of my favorites and this loaner computer wouldn’t load the gymnastics one…)

Kimberly has been working so hard for the past almost two years in the hopes of making the gymnastics team at our gym. 

Well, our gym is recruiting talent for the 2020-2021 season and on Monday night, Kimberly got an invite! 

Talk about excited!

She giggle cried and asked Coach Heather if I was kidding (Heather let me tell her, but wanted to see her reaction) – kidding?  I’m not a practical joker like some of my children may be…

She giggle cried almost the whole way home.

When Kimberly gets excited, she cries with happiness but tries to hide it with giggling.  I call this giggle crying.

We get home and her siblings are all there, Louis comes in right behind us and says, “so what’s the big news?”

Kimberly couldn’t even tell them!  She hid behind the wall in the kitchen and said, “Mom, you tell them!  Hurry up!”

What followed were lots of congratulations, lots of high-fives, and a few teases about how her height is just perfect for gymnastics.  Kimberly is on team!

(And yes, Mom is super excited for her!)

Since I like to use real life to teach, Jillian and I talked the next day about how hard work pays off and used Kimberly’s advance to team as an example.  There are many others to pull from in our family, but that is the freshest achievement. 

With all the things that have been canceled this year, making team has made Kimberly’s year – and as Christina mentioned, “it’s your turning-teenager year too!”

I want to squeal with excitement for her too (okay, maybe I did!) I love it when I get to share in someone’s celebration of reaching a goal! 

Rejoice with those who rejoice! 

Thank you for reading!

Type at you next time,

~Nancy Tart

Okra & “Fire Lilies”

May 28, 2020

Okra & “Fire Lilies”

Today we planted okra. Three long rows of okra plants just far enough apart to walk through the rows with the mower for easy weeding, pruning, and harvesting.

Yesterday and Tuesday were the 6 by 4 corn patch. The 5 by 4 corn patch already has rows of little green stalks pushing up and it was planted Saturday! We also did a patch of mustard greens and our trio experiment over the weekend. The “trio experiment” is onion seed, three inches, beet seed, three inches, carrot seed in a patch 3 by 3.

Oh, all numbers are in feet… so far.

And my favorite of my blooms at this house (since my gardenia has been reluctant to bloom) is this –

– it’s a bulb with a single straight stalk that ends in this fiery flower! We call them fire-lilies but I know that can’t be their official name. It’s a takeaway from Grandma Jeanette… a little piece of history carried along and the blooms make me think of her every time I see a new one exploding with color.

(oh, and if you know what it is, please comment! We’d love to know what it really is!)

Lucas and Thea ate all six ripe tomatoes themselves before they got inside. I managed to sneak one away for the egg scramble I made for brunch. (I eat shakeology breakfast at 5:45 so at 11am I was practically starving and had to grab something filling and nutritious!)

We have little pets who poop breakfast… and Becky made more of these:

Yummy deviled eggs; Becky is a pro at this now!

YES!

Worked at gym yesterday… REC CLASSES OPEN MONDAY!! Camp fills up quickly & starts June 1st (I can’t wait to see my gymnasts!) and we get to have gym party (Parent’s Night Out) this month!! (Third Saturday of each month: our coaches entertain and feed a boocoodle of kiddos so their parents can have a night kidfree… here)

I’m excited about coaching again! I’m thrilled about our garden! I even got to play Age of Empires with Jillian and Lucas today while big sisters went shopping!

We had a lovely day!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Easter Cuteness

April 30, 2019

Easter Cuteness

Easter Sunday was so much fun for us this year!

Not only did our little Thea officially turn two months old on Easter, but neither Louis nor I was working, neither of us was tired, and we had the whole weekend to ourselves!

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Baby Thea dressed up (minus her cute socks and shoes) in her Easter dress from Aunt Becca & sister-cousin Anastasia!

Louis and the girls dyed eggs – our brown and pink eggs made some unique color experiments and tasty “angel eggs.” (Grandma Joanne started that; she redeemed the deviled eggs so they are “angel eggs” now.)

Louis was waking me up almost every night in the week before Easter as he excitedly told me about the newest item he got for the girls’ baskets – crazy plastic grass, cool candy, a bag of change for the plastic eggs and such.

We love family time!  On Easter, we got up early, went to church, and talked all about the first Easter Sunday and Jaquline decided we had to watch a Jesus story movie – “The Greatest Story Ever Told” is the go-to for us.  About lunchtime, we snacked on angel eggs and fruit while Louis crafted an amazing ham – this would be early dinner.

And… Egg hunt.  The girls learned that Spring Egg Hunts were a result of people letting their hens and ducks out to range in the spring grass and then having to find their eggs for food – young children were tasked for this job and finding the eggs meant the end of winter harshness and the beginning of spring’s bounty.

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But for us, Easter Egg Hunt means “see who can hide it best” (for the hiders, adults and teens) and “see who can find the hardest eggs” (for the younger ones).  Kimberly decided she is still a youngling for Easter and joined the hunt as a hunter!

Becky took some pictures.

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Christina’s hardest eggs were teal, Becky’s were green, and I hid the hard-boiled ones.  Mine I wanted found quickly, so most were just rolled in the patches of clover so their stickers showed.

Down to four remaining eggs… One Teal, one Green, and two Boiled!  Mom ended up winning with the “hardest” egg being inches from the walkway in plain sight!

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Becky made up some adorable pictures with the baskets.  Check this link to see her Guinea Pigs in the Easter Basket pictures!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

Fresh New Year

Who else is excited for 2019? Who else looks at the new year like a child on Christmas morning looks at presents around the tree?

December 31, 2018

Fresh New Year

“It’s still 2018, right?” asks Kimberly, working on her History.

“Yes, it’s the last day of 2018,” I respond.  Christina pipes in with, “and our Aunt’s birthday!”  (One of their aunts is born on December 31!)

This makes me think: (uh-oh, I just heard two kids say “Mom’s writing another blog in her head.”) Yes, my children know me!

Tomorrow starts a fresh new year.  We are given a new beginning each day as the dawn warms our skies and the sun rises to dry the dew.

In the service industry, all days blend together and all the New Year has meant for me in the past 8 years was a barrage of people calling to order reservations at 1am on New Year’s Day from the Bayfront downtown or 11pm from the Saint Augustine Beach peir (two locations at the times we can never promise) so then it turns into irritated people who don’t understand the simple line, “I can’t guarantee that time at that location, you can try to call us at the time to see where our cabs are.”

I’m so glad today does not involve dispatching!  I’m only answering questions from the school table – awesome!

In 2018:

  • I started working at WGV Gymnastics as a coach (LOVE this job).
  • We closed our taxi company in December.  It feels awesome to be able to shut off my phone and not worry about missing a reservation call!
  • I’ve finished, polished, and published four new children’s books: A Foundling Furball, Alena’s Baby, The Tightrope Dare, and Fibbing Fishermen!
  • I’ve rejoiced with the addition of my best friend’s 10th baby!
  • I’ve rejoiced with my sister who is due about the same time I am!  (They will be close cousins!)
  • I’ve mourned and rejoiced with my family after my Daddy passed.
  • I celebrated the first Christmas ever without him – that was his favorite holiday.
  • Christina achieved CAP rank of C/CMSgt, become Red Cross certified, started officially babysitting, started working as needed at what she calls “my somewhat part time job,” and completed her third college semester.
  • Becky completed her second college semester, bred and raised a few dozen chicks up to “independence” for clients, raised her batches of “babies” (aka Guinea Piglets), joined gymnastics classes (finally finding something to encourage her fitness!), and has taught most of her siblings the Latin terms for every body part since she’s been dissecting animals in her biology labs!
  • Kimberly joined gymnastics classes with her gung-ho attitude and is expecting great things from herself, was gifted a bunny (she’s been saving to adopt one for almost a year but her awesome big sisters beat her to it) and Minuit has never left her side.
  • Jaquline discovered the amazing world of Geometry and everything is now interpreted in shapes or gymnastics skills!
  • Jillian started losing teeth, is studying sketching (she’s getting rather good actually!) and digital art along with Becky, and getting herself lost in the world of reading!
  • Lucas started trying to write his name!

We are all expecting amazing things to come in 2019.  God has paths lined up for us that we may not even be able to see yet – if you’d told me at the start of 2018 that I’d be teaching gymnastics for an awesome Christian boss, be pregnant again, and have no taxi company, I would have laughed.

But (positive!) God knows the desires of our hearts!  He knows I love children, love teaching, and that gymnastics has always been a dream. (Dream job come true?  YES!)  He knows Lucas loves babies and is super excited about getting to “take MY BABY home from church.”  (All the other babies he’s been around are those of church family, so he can’t take them home.)  He knows that rebuilding hybrid batteries is something else I love – tinkering with electronics as Daddy taught me & a niche few offer around here so maybe that will be our main income soon!

I’m about to polish and release a few more children’s books (maybe an entire new series working around my budding illustrators’ work!) and my goal for this year is 12 releases.

Who else is excited for 2019?  Who else looks at the new year like a child on Christmas morning looks at presents around the tree?  I see each day as a gift from God to be opened at each dawn.  I see gifts we can’t even dream of yet sitting there, waiting God’s perfect timing for us to unwrap and enjoy.  I’m praying that certain things are there – which day holds the gift of my child’s birth?  Does a gift in that pile include a property or home of our own?  Is there a gift of being able to read my books before a class, teach a grammar workshop, or tutor another child?  Only God knows what each gift holds.  My Daddy loved seeing the smiles and squeals of excitement on Christmas morning as his children opened presents – I love this part of Christmas morning as a parent too.  I can only imagine God smiling as we open each gift and yelp with excitement!

Enjoy your daily gifts in 2019!  Happy, blessed New Year!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Electric Season

Energy resonates in the clear skies of the seasons changing to autumn.

October 31, 2018

Electric Season

It’s officially autumn.

To me, it never seems like autumn until the sky goes that gorgeous “sky blue,” gentle cooler breezes tousle our hair, and there is a crisp energizing feel in the air.

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During these days, I remember the exhilaration I felt as a child when they first approached.

Our first “autumn” day we’d race outside, full of a new form of energy that totally required an outdoor escape.  If there was a swingset in the yard, (sometimes just a rope with a stick at the bottom) we were trying to touch the sky with our feet!  On our bikes, (we called them horses, since we loved horses but never had a real one) we would ride round and round the house, singing Sunday School songs at the top of our lungs.  If I ever had to describe the feeling in one word, it would be “freedom.”

Today the gorgeous electric blue sky makes me think about how God arranges things in seasons in our lives.  Sometimes, when a new season comes, it brings the exhilaration of freedom.  I’ve felt it before and not understood why.

Life seems to say, “you are trapped more than before, why are you happy?”

But my heart answers with a song called “Happy” because one verse basically says: bring it on, I’m happy and nothing can change that!

I imagine myself telling life that sometimes.

Because I have my root of happiness in Jesus, His joy is my strength, and even if life wants to throw stuff at me and claim I’m worse off in this new season than I was before (usually it’s that I can’t see the positive just yet), I know God has me in His hands – and I choose to be filled with that freedom exhilaration that comes with this new season!

Whatever God has for us, I sense the excitement, and I choose to focus on joy!  Let this next season begin!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

Look Who’s Famous!

The girls find their cousin’s face on a Family Fun Fest 2018 poster & are super excited!

October 2, 2018

Look Who’s Famous!

During our thrift shopping day, we found a gem!

I’ve been a vendor at the Saint Augustine Family Fun Fest for two years – and yes, it is an amazing family venue!  (Not the best for our sales yet, but most of our neighbors do very well.)  The kids LOVE it so much that they plan to be at the next one each time we are leaving.

My 12+ girls volunteer (last time, officially), and Kimberly and Jaquline trade between “guard duty” (where they walk Jillian, Anastasia, and Lucas around to play on rides, watch the shows, and visit vendors) and “working the booth” (helping to mind the booth and try to sell our crafts).

On a “Family Fun Fest 2018” poster in the Alpha Omega Thrift shop, was Anastasia’s smiling butterfly-painted face!  (In the little bubble just above all the sponsors.)

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We even checked our pictures to make sure (because she had two different faces during the course of the day).  Anastasia is the “butterfly.”

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And yes, it was their cousin, smiling down from the poster.

The girls got so excited!

Becky had to take a picture and send it to Anastasia’s mom with the line, “look who’s famous!”

Maybe not “famous,” but it certainly launched the girls into discussing their happy memories from the two fun fests and their hopes for this coming year’s event!  (The cutest part for me, is that almost every time I pick Anastasia up from school, she asks me, “when are we going to the next Family Fun Fest?” – she will love seeing herself on a poster for an event she loves!)

Thanks for reading!

Type at you next time…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

 

 

Filling Big Shoes

July 31, 2017

Filling Big Shoes

We are always trying to be like someone.  Lucas is two.  He is always trying to do “like Daddy” or “like Becky” (what he calls Rebeccah sometimes) or “like you do.” (that can be anyone)  When Daddy got his hair cut, Lucas wanted “Daddy hair.”  When Jillian is coloring, Lucas wants to “color like big me.” When Christina is cooking bacon – BACON!  Lucas pulled out the bacon from the refrigerator before Christina had finished putting the pan on the stove!  He was jumping around, yelling “BACON!  My BACON!”  (We’ve never seen him this excited over food since the last night we made popcorn.)  After discovering that the pan was too hot for him to play with the bacon, he ran through the house telling everyone “Tina making my BACON!” and jumped on Daddy yelling, “BACON!  Me eat BACON DADDY!”

Although we girls laugh, I see this passion for food rather neat.  Lucas does everything with 110% excitement and passion.  He likes watching Wild Kratts.  When that comes on he jumps up and down and yells, “YEAH!  Animal movie!”  (Actually, that can be any well-done nature documentary that shows actual animals – I can’t wait to show him “A Zebra in the Kitchen!”)  He dances with joy when he’s happy.  He wants to be like everyone around him.

We were getting ready for a date one night and Louis set his Sunday shoes down in Lucas’ reach.  (Lucas had a pair of black dress shoes that looked like Daddy’s.)  Lucas climbed into them and said, “my Daddy’s shoes!  My shoes!”  He walked around the house for a while telling the girls “Me Daddy in Daddy’s shoes.”  Of course, they played along with this asking, “Daddy, can I go…”  Lucas has learned to laugh and say “why?” with his lips stuck out.

In the way a child wants to be like their parents, grandparents, or big siblings, we should want to be more like Jesus.  It may be comical for us to see a toddler in big shoes, trying to fill them, but being woefully short, but in the same way, we do not start our journey of faith fully filling the “shoes” we perceive ourselves trying to fill.  We aren’t perfect.  We try to walk as close as we can to Jesus.  Our aim is to fill the “shoes” God has given us.  Our role, our mission, our goal.  Our life here is a gift and we should enjoy it with passion!

Sometimes it’s rather funny what type of thoughts I have when I watch my toddler on his exploration of life!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

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