Tag: skill

The Many Faces of Thea

#Theadora #TheManyFacesOfPreschoolers #PreschoolerMoods #Preschool #GymNLearn #WGVGymnastics #CanMyThreenagerListen #IndependentThreeYearOld #OnlyMineForASeason #ICanDOItMyself #Faces #Pictures #MomSometimesIsntReady #TheyAreReadyBeforeMe #ILoveBeingAMother

The Many Faces of Thea

November 1, 2022


This is Theadora. 

I said “let me get a picture of your cute hair!” 

Seriously?  This child cracks me up with her faces!

They are: “I’m Thea” (top left), “I’m Coach Heather” (top middle), “I’m sad” (top right), “I’m sassy” (bottom left), “I’m Becky” (bottom 2nd from left), “I’m really mad” (bottom 2nd from left, “I’m a listening baby” (bottom right).

She loves everything her way and her biggest challenge right now is learning that she must listen to the teacher, coach, big sister, grandmother, or parent who is doing the teaching!  

She absolutely loves gymnastics (she does only Fridays at Gym-N-Learn this season).  Supposedly, her coach says she’s doing better at listening.  I hope so.  The reason it’s Fridays only? So I can bribe her with open gym participation if she listens!  (Seriously, our open gym is immediately following Preschool Program – and that seems to work.) 

Thea is a very independent three.  I think “going on thirty” but then maybe she’s just “chasing Becky and Jillian” in the attitude department – and their determination has started to serve them well in practice and life.  Thea wants to do everything herself – always has.  That appears to be a huge thing for my children though, they always want to do whatever it is by themselves.  It leads to them doing tasks and jobs before I think they are ready.  (Taking the PERT or driving a motorized “big wheeler” at two or jumping into CAP leadership or raising animals or cutting potatoes.)  

I always have to remind myself that Thea is only mine for a season.  She is really Jesus’ daughter and I have the honor and blessing of being her mother.  I enjoy each of her various faces and moods.  I love to watch them grow.  I love to guide them toward the truth.  

That’s all what went through my brain while she posed with silly faces telling me what emotion or what person she was being.  

Thank you for reading, 

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

It’s Here! In Person!

New Release!! The Secret Locker, Bunnies in the Orchard Lands – come see it in person at WGV Gymnastics’ Pro Shop!

It’s Here! In Person!

March 16, 2022

“Haven’t you ever wanted to meet bunnies who can do gymnastics, especially vault?” Asks Bonnie. (from “Bunnies in the Orchard Lands“)

I am over-the-moon excited about this project I’ve been heavily working on!

Let me introduce you to “The Secret Locker,” a series of illustrated children’s books based on the wonderful imaginations of the gymnasts at my gym! (okay, not my gym, but I coach here and would like to think of it as mine) Each book follows a group of gymnasts as they explore or go on adventures.

The first one (just released!!) is “Bunnies in the Orchard Lands.” In these fun pages, we meet Jilly Beanie, Lizi, and Bonnie and follow them into an enchanted place called “The Orchard Lands” where they meet bunnies who can do gymnastics!

Can you wait to see the bunny siblings? Moon, Star, Blob, Rose, and Dally… maybe just a glimpse of hmm… The apple blossoms!

Oh yes, The Orchard Lands have apple blossoms all over! Didn’t my illustrator, Rebeccah Tart, do a great job? I love her art!

If you are close to St Augustine, Florida, come to my gym’s Pro Shop at 135 Center Place Way, Saint Augustine, FL and buy a copy (if I’m at the desk, I’ll sign it for you) and support our gym!! Otherwise, you can buy it online and still support our gym because a portion of all sales from “The Secret Locker” series goes to WGV Gymnastics!

I’m so super excited!! Rebeccah and I have two more books in “The Secret Locker” series being produced now and many more ideas coming! All thanks to little gymnasts with BIG imaginations!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Evaluations

January 29, 2021

Evaluations

This week and next week are skills testing weeks at gym. Evaluations of skills each gymnast has and their ability to move up or stay in their current level to solidify their knowledge.

Most of the time, the coaches catch when their student gymnast gets enough skills and strength or knowledge to move up, but sometimes it takes a “skills test” for a gymnast to show off or put a little more power into her actions!

This made me think about life.

Life is full of levels.

Sometimes we just move through them seamlessly. You know, like gliding from toddlerhood to preschool, or moving from 9th to 10th grade. High school to college is a little more of a push – this is like an evaluation. Are you ready? Well, time is here – which choice do you make?

In our personal growth, we tend to move slowly. It’s when a climatic event causes us to evaluate ourselves that we discover strengths we didn’t know we had or weaknesses we thought we didn’t have. Your eldest child going to college and you are tossed into the whirlwind of various choices, plans, financial issues, helping your young adult navigate stress (praying you can do that well, because she is expressing what you are internalizing!), and believing that a way will be made.

This time you have to view as a positive change. You have to realize that this temporary negative appearance will prove to be the lifetime starting point for your young adult. Your attitude through this is your “evaluation,” your young adult will be taking notes on and remembering. (Everyone else in your household is also watching!)

Sometimes a life “evaluation” is others watching how you navigate troubled waters. Like the death of your father, your sister, your close friend, your child. Losing someone you treasure. That despair can allow you to create a pit to lose yourself in. Or you can look up and pull on the strength that only comes from Jesus. This evaluation is never something we want to face.

Evaluation week went along with my study: Examine yourself to see what is good and right; remove that which leads toward darkness.

(My paraphrase again, I summarized the page-long study to that line. Most of the verses linked all boiled down to that same line as my brain interpreted them.) I imagine darkness to be the depth of one’s soul without Jesus. Since Jesus is Light and darkness is the absence of light, that makes the most sense to me.

See, when trouble hits, I can either turn inside myself and go into darkness or look outside and reach up to Jesus. In Him there is strength to endure everything.

Life has taught me that.

My “evaluations” have proven it.

I pray I always choose to reach up. I want those watching me during “skills testing” to be led to Jesus. That is my goal.

Crazy writer’s brain that sees the little flyer on our desk that reads “skills testing weeks” and launches into deep thoughts… hopefully these wandering thoughts help lift you up!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Itty Bitty Fun!

Fun for preschool kiddos on Fridays! (bring big siblings and baby siblings too)

September 25, 2020

Itty Bitty Fun!

Theadora loves gymnastics. Actually, she loves running, jumping, climbing, rolling, flipping, balancing, and being crazy. What little one doesn’t? Who am I kidding? What energetic adult doesn’t want to be out doing crazy stuff with the energy of an 18-month-old who is a half-hour before bedtime loaded up on red dye and sugar?

Thea loves Fridays at WGV Gymnastics because we get to have Preschool Open Gym from noon to 1pm. You only have to be able to toddle around to join in! Many friends from our Gym-N-Learn program come for more gymnastics fun.

This is an hour of supervised fun where young monkeys get to try out all of the cool gymnastics equipment (Thea’s favorites are bars and bouncy floor!), roll around on mats, bounce on tumble track, jump in and climb out of pit, and try their hand at anything that their adult doesn’t think is too scary. Yes, children, an adult like your parent or grandparent is required during this gym visit as they have to supervise. (Actually, Thea can tell you, Preschool Open Gym is a great place to have a grandma date!)

There are coaches on hand to help said adult spot (help out with gym skill), give out solicited advice, talk about gym safety, observe (watch everything like a spy!), and enjoy the fun! You can ask said coaches about learning new things, fun games to try, how to use mats, what drills or skills help lead to what new skill, and other educational things. Coaches can also help spot skills and show fun new tricks!

Come join Thea doing crazy fun stuff every Friday (check the website at www.wgvgymnastics.com/preschool-open-gym or call for more information!) at WGV Gymnastics! An adult has to come with you, wear tight fitting clothes that don’t fall off when you flip around or make big jumps, and make sure you have lots of energy!

Oh, that’s right, big sisters and brothers over 5 can come, (even though they are not in preschool anymore) just call our office as the prices for older kids may not be on the website!

~Thank you and Thea will see you soon!

~Nancy Tart

Monopoly Crazy

May 6, 2020

Monopoly Crazy

Yes, my family is crazy. Maybe.

We love board games – especially if it involves everyone. This is difficult as most games like battleships, mancala, and chess are two player or maybe four player like labyrinth, the mall game, trouble, spelldown, scrabble, and Lord of the Rings Risk. Even the regular Risk is just six players, along with all the trivial pursuits and Settlers of Catan with the 5-6 player expansion set. Yes, we alter it by adding extra pieces to trivial pursuit (we have four different card sets and ten player pieces with the total amount of wedges) and by using two yahtzee sheets instead of one, but a game where we don’t have to alter?

Yippee!

Monopoly here we come!

Granted, our monopoly set has been victim to a few mishaps; added to from two quarter yard-sale finds with a few pieces here or there, but we maintain the exact number of applicable hotels, houses, and chance and community chest cards. Unfortunately Lucas demolished the Cinderella castle board from a Disney set – but we have the tokens and a few ones and hundreds have Disney characters on them. (Actually, most of our ones are Disney, and due to Barbie Bake Shop and Restaurant Store drafts over 13 years, there is a shortage of one dollar bills insomuch as we have to “borrow” 10 white ones from the poker chip collection to play.)

Today, Aunt Becca took Becky off to babysitting land and Jillian had cleaned the table and set up piles of Monopoly money around the board – “Who wants to play Monopoly?”

“Wait?” Daddy says, taking a second glance at the table with five eager (okay, four eager and one required teenager) faces grinning at him, “everyone is at the table?”

“All except Becky,” pipes Jillian.

“She’s not here,” I added, “so everyone who is here.”

“Not Thea!” someone quips, “but she can’t play yet.”

To answer this, Thea squeals with joy – as Louis says, “roll the dice to see who goes first then I’ll sit down.”

Yippee! They all get excited about playing with Daddy and Mommy… Daddy is the cannon, Mommy is Walt & Mickey (statue from the Disney version), shoe, candlestick (from Clue), Miss Scarlett (from Clue)… someone was Mr. Thimble Moneybags (the thimble with the moneybags inside and the hat on top) – Yes, we collect old tokens from games bought at yard sales for extra pieces! Thea demands Mommy pick her up. Mommy smiles and sits by Lucas. Lucas, Jaquline, and Kimberly all rolled 6s so they roll again. Mom goes to change Thea. Lucas rolls highest! He goes first!

“I’m taking Mommy’s spot by Lucas!” Daddy announces. “I go second!”

Mommy does a mental facepalm… luck my foot.

We sit back at the table in the remaining chair between Jillian (#3) and Kimberly (#5) as Louis pops two doubles and lands three properties – 2 of a 3 group already.

At one point, we have Kim roll onto Louis’ hotel, die. #6, Christina, roll onto same hotel, DIE, and #7, Jaquline, roll onto Jillian’s hotel – DIE! Three out of seven down in one turn… with Mommy out the next and Lucas following. We ask Jillian (no hotels by this time) if she’s ready to concede that Daddy wins…

NO WAY! “I don’t quit a game – if I lose, I lose, but I don’t quit!” (Where does that come from? Remember Risk games during Daddy and Mommy’s dating days, brothers and sisters? One lone dude in Australia against the entire red world… “I’ll never surrender!”) Mommy has to laugh.

One thing for sure, out of the government shutdown garbage, Lucas knows how to break a twenty and what change to get back from a $10 or $20 on the $6, $8, and $14 properties (…almost typed the names… I’m too nerdy!)

What board game does your family love to play?

Thank you for Reading!

Type at you Next Time!

~Nancy Tart

Our Daily Bread

Season of Uncertainty: struggles over finances and worry for me. Learning to trust in daily provision.

September 14, 2018

Our Daily Bread

Have you ever thought about the line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread?”

I always believed it meant to trust God for provision.

I never really lived the “daily” part.

Our life is broken into seasons and in this season, there is no weekly or monthly guaranteed income.  We work daily.  We get paid daily.  Of course, we understand that bills are monthly, so we have to save the money we make in order to pay for monthly provisions.  For the last few months, when we pray that prayer, I understand the “daily bread” part literally.

Our service work is different than a “regular job” in that we don’t have sick days or PTO to pull from when we’re sick.  When I got sick with the mold garbage was a huge cut on our family’s finances.  Our income has even changed from what we had a few years ago: From startup to two years ago our business had several streams of “weekly” or “monthly” income from operating, but times change.  We could take a day off then and it didn’t come with worrying if rent or electric would get behind over it.

God always provides, though.  God makes sure we get enough calls to keep our provisions met (we have been on time for rent & electric in this season).  We get blessed in unexpected ways too.  Unexpected ways are like this past Sunday when a sister from church gave us two boxes of fruit popsicles – the kids LOVE those things!

Radio preachers always say stuff like, “just give what your family would spend eating out.”  It makes me feel so sad.  (We do pay $200 a month to help another – plus anything God tells us to give.  But that is between God and us.) We don’t eat out.  We used to.  If I mention a restaurant we’ve tried “the other day,” it was likely over two years ago.  I don’t tell other people our financial situation.  I don’t like to “bother others” because God does always provide and as long as we have rent, I’m not going to ask anyone for help.  Outside of Louis buying a $20 box from the new Bojangles to try it out for a birthday lunch, we haven’t eaten out in ages.  We understand that good stewardship in our family right now means spending less than $8 for each dinner meal for all of us – and one item each from the dollar menu still breaks that budget.  Honestly, beans and rice (the most common) or spaghetti/zoodles with marinara (2nd most common) cost $2.80 and $3.30 each, respectively.  Most of our family dinners cost us less than $8 a meal.  Breakfast (thank you, God, for eggs!) is under $2 and lunch is usually about $4 since we save full meat and good veggies for dinners.  Since we make feed money off our chickens and eggs, eggs are practically “free.”  We go to a local produce market a mile from us and pick lots of veggies from the $0.50/lb “scratch and dent” box.  I like to think I’m pretty good at stretching money.

For us, this season has taught us to depend on God daily.  That was very hard for me at first.  I am a planner.  I am a saver.  I am very good at saying “no, that’s not on the list,” and not allowing money to be spent on something I consider unnecessary.  But I find it an extreme challenge to not have the full month’s bills sitting in the bank – we used to have six months of bills in the savings account and one in the checking!  I hate the uncertainty of depending on God to give us calls every day.  I look at our reservations and my stomach churns.  There’s usually nothing for me to plan on.  Fifty-three stories online and I made zero in August, so I can’t plan on that just yet.  I’m so unsure that I’m applying for every job that I can possibly pretend my skill sets fit only to be rejected by everything in the last two years.  (Obviously, God doesn’t want me there.)  If I get a job, it will be because God wants me there.  (Maybe God wants me in this season of uncertainty because He’s teaching me to depend on Him more and worry less?)

Do I love working from home?  YES!  (I drive when there are calls, wait at home in-between.) Do I love being able to homeschool, write more stories, tend my garden and tiny farm, and be present as my children grow?  YES!  YES!  YES!  YES!

What is hard for me is accepting uncertainty.

Frankly, though, life is totally uncertain!  A “steady job” is just as uncertain as the “daily bread” season we are in!  It only appears more secure.

Only God is truly certain.  Why would I want to trust in anything else?

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

Crafting Cages

June 5, 2018

Crafting Cages

Last month we built two big mobile cages for our livestock

One is for the “teenager” chickens (those between just feathered and adult, about 6 weeks to 24 weeks).  Rebeccah bought the clearance Buff Orpington straight run (mixed males and females) from Tractor Supply at the end of their chick days and they are now a little over 12 weeks old – time for selling the males before we eat them at 24 weeks!

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The other was for Rebeccah, Kimberly, and Christina’s newest project: Guinea Pigs.  They had one named Jack, who, just like his namesake, was adept at getting out of cages (starting with a two-day excursion on the day she brought him home!).  On one of his excursions, he decided to disappear into the wild for good (I think he’d heard some Wild Kratts: free and in the wild!).

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But TobyMac stayed with his two girls, Taylor and Avery.

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The bright orange is TobyMac and the pretty one below is Avery.  Taylor is camera shy.

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Shop day had us designing and building the cages.  They are night-time predator proof and easy to move.  We discovered that Guinea Pigs are a perfect lawn mower: one day and they graze the grass to ½ inch height.  (Formula = 3 adult pigs to 32 square feet of grass.)

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Kimberly and Jaquline using the portable drill to make pilot holes and drive screws.

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Rebeccah tacking on the chicken wire.

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Notice the painted guinea pig on the door when it’s open.

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Even Lucas was helping!  He painted, held screws, fetched tools, and helped measure boards to cut.

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The best drill ever!  Plus wire cutters for the chicken wire.

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Three different lengths of screws and our poultry staples

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We precut all of the lumber for the second cage!

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The girls learned and practiced using power tools, critical thinking (this looked good on paper, but in reality it will cause this problem, how can we fix it?), planning, budgeting (looking prices up online and estimating our actual cost before we went), and applying this knowledge in a practical way to create a final product.  We painted the walls to help keep them from rotting, but Rebeccah, who is never satisfied with leaving something plain and functional, turned them into a work of bi-colored art.  (I only had white, so she had to mix dyes to get another color!)

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Although this was a “day off” from school, the girls learned and used various practical skills and developed two products for our family livestock.  They had a blast!  They learned a lot.  They had a very successful and memorable day creating and a huge surge of pride when they look out there now – something they made is being used everyday by cute little animals!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

 

Amazing Live Music: Evan D Music

(photo from Evan D Music’s Facebook page)

May 29, 2018

Amazing Live Music: Evan D Music

Our weeks are pretty full of stuff.  Between our crossing driver shifts, taxiing children to and from college classes and groups, and just general life – it is awesome to have a mostly-weekly couple getaway afternoon on Mondays.  (THANK YOU! Shout to my amazing sister, Becca, who is brave and possibly just as crazy as me to sometimes text, “Pick them up by 8am tomorrow.”)

That is what we had this week.

The adventure of just Louis and me began with dropping off 7 children at 4pm (Anastasia had “sleptover” Sunday and Christina’s Monday class was canceled because the college was closed) to 6:30am the next day.  Only one cab ride to take someone home before the night was ours.

We had worked in the morning (all 3 cab calls) and ferried Christina to Marine Street for her Civil Air Patrol volunteer time, then spent almost 4 hours playing yard and board games with the girls (I even got to conquer an Age of Empires map with Rebeccah!) so when our time started it was like, “okay, what now?”

I wanted to walk on the beach and surf… wrong tide, and I don’t do baiting-shark surfing (aka night surfing).

Louis said, “I remember hearing some really good music downtown two weeks ago at the Tavern.” (He means the new Taberna del Caballo.)  Oh my! You should go there on Mondays from 4pm to 8pm – trust me, your ears are in for a very special treat!

So down we went.

And there, I was transported backwards to the very skillful, amazing raw guitar sounds that I heard my minstrel-of-the-dawn Daddy playing when I was a child and the awesome worship jams with Louis and his team and I first met.  Clean music, inspiring riffs (…you know, the things where a string musician picks the strings with his fingers so fast the fingers blur all together and you sit in awe with your mouth open…) and timeless songs.

We were listening to the sounds of Evan D Music.  (This guy is about to release a record too… yep, I’m not that old, but projects are records of time and passion, even if they are downloaded on a smart device in snippets.)  He plays around town almost every night but at the Taberna del Caballo Mondays from 4pm to 8pm.

One lady at another table had the best stadium whistle I’d ever heard (right through her fingers, no device!)  I’m sure people at the Oasis on the beach heard it.  You should have seen the two adorable kids dancing along with most of the patrons when one particularly moving song was performed.  (Louis doesn’t dance, so I’m not going to dance without him… but had the girls been there, we would have been dancing around too.)

I love live passionate music.  You can tell when an artist puts their heart and soul into their work – and Evan surely does.  I grew up listening to my Daddy play “story” songs from Phil Collins to Gordon Lightfoot to Jackson Browne, Moody Blues, Beach Boys, and all in between.  (We sat down to hear Evan playing “Kokomo” which was way cooler live with a riff-master on guitar – and he can sing the higher harmonies – I hadn’t heard that since my little brothers’ voices changed!)  My Daddy’s eyes would light up like he had stars in them when he strummed the tunes.  For years, I thought Lightfoot’s “Minstrel of the Dawn” was the story of my Daddy.  I loved just listening to the guys play when Louis and I first met; they’d be crammed in Grandpa’s attic room and wailing away and I’d hide on the stairs or they’d be practicing in the empty auditorium and I would slide off to the dark side entryway and dance.  I still love it when Louis (who claims he’s really rusty) plays guitar or Christina or Becca play piano.

Real music is the love of my heart.  It lifts my soul, engages my mind, heart, memories, and emotions, and spins a relaxing web of tranquility through the air.  This is what I felt listening to the talented Evan D Music; and this wonderful little place on St. George Street will be a regular haunt for us from 4pm to 8pm as long as we have Mondays off and Evan is playing there!

Check Evan D Music out on Facebook and YouTube and come be in his audience before he makes it to the Amphitheatre!

Thanks for reading!

Type at you later…

~Nancy Tart

 

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