Tag: Thea

Thea and Her Love

February 22, 2021

Thea and Her Love

  • Thea’s Bow & Gym Water Cup
  • Patient Big Brother
  • Jillian loves being Thea’s model

Thea is by far our youngest lover of all things fashion. Her sisters got her bows for Christmas. She had to put them on everyone. Lucas patiently lets Thea do anything to his hair – he did let Christina and Becky color it green (supposed to be blue dye, but his brown hair turned more of a turquoise). Jillian and Jaquline often end up being Thea’s models now that she wants to do their hair too!

  • Cheese!
  • My Mr. Pickles!

The big girls have “always wanted” (they shared Mary’s giant stuffies for a bit as littles) an oversized stuffed animal. They got one for Thea for Christmas. They called him “Mister Pickles” and the name has stuck. (I have no clue why a giant koala is named after a cucumber treat, but it is.) Thea loves him. This girl loves all things tiny but took to the giant stuffy like a pro. He sleeps in her bed (she sleeps on him)! Grandma got her started on “squinkies” because she loved the tiny squishy quarter-puppies at gym & she has always loved legos.

  • Lucas said “you are my love, Baby Thea!”

Lucas has been leading Thea everywhere since day one, literally (the picture on the bottom right is when she was not quite an hour old). They are snuggle buddies. One of her first full sentences was “Lucas come play legos with me!” They explore things together. What Lucas does, Thea has to try – even splits and carpentry!

Our little baby is two years old now! Time races by. Life is about enjoying the time we have with each other. Life is about making happy memories even in times when life is tough. Life is about friendships that you continually water even through spells of distance. Life is love. Thea reminds me of that with every smile.

Even this morning, when her 17-year-old sister is driving us to work and playing music to which Thea’s feet are dancing; I saw her huge smile and remembered how pure love is as little ones show it. Genuine smiles are a tiny glimpse of heaven’s love! Thank you Jesus for the time I’ve had with each of my children, each of my siblings, my parents, and my friends! Thank you for new opportunities to build memories and laughter as each day speeds along! Thank you for love!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

Let Thea Do It!

January 1, 2021

Let Thea Do It!

My almost 2 year old thinks she’s a gymnast and the gym is her second home. She thinks she’s a member of Civil Air Patrol like Christina and Kimberly. She thinks she can ride Lucas’ bike. She thinks she can build shelves like Mom. She also thinks she can hide from everyone in plain sight.

She thinks she can fly. (From any object straight into a big sister’s arms without warning!)

She’s been going to WGV Gymnastics attending the Parent and Tot classes (yes, we have classes for those just walking to 3 years old) for a few months and Lucas (big brother) has been doing the Preschool Program for a few months.

Kimberly is in competitive team and set up a workout area on the wall marked with degrees (set up with sticks, a protractor, and a pencil) and was like “I need to go from here to here.”

“I can do that!” Says Lucas.

Bingo.

“Let Thea do it!” Thea says.

Bingo.

Kimberly tosses her hands in the air playfully, “I give up!”

We laughed and asked, “Why?”

“My baby brother has a bigger split than I do!” Kimberly laughed, “actually,” she tries it, “maybe not.”

We all laugh because the littles are so enthusiastic about everything. They love anything and everything big siblings or friends are doing. Thea consistently tries to do everything her big brother and big sisters do. She walked into the front room last night and turned on the game computer, “play a game with Becky!” and the mouse pointer went straight to the correct icon for Becky’s game.

Thea loves to do it! Thea loves to do everything!

“Mom!” (I’m washing dishes, Thea is dragging the stool over to the sink…) “Thea can wash dishes, please?”

How do I say no? I hope she always keeps the can-do will-try attitude she currently possesses.

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Building Buddies

December 28, 2020

Building Buddies

When we think of toddler, stuffing every unknown object into their mouth is standard, right?

I had two where the answer was shockingly “NO!”

They both loved all things small – squinkies, legos, and polly pockets.

The thing I like about small items is that they are easily portable! A small pencil box could hold an army of squinkies, a city of legos, or a family of polly pockets.

You can’t exactly take giant mega blocks everywhere! Well, maybe one or two blocks, but really… tiny is better for portable applications. I love tiny toys to keep littles entertained when on the go. For most of the kids though, tiny toys were not an option until the everything-in-the-mouth stage was finished. I love starting off with tiny toys!

We have been building large mega block forts with the same blocks for over 16 years! From Christina under 1 to Thea now at almost 2… I shake my head at that – yikes! That’s too many years of building forts and garages and houses with mega blocks! (Maybe that’s because mom doesn’t want to admit to that many years of kid toys!)

The building buddies right now are Lucas and Thea. Lucas gets very creative with the big blocks and super detailed with the tiny legos. He’s made Becky even get interested in coming back in because he occasionally gets a sorting bug and sorts their collection! When sorting happens, Becky is like, “yippee!” or comes to show Lucas how to best sort them. She had taught him well.

Thea is not so big on sorting small things into smaller groups – but one type of toy always must go in its correct bin. Grandma gave her a collection of squinkies for Christmas. Those stay in one bin along with their little eggs. Her gravity propelled horses that walk down tracks are in another bin, teething toys (sadly, very few of those left) in one bin, socks take up one of the toy bins (Thea’s idea, not Mom’s), and other small collections in the small bins. Thea keeps a baggie of legos and a few assorted squinkies in her back-pack. (This was another gift from Grandma this year and she carries it literally everywhere now.)

What I love to see is the building buddies when two or more of them are sitting in the little ones’ room surrounded by legos and building their respective creations on boards or the tops of the containers, in a “giant land” as Lucas calls it. (I guess city isn’t big enough.) Becky, Lucas, and Thea, or Kimberly, Jillian, and Thea, or Jaquline, Jillian, and Lucas… all with their own bits in their tiny toy world.

And, yes, Mom ends up in there often too, building some castle-hidden-in-rocks or house-hidden-in-trees on request. I load mine with secret tunnels or passageways, treasure, tiny details, and stories! I love building models of some story land my characters are in and acting scenes out with Lucas and Thea. They always come up with neat ideas that I’m forgetting.

Building buddies are the best! Taking time to encourage the creativity and imagination of little ones is a wonderful thing to be a part of.

This Christmas as I was building some huge lego tree with robin hood and castle pieces (who can remember those cool sets?) with Thea and Lucas, I remembered being about three and building the gray castle in the basement/garage in Cherry Hill with my Daddy. The black castle followed when I was four along with Robin Hood’s hideout (Daddy called it that, not sure what the name is that goes along with the set, but I know the number!) – classic sets I can actually print out instructions for from the lego website now! He took the time to build with me (and boost my ego… I was very proud of building a set that had an age on it higher than my current age.) and full circle, I’m taking time to build with mine.

Maybe I haven’t ben fishing with my kids as often as my brothers and I went fishing, but I’ve been building with them! So maybe we are “Building Buddies” instead of “Fishing Buddies” – and in my crazy brain I see five Golden Retriever pups building forts with mega blocks!

Type at you later!

~Nancy Tart

(P.S.: for those wondering… my computer has been down since just before Thanksgiving so I’m a little behind on by release of Devonians #6, but thanks to an awesome gift from a friend – old laptop too old for games but perfect for writing! – it is now just waiting on a cover!)

Brantley Station Brain

October 19, 2020

Brantley Station Brain

You know, I’ve been a bit behind on posting blogs the past two weeks. This is because my brain has been in Brantley Station and Feli’tor and Devonia and Nilon. We just finished moving. I finally got my computer fixed after not having it for over a year and a half! (Writer in me dying because I have to borrow a computer and it’s never on my schedule!) The first weekend when we were done moving, I sat outside on the front porch watching Jillian, Lucas, and Thea play and wrote 5 pages in a notebook in my tiny, space-saving cursive with zero margins and front and back top to bottom. Louis came out and said, “you need a computer.”

It is also time.

While I was feeling dark, it was hard to write about happiness and peace. I did some freaky villain handiwork writing that almost freaked me out, but I couldn’t touch my children’s books that are bright and sunshine. I just couldn’t get back into their joyful world despite trying.

Now? I feel free again. I am finding joy everywhere. I am getting to play legos with Lucas and Thea, sit outside in the hot Florida wind and watch them play like the wild crazy children they are, read other authors, and build train tracks and work outside with my family.

Now my brain is back in my worlds.

I’m working on The Apprentice, which will be the fourth in the Brantley Station Saga following The Protector. In this book, Ethan will face another odd change and meet a new set of characters brought by the new cycle! I stepped back into Ethan’s shoes and wiggled my toes around. I’m so excited to introduce Makayla! (Sneak peek will come soon!) I put on Ethan’s determination to find positivity in every task. I looked at the new challenges through his perceptive logic. I felt his warmth at blooming friendships as he understands the connections he has never really noticed. The narrative shifts a little as Ethan begins to see his world just a little differently.

So I’m officially in Brantley Station Brain right now. My dreams are even about Ethan, Makayla, and Corey!

With so much flowing onto the keyboard (my keyboard! yippee!!), I’m hoping to have the final released just after Thanksgiving… in time for Christmas!

Got to go as my Brantley Station Brain is demanding I get back to the pilot barracks and finish Ethan’s next step!

Thanks for reading!

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

Doing Less, Loving More

July 14, 2020

Doing Less, Loving More

Kimberly calls it, “living in the moment,” but really, it’s choosing to live where God has placed you with hope for the final future.  Your focus is not on temporal things but on the things of God.

It’s been a long teaching road for me the past few years. 

I thought I was teaching.

Really, God has been continually showing me that I am doing too much.  I thought I was living in the present, planning for the future, and remembering the past – what I tell myself all the time.  In reality, I was placing too much trust in myself and my ability to work.  What these last few months taught me is that it doesn’t really matter about this chasing work… God will provide for needs. 

I kept telling myself “it is just a season” and that I would slow down once we had a house of our own.  My desire for a home that we own is not a bad thing.  My working all day every day was not a good thing.  “Unprecedented” things changed that goal and reset us to day zero. I realized I was minimizing Louis.  We are a team.  We work very well together.  My deep desire is to have strong relationships with my husband, children, and family.  I had been neglecting that. 

A voice kept repeating, “you must do what you love,” and “money isn’t a motivator,” and I was thinking in reply – “I am” (One of my jobs was a gymnastics coach… I LOVE being a gymnastics coach!) and “but I need money for a house.”  

That voice was right. 

One study I listened to highlighted “where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

I analyzed what I really love.

I love Louis.  I love my children.  I love my family.  I love my friends.  I love coaching.  I love writing.  I love encouraging.  I love working in a Christian, encouraging, loving atmosphere.

So I prayed.  The next study came on… “doing less, loving more…” and I realized it was the right decision.  I stopped my office job and decided to be available as the “on-call” rec coach for all hours.  The same day I made that decision, the offer came in for Preschool – a position I had turned away chasing the “more money” job a year ago. 

I’m writing again!  I get to see Thea wake up, smiling, and yell “Mommy!” and snuggle before I have to go to work.  We have no real debt anymore – the student loan and the debt from food and gas during the shutdown is paid off.  Our van is a few months from paid off.  We’ve started saving extra again toward our house goal again.  By the end of next year, we should have enough to either buy a cheap property or put a down payment on something good, I’ll have been at Gym almost four years, both the van and car notes will be gone, so I’m praying for patience. 

This week, Monday, started me full-time at the job I love (a dream job, never in my life did I believe I would find a job I love so much – thank you, Jesus!) and I’ve started having study times in the Bible with the girls.  Just Becky and Kimberly right now, but Jillian was listening too.  I want them to love Jesus and trust Him from day one.  I want them to learn from my mistakes so they can move farther and faster than I did.  I now finally understand what my Daddy meant by saying the one line he said he remembered from his Dad: “I don’t care if you are a street-sweeper; make sure you love what you do because you will have to wake up every day and do it with all your heart.”

My Daddy loved computer building and programming. 

I love children, writing, teaching, fitness, and encouraging – which makes coaching recreational gymnastics the perfect dream job for me!  I LOVE waking up to go to gym!  This is the first job I’ve had as an adult where I don’t have to pretend I enjoy it (you know, you can choose to enjoy something, but you can’t decide to love what you don’t really love) – and I am thankful and excited for this new phase in our lives!

I have decided to focus on family; doing less and loving more.

Thank you for reading!

Type at you later,

~Nancy Tart

Growing Little Love

June 1, 2020

Growing Little Love

Thea is getting independent by giant leaps.  I don’t do the whole months thing unless I have to (I love math, but “over one” is just as good as “fourteen point two five months” as far as describing my baby’s age goes) so when people ask, she’s one.

Lucas gets a new bike, and Thea has to try it!

Lucas gets a water balloon maker (thank you, Grandma! The grenades have shredded latex shrapnel all over the yard – so Thea likes to clean all the pieces up)… and Thea is right alongside them filling up balloons.

At the beach she’s looking for shells with Becky and running into the surf with Lucas – not as far as Lucas, at least she still got a healthy fear of the deep!

Building a cage?  Oh yes, Thea is right there trying to screw in the wood… well, Mommy and Lucas were using this tool on the wood: Thea just hasn’t figured out screwdrivers drive screws!

Grandma brought a pool – “Mommy!” Thea wants it set up so she can splash!

Daddy gets stakes for the garden… Thea is helping him drag them to the right spot!

Thea loves her shoes (Thank you, Jesus! Finally a child who wants her feet covered outside!) and will bring them to her bigger siblings since she can only get her feet partway in and she knows that isn’t proper. …and reading – she loves anything Becky is reading. (Actually, anything Becky is doing!)

I love watching them grow.  I drove Christina and a friend to another friend’s graduation and his mom mentioned how much Thea has grown.  I can already see her at 16 and graduating in a year like her eldest sister… time flies.  Enjoy every minute with them! 

Life has taught me, fortunately at a young age, that we are not promised tomorrow.  The byproduct is that I am frank, honest, and don’t hide my care and concern for those I love.  I try to remember that each time I speak to someone may be the last – I have lost many people and none of my losses are plagued with regret at the last words spoken.  I pray that I keep love first.

I watch my younglings grow and I continually pray that I am guided to teach them how to live without regrets.  To love honestly, to speak in that love, to always stand for truth, to live life taking risks so as never to say, “I regret…” wistfully thinking of some word or action they wanted to do but decided against.  I pray they guard their hearts from evil and think on positive things.

I watch Thea grow, as I’ve watched each of the others and my younger siblings, I smile at her growing independence and blooming personality.  I am so thankful and humbled that God blessed us with the honor of raising our children and leading each of them toward their own way. Our time with them is short. Enjoy every moment.

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

Blighted Tomatoes

May 12, 2020

Blighted Tomatoes

Today Louis, Thea, and I spent hours clearing the blight from our tomato bushes in the faint hope that we can eradicate the fungus or at least keep it away from the healthy tomatoes until they are harvested.

Blight starts harmlessly enough – it looks like this:

  • Blight on the edge of a Tomato Leaf looks like squiggly bug lines
  • Blight on a wild beet (rabbit food) looks like dust from chalk

Then it causes the leaves to curl up and die and produces brownish spots on the skin of the tomato fruit. If you open the tomato fruit at the early stage, they appear to not be damaged inside. However, shortly the tomato blight spreads to cover the fruit in a thick brown layer and will start to look shriveled; in reality, they are rotting from the outside in. Gross. Yes. Totally.

You can prevent it with fungicides. (we are well past that) You can destroy the plants and NOT use that area for planting tomatoes for the next two seasons – sometimes more!

We chose the in-between. We hope this works because there are so many big beautiful fruits not yet affected and looking gorgeous! We cut back all of the blighted parts of the plants (sourced the blight infection from a load of mulch) and burned them (okay, dumped them in the fire pit waaaay away from the plants).

Now we will keep a lookout for anything slightly infected and remove it from the plant. Hopefully, as blight is a fungus, this will keep the spores from spreading to the healthy plants and parts of plants. (An entire section of tomato bushes were blight-free.)

After pruning, we were left with these:

We’d like to see these guys grow big and red and juicy!

If you wonder what’s “Eating” your tomatoes and it looks like squiggly bug trails but no bug bodies, dying leaves, and browning yucky-looking fruit – it’s likely tomato blight.

Hope this helps!

Type at you next time!

~Nancy Tart

Popping Pool Days

April 30, 2020

Popping Pool Days

So when Grandma Tina brought Lucas’ new bicycle, she also brought a little pool! The girls were like, “oh, look, a baby pool for Thea!” and “6 feet! Wow, I can lay down in it and not touch each wall!”

It was not just Thea’s pool!

After each empty, they scrub it out with our dishwashing soap, relocate it so as not to totally kill the grass, and start over! The first refill has a tad of soap left – the last refill had a bit too much soap but they made hats out of the bubbles!

Here are some video tidbits!

And Lucas had to try it… he said “let me do it, just me!”

He didn’t go underwater then, but normally he does! My little wave-crasher is now a small pool fish too. Thea stands in the pool and flings water at everyone else, when we can get her in it!

Someone asked, “wow, how can they have so much fun out of one little pool?”

Because they enjoy time, have vivid imaginations, and enjoy each other’s company… and we try to cultivate an atmosphere of gratefulness. Always trying to find the good and enjoy it. Life is so much more fun when you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading!

Type at your later,

~Nancy Tart

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