Musical beginnings

Dear Readers,

Yesterday a very exciting thing happened! I had my very first piano lesson and my first violin lesson in a long time. My mom and I found a lady, Laura Syjud, to teach me piano and violin back to back. First of all, I need to tell y'all that my violin has a name. My first strings teacher,  Mrs.Carlson, told all of us violin players to name our violins boy names because the cello players named their cellos girl names. The whole reason I was inspired to play the violin was because of Charles (Pa) Ingalls, in the Little House series, playing the fiddle. So, naturally, I named my violin Charles. Well, my new teacher's name is Laura, so even if she was mean (she's very sweet) I'm sure I would like her any way because of her name! So, I truly enjoyed my violin lesson. It was great to get my violin  tuned and sounding good, and also great to practice and correct things that need to be corrected. My piano lesson was amazing as well! I learned a lot in that half hour slot, and am excited to progress!  Thanks for listening to all that...I know it's not a subject all of you, dear Readers, are interested in, but I needed to share. It was truly a fantastic afternoon that I will always remember.

Love,

 Claire

    

"The Highest Words"

    Nikolai Khamara
     U.S.S.R.
     1970s
                            " "What kind of men are these?" wondered Nikolai Khamara. "They show joy while suffering. They sing in very dark hours. Morning and evening, they fold their hands and speak to someone no one can see. As they do, their faces shine." For months, Khamara had watched the Christians who shared his cell in the Communist prison. Unlike the believers who were in prison for refusing to deny their faith in Jesus, Khamara was there for crimes he had committed.
    One day, two of the Christians sat down with Khamara. He told them the story of his life and finished by saying "I am a lost man." 
   One of the Christians asked, "Suppose somebody lost a gold ring. What is the value of the ring when it is lost?" "What a foolish question! A gold ring is a gold ring. You have lost it, but somebody will have it." Khamara replied. "Then what is the value of a lost man?" the Christian asked. He continued, "A lost man, even one who is a thief or murderer or an adulterer, has the value of a whole man. He is of such value that the Son of God forsook Heaven for him and died on the cross to save him."  Khamara understood.
  The Christian said to the robber, "God loves you. You are valuable to Him.
    When Jesus met people of great sins He never asked them what sins they had committed. Instead, He told them, ""Be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven.""  "You are forgiven because Jesus died for you. You only have to believe. " Khamara became a Christian. "
    Dear Readers,
 That's a pretty amazing story, isn't it? I got it out of the book Jesus Freaks by dc talk and The Voice of the Martyrs.
  After Khamara had served his prison term, he joined the underground church. When his pastor was arrested, Communist guards couldn't get him to give any information on his church. So, they stopped torturing him and brought Khamara in.
  They stabbed Khamara's eyes out in front of his pastor. The pastor could not endure someone suffering for him. "What should I do?" He asked Khamara. Khamara replied "Be faithful to Jesus and do not betray Him. I am happy to suffer for the name of Christ." "When my eyes are taken away, I will see more beauty than I can see with these eyes. I will see the Savior. You remain faithful to Christ to the end." 
  When the guards prepared to cut out Khamara's tongue, he said this; "Praise the Lord Jesus Christ. I have said the highest words that can be said. Now, if you wish, cut out my tongue."
   Khamara died a martyr's death.
   Wow.  Christians all across the globe are suffering like this for their unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ. I've determined that if these amazing people can pray for the people who kill their families, friends and themselves, the least I can do is share Jesus's love with the people I come in contact with every day. Even if it means going out of my comfort zone - isn't it worth that to watch a friend come to know Jesus? That's my goal. Will you join me?

The wonderful world

 Dear Readers,
As all of you know, I'm sure, this world has many many problems. Some days, it's so easy for me to focus on all the bad parts of the world, and I forget that this place is something God created. No, it's not without fault, but still, God said it was good didn't he? None of us is perfect - we all have difficult times and do things we regret. But, let's forgive as God does and look at ourselves as our Creator can - wonderful and made in His image. I'm going to share some of the things I think are beautiful in this world we live.

Horses. One of God's finest creations, in my opinion.  Smart, strong animals, capable of running faster than a car. Roaming free, they are a sight to behold. Bucking and playfully nipping others in their tight family-like herd. Or bridled with rider cantering through showy arenas or grassy fields, the feeling of freedom bursting out of their breast, one with the horse, racing the wind. Oh yeah, and with me in that photo is my brother. Brothers- need I say more? Always your defendant when you need it, yet they pull your braids and tease you at home. You've gotta love 'em! Here's the whole gang - Benjamin, Mason , Claire(me), and Cate. Plus the horses, Marki (with me) and Tyrone (with Mason). On this particular travel to River Ridge Farm (affectionately referred to as Mrs.Rosie's to us) Benjamin was so sweet and defendant of me when another girl was very mean to Marki and I. Thanks, boys! My siblings are some of the most important people in the world to me. They're so supportive - I mean do you see Mason saddling a horse and Benjamin patiently enduring 2 hours of barn time? They're the greatest.

Here's another thing that is beautiful. Music. Sweet and soft, or loud and energetic, music touches my soul.

I took this absolutely angelic picture of my piano to try and capture the music onto this page.  Can't you imagine wonderful melodies pouring out from deep within this amazing instrument? Yes, music is a gift from God. I am taking this oppurtunity to share some good news with you. I love music, yet there are some people who can't hear  the beat of a drum or sway of a fiddle. I learned American Sign Language for people like this, and have been blessed with the oppurtunity to share music with people in Sign Language.

 My Mom recently signed me up for a ministry called Arizona Friends in Sign. There I will be part of a group that performs songs in sign and teaches Sign Language to people who have the desire to learn. I'm very excited and can hardly wait!

And here's my family! The most amazing and fun people in the world! They are very important to me and are my best friends. I love them all!  They are DEFINITELY the most beautiful things I can think of in this world!

I encourage each of you, my sweet readers, to look through fresh eyes at the beauty and splendor of my Father's World!   

The beautiful spring  roadside of Mississippi

       

To Mom

 
Dear Mom,
 Thank you so much for the great weekend! I really enjoyed going to the homeschool conference with you on Friday just the two of us. I  had a ton of fun shopping through curriculum and going to the seminars too.  I love spending time with you- thank you so much! And, even though Mason was there, I really enjoyed Saturday too!   Thank you for all you do and the fun we have together! Cate, the boys and I are so so lucky to have you as our mother. You fill our lives with love, and I hope this post shows you how much I love you!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!
 I love you,
Claire
P.S. readers, as I'm sure you have deduced we went to the homeschool conference and had a blast! I learned a ton at the seminars and will share the details later.

What we've been up to...

Dear Readers,

I apologize for not blogging for some time. But now I'm back with lots of news to share! And Colorful news at that! Yesterday and today the Shrader household has been creatively colorful by tie-dying some shirts! We, being the Disney lovers that we are, even put a mickey on it!
Here's step one: Trace mickey onto the shirt. 

                                                         Step Two : Tie-dye shirt and tie rubber bands around the shirt.

Step three: Wrap tie-dyed shirts in plastic wrap.

(If you'll notice, one of the wraps is a big ball. This is Uncle Len's.) And...voila! The finished product! This is Mom's shirt. Pretty cute, don't you think? Well, that's one finished product. Uncle Len wanted to venture away from the instructions we were all using and try something a little different. I'll let you come to your own conclusions.... (but I must add a photo!)

 Regardless of the outcome of his shirt, we are all very happy to have our Lenny home! (He was at Church camp as a leader and in Mississippi for a week.) I hope y'all  enjoyed reading about our tie-dying adventures!  Until next time, 

                                       Claire                                                                     

Dog Days

Dear Readers,
The Shrader Family has been doing all sorts of fun stuff lately...(Do you see those pictures?) We have been playing games, making rockets soar,watching movies, painting pictures out of puffy paint, making Toy Story 3 place mats, learning Spanish, swimming,(yes-Mason finally got that cast off!) Mom has been teaching me to sew with a machine,(not as easy as it looks..)and I've been trying to finish a cross-stitch I've been working on for-well- a while. Oh yeah--and we went out in public (astonishing-I know!) Wednesday to take Pluto to the Veterinarian! The Animal Hospital is one of the funnest places in the world,(to me) so we had a blast. Pluto doesn't get out and about in the car very much, and hence-forth was trembling and panting with excitement! And, for those of you made after my own heart, nothing is wrong with Pluto...he just needed some Vaccinations! We are going out again this afternoon. Toy Story Three is finally here! We are all very excited to see it, but Benjamin has read the director's blog and gone on the TS3 website so many times this past year I don't know what he's going to do after we see it! He knows so much info on it already I think he may know the ending! We are making lots of goodies tonight in honor of the movie. Mr.Prickly pants is a character of the movie, and we'll be making cupcakes with his face fashioned out of frosting and various candy on the top. Also, we'll bake some of Sheriff Woody's badges, and some Jessie cowgirl hats as well. (cookies!) Cate, Mom and I worked all last week on Rex the Dinosaur place mats, and we made some with Buzz Lightyear, a horse shoe (who could forget my favorite-Bullseye!?), Jessie's hat ,and a sheriff badge. I added a goatee to Uncle Len's Buzz- he looks exactly like Uncle Len! I've made a cartoon astronaut Uncle Lenny! Speaking of astronauts... We really did make a rocket! It was fueled by baking soda and vinegar. We had to put the baking soda in a tube and then tip it upside down into the vinegar. BOOM! When, after several tries, we finally got it right, the rocket soared! Check out my Mom's blog for a link to our hilarious video! (I'm not sure how to add a link..) Her address is: www.theblessingcounter.blogspot.com Enjoy! By the way, we bought a myth busters set at Joanne's with everything we need to make the rocket and other experiments. I dare you to try it - it' s great and you won't regret it! Comment on my blog and share some of your fun summer days- I'd love to hear them! With Love,
Claire

Good Medicine

A cheerful heart is good medicine.

Proverbs 17:22 NIV

Dear Readers,
My brother, Mason, had surgery on May 21. He is home and recovering, but that is why I have not posted in a while. With Mason taking all this medicine to help him deal with the pain, it made me think of the above bible verse. That is a great verse and very true. Laughter is better than Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Aspirin, and all the other medicines out there. Besides -- when Mason is taking medicine, he's asleep half the time. He hates that so much he actually has reduced the amount he takes! I'm sure Mason - and everyone else in the world - prefers to laugh than sleep! I know I do!However, I'm an awful joke teller... I always mess up the punch lines. But I enjoy reading jokes, especially in my favorite book series, Mitford. And especially by one of my favorite characters in Mitford- Uncle Billy! (If you've read the series, you know that Uncle Billy is a dear old man who's the king of jokes in this sweet town.) So here are three jokes from Uncle Billy and others.

"A preacher died, don't you know, an' was a-waitin' in line at th' Pearly Gates.
Ahead of 'im is a feller in blue jeans, a leather jacket, an' a tattoo on 'is arm. Saint Pete says to th' feller with th' tattoo, says, 'Who are you, so I'll know whether t' let you in th' Kingdom of Heaven?' Feller says, 'I'm Tom Such an' Such, I drove a taxicab in New York City."

Saint Pete looks at th' list, says, 'Take this silk robe an' gold staff an' enter th' Kingdom of Heaven!' Then he hollers 'Next!' Th' preacher steps up, sticks out 'is chest, says, 'I'm th' Rev'rend Jimmy Lee Tapscott, pastor of First Baptist Church f'r forty-three years.' Saint Pete looks at 'is list, don't you know, says, 'Take this flour sack robe an' hick'ry stick an' enter th' Kingdom of Heaven.' Preacher says, 'Wait a dadjing minute! That man was a taxicab driver an' he gits a silk robe an' a gold staff?' Saint Pete says, 'When you preached, people slept. When he drove, people prayed.' "

Joke courtesy of Jan Karon; In This Mountain, Ch. 14 and The Mitford Bedside companion. ( And, of course, Uncle Billy)

This next one is my family's favorite!

"Wellsir, this old feller an' 'is wife was settin' on th' porch, an' she said, 'Guess what I'd like t' have? He said, 'What's that?' She said, 'A great big bowl of vaniller ice cream with choc'late sauce and nuts on top!' He says, 'Boys howdy, that'd be good. I'll go down to th' store and git us some.' Wife said, 'Now, that's vaniller ice cream with choc'late sauce and nuts. Better write it down.' He said, 'Don't need t' write it down, I can remember.'
Little while later, he come back. Had two ham san'wiches. Give one t' her. She looked at that san'wich, lifted th' top off, said, 'You mulehead, I told you t' write it down, I wanted mustard on mine!'

Joke courtesy of Jan Karon; A New Song, Ch. 2 and The Mitford Bedside Companion.

This next one isn't in Uncle Billy dialect, you'll notice. I don't know who wrote it... it's off the Internet. It's still pretty funny, though!

A guy walks into the doctor's office and says, "Doctor, you've got to help me. I pass gas HUNDREDS of times a day." He tells the doctor that it's silent and odorless. Then he says, "Doctor, you won't believe this but I've passed gas ten times while we've been talking." So the doctor gives him some pills, "Here, take two of these every day and come see me in two weeks." The guy comes back in one week complaining, "Doctor, what's in these pills? I still have the gas, it's still silent, but now it smells absolutely TERRIBLE!" The doctor says, "Well, that takes care of your sinus problem, now let's work on your hearing." Joke courtesy of Lifeprint.com

I hope you've enjoyed your dose of jokes!

Sincerely,

Your laughing blogger Claire

Caution! Do not read this unless you have read Corners of Our Vacation Chapter One!

Dumbo the Flying Elephant! He is my Mom and my favorite character and there forth we love his ride! Of all the characters Dumbo deserves his own ride the most. I mean - have you seen the movie? He gets his mother taken away, has everyone make fun of his ears and has to jump out of a flaming building all in about an hour! Poor guy. And he's the cutest character - how can you not love him?

Cate is officially forty inches! That means she can ride almost all the rides in the parks! And she is proud of it! I said "Is Cate riding Space Mountain?" She looks at me with that of course- I- am face and says

"Uh- YEAH! I'm 40, Claire." Except she pronounces my name Cler.

She is funny, funny.

WHOO HOO!

This is Mickey's Fun Wheel. Everyone in the family loves it. Except Uncle Len. Notice the finger in his mouth? He only rode it for Cate who looks at him with these huge eyes and said "Lenny - it won't be fun without you!" After he announced he would not be boarding this time.

He rode it and I bet he will again. If he doesn't someone with very persuading eyes will be very upset.

Here's the last photo. Can you spy with your little eye one Mason, a Claire, Daddy and a Benjamin? We truly had a good time. It's Disneyland - and with my family it's impossible
not to have a good time. I hope you enjoyed a few of the 990 pictures we have of our vacation.

With love,

Claire

Corners of our vacation Chapter one

Dear Readers,
We are home from our California vacation! A lot happened and I'm excited to share with you some of the funniest corners of our trip! First of all, you need to know my Mom loves taking pictures. And as you can see from the above picture, her children are following in her footsteps!
She took 990 pictures this trip. I know some of your eyeballs are popping out, but trust me, this isn't unusual! Her camera goes every where with her because as I've said before -she loves taking pictures. That is the reason I am a little late in blogging about our trip. It took me days to go through all her pictures! I'm finally here, though and will began showing you a glimpse of our van...

I love this picture because my Dad is in the back ground looking very funny. (That's why we're all laughing!)



My Dad's best friend,Uncle Todd, works at Sony and took us on a tour at the start of our trip. It was very cool to see where movies we love were filmed. In the above picture Cate is standing inside the stage where "Singing in the Rain" was filmed. It's one of my favorites! The room has to be so big because they make buildings and scenery and everything required in a movie and put them inside that room! There's a big difference between the room Cate's standing in and the living room in which they sing "Good Mornin' " in "Singing in the Rain" !

Onto the Disneyland portion of our trip! Here's us with Pluto, our family favorite. I love how Mom and Dad are the ones holding the stuffed animals and not the kids!

This is Uncle Todd's daughter, Gracie. She's as cuddly as a stuffed animal and fits right in, don't you think? She rode some of the Bug's Land rides with us. Cate sure did love having a littler one to hold and play with! ( Gracie did, too. She would just watch Cate - mesmerized. Can't you see her thinking "Wow... this one's smaller than the others..."

A corner of my life: Home schooling adventures!

Dear readers,

Being home schooled is a lot of fun! We have so much fun doing it that I would like to share a few of our adventures with you. We are ending our seventh grade year right now, so forgive me as I reminisce. At the start of this year we did a unit about pioneers. First of all - I love pioneers! I enjoy reading about them, writing about them, and yes, visiting museums about them. So, our first field trip of the year was to the Pioneer museum. In the above pictures you see the cute little church and my mom, sister and I in the gazebo. We had a ton of fun learning about pioneers as we peeked into historical buildings, pumped the water pump, and saw wheelchairs from the 1800s. Benjamin was certainly happy to have his power wheel chair and not one of those rickety things! I, remembering the episode of Little House on the Prairie in which Nellie Oleson faked injury and Laura pushed her down the hill, was thankful as well.
Another great experience we had was getting to bake bread. Though the process takes a while, it was completely worth it. My Mom and I (and Cate!) love baking...and even my brothers enjoyed getting their hands in the dough! All week we could only eat food with out additives or preservatives or anything else the pioneers did not have, so in order to eat bread we had to bake it ourselves! We took a picnic lunch to the Pioneer museum and ate some delicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! We even made our own peanut butter at the grocery store! I'm not a fan of regular PB&J, but this was delicious! As for the time it took to make...it really wasn't too bad. (I would have waited all week if that's what it took to have the ultimate pioneer experience) But you can't complain about the time-

Amish friendship bread takes 28 days to make!! (I'm making that next.)

Sadly, the pioneer unit is over now. On the bright side, we're still having some fun times! We have a dear friend, Andrew, who is going to school at the University of Arizona. My Mom and him arranged for us to head to Tucson for some one -on -one time with the cows at the University! I got to palpate several cows! It was the most amazing day! The first cow I maybe felt the calf - but I couldn't tell. The first heifer (bovine that has never had a calf) wasn't pregnant. I couldn't tell anything on her either. The second heifer did not want to be there. (Who would?) She put her head down adamantly and did not want me touching her. Well, I did any way - even though I felt awful about it - and BINGO! As you can tell from the below picture...I found the calf! I would go into all the details about how I got there and how the inside of a cow(or heifer) feels, but as I've learned from relating these facts to my family, not everyone wants to know. If you would like to know please comment on this post saying so and I will be more than happy to email you! That sweet calf was on its back and I was feeling its knees. It was about the size of a cat and I can not wait to see it! I'm sure it will be the cutest calf in the pasture when it is born. :) It was absolutely amazing! I enjoyed it so much that when Mom kept saying "Don't worry, honey. We can get you a new shirt." I had no idea what she was talking about! I was covered in the heifer's last meal but didn't notice because I was having the time of my life! I encourage you, if ever you get the oppurtunity, to do the same as me and have fun palpating without worrying about your clothing! You'll thank yourself later!

Thank the Lord for moms like mine willing to come up with the funnest and craziest ideas to make school fun! And thanks for friends and heifers willing to help that idea happen! This was just one corner of my life. I hoped you enjoyed it and the many more to come!

Welcome To Claire's Calico Corner!

Hi and Welcome! As you know, I'm Claire and this is my Calico Corner! The name for this blog came about because I love old fashioned things and Calico is my favorite fabric! Also, we drove by the store Calico Corners the other day and I really liked the name so... Why not?! My mom has a great blog called The Blessing Counter and she really inspired me to start this! I enjoy journaling, but always run out of pages. This seemed like a good thing to do because 1. You never run out of pages. and 2. You can be like Anne Frank - share your thoughts with the world! I hope this blog will be a cozy little corner in the ever hectic world! See you around!