Coast Crew

Healthy Salad

2012-02-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

If you are like me, you know that salad is healthy. But you hate making salad. And most nights you don't really want to eat it. Bad, right? I try so hard to feed my family healthy food, but I am their worst enemy in a way because sometimes I just plain don't want to eat it.

I'm going to share with you my family's favorite salad. It's one that I actually like making and that we all like eating (even the little girls). And, while it's great to eat year-round, you can tailor it to what's seasonally available and feel even that much healthier! Also, unlike lettuce salads, this one keeps for a week or more in the fridge so you only have to make one salad and it could potentially last you all week. Nice, right?

1 head cauliflower, cut into tiny chunks (in my opinion, the smaller, the better)
1-2 heads broccoli (depending on size), cut into tiny chunks
3 carrots (or so)
1/2 red onion, chopped

Grate the carrots and toss with all the other chopped veggies. Mix dressing: 1/2 cup honey, 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 1-2 tsp salt. Whisk that up really good, then pour the dressing over top. Stir well. Let it marinate a bit for better flavor.

Easy, right? You can change out the ingredients, make less dressing, or tinker with the ratios of sweet to bitter, etc. I personally like my veggies chopped very small. I don't like getting a huge chunk of one vegetable in my mouth with only a tiny bit of dressing. I prefer my little chunks that are well-coated. :-)

Last week I made a salad of thinly sliced cabbage, grated carrot, and chopped apples with this dressing and it was divine. Cabbage was on sale last week while broccoli and cauliflower weren't, so we tried something new and saved myself a couple bucks. Plus, I don't do mayonnaise, so this is one way I will eat cabbage. (The other is cooked with sausage in a piroshki - but that's a whole other recipe)

Just to reiterate how much my family loves this, when the leftovers are in the fridge, they ask if they can have it for lunch. Yeah. How many kids do you know who beg for salad with their PB&J?? It's that good.

Party at the Richardson's

2012-02-12T16:22:00.000-08:00

Family Home Evening activity...

Kenna and Nat in their new home...

Anyone home?

I just love watching these two girlies play together.

Young Women project

Logan's model pioneer wagon that he made for school.

Remembering

2012-02-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

Today I was searching through some old posts looking for a few memories and I stumbled upon THIS ONE.

I had forgotten that I had written that. In fact, as I read through and realized that it's been only a little over two years since I wrote that, I can't believe how much has changed. I still have bad Sundays, but now it's just one kid who's the challenge - Kenna has pretty much outgrown all of that behavior. And in a year probably Natalie will be done too. It really does fly by. And I think just like the pain you experience when you give birth, you really do forget the bad parts somewhat and remember the good parts. Remember and cherish.

Today I had a really precious moment with Hannah. Too precious, really, to write here (don't worry, it will go in my real journal). But I will mention something. We had a long, long hug. And it triggered memories of her sweet little self cuddling up in my arms. It seems so long ago in some ways, and at the same time as though I just blinked my eyes. I feel pretty lucky to be able to experience some of that babyhood with Natalie at the same time that I'm getting glimpses of the finished product with Hannah.

Week in Review

2012-02-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Josh and I taught a lesson in the Willits ward today on the priesthood. We thought we were invited to teach just the young women. Turned out, the young men were invited to join us. Which was fine. But we had a lesson tailored specifically to the young women and had to improvise on the fly. And you could see that we were losing the young women because the young men were so excited and exuberant to learn about the priesthood that it was hard not to ignore them and make them the focus - they had a lot of great questions and comments. The young women would pull in when we started talking about relationships, though, and how priesthood holders and the women can/should interact. I really think that a lesson on the priesthood for the young women would go over better without the young men there. But I think we hit on some good points. We taught them some things that we've learned over the years and shared some experiences. They have mostly older young women who are heading off to college soon, so it seemed important to touch on a couple things - how a righteous priesthood holder should behave (counseling together, can't receive revelation for you, etc), the reasons you would WANT a righteous priesthood holder for a spouse, and that women are partners in the priesthood when you enter into that sealing covenant together. It was fun teaching with Josh. It was the first time we've ever taught together. Afterwards Josh commented that it is hard! It is particularly hard because we weren't really following a lesson plan - just going with what we'd studied and trying to get a feel for the needs of the group.

While we were in Willits, I had the opportunity to go to nursery with Natalie (their nursery leader was gone). She got busy trying out their puzzles. She had one with numbers, and one with alphabet letters. She was incredibly focused on those puzzles. She figured out all of the numbers, and then turned to the alphabet. Some of those letters she placed immediately, with no necessary thought. Others she stroked in her hand while her eyes went from the puzzle piece to the puzzle, determining where it might go. More often than not, she figured it out (the challenge then was figuring out which way the letter fit in - they were hard even when it was right). Sometimes she totally gave up and guessed and waited for my positive reaction when she found the right spot. I find it utterly fascinating to check in as they grow and see how much more developed a child's brain has gotten. I'll have to pull my alphabet puzzles out more often.

Kenna has been "writing" her letters. She can write a lot of them, although she can't necessarily identify all of the ones that she can write. So she writes a bunch of stuff and then "reads". Today she held up a line of script and said, "mom, I need a pen to finish this. See? It goes 'I came to earth, with power to....see I need to finish writing choose", as she gets to the end of the line of script. Oh yes. I see. You didn't write choose. (is that what XOTBBKNOP says?). Right now she's teaching Josh the song. She sings a phrase and has him repeat it after her. It's adorable.

Logan gained a Willits fan club today. He was apparently SO good. Plus, he gave back rubs, hand massages, and hugs to all the primary leaders. Oh yeah. For a kid who thinks he hates all things lovey-dovey, he certainly knows how to charm the ladies. ;-)

Brynne and Hannah went to church all alone today. I haven't gotten any concerned phone calls, so I imagine they behaved themselves. :-)

Do I have any news about Brynne? She is getting taller! You'll be surprised next time you see her. She is loving her new violin and I love to hear her play it. She's learning to play a primary song as part of her Faith in God program.

Hannah got straight A's again. No surprise there except to hear her complain about math you would think she was failing. She loves, loves, LOVES her science class. And I have to admit, her teacher is one of those awesome teachers that every kid should have (in every class, every year). A truly exceptional teacher. So glad I'M not the one teaching her science. ;-)

Sorry there are no photos. I posted so many earlier that I don't really have anything fresh. But things are happy here on the coast!!

2012-02-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

Did you know that you can do karaoke on youtube? One of my friends is kind of into it. It's a pretty funny thing to do with the family on a Saturday night. :-) Not that I would know.You can try it on for size...

Friends

2012-02-02T17:03:00.001-08:00

Don't ask Logan if his best friend is a girl. Because as he says, "ewwww". Girls are gross.

Au contraire, my young son... the evidence suggests otherwise.

Aren't they so cute? Too bad she's not going to live here after this fall. Her dad's in the Coast Guard and will be getting transferred. So I guess they won't grow up together and get married. But a mom can dream. ;-)

Enterprise Theme Song

2012-02-01T14:53:00.000-08:00

I listened to this song this morning while I was driving to the Middle School to pick up Hannah. I thought you might enjoy it. Did anyone else watch Enterprise when it was on YEARS ago? I admit, Josh and I are mild trekkies. I liked this show better than some of the others. It's kind of like a prequel to the original Star Trek (but not as kooky). The music is really different from the other Star Trek themes, and I liked that about it. (And P.S. - another space-set TV show we watched "once upon a time" was Firefly - awesome and hilarious!)

I've been taking a lot of trips down memory lane lately. I think it's the music Josh put in my car.

TV you actually SHOULD be watching

2012-01-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

Julia reminded me about 'Downton Abbey'. I know I have told some of my family about this new BBC series. If you're not watching it - do. You'll love it.
BBC
Old episodes can be seen via netflix instant streaming or even free with Amazon Prime instant streaming (if you don't have netflix and want to try amazon prime, email me).

Also you might want to check out Foyle's War. There are six or seven seasons. Each season has four 1.5-hour episodes. Again, it's available through Amazon Prime instant streaming and Netflix has most of the seasons on DVD.

Perfect for these dark, rainy winter weekends!

Hiking

2012-01-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

There was a break in the winter weather with some actual sunshine last week, so we scurried over to the recently re-done Otis Johnson Wilderness Park that is located smack in the middle of the city limits. Crews from the nearby conservation camp (that's like a halfway place for people working themselves out of the prison system) have been doing a lot of work to turn this park into a nicer place with trails, stairs, and bridges. It used to be a little scary to go there because homeless people would live in the brush and rowdy teenagers would go there to get away. Now they have someone (a really nice guy who also happens to be a hearty 6'7") who lives full-time on the edge of the property and manages it. I kept hearing suggestions that I should take the kids. So we went. Not all the trails were accessible because of the mud, but it will definitely be somewhere we go back when it's a little drier. It's a nice place for a picnic, and for the kids to run around and explore.

Remember: clicking on the photos brings them up bigger - some are hard to see this tiny!

Doesn't that fat banana slug just make you hungry?

I love how the root is bridging over the stream

I said, "hey Kenna, smile!" And this is what I got. Cutie!

Sunshine on redwoods

Those are tall trees!

I was there too!

Can you tell that Hannah was Nat's buddy for the entire walk? They had a great time together.

P-U-S-H!

very tall trees!

One of my new favorite songs

2012-01-23T16:43:00.001-08:00

Why there are aliens in the video, I have no idea. Ignore them. Thanks to Josh, for finding this song.

For Asher

2012-01-20T18:54:00.000-08:00

The kids wanted to wish Asher a happy birthday. This was the best I could do! I would have posted it on his birthday, but I never got a chance. Kenna can't remember his name for anything. She keeps calling him "that boy who had a birthday".

January Bliss

2012-01-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

Before the rain started tumbling down, we enjoyed several weeks of warm January weather, enjoying our post-Christmas activities!

My devilishly handsome son

The girls in their undies for a painting activity. They got a kick out of all the underwear pictures of them!

Washing up. Such sweet little bums!

Experimenting with new playsilks that they got for Christmas, which we dyed with koolaid!

I was on the computer admiring the warmth of the sun on the wood. It's one of the things I love about this house.

The girls with their friend Natalie, being creative???

The Elders were over for dinner and the kids (that would include the Elders) had a teeth-making contest with them.

Logan's were awesome!

So photogenic! Hannah's been manning my camera lately, and snapped this shot.

Argh!

Coming out of his special hiding spot.

Add caption

There she is! I stole my camera back. Hi Hannah! Looking so grown up these days without her braces!!

The girls love the hats that Aunt Jenny made for them!

P.S. - Photos of Hannah on Google+....she got her braces off a week ago!!!

Silly Girls

2012-01-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Google Reader and Delicious

2012-01-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

My fave thing in the internet world is my Google Reader. My second fave thing is Delicious.

I like the internet. I like that you can find ideas and information on any topic. Sometimes I find people who write fairly regularly about things I want to read. I follow those blogs/websites with my google reader. Google reader is really just an inbox that collects all the new posts from every website that you choose to follow and assembles them all together in one place. You don't have to open up the individual websites to read the posts or to check and see if anything new has been added. You just scroll through your google reader. Here's a shot of my google reader.

Clicking on the photo should make it larger

You can see on the bottom left a partial list of the blogs I follow. You can see which ones have new posts (the number is in parenthesis next to the blog name). But also up at the top left you can see where it says "all new". That is basically a running list in chronological order as the posts are put online newest to oldest. So you can read through all of them. Or you can choose just one blog and check the ones from there and ignore the rest. The benefit of this is that while blogger has a dashboard where you can follow any blogs that are run through blogger, you can't follow other sites, like those that use wordpress, through the blogger dashboard.

It's easy-peasy to subscribe to a blog. On most blogs you will see a an RSS symbol. You can see it on the right in the picture below - it looks like a partial rainbow. Click and it will take you to a window that will ask which reader you want to use. There are a ton of options. Google Reader is listed in there with the others. Click the google reader button. The window will automatically open to be your google reader. Several of the recent posts from the website you just elected to follow will be in your list as "unread". you can read them or not.

From Google Reader you can "star" things that you want to read later (if you don't, once it's marked "read" it disappears from your feed). You can mark to keep things "unread" so it will show up again. You can share the post through facebook, google+, or email a link to a friend just by clicking a button. One website to open. All blogs you follow at your fingertips. Plus, it's super easy to unsubscribe once a blog has outlived it's usefulness to you. Just run your mouse over the blog title to make an arrow appear. Click the arrow and get a menu...unsubscribe is one of the menu options.

So now for Delicious. Delicious is a social bookmarking site, but I don't use the "social" part of it. I think it's similar in a way to pinterest, but I haven't used pinterest much so I don't know for sure. It's a way to tag your bookmarks for future searches. So for instance, one thing I like to bookmark would be recipes. But I can get too many recipes bookmarked and they are hard to organize in your browser's bookmarking program. Like, would a chicken taco soup be bookmarked under "soup", "chicken", or "mexican"? If you use the bookmarking program you have to choose one category. With Delicious you can assign various categories, known as tags. So I might tag it as "chicken", "soup", "mexican", and "recipes". Later when I go looking for an idea for dinner, I can search under any of those tags, and that soup recipe will be one of the options that comes up.

I find Delicious to be really useful when I find a fun idea that I want to be able to find again, but won't need for awhile. It's for those "didn't I see a thing where you could take-an-old-pencil-sharpener-and-make-it-into-a-lace-doily-for-your-Grandma-in-three-hours-using-only-old-shoelaces-and-some-tacky-glue" tutorials that you just KNOW you're going to want to find at a later date when Grandma's birthday draws near. Instead of searching google and try to re-find that one particular website (thereby avoiding the question: "what search terms would I have used that would have led me to that site?"), you can think about how you would have tagged the website yourself. There's also a complete list you can search (of tags and your tagged websites) if you can't think what tags you might have used.

I have some general tags that I use, for instance all my recipes are tagged "recipes", as well as things that are particular to that recipe such as "quick", "cheap", "beans", "dessert", "company", "picnic"....for that kidney bean pudding I've been wanting to try when you next come over for a picnic lunch. ;-) If I can remember it had beans in it, I can search my tags for "beans" and anything that I assigned that tag will come up. Here's an example of me in the midst of assigning tags to a website I visit periodically.

I'm giving a lot of information for two programs that are really very simple to use, in the hope that you'll feel like you just can't live without them and give them a try. Oh. Just so you know, Josh was telling me about a program he uses that works like delicious, but it's for the files that you store on your computer. I don't know about you guys, but I might save an essay or list of books or something on my hard drive, and then later I can't remember if I put it in the "home-school" folder, "to-be-read" folder, or something else entirely. I hate opening up all the folders and documents as I search for the right one (especially because I can rarely remember how I titled it and so many of my files have similar titles). I could see it being useful for things like geneology as you are keeping track of various people and websites and information.

So. Yes. You really can't be an efficient internet user if you don't have a reader of some sort and an organized way to process and find the information that you collect. I think the biggest downside that people have with the internet is the amount of time-sucking that it seems to do. If you're organized, you can reduce the time involved in retrieving the information, while still utilizing all the resources at your fingertips!

soapnuts

2012-01-10T10:26:00.000-08:00

My last post about soapnuts prompted a few phonecalls and emails from people, so I'm going to elaborate on them just a little bit.

First, you don't have to use warm water, although I think they probably work better with warm water.

You can buy them through Amazon HERE. If the idea of fishing a bag of soapnuts out of your washer bugs you (not really a big deal, but still) you can buy just the extract also HERE. Take time to read through the comments. You can glean a lot from those and you'll notice they're all basically positive.

I wish they made a dishwasher detergent...

Shark!!!

2012-01-05T10:05:00.000-08:00

Some of you know that I have been on a mini-quest lately to get toxic chemicals out of my house. I'm not feeling tempted to go extreme, but if I can limit our exposure by half, I think that's a pretty good deal. Along with that I have these funny little criteria that whatever replacement cleaners I use must WORK and they must be inexpensive.

The first switch I made was to replace my laundry detergent with soapnuts. It's moderately cheaper than detergent. You don't get a detergenty smell to your clothes (some people would consider that a bad thing). It's easier on your clothing. And it seems to work just as well. The only downside is that you have to fish out the little bag of soapnuts. They can go through the dryer, but I'm usually wanting to use them again (you can use each bag 4-6 times before replacing the soapnuts). Sometimes it's hard to find the bag. I have two, but I like to just use the same one so I know how many washes I've gotten out of it.
What are soapnuts? They are the fruit of a plant - I won't go into the horticulture of it. The fruit contains saponins - the original soap that people have been using for thousands of years.

Anyway.

Using soapnuts was the first switch, and so far it's been going all right. If you have problems with skin allergies, I would consider trying these as they are very gentle on skin and no more expensive than detergent.

I've also been playing around with my mop. Remember THIS post about how to refill your swiffer? Well, that worked well for awhile except eventually the cap started leaking. Plus, I couldn't find an inexpensive cleaning pad replacement. I found some good ones online but they were VERY expensive and I didn't want to invest the funds when I didn't know how long my mop might last. Turns out, that was a good decision.

This past Thanksgiving my sister Shannon talked me into buying a Shark Steam Mop - Walmart was going to have them on sale for Black Friday. Jenny seemed kind of ho-hum about the idea - if I remember correctly, she had one and wasn't in love with it. Shannon explained that this was a new version which fixed a problem that Jenny's had. Since it was on sale, I decided to give it a whirl.

LOVE

I LOVE my new steam mop. I'll tell you everything that I love about it. Because I know you're dying to hear!

1. I love that it uses water...free water...to clean my floors. Economical and ecological!
2. I love that my floors don't stay damp for hours. No slippery-when-wet hazard to try to keep my kids off. I can't tell you how many of my kids have come running onto my freshly mopped floor and fallen hard.
3. I love that it gets the nasty gunk off my floor. The first time I used it I went over all those spots that no amount of scrubbing by hand (with a rag AND with a knife) would lift. I was impressed with the results, to say the least.
4. I love that the cleaning pads are washable. It comes with two. I've only ever used one. Use it. Wash it. Use it again.

Today I mopped my downstairs bathroom with it. Surprisingly, it was the first time I had done that. Usually the bathroom floor gets cleaned by hand. There were spots of grimy linoleum floor that I have been scrubbing at for six years. They've been driving me crazy.

Gone.

Oh, Shark of my heart...where have you been all my adult life?

So there's my sales pitch. Don't you want to run right out and buy one now??

Happy 2012

2011-12-31T21:39:00.001-08:00

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and may each new year find you a better man." ~Benjamin Franklin

Christmas in Pictures

2011-12-30T11:50:00.000-08:00

First the box delivered a present...then it delivered joy in another way.

Remember, if you click on the photos, they'll be bigger!!!

Reading "The Grapes of Math" by Greg Tang

Sugar cookies for Santa

Waiting for them to cook!

Making our Zingerman's Rueben sandwiches for lunch on Christmas Eve day.

Christmas morning, wearing new Christmas PJs from Grandma R.

Kenna trying on all her headbands from Brynne

Look what was in my stocking!

Exploring stockings

New Wii game from Mom and Dad

Josh's gift from Logan - a paperweight!

New Christmas outfits from Grandma T.

Brynne in the Redwood at the park

Emily holding Aubrey, standing by Barry and Hannah

I love the determined look on cousin Leah's face!

Aunt Jelaire, Avery, and Leah

Uncle Nathan and cousin Sam

Building a sandcastle - Caspar Beach

Kind of chilly!

James and Logan - the only boy cousins of the 11 grandkids there this weekend!

Ahhhh....nappy time!

How'd this picture get out of order? Hannah's new jammies!

Hannah, Barry, Kenna

Synchronized swing-jumping! I'm sure it's an olympic sport!

Weeeeeee!

Cousin Avery - I love her expression here!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Christmas Eve day we spent with Dave and Kari, followed later by the missionaries. In the evening we read from the scriptures, sang carols, and opened some gifts.

The next morning we did stockings, presents, our traditional Christmas breakfast of stuffed french toast, AND were at Church before 10am. How awesome are we? (How early did we get up? You don't want to know).

After a beautiful Christmas program at Church, we jetted over the hill for Christmas dinner and a baby blessing. Sarah and Brad blessed their three week old daughter. She's a sweetie!

11 of the 17 grandchildren (from 4 of the 5 living children) of Darwin and Nina were together this Christmas. It was wonderful to see everyone - to meet babies we hadn't met before - and enjoy our children interacting with their cousins and establishing relationships. If you notice Natalie is in almost no pictures...it is because the two afternoons we went out she was sleeping! I stayed home with her both time (once I even got a nap!!!), and Josh was camera-man, so not too many photos of us.

It was a fun Christmas filled with lots of love and laughter. Perfect!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-27T15:09:00.001-08:00

Reflections of Christ Slideshow from Reflections of Christ on Vimeo.

This gorgeous video is by Mark Mabry. His work is currently being featured at the St. George Temple Visitor's center

Christmas at Our House

2011-12-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

Since I will have NO company for Christmas (at least, not that I know), I thought it would be fun to show off to you guys the Christmasy things going on around here.
Keep in mind, I'm not a super decorative/crafty person. Plus, most of my decorations need to be toddler friendly still. So with that in mind....

The tree decorated mainly by the kids

Our newest nativity from Spain, and part of the rest of my collection of nativities

I was pretty proud of myself for figuring this out last year. With no mantel, I finally realized that I could by magnetic clips that hold the stockings up to the chimney. We used to hang the stockings from the tops of the windows, but that was really hard and created holes in the wall.

I love the bells made by my great-grandmother

See Brynne's mistletoe on the tray? She made a bunch for us to use as decoration, made from plants in our backyard.

The terra-cotta pot nutcracker made by Grandma.

Logan and I made pinwheels for upstairs. I think we got the pattern from FamilyFun.com. It was a super easy craft that he could do on his own.

One of many displays that Brynne set up in her room. She really loves to decorate.

Ahh, the present wrapping/making station. Bags of supplies tucked in a corner in my room for anyone to use.

The girls have been loving the Christmas books. I've started collecting more of those, too.

This is how Logan and Josh listened to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. So cute.

Yay, Brynne!

2011-12-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

In the beginning of November Brynne entered a local essay contest sponsored by the VFW that is open to all middle school-aged students (both public, private, and home-schooled).

And, she won!

Josh and I have known for several weeks, but she just found out a few days ago. I'm including her essay here for your viewing pleasure. ;-) She worked for several weeks on it. The given topic was "Are You Proud of Your Country?". The essay had to be between 300-400 words, her own words, but an adult could check grammar and spelling.

Are you proud of your country?

I'm very proud of my country. There are many reasons why.

America gives us freedom to make choices. We have the freedom to choose our leaders through voting. We can choose where we live and where we go to school. We can choose our job and our friends. We can also choose to go, or not to go, to church. Everyday we make thousands of choices, though the consequences of our choices could be bad and they could be good,. This all comes down to agency. Agency is the freedom, or ability, to make a choice. By making that choice we must accept the consequences of our actions whether good or bad . Agency is what makes free. Without agency we couldn't make choices. I'm proud of the freedom in America.

I'm proud of many things in America, but most of all I am proud of the men and women who are willing to fight for our country. Many people have died fighting for us. These soldiers often choose to fight for our country because they value freedom. I am proud of those who volunteer their time, and sacrifice so much for our country. In the past, Americans have fought for what they believe in. During Colonial Times when England was forcing more and more taxes on the American Colonists, England put a tax on tea, and the Americans didn't like that. To express their point, American patriots snuck onto a ship carrying tea, and dumped the tea overboard. Later on in history, American Colonists declared independence from England and then fought the Revolutionary War for the right to govern themselves.

America gives people freedom to invent, and do things they want to. One inventor I like is Alexander Graham Bell, who invented the telephone. Public libraries are another reason to be proud of America. I love libraries because they provide educational books which help me to learn about lots of things including information about different cultures, American History, and science. In the late 1800s, near the end of his life, Andrew Carnegie used his wealth in many ways, one of which was to help establish public libraries in small towns. I'm proud of such generous citizens in America.

Because of the freedom and the people here, America is a great place to live.

Kenna's Birthday

2011-12-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

On December 8th, my little girl turned four. I can't believe it's been that long already. It really feels like yesterday.

She had been counting down to her birthday forever, so we knew we had to make it something special for her.

Kenna requested German Pancakes for breakfast, Mac and Cheese for lunch, and a butterfly birthday cake. She helped me make the cake the day before, and decorate it the morning of her birthday.

Grandpa R. was able to drive out and made the day extra - special for her. It's always nice to have someone come and help celebrate!

She loved her presents - $20 (and yes, she appreciates money!!! She knows what it's good for!), new rain boots, and a new dress-up outfit.

the balloon dump

The balloons were very popular. Daddy brought home some helium balloons with her favorite character on one - Tinkerbell.

A look down memory lane...

At her third birthday

Easter at age one

7 months old

Money, money

2011-12-05T06:54:00.000-08:00

For the past several months I've been following a new website in my Google Reader called "Get Rich Slowly". There is a post a day, on average, and they are usually filled with pretty solid advice. It is written by a rotating group of writers with various backgrounds in finance and often has articles written by GRS Readers as well. Today I want to share two of my recent favorite posts.

The first is a reader story about what one writer's father taught (through example) about estate planning. Since we're all going to die, I thought it was awesome information about how to make that process easier on our descendents (parents, take note!!!).

The second is a list of what they consider the best books about money. I haven't read all of these books - or even most of them - but I thought I would start working them into my reading. I know Josh has read more of them than I have (of course), but I haven't asked him what he thinks about some of the books on the list. It's obviously just one person's opinion, but it gives a lot of good suggestions.

******************

And just for something a little different - how about an article on holiday baking with your family?? It includes a list of things kids can do to help at each age stage and suggestions on how to freeze cookies so that you can get some of the baking work done in advance.

Heaps o' Sugar

2011-12-04T09:34:00.000-08:00

It's interesting to me to note differences in my children that are completely a result of their personality and less a result of their upbringing.

The other day I had Brynne doing some math on the computer to supplement our regular curriculum. She didn't say she didn't want to, but every ounce of her body language was letting me know that she did NOT care to be doing math on the computer. There was lots of sighing, a tight, angry back, and there may have even been a bit of eye-rolling. Oh yes, and she was easily frustrated if she got an answer wrong. Now Brynne normally loves math - it was the computer that she was annoyed to have to use. I've also noticed that she doesn't really like to play with the Wii like the other kids. She can take it or leave it, and will often wander off while the other two keep playing. Electronics are just not her thing. Climbing trees, on the other hand, and art projects - those are her things.

Contrast that with Logan, who also did math on the computer yesterday. He was wiggling happily and giggling and I finally had to set a time limit for him so he wouldn't be on all day. Granted, he loves math too...but he really loves his "tech time". I'm going to have to remember that. For him, sitting still and writing is about the worst punishment you could give him, but he'll happily do the exact same work if he can use the mouse and type his answers.

I think it's important that they have balance - Brynne needs to have basic computer skills, and Logan needs to have decent handwriting - but on the other hand, the joy of homeschooling is being able to play to their strengths. Especially when it comes to introducing less popular topics. Mary Poppins taught us that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down - and that's true in school, too!

We got Hannah's trimester report card yesterday. Straight A's. An A+ in two subjects, including Science. She's really loving that class. We also went to her choir concert on Friday night. It was fun and she looked darling!

********************************

I was going to show some adorable pictures of Josh and the two little girls cooking together. I will. But I still haven't figured out exactly how to upload pictures from our new camera onto the computer. There's something I'm supposed to do that I'm not getting yet, because I can't get the process to complete.

Career Woman

2011-11-30T09:18:00.000-08:00

"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the rule of three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No. A woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."

G.K. Chesterton

Thanksgiving Joys

2011-11-27T12:24:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely trip to GP for Thanksgiving this week. It was short, but probably long enough for my sister to have seven extra people staying at her house. She's always such a great, easy-going hostess. Thanks, Jen!
The families in attendance included ours, my sister Jenny's family, my sister Shannon's family, my grandparents, and my parents.
My kids were somewhat sick...we're still reaping the whirlwind. EVERYONE in town is sick - we had many missing people at Church today. If I had known, we would have stayed home, but I'm kind of glad I didn't know.

So without further ado - Thanksgiving in pictures

Gingerbread pear upside down cake - made for our pre-Thanksgiving feast with Josh's parents

Our hosts, John and Jenny (and Zelda)

EAT!

The kid table

Working off dinner - singing a few Christmas carols

Kenna dancing

Everybody chilling while John washed dishes by himself. Thanks, John!

The scary bedroom where the girls slept and played

Diva Nat

Enjoying the Thanksgiving day parade...and our electonics

Giddyap!

The closest thing we have to a picture of Logan. That's his head behind Brynne on the left. Oh, and here's Brynne...I think she was watching her 1 year old niece.

Now that Thanksgiving is over...It's time to move on to the next holiday!

Saturday - Scout Christmas tree sales - delivery day!

Disclaimer #1 - There are no pictures of Josh because, well, he took all the photos
Disclaimer #2 - There are no pictures of Logan because he was too busy playing with his cousins to stop for a photo-shoot. :-)

CAL Academy of Science in San Francisco

2011-11-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

Lombard Street

Golden Gate Bridge

Sleepy girls on the way home

Home...and a gorgeous sunset!

Primary Children

2011-11-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

Our three middle children were in the ward Primary Program yesterday. One of the songs was so wonderful, Josh taped it later on during the third hour. As is frequently the case, the reproduction isn't nearly as good as the original, but it's good enough to give you an idea. I also thought it would be fun for our friends and family to see the kids that my kids love. Logan is standing next to his two pals (the twins are taller than me already). Brynne's best friend is the blonde in the green dress, her next best bud is the girl in the purple dress.

The song was written by our Primary President. There is one mistake - one group of children forgot to come in for the second-to-last verse (when all three parts should be singing together). Still, a sweet performance. And yes, this is our ENTIRE primary. ;-) The funny thing is, four of those kids (finishing with Brynne in March) are moving on. The primary's going to shrink by a third!

The Importance of Fathers

2011-11-21T11:18:00.000-08:00

I'm reading James Dobson's book "Bringing Up Boys" because I have a son who I want to grow up to be a good man, and I don't know exactly how to help him. I was raised in a family of girls, and even though I have a husband, young males are a relatively unknown entity to me. So I'm on a quest to understand my son and do my part to rear an honorable man.

It's been obvious from the start that my son Logan was different from his two older sisters. Before he was born, I wondered if he would join in their dress-up play or My Little Pony parties. He has, but always in a masculine way that involved things such as armor, fighting, and hero quests. He was briefly interested in painting his nails - for the mess factor, I'm sure - but our polish colors were all wrong. No pink on his nails!! His young life has been one obvious attempt to be the strongest, fastest, most boyish kid around.

So what did James Dobson say is the most vital aspect to the success of a boy turning into a good man? One thing. An engaged father.

Dad is the supreme example of manhood. He can be a boy's best friend, favorite sparring partner, and toughest critic. He teaches his son how to control his instincts, and demonstrates (and helps him develop) qualities such as respect, courage, and honor. The problem in today's society is that unprecedented numbers of boys are growing up without a father-figure. How can we expect our sons to grow into good men if they haven't had regular opportunities to interact with one?

Our culture today makes men out to be idiots. Pick a commercial, any commercial, that portrays a husband and wife. Who's the jerk or idiot in the relationship? Always the male. Always. Don't you think this portrayal matters? I think it gradually seeps into our brains until we consider it fact - women are smart, organized, and responsible. Men are incapable, insensitive goofballs who are basically only necessary as sperm donors. Right? We have a world that caters to many of the strengths of women. Our schools are geared towards the success of the female. Boys are expected to adapt, or they are branded trouble-makers, ADHD, put on drugs and locked-up. You know how it goes.

Imagine how this affects a girl with a missing father. When she watches TV her personal experience is validated, and is validated every 20 minutes during a commercial break. Why would she have any expectation of having a responsible husband? And her future son? Where is he going to learn how to be a man? And that's just one girl. What about her brother? What is he learning?

It's a depressing downward spiral as more and more children grow up with absentee fathers.

What can we do?

Ah, there's the rub.

1. Obviously, we start with our own homes. If we are men, we are careful to stay fully engaged with our children and set an example of a husband and father worth emulating. If we are women, we recognize the necessary place our husbands have in the lives of our children. We treat our husband like a man.

2. We complain about the media's portrayal of men. I don't necessarily think this will be super effective - at least in the beginning - but I think it must happen. Consumer input is very important to corporations. If you tell them their commercials are lame, they're going to think twice about what they air in the future.

3. As men, and as family groups, mentor young people who have no regular father-figure. It can be done casually and naturally - merely by developing relationships and family friendships. You might wonder if you have a responsibility towards another woman's child. Maybe not directly. But would you want your daughter to marry a man who didn't know how to be a good husband and father? Or would you want your son to marry a woman who really didn't appreciate the value of having a solid man in her life. Sadly, I know both men and women who have let their history of fatherlessness ruin a perfectly good marriage. I shudder to think what long-term effects these problems will have on their children, as the cycle continues.

Why is society organized into family units? Is there a benefit? Does it matter how those family units are organized? I submit that the answer is a resounding yes. We now have scientific evidence to support what society has instinctively known all along. In a family, there is value and purpose in having both a father and a mother. For the sake of our children, and the world in which they are growing up, we must do what we can to support and strengthen traditional families.

Homeschooling, Part II

2011-11-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

Today I thought I'd talk about a day in the life of our home-school. Of course, our days vary. A week would be a more accurate representation. And then there's the difference between what I aim for, and what actually happens. Since what actually happens is, well, what actually happens, that's what I'll tell you.

So here's an example of a random day.

6:20am - stumble out of bed and do 20 minutes of scripture study (I try to get up at 5:30 and work out. I do this about 50% of the time - in which case I start my Gospel study a little earlier than 6:20am)
6:40am - start breakfast. Realize I don't have time to make what I had planned on making, so do oatmeal instead. :-)

7am - feed family.
7:20am - family scripture study, led by Josh, followed by by family prayers
7:40am - Hannah heads for school, I head for the shower. Give kids quick reminder to do jobs while I'm in the shower.
8:20 - I'm ready (including said my morning prayer and perhaps had time to sneak in a few more minutes of my Gospel study) Organize the troops. Inevitably, someone didn't do their jobs. Ask them what they were doing for 40 minutes. Get the little girls ready for the day, while keeping older kids on task. My older kids have specific jobs to do (breakfast clean-up, laundry, etc) during this time.
9:30am - start morning devotional which includes everyone choosing a primary song they'd like us to sing.

After morning devotional we either do more family work (if there is too much mess for me to stand), or we head upstairs and start school.

Schoolwork involves reading aloud (this is usually a history-based book), a math lesson and math practice, spelling and/or writing. By the time we've cycled through the basics (which includes a break for snack) everyone's ready to stop for awhile. Send the kids outside for "recess". I usually hop on the computer to check email, pay bills, etc. Sometimes I have to pick Hannah up from school then, or run her to Sherwood Oaks (she plays the piano weekly at the convalescent home)

Lunch is at noon, followed by rest-time for the little girls. The older kids each have a job to do after lunch. The next two hours we all read, work on projects, play, etc. If there was something I didn't get a chance to finish from school, we finish then. Around 2:30pm we are usually ready for our afternoon activities. Sometimes a child has a class or activity. Sometimes I find myself babysitting some extra children. No school goes on during these later afternoon hours.

Around 4pm I start fixing dinner. At some point here I make the kids do a quick pick-up of the house clutter. We eat by 5:30 (unless it's soccer season in which case all bets are off). After dinner the three older children have specific evening jobs. I get the little girls ready for bed, read stories to them, and they play with Dad. Post dinner is when Josh helps Hannah with her math (she works independently from about 11am to 3pm on her schoolwork). Little kids are in bed by 7:30pm. Older kids often spend the evening reading, playing together, coloring, hanging out with Dad, etc. until 8 or 8:30.

Josh and I are in bed between 9:30 and 10pm.

So now that we have a basic schedule, I'll follow-up in a future post with what I do with Kenna and Natalie during the school hours (which, by the way, is different than what I did with Hannah and Brynne when they were little). I'll also talk about how I choose curriculum for the older kids (at some point).

I will also add that when they were little, we all pretty much woke up at 7am. Josh got ready for the day, we had cold cereal for breakfast almost every morning, and our days started much later. It wasn't until the last few years that I started cooking breakfast every day. We used to eat at 7:30, so I fell out of bed at 7 to start breakfast. This year I've had to get up earlier in order to accommodate Hannah's earlier departure time. It used to be, if I was running late on breakfast it didn't matter - Josh would sometimes not even leave until 8:30. But Hannah has to be out the door at 7:40. That is a firm deadline to our family time in the mornings so I HAVE to be consistent. Getting up that early was a challenge at first, but honestly I do find that our days go better when I am up and dressed before breakfast. I just don't always have that luxury (I have to wait my turn to shower!!).

Testify, sistah!

2011-11-10T11:44:00.000-08:00

A few years ago we started trying natural remedies for Logan's ear aches. He gets them a few times a year and as with ANY ear ache that a kid gets - it is always at the most INCONVENIENT time of day/day of the week. I mean how do the kids know that the doctor is unavailable?

Anyway, I found this article that talked about healing ear infections holistically. What I really liked about it was that the author points out that there is a time and place for traditional medicine. We have found that to be true. We have tried our natural remedies when it's the weekend or the middle of night, knowing full well that we might be calling the doctor in the morning. We've never had to, though. It's useful to have a few simple things on hand for those unexpected aches in the middle of the night. Garlic has been a very successful (and fairly cheap) remedy for us.

2 quick things

2011-11-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

This will be brief, as I have company this week. I just wanted to share two articles that popped up in my life.

The first is on the best toys for kids. I have owned most of these toys (not exactly, but same types) at some point or another. I agree with the writer that they are some of the best - the kind that never get old. I'd add a couple more to the list, though:
Legos
Art supplies

The second article is one I have yet to implement, but it's about organizing those random papers that you collect. I think it looks like one of the better ideas I've seen yet.

I've gotten interest on the rest of my homeschooling thoughts. I promise...they will be coming.

Halloween, cont.

2011-11-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

The kids have been using my camera more and more often.

Here are their costumes...they all pretty much created their own - even the little girls decided what to wear and how I should do their hair.

A Ranger - from his favorite book series "The Ranger's Apprentice"

Natty-bug and Kenna Care-bear


Miss Scarlet, in the hallway, with the candlestick


Artemis, Greek goddess of the moon and the hunt (and candy)

Two suckers at a time - and she happened to pick colors that matched her costume.

Carving Pumpkins

2011-10-31T12:31:00.000-07:00

Carving pumpkins...and eating pumpkin cookies


Self-portrait...see the resemblance?

She likes pumpkin guts!

The pumpkin looks like he's been sick recently.

It's been awhile since we had time to carve pumpkins with the kids. We now have four sitting on our front stairs, getting wrinkled and mushy. yum. I read about a way to keep your pumpkins from growing fuzzy, but we didn't try it. After carving, wipe down the exposed surfaces with disinfectant or rubbing alcohol to kill bacteria. Then coat those surfaces with vaseline to protect them.

My kids are not going trick or treating tonight. We had "trunk or treat" at the church parking lot on Friday night and I really don't see a need for more candy. If we have time, we'll watch a family movie and let the kids gorge on candy (one night and it's gone - then I no longer have to hear the "can I have a piece of candy" question ten times a day from the little kids). We try to keep most sugar out of the house, so I'd rather not have it hanging around tempting us all, anyway.

How we Homeschool, part 1

2011-10-31T09:47:00.000-07:00

I often get questions from people about homeschooling. Some are just curious the way you would be curious to talk to a proctologist, but that doesn't mean you want to do his job. Others are seriously considering homeschooling themselves and they are searching for information. I don't mind answering any of their questions. I sometimes get nervous – afraid that I won't explain things well and deliver an image of our home school that's not entirely accurate, and represent it as more or less structured than it actually is. So I'm going to attempt to describe some of my personal philosophies and methods in this essay.

PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY

I have been studying child development and education informally for most of my life. I had some formal academic studying in college where I majored in Elementary Education for a time (before deciding to switch to history). Since college, as I've raised my own children, I have spent countless hours studying on my own – including reading the works of famous child educators such as Maria Montessori, Charlotte Mason, John Holt, Raymond and Dorothy Moore, and others. It's like looking for a religion in a sense – I've been searching for things that ring true to me and that appear constant in the world of child-rearing and teaching. I do a lot less of that reading now than I used to do. I believe it's because I have pretty much figured out what, for me and our family, rings true. And now I'm trying to apply the principles as best I can.

The basic ideas I've come to are these:

*For young children, learning in small increments of time (15 minutes) is much better than long, drawn-out sessions

*Living books are better than textbooks

*Outside time is vital.

*Games and activities are better than worksheets

*There is no perfect timetable for learning – every child develops at their own pace. Rushing is worse than waiting too long to teach a concept.

*Children learn through play

*Children today are cheated of their childhoods. We are adults for 60 years, but only children for a few. What's the hurry?

*Choose my (“if my children know nothing else when they turn 18, I hope they know _____”) goals and stick with those. For me, this includes helping my children develop a testimony of the Gospel, having a love of learning, and having a strong work-ethic. Everything else is a bonus.

Let me elaborate on that last thing. If you notice, none of my goals are educationally specific. I know goals should be quantifiable – and I can make these quantifiable by specifying what I mean. But in general, I'm hoping to turn out good people who are CAPABLE of getting the education that they need. There is no way on earth that I can teach them everything they need to know. But I can teach them how to find knowledge, how to stick with a difficult task, and help them know their value as children of God.

METHOD TO MY MADNESS

If I had to describe my home-school method in one word, it would have to be eclectic.

That used to really bother me because I felt it made me sound undisciplined (which I might be) and scatter-brained (which I'm not usually). Now I realize that being eclectic can actually be a good thing. I'm not rigidly following one curriculum. I'm scoping out ideas and creating my own ways to teach my children. It's more time consuming, for sure. But I'm also giving my children educations tailored specifically to our family and their individual talents, strengths, and weaknesses.

I consider myself more of a guide than a teacher. I am always on the lookout and thinking about what each child might be learning. Every year I consider the topics we might study and find the materials we'll need. We embark on our journey together and it's exciting to have a front row seat as I watch my children learn and grow.

We've had some fun studies in the past. I think the most fun thing we've ever done was a summer of Shakespeare which included a visit to Ashland, OR to see a play. The kids still talk about that summer and ask when we are going to study Shakespeare again.

Coming up...favorite resources...homeschooling in high school...a day in our school life...and incorporating young children into the mix.

Review

2011-10-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

About a month ago I wrote up a review of our family's math curriculum of choice, Math on the Level, and submitted it to my favorite home-school curriculum review site. It was published today. MOTL Review

I noticed a couple typos that I'm pretty sure were not in the original that I sent, particularly in my bio. break-baker? No, bread-baker. I'm a stickler for proper spelling and grammar and so those things bothered me, but it's too late to fix it now. Do you know how hard it is to write a bio that does not leave you sounding either boring or too perfect? Hard. I keep thinking of changes I would have made. Again, too late to change that now.

Anyway, I'm off to get the house organized for our dinner guests and start school with the kids. Happy Halloween to anyone who's celebrating today.

Housekeeping and other joys

2011-10-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

*** another blog post that never got actually posted. This one from MAY!!

Thanks to my sister Devon, I decided to check out a book from the library that I have thoroughly enjoyed. It's called "Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House" by Cheryl Mendelson.

What I have loved about this book is the validation and motivation for my job. Some of Cheryl's thoughts:

"Housekeeping requires knowledge and intelligence as well, the kind that is complex, not simple, and combines intellect, intuition, and feelings. Housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, and the conditions for health and safety,...it is your housekeeping that makes your home alive, that turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be yourself."
"No one is too superior or intelligent to care for hearth and home".

Routines bring satisfaction. Routines echo the rhythm of life and body. Our homes are the center of our lives, and we should allow time and resources to make the most of them that we can...we should avoid thinking that time spent on our homes is wasted time, or that our goal should always be to reduce the time and effort we spend on them. "The act of taking care of our homes brings comfort and consolation, both in the enjoyment of the fruits of our labor and in the increasingly rare freedom to engage in worthwhile, unalienated, honorable work."

The idea behind the book is that anyone can keep house and can enjoy it. Most of us lack knowledge about some area of keeping house, thus the main portion of the book is a reference for all the various areas of keeping house. It includes things like hosting a formal dinner (table setting), purchasing and storing food properly, fabric care, bill paying, etc. It's the modern woman's guide to keeping house. Cheryl doesn't make a distinction between stay-at-home moms and working women. She herself is a lawyer with one son. She isn't about decorating or being perfectly organized, or having all the vacuum lines go the same direction. She just seems to want to arm you with knowledge to make the job easier, and give you an appreciation for why it's a worthwhile thing.

This book, combined with my clean once a month article that I read, have been influencing me a lot lately. House is cleaner, projects are getting done, kids and I are happier. All good things.

Having a non-lds, lawyer-educated woman validate keeping house has, for some reason, been tremendous for me. I think because at church finding joy in all this stuff is always the RIGHT answer, so it feels more like a forced choice. And for some woman it might feel more forced than for others. But Cheryl is finding a lot of the same joy in keeping house without feeling obligated. Putting it all in context with the Gospel means it's a joyful thing to create a peaceful haven for my family and me to enjoy.

With that in mind, I've been thinking about some small things that I can do to make our house more of a home. I am not, not, NOT much of a decorator. I have a very simple style and I don't enjoy a lot of crafty things. I like to surround myself with things that are important to me, and not just things that coordinate. So I don't tend to think too hard about if things are aesthetically pleasing. I'm breaking out here - but today I bought a little planter for my front porch and some annuals to go in it. Hannah planted them for me. I thought, what is nicer than being greeted by flowers at the end of a long day? And for a very minimal cost, I can have the kids replant things as needed. I've decided that the joy is really to be found in the details.

I have pictures to show you soon of a project that Hannah and I have been working on. But we're not quite ready. We've spent a lot of time this week watching our chickens and enjoying their quirky habits. Like the chicken that was named "Lady" who likes to try to fly through the window of the back door and play in the house with us. Or "Jazzy" who likes to take dirt baths that look very...ummm...luxurious. Natalie and Kenna are big fans of the chickens and ask to be taken outside to visit them. On the whole, a fun first week as chicken owners!

Guess What We Did

2011-10-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

***edited to note that I actually typed this up on the 22nd, but forgot to post it.

On Saturday morning Josh, Hannah, and I were able to attend the Bar Mitzvah of a friend of hers. It was very interesting and a learning experience for us since none of us had ever attended one before.

Ben and his family are part of a Reformed Jewish Synagogue - which means, among other things, that they have a female rabbi, and subscribe to some other non-traditional ideas. Reading through their text, which had all of the prayers/blessings/songs written in both Hebrew and English, along with commentary, was really fascinating. Because they are translated directly from the Hebrew, some of the words were different than the King James version and had added meaning to us - they actually enlarged our understanding of certain scriptures. Other things we didn't necessarily agree with.

Ben did awesome reciting his memorized section of the Torah and his personal commentary was really interesting. One of his favorite sections is found in Genesis - specifically the story of Adam and Eve. He talked about how the Serpent was probably jealous of Adam and Eve and the things they could have (bodies, relationships, children, etc), and that is perhaps what motivated him to try and tempt them.

The service was long - almost three hours. I don't know if that is typical or if it was different because it was also Ben's Bar Mitzvah. Either way, we appreciated the invitation and the opportunity to learn a little more about the Jewish Faith.

****************************

The kids had their second to last soccer game today. The final game is in two weeks. It has been gorgeous weather for sitting out on the field. No complaints about that, but I will be glad to reclaim the dinner hour again (and not spend several days a week carting kids to practice).

The little girls have been so, so adorable. They've stopped trying to break into the fridge every chance they get. Makes my life easier. We've started a new bedtime routine wherein they take turns putting each other to bed. We take both of them to one of the bedrooms (they sleep in different rooms) and read our stories and say their prayers. Then one girl will solemnly tuck the other girl's covers around her and give the sweetest kiss. They just love it and look forward to having their turn to say goodnight to their sister. It's like playing "mommy" but it's real to them.

Speaking of playing pretend - Natalie loves to come up and say, "You're the baby and I'm the mommy". Or maybe "You're the princess and I'm the King". She gets a kick out of us pretending to be something else.

Kenna has been counting down to her fourth birthday. It's still two months away, but she is SO excited. With her birthday sandwiched between two holidays, I need to still find the energy and time to make it special for her; make her feel like a princess.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2011-10-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Ok. This is a little silly, but I loved Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood when I was a kid. Now it is one of the few shows that I allow my young children to watch - TV for young kids is so unnecessary, in my opinion. But Mr. Rogers - he was an amazing man. So gentle and so loving to people. We were talking and reminiscing about him last night, and Josh pulled up his Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech on Youtube. (Isn't youtube a fascinating thing?)
So sweet. We were both fanning away the moisture from our eyes by the end. He was honestly a giant in the world of men.

If you're on Amazon Prime, you can watch the first eight seasons for free on Amazon's new streaming video. Black and white and SUCH a young Fred Rogers and Lady Aberlin!!

Halloween pictures coming soon - our ward harvest party is tonight so the kids will be all decked out. The three older kids put their costumes together by themselves. So cute!

Soccer and Slivers

2011-10-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

So I thought this was funny. On Sunday afternoon we were all gathered in the living room lazily reading our books in the afternoon sunshine (ahhhhh). Brynne must have had a sliver or something...she jumped up and retrieved tweezers and then proceeded to do surgery on her foot. I loved her position - how is she that flexible?

And I loved how interested and intent she (and Natalie) were. Not to mention her serious face when she was explaining to Kenna what she was doing. Must have been some sliver.

Logan is wrapping up his first season of soccer. We've had our ups and downs with his team (and coach) but have worked those things out. He's loved every minute of it. The kids on his soccer team think he's so cute (if boys think like that). They ruffle his hair when they go by and are very nice to him even though he is definitely the smallest and least-experienced kid on the team.
Sorry about the big ref's backside - he was in my way almost the entire game. Rude! You can see how tiny Logan is!

One of the things I love about this picture below is the position of every other kid on the field...all squirmy and silly. ;-) Apparently, there is no normal when it comes to boys! Remember, you can click on the photos to see them full-size.

Hilary Weeks newest music video from her new album

2011-10-25T14:25:00.001-07:00

As Mentioned...

2011-10-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

FB on the news!
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=8395648

To me it's a testament of why you don't need to rely on the government - not even the local city government - to get big things done.

Autumn Joys

2011-10-17T10:42:00.000-07:00

Hannah and I went to the homecoming game together. I think I mentioned that in an earlier post, but I forgot to put up the pictures I posted.

Hannah and I cuddling up to stay warm!!

The high school choir preparing to sing the National Anthem. The really amazing thing about this is that three years ago the high school choir had only 9 students and was a relatively new class (after being cut due to funding issues a few years prior). Because of an enthusiastic district music teacher, choir is alive and well in FB schools again!

Another interesting thing about this photo is that you can see part of our school's stadium. I remember running track on this field back before there was a stadium. They apparently broke ground on the new one just weeks after I ran here as a Senior. ABC news was there filming to do a story about the incredible community effort that has gone into building this stadium. We have a stadium valued at over $15,000,000 that was built for only $1,500,000. I found out they are still raising money for the last thing to install - an all-weather track. AWESOME!

Josh and I had a great birthday weekend. Lucky for us, it was also a rare not-booked-to-the-gills weekend.
We spent Josh's birthday co-celebrating with some friends in our ward who were also celebrating a birthday (cake and ice cream with them).

On Saturday we skipped our chores and spent the afternoon watching the BYU game online. Go Cougs!! We had breakfast for dinner - one of Josh's favorite meals.

On Sunday Josh made me waffles and buttermilk syrup for breakfast. Yum!

Our birthday gift to each other was a portable gas BBQ (and I bought my own gift - a new flat iron!!)

I have a thing about odd numbers - I don't like them. So this year, being an odd numbered birthday, was hard for me. I like the symmetry of even numbers or something. But at least there is something cool in 33 - it is a repeating number so I can live with that. 35 is a multiple of 5, which I like. But 31, 37, and 39 (and similar numbers in other decades) are always hard for me to like. Strange?

Last week's art project - apple printing/painting.

Today we are cleaning out the garage and re-doing our 72-hour kits!!

Be a Perfect Parent in Just Five Days

2011-10-13T15:36:00.000-07:00

Ok. So that's a lie. It takes six.

I found a great parenting blog today as I was looking for something else. I had to stop and read a bit. And then tell Josh what I read. And then share with you.

http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/ You can read one of my favorite posts that I read today. And go on from there. If you scroll through and look to the right, eventually you'll see lists of posts that revolve around certain topics. I'm going there next. Soon as I find the time.

In other news. Certain friends and sisters will be interested to know that I did Week 5, Day 1 of the Couch to 5K program today. Slow but steady progress seems to be working for me. My knee only bothered me twice last week and not at all this week. I slowed down my running pace, too. Josh and I have been at the gym four mornings a week. Sadly, it's closing at the end of next week so we'll have to figure out our next plan. We are getting up at 5:30am. It hurts, but it's necessary.

Josh's birthday is tomorrow. We're celebrating rather low-key this year. We bought ourselves a shared present - so no surprises - a new BBQ. A gas one, this time. Exciting stuff!

I tried two new recipes yesterday, an apple cream pie and a maple buttermilk pie. After I've tasted them, if they turn out nice, I'll link the recipe. I also tried a new piecrust recipe that I have my doubts about. It's fall. I had apples. I couldn't think of anything better to do. (ha, ha, ha - right).

I'm learning great parenting lessons these days. Like how to stay out of my child's business and let her sink or swim. It's hard for me. I'm such a control-freak. But I'm managing to keep my mouth shut. In the meantime, my eldest is learning some valuable time-management skills.

Natalie has been SO cute lately...listening to music and dancing. We just love watching her. I tried to take pictures of all the kids yesterday (thus the black and whites scattered through the post) but one didn't turn out. Poor Brynne.

Across My Mind

2011-10-07T08:43:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to the high school soccer game. It was awesome because we won. We won by a lot. We sat with some of our friends and the kids ran up and down the bleachers or made up weird cheers. It was not that warm (we do live on the coast and it is autumn), but it was decent and finally sunny after a week of rain. It was delightful to be outside again. Apparently our school's soccer team is one of the best in the league. I felt bad for the opposing team who drove so far out here just to be crushed.

Tonight we are going to the Homecoming Football Game. There are rumors around town that ABC news will be there to film us (small-town football games rock, you know!!). Yes, our small town has gained some measure of notoriety because of our crazed hermit who killed several people and then led law enforcement on a major chase through the hills. Lucky us.

As home-schoolers in a community without a large home-school support system, we try to make an effort to get our kids exposed to some of the things that most people experience as part of the public school life. Things like sports and band concerts, and 8th grade promotions, and school-age organizations. In other places the numbers of home-schoolers is so large they have proms and classes available. We don't have those options, so we make adjustments.

I was thinking of this as I got dressed today. I'm wearing my power-mom clothes. Which means I'm wearing the nicest clothes I own without wearing a dress. And I'm wearing make-up. Why am I all dressed up? Because I'm taking my large home-schooling family on a rare outing to the grocery store with me. We always elicit comments and I think it's good to show that you can a) have a large family and b) home-school your kids - without being weirdos to boot.

Scratch that. We might be weirdos, but we don't have to look like it.

31 Days

2011-10-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

There's something going on in the blogging community which I stumbled upon this weekend.

Most of you know that I love my Google Reader. I love it because it saves me from regularly checking sites that may not have been updated. Any website/blog that I follow that posts a new article will go to my reader and I can read it at my leisure.

So on Saturday one of my feeds posted about THIS. It is a collection of bloggers who are spending the 31 days of October to write daily about something they feel inspired to write about. There are blogs about just about everything under the sun. Some people are using it to share information. Others are using it as a form of accountability for changes they want to make in their lives. It started last year, with seven bloggers. This year there are over 600 participating. That is the craziness of the internet.

Now, there are a lot of blogs out there that just aren't worth your time. They're definately not worth space in your google reader. I'm pretty picky about what I subscribe to. My time is precious...and limited!!! So don't think I'm saying to go over and start reading all of these blogs. I would suggest you browse the list and maybe click on a few that sound interesting if you want. I clicked on ones that are unusual to me. Organizing blogs are in abundance - skipped those for the most part. Blogs about libraries or reading great literature are less common (Curiosity is piqued). Blogs about modesty and femininity even rarer. I had to check out that one. And, so far, I like it. I think you'll like it too, which is why I'm linking to it. The author is not LDS but definitely Christian. Sometimes those blogs can get weird, but so far I've really liked her thoughts.

Have a good day!

PS- some people wonder when I have time to read this stuff. Well, I have it on my tablet and I read while I run on the treadmill, or while I'm in the bathroom doing my hair (or something), or eating, or sometimes while I'm standing at the kitchen counter stirring something. There are a lot of moments of time for reading if you know where to look for them.

October begins

2011-10-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

And it already feels like a race to the finish.

At least we started off with a relaxing conference weekend. I loved the opportunity to be fed spiritually, as well as enjoy some tasty food all weekend.

Currently, Natalie is interested in using the bathroom. She takes her clothes off herself, and sits on the toilet herself, but has yet to do something productive in there. I'm hesitant to try full-on toilet training. I usually prefer to wait until a little closer to three years old and then do day and night training all in one fell swoop. When I have done that, my kids have been quick, mess-free, and basically trained in two days. I don't think Natalie's really ready yet, so we'll just let her practice on her own for a while. At least until I get a little more motivated.

Kenna is anxiously waiting to turn four. She's realized that her birthday isn't too far away and is already making plans. So cute. If you wondered - she wants a butterfly cake again.

Hannah is back in piano lessons this year with a new teacher and having a great time with her. Her school work is keeping her very busy. It's like she grew up all of a sudden. Her schedule resembles the one I remember having in high school - what with sports, music practice, school, YW, etc. Really? Already? We watched some movie the other night and part of it showed a kid heading off to college and I think Josh and I both got a little misty-eyed thinking that in 4 years we'll be helping Hannah make her college plans.

Brynne is doing well. She's getting a reputation on the soccer team for being the fastest runner. Sound familiar? She has also been so good about wearing her glasses for reading. Headaches have almost completely disappeared. I have to thank Shannon for providing the motivation/inspiration for her to finally get over whatever was bugging her about wearing glasses. She's got some new ones and looks adorable!

After 6 weeks of soccer, Logan finally received his uniform this weekend. I cannot tell you how annoyed I was with the soccer league. I signed him up and paid for the uniform in MAY. They ran out of uniforms because they had so many people sign up after the uniform order was placed. I was frustrated that most of those kids received their uniforms before Logan did. Grrr.

Both soccer teams that our kids are playing on are winning every game. That is a big change from past years! Logan is by far the youngest, smallest, and most inexperienced player on his team, but he's doing a great job holding his own against kids who are seriously two years older and twice his size.

So a little update on how my family schedule is going that I posted earlier this year:
We took music practice out of the pre-breakfast routine. It seemed so ironic that after months of waking up at 6am, both little girls suddenly started sleeping in and it was music practice that was waking them up. I've been happier that they are sleeping a little more, and I don't feel any need to wake them up! Other than that, things are going well. I'm working on organizing and streamlining my menu-planning so that it takes less work overall. I've got lists of family favorite recipes and am collecting them all in one big binder. I love collecting recipes and have tons, but this binder is just for the recipes that are tried and proven and pretty much everyone is happy when I make them for dinner.

I've been feeding Kenna and Natalie lunch at 10am. Weird, right? They are so hungry at that time and it was getting hard to find healthy snacks that would keep them going till lunch, without making them be too full for lunch. They would eat all morning and then not eat lunch. So I decided to feed them their lunch at 10, and give them a snack - or more lunch - at 12. It's actually working great. They have the same snack every day. Peanut butter bread. If they eat it all, they get jelly bread. If they eat all that and are still hungry, I give them some fruit. Usually they are done after the two pieces of bread with peanut butter and jelly, but if not they get yogurt or cheese. At lunch time I make sure they have whatever they didn't get to on the snack line-up, or maybe some leftovers. Full bellies definitely equal happier girls.

I'm back in my bread-making habit and have found a brand of flour that I LOVE for making bread. I've been buying King Arthur brand whole white wheat. It makes tasty bread, and I love knowing that it's whole wheat - I don't even need to use half white flour. We have gotten so hooked on homemade bread. If I forget or don't have time to make bread, the store-bought bread lasts forever in our cupboard because no one wants to eat it. It's funny because we've been eating it for decades, but now it tastes bland and so dry. Someday I'll probably get a good wheat grinder, but for now I recommend the King Arthur brand!

Logan did a report on Tigers. He researched, told me what he learned, made a poster, and then gave an oral report to the family. Logan still struggles with writing feeling totally overwhelming to him, so I helped him write our his report, but all the information came from him. He learned some interesting things!

The girls making carrot cake muffins.

Yesterday the three older kids came racing downstairs to tell Josh and I that it smelled like smoke and that they could see lots of ashes falling from the sky. After a little investigation we found there was a fire in the brush at the end of our street. The firefighters went to a different street to fight it, so we didn't get to witness all the action - but we did get to see all the people drive/walk/ride by who must listen to police scanners in their spare time. Interesting. Also, did you know that there's an app for that? Seriously. It amazes me what sorts of things you can do with a cell phone these days.

Pain-free transition out of afternoon Nap

2011-09-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've never understood is why some people let their children give up their afternoon naps, but don't institute a rest time. I honestly feel sorry for them. Don't they get tired of having a small person bouncing off the walls all day long and talking/screaming non-stop? Perhaps their children are different from my children.
When you have a child who is spending the morning cutting their own hair (Natalie, last week), climbing bookcases (Natalie, yesterday), trying to sneak food by sticking their fingers on the cutting board when I'm chopping (Natalie, two days ago), trying to help me cook by pushing the stool over to the hot oven (Natalie, yesterday), biting siblings (Natalie, all summer), filling the cups too full of water and then spilling it - repeatedly (Kenna and Natalie, all week - they learned how to access the cold water in the fridge), you need a break. Not to mention, those girls impede homeschooling like nothing else - and having two peaceful hours every afternoon in which to spend time with my older children is NECESSARY.

So what do you do when they repeatedly don't need to take naps (darn it!)? You put them in their rooms anyway and get them up at the appointed time.

I've learned the hard way that kids who are transitioning will often still fall asleep, usually towards the end of the nap period. If you let them sleep, they sleep too late and then won't go to bed on time. Kenna tries to do this to me frequently. The trick with her is to just wake her up at the appointed time and hope for the best. She doesn't usually wake up well, but I have things like popsicles to help her out of her funk. (FYI - these molds are amazing because you can stick whatever the little ones don't finish back in the freezer!) Natalie either falls right to sleep and sleeps a solid two hours, or she plays happily in her room for the entire two hours. That happiness usually involves tearing up one of her books, but I'm careful which ones I let her have access too, and it's a small price to pay for a peaceful afternoon.

My kids have rest time until they are old enough to leave me alone if I let them stay up.

I guess that sounds like I don't enjoy spending time with my kids.

I do.

I just have certain things that I HAVE to get done during the day that I need a quiet house for. Things like making business phone calls (I can't STAND having someone yelling when I'm on the phone with the bank), schooling older kids (especially when we do messy art projects), bill-paying and checkbook-balancing, eating ice cream from my secret stash (wait, did I say that out loud?), and generally gearing up for the marathon that my later afternoons/evenings have turned into.

Kenna decided that she was too big for nap-time and rest-time, so we changed the title to "quiet reading time" and she goes happily to sleep in her bed.

Lovely.

Back to the Daily Grind

2011-09-20T11:39:00.000-07:00

Trying on Mommy's shoes

"Look! I'm a pretty princess!"

Playing in the costume box

Hiking at the Botanical Gardens

A Proper Vacation Post

2011-09-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

I think the week we spent in Oregon was one of our most favorite family vacations - perhaps only second to Disneyland.

We started the week with a couple days visiting our Millar friends in Oregon. They took us swimming. The kids played with the goats and the chickens. And we just had a wonderful time.

Then we joined up with the rest of our Templeman family in Sunriver, Oregon. Awesome!!

On the way to Sunriver we swung by Crater Lake. Even though Josh and I lived only an hour from Crater Lake for four years, we somehow never made it up there.

Our kids had a fantastic time playing with cousins, bike-riding, going in the hot-tub, swimming, hiking, and enjoying a BBQ with two sets of grandparents. I think the general consensus was that we should definitely do it again!

Our trip home was fairly uneventful, except that Kenna threw up more than usual. We ended up stopping at WalMart in Redding and buying two new carseats. One to replace the nasty one that Kenna had been sitting in (which was old and worn out anyway) and one to replace the new (but cheap and uncomfortable) one that Natalie wouldn't sleep in. The girls were much happier after that.

We were able to have dinner with their Richardson grandparents, making the week a lovely grandparent-filled week!

Brynne took this funny video of Natalie playing with the remains of her grilled cheese sandwich on our drive home. Her favorite thing to play is "foxes" wherein someone is the mommy fox and someone is the baby fox.

Now we are home and BUSY as can be with school, soccer, Young Womens, and other things.

I Can Do All Things

2011-09-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

In Philippians 4:13 it says, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me".

In the Mitford series of books by Christian author Jan Karon, that scripture is a personal mantra for one of her main characters. Her books are really where I first came across that verse, and I love it.

I've had a bit of a paradigm shift when it comes to that scripture and how it applies to my life. I've learned that while we can do all things with the help of Jesus Christ, we equally must learn to rely on him because we can do nothing without him. That may sound like a basic thing, but it has amazed me how often I've struggled along without seeking the Lord's help because I consider something "my" problem to fix. Something that I should, could, must fix on my own.

What pride.

The scriptures tell us to bridle all our passions (Alma 38:12).

President Hinckley counseled: “When a man is motivated by great and powerful convictions of truth, then he disciplines himself … because of the knowledge within his heart that God lives; that he is a child of God with an eternal and limitless potential” (“The True Strength of the Church,” Ensign, July 1973, 49).

It's a great thought. But somehow I figured that to discipline yourself meant that you, alone, had to do the work. You had to prove something - willingness to be obedient, self-control as a form of discipleship - I don't know exactly what I thought I had to prove.

But that's not how it works.

Sister Kathleen Hughes, 1st Counselor in the RS presidency, shared this story: “A woman I know was struggling with anger toward someone who had hurt her and her family. Though she told her children not to become embittered and resentful, she fought those feelings herself. After weeks of entreating her Father in Heaven, she finally felt a change. She related: ‘One day, in the midst of my nearly constant prayers, the healing came. I felt a physical sensation spread through my body. After, I felt a sense of security and peace. I knew that regardless of what happened, my family and I would be all right. The anger left me and so did my desire for retaliation’” (“Blessed by Living Water,” Liahona and Ensign, May 2003, 13).

It's so easy to try to be independent. To see what is good and aim for it. But if we try to do it alone, we will fail miserably.It's funny to me that I have heard this lesson so MANY times, but still hadn't fully internalized it. That, to me, is a testimony of why we must continue to go to Church, read our Scriptures, listen to and study the words of Prophets and Apostles. You never know when your mind and heart will be ready to fully receive a message that you have heard a hundred times (or more) before.

I think listening to that talk that I discussed before by Brad Wilcox helped prepare me for this idea.
I have to try to be the best me, but I also have to recognize that he is going to help me get there.
He wants to help me. I need to let him.

Summer's Closing

2011-09-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

A surprising amount of August sunshine has been in attendance at the coast this past week. We haven't had time to take full advantage of it, but we've enjoyed it nonetheless.

Soccer is in full swing. The kids have a new coach as of last night, and I am no longer assistant coach. Much as I love it, it really is more than I can handle time-wise. Our three partial teams have been reduced to two full teams. Logan started his practice, too. He's LOVIN' it. I saw him practice for a bit yesterday. What a great defender! He hung back by the goalie and managed to stop a lot of attempted goals.

We had one gorgeous evening where it was, like, seventy degrees. We HAD to have a picnic at the beach.

Like most elderly men, Josh enjoys a pre-bedtime nap. ;-)

Sand - Nature's Loofah!

We've had friends over, and read stories.

We took a field trip to Glass Beach but ended up just working on our climbing skills because of time constraints.

Plant identification practice

We poked around with an old computer.

Brynne fashioned her own kickbag for the soccer ball with a jump rope.

We created an art studio in our garage. Beautiful projects have been coming out! Brynne made a new outfit for her AG doll - including new sandals. It turned out SO cute!

Hannah survived her first full week of school (and now her second, as of today). She's adjusting! She's not used to all her play time being used up before she even starts her school work. ; -) I like this compromise of half and half so far. I don't feel like I NEVER see her. She comes home a little after 11am, and gets to work cloistered in her room upstairs, but at least she's home.

After our final vacation of the summer, we will get into the groove full time. We're heading into our best weather on the coast, so feel free to swing by and visit us and enjoy some sunny days at the ocean!

Brynne's Stuff

2011-08-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

Brynne has been taking lots of pictures this summer. I thought I'd share some from her various trips.

Brookings, OR


Hiking at Brookings, OR

More hiking!

In our cabin at Brookings

The lovely Nevada countryside - driving with Uncle Nathan and Aunt Jelaire

Sammy!

Silly Avery!

They killed all the bugs in Nevada.

BYU Bean Museum of Natural History

Peyton came to visit.

Helping Maya release the ducks - the girls babysat for Maya off and on during the summer.

Swim away, little duck!

Stopping for a break at Confusion Hill - on our way to Oregon.

Mwah!

Grandma took us to the playground!

Shannon's puppy Dakota.

Playing with Kenna

Grandma and Grandpa took us to some Corvallis Knights games.

Photography lessons with Grandpa

The rose garden at Avery Park

Another rest stop - on our way home from Oregon.

Cool bug

Playing Catch-Up

2011-08-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

I've been miserable at taking pictures lately. Our camera is dying a slow, but certain, death - and it's so unmotivating to to take pictures that might not look so nice. Brynne's camera is working better than ours. So maybe I"ll steal some pictures from her.

Last week we received our summer order of fruit. 2 boxes of apples, 1 each of tomatoes, pears, and peaches. The kids helped me make applesauce with the first box of apples.

We sent Hannah off to school yesterday. I love this part-day thing we've got. The early send-off motivates us to get up and moving at a decent hour - not that we've really been lazy in the past, but we are definitely up earlier this year. And yet, she's home a little after 11am and to finish her schoolwork and we get to spend time as a family before the crazy afternoon stuff starts.

Our new schedule is very ambitious. I'm almost scared to share it here for fear it really doesn't work out. BUT, here's what's going on right now:

wake-up by 6am.
Get ready for day and music practice for older girls. I make breakfast.
7am - eat and family scriptures/prayers
7:40 - Hannah out the door to school
8am - Josh to work
We do family jobs, projects, errands, and personal reading etc in the morning.
11:30 - lunch
12:30 - naps! mom school starts for older kids
2:30 or 3:00 - end school. Get ready for afternoon activities/classes, etc., AND make dinner.
5:30 dinner
6:30 get little girls ready for bed (down by 7pm), older kids are taking showers and doing their jobs
7:30 - read aloud to older kids
8:30 - all kids in bed.
9:30 - Josh and I head to bed

Yesterday after the school send-off, I got my bread started and then we went to the Botanical Garden. It's kind of a back-to-school tradition of ours. It's a great way to celebrate the flexibility of our educational choice and still make it a special school day. Plus, it's Dahlia season and what could be better than dinner-plate sized dahlias in August!!???!!!

Funny little story...

2011-08-19T19:29:00.000-07:00

When we got back into town last weekend we had a message on our voicemail from someone in the ward. Here's what he said, generally:

"Hi Josh and Kelly. This is ______. Just wanted to let you know about a high priest dinner and a movie activity we're having on Friday night. So we'd like to ask if you could, I guess that will probably be Kelly, bring a main dish."

So that's the gist of the message.

We showed up tonight with a large bowl of spaghetti and meatballs (yum!). I was looking around the room and I realized...there are no other women here. Really? How did I miss that this was just for the men? I think when he said that *I* was probably going to be the one doing the cooking I assumed that I was also invited. He didn't say the MEN were having an activity.

I think Josh and I figured it out right about the same time. After a quick whispered conference in the corner of the room which consisted of me saying multiple times how dumb I felt, and Josh telling me repeatedly not to leave, I said I was going to eat in the kitchen (since I was already holding a plate of food). Which I did. And then I walked home. ;-)

Funny.

Never assume you know what's going on when the priesthood are planning an activity!!! And what's with a boys only date-night on a Friday? ;-)

Rambling News

2011-08-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

We've been home for almost 1.5 weeks, but it really doesn't feel like that yet. I have a cute video of our experience at Gibralter with the Apes.

We've been dealing with soccer sign-ups and other related issues. My three oldest kids are playing this year. Yes, I may go crazy. Luckily, Brynne and Hannah are on the same team. But I have to admit that every time the girls do something extra-curricular, it makes my life more difficult because I lose my babysitters. Practices start next week. At least the girls can ride their bikes. But I'm potentially the assistant coach for their team so I've got some logistics to figure out.

We lost our chickens a few days ago. Very sad. I try not to dwell on it.

Big News! I just registered Hannah at the Middle School for 8th grade (yikes). It's a bittersweet thing for all of us. We're excited for the electives and other activities in which she'll be able to participate. We're sad about giving up some of the awesome programs she's been using for her studies. Hopefully we can keep/supplement with some of them. I have to talk to her supervising teacher about our options there. Anyway. If we lived in a larger town we would still be homeschooling. But here in FB, if you don't go to public school, you can't do anything extra - that's where everything is headquartered. It stinks, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Again, I'll be somewhat tied to the public school schedule, which is not my most favorite thing. BUT...Hannah can get herself to and fro so I won't have to worry about her too much. We can choose which classes, if any, she does on campus.

Pool time!

Brynne decided to stay with me another year (yay!) and we are going to have so much fun. I've got a CA History curriculum to do with Brynne and Logan that's going to rock + we'll be taking field trips!! Hannah can sit in on that stuff if she has time.

I've been taking too many photos of Natalie lately...but she's been so adorable. I love her chunkiness. Kenna's outgrown it (well, she was never that chunky actually), so I just have to savor Natty's for as long as I can.


Love the farmer tan!

I measured Hannah last week because I (*gasp*) forgot to do it when she turned 13. Since her 12th birthday she's grown 4 inches. She's one inch shy of being as tall as I am. That would explain why I felt like I was constantly buying her clothes over the past year. She made a thorough move out of children's clothing and into adult clothing (and shoes!!). We wear the same shoe size now. She can wear my clothes (they're loose), but I can't wear hers. Look at this adorable shirt and belt ensemble she put together yesterday (forgive the unflattering facial expression...I caught her unawares). Growing up!!

The Road Home

2011-08-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

On the long drive home from Oregon yesterday, Josh and I listened to some BYU talks that he had burned onto a disc for us. One of the talks was given by Brad Wilcox at the 2009 BYU Education Week called "The Atonement: After All We Can Do". Brother Wilcox phrased things in ways that helped me understand the atonement better and to clear up some of my misconceptions. Then, this morning in my Gospel study I was reading Helaman 12:23-24, which also talks about the atonement. The Institute manual had some great quotes about those verses.

Elder Bednar: "...It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would no be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts.
"Thus the enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement helps us to see and to do and to become good in ways that we could never recognize or accomplish with our limited mortal capacity" (Ensign, Nov.2004, 76-77).

Brother Wilcox illustrates this idea in his talk. During the course of a conversation with a girl, he draws two dots on either end of a piece of paper. The dot on the bottom represents us, the top dot represents eternal perfection with Heavenly Father. He asks the girl to show how far towards perfection we have to go, before the Savior's atonement picks up and carries us the rest of the way. She makes a mark on the bottom half closer to the dots representing us.

Brother Wilcox says she's wrong.

There is no mark. The Savior has already paid the full price. He has paid the debt in full. The "after all we can do" part of the atonement is not about us paying the Savior back, either. We cannot do that, and that's not what the Savior wants from us. He wants us to grow and develop in ways we cannot otherwise do (as Elder Bednar's quote illustrates).

Another example from Brother Wilcox that I really liked. When a child takes piano lessons, the mom pays the teacher. The mother has paid the debt. What is the child's job? To practice. Does the mom get anything herself out of the child's practice? No. Can the child repay the mother for the cost of those music lessons through practice? No. The mother has a vision of the greatness the child can achieve, and she is trying to help the child to achieve that greatness. Some children don't share the same vision. They don't practice or they argue about it. But that doesn't change the fact that the lessons are still paid for and the mother still loves her child.

One final quote on the subject by Elder Gene r. Cook:
"The grace of the Lord through the Atonement can both cleanse us of sin and assist us in perfecting ourselves through our trials, sicknesses, and even character defects...Christ can repair our flaws and failings that otherwise are not repairable. That great truth ought to fill us all with hope, as long as we are quick to remember that the effects of grace in our lives is conditioned upon repenting of our sins...A repentant heart and good works are the very conditions required to have grace restored to us....To obtain grace one does not have to be perfect, but he does have to be trying to keep the commandments the best that he can. Then the Lord will allow him to receive that power" (Ensign, May 1993, 80-81).

Day 10

2011-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like a 3am wake up call to start the day! After previous experience, I remembered to take dramamine at take-off...worked like a charm. Jen's hubby wasn't so lucky. I think I have him convinced to take some for the last leg. We are leaving JFK for PDX in about half an hour. I'm really excited to see the other kids again. We have a total of about 29 hours of traveling today.

Funny experience...our innocent looking Hannah got patted down twice in Spain because she kept setting off alarms. I think it was the machetes in her shoes. ;-)

Days 8 & 9

2011-07-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

These two days are virtually the same. Pool and more pool. Oh, and sunburn. Fun stuff.

I haven't spent that much time by a pool since high school. It was fantastic. Jenny and I practiced the "synchronized diving" that we used to do at Grandma's.

We had dinner without Jenny and John, as it was their turn to eat with a host. They recommended a place called Blend. It was delicious...gourmet, but decent prices. We had amazing ribs, gazpacho, a carmel creme brulee, and a few other tasty treats.

Tonight we have our farewell dinner with the Jones crowd. Our shuttle for the airport leaves at 4am. So excited about that! Got my dramamine ready!

Day 7

2011-07-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

Gibralter! This was a fun, easy day. We drove for about an hour to the border. Once across the border (passports required), it took awhile to figure out how to get where we wanted to go. The roads are tiny and for the most part one-way. We visited the natural caves first. When we exited there was a whole slew of apes hanging out around our car. Technically it's illegal to feed them, but we did give them a couple leftover scraps of bread to entice the smaller ones onto a shoulder. There were lots of mommas with their newborn babies. So sweet.

The inside of the rock has been hollowwd out to make room for cannons. It's called St. Georges Cavern. The history of those caves start in the 1700s. There was a lot of WWII history there also. Interesting.

Finally we attempted a hike to the top. We hit a fork in the road with no sign and unfortunately took the wrong one. After a very steep, hot hike up, we reached a guard station. We had to hike halfway down, then scramble across part of the rock (on a hiking trail) before getting to where we wanted to be. We did, however, get to the top and were able to look over other side. It was a bit hazy, but we could see a hint of Africa.

Dinner was with a "product partner" which meant free for us. Yay! We ate at an open air restaurant on what is Marbella's golden mile, essentially. It is where all the rich, young, playboys go cruising American Graffiti-style. We saw Astin Martins, Rolls Royces, Lamborghinis, Mazeratis, and many more. A catwalk of expensive cars. The little boys in our group were beside themselves...as were their fathers. ;-) The people we ate with were really nice. Hannah has really clicked with their 13 year old daughter, so she had a nice evening, also.

Day 6, cont...

2011-07-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

Had a fantastic dinner with awesome flamenco dancers as the entertainment. Very talented. John explained that it's similar to jazz in that a lot of it is riffed on the fly. Still...incredible. Watch some on youtube....

Day 6

2011-07-26T08:22:00.000-07:00

Shannon, in answer to your question: because of the heat, most everything closes down from 1-3 more or less. In high-tourist areas things will stay open, but it's rare for restaurants to be open. Most people nap then, and stay out until 11pm. Dinner is commonly not eaten until 8 or 9.

T weoday visited the cute town of Ronda. They have a cool bridge spanning a gorge that connects the two sides of town, built in 1756. We did that in the morning, with a picnic lunch that we brought. We had managed to find peanut butter for sandwiches! Ham-flavored chips, peach juice, and peaches made up the rest of our lunch. Interesting, I know. Oh! And a Bollycao for dessert.

We are exhausted so we rested and/or swam this afternoon. Dinner tonight is sponsored by Jones and is meant to give us some of the flavor of Spain.

Days 4 & 5

2011-07-26T08:14:00.000-07:00

It's been really hard on me to not have internet...just cuz I was anxious to update my notes before I forgot anything. Day 4 was Sunday. We had planned on doing the Alhambra on saturday, but because of tickets we had to do it on Sunday. It...was...AWESOME! What an incredible amount of skill and attention to detail. I put a couple pictures on facebook, but nothing can really convey how amazing that building is.

We left Granada around 2pm and drove to Marbella to meet up with the other Jones people, who were just arriving to the country. It felt good not to be jet-lagged anymore. Marbella is on the Costa del Sol (sun coast). It is full of resorts, ritz, and rich people. Apparently Madonna lives here, but I haven't run into her yet. First item of surprise...while there are "au natural" beaches in Spain, apparently that practice isn't limited to certain marked-off areas. The pool is safer. ;-) I got to sit by some large women on the beach who slipped off their suit tops. Poor Josh...not even cute girls! We beat a hasty retreat...

We spent day 5 just relaxing. Jones meetings in the morning, then tracked down a laundromat (there are almost none in Spain -the poor Maritz girls who work here on the trips were showering in their clothes to wash them. They were thrilled to hear about a laundromat).

Then pool time for the afternoon and dinner at a cafe on the boardwalk.

Day 3

2011-07-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

Can it really have only been three days?

Yesterday we took a drive to the coast. Dipped our toes in the mediteranean. We stopped at a little grocery store for food and were introduced to a "delicacy" called bollycao (boisheecow). It is essentially, a chocolate-stuffed hot dog bun. Interesting!

After rest time (spaniards have medio dia each day), we did shopping then wandered around the hills. Found fantastic views of the Alhambra. Ate in the main plaza, then took a bus home. Got home about 11pm...the city is still going strong at that hour.

Day 2

2011-07-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

We had churros and chocolate for breakfast. The chocolate here is ticker and not as sweet. Also a sandwich called jamon serrano, which is extremely thin-sliced ham on a small, narrow loaf of bread. The ham is cured, not cooked, and not refrigerated. It is not legal in the US, but is EVERYWHERE here. Jenny and John love it. So does Josh. I am hammed-out. ;-)

We spent part of the morning at the Mosque -la mezquita -and luckily didn't have to pay the entrance fee. Amazing. Built by the moors, then taken over by the catholics it has interesting mixed architecture. Tons of arches that the moors built to sport the weight of all the stone. How incredible, also, that they would spend a century building it.

After that we drove 2 hours to Granada. Our hotel here is lovely. We are directly across the street from La Alhambre. We spent the entire afternoon after naps roaming the streets, shopping, sightseeing. Saw a fun steel drum band playing. Napping during the heat of the day and then starting out late is the norm. Everyone is out until 11 (except us). Love roaming the stores. The shopkeepers here are more friendly, more eager to make a sale, and more likely to bargain. The exchange rate is 1€ = $0.60. Josh and John are getting their nerd on making all the monetary and metric gas mileage conversions.

Day 1

2011-07-21T14:48:00.000-07:00

Briefly....
Got in at 9am. Got our rental and John drove the 1.5 hours to Cordoba. Our hotel is simple, but clean and directly across the street from La Mozquita (look on wikipedia for pictures and info). We're going there in the morning. Walked across a bridge built by the Romans. Hiked all over the Jewish Quarter of the city. Had lovely paella and pizza for dinner. It's been over 100 degrees today, but should be cooler in a few days when we go closer to the coast. John has done an awesome job navigating traffic...especially with three navigators. ;-)

Hannah is exhausted, but holding up well. I'm over my initial motion-sickness. Who knew I can't read on a plane. Bummer. Tomorrow we head for Granada.

July, part one

2011-07-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't done a good, solid blog entry in a long time. Things have been busy!!! Maybe you can tell by Hannah's hair!

I had to laugh when Hannah came home from the pool the other day. She road home on her bike and this was what happened. ;-) She and I had a good laugh.

Yesterday we sent Hannah off to Girls Camp. I spent a lot of the last two weeks receiving and sending emails regarding camp, collecting papers, organizing things, etc.

I was a little disappointed with how some aspects of camp were dealt with. For instance, each year level at camp usually has a theme. Our ward never heard anything from any leaders (not the stake leaders, not the level leaders) about what the girls' themes might be. In fact, I didn't even think of it until one of Hannah's friends called asking what their theme was. She called someone else who told her one thing. Hannah remember WAY back to May when she'd gone to a quick meeting where she thought the themes were chosen and remembered it being different than what the other girl had thought. So we called a leader. Hannah's memory was correct. We called Hannah's friend. We called the other beehive in our ward to let her know (she had missed the meeting in May). Then we realized that meant that the girl in our ward who's a 4th year probably didn't know what her theme was (she didn't). We called her leaders and ALSO found out that she was going on an overnight hike and to be prepared for that. They didn't way what she might need to be prepared other than a backpack (but then we wondered what kind of backpack). Anyway, based on this experience I know of girls in at least three wards who had no clue what their theme was. That tells me that information was not getting properly disseminated. Lesson - put everything in writing, and give it to the adults.

While I was getting packed I was shocked to find out that a)she is only 1 inch shorter than I, and b) she wears the same size shoe now (her feet grew in the last month or so because I JUST bought her new shoes). Luckily, I had extra shoes to send with her for camp!!! She needs new church shoes though. I'm thinking she should be about done growing.

Bellflowers at the Botanical Garden this month

Brynne is back from Utah and what a great thing that is! She babysat for me last night since Hannah was gone. Josh, Shannon, Devon and I ran to Piaci's to get tasty pizza, to D'Aurelio's for the best salad in the world, and then to the movie store to rent RED. I told Brynne that the little girls could just watch TV till we got back and I would put them to bed. Brynne ended up putting them to bed herself because she said they were tired. And they were. Yay, Brynners!! Brynne had fun talking art with Aunt Shannon who taught her a little about perspective in drawing. Brynne and Hannah got to help release some baby ducks that they've been babysitting off and on for a woman in our ward. Brynne took pictures of those - I'll have to get them on the blog later.

Logan has been valiantly dealing with being the lone male around here for the most part (except when Josh is here, of course!!). He was SO cute with his cousin Peyton. He's really the most nurturing little boy. He is super excited to go to Oregon and play with his boy cousins. Cars and trucks and wrestling, oh, my!!

Shannon and I had a project while she was here. Shannon drew the butterflies. Hannah and Brynne helped us cut them out. I cut and assembled. Shannon was the expert in charge of placement. Josh was the master responsible for figuring out how to hang the ball from the ceiling. The little girls LOVE it.

Kenna and Natalie loved having baby peyton visit.

Video shot by Devon. Thanks, Dev!!!

What's Going On?

2011-07-08T11:01:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to send Hannah to Girls Camp on Monday.

Writing a talk (I'm speaking in Church on Sunday)

Preparing a lesson (I'm teaching on Sunday)

Playing with my sisters and Peyton and my children

Enjoying gorgeous sunshine - a rare Fort Bragg treat

I'm pretty busy these days, but I wanted to mention a new movie that I really liked. I made Shannon and Devon watch it with me. I think they liked it, too. It's called "Arranged". Highly recommend. You can find it on Netflix.

Smoothie Recipe

2011-06-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

I was a little leary of this recipe because, well, PJ&J isn't one of my favorite foods so why would I want to drink it??? But it came with rave reviews and I knew the kids would enjoy it.

Much to my surprise...I liked it too! I don't buy juice, so I used applesauce and compensated with extra milk. You could probably leave out the juice completely, or add another kind of juice. I used frozen bananas and no ice cubes. I had to add extra milk as it was blending because it was too thick, originally.
The kids could drink their lunch - and it's healthier than the real version with NO sugar!!

PB&J Smoothie

Read Food

2011-06-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

My sister Jenny and I follow some of the same blogs. Today we both got a post that was so awesome! If you, like us, work hard to feed your family healthy food on a moderate budget, this website/facebook page will help.

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/

Go to the facebook page, click "like" and then on the left find the link to meal plans. You can download three weeks of meal plans. Usually I don't like other people's prepared meal plans. This one is an exception. My family already eats the food that she's got listed - nothing new and strange - just healthier versions of it. I love having some great suggestions.

If you are trying to change your family's eating habits, you can try her real food mini-pledges. I haven't tried them yet, but they look pretty good. There's a lot of good information on this website. Have fun! Be Healthy!

Recently...

2011-06-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

Kenna and Natalie with their cousin Avery. So cute!

We had to enjoy some of this wonderful sunshine, so we ran to the beach after dinner.


Where did your legs go?

I love Logan's attempts to catch the ball.

Hannah's friend happened to be at the same beach. Bonus!

Josh and I were looking at Natalie's eyes the other day...

Check out Natalie's eye color....yellow!

For comparison - mine have a tiny bit of yellow.

Natalie's new favorite song!

Welcome Summer

2011-06-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

100 Days of Summer

A Summer List

Just in case you need some ideas.

You could also come play at the beach. The weather is delightful these days.

Ingram Reunion

2011-06-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend in Brookings. We stayed at the Whaleshead Beach Resort. It was pretty decent, but had some problems with small things not working (hot tub, DVD player).

I'm so glad we decided to go the reunion. We got to see family we love (hailing from near and far) and enjoy a different view. Granted, it was still ocean, but it was surprising just how different the two coastlines look.

On Saturday Josh and I woke up and felt the most relaxing sense of peacefulness. No phone, no chores, no schedule. We haven't had a true vacation like that in quite awhile. We took the kids for a little hike in the morning and then went to the reunion in the afternoon. At the reunion Josh and I got a big laugh. We had purchased dinner tickets for our entire family (all seven of us). The ticket stubs were entered in a raffle for various items. Six of our ticket stubs were drawn! I had written Josh's name on each stub just to keep it simple and it was so funny to hear his name get called repeatedly (one time three times in a row - kind of embarrassing!) Among other things, Josh won a leather jacket that is actually in his size. It's pretty nice. We also won a $50 gift card to Home Depot (luckily, there's one in Ukiah).   Score!!

The craziest thing that happened at the reunion was that I saw a girl that I went to high school with. Who knew...she's a distant cousin of Josh's. It took me a while to place her and so I had to fake it at first. ;-) Her family is all from Cloverdale and my dad was their dentist. Ha, ha. Her uncle said, "Tell your Dad that I said Hi. That ought to scare the @#$%^ out of him!"    Nice.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out with Nathan, Jelaire, Sarah, and Brad.   They are all fun to talk to and I love the discussions we have.

I couldn't sleep that night because I kept thinking about saying good-bye to Brynne on Sunday morning. We sent her back to Utah with Nathan and Jelaire. They are getting ready to move. I thought they might find her useful, and it seemed like she needed a special little something all her own (since Hannah is having two major trips this year). It's not that I don't trust Nathan and Jelaire (really) I just know that Brynne can be really hard to read and I was worried that she would have a problem and not say anything to them. Plus I was just going to miss her so dang much. She was pretty excited for her trip, though.

Our drive home on Sunday was not as nice as the last few trips we've taken with the little girls. I guess they were just worn out. Natalie picked on Kenna and then complained when we moved her carseat to a different row. We stopped in at the Brookings Harbor to visit the boats. Kenna had been begging all weekend to see them. We were able to see a few of them "swimming" (Kenna's word) around the harbor.

We stopped at a deli in Eureka for lunch that my dad recommended called "Hole In The Wall". There's no seating, so we grabbed our food and ate at a nearby park. The food was tasty and we thought we got a lot of food for the price. Lately when we travel we bring food like hummus and crackers, fruit, and carrot sticks, and eat by the ocean. But I've had too much of that lately (too much traveling) so we splurged. ;-)

Now we get a little break before the next onslaught (hee, hee) of two of my sisters and my infant niece. Josh and I pick Brynne up at the airport next Monday. Can't wait to see her and hear all about her week in Utah.

Meanwhile, they are doing roadwork on Chestnut and I am hiding in my house rather than venture out.

The Sun has Arrived!

2011-06-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

No blog posts lately because there really hasn't been that much going on in our lives.

NOT.

We've actually been having so much fun!

We had my lovely friend Katie and her three girls come visit. What a fun time. My kids love her kids. I didn't see the older kids for a week, except for mealtimes. We showed off all the best things to do in Fort Bragg, and luckily for us the weather cooperated.

We went tidepooling

To the beach (forgot the camera...dang it!)

Went swimming twice (sorry, no swimsuit pictures!!)

And enjoyed the botanical gardens together

Not to mention, helping Hannah and Brynne with the ducks.

A gal in our ward is raising them and then they get to go free. She had to go out of town, so the girls have been in charge of their food and water. So cute. They are at the house of our stake patriarch, who is the most loving man in the world. And he loves kids. Every day that the girls go over, he appears with a giant chocolate bar or a box of cookies or something. I think he subsists on chocolate. ; -) He's over 80 and just the sweetest man alive. Yesterday he actually grabbed Natalie in a big hug and RAN with her back to the car. I was impressed. I hope I'm that agile when I'm 80. If I have to eat a bunch of chocolate to do it, well, I'll just have to.

After Katie left, we scurried and got the house ready for the next wave of guests....Nathan and Jelaire! We got to meet baby Sam - what a darling little boy. I loved his blue eyes and fuzzy round head. I had forgotten how much work and time goes into taking care of a baby. Did you know that they still eat about every two hours? I'd seriously forgotten. Or maybe I thought times had changed. Anyway, he was cute and Nathan and Jelaire were as entertaining as ever. So was Avery. It was so cute to see the three little girls together and imagine them growing up.

We have a friend coming to stay in our house while we are at a family reunion this weekend. She is coming today, but we are not leaving until Friday, so we'll have some visiting time. I'm a little sad that she's coming because this means that her son (our friend Skyler) is graduating and will no longer be coming around to hang out with us. Bummer. We have loved having Skyler over. He's just an awesome young man.

Family Reunion this weekend. I'm excited to NOT be camping at the coast. After living here I've decided that I don't want to ever camp at a foggy beach. Blech! It will be nice to relax with some of Josh's family and get to know others that we haven't met yet.

Photo Op

2011-06-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

Dad took some pictures of the kids while we were in Oregon. Here are some that Jenny sent me.

Elmo is in the Book of Mormon

2011-06-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

Today as Josh was helping Natalie read her scripture verse, she had to say the name "Alma". Without a second of hesitation she said Elmo. We all got a good chuckle, especially when Josh prophesied in his best Elmo voice that the people needed to repent or they would be destroyed.

Which reminds me of this hilarious youtube video:

We were singing the Primary songs that list the books in the Book of Mormon and the books in the New Testament. Brynne taught us the one for D&C. It's surprisingly simple.

I've had some questions from folks about Hannah's trip and how it went. Josh has been so busy playing catch-up at work that he has not had time to get all the pictures and videos off his equipment. And there have been technical difficulties. So...in time. The final score, from what I've heard is 18th place overall (out of over 50 teams), but scored 2nd in the spontaneous portion! They had a great experience. Lots of good memories. I still haven't even heard all about it. I'm hoping this weekend.

Recent Events

2011-05-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Natalie feeding rice cake to the chickens

Kenna and Natalie being ballerinas
Brynne provided the theme music for them. ;-)

Hannah getting some "help" as she plants flowers for me

The gorgeous butterfly that Brynne and I found in our tree.

2011-05-22T21:43:00.013-07:00

2011-05-22T21:43:00.011-07:00

2011-05-22T21:43:00.009-07:00

2011-05-22T21:43:00.007-07:00

2011-05-22T21:43:00.005-07:00

2011-05-22T21:43:00.003-07:00

2011-05-22T21:43:00.001-07:00

Brynne's Violin Recital

2011-05-22T21:41:00.000-07:00

Here's Brynne after 5 months of lessons. The boy playing the duet with her is the older brother of Brynne's best friend. He's been taking lessons for about 18 months.

Milk and Honey

2011-05-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

After my last post, you may be relieved to know that I had a lovely Sabbath. It started off rough, but improved over time. One of the joys of yesterday was traveling to Lakeport to hear Zion's Choir - an LDS performing group from the Bay Area. The hour they spent sharing their testimonies through words and song was by far the best hour I've spent in a long time. It's a long drive for us - two hours each way - but absolutely worth it. Even my younger kids enjoyed it.

But what I wanted to actually talk about today is...books!

I love books and I love reading. I just got my very own copy of a book that I've wanted for a long time. (Thank you Paperback Swap!) It's called "Honey For a Child's Heart" by Gladys Hunt. Ms. Hunt says:

"Children and books go together in a special way. I can't imagine any pleasure greater than bringing to the uncluttered, supple mind of a child the delight of knowing God and the many rich things He has given us to enjoy. This is every parent's privilege, and books are his keenest tools. Children don't stumble onto good books by themselves; they must be introduced to the wonder of words put together in such a way that they spin out pure joy and magic."

"Parents unconsciously teach their children what is valuable by the way they spend their own time...A busy schedule is the enemy of reading...We appoint time for the things that we think are truly important."

She goes on to help you find good books for your child. Books that are sweet to read, and yet uplift the soul. These include the familiar classics: "Winnie the Pooh", "Make Way for Ducklings", and "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"; as well as the somewhat less-familiar such as "Mr. Popper's Penguins", "Wheel on the School", and Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare". (if you're curious, yes I've read all of these and LOVED them).

You can probably find "Honey For a Child's Heart" at the library. If you struggle to find those great books for your child and want something other than the usual child-fare of Captain Underpants or TinkerBell and friends - try using this book as a reference. You won't be disappointed!

**Another good reference is Jim Trelease's "Read Aloud Handbook".

I like to collect booklists. I also like to browse the shelves of bookstores to get ideas. Here are some online ideas to get you started:

PRESCHOOL http://www.ittybittybookworm.com/?catID=14230
YOUNG CHILDREN http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/eyguide/eyreadalouds/
YOUNG CHILDREN http://www.tjedonline.com/free-article.php?id=24
ELEMENTARY http://www.bfbooks.com/
ELEMENTARY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_children%27s_classic_books
ELEMENTARY http://satorismiles.com/books/fiar-list/
ELEMENTARY http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/history.htm
ELEMENTARY http://homescool-ed.blogspot.com/2007/04/sonlight-books-arranged-by-well-trained.html
OLDER CHILDREN http://www.tjedonline.com/free-article.php?id=26
ADULT http://smallworldathome.blogspot.com/p/reading-picks-best-of-years.html
ALL AGES http://www.metteivieharrison.com/recommendationsindex.html

Happy Reading!

Too much of a good thing

2011-05-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

You probably never get overwhelmed with your life.

You probably never have those moments like I had on Friday when I called Josh, almost in tears, and begged him to take me to lunch because I could not stand another minute with my children or in my house.

Never.

I doubt you have ever had a two-year old scream at you to sit down, stand up, hold her, put her down, feed her, not that food, no singing, no touching, outside, don't put her down, don't be outside....and a host of other complaints....non-stop at the top of her lungs for two hours straight. Not your kids. (You can see why I had to leave the house on Friday. I was close to losing it).

Josh did take me to lunch. He took me to the only thing remotely close to a Red Robin (which is what I wanted) - the North Coast Brewery restaurant. I passed on the beer, and delved instead into onion rings, a philly cheese-steak sandwich, garlic fries, and a lemon-cream cake to round it out. The truth comes out. I do drown my sorrows in food. I didn't have to eat for the rest of the day. I went home. Took a nap. And felt much better.

Recently I discovered a blog called Passionate Homemaking. What first drew me was THIS POST about priorities. Not everything is as important as we make it sound. And we are not failing if we don't do everything right all the time.

I'm in the middle of figuring out a new calling. I am feeling more overwhelmed about this new calling than ever before. The time involved, the knowledge needed, the level of spiritual preparation which feels practically impossible some days, it's all combining to make this feel like a very big mistake to have accepted. The bright spot is that I hope and pray that this will lead me closer to Heavenly Father. I've been praying and working towards that end recently, and have been finding little gifts along the way that help me with that goal. I'm hoping that this will turn out to be one of those gifts. In the meantime, we go forward with faith, right? And keep our priorities in order.

A little bit of spring

2011-05-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

What a weekend! On Monday morning Josh and I just slumped on the couch. It was not an auspicious start to our week. But what a wonderful weekend we had!

The highlights:

*A wonderful Relief Society dinner. The music was lovely and the talks were edifying. The stake had a great turnout - the biggest that I've ever seen. And the evening did not disappoint. Definitely looking forward to future activities!

*Running around Wal-mart with Sarah and Megan. It felt a little bit like high school all over again...except it was Sarah instead of Julia. Still fun. If Ju ever comes back out here I'll take her to Wal-mart. ;-)

*Shopping in Santa Rosa with Sarah. Feeling sad for her morning sickness. Introducing her to Mary's Pizza Shack and changing the entire tenor of her life. Right Sarah?

*Watching Josh do a myriad of odd jobs for his Dad - he spent all Saturday helping his parents. What a good son!

*Watching my kids make new friends with some kids in the stake. They had a great time.

*Listening to Josh's Mother's Day talk at church. He gave a good one. Funny, sweet, and appropriate. And thank goodness he didn't say a word about me. :-)

*Nachos for dinner with our friends the Smiths. Kyle and Josh cooked and cleaned for the moms.

*Staying up late to watch Horatio Hornblower.

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I've been getting ready for summer! It is basically hitting our family in two weeks and then it is non-stop fun for two months. I'm so excited!

On the docket include: a trip to Oregon (Hannah in Maryland at that time), a visit from my favorite-est Medford friend with her three daughters, a family reunion and play-time with Nathan and Jelaire, picking Brynne up from the airport after a week in Utah, two sisters visiting, Girls Camp for Hannah, going back to Oregon, and a trip to Spain. I'm sure by August we'll be ready for a break.

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For school we are in the throes of American History study. We did a brief study of the Revolutionary War. Right now we are learning about Lewis and Clark. We'll touch on the War of 1812. Anyone know what that was about? It's one of our country's least-studied and understood wars, but in it, we finally and completely pushed the British out of our lives. Yay for independence!

We are starting a new writing program called "Writing Strands". I did the first lesson yesterday with Logan and Brynne. So far, we enjoyed it. I like that the lessons are pretty short. Especially for Logan. Brynne could have done more, but it was a perfect stopping place for Logan - before he got bored.

Our chickens are still providing much entertainment. They are named Lady and Jazzy. Jazzy is still not laying. I think she's too old. But we like her anyway. Our evening entertainment consists of watching Lady launch herself at the back door's window. It gives obvious meaning to the insult "bird-brain" because she tries it repeatedly almost every night. They are very busy clearing our yard of bugs and snails. That's what they're here for!

I've been busy with some various projects. I planted flowers in a pot on the porch. I know that for some people that is not a big deal, but for me it is. I decided that maybe a little beauty at the entry to our home was in order. For a minimal cost, I can keep putting things in there all year, if necessary. And it might be.

Yesterday I took the butterfly curtains out of Logan's room. For some reason he didn't want them. I just can't predict what that kid will want. I made a simple valance out of the leftover red stool-cover fabric that happens to match some of the stuff he has in his room. He's feeling more manly about that room now. ;-) I'm in the process of putting up curtains in the little girls' room. Did you know that Target carries blackout curtains in fun kid colors? Just what I needed!

The Privilege of Motherhood

2011-05-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day!

Remember...
We don't have to be perfect for Heavenly Father to be pleased with our efforts.

Spring has Sprung!

2011-04-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

It's been one thing after another around here.

We have officially finished our Ancient History series for the year and are starting our American History summer. Since we'll be gone most of July, we are doing our summer school through May and June. August is traditionally my prep month as I get ready for the upcoming year.

Josh and Hannah went to Oakland on Saturday for a stake temple day. I was home with the younger kids because Kenna had been running a fever for a few days and we didn't know if she'd be well enough to travel (and expose other kids to any germs she might have). We decided to dye a few eggs. It was so much fun! I used the food coloring that I had leftover from cake decorating. Some of the colors didn't dissolve all the way, and that is how we got the very cool speckled look. :-) Food safe coloring was necessary because Natalie was drinking the water. The water that had a Tablespoon of vinegar in it! Crazy girl. She also eats flour and sand.

Hannah's fund-raising efforts are going fabulously. I think she has raised the most money of anyone on her team, and that's definitely thanks to our many friends and family who have so generously contributed. We have fully qualified as a team to receive the $3,000 in a matching donation from the Mendocino Coast Children's Fund. We are paying our room and board today and will be paying back the school district for the flights within two weeks....if all goes well. Thanks for all the support we've received. One month until the big competition! Hannah and her team are re-doing some of their worn out props and preparing to ship them to Maryland in two weeks.

Yesterday we found a frog in our garden! He seems to live here permanently, but he has definitely grown since the last time we saw him. I love frogs. I think they might be my favorite animal.

Another major thing that happened yesterday is that we are now the proud owners of 2 chickens! We have a sexlink and a wellsummer. The wellsummer has been named Jazzy. She is rather skittish and afraid of us so far. The sexlink doesn't have a name, but she is the most docile. Miss no-name laid our first egg this morning. Very exciting!!! The great thing about these chickens is that they come from Josh's cousin and his wife...and if for some reason having chickens doesn't work out for us, we can give them back at any time. I like no risk things like that.

And finally...
Brynne's been taking violin for four months now. She's doing great and she LOVES it. I never have to remind her to practice. Today she skipped downstairs to show me a Primary song that she was sounding out. They just started learning the song this past Sunday, but she was able to remember the tune and pick it out on her violin. I found the music for her so that she could double-check a few notes. There's a section in the middle that she struggles with, but I think that she's doing tremendously well for only four months of lessons! Side note - she makes me smile every day when I see what she's wearing or how she's doing her hair. Such a cutie!

Food Storage

2011-04-26T08:36:00.001-07:00

The Food Storage Made Easy website has posted a shelf-stable cookbook available for free download today.

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/

Once a Month Cleaning

2011-04-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

Sounds totally crazy, right?

I had to read the article because of course I was intrigued.
http://simplehomeschool.net/the-case-for-once-a-month-cleaning/

Obviously some things just need to be done every day. We need clean clothing and dishes, and I prefer a fairly clean bathroom. I used to do laundry only one day a week. I was like a machine that day but it was so nice to have 6 laundry-free days the rest of the week. Now with our increased family, that's not so easy. I manage to keep it to three days (the older girls have to do their own) - one day for my stuff, one day for the three younger kids, and one day for the extras like sheets, towels, etc. When I'm really on top of it, we wash our sheets on our laundry day. But I'm not always that on top of it.

But lately I've been thinking about our family work schedule and evaluating how it's working for us. I like it...kind of. I mean, I think it's important for kids to learn to work. And my kids have learned how to be excellent workers. But lately I've been feeling really cramped for time - and that seems like one area that could maybe be flexible. If we could keep the house clean enough to keep my sanity and not need multiple hours of cleaning each day.

So last night I had the kids spend 20 minutes doing a full house clutter pick-up. It was the second one of the day, so it wasn't too bad and they really did a good job. This morning when we woke up - clean house. For family work we only did two things. We cleaned up the kitchen from breakfast, and we cleaned all the floors. After 30 minutes the house looked amazing. Wow. Clean floors and a clean kitchen? If I could have those two things done every day I really could only do the deeper cleaning once a month, I think.

There are other "homeschool" projects that I want to have time for - like teaching the kids (and myself) to sew. REALLY sew - not my kind of fake, looks-like-crap kind of sewing. Work and play in the yard. Have time to do real art - not messy craft projects - but real drawing lessons. Get the kids to the aquatic center 2-3 afternoons a week for exercise, or go for a long bike ride. Somehow, we never get to that stuff as often as I would like. And it's great to pencil it in (see my previous post about calendering), but I honestly cannot stand to go play when my house looks like a tornado hit it. Throwing everything to the wind for one day is fine. Ignore the house for two days and I start getting grumpy. By day three I'm not a nice mommy and it's definitely time to clean. However, if we could keep the house presentable (preserve my sanity), and free up some time for the fun stuff by saving all our deep-cleaning for one day a month, that could work.

It's something to think about, and maybe something to try.

Odds and Ends

2011-04-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

Easter is coming! Did you know?
I am accompanying our choir at church this year. We're doing a newer composition by Rob Gardner. If you click on the link, you can listen to a snippet of the piece we're doing - "Gloria". I had misgivings at first, but it will be pretty awesome. We have a violinist coming as well. I haven't really had time to fully practice my part - and it challenges me at times, but the violinist will help cover up my trouble areas. ;-)

For school this week we've been studying Ancient Israel. As part of that, we've gone over some of the holidays that the Jews celebrate. It's reminded me of my favorite book, "All-of-a-Kind Family". Brynne made Harvest Muffins to celebrate Sukkot, and we made potato Latkes as a Hanukkah treat. Next week we will talk about Passover, of course. The timing for that has worked out excellently! Our activity day girls made a 12-day countdown to Easter activity - the thing with the scriptures and small items in the easter eggs. I'm always on the lookout for ways that I can include the Gospel without losing the attention of the less-active girl. She doesn't like to sing with us (I found out), but she certainly liked this activity. She knew all the answers! If anyone has suggestions for activities..I'd love them.

On Wednesday Josh and I took the three younger kids with us to the high school track meet. We watched our friend Skyler, who competed in the discus and shot-put. Being on the track brought back many memories of competing against Fort Bragg just a few short years ago.

I've been experimenting with sourdough the past week. Yesterday I made THIS recipe, as well as my usual weekly 5-loaf bread baking. It turned out so tasty. There are a lot of steps, but that's just because it's broken down so completely so that you CAN'T screw it up. I just happened to have leftover, unseasoned black beans from another meal so I was happy to stumble across the recipe while doing my sourdough research. You can adjust the heat level based on the kind of peppers you used. I used basic canned chile peppers instead of chipotle, because that's what I had on hand.

I know a bunch of my family is on Goodreads, but if you read this and you are not yet using that website, I wish you would. Especially if you read lots of books! I would love more suggestions on books that are worth my time. I've been trying to be more choosy in my reading. I'm also getting tougher in my rating system on Goodreads. So if I rate a book a three it means I like it, and while I might not read it again, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend someone else try reading it. Four stars means I REALLY liked it and definitely recommend it. Five stars means I consider it a must read, and one that I will go back to repeatedly throughout my life. Most of my book ratings are three stars because I try to only read books that I think have potential to be at least decently good.

These last six months have been one huge, long thought-train about choosing only the best things to spend my time and effort on, and being more purposeful in life. I need to set goals and then make sure that my activities reflect my commitment to those goals. If I want my children to know the Gospel, I need to be very specific in how I'm going to make sure they do. Everything gets evaluated, and re-evaluated to see if it is in line with my goals. Along with that, it's time for me to go through our home and evaluate all the STUFF that we somehow collect and make sure that it also helps us. Does the care and keeping of all this stuff take time away from my ability to do those activities that help me reach my goals?

One of the things Josh and I started doing last year was calendering in certain activities that we wanted to be sure to do each year. Some of them are basic yard/house care things like cleaning the gutters, putting up and taking down Christmas lights, rotating 72-hour kit food, etc. Others are more fun and family-oriented such as whale-watching, kite-flying, camping, attend a concert at the Music Festival, etc. I have 1-2 things scheduled on the first of each month. We don't always get to it that month. Sometimes we've had to reschedule and other times we've had to skip it completely. But it's definitely helped us focus on in things we wanted to be sure got done. I have started using my calender for EVERYTHING that I want to be sure to remember. Some of the other items on our calendar include: family gospel study, remember to be worthy to exercise the priesthood (that's Josh's, obviously), menu plans for the month, and the birthdays of the sisters I visit teach. It's not perfect, but it helps.

The other thing I try to remember to do is a daily docket. You can use a form like this one: http://simplemom.net/tools/downloads/ (scroll down to the "pocket docket"). Or you can do what I do and just use a Mead Notebook and do a page a day. I have found that if I don't do my daily docket, I don't get nearly as much stuff done. I write everything down - packing lists when we're getting ready to head out of town. Grocery lists, menu plans, thoughts on a kid who needs help, everything. It's not a journal. It's not a diary. It's just...my life!

Anyway, it's a work in progress. But I think it's important. If anyone has suggestions or thoughts I would appreciate hearing them. I'm trying to be more disciplined in my life. Some days are better than others.

Saturday

2011-04-10T15:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since we've gone out driving around with NO schedule to keep. We had some fun stuff planned for Saturday and managed to squeeze it all in.

We started with a drive down the coast and then inland to Camp Liahona-Redwoods. Josh had some stuff he had to do there, so the kids and I had a picnic before Josh came back and we were able to explore together. Some of the kids had been there before, some had not. Now they can ALL say that they've been there. ;-) It was a beautiful day and we loved it.

Redwood Orchid. Gorgeous!

After leaving the camp, we drove by way of Lake Sonoma to the outskirts of Santa Rosa to Redwood Hill Farm. Our friend Veronica has moved down there to work and attend the J.C. and she let us know about a farm tour that was going on. The kids got to play with baby goats, milk a mama goat, taste some goat milk products (kefir, cheese), and climb a straw bale hill. Those babies were so adorable. Natalie called them "lambies" and refused to touch them.

At the end of the day we hit Costco (got to take advantage of the proximity!!) and had Costco pizza before heading home!!

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Going back in time - I got to play with my friend Megan on Thursday night! Josh had stake meetings and Hannah offered to babysit so that I could drive over with him. I dropped him off and did the shopping that I had come over to do - which took much less time than I was expecting. I was sitting in the parking lot nibbling my dinner and decided to call and see if I could bother Megan. So glad I did! We had fun talking until Josh's meetings were over. I don't want to take advantage of Hannah too often - but I'll definitely have to do that again sometime!

Baptism Day

2011-04-10T14:58:00.000-07:00

Logan was baptized on his birthday!! He was pretty darn excited.

We had a lot of ward members come. Logan asked his Richardson grandparents to give the talks. The Senior Primary did the musical number for us - a song by Aaron Waite called "On My Baptism Day". And then we finished the evening with birthday cupcakes! Fun times!

Hannah with her YW Leader, who is moving tomorrow. Boo-hoo!