Last week we went to the Treehouse Museum. It is geared to mostly younger kids, but our older ones found things they liked as well. We were supposed to go with all of Mr. T's family who are in town visiting or just live nearby, but his parents ended up sick, so the thing was cancelled. But, we had already bought our vouchers a month or more earlier when we found a deal on line for half price, so we decided to go ahead and go anyway. Here are some pictures of the fun we had that day! Apple was so much fun, I love the joy and magic that little ones bring to everything they experience.
She didn't know quite what to think of all the dolls. And the fact that she couldn't touch any of them made it so that it wasn't as fun as she'd have liked.
She LOVED to gather all the 'horses' and thought it was great that she could carry them.
Here she is gathering the horses.
A great team building activity that required many hands to make it work!
Fabulous building and bonding time with dad! Love it! Mr. T loved all the planks to build with.
And dad wasn't the only one loving the planks. Dad went for height, Ginga' went for style!
This is the drawing station. They were creating their own eggs.
It's a bit bigger and almost done...
getting closer...
Finished! Wait til you see what happens next...
What baby can resist a tower? Especially when her favorite game is, Timber?
She thought this horse was so cool..and she loved the hat too!
It's not very often we can capture such a great smile on her! She was in heaven on this horse, obviously. Isn't she adorable? Love this picture!
It was a fun day which we ended by having lunch at Tony's Pizza, which is a place Mr. T used to go get pizza when he was little. The kids thought it was a bit strange to actually be able to go in and sit and order a pizza, instead of having it delivered. :) Over the summer we had reading goals, and we said that if everyone met their reading goal, then we would do something fun as a family. We decided that this would be it, it was a fun time together.
It's been awhile, and where to start. Hmm..well, we'll start with the "new" van. Back in March, we decided it was time to try a decent and small-ish vehicle for me. We almost always buy used, and have never had much trouble with that. (At least with the Beast, we knew what we were getting into anyway) So, we found a car, nothing fancy, but much smaller Toyota Sienna, and figured it would also be good for Ginga' to learn on. Well, three weeks into owning the silly thing, it starts acting up. Big time. Long story made much shorter, we discovered it had been in a wreck that had been unreported and covered up very well. The mechanics we took it too both said that they had to really get in there to see what work had been done and what problems it had. Basically, it will need a new transmission and there's no guarantee that would make it work fabulously. So, now we are trying to figure out the best way to lose money on it. Fix it or trade/sell it. Hmm...yuck. For now, it mostly sits in my driveway. Fabulous. And I'm back to driving the temperamental Beast.
On to much more positive notes-Choir has just wrapped up, and the kids had a blast. Here are the two soloists from their performances. Rock and Nutmeg didn't have any close ups, when they were singing, they were usually blocked by other people. What to do.
The little girl in red-she's the same age as Squirrel. Crazy, huh? She got tall genes and Squirrel got short ones. Funny thing though, Squirrel never would look at her choir director to know when to come in on the song. She performed it four times, and every time was unique. But she loved it!
My phone had a new camera on it, and I couldn't figure out how to make it so that it wasn't so glaring. Oh, well. Ginga's on the right, and sings first. Just in case you can't tell due to the white out. :)
Aw, still cute. Love that girl!
Rock. It's been a harder year for him as he has been transitioning in his studies. Growing up can be hard to do. He started our scholar class this year, and I've said so many prayers on his behalf that he could catch a spark and get excited about the things we were doing there. I don't expect him to be like his brother, they are complete opposites, but I do want to see him excel in his way and get excited about what he is learning. As the year has come to an end though, I was still thinking and wondering what to do with him. I finally thought that perhaps he should see how another Vanguard class worked. He went to a class, and enjoyed it, but in his Rock like fashion, didn't say very much about it at first. He tends to think on things for a while before sharing what he's thinking with anyone else. He finally came to me and shared that he just didn't feel like what we were currently involved in was working for him. He didn't really feel like he had any really bosom buddies in the class, and that made it hard for him to want to push himself there very much. So, we decided to let him attend another class at the other Vanguard again, but this time he looked over what was being taught the day he was going to go, and he did the work to attend so that he would be able to have a more meaningful experience and understand what they were talking about. (He has done all the work for our group all year too, so at least he knew what was happening, but he never really got excited about what we were learning.) Anyway, the mentor of the class had assigned each youth a letter from the Hebrew alphabet and they were supposed to come prepared to teach the others what they had learned about their letter. At first, I thought, yea, he's not going to want to do all that she has for them to do. But I handed it to him, watched a couple videos on Hebrew with him, and off he went. Like crazy. He got super excited, made a power point presentation, and worked through most of what she had put on the assignment to help them prepare for the day. He was having fun, and was excited to go. Then I thought that he might not really want to give the presentation to a bunch of kids that he barely knew. (He knew a few pretty well, but a lot of them he didn't.) When it came time for his letter, the letter tet, he got up there and did it. It was awesome! His eyes were dancing, and he was smiling, and having a fun time. I could tell he was a little nervous still, but he pushed through and did awesome! Afterwards, I talked to the mentor and told her that at first I wasn't sure if he would actually do it, and told her that he hadn't done anything like that in our class all year long, and she was so surprised to hear that. She thought that he'd been doing things like that. When we got home though, he was happier than I've seen him in a long time, and he couldn't stop talking about how it felt, and how much he enjoyed being there. (Okay, so he didn't talk very long about it, but for him he talked about it a long time. :) After seeing his excitement to them and that experience, I knew that we needed to make some changes, no matter how hard they would be for me personally. In the home school world, it's easy to get attached to these moms and their families, and so when changes come, as changes always do, it can be hard. It's a bittersweet thing, I love all the mom's from both groups, so although it's sad to be moving on from some of them, it's happy to be able to spend more time with the mom's from the other group. Talk about mixed emotions. If only all our kids needed the exact same things, then we could all just work together forever! :) (keep dreaming, girl, kids in the same family don't even need the same things, let alone kids in different families!) I just hope that these mom's know how much I care about them. (yea, I know that some of you read this, but I really do want you to know how much you've helped me grow and learn through the years. Thank you so much! And I'm glad that our paths will always cross, even if it's not as often as we would like, and thank goodness for technology to help us stay in touch!)
As this school year is winding down, I am grateful for all that I've learned this year, about myself and about those that I am here to serve and grow with. Changes sure can cause growing pains, but I am grateful for the opportunity to stretch myself and become better than I was before.
Please forgive any typos and such, if I have to proofread this, it may not get posted for another three months!
Ginga' and Rock are both involved in Order of the Arrow, which is a scouting thing. Their dad is in it too as an assistant advisor. I don't know very much about the OA, except that they spend a lot of time learning about Indian lore, and that it is great leadership training. From what I've been told, shadow mentoring works great in this program, the way it should be working in the regular scout program, but often doesn't. Ginga' has been serving in his local chapter as the chapter chief the past year, and has learned a lot from that experience. In January they held elections for vice lodge chief which is where the youth in that position is in charge of multiple chapters. (Ginga, feel free to leave a comment if you want to clear up any of this, since I don't get to go to any of these things, it's not terribly clear exactly what you do! I believe that his primary duty is to organize recruiting efforts.) Anyway, at the January elections in Logan, that weekend we had one of the worst storms that we have seen here for a long time. Tons of snow and the canyon pass was closed unless you had chains on your car. So, much to his dismay, because he really wanted to run for vice lodge chief, we just weren't going to chance that. So, we stayed home. Well, we found out the next day, that he was elected anyway. Several people had nominated him and the vote went for him! He has worked super hard in all the different events, that he has made quite a name for himself and the other youth know that he has all this training and that he will not just sit around but will actually take it serious and do something. I'm so proud of him, he is turning out to be such a fantastic young man, and so fun to have around. (Not that I'm surprised by this, :) Needless to say, he was thrilled that it all worked out. The coolest thing that he has been asked to do is to be the Ordeal Chief for the Ordeal in June. The Ordeal is when youth that want to participate in OA go to an overnight event and they have a bunch of things they have to do, sort of in the spirit of a young Indian boy who goes out alone when he comes of age and spends time reflecting and 'becoming a man'. You know the Indian stories. There's a name for it, but it's not coming to me right now. Well, these youth are not entirely alone but spread out far enough that they can't talk with each other, and they do have to spend the night by themselves usually under the stars. (Bad weather, really bad, will sometimes affect this, but it has to be really bad weather to bring the boys inside.) The next day they are not allowed to talk and they have limited amount of food, while they work together in silence doing service of some kind and at the end of the day, they have a big ceremony with a huge dinner and they can talk again. Anyway, so in June, Ginga' will be in charge of running one of these events. It's a pretty big leadership role that he will be taking on. Lots of organizing of other people to make sure it comes off smoothly. He'll do great, I'm sure.
Rock recently joined the OA as well, October-I think. He is getting the feel for it, and really starting to enjoy it. Well, he surprised all of us the other night. Ginga' has been the chapter chief for the past year, and they held elections on Thursday night to change the leadership. When they do this, the leaders are not in the room, it is completely run by the youth. The leaders are just outside the door, so if there are any problems they can step in, but the boys run it. So Ginga' was in charge of getting all the positions filled. Well, blow my mind and knock my socks off, but Rock pretty much ran for every position. I was so shocked when I heard that. He ended up getting the position of Vice Chief over Service. I am thrilled that he feels confident enough to take on this role, and I can't wait to see the growth that comes from it! Wahoo!! This coming from the boy that I pretty much never know what he is thinking, obviously. But one thing I have noticed about him over and over, is that even if he isn't super comfortable doing something, that if he decides that he should be doing it, he usually does it. Or if he knows he has to do it, then he bucks up, takes a deep breath, and does it. Like oral reports, he doesn't like them, but he'll do them. We always have year end presentations in Vanguard, and the other day he asked about them, I told him that yes, he would have to do it, and I saw the look in his eyes that he gets when he decides that he's doing something he doesn't want to. You can almost see that firm stance of resolution as he accepts it for himself. I love seeing that look. He's doing awesome!
At their chapter meetings for OA, they usually have some kind of activity, because they are boys after all and they love to have fun! So, Ginga' was trying to think of an activity to do on Thursday night, and I named a few of their favorite group games that they have played with our homeschooling groups. He settled on 'Steal the sticks' which is sort of like capture the flag, except that they aren't hidden, and each team has 5- 6 sticks that they have to try to get in order to win. After he decided on that, he started thinking about what he could use as sticks inside the church building, since any sticks we have are buried in snow, and he didn't really want to have to vacuum up all the debris anyway. So, he thought of glow sticks ( he also thought of beef sticks, but figured the boys would just try to eat them, and they would cost a lot more than glow sticks). Then as we were talking about it, we thought; how about glow in the dark steal the sticks? Turn off the gym lights and have each boy wearing some glow sticks as well so everyone could see where the others were, and put some glow sticks down to mark the center of the room that separates the two sides. Cool, huh? According to the boys, it was totally awesome. Mr. T took one picture of it, and of course all you can really see is black with colored glow sticks, but perhaps when I get it from him, I'll add it on here anyway. One of their friends, nicknamed Spinach, took a great liking to the glow sticks, and decked himself out in as many pink ones that he could get his hands on, I can totally picture it, this kid loves to be unique, and pink in one of his favorite ways to do so. He is so much fun to have around. :)
I'm so glad that they are finding things that they love, and that also it's something they can do with their dad. What a great bunch of young men I live with!
Rock has always given me a run for my money. I never quite know if what we are doing is working for him or not. I remember one time when he was about 5 years old. We had gotten the neighbor girl to come over and babysit for the evening, and when we got back, we found out that Rock had just finally stayed in bed, 2 hours past his normal time. I guess he really liked her, because this boy of very few words (he didn't speak until 4 or so) had spent the last few hours after his siblings had gone to bed entertaining her with various conversations. The one thing I remember her telling me he did was to count to 100. Several times. At the time, I didn't even think he could count to 20, let alone all the way to 100. He has never been one to perform, especially if you want him to. When he was little and you would try to take his picture, he would shout at you, "Me no like pics!" I have tons of pictures of his hands over his face. He still does it sometimes. Like this one, he's just a bit more subtle than he used to be.
So, the latest thing he did, that we just happened to find out about, since there was no way he would ever have voluntarily told us is that he can really memorize stuff. I had no idea he could memorize so well. He and Ginga' and Mr T. are part of a scouting division that is called Order of the Arrow. It's focus is on service, and Indian lore. There's a ton more to it than that, but I don't really know and I'm not supposed to, so I don't ask too many questions. Anyway, they have these ceremonies that they do for different things, and he memorized one of the character's lines, as well as knowing the cues of who else is talking so that he knows when to say what he needs to say. Awesome. Ginga' was practicing his lines out loud, and Rock totally surprised him by answering him when he came to an end of his part. Love it! It's so cool to see the respect that these two brothers have for each other. (Don't worry, they aren't perfect, they still have those brother moments as well.)
I'm excited to see what else this boy has up his sleeve, and all that he has to offer. I love him!
This year we have started something here at home called 'Family School'. It is an LDS based curriculum. We have been really enjoying it, at least when the internet is working well. I have had to change our plans on occasion because of technical issues, but for the most part the younger kids are liking it. I like it because it helps me to focus on something and because it incorporates LDS principles into their otherwise secular learning. I really, really like that. I know that I could have put something similar together on my own, but this saves me so much time in finding the different resources that I just would probably never go look for, due to lack of time. It has pictures, video, Mormon messages, plenty of worksheets (more than I would normally want to deal with, but when I asked them if we should just skip some of those, I got a big fat no!) all in one friendly place online. Ginga' is a bit too old for it, and so engaged in all the other things that he has on his schedule, that he doesn't do it with us very often. Occasionally though, he will join us, and I always appreciate his insights that he shares with us. It has been a wonderful fit for Nutmeg and she is just thriving with it, most of the time. (Except for those times when she decides that spelling a certain word, or some other minor problem, is the end of the world, and then, well...it's not very pretty.) Squirrel tries hard, but her attention span isn't that wonderful, so she comes and goes with it. If there's a video, or activity, we can usually get her to return to us, otherwise, she floats, and that's okay, she is learning a lot at her own pace, and we will just have to work with that. Rock, is well, Rock. He is hard to engage in just about anything, unless it's his idea. But he's the who likes the worksheets best, so, perhaps he's just playing it cool. His latest passion is lock picking. He took some bobby pins and cut the ends off, and successfully picked his brother's filing cabinet. Hmm. Ginga' moved anything he didn't want him to take possession of. I'm trying to figure out how I can use this to increase his educational pursuits. (Any ideas Mary? You probably just had an explosion of them as you read this, I sure miss having you around to tell them to me!:) Anyway, back to the family school. It's been so great, and I am excited about all that I am learning and re-learning with them. That's the best part of homeschooling, being with your kids to see how they grow and learn, and getting to learn right along with them.
Today we did art. I know, for those of you who know me, not my favorite subject, and I would never have done it on my own. I even drew a fish and a bird and a face. And you could even tell what they were. I find myself getting so impatient to just have it finished already. I guess it will be a good way for me to exercise my patience as well as my artistic pursuits. We are doing art once a week, because I have this artist on my hands (Nutmeg) who just can't get enough, and is so much better than me at it. I'm sure it helps that she loves it, but she is definitely gifted in this area. So, today's lesson talked about the element of Line in art, and we talked about Walter Rane, who has painted many paintings about scriptural subjects. Then we finally got to the part where she was able to do something, and we drew the 6 days of creation. Needless to say, the rest of us were done long before she was, and I think she continued practicing her tree drawing skills for an hour after we had finished, love it!
The rest of this week we were working on Geography. We are studying Asia right now, and so we talked about the latitude and longitude and located a bunch of places. I don't worry to much about geography anymore though, because we have these awesome maps on our kitchen table and the kids are constantly quizzing each other anytime we have a meal, so they have learned a ton since I put them on the table. The best thing about using the family school geography is that it goes into a lot of the less obvious things about geography and makes you think about it. Like latitude and longitude, equator, time zones, etc. Those things to me are just -there. I don't really think about them very much, but it's good for the kids so that they will be familiar with them. They have also gotten really good at finding things on the globe. We really like geography around here. We are reading the story "Young Fu, of the Upper Yangtze" right now for our family reading time, and it's based in Asia, so it is helping connect things for us. I just love historical fiction, really well written ones that really help you understand the culture and time that it takes place in are fabulous. History is my favorite to learn about and study. I think I will have to write a post sometime about all my favorites. We'll see if I get to it anyway. :) It would be rather long.
This is off topic, but I'm looking out the window right now, and we have TONS of snow. I think we have gotten almost 20 inches in the last 26 hours. The kids are having a blast though. We actually postponed our school time today until the afternoon, because they just couldn't wait to get out into it. They shoveled off the trampoline before breakfast (their choice, not mine), and then I managed to drag them in for smoothies and breakfast before they were geared up and back out in it. I am sure glad that we didn't have to go anywhere today, because I would probably have just skipped it anyway! The county even cancelled school. I don't think we have had this much snow in a long while. I am thinking that it's been about 8 to 10 years since we've been this snowed in. The last time we had this much, Mr. T had to shovel it with a shovel and it would take him about 3-4 hours to do our humongous driveway. After that season, he bought a heavy duty snow blower, and although he has used it some, this will be it's first really good workout. Now it takes him about an hour. Not to bad.
This blog thing is a great way to journal, hopefully any of you who choose to read it, don't mind my ramblings. Better go start dinner! It's Rock's week to help me, so that he can feel capable of feeding himself one day. He's not a big fan of helping, but he sure is about eating it.
What a beautiful day we have had. It was a smaller Christmas, and very low key, just the way I have come to love it. In days gone by I would have spent a lot more, and gotten caught up in all the latest and greatest. I am glad that I have gotten past that in my old age. :) As our family has grown, I have found that we really don't need a lot of things. I am glad that I can say that for our family, less is best. Each of the kids got something that they were excited about, and they got some things that they needed. Everyone is happy with the day, and it feels so great to focus more on the real meaning of Christmas, rather than what all the companies want us to focus on. My father in law made the comment after all the gifts were open, "Well, Walmart didn't make any money on you guys this year, did they?" That is mostly true, although I did shop there a little bit, since I had gift cards. Mostly food type stuff though. Here are a few highlights:
Ginga' received a Kindle Paper white. He loves reading, and lately he, Rock, and I are all trying to read the same thing, so the Kindle has become a very useful item in our home. He also got that bottle of green hot sauce that is sitting on the desk behind him. He loved that. If you notice, his pj's have hot chilies and hot sauce on them. The more spice the better, in his book.
Rock keep asking for night vision goggles. Yes, he always seems to want things that are a bit off the beaten path. Well, we looked at them, but decided that they cost WAY to much, and the long term usage of them would be rather short. We figured that the novelty would wear off pretty quickly. So, Mr. T (aka the Genius) found instructions on line on how to build your own night vision goggles. So, for a fraction of the cost, we bought him the components to build his own. Watching him open his gifts was hilarious, since he couldn't really figure out what all these strange looking parts were for. It isn't easy to stump him, so it was pretty fun. I'll have to check back after he makes them and let you all know how they worked out. The upside to this is: when the night vision gets boring, he can take it apart and use the parts for other things. At least that is what Mr. T tells me, don't ask me, I'm not the tech master.
Last year Nutmeg got a violin for Christmas. Then she grew, a lot. So much so, that she needed to go up to the full size violin. So for Christmas number 2: she got another violin. That's okay though, she was excited for it to be more comfortable. It already sounds so much better than the smaller one. She just couldn't get her fingers in the right places anymore. She also got another crochet book, this one:
and is already planning which animals to make first.
This is a super fun project that I did for the girls for Christmas. This is the process of dying play silks. You use kool aid. It smelled really good. I felt so strange buying all the kool aid for it though, since we don't drink it here. These two pictures are about all I have of the process, after I cleaned off my black hand, I wished I had gotten a picture of that too! Oh well. The silks start off white, then you mix different kool aid packets together to make different colors. Here's a link to the one I used: http://www.gerberadesigns.com/triedandtrue/?p=390
Here are the girls, loving their new play silks. Seriously, hours of fun here. I can't wait to see what else they will come up with. I also made hankerchief sized ones for them to use to dress their dolls and stuffed animals and whatever else they can think of to do with them. Say good bye to all those dress ups! Woo hoo!!
Apple didn't really need anything. I mean really, baby number five. With two older sisters. She got a few teethers, like the one she's chewing on, and clothes. Since I thought we were done after Squirrel, I had gotten rid of most of the baby stuff. Oops. :)
We also got a family pass to the zoo. I couldn't decide how to 'wrap' that one up, so I put a bunch of their stuffed animals and animal figures around under the tree, and told them that they all had something in common. They couldn't figure it out. Some of the guesses were great though. Here's a few I remember: Rock guessed, "I know, they are all vertebrates!" Well, yes, they were, however not the answer I was looking for. Nutmeg guessed, "They are all God's creations!" She is so sweet, true statement though. We finally had to tell them. They just couldn't get it. But they are excited to go. The first thing Ginga' said after that was, "We have to go with the Halls', they have a pass too." Why, yes, they do. I'm sure we will do that. Their aunt has one as well, so I'm sure we will go with them as well. So, if any of our other good homeschooling friends have passes, let us know. It would be fun to meet up there.
I am so grateful for my family, the gospel and all that I have been given. I am so blessed. What a wonderful day. Mr. T and I didn't do much for each other, we got shoes. We both needed them. He got rechargeable batteries, and I am a proud owner of a food steamer. My old one broke a few years ago, and I am excited to have one again. I received a wonderful Christmas email from my dear friend in Hungary, and it just finished my morning off wonderfully. I am so blessed to have wonderful friends. I am excited for the upcoming year to see the growth that will come from my children. I love homeschooling for many reasons, but that is one of them. I get to be with them so much that I see how they are growing and learning. Fabulous.
