Cabin Fever

On Thursday we headed to Brian's parent's cabin for the weekend where we:

ate lots of yummy (easy to prepare) food,

hung out with a blue marshmallow,

saw some deer,

read a little bit, and watched a ton of movies.
It was fabulous!

Monthly Review

Yesterday Alyssa had her first group monthly review at MCP. Each month we meet with our advisor to report on how things are going and where we are in our lesson plans, but every few months we have a group show and tell, where each child can report on something they've been learning about. Alyssa made a ziggurat (ancient Mesopotamian temple) out of blocks and talked a bit about it. She also shared a book she wrote a couple of weeks ago (all on her own) about her new Moxie doll that she was so excited to finally earn enough money to buy. She was so excited to share her ziggurat, and she practiced what to say about it, but when it came time for her turn, she just said, "I made a ziggurat....And here's my book..." and then she read her book.

(For the life of me, I can not get this picture to not be sideways. Sorry!)

All of the kids were so cute. Most of them shared poems they had either memorized or written themselves, a couple shared reports they had done on animals, and there was one little boy who read a story he wrote summarizing most of the story of Star Wars. He also had a stack of papers with him that turned out to be recipes for Strawberry Waffles. From the amused look his mom had, the recipe idea was all his own. He actually drew and wrote on each paper, instead of making copies. The recipe had a picture of a brown square with lines in it (the waffle, of course) with a big, bloody looking smear across the top of it, and across the top of the paper it said to get a waffle, put strawberries on it and whipped cream on it. I can't find the paper, but I wish I could so I can copy it - his spelling was so cute!

Up and Running

I started setting up another blog a few months ago to post videos to, but then I never did anything to it. I know a lot of people just put videos on their normal blog, but I don't want to do that, because I don't want to have to edit the written content of video posts when I have my blog printed. Yeah, it might not make sense, but when do I ever really make sense? So now, Jacks Family Movie Productions is now officially in use, if you're interested in seeing our family in action.

Sorry For The Fuzziness

This is what happens when Brian helps get the kids ready for bed.

And they love it!

Happy Birthday Marcus!

Marcus celebrated his second birthday Friday (and Saturday). For only having one other birthday before, this kid knew exactly what to do. We had a pile of french toast with a candle stuck in the top for breakfast, sang him happy birthday, and the second I set the plate in front of him, he blew out the candle. He was a pro unwrapping presents - definitely a pro at being excited about the presents. Brian's grandma even gave him two loaves of banana bread, which he loves, and he opened them up and screamed, "Nana bud! Nana bud!" and danced around the living room.

He also got a Spiderman boppy thing that he loved even before it was unwrapped, a Fisher Price "cd player," a train track set to supplement Ethan's train track set so they don't keep fighting over the curvy and straight pieces, and a semi-truck car carrier. Between us, grandmas and grandpas, and aunts and uncles, the kid made out pretty well.

He actually took a nap right before his party on Saturday, and then woke up, and went back to sleep, spending the first half hour of his party sleeping on Brian's lap.

He loved his cake. Ethan suggested the dinosaur cake, and he was quite happy with that. He also loved his cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Before I could frost them, he got to one and ate the top off of it. So I frosted that one last, and took some of the leftover frosting from the dinosaur cake to put an "M" on the top of his special, half-eaten cupcake. Then, when I left all of the cupcakes on the counter until the party, with specific instructions to everyone to leave them alone, I found Marcus reaching for globs of frosting from his cupcake, even though it was on the second row from him. I just thought it was hilarious that he left all of the other cupcakes alone.

Marcus is the sweetest little guy. He is still such a cuddler, and he loves to give hugs and kisses. Brian's dad is one of his favorite people. He adores "Bampa" and can even recognize his truck when we're traveling around town. He loves to help me cook. He always pushes a chair into the kitchen so he can stand beside me and help put ingredients in or stir for me. Sometimes he won't give up the spoon for me to have a turn. Oh, he also loves books. He loves to sit and look at the pictures of any book. We are extremely glad to have Marcus in our family!

Ruffles and Stuff

I stumbled upon a new blog this afternoon. It's called Ruffles and Stuff and it's written by a lady named Disney. This woman is a genius! She buys frumpy clothes at thrift stores and turns them into adorable clothes for herself and her daughter. I've spent the last hour just drooling over each post, thinking, "I want a dress like that" or "Oh, I want to make something like that so bad!" We actually had a very productive morning, but it doesn't look like it, because I let the kids raid the Halloween candy bucket after lunch while I was skimming through post after post, and the dining room looks like a sugared-up tornado blew though. You think I would have noticed Ethan and Marcus coming to me every five seconds, asking, "Mom, could you open this please?" and "Momo! grunt," respectively.

But no, I was too busy looking at things like:

This dress made out of a thrift store skirt

This lamp shade

A scarf made out of a t-shirt

A bolero made from a shirt that had gotten too short for her


This picture, made form an old frame and twigs from her yard

And this cute shirt made out of dollar store thermal underwear

I want to spend a few more hours on her site, getting ideas for ways to make my life more "ruffly," recycled, and pretty, but it's going to have to wait until later. Brian just called to say he's on his way home (early today!) and I have to clean up all the candy wrappers and lunch dishes so it doesn't look like I've been loafing for the past hour and a half.

edited to add: And from her site, I found Wardrobe Refashion, where everyone makes a pledge to recycle and refashion their old clothes, instead of throwing them out and buying new ones. I don't know if I'll be hard core enough to take the challenge, but it would be fun to try. I've actually got a bag of clothes that have been waiting to go to Goodwill for a month or so. I think I'll go take a look at what I can do.

Thankful Tree

{2009}
Some of the things on the list: friends, Dad and Mom, our family, our ward, fishing, computers, good food, Book of Mormon, our swing set, to have Brian live with us, sleep, music, exercise, we have such good kids, date night, Jesus, America, home school, our car, the Gospel, work, happy people. There's also a lot of scribbly leaves that the boys did which could mean anything.

Halloween Fun

Last night we went to a carnival and trunk-or-treating at the church. Alyssa went through the maze four or five times, and she loved running around with her friends. She went around the parking lot with Emily McShane.


Brian and I went as the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter. It was fun wearing that costume again.

Marcus loves trick-or-treating. What? All I have to do is walk around the parking lot and people give me candy? Okay! He wore his eye patch last night, and he looked so cute!

Friday Halloween Fun

We went trick-or-treating at Brian's parent's house on our way to a carnival put on by the city of Richland.

Alyssa is a sun princess. Ethan is a Transformer. We took the boots off of him after a little while, because it was hard for him to walk in them. We tested them several times while we were making them, and he could easily walk around our house, but I guess tests are never quite like the real thing.

Marcus ended up being a pirate. He did not want to take his costume off at the end of the night. He threw such a fit and fought like crazy to get his arms back into the vest.

The carnival was a lot of fun. We took my nephew, Michael, because he was to be babysitting the kids while Brian and went to the Ransom's Halloween party afterward. At the carnival there was a hayride through Howard Amon Park, a maze, and a ton of games in the community center. The kids had a blast!

Brian and I went to the Ransom's party as a winged, but not-winged demon and a gypsy, respectively. Brian was winged, but not-winged, because I got him some rockin' demon wings from Value Village, but he couldn't get past the whole "fairy" thing associated with wings, so he didn't wear them after going to his parent's house. We painted his face dark, and he was wearing red eye contacts, which looked really cool.

We had a ton of fun at the Ransom's. Brian and NaDell kicked everyone's rears at Apples to Apples, then we played boys verses girls Catchphrase. I was really hungry, so I had two turkey sandwiches (sorry to anyone who didn't get one!) and a ton of NaDell's yummy pumpkin cookies.

Carving Pumpkins

Picking My Battles...And Just Barely Winning

Ethan refuses to wear clothes. He prefers to wear pajamas or just his underwear. Now, for a four year old, this isn't a huge problem, but when he wears one pair of pj's to bed, and then a new pair the next day, and so on and so on, he runs out of clean pajamas pretty quickly. So this morning, when he kicked and screamed when I tried to force him to get dressed, I laid his clothes out on the dressing room floor and told him he didn't get breakfast until he was dressed. You can see from the underwear-clad picture that it's not exactly phasing him. We'll see how hungry he gets in a couple of hours.

Oh, and he's standing on the chair behind me and saying, "Are you putting H's in it, Mom?"


Update 8:30 - Ethan said, "Mom, I'm in my chair. I'm ready for beckfust." I told him that he needed to put his clothes on to have breakfast, he said okay, then disappeared upstairs for five minutes and came back down again in his underwear. He is now (8:45) sitting at the table, stirring imaginary things in his bowl and saying, "Beckfust please!" and "Cerul please!"


Update 10:49 - I guess we're having an early lunch. Ethan is sitting at the table saying, "Can I have my hanwich now?" Then when I tell him he can have his sandwich as soon as he puts his clothes on, he yells "I hate cothes!" Can you see his pants and a shoe on the table? It wouldn't be hard for him to put them on...


Update 10:58 - Victory! And he's enjoying his grilled cheese right now.

Update 11:10 - He's now on his second grilled cheese sandwich. I wonder why he's so hungry?

Tombstone Tales A Success

This is me, being all ghostlike, because Megan tried really hard, but the pictures kept turning out blurry. And the next picture is Megan and the other girl playing Elaine Compton. They became fabulous friends over the weekend.

Oh, Megan and I had a wonderful weekend! Thursday's rehearsal wasn't nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be. We actually only went through the first and last of our parts so the Grimm Reapers would know what to listen for. KEPR news came out and taped a segment for Friday morning's news. Megan was interviewed for it, and she was so cute!

Friday morning was cold and extremely rainy. We had school groups come through, and they all crowded under canopies with us dead people. It was fun to see that the elementary kids came through with coats and hats, and the middle schoolers were mostly wearing sweaters.

In the second or third group through, there was a woman who gasped and took a step back when I said that my dad was hung. Surprising her surprised me so much that I chuckled, and I had to force back a smile when I was talking about my dad dying.

Friday even's session was dry, but cold. I had on two layers of long sleeved shirts, and tights and jeans on under my costume. I was so glad that we had all morning to practice on kids before doing "the real thing." It was so fun!

Saturday afternoon was great, because my parents and Grandma Yeats, and Brian's mom and grandma came through. It was a little hard to get into character in the daylight after doing it in the dark the night before, but it was still fun.

Saturday evening was the best, because we all knew what to expect, and I also had on an extra sweater and long johns. The baseball player and the military guy and I got together to talk while we weren't performing, and that made it fun. The military guy actually works as a history teacher at Pasco High, and it was fun to talk with him about which teachers still work there and what all the programs are doing.

After cleaning up on Saturday evening, we all got together at a local restaurant for dinner. Megan and I are on the list to be a part of "Night at the Museum" that CREHST puts on in February, and we're excited for that. It was so fun to have a vacation from the kids (Thanks Mom, Diane, and Christina for watching them!) and to do something completely different and new for a few days.

Jenny Koppin

Tonight is the dress rehearsal for Tombstone Tales, and then we do it for real, bright and early tomorrow morning. I think I'm ready. I've only been able to run through my part completely through from memory just a few times. I tried to go through it again last night while I was folding laundry while the kids were going to bed, but I kept getting interrupted. Alyssa needed more water and I told her to wait, Ethan started coughing so hard that he threw up, then Marcus saw all the attention that Ethan was getting, so he started coughing to try to get me over to him, which caused him to start coughing for real until he threw up, too. Once the boys were asleep, I still had some laundry to fold, so Alyssa promised to be quiet long enough for me to get through my part just once.

Since I've never been able to successfully practice while the kids are not in bed, I'm going to type out my part to you. So here we go. Ahem.

My name is Jenny Crawford Koppin. I was born back east in 1858, but when I was small my family and I headed South. My father was a newspaperman and printer. Naturally, he kept up with current events, and the Civil War captured his constant attention. It didn't take long for Father, a sympathetic man by nature, to feel that the South was being misrepresented in print. When he expressed his views, he was branded a Southern Sympathizer and became an outcast in his own community. Southern Sympathizers were never welcome and rarely safe in Northern towns. Well, ever the determined optimist, and despite protests made by mother, Father decided to pack up the buckboard with his printing tools and supplies and see if he could offer his services to organize publicity and make more appropriate posters for the Confederacy.

Father knew that to make his plan succeed he would need to go straight to the top. But Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis were hard men to request an audience with. Security measures had been tightened considerably, so we drove the team as far south as we could, avoiding any Union posts, and finally made it to the Confederate line. The guards of the outpost weren't exactly the cream of Southern aristocrats, and father, despite a very thorough explanation, was apprehended by them when they didn't agree with his self imposed mission. And he was lynched. Right then and there, without a trial or anything.

Mother and us were put on a horse and told to ride outta there as fast as we could or we would meet the same fate. Mother was beside herself, as you can imagine, with where to go, so she did the only thing she could think of, and that was to go to our nearest relatives, which were in Minnesota. We ended up staying there for quite a while. I completed my education at Winona college and taugh school in Minneapolis. My brothers grew into fine young men with a pioneering spirit. They had been wooed by the cheap land being so attractively advertised in the west, and they convince mother and me to go with them.

We traveled to Ellensburg in the new state of Washington in 1890 by the Northern Pacific Railroad. What an experience it was to see new lands as they flew by the window. Ellensbrug had suffered a great fire the year before, but it was a progressive town, and had already made impressive strides in rebuilding. A new college opened the next year, the State Normal School, which I enrolled in for a certificate to teach in Washington. School was different then. Tuition and books were free, and I got room and board for four dollars a week.

My brother, Johnny, had been out prospecting a suitable homestead in 1892, and he found us a nice piece just North of here at Waluke Slope. We built a cabin out there, but planned on spending most of our time in Ellensburg, visiting the farm only as necessary. It was on one such visit that a young German man knocked on our door and asked if he could join us for a meal. This was not an unusual occurrence, as people were often stopping by on their way through. Frederich Koppin was his name. I took an instant liking to him, and as his passes through our area became more frequent, so did his visits to our farm. He would often spend several days with us at Waluke. He was a kind man, and we always looked forward to his visits.

Well, in late November 1892, I became Mrs. Jennie Koppin. Frederich decided that rather than move us to his homestead in Idaho, that we would remain here, among family. I was forever greatful to him for that decision. How I woul have missed my mother and brothers had we moved. We spent the first few years of our marriage in Ellensburg, but after Mother died, we came to live permanently in Waluke. The Ellensburg house was much more comfortable, I can asssure you, but after visiting Waluke one time and finding the back door broken open with our belongings strewn about and several items missing, we felt the move was necessary.

It seems strange to think now, but when Frederich and I first met, he couldn't read or write. Even his English was broken. I guess it was providence that brought me, a teacher, to him. We spent long hours together pronouncing grammer, and practicing spelling and reading. Simple book at first, but as Frederich progressed, so did the books. He was a good student and a smart man.

Frederich became quite the farmer out here. He was of the opinion that anything would grow if we could only get water to it. Of course, irrigation was always a problem. Even if we dug the ditches deep, and long enough, the soil was so sandy that the water would leech out of it before it could reach the crops. But once we started using sprocket wheels to move the water from the river, we could reliably grow more. Lets see, we planted fruit trees, butternut trees, all sorts of vegetables, peanuts, berries, sugar cane, maize, alfalfa, and all sorts of flowers. Frederich was proud of all these, but his pride and joy was the Black Lily of the Nile, and extraordinary flower with a very unpleasant odor.

While Frederich enjoyed experimenting in the garden, I taught school part time at White Bluffs. You see, at that time, once a woman was married, she was not allowed to work more than part time outside the home. I made up for it by tutoring in art. I was actually the first teacher at the new White Bluffs school, which was made entirely out of driftwood logs retrieved from the Columbia. At first White Bluffs was part of the Yakima School District, and the superintendent and I exchanged words on more than one occasion about his views on education. I had to write several searing and poignant letters to him until, thankfully, we became part of the Franklin District.

Waluke was a pretty desolate place. Our nearest neighbor was nigh four miles downriver. We kept a raft on our banks, and if the flow was right, I could reach them in about 40 minutes. Then, if I needed to, I could borrow a horse for the return trip.

Being that our neighbors were so far away, any chance to get together was a welcome thing. Celebrations were a big part of pioneering life. One Christmas we held a party and invited everyone in the area. We had over 20 guests that year, and they all stayed late - 3 or 4 in the morning, as I recall. No one wanted to make the long trek home in the snow to a cold, dark house. Babies were put ot sleep on the coats and wraps on our bed, and the adults became more exuberant as the night went on. George Borden place the accordian, and we began to dance. Now, there's always one stickler in the bunch. Mrs Brice was the minister's wife, and she made such a fuss at our outrageous behavior. She was incensed that we dare allow dancing in our home, and demanded to be taken home immediately. Mrs. Craig sided with her while she was here, but once Mrs. Brice was gone, Mrs. Craig readily enjoyed in the festivities.

That was the year the Columbia forze over solid enough to drive a team of horses over. The river was wide and swift and rarely froze over for more than a week at a time. I remember how eery it was to cross on foot. You could hear the water rushing under your feet. Winter was always long and cold. I would cook nearly all day to keep the house warm.

Our house was the first post office in the area. All the mail came through us, though it only came every three months or so, as we weren't on a direct line.

By 1901 there were so many new settlers in the area that we felt it was high time to form an organization of the first comers to bind us together and furnish some entertainment. It was under that pretense that the Old Settlers Union was formed. I was the first president of the club, and though the idea was not mine to begin with, I enjoyed the post. It gave us another reason to come together with neighbors and enjoy a little song and dance.


And then the Grim Reaper, who will be leading the groups around will say that I died in 1928 in an automobile accident. And then I'll do again for the next group, all day long on Friday and Saturday. I'm honestly more nervous for the rehearsal tonight than for the actual performance tomorrow. We start out tomorrow with a bunch of school groups, so I'm not worried about that at all. But tonight I'll have to do it in front of my fellow portrayers, some of which are professional actors. I know that in the end it'll all be okay, and overall I'm excited for the whole thing. If I get pictures tonight, I'll add them to the post.

A Little Bit Taller

A couple of years ago Brian got a blank wooden board for Father's Day. It took a couple of years for me to finish it, and last spring we finally had our official growth chart board. (You can see the yellow on the bird where Marcus helped when I was putting it together.) We measured the kids again on Sunday and found that Alyssa and Ethan had both grown about an inch and Marcus about two inches since last April.



We also discovered that at 1 year, eleven months, Marcus is about an inch taller than Ethan was at 2 years, 2 months. Their current height difference is about 4 inches, but people are always asking if they're twins. I guess it's only going to get worse as they grow!

Blog-crastination

Hey, did you see that? Did you see how I combined the words "blog" and "procrastination" for my post title? Yeah...I missed it, too.

So it seems like all my posts for the past while, and probably the next little while, are going to be "this is all the random things we've been up to" posts, because I keep procrastinating the little things I want to blog about. Between homeschooling, cooking, laundry, dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping...and all those fun things mothers do, blogging has definitely gotten pushed down on the priority list. I've been pretty busy with all those things I mentioned - that, and I've been spending all of my free time reading Sherwood Smith's Inda and The Fox, and they're pretty huge books.

So this is what we've been up to.


Alyssa played Princess Pansy in her Theater for Young Readers class's rendition of "The Frog Prince." She was so excited, and she read beautifully.


Brian turned 33 last Thursday. We took him out to dinner at Red Robin (Red Robins, as my kids call it). The kids and I gave him ties and an oilskin G. Loomis fishing hat, and we made Grandma Orton's Chocolate Dessert instead of a cake. After dinner, we stopped at his office, and he snuck out the leftover two pieces of red velvet cake they had at lunch so I could try it. He had to sneak it, because they were also celebrating his dad's and someone else's birthdays, so it wasn't just his cake. It was delicious.


My niece, Megan, and I met with Stacia from the Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science, and Technology (CREHST) Museum at the Resthaven Pioneer Cemetery to go over the logistics of our parts for Tombstone Tales. Tombstone Tales is a living history tour where groups of people will be lead around the cemetery, where they will come across people like Megan and me, who will be dressed up to tell about the life of someone who lived in our area a long time ago. I am portraying Jennie Crawford Koppin, and Megan is Elaine Grace Compton, who died when she was twelve. I'm super excited about this event. I found out about Tombstone Tales when I was checking the museum hours over the summer, so I called to see how to be a part of it, and they were thrilled to have volunteers. If you're in the area, and you're interested, give CREHST a visit to get your tickets. It's going to be on the 23rd and 24th of October, and it's going to be really, really cool.

Finished!

Before continuing on with this post, I must insist that you read the title with a French accent. It makes it that much better.

On Saturday we finished putting together the swing set, and we love it! Over the couple of weeks of putting it together we had over my parents, Brian's brother and parents, and our neighbors. It was so fun setting it up, and I'm excited to be able to send the kids outside without them whining, "But there's nothing to do!" I love it.

Life As Usual

I don't have anything terribly exciting to report. There's a lot going on right now, but most of it is just...life.

We're putting up a huge swing set in our backyard. It's one of the big wood ones that normally go for four or five hundred dollars. My parents bought it on sale for two hundred a couple of years ago, and since they haven't put it up yet and don't have plans anymore to put it up, they sold it to us for one hundred. Fabulous! We've got the middle tower put together so far, and hopefully we'll finish the rest of it this weekend. It will be wonderful to have something (besides the hose) to keep the kids happy and busy outside.

Home school is going great. I love it. It's so fun having Alyssa around with us all day, and it is so fun watching her learn. On Monday we picked up a school desk off of Craigslist so she could have a place to sit with her feet flat on the floor and her bum flat on the seat, and it has helped so much with getting her to sit still. Also, by suggestion of my mom, I got her a binder with designated folders for each subject that I put her work into each day. That way she can look through the binder and see what she needs to do to be done each day. The schedule right now is that she has thirty minutes of Phonics, then Math, then we do Language Arts together for however long it takes, then we have snack and recces. Then she comes back in and does Phonics and Math again, then we do either History or Science together and we're done! Thrown into our days is also writing practice and reading time, which we do sometime in the afternoon or evening when we can fit it in, but mostly we're trying to be done with everything by lunch time. On Mondays she has an acting class through MCP in the morning, and Tuesdays she goes into MCP for P.E., an art class, Spanish, and cooking. Really, I am incredibly impressed so far with our curriculum (K12) and MCP.

Ethan is dead set on being a Transformer for Halloween, even though he only knows about Transformers because of the fruit snack. With him being so small (almost four but still fits 2T clothes) I'm afraid that we'll have a hard time finding a cool costume that will be able to fit him, and I have no idea how to make a Transformer costume. When he woke up just a bit ago, we had a little talk about the whole thing, and I haven't made any progress.

Carrie: Hey, Ethan, what would you think about being Spiderman for Halloween?

Ethan: No, I want oo be sumpfing else.

Carrie: What do you want to be?

Ethan: A Ransformer.

Carrie: But I don't know how to make a Transformer costume. Do you know how to make a Transformer costume?

Ethan: Um, Daddy does.

Carrie: I don't know if Dad does either, Honey. Well, what does a Transformer look like?

Ethan: (thinking very hard) I don't know.

Then why do you want to be one?!? He is not budging. Not at all. Looks like we're going to have to make a trip to check out the costumes at Costco (I've heard they have Bumblebee), and if we don't have any luck, Brian and I are going to have to get creative. Alyssa wants to be a moon princess, which should be easy, because all she wants is a "beautiful blue dress with sparkles for stars," and Marcus is going to be Batman, because one of the first things he learned to say (er, sing) was, "Na na na na na na na na...BATMAN!"

etHan

Yesterday, when Ethan woke up, he slowly came down the stairs, and when I greeted him from the bottom, he said in his little half asleep voice, "Mom, I love the letter H!"

We don't know why he loves the letter H so much, but ever since he learned his letters, H has been his absolute favorite.

Last week, at his cousic Tegel's birthday party, we were getting out lunch sacks to put the kids' goodies in, and when I put Ethan's name on his, I asked if he wanted a star or smiley face on it, and he said, "No, I want an H." So he had a little brown bag with his name, and a huge capital H on it.

And now, he's sitting on my lap, watching me type. A minute ago he asked, "Are you doing yours work, Mom?"

"I'm actually writing about you," I said.

"Oh," and he thought for a moment. "Are there H's in it? Mom, are you putting H's in it?

First Day of School

We finally got all of our registration stuff figured out, and we signed up for K12 yesterday, so we were able to start school today. Yea! My neighbor told me that Alyssa told her that I keep saying that we'll start school "next week." Apparently, every week, I say "We'll start school next week," but yesterday I was able to tell Alyssa that we would start "tomorrow."

We started off by saying the Pledge of Allegiance and doing our Daily Board, which we made because Ethan's always asking, "What day is today? Is it Saturday?" Saturdays are the days the kids are allowed to watch movies, so he always wants it to be Saturday.

Then we spent the rest of the morning going back and forth from the computer to the table, doing Phonics, Math, Science, and Language Arts. We're having adapted lessons right now, because our materials will take a couple of weeks to get to us, plus we're flying through some of the reading and math lessons, because they're very much a review, and I want to get Alyssa to her right level as soon as possible. Right now the math is, "How many lady bugs are there?" and "Which group has more?" I think it's good for Alyssa to review some things, but I obviously don't want to spend a huge amount of time on it.

For Language Arts we read a story from Japan about a sparrow who was helped by a kind old woman, and to repay her he sat on her roof and sang songs. The woman across the street, however, didn't appreciate his singing, so she cut his tongue, and he left. It turns out the kind woman and her husband go in search of him, and he gives them a choice to take home one of two baskets. They choose the smaller basket, because they figure the larger basket would be taking too much from him, and when they get home, they find a small treasure in the basket. When the mean old woman sees this, she goes in search of the sparrow, and she chooses the larger basket, which has "stinging and biting" insects in it, and they chase her out of town. It was a fun story to read, and Alyssa drew a picture of her favorite scene, which we're supposed to save for a future lesson. I'm excited to see what we'll do next!

Stand for Something

Ethan is using the toilet like a big boy does, and he couldn't be more proud of himself.

Why Didn't They Break A Mattresss A Long Time Ago?

My children are willingly and happily clearing the table, doing the dishes, folding laundry, cleaning up their toys, making their beds, putting their dirty clothes in the laundry basket...the list goes on and on. They're learning the value of work, they're learning that work is really not that bad, and that is has its rewards. I hope that by the time they earn Alyssa's mattress that these things will have become habits for them.

We have each chore listed at a very low value, like 5, 10, or 25 cents, but it's surprising how it adds up each day. Alyssa is finally understanding the concept of money, and how each coin has its own value. Up until now, money has been some vague concept she didn't quite get, even though we've tried to explain it multiple times. This is very exciting!

Hellians

Yesterday the kids tore apart Alyssa's bed, moved the mattress around the room, folded the mattress in half somehow (permanently bending the springs), pulled on a white string, and kept pulling until the binding around the edges was completely torn off. Brian and I have both looked at the mattress to see if it can be fixed. It is dead. Very, very dead.


So the kids are sleeping on the floor for a while. I was pretty proud of myself for keeping my cool through the whole ordeal, until I called both my mom and mother-in-law to ask, "What the heck do I do with these kids?" There were also some tears shed by the children as they watched me move their beds to the basement. Alyssa said she didn't want to live with our family anymore, that she wanted to go to the orphanage, because she didn't like the way I was treating her. That's when I called Brian's mom, and pretended like I was inquiring about orphanages in the Tri-Cities and did they have any room for a seven year old girl? When I got off the phone, though, she gave me a hug and said she didn't want to leave.


Brian and I talked this morning, and we've decided to make a list of chores that are worth different amounts of money, and all three kids are in charge of raising money to buy a new mattress for Alyssa. Whatever they can raise on their own, we'll match. I want it to take a while, though. I want them to learn that they have to take care of our things, and follow the rules. There are no toys in their bedroom. They are not supposed to be playing in there anyway, and they know that.

Which brings us to my other resolution. I have to be more diligent and stick to the rules in my life, too. Yesterday started out fine, but Brian didn't have to leave for work until around 8:00, so I put off summer school for a while, then summer school got messed up when I found out we weren't registered for K12, and Alyssa had apparently taken the wrong placement test, so we would have to do it again, really fast, then I gave her yet another wrong placement test, since she's really supposed to be in second grade, instead of first, and all craziness broke loose, and after we got all that figured out, I decided to can our routine and work on designing t-shirts for our homeschool. (Our mascot is the jackalope, by the way.) So if I had stuck to our routine, instead of playing on the computer, the kids wouldn't have been left alone upstairs for so long without me checking on them. My new motto is "I'm sticking to it." I'm sticking to our routines, our rules, and I'm definitely not changing my mind when I tell the kids to either do or not do something, and they whine to me about it.

And the kids are now awake, so I've got to finish up and turn off the computer, so we can start our day.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

On Friday we went to Big 5 and bought a 3 person inflatable boat and a pair of oars, then headed to Leslie Groves to take it out on the river. We rowed out to the island, where the kids picked snake grass, and chased after beetle looking things. Alyssa and I went out and swam in the water for a bit, after we found an area not taken over with sea weed. Usually, when we play by the river, Ethan and I have this conversation:

Ethan: Are there harks?

Carrie: No, there's aren't any sharks.

Ethan: Are there hocadiles?

Carrie: No, there aren't any crocodiles.

But this time, he didn't ask any questions, he just jumped in the boat, ready to go. Marcus, on the other hand, was very unsure of the whole thing. He's not a big water person, but he does end up enjoying it once he's used to the idea.

So This Is Why The Pounds Are Piling On

Last night Brian wanted to show Alyssa a song on his computer, so when we gathered in our bedroom for family prayer, he played the song for her, and the kids started dancing. We ended up postponing family prayer for close to an hour while Brian played the DJ, saying such smooth lines as, "You thought that I was BJ, but I'm the DJ," while the kids and I danced all around the bedroom. About halfway through, when I was thinking about how much fun everyone was having (and about how great a workout dancing is!) I realized that it's been forever since we've had a family dance party. We used to have them all of the time; we'd dance in the living room, the kitchen, wherever on a multiple times a day basis. What happened to that? I think it also explains why I haven't been as chipper as my normal self, too. We need to dance more.




*When I wrote the word, "chipper," I thought, "That's a dorky word. I need to use another word." But then I looked it up to find another word, and the definition is, "marked by or being in sprightly good humor and health," and it is actually, the perfect word. So "chipper" stays.

Went to a Garden Party

Today we had a garden party to celebrate Alyssa's birthday. The kids painted flower pots, played hot potato and "Flower, Flower, Weed," had dirt cake, and planted flowers in their beautifully painted pots. We had the party in Alyssa's flower garden, which has marigolds and huge sunflowers that she and Grandma Jacks planted at the beginning of the summer, but sadly, all of the pictures I took were facing the desolate, barren part of the garden area. The kids all got along well, and we had a fabulous time!

Alyssa's birthday was Sunday, but it's stretched for three days, because we had cake for Family Home Evening with the cousins yesterday, and her official birthday party today. We've learned that she is quite the diva on her birthday, but we also taught her about being a good hostess today. We were trying to teach the kids to wait until everyone had their cake before eating, and some of them said that Alyssa needed to take the first bite since she was the birthday girl, but we explained to them that it was because she was the hostess. She had to make sure that each of her guests had a plate of food, and she would take a bite to signal to everyone that it was then okay to eat. Alyssa kept looking around as we served the kids, and all of the others had their eyes glued to Alyssa to watch for the first bite. It was so fun to watch!


Alyssa's birthday always seems to fall at a time when we're really busy and I'm not posting on the blog very often. I haven't been very good at doing special birthday posts for her, but I will say that we love her so, so very much. She is such a sweet little girl who always makes our lives exciting. I'm so proud of her for all of the progress she's made in the last year with sitting still and learning to read and helping so much around the house. I have loved watching her grow from being a tiny, busy baby into the beautiful busy girl that she is now.

Success!

We have little shoots of grass in our backyard!