Ella

We Trick or Treat at a Noah's Ark festival that is held at CUW's campus. The children's ministry group puts on a puppet show, crafts, snacks and games and then the kids trick or treat in the dorms. Very fun and avoids all the scary aspects of Halloween that we are not so found of. Ella invited her bf Grace and the two happened to dress as Laura and Mary Ingalls. Precious.

Aaron

Aaron's fourth birthday was a few weeks after Isaiah's 10th. All of last year he has told people who ask that he is 6. (in an effort to be as old as his big sister, I'm sure.) So, how does he answer that question now? "I'm 7!" We're still working on that. :)

He's finally showing interest in writing his name and identifying letters. I so enjoy watching that happen.

Band

We attended our first official band concert as parents last weekend. The last time I was at a concert, I was in the band. It seems like years have flown when I experience something like this.

Jonah started studying trumpet this fall, he attends band practice once a week and practices most days. I think he loves it. We're excited for him and have encouraged him with our stories of band trips and fun. He's also started working on guitar and is still taking piano. I think he may have found a niche.

Even Aaron enjoyed the concert, tapping his foot and asking the names of the songs. It was only 40 minutes, perfect for his attention span. We enjoyed having Grandma and Grandpa with us too!

Isaiah went to the concert thinking he would like to play the flute (they had been listening to instrument sounds online and the flute appealed to him). He left the concert convinced that the clarinet would be a better choice. Too many girls in the flute section. :)

10th birthday sleepover

I had promised Isaiah a party with friends for his 10th birthday. October 29th was that day, so he sent invitations out to 4 friends for a 3PM to 10 AM extravaganza. They played capture the flag, ate, played pool, ate, played Legos, ate, SIM city on the computer, you get the idea. They set up sleeping bags in our basement rec-room and put Isaiah's Lego gifts together until Ron told them lights out. They were asleep by midnight and up at 5:30 the next morning... hungry. I sent down crackers and juice and turned on the oven to bake up some Monkey Bread.. our staple Birthday breakfast (two packages of refrigerator biscuits broken and rolled into balls, then rolled in butter and cinnamon/sugar. Place in bundt pan and bake at 350 degrees until they smell done. (sorry I don't use a timer for these, maybe 45 minutes?) We also had bacon, orange slices and apple cider.

I have to say, it was a great time because it was a great bunch of kids. I've made a note to myself in the future... Birthday sleepovers are no problem as long as the kids know a few basic things...
1) How to be respectful to adults and other kids
2) How to be laid back about taking turns and helping others
3) How to use their manners.
I heard lots of pleases and thank yous from this group and was very pleased at how well they all got along even though some had never met. I would do it again in a minute... well, I can say that now that I've had a some time to catch up on sleep.

One cat is not enough...

for four children. Our cat, Butterscotch, has proven herself to be a "one-kid cat" and that kid is Jonah. She sleeps on his bed, if he sits on the couch, she sits on his lap. The rest of us are just here for her amusement and to bring her food and water, I guess. Well, this has led to Isaiah and Ella asking for more pets. Isaiah thinks a dog would be swell and Ella has begun longing for a kitten. For the last month she has been asking every day, heartbroken when I tell her we don't intend to have any more indoor animals. And then an add came across the homeschool wire for two free rabbits, hutches included. We met the rabbits and the kids loved them.

This is Ella with "Cookies and Cream". She carries it around singing to it like a little mother. She's in rabbit heaven.

The hutches came to us in a bit of disrepair. The shingles were not attached and they needed a painting. Thankfully, I have three kids who were perfect for this job. They handled it all themselves, with a little advice from Ron about shingles. Here's the before picture:

One coat of primer and two coats of paint later (with almost as much paint on Ella as there was on the hutch). We had our "new" hutches. Here's the crew. Isaiah is holding his rabbit, "Thumper".


By the way, they are both male rabbits. So, no baby rabbits in our future...for now. I had thought it would be a neat experience to have a female and see her have a litter. (Is that my husband groaning I hear?)

Frogapalooza

We have had an amazing number of frogs in our window wells. From the basement windows, it looks like a terrarium out there. The kids have collected a few times (they'll die down there if we don't pull them out). This particular morning we had at least 25 frogs in all shapes and color patterns. Today they came in with a tree frog that clung to Isaiah's finger. It's just been the year of "frogapalooza".

Aaron's first day of preschool

After lots of searching around and prayerful thought, Aaron headed off to preschool the beginning of Sept. It gives me more time to do some special projects with the older kids and gives him something of his own to experience. He was excited the first morning, but then evidently got some jitters and needed a little blanky time...

After some consoling from big sister, he looked much more ready to face the day. Way to go Aaron!

What we've been up to.

Baseball. The Washington County Fair. Jonah and Butterscotch in the 4-H Cat Show. Keeping up with my little garden. Visiting MN and having my parents and brother (from Japan) visit us. Making plans for building a bedroom in the basement for the older boys... they have out grown their little room upstairs. Swimming lessons. Birthday parties. Six flags. Noah's Ark Water park in WI Dells. The Laura Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, SD with my sister and her three children.

I love summer and am always sad when it draws to a close. I've been madly searching out curriculum and making my lists for what we need before we start school (hopefully mid-August). I'll let pictures say the rest...

Chicken love

Just to prove that our chickens have it pretty good... no more sitting incidents since I wrote about that a few months ago, I have to post this pic. It's one of my favorites.

We've started letting the chickens out into our back yard from time to time. They have an outdoor fenced area, but that has been pretty thoroughly scratched and picked, so now they get bored and wait for us at the fence gate. We can only have them out while we are watching them, to avoid them meandering over into either neighbors yard. They happily cluck, scratch and peck in the woods, dry leaves flying out behind them. Getting them back into the chicken yard has proved easier than I thought, all it takes is a white bucket. They'll follow us all over the yard just to see whats in the white bucket. Today's treat? strawberry tops, homemade pizza crusts and the corn cobs from lunch today.

We're done with school, Yeah, Yeah!

That's our happy dance this weekend... We're done with school, yeah! Yeah! We're done with school Yeah! Yeah!

It was a great end of the year.

Monday: Grandma M was here and had some home time with the kids before leaving mid morning. We hit the books for a couple of hours. Jonah left for his last track and field meet.

Tues: Ron stayed with E and A, I took Jonah and Isaiah to the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit at the Public Museum. It was awesome mainly because it started with artifacts from the Greek period, including a mosaic of Alexander the Great, then went on to the Romans with actual coins from the first century and more pottery, including copper tools from Pompeii. Then we entered the display of Jewish and Early Christian people, again of the first and second centuries. I don't know that I've every seen artifacts that are so old. We've covered ancient history this year, so the boys were able to truly appreciate most of what they saw. Those periods of history have truly captured our imaginations this year so seeing the artifacts in person was so inspiring. Sorry, no pictures. Cameras were not allowed.

Weds: Homeschool track and field day. We all went (Daddy too) and participated with 300 other homeschoolers.

Thurs: Finished book work with E and I, J divided up the reading he had left and did about 30 pages, saving the last 30 for Friday. Then went to the track and field picnic for Jonah's team. The team played games and had fun, the other kids and I played in the sun on the park play equipment. I got my first minor sunburn of the year. :)

Fri: E and I had a dentist appt. J stayed home to finish his reading. We ended the day with movies and brownies and ice cream on my fancy plates.

Ahhh, it's a great deal of work, but so, so rewarding. To God be the Glory for another year!!


I'll try to post some pics soon!

Don't sit on the Chicken!

Sometimes you hear yourself saying things as a parent and have to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Aaron LOVES our chickens. He would be out in the chicken yard every morning and all afternoon if I let him. He tosses food and bread crusts for them, follows them around, and loves to catch one and hold it for awhile. So, I wonder what was in his 3 year old mind when I looked out the window and saw him sitting on a chicken. Feet straight out in front of him, sitting calm as can be. So now, when he heads out the back door, we have this conversation.
me: "Aaron, are you going to nice to the chickens?"
Aaron: "Yes."
me: "Aaron, are you going to feed the chickens?"
Aaron: Yes."
me: "Aaron, will you promise me that you won't sit on the chickens?"
Aaron: "Yes Mom, I promise."

Needless to say, our egg counts have been decreasing this week. But Aaron is having a great time!

What did the chicken say...

... when it laid the egg on top? We don't know, but we think it was the equivalent of a 10 pound baby. I thought for sure it would be a triple or at least a double yolk, but no... just one yolk, which Isaiah scrambled and had for breakfast the next morning.

Perhaps this was her first egg of the summer? The chickens are laying more now- five eggs today (five/day is the average we are hoping for with seven 2yo chickens).

Now, if I could just get some success in the garden...

Maple Sugaring

Our big experiment this spring was a success! The kids and I bought four taps from our local hardware store (the one with the life size plastic horse in the window and an old cat meandering the aisles (I love it)), then tapped four of our maple trees. We learned that an eletric drill is much better than a hand drill for this job. (not enough arm strength here) Sap started flowing immediately. After collecting for a day, I started it boiling on the electric grill to avoid having to tend a fire all day long. This worked slowly, we never got a good boil going and the cost was rising steadily. Propane ain't cheap. Our first quart was a disaster. I watched for the telltale rising of the sap like a hawk, but unfortunately kept stirring it down at the same time. The result was burned marshmallow gunk . I threw away the whole jar and resolved to LEAVE IT ALONE next time!

The second attempt was a success and the kids begged for it as soon as they got up and saw the jar on the counter. I made crepes and they rolled and dipped them in little bowls of syrup. This stuff is too precious to waste!

After that, we changed to fire. The boys LOVED tending the fire with me and we all enjoyed being outside watching it boil. We got two more quarts this way at no cost (thanks to the stacks of dried wood we have), but four full days of effort. It was way more time intensive, but more satisfactory too. Next year we plan to double our efforts. If so we'll have almost a full years supply for our family if I'm stingy with it. So now you know why real maple syrup costs about $60 a gallon in the store!

Next time I'll nab a picture of the chickens who stared at us the entire time from their fenced in yard right next to the burn site. I guess they were hard up for entertainment after a long winter all cooped up. :)




Here's the finishing operations (filter, boil and can) and boys tending the fire.

Birthday girl

OK, so it was a month ago... but I just uploaded pictures today and here are some worthy of sharing. Ella had her golden birthday on March 7th. She wore a special flower to church and helped me decorate her cake.



The most exciting part came a week later when my sister and niece came ALL THE WAY from South Dakota to take a train with us into the American Girl Store in downtown Chicago. It was my first time on the train as well and I was thrilled with how smoothly it all went. Now that we realize this is at our backdoor, the options are limitless! (Kids under 12 ride free on weekends. Woo hoo!)

TV Star

A friend of Isaiah's called a month ago to invite him to spend an afternoon making a commercial for Mark Neuman, who is running for governor this fall. Sounded like a great opportunity. So, here are the results. He's wearing a blue sweater with tan stripes on one sleeve. And, no he doesn't go to a charter school, we're still homeschooling. They just needed some kids who were free on a Friday afternoon. :)

Good job Isaiah!

Good bye to a brave soul

One of the bravest men I've ever met died in an African village yesterday. He'll have no grave stone or obituary, just the memories of those who knew him. No one knows his exact age, he was born before it was considered important to keep track of those things. We guessed his age in his 70s when we knew him. At that time, he would think nothing of climbing 70 foot palm trees to collect coconuts or enter a cluttered, dark building to come out with his machete and a dead poisonous snake. I never saw fear on his face. We called him "Vieux Karr" Vieux means old in French and we might say Old Man Karr in English, but the term conveys more respect than that. It's more like "Papa Karr". He had no children who survived to care for him in his old age, so was cared for by the church he attended. He was well loved there as one of the few elderly people in what is a very young church. They are mourning him today and preparing his funeral. Good bye Vieux Karr. I look forward to meeting you again one day.

Clowning

Isaiah discovered clowning last weekend. I think he's found his calling.

The Golden Nugget

I call the subtitle of this post "The Golden Nugget" because of where we are in the child raising journey. When we moved to Wisconsin and I started a blog we had four children under 10. We were done moving and had every intention of settling in for the long haul- seeing our children go to high school and even college here, adding on to our home and improving on it as we are able. At that time (all of 2 1/2 years ago), high school years seemed very far away indeed. It struck me the other day though that the "Golden Nugget" is really half way gone. In another 2 1/2 years, my oldest starts high school. Gasp! And Gasp again! This truly takes my breath away. I have 2 1/2 years with him so close to me, with all of us waking to read and talk before breakfast and the beginning of our school day together. (Oldest plans to attend high school so he will no longer be in our home school at that time). After the shock, I am thanking God for the reality that has stared me in the face. Because now, today, I am so much more thankful than ever for the closeness that we share and loving that I am seeing this now and not on the eve of his leaving. They are growing up --so-o-o- fast. We are watching videos as we (attempt) to transfer them onto DVD that are bringing the reality of how fast they change home to me too. Hug your babies, your toddlers, elementary school and middle school students! They are so precious.

Science Fair 2010

Yesterday was an amazing day. We have spent the last month preparing for the science fair. Here are the projects that the kids entered....


Jonah made an electrostatic charge detector and used it to solve the problem of static electricity shocking us when we pet and play with our cats. He found that increasing humidity or using hand lotion helps alot to decrease shock. He won first place in his age category!


Isaiah did a series of plant experiments on corn and bean plants. He learned a ton about plant growth and why plants are green. He did a great job on his presentation.

Ella's Egg Experiment involved pickling an egg, learning how an egg is laid and how to tell the difference between a raw egg and hard boiled egg. She must have charmed the judge because she also one first place.

We came home to two messages on the answering machine from Ron telling us that he had passed the toughest part of his dissertation process. We have been praying for him and encouraging him since last spring and were ecstatic to receive this news. Here's the kids reaction...