ANDROOPALOOZA

An Andrew Family Christmas

2012-01-28T12:08:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite moments with family over Christmas:

Emma and Lily looking out the window of the train as we come to a particularly graffitied area:
Emma: Don't read that stuff, Lily, it's bad.
Lily: I can't read dat. Is it Yapanese?

Seeing that Grandma has graduated from merely using Post-it notes for everything imaginable to meticulously cutting the Post-its around her writing so she can now get approximately 40 notes from a single Post-it.

LeeAnn: Cheeseball!

Playing Go Fish:
Lily: Karen, do you have a koala?
Karen: Go fish.
Lily (holding her hand out): You lyin'!

Lily using Grandma's bathroom: (happily) This is where Daddy went potty when he was a little boy. (reconsidering) But I won't talk about dat. Pee is not funny.

Janet: Divide and conquer!

Samuel and Marie arguing about Samuel's food choices:
Marie: Licking broccoli occasionally does not count as eating vegetables!

Lily is so terrified of automatic flushing toilets that she will hop up midstream to avoid going down with the flow.

LeeAnn: Cheeseball!

Werewolves of Miller's Hollow.

Nauvoo Missionary: The bricks get their coloring from iron oxide...
Jacob: YESSS!!!

Watching the missionary at the Nauvoo blacksmith's make a little horseshoe.
Jacob: Now you have to try to find a horse that it fits on.
Nauvoo Missionary: You just stole my joke.

Do you remember that time it took us four hours to get home from Nauvoo?
Laura (yelling at the men in the other car after losing them for half an hour): Stay close to us, 136 takes some odd turns up...
Tom (being particularly snarky): We'll just stay on 136!
45 seconds down the road.
Laura: They're going to make a wrong turn again, I know it.
45.6 seconds down the road...

Emma and Lily

2012-01-28T11:33:00.001-08:00

Emma: Lily, sometimes you are SO cute!
Lily: Emma, I'm always cute.

Me vs the Crocodile

2012-01-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

I love, love, love teaching my kids to read, then being surprised when they do it. It's FABulous.

I love watching them all give hugs and kisses to each other after family prayer.

I love that they love to play together...all the time.

I love that they read to each other.

I love that when Ethan hurts his brother's feelings, he's worried that he Jake will remember him as unkind. He wants him to know and remember that he loves him.

I love that we don't watch TV.

I love that they don't care much about getting presents at Christmas.

I love that they thanked us no less than fifteen times when we brought them out for ice cream. I love that they are grateful.

I love that Jacob's favorite part of vacation was being with his ailing Grandpa, because 'he seemed lonely without us'.

I love that they are original thinkers. I am no good at raising parrots.

I love that they are still children for a bit longer.

I am officially declaring war on the ticking crocodile.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T17:35:00.001-08:00

The Key to Happiness and Goodness...

Bedtime conversations

2011-10-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

Mom: Did you have a bad dream?
Lily: Yeah.
Mom: Do you remember what happened?
Lily: There was a skeleton in Dad's closet.
Mom: He's got lots of those. Did you see it?
Lily: No. I just saw the doorknob wiggling and I yelled at Jacob to run upstairs because then it couldn't get us.
Mom: That is a scary dream. Are you still scared?
Lily: No.
I don't like skeletons.
I only like the skeleton in my body.

Mom: You sure were a big help today with all the little kids.

Emma: Yes. Little kids just really like me, I don't know why.

Mom: It's because you are so nice and always think of great things to do.

Emma: I guess so.

Mom: You are going to be a great mom with those kinds of talents.

Emma: I think so.

Jacob: I like Ethan.

Mom: What do you like about Ethan?

Jacob: He's nice. He wrestles with me and plays with me.

Mom: He really likes playing with you. He sure loves you.

Jacob: Yeah.

Ethan: ...General Sullivan carried out George Washington's orders to destroy a lot Iroquois villages in New York because they had been raiding the settlements. The French arrived a year later, General Rochambeau was in charge and they came to Rhode Island. The French also gave the Continental Army $20,000 in gold. Gold! The French defeated the British in a naval battle and that's what trapped General Cornwallis in. He had no where to go and that's ...

Mom: Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Cherish these days.

Cheerleaders

2011-09-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Watching football.

Ethan says,

"I don't like cheerleaders.

All they do is scream and say, 'Look at my pits!'"

I see his point.

Typo

2011-09-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

Ethan was talking about...something.

I don't know what it was about.

But he misspoke and said something he didn't mean to say.

"Oh, that's not what I meant. I made a typo."

"Ethan, a typo is when you make a mistake typing something."

"Oh." pause "Well, then I made a taco."

talk-o, get it?

Bearing One Another's Burdens

2011-09-10T16:22:00.000-07:00

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light;
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—
10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you?
11 And now when the people had heard these words, they clapped their hands for joy, and exclaimed: This is the desire of our hearts.

I don't know if I have made it here yet. I've had some tremendous opportunities to serve others in need lately which I'm so grateful for, really. But it is a sacrifice. It is bearing burdens. It is mourning.

I'm not clapping my hands for joy. I am just wiped out. Whew. Tired.

I am so ready for General Conference. It always gets me in that clapping kind of frame of mind.

Boys' Brains

2011-08-09T22:31:00.001-07:00

I love taking peeks inside my boys' minds. I like to see what's floating around in there. Correction: not much floats, more like darts and dives.

Ethan's brain is made up of hundreds of shiny filing cabinets teeming with manilla folders. Clearly labeled. No drawers are locked. Yet.

Ah yes, here is "Hullabaloo" right between "Dirty Socks" and "Things That Make Me Itch".

Sometimes, I find a file that is out place and I need to yank that sucker outta there and refile it, in spite of all his squirming. I'm his mother after all, it's my job. Sometimes, I find out he had it in the right place after all. I would have filed "Making Lily Laugh" at the end of the B's, but he was right, it really does belong after "Frogs".

Jake's mind still has a bit of the wreckage in there left over from being a four year old, but the thoughts are beginning to fall neatly into place. Caution is still required for the stray water balloon or spider crawling around where I least expect it. I could walk away from a stroll through his brain with singed fingers or maybe an ice cream sandwich. You never know.

It's an easy casual ride today. I wonder how I'll handle tomorrow when keys and passwords are required to check out just a single file only to find out it's encrypted.

I hope today lasts.

Grandmotherly Advice

2011-07-24T15:17:00.000-07:00

I've been helping a friend with her homeschooling efforts and it made me think of such a wonderful quote by my honorary grandmother, Sister Marjorie Hinckley, that I thought I would post what I wrote as a good reminder to myself (and yes, Sister Hinckley is really my honorary grandmother. I have adopted her. I bet you didn't know we were related.):

Don't stress too much about having everything on a timer, things will naturally adjust to a good workable schedule (if you let them!). For me, I would get worried if we weren't doing the 45 minutes I had scheduled for a subject. That's really not as important as doing it everyday. Fifteen minutes a day is better than an hour every third day.

I have found it invaluable to have other things to keep their free time full, not structured, but with plenty to do that is not merely entertainment. We don't watch TV, we don't play video games, we have lots of art supplies, lots of books, lots of games, and lots of chores, so their free time is productive and creative. I just wish we had more land. I'll admit it's a little challenging for me to leave them unstructured, but I've come to see how valuable that time is.

I'm not sure where that came from, probably, from me telling myself not to worry so much. I just read a quote from Sis. Hinckley saying there is so ... I'll go find it:

One day our oldest boy turned up missing. There were lawns to be mowed and irrigation ditches to be cleaned. The hours ticked away. All afternoon I practiced the speech I would give him when he showed up, and show up he did, at meal time, which I knew he would. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked. ‘Down in the hollow.’ ‘And what have you been doing down in the hollow?’ His reply, ‘Nothing.’

Some years later I had reason to be glad that I had not given him the speech. He was home from his mission and was a senior at the university. It was test week and he was under a lot of pressure to do well in order to get into the graduate school of his choice. The pressures of adult life were beginning to be felt. I watched him as he drove home from school one afternoon. He got out of the car, kicked a clod of dirt, went over to examine the swelling buds on a lilac tree, came out to our kitchen, straddled a chair backwards and said, ‘Mom I had a wonderful childhood, didn’t I?’
’Well, I hope so; you did your fair share of complaining about all of the work that had to be done.’
’Oh, it was wonderful—those long summer days when you could lie on your back in the hollow and listen to the birds sing and watch the ants build their castles.’
The memory of the peace of a summer day-- 'God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.' -- sustained him when the pressures of adult life began to crowd in.

Things are different now. Children hear so many voices from so many directions. There are so few empty summer days. There are pressures to excel. It has become a challenge to let children be children.

It has never been so important that children have a home that is a place of refuge, a place of peace, a place of unconditional love--even when the report card may not be what you hoped for...

...We all feel the pressures and stress of the sophisticated, fast-paced, complicated, competitive world in which we find ourselves. Not only do we feel it as adults, but the children feel it too. Because of TV, the press, and videos, our children are exposed to adult life very, very early. This makes it doubly important that mothers and fathers consciously strive to make it possible for children to be children before they become adults.

As a homeschooling parent it is really difficult to resist that, "I need you to perform because it reflects on how I am teaching you!" Maybe you won't have that weakness, but I battle it. I think I win ... most days.

A lot more than you asked for, but at least you got counsel from Sis. Hinckley, not me.

Laura

Memorial Day

2011-06-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

Tahoma National Cemetery

A few photos

2011-06-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Banyan Trees in Black Tempera and Oil Pastels

Ethan Emma

Jacob Lily (and some Mom)

Jake's Mad Scientist 7th Birthday Party

This is right before we put the Mentos into the Diet Coke

Pinewood Derby

and a goofy face

Ride The Duck Tour of Seattle

on land...

...and by sea.

...yes it was May and they are wearing scarves and hats! Brrr!

Honesty

2011-05-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

I'm not saying a word. Not a single one.

Why?

2011-05-28T15:53:00.000-07:00

Why?

It's my favorite question.

Why don't people ask it more?

'Cause lemme just say, I'm asking it for you.

(snicker)

Why? is probably the most helpful question I ask as I raise my family: Why are we doing this or that? Is there really a good reason for it? And if I can't come up with a good answer, then, guess what? I'm not going to bother. (And not just in parenting either.) There are so many things of which I know the WHYs that I don't have time for the:

I DON'T KNOWs

or the

I'M NOT SUREs

or the

THAT'S WHAT GOOD PARENTS ARE SUPPOSED TO DOs

or the

IT'S WHAT WE'VE ALWAYS DONEs

or the

IT'S WHAT I'VE NEVER GOTTEN TO DOs

Those aren't real answers. I know there are a lot of WHAT? kind of people, ie, those who just need to know what they should do and they do it. Fine. I'm just a WHY? kind of person. Quoting Jeffrey R. Holland quoting an unnamed philosopher:

"Tell me sufficiently why a thing should be done, and I will move heaven and earth to do it."

For example: (This is a limited trivial example but it will do,

and it could have very untrivial ramifications.) I have enrolled none of my children in soccer. In spite of the fact that it is what everyone does. Some go to great lengths to provide it, in spite of even constraints of time and money. That's what good moms do. It teaches team spirit, cooperation, hard work, respect, physical exercise, endurance, self-control, good sportsmanship and how to kick a ball. It is, to some, the very definition of good parenting. How can I possibly deprive my children of this essential life experience? This is not about soccer. It's about choices.

WHY?

What is the goal?

Really.

Are there better ways to accomplish those goals?

Have I really considered them?

Am I brave enough to attempt the better way?

These are tough questions. But when I can answer the WHY?, when my everyday thoughts and actions help me reach the things I really want, I feel greater meaning and purpose in life, even with, or sometimes in spite of, the trifling things. And hence, no matter the circumstances I can naturally live with:

INTEGRITY

PASSION

LOVE

ENERGY

GRATITUDE

JOY

EVERYDAY!

I can do with more of that.

Homemaking

2011-05-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

Homemaking: The art of removing all evidence that anyone lives in your house.

I just did a crazy thing sitting here at my computer. I looked around the mess I'm sitting in and decided not to be annoyed by it.
I did that and I realized that it's not so bad to have all these little messes around me because it means that I have a family and we live here. Here are some things I see.

Emma's scriptures are on the couch from reading this morning.

The shipping box for the caterpillars we will be watching grow into butterflies.

The secret BBQ seasoning from our very good friends, the Hills.

The cooler from packing our lunch on Thursday when we went to Seattle to "Ride the Duck." A great time was had by all.

At least half a dozen various notes and crayon drawings done especially for Mom hung all over the place.

A set of unfinished Matroyshka dolls we will be painting, in which one is already stuck inside another from being put in upside down.

The phone off the hook from talking to friends.

Plastic Easter eggs. (Holy cow! What are those still doing out?)

Cub Scout uniform. (What good boys and great leaders there are in Scouts with Ethan.)

Jacob's Science Notebook. He's always pulling it out wanting to do the next thing.

Conference DVDs from Family Home Evening.

An overflowing library book bin. We have a great rolling crate for library books because we check out no less than 50 at a time.

Notebook paper on the floor with "I will not bicker with my brother" written on it 2o times.

A brush and hairspray from putting Emma's hair in a bun for ballet. Her recital's coming up soon.

The keyboard from doing piano lessons.

Grape stems (When did we have grapes?)

These aren't such bad things to have in my life.

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.
I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.
I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.
I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.
I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.
I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

"The grand and the simple. They are equally wonderful."

Marjorie Pay Hinckley

On Living with the Same Man for 14 Years

2011-05-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

I've been watching a lot of Romantic Comedies lately. "A lot" meaning two. That's a lot for me. It's not my genre of choice and after watching those two, my opinion is perhaps even more sure than before. This means that next year I will only watch ONE RoCo.

I do get a sort of detached pleasure from watching Hollywood ideas of love and romance and comparing it to my own experience. And I like laughing at how manipulative they are.

Schmaltzy Movie #1: The Holiday. A lovely little film in which a cold, ambitious, self-absorbed woman goes to a cute English cottage alone, in stumbles a charming, very smoldery English man complete with lovely accent and much hanky panky ensues. Our willingness to accept this liaison corresponds directly with the considerable attractiveness of the two involved, and the assurance that this is kind of thing is most certainly out of the ordinary.

In scene two we find out that smoldery man is actually a devoted single dad to two darling little girls complete with lacy tent, even better, he's a widower, not a divorcee, who cries. Awww!

Here's the thing I found interesting. If we had known he was actually a father before sleeping with a strange woman in a drunken stupor, all the women would have booed and hissed and thrown rotten vegetables at the screen. Hmm, says I.

Schmaltzy Movie #2: The Proposal. A not so lovely little film in which a cold, ambitious, self-absorbed woman fakes an engagement to her charming, very smoldery nicety-nice assistant who also just happens to be secretly uber-wealthy. He, of course, is able to see past all of her issues, selfishness, dishonesty, and general bitterness, and fall desperately love with her anyway.

These are the most barfingest of plots. Very handsome, charming, wealthy, girly man falls in love with angry, ahem, witch with issues, who's only redeeming quality is her flat stomach. And for this, we all wish we could be her. What does this really tell women? Don't even get me started on Twilight.

I know a lot of ladies watch movies like these with their husbands to feel romantic, or get in the mood, or whatever. That's okay. These movies help my marriage, too. Primarily, because I am so grateful not to be deluded into believing that those are the definitions of love. That that tripe is what romance looks like. I am always more grateful for the love of my life and the marriage we share after seeing a cheap Hollywood counterfeit. It is so very different from the real, unselfish, devoted, passionate, absolutely fulfilling relationship we have shared these past 14 years, and I'm grateful for it.

It's a good anniversary.

Tacoma Museum of Glass

2011-04-08T10:43:00.000-07:00

The Museum of Glass in Tacoma has a kids design exhibit and Jacob submitted a design to be sculpted in glass.

He needs votes to win. Whichever gets the most votes will be sculpted in glass and put on display in the museum. How cool is that?

Here's what you do. Go to www.museumofglass.org and click on PICK YOUR FAVORITE.

Jacob's is obviously the best design. The FLYING TURTLE. Please vote. He is so excited!

ps...you do have to register. Just a quick email input. I have a regular junk email address for this type of stuff! Thanks!

Pupcakes

2011-02-23T09:47:00.001-08:00

4 is good.

I am 4, then I will be 5, then 6!

Pupcakes, please.

CHOCOLATE pupcakes, please.

Charlie and Lola chocolate pupcakes, please.

Thank you for my burfday!

Happy birthday, Lily Jane!

School links I need to make a note of real quick...

2011-02-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

subscription sites

www.pianomarvel.com : Piano/Guitar/Drum lessons for $12 a month. I like it.

www.vmathlive.com : Competition math for Ethan also www.mathletics.com

www.brainpop.com : another fun site

www.readingeggs.com : Early reading skills for preschoolers

www.dreambox.com : LOVE these progressive math activities

www.spellingcity.com : haven't used this one so much yet.

other stuff

http://www.cricketmag.com : great magazine publisher

...hmm, what else, I can't remember them all now...

and now for some TALENTED PEOPLE I know:

2011-02-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

Debi Reeves

Homeschooling is Hard

2011-02-02T21:24:00.000-08:00

I know you don't believe me, but it really is difficult. I know I make it look so easy with my spotless house and impeccable wardrobe, as well as the well-behaved tidy children that line up behind me wiping their own noses and putting themselves in time-out.

My home is a pillar of organization, creativity, harmony, and inspired learning all appropriately scheduled out into sections throughout the day. I impart a 'thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages'...Miss Bingley was slightly more full of it than I am at the moment. What a wonderful piece of literature to so deftly and timelessly define "the accomplished woman" myth and the egotists who perpetuate it. I digress.

As often as I think I am failing in this enterprise once in a while I get a glimmer of evidence that I am not a complete derelict...alright I am being a little harsh about feeling completely derelict and only seeing glimmers of evidence, but those feelings of inadequacy and heavy responsibility do come on a fairly regular basis so glimmers, sparkles, and lightbulbs are moments to embrace. Exempli gratia:

On the way to basketball I was quizzing Ethan on some percentage/fraction/decimal conversions when he brings up the fact that public schools don't teach any History and what a travesty that is, in his humble opinion.

"Why don't they teach any History?" he asks, "I know there's some US History in high school but what about the little kids?"

So, because I'm a homeschooling parent, I almost never answer such a question but ask another, "Why would it matter that they know History? Why is it important to know anything about Hammurabi, or Babur, or Alexander when they lived so long ago? Is it important?"

"That's a good question." Thoughtful silence. Then after a moment,

"Well, those who understand the past are better prepared for the future. So if we know what happened in wars and things hundreds of years ago, we don't have to have those same wars again, because it could just happen all over again. Because there were a lot of dumb wars. And we could just forget a lot of things, like discoveries and languages."

Brilliant.

Lily's Brain III

2011-01-02T17:07:00.000-08:00

EEG results go something like this:

The doctor says: This is what normal brain waves look like.

...and this...is what Lily's look like.

In case you couldn't tell, the two pictures didn't look anything alike. The good news is that she is developing properly and thriving. The bad news is that the question is WHEN the next seizure will come, not IF. So now we have a lot of prescriptions for drugs with some horrid possible side effects that we really don't want to give her. We need to make a decision on whether we want to start her on drugs right away or wait until the next seizure. We just don't know.

She will be getting an MRI within the next few weeks which will be checking for abnormalities, malformations, or the slim possibility of tumors. So, the best we are hoping for right now is a clean MRI and then we can get a better idea of what we want to do as far as medication. That's all we can do right now.

Oh, most of her unusually active brain activity occurs while she is sleeping so her seizures are most likely going to happen when she is asleep. Good news: That's a nice safe place for a seizure to happen. Bad news: We'll all be sleeping...or trying to anyway.

just a couple cuties

2011-01-02T17:00:00.001-08:00

Lily's Brain (continued)

2010-12-29T21:26:00.001-08:00

The girl has been perfect and healthy and acting completely normally. It has taken us a little while to sleep somewhat without thinking she is having another seizure every time she rolls over, but we are adjusting. We just can't do that. We have gotten more comfortable with the situation in which we now find ourselves. We are feeling more and more like this was a one time thing.

Yesterday, Lily had her EEG which measures her brain activity. It was a two hour test in which she and her parents were required to be sleep deprived so she could fall asleep halfway through. I kept her up past 11:00 Monday night and we got her up around 4:30 the next morning. She watched a lot of cartoons. Her appointment was not till 1:00 so we tried to keep her relatively happy but awake all morning. She did really well. No meltdowns if you can believe it. I guess she was just in shock that she was watching so many movies.

The test started with applying dozens of electrodes on her scalp. It took about 20 minutes of measuring, marking, sticking, and wrapping. She was really loopy from her lack of sleep. She tends to get loopy rather than cranky. She was very giggly, but held pretty still making random comments. "What is he doing?" "I look like transfo-mer!" After all the electrodes were applied, Tom laid down next to her, the tech went to his computer and Lily had to do little things like open and close her eyes, blow bubbles ("I'm blown' dem to the doctor!"), and watching flashing lights. She was still giggly. Then she had to relax and take a twenty minute nap.

Test done. Peel off all the stickies. "You said it wouldn't hurt!" yes, she was upset with me about that one but she admitted, "It on'y hurt a little bid." Wash off all the grease pencil and head to the other hospital campus to meet with the doctor.

As an aside, allow me to gripe about the utopia we know as Seattle. Ten bucks for parking at Swedish Medical - Cherry Hill Campus in the garage then another eight dollars at the First Hill Campus for the appointment with the neurologist. Bad enough but there is some law in Seattle that requires all parking garages to have only 50% of their spaces to be large enough to park an actual car in it. If there is space for two cars to park, they will mark it for three, therefore rendering usable for only ONE. They are marked COMPACT, of course, but you would think our Civic would fit into that category. Good thing we didn't have our van. I don't know what people do. This was a PEDIATRIC office we were going to so we must assume that people with children would need to park a vehicle in that office's parking garage. People with children do not drive Smart Cars or motorbikes. Conclusion: Seattle does not like children or the vehicles that carry them.

Test results will have to wait till tomorrow. I'm still sleepy.

Lily's Brain

2010-12-29T19:03:00.000-08:00

Early Sunday morning, Lily happened to be in our bed (not such a strange thing at 3 am) and woke up Tom with a seizure. We have since learned that it was a grand mal or tonic clonic seizure, both of which are pretty dumb names. The first translated from the French literally as BIG BAD seizure. Ingenious. She was pretty quiet but jerking around with her eyes rolled up in her head. It lasted between 1 and 2 minutes, depending on how long it took Tom to wake up and it's really hard to tell how much time passes in that state. It just seems to last forever. She finished and rolled over in a deep sleep. The paramedics came and gave a little oxygen trying to revive her because that state after a seizure is really deep and she needed about fifteen minutes or so to start getting some responses out of her.

The paramedics said they could bring her to the ER or we could drive her since she revived alright. We chose to drive her in to the Issaquah Swedish ER and got there around 4:30. She was still groggy, vomiting and saying that her head hurt. The ER was empty and really quick and helpful...in some ways. They did not do much to relieve any anxieties by telling us that she had to be tested for some really big fatal conditions and diseases right away because this was clearly not a febrile seizure (a seizure produced by the body to bring down a fever). Meningitis, massive brain tumors, take your pick.

The lumbar puncture (spinal tap) came first which was not fun. Three nurses had to hold her still pinned forward into a little ball. She was very good. They couldn't believe how little she squirmed or cried. She was certainly sad but she did not fight and scream. Childbirth should be a cinch after this.

Next came the cath and the blood draw. Again, more sadness and the quick realization that she did not like what was going on here.

The CT scan was like heaven after the others, just cold. She had to lay perfectly still to get some pictures of her brain. I stayed in there to help her but she didn't need it. She just had to know that nothing else was going to hurt her and she was good.

So a couple hours later the doctor tells us everything has come back normal. Good news. CT scan picked up a little thing that may just be an ear infection, not really sure. Here are some neurology and epilepsy specialists you need to call. Bad news.

Well, what do we do now? How should we feel? I don't know. Let's hope this is just a one time thing. There could have been a fever we didn't notice had spiked. Just how worried should we be? Are we just waiting around for the next one to happen? I don't know. Lots of questions, no answers, for now.

For Sarah

2010-12-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

This video totally cracks us up.

Neverland

2010-11-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

We read Peter Pan aloud a long time ago and have been meaning to make maps of our own Neverland Islands for the longest time. We finally got around to it last week. It was a great activity.

Ethan's just looked like a big battle plan complete with ammunition storage, practice areas, testing facilities, and barracks (the archers had their own barracks because they are looked down upon as less courageous than other soldiers). No surprise that he did not understand Emma's island at all when he regarded her various flowery areas designated for fairies, ladybugs, mermaids and the like.

"What will you do if you are attacked?" he demanded. Emma just looked at him like he was nuts.

"I'm not going to be attacked. This is MY island and everyone knows it!"

But this was hardly an adequate plan in the boy's mind. He proceeded in pointing out all the areas of the island which were strategically vulnerable. Finally she had enough of his criticisms and drew one big circle around the entire thing.

"What's that?"

"The Shield of Love" she answered smugly, or in other words "a powerful and permanent electromagnetic energy force field can thwart any offensive attack with negative karmic vibrations that threaten to disturb the general peace and welfare of this island or scare my baby gnomes."

"I also put up these little flags around the island that say, 'GO AWAY (if you're bad)!' just in case." Defenses are a go.

Jacob's island had a giant mushroom house, lethal spitting trees, a jail for unsavory girls, and a roller coaster. I'm not sure I would visit.

Bedtime Stories

2010-07-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

It's a lovely cool summer night that came too quickly after a busy day doing too much nothing. It's still light outside Ethan is reading in bed, The Red Pyramid, Emma is reading Pocahontas and Jacob has just finished reading me Mercy Watson and Something Wonky This Way Comes. An excellent toasty ending with a great deal of butter. He decides to retreat to his room for some quality time with the Berenstain Bears. (Mom, is it okay if I just read these two and only look at this one?) Lily decides it's her turn to read to Mom. I kick it and await the tale.

She brings in A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh, wiggles into the mass of squashy pillows, opens the book across her lap, clears her throat impressively and begins,

Dis is Pooh. Pooh is honey bear. (mom, does dis say 'bear'?) Dats a balloon. He's all muddy, but dats o'tay. Pooh is stuck in the hole. He ate honey. He got a BID belly, like mine. Den dere's Pidelet. Pidelet is pink. (Emma needs to color dis. Pidelet is not BLAT, Pidelet is PINK.) It's Eee-ore's bir-day. He is sad. (mom, is he sad?) Das a balloon, in pieces. Das why he is sad. Dere is footprints. Pooh had a bad dream about an elephant. (where am I, mom? here? no. I'm all done with Pooh now.)

Sleep tight.

Breaks : part 2

2010-07-12T20:22:00.001-07:00

Man, I need a break.

Breaks: part 1

2010-06-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

I see and hear a lot about “getting away”, “just needing a break”, or “taking some time off”; and the regular response of “you go, girl, you deserve it!” I must admit I’m a little baffled about such exchanges. Just what they are getting away from? What in the world are they doing that makes them so, as Thoreau would say, desperate? Working in the salt mines? Is the drudgery and toil of life at such a degree that they can’t go say, 2 years, 1 year, a month without a trip to some idle paradise because it’s “been so long since we’ve gone anywhere”? (It’s most edifying that I always seem to hear that the most, from those who get away the most. Interesting.)

I realize this is going to read exceptionally obnoxious and hypercritical even for me. I don’t mean to be so, I just really don’t understand. Is everyone really that unhappy that they need to go on vacation every other weekend? Do people get depressed because they aren’t on vacation (especially when someone else is)? Is that all they look forward to? Is that what life is about, the escape away from it? Is that what should define my life? Is that the definition of success?

I must admit, while I'm on the subject, I’m not sure why they deserve it. Do you know why? I don’t think you deserve it. There, I said it. Go escape? I really don’t care, go enjoy, but I’m certainly not going to slip into the fallacy of telling someone they entitled. What tripe.

The escape, I suppose could be just about anything. It could be physical, emotional, chemical, or simply renamed to appear more ennobling even, dare I say, spiritual.

All of this makes me presume that people are not happy with the day to day work of life. This is what really discourages me. What if we spent more effort learning, disciplining, and training ourselves to love our work and responsibilities, focusing on the importance of it and the dignifying nature of it rather than using that energy seeking escape? Isn’t working for those times when I don’t have any responsibility and can focus on my own creature comforts spending our “labor for that which cannot satisfy”? Does the escape satisfy? Can the natural man be satisfied?

I’m thinking of a quote by Gordon B. Hinckley. Here it is: "The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired."

(snarky comment alert:…hmm, not a 3 day, 2 night stay at the Casa de Equivocado. Hasn’t he tried their dessert bar?)

He also said, “Life is to be enjoyed, not endured.” How do I reconcile work with that blasted participle: enjoyed? Especially during times that ARE arduous, and dreary, and thankless. I’m not sure I have the mental discipline.

under construction

As of today:

2010-06-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

Jacob is bouncing around enjoying his newly repaired core muscles and driving everyone crazy.
Tom is flat on his back trying not to move any core muscles as of 5 am this morning. Looks like a badly strained SI joint. (Thank you, Sherm, for helping me get him off the floor)
I made a great deal of tamales this afternoon which all seemed to disappear to my neighbors. We ate pizza for dinner. ? (Thank you, Melissa, who only took 3 tamales.)
Emma is making big plans for her future. They go something like this, "When I grow up I'm going to have blue car and green house with a statue of a bear in front, and a baby with brown hair... and a husband." Me, "What does your husband look like?" "I haven't decided that yet."
We are all very concerned about our friend Ben P. who is in ICU with "the worst case of mono they have ever seen or studied."
Ethan has earned his Bear.
I just cut off about half of Emma's hair. It filled about 3 1/2 garbage bags.
We just finished the Thirty Years War. It was exhausting.
Emma hates subtraction.
Lily is potty trained. We haven't been without diapers in nine and a half years.
We are tired of all this rain.
But we did see a rainbow today. Proof of sun.

under the knife

2010-05-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Jake has had an inguinal hernia since he was pink and pudgy. The time has come to get it repaired. He is scheduled for surgery on Monday next. It is a trivial and speedy operation but his level of anxiety concerning the thing has increased steadily in conjunction with his discomfort. A rather unhappy side effect of his anxiety is oversensitivity and acute hypochondria. He has been afraid of everything from eating poisonous shellfish when he thought it was just harmless popcorn to bugs laying eggs in his mouth to growing boobies like a girl.

I'm beginning to think we should have told him that a trip to Disneyland would fix his hernia...and then put the mask on really fast.

He has however enjoyed using a variety of terms for the surgery on his "Weinerschnitz", "cajones", "cronk", or the "tenders". This terminology gets many laughs from his father which only encourages more creativity and frequency of the euphemisms.

I only hope he will recover from both these undesirable side effects as he heals. Crossing my fingers. I'm getting weary of alternately reassuring him and washing his mouth.

Borrowed Poetry

2010-05-07T21:50:00.000-07:00

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees takes off his shoes.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Thanks, Niki.

Final Exam: Salina, KS, 1895

2010-04-29T20:21:00.000-07:00

Final Exam: Salina, KS, 1895

Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of "lie," "play," and "run."
5. Define case; Illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 - 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time, 1:25 hours)

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4 District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S. History (Time, 45 minutes)

1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)

1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals.
4. Give four substitutes for caret 'u.'
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ! 'e.' Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)

1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3 Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Total Time: 5 hours

This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina, Kansas, USA. It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina, KS, and reprinted by the Salina Journal.

Four

2010-04-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Chores

2010-04-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

The big project of late has been the organization of daily tasks, duties, chores, and various other scheduling around the Andrew abode. I have done cursory research online of cleaning schedules and have found myself in hysterics barely able to read, "Sweep floor-once a week" without breaking down either in unrefined snorts of laughter or dejected sobbing.

Once a week, are you kidding me? Does the word "spelunking" mean anything to you? Well, that's what I would be doing in my kitchen if I swept once a week, after having repelled down my impassable debris-strewn stairwell.

Add school assignments to it all and I just want to lock the door and curl up on my bedroom floor...which I, a-hem, have never done.

I am done now feeling defeated and overwhelmed and am ready to pass all this off to my children.

I have made daily responsibility charts for each of my children. After a family meeting discussing our responsibilities and in order to be more positive we have narrowed these responsibilities we have into four categories.

Caring for my body.
Caring for my spirit.
Caring for my mind.
Caring for my home and family.

I must say, I'm very happy with this breakdown. There is some overlap, which the children pointed out, and I found that to be very desirable because after all they are all connected. You can't only work in one area and think we're done. Even the smallest tasks fit in at least two categories. But for our intents and purposes these are good. Each category has it's own color on their charts that they check off and complete daily. Caring for home and family includes three daily chores (which I haven't quite knocked out yet).

The goal is really more than chores. The goal is really more than having a clean house (I'm really glad I'm not that delusional). The goal is to raise self-reliant, confident, capable, disciplined children in a self-indulgent, capricious world. I hope I'm not that delusional.

Overheard of Late

2010-03-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

Lily: Jesus loves me. pause. so does Yoda.

Jacob (after a thoughtful silence): Mom, don't ever call me "Ja-crud" because I don't like it, (very sad face) and it would hurt my feelings.
Me: Jake, where did you get Ja-crud? Did someone call you that?
Jacob: No, I just made it up and I don't like it.

and oft heard from Lily:

I want to tum!

I want to help you!

(when she can't sleep in Ethan's bed) But I love E-tan!

(when she wants it her way) Mom said YES!
until I corrected her using my name to bully her siblings, "Lily, I didn't say anything."
(now when she wants it her way) Mom said ANYTHING!

(after she sings a song) I did it! I did it! I did it!

Be nice!

Duys! Det in the da van! Time for Di-da-do (Taekwondo)!

(whenever we tell her dad's gone) NOo, Dad's in da office!

not scary.

After later!

Things I Wish I Never Wasted Money On

2010-02-21T23:00:00.000-08:00

a crib: Why did I buy a crib when my children prefer to sleep on my face?

Size 4 pants: I mean, honestly, when did I wear these, when I was ten? I don't remember ever wearing the Ghost of Pants Past that now just sit in the closet and mock my badonkadonk every time I walk in. (and why the heck didn't spell-check alert me to "badonkadonk"?)

a toy closet: This is what I should have done. I should have called the playroom "the closet", and contrariwise, called the closet "the playroom" Then all the toys would always end up in the closet. That's logic.

a flushing toilet: For as much as my kids actually manage to flush the toilet, I should have installed chamber pots at a fraction of the cost. (This can also include the light switches. What is the point, really?)

an easel: My lovely easel is gathering dust as my $15 tubes of paint dry up and crack in their shells. Alas!

a magnifying mirror: Oh the horror! I used to think I was a normal looking person. Now I know I am a creviced, pock-marked, stray-haired, blemish-ridden Baba Yaga. Why do I have this thing? No one is walking around looking at my skin at 3x magnification.

A mop: I already had socks.

Little Boy Pants: Boy pants should just be sold with the knees already cut out. A better idea would be little mops sewn to the knees of the Little Boy Pants. I think there's a market for that.

a filing cabinet: Well, I suppose it IS a good place to store credit card bills and receipts from 1998 (the year we bought the filing cabinet).

a lamp: This was just a mistake. I really meant to buy bowling pins to put on the end tables.

oh, I could go on.

Random Primary Song

2010-02-21T10:46:00.000-08:00

At church every Sunday I lead about 70 children in singing, for two hours...well, granted with some breaks in between, but it doesn't feel like much. It's really a fabulous time, I love it. It is so much fun and inspiring and completely unpredictable.

This post is a little random just because I revised a little song that we will be singing next month to get ready for General Conference and I wanted to share it with my online fellow chorister community in case they would like to use it. Basically it is "Latter-Day Prophets" from the Children's Songbook, but I changed the lyrics to the current First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. I think it will be very fun. (But probably just for the older kids.) It goes nicely along with the song for next month, too, which is "Follow the Prophet." If you can use it, please do...

Christmas Closing

2009-12-29T20:25:00.001-08:00

Alright, I put the rest of my Christmas junk in my journal. It was getting so boring. I mean not boring for us, but my writing was beginning to read like an Al Gore novel.

I love this crazy bad picture of the kids. Fake smiles, Lily looking off in the wrong direction, and Ethan looks like he's about to fall backwards after too much egg nog. If you zoom in I'm sure you won't miss all the extraneous boogers and drool stains.

Lily enjoyed wrapping presents very much. She called it "making presents" as in, "Doh 'way, guys! Making presents!" She didn't much care what they were so long as she got to tape profusely. She got a hat, a scarf, sunglasses, and a backpack for Christmas. She's looked like this for 4 days:

Jakey wins the prize for the best Christmas quote of the year. A few days before Christmas he blurts out, "I hope my Christmas present isn't a pie with a spring on the bottom that splats in my face when I open it." Too much Looney Toons?

Day 4

2009-12-04T22:42:00.000-08:00

Visit the Maple Valley Annual Creche. Listen to my lovely neighbor Jill sing with her sister. Absolutely beautiful.

Day 3

2009-12-03T17:27:00.000-08:00

Go to Bethlehem with the good Seventh Day Adventists in Auburn...HIGHLY recommended!

JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM

This church has a mini-Jerusalem set up that they take you through to see live animals, shopkeepers, money changers, Roman Soldiers, and Tax Collectors. It is all very well done, without trying to do anything new, or hip, or jazzy. Just a refreshingly simple, old message from people with faith in Jesus Christ.

Day 2

2009-12-02T22:48:00.000-08:00

Now we decorate the tree, at last, and sing lots of songs. We love singing together:

Advent Calendar Item: a branch

Scripture: 1 Nephi 11:8-23 Nephi asks for an explanation of that big tree over there and the Spirit of the Lord shows him, Mary her baby. How does that explain the tree?

Song: Lots of songs, mostly Away in a Manger to hear Lily sing "Ah-shleep! Ah-shleep! Ah-shleep! Ah-shleeep!"

Day 1

2009-12-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

Advent Calendar Item: An arrow or a rock

Scripture: Helaman 13:2-4, 14:2-8, 16:1-8 Samuel the Lamanite prophesies of Baby Jesus, tells the Zarahemlians where it's at, dodges arrows, and disappears. (The idea here is to check in with the Book of Mormon throughout the month to see what happens during those five years and emphasize that length of time. Hopefully it will make the peril and faith of the righteous more poignant by the time the sign comes at the end of the month/five years.)

Song: Samuel Tells of Baby Jesus

*Note: OK these posts are for my records as I am developing our daily scripture study this month. If you have additional ideas, I'd appreciate them.

T -1 Day

2009-11-30T20:57:00.000-08:00

Hang our Giving Trees

1 Cut out construction paper trees.
2 Commence doing good deeds, speaking kindly, and helping more to earn stickers. (stickers are worth $$)
3 Start getting all giddy and excited about what you are going to give your sister/brother for Christmas.

...this does cut into the "Have Christmas shopping all done by Thanksgiving" goal, but so worth it.

Giving Thanks for

2009-11-24T12:52:00.001-08:00

Tom Ethan Emma Jake Lily
freedom warmth Savior love
Beethoven testimony water prayer
holidays diapers laughter
trees violins church friends Sargent
inspiration agency school scripture
Bloch pillows challenges work country
music clay marriage books food temples oranges gardens
shoes refrigerators rain forgiveness
literature ovens silliness humility income responsibilty
meditation tithing glass service
repentance sun Michelangelo
change soldiers history earth virtue
sacrifice Austen radios Caravaggio insight ordinances family
creation breakfast teachers stores beds
plumbing blessings reverence sensitivity prophets
warmth reminders quiet noise Dickens vision sports
health Gutenberg bodies Lincoln adversity kisses humor
cleanliness Rainier hugs furnaces roofs paint
movies babies plastic talent rainbows passion
computers flowers life surprises virtue medicine
Davinci commitment atonement fog truth legs
peace hope smiles arias Christmas
trials Washington greetings education empathy comfort
choices thunder cotton children worship home
examples internet giving phones purity priesthood
sunshine gratitude faith

Spotlight

2009-11-10T12:13:00.001-08:00

So our family was spotlighted in our church newletter. I had to write a summary of the Andrews and got a pretty overwhelming response. What do you think?

Tom is the Dad part of the family. He grew up in Normal, yes, Normal, IL. At BYU he received a Construction Management degree, a stunning, intelligent, and talented wife, 2.3 kids, and a run down old Toyota. After graduation he packed all these things into the Toyota and drove down to Arizona to work for a large residential roofer. After enduring his lovely wife’s grumblings and snide commentary about the heat for three years, he packed them all (3.6 kids now) back up into the Toyota and drove here to Maple Valley. He is now an independent slimy salesman. He peddles various roofing materials to contractors, mainly the foul-mouthed variety. He works with the Young Men in the ward, generally not the foul-mouthed variety.

Laura is not actually writing this but hired a ghost writer which explains why she talks about herself in the third person. She grew up in Alexandria, VA and studied Fine Arts at BYU. Her activities include folding laundry, making unrealistic plans, losing vacuum cleaner attachments and wiping things. She also enjoys other things but can’t remember what they are since having her fourth child. She cleans, bakes, sews, and homeschools, but she doesn’t actually enjoy these things. Laura is the Chorister in Primary but thinks that it should have a snazzier, more descriptive name for what this marvelous calling actually entails.

Ethan just turned nine. He is very bright and thoughtful. He enjoys Math, History, Taekwondo, and practicing his Taekwondo on his unsuspecting brother. When he misbehaves his parents threaten to send him to public school which must be something akin to the Tower of London in his mind by now. When he was a baby he looked exactly like Dallin H. Oaks.

Emma is seven. She is emotionally unstable. She enjoys writing sweet little love notes, drawing princesses, and keeping her baby sister awake ‘til all hours of the night. She does not enjoy losing board games. When she was a baby she looked like Jeffrey R. Holland.

Jake is five. He enjoys irritating his older brother and sister, telling knock-knock jokes (preferably the same one multiple times), falling from high places, and instigating giggles at wholly inappropriate times. He also enjoys wasting inordinate amounts of scotch tape. If he were an ice cream flavor it would be Moose Tracks.

Lily is two and gets away with a lot of tomfoolery based solely on her cuteness factor which is abnormally high. She enjoys riding in shopping carts, singing unintelligibly, causing scenes in public places, and pulling out entire boxes of tissues one at a time. She regularly pilfers handfuls of chocolate chips, but don’t hold it against her.

We love visitors so feel free to stop by and visit anytime. I warn you, I still haven’t found that vacuum cleaner attachment so for heaven’s sake, leave your shoes on.

Conference Report #2

2009-10-03T19:57:00.000-07:00

October 2009, Saturday PM Session

1:00: Arrive at the Stake Center. Sit in same place. I've noticed we've been given a much wider berth by the repeat attendees this session. I also notice that the volume has been turned up. I wonder if it's because of us.

1:10: Lily shows me her "bid geen booder!"

1:15-1:59: Bathroom Breaks #3-#76

2:00: Rest Hymn

2:09: Lose Lily

2:13: Catch a whiff of a stinky diaper. Verify no one else floated one. Follow the scent. Find Lily.

2:14-2:47: Bathroom Breaks #75-136

2:48: Dad falls asleep

2:53: Dad wakes up

3:00: Leave the building...after another quick trip to the bathroom.

Conference Report

2009-10-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

October 2009, Saturday AM session

9:00: Arrive to lots of furtive glances and groans amongst the otherwise reverent congregation. President Eyring is already welcoming, I thought we were early. ??

9:06: Lily burps after the prayer.

9:10: "I'm hungry, Mommy." "I'm thirsty, Mommy" "Mom, I'm hungry,too" "You just ate 14 minutes ago, you can't possibly be hungry!"

9:26: Much shuffling of paper and arguing over who gets the red colored pencil.

9:27: Dad gets irritated

9:42: Bathroom Break #1

10:00: Lily runs up and down the pew waving her arms like some kind of head hunter in pursuit. Piercing shriek.

10:06: Explain to Emma the concept of a whisper.

10:08: Bathroom break #2

10:09: Why do I do this?

10:14: Send the kids away on a walk around the building.

10:23: Elder Bednar explains why I do this.

10:26: See our old friend Ryan Murphy conducting the choir. Very cool.

10:36: Insist that this is the last talk.

10:46: Begin clean up regimen.

10:52: Make Ethan listen to the closing song so he can write a report on it when we get home.

11:01: Commence running around the chapel until I hiss threats of bodily harm.

11:03: Chat with the missionaries.

11:10: Exit the building

Family Reunion 2010

2009-09-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going on record right now that all the Andrews should travel to WASHINGTON for a reunion. I mean come on people, look at this place!

Things I will miss in a few years

2009-09-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

fingerprints on mirrors
a little hand slipping into mine
"YOU AR MY FREND" scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper
kid empathy
obviously rerolled toilet paper rolls
"MOM! MOM! MOM!"
being the first
waking up with a leg on my face
outstretched pudgy arms
toddler injustice
the dawn of understanding
legos
watching daddy soothe her feverish head
reading by flashlight
scotch-taped wall decor
unexpected hilarity
forts
stifled laughter and shushing at bedtime
tears when I go
being absolutely needed and loved

Summer's Swan Song

2009-08-28T20:44:00.001-07:00

I got about this much done this summer.

Emma, age 7

2009-08-17T14:02:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday, Miss M

For Julie

2009-08-06T19:43:00.001-07:00

Bedtime

2009-07-30T23:08:00.001-07:00

A little Junie B

musical beds

a little too much studying

and one man's opinion of bedtime

Oddity

2009-07-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

I am an oddity.
That's a good line of poetry, don't you think? My own peculiarities have been in the limelight of my mind lately and I can not help but think I am a little too different for normal society!
Here are some ways I am odd:

I bake my own bread.
I grind my own wheat to make my own bread.
I don't grow my own wheat to grind and make my own bread which may be the only thing that separates me from the Little Red Hen...I also am pestering other people all day long to help me out.
I sacrifice sleep to read. Even a bad book.
I am a little weird about Harry Potter. The series, not the boy.
I homeschool. Nuff said!
I'm so not dope wit slang.
I believe in liberty. Freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.
We have no network TV.
I keep a budget of roughly $4 a month.
I make my 5 year old fold laundry.
I hate shopping for shoes.
I am a Mormon and therefore believe in ancient scripture, living prophets, and modern revelation, even on a personal level.
I love teaching 80 rambunctious, antsy, undisciplined kids to sing songs about Jesus Christ, eternal families, love, gratitude, and prayer every Sunday even though it is exhausting or annoying at times.
I'm not so good socially, in general.
The beauty of trees, mountains, oceans, fog, and dappled sunshine is like ambrosia to my soul. It cures me because it fills me with gratitude.
I love a good intellectual spar, but never emotional ones.
I was once pretty fluent in Hebrew and actually got paid for it for a short time.
This ethnicity I am most often mistaken for: Japanese, then Mexican, then Hawaiian.
I can't stand thin skins. I'd rather offend than tiptoe...within reason, of course.
I'm not into Girl's Night Out.
I really like Math.
I used to create pretty pictures. Right now, I am creating souls. I can't seem to do both simultaneously.
I really don't care how you pronounce my name.
I kissed him first.

How are you odd?

...because of the Half Blood Prince release

2009-07-16T15:56:00.001-07:00

Just in case you really weren't sure what a geek I am, here are some notes I jotted down a while ago pertaining to the seven tasks the Trio faced when they first went through the trapdoor in Book 1: Sorcerer's Stone. Each of the tasks or challenges they encounter parallel the plot or theme of each of the seven books. I thought you might find it interesting like I did or perhaps you are a normal person and will find it very dull:

Task 1=Fluffy & Book 1=QuirrellMort
The first task the Trio, HRH, faced after deciding to enter the magical "Underworld" was Fluffy the three headed dog. Fluffy has three heads, Harry's foe in Book 1 is Quirrell who we discover also has multiple faces.
Distraction was a major defense in both. Playing music distracted Fluffy = Talking distracted Quirell "All Harry could think of was to keep Quirrell talking and stop him from concentrating on the Mirror,"

Task 2 = Devil’s Snare & Book 2 =Tom Riddle’s Diary & The Basilisk
The Devil's Snare has "snake-like tendrils" = The Basilisk is, well, a giant snake
The Devil’s Snare likes "the dark and the damp" =the Basilisk’s Chamber is “dark”, “slimy”, and “wet”
Fire defeats the Devil’s Snare = Fawkes, a phoenix, thus, a fire creature blinds the Basilisk. It is Gryffindor's Sword which kills the Basilisk. (The four houses at Hogwarts each represent one of the Four Elements: Ravenclaw/Air, Hufflepuff/Earth, Slytherin/Water, and Gryffindor/Fire)
Both the Devil’s Snare and Riddle’s Diary seem to be an aid and a comfort at first. The Devil's Snare helped to break the fall from the trapdoor and Ron exclaims, “Lucky this plant thing’s here, really”. The diary lured Ginny in by being her comfort and confidante, and also lured Harry in when it showed him who first opened the Chamber.
...I didn't think of this before but Book 2 actually begins with Ron and Harry falling from above into another lethal plant, the Whomping Willow.

Task 3=Flying Key Chamber & Book 3=Peter Pettigrew & Sirius Black
Flying, flying, flying. Flying is just an everpresent element in this book, three Quidditch matches, three flights on Buckbeak, the new Firebolt, and Sirius’ final escape by flight.
HRH think the keys are birds at first = Scabbers is thought to be a rat
HRH are cautious and fear an attack from the bird-keys which never comes, they are never in any real danger in this task = They fear an attack from Sirius Black throughout the entire book. By the end we know that there was never any real danger.
Hermione uses Alohomora on the door = She uses Alohomora on Flitwick's window
Ron gets injured chasing the key (crash into ceiling) = he gets injured chasing Scabbers (broken leg).
The key is made of silver = Pettigrew is the key they need to get to the truth, eventually Pettigrew gets a silver hand .
They need to get the key to move on = Pettigrew is the key to finding out more of Harry’s past and allows him to move on through his quest.
The key was caught twice, first by Quirrell in which it was injured (broken wing) then by the trio after which it escaped again after it unlocked the door = Pettigrew was caught twice, first by Sirius after Godric's Hollow, in which he was injured (missing finger), and then by the trio and escaped just after the Trio and Lupin used him to unlock the truth.

Task 4=Chess & Book 4=The TriWizard Tournament
This one is pretty straightforward..
Chess tournament = Triwizard Tournament
The trio are 3 of the chessmen = TRIwizard Tournament
Ron is the1^st casualty of the night during this task when the Queen clobbers him = At the end of the Tournament Cedric Diggory dies, the 1^st significant Death of the series.
(There is MUCH more to Book 4, it being the heart of the series. I think each of the Triwizard Tasks parallel each of Harry’s face to face confrontations with Voldemort in the same way that these tasks parallel each of the books…another time, there is some BRILLIANT stuff in Book 7. It's almost like a maze...)

Task 5 = troll & Book 5 = Umbridge/MOM and the Death Eaters
The troll was already knocked out, right? Well, actually, the trio had already performed this task back on Halloween in the bathroom, right? So we’ll jump back to look at that battle.
The whole of Book 5 is the battling of “trolls”, meaning, adversaries who were much larger and more formidable than they, namely Umbridge and the whole MoM, and the Death Eaters. oh, I guess you could throw the dementors from the beginning into that mix, too.
When battling the troll, Harry tells Ron to "Confuse it!" = When battling the Death Eaters, he tells the others to "Smash shelves" in order to confuse the Death Eaters...this ones a bit weak, I'll admit but valid.
Ron uses Wingardium Leviosa on the troll's club = Harry uses Wingardium Leviosa on the brains, these are the only times this spell is used, I think.
Hermione lies to McGonagall = Hermione lies to Umbridge (the only two occurrences when Hermione lies deliberately to a teacher)

Task 6 = Potions Riddle & Book 6= Identifying Potions and People
Drinking, drinking, drinking. There is lots of drinking in Book 6. Man, I love this book.
This task was of Snape’s making = Snape is the Half Blood Prince, obviously. This is the book in which, by the end, it all revolves around Snape and who he is. It is his book.
This task is made up of different POTIONS Harry and Hermione need to IDENTIFY in order to move along in their quest.
Potions plays a major part in this book, the new Professor, the Potions book and it's previous owner, as well as all the potions taken in this book, Felix Felicis, Poison, Polyjuice, and of course the Potion from the cave.
This task is a task of identification. What is the big question of Book 6? Who is the Half Blood Prince? Who is Severus Snape? Along with other identification questions, Who is Slughorn? Who is the attacker? Who is Draco Malfoy? And the other HUGE identification theme of the entire book: Who is Tom Riddle? I guess you counld throw in the who-do-they-love? questions, too.
Come to think of it that is the first thing Slughorn asks his class to do, identify different potions. cool.
This task is a task of logic. This is what I loved about this book. So many readers finished this book all upset and emotional and hating Snape, yet, if you look at everything logically, LIKE Snape, Snape is obviously on the right side.
Hermione goes back = Dumbledore “steps back” to allow Harry to move forward alone, because we all know he had to be alone.

P.S. I don’t know about the potions. There were 7, so they could represent DADA teachers (Poison/Quirrell, Wine/Lockhart, Forward/Lupin, Poison/Crouch(Moody), Poison/Umbridge, Wine/Slughorn, Back/the Carrows) or they could be instances of drinking in Book 6, or I don’t know, I’m not really convinced, yet, either way.

3rd Grade Reading List

2009-07-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

After having a couple discussions about advanced readers and guarding the content of their books I compiled a short list of books to rediscover. We've read a lot of these and the rest are on our summer reading list or our read aloud books. My goal is to read books that are more than entertainment and just "to get them reading something" but to improve comprehension, vocabulary, and understanding. I've unabashedly favored the Brits. Give me some more suggestions.

20,000 Leagues by Jules Verne
Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Twain
A Little Princess by Burnett
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll weird but you have to read it, right?
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maude Montgomery
Around the World in 80 days by Jules Verne
Classic Fairy Tales by Andersen, The Grimms, and Perrault
Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit anything by Nesbit really
Gulliver’s Travels by Swift
Holes by Louis Sachar a modern one I love
Horatio Hornblower series by Forester
Johnny Tremain by Forbes
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
Kidnapped by Stevenson
King Arthur – TH White
Mary Poppins by PL Travers
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by O’Brien
Narnia series by CS Lewis
Nick of Time by Ted Bell – excellent epic novel for boys
Nurse Matilda by Christina Brandt (Nanny McPhee was based on these)
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry another modern great
Peter Pan by JM Barrie
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi the real non-Disney version which misses the point
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Shakespeare adaptations by Bruce Colville love these: Twelfth Night, Hamlet,
Macbeth, Midsummer, Tempest, and Romeo and Juliet
Ships before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus by Rosemary Sutcliff. GREAT simplified versions
Swiss Family Robinson by Wyss
The Great Brain series by Fitzgerald
The Hobbit by Tolkein
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle by Irving
The Lost Princess and THe Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald and lots of others books by him
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster
The Ransom of the Red Chief by O Henry
The Secret Garden by Burnett
The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
The Wizard of OZ series by Baum
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn by Mark Twain
Treasure Island by Stevenson
Where the Red Fern Grows by Rawls
Wind in the Willows by Grahame

and I didn't even get into poetry, The Highwayman, It Couldn't be Done, If, ...

Recent Quotables

2009-06-17T14:58:00.001-07:00

Jake in bed at night: Mommy, will you tuck me in, because I don't know how to tuck.

Emma reading Junie B Jones: "He looked admiring at me."
Emma looks at me: What does "admiring" mean?
Mom: If you admire someone it means that they have or do something really well that you may wish for yourself.
Emma: Oh. Then I admiring you.

Emma at bedtime listening to other kids still playing outside: Those kids aren't going to bed because they don't believe in the Church of Jesus Christ.
nice

Jacob in church: My ear[lobes] are like little punching bags for ants.

Ethan swatting away bugs on the way back from the lake: Why are all the bugs down by the lake?
Dad: Well, if you were a bug, where would you live.
Emma: Canada.

New Reads

2009-06-16T18:12:00.000-07:00

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
Capitalism by Ayn Rand
and
Junie B

Our First Family Photo

2009-06-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

Here we are 12 years ago.
Pre-children, pre-minivan, pre-career, pre-mortgage, pre-wrinkles, pre-stretch marks, pre-experience, pre-sacrifice, but not pre-love, pre-hope, or pre-happy.
We were a little thinner and smoother then, but also dumber, and more selfish than we are now, at least I hope so.

Homeschooling in the Summer

2009-06-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

So, here's what I'm thinking. I think I'll plan some weekly activities for my kids through the summer. Art Projects, Science Experiments, History Activities, Music, etc. I'm thinking of opening it up to all my friends...unless I don't like your kids, I reserve the right to reject their participation. They are, of course, free to watch between the fence posts.

Having others coming will keep me motivated in doing it, and it will be more fun besides. I will expect parental help and if YOU would like to host, that would be even better, because let's face it, if I have to do it every week, it's happening every 3 weeks.

Grades K-3 there abouts, but I'm not that strict.

Any takers?

Confessional

2009-05-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

This is really embarrassing. Brace yourselves. The last family picture the Andrew family has taken is...umm our engagement picture. I believe that was actually before we became an official family. It has just not been in the budget. I don't want cheap, flourescent lighted, zombie faced studio pictures. I'd rather not have them.

I just got lucky. Danielle Weathers of Danielle Weathers Photography had herself a drawing and I won a free session!! I never win anything except Blokus. I would not be so excited if I did not love her work so much. My posterity thanks you, Danielle!

Click the pic to see more of Danielle's work.

another chuckle

2009-05-19T11:37:00.001-07:00

I just have to get Jake off the top here. I laugh every time I open up the blog, so here's a funny thing Emma said. She's always saying unexpected things.
We were watching the Planet Earth series that our excellent friends, the Seelys, lent to us and there was something about a Tibetan rodent came up. I don't remember what it's called now. Emma asked what the heck that thing was and I told her that it was a relative of the rabbit.
"A relative of the rabbit?"she replied satisfactorily, "I see, so they go and visit rabbits a lot!"

And here's a moment with Jake. He ran up to me very urgently with a book in hand. "MOM! You HAVE to read this book to me right now, because I haven't even read a single word in the entire book!" It's all hyperbole with 5 year olds.

For a laugh

2009-05-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know Jakey, this is all you ever need know. This is the quintessential snapshot of my little guy. It captures him completely.

Sanctimony

2009-05-06T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent short video in answer to some moral incompetence and irresponsible historical/cultural/martial ignorance referring to the "war crimes" of President Truman and his decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end WWII.

It is worth 16 minutes of your time.

Exhausted...imported from my Homeschooling Blog

2009-05-05T20:58:00.001-07:00

I am glad the Science Fair is over.
I am glad the Musical is in it's final rehearsals...still have to make those costumes.
My house looks like a demilitarized zone.
My children are in bed. Two are giggling, one is crying, one is saying, "I'm going to tell Mom if you don't stop kicking me!
I'm wondering why I feel such a strong desire to stay in bed until 8:30 every day!
We have been rolling around on the floor laughing at Junie B. Jones.
I'm reinstating corporal punishment.
I think it's appropriate that our last History Unit was the Black Death.
I am wondering if I'm teaching my children enough, loving them enough, leading them enough.
I'm glad we don't watch TV.
I don't get enough exercise.
I am lovin teaching 80 kids to sing in Primary.
I'm not going to get much of a garden planted this year.
I haven't mopped my floor in many moons.
I don't get enough time with my husband.
I think we should all watch a movie in bed tomorrow and eat popcorn and M&M's.
I can throw a couple Grammar lessons in there...

When daisies pied, and violets blue...

2009-05-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

We hit the Tulip Festival right on time. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Lily is not the best kid to walk long distances. She insisted on stopping to smell every color tulip and say, "Mmm!" before moving on to the next one. "Mmm!"

We picked our favorite colors and ran around the gardens playing hide-and-seek, yelling our heads off and sending old people and their walking sticks a-flyin' in our frenzied flights. We drew many a crusty eyeball from the blue-haired set.

There were a few vendors scattered about selling kettle corn, gyros, and such. We got a little fudge and immediately went into sugar comas. Never been a fan of fudge myself. I actually hate the gelatinous sugary/crack-cocainey choco-muck, but I thought the kids would like to try it. They put in their mouths and couldn't talk for a full 4 minutes. They didn't like it much either. Lily hasn't slept in six days.

All she does is swing all day.

It's a grand thing to be two in the spring!

The Legend Lives On!

2009-04-24T21:56:00.000-07:00

We've been feeling so like the uncoolest kid in the whole class. Look around our humble home and there is nary an electricity dependent game to be found. We are lucky we get PBS. "Look Ma! This here TV show's got color in't!"
Along comes a package from Grandma and we have kids lined up at the door...oh, wait a minute, those kids are lookin' mighty big.

The thing still works and the kiddies have discovered the vintage opiate of Mario, Luigi, and Link.

We knew the tentacles had successfully wormed their way into Jake's frontal lobe when he asked for a Zelda cake for his birthday.Happy 5!

Recent Reads

2009-04-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

The Count of Monte Cristo classic
The Kite Runner jagged, loved it
A Thousand Splendid Suns smooth, not as good as The Kite Runner
Coraline and still nauseous (Neil Gaiman: "Coraline's a short, scary novel for disturbed young women of all ages and genders")

Liquor

2009-03-08T21:17:00.000-07:00

It's the middle of dinner. Jake is eating the remainder of the cottage cheese out of the container. He suddenly shouts out,

WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GIVE ME THE LIQUOR?

Tom replies,

I don't believe we have any in the house right now, Jake. Can I offer you some wine?

Ethan and Emma proceed to go nuts,

He means alcohol! He means alcohol! He wants some BEER!

Mom manages to calm everyone down by handing Jake the spatula,

Is this what you mean, Jakey?

Jake,

Yeah

Mom,

Why do you call it the liquor?

Jake,

Because you lick it.

Separated at Birth

2009-03-03T08:47:00.001-08:00

Here is Ethan during his blue belt test in Taekwondo on Friday. His good friend Dakota is in the foreground. Dakota and Ethan are martial art mind melded. They make the same mistakes at the same time, use the same moves, blocks and dodges as if they were one brain in two bodies. His mom and I laugh about it all the time, like we should switch off bringing them to class because it's a waste of gas to bring both bodies there twice a week. They mesh well, those two. Dakota is a fabulous, well-spoken, motivated, kind hearted kid. Of course, I think the same of his Taekwondo twin.

Shnayeem

2009-02-27T09:24:00.000-08:00

She has officially left the realm of babyhood as of Sunday.

Here are a few things I have learned about my girl in the two years I have known her:

She loves shoes. She can usually be found tripping over a pair of Emma's sparkliest.
She is a bully. She was beating up the kids in the nursery on Sunday and stealing their lunch money.
Her eyes started out blue but now they are greenish with brown speckles.
She gives great pudgy armed patty giggly squeezy nuzzley neck hugs.
She adores Cinderella. I think it's the shoes.
She does not talk but she does sing. Her only words are: shoes, Da!, Ma!, Ba!, and various animal sounds. She is very expressive in spite of a negligible vocabulary.
At bedtime she babbles and belly laughs at her own wit.
She is good at legos and puzzles.
She will sit on anyone's lap who will read her a book.
Nothing upsets her brothers and sister more than being denied her goodnight kiss.

Recent Reads

2009-02-09T20:29:00.000-08:00

Here's what's been before my face of late:

Murder of the Mormon Prophet by LeGrand Baker
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Moses
Alma 5
and Deathly Hallows

Emma at 4

2009-01-31T19:24:00.000-08:00

I just read this from my journal from June 2007. It made me laugh so hard, I thought I would post it:

I just had a little bedtime conversation with Emma. Went a little like this:

“Mom, look at the scratch I got on my leg. How does my body make new skin when I get bloody? Sometimes I get a drink at night and then I pee because I don’t want to leak, because I hate leaking. I don’t like how it feels. Sometimes when I pee it burns a little. How can it make fire when you rub two sticks together?”

ME: “Rub your hands together, do you feel them get hot?”

“Yes, I can feel it get hot, but I can’t do it very fast. Ethan can do it faster. Ethan is really fast on his bike. Gracie is not very fast. I’m faster than her and Ethan is faster than Jackson and me. When I turn 5 Ethan will be 6, when I turn 6 Ethan will be 7, when I turn 7, Ethan will be 8. Then he’ll get baptized. When I turn 8, Ethan will be 9... When I turn 11, Ethan will be 12. Why did you need that seat at the hospital? Why do people who are sick get up and walk around at the hospital when they are supposed to be in bed? When we were at the hospital I saw someone laying on a bed with wheels on it and I think they were dead. I want to earn some money to buy a glowing bear. I want to buy something for Jacob, like…umm…like (hitting herself on the forehead) I’m trying to wake up my brain! She’s falling asleep! I’ll think of something. Something else is popping into my head.”

Dinnertime

2009-01-28T19:47:00.000-08:00

I realize it's getting to be eating time around 5:00. What to make? What to make? I decide on a reliable Taco Soup. I've got left over Fajita ingredients I can throw in the Vita-Mix 5200. THE blender. The thing channels some ancient astral powers because it could puree my sofa table. It cracks me up that they use guys wearing these headset mikes to do their demos at Costco. I always expect them to rip their shirts off and break out into "Livin' la Vida Loca."

I decide to go a little nuts and add some ground beef I've got frozen in the freezer to the soup (not in the vita-mix). So, I freeze hunks of ground beef in freezer bags but two of them have frozen together so I start banging them on the counter to break them apart. It works, but the baggie breaks and the wad of frozen meat flies out of the baggie and out of sight.

It's while I'm on my hands and knees looking for it that my kids start asking for food. "Mom, can I have a graham cracker?" "Mom, can I have a snack?" "Mom, I'm hungry!" This continues throughout the remainder of meal prep. I finally locate the hunk o' beef in a extraordinarily dirty place. How do you clean dust bunnies off raw meat? A wipie? Those things are all purpose.

I spend the rest of the soup making process tripping over 14 pairs of shoes that Lily has been walking around the kitchen in bringing me sundry cans from pantry. This is how she helps. I have at least one child pulling on me throughout.

Soup finally gets on the table...well counter; we have no table. The kids sit at the counter and eat. Tom just simply does not sit to eat. He prefers to walk around the kitchen holding a plate and fork and it's just pointless for me to try and sit down. I'm not clairvoyant enough to anticipate every item my kids need for their meal. I did not guess, for instance, that Emma needs chopsticks to eat her olives.

Jacob falls out of his chair an average of 2.4 times per meal. This is what happens. Jake is "sitting", the boy does not SIT, he does a kind of modified foxtrot on his butt. So he is bopping around at the counter when he suddenly disappears a la Harry Potter, followed by and clunk and a thud, then, "I'm OK!" He eventually reappears only for a repeat performance 7 minutes later.

The meal goes relatively well with minimal gaseous interruptions. Near the end of the meal Jake proceeds to regale us with stories of all the things he has ever dropped in the toilet and never told us about it.

And this is what Lily looks like if she eats without being wrapped up like a plastic mummy.

Snow! Wind! Ice! Oh my!

2008-12-29T21:47:00.002-08:00

We got so much snow, wind, and ice!! Go read anyone else's blog about the weather... Snow! More snow! This just doesn't happen in Seattle! Yada, yada, yada!

So school gets out a week early for Christmas break. Big deal for us crazy homeschoolers. There's no better time to hunker down and get a lot of grammar done. Woot! Woot! Alright, maybe a little sledding, too.

Honest Tamale

2008-12-29T21:47:00.001-08:00

What better way to spend a little time cooped up in the house than to spend a day making homemade tamales. The kids are not so good at spreading the masa. They seem to miss the corn husks a lot and spread it on their sleeves, ponytails, baby sister, etc. The kids are not so good at filling the tamales either. Other things end up in there with the meat and cheese, like chocolate chips, Cheerios, boogers. The kids are not so good at rolling the tamales either; think tube o' toothpaste.

They didn't help me very long and we all enjoyed fresh booger-free tamales with El Pato sauce. To employ a Relief Society expletive: YUMMY! The El Pato sauce was key, recommended by my kindred cooker sister, Teresa.

I've been craving more ever since so I think I will host a giant tamale making party at my house, you are all invited. Bring your own boogers.

Christmas Giving Trees

2008-12-29T21:45:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of December each of the kids cut out a Christmas tree from construction paper. They earn stickers all month by doing chores, being well behaved and such so they can decorate their tree. Then, depending on how many stickers they earn, they receive money to buy presents for each other.

I love this activity because they are working towards and thinking about giving gifts all month long rather than getting them. They love planning gifts for each other and are so excited about wrapping them and watching them being opened. It's a sweet thing watching my kids give each other warm lovey hugs on Christmas morning saying, "Thank you! Thank you for my present!"

Christmas

2008-12-29T21:40:00.000-08:00

We have good friends. We have amazing pure-hearted, loving, and giving friends and we're more aware of it this Christmas.

I felt like George Bailey.

We have had an outpouring of love and help from our friends this year and we thank you for it. We have been so blessed the gifts, prayers, love, and thoughts to help us this Christmas. We are so grateful. Honestly, ya'll went nuts.

Elfing Around

2008-12-16T19:49:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The extra elf is Tom

Recipes

2008-12-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

I finally started posting some of my recipes on "The Whole Grain Kitchen" Blog. Go check them out if you are interested in being a Crazy Grainy Brainy like me.
Thanks to Scheris, we will be making a big food storage order, soon, the info is there, too.
AND, finally, we will be taking a field trip to "The Grainery" in Burien in January for those of you who don't know what difference is between a groat and a berry. Ha! The place is a resource for healthy homemade eating. Come join us, Mormon pioneer bonnets are not required.

Walton Feed Bulk Order

2008-12-15T11:16:00.002-08:00

There are some who have expressed an interest in making a bulk order to Walton Feed soon to help save on shipping cost. Leave a comment if you want to get in on it.

Walton Feed has EVERYTHING you could possibly want from freeze dried food, powdered cheese, to emergency candles, buckets and water filters. They have Morning Moo, my recommended brand of powdered milk. I'll be ordering some of that. Anyway, take a look at their site (the link is on the left) and let me know if you want to order with us. Notice that most things you can order in a variety of sizes #2.5 cans, #10 cans, 6 gallon buckets (RB is a regular food grade bucket, SP is a food grade bucket with a foil liner).

A Recipe Caveat

2008-12-15T11:13:00.002-08:00

Just a note if you use my recipes. I will change them if I find a better variation. This is very likely because I experiment a lot.

Also, watch your baking times closely because my oven is TERRIBLE. It could be anywhere from 5 to 200 degrees off. Who knows?

I'll add more recipes soon. I'll also bake my bread in the oven to get a non-bread machine recipe out there.

WG Peanut Butter Cookies

2008-12-15T11:03:00.002-08:00

4 c fresh milled whole grain flour (whole grain mix below)
4 T vital wheat gluten
1 1/2 t salt
3/4 t baking soda
3/4 t baking powder
16 T (2 sticks) butter
1 c packed brown sugar
1 c granulated sugar
1 c natural peanut butter
2 t vanilla extract
2 large eggs

1. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower middle positions and heat to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a large bowl.
3. In a mixer beat butter and sugars together on medium until light and fluffy. Beat in peanut butter until incorporated. Beat in vanilla, then eggs, one at a time scraping down the sides and beaters as needed.
4. Combine the flour mixture in and combine. Mix in an extra 1 c ground or chopped peanuts if desired.
5. Form into balls and place on two greased baking sheets and flatten using a fork in a crosshatch pattern.
6. Bake until edges are golden and the centers have puffed and are beginning to deflate. 10-12 minutes, rotating and switching the baking sheets halfway through baking.

WG Pumpkin Nut Bread

2008-12-15T10:50:00.002-08:00

2 1/2 cups fresh milled whole grain flour (whole grain mix below)
1 c all purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1 t nutmeg
1 t ginger
2 t cinnamon
1 15 oz can pumpkin
1 1/2 c sugar
8 T (1 stick) butter, melted and cooled
2 t vanilla

Topping:
Combine 1 c coarsely chopped pecans, 3/4 c brown sugar, 3/4 c whole grain flour, 1/2 t cinnamon in a small bowl. Drizzle in melted butter until it clumpy and sticks together, about 1/2 c?

1. Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 9 inch loaf pan and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
2. Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and ginger in a large bowl. Whisk pumpkin, sugar, melted butter, eggs, and vanilla together in a separate bowl until frothy.
3. Fold pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Fold in 1 cup of dries cranberries if desired.
4. Pour into the loaf pan. Drop topping in clumps on top of the batter and bake until golden and a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached, 45-55 minutes.
5. Let loaf cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto a wire rack to cool for 1 hour.

WG Anything Muffins

2008-12-15T10:33:00.002-08:00

3 c fresh milled whole grain flour (whole grain mix recipe below)
1/4 c vital wheat gluten
1 c sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 1/2 c plain yogurt
3 eggs
8 T (1 stick) butter melted and cooled

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat to 375 degrees. Generously grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk the yogurt and eggs together in a separate bowl. Fold egg mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Fold in the melted butter.
3. Divide into muffin tins and top with the following mixture:
1/2 c white flour
1/2 c granulated sugar
slowly drizzle in melted butter until until it just starts to clump together.
4. Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs, about 30 minutes.

LEMON BLUEBERRY MUFFINS
Add 1 t of grated lemon zest in with the yogurt mixture and fold in 1 1/2 cups fresh of frozen blueberries with the butter.

CRANBERRY WALNUT ORANGE MUFFINS
Add 1 t orange zest in with the yogurt and fold in 1 1/2 c coarsely chopped cranberries and 3/4 c walnuts with the butter.

LEMON POPPYSEED MUFFINS
Add 3 T poppyseeds into the flour mixture and 1 T lemon zest into the yogurt. While the muffins are baking, heat 1/4 c sugar and 1/4 c fresh lemon juice in a small saucepan until the sugar dissolves and forms a light syrup. Brush over warm baked muffins.

BANANA WALNUT MUFFINS
Add 1/2 t nutmeg with the flour mixture. Substitute 1 cup brown sugar for the white and fold in 1 1/2 cups diced bananas and 3/4 c chopped toasted walnuts with the butter.

WG Buttermilk Waffles

2008-12-15T10:11:00.002-08:00

4 c whole grain flour (mix recipe below)
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
3 eggs
2 T sugar
4 T butter, melted
1 3/4 c buttermilk

1. Whisk dry ingredients together.
2. In the mixer whisk together egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form. Pour it into a another bowl.
3. In the mixer combine the egg yolks, buttermilk, and the butter. Add the dry ingredients and combine until just combined. Add any fruit or extra good stuff at this point.
4. Fold in whipped egg whites.
5. Cook in a waffle iron until golden brown. Hold in a 200 degree oven to keep warm if not serving immediately.

Deer in Headlights

2008-12-09T09:37:00.001-08:00

I thought Lily was just out of sight in the family room with the rest of the kids. I noticed she was missing and found her at the top of the steps with a stick of butter. Trans fats be damned. And she really is just sitting like that, it's just how she's built.

Journey to Bethlehem

2008-12-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

I must share this great Christmas activity we went to last night. It's called Journey to Bethlehem and it is put on by the Auburn Seventh Day Adventist Church. They build a 5,000 square foot model of the Jerusalem that you walk through. It was pretty impressive. Having spent time in the Old City, I've got to say, they have done an excellent recreation of the busy, narrow, noisy, streets. So there are all kinds of little shops, a blacksmith, money changers, synagogue, lepers, live animals, the inn, a carpenter, intimidating Roman soldiers, and a tax collector (which is why we traveled there in the first place).

So, they put you in "families" and walk you through the city to pay your taxes. Once you have payed your taxes, you leave the city and meet up with shepherds in the fields. Angels appear in the sky and sing, then you find the stable with Joseph, Mary, and the Baby Jesus.

The kids each got a gold coin to keep. They loved it. It's well worth the trip if you can manage it. It runs through Sunday. There's kind of a long wait, but they have music performances to listen to in the chapel while you wait. 6-9 pm, get there early.

the season

2008-12-03T15:57:00.001-08:00

Christmas is a lot of fun when you have money. For us, it is a time to reflect and be grateful for the simplest things:

food in our hungry bellies,
socks and a cuddly blanket to keep us warm in our cold, cold house,
a cold, cold house, to keep us dry and safe,
I have always been in awe of the miracle of running water,
miraculous bodies,
cars that move without sweat, blood, or tears,
books to fall in,
the light and joy of learning,
an exquisite marriage,
fleeting, precious childhood,
tiny, pudgy hugs
the gift to know truth,
learning to love,
the ability to change,
forgiveness,
faith,
peace.

We have never had big Christmas mornings. I'll be surprised if Santa comes this year. In spite of our frustrations with sales numbers, economic downturns, and mortgages, the Lord finds ways to prosper us. I'm okay with the trade off.
The children have a heightened awareness about them. They have been grateful for the things they need and are careful not to be selfish.
I overheard Ethan talking to a friend yesterday. His friend was talking about something he wanted for Christmas. Ethan responded, "I think I would be happy to give my present to someone who doesn't have one." His friend stopped, surprised, and said, "Wow, that's really nice!"
I had to agree. My sweet little boy IS really nice.

Saturday Afternoon

2008-11-22T14:23:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about setting all the clocks in the house ahead a couple of hours so I can put the kids in bed at 6:00. They'll never know.

Ethan's Taekwondo class is for homeschoolers so there are usually a couple of other mom's there with kids in tow. We all bring things for the kids to do so we have a small mountain of workbooks, crayons, toys, and sippy cups to keep them occupied. Jacob is the only boy. Emma and 3 little girls were playing happily with a herd of ponies until Jake walked over and picked up the purple one. "This one burps!" he announced. "Ewww!" all the girls squealed. Happy with the response he got he elaborated, "This one burps in your face!"

The funny thing was that even after Jakey had abandoned the burping pony none of the girls would touch it again. "I don't want to play with that one, Jacob says it burps!"

Thanksgiving

2008-11-14T15:15:00.000-08:00

I LOVE the fall. After living in Utah for many years, then taking an even bigger hit by moving to Arizona, autumn has been struggling for the Andrew family. (and don't all you Utah people tell me how beautiful the fall is there; people in Arizona say it's not that hot) It is good to be back in an autumn kind of place. I grew up in Virginia, which has fairly spectacular autumn colors and have gotten homesick every October until now.

This morning I woke up freezing, the kids playing noisily in the next room in their pajamas. It felt like the Thanksgiving holidays. It is like the holidays every day at our house after all. We just work on all the holidays. I am looking forward to baking and roasting a turkey. I make a mean green bean casserole from scratch. YUM! And there's nothing like pumpkin pie for breakfast. I had a friend in high school who loved pumpkin pie for breakfast so much he got up in the middle of the night and ate a whole pie in his sleep!

To bring in the season, Jacob gave me a lovely Thanksgiving card that said, "MOM HAPP CHIKN!" If that is not something to give thanks for, I don't know what is.

Inspiration

2008-11-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

There is a lovely story from Marjorie Pay Hinckley in her book “Small and Simple Things”. It’s a great book to keep on your nightstand, by the way, for a couple heartening thoughts at the end of a day. It has words of encouragement, even a couple recipes. Picking it up is like calling a grandmother I never knew for advice and reassurance.

Anyway, the story is about a friend who decided to learn to play the piano at the age of fifty. After a year she played a number in Relief Society. She stumbled at first but then started over and made it through without a mistake. Sister Hinckley reflected on the love they had for that sister because she had faltered so they were all pulling for her. If she had played flawlessly, they may have become defensive and made excuses for themselves rather than applauding her. “As it was, she faltered a little, and we loved her the more…I figure that if I fall a little short of what is expected of me, perhaps my sisters in the gospel will be compassionate and love me for trying.”

I’ve thought of this little anecdote often in the last couple months while looking around at the women I go to church with; especially one. (I’m not going to say who because I know it is true of many.) This is sister is imperfect. She has struggles and weaknesses, but every time I have heard her name mentioned in conversation, other women consistently say, “Oh, isn’t she wonderful!” “She is someone who inspires me so much!” “I so admire her!” and the like. I agree with them wholeheartedly!

I’m just not so inspired by perfection. It is too sterile. I’m inspired by the struggle. I’m inspired by the courage of those who are being pushed around but they just keep going! They keep trying to be their best, to help others, to love others, to live the gospel when things are tough and hope that things will get better.

Now that’s inspiring!

High and (not so) Dry

2008-11-07T18:16:00.000-08:00

So, we have decided to pass on the IB company retreat this year, a western Carribean cruise. Tom won the fare even though sales have been down considerably. It's just too much trouble finding help with the kids. Lily is at a tough age to leave for eight days. So, instead of basking in the sun we will stay soggy with the family. Truthfully, I'm not much into the cruise thing anyway. If it was a vacation that I pay for, I think a cruise would be last on my list. I'm a little odd, I know, but there you have it.

Prop 8

2008-11-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

I just read my friend Niki's excellent post on the No-on-Prop-8's attack on Mormons. It's a great read from an informed Mormon Californian and someone I like and admire. Read it here.

The Master Ingredient List

2008-11-06T13:19:00.002-08:00

Here is some ingredient tips, suggestions, and hints:

Yeast:

Yeast is what creates all the little bubbles in your bread and makes it rise. I use SAF yeast. Instant yeast is superior to active dry yeast because you can mix it directly into the flour without soaking or proofing. It is sold in these 1 lb bags that I stick in my freezer until I need to open it up. It's cheap, too, maybe $3 a bag. Once open I put it in an air tight container and keep it in the fridge. Sometimes instant yeast is marketed as "rapid rise" because it's more efficient than active dry.

Dough Enhancer:
What is Dough Enhancer? It's a little bit of everything. A little protein for "chew", a little ascorbic acid (vitamin C) for shelf life, ginger for yeast "food, pectin for moisture, and other stuff, too. All you really need to know is that it makes for good bread that will last more than an afternoon. You can make your own. Here's a pretty good recipe:
1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
2 cups wheat gluten
2 teaspoons powdered ginger
4 tablespoons dry pectin
4 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
4 tablespoons soy lecithin granules
1 tablespoon ascorbic acid crystals

But it's easier just to buy some. Store it in the fridge after opening.

Salt:
This really isn't necessary in baking, just my opinion. Most salt you buy is white because it goes through harsh bleaching and refining. Real Salt is mined and and sold sans processing, additives or chemicals with all the natural minerals in tact. It is good stuff, but more expensive. BTW, salt slows yeast fermentation which is why in some old bread recipes or if you make a sponge, the salt is added later. Salt also is partially responsible for the crust darkening. Salt also holds moisture so it is a preservative. (I like getting technical with bread, if you haven't noticed)

Vital Wheat Gluten:
So is a protein, actually two, that creates that elastic mesh that makes risen breads possible. Think of bubble gum, yeast creates the air in the bubble, the gluten is the gum holding the air inside. Gluten is pretty important in bread. My whole grain flour has some grains that have a lot of gluten but some don't, so I add gluten flour to give it lots of rise and softness. This is great stuff to use no matter what kind of bread you are making, unless you have a gluten allergy. It looks like regular flour, just a bit finer and with a yellowish tint. I don't know what the shelf life is on this stuff.

Powdered Milk:
For drinking, Morning Moo is the best I have tasted thus far. My kids drink it and we use it on a regular basis.

Ethan's Baptism

2008-11-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Ethan was baptized on Saturday by his dad. Three other little girls were baptized, too, but luckily, it was relatively small and low-key, just as we preferred. No superfluous musical extravaganzas or releasing of doves. We frown upon that sort of thing. It was lovely. Ethan was very pleased and happy. Tom actually shook him under the water to do a thorough job of it, I suppose, or maybe he almost dropped him, I couldn't really tell. When Dad and Ethan left the font Lily burst out screaming for some reason. Maybe she wanted to jump in, too, I don't know.

and now for something completely different

2008-11-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

January 10, 1963

REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS:

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Congressional Record, Vol. 109
88th Congress, 1st Session
Appendix Pages A1-A2842
Jan. 9-May 7, 1963

Recent Reads

2008-11-02T22:31:00.000-08:00

Some excellent essays/speeches I have been rereading of late:

The False Gods We Worship by Spencer W. Kimball
On the Shoulders of Giants by Boyd K. Packer
The Day of the Amateur by Hugh Nibley
Leaders to Managers: The Fatal Shift by Hugh Nibley

Also, just finished Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

and another one by the Great Ronald Reagan A Time for Choosing