Well, I didn't get as much done this week as I'd once hoped. PMM was derailed by a stomach virus, which naturally derailed me too. Pretty hard to get much done while doling out sips of gatorade every five minutes. LOL I will try to get my dipped gingersnaps done today, as they are my dh's partner's favorites.
Have had a request for Chocolate Truffle Cookies, which are one of my family's favorites.

Chocolate Truffle Cookies
1 1/4 c butter, softened
2 1/4 c confectioner's sugar
1/3 c baking cocoa
1/4 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 c flour
2 cups chocolate chips
1/4 cup chocolate sprinkles

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, sugar and cocoa until light and fluffy. Beat in sour cream and vanilla. Add flour, mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough for 1 hour. Shape into 1-inch balls, dip in chocolate sprinkles, and place on ungreased baking sheets 2 in. apart. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes or until set. Cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely. About 5 dozen
We usually double this. They are very, very good! :-)

 

In Iowa, Santa drives a John Deere, what else? These photos are from our community lights display; different sections are paid for by different area businesses. This one is, you got it, from John Deere.  

 

Montserrat wanted to know how we kept our waistlines in check with all the baking we do. Well, you haven't seen our waistlines. LOL Dh and I are not exactly in the running for Thinnest People. :-)
But, when I do Christmas baking, we each get one or two things, then I immediately pack them for the freezer. Then we make up trays and give the vast majority of it away. We started doing this long ago, when we didn't really have money to buy "real" presents. And now that things aren't so tight, I've tried a time or two to "switch" over to buying stuff, but people seem to expect the goodies now, so. :-)
Anyway, I have a lot of "big batch" recipes. I made 11 dozen Chocolate Truffle Cookies yesterday, and Saturday I will be making 14 dozen Dipped Gingersnaps.
Here is the recipe I made last Saturday:
Macy's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients:
2 c butter
2 c sugar
2 c brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 c flour
5 c old-fashioned oats
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
24 oz. chips (I like to use one bag chocolate and one bag peanut butter)
1 tsp salt
3 oz Hershey's bar, frozen

Put flour and oatmeal in batches in the blender, processing until powderlike. Do the same to the frozen Hershey's bar. (Do the flour and oatmeal FIRST.)
Mix butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla in a VERY LARGE bowl. Combine dry ingredients and chopped chocolate bar. Add to mixing bowl and mix well. Stir in chips. Bake on ungreased sheets at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
OK, now, you need a very large bowl and a super-powerful mixer if you want to use an electric mixer. I have a big, deep dough mixer, the hand-crank kind. I use this, and it is a hard, tough job to get this batch mixed! I did it on Saturday so dh could help me mix. We burned off a few calories just with the mixing, let alone the running around with cookie sheets. LOL

Well, the baking is in full swing here now. We've had a busy week! Saturday we made a huge batch of our favorite chocolate chip cookies, Macy's Cookies. This recipe makes 14 dozen! Saturday evening we went to Bah, Humbug! a local school's Christmas play/concert. A young woman we know and love played the Ghost of Christmas Present. :-) It was nicely done. Sunday, I found myself without a calling. Having just been released from a Primary calling so I could focus on Teacher Development, I found that the entire Teacher Development position, program, and all, has been discontinued! LOL I helped out in the nursery, not being sure what else to do with my newfound freedom. :-)
Today I made some plain cookies for us to take with us tonight. For FHE tonight, we will drive around looking at Christmas lights, and drive through our town's large for-pay display. It is a new tradition begun last year, and was a lot of fun!
Then, we made a double batch of Chocolate Truffle Cookies, one of my dh's favorites. I'm about baked out for today, but hope to get more done tomorrow.
Fa la la la la!

Happy Birthday Tallman!
Thirteen years ago today, after so much waiting and hoping and praying, I finally became a mother. And Tallman finally arrived, after uncharacteristic dilly-dallying! :-)
It's hard to believe it's been thirteen years, and I'm now the mother of a teenager. It was just the other day I was carrying him around and people were stopping me and exclaiming about his eyes and his soft blond hair that stood straight up.
Anyway, Tallman arrived on Pearl Harbor Day, 1993, and weighed in at 10 lbs. 15 1/2 oz.
Happy Birthday, Tallman, you're the best!

It's Saint Nicholas Day! We read about him and about the various German/Austrian traditions here. Our pfeffernusse are in the oven now.
Also today we are trying a new recipe, Nutmeg Sugar Crisps. The dough for that is chilling now.
Tallman's Church youth group are in charge of bellringing at our local Hy-Vee today so he'll be coming and going as he takes his turn. They have a pizza party lined up for all the bellringers this evening.

Peppermint twists! These will be packaged up (the ones I salvaged from being eaten) in Christmas mugs with a bag of hot chocolate mix and given as gifts. They were a bit of trouble but pretty and tasty enough to do again.

It's still a German-Austrian Christmas celebration around here! Yesterday we learned about Barbarazweig, although we did not do it ourselves. We also made peppermint twists (not necessarily German, although they were yummy!) We made gingerbread cutout cookies and decorated them last night for FHE. No pictures, the kids ate them too quickly. :-(
Today we made pfefferneusse dough. We'll bake it in a few days, then put the cookies aside for a week or two before eating! I sure am glad that this German-American housewife has a mixer and does not have to do all this mixing and beating by hand only. :-)

Next I begin Fudgefest. I'll be making 8-10 batches today. No, that's not necessarily German either, but we always do it. We are keeping it simple this year, and only making chocolate and possibly chocolate-raspberry. I'm frustrated, though, that my favorite Hershey's Raspberry Chocolate Chips are not in my stores this year. I am trying a new product but do not know if it will melt and turn out well. We'll experiment at the end of Fudgefest.
I'll post recipes if anyone is interested.

Well, once again it's been a long time! I spent a few days driving to Kansas City to shop with my mom and sister. We had a terrific time, and much of my shopping is done. We've been trying to decorate for Christmas, surviving an ice storm and power outages, and getting ready for Christmas School. Today is the first day!
This year we will be focusing on traditions, crafts and recipes from Germany and Austria for Christmas School. About.com has a nice German advent calendar; Dec. 1's entry is here. Our activity for the day has been to make an Advent wreath; we put it on the table around a lovely Nativity candle set I own and use as a centerpiece. I'll try to post a photo of the completed centerpiece later.

Cheery took these two "pizza cakes" to the Cub Scout cake auction and did very well, earning $65 for his pack.

PMM in his cool new dinosaur jammies!

We loved this little path and bridge in a local park. It looked like it was going somewhere important. :-)

We were so impressed with this gnarly old tree against the deep blue sky in a local park, we had to take several pictures of it. I'll bet this tree could tell some interesting tales.

Just found this site today. It predicted, based on dh's height and mine, how tall the boys are likely to get. Their predictions? Perpetual Motion Machine and Cheery will be 6'1". Tallman? 6'7". Really. NBA, anyone?

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat!

LOL. What is not yet fat is my freezer. I haven't even begun the "goodies" yet this year. Nevertheless, Christmas prep is in full swing this year. I have almost all my soap and candles done, and last night we got the rest of the kids' Christmas gifts decided on. I'll start ordering this week.

For Christmas school this year we've decided to shamelessly steal the idea from my online friend Katrina, and focus on Christmas in different countries, especially countries involved in our family history. This year it is Germany and Austria. I'll be trying to put the things we do and try here.

One fun new Christmas tradition we have is a terrific new game! My dh occasionally visits this website, Familyman Ministries, because it's by a homeschooling dad. He discovered this new game they sell there, called To Bethlehem. It is a combination of learning and thinking about the meaning of Christmas, and hilarious family fun. We laughed last night until we cried. Some of the spaces are labeled things like "Last rest stop before Bethelehem. Go flush a toilet" "You're tired. Sit on someone's lap until your next turn." Definitely a keeper! Interested? Look here.

Pumpkin Bread
Well, I seem to be fixated on food. Not too surprising for me, now that it's November. This is the beginning of Baking Season here at my home. I "initiated" the season Saturday by making my first batch of Grandma's pumpkin bread. I often make a dozen or more batches of it in November and December. I know the recipe well enough that I need to look at it the first time each fall, then I remember it well enough to forge ahead without it.
Somewhere in my ancestry there must lurk a pumpkin grower, lol. My grandmother is just a "pumpkin natural" She can make anything out of pumpkin, and her pumpkin bread and pie recipes are the best I've ever had. I no longer make her pie recipe often, as it involved beating the egg whites separately and folding them in, and I just hate to do it. :-) And I've tried, and liked, many other pumpkin bread recipes (I guess I have a pumpkin gene too) I really enjoy trying to make Grandma's recipe healthier. But, when push comes to shove, Grandma's is THE recipe. Nothing else really touches it, IMO. Rich, tender and sweet, it is a dessert, not a bread. I've collected pumpkin bread recipes from all over, but the ONLY time I ever found the equivalent to Grandma's is in an old Amish book I found somewhere. Grandma made her loaves in coffee cans, and I loved the beautiful perfectly round slices. Being short on coffee cans here, though, I use 9x5 loaf pans; the recipe makes 2 of these. One to enjoy, and one to give away!

Grandma Zella's Pumpkin Bread

2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin
4 eggs
1 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
3 1/3 cups flour


Beat sugar, oil, and eggs in a large bowl until creamy. Add pumpkin and water, then dry ingredients. Mix well, and pour into two greased 9x5 loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-65 minutes; bread is done when cracks on top of loaf are dry and a toothpick inserted off center comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool.

Eat this like a bread, or for a real treat, top slices with vanilla whipped cream with a little nutmeg sprinkled on top. Yum.

Tuesday I also decided to reclaim my heritage and attempt "old hen and potpie" This is an old family recipe that came down from my father's mother's family. We had it at all family get-togethers. It's essentially a stewed chicken with homemade noodles. Why it's "potpie" is beyond me. The first time, after I hit adulthood, that I went to a restaurant and saw "potpie" on the menu, I ordered it and got a BIG surprise! LOL
Anyway, my grandmother steadfastly refused ever to give me a recipe. Not even any help. Just start with eggs and add flour until it looks right, then cook it until it's done. LOL I have been too "chicken" to try it on my own. But last month we had a Relief Society class where a sister shared her homemade noodle recipe. It looked JUST LIKE Grandma's, except this sister rolled and cut them thinner and dried them overnight before cooking them. But it gave me just enough courage to try it on my own.
So, Tuesday night, I made my attempt. I didn't stew an entire chicken for one meal for 5 people. I "modernized" by using canned broth. I made my noodles (for 6 eggs' worth, add 2 1/2 cups flour , 3/4 tsp salt and mix, if too sticky add up to 1/4 cup more flour) I rolled them out on a well-floured dishtowel, but left them sort of thick and rustic looking. I rolled them about the thickness of pie crust; the sister who did our class rolled them thinner. I also cut them about an inch or so wide, and tore them in pieces (this was the job of the oldest granddaughter at my grandma's house!) and dropped them into simmering broth. After they'd cooked, I added a package of shredded chicken I'd cooked and frozen previously, and thickened the broth.
Apparently they were a big hit. I thought they were remarkably good considering this was my first attempt and I skipped the "old hen" part, lol. And my guys kept going back until every last noodle was gone. I liked my "modernization" because it was much faster (this took my grandma ALL DAY!) and much lower in fat than the way she did it. Maybe I'll try it the "old" way once soon when I have extra time. But I surely am pleased with my attempt!

Last night (yes, Halloween) was the TWENTIETH anniversary of my first date with dh. This photo is not from that first date; it is from December, I think. Still, this is how we looked--19 years old, young and thin. LOL
Story behind the blind-date: the guy I thought I wanted to go to the Halloween dance with decided to go dressed as Jesus. I just could not go to a party with Jesus. I decided to stay home, then my friend decided I needed to go out with her boyfriend's friend . . .
He took me to McDonalds, where I ordered a Diet Coke, no food, but ate half his french fries, then to a movie, Legal Eagles, which I don't remember, since I did not wear my glasses around him for several months. All I saw was a big blurry rectangle of light, lol.
We're no longer 19 or thin, but still together.

Well, I haven't had much time to write but I've had my thinker on overtime lately. I just read a most interesting book, with quite an amusing title: Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservatives plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)

Well. What a title. I thought it would be an amusing read.
It started out cute and amusing. Rod Dreher, the author, was living in New York, working at the National Review, of all places, and told his editor he needed to leave early to pick up his share of the organic produce co-op delivery in their neighborhood. He says his editor "made the kind of face I'd have expected if I'd informed her I was headed off to hear Peter, Paul and Mary warble at a fundraiser for cross-dressing El Salvadoran hemp farmers."

I laughed myself off my chair at that one, but as I progressed through the book, I found this one of the most personally challenging reads I've had in a very long time. Rather like the time a friend convinced me years ago to try listening to Rush Limbaugh--I didn't like him personally. Still don't. But he was talking about how Reagan's tax cuts INCREASED revenue. Well, no they didn't. I was alive during the 80's. I read the news, watched TV, voted. Reagan's tax cuts ruined the country.
Well, um, I was always TOLD that, anyway. Limbaugh challenged me (OK, not me PERSONALLY) to look it up for myself. I had just recently quit my Ph.D. program in political science--I knew where to look. Imagine my utter astonishment when I found out Limbaugh was right. It was like being told that the moon really was made of cheese, after all. Or perhaps that it didn't even exist and was just an illusion made up by the TV station.
Gulp. Well, that moment and the subsequent re-evaluating of "What do I REALLY believe, anyway?" took me from being a pro-choice ACLU member who attended Socialist Party functions, to a pro-life libertarian.
Dreher has just challenged my assumptions again.
This is NOT just a book about conservatives who want to eat healthy. I am guilty there--I'm almost embarrassed to be caught in the Whole Foods Emporium with my Bush bumper-sticker on my van. What will people think? Republicans don't eat seitan and organic radicchio. :-)
Or do they? I'd known for years that there was a fair segment of homeschoolers who took food more seriously than most, eating organic and whole foods and vegetarian and every other strange possibility out there. I knew this because I met some, and because I am one. I'd occasionally vaguely thought, "Well, isn't this odd. We're conservative mostly Republican homeschoolers who eat like hippies." But I'd never analyzed it.
Dreher has. He has taken a whole slew of atypical conservatives and boiled the phenomenon down to sets of basic principles, then illustrated how "countercultural" conservatives are living out their beliefs in the public arena today.
It was startling to me how strongly I identified with Dreher's "Crunchy Con Manifesto" and how well it explained many other rather odd things about me. For instance, my opposition to our local "Event Center" which we recently built in our community. All the Republicans were solidly behind it--it was pro-business, pro-jobs, good for the community! But to get this nightmarishly modern building, we not only took tax money, but we tore down a fine old turn-of-the-century Greek-inspired public auditorium. I LOVED that building! It had character, it had refinement. The floor boards were scratched in places, the acoustics left something to be desired, the steps to the basement were rounded and scuffed by the treading of thousands of feet. We had local craft fairs, flea markets, local performances there. Now we have this big, new, hideous glass-and-angles carpeted expensive monstrosity. The craft fairs and flea markets are not going to be able to afford the fees of this new building. What are we going to get instead? I don't know, but I'll bet it'll not be nearly as helpful to the local community nor as friendly and attractive to the average town citizen. They are hoping to attract business conferences from around the country--but we are two hours from decent sized airports.
WHY would a free-market conservative oppose such a plan? Well, it became clear to me after reading the Crunchy Con Manifesto:

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the contemporary conservative mainstream. We like it here; the veiw is better, for we can see things that matter more clearly.

2. We believe that modern conservatism has become too focused on material conditions, and insufficiently concerned with the character of society. The point of life is not to become a more satisfied shopper.

3. We affirm the superiority of the free market as an economic organizing principle, but believe the economy must be made to serve humanity's best interests, not the other way around. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government. (This one is the hardest for me personally to wrap my enthusiasm around)

4. We believe that culture is more important than politics, and that neither America's wealth nor our liberties will long survive a culture that no longer lives by what Russell Kirk identified as "the Permanent Things"--those eternal moral norms necessary to civilized life, and which are taught by all the world's great wisdom traditions. (Russell Kirk is new to me, but I am looking up more from him now!)

5. A conservatism that does not recognize the need for restraint, for limits, and for humility is neither helpful to individuals and society nor, ultimately, conservative. This is particularly true with respect to the environment.

6. A good rule of thumb: Small and Local and Old and Particular are to be preferred over Big and Global and New and Abstract.

7. Appreciation of aesthetic quality--that is, beauty--is not a luxury, but the key to the good life.

8. The cacophany of contemporary popular culture makes it hard to discern the call of truth and wisdom. There is no area in which practicing asceticism is more important.

9. We share Kirk's conviction that "the best way to rear up a new generation of friends of the Permanent Things is to beget children, and to read to them o' the evenings, and teach them what is worthy of praise; the wise parent is the conservator of ancient truths . . . The institution most essential to conserve is the family."

10. Politics and economics will not save us. If we are to be saved at all, it will be through living faithfully by the Permanent Things, preserving these ancient truths in the choices we make in everyday life. In this sense, to conserve is to create anew.

Dreher then traces these principles through life: What does this mean for consumerism? What should we eat? Where should we live? How should we educate our children, participate in religion, view the environment?
It's eerie how many of the decisions we've made already echoe some of Dreher's conclusions. (We could stand to do better yet, though)
This book just finishes pushing me into a re-evaluative mindset that I'd already been on the verge of--what I am thinking and feeling is reverberating with what I read in Last Child in the Woods (blogged about here) and Brave Companions by David McCullough, which had a nice long article on Wendell Berry, who happens also to be one of Rod Dreher's heroes. There is magic in the air here, there is thought and ideas which are converging and reshaping ideas and opinions and principles. A sea change is in the air. Everything suddenly seems significant.

Tagged! Gifts and Talents
Calandria tagged all of us to answer questions about our gifts and talents.

1. What is a talent you seem to have been born with that you have discovered, grown, and celebrated?

I think it'd have to be reading. OK, not exactly BORN with it, I suppose. But I cannot remember when I could not read--my mother tells me I was 3. I've always been able to read, always enjoyed it, always been able to learn quickly from reading. It always has been, and still is, one of my major tools for approaching and figuring out life. :-)

2. What is a gift you think you don't have, that you most envy in others?

I'd rather be able to say some great Christlike attribute, because I'm afraid that my honest answer will sound shallow. But I wish I could sing. When I hear someone with a lovely voice singing, it always moves me to tears--partly from beauty, and partly because I'm green with envy. I so wish I could sing. I hope that in the Celestial Kingdom, when our bodies are perfect, that will include an ability to sing. I once saw an episode of Touched By An Angel (silly series, I know) that involved the angel Monica envying Charlotte Church. It was so poignant and pointed out so sharply to me how much I envied this ability that it was very difficult for me to watch the show.

3. What is a talent that did not originally come easily to you, that nonetheless you've developed through practice and hard work?

Like Calandria, I'd really have to say social situations and interaction. I used to be so deathly afraid of talking to people I didn't know, approaching people and saying something first, calling people on the phone, going to situations with lots of people. I'd just retreat and hide, or find an excuse not to go. I had panic attacks even, at times. But I decided after I joined the Church that I simply couldn't be like that. Christ wouldn't be like that. It's OK that I'm not a "life of the party" girl, but I need to be able to interact normally, in my own quiet way. I'm much, much better than I used to be. Still could use some work, but it's better!

You all are too nice to me, to let me vent without wanting to smack me. LOL I'm feeling much better today. The children are all feeling better, PMM is sleeping at night again (so am I) and of course all the other annoyances don't look nearly as big anymore.
I wanted to post about the books I've been reading in snatches here and there.
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years: I heard a lot about this book some years ago, but of course couldn't find it. I found it at a library sale last year and snatched it up, where it's been languishing in the Stacks ever since. But I wanted an easy inspirational read during our Troubles and this looked OK. I picked it up. I am so glad I did! Those Delany sisters were adorable. 101 and 103 when the books were written, both died several years ago. But what a testament they have left behind. This book was remarkable. I learned more about history, felt more about discriminition, and just fell in love with these two ladies who survived so much. One was feisty, one very peaceful and forgiving; the book really showed how each sister's personality helped her deal with the challenges of discrimination. Highly recommended book!
Next, I picked up a slim little volume of Gene Stratton Porter's, The Song of the Cardinal. It brought into even sharper relief the fact that Stratton Porter was a naturalist first, author second. It is the story of a male cardinal as he grows and tries to find a mate; then the ending of the book is a farmer who loves listening and watching the cardinal pair on his land, and what happens when a man with a gun tries to shoot the birds for sport. The book then becomes a treatise on the waste of hunting a beautiful creature for no particular reason; it reminded me of the story I once heard--was it about David O. McKay?--who was tempted to shoot at a bird with a slingshot or something but decided not to. Sweet little book.
I am amusing myself right now with John Stossel's hilarious new book, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know Is Wrong. I don't always agree with Stossel, although he delights my inner libertarian, and most of the time, he's spot on. I particulary have enjoyed the chapters on education and (sorry, honey) lawyers. (Poor dh, his profession gets picked on so much.) I'm not done yet but enjoying every minute.

The No-Good, Horrible, Awful Month
I really don't like to complain. Really, my life is pretty blessed. But we've been having a run of annoyances, pains, and problems here, and I intend to whine for about 10 minutes and then get on with life. :-)
1. Sick kids. Two with pneumonia, followed up by one with resistant strep, who is still running a fever and coughing terribly after two antibiotics and 10 days. I haven't slept for 3 nights. Sigh. I am considering drinking the rest of HIS codeine cough syrup (doesn't seem to be helping him) and crashing tonight. No, I won't really do it. But it sounds attractive.
2. My dishwasher broke. We got a new one, but it cost us. Our roof needs to be jacked up and fixed, but no one has done it yet, and the paint on my kitchen ceiling is falling off. THEN Friday when I was trying to print up a schedule for my school week, guess what? Printer died. No printer. No written schedule. Just the one in my sleep-deprived head.
3. Then Cheery's pet hamster died. Samuel the Hamsterite is no more. He has a "sequel", but still, it's been a tough thing.
4. I haven't been to Church in a month. (sick kids)
5. My brother and sister aren't speaking to each other.
6. My entire house is a disaster zone, after a month of sick kids and not enough time to clean up. I'm falling down in all my callings, my yard looks like a prairie restoration project, it's the year the pine trees decide to drop bushels of needles and 80 zillion pine cones, and I haven't been able to take my nice pleasant usual fall walks in the areas with lovely foliage. (You guessed it---sick kids). I'm putting on weight from not exercising and eating too much from being stuck home, tired and cranky.
I haven't been to the library all month, I have a ton of errands that need running, my scrapbooks are untouched, we are getting only a tiny fraction of our school schedule done, Christmas is coming . . .
On the plus side, I have a husband, three terrific kids, a place to live, food to eat, books to read (not necessarily in that order) the true Church, a temple less than two hours away, good friends, a living prophet, a (mostly) free country, and the ability to promise to quit whining now. Really. I promise. Unless a tree falls on the house tomorrow or something. :-)

This is Cheery, marching with his Scout group on Saturday, in our community's Oktoberfest Parade. He's in the middle of the picture, looking to his left. There was a campout, parade and many other events here this past weekend. We nearly always miss it because it usually falls on the same weekend as October General Conference. It was an eventful parade this year. Many people usually walk by with the floats and other things, throwing candy to the kids. While this must once have been meant as an "extra", now it seems to be the reason a lot of people GO to the parade. He with the most candy wins. Kids were everywhere, screaming and pushing others out of their way. They wouldn't stay on the sides of the streets, but kept crowding INTO the streets, and not leaving the floats and trucks enough room to drive by. One kid got a foot run over by a truck, and a woman on a fire truck, throwing candy, tried to toss it farther back to give some to the less aggressive children farther back, and she fell off the truck. The driver behind her didn't see her, because of the crowds of kids on the street, and ran over her. When the PMM tried to go pick up a piece of candy, a little girl stomped on his hand, then grabbed the candy. Sigh.

I've been tagged! Montse got me. I'm new at this, so here goes:

What do you like most about where you live?

It's only 5 hours from where I WANT to live. LOL Just kidding. I like the ward here most. This ward is very close, like a family. We really pull together. We're here for each other.

What's one of your all-time favorite music albums and why?

No contest--the Sound of Music. Why? I have no idea. I've listened to it since I was a tiny girl. It goes with my favorite movie. It's . . . happy music. How on earth can anyone be sad while listening to My Favorite Things or Climb Every Mountain?

Did you have a passion for something as a kid that you still have now?

Reading. Always reading. I was a bookworm at 4, and now I'm a bookworm at nearly 40.

What do you like most about having a blog?

I haven't figured that out yet. :-) I think it's a glitzy way to get myself to journal, and journaling is important to me.

Now I have to tag someone else who hasn't been tagged? That's hard. Hmm. Jaelle? You're it!

These are my guys! Saturday our state geocaching organization had a terrific all-day event at a local lake and state park. We had to be back at a decent time so I could attend the dinner and Relief Society broadcast at my ward building, but in the meantime we had a terrific day! The organization had 48 caches out, and we located 14 by 1:00. If we could have stayed another 5 hours we would have found more! We met a terrific family from about an hour away with whom we "teamed up" to find several caches. This is a favorite family activity of ours. See www.geocaching.com for caches in your area, then grab a GPS, some insect repellent, a few little trinkets to leave in the caches, and off you go!

Last week we had a lovely afternoon pursuing the migratory birds that have descended upon us! One of my favorite things about living here is our proximity to the Mississippi River Flyway. We had a lovely afternoon, spotting many small birds, large flocks of white pelicans, probably 30 or more of these beautiful great egrets. They are so graceful! We also spotted THREE great blue herons, but they were exceedingly skittish and we didn't get any photos--it was all we could do to get enough of a look to ID them. We are heading out to our nature center this afternoon in hopes of spotting some more species "on the move" south!

Where does the time go? We've just been in our usual whirl. So much for life simplification. I think I'm not good at that. My question is always--so what goes? What do I not need? If there is anything NOT necessary I haven't found it yet, sigh.
Anyway. Just finished reading Wide as the Waters, by Benson Bobrick. Very interesting tracing of the development of the King James translation of the Bible, and how it changed and affected so much around it. Very interesting book. It took me a long time to read it. :-) This book was in the footnotes of Elder Hales' talk last October in General Conference, "Preparations for the Restoration and the Second Coming."
Then in one day I ate up the small assignment for my Mother's Education Course to read one-third of A Girl of the Limberlost. This is my third time reading it. I still love it.
Anyway, so last night I began Eve and the Choice Made in Eden by Beverly Campbell. It's a "thinking and sinking" book. I'm reading in bits so I have time to ponder and think in between. Very enlightening already.
I'm home from church this morning with two coughing kids.
I simply cannot believe that September is half over already.

I'm in need. :-) My endless-towering-stacks are still there, but to my dismay, my nonfiction choices outnumber my fiction choices by something like 4 to 1. For years and years, it has been my practice to read one nonfiction, and then one fiction, and repeat. Lately I have switched that to TWO nonfiction, one fiction, and still I am in real danger of running out of suitable fiction! Alas! Dismay! Help!
I need ideas. Obviously I'm well covered for some time with nonfiction--some forty on my shelves at the moment, waiting. But my fiction choices are dwindling. I just had to consign yet another to the ash heap--Marrying Mozart, by Stephanie Gowell, which proved to have enough crude moments and not enough lovely ones to seal its fate. Most of the ones I have remaining are heavy--two Scott novels, Lorna Doone in very tiny print. Sigh. I have The Once and Future King on my couch at the moment, but am afraid--the Ambleside Advisory has some warnings about it on the site--what if I don't like it? Sigh. I have a fairly low threshold for crudity, sleaze, language, inanity . . . I guess you could say I'm picky. LOL The last novel I successfully managed nearly died a number of times--The Book of Light, by Chaim Potok, which had a few scattered vulgarities which, in a lesser book, I would simply not have tolerated.
Suggestions, anyone?

I just finished Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It had been recommended to me so many times--every time I told someone I was reading everything I could find on balance in women's lives, someone would insist "You must read Gift from the Sea!" I am partial to Anne Lindbergh's writing anyway, so I was eager to try it.
My first reaction was disappointment. How am I supposed to gain insight from the life of a woman so very different than I--a woman who can fly off to a beach home (a beach home? I can barely afford the home I have!) and spend several weeks alone. Who took care of her kids? Who did the housework? Did she just put them in the freezer till she came back? I'm not really relating here, LOL. And shells. Lindbergh's thoughts were centered around shells. I know NOTHING of shells. I grew up in Kansas and live in Iowa. Not a lot of personal experience, to picture the shells she describes and think "Oh, I know just that shell, and I know what you mean!"
My second reaction was that I did like some of the thoughts that she expressed. A few quotes I liked:
"The solution for me, surely, is neither in total renunciation of the world, nor in total acceptance of it. I must find a balance somewhere, or an alternating rhythm between the two extremes: a swinging of the pendulum between solitude and communion, between retreat and return."
"The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask."
"This is an end toward which we could strive--to be the still axis within the revolving wheel of relationships, obligations, and activities."
"But neither is the answer in dissipating our time and energy in more purposeless occupations, more accumulations which supposedly simplify life but actually burden it, more possessions which we have not time to use or appreciate, more diversions to fill up the void."
"It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next . . . how to exorcise it? It can only be exorcised with its opposite, love."
"Too many worthy activities, valuable things, and interesting people. For it is not merely the trivial which clutters our lives but the important as well. We can have a surfeit of treasures--an excess of shells, where one or two would be significant."
So, nice quotables for my journal. I picked up some worthwhile small shells, perhaps. But the overall message of the book left me strangely cold--as if Lindbergh and I were really talking at times about different things. She seems to have a quite different view of relationships, of solitude, of religious purpose, than I do. She quotes a passage from Rilke that gives me, for some reason, that creepy chilly feeling up and down my spine: "Solitude is not something that one can take or leave. We are solitary. We may delude ourselves and act as though this were not so. That is all. But how much better it is to realize that we are so, yes, even to begin by assuming it. Naturally we will turn giddy."
Silly of me, I suppose, to expect that everyone will understand my religious perspective--but I find my heart disputing this. True, in this imperfect world, we must come to terms with solitude--we are separated from God, from one another, by barriers we rarely contemplate, and only effort and care and thought and prayer can form the connections we want. But we are born for the connections. We are incomplete as we are, and must find the path to constant communion with our Father and also with our eternal companions, even though it take longer than our span of days on earth.
My ideas of this relationship with our companions likewise differ sharply from Lindbergh's. She again quotes Rilke: "And this more human love . . . will resemble that which we are with struggle and endeavor preparing, the love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other." Lindbergh goes on to discuss married life as this--two solitudes that bump into one another at times, as in a dance (the old kind, the carefully choreographed dances of Austen's time, now curtsy to your partner, touch and circle him, and move on, out of contact . . . ) This conception of marriage leaves me deeply unsatisfied. Can this be all our Father meant when he commanded us to be "one"? Not that I have this down perfectly, myself, in my own relationships, but I'd be eternally depressed if this "separate solitudes" is all that there is.
Bottom line: I'm not sorry I read the book--at only 138 pages it did not require much from me, but did not provide much food to satisfy the hunger of understanding the concept of balance and how to apply it to my life.

This is a picture of my dh--he recently celebrated a birthday. I won't tell you which one because we are the same age, lol, and I'm not admitting to it yet. Anyway, he got a new GPS device for his birthday, which renewed our interest in geocaching, a very fun hobby. :-) He came home early Friday, picked up the boys, and went out and found two caches, and then Saturday we went out to our local nature preserve and found three more. Fun! You download information on caches from a site like www.geocaching.com and use the clues and coordinates to find the caches, hidden in a variety of places. There is usually a log book to sign in, and various "goodies" which you can take if you leave more. A related activity is letterboxing, which is very similar except no GPS coordinates are used, just the clues.
It's a fun way to get outdoors, learn some geography, and have fun as a family.

I finished Last Child in the Woods yesterday. Most of the last section consists of ideas to change the alienation of children from nature. The author has some very interesting ideas. One mistake he thinks environmentalists make is in discouraging fishing and even hunting--Louv thinks this can be an important gateway to interest in nature. He writes, "In an increasingly de-natured world, fishing and hunting remain among the last ways that the young learn of the mystery and moral complexity of nature in a way that no videotape can convey. Yes, fishing and hunting are messy--even morally so--but so is nature. No child can truly know or value the outdoors if the natural world remains under glass, seen only through lenses, screens, or computer monitors." He also writes of the bond that fishing can forge in families; I've seen this in my own. My husband's father loved to fish, and this became one of my husband's favorite memories of his father. He in turn has taken our sons fishing. It is a link with Grandpa which is especially important since Grandpa is no longer here.
Louv also discusses schools and how they present nature to children. His upshot is that most schools in America don't even try. He holds up European schools as doing a better job of this; in fact, I was so delighted with this quote from Finland's Ministry of Social Affairs and Health: "The core of learning is not in the information . . being predigested from outside, but in the interaction between a child adn the environment." Wow, that sounds very Charlotte Mason to me.
He also takes on city design and landscaping--and here I so agree with him. Leveling all the ground everywhere, making developments of identical houses with little cookie-cutter yards covered in nonnative grasses that must be kept mowed and trimmed--why do we do this? I live in one of these sorts of communities, and I hate it. I would much rather be on the edge of town, still close to the town things but with an edge of wildness--a small ravine, the edge of a woodland or meadow, a creek--this is how I grew up, in a town so small that nearly everyone was near the edge of town, vbg. Louv points out that there is no reason we HAVE to design towns like we do now--he brought up many ideas from planners. It's odd, many of them sound strangely like Nauvoo's large plots. :-)
I took my children yesterday to one of our area's "wild" parks. It is a few minutes' drive from my home; if only it were within walking distance I'd be thrilled. But instead of being leveled and planted with Kentucky Bluestem, it has areas of grass around a few playgrounds, and the rest is left close to wild, with a few benches scattered about. We sat, yesterday, looking down on a pond surrounded by meadow and woods, and just soaked up peace. We watched the butterflies, chased a small garter snake, surprised an enormous turtle on a log. I imagined towns with wedged sections like this scattered all throughout, with local residents keeping them trash-free and maintaining wildlife habitat--what a lovely thought.
An interesting part of Louv's book is his emphasis on what nature means in the spiritual life of a child--something I've never heard discussed by many leftist environmentalists. Listen to this quote:
"God communicates to us through each other and through organized religion, through wise people and the great books, through music and art, but nowhere with such texture and forcefulness in detal and grace and joy, as through creation, and when we destroy large resources, or when we cut off our access by putting railroads along river banks, by polluting so people can't fish, or by making so many rules that people can't get out on the water, it's the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on earth. It's a cost that's imprudent for us to impose upon ourselves, and we don't have the right to impose it upon our children."
Or this one:
"We cannot care for God if we do not care for his creation. 'The extent tha twe separate our children from creation is the extent to which we separate them from the creator--from God."
I think of the stories President Hinckley has told, of things that affected him as he grew--watching the stars at night, working in the orchard, caring for trees. How I want this channel to God to remain open to my children, to this generation from which will someday come another living prophet--will he have such stories of nature to tell, that nurtured his beginning faith and spirituality?
I often don't know what I think of specific nature "controversies"--global warming, Arctic drilling, etc. But I do know this--the lives of our children are being impoverished by our keeping them inside, playing computer games and watching TV, and letting them outdoors only to play organized sports. They are missing out, and Last Child in the Woods is an important step in raising awareness and the beginnings of an action plan.

More "Last Child in the Woods" commentary.
Louv interviewed many naturalists, educators, parents, psychologists for his book. Some quotes that struck me:
"Natural spaces and materials stimulate children's limitless imaginations and serve as the medium of inventiveness and creativity observable in almost any group of children playing in a natural setting"
Hmm. I've always tended to blame the difference in what I see of this sort of play in my children, as compared to what I remember of my childhood--I see the discrepancy, and blame TV, Palms, iPods--the electronic world. Well, maybe that is part of it, but maybe another part is that they just don't have the open spaces, mysterious scary woods, etc. that I grew up with. We've bought more "stuff" to entice our children outside more--swingsets, sandboxes, play equipment--but that hasn't seemed to solve the problem. Perhaps there is something to this, that a vacant lot, a forest edge, a prairie meadow, a creek, would solve--these are things I had, as a child, that my children do not have.
Being a CM mom, I was particulary receptive to Louv's chapter "Don't Know Much About Natural History: Education as a Barrier to Nature" This quote led off the chapter: "To a person uninstructed in natural history, his country or seaside stroll is a walk thorugh a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall." Thomas Huxley
An educator quoted in the book said this: "The society we are molding these kids toward is one that values consumer viability. The works of John Muir, Rachel Carson, or Aldo Leopold are seldom if ever taught to children . . . Even in the sciences, where nature could play such an important role, the students study nature in a dry, mechanized way. How does the bat sonar work, how does a tree grow, how do soil amenities help crops grow? Kids see nature as a lab experiment."
I must admit, I see this in my current town of residence. The local elementary school has an award-winning wetgrass prairie restoration project on its ample grounds. The children get to see it, look at it, study it---but, during recess, it is "no-touchy" Someone could get hurt in there, or muddy, or something. We recently built a five-figure-price-tag wooden play area for the children to play on, instead. Our message to the children is loud and clear: Play on the constructed structure, clinically study the sedges and frogs. Don't play with them. Don't form a relationship. "Nature" is something we study with a grant, or doctor up when it is ruined--not our natural environment, a place to play and dream and live. No wonder the children are growing up detached.
Why else don't our kids have the same opportunities to form relationships with nature as those in past generations? Louv cites many: our view of time. Playing at a soccer game is a good use of time; meandering through a woodsy area, wading in the stream, or looking up at the trees, is wasting time. Our fears--our kids, roaming at large far from home with no adults, could be abducted. Mugged. Fall out of a kid-constructed tree house and break an arm. Fall in the stream and drown. Or get dirty. Or something else awful.
I still remember the reaction of the mothers in my hometown when I was eight, and a boy in my class in grade school simply disappeared on his way home from the public pool, never to be seen again. Our tiny town was in an uproar. Mothers who previously only cared that you came home for lunch and dinner, suddenly wanted to know where we were every minute, wanted us in sight at all times. It disgusted me then, but now, as a mom, I so understand!
Or back to the educational issue--Louv quotes a biologist as saying "Humans seldom value what they cannot name." I suspect Charlotte Mason would have nodded her head vigorously at that.
Then Louv takes on environmentalists themselves! Perhaps, he posits, in our haste to protect everything, environmentalists have managed to abstract nature to a distance too far for the children to connect easily. No touching, camping, fire building, tree houses, forts, fishing, hunting--but care about it anyway. No relationships allowed! He cites community rules that attempt to keep children out of nature areas, homeowners associations that ban treehouses, the left's war on Scouting, the "scare tactics" used by some environmental educators. What is the possible future, then, of enviromental activism? Louv reminds us: "Passion does not arrive on videotape or on a CD; passion is personal. Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature."
What is the fix for all this? I haven't finished that part of the book yet. Stay tuned. :-)

We are knee-deep in our new school year. Things are going relatively smoothly, although we are running into our perpetual problems with the "extra" stuff--much of it is getting pushed to the sides and rarely done. And Tallman, who, now being in 7th grade, has much more expected of him, is taking some time to, um, enjoy the transition. Hopefully it'll iron out.
But unfortunately, nature study has suffered for us in the first weeks of the year. That, and finding a place for swimming practice during the day I'm reading a book right now, though, that is really pushing me to reconsider nature study and its place in our lives. It is Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. I first heard of this book last year from another CM mom, and instantly put it on my list, tracked down a copy this spring, and it has finally worked its way to the top of the towering to-be-read stacks. :-)
Louv asserts that a sea change has taken place in the way we raise children--children are spending much, much less time in the outdoors. Oh, they might be playing soccer or skateboarding around a park, but much of the outdoor time of our children is programmed-taken up by organized sports, or experienced with an Ipod on, or something like that. Children have had little time to form relationships with the world around them--build a tree house, throw pebbles in a stream, watch the clouds, see the stars, put obstacles in the way of crawling ants, meander through the woods listening for one's friends. This matters, he says, because the consequences of this nature-deficit are showing up in surprising ways--time spent in natural settings is beginning to be correlated to childhood obesity, ADD, depression, lack of creativity and imagination, truly CARING about nature and the environment.
Well. I must admit that my family stands guilty as charged, despite our attempts at nature study. As a child, I was hardly an outdoorsy girl---but sense of place, of the world around me, was nonetheless an important part of my life--bike riding through the tall grass, sitting under the perfect oak tree, the woodsy area at the end of the trailer park that perpetually seized my imagination, and to which I would walk, drawn as if by hypnosis, despite my mother's forbidding my ever setting foot there--she believed there to be a homeless man with a knife back there, I never knew why she thought that---the dips and swales in the road around our house in the country (how could anyone ever think Kansas was flat? Try riding a bike up and down those dips and hills), the evergreen tree that made a perfect shady "room" underneath, where I could even escape the notice of my mother, the deep crusted drifts of snow along the side of the plowed road in the winter. My children simply do not have access to places like that. The sky--always in Kansas the sky--deep blue, or the brassy, vibrating heat of a summer afternoon, the puffy clouds--or the ominous, mile-high black ones, and the stars. Oh, the stars. I think half the stars in the sky I saw as a kid have been erased. The schoolyard--we had the typical blacktop, it is true, and I did play on that some--but we were on a quadruple-block lot, and a good half of it was just open grass. Nothing in particular, no playing fields, just grass. But enough of it for the imaginative child to stage wars, jousting tournaments, pioneer wagon trains (yes, I was that imaginative child roping all my friends into my fantasy world, lol) And one special tree--a pecan tree. It was pure gold--nuts, shells, shade, leaves, sticks--and a V in the trunk low enough to climb on!!!! True, the teachers immediately called us down if they caught us up there. But as soon as their backs turned, we scampered right up anyway--Kansas, being short on trees, is especially short on good climbing trees. Our trees tended to be enormous lone oaks with no low branches, or tall cottonwoods--not much to climb on.
But my kids? They play in the back yard, sure, and we go on hikes. But I don't think they've formed the relationships that Louv is talking about, that even I, a bookworm afraid of spiders, managed to develop as a child.
OK, this has gotten long. I'll post it, and follow up soon with some quotes.

Well, we just returned from a brief "back to school vacation" in Nauvoo. We had a MARVELOUS time! It just so worked out that we got a room (a beautiful one at Nauvoo Family Inns and Suites) the very last week of the scheduled summer performances, so we could see the regular summer shows like Sunset By the Mississippi. We also really lucked out, and were there the last week of performances by the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. These young people were absolutely amazing! We went one night, with the boys sort of thinking "what a sissie thing to go do", and we were ALL so impressed, we had to go back the very next night to see the other part of the program! We were thrilled both times. We got a photo of a few of the performers in their Ukranian costumes. I'm so grateful that this great program exists to preserve this beautiful part of the heritage of many people, and bring it to average American midwesterners and others.
And even better--a folk music ensemble called Mountain Strings opened and filled in during costume changes of the performance--they are every bit as amazing!!! We loved them so much we bought their CD. LOL
We saw many sights, had a lot of fun, got some work done at the temple, saw many shows, and PMM had quite a week. He was an "apprentice" at the Browning Gun Shop, and a "dauber" at the Print Shop, and was pulled up on stage during the performance of a children's show called Just Plain Anna Amanda! Cheery and Tallman were "pressed" into service as pressmen during a demonstration at the print shop, too. We couldn't have asked for a better family time. Our only complaint--the mayflies were absolutely thick! This was the third mayfly outbreak in Nauvoo this summer, some of the missionaries told us. We walked down Parley Street to the river early one morning, and they were just in curtains. It was sort of icky. We almost skipped going down to Sunset by the Mississippi that night, as we were sure they would be terrible. They were, but fortunately mostly stayed above us, in the lights, so we could enjoy the hilarious performances. The young performance missionaries that are there this summer have some real personality! Two of them, including a young Sister Osmond, do a fantastic Devil Went Down to Georgia, and several of the young men do a skit called "The Audition" that is the funniest thing I've seen in a long, long time!
I'm so grateful to have a place like Nauvoo so nearby, I wish I could "can" some of the entertainment and the wonderful testimonies borne to us so I could pull it out in those difficult moments!

This weekend we took a hurried trip down to Kansas to go to a family reunion at my aunt's house. My last remaining grandmother was there, the one I always think of as "Little Grandma" She was never very big to begin with, but now at age 89 she's really tiny. She's been ill several times this year, and I guess I am feeling like each time I see her might be my last, especially after losing my other grandma in February. Grandma's memory has suffered, and she may not remember by now that I was there, but at least I knew I was there. Grandma is quite a lady--I was really blessed in the two women who were my grandmothers. She was a domestic woman's woman--talented seamstress, great cook, gardener, canner. Since I planned as a girl on being the ambassador to France or some such thing, and having a staff, LOL, I was too busy and too shortsighted to learn much from her. I've been kicking myself ever since starting my family.
There were cousins and second cousins, all also gathered to see Grandma and visit and catch up. To my great delight, I discovered that my father's cousin has an oral history and digitized photos of my great-grandmother and her family. It was a lot of fun! I was struck by how GOOD these people are to whom I am related-- different from me, perhaps, in lifestyle and religious belief, but they are the good, solid people of this earth who would stick together and do anything to help family. I'm glad to have them!

Well, here is our First Day of School 2006/07 picture! Tallman is in 7th grade this year, Cheery in 5th, and PMM in 1st. We began on Monday 08/07, so we have an entire week under our belts as I write this, and it went fairly well. The new books are being enjoyed, we got done most days in pretty good time. We have a few bugs to work out with PMM's work, as there were a few days his work wasn't done until evening time, when I could spare some more time for him. Tallman reports that he likes all his science books and programs the best, Cheery asserts that Shakespeare and his Leonardo da Vinci biography are his favorites so far, and PMM loves his MathUSee and The Great Eight Spanish. My, I'm starting to look SHORT when standing next to my kids!

Wow, where on earth does my blogging time go? If I get any slower at updating the blog, it'll be Christmas before I finish my we-just-started-school posts. Argh!
This is Tallman at Scout camp. He had a terrific time; it was a fabulous experience for him. He loved camping, he talked and played and made friends, he got three merit badges, including archery, which I understand is difficult to qualify for in one day--there are proficiency requirements. But Tallman did it! He must have some of my mother's archery genes, and they obviously skipped me. :-) But it was a great week for him, and I am glad he had a good time---and even more glad he is home!!!

Well, almost there! Yesterday I got Cheery's and much of PMM's things all lined up. Whew! Then we went last night to Tallman's Scout camp Parents Night. That was fun, but very hot and sticky. It rained last night, not enough, but a little anyway, and is supposed to be some cooler today. Tallman is headed to the archery range today, I hear. :-)
Anyway, Cheery is doing many of the same things as Tallman for school. They are doing the same Latin and physical science programs. Cheery is doing MathUSee Epsilon this year, and doing most of Ambleside Online Year 3. We didn't do as much fiddling as we did with Tallman's Ambleside schedule; Cheery will pretty much be doing it as written. He is VERY enthusiastic about Shakespeare this year. For a "back to school" treat, we got him a Shakespeare Treasure Chest with activities and stuff in it, and he carried it around all day yesterday! LOL He was recently in an Activity Days play, and loved it. He might have the boards in his blood, lol. I'll be checking into some local outlets for that if he remains interested.
And now for the PMM. I know what we're PLANNING on for him, what I don't yet know is how much he's going to sit still for. He is officially "first grade" this year. He will be beginning MathUSee Alpha, and continuing with Teaching Your Children to Read Using the Book of Mormon. He has really thrived on this. He'll be doing Ambleside Online year 1, but at only half-speed--I really want to take the time to see that he picks up narrating, and copywork, and all that, and I know I won't do a good job of that if we are rushed. He is excited to begin regular copywork this year.
Today I need to finish setting up things to start PMM's new Spanish program, The Great Eight Mealtime Kit. The goal is to have the entire family speaking largely in Spanish at dinner time. We'll see how it goes-it is a very new program that we found at our local convention this summer. Also, I will be going over a late addition to the older boys' schedules--a communications program called Say What You Mean. I'll be going over it--I think it is possible to integrate this into the boys' narrations so they'll be getting the benefit of the course, while not doing much "extra" work, using as fodder for their communications and speech assignments, the books they would be doing written or oral narrations on. Those are my jobs for the day! Then tomorrow the schedules can be printed, the assignments sent off to the boys' Palm devices, and we'll be ready to go on Monday.
We are also planning something new for us this year--following the Ambleside schedules, plus an exam week each term, will make for 39 weeks of school. We've never done that before, lol. So the last two weeks of each term are going to be "crazy weeks" We'll be setting aside all of our normal schedules except for the Ambleside reading. The boys will have the terrific Business Math program from simplycharlottemason.com to help keep their math skills sharp, they'll read, and then we'll do those "other projects" that sound like fun that we never find time to do. A play based on one of our readings, perhaps, or extra field trips, art projects, whatever we can come up with. This will also be a great time to get videos of the Shakespeare play for the term and all that. I think it'll help keep things fresh and hopefully avoid burnout.
Well, I'm off to convince myself that I can teach PMM to set the table using only Spanish!

School planning update:
I got the music for Term 1 selected and made up song booklets for the children. Dh will burn a CD for me later. Our devotions are all set--"music mornings" twice a week, readings from The Book of Virtues for Young People and A Story to Tell once a week, a conference address once a week, and reading from Church History for Latter-Day Saint Families once week.
I set up our new Latin program for the first week. We'll be using Volume 1 of Latin in the Christian Trivium and I'm just delighted with the professional materials and the free support. :-) We're going to be happy Latin campers this year.
I also got Tallman's materials planned out. Some of these we'll be using with the other children, too.
He'll be in MathUSee, finishing Zeta and later, beginning Pre-Algebra.
We'll be using the terrific Spelling Wisdom materials for dictation--Tallman is in Book 3.
He'll be reading most of the selections in Ambleside Online Year 5 for history and literature and nature study, although we've tweaked a few things, changing some biographies around to make room for George Q. Cannon's Life of Nephi, and the Leaders in Action bio of Stonewall Jackson, of interest to us after visiting his home in Virginia.
We're adding for his devotional reading, Righteous Warriors by John Bytheway, Youth and the Temple--by the temple-drawing guy whose name I just forgot, and I have a migraine and don't want to get up, lol, and To Grow in Spirit by Joe J. Christensen. Practical skills will be addressed by reading Created for Work--OK, I forgot that guy's name too, and The Young Man's Handybook: Preparing Your Son on the Homefront by Martha Greene at Marmee's Kitchen.
The two older boys will do God's Design for the Physical World for science, we are going to read Much Ado About Nothing (also a high-interest thing at the moment, as we saw a superb performance of it in May), reading Plutarch's life of Tiberius Gracchus, and studying Mozart for music and Meindert Hobbema for art. Tallman will top things off with a technical-drawing program, as he has expressed intense interest in NOT having to do frou-frou drawing this year. LOL
Whew. Not bad for a lady with a migraine. On to Cheery's schedule tomorrow.

School starts a week from today!!!
I did not get much accomplished today, probably due to the raging migraine I ended up with after sleeping two hours last night--I was in "brain whirl" probably due to sending ds off to camp in 100 degree heat. Anyway. I cleaned off all our school bookshelves, completed and mailed all our state paperwork, found the books we'll need for morning devotions, and used my new speech program (from www.nathhan.com) to evaluate the PMM, since his pediatrician keeps bugging me about him being difficult to understand. WE don't find him all that difficult to understand, PMM has a way of getting his ideas across. Actually, at the same age, I thought Cheery was harder to understand, and he went through three long years of therapy at the public school. We don't want to repeat that, hence our purchasing materials to "do it ourselves." Turns out, with all that complaining by the pediatrician, PMM is not doing badly at all--he has trouble with "sh", "l", "r" and "th", it is true, but most of those are not recommended for treatment at his age. The only sound he has consistent trouble with that needs addressing at age 6 is "ch" So we'll work on that this year.
Still to try and do tonight--make up little folders with the words to the songs we are going to work on learning this term. I need help burning a CD of the songs, but dh is heading back out to camp with Tallman, so it'll have to wait.
Ds at camp is thrilled and delighted. He will be working on his Reptiles and Amphibians, Environmental Science, and Archery merit badges. All the other boys in our troop decided to take the same ones Tallman wanted to take, so they are "en masse" and following his 6'2" form. They are ordering pizza for supper tonight, and all the boys are sleeping in one tent together. It's not supposed to get much cooler than 80 degrees, so not sure how much sleeping they will be doing! I just hope they stay safe and have fun.

Argh, for some reason I am totally unable to post pictures on any of my blogs, since Thursday. I'm most put out. :-) I have things to say and things to do, but keep getting a "page cannot be displayed, try later" message. So no pix today. :0(
Tallman left early this morning for his very first Boy Scout camp. I think I'm OK with that, but worried about the weather. It is supposed to be over 100 degrees today, and very humid. I got sent home early last year due to heat exhaustion, and I hope Tallman has a healthier and better experience. But he is excited and ready to go. Crazy kid LOVES camping, and he loves Scouts.
So I'm here alone with Cheery and PMM (dh is at camp too) and this week will be taken up with putting the finishing touches on our new school year, which begins next Monday. Partly to keep my thoughts straight, I'll likely be doing a list of "what I've done and what's left" each day to keep myself on track. But first, I have to go clean the bathrooms. LOL A never-ending job here in Boyville. Although with only TWO here all week, maybe I can stay ahead of them.
Nah. LOL

Tallman at his first Court of Honor last night. He advanced to Second Class and received several merit badges. Tallman does not like to swim, so had been sort of "stuck" in advancing but he has worked very hard at something he does not like, and is advancing now. It won't be long before he qualifies for First Class. He reports to his very first Scout Camp on Monday! He is getting so grown-up. :-)

A scene from the pageant in Nauvoo. We went on a very hot and sticky Saturday night. It was a wonderful production; it's the first time we'd seen the new pageant, first shown last year. Every time we picked a time to go last year something happened, lol. But we got to see it this year. There's a new stage, although I have no idea how the actors don't slide off of it.
We'll be going back to Nauvoo for a few days soon; that's where we will take our annual Back to School vacation. :-)

This is so funny! I was telling a funny PMM story on an email list I recently joined, and the list/website owner created a Purple Crayon Award in his honor! Look here to read all about it! (you'll have to click on "Purple Crayon Award on the left-hand toolbar)

We got several nice, normal shots of fireworks this 4th of July, but this one is my favorite--I just like the visual effect.  

Yes, we did it! We produced three bookworms in a row! Yippee! Of course, in our house, it's probably a self-defense mechanism--they have to figure out SOMETHING to do when Mommy and Daddy are reading. :-)

This is us at one concert. We look hot. :-) In the old-fashioned sense, of course.

Our community has free weekly municipal band concerts every summer--the longest-running west of the Mississippi. We've been regulars since the boys were babies.

Why have a sand sculpture contest in Iowa, of all places? Why not?