Just in Time for Easter

Just when chickens start to get boring... we have an odd chick in our collection of frankenbirds and Gold Comets.  It could be a gold rooster...or it could be an Easter Egger!

The Easter Eggers can lay any color of eggs ranging from brown to green to blue.  They aren't really a breed, just a description of a mutt-like bird that has roots with the americauna/aracaunas (the green legs are the tell-tale sign).  Gold Comets are supposed to have only yellow legs (although I did come across a hatchery that said sometimes a roo will have olive-colored legs).

If it's a rooster, it won't lay any eggs at all...and will have to leave the flock.  Five roosters is enough!

Forever Three

I'm having a hard time accepting the fact that F will be four years old in one month.  She just seems too tiny to be a big, hulking preschooler. 

I just can't wrap my mind around F being a preschooler.  She will be the same age IJ was when we decided to homeschool.  I thought that next school year would have three school-aged kids and three little ones.  But yesterday I realized that F will be Pre-K in September!  And we always start kindergarten work in Pre-K!  That means I need to rewrite everything I planned for next school year... and yes, I'm planning next year already!  I'm also nesting and cleaning like crazy, so get out of my way!  I only have two months left to get anything done before I get too big to be efficient!

Was IJ that little and cute when he started his Pre-K year?

I think it may be safe to say yes.  He was pretty cute.  But not in a little girl kind of way...

The Dirt on Breakfast

This morning I fed my kids pudding for breakfast.  It wasn't just pudding...it was Banana Cream Pie Rice Pudding.  Which is just vanilla pudding mixed with rice and banana slices.

I had two old bananas that were too brown to eat (if you are a kid), leftover brown rice from last night's dinner, and more dozen eggs sitting on my counter than I can count (M and I added a few pecans too)!  The only questionable ingredient in pudding is white sugar.  How much sugar is appropriate for breakfast?

My recipe for Banana Cream Pie calls for 2/3 cup of sugar for the pudding portion.  This averaged to 1.8 tablespoons per person.  Is that too much?

Considering that my children were completely full after one bowl and some couldn't even finish, I would say it was not too much.  Kix may be lower in sugar per serving- 1 1/4 cup has 4 grams of sugar, about one teaspoon.  But the sugar amount per sitting for my children has more sugar because they'll eat 2 or 3 giant bowls...and be hungry an hour later.  And I'm not counting the sugar in the banana, just the white sugar.

 

If I think of just the calories alone...well, 1.8 tablespoons is not even 90 calories and I don't think they would have a problem burning that, would they?  So bring on the rice pudding!  It's cheaper, more filling, lower in sugar, higher in protein, and it uses leftovers!  Hooray!

400 Miles in 24 Hours

Not only do I haul 5 1/2 kids to the grocery store and other crazy places all by myself, I take them on 400 mile road trips in 24 hours. 

Our first destination was The Museum of Flight:

We saw some airplanes...

...and more airplanes...

...and MORE airplanes.

We played in the kids area where we sat in an airplane...

...and pretended we were famous...

...and spaced out.

I think if I were ever to take the kids to the Museum of Flight again, I would go by myself, read everything, and then answer their questions as we walk through.  I just don't know enough about airplanes and space craft to read the information before the kids are off looking at the next display.  The kids expected to sit through a class where someone boring talked to them the whole time, so they were thrilled with looking and looking...but I don't think they learned anything new.

Our second destination was our Old Town where we visited older sister A and her fish and dogs:

And two families that we absolutely love and can never ever forget even though we live so far away from each other:

IJ and his buddy from the toddler years!

These two haven't seen each other for almost three years, but they picked right up where they left off, much like their mothers do!  We (my 5 kids and their 8 kids) played at their house all afternoon and then headed out to our other favorite family for dinner and a sleepover!

More friends we've known since the toddler years!

We had such a great time!  I don't think my kids have had such a great time since....well, I just can't think of a time...  The boys disappeared as soon as we pulled in to their house and got busy trading Pokemon cards and doing who knows what else.  They stayed up until 10:00 giggling (not like girls) and us moms stayed up until 2:00 chatting!  Here is her blog post with more pics!

We just loved going back and seeing all the beautiful sights that we miss so much.  And smelling the (odorous) breeze as it passes over the freshly fertilized farmland...Although we don't live too far away, only three hours, the landscape is so different.  There, it looks like this:

Mountains and Farmland

And this:

More Mountains and Farmland

Here, we are surrounded by the Puget Sound on all sides and tall trees block the view.  It's not bad, just different.  I felt like I was back in Little House on the Prairie instead of Little House in the Big Woods...it was a little weird!  Anyway, after an awesome breakfast, the kids and I loaded back into our minivan and headed to destination three:

Visiting older sister L's barn...

...her rabbits...

...and her new chicks.

Destination four was picking up M's order for 200 baby trees to plant on our property.  That was the whole purpose for our trip!  He had to work, so I offered to pick the trees up for him...with a few other stops on the way.  Aren't I a good (and efficient) wife?

First plum blossom on Twin Firs Farm!

After sitting in crawling traffic all the way home (D napped for only 20 minutes)...our long trip was finished and we came home to clean counters, washed dishes, our chicks moved to their outside home, the smell of salt water in the air, two dogs who missed us, and a grateful Daddy/Husband.  Grateful because his debit card, checkbook, and baby trees were safely home... and us too of course!

Tutorial: How to Tell Scary Stories to Your Kids

Aren't online tutorials fun?  I usually read tutorials that are about sewing or knitting or making something for cheap at home.  But I've never read one on how to scare your kids.

It all started when I was making spaghetti pie for dinner.  My kids always complain about my cooking.  So when IJ started asking what I was making, I called it graveyard pie.  That, followed by a recitation of The Hearse Song started the spooky story telling (just with IJ though-S was outside and the rest are too young).

Boys reading poetry, not scary stories

I pulled out my old Scary Stories books from when I was a kid and asked what kind of story he wanted to hear: the scary ones or the funny ones.  He chose scary (of course) so I tried to read some of the "scarier" versions...with no luck.  So, without him knowing, I switched to a boring, repetitive story that had a surprise scream ending and he jumped a mile!  It was awesome!  So, if you need to scare Mr. Know-it-All, surprise him with the ole bait and switch.

Now, if you want to scare a more innocent type...like S for instance, just take a normal scary story and switch the characters names for people you know (or yourself) and tell them that every word of the story is true.  I'll be telling S a great tale about the time his dad took me on a date to the beach.  I've done this with  a version of The Phantom Hitchhiker too.

Anyway, I have to get the boys ready for an upcoming sleepover....just kidding C!  No scary stories there!  IJ is actually preparing for the spring Cub Scout camp out coming up in May.  He has become interested in public performances ever since his successful Blue and Gold experience.  Everyone at scouts is tired of the same ole boys getting up and rambling about the grossest things they can think of for fifteen minutes and calling it a ghost story.  IJ wants to be prepared with a classic!

Luck o' the D Family (Pinewood Derby)

Here is a link to the Pinewood Derby stories of years gone by.  We thought we had a freak year last year when S and E both won first place in the Scout and sibling divisions.  This year, we followed our same methods: we let the kids choose what shape to make their cars, we let the kids choose what colors and what paints to use, we aligned the wheels, we had the boys sand and sand the axles before we packed them with graphite, and hoped for the best.  M had a business trip and was gone for several days leading up to the race and I've been sick for a month-so there wasn't a lot of time and energy for the cars.

Just a little skirt I whipped up this morning!

This year there was one boy who kept after S saying, "I'm going to beat you this year!"  S wasn't the only kid getting pressure from this particular boy.  We told S that someone else should have a turn to take first place.  We told IJ that he knows probability, figure out the odds of winning (1:40).  So root for your friends and the chances of someone you like placing will increase.  After all, the trophy is just a piece of plastic (and the Piston Cup is just an empty cup-I love Pixar's Cars).  The whole point of the Pinewood Derby is to do something fun with your friends for an entire afternoon and practice your good sportsmanship.


Here were the results:

Winner for Most Patriotic Car (IJ)

Winner for Fastest Bear Car (S)

Winner for Fastest Webelos I Car (IJ)

Second place for Sibling Division (E-the little girl on the right)

Third place for Scout Division (S)

"You mean, I took First?" ~IJ

FIRST PLACE!!!

The races are timed with a sensor and differences are down to the hundredths of a second, sometimes thousandths of a second. One couldn't even see the difference with their eyes.  One set of times had IJ's friend in first place with 3.136 seconds and IJ in second place with 3.146 seconds.  IJ's fastest time was 3.1330 seconds.  IJ's friend only lost the fastest Webelos I award by 0.003 seconds! The computer analyzes the race data after everyone races once and reassigns racing "partners" for the next round of heats.  You can pretty much tell who is going to win the derby by the third round because the same boys are racing together.  And our group consisted of IJ, S, and two other boys.  I recorded the races and every time my heart rate would increase and I would feel like I couldn't breathe; I actually experienced chest pains.  After the third round, when IJ broke the speed record for the second time, I had to leave and splash cold water on my face.  It was just too stressful.  I was worried I was going to burst into tears!  Must have been a pregnant lady thing.

 If there is any kid in our pack that deserves to win, it is my IJ.  He is one of the few boys that takes Scouting values seriously.  The boy who took second is another serious Scout in IJ's den (he is the one who did the puppet show with IJ at the Blue and Gold ceremony).  Although I dreaded going to the Pinewood Derby and sitting there for four hours (M had to sit there for eight because he set up and cleaned up), it turns out our family was blessed with the luck of the D Family Irish ancestors.

This is one proud family!

D

D will be two years old in one month.  He is making the transition from baby to toddler so nicely.  I've been through this transition a few times now and I love it so much more now that I understand what is going on.  You know, the whole discovering his independence/temper tantrum thing (there's a good temper tantrum in public story below). 

D has become easier to communicate with.  Instead of saying, "da!" to everything, he'll say "yes" or "no" or string two words together.  For example, the other day E pushed him (or something) and he came over to me and said, "A-wa urt!"  Little tattletale!  He'll also say, "'ants 'et!" when his pants are wet.  And, "Nigh-nigh (place family member name here)," at bedtime. One of my favorites is, "icky 'ands" when his hands need washing.

He is busy.  He likes to work (I wrote about that here) and his favorite toys are...puzzles!  I haven't had a kid love puzzles this much at this age yet.  We have a little play yard area where we keep 3 to 4 puzzles and all the kids will take turns climbing in and doing puzzles.  It is the one activity he will do quietly during school.

He threw this handful of dirt at F!

D is transitioning into his own bed.  He has slept with M and I (mostly) since the day he was born.  He has had a little toddler bed in our room for some time now, but it was mainly used to hold clean laundry that needed folding.  When our co-sleeping went from snuggling to cage snuggling (which is a step up from F's extreme snuggling), he had to go.  I couldn't take that much contact all night long.  Neither one of us slept well.  As soon as I set my stubborn streak to work and made him sleep in his own bed, we both slept better.  Plus, my belly is getting bigger and I don't like being kicked all night.  The big change came when he understood that each person in our family has their own bed...and he does too!  Now at night I say, "Mama's bed?" and he says, "NO!"  I say, "D's bed?" and he says, "Uh-uh. E's!"  He loves E. 

He fell asleep in E's bed the day we had our public temper tantrum

The other day, we had some errands to run.  We started at Target in the pouring rain.  He shouted, "WALK!" when I tried to carry him through the parking lot.  So I put him down.  I'm too pregnant to carry him all the time and it was a good time to practice holding hands and staying with our group.  When he got to the store, I tried to put him in the cart.  "NO! WALK!" he shouted.  Fine, we'll do some more practicing.  (And while we were negotiating hand-holding, an older lady walked by counting "1-2-3-4-5!" after glancing at me "Six! Wow!" She looked at me, shook her head, and kept walking.  I hate people like that. But I just smiled sweetly, looking straight into her eyes telegraphing, "You can count! Good girl!")  D was so proud to be walking like everyone else.  If he could swagger, he would have been struttin' his stuff.  There was never a cuter almost two-year-old in overalls and purple boots at that moment.

The next stop was Costco for dinner.  D continued to behave nicely and hold hands (after capering around the women's bathroom making faces at himself in the mirror).  All of my kids were behaving really really well.  Costco was nearly empty, we just got there, the line was short, and we were buying pizza.  Why wouldn't they be behaving?  We sat at our table and had a nice, quiet dinner with the occasional spill and root beer refill.  When we were nearing the end of our meal, a gentleman came up to us and told me, "You have five kids.  Your hands are full.  But your kids are the best behaved kids I have ever seen.  Ever.  My wife and I have been sitting over there watching you and whatever you are doing to raise these kids, keep doing it.  I seriously never see kids this nice in public.  I even saw you beckon one with one finger and they came straight to you.  That is something."  I thanked him and thanked my kids after he left because my praise is their praise.  And that is the end of the story....

...because we packed up our leftover pizza and we walked over to the booth where cloth diapers were being displayed.  This is when being a "big kid" brought D to his knees and caused his brain to blow up in his head.  And when he went, the rest followed.  I only stopped by that booth because I was curious about how good the cloth diapers were.  I'm not their typical cloth diaper recruitee.  I know my diapers.  None of their sales pitches worked on me.  As I stood there grilling the lady on diaper details (after I told her that I usually sew my own for next to nothing), D climbed under her table.  And back out.  And back under.  So I asked my older boys to just take him for a walk on the adjoining aisle.  I keep talking.  I see IJ and S run as fast as they can with D holding their hands between them.  They stop, D keeps going, falls, and bonks his head on the floor.  I sternly remind them what they are supposed to be doing and give them the you-are-acting-like-total-idiots look.  Then F and E want to go "walk" too.  Since the store is practically empty, I say yes.  I still wasn't done with the diaper lady.  You remember how I treated the VitaMix man, right? (and the story of the missing child is awesome too.

They run around in circles around the clothing and I finally catch them all, take their points away, and say, "It's a good thing that nice man from the food court is gone! He would totally take back everything he said about you being the best behaved kids he has ever seen.  Because you are being the WORST BEHAVED KIDS I HAVE EVER SEEN!"  They meekly reform their group and ask if they can take D to see some John Deer ride on toy.  They go and I finish my business with the diaper lady (I did buy one diaper to try out and I already don't like it).  I go over to the John Deer toy and say, "Time to go!"  This is when it gets good.  "No!  No, no, no!" D screams.  He grabs hold of the steering wheel and won't let go.  I have to pull him out by the arm and carry him.  He wiggles loose because I have other things in my hands and he runs back.  I have to extract him again and carry him under my arm until we were far enough away that he couldn't break free and run back again!  He is kicking and screaming and trying to hit me!  I buy the diaper and adjust him to my hip, where he continues to scream and hit me (with both arms) over the head with his jacket!  The kids and I are laughing so hard that people are staring.  Really, there isn't anything funnier than an almost two-year-old boy in overalls and purple boots trying to assert his dominance over someone that is bigger than anything else in his world. 

I may have been embarrassed when IJ was a baby, but now it doesn't bother me.  The receipt-checking lady was a little shocked at the kids giggling because she thought they were just encouraging D to act like a naughty boy.  But there is a difference between people laughing because you are cute and people laughing at you because you are being stupid.  And this was a case of the latter.  D will soon figure out that laughing at him is not a hint to continue what he is doing.  By the time we got to the van, everything was over.  And just for fun....

IJ: Two years old

It's hard to believe that naughty little two year old IJ turned into:

This awesome almost ten-year-old who cooked the last three meals!  No kidding!  Spaghetti last night, oatmeal this morning, and grilled cheese for lunch!

Unexpected

"Spring lets every season have a turn.  This morning, winter had a try." ~IJ

I did not pose the kids n' pets for this pic!

I've been sleeping on the couch because my evil cough is keeping M awake at night.  One of us should have a good night's sleep for this place to function and it hasn't been me!  He had to get up at 4:30 this morning, right on the heels of daylight savings so it felt more like 3:30.  How were we to know that F would wake up three times with nightmares and D wouldn't settle with M?  And that the dogs would bark all night because the cats were squabbling outside our bedroom window?

I don't know which one is scarier!

So once again, neither one slept.  After M left for work around 5:30, I fell back to sleep on the couch sitting up with D sprawled across his baby sister.  I woke up around 8:00 when F exclaimed, "Snow!"  What a surprise!  I saw nothing about snow on the National Weather Service website!  And here I was with no firewood in the house.  Luckily I have two strong sons who were more than happy to go out in the falling snow in their pajamas to "provide for their family."

Either today or tomorrow will be the day the drain field is finished and the backyard is leveled.  The snow-which has stopped and is melting-better not get in the way!

Sound the Alarm!

 The five roosters and six guineas are the guardians of the chicken yard:

Aren't those guineas hideously loud?  I took this video on Sunday, after an eagle flew over the chicken yard. The head rooster was safely in the hen house while the other four roosters were outside calling, "Take cover!"  I've read that guineas can herd a coyote right off the premises, just with their numbers and noise.  They certainly make a fuss anytime M is working with power tools or the county inspector shows up.  One time I tried to have a conversation with the construction company and the guineas surrounded us and made such a racket, I couldn't hear a thing!  I think two guineas are female; the only way to tell them apart is by their call.  They are laying in the hens' nest boxes, so I guess it is possible for us to hatch out some more.  I don't know why I would though!

Sunday afternoon, we brought home dinner in the form of 20 Cornish Cross chicks.  And ten new layers.  They all got to come inside while the power was out this morning.  I felt like Auntie Em at the beginning of The Wizard of Oz movie-counting and moving my chicks in a hurry before they got too cold!

Our total number of birds is.... 83!  The Cornish will be ready for the freezer in 8 weeks.  At the end of the summer we will eliminate all the chickens from our very first batch of egg layers from two years ago.  I can't wait to see how motivated I am to pluck and gut chickens while 8 months pregnant!

Four Little Monkeys...

Spring Creeping

I'm so thankful spring is creeping up on us.  We've heard the frogs (Pacific Tree Frog) chorusing down at the pond for the last two days.  The birds are singing.  The midges are hatching.  And...

...tree pollen is spreading...

...fruit trees are budding (Grandad's quince)

...daffodils are blooming...

...there is a bright, flaming object in the sky...

...the grass is growing green, even without its proper placement.  Yes, my back yard is STILL dug up, three months after the nightmare began.  Will it ever end?  Maybe about the same time the viruses go away.  Someone has been sick in my house since February 10th.  It's mostly me; I'm going on week #3.  And I'm tired of it.  I'm out of energy.  I'm out of patience.  I'm tired of coughing and sneezing and having my head, ears, and face hurt from sinus pressure.  I'm so ready for the sun.

WonderMaps! A Review

As a part of Timberdoodle's review team, I have the opportunity to review homeschool materials from time to time.  I've actually had today's item, WonderMaps, for the entire school year, but I really wanted to spend some time with this program before I wrote a review.  There is nothing more frustrating than getting over the new curriculum "honeymoon" period and finding out you actually can't stand the product-after you recommended it to all your friends!  But this is not the case with WonderMaps.

WonderMaps is a digital collection of maps that are split into four categories: The World's Continents, Regions, and Nations, The United States, Historical Maps, and Thematic Maps.  Each map can be customized further with options like color or black and white land form layers, political boundaries, labels for city names, rivers, and sometimes graticules.  I love that this is a digital program and I don't have another book cluttering up my shelves. 
 
The first time WonderMaps came to my rescue was in September, when all my teaching material was late from the school district.  I did not want to fall behind my schedule so early in the school year, so I printed off some maps of South America.  It was fast and easy and we got our work done.  IJ, my 4th grader, was able to locate and label cities according to their latitude and longitude.  S, my 2/3rd grader, was able to color and label countries and oceans.  And my kindergartener, E, was able to color countries and "copy" the names of countries in her best writing-even though she can't read what she wrote!

IJ adds South American city names

The second time WonderMaps helped us out was for Cub Scouts!  We needed maps of Washington State for a den activity.  Instead of Googling an image and spending hours shifting through the results for the "perfect" state outline, I easily customized a simple state outline and printed ten copies.  The same outline will be handy when we do our Washington State history unit later this year.

This school year, our history focus has been modern times with a special emphasis on American history.  This covers the time period after the Civil War through today.  Instead of following a particular curriculum, I've patched together material from a variety of resources, including Sonlight, Story of the World, and the library.  Anytime I've needed a map this year, WonderMaps has what I need.  Using the historical maps feature, I can go to a linked table of contents and click on, say American Railroads or European Alliance in WWI. I don't even print out each map!  We just stand around the computer monitor and discuss what we see.

Spontaneity is part of the method to my homeschool madness.  Right now, we are focusing on the 50 states using a curriculum that I don't really like.  When I'm presented with a lesson plan that just doesn't jive, I can say, "I've got a map for that!"  For example, I've been able to print off states, complete with capital cities, for S to copy on to his own set of unlabeled maps.  I've printed off regions of the United States so the kids could add details like mountain ranges, major rivers, and deserts using our altas. 

E and S color South America countries

Thematic maps are the historical maps, sorted by their themes: Biblical maps, Chinese dynasties, explorers, American History, World Wars, and 20th Century treaties.  Instead of wading through all the historical maps for the modern era, I can look at just the American history maps.  You can see how this map program is useful for all ages, from Kindergarten to adults!  Can you name the Permanent Security Counsel Members of the United Nations?

Now, not every program is perfect for every person.  And WonderMaps isn't either.  Next year, when we start our history cycle over with the Ancients, I will not be able to use this program for the first part of the year.  Bright Ideas Press, the company that produced WonderMaps, is a Young Earth Christian company.  They do not include any maps of ancient Egypt, the Sumerians, or anything that happened before 2240 BC.  This works for some families, but not mine.  Bright Ideas Press publishes The Mystery of History, a history curriculum similar to The Story of the World.  WonderMaps includes all the maps needed for all volumes of The Mystery of History.

S colors a WWI map to match the text he is reading.

The only other problem I have is that since each map has to fit on one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper, Delaware looks like it is the same size as Alaska.  And there is no scale to show the difference.  In fact, none of the maps have a scale to show distance or size.  With larger countries squished down to a standard piece of paper, the labels also squish down, leaving them unreadable.  However, if this program is used with the many other geography resources available (one of my kids favorites are GeoPuzzles), then the whole scale problem ceases to exist. 

All things considered, I would recommend this program to The Mystery of History users and anyone who loves instant digital maps to print. The price can be a bit of a shocker (currently $48.99), but once you consider that this program is used for four years of history-and for however many cycles of history you teach-the price really comes down per year.  If you are teaching only one child for one four-year history cycle, the cost of the program is only $12.25 per year!  No decent workbook is that cheap! 

As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of WonderMaps in exchange for a frank and unbiased review.