I just love being a girl!

I just want to say how much I enjoy having a girl. Nutmeg has an affection for ballerinas, called me beautiful the other day and loves to take care of people. We put our hair up in curlers! She is feeling ill today and since our Cinderella DVD has made an unfortunate and accidental trip to Netflix we were watching clips on you tube. We sang along to all the pretty songs and she fell asleep on my lap. C'est finis.

Got Manners?

We don't. I have the feeling that while my children say "Please" and "Thank You" there is something missing. For example - we had a family over for dinner a few weeks ago and Roo said ever so politely to an adult "Move, please." "Excuse me" might have been more appropriate, but how should he know that? I sheepishly admit that I have never taught him that "Excuse me" is preferable to "Move, please.

So my new resolution is to become more civilized.

This means using table linens, i.e. table cloths and cloth napkins. First, our kitchen/dining table is a mess. 7 years of fork banging has taken its toll and there are large craters on the surface of the table. I filled the deepest holes with wood putty for sanitary reasons - food could get stuck in there and never come out. I have some tablecloths to use for everyday and will seek out more for the collection.

Also, the napkin issue. Moose's family always has paper napkins on the table. I think this is well, trashy. Now, mind you my family didn't use any napkins. I guess we just used the back of our hands. When things got really messy someone was dispatched to the kitchen to grab a few paper towels. So I will concede that the in-laws win the classy contest there. My Mother in-law even gave me a lemon themed napkin holder, but as I have this strange aversion to paper napkins unless I am at a picnic, it lives on the top shelf of my cupboard. I do possess a set if silver(plated?) napkin rings and some cloth napkins. I will be enlarging my stash of napkins as well.

Women are always bemoaning the loss of gentlemen in our society, I have been known to complain about it once in a while myself. But I realized maybe I should be teaching my boys to be gentlemen and my daughter and I how to be ladies. I have never felt that I quite mastered the ladylike qualities. We will be working on that too. Moose will be that hardest one to train I suspect, he's stubborn and knows he can get by without.

So if anyone has a good book on manners let me know. My sister and I embarked on this mission once before but all we learned from Emily Post was how to write thank you notes and plan weddings.

Little man, your worst nightmare is about to come true!

I filled my glass with water and shut the refrigerator door. As I took a drink I looked at my husband and we rolled our eyes at the sound of a child's cry. We had just finished putting the kids to bed. We debated which child it was and then told each other "He's your kid." I lost the draw and headed out to tell him to go to sleep.

As I approached the staircase I saw him standing at the top of the stair case sobbing "Mom, I saw a police out side, I really, really did"

A little back ground here. Osito is terrified of the Police. We don't know why. We are law abiding folk so we don't have any reason to fear law enforcement in our home. We don't talk disparagingly about the police and our position is that Police are there to help and protect us. This reasoning falls on deaf four year old ears. He is convinced that the Police are going to come get him.

Osito is a thinker, he thinks about things and tears and frustration come from what seem like out of no where as he thinks about something in the past and then gets mad about it all over again. A common frustration is something one of us said ages ago and he brings it up and it has to be hashed out all over again. Once, I found him sitting on the stairs, enormous elephantine tears rolling down his face getting his shirt all wet, filling up his glasses; he was crying because he had hurt Nutmeg and the Police were coming to get him. I didn't even know he had hurt her.

He asks us questions at random times about the police, "Where to they live?", "What do they take you to jail for?", "What do they eat!"

So last night as I stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up at him, I thought, "Ugh, not again." Then I turned and looked at the front window to see red lights flashing on the blinds! I went to the door and saw a police car that had pulled someone over on the main road and they obviously chose our road to pull over on, and since our house is the first house with enough room to park in front of and doesn't have an enormous Cascade Water truck parked in front of it, they stopped in front of our house. Nice.

Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but he was sleeping in our room at the front of the house rather than his room at the back of the house. What are the odds?

Naturally, Osito was sure that they were here for him.

Well, I ran up the stairs and swooped him up, telling him about traffic stops and assuring him that they were not there for him. Eventually the patrol car left and Osito went back to sleep. The only thing that would have been worse is if the police knocked on the door and he opened the door!

Last night Osito faced his worst fear, and survived.

It can't be 2 years already!

Our Little Nutmeg is 2 today. I can hardly believe that tiny little thing is now running, talking, telling me "No!", completely potty trained and being a mother to her dolls. She has been such a joy and a blessing.

It was very windy today but warm so we went out to play. Apparently being 2 means "No, Mom. I will not look at the camera no matter what you say." Somehow I managed to get this shot, which, considering the sorry state of our OLD camera is a miracle.

On the menu tonight Nutmeg's favorite meal Spaghetti (ok, spaghetti sauce is her 2nd favorite meal but we had pizza already this week) and Devils food cake from scratch with pink 7 minute angel frosting. Last year I attempted to make this cake and the frosting was a disaster this year it is perfect.

Has it really been 2 years?

Well I do have an excuse. 3 kids. The first year I was busy trying to get my act together with 3 kids and this last year I have been busy with many other pusuits like the Miss Moss School of Needlework for Young Ladies. We are still homeschooling and of course that takes up the bulk of my time.

I will try to start posting more and maybe I will add some of my past family newsletter updates to fill in the past 2 year's gaping hole.

Today I put on the finishing touches to the Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf costumes. Pictures to follow. Halloween is my biggest holiday - not because I particularly like it - it is just as a costume designer this is my time to shine!

Our homeschool - an overview

This is in reply to a question from a friend about our Homeschooling I thought I expressed myself well so I am posting it.

What are you thinking as far as homeschooling goes? Is Cin any kind of school setting yet?

I am not sure what you mean exactly - We are following the Thomas Jefferson Education philosophy - which incidentally can work in a public school setting. We try to inspire not require - use classics - structure time not content - strive for quality not conformity - and use mentors rather than professors. The main point is that Mom and Dad try to be examples, learning all the time, reading, experimenting, asking questions and talking about what they've learned.

As far as method we have a devotional in the morning with scriptures, a song, a prayer, stories from The Friend or a classic book (ideally - the baby kinda threw a wrench in things) no TV or computer until certain time in the afternoon and no playing with friends until 1pm. That way we can spend the focus of the morning living and learning.

He learns through helping me cook, clean up, and take care of the baby. Also we play games try to explain and encourage questions all the time. In the evening when B puts the boys to bed he reads to them from a classic - they just finished Swiss Family Robinson and are now reading Tuck Everlasting.

We try to be examples in learning values and industry so that they can learn to be the same when the time comes.

Currently the kids are in core phase - which basically means you work on instilling right and wrong, values, manners, how we interact as loving people - and leave the academics alone - they come on their own.

Recently I have felt inspired to focus on teaching them the gospel (C will be 8 in 2 years!) right and wrong, how our bodies work, how to take care of them and good vs bad foods.

C LOVES to write and draw. Has picked up math on his own - he just asks a few questions and we answer and extrapolate if we see he is having trouble. 4 months ago he could count to 20 now he can count to 100 and probably up to 999 or higher if he wanted and picked up addition and subtraction concepts on his own. Brian recently showed him how to write them out in equations so now he is working on putting the concept on paper and he is starting to grasp the concept of multiplication and division and fractions. He is a rigid time keeper - traditional clock face too, he doesn't even want to look digital clocks.

He still loves to write and I think is fine tuning his handwriting skills. He used to say he didn't want to learn to read until he was 16 but he has started noticing that all of his friends are beginning to read so now he says he will learn when he is 6. He knows a lot of words by regognition but the sounding out is foreign to him - E sounds out letters better than he does.

But he has learned it all on his own - which WAS scary because you feel like you need to DO something but you don't you just have to be there and provide opportunities. I know it sounds like our little homeschool is perfect but rarely do all these things happen in one day but we try..

Snowflake outfit

C has been BEGGING me to teach him how to sew since I got my new sewing machine in August. I have been pretty busy with Halloween costumes and Christmas gifts so I haven't had much time to teach him. We made a "blanket" in September. Today I had some lovely white fleece and I just guessed and made a long gown for the baby and matching hat. He sewed all the seams and I did the hems on the gown. It really looks cute - and now he can have something HE made for his little sister when she comes.

Dominoes, your in home math tutor

C found a hand me down toy a few weeks ago that I had put away several months ago because it just kept getting stepped on. It was a toy computer thing with educational games. The simple addition games REALLy caught his attention and he is now always asking questions like "Mom, what's plus seven plus five?"

Well the other day he asked me to play a game with him an I promised to play dominoes with him after I put E down for his nap. When I came down he had a line of dominoes set up. After we knocked them down we started noticing the colored dots and I showed him how to add each side up. We went throught the whole box of double twelve dominoes adding all the sides up. We didn't do many 10s, 11s, or 12s. He really caught on to adding 0 to any number, also 1s and 2s. In fact there were quite a few sums that he could do in his head. I was really impressed with what he could do quickly. It never seemed like a chore (except when I pressed a few of the "too hard" sums like 7,8,9's added with each other) and it really felt like a game. C was a little sad when they were all done, but he decided he didn't want to do them all over again.

I love it when things just happen like they did with the dominoes. Now C had math as a concept not as a subject. We try to do little sums in our daily life. I love homeschooling, I love watching him learn and I love how sometimes it all just happens.

Banana Trap

Somehow I managed to let a batch of fruitflies invade my house. I think it was the really really ripe banana a couple of weeks ago. The funny thing is they didn't just hang out in the kitchen with the food - they were everywhere. Well yesterday I decided to leave a plate out with a tomato and really ripe banana to see if I could get them all to congregate in one place...and then get them some how. I really didn't think too hard about it. But C came up with the idea to get them in a jar... I thought it was unlikely but let him get a jar and a lid and put the banana in there. He kept watching it and putting the lid on every 5 seconds and only managed to catch one or two which escaped when he took off the lid.

Once he forgot about it the trap really started working. I go check it every half hour or so and there are lots of flies inside, then I quickly put on the lid and take the flies outside and release them. Then I bring the jar back in and collect more flies. Overnight they left the other parts of the house and are now thick in the the kitchen - which is good because that is where the trap is. I am getting rid of them about 30 at a time a I suppose - and my 5 year old thought up the way.

Lost post

We spent the weekend moving furniture and reorganizing the house. We managed to cram in a major religious holiday's festivities and a couple games of bowling as well. Poor B and I were very sore people all weekend. The good news is the rearrangement made it much easier to keep the TV turned off all day today. It was in a different room so it wasn't even a temptation. When I felt myself needing a break I looked to where the TV used to be and saw my piano, so I sat down and played.

C suprised me today. We were reading "The Friend" and found a fun little craft in side. C wanterd to do it so we ripped out the pages to get started. There was a word puzzle on the back that I had him do while I got all the supplies together. The puzzle had you write the name of a color next to the color and then a word formed in the middle. Well C listened to the instructions and sat right down and found the right words and wrote them down. He only needed help from me with "indigo" and "violet" two words he had never seen before.

Pre-raphaelites meet Preschool

We got a late start this morning. The adults were up late because J convinced me that the pain I was having was kidney stones and I was freaking out about how on earth I was going to down 6 cans of coke and a bunch of asparagus when I can't even stomach a SIP of cola. Then E decided to wake up 2 hours early and I spent an hour trying to get him to go back to sleep. I did it, but then we all slept in.

We rushed around and made it out of the house at 11:20 but had to go back because I forgot the camera. When B said "I have everything all ready." I assumed he had everything all ready in the backpack. He meant that he had found the backpack and I could fill it up.

We made it to the Japanese gardens at about noon. We tumbled on to the shuttle and I finished packing the backpack and dressing E on the way up the hill... then I remembered we left the camera in the car.

The garden was breathtaking as usual, it never ceases to amaze me how carefully laid out that garden is yet it looks so natural. Everything is taken care of so nicely. It was a little colder than we would have liked and apparently March is not the time to go. I had scheduled the trip to coincide with the cherry tree in the center of the garden being in bloom, but we had a 2 week 70 degree stretch earlier this month. It must have brought on the blossoms early because we had a tree of half spent blossoms and new leaves. Also they must trim the irises in the winter because the Zig-Zag path was just a path in a big plot of mud with a few green shoots coming up. We couldn't figure out why they frosted the glass so that you can't look in the tea house, and the koi were not in the waterfall pond but hiding in the other pond all in a huddle.

The azaleas were just beginning to bloom so the bushes had lovely little pink buds all over them, very nice. The moss was everywhere, I love moss.
C and I kept finding things that were shaped like moons. He stated telling us where different stone lanterns came from. "That came 100 years ago from a japanese rocket", "That is 2 weeks old from a chinese rocket" and so on.
E walked the WHOLE garden along the rough stone paths, up and down the rugged stairs. He had a great time. He was quite offended when I saved the stone Zen garden from his intended toddler footprints.

There were 2 adorable pictures I wish I could have taken. One was of C, after having wandered off he thought he was lost and sat down on the stair of the main building overlooking the city with his elbows on his knees and chin in hands and sat there looking so dejected and adorable! The other was of B carrying E down the hill and E snuggled up on his shoulder.

We made our way downtown found the parking garage and walked to the art museum. There was an exhibit of art from the Native Americans of the Columbia river, it had carvings and baskets and beadwork. There was also a Pre-raphaelite exhibit - be still my beating heart! B and I had a great time, J was bored, E wanted to get off my back and touch everything and C was bored, however he did remark that he wished he has paper and something to color with. He likes to copy pictures that other people have made. He was inspired and I wished we could have taken advantage of it. Perhaps someday we can get someone to watch E and we can go alone with C and let him draw.

Outside the museum C pointed out a building with lots of flags flying and he said that the one with stripes and stars was his favorite. My patriotic soul was so proud. Of course he isn't sure what the flag stands for yet, and I am SURE I knew the pledge by heart by the time I was 4. I guess that is something we can work on.

We wandered around downtown in a dazed stupor looking for something to eat as it was now 3 and of course no one had eaten yet. There were surprisingly few eating establishments in the near vicinity of the museum. We stumbled into a hero sandwich shop and ate like ravenous beasts. Everyone thought that it was wicked cool because there were computers hooked up to the wireless internet that they have downtown.

When we got home we got a call that our entertainment center and bookshelves are in. I was so excited but then realized the walls weren't painted yet so I rushed out and bought some paint and spent the evening painting. Blessings to the guy at the paint store that spent 50 minutes trying to get just the right shade of green for me. It looks great, kinda like moss. I love moss!

BOWLING for peace

C has decided that he loves bowling. "It's my favorite." The child has never set foot withing 100 yards of a bowling alley but none the less bowling it is. I am assuming he gleaned information from the television because all of a sudden out of the blue he HAS to go bowling. So this morning I looked at the various local bowling alleys to see when a good time would be to go bowling. I am not fool enough to take 2 small children to the bowling alley by myself so we are limited to times when B is home from work. Slim pickings for the after 6 crowd, that is unless we want to join a league. That would be fun, we could have shirts made "Our little army"... Of course E can't even pick up a ball yet..

Not being able to go bowling immediately put C in a bad mood before the morning had even begun. By the time E came downstairs and we TRIED to do our morning devotional C was pulling the cushions off the couch and trying to put a DVD in by himself, a sure sign of a bad day ahead. Luckily I am not above bribery and I used the "No bowling" threat several times over the course of the morning. It managed to get him to quit whining about the TV, stop throwing puzzle peices, and stop tormenting his brother.

This afternoon we are headed to the library and I think I will try to cram in grocery shopping too.

Tomorrow we have a big outing planned. B is taking the day off, we are making J get out of bed and come along, and we are going to the Japanese Garden, Art Museum, Lunch downtown and perhaps...bowling!

Opening Day

I thought it would be fun to create a homeschool blog so that family can keep up with our little guys. Remember the internet is a scary place so I will try not to put too much personal information on here - please do likewise on the comments.
-K