Brooketopia

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown Week 7: Starting to "See" the Progress

2012-02-13T09:23:00.000-07:00

The end of the seventh week. We've been doing this seven weeks!

Michael:

Last Week: 221.8
This Week: 219.8

Weight Change This Week: -2.0 lbs.
Total Weight Change: -4.6 lbs.

Beginning Weight: 224.4
Goal Weight: 175.0

Cara

Last Week: 194.8
This Week: 192.0

Weight Change This Week: -2.8 lbs. Winner!
Total Weight Change: -15.4 lbs.

Beginning Weight: 207.4
Goal Weight: 130.0

We are definitely back on the wagon. My weight stubbornly hovered at last week's amount for many days and it was really frustrating until I noticed that my clothes seemed to be getting very loose very quickly. In a conversation with my health coach on Saturday, I reported my "observations" and she told me that what I was experiencing was pretty normal: You lose big amounts for a couple of weeks, and then the loss slows a little, but your body "shrinks" to "catch-up" with the weight loss.

I tucked that little tidbit away in my mind, and the next day when I was getting ready for church I discovered that my favorite dress had to be cinched all the way it could go and that my stomach was missing its pouchy look. I ran out to the living room and told Michael to tell if I looked different or if it was simply in my head. His eyes widened and he said something to the effect of, "You wore that dress last week for Bluebird's baptism and it did not look like that on you last week." As in, YES, I actually look different now. I walked on a cloud for the rest of the day.

As for Michael, he's still sticking to his plan of limiting his portions and not drinking his calories. Two pounds in a week is pretty admirable! He's sick right now, so hopefully he won't turn to unhealthy foods to comfort himself. Our grocery bill has gone done a little bit each week as he eats less and our entire family eats more vegetables and lean proteins. This is a good change for us all.

Weekly Report 2011-2012: Week 23 Sickies.

2012-02-10T09:12:00.001-07:00

We took last week off to get the house ready for Bluebird's baptism and all its implied house visitors, and I was really looking forward to getting back into our routine this week.

[Enter foreboding music here...dum, dum, DUUUUMMMMM!]

We got sick. Of course.

I'm exuding a lot of mental energy giving myself silent talks about not freaking out over losing a week of school because we're sick. It happens to everyone and it's not going to majorly impact anything in the long run. I just wanted to do school this week. Boo.

We are definitely on the mend. Fevers are gone and all that remains are hacking coughs. Yay for the healing process!

Bluebird worked on thank you notes early in the week and that's been the extent of school for her. (Her penmanship has really improved! I never thought I'd say that about her!) She also read a lot, which helps ease my not-schooling heart.

She received a few books for her birthday and ploughed through in a few hours and then hounded me about how long it's been since we've been to the library. (I agree, but our library doesn't open until NOON on Fridays, which is when we do our errands...ugh, small town! Once you've had four young children out doing errands for four hours, going to the library seems like something only a masochist would do to themselves. I'm working on a solution, but it's tough with the one-car-situation.)

It's February! A week off to be sick is completely expected. We'll pick up next week.

Bluebird's Baptism

2012-02-08T00:00:00.001-07:00

Our Eternal Family

Bluebird entered the waters of baptism this last weekend. It was a beautiful day, full of family, friends, and so much joy that my heart seemed ready to burst. I kept thinking, "Everything I have ever done or sacrificed to make this day a reality has been completely and utterly worth it." It truly felt like Heaven on Earth. That's the only way I can explain it. I believe that Heaven will feel like her baptism. Everything that mattered was in that little room--family, friends and faith.

People flew and drove many miles to be with Bluebird on her special day. My granny and my aunt flew down from Seattle the night before, their flight getting in at 10pm and settling into their hotel room at 11:30pm. I drove to their hotel to spend some time with them that late evening because they had to leave a few hours after Bluebird's baptism to catch their return flight home. It was so good to see them, and then my aunt said, "Turn around."

My dad had come too. (We won't go into my eardrum-shattering reception of his presence.) My family, my family, my family. Together to share in the realization of the dream that started when my granny was the first person in our family to become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, back in the 1970's.

Michael's mother and aunt drove down from Idaho to be with us. My children are so blessed to have these strong women in their lives. They have testimonies that they aren't afraid to share. Michael comes from a line of pioneer stock that is proud of their heritage. I love that my children have that to claim as their own. Thank you to the generations of faithful Latter-day Saints that have carried the Restored Gospel to this day.

My cousin, Bobby, and his wife Rachel and their adorable daughter also came down for the baptism. They are cute newish-weds with a little child who are finishing up their degrees at BYU-Idaho...I remember what it was like to be in their shoes and I know what a sacrifice it was for them to be here with us. And they did it happily, without a second thought...I was not as mature as them when I was their age. Bobby served as one of the witnesses of Bluebird's baptism and Rachel gave a perfect talk about the Holy Ghost. I can't believe that Bobby and I are working together to do these things now. Yesterday he was running around with my brother, poking slugs with sticks. Now he's helping confirm my daughter as a member of the Church. When did that happen?!?!

Sadly, I don't have pictures of everyone who came to the baptism. There were many people who came out to celebrate with Bluebird her momentous decision, and I was going to try to link to all of them, but the list got to be too long. Each of you added an extra measure of special to a day already brimming with beauty and joy. Thank you, thank you.

And my biggest thanks go to Michael. He is a man of faith, an excellent father and the biggest blessing of a husband that any woman could ever wish to aspire to. Without him this would not be possible...obviously, biologically, of course...but the guidance he provides to both me and our children and the example he sets pulls us to a higher level. I was overcome with emotion as I watched him help Bluebird step into the water and realized that we are doing this. This dream of an eternal family and a happily ever after...it's happening and moving forward a little bit more every day. It's so hard sometimes, but we don't give up and then we have a day like this and it just overwhelms me with gratitude and adoration for the man that he is. Sometimes it feels like too much for one woman to have all to herself--Michael, Bluebird, Penguin, Junebug, Monkeyboy, my extended family, my friends and my faith. It's all that matters. And I have it all.

It was a wonderful day.

It's a wonderful life.

Bluebird turns EIGHT!

2012-02-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

My first baby turned EIGHT last week. EIGHT. That is so big for so many reasons. First of all, it's been EIGHT years of being her mother. There are few things that I've stuck with for EIGHT years. Michael and I have been together for nine, and I've been a member of the Church for almost eleven. There's nothing else I've done for that long, unless you count my mandatory educational experience...which I don't, because it's not like I had a choice in the matter. :)

So yes, I have been cleaning up, talking to and loving this girl for EIGHT years now. It's been a good EIGHT years. (The first year felt like it would never end...and the fourth year was a little bit of a nightmare with her, but she eventually grew out of it.)

She looks older. She's lost her two front teeth. She uses big words that sound so out of place coming out of her little kid mouth. She's losing a bit of her "I hate work" attitude, which I sincerely appreciate, and she would rather go read a book than do just about anything else. She's still bossy, but she'll also take the intiative every now and then and just do the work herself instead of lecturing a younger sibling about why they should be doing it.

The other reason why EIGHT is such a big deal is because when you turn EIGHT years old in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are officially old enough to make the decision to be baptized. She's been reading her scriptures and I've been doing my best to have gospel-oriented discussions with her about every possible topic that has come up in our daily lives, and she decided that she did want to be baptized a member of the Church. The big EIGHT. It's been an exciting time for our family.

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown Week 6: Gettin' Back on the Horse

2012-02-06T10:09:00.000-07:00

Yeah, don't go looking for a Week 5 report...because there isn't one. We ~~completely~~ sort of fell off the wagon after I had a bout of electrolyte imbalance during Week 5, and then it was Bluebird's birthday and we had lots of family over for this last weekend; tough couple of weeks to stay true to the weight loss plans. However, we did try to make good choices and tried to maintain our weight loss.

Last Month's Weigh-in Photos:

Michael

Last Weigh-in: 220.8 lbs.
Today's Weigh-in: 221.8 lbs.

Weight Change: +1.0 lbs.
Total Lost: 2.6 lbs.

Beginning Weight: 224.4 lbs.
Goal Weight: 175.0 lbs.

Cara

Last Weigh-in: 194.6 lbs.
Today's Weigh-in: 194.8 lbs.

Weight Change: +0.2 lbs.
Total Lost: 12.6 lbs.

Beginning Weight: 207.4 lbs.
Goal Weight: 130.0 lbs.

We're both setting the goal of just getting back into the weight loss groove. I felt really, really bad about quitting/taking a break for the little while, but I decided yesterday that I'm not going to dwell on it anymore. I lost two weeks' worth of weight loss, but it's OK in the long run. I'm getting back on track and that's what matters. Beating myself up over a brief period of relapse isn't going to serve any positive purpose on this journey.

I'm proud that I was able to maintain--proud of listening to the little voice in my head that encouraged me to not go crazy with the food even though I felt like a newly-released prisoner dropped off in Willy Wonka's candy meadow room. I was a little crazy the first couple of days, but gradually started saying "No" to more and more things because I would just look at them and think, "That is not going to help me reach my goal. I choose losing weight over eating this treat." Powerful tool.

Unfortunately, I get to go through the sugar withdrawals yet again, which is not fun. Natural consequences. It's easier to just stay in fat-burn mode, but I felt so lousy that I just did not care...and it snowballed very fast after that first indulgence. I need to find a way to self-soothe when I feel sick that is not food. Food is a huge source of comfort for me and finding other ways to self-soothe without resorting to bingeing is going to be what determines my ability to maintain my weight loss in the long run. (Any suggestions?) :)

Alright, here we go again. Next week's weigh-in is going to be awesome!

Lunch Conversation: "If I was a..."

2012-01-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

I overheard the girls at lunch the other day:

Penguin: "Bluebird, if I were a nocturnal creature, I'd would play on the XBox at night."

Bluebird: "If I was a nocturnal creature, I'd totally bake at night."

Junebug: "If I was a dragon, I'd sneak into your house and eat your XBox. And Baxter. And when I was flying and looking down, I'd eat you and your house. Nom, nom, nom."

Weight Loss Conscience Providers

2012-01-24T09:02:00.000-07:00

Penguin: "Are all the sodas now diet sodas?"

Michael: "Yep, I'm trying to lose weight."

Bluebird: "But you ate a cookie last night."

Michael: "Yes, I did; and I'm going to eat your extra cookie if you keep talking to me like that."

Bluebird: "But...you ate a cookie last night."

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown End of Week 4: Take that!

2012-01-23T15:59:00.000-07:00

Michael

Last Week's Weight: 220.6

Current Weight: 220.6
This Week's Weight Change: +0.2 lbs.
Total Weight Loss: -3.6 lbs.

Starting Weight: 224.4 lbs.
Goal Weight: 175 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 214.4 lbs. (-6.2 lbs), according to his fancy little spreadsheet.

Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: Less salt. He ate a lot of salty foods yesterday and is weighing in at two pounds heavier than he has all week. Next week's weight is going to look pretty impressive just with the water weight he's going to drop.
Last Week's Healthy Habit Goal: Eat smaller portions and no sugary drinks. He went to Joe Bandido's on Thursday and ate a big combination plate of mexican food...and lost his resolve from that point on. He ate an entire medium pizza over the weekend, by himself. The Joe Bandido's happened as a result of co-worker pressure, so I think he'll probaby be a little more aware of that from now on.
Cara
Last Week's Weight: 198.4
Current Weight: 194.6
This Week's Weight Change: -3.8 lbs.
Total Weight Change: -13.8 lbs.

Starting Weight: 208.4 lbs.
Goal Weight: 130 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 193.7 lbs. (-0.9 lbs.), according to Michael's spreadsheet. I'd actually like to see something in the 190 range.

Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: Read more of that curriculum, choose water over diet soda.

Healthy Habit Goal for Last Week: Reading my weight loss plan's curriculum. I'm a few pages in and have found it inspiring. My days are pretty full, so I haven't gotten as far as I'd like to have gone.

I was shocked when I stepped on the scale this morning; SHOCKED. (I actually re-calibrated my scale just to make sure there wasn't some sort of error.) I completely blew through my "pie-in-the-sky" goal of 195-196 lbs! When I texted my health coach, she responded with "KACHOW! You totally busted your goal! That's awesome!", which just made this big ol' head of mine swell a teeny bit more. (The power of a health coach...just get yourself one!)

This last week has been a week of tweaking and figuring things out for me and this plan. I realized that, although I was choosing my healthiest option, my Knit Nite meal at the restaurant wasn't quite spot-on in fitting into the program. I had a feeling that the low-calorie/low-fat/whatever salad dressing I was getting on my grilled chicken salad (with no feta cheese, no parmesan cheese, no onions, no red peppers and no tomatoes...) was secretly high in carbs and thus slowing my weight loss down. I took my own dressing this last week and the next morning I had lost more weight, instead of the usual staying-where-I-was-the-day-before weight that is the norm for the morning after Knit Nite. I think it's going to be little things like this that will spell out more weight loss for me in the long run. I'm going to become one of those people who asks the waiter to bring them the bottle of salad dressing so I can look at the nutritional information!

Weight loss is so much fun when you're successful! I'm just going to enjoy this awesomeness for this week, and remind Michael constantly that I smoked him once again. He he he.

Next week is the last Monday of the month, so we'll have progress photos! :) Thanks so much for all the encouragement, it really makes a difference!

Weekly Report 2011-2012: Week 22 The Ottoman Empire & Autumn Constellations

2012-01-21T06:51:00.001-07:00

The third week of Winter Quarter is complete! We did school EVERY SINGLE SCHEDULED DAY. It's been a long time since we've done that, so it's a triumph in my mind. (I really do think that the only reason we were able to accomplish this is because my children decided to store up all of their mischief and launch it in my direction on Friday, instead of spreading it out over the course of the week.)

So yes, we did school as planned. And that's about all there is to report. We continued working on math lessons and we continued working on reading and writing. (I am amazed at what Bluebird is learning in Grammar--I've never had any formal instruction in grammar, so I'm learning all sorts of stuff right now. Yeah, stuff that a second grader should supposedly know. Ugh.) Sometimes homeschooling is like that--you work your butt off every day and get everything done, but nothing is really spectacular or exciting. Sometimes it's just lots of work and no activities. I try to avoid this because I think a steady diet of "just schoolwork" burns the kids out.

In history we studied the Ottoman Empire. It was a longer chapter, so we didn't do any projects because our project day was spent in getting through the last section of reading.

In science we studied the Autumn Constellations. We have to study the constellations one season behind us because we do our star-gazing much earlier in the evening than the average astronomer, who apparently likes to go out around midnight. (We do our observing around 8pm.) We read the myths containing Perseus, Pegasus, Andromeda, Queen Cassiopeia and King Cepheus. (Actually, I tried to read the myths, but Bluebird interrupted me and told me the myths from memory.) There aren't really any pictures to show from that; it's too dark to take pictures when we go observe and I highly doubt you want to see a picture of us standing by the door each week before we go out.

Sadly, we did not get to any of our extra-curriculars. It was a battle to get all the required subjects done each day and the extra-curriculars were repeatedly shelved.

We have next week's school to do before enjoying a week-long school break in which I will be blessed with the task of cleaning our house in expectation of company! We're very excited!

Does This Mean That I Have a Life?

2012-01-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

January through March are cah-raaaazy months for me. "Birthday Season" starts at the beginning of February, which gives me about six week to get out of Christmas Land and speed myself into the land of cakes and candles. This year we have two milestone birthdays, one of which will also play host to a significant life decision which will require the feeding of extended family members and friends as they celebrate the big day. Three of our family's six birthdays fall in February and March, with another in April, mine in May and then a break before Penguin's in August.

Throw on top of that the season of Girl Scout cookies. Yes, we are in the middle of trudging around in the freezing January weather going door-to-door and asking people to promise to give us money in exchange for boxes of cookies at the beginning of March. We will spend a little more than half of January doing this and at the beginning of March we will head back out to collect money, deliver the boxes and spend pointless hours explaining why we don't have anymore cookies to sell to the people who did not order cookies from us in the first place in January.

Add to that my new calling of Sacrament Music Director and remember that I was already the Choir Director before taking on the extra responsibility. Instead of picking out, rehearsing and performing just the one song that the choir sings each month, I now pick out all the songs we sing every Sunday. My new bishopric wants more special musical performances as well, which means a whole lotta praying all the time to figure out what the Spirit is trying to persuade me to pick for the music, who is supposed to perform it, and when. Then there's the hunting down and convincing of said performers and arranging rehearsal times before the big event. And remember that Easter is on April 8 and that the choir will be putting on an entire Easter program that I am responsible for putting together.

I also homeschool my kids, make every meal in this house, clean every room, wash every item of clothing and attempt to put some sort of physical exercise in the mix.

Is it overwhelming? I thought it was until I was talking to a friend (before listening to her rehearsal for the special musical performance she had agreed to do last Sunday) and she said something that made me remember last year about this time.

When I got pregnant with Monkeyboy, I shut down all my outside obligations because I knew what pregnancy, post-partum and nursing did to me. I knew I'd eventually become so psychotically depressed that I'd flake out on everything I agreed to, no matter how much I liked that particular event. I wish I knew how to turn that switch off; but I don't, so I took precautionary measures and was successful in not letting anyone down, for the most part.

About this time last year I was slogging my way through getting up each morning and even getting dressed. It was a teeth-clenching battle of will power to get school done and make the clothes do their march through the machines so I could deposit them, unfolded, into each individual "Clean" laundry basket with someone's name on it. Folding laundry was too much to ask of me; I could barely get it sorted into the baskets. Going to church was an exercise in anxiety. The idea of baking a birthday cake for each birthday made me seriously want to burst into tears. I am not fun to be around during those days of New Babydom. I've tried herbal remedies, exercise, eating healthy and anti-depressants; nothing makes it better. (Anti-depressants make it much worse, actually.)

Compare last year with this year--that's what my friend made me think about doing. And you know what? I will take crazy, stressed out cookie selling, birthday planning, brunch hosting, snow days, dentist appointments, marathon laundry folding and mending enough clothes to outfit a staged musical over those days of doing nothing at all. Give me work to do or leave me to atrophy. It is so nice to have something to do and to be able to do it.

My psychological nose-dive that I enjoy with each pregnancy and post-partum period gives serious rise to the question of whether we should have more children or not. I won't go into that here, as it is a very private decision between my husband and myself. I was proud of myself with the last pregnancy for standing up and saying that I just couldn't do it all and for removing myself so I wouldn't have to deal with that inevitable self-hatred that accompanies having to back out of something at the last minute after giving your word that you would perform the task. I took care of myself during a time that I obviously needed to be taken care of, rather than try to mould myself to satisfy others' expectations. I'm proud of that; proud of finally being my own advocate.

And here we are a year later; I'm fully dressed, school is done by lunch-time and the laundry has successfully found its way, folded, into dressers on multiple days in a row. The Girl Scout uniforms have all their badges sewn onto them and I've gone grocery shopping every week as scheduled. I could choose to become paralyzed by the thought of all the work that lies ahead of me in the next few months...multiple birthday parties, school activities, monstrous dental work and lots of exercise...

...but for now, I'm just enjoying the commotion and this life that I have swirling around me.

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown Week 4: Michael heats up the competition

2012-01-16T14:12:00.003-07:00

MichaelLast Week's Weight: 223.6

Current Weight: 220.6

This Week's Weight Change: -3.0 lbs.

Total Weight Loss: -3.8 lbs.
Starting Weight: 224.4 lbs.

Goal Weight: 175 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 218.3 lbs. (-2.3 lbs)

Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: I didn't get to talk to him about this this morning, so I have no idea. I think he's rather content to keep doing what he's doing.
Last Week's Healthy Habit Goal: Eat smaller portions. I saw him doing this, and he's dropped some weight, so it's working well for him.

Cara
Last Week's Weight: 201.4

Current Weight: 198.4

This Week's Weight Change: -3.0 lbs.
Total Weight Change: -10.0 lbs.

Starting Weight: 208.4 lbs.

Goal Weight: 130 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 197.0 lbs. (-1.4 lbs.), according to Michael's spreadsheet. I'd actually like to see something in the 195-196 range.

Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: I'm going to start reading through the curriculum that comes with my plan and systematically work through it so as to instill an even deeper commitment to optimal health.
Healthy Habit Goal for Last Week: Before drinking a diet soda, drink a full glass of water first. Um, yeah...not so much. I did try to up my water intake though and even managed to go all of yesterday (and so far, today) without any soda. Yippee!

I had a bad day last Monday, despite the victorious weigh-in. I indulged in a whole lotta stuff that had no business being anywhere near my digestive system, and it really threw off my weight loss. Three pounds is certainly nothing to sneeze at, but without that horrible day it could have been much more and Michael wouldn't have edged me out for this week's victory. I was loyal to the plan on all the other days though, hence the pretty awesome drop.

I'm starting to see some differences already. My size 18 pants are heading out the door this week because they look absolutely ridiculous on me. Same thing with the XL shirts. I'm comfortably wearing a 16 pant right now, and they're actually a teeny bit loose already. I can see a little more definition in my face and my skin is looking awesome. I've hit the "fat-burn zone" and I have tons of energy and I feel great. I love this program! And I'm no longer in the 200's!!

I'm getting excited to get below 190 because 190 is the official "You are obese" BMI weight for me. Once I get below that, I'll only be "overweight," which is a big deal! Two or three weeks and I'll be there, how exciting!

I'd write what's going on with Michael, but I don't know what's going on with Michael. He is starting to move down the scale though, so whatever it is that he's doing, it's working. Yay Team Brooketopia!

Weekly Report 2011-2012: Week 21 The Rus and Circumpolar Constellations

2012-01-13T14:24:00.001-07:00

Winter Quarter Week #2 Complete! We're getting back into the school routine; the beginning of the week was a little rough, but then we started to hit our stride towards the end of the week. Monkeyboy battled a cold all week, thanks to his first full day in Nursery at church on Sunday, which made some of our days a little harder to manage.

Junebug threw a wrench into our schoolday on Thursday--we were doing beautifully and had stopped to have a snack. As I was cleaning up the snack, Junebug came into the kitchen with a frightened expression on her face and, in a slightly muffled voice, said, "Mama, I have a cranberry stuck in my nose." I've been waiting for this scenario since Bluebird learned to use her hands, so I didn't bother freaking out, just looked up her nose and discovered that I couldn't figure out what was cranberry and what was nasal tissue so that I should probably just take her in to see the doctor and have him extract the cursed piece of dried fruit. Michael had to come home from work, I took her in, Doctor pulled it out and then gave Junebug a little talk about not putting things in our noses or ears, and we went home. When we walked into the house, Penguin was in a full-blown video game trance and Bluebird had only finished half of what I expected her to finish while I was gone, but I eventually wrangled them back into school-mode and we did finish everything we needed to do that day. Whew!

Math: Doing good. Bluebird is all over the place with topics right now. We went over multiplying by ten and I smiled over her answers on the board--we had talked about how 100 cents equalled 1 dollar a few days prior to the lesson, so her answer to 10 x 10 always included "or $1.00" as an option.

Penguin is coming along in learning to write numbers out. She really likes it when she gets to color on math handwriting worksheets. The six pennies are colored "rainbow-styled," the two pennies are "soccer pennies," the three pennies are "winter pennies" and the five pennies are "Christmas pennies. She was quite proud of herself.

Language Arts: Bluebird finally got 100% on a spelling test. FINALLY. I totally bribed her into it too. A few months ago, when it started to become obvious that she was beginning to give up on the entire subject of spelling, I informed her that I would buy her a book for every 100% spelling test that she could pull off. She has definitely thrown her weight behind the idea of spelling now. It was nice to see her have a moment of success with the subject. I wish I could understand what is difficult about it for her. (She chose A Practical Guide to Fairies as her reward book. I have to take it away at every meal so she won't read it at the table. Ha ha.)

We studied adverbs and adjective in grammar and did almost no writing. I'm thinking I am going to combine the Writing with Ease exercises with our literature studies. We can do copywork and dictation from the book that we're reading; there's really no reason to divide it up with another book.

Penguin is learning about the silent "e" at the end of words that make the vowel says its name. She's doing splendidly with it. Whenever the book adds an "s" onto the end of a word she squeals, "They're trying to trick me!" When she reads the words correctly she exclaims that she is so much smarter than the book because it can't trick her. It's pretty cute.

Literature: This quarter we're studying Shakespeare's works. This week we read "A Midsummer Night's Dream." I'm just happy we read it and got a narration page written up. It was a hard week to get everything done. My plan is to piggyback writing exercises on the books from now on, so we'll do copywork and dictation in addition to the narrations from now on. We'll also watch a dramatized version of each play, which works much better when you actually remember to send in your previous Netflix DVDs so that the ones you need for school can actually arrive at your house. Next week, we are going to be awesome at this!

History: We studied the Rus going into Europe and battling for Constantinople, Ivan the Great and Ivan the Terrible. Bluebird and I agree the Ivan the Terrible "was really mean." No projects this week; once again, I'm just glad we got through the reading and narration pages. It would have been nice to do the Bread and Salt greeting, but we couldn't find time for it.

Science: Circumpolar Constellations. We also kept track of what the moon is up to, phase-wise. Not very exciting, but it did get done. Some weeks are like that.

Extracurriculars: Ha ha. Do we even do these? We did do Music Appreciation! Of course, I have no plan for Music Appreciation at the moment, so I just chose a random CD of classical music for them to listen to while playing with Play-Doh. (Debussy, if you wanted to know.) I'm in the process of creating my four year plan for Music Appreciation and Art, so this will improve in the weeks to come. I promise! :)

Highlights of the Week:

Bluebird's 100% spelling test! Go girl!
Bluebird beat a math drill for the first time at the shorter time of 45 seconds. It was a big deal that was brought up many times during the rest of the day.
The girls were ecstatic to be able to play with Play-Doh again. It's been too long.
Our Shakespeare source is available for free on the Kindle! (Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, if you're interested.) A whole quarter's worth of reading for free!
I decided to give the Heat Dish a try in our cold little schoolroom and the decision has been lauded by all my children and our pets. (It is much nicer down there now with an extra heat source...)

Lowlights of the Week:

Monkeyboy's crying jags. Oh my goodness, someone give me an award for dealing with that all week.
Quesnel has gone into heat yet again. Oh my goodness, someone give me an award for dealing with all the yowling and tripping over her because she practically sits on my feet all day. I have got to remember to get her spayed. Turns out the county will do it for $35, which is far more affordable than the $230 price tag that our vet quoted us.
Bluebird had a hard day on Monday and spent a lot of time in Time-Out, which eventually came to include doing her schoolwork in Time-Out, or it would never have been completed. Sometimes you just have to throw "good writing posture" out the window in order to make a point.

Funnies of the Week:

After receiving her light-hearted lecture on not putting stuff in her ears and nose, Junebug informed the doctor that you're also not supposed to put stuff in your eyes or your hair.
Bluebird's "$1.00" answers to anything equalling 100. I don't know why I find it so entertaining, but I do. :)

General Observations:

Grammar would be easier if I printed up the definitions of each part of speech and posted them on the wall. Bluebird does better with visual reminders rather than verbal.

The quarter is going well so far. I'm hoping that next week will be rock solid. Of course, next week is the first week of Girl Scout cookie order-taking, so this may be a rather naive hope to be hoping. We'll see.

Proud Monkeyboy

2012-01-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

I was in the kitchen, busy with lunch preparations, when Monkeyboy toddled in and pulled on my hand while pointing towards his bedroom. He's never done that before, so I stopped what I was doing and followed his lead as he pulled me along into his room. When we entered his bedroom, he let go of my hand and ran over to a LEGO plate with a little tower built on it, pointing at the tower emphatically and looking back at me with the proudest grin a little guy can wear.

He wanted me to see the tower he built.

I praised him and kissed him and clapped my hands, and then I asked if he wanted me to take a picture.

"Uh-huh."

I came back with the camera and told him to smile, and here it is.

Sweet, sweet baby boy.

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown Week 3: Why We Want to Lose Weight

2012-01-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Michael
Last Week's Weight: 224.6
Current Weight: 223.6
This Week's Weight Change: -1.0 lbs.
Total Weight Loss: -0.8 lbs.

Starting Weight: 224.4 lbs.
Goal Weight: 175 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 220.4 lbs. (-3.2 lbs)
Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: Eat smaller portions.
Last Week's Healthy Habit Goal: Stop drinking Coke. He pulled this one off, despite a horrendous couple of days where he had that awful caffeine-withdrawal headache. He went to the store and stocked up on diet sodas, and he's now trying to find one that suits him.

Cara
Last Week's Weight: 207.8
Current Weight: 201.4
This Week's Weight Change: -6.4 lbs.
Total Weight Change: -7.0 lbs.

Starting Weight: 208.4 lbs.
Goal Weight: 130 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 200.6, according to the magic mathematical formulas. Mentally I'm going to shoot for 197.0.
Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: Before drinking a diet soda, drink a full glass of water first.
Healthy Habit Goal for Last Week: Exercise six days for twenty minutes each time. I managed four days of exercise. I made my common mistake of expecting too much, too quickly. It was completely overwhelming to try to do six days a week.

Another victory for Team Cara! I totally smoked him this week. Hee hee. It was a great week, except for Michael's caffeine headache, and I only had one really tough day (that I did not sabotage!). An unexpected bonus from our dual commitment to weight loss is that our dinners have gotten way more healthier and the kids are starting to develop a small taste for lean meats and vegetables. I always serve some sort of grain or bread alongside their dinner so they get their much-needed carbs, and it's nice to see them eating healthier. It turns out that Penguin likes salmon and Bluebird can now eat a small portion of chicken without completing falling apart over the sight of it on her plate. Small victories!
My size 18 jeans are falling off of me. Michael mentioned that the same jeans looked a little snug at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week they were completely baggy on me. Yay!

I thought I'd write down one of our reasons for wanting to lose weight every now and then, just to add some interest to the series:

Why Michael wants to lose weight: Because I want to feel healthier. I want to be able to play with the kids longer and not feel like I'm out of shape.

Why Cara wants to lose weight: One of the reasons I want to lose weight is that I want to be able to move like I was able to move when I was skinnier. I don't like it that I have to be careful about the things I do because I am so prone to injury now. My sciatic nerve pops out all the time and it is so incredibly painful and debilitating; my knee begins to throb after walking a mere half mile. I can't keep running my body into the ground like this, I need a complete reversal if I want to be able to participate in my own life in a few years. I am not going to be one of those women huffing and puffing her way through her sedentary life. Just NO.

See you next week! Thanks for the encouragement that you've been sending our way!

2011-2012 Weekly Report: Happy Winter Quarter!

2012-01-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

And welcome to the re-instatement of the Weekly Report! I tried out the idea of doing one big report at the end of the quarter with our Autumn Quarter, but found that I missed reading all the little updates and happenings that happened each individual week.

That being said, it was our first week of school after a two-week Christmas break; therefore, it was a bit of a slow week as we eased back into our normal routine.

Monday: No School! Michael was home for his New Year's day off, so we hung out with him and did absolutely nothing. It was awesome.

Tuesday: First Day of Winter Quarter. I'm finding that it's best to spend the first day of the quarter just cleaning up the school room and putting everything in order. It's an exercise in getting up at the normal "school day" time, eating breakfast and getting ready in short order and listening to Mom and following instructions. So that what we did. We pulled out all the bins and carts and swept and vacuumed every inch of floor and put everything back into its correct place, and then we decorated the schoolroom for winter quarter with snowflakes! They love to decorate, so why not allow them a day of making seasonal doo-dads to hang from the ceiling? Now our schoolroom is a "snow storm," as Penguin and Junebug like to call it.

We also managed a little bit of science on Tuesday. We're beginning with our study of astronomy this quarter (Good bye, Earth Science! Thank you so much for being over with!), so I ran Bluebird through the basics of the four compass directions and how to read a star chart, and then we headed into the canyon (to get away from light pollution) so we could do a little star-gazing.

Bundled up for some winter stargazing!

She can now find the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) and knows that one of the stars points to the North Star (Polaris--which name she struggles to remember correctly, but she knows there's some sort of the word "polar" in its name). She's quick to point out Orion's belt and can tell you that the star Betelgeuse is located somewhere in that constellation, and that the reddish star is not it. After some serious confusion on my part, we've both come to realize that the really bright "star" in the south is not a star at all--it's Jupiter. She's looking forward to getting out the telescope and taking a look at the planets, but that will come in a month or two, after she's got the major constellations down cold. I have been looking forward to our astronomy unit for eight years now, ever since I first read the science section in The Well-Trained Mind and they explained the four year science cycle with its inclusion of astronomy in the second year. This is so much fun for me right now!

Wednesday: First day of "real" school. Everything went very well. Kids behaved, work got done. Our schoolroom is abysmally cold and we had to bring everything upstairs after an hour, despite Bluebird snuggling up in her Schoolroom Sweater and me wearing alpaca socks. The outside thermometer was registering at 33°F, which is at the warmer side of "normal" around here this time of year, so I foresee many Winter Quarter school days being spent upstairs around the kitchen table. It might be a good thing, as most of Monkeyboy's toys are upstairs and that will be nice for him.

That evening I took Bluebird and Penguin up to their Girl Scout meeting for selling cookies and we purchased the badges and awards that they are scheduled to earn this quarter. They were very excited about it all and mourned the thought that they had to waste the next day doing school work instead of working on their badges.

Thursday: I was a softie and let them work on Girl Scout stuff. It's the first week of school, so whatever. They labored away on their "My Promise, My Faith" award, which is brand spanking new this year. Bluebird chose to base her efforts on the "Friendly and Helpful" part of the Girl Scout Law and Penguin chose "Make the World a Better Place." They then each found a hymn that spoke about the same topic, found quotes from women about those ideas and drew pictures about what they learned. All that's left for them to do now is to talk to a woman of faith and find out how she lives that part of the Girl Scout Law and how her faith supports that idea. I'm liking this new award.

Friday: This quarter I'm going to give the four day school week a try, leaving Friday for errands and fun activities. Hopefully it will afford a little more calm and order in our home.

Highlights of the Week:

The snowflakes in the schoolroom are really nice. We all enjoyed the activity and the snowflakes hanging from the ceiling make everyone smile when they go downstairs. I call that a successful activity!
It does not appear that Bluebird and Penguin have had any information atrophy out of their brains over Christmas break.
Monkeyboy is learning his colors!

Lowlights of the Week:

I could get bent out of shape over not getting more done, but I've decided not to go down that path.
My lesson plan is so not done. Not good.

Funnies of the Week:

In addition to learning his colors, Monkeyboy is becoming much more vocal. The girls were playing a game one evening and getting a little loud and Monkeyboy marched into the room with a frown on his face, put one hand on his hip and pointed the other at the girls and said, "Gools! Hush! Hey!" I about died laughing. He and I spent the next fifteen minutes or so saying, "Hey!" and pointing fingers at the other, which made him collapse in giggles. He's growing up so fast!
Penguin: "I need to use toothpaste that has Clorox."
Me: "You mean 'fluoride.'"

General Observations: I think we're going to do well this quarter. I'm still settling my lesson plan and activity ideas, so I need to get that done to avoid any crazy last-minute stuff. Bluebird is blossoming into a nice little student and Penguin is following in her footsteps very well. Junebug did well this week, but she may become an issue as the weeks move on. I need to find more things for her to do. Monkeyboy is a toddler and I fully expect him to make our days a little more difficult, just as his older sisters all did at his age. It's temporary though and will eventually go away as he gets older. I just need to find good activities for him when I'm doing intense work with the older girls.

Day in the Life: Monday, October 31, 2011

2012-01-04T00:00:00.015-07:00

I figure, since I'm due for another "Day in the Life" day in February, that I better hurry up and post this one from back in October. Better late than never, right?

Bluebird 7 years old, Penguin 5 years old, Junebug 3 years old, Monkeyboy 18 months old.

4:45 AM: Alarm goes off

4:55: My gym partner texts me to tell me that she won't be going this morning.

5:02: I'm in the car, pulling out of the driveway.

5:15: "Power Yoga" begins. I have two moments of "I can't do this" during the class, but I push through them.

6:00: I leave the class early because I've got to leave the gym by 6 AM if I want any hope of things going according to schedule at home.

6:10: I arrive home and get into the shower.

6:50: The alarm on my phone goes off to tell me to start waking up the kiddos. I opt to quickly read through Doctrine & Covenants 25 before so I can get some sort of scripture study in for the day.

7:00: I make my bed and then go downstairs to wake up Bluebird and Penguin.

7:10: I start breakfast. Bluebird starts reading her scriptures at the kitchen table. She can get baptized in February when she turns eight, so I'm encouraging her to read through The Book of Mormon beforehand so she can develop a testimony of it and be better prepared to accept the covenants of baptism.

7:30: The three of us eat breakfast.

7:40: Monkeyboy wakes up and has his breakfast.

8:00: Junebug gets up and eats breakfast, Bluebird and Penguin begin their morning chores.

8:23: I send Bluebird to time out for punching Penguin in the stomach.

8:45: I get the kids dressed in their Halloween costumes and style their hair.

9:19: I finish with getting the kids dressed, teeth brushed, hair brushed, etc. They are very distractable today. I put Monkeyboy down for his morning nap.

9:30: We start our devotional. We read from the children's version of the Doctrine & Covenants and Penguin says our morning prayer.

9:40: Math. Bluebird goes over her addition and subtraction facts, plus the 0, 1 & 2 multiplication facts. Penguin works independently on her penmanship while I work with Bluebird.

10:05: Bluebird finishes her math and I ask her to help Junebug learn her letters. While the two of them work together, I work with Penguin on her math--counting as high as she can go until she wants to stop. She skips 39 and hesitates before remembering the 80's. Not bad.

10:20: Bluebird starts on her penmanship.

10:25: I start working on phonics with Penguin. Junebug is playing on the floor by herself.

10:30: Junebug brings out the pretend cake set and starts playing "Bakery."

10:40: I realize I haven't started the laundry. I start up a load and return to listen to Penguin read. I reach for my knitting and put in a few rows while listening to Penguin.

10:45: Bluebird starts on her spelling worksheet.

10:52: I orally quiz Bluebird on her spelling words, despite her obvious disapproval. We eventually get her spelling each word correctly, with repeated mis-spellings of the word "they're." Oh, she hates spelling!

Bluebird's visual commentary on
what she thinks about writing.

11:00: We start Bluebird's grammar lesson, Penguin takes over playing with the cake set and Junebug decides to explore the schoolroom.

11:10: Bluebird begins her writing lesson, Penguin takes off her costume because she's too hot and Junebug has started to amuse herself by squashing the cat. The writing lesson is interrupted a few time with reminders to not lay on the cat.

11:25: History time: Origins of the English language. I get Bluebird situated with her textbook and I head upstairs to start the CrockPot, but then decide after a few minutes of trying to get my ingredients assembled that dinner would just be easier to cook on the stove today. I have no idea why Monkeyboy is still sleeping, as he usually wakes up around 10:30 from his nap. Must be a tired lil' Bubba.

11:36: The garbage truck rumbles down our street, demanding that all Brookelets drop whatever they're doing so they may stare at it through the kitchen window. The commotion wakes up Monkeyboy, who was not ready to wake up from his nap.

11:37: I ask Penguin to empty the dishwasher.

11:40: After repeated begging, Junebug is allowed to take over emptying the dishwasher and Penguin goes on to her next chore: scooping kitty litter. I start cutting some celery for "Ants on a Log" and some carrot sticks.

11:43: Bluebird appears upstairs to report on her history reading.

11:44: Bluebird heads outside to scoop dog poop.

11:50: I watch Penguin through the kitchen window as she runs down the sidewalk to swing her bag of cat waste into the garbage can. Cute girl. She and Bluebird come back into the house together and I send them off to wash their hands.

12:10 PM: We sit down for lunch. I strip down Junebug so she can't get her Minnie Mouse costume dirty, she retaliates against the injustice by discovering the comical value of sticking peanut butter-covered raisins into her belly button. The other girls roar with laughter. I threaten Junebug with a hard scrubbing of her belly button if she doesn't knock it off NOW. The threat works. She stops, and even attempts to wipe off any excess peanut butter from her tummy.

12:30: Lunch is finished. I ask Bluebird to go vacuum the schoolroom.

12:40: Penguin asks me to floss her teeth because she has celery strings in between them. We then start cleaning up the tornado mess that is Junebug's room. Bluebird declares that her throat and stomach are hurting and asks if she can go take a nap in her bed. I suspect that she's just trying to get out of helping clean Junebug's room, but I let her go anyway.

1:10: We finish cleaning Junebug's (and Monkeyboy's...I just call it Junebug's for short) room. Bluebird skips up the stairs, magically healed of her ailments. I exclaim that her return to health is just perfectly in time for her to pick up the living room!

1:20: Bluebird goes to Time Out for stuffing trash between the couch cushions.

1:25: I sweep the kitchen while the Brookelets play in various parts of the house.

1:30: I mop. Bluebird returns to her living room cleaning duties.

1:55: I finish mopping and call out a five minute warning for Rest Time.

2:05: Bluebird and Penguin are in their beds. Penguin wants to take a nap, so she's tucked in; and Bluebird wants to read her "special school book" (The Canterbury Tales, re-told by Geraldine McCaughrean).

2:15: Junebug and Monkeyboy are in their respective beds with books. Junebug is going to "read" Ladybug Girl Goes to the Beach, the Hello, Cupcake! Cookbook, and Curious George Goes to the Chocolate Factory.

2:25: Baxter lays down for his afternoon nap. I set the timer for 45 minutes and sit down to enjoy a book myself.

3:10: The timer goes off and Bluebird can be heard scrambling up the stairs. Monkeyboy demands release from his crib. Penguin and Junebug are fast asleep.

3:15: I let Bluebird and Monkeyboy watch an episode of "Shaun the Sheep" so I can work on last-minute Halloween preparations.

And once again, my second sheet of what happened during that day has gone missing. Judging by the pictures, we had a regular evening of Trick or Treating which probably ended well past bedtime.

Enjoyed this peek into our lives?

Read the previous "Day in the Life" from Friday, July 29, 2011.

The next Day in the Life post is scheduled for: Thursday, February 9, 2011.

(And let's be honest, when I say "scheduled," I really mean "will be done around this date.")

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown Week 2: Are You Team Cara or Team Michael?

2012-01-02T08:48:00.002-07:00

It's been a fun week; we posted our weight loss intentions here on the blog and also upon our Facebook pages. Within a few hours I had a handful of friends posting or messaging me that they were rooting for "Team Cara." I smugly informed Michael that I had groupies and he stuck out his lip and wondered why there wasn't a "Team Michael" cheering him on. I shrugged my shoulders and suggested that perhaps some of his family would jump on board to support him.

By the end of the week, my "team" had grown a little more and team colors had even been proclaimed (purple and green, if you wanted to know). A friend went so far as to change her profile picture to something purple and green in support of Team Cara. I informed Michael that his team's colors were orange and blue...because I said so. He shrugged and said it didn't matter because there was no Team Michael. I kind of started to feel bad for him then.

But then he came home from work on Friday and informed me that someone from work wants to be his weight-lifting partner. No Team Michael, my foot.

The actual weight loss for this week wasn't as impressive as one would hope, but you have to take into consideration that we just wrapped up the "heaviest" weeks of the year, so any amount of loss or maintenance is worth celebrating.

Michael
Starting Weight: 224.4
Current Weight: 224.6
This Week's Weight Change: + 0.2 lbs.
Total Weight Change: + 0.2 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 222.6 lbs. (-2.0 lbs)
Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: No consumption of soda.

Cara
Starting Weight: 208.4
Current Weight: 207.8
Weight Change: -0.6 lbs.
Total Weight Change: - 0.6 lbs.

Weight Goal for this Week: 204.2 lbs. (-3.6 lbs., which I know is a crazy amount, but I've talked it over with my health coach and we've decided it's OK while I'm this heavy.)
Healthy Habit Goal for this Week: Exercise six days for twenty minutes each time.

Team Brooketopia: - 0.4 lbs.
(Because, ultimately, this is what matters overall; a healthy FAMILY!)

Favorite Moments from 2011

2011-12-31T00:00:00.009-07:00

It's the last day of 2011. Tomorrow we'll start afresh with 2012 and leave this entire year behind us, a bundle of memories with dusts swirling at its feet. I spent yesterday clicking through every month's posts for this entire year and (probably influenced by a recent end-of-the-season episode where they essentially just piece together clips from all the episodes of that season) decided that I wanted to share with you my favorite moments in Brooketopia in 2011. Enjoy!

January:

Grumpy Face
Looking Forward to the Work Ahead (I'd forgotten about this one! What a great read right before starting a new year!)

February:

Engaged! (That was a fun to put together.)
The Beginning of the Wedding Shawl Drama

March:

Junebug's Picture was chosen for our art curriculum's website slideshow

Fast Offering Funny

It Could Be Taken Both Ways

April:

Monkeyboy's First Birthday!

A Trip to Temple Square

May:

Trip to the Renaissance Faire
Fairies in the Trees
My Birthday Post--I've been inspired to try harder as a result of re-reading this throughout the year.
The FINISHED Wedding Shawl!

June:

The End of the Year Report--so helpful in pinpointing problems in our homeschool, and I like to go back and read it when I'm un-motivated to do school because it reminds me that the work adds up in the end.

Splash Pad Fun--the looks on their faces while they're having fun make me smile every time.

Attempted Father's Day Photo Shoot

Bluebird's First Time Going to Girl Scout Camp--where did my little girl disappear?

July:

Flag Retirement Ceremony
The Celtic Warriors--quite possibly my favorite pictures from the entire year! They still crack me up.
My Rock Island Shawl
Summer Junebug
Fourth of July Jell-O
Sprayed in the Face

August:

Shaun & Carly's Wedding--duh. Oh, there was so much that so incredibly awesome about this trip! I wish I had done more posts about the entire vacation in Canada.
Homeschool PE
Recitation of "Mr. Nobody"
Enjoying a Reese's

September:

Fiber Festival

China Week

Bluebird's Sweater

October:

Rising to One's Potential

November:
It's Because He's Smart, OK?

December:

The Twelve Pains of Christmas
Christmas
The Story of the "He Loves Me" Yarn
Autumn Quarter Report
My Toddler Kisses Yarn

As I read through each of the posts over this past year, I was struck by how much of my year was spent consumed in knitting projects. Yeah, I knit a lot; but I made a lot of time intensive stuff this past year. I'd like to be able to look back on 2012 and assert that I spent the majority of my efforts in making our school days great. My main jobs right now are to be a good wife, mother, homemaker and homeschooler; knitting is my hobby and really needs to be dialed down a bit.

Onto another year in Brooketopia. There will be some big stuff happening in this next year--milestone birthdays and life events, and hopefully lots of great photos of fun times (and amazing "Before" and "After" weight loss pictures!). Thanks for sharing this past year with us and I look forward to sharing more of our memories in the future!

The Story of the "He Loves Me" Yarn

2011-12-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

As mentioned earlier this week, Michael had to go on a last-minute business trip to Hawaii. For a week. Before he left, he asked if I wanted any souvenirs and I answered with my all-time favorite answer: "Yarn."

I didn't expect anything to come of it. It's Hawaii; and yarn...well, that's kind of a colder climate commodity. I put the notion out of my head and tended to the joyous week of single parenting.

When he returned (with an arrival time of 7:15 AM at the airport one hour away and on a Sunday when I was scheduled to hold a choir practice and also sing a duet in church...) and got to unpacking his suitcase, he presented me with a skein of yarn. And an apology for it not being the kind of yarn I usually like.

He then proceeded to tell me the story of how he came to possess that skein of yarn:

He arrived in Hawaii on Saturday. On Tuesday he decided to google for the location of the nearest yarn shop. He left his hotel room at 4pm to go to said yarn shop and, after navigating the chaotic streets of Honolulu, arrived at the shop at precisely 6:05pm. The shop closed at 6:00pm.

He pushed back his Wednesday morning meeting and set out for the yarn shop in order to be there when it opened at 10am. He arrived at 10:00 on the dot, but the shop wasn't open. Figuring there was some sort of Hawaiian laid-back attitude in regards to opening on time, he decided to wait for the shop owner to show up. One and a half hours later, he was still waiting. It was then that he noticed that the store hours listed were for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The shop was closed on Wednesdays.

He walked in on Thursday at 10am and informed the shop owner that he wanted locally-dyed or spun yarn that was impossible for his wife to get in the State of Utah. She said that a lot of people wanted that kind of stuff and that she tried to keep lots of it in stock, but he had happened to come to her store at a time when she had none of it in stock. I'm not sure what kind of conversation and/or awkward silence followed that statement, but Michael's telling goes on to say that at point she exclaimed that she might have one skein of something in the back. "I'll take it."

When he presented me with the skein of yarn and apologized for it not being quite the right color, I silently agreed with him. The turquoise was pretty and I thought the purple was sort of nice, but the blue-ink color was definitely not my style. However, upon hearing his tale of his quest to acquire the yarn, my heart softened considerably and I pledged to make myself a hat from it and wear that hat until it died.

And so I proudly present the "He Loves Me" Hat:

Pattern: Turn a Square, by Jared Flood

Yarn: Nadezhda's Crayon Box, colorway "Kahana Bay." (67% Cotton, 25% Wool, 8% Silk) and Berrocco's Ultra Alpaca in "Lavender Mix" #6283 (50% Alpaca, 50% Wool) leftover from my mother's Christmas Hat.

Needles: US 8

Modifications: I made the hat about 1.5 inches longer than called for so it could definitely cover the tops of my ears, and also have a little bit of extra space to accomodate any sort of pulled-up hairstyle.

Thank you Michael!

You are all sorts of persistent awesomeness!

Christmas Because if I don't post something about it, I'll regret it.

2011-12-29T00:00:00.015-07:00

There's a lot of ways to write a post about Christmas. This year I'm going with photographs and letting the reader see for themselves what Christmas was like in Brooketopia.

Tracking Santa on Christmas Eve.

Children make Christmas sparkle.

Family Handmade Christmas: How Our Family Did Christmas Presents This Year

2011-12-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't noticed, I like to make things.

However, this can make Christmas a little bit troublesome. I want to craft a treasure for each person on my gift-giving list, but (in case you haven't noticed) I'm terribly busy with growing and educating my family. Crafting time is a bit hard to come by at times. As a result, we haven't sent out Christmas presents in years because I didn't want to send handmade gifts to some people and generic store-bought gifts to others, just in case it caused hurt feelings.

That all changed this year. I delegated the Christmas gift-giving list amongst members of our family and allowed everyone to partake in the joy and anticipation of giving to our extended family. I think it was a smashing success and plan to continue with the practice for next year's Christmas.

Unfortunately, this idea of delegation came to me in October, which didn't allow for extravagant crafting, but it was fun nonetheless. First, I wrote up the list of the people we I wanted to give gifts to and then we had a family meeting and everyone took turns choosing a name from the list and accepting responsibility for making their present. I put a "handmade gift only" rule into effect because I was not about to open the gates of allowing a 7, 5 and 3 year old to run rampant through the mall, choosing any gifts they desired for their recipients. I'm OK with spending a few dollars to purchase fabric and odds 'n ends for projects; I am not OK with forking over $50 for some novelty monstrosity that my 3 year old thinks would make a good gift.

Our list of thirteen gift recipients was divided amongst five people, which meant the girls each made three gifts each and Michael and I were each responsible for only two. A "Handmade Christmas" has an actual shot at success when you're only responsible for making 2-3 gifts!

The girls LOVED making their gifts. Bluebird put her newfound sewing skills to use and sewed up little lavender-stuffed heart sachets for two of her recipients, and I took her and Penguin to a ceramics studio to make a gift for one person on their lists. Bluebird chose to paint a cappuccino mug with matching saucer for her Aunt Sandra and it turned out so incredibly cute that I would possibly have thought about keeping it for myself had Bluebird not painted a gigantic "S" on the saucer.

Penguin used her ceramic studio experience to paint a gift for...well, I can't exactly say yet because I'm not sure if that particular family has received their box yet (I'm glaring at you, Canada Post, for this infraction). We were at the ceramics studio for THREE hours as the two of them diligently tended to their projects. I was so proud of their commitment to producing "good" presents.

Penguin also painted a picture for Granny and helped make a basketball-themed hair ribbon for her cousin Amber, who recently made it onto her high school's JV basketball team as a freshman.

Junebug...knows what she wants to do and will allow nothing to distract her from accomplishing what she decides she is going to do. She wanted to paint pictures for everyone on her list. Period. I tried to talk her into other ideas, but she was adamant--she would paint pictures for all three of her recipients. So she did. And I packaged them in gift bags with a big bag of Ghirardelli chocolates as a way to sweeten the deal.

Michael had big plans for his people, but a last minute business trip to Hawaii made it impossible for him to make his ideas tangible. He ended up purchasing some thoughtful gifts for the people on his list.

I knitted for the people on my list. (Shocking, I know.) As luck would have it, I ended up with my mother and my father as my intended giftees and I made both of them hats.

My mother's hat was hard to give away. The pictures turned out terrible because lavender purple does not look cute when photographed in a lime green-painted room. The pattern is Leafy Rosette Beret, by Amy Jansen and I enjoyed knitting it very much. I used Berrocco's Ultra Alpaca yarn in colorway 6283 "Lavender Mix," and I've already used up the leftovers in a project for myself. It's a gorgeous shade of lavender.

My father's hat was super soft and warm. I made him a Turn a Square (designed by Jared Flood) from some charcoal Ultra Alpaca (#6289) and the leftover forest green yarn from the scarf I made for his wife a few years ago. I have only one picture of it, and it's while it was on the needles. In my haste to get the packages out on time, I neglected to take photos of just about everything. Hopefully I can avoid this error next year; or, better yet, hopefully the recipients of each gift will email me a picture of them enjoying their gifts, which I can then add to this post.

With Junebug's insistence on sending pictures to people on her list, I "stole" one of her recipients and made him a hat. He's 17 years old and I'm quite sure the cuteness of a 3 year old's painting would have minimal effect upon him. He received the first Turn a Square that I ever made. I made it earlier in the year because I felt prompted to make one to have on hand "just in case" come Christmas-time. Awesome.

And that was that. :) The day after Christmas we "chose" our names for next year. With the success of this year's gifting, we decided to expand our list to twenty-something people and changed up the selection process a tiny bit:

Everyone got to hand-select one name up front. We all get "perfect ideas" for random people, so I wanted to allow everyone a chance at creating at least one of those "perfect" gifts.
We then drew the rest of the names out of a bowl to assign the remaining names.
Each person had the opportunity to "trade" one of the names they drew for a name on someone else's list, if the "owner" of that name was willing to trade.
You could not have a name that you had last year. (And, in future years, this rule will extend to the last two or three years...I'd like to avoid monopolies.)

Now we each have 5-6 names we are each responsible for and an entire year to work on the gifts. I've sectioned off the next year and set up deadlines for gift-making--if they want to take advantage of this idea, then all their gifts will be completed by the end of September, thus allowing them total freedom in Halloween costume design and any other last-minute gifts they may wish to make for members of our immediate family during November and December.

So watch out Family, we ALL have our eyes on you in this next year...

He vs. She Weight Loss Smackdown Week 1

2011-12-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

Michael and I have decided to each lose a significant amount of weight in this next year. We thought it would be fun to add a little bit of a competitive element to our weight loss goals, and then we thought it would make for some interesting blogging to report upon our progress. We figure that the public aspect of keeping track of our progress on the blog will help us to be more accountable.

The Basic Information:

Michael is starting out weighing in at 224.4 pounds and is aiming to end up at 175.0 pounds. His weight loss plan is to eat less, start jogging a little and finding a weight-lifting partner to lift weights.

Cara (me!) is starting out weighing in at 208.4 pounds (augh!) and is aiming to end up at 130.0 pounds. My weight loss plan is to follow the MediFast meal plan and follow the suggestions of my health coach. I plan to work out at the gym for twenty minutes each morning while I am obese (above 190), thirty minutes when I am overweight (190-160), and forty minutes once I am within the "health weight" range (160 and below).

Weekly: We will post our weigh-in numbers each Monday. We have a points system set up (with some crazy mathematical formulas that Michael devised) that tracks our losses and we each will receive $5 per week that we meet our individual weight loss goals, and $10 to the person who loses the most overall (according to the formula set up by Michael that takes into account that guys tend to lose weight faster than women).

Monthly: We will post an updated photo and list any measurement losses at the end of each month, starting in January.

We'll see you again next week!

Quarterly Report 2011-2012: Autumn Quarter

2011-12-23T00:00:00.079-07:00

Hi there! Remember how I said that I was going to stop doing the Weekly Reports in favor of doing one big report at the end of the quarter? Well, today is that day. Problem is, when I'm not concerned with writing up a report at the end of the week, I kinda sorta stop taking pictures. I think I went all of November without taking a single photograph of anyone. So, to sum up where this is going: I miss the Weekly Reports and plan to re-instigate writing them in the next quarter.

A Quick Re-cap of

Our Autumn Quarter:

Math

Bluebird: We made the decision to let her skip the rest of her second grade-level curriculum and advance up into the third grade level. I think it was a good decision. She does not like that there is some extra work involved, but there's also no more complaints of "how easy" math is. I think she's still a little beneath her ability level, but I want to make sure she has her math facts memorized completely before allowing her to bump up another grade level. She struggles with the timed drills, so I would like to devote some time to intense drill practice in this next quarter.

Penguin: Still likes math and is doing well with her Kindergarten level math. She'll probably finish it up in the next quarter and progress to first grade level.

Junebug: Can now, with some coaching, count to forty. She is very proud of this accomplishment.

Monkeyboy: Can yell "FEEE" when you count to three out loud with him.

Language Arts

Bluebird: She's handling dictation like a pro. She started learning to write cursive in the past couple of weeks and it has been going well. She's covered verbs, adjectives and adverbs this quarter in her study of grammar; she has a hard time remembering what adjectives are sometimes. Spelling is...not my favorite part of our school day; the words just don't seem to "stick" in her mind. I've resorted to just systematically spelling out each word on her list every day and posting a list of her words each week so she can look at them more. There's been a tiny bit of improvement, but I'm not satisfied with how this is going. She read The Canterbury Tales, D'Aulaire's Norse Myths...and other books that I just cannot remember by this point. (Yet another reason to keep up with the Weekly Reports.)

Penguin: She's definitely reading! She doesn't believe that she can actually read a book by herself, so the "reading for fun" is slow to materialize. She progressed into the first grade penmanship book during this last quarter and is doing a good job in learning to write her letters. Some sort of fire was lit in her to become a good color-er, and she's been bringing me some very neatly colored pages in the past few weeks.

Junebug: She pretty much knows all of her letters now, and is doing well with learning what sounds each letter makes. She's not interested in writing, but does enjoy coloring in the lines "like a big girl."

Monkeyboy: He loves to steal the markers if they are left unattended and scribbles furiously in the pages of any nearby book. Try as I may, I cannot be excited about this for him.

History

Bluebird read most of her history on her own and then would draw or write up a narration page for it, which I would then look over and approve for filing. We didn't do any projects this quarter with history. Autumn Quarter is hard to get everything into--there's Halloween, Thanksgving and Christmas to contend with, and Church Volleyball takes place during almost all of October and November. Volleyball can greatly affect our plans when it comes to the Regional Tournament--I can be out pretty late some nights and spend the next day feeling pretty tired and sore. Perhaps I need to re-examine my involvement with the team, or just get into better shape so I'm not suffering the next day!

We did collect gallon milk jugs for about a month with the intent to turn them into Knight's Armor, but when the counter had completely filled up with milk jugs and I couldn't see a date in sight where I could feasibly take the time to actually complete the activity, I decided to throw them all in the recycling bin and move on with my life.

Science

We talked about the Rock Cycle, the Water Cycle and read about other things that interested us. Earth Science is boring. We're looking forward to shifting gears next quarter.

Extracurriculars

Bluebird advanced to Brownie Scouts and Penguin officially became a Daisy Scout! However, instead of pushing ahead with Girl Scouts, we tried out the "Keepers of the Faith" program with our homeschool group. As a result, Bluebird learned the basics of embroidery and first aid, and Penguin did a Decoupage project.

We've since decided to not continue attending the Keepers of the Faith club, and I'm looking forward to re-kindling our involvement with Girl Scouting.

Penguin and Junebug painted a whole lot of pictures. Bluebird and Penguin did a little bit of ceramic painting for Christmas presents. Penguin learned how to knit. We danced a lot to The Nutcracker.

Highlights of the Quarter

Bluebird advancing into Saxon 3 Math. We're all so proud of her!
Penguin relaxing into reading. It doesn't appear to cause her any stress to have to read for me anymore.
The look of Junebug's face when she counts and realizes that she is counting "big numbers."
Monkeyboy finally settling down and being able to play for a few minutes by himself with the Thomas trains and LEGOs. It has been non-stop chasing after him since he became mobile last year, and I can actually concentrate on teaching things now because he'll sit on the floor near me and play for 10-15 minutes at a time. Such a wonderful blessing. He also brings me books to read to him sometimes, which just sets my heart a-glow.
Bluebird raiding her piggy bank in order to buy more books to read.
I actually had to use the phrase "No more grammar lessons at the table" during dinner one night.

Lowlights of the Quarter

Getting to the end of the quarter and being disappointed with my efforts. It's Bootstrap Time; I've got to work harder next quarter.
I don't think my laundry was ever all folded and put away once in the past three months. It's not fun to constantly feel like you're not finishing everything every single day. I keep telling myself that I'm doing a lot and I have four young children and that it's OK for it to be like this right now...but I struggle every day to get school done, do any amount of cleaning and laundry and keep the kiddos fed with healthy food. I'm pretty exhausted a lot of the time. I only include this confession in order to stay true to my commitment to tell the truth about what it's like to homeschool. Too many people paint a picture of reading on the couch together and framed pictures of fingerpaintings, without letting people know about how hard it is to do everything. Each decision I make about how to spend my time is a decision to not spend time on something else equally as urgent or important. It's hard to shoulder it all sometimes.
I didn't keep up with the Weekly Reports! I know, after the previous point you would think I'd be OK with that, but the girls happened upon the computer with the blog on the screen and they spent half an hour clicking through the blog and just loving all the stuff they could read about themselves. The blog is a journal of their lives and they really enjoy reading it. As a gift to them, I'm going to continue to chronicle our weekly adventures. Years from now I will thank myself for the decision to sacrifice whatever things I will choose to sacrifice in order to make this a reality.
Michael and I made the decision to discontinue our affiliation with our homeschool group. It was a hard decision to make and it still makes me sad when I think about it sometimes. It just wasn't a good fit for our family anymore for various reasons. The worst part about this was giving up the Homemaking Club I had helped start...it felt like I completely dumped it in my friends' laps and I felt really awful about it (still do!). It just wasn't working for us anymore.

Funnies of the Quarter

Penguin drawing a picture of Michael for her penmanship assignment.
Penguin: "Mama, how do you give bad luck to black cats?"
Continually having to explain to Penguin that tights are not pants.
We had to drive Michael to work one morning so we could have the car that day, so we had breakfast from the drive-thru. I ate something that had raw onions on it, and when it came time to start school my stomach was rumbling in a not-so-friendly way. I said that my stomach was hurting and Bluebird piped up and recommended that I immediately cancel school so that I could go lay down and rest.
Me: "Ugh! How do people keep their houses clean?!?!"
Michael: "Suspended animation. The kids come home from school and ZAP! Then in the morning, ZAP! and they go back to school."
Bluebird was reading through D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths while I was folding laundry at the table. She turned a page and muttered, "That is just so odd."
Bluebird: "Would you like me to write another book in my 'Fairy Series' or my 'Average Girl' series?"
Me: "'Average Girl' series?"
Bluebird: "You know, books that plain, ordinary girls of all ages would enjoy."

General Observations

It wasn't a banner quarter for us, but we did keep up with the 3R's, which is most important at this stage. We spent a lot of time focusing on how to keep our home functioning nicely, as I cannot take any more of the general chaos that is our chore system. We are far from being organized, but we're making little bits of progress towards a more sustainable routine. And you know, we're still very much at the beginning of our homeschool journey! It takes time to figure everything out.

Full speed ahead to the Winter Quarter! Weekly Reports resume in January!

Hungry Eyes

2011-12-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Holiday Pancakes

2011-12-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

I should show you my collection of sprinkles sometime. I have sprinkle mixtures to correspond to almost every holiday throughout the year. I like to toss them atop stacks of whipped cream-adorned pancakes on mornings when I feel especially in love with the Brookelets. They like it, too.

Sometimes they take a while to wake up and show their joy:

Here Kitty, Kitty [Holiday Edition]

2011-12-16T00:00:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of an animal person. I believe that animals should stay outside and perform the duties that God sent them to Earth to do. (ie. Dogs scare away bears and deter burglars, cats catch mice, chickens provide eggs, etc.)

However, our HOA has a strict "No Outdoor Pets" policy for our entire neighborhood and so if we have pets, then indoors they must be, except for the mandatory "nature calls" scenarios. Since I detest animal hair, I made a statement to the effect of "No Animals While We Live in This House." It has been challenged repeatedly, and I admit that I have been completely defeated. Kitty litter scooping, backyard dog poop removal, reminders to feed and water the animals, fights over who gets to brush the dog, vigilant vacuuming to remove gag-inducing pet hair from the furniture...these have slowly become part of the daily routine in Brooketopia.

But then Quesnel hides herself in a pile of pine boughs and it makes me laugh. Baxter meets me at the door when I walk into the house and showers me with an enthusiastic display of joy over my return. I check on the girls before I head off to bed and find Quesnel curled up with Penguin as she sleeps. Baxter plays fetch when Monkeyboy throws a tennis ball in the house, which makes Monkeyboy squeal with glee.

The animals have found their place in our family, and all the frustration the accompanies the extra work that they demand melts away as they snuggle into my heart with the love they show to each member of my family. I pledge to keep them stocked with Kibble.

Gingerbread Girl

2011-12-14T09:15:00.001-07:00

As mentioned previously, Junebug loves all things gingerbread men; so when I saw these gingerbread jammies I made sure that they became hers. She wears them almost every night right now, and in this picture she's helping me to make ginger cookies--my gingerbread girl sporting gingerbread jammies and a gingerbread moustache.

The Twelve Pains of Christmas

2011-12-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

We had our Ward Christmas Party last weekend, and I participated in a little performance called "The Twelve Pains of Christmas." We live in the Internet Age and it showed up on the Web this morning, so I thought I'd share it with you!

Here's the lyrics, keeping in mind that we all started ad-libbing after our initial introduction:
1: Finding a Christmas Tree
2: Rigging up the lights
3: Getting the flu
4: Sending Christmas cards
5: Five months of bills
6: Facing my in-laws
7: The Salvation Army
8: I want an i-Pod/Whiny Kid
9: No parking spaces
10: Batteries not included
11: Gaining all the weight
12: Singing Christmas carols

(I'm the "Five Months of Bills" lady.)

Merry Christmas!

My Toddler Kisses Yarn

2011-12-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

I received a yarn swap package today, and while writing up my thank-you email to my swap partner, I heard Monkeyboy making kissing noises. I looked up at and caught him kissing my new yarns. I'm training my children well. Yarn is good.

And yes, I'm aware that the only way he would know to do that is if he saw someone else doing it. I will not lie, I kiss and hug yarn a lot. Just to show my kids how much I like it in the hopes that someday they will realize that it makes excellent Christmas and birthday presents. :)

It's because he's smart, OK?

2011-11-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

Penguin was working in her new penmanship book today. She was supposed to write out words that she knew how to write and then draw a picture about her words. She wrote "Daddy" and then asked me what she had to do next.

Me: "Now you draw a picture that has to do with your word."

Penguin: "I can draw a picture of Daddy?"

Me: "Yep, that would be perfect!"

Penguin: "Alright, then I'll start by drawing his big, fat head."

Rising to One's Potential

2011-10-28T09:48:00.000-06:00

My personal study time has been spent in reading selections about what it means to be an educated person. I'm not too far into my book, but I've enjoyed being "in the company" of the wise men whose writings fill its page. The "big idea" that I've noticed the most as I read has been the notion that each person has a responsibility to become the best possible version of himself, and that each of us is expected to be successful in our personal and public lives. Mediocrity and giving up are just not options that anyone should ever entertain.

Obviously, being successful in our personal lives makes sense. Who wants to be a loser? As I think on the implications of personal success, I begin to see that society needs each of us to just be better in our everyday lives. Yes, we have public officials who are leading us, but if we as a people are mediocore and apathetic about how our communities grow or diminish, there's not a lot that any amount of talented leaders can do to save us from decay. A strong community needs a strong foundation. Each person needs to rise to his full potential.

I've had a number of experiences this week that have tied into this realization. (I'm always amused at how I'll learn or realize something new and then be smacked upside the head for the next week with experiences that drive the point home.) I was having a conversation with a neighbor and she remarked about how frustrating it was that we have so many talented teachers in our ward who just won't step up and fully commit to their callings and do a fantastic job, rather than settling for a merely adequate execution of their duties. It came to me that the thing holding us back from blossoming into the people we are supposed to rise up and become is FEAR. Fear about committing to being excellent. Fear about trying something new. Fear about what other people may think of us when we step out of the box of social safety.

And where does fear come from? "For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."¹ If God has not given us the Spirit of fear, then it must be Satan who is the author of fear. To be afraid to be our best is allowing Satan to guide us in his path and accomplish his goals, namely the goal of creating misery. When we remain in a neutral or diminishing state, we are not only damaging and hindering ourselves, but also our families or our communities. Nothing moves forward and we are frustrated, while Satan gleefully claps his hands and cheers over our inertia.

Why are we afraid to be our best? Why are we hesitant to go the extra mile and do something truly marvelous? I don't know about you individually, but my great stumbling block is the opinions of other people. Everytime I find myself tending towards stagnancy or settling for "good enough," it's because I'm afraid of "rocking the boat" or of hearing, yet again, all the back-handed compliments and sarcastic comments that tend to rain down upon me when I'm operating at my highest level. It makes me think back on my own school days, and how often I was sneered at and dismissed as a "nerd," and how I was told that I needed "to get a social life" when reports cards or test scores would come out and I had received good marks. Even in college I was subjected to these sorts of remarks. Doing your best is usually accompanied by the jealous contempt of others.

And yet, we are clearly instructed in this regard:

"...fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings."²
and
"The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe."³

The scriptures are full of so much wisdom. Of course, the fear of man brings a snare--if we are afraid to rise to our full potential because of what others might say, we will literally be ensnared as we make decisions to play it safe and not progress as we ought to progress.

A friend once told me about how she lost a lot of weight after overhearing a colleague make fun of her large size. At her new lower weight she experienced a surge in energy and a elevation of mood and she was able to accomplish more and feel happier as a result. However, she soon began hearing snide remarks about how she probably had an eating disorder. She later became pregnant and gained much of the weight back. The same people who had whispered about her supposed eating disorder then shifted their gossip to how much weight she had gained and how she was now too heavy. There will always be people who are jealous and who seek to cut off other people in their personal progressions, for whatever reason they may have that enables them to enjoy spreading misery. We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by the opinions of others, as they rarely ever serve to our benefit.

What we need to do is figure out what God would have us do with our day, our lives and then go DO IT. If we are carrying out HIS orders, it matters nothing what other mortals may think of us or our work, as we will have the confirmation from on high to sustain us as we complete our divinely-mandated works.

Each of us has come to this Earth with a mission from on high. Our talents and interests give us clues as to what that mission may be. Fervent prayer and a sincere desire to know what our Heavenly Father would have us accomplish with our lives will help us to more finely tune our course so as to line up our actions with His will. If we are busily engaged in the work of the Creator of this world, the Creator of our mortal shells, does it matter what friend, family member, neighbor or stranger thinks of us?

The other big experience that I've had this week happened in regards to our homeschool. I took Bluebird shopping for some new clothes one afternoon, and while riding in the car I asked her how she thought school was going. One of her answers pricked at my heart: "I used to like math, but I don't anymore because it's too easy and review-ish. It's boring now." This small utterance worked itself over in my mind for the rest of the day, and the next morning I had come to the decision to let her take the next unit test, and to keep letting her work through the tests until she arrived at a spot in our curriculum where she no longer felt the work was "too easy." I cancelled work in all other subjects so that I could work with her closely and observe her reactions to the new problems as they rose. She completed every test in the book with a score of 100%.

I started to freak out a little bit as she pushed up into the higher chapters. The thought that we might need to just skip this entire level and begin working in the next book crossed my mind; and, weirdly enough, my reaction to that thought was, "People are going to think I'm some overbearing homeschooler who is pushing my child too hard." I stopped myself immediately after thinking this thought and reflected--was I afraid to let my child rise to her potential because of the opinions of other people? Was I hesitant to allow my child to progress in the way she needed because I feared the remarks of others who were not present in our classroom each day and therefore had no understanding of what the "math situation" was like? Why in the world was I allowing the predicted opinions of others hinder Bluebird's progress? Why was I afraid?

And then it dawned on me: Satan does not want Bluebird to rise to her full potential. He wants her talented mind to become bored and find other ways to satisfy its ravenous curiosity. He wants her to become stagnant and disillusioned with her education. And he was using me and my people-pleasing tendencies to try to accomplish that end. He was playing on my anxieties over finances and throwing the cost of purchasing the next level of curriculum at me. Over and over I "heard" the sarcastic comments in my head about overbearing mothers who set unobtainable expectations for their children.

I knew I was heading for "the crazy place" with this line of thinking, so I dropped my head and uttered a silent request to my Heavenly Father that He would help me know what to do. A quiet peace settled over me and I received the thought of "If the next level is too hard, you can always back up." No long sermon about potential and celestial glory; just a simple, profound assurance that it would all work out in the end. It filled me with peace and a quiet joy that perhaps this was the correct path to follow. I ordered the next level.

"For the LORD God will help me, therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed."⁴

Who cares what others may think of Bluebird jumping so far ahead in her studies? It is part of her journey and denying it will only frustrate her progression. The opinions of others can rain down like hail, but I am confident in the direction we are to travel and will not alter our course to appease the gallery. I know it's not a big story like the ones we like to hear about life-altering experiences, but it was a decisive moment for me; and I believe it is the cumulation of our small decisions that determine the total sum of our faith.

Each of us is so incredibly special and loved dearly by our Heavenly Father, who has sent us to this Earth that we might have joy and continue on our journey towards exaltation and brilliant perfection. He is on our side and He wants us to succeed; unlike others who, for reasons specific to each of them, are threatened by the bold life of a person committed to rising above the norm. We need to throw off our cloaks of fear and embrace the light-filled life of accomplishing our divine directives. Only then will we have happiness and peace and lasting joy. It serves no one but the adversary when we shrink from rising to our full potential.

Whose side are you working for?

¹2 Timothy 1:7 (KJV)
²2 Nephi 8:7
³Proverbs 29:25 (KJV)
⁴2 Nephi 7:7

Gingerbread Leg Warmers

2011-10-22T22:19:00.001-06:00

Pattern: Legwarmies, by Alana Dakos

Yarn: Knit Pick's Imagination Handpainted Sock Yarn in "Gingerbread House" colorway, 50% Merino, 25% Alpace, 25% Nylon.

Needles: US 3/3.25 mm.

Modifications: I used Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off rather than Elizabeth Zimmerman's Sewn Cast Off. I also held the yarn double, as the pattern called for sport-weight yarn and this is fingering-weight.

Oh the cuteness! Junebug loves gingerbread men. She has a gingerbread man apron, gingerbread men thrown pillows on her bed, a gingerbread man stuffie and a creepy little gingerbread man stuffie as well. When I received the shipment of yarn that these particular skeins belonged to, Junebug was mildly interested--until she found out that the name of the color of this yarn was "Gingerbread House."

As soon as she learned that vital bit of information, she snatched the hanks right out of the box and clutched them close and declared that they were hers. Being a complete softie, I didn't put up much of a fight. (I had actually ordered them because I thought the color would please her when she found out the name.)

We searched and searched for a pattern befitting the magically-colored yarn, and finally happened upon this cute (free!) pattern for little leg warmers. Junebug gasped and her eyes lit up, and I knew we'd found this yarn's calling.

It's an easy pattern and I knocked these off the needles quickly. I finished up the first legwarmer and presented it for her inspection, and she immediately put it on under the pants she was wearing that day and has not taken it off since. She also took to coming up to me and reminding about just how cold her other leg was since it didn't have a legwarmer to keep it toasty. I finished the second legwarmer in record time and she has happily taken to showing the full pair to whomever will let her chatter to them about her clothes.

It's an easy, quick pattern. Should I make them again I would either just use some sport-weight yarn or bump up a needle size or two, as doubled fingering-weight yarn on size US 3 needles produces a very dense fabric that doesn't really want to stretch.

Click here to view this project's Ravelry page.

Breaking the Silence

2011-10-16T10:40:00.000-06:00

Hello Readers:

Well, we're halfway through October and I still haven't managed to write a post here on the ol' blog. However, I have been thinking about the blog in random moments and trying to decide what I wanted to do, and came up with a few ideas:

I'm going to consolidate the Weekly Reports into Quarterly Reports. Writing a Weekly Report each week is sucking the life out of me. I can handle writing a Quarterly Report every ten weeks or so, and they'll probably be more enjoyable for those of you who are reading along.
I'm going to keep up with the "Day in the Life" posts because I love going back and reading them. The next one is schedule for Monday, October 31st.
I really enjoy doing full photo shoots and write-ups for my crafty adventures, so I'm going to keep posting about those as well.
I resigned from my writing positions at The Homeschool Classrom and Latter-day Homeschooling. While writing one of my last posts, I had to repeatedly say things like, "Mama is writing right now and needs to be left alone, I'll help you in a little bit." I stay home and homeschool my kids so I can spend more time with them, and writing for the other blogs was taking away from that. There are a lot of other women out there who would love to write about homeschooling, so I decided to leave the field to them so I could re-focus on my children. Perhaps, when I'm done homeschooling my children and have acquired actual homeschooling wisdom and experience, I'll write for homeschooling blogs. Until then, you can tune in here and watch me acquire that wisdom and experience firsthand.
I am not going to worry about posting every week anymore. (Actually, for the past few months, I'd been trying to post at least three times a week...and I don't have time for that at this stage in my life.) I'll post things I want to share when I have time to do so, and not because I feel like the blog has been quiet for too long. We finished our Summer Quarter (July-September) almost a full month behind in our school work, and since I took the vow of blogging silence we've not only stayed on schedule, but have been able to accomplish extra work that has been closing the gap between where we are and where we're supposed to be in each subject. Should we stick to our new schedule, we will be caught up in everything by the end of this Autumn Quarter (October-December). That is far, far more important to me than keeping the blog updated.

Thank you so much for your interest in our family and my stretched-too-thin life. I appreciate the emails and comments that I receive from you all; I've been so blessed to have access to the collective wisdom and concern that so many of you have shared with me over these past years. I don't want to give that up at all, but I do need to turn my attention more to the people residing in my home in order to accomplish the great expectations we have as a family.

Warm Sweater for a Cold Schoolroom

2011-09-24T18:08:00.001-06:00

Continuing with the "Hey, I can make clothes!" theme, here is Bluebird's new sweater for the winter. She picked out the colors and requested the hearts along the bottom.

Pattern: Knitting Pure & Simple #293 Child's V Neck Down Pullover, by Diane Soucy.
Yarn: Plymouth Yarn Galway Worsted, Colors #135, #127 & #8.
Needles: US 6 & US 4.
Modifications: When picking up the stitches for the armholes, I did a K2tog at the beginning.

I knit up the gauge swatch during the last little bit of our trip home from Alberta and have since been steadily working on this sweater and only the sweater. I stalled out when it came to knitting up the sleeves, but that's just something I always do when making anything with sleeves. I have to waste a week worrying about making the sleeves before going forward. Every. single. time.

I ran into a problem with knitting monogamy about a week ago and seriously considered putting the sweater in the back of the closet and casting on for something quicker and more fun, but after two days of not being able to settle on a new "quick and fun" project, I hunkered down and knit on through the finish. I'm glad I persevered.

Bluebird, who has a reputation for being a tad lackluster in her reception of handmade goodies, has surprised me with her adoration of her new sweater. We're experiencing 80 degree (F) weather here, and when I presented her with the sweater she threw it on and wore it for the rest of the day, despite repeated inquiries about whether or not she was getting too warm. After today's photo shoot, she refused to take off her sweater until I noticed that she was sweating, after which I demanded she take the thing off.

I've had a bit of mental anguish over the creation of this sweater. Wool ain't cheap and knitting ain't quick. I'm a homeschooling mother of four, and you can imagine how much excess money and time I (do not) possess.

However, I really wanted to make this sweater for my girl. I've spent the past seven years honing this skill and all I have to show for it are hats and scarves and a few shawls. I was ready to venture into the land of sweater knitting and use my creativity to bless my family in practical ways. Penguin and Junebug jumped on the "Knit Me a Sweater" bandwagon when they saw I was making one for Bluebird, so I have two more sweaters to make before winter sets in...and I'm obnoxiously excited about knitting them.

When I am knitting, I sometimes feel a little guilty for embarking on projects that take up so much of my time. Really, I could go to a clothing store and buy a sweater, which would take tons less of my time and cost me about the same amount of money. But there's something about making something rather than buying it that fills me with a deep sense of satisfaction.

I figure that anything that helps to make me feel good about myself is definitely worth pursuing, so swathing my family is handknits isn't a waste but an investment. Each day Bluebird wears this sweater I will feel proud of myself and she will feel loved because I let her pick the colors and then spent all that time making something for her. If it was a sweater from the store, that positive emotional boost would not happen.

This sweater is meant for wearing throughout the coming winter as we embark upon our first year of homeschooling in our new schoolroom in the basement. The coolness of the basement has been a blessing throughout this summer quarter, but will soon become a point of complaint as we move into the autumn and winter months. It is my hope that Bluebird will feel warmed by my efforts to craft this sweater for her, just as I hope someday that her heart will be warmed by my efforts to craft her education.

Click here to view this project's Ravelry page.

Taking a Little Break

2011-09-16T11:17:00.000-06:00

I was going to post the Weekly Report about our fabulous "Japan Week," but I just can't seem to drum up enough energy to tell you all about it. I also opted to not write some other posts I had scheduled for this week and I've lately taken to watching television to get my mind off of how overwhelmed I feel right now.

So I've decided to take a blogging break. Better to not blog and still do school. Oh, I feel relieved after writing those two sentences already.

Hopefully the break is short, but there's a little voice inside my head that's telling me I won't be ready to come back with vim and vigor until at least October.

I just need a break from a few things to ground myself and figure out what the heck I'm doing. :)

See you again in October!

Make a Wish

2011-09-14T00:00:00.002-06:00

Nature Hike to The Grotto

2011-09-13T20:35:00.000-06:00

We needed a break, so we went on a nature hike up to a waterfall in Payson Canyon. The nice thing about "nature hikes" is that I can count them as both science and PE. Which, when I get to the point where I announce that we need to get out of the house, makes it easier to enjoy myself instead of feeling guilty that we aren't sitting in our schoolroom and moving ahead in our curriculum.

It was an easy little hike; Monkeyboy could walk some of the trail by himself and I carried him on my hip for the other parts. It was also a great photo opportunity, so enjoy!

The weather is just so perfect right now, it feels like such a waste to spend our days inside! Summer is too hot to go outside and soon we'll head into winter with its chilly weather...oh, how we enjoy the cool days of autumn. The sun warmed us and the breeze cooled us and the trail was canopied with leafy branches; it was a beautiful hike. We saw the beginnings of some color-changing in the leaves,which excited us all. I think autumn is our favorite season, visually-speaking.

Hopefully we'll be able to go on some more nature hikes and have more beautiful pictures to share as the forest puts on its show.

Super Selfish Alter Ego Swap

2011-09-10T14:14:00.001-06:00

I signed up to participate in a knitting group swap. You had to make up a superhero or villain alter-ego and then your swap partner would make up a package pertaining to said alter-ego and send it your way. My package arrived today, all the way from lovely Canada.

My alter-ego was "The Soprano Homeschooler" or something like that. My super power was the ability to take any assortment of academic facts and make them easy to remember by adapting them to a catchy tune. (I know, the creativity astounded me as well...and yes, that was sarcastic.) I have been awaiting my package for the past week, ever since its sender informed me that it was in the mail and on its way.

And oh!, what an awesome package it was! Penguin and Junebug were on-hand for the grand opening and immediately snatched up the Smarties and ripped into the boxes.

Monkeyboy came into the kitchen to discover the reason for the sudden loudness in his abode, and was rewarded with handfuls of Smarties from his loving sisters. Michael quickly stepped in to scoop out more Smarties from their boxes to save for Bluebird, when she decided to make an appearance.

OK, OK, Smarties are fantabulous and all, and of course the kiddos would love to snarf on some scrumptious Canadian treats, but it takes more than a couple boxes of Smarties to earn the title of "Awesome Swap Package," doesn't it? Well, let me show you why this was a ridiculously awesome package:

My swap partner went big when it came to the "Homeschooling" portion of my alter-ego and sent me all sorts of stuff to do an entire unit study about Canada. Which is absolutely crazy perfect because we are studying the exploration and discovery of the New World this year, and I wanted to spend a little extra time studying my Birth Country. Technically, my children are citizens of Canada as well, so it means something to me to instruct them about that part of their heritage. There are stickers, visuals to hang up in our schoolroom and a book that has so much interesting information in it that I practically squealed when I thumbed through it.

And there's also materials for doing a little unit study on "Why Leaves Change Their Colors," which is awesome for this time of year! I'm giddy with all this homeschooling booty, and do you see the chocolate bars? Those are my favorite and nigh impossible to purchase here in the States. (I do see Crispy Crunches every once in a while, but it's a rare occurence.) And my partner crocheted me the sweetest little bookmark, shaped like a music note. She made it extra long so it would fit in the tall spine of a music book, too! I love it!

And of course, there was some yarn:

Mwa ha ha ha, I see some seriously happy-making socks in my future! Oh, what smiles this little package of trinkets has brought to my face and heart. Thank you so much, MapleCrochet, you are an awesome swap partner!

2011-2012 Weekly Report: China Week!

2011-09-09T09:34:00.000-06:00

I know many of you already know this, but I earned a degree in history, and my emphasis was on the Tang Dynasty. This week we studied the Tang Dynasty. It was a big deal to me. I've been waiting for this week since I first decided to homeschool my children many years ago, and I'm now looking forward to the weeks we spend on this again in 2015, 2019 and 2023. :)

On Thursday we had our much-anticipated "China Dinner." I gave the girls a "Chinese" hairstyle in the morning and we dedicated the entire day to all things China. (It was also the only day I had the mental capacity to remember to actually take pictures.)

We read lots of great books this week, including Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood Tale from China, Two of Everything, and Cat and Rat: The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac. Bluebird especially liked Cat and Rat, as she's always interested in the Chinese Zodiac placemats at Chinese restaurants. We also thumbed through Science in Ancient China and a book about projects you can do that relate to Ancient China, but didn't go any further than that. I plan to make better use of them the next time around.

We learned that it was customary during the Tang Dynasty for people to compose a poem upon meeting each other, so Bluebird and I took turns making up poems on the spot. She came up with one that warmed my heart:

Hello Mama
I'm glad to see you
Your eyes are like emeralds
And your shirt is blue.

Of course, I complimented her profusely after her recitation! She then spent the rest of the day comparing all of us to gemstones and precious metals.

I dug out my favorite books from my college days and let Bluebird have a go at them. We read a fair amount about Empress Wu Zhao/Zetiang in Chronicle of the Chinese Emperors, which may or may not have turned Bluebird off in regards to the female emperor...truth be told, she was a mean and calculating woman! We also spent a fair amount of time browsing through The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics by Edward H. Schafer. (If you're interested in the Tang Dynasty, that is a name you need to know--he's also written some really great articles about cosmetics during that time.) Golden Peaches is an awesome encyclopedia of all the stuff they had in China during the Tang Dynasty and how it got there, be it through trade or discovery. Bluebird especially liked the chapter on food and the section in that chapter on "Sweets."

The highlight of all this was our China Dinner. I purchased chopsticks for the meal, which the girls eagerly awaited the opportunity to use, and we went grocery shopping after school was finished so we could buy what we needed. We learned about soybeans and tofu in our readings and Bluebird begged to buy some tofu for our meal, which request I obliged. When we saw the tofu in the grocery store, Bluebird started squealing and jumping and pointing and announcing (to everyone in the produce section) that she had found the tofu and it was going to be so good and...YAY!

We read in one of our books that they had twenty four different flavors of dumplings during the Tang Dynasty, so we made dumplings and rice for our China Dinner. Despite numerous pleadings to make twenty four different flavors, I held my ground at only making two flavors: Pork and Tofu. The girls helped to make the dumplings, which they enjoyed immensely.

And then we began our much-anticipated meal with chopsticks. I had purchased some easy-to-use chopsticks for the kids and Michael, Monkeyboy and I used regular chopsticks. The girls thought it was totally awesome and we had a great dinner together. We finished off our meal with Rice Ice Cream (or "Rice Cream" as the girls gleefully called it) and tried some honeyed bamboo shoots, which weren't a big hit.

Hopefully it's a week they'll remember fondly when they look back on their homeschool journey.

Let Me Tell You 'Bout: Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disorder

2011-09-07T11:33:00.000-06:00

One of my maternal bloodlines carries the gene for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder, also known as Hereditary Motor Sensory Neuropathy. My mother inherited the gene; and, as it is autosomal dominant, passed it on to 50% of her children. She had two children, my brother and myself...my brother was the unlucky winner in this genetic lottery.

Growing up with a mother who had Charcot-Marie-Tooth wasn't too bad. The only real limitation she had during my childhood was that she couldn't run. Period. Just couldn't do it. She did cross stitch, sewed Halloween costumes and crocheted throughout the long Canadian winters.

When I was a teenager, the disease started progressing. It started in a pinkie finger on one of her hands. It just started to curl and not straighten out on its own. My mother bought popsicle sticks and I would splint her dying fingers at night in an attempt to straighten them out while she slept. Her walking ability started to diminish and she would ask to hold onto my arm when we were somewhere new or there were a lot of people milling around us. She stopped cross stitching because it was getting difficult to hold that little embroidery needle in her weakening hands. She was only in her late thirties.

Fast forward to last month, when we saw her at my brother's wedding for the first time in almost four years: Her fingers are completely dead and she's basically stranded if there is no one willing to offer their arm to her so she can walk. She has progressed to a full-blown foot-drop walking gait and has to pick up a drinking glass with her palms. It was a harsh reality to observe. My mother's body is already slowly dying at the tips and working its way inward. She is fifty years old.

She has crocheted a baby blanket for each of my daughters, but confessed to me at the wedding that her hands simply will not hold a crochet hook anymore. Not because it hurts, but because she simply doesn't have the strength in her fingers to keep holding onto the hook. That is why Monkeyboy never received a baby blanket from his grandmother. Her hobbies have been taken away from her. She can no longer type, which has taken her living as a bookkeeper away from her as well.

I usually can brush aside the anxiety that accompanies the fact that this disease runs in my family. I don't have to worry about its effects upon myself or my children, because I don't have it and you can only pass it to your children if you have it yourself. When I was old enough to be aware of its existence, everyone who was going to get it already had it.

However, my wonderful brother got married last month. You can't see the Charcot in him, despite my mother being able to see that he had it before he turned two years old. He's strong and grew up playing soccer, obviously able to run. I don't think "He has Charcot" when I look at him.

What I think about now is "Half of his kids will have Charcot-Marie-Tooth and it could be as bad as my mother's."

I found out that this month, September of 2011, is CMT Awareness Month. So I'm sharing with you the facts of this disease in an attempt to raise awareness of its existence and the need for better treatments and someday a cure. Some of my nieces and nephews will have this disease and it will slowly deaden their limbs when they get older. I hate that that is the reality that our family will have to watch unfold.

CMT doesn't affect a person's life expectancy; in fact, I have many a great uncle and my own grandmother who are nearing or already into their eighth decade of life. What CMT does is leach the things you love to do out of your life as your body slowly fails in its ability to perform fine, small and large motor tasks. It causes loss of sensation in the peripheral nervous system, which means that a person can't even feel things with their hands and feet. (I remember, years ago, one of my great aunts stepped on a wire and it worked its way through the sole of her foot and up into her ankle without her feeling a thing.)

There are lots of other diseases and conditions out there, many that do affect life expectancy. It seems silly to ask for awareness for this disorder when, in comparison to Multiple Sclerosis and Cancer (another disease that my mother has had to battle, and eventually won), it's not that deadly. But it does steal lives. Lives that start out strong and able-bodied and slowly transform into lives that are lived in a numb shell of dying body, only able to remember days of when they could tie their own shoes or walk by themselves without support. And seeing that CMT doesn't shorten a life with its progression, a person affected with it can live a lot of days in which they aren't capable of doing anything. I would hate a future like that.

So please help by simply spreading the awareness of this condition. It's estimated that 2.6 million people throughout the world have this disorder. It is misdiagnosed all the time and improper treatment given to those who are actually suffering from its symptoms. (I can count on one hand the number of doctors who knew what my mother was talking about when she mentioned that she had this disease.)

This week, as part of CMT Awareness Month, we are being asked to simply make others aware of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disorder. We can each do our part by blogging about it, tweeting about it or posting the link to the CMT Awareness Site on our Facebook pages. It's just one little thing that could potentially lead to more funding for CMT research, which could also help out researchers working on similar diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy and ALS.

For more information, please visit the aforementioned Charcot-Marie-Tooth Awareness Site, or The Charcot-Marie-Tooth Association's website.

Great Basin Fiber Arts Festival

2011-09-06T00:00:00.000-06:00

I have been wanting to attend this festival for years upon years now, but something always came up that made it so I couldn't go. I wasn't planning on going this year, but I woke up that Saturday morning and found that my afternoon was completely open. Bluebird and Penguin had an Ice Cream Social to attend at church, and when it was over we drove on up to South Jordan to partake of some fibery eye candy.

A lady at the festival was kind enough to allow Bluebird and Penguin to pedal on her spinning wheel. (Bluebird asked when she could have some fiber to actually spin.) I only have a drop spindle at home, which impedes my spinning speed. Someday I'd like to have a wheel, but I have to always decide between food, school supplies and hobbies. Responsibility can be such a downer sometimes.

Penguin thought all the fiber batts should be called "snakes," and would try to bite me with them. I wish I had my camera ready when picked up a batt of silk blend, stopped short and exclaimed, "Hey, this snake is smoother than the others!"

Penguin fell in love with this crazy handspun yarn, I wish I could have bought it and make a funky little hat for her! She already has three hats though, so it would kind of be a waste of time and money. Perhaps I can interest her in spinning in the future by showing her this picture and telling her that she can create her own yarn just like it!

Bluebird was completely floored that you could make yarn with gold in it!

Stitch markers. I thought they looked pretty on their black background.

Stitch markers that Bluebird tried to talk me into buying for her. The lady manning the booth informed Bluebird that "stitch marker collections" were really fun. I informed Bluebird that stitch marker collections are even more fun when you actually use the stitch markers for knitting, and when I see her knitting on a regular basis that I will consider allowing her to start a stitch marker collection. I always get to be the bad guy. ;)

Locks for spinning. Oh, I wish I had more time for spinning, there are so many fun yarns one could make on their own!

Lots of hand-dyed batts. Someday...someday.

Sample yarn from the festival. Bluebird named hers "Midnight" and Penguin named hers "Ocean." It's funny when they lose them around the house because you'll hear a voice squeal, "Oh no! Ocean! Where's my Ocean?!?!" Perhaps we can eek some doll hats out of the teeny skeins.

It was a fun little trip that allowed me to meander with my girls for an hour. However, I might go by myself next year, as they meander faster than me.

2011-2012 Weekly Report: The Week That Doesn't Count

2011-09-02T06:11:00.001-06:00

I do not know what is up with this school year. There is zero motivation to keep pushing forward and we're right at the beginning! This is not a good starting recipe for success, so we took the week off so I could spend some time analyzing why it's feeling like this.

Conclusion: My mindset is not where it should be and lack of funds are making it hard to be excited about getting up to do school each morning. I'm working on the mindset (which is too casual at this point and needs some sharpening to get back into "professional" mode), and funds should start becoming available in the next week, which will be a paycheck week that isn't already earmarked to cover the cost of travelling up to Alberta for my brother's wedding. Mindset and finances, both my own fault. Lessons learned, and I also gained fodder for some intriguing future blog posts.

Sorry this is a disappointing report, but it's the truth. I could have tried to spin what we did instead of school and make it look like academics, but it wasn't. Lesson for next time around: Take a week off before the August beginning of school to clear my mind and re-focus on why we're homeschooling. I've been tossed about on the waves of my mental ocean the past few weeks, and it's not a fun place to be.

I hope your weeks were far more academically productive! See you next week!

I'm over at The Homeschool Classroom Today!

2011-09-01T08:24:00.000-06:00

Come on over and get some Motivation for "Those" Difficult Days!

Home School PE: The Excuses

2011-08-30T07:23:00.003-06:00

This subject has been on my mind for a while now and I haven't really done anything about it except make room for it in our schedule. That's a step in the right direction, but it hasn't led to an increase in physical activity.

Here's what my excuses have been:

"I don't know what to do!"
On one hand, I have no idea where to start; and on the other hand, there are a ton of choices available to us for physical activity. A quick brainstorm and some internet research on the matter led me to these ideas:
A. The Presidential Physical Fitness Award: Remember this from your school years? It's available for homeschoolers as well! I want to implement this program in our home school because it has great goals and my kids love to earn awards.
B. Family Time Fitness: This site has been adding fuel to my "We need Physical Education in our home school!" fire. I love their article about how "going out to play" is NOT Physical Education.
C. My local Parks & Recreation department: Sporting programs in a nutshell. Research on my local site led me to a private swim club that meets just ten minutes from my house in the mornings before school.
D. Marathon Kids: Running is free and great exercise. I've actually remarked to Michael that I'd like to instill jogging as a healthy habit for our family because it's universally accessible in all phases of life. All you need is a pair of shoes!
E. The Ultimate Home School Physical Education Game Book, by Guy Bailey: I have seen this title thrown about in almost every homeschooling article about physical education. I'm going to try to get my hands on a copy of it soon.

"I don't want to get my clothes sweaty!"This excuse is just lame. That doesn't keep me from using it! I like to dress nicely for school, as I think it imparts a certain respect for our academic home life. However, leading my brood through jumping jacks and sit-ups doesn't go very well with pencil skirts and blouses. I've been thinking back on my elementary school days in Canada, where my classroom teacher was also my gym teacher. (There weren't specialized PE teachers at my Canadian school like they had at the schools I attended when we moved to the States.)

My classroom teachers wore nice clothing to school each day and still managed to guide us through the basics of team sports and personal exercise. If they could do it, so can I...right? I figure I have two choices: 1. Start dressing down across the board, or 2. Lay out a PE outfit to change in and out of each day for that hour. (The second option is the one my Canadian teachers used.)

"It takes up so much time!"
My research has brought up the mandate that children need 1-3 HOURS PER DAY of vigorous physical activity. NEED. As in, not optional. I cannot shortchange my children's health now to get ahead academically. Obesity is a rising problem in our communities that can be easily observed every time we step out of our homes. Wouldn't it stand to reason that a child who is taught to be inactive physically can very easily transmit that philosophy to other areas of their lives, say, like academics? I might be able to get ahead in some subject areas by skipping PE, but will that develop the best possible version of my child?
I can across a quote from John F. Kennedy that I really liked:
"The Greeks understood that mind and body must develop in harmounious proportions to produce a creative intelligence. And so did the most brilliant intelligence of our earliest days - Thomas Jefferson - when he said, not less than two hours a day should be devoted to exercise.
If the man who wrote the Decleration of Independence, was Secretary of State, and twice President, could give it two hours, our children can give it ten or fifteen minutes."

--John F Kennedy (1917-63), 35th President of USA, Address to the National Football Foundations, 5 Dec 1961. (Found at http://www.exrx.net/Psychology/Quotes.html

Once again, I'm led to remembering my Canadian elementary school teachers. In the fourth grade, my teacher started out EVERY day with leading our entire class on a run. At the beginning of the year we started with a route that took us halfway around the school boundaries, by the end of the year we were running the entire boundary line twice. When it was winter, we ran around the gymnasium ad nauseum. The only way you got out of it was if you were wearing dress shoes. A few of us tried dressing up every day, but that wore out after a week and we all took to the course. I remember a lot from that year of school, I think mostly due to the invigorating run we took before starting our studies each day. We were still able to get through all of the required subjects that year, despite the thirty minutes dedicated to our morning run. (I seem to recall that my class had less behavioral problems that year as well, a boon any teacher would love to possess.)
I believe that there is a big pay-off in training our children in self-discipline, and that Physical Education plays a major role in teaching self-discipline. Physical Education is your mind telling your body that it is going to do X, Y & Z, even though it doesn't want to do X, Y & Z. It's practicing foreign movements over and over again until they become natural, which isn't that different from spending time with a spelling list or math table and committing either to memory. The difference between the two is that one uses physical muscles and the other uses mental muscles. There needs to be balance in our children's lives, and neglecting Physical Education throws the education of the whole person out of proportion. Generations of our ancestors have learned Latin, Calculus and Philosophy while helping out around the farm and engaging in vigorous physical activities. I'm pretty sure we can step up the task as well.
I also came across a sobering quote:
"Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness." ~ Edward Stanley

"I feel like a complete idiot 'leading' my kids through a workout!"Fake it 'til you make it, sister. Odds are, your kids will think you are brilliant and never realize that you feel like a lizard in a tutu as you instruct them through the finer points of executing a sit-up, hitting a ball off a tee or stretching your hamstrings.

I live in a densely-populated neighborhood and I am guaranteed that my neighbors are going to see us, so I also understand the nervousness that accompanies taking PE outside of your house. We have a park in our neighborhood that I take my kids to during our newly-schedule PE time and I've come to realize that no one is home during the day. Not that many people will see me leading my kids through the movements. In the three years that we've been doing "real" homeschooling (ie. Homeschooling with a mandatory-aged child), I've received only one comment about us being outside during the day, and it was admiration from a friend who saw us going for a walk in a rainstorm with our umbrellas. I highly doubt that was the only time someone has seen us outside, but it just goes to prove the point that everyone else is too wrapped up in their own lives to bother noticing me. (While you would think that would be a depressing thought, it's actually been incredibly liberating!)

"I don't have enough room to do PE!"This is an issue for us. We have a spit of grass in our backyard and something that resembles a front yard which is studded with utility boxes, saplings and a cement path cutting through the middle of it. You're not going to run off any energy in this space. By the time you make a full stride, you need to start planning your turn-around. Time for another brainstorm:
A. Exercise videos: In extreme cases, these can obviously work. They're not exactly inspiring to me, but they will accomplish my goals. I've found ballet, Tae-Bo, plyometrics, Kung-Fu, and even "Yoga with Phonics" DVDs for kids.
B. Driveway PE: Sit-ups and push-up can be done in the driveway. You can jump rope in the driveway, even if there's only two of you. You can stretch on cement. It's not my ideal, but it is a completely viable option.
C. Go for a walk or a run: Once again, walking and running are free. Shouldn't we all own a pair of athletic shoes anyway? If you're not physically active, this may be the best place to start--just go for a fifteen minute walk and start adding minutes as the weeks go by.
D. Nature is a playground: Go for a swim at your nearby reservoir or lake. Do a nature hike (double counts for science!).
E. Public parks: They're all over the place, you just have to get to them. You can drive or walk to the park. If it's far away, then work up to walking the distance. Bring strollers for Littles, who will likely be motivated to get to the park, but struggle with walking the entire way home.

I'd much rather spend my day reading out loud to my kids on the couch. I like sports and being active, but I love reading and learning a few gazillion times more. I am responsible for their education and training their bodies physically is a crucial assignment on the path to educating the whole child. It is my attitude and my diligence that will make or break this subject for us. I need to take hold of this responsibility and make it work for us.

These days are the days that establish my children's attitudes towards exercise and healthy choices--what do I want to teach them about those areas of their lives? What choices do I want them to make and what habits do I want them to adopt? Now is the time to guide them to the ideal behaviors they'll need to stay healthy as adults. It's a big responsibility and I feel its importance keenly. I don't want to let them down.

I'd love to hear your ideas about PE in your homes! Please take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments section!

Pembroke Sweater Vest for Monkeyboy

2011-08-27T08:17:00.000-06:00

Wow, look at that, I can knit actual clothes!

Pattern: Pembroke Vest, by Kirsten Kapur (free!)
Yarn: Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash Paints in colorway #9997 "Juniper Berries."
Needles: US 3 & 5
Modifications: I mirrored the cables instead of having them all twist the same way as written in the pattern.

When I gave birth to Monkeyboy and found out he was a boy, this pattern (along with Roar!) went into my queue as soon as I got home from the hospital.

It has been sitting in the queue for over a year, mostly because I was a little afraid to take on something of this magnitude. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm more of an "accessory knitter." I haven't had much luck with my attempts to create actual clothing.)

Michael even encouraged me not to give this a go, stating that it was a whole lot of work for something that our boy would only wear for a short time. I agreed with the logic of his observation and pushed aside all thoughts of casting on for the vest.

However, the vest kept taunting me. I'd see other people finish their own vests for special boy tots in their lives and I loved each new creation! I remained firm in my resolve, no matter how many cute Pembrokes popped up on Ravelry, I was going to be smart and not put my time into something that would be used for such a short amount of time.

My resolve dissolved completely during my second class for the Rock Island Shawl at Blazing Needles. I saw the most beautiful variegated colorway of yarn and it screamed at me: "Make me into a Pembroke Vest for your son!" I immediately purchased three skeins of the magical color and dashed away from the shop amidst "colorway coveting" from fellow shawl class participants. We knitters are such enablers!

And once Rock Island was finished, I wound up those three skeins and went to town. The majority of this was knit on our trip to Alberta. I had only finished a few rows before starting the trip, and had completed everything except the last few rows of the neckline ribbing by the time we returned home.

I enjoyed knitting this up very much. I love to cable! It's so simple to do and produces such complex-looking results. I feel like a knitting genius each time I cross stitches against each other. The entertainment value of cabling is high for me.

This vest was originally slated to be one of Monkeyboy's church outfits for the winter, but I'm loving it so much that I may just deem it an everyday outfit because he'll get a lot more wear out of it in the weekly "everyday clothing" rotation rather than the twice-monthly "church outfit" rotation. (I'll just buy him another dress shirt and he'll be fine in the church clothes category.)

So pleased! :)

Click here to view this project's Ravelry page.

Weekly Report 2011-2012: Week 5 Gearin' up again

2011-08-26T16:33:00.001-06:00

Too cool for school

This was our first week "back-to-school" after our trip up to Canada for my brother's wedding. Coincidentally, it also lined up with our (public) school district's first week of school. When I made this discovery, I declared Monday to be "NOT Back to School" Day and we spent the day doing all sorts of things that we can do because my children aren't stuck inside a school building during the day. We went out for breakfast, bought their new Girl Scout uniforms and just bopped about doing whatever we felt like doing, because we could.

On Tuesday we hunkered back down and got out the books. We had to spend a little bit of time calculating whether or not we are on track to finish up the assignments that I made the goals of finishing by the end of our first quarter, and we found that we're a teensy bit behind the schedule, so we're trying to catch-up and finish everything on time. I'm so glad I figured out ahead of time where we should be according to quarters instead of just saying we needed to be at a certain point by the end of the year. It doesn't take too much thinking to figure out why I always seem to be a bit behind when the end of the year comes along.

Math: Bluebird had to find out what other people's favorite day of the week were for a graphing assignment in Math. (Longest lesson ever!) She enjoyed phoning everyone to ask them about their favorite day of the week and I had to cut short many conversations so we could move on with our lives.

Language Arts: Penguin read an entire Bob book by herself!
Bluebird had her first exposure to dictation. It went well, far better than I thought it would turn out. She can remember the sentences easily, but needs a lot of help with spelling the words. I keep telling myself to not freak about the spelling. I'm sure I was still spelling words wrong in the second grade!

We finally finished up our First Grade Grammar curriculum. Now she's in the Second Grade book. Go us. As part of finishing up, Bluebird had to recite all the poems she memorized over the year. She did just fine, and when she finished she said that she had a surprise for me--she had secretly been teaching her little sisters to memorize the poem, "Mr. Nobody":

History: Spent some more time with Muhammad and the beginnings of Islam. We also got caught up with our map work, which I had completely spaced after the first week of school. Ugh, I don't know where my head is right now!

Science: We learned about seasons. We discussed the tilt of the Earth and how seasons are dictated by which end of the Earth is more pointed at the Sun, and what the definitions of "equinox" and "solstice" were. It was pretty tame. I think we're heading into the subject of air or atmosphere or something as equally exciting next.

Extracurriculars were basically a no-show this week. I promise to do better next week. But (!) I did take them to Girls' Clubs on Wednesday! Bluebird went to a Little House on the Praire birthday party and Penguin went to a Hawaiian Luau party. Each enjoyed their respective parties immensely. I guess we'll try to make this a regular occurence.

Highlights of the Week:

The look on Penguin's face when she finished reading that Bob book all by herself.
Bluebird beating the clock again on her math drill worksheet. She is so proud of herself when she does that.
Junebug asking me if I'll ever teach her how to read like her sisters, and being excited when I said that I would.

Lowlights of the Week:

It's sagebrush pollen season here. Yesterday was an exercise in pushing through the rough days. It's going to be like this through the end of September. Ugh.

Funnies of the Week:

Bluebird was very deep in thought one day, so I asked her what she was thinking about. "I'm taking Shakespeare's tragedies and flipping them into comedies," she said.
"Oh," I said, "and how are you doing that?"
"By adding imaginary unicorns."
Every time Bluebird tries to pronounce "exclamation." I don't even know what she's trying to say sometimes. Cute girl.

Day in the Life: Friday, July 29, 2011

2011-08-22T00:00:00.036-06:00

Bluebird: 7 years, Penguin: 4 years, Junebug: 3 years, Monkeyboy: 15 months.I totally spaced the original date of this installment of Day in the Life, so instead of July 21st, this is from July 29th. (Yeah, big brain fail on that one.)

5:00 AM: The alarm goes off. Time to start another day! I throw on my workout clothes, scarf down a protein bar and head out the door to the gym.

5:23: I arrive at the gym, avoiding eye contact with the guy who flirts with any girl he can talk to. I am successful! I get on the elliptical and put in my time, followed by some weights. It's arm and back today.

6:16: I arrive home and start getting ready for the day.

6:47: I am clean and covered in make-up. I skip downstairs to wake up Bluebird so she can take a shower before breakfast. Monkeyboy and Junebug are already up.

6:55: Michael heads off to work.

7:10: Monkeyboy wants some milk. NOW. He also gets a diaper change.

7:16: I go downstairs again and remind Bluebird that she needs to get out of bed and into the shower. She's not happy about it, but she trudges up the stairs and into the bathroom.

7:20: I toast up some frozen waffles for Junebug.

7:21: I realize that the shower still hasn't turned on, so I knock on the door to the bathroom and find Bluebird sitting on the stepping stool, crying. I ask her what is wrong and she says that she doesn't like to brush her hair in the morning. Oh goody, it's going to be one of those days, how original. We have a quick chat about being cheerful even when you don't want to do something you have to do and how she needs to get done with getting ready, like twenty minutes ago.

Junebug showing me that her eyes are green.

7:24: The shower finally turns on, but only after Bluebird came out of the bathroom one more time to tell me that her belly ached. I just silently pointed in the direction of the bathroom. She stuck out her bottom lip and went back in. Junebug is happily chewing her waffle and talking about how neat it is that we have green eyes. I begin toasting some bread for Bluebird so she'll have something to eat when she finally emerges from her den of sorrow.

7:39: The shower turns off. Monkeyboy and Junebug finish eating their waffles and I scrub them down until I'm satisfied there is no syrup to be found on their hands or faces. I knock on the bathroom door and inform Bluebird that she needs to come out because I need the bathroom to help her siblings brush their teeth and comb their hair. She comes out and sits down to her toast, I wrangle the Littles into the bathroom.

8:03: I confiscate the baby lotion from Junebug, who was trying to paint a picture on the carpet with it. I send everyone down to the schoolroom with the instructions of clearing the table so we can do school.

8:10: I put Monkeyboy down for his morning nap and I microwave a quick bowl of oatmeal for myself.

8:22: I head downstairs to start the school day. The school room floor is coverd in dried-up bits of Play-Doh, which I learn is from Penguin playing with it yesterday after I distinctly told her to leave it alone.

8:34: We all sit down for our devotional after I've finished vacuuming up the Play-Doh.

She finished her drill in less than a minute!

8:50: Bluebird and I start on her Math lesson, despite not being able to find a single sharpened pencil. We make do with blunt pencils that barely leave marks on the pages. All three pencil sharpeners are mysteriously missing this morning. Bluebird beats the clock for the first time EVER on her drill worksheet.

9:20: Bluebird starts working on her math worksheets, I start Penguin's Math lesson. Penguin complains because her "pencil is bad at writing today."

9:23: I require Bluebird to re-do her worksheet in neat handwriting and then go upstairs because I thought I heard Monkeyboy. I stand outside his door for a minute and hear nothing, so I go back downstairs to resume Penguin's math lesson.

9:45: Monkeyboy is screaming in his crib. I go upstairs and pull him out and bring him downstairs.

10:08: Monkeyboy will not stop crying. I hold him in my lap and try to do some spelling with Bluebird, but my baby boy is so loud that I say we can skip spelling today. We start in on grammar and Monkeyboy calms down and sits patiently on my lap. (Does this mean that he hates spelling?)

10:17: We are done with Math and Language Arts. I send Bluebird and Penguin off to make their beds. Junebug disappears for a moment and then returns triumphantly to show me that she has found all three pencil sharpeners. Hmmm.

10:25: We go upstairs and pack some snacks so we can go to Park Day with our homeschooling group. I send the girls to get their shoes on. Many shoes are missing, but we eventually find them all.

10:47: We pull out of the driveway.

10:55: We arrive at the park. No one else is there, but that's not surprising because it doesn't start until 11:00 and even then there's usually not someone else there before 11:15. I think the first other family arrives around 11:10, which is pretty stinkin' good for us. I hang out on our picnic blanket and chat with whatever mom will chat with me. The girls run off and play with their various friends and Monkeyboy hovers around me, snacking on animal crackers and fruit roll-ups. I try to knit a few rows on a gauge swatch I'm making for a pair of socks in my future.

Homeschooling Friends!

12:40 PM: I snap a picture of the group before starting to pack up to go home. I round up the girls, who were happily digging holes in the sand volleyball court. (That's not a good combo...)

12:55: We load up the van and head on home.

1:04: It's Friday. I let the girls talk me into lunch from McDonald's. We hit the drive-thru.

1:13: We arrive home and pass out the food. I unpack stuff from our park trip while the kiddos eat their lunch.

1:50: I heat up some soup for myself and sit down for my lunch while the kids elbow each other for some video game time.

2:15: I change Monkeyboy's diaper and give him more milk before putting him down for his nap.

2:32: The girls and I head downstairs and start reading some history. Bluebird does her narration.

2:57: I send the girls to their beds for Free Reading Time and then get my shoes on so I can go run errands. I ring my neighbor's doorbell and she comes over to sit with the kiddos while I'm gone. I head off to the library. Normally I take the kids, but they've developed a complete amnesia regarding proper library etiquette, so I'm giving them a break from library trips until they can show me they are capable of behaving.

3:25: I check out of the library, after paying $20.40 in fines. Argh. I head off to the allergist for my shots.

3:49: I arrive at the allergist, go to sign-in and knock all the pens off the desk and onto the floor. A guy in the waiting room laughs at me. I shrug my shoulders and say, "Yes, I am that awesome." He looks at me like I'm an idiot. At least I'm not the rude one laughing at another's clumsiness.
I get my shot, pick up the pens and sit down to wait the mandatory twenty minutes before leaving.

4:09: I can leave. I'm making good time today, and my local yarn shop is just down the street...I decide I have enough time to stop by for a brief moment.

4:40: I leave the yarn shop with a new skein of alpaca sock yarn. I drive to Michael's work to pick him up.

5:07: We arrive home. I make dinner for myself while trying to decide what everyone else is going to eat. I'm on a very specific food plan in an attempt to lose some of my chubbiness.

5:30: I start dinner for everyone else--chicken breast, corn muffins and mixed veggies.

6:20: We sit down to eat. Well, they eat while I input the day's school assignments into Homeschool Tracker. I am such a bad example today.

7:00: Monkeyboy gets a bath.

7:10: Junebug gets a bath.

7:20: Penguin gets a bath.

7:30: I order Bluebird's new writing book and something else for school (I can't remember what right now) from Amazon.

7:40: The kids settle into their beds for their evening reading time and I sit down to hash out lesson plans and scheduling. Michael heads downstairs to resume building his new computer from salvaged parts. (The man amazes me.)

9:00: I grow tired of working on my lesson plan. Michael did lights out for the kids at 8:30. I spend some time checking over my blog posting schedule and schedule for writing posts for Latter-day Homeschooling and The Homeschool Classroom.

9:50: I realize that I'm really tired. I get into bed and fall asleep immediately.

Enjoyed this peek into our lives?

Read the previous Day in the Life from Monday, April 11, 2011.

The next Day in the Life post is scheduled for: Monday, October 31, 2011.

(And let's be honest, when I say "scheduled," I really mean "will be done around this date.")

This post is also participating in Heart of the Matter's NOT Back to School Blog Hop.

Shaun & Carly's Wedding

2011-08-21T09:51:00.000-06:00

Carly & her father walking down the aisle.

I love the way that Shaun looked at Carly throughout the entire ceremony.

First kiss as husband & wife!

This is one of my favorite pictures!
Carly looked so elegantly beautiful on her wedding day!

L to R: Bluebird, Carly, Shaun, Cherie (our mom), Steve (stepfather),
Me holding Junebug, Michael holding Monkeyboy, Penguin.

My mother and her children.

Portrait of a Husband

My handsome men!

First Dance

My brother is now a married man and Carly is now my sister! The wedding took place in northern Alberta, which was a three-day drive both ways for our little family. I would do it again in a heartbeat!

The wedding was beautiful and it was wonderful to spend time with my brother and new sister. We were also able to catch up with other friends of the family that I hadn't seen in a decade. Goodness, do I miss Canada even more as result of this trip!

Shaun and Carly are such a great fit for each other. I look forward to spending more time with them in the coming years as our children grow up. (Yes, people are already hounding Shaun and Carly about children...I will admit that I can be included in that group a wee bit.)

Congratulations to my brother and his beautiful, loving wife.

We are so very happy for you two and we love you so much!

Seven Links

2011-08-09T00:00:00.001-06:00

I was reading over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers, and Kris posted this little meme which I found incredibly entertaining, so now I'm going post one as well. The idea is to share one blog post for seven different categories.

Most Beautiful
I think that a lot of my posts are beautiful. I admit it, I'm totally biased. I don't want to just pick one! Ugh.
Well, the first one that came to mind was a Wordless Wednesday post with three pictures of Hydrangea flowers. I'm going to go with that and save myself a few hours of clicking through the archives.

Most Popular

Oddly enough, my post about making the Planet Earth Cake. It easily surpasses every other post I've ever written in popularity. (I set my Popular Posts widget to "Last 30 Days" in order to give the other posts a fighting chance.)

Most Controversial
The most controversial posts are no longer live on the blog. I'd really rather not talk about them, as I wrote them during my "mid-twenties" and I was an idiot then. (Because being in my "late-twenties" makes me oh so much wiser.) They were hurtful to people who are close to me and caused a lot of contention. Word of advice: Don't publish judgmental thoughts about others on the internet. Play nice.

I haven't had many problems with controversiality since then. I get random Mormon-bashing comments or "Homeschoolers are messing up their kids" comments, but I don't publish them. Comment Moderation is a lovely thing. The last post to receive such a comment was the last "Day in the Life" post. (Don't worry, another "Day in the Life" post is scheduled to show up soon.)

Most Helpful
A lot of conversation was generated by Homeschooling...with Littles. Seems to be the most appreciated post.

Surprisingly Successful

Pigtails and Overalls. I'm baffled as to why so many people are still reading this post. (In reality though, the popularity of the Planet Earth Cake post borders on being disturbing, but I already shared that link.)

Not Enough Success
Why We're Going to Homeschool. I just expected that one to get a lot of play on a homeschooling blog. Oh well. It's there if someone wants to read it.

Post You're Most Proud Of
Right now I'm pretty puffed up over the Celtic Warrior Battle post from a few weeks ago. The pictures just crack me up and I worked so hard on those aluminum foil-covered ax heads. I pull up that post when I need a chuckle.

I'll carry on the sentiment and say that if you enjoyed this post and want to participate, then consider yourself tagged! Please share your link so I can stop by and see your Seven Links post too!

NOT Back to School Blog Hop: School Room Week

2011-08-08T00:00:00.002-06:00

Once again, Happy NOT Back to School!

This week at Heart of the Matter, they're hosting the second week of the blog hop, which focuses on us all showing off our schoolrooms (or lack thereof).

We're in a bit of a transition in regards to our schoolroom this year. Up until now we've been doing school at the kitchen table, using the pantry as our "homeschool closet." However, due to the increasing nature of our family, I've found myself needing said pantry to use as a...pantry. Meals were becoming a problem, as we couldn't just push aside a couple books to the middle of the table anymore. It was a big, cluttered mess.

So we've moved downstairs into our unfinished basement, something I've been avoiding until the basement was finished. Unfortunately, the funds never make themselves available for finishing the basement, so we're just going to make do without walls this year. Hopefully we can tackle the finishing next summer? (Don't hold your breath, I've been hoping for that scenario for many summers now.)

Despite the lack of walls and carpet padding, I like our new schoolroom. It's nice to have a very dedicated space for this occupation that takes up most of our day. The littler children can roll around on the floor and play with LEGOs within my sight while I work with an older sibling, and we're removed enough within the house to give Monkeyboy some serious quiet for his naps. (Meeting at the kitchen table placed us ten feet from his bedroom door, which led to a lot of interrupted naps.)

I use rolling carts to hold each child's grade-specific line writing paper and to keep the construction paper sorted by color, and use the shorter drawers on top to hold each child's completed school work and art work.

I'm re-purposing our changing table as a school shelf. It's a little messy right now because, well, it gets messy easily and I'm writing this post under a bit of a time crunch. It holds the bins that houses each child's books for specific subjects. On the bottom shelf are the jugs of paint for re-filling paint cups, the big box of construction paper for filling up the drawers when they get empty...those sort of things.

This is the "Preschool Cart," which is stocked with things to keep Junebug occupied while I'm working with her older sisters. There's dress-up dolls, coloring books, lacing beads and things like that in there. She still prefers to haul out the Math Manipulatives and play with those instead. Oh well, at least you can't fault me for not putting enough effort into it.

I'm saving my pennies to purchase a cork board and a magnetic white board to go on the wall over the table. I want the corkboard for our "assignments" that need updating each month: lyrics for the month's Primary song, the scripture of the month, whatever poem(s) they're memorizing in First Language lessons, that sort of thing. I've lately found myself having to get out our little lap chalkboard a lot in order to teach Bluebird's math lessons, so now I want a whiteboard that I can just reach up and write upon easily.

Our piano is against the one wall you don't see in the pictures, and I'd like to move that upstairs so I can line that wall with bookshelves. (Homeschooler's Paradise!) I'd also like to purchase cabinets to hang along the ceiling line to store more stuff (it will pile up in the next few years!) and acquire a standing closet with doors so I can stash the more distracting supplies (paint, glitter, board games, etc.) from my pupil's direct vision.

The hardest thing about our schoolroom is that we have no sink. I thought that wouldn't be a hindrance, but it's quickly becoming apparent that the sink is an important tool in homeschooling. (And trooping up the stairs and using the kitchen sink is a noisy and nap-interrupting endeavor!) Perhaps, someday, when we finish the basement and put in that much-needed bathroom down there, our problem will be solved.

So there it is, where we spend a lot of waking hours during a school day. It's a nice little spot.

Weekly Report 2011-2012: Week 4 Sickies

2011-08-05T00:00:00.002-06:00

There was a weird stomach bug making its way through our area and we caught it! As an obvious result, very little schooling was accomplished this week.
Monkeyboy gave us a nice little scare with a temperature of 104.3 Fahrenheit one evening, which resulted in long nights and tiring days. Ugh. He's doing much better now and I think we will all survive this little mishap.

Bluebird did finish up her last bit of Writing with Ease 1 and will begin Writing with Ease 2 next week. Yay for graduating to Second Grade Writing!

Other than that, we spent most of our week resting and drinking fluids. Exciting times.

Wash your hands! :)

A Double Dose of Brooketopia! (Kind of...)

2011-08-04T00:00:00.012-06:00

Hello there Friends! My, oh my, count yourself lucky today! I recently was offered not one, but TWO writing positions for other homeschooling blogs and as luck would have it, my first posts for both blogs are going live today.

I've joined the ranks of the writers at The Homeschooling Classroom blog. My first post is: What Can I Do to Foster Patriotism in My Home?
I'd love to hear your thoughts about it! Leave a comment there and let me know what you think!

I've also partnered up with Latter-day Homeschooling and my post there today is entitled "How to Obtain a Vision for Your Homeschool." It'd be great to read your thoughts on that post as well. :)

Have a great day!

Enjoying a Reese's

2011-08-03T00:00:00.001-06:00

NOT Back to School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week

2011-08-01T00:00:00.003-06:00

Happy NOT Back-to-School!

It's August, which means that lots of parents are gearing up to send the kidlets back to school soon, but not Homeschoolers! Life will go on as normal for us, so it's Happy NOT Back to School month over at Heart of the Matter.

This week is Curriculum Week, where we get to share our "well-researched curriculum plans." Here in Brooketopia, we have a Kindergartener and a Second Grader this year. I'm not really trying anything new this year, just mostly progressing to the next level in the same curriculums we used last year. Curious as to what we're using? Here we go:

(Subjects are in Blue, actual curriculum or plans are in Red.)

Math: We are sticking with good ol' Saxon Math. It's always surprising to me how heated the discussion can get about Saxon vs. Singapore. I must admit, I am attracted to the speed of Singapore. However, I am not homeschooling my children so they can be more advanced than other kids their age, I'm homeschooling them in order to give them a solid foundation in their academics. Sometimes Saxon can get so repetitive and I want to skip the lesson that day, but then I'd be working against the very reasons that I stick with the program! I feel confident that my kids are getting a thorough understanding of math, which is very important to both my husband and myself, as science is a big deal in this family.

Feeling anxious about the repetitive nature of Saxon, I actually sat down this summer and plotted out when my children would finish curriculums in their 12 year homeschool career. If we stick with Saxon and do our work consistently with our year-round schedule, my kids will actually finish Calculus their Junior Year of high school. Forget Singapore, we'll be fine in the long run.

Language Arts: We are sticking with Spelling Workout, even after all that hand-wringing and praying about what spelling program to use. I just never felt drawn to a different one, and then I received the answer of "It mattereth not" to my fervent prayers. Spelling is spelling, I guess. We'll just try to work the program a little more this year. Bluebird will need to spend more time "with" the words to get them into her head.

Phonics Pathways is our phonics program of choice because it works. Why spend money on anything else?

We're still plugging away at our Zaner-Bloser handwriting books. I have one child who hates to write and one who loves to write. This series works well for each of them.

For grammar and writing we're sticking with First Language Lessons and Writing with Ease. I don't like coming across as a Well-Trained Mind zombie, but their programs work really well for us! I do my research and look around at all my options, but the Well-Trained Mind recommendations are in sync with my educational goals for my children. I love them.

I'm thinking about using Prima Latina this year, starting in October. This may not be a good "time fit" for us this year, so I'm going to worry about that when we get closer to the end of our first quarter. Penguin is demonstrating a knack for languages, so I'm interested in seeing how she (being in Kindergarten) could handle this program. Bluebird will definitely start her study of Latin next year, but would probably enjoy easing into the subject.

We had a Celtic Warrior Battle
when we studied the Celts in history.
The idea came from the
SOTW Activity Manual.

History: Hee hee, The Story of the World. Seriously, are there any other history programs out there that are this child-friendly, interesting and have an awesome activity manual? Even my husband enjoys listening to the audio CDs on long car trips. And corresponding literature suggestions and mapwork! I heart SOTW.

Science: We're giving Pandia Press' "R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey: Earth and Space Science" a go this year. I'm already a tad disappointed with it, as it's rather low on actual lesson material. There are a lot of experiments, but very little meat in this curriculum. I've been supplementing the "lessons" with reading from our Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia. I'm trying to do a better job at checking out books from the library that go along with our week's studies for extra reading as well, you really need that with this curriculum.

Bluebird loves astronomy, so the lessons in R.E.A.L Science Odyssey are way too easy and boring for her, so we'll switch over to Astronomy for All Ages and some sort of Astronomy Encyclopedia when we hit the Space sections.

I used to own God's Design for Earth and I really liked the lessons in it, plus the experiments were pretty good too. However, the preaching annoyed me to no end and I ended up giving the set away. It is not our science curriculum's responsibility to teach religion to our children, that responsibility lies with my husband, myself and our religious institution. My husband and I do not like "religious" science textbooks. In the face of R.E.A.L. Science Odyssey's shortcomings, I find myself wishing I had the lessons from God's Design at my disposal. God's Design sure did a good job at covering a lot of ground. *sigh*

"Going Out to Play" is great for our garden,
but not so great for our physical activity level.

Physical Education: I've decided to make this an actual subject for us. I read a great article about the need for an actual physical education program in our homeschools in Homeschool Enrichment magazine last month, and the idea has been pricking my conscience ever since. Sending the kids "out to play" on the spit of grass in our backyard isn't enough exercise.

This is a challenging topic for me because we live in a densely-populated neighborhood with very little space for running. There's a park across the street from us, but it offers little in the way of interest to my kids because there aren't any swings, the slides are usually sopping wet from the sprinklers and they've been going there since before they could walk.

It's no secret that I'm very overweight. I wasn't overweight as a child because I hiked and played sports all the time. Something about being pregnant destroyed that drive in me and now I have to admit that I have failed my children in this area of physical fitness. They aren't overweight, but they definitely have no stamina when it comes to physical activities. I am going to remedy the situation, starting this year. The excuses have got to stop and we just need to get out there and run around and do something, even if it's inconvenient or difficult. I see a lot of homeschooling blogs with pudgy teenagers--I don't want that for my kids! It's enough that they're "different" because they're homeschooled, I am not adding obesity on top of that. Carving an hour out of our day to spend in physical exertion will be so much healthier for my children in the long run than an extra hour of reading. I need to establish healthy exercise habits in them while they are young. Our family needs to change our sedentary ways.

I don't have a firm plan as of yet. I'm thinking of dedicating a month to a different sport and then driving to an area where we can play the sport each day. Convenient, no; necessary, yes. (I'll have to write a post later about why we don't want to do team sports at this time.)

Arts: For a person who loves the arts as much as I do, it is incredibly ironic that I never have a good plan for any of the artistic subjects. AUGH! I'm thumbing through my ARTistic Pursuits book again and finding that the lessons get more interesting as the book progresses, so I'm thinking about picking up where we left off and just finishing the work. I'm amazed at how much brain activity is required to make art "work" for our homeschool. It's astounding.

I want to start teaching Bluebird piano this year, but I'm having a hard time fitting in lessons and practice time. I have the Alfred Piano books and they look like they'd be pretty good. We'll see how this turns out--she doesn't technically have to start until she's eight, so I might just delay this a few more months.

I'm serving as the Choir Director for our church right now, and I've been encouraging Bluebird to attend ward choir rehearsals. (She sang with the choir when we performed "Battle Hymn of the Republic" last week!) I'm thinking about pushing for her to keep attending, as she's very obviously learning to read music, follow the conductor and sing against other parts. Great musical training!

Music Appreciation is such an easy subject, and yet we don't do it. Teacher fail. I am going to be better about this this year. It's listening to music and playing with Play-Doh, for cryin' out loud! I match up the music selection with the area we're studying in history, and this year we're studying Medieval History, which is incredibly ripe with so much music history! Gregorian chant, troubadors, folk songs! It's so interesting! I have got to make this work for us this year!

Extra-curriculuars: Girl Scouts! We're registered as Juliettes again this year and Penguin is very excited about joining the program as a Daisy Scout this year. Bluebird is advancing into Brownies and there is talk about forming a multi-age level troop in our homeschool group. I think it would be a ton of fun for the girls if they could be part of a troop, and I am loving the idea of a multi-age troop. (I only just found out last week that this is even a possibility!)

Michael is going to start a LEGO F.I.R.S.T. Junior League team this year that Bluebird will be a part of, in addition to five young boys whose mothers have expressed interest on their behalf. Teams are limited to six members, so we've been talking about him heading up two teams--one for the neighborhood and one for our new Girl Scout troop, should it get off the ground. Girl Scouts of Utah, in partnership with the University of Utah, are really pushing the LEGO F.I.R.S.T. League program. We'll see how this all pans out.

I'd also like to place an emphasis on homemaking and nature study, but those are more in the realm of "We'll get to them when we find ourselves with some extra time on our hands." Nature hikes would make for a good PE session...hmmm. It'd be great of me to get my act together enough to follow the lesson plans on The Handbook of Nature Study blog. I already have the book!

There is just so much to choose from! I really have found myself with the problem of "not enough time for everything" this year. I'm going to make sure the basics are covered, and then try to fit as much of the extras in as I can. It makes me so sad to be limited by the hours in a day, but I remind myself that Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when He made the days the length that they are, and it's my imperfections that make the days seem too short. I need to figure what's the most important and be content with that.

Once again, Happy NOT Back to School!

Weekly Report 2011-2012: Week 3 Following the Earthquake Bunny Trail

2011-07-29T00:00:00.001-06:00

Junebug keeps busy during school with
our new LEGOS.

We're just moving along with school, doing our lessons and putting away the books when they're done. It's a weird time of year for us; the weather is nice, but a little too warm for extended outdoor activities, and we enjoy that we have school to keep us busy, but sort of wish there was something else to do instead. We're saving up our pennies in order to attend my brother's wedding later in the year, so most of our activities have been chopped from our itinerary.

Penguin loves it when we do a math lesson
that uses Geoboards!

3R's: We keep moving ahead in Math, with Bluebird still reviewing (she stopped complaining and has finally started being grateful that everything is "just so easy right now.") and Penguin pushing ahead with learning to count by tens and using dimes.

Penguin is still doing marvelously with her penmanship and has started working on the handwriting worksheets that correspond to her math lessons. I didn't do these with Bluebird and when we transitioned into the first grade math book, she was so unprepared for all the writing that came with the worksheets. Not making that same mistake again. Penguin's hand would start to hurt some days from writing, I figure she's building up her writing muscles and we'd call it good and let her hand rest. She likes to write. I'm so glad I don't have to fight with her over writing!

We have two weeks' worth of work left in Bluebird's Writing curriculum, which I think we'll be able to complete in this next week.

History: We learned about the Byzantine Empire, which didn't really interest any of us. Sorry, Justinian and Theodora. Bluebird enjoyed thinking up scenarios about other ways the Roman Empire could have panned out, instead of becoming split up and the last part turning in the Byzantine Empire. I wanted to make mosaics with them, but that plan never blossomed into fruition.

Science: We studied wind--how to measure how fast it's blowing and how wind even comes to exist in the first place. The experiments were lame and not very exciting. So we went off on a bunny trail.

As we studied tornadoes and hurricanes, I read where those weather events take place in the world and Penguin wondered what natural disasters happened in Utah. We read and discussed what we think could happen here in Utah, which mostly translates into flash floods and earthquakes. We read about tectonic plates in our science encyclopedia and I took them out on the deck to point out the Wasatch Fault Line, which you can see from our house.

As you can imagine, this knowledge scared the snot out of my dear children.

So we talked about what happens during earthquakes and what you should do to stay safe--listen to Mommy, get in a doorway or under a table and stay there until the shaking stops, then go out to our Safety Spot in the front yard or over to the main parking lot in our neighborhood.

Penguin was very concerned about what would happen to our cat should an emergency arise, and we discussed the difference between human life and animal life--make sure you and your family are completely safe before attempting to rescue your pets because we can always buy a new pet, but not a new brother or sister. (I imagine I might get a little flack from some people for that, but that's how I feel about the issue.)

We came up with a motto for emergencies: "Safe and Alive," to help us remember to keep ourselves safe and not do anything that could hurt ourselves during an emergency.

And then, we did earthquake drills! We've done fire drills before, and I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to go through earthquake drills with them as well! We'd pretend we were playing on a normal day and then I would say, "Earthquake!" and everyone would dash to a doorfram and brace themselves until I declared the earthquake was over. Then we filed out of the house to our safety spot and "dealt with" whatever situations the girls had decided had happened during our earthquake. ("What do we do if Mommy's trapped inside the house?" "What if I can pick up Quesnel as I'm going out the door?" "What do we do if our Safety Spot is on fire?" "What do we do if all the trees have fallen down?")

It's got me thinking about an "Emergency Preparedness" unit study. Subjects are always more interesting if you can apply them to your life. And we belong to a church that places heavy emphasis on emergency preparedness, so it crosses over into our religious studies as well. I think it could be a really great idea for us.

And that was our week. It was rather low-key, but we got a lot done and learned about some things that the girls found very interesting.

Rock Island Shawl

2011-07-27T00:00:00.002-06:00

Pattern: Rock Island Shawl by Jared Flood
Yarn: KnitPick's Shadow Kettle-Dyed in "Jay" colorway (a birthday gift from the lovely Kirstin)
Needles: US 6--29" circular

This week in Utah we celebrated Pioneer Day, a state-wide holiday that commemorates the anniversary of Brigham Young and the first wagonload of Latter-day Saints entering the Salt Lake Valley after their long journey across the American Plains. We didn't have any school that day in observance of the holiday, and I figured that it was probably going to be my only chance at getting this shawl blocked. After getting all the munchkins fed and dressed and starting up the ravenous washing machine, I soaked this puppy up and pinned the life out of it on my mattress.

This is a rather new pattern, only coming out this spring. I saw it within the first few days of its release and I could not stop talking about it afterwards. I had to have it. However, I was heavily-entrenched in the creation of The ~~Wedding~~ Honeymoon Shawl, and could not squeeze this fabulous make into my queue. Fortune smiled her loving gaze upon me and inspired the folks at Blazing Needles to offer a class on this very pattern, for which Kit and I signed up to attend.

I'm quite pleased with it! Jared Flood loves knitters, the design of this is just lovely! This was the first time I've ever attached an edging and it was super simple, given the YO edges on the entire length of the edging. And it's all done in garter stitch, no purling whatsoever! AND it's worked from the bottom up--that's right, it gets smaller as you go!

The parts that were not my favorites:

Edgings are nice and all, but this one took forever to make. Since I had to have the edging done within two weeks before the start of my next class, it was very stressful for me to knit like a maniac for that entire two weeks. Had I done this at my own pace, I don't think the edging would have bothered me as much. (But, hey, I finished the edging in two weeks! Who can hold a grudge against that?)
Garter stitch is easy, but also pretty boring. There's a lot of garter stitch at the end and it drove me a little bonkers, but it blocked out prettily and I'm over the negativity now.

This shawl was originally "ordered" in white. It was supposed to be the replacement Wedding Shawl for Carly after she picked out a new wedding dress. However, I couldn't find any white lace-weight locally (and still haven't found any since!) and so I went ahead and made this in its originally-intended color.

When and where am I going to wear this? I dunno. I'm sure I'll think of something. It would be criminal to just let this beauty sit around in my closet!

Click here to view this project's Ravelry Page.

First Pair of Knitted Socks Ever.

2011-07-25T15:35:00.002-06:00

Pattern: #216 Beginner's Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy
Yarn: Misti Alpaca's Hand Paint Sock Yarn, Colorway #08 "Marino."
Needles: US 2 DPN

Oh, the high of finishing your first pair of hand-knit socks!

In Knitter World, socks seem to be one of those projects that you have to try. A true knitter doesn't NOT knit socks. But all that jargon--gussets, heel flaps, insteps--has intimidated me for years and I have only looked on wistfully at other knitters' beautifully-crafted foot encasements.

"Someday," I would say, "after I'm finished with my current project, I'm going to give socks a go."

But "Someday" kept getting pushed back in favor of projects that had to be finished immediately.

I bought the yarn for these socks in September of 2009, after lamenting about my sock fears to an understanding yarn shop owner. She placed a beginner's sock pattern in my hands and inflated my knitting confidences with assurances of socks "being super easy" and sent me on my merry way, only pausing to swipe the ol' debit card to pay her for her ~~enabling~~ guidance.

The yarn is lovely. It's alpaca, merino and silk, with a little nylon thrown in for strength. Wearing these socks is like walking on kitten tummies. Oh, the deliciousness of the feel!

I should have knit these on US 1 sized needles. They're a touch baggy. (That's what you get for not doing a gauge swatch!) But I love them anyway. I'm now on the hunt for some sort of shoe that will frame my beautiful socks this autumn. And I'm always on the hunt for some more gorgeous sock yarn! (Curse you, Budget!)

A pair of handknit dress socks will soon be in-the-works for Michael. Yay for socks!

Click here for this project's Ravelry page.