Order In Chaos

Today is…Wednesday Apr 20 2011

More alphabet play! (Ettin calls letters “ABCs”)

(no, I’m not really sure what letter that was supposed to be, either)

We worked on compare and contrast skills:

Which of these is the best cookie?

Yup!

The boys honed their horticulture skills, tending our plethora of plants:

Then we went on a walk with our friend Beanie to his new house. Which is very far away, according to Giant (about 3 blocks north of Beanie’s old house). We’ll miss you Beanie! Okay, okay, I’m sure we’ll still see you a few times a week 🙂

When Ettin went for a nap, Giant and I had our Gospel lesson. We talked about Elijah and the Temple:

Giant wanted to help teach Galoot to stand:

(why the underwear? because it keeps his sleeper on, of course!—a brilliant solution, if a little silly looking 🙂 )

Then Giant helped me make some more cookies.

He divided a ball of cookie dough into 2 halves…and a nibble 😉

I think we are about to undergo some serious cookie detox in our home!

Today is…Tuesday Apr 19, 2011

Often during play, Giant will make letters with his toys. Train tracks, popsicle sticks, musical instruments…all become letters of the alphabet at some point:

I say it counts towards homeschooling.

Our gospel lesson came from the song, “Love Is Spoken Here”

“Mine is a home, where every hour is blessed by the strength of priesthood power…”

We talked about who holds the priesthood, and what Giant will need to do so that he can hold the priesthood someday.

He jumped up, and said we needed to write our stuff down on the chalkboard…

Then the boys were off to play with trains…

…and tracks:

(okay, just for reference, that looked really cool. Giant got a bunch of tracks spinning all at once on a dowel)

We wanted to make muffins for lunch, so Giant wrote down our ingredients. I tried some lined paper, just to see what he did:

Cousins came just in time to help:

Then they played some lovely music while the muffins baked:

And we acted out nursery tales. “Three little pigs,” and “Little Red Riding Hood Whistle” (slightly adapted for a budding musician):

During naps I cleaned, worked on an email, and then cleaned the art cupboard out with Giant.

When Ettin woke up, he was appalled by what we had been throwing out and quickly rescued some art supplies, which he and Giant played with for the rest of the afternoon:

Why are the toys you want to throw out, always the ones they want to keep?

Today is…Monday Apr 18 2011

We had a rather noisy musical start to our day, with homemade drums:

Galoot tried very seriously to figure out how the whistle thingy works:

And the boys played along to some songs I sang while nursing Galoot (who was a little distracted, for some reason):

Then we looked at our Gospel lesson. We talked about how something dead, like a leaf, can’t become green and living again. However, because Christ died for us, and because He was resurrected we can live again:

Then we worked on mass cookie dough production.

Giant wrote up recipes, noting the proper spelling for some of the ingredients in the recipe book. We made dough for 24 doz cookies (chocolate candy swirl, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin—*my fav*) packaged up and in the freezer.

Of course my tasters were there to help:

Then they left to go play trains and trucks:

After cookie dough making, Giant wanted to play the “red carpet game” — refering to a gospel lesson about Jesus’s triumphant ride into Jerusalem where people honoured Him by putting down the clothing and palm leaves.

Not wanting to make light of the scriptures, I suggested we could pretend he was a King with a red carpet:

Which turned into a great character lesson about what a good King needs to do to help those he leads be happy (like not shoving your brothers off the carpet 😉  ):

And of course we played outside! In the snow! In the middle of April! Because, who wouldn’t want to do that?!

…Oh BOY!!! (oh, I miss my dirt. It was fun playing with the boys, though)

After little ones were napping, Giant and I did some building!

I finally got to one of the projects I wanted to do from Ana White’s site:

A chair!

Which turned out pretty good considering I was using a Candyland gameboard for my “square”…

Giant and Ettin agreed to share it (I do hope to get a couple more built):

And even Galoot thinks it’s just the right height:

Oh, and what happens when Giant and I are building, and Ettin wakes up a little sooner than expected?

Not to worry, the boy takes care of himself: I came up to find him with 10 cookies and an ipod, content to have a little treat time while we were downstairs working:

Love that kid!

Gardening Soul

I’m afraid my gardening soul was tempered in Southern BC, Canada.
I currently live in Southern AB, Canada.

My soul’s frost free dates: end of march to early november. 7-8 gardening months.
My current frost free dates: end of may to early september. 3-4 gardening months.

My soul’s plant hardiness zone: 6b, possibly even 7.
My current hardiness zone: 3b – 4a.

I think this picture represents how I’m feeling right now rather perfectly:

I’ve got a lot of growing to do.

Lessons from my Garden

Yesterday morning, a wonderful friend had offered to come out and help with one of my tasks: removing the carpet that had kept out weeds for me all summer. However, when I woke up Saturday morning and saw the snow covered garden, I was not hopeful. In fact, I felt rather dismal. I told my hubby to let our friend know not to come because surely the carpet would be one frozen mass and we’d need to wait another 2-3 weeks before I had any chance of getting the garden ready for planting. My hubby thought otherwise, and ignored my general grumpiness (he is a good hubby).

Our friend arrived, in the snow, at 8:30am to start loading up to make it to the dump for 9am. His appearance, in my mind, now made for 2 soon to be disappointed men.

Out my hubby and our friend went.

I waited for them to come back.

They didn’t…

Until they left with the first load to go to the dump.

It took two truck loads full, really muddy clothes, and I’m sure wet and frozen fingers, but they took care of that carpet quickly and wonderfully.

Now, for my lessons learned:

1. “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear.” I am not prepared for this Spring. There is so much I’m doing right now that should have been done in the Fall. If I had done it, perhaps I’d have been able to plant already. I hope that I can heed the voice of the Lord through His Prophets, and help my family be prepared for what is needed.

2. I think the Atonement is a lot like the help we recieved from our friend. He helped us—with his truck and his diligent labour—to do something that would have been very challenging for us to do ourselves. Similarily, the Saviour Atoned for our sins, and made it possible for us to do something rather impossible for us to do ourselves.

3. Now, even more interestingly: if I had persisted in my bad mood, if I had been more assertive in my lack of faith and denied the help from others, then the carpet would not have been moved. Even though, in spite of what I “knew”, it was possible.
How often do we withhold blessings from ourselves, due to simple lack of faith?

(My boys, tidying up the dirt from the carpets by scooping it off the Seminary building parking lot and throwing it back into our garden, Saturday afternoon. Perfect gardening weather)