July 1, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
7:20am: Scripture Study. (sing, pray, read, sing, pray)
8-9am: Cleaning Time. (Mommy works on her chores. Giant works on his jobs. Ettin helps.)
Despite my stressing that Giant wasn’t doing his jobs for the first 45 minutes of cleaning time, he ended up finishing his jobs before I was done mine.
9am: Gathering Time. (We greet each other, clap for good work, pray, study a gospel picture, and read the morning message)
Tragedy after tragedy this morning. Mommy wrote the message, boys were happy (yes, Ettin lives with his finger up his nose):
Mommy went potty (because mommy’s baby is due in a couple of weeks and mommy can’t last very long without visiting the necessary facilities), and boys played. Then tragedy. Two heads are clonked and two sad boys need comforting before we can actually start Gathering Time (this really messes with mommy’s need to be on time).
One sad boy:
Other sad boy:
Two semi-comforted boys learn about the childhood of Jesus and about how He worked hard and learned from Joseph, which prepared him for his later ministry:
Mommy goes to get chalk, Tragedy number two occurs. Ettin falls off the table while I’m momentarily away. Not that he ever goes on the table.
Bloody Ettin:
Brother to the rescue:
Third Tragedy. Self inflicted. Ettin was kicking Giant while he sat beside him on my lap. I have none of it and plunk him down. And get this sad face (oh my heavens he is cute!):
He eventually gave his brother a hug to say sorry. Giant was not impressed with the bloody/booger faced boy giving him a hug, and quickly checked to make sure none of that mess got on his arm (I was trying to get a shot of the hug, not the disgust. Not fast enough, I guess):
We finally finish the message:
Then boys clean up (Ettin puts the picture on our fireplace, and Giant washes the chalkboard):
And then on to…
9:30am: Independent Play. Boys play without mommy. Theoretically. Today they crawled around Giant’s bed while I finally brought out the summer clothing and put the winter clothing away, using Giant’s bed as my work area (and thus their pick of play area). I reminded myself to breath. A lot.
10:30am: Snack/Lesson Time. (Have snack and a lesson, and then work on a project together) Today’s snack and lesson were combined. Since this week we are looking at the life cycle of the butterfly (*snort*—sorry, that just sounds so official for what we actually do), we made cocoon biscuits (a cheese “caterpillar” wrapped in a biscuit round).
Here come the helpers:
We assembled our ingredients from this recipe (since there was no way I wanted to turn my back on boys in the kitchen, I got everything together before we started!). Flour (yes, white. I wanted poofy cocoons!). Milk (a little on the sour side. Note the big X’s) and yogurt that didn’t set (still runny). Butter. Baking Soda. Salt. Cheese (still in the fridge).
We sifted the flour (not because I’m precise, but because I really squished the flour into my bucket and have had to deal with very lumpy flour ever since):
How did Ettin get so covered in flour so quickly? ….um. I just couldn’t help myself. His cute little shorn head was just begging for a flour hand print. Forgive me:
The boys measured and added while mommy became increasingly distracted (no, not putting flour handprints on other things):
No clue how much salt and baking soda actually went into the recipe. I take over and add some butter while Giant cuts it in:
Ettin thinks this new gooey mix is a marvelous addition for his head (why did I start this?):
Then we roll it out:
Taking turns, of course (Yes, that means I completely took over in the end and rolled it properly):
Cut out some circles and tucked our caterpillars inside:
While our cocoons bake, we clean up/play joyfully with water until mommy boots the boys out of the kitchen:
Hot and Yummy!
Poor fried caterpiller:
Finally (only an hour after we started) we sit down to enjoy our snack. Phew!
Mmmm. Since we used white flour, the biscuits had no taste. Thus we added jam, which resulted in a tragic scene:
11am: Independent Play. (Ha! Today I think we finished snack at around 11:40. Which left me just enough time to clean up and make lunch for when daddy got home.Yes, the boys were still covered in flour by the time he got home.)
What I noticed today was how doable homeschooling has become lately. Any other day I would have made a half effort at doing something in the morning, which would have been given up as tragedy ensued. With the stress of having a new baby and wanting to prepare/ completely purge the house (a quirky nesting instinct?), I wouldn’t have considered doing a time consuming and mess making project like making biscuits (“cocoons”) with the boys. So what has made the difference? Prayer and Planning come to mind first. Really making an effort to pray with the boys, and to pray for peace and patience has helped. Planning is also huge. It gives me something to do without thinking too much (which is good for those chaotic mornings). If I had to exert brain effort mid morning and come up with a fun lesson idea (or even try someone else’s lesson plan), I don’t think I’d try it. I also like having 2 critical coming together points (Gathering Time and Snack/Lesson Time), not a minute by minute day plan. This gives me flexability without feeling like I’m failing for being 10 or 15 (or 60) minutes behind schedule. I think this might be working! Now, lets see what happens when a baby comes 😉
Tomorrow is Canada Day!!!
June 30, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
For the last two Family Home Evening nights (time on Monday night spent doing something fun as a family), we’ve been working on projects using PicoCrickets. I like them because I can be artsy, Hubby can do “tabots” (“robots,” in Ettin), and we can finish a project with two little boys (1 and 3) in under an hour.
This is what we worked on last night:
Giant wanted to make a rabbit and a carrot. Since the model we wanted to try out was a spinny thingy (really, I’m more of a crafty person than a technical terms person), I suggested that the rabbit could chase the carrot. Then I got to help Giant with his project because mommy had made it suddenly way more complicated than Giant was at first considering:
My spinny thingy was supposed to be much more colourful and fun. But in the interest of time and helping a Giant with his project, I got a framework finished. Just some egg cartons attached with string to egg carton strips. Looked sorta like the swings at an amusement park. Giant and Ettin thought it was fun to stick the lego people in the carton seats (poor lego people):
Hubby’s spinny thingy had two bent lego pieces (not the official name of the piece, although I’m sure my hubby could tell you what it was) attached in such a way that they lifted up when the PicoCricket turned on. He is into the crafy aspect as much as I am into the technical aspect. He also hooked up a sound recognizer (really making up terms here), so that when we made more noise his spinny thingy went faster:
Very fun, and a great way to work together! In the future, I think we will build the PicoCricket structure (the mechanical stuff) first, and then work on the crafty stuff. Ettin was not impressed with most of the time being spent doing stuff he wasn’t interested in (fragile crafty stuff). It was only near the end when we had buttons and lights and noises and movement going that he got into it. But still, for an activity that involves a crafty mom, technical dad, innovative 3 year old, and short-attention-spanned 1 year old, I think this is pretty great! (It seriously brings out feelings of fun creativity that I haven’t enjoyed since art class, many, many years ago.)
June 29, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
I really do need a template of some sort. Hmmmm.
7:20 Scripture Study with Daddy
8-9 Cleaning Time/Job Time. Giant wanted to get some more books from downstairs (our “library”). To do this he needed to take some books that were already upstairs, down. He gathered all the ones he could find, and with my help took them downstairs. Then he spent the rest of cleaning time (that was his last job), reading. Yes, the flashlight is important to a three year old venturing into the basement alone:
Ettin busied himself…wandering around in a diaper:
9am Gathering time:
Welcome, emphasize nice work, especially on picking up all the books in his room.
We looked at the GAK picture of Jesus teaching in the Temple as a boy. Â Giant was interested in the grandpas (Elders) that Jesus was teaching. And he agreed that mommies and daddies would be really worried if their son went missing for 3 days. We talked about how we also need to learn as much as we can by the Spirit, and share with others what we learn.
Morning Message: Goo_ morning boys! Today is Monday. What do caterpillars eat? (pattern) Love Mommy. Yes I had quickly erased the last message before I wrote the new one and took a picture. No, I don’t usually prepare for everything the night before, though I’d like to think I do.:
And what is Ettin doing during this time? This cutie?
Why, standing behind me on my chair and hanging off my neck of course (sorry for the evil eye):
And contributing his own marks to the chalkboard:
Just being a  general…sweetheart (and no, he is still not dressed):
Finally we finish, and my boys think its time to erase the message…with their feet:
And on to Independent Play!
10:30am(I always plan to start at 10am, but despite my intentions we usually start at 10:30. I really like independent play time 🙂  ): Snack/Lesson
We had caterpillar toast. Yes I made that up. The fun, planned snack idea was to put hummas or dip on veggie sticks and call them caterpillars. I wanted peanut butter and jam toast. Go with it.
No really, if you hold both ends of the toast strip and pull and then scrunch it together, and repeat, it looks JUST LIKE a caterpillar. Quite ingenious if I do say so myself. My boys were completely fascinated by this demonstration (really) (and no that is not both of my hands in the photo. Giant provided the lovely assistance when he saw mommy trying to hold toast in two hands and take a picture with her non-existant third hand):
I told them a caterpillar poem (it turns into a butterfly at the end). We talked about fuzzy and not fuzzy items:
But, I didn’t actually set them up like this. Not with this jam-boy nearby (Hey! He’s got socks on! No more nakey boy):
No, the items went into a heap on the chair beside me. So much for presentation! (that not so small bump there is bubba #3):
Then we made egg carton caterpillars.
Ettin helped:
Giant innovated:
It all worked.
Tomorrow is an official day off 😉  I have a Dr’s appt., and my boys will be blissfully playing with cousins!
June 27, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
I really detest laundry. Really. Even as I write this a load of laundry I should have got started hours ago comes to mind. It is always lurking, always needing attention. A basket of laundry (clean and needing folding, or folded and waiting for naps to be done so I can put it away, or dirty and waiting to go downstairs, or any combination from above) is such a constant feature in my living room that I really think someone should make company worthy laundry display furniture which either highlights the beauty of laundry, or hides it really well. Hmmm.
As I was saying, I think I dislike doing laundry even more than cleaning bathrooms. And with all this lack of love for the laundry mountain, the thought of paying a lot of money to do laundry (in the form of drycleaning, laundromats, or just laundry soap), makes me sick. So after looking up the Duggar Family laundry soap recipe (scroll down a fair ways) almost a year ago, I have been making my own laundry soap ever since. I thought I should share the really easy steps for this little bit of laundry freedom:
Cast of Characters: bar of hand soap, super washing soda, borax, 5 gallon bucket, old laundry detergent container, chocolate from the freezer next to the washing machine:
You never saw the chocolate (crunch, crunch…mmmmm):
First grate the soap and add it to 4 cups hot water. I bought the soap which seemed to have the least amount of stuff in it (perfumes, moisturizers, etc) for the cheapest price. Perhaps I should have bought special laundry type soap, but this hand soap seems to work fine. Note: I have tried just sticking the bar in, or chopping it into smaller blocks, but it takes a really long time to dissolve. Just grate it:
So pretty:
Dump it in the hot water, and stir on medium until it is all dissolved. Watch it closely though, so it doesn’t boil (bubble?) over:
In the meantime, measure out a cup of super washing soda (not baking soda!):
And dump it in your 5 gallon pail:
Measure out a 1/2 cup of Borax:
And dump it in the pail:
C……rud (I’m working on finding new words to say in front of my children). Did I mention that the soap boils over fairly easily, so you need to watch it and not take your time trying to get nice pictures of borax and buckets:
Speaking of children, I have bribed them with encouraged them to draw with some new Spiderman crayons while I am busy. This should last for all of 2 minutes:
When your grated soap has mostly dissolved, (there are a couple of little bits of soap left in the water, but have a short attention span…so its done):
Add it to the 5 gallon bucket and stir:
Fill the bucket about half way with more hot water (I just use my pot):
Stick the lid back on:
Okay, really stick the lid back on (I prefer the kneel on the lid method). Yes, that is a dirty toe. I garden, I live with it:
And let it sit over night….
In the morning (or afternoon, or next day or five when you’ve finally gotten around to it) it will have gelled up [maybe. My first batch I made didn’t gel, but it still cleaned clothes just fine] :
Fill the bucket up (to a reasonable distance from the rim), and stir everything one last time:
Then take your 9 months pregnant self and haul that super heavy bucket down the basement stairs to the laundry machines:
Ha! Kidding. Ask your wonderful hubby to heft the crazy thing where you need it. Thanks Luv!
To use: stir it up again and fill half an old laundry detergent bottle with the soap. Fill the other half with water. Shake, pour about .5 to .75 of a laundry lid full into your wash for a full load. Or whatever feels right.
Good luck!
ps. a tip from a friend who has been making her own soap for a while: every few weeks wash a cup of bleach through your machine to keep the hoses and machine clean. Apparently commercial soaps include a machine maintainer (not sure what), and so the machine starts to smell a little musty sometimes without the bleach cycle. I think this is the only time I ever use bleach in my house!
June 26, 2010 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Morning: Scripture Study. “I am a Child of God”/Prayer/Enos/Prayer/”Rain is falling all around”
8-9: Cleaning time! Giant worked well on his jobs, and is learning to work around Ettin. (Meaning, getting less upset when Ettin dumps a box Giant just filled).
9am: @ the carpet. Welcome the boys to learning time. They gave me high fives.Prayer.
Story of Jesus. We quickly reviewed the Shepherds. Giant was still concerned with how the one shepherd boy got clothing made from fur. I explained that it was bad news for the animal, but that it kept the shepherd boy warm and dry. Moving on. We looked at a picture of the Wise Men (GAK 203). We discussed how the wise men were always watching and listening for signs of Christ’s birth. We also need to watch and listen to things that teach us about Christ, like our Prophet, General Conference, the Spirit, and to prepare ourselves for the 2nd coming. Just like Heavenly Father protected and guided the Wise Men, He will do the same for us.
Ettin entertained himself during this lesson:
I’d forgotten the camera and asked Giant to get it. This resulted in 5-10 mins of distraction as boys opened a camera case and fought over the parts inside while I still had to get up and get the camera I had put safetly out of reach of little hands:
Morning Message: Good Morn_ _ _ Boys! Today is Wednesday. What do you know _bout the m_ _n? (pattern) Love _ommy.
Drawing: We practiced drawing crescent shapes a little bit on the chalk board. (Not that I really care if he can draw crescents. This is really just an excuse to practice fine motor skills!)
Complete message: (we had a discussion about using “u” for about. Giant won.)
Independent Play: (I love that making a mess can have such a formal title 🙂 ). Reminder about clean up responsibilities (putting away a box before another one comes out.)
I made some more laundry soap, and the boys kept themselves busy. I’m sure they were really safe too. I’m sure Ettin was only on the table the couple of times I took pictures. Surely.
10am: Snack! Apple crescents and moon grapes. Whatever 🙂  . Giant loves to use our apple peeler:
We read “Goodnight Moon” and talked about night and day. While the boys continued to eat and look at the book,
I set up the wonderful visual. I tried to get a crescent shape of light to show up on the “earth” (big white ball), using a flashlight behind the little “moon,” (yellow ball). I finally got it to show up nicely, when I realized my mistake (the earth should have been shadowing the moon, not the other way around):
Fine. An even tricksier set up resulted in a dim but recognizable crescent of light on the moon. The boys were greatly impressed: “Mom, I’m still eating my snack now. You hold the flashlight,” basically sums up their response. Well, I thought it was cool!
Then comes the challenging part for Giant: Colouring AND cutting. Note the intense tounge of concentration.
Ettin was back and forth at this point. He’d half-heartedly coloured a picture of moons. Then went to play trains. Then came back to taste some popsicle sticks. And feed them to me. And suck on them some more. Yum!
This next picture shows a whole lot of work and effort from my Giant. I was honestly surprized he stuck with it so far. Yay! And yes, he cut their noses off on purpose.
He flew them around a bit, and then I stuck them on top of our message board for visuals for the rest of the week.
Independent Play. Phew.
