Who will help me grind the wheat?

"The Little Red Hen" has always been one of my favorite stories. Maybe it's because I've always been responsible and I've never believed in getting something for nothing, but whatever the reason - we had our own "Little Red Hen" day last Sunday. I've had a 50 lb. bag of wheat just sitting in the basement for food storage that I decided to do something with; so I borrowed my friend's wheat grinders (hand and electric) and set to the task of grinding wheat. No sooner than I had started, I found that Dog (Jared), Cat (Clarissa), and Duck (Krystal) where more than willing to try their hand at grinding wheat, literally, since we were using the hand grinder.

As you can see from the looks on their faces, it took some effort, but they stuck with it and in a short while we had enough wheat flour to start some bread.

Jared actually helped me measure out the ingredients for the bread and continued to grind while the bread rose.

Who will help me knead the bread?

As it turns out, only Dog stuck to the task long enough to help knead the bread.

But the whole family showed up when it was time to eat the bread. I made four loaves on Sunday and two more on Wednesday. Mmmmmm.

Lessons in Playdough

For Family Home Evening a couple weeks ago we decided to veer away from our usual act-out-a-scripture-story and do something different. We were reading in the Book of Mormon about the Jaredites. This is their story in playdough. At the Tower of Babel, the Brother of Jared and his family asked the Lord that their language not be mixed up, the Lord agreed and told them to go to a new land. They took with them their sheep and deseret, or beehives. The big purple things are Jared's version of a bee and beehive. We got a good laugh at them being bigger than the sheep.

The Jaredites then traveled through the wilderness led by the Lord in a cloud.

Next they camped by the sea while they built boats. This is Chris' version of a sea between two lands.

These are the eight boats they built and the sixteen white stones touched by the finger of the Lord to provide light for the boats on their journey. For treat we had smooth white cookies made with honey (see first picture).

Sweet fun!

Valentine's Day has never been our family's favorite holiday, but we do take the opportunity to have a little fun. This year, the fun began with a bag of conversation hearts. I found they were the ultimate incentive for the girls to practice reading. We sat on the couch together and they had to read the word(s) on their heart before they could eat it. Simple game, but it really worked. The next part of the fun was when we read "Guess How Much I Love You" as our story for Preschool on Tuesday, then decorated and ate heart shaped sugar cookies.

The big kids joined in on the cookie part.

The kids were so excited to make their valentines, but didn't believe me when I said that we weren't going to do them until the school room was clean. It took a couple days, but they finally got it done and we enjoyed being crafty together.

Our valentine sayings: "sweeter than apple pie," "smart as a cookie," "you take the cake," "cool as a cucumber," and "orange you cute."

Friday morning, everyone was excited for the upcoming annual homeschool Valentine's party. I put hearts in the girl's hair. They loved it. Not my idea, but really cute!

With raspberry popcorn, 105 total valentines, and who stole my cheese (a game) - we headed to The Party. Here's Krystal and her friend Delaney eagerly waiting their turn for the balloon in the balloon game. There were 29 players, and they were numbers 24 and 25 so they had to be patient, but seem happy enough.

Here is Clarissa with her friends Cailin and Beryl. Cailin and Beryl are a few years older than Clarissa. They used to see her as one of the little kids, but she's just recently being accepted as one of the older kids.

While the other kids where playing games, Amber kept herself entertained up on the stage with Lili (Liam). They were singing and dancing, holding hands, etc. but I couldn't catch that on camera because they were too fast. Here's Amber helping Liam get up, (I'm not so sure that he wanted to get up however).

This was one of the games. Draw a face on a paper bag while wearing it. Even Jared's great artistic abilities couldn't help him with this one.

This one is of Krystal playing the Ha Ha game where you lay on your neighbors tummy and have to say "Ha Ha" without laughing. Hmmm, lets' see...a bunch of little girls all hyped up on sugar, laying on each other, yeah-they laughed.

Our final Valentine's event was when I got a babysitter for the kids, clubbed Chris over the head and dragged him to go see "Anne of Green Gables", the musical, put on by Pulaski County High School. Well, at least he enjoyed the mexican we had for dinner and I enjoyed my night out with my hubby.

Photo tag!

This is a pretty fun tag. If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged. Go to the place in your computer where you keep photos, open the fourth file, then choose the fourth picture to post on your blog and explain it. This could be really funny. My fourth folder happens to be the "Clarissa" folder. Here is Clarissa after losing another tooth. Obviously this is not the picture that I chose to show everyone (I'm sure I'll be paying for posting this when she's older). Has anyone else noticed how kids tend to put their tongue in the holes where their teeth were when you're trying to take a picture? I almost always have to tell them not to, then take another picture. Can't wait to see what everyone else digs up!

Another crazy concoction that worked

When Chris came home tonight, it was t0 the smell of burnt brown rice. I mean, REALLY burnt rice. My plan of fish with rice and vegetables on the side thwarted, I set the burnt pan outside to smoke and set my creative juices flowing. I still had a little white rice (I was planning to mix the two rices), the fish and veggies so I decided to do a fish fried rice. First I put some olive oil in the pan and started frying the veggies (I used green beans and carrots, but anything would work). Before the veggies soaked up all the oil, I put the tilapia (our favorite fish)in the pan and fried both together until the fish started to flake. I sprinkled some seasoning (garlic salt and steak seasoning) over the fish, then doused it with lemon juice and a little balsamic vinegar. I mixed it all together, threw in the rice, then added some soy sauce. We topped the final product with some crunchy noodles and enjoyed the slightly lemony, flavorful meal, with only a hint of fishiness (a plus for the kids). Yes, the kids ate it and they didn't even know it was good for them!

Could Be Worse

One of my favorite books as a child was James Stevenson's "Could Be Worse." It's a story about a grandfather who always tells his kids that it could be worse whenever anything goes wrong, then tells them a story of a time when all these fantastic things happened to him like: being carried off by a huge bird, floating on giant toast, flying in a newspaper airplane, etc.

Here's my version of "Could Be Worse." When we got back from Illinois in December, Chris told me that the registration on the Suburban needed to be renewed. I put that in a file somewhere in my mind behind cleaning the house, schooling the children, preparing for Young Women's, being a good friend, Doctor appointments, etc. Then....on January 30th, I got pulled over (apparently there is an unwritten grace period of one month). I received a ticket for the registration and safety inspection and was told that if I got the paperwork done and showed up with it in court, the judge would most likely not make me pay the ticket. Okay, not too bad. Then...on Tuesday, February 3, my friend and I swapped cars as we did the piano, library, dance class, preschool thing. Well, she got pulled over and received a warning to tell me to get the paperwork done and was told that he could've have given her a ticket eventhough it wasn't her car. I stayed home all day Wednesday, except for Young Women's when I took Chris' car. So....Thursday afternoon I get in my car again for the first time since she was pulled over, to head down to Pulaski to take Jared to art class. It doesn't take long before I get pulled over. I show the officer that I already have a ticket (it's still in the car where I put in on Friday). She lets me go with a warning that I need to get it done by this weekend (two days). I dropped Jared off for art class, went to my friend's house, left the kids with her and headed to the DMV. As I'm pulling into the DMV, I see another patrol car and I'm like, "They'd better not pull me over again, I'm getting it done." No problems, I get the registration renewed, it takes no more than five minutes, I go outside and put the tags on the car before I do anything else. Then I say to myselft, "Well, while I've got a babysitter, I'll just head over to King's Tires and see if I can get the safety inspection done. " As I'm pulling out of the DMV, I see another patrol car, but I think to myself, "I'm good now - I've got new tags." So I obliviously drive to King's Tires (apparently not looking once in my rear view mirror). As I pull into King's Tires (it's maybe a mile away from the DMV), I see blue lights once more. Now, I am generally a fairly calm person, and always repectful to authority figures, but one person can only handle so much - that said: The officer asks to see my liscense and registration and I say, "Is this about the safety inspection?" He confirms that it is and I...LOOSE IT! I start crying as I ramble something to the effect of, "You've got to be kidding me, can't you see that I'm sitting here in the parking lot of a state inspection site, it says so right there on the door, I am here to get the inspection and you're pulling me over for not having it done, I just want to go in there and get it done, I just pulled out of the DMV from getting my registration done, I AM TRYING TO DO WHAT'S RIGHT!!" To which he responds, "I know what this is, is that what your actually doing here? And may I see your liscense and registration!" I realize at this moment that I have just yelled at a police officer who has no idea what I've been through to get here, so I do the only thing that woman in my state could do. I apologize and give him my sob story about how I have four kids and homeschool them and have had no time, but I finally have a babysitter and just got my registration done if he'd let me go, I'd go get the inspection done, but they are closing shortly so I need to go. He kindly agrees and I walk into the shop completely embarrassed because everyone in the shop just watched this whole thing through their huge windows that line the front of the building.
I walk up to the counter and say, "Please tell me that you have time to do an inspection"...and before I can finish the mechanic is behind the customer service rep. shaking his head "No." Well, the faucet turns on again, along with the sob story, which includes..."I have been pulled over four times this week, twich today and once while sitting in your parking lot as you clearly saw, I cannot drive back to Dublin with that STICKER ON MY CAR!!" I guess when all else fails, losing a little dignity can be of some use, because they agreed to do the inspection and get it done as quickly as possible (I guess that was a more appealing option than having to call the police to come back and take me to the mental hospital, seeing as how they closed in 20 min.). Twenty minutes later a mechanic comes back and very carefully says, "Mam, I hate to make your day any worse, but you have a really bad pitarm in your steering column." I'm like, "I have a bad what?" Anyhow, he gives me a quote of $84 to get it repaired and tells me it will only be $1 to come back and get the safety inspection sticker if it's all done within 15 days. At this point, all I want is to go home, so I say okay and shaking like a scared puppy, go back to my friend's house to tell her and her husband (who, happens to be a sheriff's deputy) the whole story.
Now, a day later, I have resigned myself not to drive my car in the daytime until we can get it fixed and I'm trying to look on the bright side. So, I'm saying to myself, "Could be worse, I could live in a city where crimes are actually committed on a regular basis and the police officers are too busy catching criminals to worry about every vehicle whose tags are one month overdue." Having said that, I have learned a lesson and I promise all those highly organized individuals who always pay their bills on time, that I will never again forget to get my vehicle registration renewed before the tags expire, even if I have to take all four of my kids into the DMV, wait for hours on end, and pay the extra $5 for doing it in person. Never again, do I want to expose myself to being treated like I'm Americas Most Wanted.

RevoluTION, DeclaraTION, and ConstituTION

On Friday, the kids did their history presentaTIONs for our history group where we get together with four other families who are all studying the same time period and each of the kids does a presentaTION on a topic of their choice. We are studying American History right now and this session wrapped up our study of the RevoluTION. Clarissa chose to do her presentaTION on the women's clothing styles in the 18th century, specifically accessories. Here she is all dressed up. Her ensemble includes hat, powdered face, smallpox patch, necklace, collar, nosegay (the flowers), gloves, apron, handbag, hankercheif, and fan. She decorated the hankercheif and apron herself, but I think her favorite part of the whole outfit were the ringlets in her hair (thank you Heather).

Here she is explaining each piece to her costume. She did a great job remembering everything!

Benjamin Franklin was the subject of Jared's presentaTION. This is a pencil sketch that he drew of his favorite Founding Father.

The rest of his project was a timeline that he researched on the computer and then wrote out. But, he didn't stop there. Jared decided that since Benjamin Franklin was always trying to invent new things, that he would make an invenTION to hold his timeline, complete with pointer. He worked on it that morning and I never saw it until the presentaTION, I was quite impressed. By the way, have you ever noticed how many words end in TION? TaxaTION, representaTION, formaTION, naTION...Well, Jared always wrote 'shun' at the end of these words until we began studying the RevoluTION, and I don't think that he will ever forget how to spell them again. It's become an inside joke that every time Jared or I read a word that ends in TION we annunciate the end. Yeah, we're that nerdy!