Nov. 5, 2009 - Thankful Leaves
http://kids.creativity-portal.com/images/projects/autumn/pdf/leaf-white1.pdf
© Copyright 2009 Jacque Ward http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wacque/
Nov. 9, 2009 - Hospitality
Over the weekend I worked on some articles to do with Hospitality
My weekly, Live life with your Kids! newsletter. It is free to subscribe and then you can dig around in the archives. (This week's was titled "Show Hospitality")
Character Notes on Hospitality - these are just a collection of thoughts that I will be discussing with my kids over the next month.
Children need to be involved - an article listing some of the things that happen around our home.
Nov. 6, 2009 - Molly's November Digest - Family Photography
One of the “school” projects that we’re going to work on next summer (okay – I’m disguising schoolwork as fun!) is digital photography. My two children already fiddle with my camera but I’d like to spend extra time with them in learning how to set up a picture and get a really good photo, not just another snapshot. The November issue of Molly’s Digest is going to really help me out with our lessons. I’ve been learning tips from how to set up a photo, how to suit the photo subjects to how to get interesting angles and perspectives (i.e. getting down on my knees). All of these tips will help us in learning how to take great photos – ones that are really interesting.
Let’s not forget that once you get finished taking the pictures you need to do something with them (other than storing them on your hard drive). I can hear the gasps now but I don’t scrapbook. Of all the craft projects I’ve ever tried, scrapbooking just isn’t my thing. I simply don’t have the time and when a project begins to mount and mount, I just look at the pile and let it sit. It’s too overwhelming sometimes. But, I still love to take pictures. Instead of making beautiful pages for a scrapbook I simply slap them into a photo album (by date order) and I’m done! However, after reading Molly’s November issue, I have been enlightened to the many ways to organize a photo album (by trip, event, by child, etc.) other than just by date order. These tips are really going to come in handy since we just got back from a week’s vacation in DC. What timing!!! Again, the November issue has really got some great ideas for digital scrapbooking (which is probably much more up my alley) including listing many websites that offer free digital scrapbooking supplies. In addition, I’ve got many new ideas for organizing photo albums and pictures waiting to go into photo albums. I can’t wait to get started!
And what edition of Molly isn’t complete without recipes!? I’ve promised myself that at least once a week I’m going to pull out my crockpot and “fire it up” (so to speak). I forget that I have one even though I know how easy it is to prepare a meal and let it cook on its own while we handle school work, errands and even work itself. There are so many wonderful slow cooker recipes in this issue that my mouth was watering while I envisioned these dishes in my own crockpot: Slow-Cooker Lasagna, Vegetarian Chili, Cheesy Chicken, Pot Roast and more!! As Rachael Ray would say, “Yummo!”
If you haven’t ordered your November issue yet, don’t wait and order it now. It’ll definitely be worth the small investment!
Nov. 5, 2009 - It doesn't happen every day!
There are two incidents that have happened around here in the last week or so that I just shake my head over – it doesn’t happen every day – thankfully! Let me tell…
The other day Pete had an early start to his day. He was filling up with fuel at the 24hour BP at 3.00am. As he was at the bowsers he felt the car drop down – he just thought the car was adjusting to the weight of the fuel but then the car started up and started to drive away on him. He looked up and there was someone in his car – driving it away. Someone was stealing his car – and he was standing right there!! He had the presence of mind to pull out the fuel hose, jump in the back seat and whack the gear stick into Park. The car stopped. He realised the woman in the car was so ‘out of it’ drunk that he got out of the back and walked around to help her get out of the car. She was very drunk, very distraught and had no idea!! Obviously she was still able to steal a car though.
I am personally very impressed with Peter's presence of mind. I would have had no idea what to do.
Second thing happening in our life is that we have acquired a Bull – he’s not a pet bull, he isn’t even really our bull but he seems to like us. Next to our farm there is a scrub block and it appears as if this bull has lived there quite happily for some time. But he has since found our place and seems to like the company. He has been right upto the house yard fence, grazes down near the chook shed, and today has been enjoying the shade of the mango trees. We would like him to be gone! He is very big.
Bull grazing on old bale of hay down near chook shed and veggie garden
Bull near backyard play area
Nov. 3, 2009 - As You Like It
This morning we went to the school performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It performed by the Aquila theater group and I have to say that we were well entertained and quite impressed with this show even though this is one of my less favorite plays by William. The boys thoroughly enjoyed it and even wanted to stay after the performance for the Q/A of the actors. Can you believe that out of the 250 or so kids sitting in the audience listening to the Q/A session only us and maybe 6 others had read the book before coming to the show? Who knows how many were in the theater that morning who had already left but didn't stay for the Q/A and they hadn't read the book either! No wonder these (mostly high school) kids act the way they do at these performances -- very juvenile, disrespectful and ignorant of what they are seeing. Either way my boys loved the show and even asked pertaining questions of the actors during the Q/A. If you ask any one of my boys what their favorite school subject is, they will usually say Shakespeare. Quite frankly, I think public school is doing a complete injustice by waiting until high school to present this literature, partially because of the behavior that I see from these students at these performances; they just do not appreciate the literary genius that is Shakespeare. I truly have to thank Ambleside Online for putting it into their curriculum otherwise I might also have fallen into the same trap and not started Shakespeare early. This is now the 6th or 7th play we have done of Shakespeare and I am seeing where my boys are picking up bits of Shakespeare's style in his speech, in his vocabulary, in his wording and this time even purposely memorizing favorite parts of the play. My youngest even specifically looked for a copy at the library to read along with when we got to the audio. I hope their love of this never dies and that they continue to appreciate Shakespeare's work.
If you can make it to this performance it was very cleverly done and stayed true to Shakespeare's language yet throwing some artistic twists into scenes and characters that it made this quite a wonderful performance.
Nov. 2, 2009 - It is a constant fight
How the phone conversation went:
Mom: Hi! How you doing? ~ cheerfully
Me: Good how are you? ~ cheerfully
Mom: Fine. How was last night? (last night being Halloween)
Me: Fine ~ cautious but still cheerful
Mom: Well, what did you do?
Me: Not a lot. I flubbed up the popcorn balls because I read the recipe wrong but the kids still liked it and we watched a movie.
Mom: You didn't go out? (out meaning trick or treating) ~ now she's cautious but cheerful
Me: No, we stayed in. The kids carved their pumpkins, ate flat popcorn balls
Mom: And you didn't take the boys out? (out meaning trick or treating) ~ now in a more questioning tone ignoring the Christian movie bit
Me: Well, no mom. We really don't celebrate Halloween.
~ brief silence
Mom: Well, you carved pumpkins didn't you - that is celebrating Halloween isn't it? (carved meaning into Jack o' Lanterns) ~ now sarcastic
Me: well, yes mom, we carved our pumpkins but we basically only took all the seeds out to cook them because I stuff them with a filling and then we ate them... for dinner... stuffed... that is our tradition. ~ polite
Mom: well, then if all your doing is eating pumpkins and then that is no different than celebrating Thanksgiving! ~ judgmental
Me: well then I guess we celebrated Thanksgiving ~ polite trying to be cheery but failing miserably
Mom: and you didn't let the boys put on costumes? (costumes meaning costumes and out trick or treating)
Me: mom these boys put on costumes every day. Just yesterday I had a jester and a knight doing pre-algebra. I'm not sure a day goes by when they don't wear a costume. Mom, they really didn't want to go out ~ trying to be lighthearted and cheerful
Mom: well then I guess you celebrate Thanksgiving
~ long silence and then
Mom: okay well I need to go. goodbye!
Some days it is just hard
© Copyright 2009 Jacque Ward http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wacque/
Nov. 4, 2009 - Not a Martha holiday
With Christmas music in the stores, Halloween slashed at 50-75% off and Thanksgiving in the turkey wings (so to speak LOL) I thought this was a provocative reminder that my holiday preparations do not have to look like a spread from Better Homes and nor does it need to be scrutinized by anyone (especially my mother) except those who I am thankful to spend it with. As you prepare may you also be reminded...
Martha Stewart will not be dining with us this Thanksgiving. I'm
telling you in advance, so don't act surprised. Since Ms. Stewart won't be coming, I've made a few small changes as follows:
Our sidewalk will not be lined with homemade, paper bag luminaries.
After a trial run, it was decided that no matter how cleverly done, rows of flaming lunch sacks do not have the desired welcoming effect.
Once inside, our guests will note that the entry hall is not decorated
with the swags of Indian corn and fall foliage I had planned to make.
Instead, I've gotten the kids involved in the decorating by having them track in colorful autumn leaves from the front yard. The mud was their idea.
The dining table will not be covered with expensive linens, fancy china, or crystal goblets. If possible, we will use dishes that match and everyone will get a fork. Since this IS Thanksgiving, we will refrain from using the plastic Peter Rabbit plate and the Santa napkins from last Christmas.
Our centerpiece will not be the tower of fresh fruit and flowers that I promised. Instead we will be displaying a hedgehog-like decoration
hand-crafted from the finest construction paper. The artist assures me it is a turkey.
We will be dining fashionably late. The children will entertain you
while you wait. I'm sure they will be happy to share every choice
comment I have made regarding Thanksgiving, pilgrims and the turkey
hotline.
Please remember that most of these comments were made at 5:00 a.m. upon discovering that the turkey was still hard enough to cut diamonds. As accompaniment to the children's recital, I will play a recording of tribal drumming. If the children should mention that I don't own a recording of tribal drumming, or that tribal drumming sounds suspiciously like a frozen turkey in a clothes dryer, ignore them. They are lying.
We toyed with the idea of ringing a dainty silver bell to announce the
start of our feast. In the end, we chose to keep our traditional
method. We've also decided against a formal seating arrangement. When
the smoke alarm sounds, please gather around the table and sit where
you like. In the spirit of harmony, we will ask the children to sit at
a separate table.
In a separate room.
Next door.
Now, I know you have all seen pictures of one person carving a turkey
in front of a crowd of appreciative onlookers. This will not be
happening at our dinner. For safety reasons, the turkey will be carved in a private ceremony. I stress "private" meaning: Do not, under any circumstances, enter the kitchen to laugh at me. Do not send small, unsuspecting children to check on my progress. I have an electric knife. The turkey is unarmed. It stands to reason that I will eventually win. When I do, we will eat.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind my young diners that
"passing the rolls" is not a football play. Nor is it a request to
bean your sister in the head with warm tasty bread. Oh, and one
reminder for the adults: For the duration of the meal, and especially
while in the presence of you diners, we will refer to the giblet gravy
by its lesser known name: Cheese Sauce. If a young diner questions you
regarding the origins or type of Cheese Sauce, plead ignorance. Cheese Sauce stains.
Before I forget, there is one last change. Instead of offering a choice among 12 different scrumptious desserts, we will be serving the
traditional pumpkin pie, garnished with whipped cream and small
fingerprints. You will still have a choice; take it or leave it.
Martha Stewart will not be dining with us this Thanksgiving. She
probably won't come next year either.
I am thankful.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - Halloween 2009 Recap
Our older daughter dressed up all day, in one form or another--
She just wanted to wear the arm warmers. LOLShe only wore this around the house.
We dabbled with a costume idea for baby sister:
Thinking she could go as a "toy"...At first she thought it was funny:
But that soon wore off and we knew that wasn't going to get it!
So instead I took a few more photos
Note the attempt at decorating her pumpkin w/ her feet!LOL
The weather this Halloween was no where near as nice as it was last year! Brrrr. I heard lots of passersby commenting on the fact, too. Everyone was cold. Except for baby Girl... she was toasty enclosed in her stroller seat! Though no one could see her all covered up in the stroller parts-- she made a cute pumpkin!
Sporting a LL Bean fleece bunting under a piece of bright orange soft fabric I had in my stash... I just
sort of wrapped it around her to keep warm!
DD12 went Trick-or-Treating as a Vampire Beauty Queen this year. (Her idea.) The costume was pretty easy to make as she already had a formal red dress (one my mother had bought YEARS ago that i'd taken in for her to play dress-ups. Well it actually FITS now! GASP!), and had gotten shoes from a lady here locally that gave her whole wedding ensemble away (including the tiara she wore.)
note the pantyhose--- she improvised (tore them) so they'd allow her big toe into the shoes. LOLI sewed the sash from some white cotton fabric I had in my stash and she painted the lettering.
it says "MISS TRANSYLVANIA 1863"Makeup base was from a vampire kit and the eye makeup and blush was from my own makeup bag. Teeth were from the mall and a big spot of laughter for us the whole afternoon!LOL
After two hours were were tired and her feet were hurting:
Blisters were starting to form on her little toes! Ouch!
Hope EVERYONE had a safe & FUN Halloween!
Nov. 1, 2009 - Going Grocery Shopping - a Training Opportunity
This week’s newsletter talked about training each of our children even though they are all at different levels of skill and understanding. One of the ways that has worked for me is by breaking down a skill or moral truth into bite size pieces. Each step is progressive and therefore each of my children can be working at a different stage and yet I keep my focus knowing that we are working on one thing at this moment in time.
An example of working with these progressive steps is going grocery shopping. We do this every week; it is a fantastic training opportunity and yet we miss that opportunity because we want it over and done with real quick! And yet the learning that goes on is huge. Here is a progressive list (it may not be exhaustive) that will move our children through grocery shopping training.
- Stay in the trolley or pram
- Keep voices quiet, inside voices
- Hold onto the trolley, don’t leave mum
- Don’t ask for things!
- Greet people politely, say a big hello to the checkout lady
- Be patient if mummy talks to a friend
- Follow instructions, help mummy by getting things off the shelf (the right things, the things I need!)
- Help unload the groceries into the car, and then into the house and pantry once we get home.
- Go off by yourself and get 2-5 items (initially in the same isle, eventually in a different isle than mum)
- Understand comparing prices, understand quality for money
- Go off by yourself and do ½ the shopping
- Understanding the family budget and nutritional needs
- Go off by yourself and do the whole shopping
When I look at this progressive list I can immediately see what Daniel, my youngest, can achieve and what I can teach him next. I can also see what training needs to happen for each of my children. This means I go into my weekly task of grocery shopping ready to teach and practice and I come out knowing that each of my children have grown in this area of responsibility.
These are some character qualities that we can train towards while grocery shopping
- Obedience – do what I am told with a happy attitude
- Gratefulness – be thankful for the many blessings I have
- Respect – the other person counts
- Thriftiness – being wise with my money
- Responsibility – to be dependable in all that I’m asked to do
Yes, it is true, if we train our children while we do the grocery shop it will take longer, but in the long run you will have trained your children in a very valuable life skill. But grocery shopping is just one situation in our day where we need to be training our children.
Sep. 30, 2009 - Rosh Hashanah
Boy, what a whirlwind we have been in but I thought I would update you.
We finally had our Rosh Hashanah meal on Friday night and it was nice but didn't go at all as planned (starting to think that maybe I should stop planning anything due to dh's crazy job and even crazier schedule LOL). Dh had gone early that morning to BIL's to build the stilts for the boys beds and he thought he would be back by 3pm finished. Well, BIL got very elaborate and they weren't even slightly ready at 6p and dh was completely frustrated. His brother just belittles him so much and my dh buys into it so he comes home feeling defeated - big brothers can be really mean. I was expecting dh home for a nice evening so I had started preparing our Rosh Hashanah meal since this was the first evening that he had off but my girlfriend stopped by to drop off some things that they had forgotten for the pool table. That ended up being a longer visit than expected and so I was rushed to prepare the meal and then it didn't seem right not to invite the BIL since it was dinner time and he was here and he had been working all day on our stuff but I already know that he doesn't understand why we celebrate the feast days so I wasn't at all comfortable doing the prayers and everything that I planned for the meal (mostly because I feel like I should be able to explain it all and G-d has already shown me that I don't need to understand it completely to do it but BIL would need an explanation). I am kinda grateful that we ended up not because at one point my BIL makes the comment (to my oldest son mind you), "so y'all are Old Testament folks and you don't believe in the New Testament" -- I just hate having to justify EVERYTHING we do! Luckily that didn't turn into a confrontation, my oldest son explained enough and I am still trying to blow the comment off. Thankfully a girlfriend reminded me that, "Our celebrations of the feasts and Shabbot are not supposed to look like everyone else [I believe]. This is something personal between us and God. We, too, can fall into legalism/traditions of man when we mimic too closely the Jews or others keeping the feast/sabbaths. Know that He is pleased with what you are doing. You are remembering His Feasts and honoring His Sabbaths!" It is so nice to have like minded friends.
The meal was nice even though I have discovered that my oven is no longer closing properly so my whole wheat challah had a very hard crust. I wanted to have a whole fish this year (the fish with a head represents that we should be as a head, and not a tail in the new year) but the only whole fish I could find were lots of whole Tilapia's which were VERY bony and their spines did not pull out nice (possibly because my oven is cooking so badly). I tried to make the most of it but my dh HATES picking out bones and my kids get extremely frustrated with it so that wasn't nice at the table listening to everyone complain however the fish tasted fine (funny story - I didn't know how to cook the Tilapia's and the Fish cookbook I had didn't give a recipe and recommended NOT buying or cooking this fish because it supposedly tasted like mud!!! ours didn't but my expectations for the evening were pretty much shot at that point). We also had orange glazed carrots & beets, saffron rice and zucchini with of course apples & honey. I ran out time to make a honey cake so ended up making an upside down apple cake instead -- BIL hates cooked apples
In the end these were all minor difficulties that I just needed to get over and it turned out nice just not at all like I had hoped but it still honored G-d. The cool thing was that the next day at Flamenco my 2ds was talking to a family who celebrate the Jewish feasts (I don't know if they are Jewish or not) and the mom wants to meet me (I haven't done that yet) and she even explained a few more things to my ds who was even more excited that we had done it so G-d confirmed that even though "I" felt like I did a "half" job it was still good that I did it and we honored G-d.
LOL now on to the next event which btw is also delayed-- but what's new?
© Copyright 2009 Jacque Ward http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wacque/
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