2.24.18 The little Prince and his court

I found a great talk from 1989? By M. Russell Ballard issuing a warning about TV. Transferring that slightly to include all technology of today I have been surprised how accurate he was. Prophetic?! A few quotes that really stood out-

"Before television, children played together more often, played outdoors more, spent more time being creative and inventive, and read more. Parents and children spent more time together, talked together more, shared more joint projects and chores, and ate more meals together. "

Playing Anna from a movie. I too am working on curbing my screen time it's easy to get sucked into to the multitude of nothing online. I'm trying to pay attention more.

" Children’s minds are like banks—whatever you put in, you get back 10 years later with interest."

Bruce discovered blocks and loves the challenge of stacking them. He will play nicely for quite a while if his sisters will let him be. Of course that's not an often occurrence they insist he share or do other things with them. 

Like this game they love to play. Run Bruce around the tile in a chair. He of course loves it too! With that many willing runners he's entertained all day long!

And if they get tired of that there's always something to sneak like whipped cream or egg whites.

Even if mom says no, its still delicious. He's really beginning to understand language and loves to tease A LOT!

And then he falls asleep amid the fun and games and we lay him in bed to rest for the next adventure and round of entertainers.

During January I worked a lot at the computer. During other months I spend a ot of time canning or worrying/working on other projects. The kids had gotten back into the habit of TV watching or starfall watching. Okay and necessary diversions for the season but now I am in a lull between activities and it's been good and intentional to turn off the technology for them and me and let them be. So they make more messes, and we work to learn to clean up messes, we talk and read more, and I watch their creativity. This was a final quote from that talk 

"I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” (John 17:15.).

I pray the same thing. I'm working to have our home a place of peace and joy. A place that although not stylish or tidy is comfortable and loving. A place where we love and learn and rest from the cares of the world. Hopefully this will help keep them safe from the evil of the world. 

2.23.18 Arrow of Light

Another boy has graduated on from cub scouts into boy scouts. I was honestly a little sad yesterday as I prepared cakes alone knowing that we would not be counseling together on how to design his farm idea. Mark has earned almost all the awards cub scouts had to offer. He was friendly, willing, and loved the program. He was blessed with great leaders and grew a lot in his 3 years. 

Yet on the cusp of one graduation is one entering. This is a small glimpse at the up and coming scouts. Reed will be in there in a few weeks.

The supportive family enjoying the festivities. It was a long evening but fun to celebrate these boys enthusiasm and learning. That is a toy drill Bruce if playing with.

The highlight of the evening was a special arrow of light ceremony with visiting indian warriors. The program was meaningful and entertaining. In a roomful of small children and babies the quiet was indicative of the awe they inspired. Mark and Eli received their awards together. Now on to the boy scout adventures. The most recent activity left Mark a giggly mess. All in all it was a great night we are proud of our great son and thankful for the man he is working to become. 

2.22.18 Cabin Fever/ February

We love to make messes!! or be creative! One morning we made valentine's. Livy decorated hers and was excited to learn how to shape hearts from square paper. Afton and Millie were still hard at work gluing and cutting. 

Bruce came up with this game re-enacting his favorite part of the day feeding calves. Gross! No kids or calves have been adversely affected by this game. And Bruce had a ball with the warmer conditions indoors and willing sisters. 

For a while Aunt Alena has been trying to grow avocados at home. Livy obviously the very observant child noticed and when I had an avocado a while ago she immediately put the pits in water to try her hand at growing avocados. I found the cup in the window soaking in the sunshine a while later and was impressed with her gardening know-how.  

She and Milie were worried about their strawberry and blueberry plants they had planted when the weather got cold and windy again. I asked what they had planted and where and come to find out they had saved the pepper seeds and planted them by their window outside. I taught them how plants only grow their own kind not just what we want them to grow. It's gonna be a fun year gardening with them! They have very active imaginations, dreams and lots of energy to channel. Now for the weather to be pleasant again so we can get going on those projects.

2.21.18 Bows

Harold has the opportunity to learn bow making from a master craftsman in our ward. He set up these classes and has been spearheading the effort to put in the required time to make a custom bow from scratch by hand under this mans tutelage! I can't say much about the process other than it takes a lot of time to sand and shape the bow and the boys ability to do the process. I told Harold he will be really smart if he take the opportunities given to learn from master's around him. People who know a lot and are very good at some skill.
So far he is doing well. He is learning to take time to learn from many different men in that category. He is super motivated to complete this project. He has learned that patience and diligent effort are required for the project to be perfect. I'm thankful for people willing to share their time and knowledge with kids. This will be a treasure when done not just the bow- which may break- but the ability to craft an object with your own hands and to be humble enough to learn from others. And the many hours spent visiting with this wise man learning life lessons will impact Harold forever. Life is good!

2.20.18 Weekend

The kids hadn't been in a while so we packed up the car with my family and headed to the temple. They got right in and we patiently or not waited outside. 

There's a lot of space on the temple grounds so we explored a bit then headed back to the car to eat cheese sticks and oranges and read. We all survived and got one important item check off the list for the weekend.
At home we are experiencing a lot of wear and tear on our home. Having lived here more than 11 years has really taken a toll on our walls and kitchen. The recent problem involved no light in half the kitchen after dark. Tis was the section where homework is done and meals are eaten. I took matters into my own hands and started the process of replacing the light fixture... I gave Greg a heads up and asked him to come.

I even rewired two outlets and took apart the sink so it could also be fixed from leaking pipes to not leaking. Well several hours later he had my ambition put back together and completely working well. Light turned on and off at the switch, no more leaks, and I now have power at all outlets! He truly loves me even though he was not happy with the mess I had created he willingly fixed them and worked until they were correct. We are quite the team!

2.19.18

 My youngest class member is intent on being just one of the group. He loves to scripture search and write on the chalkboard. Gotta get him in nursery but for now he's super cute copying the big kids.

All that church learning means tired guys at home. One day he snuggled up with big brother and took a nap. Bruce sure wakes up easier than Harold. 

And this weekend is a chess tournament so we broke out the chess set and checked out some books and are working on our chess skills. Not sure if it will help or not but the kids are excited to go try their minds against others in the valley.  

I have no pictures but this Saturday we started getting text about 9:50 asking if our power was out. We were helping with a community function and hadn't made it home. When we got their we saw flickers of light through the otherwise dark house. The kids had found the candles and a few flashlights and were doing well. We had water stored to flush toilets and brush teeth and were able to manage quite well. So thankful to have passed the preparedness test. We had not had a chance to have our valentines candle dinner but I think the hour of candle time that night was a fine substitute this year. Wax melts a lot. We need to check our water jugs as the water mysteriously depletes over time. All in all the situation was fine, some kid shad slept through it other worriers waited till we were safely home. We enjoyed candle light scriptures read via lighted up cell phone and slept well in the dark. Might answer a lot of tired problems if we went to bed within an hour of dark everynight!

Valentine's in the mail

Prior to getting sick we got a sweet gift in the mail. My super with-it sister (they all are) sent Valentine's.

Oh these pre-fever sick days pictures make me yearn for this darn bug to pass quicker.

Those delight filled suckers sure made these kids day. Happy Valentine's day it's not just for sweethearts but for sweet people sharing goodness in their own special ways.

2.11.18 Personal Progress Award

Well after much work, study, service, and dedication these two lovely ladies earned their personal progress awards. Aliza in October and Anna this January. They were awarded today! These two are great friends and companions. They are virtuous and good. They are learning and making good choices and working hard to be able women. I am very pleased with the ladies they are choosing to become. It's so good to have them in our home.
A sampling of their projects.
Aliza made a quilt, raised a garden, made a cookbook.
Anna organized all the clothes in our house in one our bi annual clothing assessments. She canned green beans and painted the house.
And most of all they have learned through personal study and commitment to going to the temple about the gospel of Jesus Christ and have desired to follow His ways.

2.8.16 CDE & Parli pro

I am exhausted tonight and very content. This is a long post but it all ties together and has been quite the journey for our family. And can I say that because we all worked and pulled together the celebration at completion was joyus for us all! Now to the memory.

As previously explained the kids are in speech competition season in FFA. Of course they compete and expect to do well. An added bonus of the district competition is the Parliamentary Procedure contest which is an exhibition using Roberts Rules or Order to debate various "hot" topics in ag. Harold had not learned the rules because he is shop guy but still wanted to compete. Thus we took matters into our own hands and had a parli practice at home for Family Home Evening.

Here Reed is moving the motion that we should read everyday for 1 hour. 

Addie is moving that we should have dessert on any day that ends in Y. Obsiously these motions passed with the delegation being strongly in favor.

Livy moved a motion too as did the older kids. Everyone debated once and it was really fun. I was the chairwoman of course.

On a heavier or more challenging side was an opportunity that became available for Anna. Since there was only 1 extemporaneous speaker from the chapter the teacher offered for Anna to compete just to try the competition. This is the top tier of speakers in FFA, in my opinion. They are smart, quick on their feet, expert story tellers and brave!

We thought it over on Friday and on Saturday we began in earnest to tackle the monster of a contest this is. 30 differnt topic areas any one she could randomly draw for a speech. The speech was to be 4 minutes long but not long than 5 with 3 minutes of questions.  30 minutes to prepare and only 100 pages of articles to be taken to prepare the speech. 

  

We began with Google and grandparents. Anna interviewed my dad, my brothers and spent some hours with Mark and Aliza searching magazines at grandmas. They had a great time and found a lot of information. I worked for hours on Monday and Tuesday like more than 12 copying and pasting relevant facts, figures, opinions, and explanations about a sundry list of agricultural challenges in oregon at this time. It was great. I have sick kids and they were content watching movies or sitting on my lap while I copied and pasted. She took some time to prepare speeches to practice writing and delivering speeches and I was very impressed with her ability to compose thoughtful oratories. The whole idea behind this late plan was for her to gain experience and to try her hand at a new contest no expectations just try it and see where you land.

I volunteered the day of the contest to check the notebooks I was surprised and relieved to see that she was equally prepared to what I thought was the best and far more prepared than most. She was nervous but had the large task of secretary for her parli team so didn't have too much time to stew. Iw was proud and cringing for her parli team. This was beginning level so a lot will be learned and ironed out in the next few years I'm sure. 

When the day was done they swept the third place showings. A lot was learned and some great experience is tucked securely in their belts of life. Anna had a great speech. She was short on time meaning she spoke 3:10 minutes. Her facts were solid, her understanding was strong she is just young. She did not explore the opposite view to her own in her speech, and she needs to look up a lot more than the 30-45 seconds she did while sharing her prepared thoughts. She has room to grow but this is a pretty great perch from which to start. I'm very pleased with her effort and willingness to try and put in time working towards a challenge. (Again this I was the only parent who came to watch the speakers in my kids contests, other parents from our town came to watch their children in other areas.)

  

Harold was not thrilled with 3rd, he really wanted to go on in Creed but missed about 5 words. He answered his creed question well. He however struggled a bit with his questions in prepared as they were very technical. He is a charismatic speaker with a pleasant speaking voice. His large stature makes him a commanding presence especially in light of the fact that most speakers nowadays are young ladies. He really enjoyed the location of district as there was a pool table. He spent most of the day talking and shooting pool with fellow members from around the district. There were also ping-pong tables, foos ball, basketball, and rock painting for geo-caching. It was a great venue that allowed plenty of interaction activities to get these normal nervous youth off their cell phones and talking with each other.

2.6.18 Yearly stock up

Once a year we stock up on paper products. Everything else we buy periodically throughout the year but the first saturday in FEbruary is refill the paper shelf day! It struck me as funny and cute watching the assembly line carry the product from the car to the shelf. Just a daily snippet from life in a big family. 

FUnny what they will pose for I can hardly get pictures of these kids but with TP in their hands they were more than happy to strike a pose. MY #1 shopper. She loves to go to town and is my personal secretary on the way. I love when she can go because I get what I need and get it done fast. She has a talent for organizing.

Welcome new year we are ready for you!