2.28.23 Womens Conference

We were treated with a visual spiritual experience last weekend. Sue, Livy, Millie and I headed to Ontario for the annual Relief Society Women's conference. I wasn't feeling 100% but desired to support my mom and show my girls a special day with their grandmas. Little did we know how inspiring the event would be. Each room was decorated as a scene from the Savior's life. There was art work and decoration to set the tone. A disciple of Christ spoke to us about their life experience with Jesus and we were left to discuss our own experience with miracles, healing, the spirit, or being alone. It was unique in that participants were encouraged and invited to share their story instead of just being listeners. There were hundreds of hours of work provided to make this event a reality. I was thankful we made the effort to go. 

This is the tomb room. 

The artist in charge sculpted this bust of Christ during COVID. What a beautiful use of time. 

Our next room was the river Jordan. I love the water and calm in this room. The dove was particularly delightful. 

The girls loved the wedding feast room. It was so inviting and pretty. Just what I would imagine a wedding feast to be. 

Silly Millie tasting the plastic fruit. This was after all the groups had gone through.

I loved the reverence in the wilderness room. The colors were soothing. I connect to the picture where the Savior seems to be gathering his inner strength steeling his resolve to walk the path that is His. I have felt that burden and yet know I have been able to do what I needed to do with His help and Hope. 

The girls loved this crown. It was beautiful. 

The chapel was decorated to look like Gethsemene. That is the artist in charge Janice at the pulpit. 

Livy helped paint grass on the olive orchard. 

 We were treated to walking tacos at the end. It was a special day to ponder how Christ strengthens and encourages us on. A day to visit and be renewed with our associations of friends from our past. It was good to introduce Livy and Millie to Relief Society. We are blessed by the talents of others. Life is good. 

2.25.23 Garden experiments

I've been asking Reed to plant some peas for a week or so. My papa said peas should go in the ground as soon as the snow melts. That was a while ago but the weather is mellowing and the days are marching towards March. Thus when my mom called and said it looked like a nice day to plant some garden we obeyed. The weather was temperate. The kids enjoyed the dirt. There is something so good about time and hope of planting seeds.  We planted peas, lettuce, spinach, and wheat. Our Regenerative Ag books say covered soil is more healthy than bare. We are adjusting our thinking it was interesting to see the water difference in our garden at my house that only gets covered with leaves and sprayed for weed control there is little tillage here. Versus the garden spot that had squishy standing water and snow. I was really surprised at the difference. Mark says the soil can't hold the water up there? I don't know. But we are experimenting to see what helps and works and what doesn't.  

We worked to plant some wheat for the chickens. It can't hurt to try and would give them some nice greens to peck at. I was astounded to find so much room to grow things. I'm envisioning a berry patch if we can get the trees under control. 

While Mark and I planted more cover crop mix the kids played football on the lawn. It's so nice to hear their happy shouts and noises. 

Merle found the tonka trucks and happily pushed them in the dirt. 

Bruce showing off the crane Millie had built. It could lift a lot of weight he tested it all day. The water didn't go so well but the cardboard dried and was still useable. 

After work the boys usually find some time to interact with Andrea. She loves their attention mostly.

 She was so intent studying what they were doing. Addie had written a story about her brothers and they were being enlightened of her perspective. She has a strong entertaining style. This story was another well captured moment of our family life. I think it makes the teachers smile as it's easy to read, engaging, and a small glimpse into the truly unique family we are. I love when Addie shares her voice on paper. 

2.24.23 Part 14

I have 14 kids. 13 potty trained, working on 11 that are literate, and the list goes on. As I wrote the last post she cried in her high chair then upon release demanded to be held and add her fingers to my typing. I set her down and she discovered a loose lid and played. Her patting my legs was no big deal until I touched her and realized something was amiss. We were both white with flour.  This is not the first time maybe the last and so bittersweet. 

A lot of my day is what's life going to be like in two weeks? Will I be able to read aloud and tell my children I love them or to stop fighting. Will I be awake or just so tired? What help do I need what can we manage? I'm not sure I really don't know on any of it at this point. 

Sad I stopped her fun and spreading it all over.

 This coupled with the pretty for sure realization we are done having children is sad. I said for years we would know we were done when everything fell out. Thankfully my lower region is just fine, it's my working so hard thyroid that is caput. And so after a very valiant life of service it is being retired. The new me will still be me with additives. I will have to recognize those won't be a perfect fit, but are better than cancer. Last summer a lady told me there were major changes coming and asked if I felt it too? 

In the follow him podcast this week the guest shared her experience with a major life situation and how she had to stretch and pull her faith bigger to cover her fears because you can't fear and have faith. Faith such a icicle to hold onto. It is big and yet melts so easily with the heat of fear. I liked the stretching idea though so I'm working to apply that. Along with so many other bits and pieces that's probably the most important. Life is good and we will make it through the next big thing and the flour is managed until next time. 

I was so thankful to again have a friend to consult. I talked with a lady who's husband had this thyroid surgery and she assured me its not too bad. I was thankful for her reassurance and repeated admonition to put the worry about my voice out of my head that it won't be a problem. So much of fear is not heading the wicked whisperings that aren't real or conductive. I appreciated her happy story sharing and long view. We are truly blessed. 

2.24.23 Empowering Cooking

Cabin fever is real. Even with all the modern conveniences and busyness of life the monotony of winter days is real. Or maybe it's just me? These past few weeks have ebbed and flow with lots of requirements and motion and long stretches of just the same dishes to wash, laundry to clean, and crying crabby needy kids to endure. These are not strong get out of bed and face the day elements. 

On Monday Greg informed me he had bought 17 doz eggs from a friend. I'm getting around 28 eggs every two days from our own flock. We are swamped in eggs. This is a blessing as eggs are $3.00-$6.00 a dozen depending on sale and store location right now. 

As did the normal clutter clean up I wondered what to do with the eggs. Obviously angel food cake is a possibility, but my last few have been way short of correct.  Yes they tasted good, so kids didn't complain, but they looked more like pound cake than fluffy angel food. 

Years ago I had watched an enterprising youtube cook show how she made a years worth of noodles and dried them when she had lots of eggs. I looked her up and watched again. She used more rolling of the dough than I ever had and discussed the importance of resting the dough. She also said "Cooking is empowering when you understand what the food is supposed to be like then you can adjust your recipe as needed and it still works out." Or something close to that. I was struck with cooking is empowering. Feeding my family has been really hard these last few weeks. Sure we eat all the time there's piles of dishes to prove that. But it hasn't tasted much better than sawdust to me. I honestly haven't cared if we ate spaghetti 3x a week. Usually I can stand it 2x a month. Whatever would get the job done with minimal complaining was the objective. 

Fact: kids have 2 stomachs. One is the meal stomach. It's about the size of a pea. This is why children cannot consume a full breakfast, lunch, dinner. The second stomach is the snack stomach. This stomach stretches and has infinite amount of space.

This has been the case at my house for years it drives me crazy!! And thus with so many other concerns, I don't care!! I make food. If they like it I don't have enough for the workers, and if they don't there's plenty for Greg, Mark, and John to endure. The kids are plenty happy to eat apples, oranges and bananas and whatever sugar thing they can find like mar

Thus with eggs a plenty I decided to try some noodle making. I also had bread started. As I was making a kitchen mess and trying to use some eggs there was a sense of can-do. When the kids got home Millie became my helper rolling and rolling the pasta machine. We were pretty impressed with the process.

We rolled out our rested dough balls with the rolling pin first. Lots of flour was the key we found. Then we sliced the rolls into sections with a pizza cutter folded those in half and ran them through the roller 3 times at a 1 until the dough popped. We did all the sections then adjusted the thickness to 3, then 5, then 6. The dough got longer and thinner with each dial up. Some pieces we made into lasagna, others into fettucine, and a lot into spaghetti. Resting the longest sections and dusting with more flour allowed for the spaghetti noodles to be free when they excited the cutter. 

Space is always the issue so we tried drying on the cookie sheets with parchment underneath. Those are taking a while to dry. We also tried hanging the noodles that worked ok but they are so dump prone. 

The dehydrator was an obvious option. Andrea loved climbing and standing on top and unplugging it. She made this difficult but I think the noodles dried fastest this way.

And dinner. I wasn't sure how much we would need but we needed all this for just Greg, Mark, and John. This much and some more for the rest of the group. The guys were excited for the pasta as they are all about bulking right now. That's roughly half of a 7 egg batch. The last batch I added some whole wheat flour to the mix. Seemed no different that the previous batches. 

Bread and cinnamon rolls were also made in concert with this project. And dinner. There was something good about creating in my kitchen again. I read to the girls while they rolled the last batch and did dishes. It was good to see them master the process and experience success. And nicer yet to have breakfast mostly done for the next day. No upset people that breakfast was scant or late or whatever the early morning grumble could be. 

Lia enjoyed a cinnamon roll and decorating her horses. 

So life is good it is not just to be endured but wrestled into experience and success as well. We are blessed and going to work on some more egg cooking today after I do the next pile of dishes and figure out how to put up these noodles. That is one conundrum, they are semi fragile, but tasted good. I also really want to try the jar packing method where you put eggs in a jar and cover with a lime water that makes them shelf stable for a year.  It doesn't change the egg at all just makes it preserved.  And I'm saving milk jugs to try some winter sewing of flowers, lettuce, and wheat for the chickens. Ideas and activity and why not it's better than continual fighting about picking up the mess. If you can't beat em' join em'. 
 

2.23.23 Livy paint day

Livy's birthday was in the middle of all the speaking work of the older kids. She was sad that she didn't get recognized much on that day. We did send cookies to school for her class and made the food she wanted but that was all that happened. Thus Addie suggested I take her and Mark to breakfast after doing our yearly toilet paper stock up. I surprsed them after the big shopping trip, my parents joined us. Livy was impressed with the variety and amount of food choices. After breakfast she went back to the grocery store to shop with my parents. She was able to go paint with my mom. 

These ladies are preparing for a stake relief society conference. They will be hosting a walk through JEsus' life. Therefore scenary must be created. Livy loving all things artistic enjoyed the time with grandma and her friends very much.

Solo time with grandparents is so building. Livy really enjoyed the day. I'm thankful we live close to our familey's and they are part of our daily lives. I'm thankful for their attention to my kids who are sometimes a bit short on that as each demands different amounts in different seasons. I'm also thankful for their counsel and examples to my kids. We are blessed.  

 

2.22.23 American Legion Oratorical State Level

Another weekend of driving and competing. Addie spoke to the American legion people this weekend in Lebanon Oregon. The ride was uneventful only slipping once on ice through the dreaded Santiam Pass. Oregon is a big state. We decided last minute to take Andrea, I am finding I do better with someone to care for than on my own. She wasn't feeling 100% and slept most the way over. We got to Sweet home during daylight hours nad got out to stretch our legs. 

Oregon is a beautiful state. Very different scenery from one side to other whether it be north to south or east to west but I see why people want to visit. I'm still surprised how many small towns make up the state. We stopped for a quick visit with Greg's cousin then continued on to our destination. We ate dinner before finding the hotel. I was also impressed with the number of fmailies in the resteraunt all with babies in tow. 

My young one is not a fast mover in the morning. She enjoyed her bottle while I rushed to pack everything and get ready for the day. At the legion hall Addie was thankful for Aliza's support and guidance with the social scene. Everyone there remembered Aliza from the year before. I was surprised as a year is a long time. They wanted to hear about nationals. We explained though she didn't move forward from the opening round there it paved the way for her to be successful at the National FFA contest and for that we were grateful. 

I was very impressed with the interest of the Legion members in my daughters. They spoke with them and took turns passing time with conversation. In a very digital age and the pretty close knit circle we run in meeting and visiting with strangers, though kindly and respectful, was invaluable. I appreciated watching while I held a sleeping Andrea. 

The final placing matched up with what Aliza picked. Addie is the tall girl she was the only one in flat shoes the others had moderate to towering high heels. I think the placing is fair although the last two I would have switched the boy with the girl. He had a debate style. He wants to go to MIT for computer programming. The winner is a girl who has been homeschooled her whole life. She did a great job. Number two from Burns improved 150% from the week before. I was so impressed with the change in confidence and style. 

The pass thankfully the roads were just wet not slick. 

Travel buddies. We had some good conversation. I was thankful for time with these ladies and so grateful Addie felt better on Saturday. She slept the whole way over on Friday as her stomach was hurting. I'm sad we haven't found a way to spend time like this with our sons. We are going to be looking harder at ways to connect with them. 

At home the kids were well cared for with Grandma Saunders. We found them at our house bathed and ready for Sunday working on Tinker crates a friend had gifted them. Alivia was first putting hers together it bounced balls up a ramp and then back to the beginning. An engineering feet I'm sure. Millie got her crane put together later. 

The professional pictures. 

I was so impressed with the generosity. The an in the red hat is Kevin. There were originally only 5 scholarships but 6 contestants. He did some figuring and made a 6th scholarship equal to the 5th place. All money to kids was over 1500.00. That's a big amount. When I thanked him he said this is about helping kids that's why we do what we do. We are thankful for that mindset. The lady on the right is Maria the contest organizer and MC. She too works hard to organize all the people involved throughout each year. 

 And that's a wrap. We are thankful for the opportunity to earn money, to grow our knoweldge and skills and to meet great people. Life is good and we are blessed.