Sophie, before school even started, started using some pretty good vocabulary, but not always in the best context. For instance, she will say something like, "I am going to put that away and keep this toy as my pet." Followed by "Will that be courageous, Mama?" Other words I've heard her slip in are gratitude, curious, and apparently.
Conversation with our family of four in the car:
Keri: Sophie, I need you to stop talking for a second.
Sophie: Sometimes I'm quiet.
Neal and Keri in unison: When?!
Sophie: When I'm sleeping. And then I wake up and I start talking.
So true!
Rhys has gone from crushing spiders with his finger to an amazing fear of ants. Not just fire ants. Any ant or on some particularly special days anything that may look like a tiny black spot. "Ants! Ants! Ant bite me!"
We blame this whole-heartedly on our good friends, the Huffs. We have been fortunate enough to do some outdoorsy things with them this summer. They are super paranoid about ants BUT with good reason as their family tends to be dangerously allergic to ant stings, among other insects.
We have had ant visitors in both bathrooms this summer and have to stay on top of it or his new independent toileting skills are greatly disrupted for his fear of entering a bathroom with such vermin.
Rhys also this summer is speaking in 3 word utterances with ease and more consonants. However, his first response, whether he means it or not, is "No!" "No, Mommy." "No, Daddy." "No this" and the double "No, no!" to emphasize are all heard very often. Then, when he does mean it, he will often follow up with a "Go way, Mommy." Such is the melodious voice of our dear Rhys.
Another fun thing we have started up is wrestling, tickling, and rough-housing on Mommy and Daddy's bed. This is a great tradition from Keri's youth, principally. The carpet surrounding the bed is "Ookey Pooky" which is all things disgusting -- dog poop, wads of gum, rotten eggs, used tissues, you get the idea. We tussle around until someone falls off the bed, touching the ookey pooky and becoming the abhorred ookey pooky monster. If you pull another to the carpet, they join the gruesome ranks. This is well loved by our kids and met with shrills of excitement. Rhys several times a day will say, "Sit bed, Mommy! Sit bed, Mommy!" to begin such fun.
Our babies are both in school this year! Sophie started kindergarten and Rhys entered preschool (2 days/week). We've been preparing them for a month now but, Sophie surprised us the night before kindergarten with sobs. When asked what the worse thing that could happen, she replied, "Write words." Not a favorite pass time. Then she said how much she'd miss her daddy (he comes home for lunch). After lots of cuddles and a few more wails she was fast asleep and was her regular go-getter self in the morning.
Mommy pleasing pose
The real Sophie
She had a great first day. Loved the playground and touring the school.
Rhys started school the next day. We are keeping our fingers crossed that his new independent toileting skills stick. He has at least one good friend in his class and one acquaintance. We are much more nervous for Rhys than Sophie because of his speech delay.
He chose his Superman shirt for his first day. Rhys enjoyed music class and the playground and was very pleased with the yellow construction school bus he made.
Keri was giddy with her new found child-free time. She crossed off a myriad of items off her list, threw out old toys without any objections, and even kicked back a bit. Good time to take advantage of it because soon she will be doing contract work for Allen ISD during the kids' school time.
Anyone who studies the workings of the human body has
surely “seen God moving in his majesty and power.”(Doctrine & Covenants
88:47)...Yet some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical
attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere. Ask
yourself, “Could an explosion in a printing shop produce a dictionary?” The
likelihood is most remote. --Elder Russell M. Nelson, Thanks
be to God
Guess what we tried out?! We made our own liquid laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent! Why? Because it's fun to learn something new, supposedly gentler on our son's skin, and inexpensive!
For the laundry detergent we followed the recipe from I Can Teach My Child. Neal and I love doing this kind of stuff! After it sat overnight, we tried stirring the sludge with a mop handle but ended up getting up to my elbow and squishing the congealed clumps in my hand for a couple of minutes. I felt like a 4th grader playing with slime!
We think we may have a year's worth of detergent but we'll see. The laundry is clean, feels fine, and has no particular scent (because we did not add any essential oils for fragrance). We got all of our ingredients (and the bucket) at Walmart. We are spending less than a penny per load using this method! We are using white vinegar as our fabric softener and no the clothes don't stink of it.
We usually buy dishwasher detergent tabs in bulk at Sam's Club but since we were on this DIY kick we decided to make our own powder dishwasher detergent. We got the recipe from DIY Natural.
The kids, grandma, and I actually got to visit a brewery supply store, Homebrew Headquarters, to get the citric acid in a one pound bag. Met an episcopal priest with a very fine beard and learned a little about making root beer too. Great customer service--made a Mormon feel right at home!
This was just dumping dry ingredients into a container and giving it a shake to mix it. In less than 5 minutes I had enough detergent for 96 loads of dishes for approximately 5 cents a pop. We did have to let it sit out and break it up until the citric acid reduced it's clumping abilities. However, Neal mentioned it was quite fun and relaxing forking around in his almost zen sand garden.
When we went to Sam's club we found a great deal on Finish Powerball Detergent for 11.5 cents a load. Still doesn't beat the homemade price. Hope it performs well.
UPDATE (11/23/2012): The laundry detergent does great but the dishwashing detergent clouded all the dishes. Going back to store bought dishwashing detergent.
One of the many thing we have been doing to prepare our children for the start of school is special Family Home Evenings (FHE). This month we have been teaching our children and discussing the topics of peer pressure, learning in the home, and learning at school at each FHE. All this leading up to the most special FHE that we did this past Monday evening.
We opened with prayer and sang "Families Can Be Together Forever." Then I read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.
This is a dear story of a little raccoon going of to school for the first time and it discusses the feelings that both child and parent may have. I edited to fit our family--replacing words that implied the children were "scared" to words that were more appropriate like excited and curious. I didn't mention the little raccoon was crying and I included the Daddy in the story.
In the story, the Mama places a kiss in the center of the child's hand as a reminder throughout his school day, that he is loved.
We talked to them about how we are happy and proud of them and that we love them. Then Neal took Sophie and Rhys, in turn, placed his hands on their heads and gave them each a father's blessing. We are very blessed to have a father and husband that honors his priesthood and serves his family and others.
We ended the FHE with prayer and enjoyed specially made cookies for a treat. As parents, we are grateful for the inspired program of FHE. It blesses our lives and strengthens our family.
We bought the book and will read it at the beginning of each school year whether they are 5- or 22-years-old. It is a wonderful tradition that communicates that they are cherished, we are on their side, and when things are rough out in the big, wide world, their home is a soft place to land.
Susan, Neal's mother, has been in town for a couple weeks and will be until the end of August. She is checking out the area and job hunting, hoping to move closer to the grandkids.
While in town we were able to support our local high school band as they paraded the city streets and even through stores. The high school band is enormous- easily over 600, maybe even more. We did this last year and really enjoy it. We saw friends from our neighborhood and church.
I embrace my messy hair, unswept floors, and overgrown grass. We are parents. It is so much more fun than being a house keeper. Besides everyday business, this is what we have been up to this summer:
Sophie pleased with her Walmart plastic bag fairy wings and wooden spoon wand Mom whipped up
Canned oodles of strawberry and raspberry jam
Skimmed strawberry foam is a well loved reward for canning.
Over 100 degree weather outside = climbing the walls inside
Food colored vinegar dropped on baking soda for fizzy fun
Sitting in their box fort, eating popcorn, and watching DVDs
Learning geography - house to world. Hoping to decrease Sophie's question of "Are we in Texas?"
Coloring and learning where it is appropriate to color
Making homemade play dough with all-purpose flour and Kool-Aid (ingredients we consider to be non-edibles anyway)
Took in several shows offered at our local library (Mother Goose, here)
My kids love the fun we have when we do our summer science so this week we got into studying things on the darker side--night. We started by introducing a little astronomy and then moved into nocturnal creatures.
To begin, we read Our Stars by Anne Rockwell, which does a pretty good job of introducing astronomy at a young child's level.
Then, knowing the experiments coming up, we familiarized the kids on specific vocabulary. As a family we ran to each room that had a dimmer switch (5 in all) and turned the lights up and down, shouting out our keywords of bright and dim. They were interested in knowing what makes some stars bright while others are dim.
To determine what has an effect on a star's apparent brightness we did three experiments later in the week. First we got their attention by singing the beloved "Deep in the Heart of Texas" while clapping in time with the song. A love of this song was sparked with my second most favorite scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)!
The first being the horrifying tale of Large Marge!
Okay, enough digression! Back to Summer Science - Night! So we introduced the stars theme with the song and reviewed "dim" and "bright." The first experiment was to demonstrate that a star's size affects it's apparent brightness. We covered on flashlight with newspaper and poked a little hole in it. The other was left as normal. We held them equal distances from the wall and determined that a larger star produces more light.
The second experiment again used two flashlights but one much further away from the wall than the other. We found that the closer the flashlight the brighter the outcome. So we know that closer stars seem brighter.
Following that we considered the third factor that determines a star's apparent brightness. We turned the stove burners on low and high. We saw that the hotter burner appeared brighter. We know that the hotter a star is the brighter it looks. We also looked at pictures in Stars by Steve Tomecek to see that the temperature of a star affects its color as well.
Next we talked about constellations. I primed them with simple connect-the-dot activities pointing out how they formed a picture. Later we explained that ancient people made pictures out of groups of stars.
I saw a great idea on Pinterest (as seen here) but made a cheap homemade version of the constellation cards using old sugar boxes and 3 different size hole punches. They turned out pretty cool.
We told them that the made up pictures, when we gaze at the sky, only show stars, not the lines--like a connect-the-dots that hasn't been drawn on.
Then Neal pulled up a couple of his cool apps and showed the constellations with and without pictures in the sky in real time.
We then approached the next obvious heavenly body seen at night. We went outside and viewed the moon in the daytime. We talked about it's shape--that it wasn't full or half even. It was gibbous. That was even new vocabulary for me.
To talk more about the phases of the moon we did a sweet activity. Literally.
They were quizzed on their new words and then as a bonus, they ate the project.
I had to ask 3 friends if they had Oreos because I did not want to buy a whole package because I am weak and I knew I would eat the whole package minus four Oreos. I tried to find the little snack 6 pack but came up empty. Thanks Cherri for the goodies!
The same evening we were happy to visit with Opa and Oma. Oma is an animal when it comes to working out. She is part of a triathlon team and is really putting in the effort and the hours to reach her goals. She is even doing a mini-triathlon. Given that, we asked if we could use her bike for our next experiment related to the moon.
To demonstrate that the moon does not give off it's own light, we viewed her bike reflector with and without a flashlight on it. It, of course, needed the flashlight to reflect and create light, just as the moon reflects the sun's light. Thanks Oma!
We also viewed Oma's moon flowers. A healthy plant in their backyard until their dogs mauled them. Still, there were a few buds closed when we started swimming that evening and when we left, they weer just starting to open up. Oma emailed us a picture so we could discuss how they open up in the dark, later in the evening. This helped to kick start our discussion of nocturnal life.
We read the awesome book Forest Bright, Forest Night by Jennifer Ward. It explores the concept that some animals are diurnal while others are nocturnal. This book is a gem! It has rhythmic text, a fun turn-it-over format, and hidden details!
We then viewed a few of our nocturnal friends on YouTube and learned a little more about them. Posters were also, well, posted, to give us the opportunity to learn more about some of the nocturnal animals common in North Texas. It's fun to quiz them on an animal and for them to point to their guess.
After discussing nocturnal life, we got our craft on and made toilet paper roll raccoons. Something we have an endless supply of--paper rolls, not raccoons, thank goodness.
We enjoyed exploring the world as it is when we are sleeping. School is starting soon so I am not sure how many opportunities we will have to address more themes but we may just slip some in as we feel like it. Good NIGHT!
During the two stimulating weeks of the Olympic games, we experimented with some British fare here and there. First came the fish and chips, complete with malt vinegar and a side of slaw. Okay, so we did the slaw our way, with blue cheese.
Another night we forwent the tea and went straight for the scones. These were Cranberry Orange Scones. Served them up with spinach and cheese scrambled eggs for dinner.
Not all traditional British meals have to be meat and potatoes. Here we enjoyed a Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie provided by the BBC. I even had to convert the units of measurement!
We stopped there because three new recipes is enough in a short time to try out. And I didn't want to rely on any convenience foods especially one's with distasteful names...
And microwavable too?!
Yep, saw this in the British section of the international foods department at our local Kroger. Glad we passed. Hope everyone has enjoyed watching the games. There were some truly awesome moments--most memorable for us was seeing Oscar Pistorius run as the first paraplegic in the Olympic games! Very cool!
For another fun and unique date, Neal and I drove out to one of Round Rock Honey's bases and took a introductory bee keeping class. We have been interested in bee keeping in general. Our interest had led us to talk with bee keepers and read up on the material available at our local library. Although not reasonable for our current living, it never hurts to learn something new.
They had two sweet horses that stayed around while we suited up.
Long sleeves, long pants, boots, and a bee suit in 100 degree heat--builds character!
At this point the bees were getting more aggressive but we were all fine.
