"Happy Birthday Harry!"

So the kids and I have kind of been a on Harry Potter kick for the last few months. We've been listening to the CDs in the car, and Lincoln has been reading the books. They build wands out of all sorts of things around the house. And the other day I asked Lincoln to go get me a diaper for Ollie, and Linc said, "Wouldn't it be great if I was a wizard, then I could just say 'Accio diaper' and Ollie's diaper would just come flying down the stairs." Yes, Linc, that would be sweet, in more ways than one. When Ivan's mad at us, he does the "Avada Kedavra" curse on us, like he expects something to happen. :)

Needless to say, we're a little obsessed.

I'm good with it though, because it's motivated Lincoln to read really long chapter books, and it's built Ivan's vocabulary immensely. For example, the other day during Ivan's reading lesson, I was showing him some flash cards for beginning word blends. The card 'trunk' came up. So Ivan reads the word, and then says, "Oh trunk! Like what Harry Potter uses to pack all his school things in." Why yes, Ivan, you are correct. I totally thought he would say elephant trunk. And that's just one example. There have been lots of instances when Harry has come up in our vocab.

At one point I'd entertained the idea of throwing Lincoln a Harry Potter themed bday party this year. But it's not his year to have a party with friends, and I wasn't really feeling up to it. BUT, then I was reminded by Michelle Noonchester (Ryan's wife Melissa's sister) that July 31st was Harry Potter's birthday. And I thought it would be fun for the kids if we had a small celebration. I've been looking for a good excuse to try out this butter beer recipe anyway.

So we had butter beer for a treat tonight. The kids were thrilled, and Aaron thought I was slightly off my rocker. (That's normal though.)

It was really good, but VERY VERY VERY rich. Would probably could have made due with a shot glass each, instead of regular sized drinking glasses. I'll remember that next time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY!

Harry Potter Butter Beer

Start to finish: 1 hour (10 minutes active)
Servings: 4

Ingredients:

1 cup light or dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
6 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
3/4 cup heavy cream, divided
Four 12-ounce bottles cream soda

Directions:

In a small saucepan over medium, combine the brown sugar and water. Bring to a gentle boil and cook, stirring often, until the mixture reads 240 F on a candy thermometer.
Stir in the butter, salt, vinegar and 1/4 heavy cream. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
In a medium bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar mixture and the remaining 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Use an electric mixer to beat until just thickened, but not completely whipped, about 2 to 3 minutes.
To serve, divide the brown sugar mixture between 4 tall glasses (about 1/4 cup for each glass). Add 1/4 cup of cream soda to each glass, then stir to combine. Fill each glass nearly to the top with additional cream soda, then spoon the whipped topping over each.

Project Based Homeschooling

I just finished reading Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners by Lori Pickert. There were a lot of things I really liked about this book, a lot of things I wish she would have given more examples of, or gone into greater depth about, and a few things that I thought were just plain impossible for someone who had more than two children.

I already do a lot of project-based learning in my homeschool. I like projects. I like hands on. I like having something to show for your time and effort when your through. I want everyone to be able to see and touch and do and make the things we're learning about. I think that makes learning exciting.

What drew me to this book, was the self-directed part of the title. Up until this point, I have mostly been the one to decide what kinds of projects we're going to do, and on what topics. I've always tried to steer in the direction of what my kids are interested in, but I've always been the one controlling the project. I don't think that's necessarily bad. But I have been wanting to let the kids take more of the reins, and really be able to get into what their interests are, and have them come up with the ideas of how to explore the way they learn about those interest.

One of the ideas she suggests to facilitate this self-directed learning, is giving each kid their own space. This is something I've had on my  mind recently anyway. Because I've started to notice that none of the kids (but especially Lincoln) have a space of their own. If Lincoln is working on something, whether it be a drawing, a Lego creation, an experiment of some sort, or whatever; if he doesn't finish it in one sitting, it's pretty much as the mercy of his younger siblings. He keeps bringing me things that he isn't done with yet, that he wants to work on later, and trying to get me to put them on the kitchen cabinets or on the computer desk, so the younger kids can't reach them. I can't handle having his piles (along with all the other sorts of piles we already have) all over the kitchen and office space. So, I'm constantly telling him that he needs to find a safe place for it that isn't downstairs. Do you know where the things end up? On my bed. Ya. So, I'm realizing that the poor child doesn't have a safe space of his own, and that I need to provide one.

Pickert's idea of a work space though, is way more than I can provide. She says that you need to keep all kinds of art supplies and building materials close at hand, and easily accessible. You need to display everything they're working on, so it's constantly in view, so they'll be motivated, and remember their ideas. And I see her point. I get what she's saying. But it can't be done at my house. #1 I don't have enough space to devote that much space to each child separately. (Because if they're self-directed, chances are they'll be going in four completely different directions, right?) #2 I can't keep "all-kinds" of art supplies, including paint, markers, clay, scissors, glue... you name it, in a space that is easily accessible. Mostly because of hurricane Oliver. And a little bit because I still don't trust Adelia to be unsupervised with markers, paints, or scissors.

But even though I can't make Pickert's ideal work at my house, I do think I can tweak it a bit to make something similar at my house that will work for us.

One thing I've been working on for a couple of weeks, is rearranging, reorganizing, and revamping my school room. I've thrown a TON of stuff away. I had Aaron build me more shelves in the closet. I've bought lots of little organizing containers, trying to create a place for everything so everything can be in it's place. Because I've had more shelf space in the closet, I was able to get rid of our art supply cabinet. And I moved one of the toy drawer towers into Adelia's room and put all the girly toys in it. That freed up the south wall. Then I bought a desk at IKEA that is long enough to comfortably seat two (Lincoln and Ivan), and high enough that Ollie can't reach it. It has two drawers in it, one for Lincoln and one for Ivan, for them to use as their personal space. At IKEA I also bought a cube shelf, that is separated into 4 smaller cubes. I will give each child a cube, with a bin in it to hold their school books. That will free up a lot of space on the preschool table, and then Adelia (and Ollie when he gets old enough) will be able to have the smaller preschool table as their "space". When I get it all put back together I'll take pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. But for now you'll just have to use your imagination.

Pickert's other big point in the book, is that the project be directed by the child. HE decides what topic he wants to study, and he decides how to study it. As the adult, my role is to be a mentor and facilitator, I take notes, and pictures, and document the child's ideas and goals and questions for them,  but I am not to require anything of the child. If the child gets stuck, I can ask if they want me to suggest ideas, but I shouldn't make them do any one thing or other. It reminds me a little bit of un-schooling. And I don't mind that at all, but I couldn't have that be my ENTIRE school philosophy. But I do think it has value, and I do think it's good for kids to learn how to be self-directed and self-motivated. (Obviously, or I wouldn't have picked up the book in the first place.)

I decided to give this method a try. Like I already said, I can't run an entire school day this way, but I decided that we could devote the 30 minutes before quiet time to this idea, and call it "Project Time". The idea being that if they wanted to spend longer than 30 minutes on it, they've got all of quiet time to do it.

Our first act was to go to the library. I asked the kids what they wanted to learn about, and then we tried to find books on the subjects. Lincoln wanted robots. Ivan picked scorpions, and Adelia picked fairies. When we got home, I tried to encourage them to spend time learning about their topics. And I quickly discovered that it is VERY time consuming to try and follow the lead of three kids, and write down all their ideas, and get them all the materials they ask for, and (for the non-readers) read their books to them, and take care of a toddle, all at the same time. Phew! I was exhausted. Ivan and Adelia soon got bored and went off to play together. And I put Ollie down for a nap.

After that I felt like I was able to focus on Lincoln and help him make progress. He didn't know where to start, so I suggested that he might want to make a list of all the things he wanted to know about robots. I wrote the list as he dictated it. We also wrote down ideas of where he could learn the answers to his questions. He decided to read his library books. One of which was a How to Build a Robot out of Legos, book. He decided he didn't want to make a model of a robot out of Legos, he wanted to make a real robot that would actually move. Then he decided it would be even cooler to build a real robot that could do his math for him.

This is where I wish the book would have gone into a little bit detail on how a child might go through all the possible different kinds of projects. In the books, Pickert seems to think that the child will be very artistic in their exploration of topic. She says they'll want to draw two dimensional picture of their topic, then paint it, and then move on to clay sculptures, and 3D models made out of cardboard, etc. She does not say what to do if you're child is not interested in the artsy part in any way, shape, or form, and wants to cut right to the chase of building an actual robot, with wires and a motor, etc.

How to handle this? I don't want to crush his dreams of building a real robot. I like him to think big, that's good. But how to convince him that there is a LOT he needs to learn before he'll be able to make a working robot on his own, and that the kind of robot he has in mind is super complex and super expensive. Like thousands of dollars expensive.

He decided that he needed different books to learn how to put the parts of a robot together. So we got online on amazon to look at robot books. We found a few that looked kid friendly and ordered them. Once they arrived he read them, and noticed the word circuit popping up everywhere. The next afternoon, he built the outside of a robot, from cardboard, and then got out his snap circuit set and did project 1-100, to see if any of those circuits would be the right one to make his robot work.

He didn't find a circuit that would make his robot move. But he had a lot of fun with it anyway. There is one you can build that when you clap, a light will flash and a siren will sound. He put that circuit inside his cardboard robot, and had fun clapping and making it light up and play a sound.

Linc played with the snap circuits for a couple days in a row, making the projects in the book over and over again, until he got tired of them. Then he tried inventing his own combination of circuits, and that kept him busy for awhile.

After that he went back to his robot books. He read something about programming a robot on the computer, and decided that he needed to spend more time on Scratch (a website the teaches programming to kids using a graphical drag and drop interface. The pieces are puzzle-like and can be fit together on the screen.), that he needed to learn how to type better, and that he needed to practice his spelling so that he would know how to spell the commands he wanted to type to his robot. That kept him busy for another week or so.

Next he wanted to find some videos online that would show him how to make a robot motor. I was going to kid friendly, so I checked my usual science resources first, but Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy had nothing to offer us. But we did find an episode about robots in the Popular Mechanics For Kids series, (which you can watch for free on Prime), and it ended up being absolutely perfect. They showed all kind of different robots, and what they are used for, and how they are made. They talked about how they were expensive, and took a lot of work to build. But then they also showed some very simple robots that you could build at home, and listed off all the materials needed to make one. Lincoln was very excited to copy down the shopping list, and pester us about getting the supplies for days on end.

This is where it got a bit iffy for me. I know less than nothing about real live circuits, capacitors, power sources, resistors, and soldering irons. And I have zero interest in the putting together or taking apart of electrical things.

Husband to the rescue! Thank goodness for Aaron, and his ability to do just about anything. :) He took over. He and Lincoln went to Radio Shack (Lincoln's new favorite store....seriously, who is this child?) and got a few parts. And the spent a Saturday morning together building a "Sun-bug" robot. Lincoln did most of the soldering, and Aaron mostly verbally directed him.

 

Once they got it all together, it actually didn't work like it was supposed to. The LED light blinked, but the bug didn't move. Lincoln got to use Aaron's multi-meter to measure the voltage, and they came to the conclusion that they needed bigger capacitors and a motor that needed less voltage to turn on. So, even though it wasn't a huge success, I still feel like Lincoln learned a lot about the process, and that sometimes things don't work out first try, and you have to go back and try again and again. He's still excited to try again. So that's good.

This week he's been working on a way to display what he's learned about robots so far. He's got a drawing of a capacitor that he's working on. And we've printed up some pictures. He's thinking he wants to put it all together on a poster board, so he can show everyone that comes over to the house. :)

And that's been our experience with Project-Based Homeschooling so far. Ha! Trust Lincoln to pick something hard, and so far out of my realm of knowledge. But, he knows what he likes, and I'm glad we've been able to muddle through this trial run. I don't think he's quite ready to be done with robots yet. I'm interested slash scared to see what else he comes up with. Hopefully Aaron can keep up with him, because Linc passed me up a long time ago.

Daydreaming About Baby Names...

Do you ever get on Nameberry.com? I do, a lot. Even when I'm not pregnant, I like to get on and read their blog. I think baby naming philosophies and trends are really interesting, whether I agree with them or not. And I feel like it is good to be informed about what baby-names are doing these days, so that you can make an educated decision about whether to be "trendy" or not.

For example, when we were pregnant with Lincoln, we were going to name him Boston. Then he was born and didn't look at all like a Boston to us, and we couldn't bring ourselves to call him that. So, we sat down to think of names, neither of us having any idea what was going on in the baby-naming world at the time. We picked Lincoln, which is a name we love. Named after President Lincoln, who we felt was an excellent role model. Lincoln also means, "the gatherer" which we thought has some cool missionary possibilities. And lastly, neither of us had ever met, or heard of, anyone else named Lincoln.

A few weeks later we moved from Phoenix to Utah, and discovered that there were THREE other Lincoln's in the ward we moved into, and one Link. Wow! We had no idea we'd picked such a popular name. We still love the name Lincoln, and I'm still glad we chose it, as it fits our son VERY well. But I am glad that there are no other Lincolns in our current neighborhood, although we do hear the name a lot when we're out and about, like on the soccer field or at the playground.

A few months ago, I was reading on Nameberry, and found an interesting statistic. The post I was reading was all about how even though a name is ranked at a certain number on the US list, it could be more, or less, popular in some regions of the country. And the example the gave was Lincoln! In 2013 Lincoln was ranked at #95 on the US list, but #9 in the state of UT. Well that explains it! Haha!

I've always tried to pick names for our kids that are not in the top US 100. The name Ivan was ranked #137 in 2013. Adelia is not even ranked in the top US 1000, which gives me great pleasure. :) Oliver was a little different, we knew it was popular, both Aaron and I each have a friend with sons named Oliver, but we loved it because it means peaceful, and the nickname Ollie is adorable, and it fit so well with the names of our other kids. So, this time we made the educated choice to go with a popular name anyway. Oliver was ranked #52 in the US in 2013. But it's the #2 baby boy's name in England and Wales right now, so I'm betting that the popularity goes up even more. But I'm ok with it because we love it.

We love all of our kids' names. We put a lot of time and thought into every name. Each name means something to us, or is a name (or variation of a name) of a family member who did. We put a lot of consideration into how the first and middle name will flow with our last name. And we also consider if the names sounds good with the other siblings the baby already has in the family, without being to matchy-matchy or tacky sounding. (For example when we were thinking of names for Oliver, we didn't want another two-syllable boys name ending in N, because we thought that would be too much.)


So what to name Baby #5, Girl #2? We have a few ideas, but have not settled on anything official yet. But I'll go through the list...

Ruby: If Oliver would have been a girl, he would have been named Ruby Charlotte. I like the name Ruby because it is a gem name, like Krystal, but with more spunk, sass, and fire. So it would be like naming her after me, sort of. I also am REALLY partial to the nickname Rue. I love it. Love, love, love, LOVE it. Cons of Ruby: #1 We know two people who have named their baby Ruby in the last year, and one of them lives in our neighborhood. So I'm afraid it's getting to be popular. In 2013 Ruby was ranked #93 in the US, and #7 in England and Wales. #2 Aaron doesn't like Ruby as much as I do, but if I pushed it, he could probably be persuaded.

Mavis: I like Mavis because it is different and old. It was in it's popularity in the US about the same time as Adelia was. So both their names would have that in common. It means "songbird", and I could easily see it on a happy little girl with bouncing pig-tails, as well as an adult woman. The nickname Mav is appealing. And Mavis is not ranked in the US top 1000. Cons of Mavis: It ends in S, which, heretofore, has been a big no-no for us, since our last name starts with S. But Swan may not be her last name for the rest of her life, so I might be persuaded to overlook the S ending, just this once.

Sadie: Originally, way back when, Sadie was a nickname for Sarah. My favorite literary character of all time is Sarah Elliot from These is My Words. I have always wanted to name a child after a favorite literary character because reading is so much a part of me. And Sarah Elliot is the perfect female character in my opinion, because she's honest and good, but has a backbone and a sense of humor. But the actual name Sarah just doesn't quite do it for me. It's not a bad name, but it's a little on the boring/Biblical side. Sadie, on the other hand is full of spirit, and spunk. When I was telling my mom that Sadie was one of our name options, she told me that when they were trying to come up with names for me, their top three picks were Katherine, Krystal, and Sadie. So that would be kind of a cool connection. Cons of Sadie: #1 It's getting popular fast. In 2013 it jumped up the list from #124 all the way to #50, so it worries me that if we name her that, all the sudden she'll be one of a million other Sadies running around. #2 There really aren't any nickname options, which isn't really a big deal, but if we end up using Sadie and it ends up being popular, we might want a nickname to call her. #3 Sadie means princess (as does Sarah), and I don't know if I can stomach that.

Rosalie: This is not a name I would have looked twice at on my own, but it caught Aaron's eye, slowly wormed it's way into my affections, and now I love it. It's pretty. It looks pretty on paper, and sounds pretty when you say it. It's three syllables without being pretentious. We would use the nickname Ross, which is my dad's middle name, so that would give the name a family connection. A three syllable feminine name with a boyish nickname is exactly what Adelia has, so there would be that sisterly connection, without their names being matchy-matchy. It's not popular, but not unfamiliar. It's ranked #348 in the US. Cons of Rosalie: #1 People might try to call her Rose or Rosie for short, yuck! #2 We can't decide which way we like to pronounce the 'O', sometimes we say long o, 'rose-uh-lee' and sometimes we say short o, 'raw-zuh-lee'. Both Aaron and I are back and forth on which pronunciation we like better.

Eleanor: Ah, Eleanor. I have loved this name for a very, very long time. When I was a kid, my Dad read us Lord of the Rings; in that book there is a small, yellow, star-shaped flower that grows in the elvish woodlands that is called Elanor, and Samwise Gamgee ends up naming his daughter after it. After we read that, whenever I would play house with my friends my pretend name was always Eleanor (I like the 'ea' spelling better). And it's been a favorite name of mine ever since. It reminds me of my childhood, and has a small connection to my dad, which makes it a family name... in a round about way. In LOTR Elanor means 'sun-star', in real life Eleanor is a form of Helen and means 'bright, shining one'. Which are both name meanings I could totally go in for. It comes with the nickname options of Ella/Ellie/Nellie/Nora, all of which I like, but we probably wouldn't use. We have several Ella's in our ward, and a Nora across the street. Nellie I love too, but it's a little bit too close to Adelia's nickname Del, and that might get confusing.  Cons of Eleanor: Although Eleanor is only ranked #106 in the US, I think it might be a UT popular name. Last year in Lincoln's first grade class at the charter school there were 10 kids, and three of them were named Eleanor.

There are more names on our list, but I would say at the moment these are the top 5. The others are mostly just names that I like, but probably wouldn't use for one reason or another. Or they are names I like, but not as much as these five here, so we'd probably pick from these five first. But who knows! Maybe some time between now and Thanksgiving we'll come up with something new and wonderful we hadn't thought of before. It's definitely possible. :)

Can When You Can

We had a really strong wind storm last night. When I went out in the backyard this morning, I noticed that one of the branches of our apple tree had snapped. I was sad. I've had my eye on our apples all week, they've been so close to being ripe. I went over to survey the damage. Bad news: the branch wasn't fixable, I had to cut it off. Good news: many of the apples were ripe. I picked a whole grocery sack full.

I decided to make Crock Pot Apple Butter. It's so easy. And SOOOOO good. And when you're done you can either freeze the apple butter, or can it. With the apples I picked, I got about 11 half-pint jars, so I decided to throw them in the steam canner, since i don't have room for that many jars in my freezer. The apple butter made my house smell like fall. And I was happy all day while it simmered in the crock pot.

I've also collected quite a few jalapeno peppers from the garden the last couple of days. I found a tasty looking recipe on Pinterest for Strawberry Jalapeno Jelly and wanted to try it out. I figured since I was canning today anyway, that now was as good a time as any. And set to work seeding and chopping jalapenos and mashing strawberries.


I'm happy to say that both recipes exceeded my expectations. They were divine. My goal this year, when I planted my pepper plants in my garden, was to grow enough jalapenos to make plenty of half pint jars of jam, that I'd be able to give jam away to my neighbors as Christmas gifts. That way all the work would be done in September or so, and I wouldn't have to stress about what to do for neighbor gifts right after having a new baby. So far my plan has started off splendidly. I did 11 half-pint jars of Apple Butter, and 14 half-pint jars of jelly. With more jalapenos growing every day! (I'm secretly hoping to make enough jam that I won't have to give away any of the apple butter, I've become addicted to it!)

Crock Pot Apple Butter

Approximately 3 lb. apples
3 cups sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cloves
Dash of salt
3/4 cup water or fresh apple cider

Directions:
Fill Crock-pot 3/4 full with peeled, cored and sliced apples. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until evenly mixed. Cover and cook on low setting overnight or until the butter is of a thick, spreadable consistency.
If apple butter has too much liquid, remove lid and cook on high until thickened. Stir often as butter thickens to prevent scorching.

Store in refrigerator for up to 6 weeks. Freeze for longer storage.

Variation: For a less sweet apple butter, substitute 1 cup honey for the sugar.

To can the apple butter, pack into hot jars leaving 1/4-inch headspace and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.


Strawberry Jalapeno Jelly

4 cups crushed strawberries (discard stems and leaves)
1 cup jalapeno pepper (processed in food processer)
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 (1 3/4 ounce) package powdered fruit pectin (Sure-Jell Premium yellow box I prefer using 1 1/2 packages because strawberries are runnier)
7 cups granulated sugar (yes this is the right amount...it's jelly!)

Directions:
1 Sterilize eight half pint canning jars with lids and rings, boiling for at least 5 minutes and kept hot.

2 Place the crushed strawberries (do not chop in a food processer; the texture will be too fine and choppy), processed jalapeno pepper, lemon juice and pectin into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan; stir in the sugar to dissolve. Rapidly bring to a boil over high heat (long, slow boiling destroys the pectin). Once at a full rolling boil, cook for 1 full minute. One half teaspoon butter may be added to keep down the foam, if desired. Letting this mixture sit for about 5 minutes discourages the fruit from separating.

3 Pack the jam into the hot, sterilized jars, filling the jars to within 1/4 inch of the top. Run a knife or a thin spatula around the insides of the jars after they have been filled to remove any air bubbles. Wipe the rims of the jars with a moist paper towel to remove any food residue. Top with lids and screw on rings.

4 Process 10 minutes in a boiling water canner. Remove the jars and place onto a cloth-covered or heat-resistance surface. (While cooling, I shake frequently to redistribute content.) Allow to cool overnight. Store in a cool, dark area

Hurricane Ollie

This child is unstoppable. Every time I turn around, he's climbing on the table, coloring on the walls, emptying a drawer or cupboard, or otherwise reeking havoc and destruction, in his jolly, adorable, quiet way. He thinks he's hilarious. I love him anyway.

Vanilla

Ice....Ice....Baby

It's finally time to make the big announcement. Swan baby #5 is cookin'! We sent this picture to all our family and friends today after our 20 week ultra sound this afternoon. Baby is healthy and looking great.

Why did we wait so long to announce? Lots of reasons, but the biggest one is the simple fact that pregnancy goes by faster when no one knows you're pregnant. Also, I get sick of people trying to coddle me and tell me what I should or shouldn't be doing while pregnant, or aren't I so tired or so sick, or I can't believe you do that when you're pregnant, etc. And, because, well, let's face it...sometimes people's comments can get pretty rude when they discover you're on your fifth, and I just don't want to hear it. This baby was absolutely planned, not a surprise. And we are very happy to be expecting. (Five has always been my favorite number.)

So, right after I took a positive pregnancy test, Aaron and I decided that we'd wait as long as possible to announce, just for fun. The weeks passed and I wasn't showing at all, I have a really long torso, so it takes awhile before I start to show anyways, and this time I wasn't showing as early as I did with Ollie, and we began to wonder if we could go all the way to 20 weeks without saying anything and announce the pregnancy and the gender at the same time.

And that's what we did. And although I started showing some at about 18 weeks, I'm still not wearing maternity clothes. And I was able to pull off the secret by being very selective about which shirts I wore where. And here we are at 20 weeks. We didn't even tell the kids until we were in the van on the way to the ultra sound. I knew that the cat would be out of the bag once the kids knew, so we just found lots of ways to talk about it around them without actually mentioning that I was going to have a baby. :) I was kind of fun actually.

After we told the kids in the car on the way to the appointment to find out gender, we asked our kids what they thought it was going to be. Linc and Ivan said boy, Del said girl. Then there was a little pause, and I said, "Aaron what's your guess?" And Aaron said, "It's a girl." And Adelia's eyes lit up and she got all excited and said, "I was right!" We had a good laugh, and then explained to Del that we didn't actually know yet, but that Daddy was just guessing.

We need to back up for a minute. I had my first ultra sound, around 12 weeks, to determine the baby's due date. As my doctor was performing the ultra sound, he told me that a new study came out a couple of months ago about the positioning of genital tubulars. At 12 weeks, genital tubulars look the same for boys and girls as far as the development of them is concerned, but according to this new study, the genital tubulars of boys point upward, and the genital tubulars of girls point downward. Apparently my doc is currently testing out this theory, or involved in the research of it in some way. Anyways, he told me that based on my baby's genital tubular position, that there was about an 80% chance that it is a girl. He was also very clear that this was just a hypothesis based on a new study, and that when I came back for my 20 week we could just as easily discover that our baby was a boy. Even though it was nothing certain, I liked that the doc gave us his best guess. It made the next 8 weeks much less suspenseful somehow. Also, at that first ultra sound, the doctor determined that my due date was December 8th.

Fast forward to today. My doctor did a very thorough medical exam on the baby. Baby is as healthy as can be, and measuring right on track for a December 8th due date. In Krystal terms, a December 8th due date means the baby will most likely come right around Thanksgiving, which is on November 27th this year. If baby comes as early as Oliver did (two weeks) it will be born on November 25th. If baby comes as early as Lincoln did (10 days) it will be born on November 28th. If it comes as early as Ivan did (6 days) it will be born December 2nd. And if it comes as early as Adelia did (4 days) it will be born December 4th. So there's that thought to chew on.

Doctor Anderson saved the gender reveal for the very last. He couldn't find anything between the legs, so low and behold, his first prediction was right! We're having a baby girl! Adelia was very excited. And so were Aaron and I. We've kind of always leaned more towards a girl. Not that we knew for sure or anything, but I would have been more surprised to find out it was a boy, than I was to know it's a girl.

Yay, for us, we're having a girl! Let the name brainstorming begin! Okay, let's be honest, the name brainstorming begins the instant the pink plus sign shows up. But now we can narrow it down, and really start to focus. Nothing even close to official has been decided by Aaron and I yet. But here is my list. Aaron disapproves of the vast majority of these, so don't have a hernia just yet. Also, I am aware that some of these we won't use because of our last name. But these are the names I like based solely on first-name merit alone.

Ruby
Mavis
Sadie
Rosalie (nn Ross, as in my dad's middle name, NOT rose.)
Eleanor
Rue
Haven
Reeve
Wren
Cornelia (nn Nellie or Corrie)
Pearl
Maeve
Finley
Agnes (nn Aggie)
Scout
Lark
Maven
Primrose (nn Prim)
Prudence (nn Prue)
Cali
Reverie
Sarah
Nellie
Ella
Charlotte (as a middle)
Linden (as a middle)


...And more being added every day.

Swan Family Backyard Adventures

Lemmon/Sparks Family Reunion in Spencer, ID 2014

 Lincoln, Penny, Ivan, Adelia, Isla

We spent the weekend up in Spencer, ID for the Lemmon/Sparks Family Reunion 2014. While we were up there so were my Mom and Kerry, my step-brother Bryan and his wife and 3 girls, my brother Jackson and his wife and little girl, and my brother Tanner. The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins, especially Adelia. She and Isla and Emree were inseparable, and Del was in little girl heaven (she rarely has other girls around to play with).

The trip was really low-key and relaxing. Perfect! The kids put pennies on the railroad track to see if they'd squish. And one night Gramma Tam busted out some sparklers.

Ollie was kind of a stinker. He didn't sleep at all on the 5 hour drive up. And he didn't sleep much the first night. I was surprised, because usually he's a pretty good traveler. This is how I found him in his port-a-crib the second morning after he'd been up most of the night. I guess he's still pretty cute.

The second day we took Mom and Kerry's 4-wheelers out for a spin in the mountains. It was really pretty, and nice to "get away from it all". (Spencer is about as away from it all as you can get! haha!) Lincoln and Ivan were big enough to come with us. I think they enjoyed it.

 Tanner, Bri and Jackson, Gramma Tam and Ivan

 Ivan and Gramma Tam

 Ivan, Tanner, Gramma Tam, Lincoln

 Me and Ivan

 Ivan was cute. When we got to the top, he took his handful of trail mix and went off and found a nice pile of rocks to sit on and eat his snack in peace and solitude. He wasn't angry or anything, he just wanted a little time to himself. When I asked him what he was doing he said, "Just thinking." :)

Not five minutes into our trip home, Ollie crashed. I can't imagine why. :)

Human Body Unit

We've been learning about the human body for the last few weeks. Our home school group put on an awesome human body day one Saturday. Each of the kids did a report on part of the body and shared it with the group. My kids participated. Adelia did her report on eyes. Lincoln did his on bones. And Ivan chose to do kidneys.

"Eyes can move. They can see. They can help us do lots of things. Some people need glasses because they can't see the right shape. I love my eyes." -Adelia

"Kidneys clean your blood. They are organs. They are in the back of your body. They are a little bit round and look like a crescent shaped oval. Kidneys are red." -Ivan

"The skeleton has 206 bones. Your bones protect your organs. For example, your ribs protect your lungs, your skull protects your brain, and your sternum protects your heart. Your backbone is made up of 34 bones that fit together at 33 separate joints. That is why you can twist and turn in almost any way. Joints help you move. If you had no joints, you would be as stiff as a rock. The large shin bone in front of your leg is called Tibia, and the other bone is called Fibula. It is important to keep your bones healthy and strong. One way we can do that is by eating cheese, and milk, and yogurt, and tuna fish, and spinach. Calcium helps build and repair my skeleton and teeth. I am glad we have bones."
-Lincoln

After the reports, the kids got to make life-sized models of their bodies. They traced themselves onto large pieces of poster paper. Then they colored the different bones and organs and cut them out and glued them onto their bodies. This project comes from the book My Body by Patty Carratello. It's a big project to do in one day. We ended up taking a lot of ours home to work on in smaller chunks throughout the week. But I love this project, and so do my kids. Here is Lincoln's finished product:

To go along with our home school showcase day, the kids and I have been working our way through the Young Scientists Magic School Bus Human Body science kit. It's been really awesome too.

First we made a model of the lung. We did this by cutting a 2 liter pop bottle in half, stretching a balloon over the pouring end, and pushing the balloon inside the bottle. We stretched plastic wrap over the other end and taped it down so it was air-tight. Then we made a handle out of a small rectangle of card stock and taped it onto the plastic wrap. Pushing and pulling gently on the handle makes the balloon expand and contract, and shows the relationship between the diaphragm and the lung. Which I thought was really cool. Also, the yellow balloon in the picture was a little on the small side. We took it out and replaced it with a larger white one, and that was better.

 Another really cool experiment was using balloons and a straw to pump blood like the heart does. To do this you need a bendy straw, two balloons, and water with red food coloring. Fill one of the balloons with red water (about 1/2 full) and use a small elastic band to secure it to the end of the straw. You want it to be as airtight as possible. Then take the empty balloon and use a small elastic to secure it to the other end of the straw, again air tight is the goal. If you want you can tape a little human figure to the bendy part in the straw, so it's easier to visualize the blood pumping through the heart. Then gently squeeze the balloon with the water in it, squeeze and release at a steady pace (like a beating heart). When the first balloon empties, squeeze the second balloon to get the water back through the body and to the first balloon.

We also learned about how muscles expand and contract to allow the bones to move. Our kit came with a card board cutout of a leg that we put together with a brass fastener. Then we taped string on each side, that would hand loose, or go tight as we bent the leg back and forth.

Another project the kit had us make was a ball and socket joint using a hollow half of a rubber ball, a ping-pong ball, and a rolled up news paper.

 We talked about the tongue muscle too, and did an experiment to see which taste buds detected which kinds of tastes (sour, sweet, salty, bitter), but it was very involved on my part, and I had no chance of taking any pictures. The kids had fun with it though.

Of course we watched a few Magic School Bus episodes. The Magic School Bus Flexes It's Muscles, and The Magic School Bus Inside Ralphie, and The Magic School Bus Works Out.













And we read lots and lots of books. Here are some of my favorites:

Good Enough to Eat by Lizzy Rockwell was a really cool book. It talked about the different kinds of foods you eat, and which foods have certain kinds of vitamins, nutrients, and minerals, and what those things do for the different parts of your body.