Fossils

We've been studying fossils during our science time recently. And we did a couple of really fun activities to go with. 

First we used plaster of paris and pushed some of our small dinosaur and fish toys into it to leave an imprint. I used an old muffin tin, thinking I'd be able to pop the fossils our when we were done. But I couldn't get the plaster of paris out of the tin. So next time I do this, I'll use small paper plates instead. 

We also did two fun activities using pasta. For the first one, I printed out a dinosaur skeleton for each kid, and then they got to pick different kinds of pasta to glue on top. It was fun to see how different each one turned out, and how they thought the use the pasta to represent the different dinosaur bones.

 The second pasta activity was very similar to the plaster of paris activity. We rolled Play Doh out flat, and then I would say to the kids, make a plant eating dinosaur, or a meat eating dinosaur, or a dinosaur that flies or swims, etc. And they would use the noodles to try and create it. Then we'd pull the noodles away, and look at the imprints that were left.

After awhile they got tired of dinosaurs, and moved on to other creations.

 Adelia's

 Lincoln's

Ivan's

School Room Make-Over

Remember that time I said we were re-doing our school room and I'd post pictures later? Well, now is later. But I didn't take any 'before' pictures, sorry, you'll just have to be satisfied with the 'after' ones. I know I am.

The first and most important thing that happened, to make everything else possible, was that my amazing husband built me many more shelves in my school room closet. Happy day!

Then I was able to organize the closet. This was a huge deal. Because I organized the closet, we were able to get rid of a large cabinet on wheels that I had previously been using to hold art supplies and other school things. Now everything has a place. Hazzah!

Because everything has a place, and because we got rid of the art cupboard, we were able to buy a double desk from IKEA, and make Lincoln and Ivan a work space.

Once we had a work space for the boys, we decided we didn't really like the layout of the room, and took the opportunity to rearrange all the furniture, get rid of two toy bins, and just generally make the room even more awesome.

Aaron must love me very dearly, because he also bought me the biggest white board I've ever seen. It's magnetic. (And if you know me well, you know I go weak in the knees for all things Office Supplies.) Which means I have room to lay out my spelling tiles AND write things on the board if I want. It also means that I can use my smaller magnet board for it's original intended purpose of holding the letter magnets so my younger kids can play with them on a whim, and also it provides a space for us to do pattern blocks and Imaginets. Yay!

I could scroll up and down through these pictures for a life time, and still give a contended sigh at the end. NOW we're ready for the school year. :)

Old McKrystal Had a Farm E-I, E-I, O!

Could August have been any more lovely? I doubt it. I have been loving the mild temperatures and the rainstorms. Sunny days are beautiful too, but something about the texture in these clouds contrasted with the greens and yellows of the cornfield speaks to my soul. This is where I live. I see these mountains and this corn field, and even the barbed wire fence, every single day...and it never gets old.

Fall is upon us. I can feel the change starting slowly. The rain hasn't been all that great for my garden, I feel like it's more of a wild, green jungle than anything else. But it has produced some ripe things. Mostly tomatoes. The cherry sized tomatoes are doing best. And the other day I made this delicious Tomato Cucumber Avocado Salad. (blurry picture, sorry)

TOMATO, CUCUMBER, AVOCADO SALAD

Prep time: 12 mins

Total time: 12 mins

Serves: 2

INGREDIENTS

1½ cups of chopped tomatoes - I used cherry tomatoes

1 cucumber - peeled and seeded then diced

1 avocado - diced

4 oz feta cheese - cubed

2 tbs minced red onion

1 handful parsley - minced - about 2 tbs

2 tbs olive oil

1 tbs red wine vinegar

8 twists of black pepper from a pepper mill

INSTRUCTIONS

Chop tomatoes into a medium dice. If using cherry tomatoes, cut in half. Add to a bowl.

Peel and seed one cucumber and dice. Add to bowl.

Remove pit, dice avocado and using a spoon scoop out the avocado from the peel. Add to bowl.

Cube feta and add to bowl.

Add minced red onion and minced parsley to bowl.

Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar and black pepper - pour over salad.

Toss gently so the feta and avocado don't break up. Serve immediately.

If refrigerating - keep the avocado aside and add before severing.

I also canned salsa this morning. I sort of combined 2 recipes and made up the rest. :) So I won't post a recipe here. But I used a bunch of tomatoes and peppers and tomatillos from our garden. A few of the early ripe peaches off of our tree, onions, garlic, cilantro and spices. I think it turned out pretty good. I got 10 pints worth. 

Speaking of our peach tree, in a couple more days I'll be swamped. :) I'll have so many off my tree this year, that I won't need to buy from Brigham City at all. Yay! I made sure to point out to Aaron the figures, just for fun. Our peach tree cost us around $12 at Costco two years ago. To buy a bushel of peaches from Brigham City costs me about $36 every year. So in this year alone, our tree has paid for itself twice over. I knew fruit trees were a good idea! 

And our garden and trees aren't the only thing producing around here. Our chickens have started laying eggs! Yippy! We've had six eggs so far. I don't think all of them are laying yet, I think just maybe the two black ones. But with the eggs and fruit and produce I feel like I live on a freaking farm, and I love it!! 

I told Aaron today that I think gardening and canning what you grow is more satisfying than raising children. At least so far, because you can see the results of your efforts a whole lot faster. ;) 

Soccer Season is Upon Us!

Soccer has started up again, which means we run around like crazy people four times a week. :) Luckily, Ivan and Del are close enough in age to be on the same team this year.

This is Adelia's first year playing, and she was so excited about it. She talked non-stop about it for days. She also picked our her own soccer socks, which is why they're pink. (Ugg)

I wasn't sure how she'd do once she actually got on the field, if she's try to go after the ball, or if she'd be the kid out in the middle picking flowers and twirling.

I shouldn't have worried though, she did great. She's not overly aggressive or anything, but she does stay with the ball, and she's not afraid of it. There are 5 girls and 3 boys on her team, and I think she really enjoys having the other girls around.

Isn't she the cutest thing that ever stepped onto a soccer field?

Ivan and Lincoln have both started off the season really well too. I'll get more pictures of them as the season goes on, but since it's Adelia's first year, I wanted to highlight her a little bit.

Soccer season always makes me eternally grateful for my crockpot. If we didn't have it, we probably wouldn't eat dinner on soccer night. My favorite crockpot recipe right now is pulled pork sandwiches. I put the pork in, then top it with my home-canned Peach BBQ sauce and a half cup of brown sugar. Then I let it cook on low for 6ish hours or high for 3 or 4, depending on when I remember to put the roast in. :) Then, if I have time, I'll shred it with 30-45 minutes left to go. When we're ready to eat, we just put some on a bun, and vola! Also this week, the watermelon from our garden was ripe, which made the side dish incredibly easy as well. I love my garden! I love my crockpot! I love easy dinner.

Last Days of Summer

Aaron, Ollie, Lincoln, Ivan

We've been doing our best to enjoy these last days of summer. Aaron took Lincoln and Ivan to the Father's and Sons camp-out last weekend. I took this picture of all my handsome boys together before they left. It might be one of my favorite pictures ever. I love them all. 

Adelia and Ollie and I stayed home and had a "Girl Party". We went shoe-shopping for Del, and then came home and painted our nails after Ollie was in bed. I love hanging out with my cute girl. 

Ollie's been having some grand adventures of his own. The other night he was playing with Aaron in the hallway upstairs and he tripped and smacked his head right on the corner of the door frame. Ouch! And he's got a nice goose-egg on his noggin to prove it. Poor baby. 

He's also discovered coloring...on the walls and everything else. If the big kids are doing an art project, I tape a piece of paper to the table and let him color that way. He thinks he's big too. :) 

Aaron took Ollie to nursery for the first time on Sunday. Technically he's not supposed to start for another couple of weeks, but he was being wild in Sunday School, so Aaron went in the nursery and sat with him. Then the two guys who were subbing in there for the teachers, told Aaron he could go ahead and go to Elder's Quorum. When Aaron picked Ollie up at the end, the teachers said he did great, and didn't get sad until about 2 minutes before Aaron came. So maybe nursery won't be as traumatic as I thought. Now if they'd just release me from my Singing Time calling, Sundays might actually be enjoyable. 

And we're taking advantage of these last summer days to eat ice cream cones and hit up the splash pad a few more times.

And as for me, I'm about at that point in pregnancy where half more normal clothes still fit and half don't. So I've been looking in the maternity box to see what my options are. This dress I'm wearing isn't actually a maternity dress, but the way it's sewn it will work out swell to wear while pregnant. I love it. Just putting it on makes me happy. It's my favorite color, and it's such a fun dress to wear. I'm so glad I kicked the black habit back in February. Wearing colors is so much more satisfying. 

So this is me at 24 weeks pregnant. I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and the Doc said everything looks and sounds great. He asked me what we were going to name this little girl. And I told him I didn't know, we hadn't decided yet, and that the fifth baby was hard! He said, well tell me the names of your others. So I did. And then he said, so not Biblical names, but real, and solid. None of these made-up Utah names. I had to laugh. Seriously though! The names some people name their children! :) 

I don't think we're any closer to picking a name than the last time I posted about it. The top 3 are still Ruby, Rosalie, and Sadie. I still love Mavis but I don't think we'll use it because of the S ending. Eleanor I also still love, and we are considering it for a middle name. We are also considering Evelyn as the middle. It's my Grandma and my Great Grandma's name on my mom's side. It means "wished for child" which I adore. And it has a "lyn" ending, which would tie it to my middle name Lynn, without me having to actually use the middle name Lynn. (I won't use Lynn by itself. I have nothing against my middle name, but it's too common and boring. It's like the place-holder middle name for anyone born in the 80s. I promise you, I know at least 100 other people with the middle name Lynn.)

What else have I been doing besides obsessing over baby names? I've been working hard trying to get my school room ready to go by September. It's coming along awesome. I've also been thinking about and working on putting together our curricula for next year. The kids and I have been doing science and art projects. 

We've kind of kept to ourselves. I guess. I don't know. I'm kind of done with people at the moment. Not any particular people, just the general population. I don't have any anger or irritation or anything like that, more just a desire to be left alone. I feel like I've been really introspective lately. I've been turning my phone on silent and leaving it in my purse all day, so that I'm not bothered by the thousands of interruptions from phone calls, texts, emails, and Facebook notifications. I'll check those things when I want to. When I decide it's a good time for an interruption. I don't want to be gotten a hold of. I don't want to stop what I'm working on. I just want to be in my house with my husband and children, and I want everything else to fade into the background for a little while. I'm tired of people wanting things from me, and I'm even more tired of people wanting things from Aaron. Just leave us alone and let us be a family. Leave us our evenings to sit in the backyard we worked so hard on and watch our chicken scratch for bugs while our children run circles around them. Leave us our weekends to work on our own projects, or go on our own adventures. Let me have my nights to read books, and make lesson plans. Let Aaron have his early mornings of quiet for peace and reflection without being invaded by the work of other people he feels strangely obligated to help with. Let me have my days to teach my kids at my pace and in my way. Let me focus my best efforts on the relationships that matter the most. I don't need help. I'm not drowning. I'm not depressed. I just need the excess to fall by the wayside for awhile. I just want to simplify. 

This is when I start thinking about moving. Not seriously, because we love our home and neighborhood, and Aaron's job is a great fit for us right now. But wouldn't it be grand to live somewhere new, with new people and new places to explore? Where no one knew that you were the neighbor sprinkler do-it-yourselfer go-to-guy? Where people weren't comfortable enough with you yet to ask you to baby-sit? Where you and your husband and children were all each other had, and you got to make traditions and holidays exactly the way you wanted them? As much as I missed our extended families when we lived in TX, and hated missing out on everything, there is a part of me that thinks it would be so nice to go back. To be on our own again. Maybe what we need to do is buy a vacation house somewhere, and just go live in it for three months out of every year. That way I could live the normal, busy, involved-in-everything life that I usually love, but then I'd have a retreat to run to when I get in these introspective moments. 

I'm thinking somewhere green and with cooler summer temperatures than UT would be nice. Any suggestions? How's Maine? Has anyone ever been to Maine? Lighthouses sound really cool. So does the ocean. 

Disguises

Besides secret codes and invisible messages, one of the things Lincoln's new spy book teaches him about is how to make disguises.

The kids have been playing "Secret Agent" all afternoon. They came up with these disguises on their own, and shuffled, giggling, into my bedroom to see if I could recognize them. They make me laugh.

And yes, Adelia has a "secret message" she needs to deliver stuffed down the front of her dress, because, you know, her dress doesn't have any pockets, and a secret agent always carries paper and pencil with them, just in case. ;) I love it.

Doesn't Lincoln look like he came straight out of the wild west? Haha! And Ivan's mustache is killing me.

Ollie played too, but he mostly played "tornado". As in, he was the tornado, and my clean laundry piles the innocent victims.

Lincoln is Seven!

My Lincoln turned 7 today. I love this kid. He's my little mini-adult. He pretty much already talks like he's thirty, so seven wasn't really that much of a stretch for me this year.

Yesterday Mom and Kerry, and Granny Jan came down to go bowling with us, as a double celebration for Lincoln and Adelia's birthdays. Lincoln started out with the dragon, but by the end he was bowling all on his own. He did better than me. All the kids did actually. :) Ollie bowled with me, so that might've had something to do with it.

 Four generations, Gran, Mom, Me, and Del

After bowling we went to Pizza Pie Cafe. During dinner, Linc started complaining of a stomach ache, and then pretty soon all the kids did too. We went home early, and everyone went to bed.

When we woke up Sunday, none of us were feeling great. We didn't end up going to church. No one ever got sick, and by afternoon Aaron was feeling well enough to clean up, make Lincoln's birthday cake, and dinner.

Lincoln requested a Robot Bomb Diffuser Cake. I thought Aaron did a great job. The green square on the side is the bomb.

Lincoln chose Salmon and rice and biscuits and salad for his birthday dinner. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to the store Saturday night, so we had to switch out the Salmon for chicken. But he was ok with that, since he likes chicken too. Grandmas and Grandpa Swan, and Uncle Kelly and Aunt Esther and their kids came over to have dinner and celebrate with us.

My phone was dead, so I didn't take any pictures. Aaron took a few but they were all really blurry. But despite us not feeling overly well for Saturday night and Sunday morning, I think Lincoln managed to have a fun birthday. He got a new Snap Circuits set from us, a spy book with an invisible ink pen from Ivan, and two Geronimo Stilton books from Adelia and Ollie. Which kept all the kids busy most of the day. I'm not sure if he was more excited about the Snap Circuits or the Spy Book, because he kept going back and forth between the two. But I'm glad he has had so much fun with them both.

Happy Birthday Linc! You are a smart and ambitious little (big?) guy. We enjoy your ideas and input that you add to our family. Sure do love ya!