Valentines Day 2014

 

We had a good, but chaotic Valentines Day. It just seemed like we had a lot going on. Ollie has been up at night a bunch recently, not sure if it’s teeth or what, but neither Aaron nor I have been getting a whole lot of sleep. I had a headache all morning, and wasn’t very motivated to do the errands I had planned to do, to be ready for the dinner I had planned. In the afternoon my head was feeling better (thank you IB Profen), but my kids were bouncing off the walls, so I didn’t feel like skipping indoor park day was a smart option. It turned out fine, we went to the store and got everything we needed on our way home from picking Aaron up from work. But, I had planned on having everything read to sit down and eat when Aaron got home, and instead I was just getting started. I had to marinate the steaks, make the biscuits, chop the salad, cook the steak, etc. Luckily I made the day before. And by the time the food was ready, it was about 7:30pm. I had just dished up my plate, and taken the above picture, when Oliver choked on a biscuit, and threw up all over the place. I took him upstairs to get him cleaned up, and by the time I’d done that, the other kids were coming up to get ready for bed. I helped them for a little while, then Aaron came up and took Ollie to put him to bed, while I went down and ate dinner quick, by myself, and then went back upstairs to help Aaron put the rest of the kids to bed. Needless to say, we were both exhausted, so we decided to have some cake and go to sleep.

I Posted Some Posts

Tindy, my good friend from high school, has a very cute lifestyle blog. She has asked me to post on it sometimes, which I am thrilled to be able to do. I love sharing ideas with people, especially ideas that have to do with spending time together as a family. I feel like it’s one small way I can support the family unit. I know that I’ve found so many great ideas about things to do with my kids online, and I feel like if I can provide that for someone else, and save them time, then my efforts are worth it. ANYway, I’ve posted a couple of posts on Tindy’s blog for Valentines Day, and I wanted to post them here too, for the record, so they will be in my blog book later on.

Post #1

Host a Vday Party for the Kidlets

Since I’m a homeschooler, I try extra hard to facilitate fun holiday things in my home, so the kids don’t feel left out when all their neighborhood friends are talking about class parties, and treats, and what-not.

But you don’t have to be a homeschool mom to throw a super-stellar Valentine’s Day party for your kids and their friends.

The first thing I always do is decorate. My kids love to help, and it’s fun to let them. My six-year-old is a pro at cutting out paper hearts, so I assigned him to make a heart banner. He chose to do a white, pink and red pattern; but anything at all, pattern or no, will be festive and fun. I used his banner as the focal decoration, but accented it with crepe paper streamers, and a plastic, disposable, pink table cloth.

As our party guests arrived, I gave them each a brown paper sandwich bag, and have a bucket of crayons handy, so they could get right to work decorating a bag to hold their Valentines in. This also serves as a good gathering activity, while you wait for everyone to arrive.

Then it’s time to really get the party started, with games! Disney love songs musical chairs is always a hit. And so is BINGO. I found this adorable free BINGO printable from crazylittleprojects.com. Check out her site, it has loads of cute things.

After games it’s time to make some treats. My favorite Vday treat to make with kids is candy and fruit kabobs. I make piles of different fruits and candies (i.e. bananas, strawberries, dried apricots, heart shaped marshmallows, cinnamon lips, sugary gummy hearts, etc.) and I give each kid a shish-kabob skewer (and warn them to be careful with the sharp end) and let them make their own. It’s always a big success.

When the kabobs start winding down, it’s time for the finale. The Valentine exchange. I’ve found that the easiest way to do this, is to line all the bags up in a row on the table or floor, and have the kids walk down the line and drop a Valentine in each one along the way. When everyone is finished passing out their Valentines, I take a stapler and staple each paper bag shut, so nothing will spill out, and everything will make it home all in one piece. (And so no stay candy wrappers find their way onto your floor.)

As a party favor, I send each kid home with a Rice Krispy treat heart. Basically you make your normal Rice Krispy treat recipe, and then before the mixture cools you take spoonfuls and pat them into a large heart-shaped cookie cutter, so they become heart-shaped, and then stick them on a pan covered in wax paper to harden. Once they’ve hardened, melt a cup of chocolate chips and a Tbsp of vegetable oil over medium heat on the stove, stir it up until well blended, then drizzle a little bit of melted chocolate over the top, just to make them fancy. :) Adding the oil will make your chocolate drizzle more smoothly. When the chocolate dries, put your Rice Krispy hearts into a cute cellophane bag, tie it up with some red ribbon, and there you have it. A successful Valentines Day shindig for the kidlets. You can cross that one off your list. ;)

 

Post #2

Valentines Dine-In Dinner for Two

Close your eyes. Picture your ideal romantic dinner. Perhaps you venture out into the heavy traffic and turn circles around and around the parking lot before finally spotting an opening? Do you squeeze into the lobby of your favorite restaurant and stand nose-to-nose with strangers for an hour waiting for a table? Are you rushed by your waiter, who wants you in, fed, and out in record time so he can give your table to another happy couple?

Oh, that’s not what you pictured? Me either.

Early on in our marriage, my husband and I decided that going out for Valentines Day was not our cup of tea. The hubbub of a restaurant tightly packed two by two like the sardines on Noah’s Ark, never felt very intimate to us. So… we choose to dine in, using the money we would have spent eating out, to buy the menu items needed to cook a special meal we can appreciate  in the serenity of our own home.

Here’s what a Valentines dine-in dinner for two looks like at our house.

Drinks. Let me re-phrase that: fancy drinks. These are a must, nothing says “romantic dinner” like a fancy drink. Sometimes we do Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider. Sometimes we like to do frozen strawberry daiquiris (non-alcoholic). But no matter which drinks you decide on, make them something special and fun.
Bread. Most restaurants serve bread or biscuits to start off a meal, and you can too! Garlic Cheese Biscuits are my favorite to serve, because they seem so classy. These taste just as good as Red Lobster’s; I promise, and they are oh, so incredibly easy. You’ll never buy Rhodes biscuits again.






Garlic Cheese Biscuits
2 cups Bisquick mix
2/3 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese
1/4 cup butter melted
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1. Heat oven to 450.
2. In a medium bowl, stir Bisquick, milk, and cheese with a wire whisk or fork until a soft dough forms; beat vigorously 30 seconds. Use a spoon to drop dough about 2-inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. (You’ll get about 12 biscuits).
3. Bake 8-10 minutes until golden brown. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, melt butter. Add garlic powder and stir until well mixed.
4. Brush butter/garlic mixture onto warm biscuits before removing from the cookie sheet. Serve warm. (But they are still excellent when they are cold too!)
Salad.  I favor a green, garden salad, but you can do what you want here. I like to use spinach, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, chopped purple onions, shelled sunflower seeds, bacon bits, raisins, and croutons. Tossed all together with some home-style Ranch dressing.
Meat. The way to a man’s heart might very well be through his stomach, but the way to my heart is steak. And chocolate, but we’ll get to that in a minute. When I’m dreaming up a special occasion, a steak is the only way to go. To ensure that your steak turns our fantastically, marinate it. Over night, if possible, but at least for a couple of hours. Here is my favorite steak marinade.
Steak Marinade
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt (sea salt if you have it)
3 (or more) gloves of minced garlic
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup olive oil
1. Mix all ingredients together and pour over meat. I like to put everything in a gallon zip-lock bag so I can shake it up occasionally to make sure all parts of the meat get covered. Marinate for 2-24 hours.

Dessert. We save the best for last, of course! Black Forrest Cherry Cake. I only make this on Valentines Day, and I make it every year.  It’s a little bit of work, but 110% worth the effort you put into it. It’s heaven.
Black Forest Cherry Cake
2 1/8 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 (20 ounce) cans pitted sour cherries
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups heavy whipping cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch, round, cake pans; cover bottoms with waxed paper.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, 2 cups sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil, and 1 tablespoon vanilla; beat until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake for 35 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks 10 minutes. Loosen edges, and remove to racks to cool completely.
4. Drain cherries, reserving 1/2 cup juice. Combine reserved juice, cherries, 1 cup sugar and cornstarch in a 2 quart saucepan. Cook over low heat until thickened, stirring constantly. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Cool before using. (If you absolutely have to cut a corner somewhere, you can skip this step and use a large can or two of cherry pie filling instead.)
5. Combine whipping cream and confectioner's sugar in a chilled medium bowl. Beat with an electric mixer at high speed until stiff peaks form. (One year when I was pregnant, I tried to cut a corner on this step and use Reddi-Whip. Don’t do it. It’ll ruin your cake, just make the whipping cream. It’s worth it.)
6. With long serrated knife, split each cake layer horizontally in half. Tear one split layer into crumbs; set aside. Reserve 1 1/2 cups Frosting for decorating cake; set aside. Gently brush loose crumbs off top and side of each cake layer with pasty brush or hands. To assemble, place one cake layer on cake plate. Spread with 1 cup frosting; top with 3/4 cup cherry topping. Top with second cake layer; repeat layers of frosting and cherry topping. Top with third cake layer. Frost side of cake. Pat reserved crumbs onto frosting on side of cake. Spoon reserved frosting into pastry bag fitted with star decorator tip. Pipe around top and bottom edges of cake. Spoon remaining cherry topping onto top of cake.

And there you have it. Everything you need to create your own restaurant quality dinner for two. Enjoy!

con·sume: v. absorb all of the attention and energy of (someone)

Lincoln took this picture of me reading a Carol Tuttle book while making dinner. I have been obsessed with her Energy Profiling system for the last couple weeks.

It started with The Child Whisperer. That’s the first book I read. And I felt like it helped me understand Adelia so well, and gave such good suggestions for why she is the way she is and why she does the things she does. It was like a light totally came on about the way I need to parent her. For the first time in her life, she suddenly made sense to me. I’d been looking at her through the wrong lens. She is the polar opposite of Lincoln and Ivan, and I’ve been trying to parent her the same as I’ve always parented them. And it’s been frustrating! But no more! Now I understand her, and her energy, and I’m already noticing some pretty significant, positive responses from her to just some minor tweaks in my parenting. Hazzah!

This discovery lead me to wanting to know more about myself. So I read It’s Just My Nature, which is the same Energy Profiling system, but geared towards adults instead of kids. And I started talking to a few ladies in my ward who are also really knowledgeable about Carol Tuttle’s system, and have been using it as a guide for awhile. I’ve been so intrigued by it all. It’s fascinating to me to explore what makes people the way they are. Especially because I feel like understanding it all will help make the atmosphere in my home more peaceful and harmonious. It’s even been really eye-opening to understand Aaron, and the dynamics of our marriage. And I feel like it’s making our relationship better.

And then naturally, all the preceding items have led me to be really curious about Dressing Your Truth. Basically, the idea is that each Type of person has certain guidelines for how they dress that helps them look great and feel more confident about who they are. I am a Type 3, I’m pretty sure, and so, for the last several days, I’ve been trying to dress like one. It’s been really interesting. I love the colors, which are earth colors/fall colors. I’m still trying to get used to the jewelry, which is chunky and substantial. It looks good, I can’t deny that, but I have never been much of a jewelry person, so having it on is taking some getting used to. Aaron says I look really nice, but that my clothes feel dark. I’m not really sure what that means. I appreciate him giving me honest feedback though.

 

It would take me a really long time to describe each of the 4 types in detail. Just read the book. It will do a better job anyway. But here’s a very, very basic breakdown that I got off of Carol’s blog.

 

So after thinking about this, and thinking about it, and thinking about it some more. This is how I feel like our family sits with regard to Energy Type. (Everyone has a dominant type and a secondary type.)

Aaron is a Type 2, I’m not sure of his secondary.

Krystal is a Type 3, I’m not sure of my secondary either, but I think it’s either 4 or 2.

Lincoln is a Type 4, with maybe a 1 or a 3 secondary, still not sure.

Ivan is a Type 4, with a secondary 2

Adelia is a Type 1, with maybe a 3 or even a 2 secondary, still not sure.

Ollie is a Type 2, not sure of his secondary.

 

I want to write up more about all this later, but I’ve spent enough time on it for today. But here’s a cool diagram from The Child Whisperer page.

Heart Trees

 

A lot of things have been running through my mind lately (which I hope to have time to post about later), but I feel like I’ve been really internally focused and not very externally focused. Meaning our school has been really pathetic and not very fun recently. So today I thought we’d try to liven things up a bit and do a Valentine’s Day art project. Heart trees. They looked so cute and unassuming on Pinterest, but they turned out to be a lot more involved than I’d originally thought.

 

The hand print tree-trunk part went fine. We’ve done that before.

 

 

But making the hearts got tricky. I thought the boys would be able to do the hearts by themselves, but since the paper strips were pretty small, it took a lot more coordination, and I ended up making most of the hearts (Lincoln did some) and just having the kids glue them on. First, you have to do kind of a funky, twisty thing with the paper to get the staple in the right place.

Then you have to squish the bottom of the heart into a point.

 

Once you have a bunch of hearts, you can glue them into place fairly easily. And the trees do turn out super cute when they’re finished. Maybe a good solution would be to just have longer paper strips (and therefore bigger hearts), and that way the kids could do it all on their own.

Dump Truck Rides

Parachutes

 

Today for school we made Da Vinci parachutes. We tied foam balls to the bottom (because all the action figures we tried were too heavy) and that seemed to work pretty well. We got out our stop watch and timed how long it took a ball to drop without the parachute, then we timed it again when it was tied to the parachute. It took longer for the ball with the parachute to hit the ground, so I considered our project a success.

My Kids Are Funny

"Mom! You know I hate to get dressed." -Ivan

"You're all confused what a balcony is Del." -Lincoln

"I bet the sun's glad it doesn't have to move around any planets." -Ivan 

"If I get cold I'll just wrap up in my blanket. I'm very fond of my blanket. If I ever lost it I'd want to get another one." -Lincoln

"Remember when I got expelled from Sunbeams and then I went to CTR4?" -Ivan 

Linc: "But Dad, have you ever stabbed someone?"

Me: "Lincoln!"

Linc: "what?! It was just a question."

"Mom, we have an Ollie situation here." -Ivan

"I'm sick of the word 'a' from now on I'm going to skip it." -Ivan

Me: "Del, time to use the potty?"

Del: "But why do I have to be a regular girl?"

Me: "Is a regular girl someone who uses the potty?"

Del: "Yes! And then regular girls just turn into bad guys....well, bad girls."

"Mom can I just pass over you?" -Adelia 

"Mom, I think I'm a rock lobster. You know, those lobsters that just run around in circles over the rocks?" -Lincoln

"Oh! I just shook out my leg. It was all tickley with cake crumbs inside!" -Adelia

"Mom, you're the best mom ever, can I touch your eyelashes?"-Adelia

"Mom! I can speak to the birds!" -Ivan 

"Mom, I always think that songs should end in deep sounds. Instead of high." -Lincoln

"Target! I LOVE Target *deep contented sigh* They always have such lovely things to look at there." -Adelia

"Mom, have you noticed that you're kind of starting to get a beard up here (running his finger along the top of my lip), because I can see a little brown there. Do women grow beards?" -Lincoln

Not Looking Overly Thrilled About His First Balloon

The Flight of the Lincoln-Berg

Our history of flight unit has been so incredibly fun! I am continually impressed with our little book and the practical, relevant projects that come out of it. It was well worth the $11 I paid for it. I’d have paid three-times that and still considered it a good deal.

Today the kids and I made dirigibles; also known as blimps. Which, in case you were wondering, are different from hot air balloons because they have power and can be steered. :) The design for these was really basic. Three squares of egg carton plus two helium balloons, plus tape. Done and done. And then the fun began.

My kids spent literally hours sticking things like pennies, ping-pong balls, and little action figures in the gondola to see how much weight the balloons could hold without sinking. And to see which items made the balloons sink the fastest, and so on and so forth.

At one point Linc had his weighted just so; it sank very, very slowly to the ground. But he discovered that it would stay afloat if he blew on it, and that he could steer it all around the family room, landing and taking off again whenever he pleased. So cool!

Ivan and Adelia also had fun with this project. We’ve got The Ivan-Berg and Del’s Zeppelin.

The Adventures of Gemort by Lincoln Swan

As we continue on in our history of flight unit, we’ve learned that many different peoples and cultures have myths about people flying. We read one about Daedalus and his son Icarus who were trapped in a tower by a wicked King. Daedalus used feathers from birds and wax from candles to fashion some wings so they could escape. He warned Icarus not to fly to close to the sun, or the wax would melt. Icarus didn’t listen. The wax on his wings melted and he fell into the ocean and was never seen again. Anyways, so I had Lincoln make up his own flying myth. I thought he did a really good job.

Phenakistoscopes

The history of flight continued at the Swan house today. We’ve been talking about how the people who invented the earliest flying contraptions were avid bird watchers. They studied birds in flight and took notice of how a bird’s wings moved when it was flying. It being the dead of winter and all, there wasn’t much chance that we were going to get a close look at birds in flight any time soon. So we opted to go the route of the phenakistoscope. The phenakistoscope was a precursor to movies, actually, and had nothing to do with flight; except that we decided to make a movie of flying birds using one. :)
Our awesome book gave us directions on how to draw a phenakistoscope using a protractor and compass, but would you believe we don’t own either of those items, even after all the math classes Aaron took in college? We don’t. So, I spent a little time searching for one online, and all I could find were the more complicated sort; therefore I did what anyone would do, I made my own.

Download phenakistoscope PDF here.

First the kids cut out around the circle, and then the dotted slits. We used the pictures of a bird in five different stages of flight out of our book and glued them into the spaces (but you could do any kind of drawing you want). Then we cut out a hole in the middle and stuck a pencil through it. Lastly, we stood in front of a mirror with the images facing the mirror and used the pencil to slowly spin the phenakistoscope. You’ll want your head to be directly behind the phenakistoscope so you can see through the slits.

*just an fyi, in the picture on the top left above, Lincoln’s head is too far up for him to see the movie, after I took the picture, I had him lower back down to the right level. :) The picture on the bottom right shows what it should look like when you’re in the right place.

Our Weekend

Check out his cuteness. He’s helping me blog today. Who wouldn’t want that adorable face peaking over your chair to grin at you? Don’t let him fool you though, you have to watch this kid. Every second. Otherwise…he’s into stuff. And he thinks it’s hilarious. He bit my knee the other day to get my attention, little stinker. Oh! But the best was when Aaron was standing behind the island in the kitchen, and Ollie drug the bar stool around the corner, so it was next to Aaron, and then stood up against it so he could be standing by Daddy. He was pleased as punch with his little self for that maneuver. Meanwhile, I was having visions of him using the stool as a vehicle to get…well, anything else. I bet it won’t be long until tipping over bar stools is common place in our house once more. *sight* I have forgotten about such baby shenanigans.

 

Have I ever mentioned that I have an awesome husband? Well let me say it again. My husband is awesome. He called me Friday afternoon while we were at indoor park day, to tell me that he’d ordered a pizza and had arranged for his parents to come over and watch the kids so we could go out. What a keeper!  We decided to go for the best Mexican food around…Los Hermanos in Provo. We shared steak fajitas and strawberry lemonade. Here’s a picture of me. We took one of Aaron too, but it didn’t turn out. And then because he loves me even more, we went to Hobby Lobby AND Target all in one night to look for some baskets to go in the shelves he built me. We found some we liked at Target. It was so incredibly nice to go into Target with no children…it was actually fun! And window shopped for things to decorate our bedroom with in the future. It was a lovely evening.

 

On Saturday our new homeschool group had an art show. Lincoln entered a painting called “The Desert” and Ivan entered a painting called “The Roller Coaster” both were acrylic paint on canvas. We practiced several times earlier in the week with watercolors, until they each decided on something they liked, and then we bought some (cheap from Walmart) canvas, and they did their final paintings on there. The lady who put it together and her kids, made the cutest little #1 Artist ribbons and gave one to every kids who entered. Lincoln was so excited about his. He said, “It’s so great that I got first place, even though all the other kids got first place too, it makes me happy!”

 

 

I’m really, really excited for our new homeschool group. It feels like a breath of fresh air. Different from anything we did in the old one, and not as stifling. I liked that they did the art show (and are planning all subsequent activities) at a time when the dads could be there. I liked that I didn’t have to teach a huge class, only my own kids, but that we could socialize in a group setting and display the things the kids have been working on.  Next month they’re having a poetry night and a Valentines exchange. We’ll be there. Yay for homeschool!

If I could describe my day in one picture...

Let the Storm Rage On…

Have you ever heard that Thomas S. Monson quote that says, “Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’”? Tonight I’m trying to muster up my courage. Mostly, I feel like I’d rather just run away to Mexico (or anywhere warm) than try again tomorrow. Today was a rough day, and I was a bad mom.

 

I didn’t sleep well, so the day got off on the wrong foot immediately. Then Adelia peed a Lake Eerie sized puddle on my kitchen floor, and one in her bedroom, and then another one in the bathroom, all before 10:am. One of which the clean-up efforts caused us to be late getting Ivan to preschool. I don’t like to be late.  After accident number 3 I told Adelia she was acting like a baby and was going to wear a diaper for the rest of the day. She cried.

 

Then I assigned Lincoln a school assignment to work on while I went and spent a half an hour trying to get Ollie down for a nap. Instead of working on it he did nothing, except pester Adelia, who came running up the stairs shrieking at the top of her lungs, and Lincoln came barreling up after her bellowing at the top of his lungs that she needed to sit in time out. You better believe it woke up the baby, who I’d just laid down. I had a few choice words to say to them, and a few more when I found out that Lincoln hadn’t done a thing on his school in the last 30 minutes. I can’t stand when he wastes my time. It’s one thing if he doesn’t understand how to do something. But when he just fiddles around and sharpens his pencil a million times, and goes and gets 40 drinks of water, and pesters Adelia, and never even opens the book to see what it is he’s supposed to do, that’s where I draw the line. And today he heard about it. 

 

At lunch Ivan and Adelia finished all their food and wanted seconds, so I told them they could have them. Then Lincoln started freaking out that they were taking all the food, but he hadn’t even touched his yet. I told him they could have seconds, and that if he finished he could have seconds if there were any left, but that he didn’t have a claim on any seconds while he still had a full plate sitting in front of him. He told me that I was stupid, and I promptly sent him to his room. He cried and cried. But what was I supposed to do? He doesn’t get to treat me that way. And he’s been having major issues with showing respect to adults lately.

 

Fast-forward to dinner. I made stir-fry. And it was dern good stir-fry if I do say so myself. Well, we’ve hardly said “Amen” when all three kids start complaining about how they don’t like stir-fry, to which I respond that they don’t have to eat it, but this is what’s for dinner, and if they don’t like it they can starve. Seriously. Maybe I’m mean mom, but at my house it’s take it or leave it. I am not a short order cook. And they can bloody well be grateful for the food that’s put in front of them. At this point Lincoln started pretending to throw-up because the food is so horrible. Time out for Lincoln. Aaron was furious. He told Lincoln that he was being very rude and made him apologize. And I told the kids that the next person to voice a complaint about the cooking was going to go straight to bed.

 

Of course, tonight was Aaron’s Elder’s Quorum meeting, which means I put the kids to bed by myself. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t pretty. Stories were taken away, tears were shed. Everybody lived. At least so far. But I might run away and never come back. I’ve never been a very courageous person. And the thought of doing this all over again tomorrow is a very forbidding and intimidating one indeed.

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go drown myself in a bowl of chocolate ice cream and a hot bath.

Let It Go

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight,
not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation and it looks like I'm the queen.
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside.
Couldn't keep it in, Heaven knows I tried.
Don't let them in, don't let them see.
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal don't feel, don't let them know.
Well, now they know!

Let it go, let it go.
Can't hold it back anymore.
Let it go, let it go.
Turn away and slam the door.
I don't care what they're going to say.
Let the storm rage on.
The cold never bothered me anyway.
It's funny how some distance,
makes everything seem small.
And the fears that once controlled me, can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do,
to test the limits and break through.
No right, no wrong, no rules for me. I'm free!

Let it go, let it go.
I am the one with the wind and sky.
Let it go, let it go.
You'll never see me cry.
Here I stand, and here I'll stay.
Let the storm rage on.

My power flurries through the air into the ground.
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back; the past is in the past!

Let it go, let it go.
And I'll rise like the break of dawn.
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone
Here I stand, in the light of day.

Let the storm rage on!
The cold never bothered me anyway

Lost Tooth

Tonight Lincoln lost his very first tooth. We were all very excited. He mentioned last night that it was loose, and I thought we had a good week or more before it came out. But today after church it was a lot more loose than it had been. I asked Linc if he wanted me to tie some dental floss around it so he could pull it out and he said yes. He tugged on it the first time, and decided it hurt a lot to do that. The he and Aaron went into the bathroom so Lincoln could watch his tooth wiggle back and forth in the mirror. A little while later, I went in to see how it was coming, and just then Linc gave it another yank, and the tooth popped right out! We almost lost it down the drain. He ran in the kitchen to tell Ivan and Adelia that his tooth came out, and Ivan said, “Cool Linc! Can I have it?” Which made us all laugh pretty hard. We convinced Lincoln that he should put it under his pillow, and that in the morning he might find a quarter there instead. To which Linc responded, “What? Are you and Dad going to come switch it out in the middle of the night?” Well…yes. Yes, we are. Haha! Sometimes that kid is too smart for his own good.

What else has been going on around here? Sometimes, I feel like I don’t document the day to day things often enough. We had a good weekend. We spent all of Saturday cleaning and organizing our house. And boy, did it ever need it. We started in the school room, we got all the toys put away, reorganized and consolidated some of the drawers, and most importantly went through all the papers and projects lying around and decided what to keep and what to chuck, and got it all filed away in its proper place. What a relief! I took Ivan grocery shopping with me, we went to Ream’s and Costco and we stayed under budget! Hooray for us! (Aaron and I have been trying really hard, as always, with the budget.) When we got home, Aaron was in the process of re-organizing the pantry. It looks so nice now. And then we started on the garage. We still had some cardboard boxes from Christmas, so Aaron built a fire in the fire pit and the kids had a hay-day helping him burn the boxes. Once that was done we started organizing our shelves, the majority of which hold our food storage. It’s not a fun process, but it is SO NICE to have it done. And it makes me happy to see the space being used efficiently. That a talent that Aaron has and one that I struggle with, envisioning how to efficiently use space.

Aaron and I watched The Great Gatsby. We’ve been reading the book together (slowly) for the last several months. The movie is exactly like the book. I think they took all the lines verbatim right off the pages. Some parts were well done, and some parts not so much. I didn’t like either the book or the movie as much as I thought I would. I see why it’s a classic, and I get the message it’s trying to put out there. But, I just didn’t feel like it did anything for me personally. It didn’t stir anything up inside of me, it didn’t make me stop to think, or question any of my ideals, or any of that sort of thing, like all my favorite books do. I don’t know. It was just a middle of the road experience for me.

I’ve made a goal to read 50 books this year. That’s kind of a lot. I’ll have to push myself to accomplish it, I think. But it’s worth a try. And I plan on counting the books I read aloud to the kids as part of that 50.  But last year my goal was to read 8 and I read about 30, so I figured I needed to up my expectations a little bit.

Aaron and I are also having a competition to see who can read the Book of Mormon the fastest this year. We are both a bit competitive, and the idea is to use that competitive nature as a motivation to read from the scriptures more often. Neither of us has the time to sit down and read large chunks all at once, neither of us will win by going that route, so it doesn’t matter who is the faster reader. No, this competition will be won by the person who takes the time to read in the small moments of the day, here a little and there a little. Five minutes while I’m waiting for Lincoln to come out of piano here, and two minutes waiting for Aaron to wash up and come to bed at night there. And it will accomplish exactly what it’s designed to do, it will help us read from the scriptures more often throughout the day. (Because we both want to win, dang it!) And hopefully reading from the scriptures more often will be an invitation for the Spirit to be in our home and in our minds more strongly and more often.

And, like so many people, I am ready for winter to be over. Is there anyone out there who really loves January? Not me. In my opinion it is entirely too long. I’m ready for some warmer weather and pronto. I don’t even need it to be hot, I’d take high 40s, low 50s. Just warm enough that it’s bearable to be outside in a coat, and the snow is gone. But I can’t complain too much. This year is so much better than last…we have a trampoline on the patio that the kids can play on and I’m not pregnant. :) So life is still good.

Let’s Go Fly A Kite

Today we had another awesome day doing our History of Flight unit study. So far this unit has been so much fun; a great way to end the week.

Today we learned about kites. The Chinese invented kites around 500 BC. They used them for fun, but they also used them as a tool. The Chinese were the first people to build kites big enough to fly a person in, and they did it to spy on their enemies in war.

So we built our own kites today. And although they weren’t big enough, or light enough to actually stay up in the air, we had a good time taping pirates and other small action figures to them and running around pretending like they were Chinese spies.

Once again I was very impressed with our awesome book. Lincoln was able to read and follow almost all of the directions without my help (he got a little confused with the direction that explained how to fold the square diamond so that it was a long stretched diamond, so I helped a little with that one). And once again, we had all the supplies we needed already at our house. Adding the pirates was my idea, not in the book, even though the book does talk about people flying in kites, it doesn’t tell you to include that in your activity. :)

After we flew the kites, we came inside and made the beginnings of our timelines. I cut out a long section of butcher paper for each kid. Originally, I was just planning on gluing the kites and everything else to the timeline. But Lincoln explained that he wanted to be able to play with it more later, and that made a lot of sense. So instead, I just made pockets on the timeline that they can tuck the kites into. Then I had Lincoln copy a short paragraph about the Chinese flying kites and what they used them for and cut it out and glue it on his timeline. I only made Ivan copy the date and cut it out and glue it on his time line. We taped the timelines up on the walls in their rooms. I’ll post pictures when there is a little more on it to see. In the meantime, here are some more of our kite flying adventures. It was a beautiful day to be outside…for January.