I Can Name That Tune in Three Notes

"He-ey kids, of all the rest, these are the Books we love the BEST! We can sing them one by one. Come on kids let's have some fun! Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy..."

This is our new favorite song. And I'm not just talking the kids. I love it! They are learning the Books of the Bible in Sunday School. I learned them when I was young, but have forgotten the song over the years. So unless I sing a ditty, I can't remember the order. (It's like knowing how many days in a month - I have to sing a song). So it turns out that Holland's Sunday School teacher loaned him a tape with the song on it. We play it every morning while we're waiting for Romania's bus to come to the bus hub. It's very addicting. I still get stuck with the last few books of the Old Testament. I'm hoping that having a song will help Holland to remember them. Memory is a funny thing. He could recall a detail from a book that I couldn't remember (we had just read the book yesterday!) when I was telling a friend about it. I stumbled and said "oh they turned into something but I can't remember." And Holland piped right up (didn't even know he was following the conversation) and said "Crows. They turned into crows."

Of course, he can also remember when I owe him money (I currently owe him $10), or that he could play with a friend on Friday, or that I promised to go to Fred Meyer. But for some unknown, unexplained reason, he can't remember to pick up all the tiny pieces of radio that he hammered with a crowbar. Yes, that's right. This is our latest "experiment". Taking things apart with a crowbar. But all the environmentalists would love him because he recycled the parts to make a robot and a battery operated vehicle of some sort.

The Birder

I'm blaming this one on Holland's Sunday School teacher. He came home with tiny, tiny seeds in his pocket, wanting to plant them. So I let him get a plastic container, put dirt in it and stick it in the window. He was a little too generous with the watering. And he's a little impatient with the waiting for the seeds to sprout. But within 3 days, our house (and deck and sections of my backyard) have been turned into an environmentally friendly, bird friendly, compost-lovin' sanctuary.

Here's a rundown of what he's accomplished in the last week of school. He planted the seeds from church; he did a potato and celery experiment with dad, which are still in the window; he's taken out food scraps 5 different times to the compost bin (he actually remembered an old apple in his room and took that out!); he collected dead leaves and a couple buckets of cut grass to the compost bin; he's gathered cut limbs from our Christmas tree and hauled them on the deck; he built a bird sanctuary on the deck, filled three bird feeders, scattered corn that the squirrels are too dumb to eat and called grampa to put in his order for a platform bird feeder. We are charting the birds we see in the yard because that's what we're studying in science right now. But as is typical for Holland, we've taken our learning to the extreme. I should say he's very passionate about what he does. He was trying to create a platform feeder out of 4 different objects from the garage and wanted to tear apart my birdbath in the front yard ("because it's chipped anyways").

I did order a platform feeder with some of the money from our Charter school annual budget and we are hoping to attract some woodpeckers and some other birds that like nuts and sunflower hearts. We are learning how to identify the birds by their physical characteristics. He's now looking more closely (literally) at the birds that come in and they're staying because of his little forest project. The birds hop around on the branches and dine on the food. I can't wait to put up a more varied selection and see what flies into our yard! Here are a couple pictures (taken through a window so we didn't scare the birds off) of Holland's bird sanctuary.

Pamela's Pancakes

This morning after dropping Romania at the bus stop, we came home and I made gluten-free pancakes for Egypt and Holland. I've been using a recipe that Super Hero's gramma made when he was growing up. Of course, it used regular flour. I had tried a couple different times to make the same recipe with my own blend of gluten-free flour, but they never tasted right.

Until I found Pamela. She's come up with some magical flour blend that make things taste normal. The mix is for pancakes and waffles and I've used it for brownies, muffins and now my own buttermilk pancake recipe. As a testament to how good they are, Holland downed 8 pancakes this morning. The most he's ever eaten has been maybe 4. And the great thing is this recipe makes a ton of pancakes. The recipe on the flour bag makes probably 6-8 pancakes. And the flour is not cheap - $15 for a 4 pound bag of it. Here is a picture of the plate of pancakes that were left over. Among the three of us, we probably ate 12-13 and this is how many were left! I was told my pancakes were better than any he's ever eaten in a restaurant. *sniff, sniff*

What to post? What to post?

So I was all ready to blog about Holland starting up his projects again. Then I realized that I hadn't posted anything about some friends visiting us from California. Then in the middle of doing that, it started to snow again! This was Sunday afternoon (and it's Tuesday now). This is how long it takes me to form an idea now. Two days. I was so freaked out that it was going to stick again. I didn't hear any forecast of snow in our area. But *whew* by morning, it had all melted. The thought of being stuck in the house again made me claustrophobic.

Now that it's been over a week since Super-Hero's friends have visited, I figured I'd better post about that. Let me just start by saying that it's impossible for adults to have any kind of normal conversation with wild kids in the background. They had just stopped in town for the night and came over for dessert after setting up camp at their hotel. We hadn't seen them since we had them come visit us at the cabin. Our kids had so much fun together. This night was no different. Well, that's not true. It was different because we had 4 wild boys and a girl thrown in the mix and no lake to explore. This friend reads my blog and I'm sure she must think I'm exaggerating every time she reads about Holland's crazy experiments. Well, I couldn't have planned it any better (and I didn't!). We were upstairs so the kids could check out the rooms and the new Christmas toys. We weren't even up there 5 minutes. I looked around and realized we only had Egypt with us. The four boys had disappeared. We went downstairs and there is Holland with vinegar, baking soda and markers and colored water. He wanted to show his new friend his experiments! I couldn't believe that it happened that fast. And now, I have a witness who can testify that it actually does happen! Since then he's rebuilt the cat scratching post, made a spear to catch sturgeon at the lake (this one's a doozy - it has nails hammered in the pointy end all sticking out. You know, so the sturgeon really gets caught when he grabs on!), and several spears with foil on the end. He's had a great time using his pocketknife to whittle the ends of sticks. Only problem is I keep finding shards of wood all over the floor. Oh, I almost forgot the toothpick experiment. He emptied almost an entire box of toothpicks and was trying to make something like a blowdart gun. We will not even go there.

So, here are some pictures of our wild boys. This is the only picture of them sitting still, because it only lasted 5 minutes!

This is what they looked like the entire night.

Christmas Time Is Here

It finally did stop snowing, but we pretty much were stuck for about 10 days in the house. Super-hero dad was able to go to work every day, although he left later than normal. The kids played outside and here are some great pictures of the piles of snow around our house, as well as Christmas Day pictures of the kids and family. Make sure you have your volume up so you can hear the song!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

The Snow Won't End

Not saying that I'm sick of the snow - it's very beautiful. But it's so hard to be stuck in the house with three kids who are getting on each other's nerves. We are running out of staples like milk, bread, fresh fruit and no chance of getting out. Super hero dad went into work today and is stopping at the pharmacy to pick up some meds and milk, but that's about all we're doing.

We made a Chex cereal snack, played Zoombinis, played Rummikub, I did laundry, watched TV, played in the snow, Holland shoveled the sidewalk and built forts for the cats. Here's a little video of Holland as he goes out on the deck and checks out the snow drifts and icicles.

Room Overhaul

On Friday, my mom came over to help me clean out Holland's room. It's just getting so out of control I cannot find the time to even attempt organizing it. I should have taken a before picture, but it's almost too embarrassing to give a permanent account of what it looked like. We got about half way finished cleaning and then I had to take my mom home because of the threat of snow.


On Saturday, we worked more but couldn't finish before the kids went to bed. I had the boys sleep together so I could vacuum and put everything away. I knew that they had the cats with them and went in to check before I went to bed. It was complete darkness when I went in, but I grabbed my camera when I saw what Holland had done. Our cats just love him to death, I'm sure. Cats love to sleep in weird positions and Holland helped Fancy find a comfy new way to sleep. Romania has a loft bed. Just enough room to play underneath and that's where Holland was sleeping. I see this down blanket hanging from the slats of the bed. I tried to pull it down, but it was weighted. Then I realized that he had hung up the cat and she was just laying in there and purring! They're both crazy. So before she decided to crawl out of her hammock, I ran to get my camera. I took the picture in total darkness, so I couldn't even tell if I was getting a picture of the cat. Here she is right before she crawled out.

Here's LuLu sleeping with Romania.

And here is more evidence that cats will sleep anywhere.

Worshipping at home

Today, not surprising, church was cancelled. A lot of things have been cancelled this week. I've only been out once or twice in the last 8 days. But despite all the inconveniences, we have the most beautiful scenery outside right now. I've never seen it snow so much here and on top of all this snow (probably 8 inches or more!) we had freezing rain fall last night. I decided since we weren't having church, we'd do our own worshipping at home. So I had the kids take baths, get their church clothes on and we sat on pillows in front of the tree reading stories about the birth of our Savior. And the cinnamon rolls weren't bad either!

We went out for a quick picture in the snow.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful

It hasn't been this cold, this long for awhile. I'm talking the high the other day was 22. The kids went out and played on Sunday when church got cancelled. I haven't left the house in 4 days. Not that I haven't wanted to. The kids are getting antsy, and I've been doing way too much baking.

What usually happens is the snow falls, it melts and then refreezes, but it doesn't snow again. So we are left with ice rinks for roads. This time, we never got above freezing and now it's supposed to snow again tonight. Romania has had two days off from school so far this week. Well, that's not entirely true. We have still been doing school here - otherwise there would be even more chaos than there already is. We just get out old books and he does work from them. He told me in class they see how much math they can get done in 5 minutes. He told me it takes him only 2 minutes to complete the work. I told him he needs to ask for more work and he said the teacher just said to sit quietly. Yup. That's what happens in a class of 22 kids, a lot of sitting. He did three pages of math today, some writing and vocabulary and read a couple chapters from a book. I still plan to do history and maybe an art project. What I really want to do is make cookies. I have a new GF flour mix I want to test out with my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

The kids feel I'm trying to trick them when I say it's really cold outside. They can't grasp that sunshine wouldn't make it warm. So Holland has tried about 3 times to go outside without gloves and comes in crying because he's so cold. And my heating bill is going to take a beating this month. There have been about three different times I've felt like I was sweating it was so hot in the house. I thought it must be because I was working so hard. That was not the problem. The thermostat had been hiked to 90 degrees in here. Holland gets so cold and that's how he solves the problem. Super-hero has the opposite problem: I woke up to a house that was 55 degrees this morning. I told him I'd rather not feel like I was sleeping outside (although it was 17 last night, so it was actually warmer inside). To which he replied "you have a good sense of hoo-mur". I told him I didn't want humor, I wanted heat.

A Mom's Scientific Experiments

I've been doing my own scientific experiments. It happened last weekend when I (again) helped Romania clean up his room. Only this time, we cleaned it out as well. I gave him two blue metal boxes and told him whatever he could fit in there was what he could keep in his room. He picked Bionicles and Legos (good choices: nice small parts). Everything else was put in his closet with a lock on it. The results of my experiment? I've come to the conclusion that garbage multiplies. Every two or three months, I go into one of the boys' rooms and I haul out enough garbage to fill a plastic garbage bag. How does this happen? Every time we clean up I feel like I've picked up everything that could be construed as garbage. The floor is perfectly clean; boxes are stacked nicely in the closet; all clothes are put back where they belong.

So I reached a conclusion, but I haven't figured out how it happened. There is some kind of molecular force that causes garbage to seek out other garbage and bind to those molecules. My next experiment will be how to keep those molecules from binding. I need federal funding (or maybe my "redistributed wealth") to conduct these experiments.

You Call That Art??

This morning after dropping Romania at his bus stop, I got to chatting with two other moms. I usually don't stay because I want to get right to Holland's schooling. But this morning one of the moms was talking about her son getting a referral, so I was curious. She said her son had brought clay on the bus and had made a body part. An inappropriate body part. She said her son fessed right up, didn't even wait for someone to confront him and he felt really bad. But the other mom's son had been sitting nearby and she said "was considered an accomplice". Whatever that means. She has some pretty strong ideas about what is appropriate for kids. Her son got in trouble for downloading vulgar songs on his iPod and passing it around on the bus. (She thought the school over-reacted.) So I wasn't surprised when she said that making clay body parts was a form of art expression and they should be allowed to do it! I spoke right up and said, "not at that age!" I knew that I would have to work hard to instill a Christian worldview with Romania being in a public school setting. What I (naively) didn't factor in was other parents having such strong liberal views.

So Long Mr. Telemarketer

This morning during school with Holland, the phone rang. I usually keep the ringer off so we aren't disturbed and can work without him being distracted. The phone downstairs had the ringer on, so I looked at the number. It said "New Jersey". I do not know anyone in New Jersey, so I didn't bother picking it up. Holland thought that Egypt answered it upstairs, but I thought the answering machine came on. We went back to work and then to Costco. When we got home I picked up the phone to dial a number and the screen showed "line in use". Sometimes one of the three phones will get bumped and the Talk button will get pushed. I went upstairs and found the phone call from New Jersey had been left on for 4 1/2 hours! I wonder what that telemarketer did when the line wasn't disconnected!

Cat's Cradle

Did you ever play that game as a kid? I loved that game! Just a few months ago, I remember begging my sister to play that with me. And because we're so stupid, we couldn't get past about 5 or 6 turns. Then we just laughed because we're old and our kids think we're weird. For some reason Holland decided he wanted to make his room look like a giant Cat's Cradle. I didn't even get a picture because Egypt decided she needed to cut it all down because she had to rescue one of the cats (who didn't need rescuing, by the way). He had used half a roll of curling ribbon and strung it all over his room. His plan was that if his sister or brother came in in the middle of the night, he would have a light sensor set up by the door and then they would get caught in all the ribbon. What he didn't count on was his sister cutting it all to pieces.

He actually wasn't as mad as I was preparing myself for. The next day he had two old phones, more ribbon, blankets and bungee cords strung around the room. I'm not even asking what it is. I guess I should be thankful that he wants to create - but the experiments are getting pretty elaborate. When I was getting two of the kids ready for church on Sunday, he came up with blue fingers. I asked what it was and he said he was doing an experiment with water and food coloring (of course. Why did I need to ask that?) He got out baking soda and vinegar and wanted to see if the water bubbled the same color as he put into the cup. This is my fault. We used to shoot foam rockets 100 feet into the air in our driveway with vinegar and baking soda.

I think he's going to be a spy.

Happy Turkey Day!

Today we packed up food, some kids and Holland's bow and arrow (don't ask) and went to my in-law's cabin for the day. It only ended up being about 7 hours, but it was long enough. There were 18 of us there, so it was cozy. I was supposed to bring corn, peas and a dessert. I went to Martha's website and found this yummy looking chocolate ganache tart. It even had this little video that showed exactly what to do. It called for bittersweet chocolate and after googling "unsweetened" I felt confident that it was interchangeable. Let me just say it wasn't. I was supposed to pour the ganache into the prepared tart crust. When I got through heating the cream and pouring it over the chopped chocolate (12 ounces of it), it was as thick as cookie dough. I called my mom to see if I could salvage it. She told me to taste it, maybe it wasn't that bad. It was gross! There was no possible way of saving it, so I had to dump it all! I used 1 and a half boxes of those chocolate squares. I only had two left. Some little stinker found out that those little chocolate squares weren't as good as they looked. Isn't that how we all found out?

The recipe was for a chocolate pudding filling that was supposed to firm up once refrigerated. My sister called this morning and asked how the pie came out. I said I wasn't going to look until we left and if it didn't turn out, we'd stop at Fred's on the way to the cabin. :-) It didn't look like it had set and when we cut into 7 hours later, my suspicions were confirmed. How could I mess up two different chocolate recipes? Note to self: chocolate is finicky and do not attempt any more chocolate pie recipes. On the up side, my 2o year-old niece was impressed with it and was doing a splendid job of selling it to her cousins. I only came home with 1/4 pie left and there were 3 other desserts to choose from! So, all in all, I guess it was successful.

Here's a picture of the beasts on the deck of the cabin. I was hoping to get a nice shot for Christmas card pictures, but there was something wrong with each one in every picture.

Question of the Day

Do cat's eyebrows grow back? Are they even called eyebrows? Egypt has done her own types of projects lately. First, there was the stuffed bear patient who got bandaged after a haircut. Now we have a cat that has gum stuck between her eyes. Egypt really likes gum, but recently she hasn't been very good about disposing the gum.

The other day she asked me if I had seen Fancy's face. When I found the cat, there was a chunk of gum stuck right between her eyes on the top of her nose. There was no way of picking this out. So I got out the scissors. And cut. And some of her eyebrows got cut. I took a 'before' picture, but they're all blurry because she wouldn't stand still. You need like 3 hands when you're trying to take a close-up of a cat.

The Pizzeria

This morning when Romania woke up, he was coughing and had a fever. Today was our co-op and I was supposed to help teach the math games class. I had to call one of the gals in charge and tell her I wouldn't be able to come in. I hate to do that because it puts everyone in a tight situation, trying to find another mom to fill in. I wasn't feeling so great myself, so we all had a very quiet day at home. Holland also had his weekly meeting with our ES and his speech therapy. I didn't want to take Romania out so Super Hero was able to take sick leave and take Holland to his meetings.

I decided to experiment with pizza dough again for dinner. I found a blog by a woman that was diagnosed with celiac as an adult. She had tons of recipes and it sounded like she had done all my experimenting for me. I had all 4 of the flours the recipe called for and made Holland his own personal pizza. I know from experience that making a gluten-free pizza is not something that the other two kids like, so I made a second pizza dough in my bread machine. I seriously can't believe that he ate it. The recipe said the crust would be sticky before you roll it out. It wasn't. It looked like pebbles of dough. I added more water to at least get it all to stick together. Then when I rolled it out, I couldn't even pick it up. It crumbled and I had to flip it onto the baking pan without touching it. You're supposed to bake it first and then add the toppings and bake again. When it came out of the oven, it was all cracked. It did not look appetizing and didn't look like what the blogger described, but I didn't say anything. He ate it and said it tasted good. Wow. He's so brave.

Then I made two more pizzas - pepperoni for Egypt and Romania, and a pesto, mozzarella, chicken and tomato one for me. So now I'm a regular pizzeria.

A Good Day For Blogging

You know it's going to be a banner day for blogging when you walk into your room and find your 4 year-old standing wide eyed and saying, "I'm sorry." This is what I found in my bathroom after Egypt asked if I would please come to her room with her. I had a really hard time not laughing when I was scolding her. At first I thought she had cut her hair because there were scissors and chunks of blonde hair on the floor. After taking the towel off of her patient, I realized that the hair on the floor was the bear's. And if you notice the bandaids, she covered each spot that she cut with a "Cars" bandage. She even put the mirror on the floor so "Rocky" could look at herself.

This is how I spend my days: trying to make a grumpy 9 year-old do his writing; cleaning up bear hair; unclogging toilets; sweeping old food off the floor and picking up a dirty towel that was shoved under the couch and reeks of milk. It took me about a week to figure out where the smell was coming from. I thought it was one of Romania's stinky shoes. This is why I never feel like cooking dinner. Or cleaning up. Or doing laundry. It's one big hideous cycle of events. Holland has done exactly one page of math today. After his OT appointment and dropping off the shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child, we came home and tried to work. He complained of just about everything. We had tried eliminating one of his meds to see if the gluten-free diet had anything to do with his behavior. He's gone back to his "old" self and is not doing good. So I spent most of the day with a crying, complaining and depressed boy. At one point I gave him a CD audiobook so he could rest on his bed. He listened to one disc and then decided building a lego destroyer ship was way better than schoolwork. Now at 4.45 p.m. he's irritated that I'm making him finish school.

Like I said. Banner day.

Community Service Project

Today was a school-wide day off for Romania. They scheduled a day so that each student could participate in a community service project. They gave lots of ideas but we ended up filling our shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. We went to Target and found so many great things. I bought plastic boxes this year. I've always done regular shoe boxes but thought this way the recipient would have something more permanent to keep his treasures in.

The kids each chose to buy for a boy or girl of a certain age group. The boys picked out things like toy cars, hard candy, an etch-a-sketch, toothbrush and toothpaste, crayons and a drawing tablet. Egypt chose things for a girl between 2 and 4. She chose a stuffed zebra, some hair clips and ties, hard candy, princess stickers, a bracelet, a pink pen and drawing pad and some playdoh. After lunch we wrapped the boxes and Romania even wrote a letter to his new friend. We included paper and an envelope addressed to him in case the child wants to write back.

Go to Samaritan's Purse and find out how you can help. Either pack your own box for donation or make a donation online to help with shipping costs.

The Budding Artist

Today while reading history to Holland, Egypt kept trying to sit on my lap. Well, her head's so big that I can't see what I'm reading (actually it's her hair. same thing). So I tried distracting her with an art project. I gave her a nice clean tablet of paper and a big bag of colored pencils. She went right to work. When I looked down, she was half way done with a picture with a lot of green in it. She said, "This is a girl who is hiding behind a bush."

"Oh, that's nice." She's always making up stories, songs and silly sentences, that I didn't think much about it. Then she said,

"It's a girl hiding behind a bush and looking at her brother on the water."

Oh, of course! It was Miriam! She drew and colored a picture of Miriam watching Moses. She said they learned about her in Sunday School "last night" (everything's 'last night' to a 4 year-old.) Holland was so impressed. She even made thank-you cards the other day for her grandparents, aunt and cousin (he played 'cats' with her, so she sent him a card) and signed her name. I didn't even know she could spell it by herself. She has said the letters before, but not in the right order.

It's amazing how fast things come together when you're not looking. By the way, Miriam is the pink blob at the top of the picture. It's hard to tell, but she's actually got a smiling face! How do you like her bush? She's finally graduated to using more than one color for a picture.

Deja Vu

So when Holland was about 2, he loved playing with my cats, Molly and Millicent. They were both very tolerant, Millicent more so. One day he was busy playing and came over to me and signed "cat, cold". I didn't really get what he meant, so I asked him to show me. He walked over to the refrigerator and pointed. I opened the door and sure enough, there was the cat.

Today I was getting lunch packed for Romania and Egypt was helping me in the kitchen. We both heard one of our new kitties meowing and couldn't find her. We walked over by the desk in the kitchen, more meowing. Walked into the school room, and could still hear the meowing. Walked back into the kitchen and noticed that the fridge door was a bit open. I opened it and out walked Fancy. Apparently when I was getting peanut butter and jam out she had walked in and then I closed the door.

I sure hope that Egypt doesn't get any ideas from this. She really doesn't need any help in the naughty department.