Adrienne has entered into love of learning!

We homeschool. A lot of people ask me how or why I do it. Actually, it is so much fun (most of the time) and I could not imagine sending my children away to gain an education when all the love and learning opportunities are right here in our home. We homeschool the Thomas Jefferson way. In this style of education we focus on the phases that each child goes through. The first is the core phase. This is a time when a child explores through play and learns right and wrong and true and false. The next phase is the love of learning phase. In this phase the child starts to desire knowledge and bounces from subject to subject devouring information. My oldest, Emma Lynn, is 10, and has been in love of learning for a while now. We have a lot of fun together. Emma Lynn learned to read very early and has been crazy about reading ever since. She gains a lot of knowledge through reading and discovery.
Adrienne is a different child from Emma Lynn. I know every child is different, but she is really different. If she were in public school, I am sure she would be labeled as ADHD and I would probably be advised to medicate her. She has been a star "core" kid and I thought she would be in core phase for a while longer. She is 7 and has been reading for a while, but has not yet grasped a love of literature (let's put it that way). But Adrienne is fun. A lot of fun. She has this wild, loudness about her that just melts your heart and makes you want to climb a tree and play tag. She is the essence of childhood. Adrienne runs around and screams and gets in your face and kisses you. It's an honor to be her mother.
Today was a special day. It started off as a normal Tuesday: breakfast, music practice, stewardships (our word for chores) with plenty of complaining, school. School started with greek myths and then math. Then Adrienne starts walking around and pacing. This is not unusual. She stops and says, "I want to learn about how things work."
"What kind of things?" I ask.
More pacing.
"I don't know. I just want to look in something and find out about it."
"Do you want to take apart the microwave?" I ask sarcastically (not a stellar trait of mine)
"No, no. I don't know how to explain it"
"Can you give me an example?"
"I don't know how to give an example", Adrienne says, not frustrated but a little puzzled in her head. "I want to know how things work but I don't want to look in a book." I have noticed that our great "how things work" book has been in her room. Finally she says, "Like velcro!! I want to know how velcro works. I want to look at velcro and see how it works."
It was like a chain reaction. After studying the workings of velcro, (about which Emma Lynn wrote an impressive report) Adrienne wanted to read about the human body. This went into a lengthy discussion about the digestive system and we read a great picture book about the human body. Adrienne then needed to wrestle her sister to see how her body worked. Then we went upstairs to find Jesse working on the mandolin. He was using the piano to tune the new set of strings. This gave me an idea. I opened up the bottom and top of our upright piano and hollered to Adrienne. All the kids gathered as we took turns playing songs and looking inside the piano. (I took the opportunity to vacuum the cobwebs out of this piano). Adrienne was totally captivated. She was exploring all kinds of things. It was this love of learning breakthrough! It was one of the best school days we have ever ever had.

Catch Up

Well, as I am sitting on my freshly made bed on a Sunday afternoon feeling guilty about playing Angry Birds (a ridiculous game on my ipod that I am ashamed to say we are all addicted to), I decide to do the opposite of playing Angry Birds, something, anything, productive. After hearing people chat about their blogs (even my anti-television homeschooling friends blog!) I have decided that I am not much of a blogger. Someone will say something which will surprise me and they say something precocious like, "Well, didn't you read it on my blog?" No! I don't even update my own blog. So, I going to update my blog right now.
First, I am going back to Halloween 2010, just because it is my favorite holiday and if there is any stranger out there that would likely benefit from my blog, it would be because of my Halloween costumes. This past Halloween, we were, what were we?? Oh yes, the Beatles. My four girls dressed up as Paul, John, George, and Ringo from the cover of their Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band album. It was really fun. I just got some cute tunic pattern from Walmart and, matching the colors, added some flair and bling that resembled the original costumes. Fake mustaches add the perfect touch, if I might add, get the cheap pack with 12 different mustaches so you can replace chewed up mustaches when needed.
Jesse and I dressed up as hippies to complement the band. But, that was just Halloween day and night. We were invited to a killer adult only Halloween party complete with DJ. For that, I worked all month on a Scarlet O'Hara costume for myself (Jesse and I having just read Gone with the Wind). We (meaning I) had to be flexible when Jesse could not come to the party (he was in San Francisco at some major sporting event ;) ). So, my best friend, Katherine, came with me as Rhett Butler. We were a hit. The best part was the hoop skirt that I ordered on clearance for $17!!


So, that brings us to Christmas. Jillian and her family came
to celebrate. It was lovely. Tracy, my dear friend who homeschools as well, decided that a group of us NEEDED to sew all of our girls skirts for Christmas. I was stoked to have some gal pal time while sewing and have a great gift for my girls. Then we actually got together. It was fun, but I am a laid back seamstress and it seemed like most of the others were the uptight kind and some of the uptight kind couldn't really even work a sewing machine. Plus, what started out to be a small gathering ended up being gigantic. 20 skirts were made in the end. I did the ruffles. 100 ruffles. It got completely out of control! It required a couple of late nights and an all-nighter to complete them, as well as lots of delicious food. But, they turned out freaking adorable!

My Dad is here!

Three years ago this Christmas, my father told me that he was seriously thinking of moving to Idaho. "It's a no-brainer", he said. He's right. The cost of living here is wonderfully low compared to most places in the United States and for someone who loves to fish, it is a good fit. He wanted someplace to retire. Quietly. He does not like traffic, he hates crowds. In my mind, my father was an Idahoan at heart.
So, my father retires this past March and puts his house on the market. Of course, three years after the original thought of moving to Idaho, the economy has changed greatly. His house sat on the market for months. He knew that if he was going to sell it, he was going to have to lower the price. He also knew that if he lowered the price, Idaho was going to be, dare I say it, too expensive. There were cheaper places with more retirement communities. More of what my father and his wife, Christine, wanted.
My only real (unselfish) desire was that they would find a place that would make them happy. I prayed. We prayed. Always in our prayers was that my father would sell his house and they would be able to move to where they wanted to go. Well, they did sell their house, for A LOT less than they wanted. Idaho was not to be their home. I was crushed but, my prayer was the same: that they would find happiness. I trusted that all would work out and even now that their plans had changed and they would be somewhere else, I trusted that the Lord would answer my prayer and that they would be happy. That was what I really wanted. If happiness was not to happen in Idaho, than let them go to Florida or North Carolina.
Shortly after North Carolina was decided on, I received a phone call from my dad saying that Christine had found a home in their price range, in the neighborhood they wanted, and it was in Idaho! It was just put on the market a few days before. "Your prayers have been answered", my father said. Hallelujah! Halle-freaking-lujah!
Today, they arrived. My dad and his wonderful wife. At dinner, they recapped their adventures and included the morning they found their home. "It was Sunday", Christine said. "I told your Dad that Jennifer must have been praying this morning." More than they will ever know!

Clinton's words of wisdom, another story from the farm

Clinton is 80-something. He is getting older by the second. Some days he does not get out of bed. It is a great pleasure to help him with his goats. It is an even greater pleasure to hear his tales from years gone by.
The other day, he told me a story of his father. His father was a sugar beat farmer for many years. One day, while irrigating, Clinton found his father digging. He was causing the irrigation water to go around a certain part of the field, a field planted with sugar beats. Clinton questioned his father as to why he would block the water from coming to this part of the field. Clinton's father showed him that we was protecting a bird's nest for getting ruined from the water. "How strange to sacrifice some of your crops for the sake of a few birds", thought Clinton. His father explained to him. "It has always been my experience that if you help God's creations, He will help you."
When it was time to harvest, the beats in that area of the field that should have died from lack of water, were the biggest of the crop.

Our Family Pictures

We had these pictures taken at the end of August. It was a little bit of a miserable day, but they turned out pretty darn cute. Dont worry, family, you will be getting these in Christmas card form any day now ;)

Halloween, my favorite holiday

Another Halloween. One year since I began our family blog. I am excited to share with you this year's theme: Alice in Wonderland. I love doing family themes. I love doing literary characters. We are currently reading Lewis Carroll's classic and have decided to base our theme around it. I have spent hours creating costumes... many hours... many selfish hours. I admit, I love it. I love creating costumes for our family.
Costume one: Mad Hatter
Jesse, in the beginning of our marriage, complained about my dressing him up for Halloween. This year, he has nothing but pride for his almost perfect mad hatter costume. I found a tutorial on how to make a hat. It looked simple as I watched it while in bed with the swine flu. Poster board: check. Fabric: check. Heavy wire: I could find that. I could do this....right?!? It was anything but simple. But, all of my efforts paid off. It hardly looks anything like the professional hat in the tutorial, but it is great. In fact, he won the best costume award last night at the ward Halloween party. The rest of the costume was purchased at the local thrift store, the best source for Halloween treasures.

Costume Two: Alice
Now, I did cheat with this one. I just used the Dorothy costume from 2 years ago and made a white eyelet cotton apron to go over it. No one knew the difference.

Costume Three: Queen of Hearts.
I got the pattern from walmart and after making shakespeare dresses for myself and Kayla, I absolutely refused to work with anything silky. So, cotton for the dress and velvet fabric for the jacket. It took time but, it turned out beautiful.

Costume Four: White rabbit. The ultimate in short cuts. Nothing made and everything bought. I am working through the guilt. White sweats and "instant costume kit" from walmart, vest and watch chain from the thrift store.

Costume five: Caterpillar.
I did have the vision of fashioning a hookah for Elizabeth but, that didn't happen. I just added hands and feet to an old sleeper and made some antennas from pipe cleaners and pom poms. What would we do with out pipe cleaners and pom poms?

Costume six: Card

I wanted to be a two of spades. I wanted to make cheesy jokes like "I am such a card!" and "What the deuce!". I am going to show you how I did this since it is of my own design. White felt body. Applique spades and 2's. I just printed these out from the computer and traced them onto heat and bond. Remember, everything needs to be drawn on the heat and bond backwards for it to turn out the right way. Trust me, I speak from experience. The back of the card was tricky. I

taped off a design with masking tape and sponged fabric paint of the rest. After pulling off the masking tape, I ended up with a somewhat typical card back design. Trial and error. I finally added some heavy stabilizer to make the costume as stiff as possible. Honestly, it ended up a little too stiff and a little hard to maneuver in. It think just a heavy iron-on interfacing would

have worked better.

At the Halloween party, we all got lots of compliments. I just about passed out when someone made the comment, "Well, isnt that simple". What the deuce!

Road Trip, Day 16 Driving home

WE ARE HOME!! We had a delightful drive today and now I am finally in my own bed. Jesse and I made a list of the best and worst things. It is kind of the Academy Awards (heehee) of the road trip.
1. Cheapest gas - Arkansas @ 2.34 a gallon
2. Most Construction - We had Oklahoma however, We now have a tie between Oklahoma and Wyoming
3. Best Meal - Mariscos La Playa in Albuquerque
4. Best Road - Oklahoma, toll express way through Indian country
5. Prettiest Person - The gal at the entrance to the Grand Canyon. She was like part native american, part greek, part goddess... Even Adrienne in the back of the car kept saying, "She's pretty"
6. Most Nauseating Road - Arkansas, the "roller coaster" road... oi
7. Coolest Animal Encounter - The lion cubs at the Safari in Arkansas
8. Funniest Billboard (parental advisory) - "Big Jims Booby Bigelow" exotic dancers at the border of Tennessee
9. Nicest People - Alabama (cant beat that southern hospitality)
10. Funniest town Names - Cliff Dwellers, Arizona , Nowhere, Tennessee , and Effingham, Illinois
11. Best Audio book - "Stop the Train" It is a riot! (Thanks Tracy for suggesting it!)
12. Most Family Friendly Restaurant - O' Charleys , the have FREE kids meals
13. Best Rest Area - That great place that had a big play area for the kids, Rend Lake, Illinois