Summer Tree Study

We’re not doing so great with our summer light schooling/next year school planning/deep cleaning the house routine I set up at the beginning of the week.  I feel torn between too many different projects, and have lost a lot of my focus.  But we were excited to see this week’s challenge which was to follow up on the tree we studied in the spring (or two trees as I got talked into back in May.) 

We studied the quaking aspen (technically there are 3 of them now in a grove) at Grandma and Poppa’s house again and noticed quite a change: 

  

It has filled out so much with all the full-grown leaves.  I think this is the first time ever that I’ve really noticed the drastic change in that tree from spring to summer!  We searched in vain for the bird nest that we know is there, but it was impossible to find.  We did find a bird though.

I have no idea what kind it is, I couldn’t even see it very well–thank goodness for cameras that zoom in.  We got about 20 seconds of quiet listening in, if that, but we could hear the wind rustling the leaves and we heard several different birds.  We also had fun playing with a ladybug C found. 

Tonight we went out to study the maple next door.  Again, what a difference a season makes!

I think it has finally grown wider than it is tall.  Again, we got in about 15 seconds of quiet listening time in which we heard the leaves rustling and traffic.  We looked closely at the tree and A found ants and a spider crawling up the trunk. 

The leaves are now so big, they won’t fit into the little box on our tree study sheet, so everybody did some rubbings of the leaves and the seeds.  We noticed that the new branches on the maple produce lighter green leaves than the older branches.

C’s sheet, he wrote MAPLE all by himself:

A’s sheet for the maple and the quaking aspen:

  

We can’t wait to see the difference once autumn hits.

 Brigham Young Historic Park, June 2008

I’ve kind of missed doing weekly reports the last two weeks.  Of course we haven’t done a whole lot worth reporting on, but I always like going back over our week’s activities.  Aside from massive cleaning, we’ve been reading the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books together and have enjoyed them immensely.  The boys think they are hilariously funny and I like that they focus on undesirable behaviors in children and what can happen when taken to the extreme.  We’ve had some good conversations about some of our own bad habits and where they could lead us, and I’ve seen some improvement I’m happy to say.  Now we’re enjoying Mr. Popper’s Penguins. 

A dear sister in our ward, a new service missionary, offered to cut the boys hair for me so we went down to her home on Saturday and they sat so still for her.  They never sit still for me and they all look great.  I need to have their pictures taken now.  I usually do it for their birthdays, but somehow we just never made it in this year.  I’m waiting for A’s front tooth to fall out though.  It’s just hanging there at a very weird angle and his big tooth has already grown down in front of it.  I’d like a portrait done without three front teeth!

C gave a talk in Primary yesterday and I actually remembered to go in to hear him.  Last Sunday D had the scripture to give and I completely forgot about it.  Luckily DH remembered and was on hand to help him say it.  Speaking of church, the Relief Society Presidency has decided that our family needs to go on vacation.  For the second holiday weekend in a row, I will be the only member of the presidency to be at church so I’m lucky enough to teach and conduct the meeting.  Now I have six days to figure out a topic and prepare a lesson.

The best part of last week was Friday.  We went to homeschool park day, then DH took a break from working to take us all to the theater to see WALL.E.  It was the funniest, most charming, delightful, did I mention funny? movie I’ve seen in a long time.  Go see it!!  We all loved it and the accompanying short (even though the previews for Journey to the Center of the Earth about scared C and D to death.)  It put me in the mood to see one of my all time favorite musicals Hello, Dolly! which I (too late!) discovered was on KBYU Friday night. 

I had great plans to get back into some school work this week and work on some of my other projects but I failed miserably today.  I did not get a good night’s sleep last night.  I keep waking up way too early then I toss and turn until I finally go back to sleep just in time to need to get up again.  Crabby.  I should just get out of bed the first time.  The boys did really well last week.  They finally figured out that I was going to be decluttering for the better part of each day (or attempting to anyway) and they found things to occupy themselves with and we all got along well.  Today was not so great, although I think it was more me than them.  I’m going on about day 15 or so of being practically a single parent.  DH has been working A LOT (unpaid overtime this weekend, unfortunately) to finish up some work by the end of the month, which thankfully is today.  I’m tired of this.

We got a late start this morning and DH decided to tell me that our new next door neighbor works nights, sleeps days, and probably doesn’t appreciate our noise outside in the morning.  We’ve been playing outside in the morning before it really heats up.  So today we decided to go somewhere.  But going somewhere in the car is more work than just going out in the backyard although we found a really nice, shady park.  We came home and though I have a stack of books on airplanes, I have no real plans for them yet.  So we watched two videos on the Wright Brothers and Flight and called it good for today.  This will be a very low key study of airplanes, I’m in summer vacation mode but we need some structure.  We will wrap it up with a visit to the museum up at Hill AFB.  They will love that.

So the new daily plan that I totally didn’t follow today goes something like this, or rather will include the following:

• Scriptures
• Piano practice for A
• 30-60 minutes cello practice for me
• Outdoor play in the morning
• 1 hour of school to include airplane study, reading lessons for C, and they still want to study reptiles and amphibians that we didn’t get to in our animal study this winter
• Outdoor Hour challenges once a week
• 1 hour of planning for 2nd grade/kindergarten
• 1-2 hours of decluttering

Hopefully tomorrow will go more like I have planned.  I should go to bed now, even though it’s 10:29 p.m. and DH is still at work and I really miss him.  At least the boys are finally asleep after they got out of bed to give D’s stuffed animals a bath then carried them back into his bed dripping water all the way.  I was not happy.  This after he almost made the bathroom sink overflow with bubbles and water before I got to him this afternoon.  He’s really into water lately.   

I always intend to blog about the thoughts and insights I’m gaining from all my 888 books.  But I never seem to do it, it’s about all I can do to just keep up with my reading alongside everything else going on in my life.  (I’ve finished 20 books!)  But as I’ve been reading 10 Secrets Wise Parents Know: Tried and True Things You Can Do to Raise Faithful, Confident, Responsible Children by Brent Top and Bruce Chadwick, several passages have really stood out to me as I have been desiring to know how to raise faithful children. 

In chapter 2, “Lead Children to a Personal Relationship with God,” the authors talk about different dimensions of religiosity that make up religious character:

Public religious behaviors such as Church attendance and involvement in activities and programs.

Professed religious beliefs, such as acceptance of the reality of God and a general belief in the doctrines and teachings of the Church.

Private religious practices, such as personal prayer, scripture study, and fasting.

Personal spirituality and spiritual experiences, such as feeling the Spirit, receiving answers to prayers, and making religion an important part of life.
                                                                                       –page 39

Developing personal spirituality will have a more profound impact on our children and their ability to stand strong and withstand temptations in life.  The first three practices or behaviors are very important, but they are the means to an end–personal spirituality and testimony.  Of course we want our children to attend church and other activities, but we should not overlook the end goal.  I think more important than what we do, is what we are becoming. 

“External behaviors, no matter how noble and right they are, cannot guarantee salvation. . . We need to be as concerned about our children’s spiritual development, therefore, as we are about their Church attendance and involvement in activities and programs.  All is not necessarily well in Zion just because we attend church or talk about our lessons at Sunday dinner.
                                                                                                –page 40, 41

As parents, we need to encourage things such as personal prayer and scripture study that will help our children have spiritual experiences and develop strong testimonies of their own.  I know we’ll be talking about personal prayers tomorrow night for family home evening.  I’ve noticed that all the bedtime prayers around here really sound like family prayers, even when DH and I help the younger ones pray.  We need to start emphasizing a more personal approach to prayer so the boys can develop a greater personal relationship with their Heavenly Father. 

I was very impressed a few days ago though when A told me that he had said a prayer before he got out of bed that morning.  All the boys are morning people who get up at the crack of dawn and I definitely am not, so I rarely have the opportunity to remind them to say a personal prayer when they get up in the morning.  I think this will be one of our goals for next month. 

In this month’s Ensign, there was an excellent article on teaching our youth and preparing them for leadership.  I really liked this quote from Elder Ballard:

“We have raised the bar.  But that doesn’t raise it just for the youth.  That raises it for the parents, who have the primary responsibility for teaching their children principles.  That raises it for the leaders.  That raises it for the teachers.  We’ve all got to take a step up in a world that is unraveling as fast as this one is.

We see that they love the Lord.  Remember that He loves them.  Inside the little body of that young man or young woman you’re teaching is an eternal spirit.  These young people belong to our Heavenly Father, and He has great interest in the lives of all His children.  We need to keep the fire of that testimony burning in them.”

It’s humbling and occasionally overwhelming to see these three little boys and know that I have the primary responsibility (with DH) on this earth to teach them correct principles and guide them to gaining that testimony that they will need.  In the past few weeks, I feel like I have been bombarded with parenting advice–from the Ensign, the conference talks, the scriptures.  Everywhere I turn, I’m finding the help that I need and desire.  I’m grateful that I’m able to receive inspiration in this most challenging, yet rewarding, calling. 

So, there hasn’t been anything too exciting to blog about this week.  We’re here, deep cleaning the house.  Still.  As I am surrounded by a literal mountain of paper clutter in the living room, I thought I’d sit down and take stock of what I have accomplished.  I have time–I’ll be up until about midnight waiting for my bread to finish baking that I completely forgot to start earlier.  I didn’t want to turn the oven on to 400 degrees in the heat of the day, but didn’t notice how late it had gotten since it feels like the sun takes forever to go down.  As A said tonight as we were (finally) sitting down to eat, “It’s 7:30 already?!  It’s so sunny outside, it only seems like it’s 4:00.”  Yeah, to me too buddy.  I keep forgetting to make dinner, it just doesn’t feel like dinnertime, then the boys are up late, then I get a late start on bread baking and here I am.  I forgot to water my pathetic little garden earlier too so I was out there with a flashlight and the watering can.  Where does the time go?!

As for the house:  Plan A was to take care of all the surface clutter, then deep clean everything else.  I hate dealing with clutter (quite obvious by the look of things) so Plan B then became to move all the clutter into the living room where it would nag at me to sort through it while I cleaned everything else.  That’s actually going pretty well.  My half of the bedroom is clean and the music room is very clean except for the top of the piano.  The entryway looks great, although I’m still wondering why I found a size 2 winter coat on the coat rack when my youngest child is 3 1/2.  Has it really been two years since I cleaned the coat rack off?!

My biggest problem is rearranging and finding homes for items sitting around.  I feel like every cupboard, closet, or drawer I open is just begging to be cleaned out.  I thought I could get all the visible clutter taken care of first, but I really need to go through the entire house and expose what lurks in every last nook and cranny.  Plan C, very briefly, was to just empty the whole house out into the front yard and only move back in what we really use and need.  But then I was afraid DH would say, “Why don’t we just move now that everything is out of the house?” and I really don’t want to have that conversation right now.  I’m not ready for suburbia, but that’s a post for another day.

I’m happy that I’ve crossed off more than I’ve added to my to-do list from last week.  So far I have

• Planted my tomatoes outside
• Reshelved all the cds floating around the house
• Reshelved all my cello sheet music that has been sitting in a pile in the music room since last summer and found I have more than will fit on the designated shelf
• Rearranged about 4 bookcases so I have an easily accessible shelf in a central spot for all the school books for next year, now the goal will be to replace them each day
• Organized the game/puzzle cupboard
• Written a short bio for a cd project we just completed
• Checked out about 15 books on airplanes to start studying with the boys next week
• Mopped, dusted, sneezed, mopped some more, dusted some more, sneezed a lot more, vacuumed, moved furniture. . .

One day I’ll reclaim my living room floor and things will be looking pretty good around here. 

It could be awhile though. . .

We got behind on the outdoor hour challenges while we were trying to officially finish up first grade, but we really wanted to do this one on leaves, and we hope to continue the challenges throughout the summer.  We’ve waited so patiently for all the trees we were focusing on to finally get some leaves.  We’ve actually been outside quite a bit lately, but kept forgetting to bring something to press some in.  It’s also been getting really, really hot.  But this morning we went for a short walk just up our block to see what kinds of different leaves we could find (besides maples, there are a lot of maples on our street.)

I’ve been doing a bit of tree sleuthing and finally identified the tree across the street with all the white blossoms (which are now gone) as a horse chestnut.  I’m pretty certain that the smaller tree similar to this with pink blossoms that we saw in Memory Grove a few weeks ago is some other kind of buckeye tree.  We’ll have to go back to look at the leaves closer now.

   

After learning the parts of a leaf, we crossed the street to gather some horse chestnut leaves and both old and new chestnuts for our collection. 

Of course then I was reading more about them and found out they’re poisonous so maybe we won’t keep them after all!

After our walk, we brought all the leaves we gathered back home to sort and identify.  We have horse chestnut, cherry, maple, ivy, some red ones we don’t know yet, and some off the tree in our back yard, possibly locust.

C and D lost interest at this point, but A and I learned that the horse chestnut leaves are palmately compound and the green ones we can’t identify are even compound leaves.  The light green, newer maple leaf had very distinct dark green veins that were wonderful for observing. 

We did some leaf rubbings for our nature journals.  A did maple and I did cherry and ivy leaves. 

Another tree we’ve identified is this one, also at Memory Grove.  It’s a staghorn sumac whose dark red berries remain on the tree through winter (which was when we first saw it.)  We need to collect leaves from this one too and get caught up on our field guide tree cards. 

I’m amazed that once I identify a new kind of tree, I begin to notice it everywhere.  A is the same way, he’s always pointing out maple trees along the side of the road when we’re driving. 

And C continues to point out Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns. 

Three days, that’s all.  We’re done.  Summer vacation is over! 

Seriously, we can’t handle more than three days in a row of nothing scheduled, nothing planned, just playing and relaxing. 

(**I just noticed this is post #333.  How fun is that?  I’m such a numbers geek!)

Actually I think I could go for quite awhile longer, but the boys are done.  They’ve gone to town playing with the trains, cars, and all of their other toys all week, but by last night they were starting to argue with each other and didn’t want to pick up their toys any more.  Today was much better because we had Grandma here to play the aMaze-ing Labyrinth game and the frog matching game with.  She read to the boys, and folding laundry is always much more fun when you’re trying to beat Grandma’s counting.  She also cleaned my stovetop.  It was great!

I know from prior experience that the boys can only go so long with no structured activities.  We thrive on structure around here.  A has been practicing the piano, though not until 4 p.m. one day, and has done a lot of reading.  In fact, tonight before bed we read a chapter of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle about the don’t-want-to-go-to-bedders.  A said, “I love to go to bed, that’s when I can read a lot.”  (And yet, he still wakes up at the crack of dawn!)  But we’re trying to do piano and scriptures right after breakfast from now on, play outside or take walks in the mornings, and spend the afternoons inside, finding constructive activities for them that will also let me work on the house as I need to.   They’d love to jump right back into school and get going on the Middle Ages, but Mommy needs this break!

Although honestly, I really haven’t been relaxing as much as I had intended to.  I finally have a day or two to do nothing and what have I been up to?   Fighting the urge to organize the bookcases or plan something for 2nd grade.  I’ve found myself researching things on the WTM curriculum boards in my spare time.  Of course, I have been rereading The Well-Trained Mind in my spare time, which is not exactly light reading.  I’ve also had three cello students this week.  But I did read an Agatha Christie novel in practically one sitting on Monday and spent an hour chatting with a good friend (who has moved out of our ward) that dropped by unexpectedly on Tuesday.  I have slept in some (no thanks to the neighbors who were being obnoxiously loud at 3 a.m. one morning) and my mother remarked that I looked very well rested and unstressed this morning.  So it’s been a pretty good week for me so far.

But I’m ready to get to work on my list.   I planted the tomatoes outside so the weather can kill them off instead of me.  They’re looking pretty wilted already.  I also got rid of some kitchen clutter today and washed down the windowsill and decorative shelves around the window.  I should take a picture before the junk moves back in.  DH is always putting stuff (vitamins, keys, allergy meds, flashlights, bubbles, batteries) in the windowsill because it’s accessible to us but not to the boys.  But I hate looking at all that clutter every time I’m standing at the sink.  I’d rather see the sunshine.  Maybe I need a sign that says, “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.”

Tomorrow we’re doing the big grocery shopping trip for the month and going to the zoo with Grandma and Poppa.  Saturday is a family reunion.  Next week will be a huge cleaning spree.  I have four days of no outside activities planned, which is really rare.  I’m tempted to take all the piles of paper clutter from all over the house and just dump them all in the living room to tackle.  Then maybe I can clean the rest of the house.  I feel like we’ve been cleaning around the clutter for too long now. 

I just have to remember to balance the get-things-organized mom with the get-down-and-play-with-the-children mom and have some game times and do more reading together with the boys in the middle of it all.  That will be the trick.  Getting organized and making plans seems to come more naturally to me (not that you could tell by my house at this moment in time.)  I really need to work on letting Fun Mom come out more.

Hogle Zoo, June 2008

I always had it in the back of my mind that we would do some big end of the school year party or something, but my house is in need of some serious help (I still need to figure out how to homeschool and keep the house more presentable) and I didn’t feel like pulling out all the old projects, notebooks, artwork, etc. to display for an open house.  But about a week ago, I noticed I had written down “have a Roman feast” on my long list of projects to accomplish when studying Rome and thought why not, that would be kind of fun.  I relied on my usual search-the-internet method for ideas and came up with, frankly, not very much.  There were just a few ideas in the Activity Guide and I just couldn’t get excited about anything.  Finally on Thursday, I decided to check the library catalog, and found several books on ancient Roman cookery.  Of course, I couldn’t get to the library until late Friday afternoon (it was kind of a busy week) so we pulled together our Roman feast in a little under 24 hours.  Grandma and Poppa were invited and came, and C invited a friend from church to come, which luckily somebody informed me of at the last minute.

We found out that we already eat as the poorer Romans did when we have our whole-wheat cereal in the mornings, but for a feast we wanted to be a little more upscale. The most fascinating cookbook was The Roman Cookery Book, a compilation of recipes from Apicius.  This edition included both Latin recipes and the English translations.  A and I had a fabulous time reading through it.  The most interesting recipes were the exotic ones we could not possibly have recreated such as:

–Squid patties (C lobbied for this though, he has a thing for squid lately),

–Sauce for boiled ostrich, as well as recipes for crane, duck, turtle-dove, peacock, and flamingo–”Pluck the flamingo, wash, truss, and put it in a saucepan; add water, dill, and a little vinegar.  Half-way through the cooking make a bouquet of leek and coriander and let it cook. . . the same recipe can be used for parrot.”

–Wombs from sterile sows–”Serve with Cyrenaican silphium or asafoetida, blended with vinegar and liquamen.”

–”Grilled womb.  Roll in bran, and afterwards soak in brine, then cook.”

–Stuffed sow’s udder–”Stuffed Udder.  Pound pepper, caraway, and salted sea-urchin.  Stuff the udder, sew up, and thus cook.  You eat it with allec and mustard.”

Sounds so appetizing, doesn’t it?  Then there’s my personal favorite:

“Snails fed on milk.  Take the snails, clean with a sponge, remove the membrane so that they may come out (of their shells).  Put in a vessel (with the snails) milk and salt for one day, for the following days add only milk, and clean away the excrements every hour.  When the snails are fattened to the point that they cannot get back into their shells fry them in oil.  Serve with oenogarum.”

And let us not forget stuffed dormice, drizzled with honey.

I haven’t had that much fun with a book in weeks.  A Taste of Ancient Rome was a much more practical book in that it included measurements lacking in the original as well as modern-day substitutions for hard-to-find ingredients and much historical information about food and feasting in the Roman Empire.  We had trouble finding a main dish however, as so many recipes called for garum (fermented fish sauce) which we had neither the time or inclination to make. 

We finally found a recipe for roasted meat with herbs that sounded doable.  It called for olive oil and garum (we used grape juice instead) along with parsley, oregano, mint, ginger, bay, celery seeds, pepper, and freshly pressed garlic cloves.  It turned out pretty good and we did pork slices roasted and chicken slices grilled.  I also found a recipe for ham baked in a pastry.  We had ham already cooked and I cheated and used my mother’s pie crust instead of the Roman recipe as I already had to make coconut cream pie for Father’s Day at church.  Everything else was simple finger foods taken from suggestions in the cookbooks, although I had intended to make a cheese frittata for dessert before I ran out of milk (and time.)

THE ROMAN FEAST

The guests arrived, dressed in togas.  We were lucky to have an emperor in attendance:

GUSTATIO (Appetizers)

Bread, hard-boiled eggs, almonds, cheese, olives, and salad

MENSA PRIMA

Roasted pork, grilled chicken, ham in pastry, grilled mushrooms, and cucumbers

(I almost forgot to take a picture before we ate it all.)

MENSA SECUNDA

Grapes, plums, and apples

And as fresh figs are not plentiful in Utah, we had fig newtons as well.

And of course we drank grape juice.

The boys thought it was great to eat while lounging.

I guess our feast was so sumptuous that one senator actually became quite sleepy!

 

We had a great time.  DH has requested that we eat like this more often.  And we’re already talking about a Renaissance feast next year.  Maybe we’ll get more ambitious and invite more friends over.  Maybe we’ll plan it more than a day in advance.  I’m sure the food, not to mention the costumes, will be a little more involved!