Daffodile Farm

My best friend and family stopped off at the Daffodile farm Wednesday afternoon.

It's an awsome place. I've been there twice. Of course, my favorite flower is the daffodile.

This place is acres and acres of all the different varieties of daffodile.

A common place to stop is the original old farmhouse. There is a lake and a little stream nearby. Tons of great photo-ops.

Learning about Fruits and Vegetables and Taste and Texture

Tuesday at my little preschool class, we continued talking about Day 3 of creation.
Today we concentrated on the idea of God creating many different tastes and textures for us to eat.

I forgot my camera (it is a little hectic with 5 kids and 2 adults) until the end of class... when the kids were basically finished but working on or creation mural.... they were suppose to be drawing fruits and veggies.

Earlier in the day - first thing - I had the mom's pack a sample of several different foods - enough so each child could have a taste.

We had asparagas, brocolli, parsley, some wild weeds (edible), onion, peppers, orange, apple, banana, and dozens of others. We had a great time finding and sampling each item.

Joel had the yellow plate - he's NOT a picky eater - but even he didn't like parsley.

Blue's Big Easy Game

Kendra LOVES Blue's Clues. From the first time she watched her first show - to her now 14 year old self - she still loves Blue's Clues.

Go Figure.

So hidden in the back of her closet were still all the neat Blue's Clues items we bought for her (usually on sale) as she was growing up.

One of them is a box game called "Blue's Big Easy Game".

You can see how BIG the play area is .. and to the right of Joel's foot is one of the markers that is suppose to run around the board.

Don't tell Joel that - he thinks the path is for his feet. And the cards are to put down as you pass the different rooms.

The best part is the "tuming numers" (thumping numbers) to know how many squares to move across.

Joel love it!
And asks to play at least a dozen times a day.

Helping Hands Empty the Washer

This boy never ceases to amaze me.

This was HIS idea.

Kendra happily directed instructions.

He did a really good job of it too.

And then pushed the button to start the dryer.

Good Job Joel!

Pretending to make Pudding

Joel LOVES pudding made with kefir, and his big sister got out all the stuff she needed to make it ... and there it sat.

I almost came unglued when I saw him playing with my favorite mixing bowl... but reminded myself that Joel was a careful child ... mostly.

And watched as he pretended his way through every single step.

This kid pays attention to details!

He says it was delicious.

Brought me a big bowl full too. Such a thoughtful boy.

Too bad he isn't allowed to do it for real yet.

Growing Black Eye Peas

I USUALLY do this with a pinto bean - but was fresh out. These are out of my bean jar from a bag purchased at Walmart to eat. I've never had a problem with them growing.

We take a piece of paper towel, fold it in quarters and put it in the baggie.

Then we carefully put a staple into the bag where we want the bean to sit - usually about 1/3 the way up the bag - 2 to 4 depending on the size of your beans.

Next carefully set a bean on each staple. Very little kids will need a bit of help with that. You could put more staples in and fewer beans.

Add about 1/2 tbsp of water.

Tape to the inside of a cupboard for 48 hours - or until you see sprouts.

Transfer to a window.

Watch them grow and change.


Ours got too cold when we had a surprise 29 degrees the other night. But we are hopeful that at least a few survived since they are on the INSIDE of our double paned windows.

I don't think Matthew's survived. They kind of stink.

Playing in the Puzzle Cabinet

This is Joel's favorite place to be these days. He's doing up to 25 pieces without help, I think he could do a slightly larger puzzle. But the giant 46 piece ones are beyond him yet.

This Bob the Builder and a wooden Clifford that use to belong to Vannan have become his favorites.

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Helping Hands help Big Sister Hang Laundry

I found these pictures on my camera when I downloaded the pictures.

Kendra says they are for the blog.

Joel was helping hang laundry and doing a fairly good job.

Check out that shirt he had just proudly hung on the door knob!

Joel and the Puzzle Cabinet

We rearranged and had 1 empty cabinet in the space at the edge of the kitchen and livingroom. There use to be a fireplace right here.

I had Kendra find all of the puzzles and games in the house and put them into this cabinet.

When Joel discovered it, he was overjoyed. He spends hours a day now like this.

Karen found some old cabinet doors on the roadside. We plan to clean then up, put some qurarter-round along the edges and push it under the cabinet. This will be for the girls to start a game or a puzzle and they can push it under the cabinet if they don't finish it.

We may do this for all 3 of the spots under the cabinet. The quarter-round will keep pieces from falling off as it is being pushed in and out.

Macaroni Pictures

Earlier in the morning, we talked about how God made the grains - and we make food from grains.

We used my morter and pestil to grind some wheat into flour.

And we made macaroni pictures with their names and pieces of macaroni.

Now, an hour or so later, we put on our paint shirts, and gathered at the picnic table.

I usually slightly water down the paints - to make them stretch farther.

We had some of them take off long sleeve shirts - Joel did too, but put on his paint shirt without a shirt under it.

Good thing it was a pretty warm day.

I put ONE paint brush to ONE paint cup with ONE color each. They had to trade brush, cup, and color. I've found this works really well and the kids like that the colors don't get so mixed up to a grey brown.

Matthew only wanted green - and more green. I did get him to trade for a little while for yellow, since it was a John Deer tractor color.

Everyone happily painted for nearly half an hour.

A Blobby Week

I know I really should pull the pictures out of my camera and post a few. I've had all day. But it's been one of those days ... one of those weeks.

Joel has been learning new things like crazy. He never ceases to amaze me. We put the games and puzzles down at a level where he can reach them...and he LOVES it. Right now he is happily asking me how to spell words or what word is this after pulling out letters and placing them above the puzzle. His favorite is still spelling his name. He brought me ME and US. He thought BUG was very funny. And he has been rearranging the letters of his name LOEJ, LEOJ, JELO... and giggling at the results. He has such a huge appatite for learning.

He's not all books and letters though. With the warmer weather, the back door has been open and he's happily ran in and out throughout the day. I can hear him outside, and he'll run to the door and answer me when I call him, so I don't worry too much.

He is very excited about a new brother or sister, and tells the baby to stay here when he hugs me.

Vannan has been a big help with preschool. But has been quite slack with chores and schoolwork. It doesn't help that with me not feeling up to par, I'm not getting them up very well in the mornings. Kendra has actually been much worse - she loves to read, and I don't have a problem with that - but it's consuming all of her time, free or otherwise, and she has no time for school or chores or friends or anything. So I end up doing much of what she should be doing, plus what I need to do. Makes for very long days. I keep praying for inspiration.

Me, being pregnant, it's all I can do most days to function on the minimum. I'm not even sure how far along I am, maybe almost 7 weeks. I'm still trying to purge what is in the house. Too much. But I keep thinking that I just need to figure out how to make it all work. And if I don't miscarry the baby? How will we fit it into the house?

What's left to get rid of? I'm not rich enough to replace items even at thrift store prices, but I've been getting rid of baby things instead of storing them, no room left to store anything. And yet I despirately hope to keep the baby. I want it, problems it will create and all.

Tim is just worried. No job, car too small, house too small, another mouth to feed, something else to cut into his imaginary airplane time. We may have to send just the older children to church and outings and leave me and baby behind. Though I don't really think anybody would miss me socially.

Children were never meant to be a burden.

My dad is discussing getting chickens again and rabbits and putting in a garden. We may need all of it to survive the Bullet that almighty Obama and his Democratic priests are shooting to the head of Uncle Sam. I don't think America as we know it will survive. Will there ever even be another election? Can we as a nation survive this stupidity?

I might be praying for him, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with his actions, does it?

Blobby and somewhat depressed - not a good combination for a post.

I probably should delete it, but nobody much reads this blog anyway, so I guess this is more of a diary entry than meant for anybody to analyze or comment about.

Hard to believe my baby is 14. Well, got to go take ANOTHER book away from Kendra. Wonder what she is reading this time - sometimes it's a school or library book that she's suppose to read during reading time or free time - but other times she gets stuff that I would prefer she didn't read, or at least read it only during free time. Very little around here is totally objectionable - but I do like Science Fiction.

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Vannan Cleans the Kitchen

Friday later afternoon, Vannan tells Kendra - "If YOU will do my laundry and Joel chores - I'll do all of your kitchen chores."

The agreement was made and Vannan set to work - with much exclamation about how DIRTY everything was...

now, it wasn't THAT bad - or maybe it was - but Tim and Kendra have been cleaning it, and I've refused to look. Actually, with a bad cold, I barely had noticed anything.

Vannan turned into a CLEANING MACHINE.

She scrubbed and sprayed and cleaned ... until I told her the smells were making me sick


BUT WOW!

She even pulled apart the top of the stove, the inside of the washer,

and FLYLADY shined the sink.

And she did it again on Saturday, cleaning drawers, spices, nooks and crannies.

Boy does it sparkle.

Making Soap

I make my own laundry soap - and I've been doing it for about 2 years.

Never seem to get the same results twice - which slightly irritates some people. But I don't care - I USUALLY like the results anyway.


One thing I've learned it that the DISTILLED WATER is important.




To that I add some kind of soap base - 1/3 bar of deoderant/antibacterial soap, or LOC, or Dr. Bonners.... whatever I have on hand.
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Washing Soda
1/4 cup Tri-Zyme
1/4 Cup Lysol Cleaner (germ killer)
and usually I add drops of Eucalyptus or Peppermint essential oils.

Sometimes I remember to add glycerin to make it gel better.

And I store it in the same pot that I mix it in - on top of the washing machine.

Cost is approx 3 - 5 cents a load - adding the cost of the extras in there.

This time I kept putting it off and putting it off - waiting for Karen to bring HER pan so I could make a double batch.
I couldn't wait any longer.

So I put the water on to heat - and dumped in some small dried up bars that I found when making the soaps for Christmas. It was a bit more than 1/3 bar. But between a cold and feeling rather sick to my stomach - I really didn't care.

Then I forgot I was making it.

I ended up turning it off late at night and going to bed, promising to finish it the next day.

And when Kendra pulled the lid off the next morning - look at what we found!

We turned the heat on low, stired in the rest of the ingredients, and called it done. It's WEIRD looking, kinda like playing in raw egg whites, or slightly cooked ones?

But it's kind of fun to use.

Wonder if I'll ever be able to duplicate it?