Back in the Saddle

We are finally home and people keep asking if we are getting settled in.  To me the term "settled in" infers a slow progression, so I wouldn't quite call it "settling in."  More like...jumping in full speed ahead without your gear attached, but with a smile on your face and just enjoying the ride.  Shall I attempt to sum up life since China in one sentence? One long run-on sentence.  The first week was getting over jetlag, followed by packing to go to California, boxes from China arrived the night before we left, drive to Texas, pop two tires, pick up Emily and Desi in Arizona, a fun week in California, back to Arizona and Texas, a crazy impromptu decision to go back to California for three more weeks, long drive home in 3 days, got chickens back, attempt to clean and de-clutter portions of house while planning for school, baby in full toddler mode, writing class, try to enjoy last bits of summer and garden, reorganize and catalouge home library, field trip, yardwork, sleepovers, several wood-working projects, called as Young Women's President, start school a week early, have friends for Chinese dinner, get caught up on immunizations for Seth, new tires on van, birthday parties, Labor Day, soccer, crafting, weaning baby, games, books, training meeting, library, scrapbooking, paper mache, sewing lessons, cooking with kids, husband to China, new battery in van, glasses for girls, project presentations, dance, art, drama, workshops, piano, tutoring, teaching "little friend school," presentation on China at library, husband called into the Bishopric! What? I mean, why not...when you are this busy, what's one more thing, right?

Now, just for me so I don't forget (and I can erase the whiteboard to start a new month) and I might actually go back someday and add pictures, here is the day by day schedule of the last month:
Wed. August 7 - home, enjoying chickens, Seth explores house, learns to climb ladder to bunkbed
Mon. August 12 - kids make cookies and popsicles while I plan for school, organize home library
Fri. August 16 - boys on campout, girls night out - progressive milkshakes
Sun. August 18 - dessert at Smith's house
Mon. August 19 - Jared starts writing week, field trip to Radford theater, watch "Planes"
Tues. August 20 - Hung up timeline in hall, family pictures included
Wed. August 21 - Meeting about history group schedule, girls stay and bake cookies, Scouts/Activity Days, interview with Bishop to receive calling
Fri. August 23 - Spaghetti dinner for Luke
Sat. August 24 - housework, Picnic with girls in backyard, Chris finishes necklace racks, help with chicken coop, Sterling's circus birthday party
Sun. August 25 - called to be Young Women's President, make scrapbook for Emily
Mon. August 26 - start school, in charge of History kick-off 1850-1900 America
Tues. August 27 - started great grandmother's journal, Seth to dr. for 6 immunizations, Clarissa starts tutoring, meet with Julie about YW, Chinese dinner with Brames
Wed. August 28 - Seth is 15 months, working on weaning, Babysitting kits for YW
Fri. August 30 - Pres. mtg at church
Sat. August 31 - housework, clean basement, Jared and Chris help Nancy move, Bill and Laura come
Sun. September 1 - Fast Sunday, taught combined lesson on Fasting, make picture book for Alex
Mon. September 2 - Labor Day, with grandma, girls and Morgans at Claytor Lake, Chris work on coop
Tues. September 3 - Indian history activity, tutoring, Jared starts soccer, Seth has fever
Wed. September 4 - Pres. mtg at church, Amber starts dance, kite activity for YW, blessing for Seth
Thurs. September 5 - first "Little Friend School" letter I, Jared starts piano, tutoring, girls start dance, soccer, home with Seth and Amber
Fri. September 6 - apple dolls, dried apples, string popcorn, Seth has measles rash
Sat. September 7 - Auxiliary training, soccer, Seth still has rash
Sun. September 8 - Ward council mtg (missionary goals), lesson on language, Class Pres. mtg, work on Tuckers scrapbook
Mon. September 9 - sewing doll clothes, Jared starts art, project presentations - John Deere, Yellowstone, Early American dolls, The Apple Doll, work on Tuckers scrapbook
Tues. September 10 - work on China pictures, Jared starts drama, tutoring, soccer, buy food for Chinese friends
Wed. September 11 - Chris leaves for China, plan kids schedules, Pres. mtg, dance, joint YM/YW service scavenger hunt
Thurs. September 12 - Little Friend School letter C, workshop, Krystal starts piano, tutoring, dance, soccer, Henrietta missing
Fri. September 13 - China presentation at library, Chris extended call to Bishopric
Sat. September 14 - soccer, Primary fair, fall festival at Belmont Christian, new battery for van, order glasses for girls
Sun. September 15 - Chris called to be Bishop, home teachers, read Little Britches

Culinary Arts

A lot of our home schooling happens in the kitchen.  I have always wanted to learn to make homemade tortillas and finally set my mind to it.  They are actually pretty easy, although a little time consuming, but the taste makes up for the time spent making them.

Homemade tortillas taken to a whole new level, taco salad shells.  These are baked over quart size canning jars.  Healthy and yummy.

We have never really liked things that are flavored with curry, but I hate to give up on something so rather than write off curry forever, I decided to make my own curry.  It was fun, beautiful and a keeper, everyone liked it.  I used it in an Indian dish.

The kids join in on this project, making bread bowls for soup.  It was their ideas to try the jars and it worked great.  Plus, the potato corn chowder was a great way to use up all those potatoes and corn from the garden.

Tres Leches (3 milks) cake made for a baby shower.  It was melt-in-your-mouth wonderful.

First Days of School

 It's that time again, fussy baby or not...school time!
Part of getting ready for school this year was yet another face lift for the school room, this time with color and new shelving.  Here are the before and after pictures of our custom designed and built school room.

On the first day of school the kids woke up to find their school books and supply kits along with homemade chocolate zucchini muffins.

Seth is ready for the first day of school, wearing a onsie that says "Too Cool for Preschool."

Seth is also modeling our stack of read aloud books for this year.

While weeding the carrots we found this cool looking caterpillar and researched to find out that it will become an Eastern Black Swallowtail butterfly.  We put the caterpillar in a jar and in a couple of days found this cool chrysalis.  In a couple weeks we came home to find this beautiful butterfly.  Unfortunately we missed seeing both transformations, but it was still good science to see the stages that a butterfly goes through.

In the book "The Witch of Blackbird Pond," the girls worked on their sewing, needlepoint and knitting each night so we decided to learn a little bit about these arts.  Krystal is learning to crochet.

Clarissa works on some needlepoint.

This is the flower that Clarissa made.

These are some headbands that I crocheted by watching a tutorial online.

Bridge Building

Today was our kickoff for our history and math Mondays.  We had a bridge building activity where we talked about how to bridge the gap between history and the gospel and then built bridges using different materials.  Liam, Amber and Krystal worked together in a group to build their bridge out of legos.

Cailin, Clarissa, and Delaney built a bridge out of marshmallows and toothpicks (it held just long enough for the picture).

Connor and Jared built a bridge using playing cards.  It held just fine, but wouldn't bare any weight.

Janet and Beryl were the master bridge builders with their bridge of straw and tape.

Then, the older kids worked on finding ingredients for cookies from the scriptures, we wanted to show that the scriptures are a great resource and can help you with many aspects of life, even making cookies.

Putting together the ingredients for our scripture cookies!  We hope to have a great year studying Early American History and the other world events that happened during that time period. 

A Summer Shakespeare Project

This summer the kids worked with some of their friends to put together an adaptation of Shakespeare's, "The Taming of the Shrew."  One of the things they did to adapt the play besides cutting it shorter was to make it a western.  Here is Jared at Peter (originally known as Petruchio) with his servant Greg, riding into town to look for a rich wife.

In the meantime, we meet Clarissa as Bianca, the sweet and virtuous daughter, Cailin as Katharina (or Kate), the Shrew and their father Baptista.  Baptista explains that although Bianca has many suitors, she cannot be married until her older sister Kate is married first.

Kate and Bianca fight (they loved this part).

Peter is introducing Horace (formerly known as Hortencio) to Baptista as an archery teacher in disguise whose real intent is to woo Bianca.  Peter has made a deal with Horace that he will help Horace to get Bianca for his wife and he himself with tame Katharina and have her for his wife and all her riches.

The kids did a dance to "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountian" before the wedding of Peter and Kate.

Peter shows up to the wedding wearing this ridiculous costumes and explains that Kate should be happy to marry him, not his clothes.  This is only the beginning of his tactics to tame this shrew.

Bianca with her Father Baptista.  What Baptista doesn't know is that all this time, Bianca is falling in love with Luke (or Lucentio) another suitor in disguise.

All the servants waiting for Peter to bring his new wife home.

Amber and Krystal were two of Peter's servants who helped to bring Kate food and water upon her arrival, which Peter quickly sent away to keep her humble.

Bianca and Luke are studying, "The Art of Love."

The shrew is tamed and comes back with Peter to prove that her love is more true than that of Bianca's and Luke's as she has learned to obey her husband and live Happily Ever After.

The whole cast, they did a wonderful job!  We are so grateful for Christine and her efforts of re-writing the script and directing these talented Thespians.

Old World, New World

 For presentations this month, Jared decided to give a presentation for his Reptile and Amphibian Merit Badge.  He was supposed to present the facts about three different reptiles or amphibians and he chose, the Horned Toad, the Frilled Lizard and the American Alligator.  He was very creative about it and pretended to be an officer presenting the facts for these three suspects which were at large. 

 This was his rendition of how the frilled lizard runs.  It was pretty funny.  We also watched a video of the frilled lizard running, which had everyone laughing.

 Clarissa was inspired by our studies of the New World explorations and the Ancient Americas.  Jaguars were important to the people of the Ancient Americas and she wanted to know the difference between a Jaguar and a Leopard, so she studies that and presented the identifying marks of the four great cats: The Jaguar, Leopard, Tiger and Lion, all of which are part of the Genus Panthera.  One interesting thing we learned is that there is really no such thing as a black panther, it is either a black jaguar (if it's in the New World) or a black leopard (if it's in the old world).

 Krystal gave a short report about William Shakespeare.

Then we did a short Reader's Theater called "Which Shoes do You Choose," it was really cute.

Protestant Reformation

Today we learned about the Protestant Reformation and the effect that it had on religions around the world today.  We talked about the different men who were part of the Reformation like Martin Luther: known for his 95 theses, William Tyndale: translated the New Testament into English, John Wycliffe: new teachings differing from catholic church and translated Bible into English, and John Calvin: wrote many commentaries on the Bible and taught teachings differing from catholic church.  We also talked about the role of the printing press in making the Bible accessible to the world and not just the priests.  As our activity, we did potato printing to get an idea of what printing would have been like, not quite as easy as typing these days, but still easier than copying everything by hand.