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I haven’t had much luck yet with having my kids listen to tapes in lieu of read-alouds. They just seem to tune them out. I’ve gotten Redwall, Little House in the Big Woods and others out of the library on cassette tapes (yes, we still own a couple of old-fashioned tape players – Thanks Mom!) and put them on when they go to bed or while we’re on long car trips. But they don’t respond to the stories at all. They don’t talk about them later, or theorize about what-might-have-happened-if, etc. like they do about the books I read to them. It’s been rather disappointing.
But!! The other day I got The House At Pooh Corner out and they love it! What seems to have delighted them the most however, is Pooh’s first poem in the book. After bed the other night, I heard peels of giggles coming from their room at intervals and this is why:
The more it
SNOWS-tiddley-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.
And nobody
KNOWS-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing.
To me, it’s just a pleasant, short, simple poem – only really funny because of Pooh and Piglet’s interaction regarding it. But not the boys: they try to recite it themselves, and always ask for the side that has “the funny part” on it. For some inexplicable reason, A.A. Milne really hit their funny bone with this one! Go Figure. 
I sent the boys outside to play the other day. They were greatly excited about wearing hats and gloves so I helped them to find and put on winter accessories. I looked out a little later and what did I see?:
 I guess I forgot to remind them to wear winter COATS!
My bloglines subscriptions have been unusually quiet these days! I’m thinking maybe everybody is as busy as I am with holiday prep!
I just finished Table in the Mist by Jeffrey Meyers, a commentary on Ecclesiastes, a couple weeks ago. I loved it. I mean really loved it. It helped that a bunch of people I know had either just read it or were reading it and also loving it, but even without that, I think it would’ve made a similarly positive impression.
10 people can read a book and like it – all for different reasons. At this point in my life some of the points in the book impressed me more than others.
The #1 point that I took away from the book is that I am not in control. God is. I can’t play my cards right and force Him to bless me. I can’t do everything right, control all aspects of my life, or my kids lives, to somehow leverage the way God works and make everything turn out as I would like. And that’s OK, because God “has made everything beautiful in its time.” This, frankly is a relief. Not that I actually thought that I could control God, but the burden of thinking that everything depends on us and our desires and actions, is a major tenent of our modern world (The Power of Positive Thinking, anyone?). Knowing that God’s plan is unshakeable and ultimately just and good (whether we live to see its benefits or not), notwithstanding our poor, muddled, sinful human ways, allows us to relax. Because the world is unpredictable, and uncontrollable (by us), men are able to “be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil – this is God’s gift to man.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12) If you thought it all depended on you, how could you ever take a moment and just enjoy the ride?
“Every time out lack of control over life is brought to our attention we tend to treat it as some sort of anomaly, but the fact is that all of life is like that.” (p. 79)
In the discussion of sacrifices and vows in Ecclesiastes 5, Mr. Meyers makes a point particularly salient for me and my friends. He’s talking of foolish verbal sacrifices that we offer to God, under the category of “look-at-how-pious-I-am radical resolutions.”
“..I have been dismayed by this kind of talk particularly among young parents who are eager to set themselves apart as more holy than those parents who have older children. The verbal offering of look-at-how-pious-I-am radical resolutions comes too easily to their lips. Beware of the words never and always:
“I’ll never send my children to day care.”
“I’ll never put my children in a public school.”
“Well, I will never allow my teenagers to do such and such.”
“I’ll always homeschool my children. “” (p. 114)
*blush* Ahem. Well, hopefully I haven’t said such things too often, but surely I’ve thought them before and the arrogance implied is stunning.
And on money:
10 He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver;
Nor he who loves abundance, with increase.
This also is vanity.
11 When goods increase,
They increase who eat them;
So what profit have the owners
Except to see them with their eyes?
Ecclesiastes 5: 10-11
“Do you really want more wealth, more “goods” more land and cars and houses and everything else? Really? Do you realize that when wealth increases responsibilities increase as well? Do you think you can have one without the other? It is a foolish dream.” (p 121) That nice furniture, that lovely hardwood floor, beautiful deck furniture, nice car – all have to be protected, maintained, cared for. And because they’re more valuable, they have to be protected, maintained, and cared for MORE than my used furniture and torn linoleum. This is a point I need to remember often.
There were a ton of other good points in the book – there’s a lot of meat in Ecclesiastes. I can’t quote them all, and don’t remember them all, and glancing through the book as I prepared this post made me realize – I need to read it again! So, check it out, buy it, or borrow it: this book will change how you view your life!
During devotions, Michael asks Judah if he ever thinks of doing something bad, but doesn’t because he thinks he might get in trouble. Judah responds in the affirmative and is eager to give an example.
“Today, while Ezra was getting water out of the refrigerator, I thought about going over and pushing button for ice.”
Michael, “Oh?”
“Yeah. I thought about it, but I didn’t do it.”
A brief glimpse into the mind of a 5-year-old boy.
As I glance through the boilerplate on the After-Visit-Summaries from our recent doctor’s well-child checkups:
“Offer water when your child is thirtsty. Do not give your child soda or juice drinks more than one time a day.” I feel smug and give myself a mental pat on the back.
“Do not use TV and videos as a babysitter. ” I snort derisively (and maybe a little defensively) and scoff, “who do these people think they are, doctors or child-training experts?!!”
My kids barely knew the word, “Transformers,” until Ezra got one for his birthday a month and a half ago. (he asked for one, but I’m not sure exactly how he knew about them, of it was what he was expecting) Now it’s Transformers all day every day around here. Judah scraped and saved to buy himself a Transformer, so now they both have one. But did it end there? No, there are Transformers zoomed about the house, Transformers described, Transformers drawn and cut out, and Transformers built:
 Homemade Transformers I mean, really, like I told my mom, what could be cooler than cars that turn into giant robots? The premise seems like something taking directly from a little boy’s most delightful dream and turned into a merchandizing empire. And, since God made little boys, I feel like you could almost (but not quite)say they’re divinely inspired.
 Tried a New Hairdo  Looking for Trouble
 King and Knight  16th Century Sheep  Fair Little Maid
Recently, while reading Managers of Their Homes, a light dawned – my kids were capable of much more advanced and regular chores than I had currently been imposing! Without further ado, I wrote out a weekly chore list – one for each boy per weekday morning, and imposed nightly after-dinner chores. How the boys feel about this I can’t say (actually, I can say that Judah, for one, is very excited, and frequently wants to know what his chore is before he’s even finished breakfast!) but the result has been delightful for me. There is a negative, in that supervising children doing chores can be a hassle, but the positive is that every morning I come out to a cleaned and wiped table and a freshly vacuumed dining room floor, and several chores are happening much more regularly than they had been before. (cleaning the sliding glass door, for instance – don’t even remember the last time I did that before Judah started doing it regularly..)
Anyway, thanks to Managers of their Homes for alerting me to my kids unrecognized abilities!
Judah grew pumpkins this year. That is, he planted several pumpkin plants, several sprouted, two survived and those two bloomed wildly all summer, finally producing one pumpkin each. Considering that both plants were attacked and destroyed by powdery mildew, I think we can be thankful to have a whole two. When I mentioned to Judah that we hadn’t had much success with pumpkin growing, he responded, “Yes we did – we got two pumpkins!!” I guess it’s all in what you expect.
But anyway, we had two pumpkins, the first of which we used for decor, and the second of which Judah wanted to make a pie with. So, feeling very proud of myself, I got instructions off of the internet (where else?), and proceeded to spend an entire afternoon to make a from-scratch pumpkin pie.
We succeeded. We ended up with one deep dish 9 inch pie and three custard cups I lined with extra pie dough and poured the extra filling in. It was all good! The color was a little funny – more brown than orange, and the flavor wasn’t exceptional – maybe a little spicier than my normal pumpkin pies. The texture was good – not stringy at all. (I pureed the living daylights out of it in the food processor) In the end we didn’t have the 3 cups of pumpkin the recipe called for, but we had an extra piece of acorn squash from the night before, that I pureed and threw in and it worked out OK.
Now, would I do it again? Maybe. I’d like to try an actual pie pumpkin, as opposed to the jack-o-lantern variety we grew. Then I could make a real comparison with a canned pumpkin pie.
But I have this to say – with a pie pumpkin, it’d better be really good, or I probably won’t do it ever again. It’s not that it’s hard – all of the steps are fairly simple – but it makes an incredible mess! First there’s the cutting board, ice cream scoops, the bowl for the seeds, then the steamer basket and pot, then another couple of bowls and spoons to separate the skin from the flesh, and then the food processor – and that’s before you make the pie crust and mix up the final pie filling! It’s a TON of dishes!
It was worth it though. The kids really enjoyed it, and hopefully they will remember the afternoon they spent making authentic pumpkin pie with Mom.
I’m home from church today – alone with my cold and two youngest children. We’re not really miserably sick, just contagiously so. And with all of these nasty illnesses going around, it seemed best not to expose everybody else to our sniffles. I hate missing church, but that morning shower and nap during Monica’s morning nap was reaallllyyy nice.
I thought I’d try to catch up on a few things here on my blog. A history in pictures, if you will…
 100% Whole Wheat I’m back to bread baking! Cooler weather is so appreciated after a summer of bread-baking deprivation! The above bread is made from a recipe in Peter Rheinhart’s new whole wheat bread book. It’s a two day process – but better than any other 100% whole bread I’ve made, I think. I should try it with Continue reading Photo Journal
It’s simple. Leave Richland at 10:00 am. Make one unexpected potty stop in Arlington. Have a tire blow out just past John Day Dam. Wait 40-50 minutes for someome to come change the tire (20 min). Spare tire is low, so limp over to Rufus, fill up tire with partially broken air pump. Continue to The Dalles. Spend an hour plus at Les Schwab (thank the Good Lord for popcorn machines and ernest, cleancut tire guys), another hour maybe at McDonalds in the Dalles letting the kids finally burn off the wiggles and eat lunch/dinner. Finally, at around 5:30, leave The Dalles for a thankfully uneventful trip back home – arriving at 7:00!
Well, it wasn’t my plan, but the traveling mercies were evident: it wasn’t 100 degrees outside. It wasn’t snowing or raining. It wasn’t dark yet. My cell phone had great coverage at that particular spot in the Gorge. The towing company guy who changed the tired was very nice, so were the Les Schwab guys. My mom and dad helped me find the approved Toyota lugnuts that were supposed to be on the car so we didn’t have to pay $150 for a brand new set (cell phones are wonderful things!) The children were really fabulously good during the whole debacle – just amazed me with their unusually good behaviour. Even Monica was cheerful most of the time. And then the trip home from The Dalles could’ve been bad, since it was so late in the day, but Monica and Ezra both took naps – and still went to bed at a decent hour last night!
Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow!
Do you like your cookies flat and crispy at the edges? If so, this recipe is NOT for you! I like my cookies soft and poofy, barely done. I tried this recipe from Cooks.com and have been using it ever since. From what I’ve read it sounds like the softness comes from using half shortening, half butter, rather than all butter (or margarine). Some say, in the context of the great pie-crust butter vs. shortening debate, that the butter gives the cookie a better flavor, and I think they’re probably right. But, like I said, what I’m looking for is a soft and gooey cookie…
Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies
2/3 c. shortening
2/3 c. butter, soft
3/4 c. granulated sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
12 oz. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate bits
1 c. chopped nuts, if desired
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix thoroughly shortening, butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. Drop by rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until light brown. Cool slightly before removing from sheet.
A few updates on my kids’ vocabularies.
Monica: “Gink” for Drink, “Ow!” for Ow. “Why?” for why (isn’t she too young to start that one?!! “Gu-Gah” for Judah, “Mommy” for mommy and/or anything that she wants. She says a very sweet, “Pee?” for please, and an even sweeter, “daa-dyou” for thank you. Whenever she sees a dog, she growls.
Ezra and Judah both still have trouble with “guitar.” They call them, “Riguitars.” This is because their first toy guitar was red, so we called it a “red guitar.” Say that three times fast and you will notice that it could quite easily be perceived as Riguitar by a non-English speaker. Grandpa Lew is still, “Grandpa Wew,” and most other Ls are still pronounced as Ws by both boys. They call a crown a “king hat,” and proudly wear one while wielding a “wightsabo.” Just like “Wuke Skywalko.”
This recipe is new to me: I tried it just this week when the Meyerdierks came over so that the Mikes could discuss Sunday School business. There isn’t much I like more than really good Fettuccine Alfredo at a restaurant – especially if it includes seafood, but plain is good, too. However, I’ve never been able to cook one myself that wasn’t too bland. The secret, apparently, is massive amounts of parmesan cheese – makes all the difference! Of course, that makes it more expensive, as well, because this recipe calls for an entire 5 oz. container (or block, if you shred cheese) of parmesan cheese for only 4 1 cup servings of what amounts to a carbohydrate side-dish. That’s pretty expensive by my standards for normal dinners, but it made a great company side-dish.
 Nothing like a family photo that didn't quite turn out We send Christmas letters every year, generally including a family photo. Or, more likely, a picture of our beautiful children. Whom the people we send photos to have possibly never met, and really don’t appreciate as much as we do… but hey, it beats trying to find a photo of oneself that doesn’t emphasize… various unattractive attributes. But, seriously, this year I am reconsidering the standard-issue family photo. Or, at least reconsidering sending sending it to the entire distribution. Why, you may ask? Facebook, of course. I could put my photo on Facebook, and anybody who actually wanted to see it, could easily do so! I could still send photos to the people on our mailing list who are not on Facebook, right?
The only problem that I can see is that most of the people at my church seem to develop clever ways to display thier 30+ Christmas card photos of people somewhere in their house – generally in the kitchen area. Would they object to having one less photo? Would not having our smiling mugs on their wall/refrigerator/door/bulletin board somehow make us less real and important to those people? Or would they be grateful not to have to take up space with a photo of people they see every week? I don’t know. What about people far away? Do they want pictures of us? Really? Would they be just as happy to look at one on the computer, make various appreciative (or otherwise) noises, and go on their way? I’m tempted to think so.
Can sending photos of oneself be suffering the fate of snail-mail? On it’s way out, as it were? Will it just be a short blip in history, the time between the development of the cheaply reproduced photograph and the dawn of the “Information Age?”
Who can say? I guess we’ll know in about 5-10 years.
During devotions, Michael asked Judah if he knew what cruel meant. Judah said, “Yeah, liked it’d be nice if it cooled down.” “No, not ‘cool:’ cruel.”
After which followed several attempts on the boys’ part to imitate their dad in saying “cruel.” Finally, Michael asked again if they knew what “cruel” meant and Judah replied, “No, I don’t know what it means – I can’t even say it!”
After an injury to a rather sensitive part of one of my boys’ anatomies, I took him to see his doctor. $10. They looked at the wound, thought it looked odd, referred me to the Urologist. I was hoping they’d wait a while to call to schedule an appointment, but no, they got us in today, less than 2 weeks later. So efficient.  Another $10. 5 minute appointment. Probably a blood blister, if it doesn’t go away in 6 months call again. When will I ever learn?!
On the plus side, the copay is ONLY $10, and Rose babysat so I only had to bring one child. But I wish they’d said first, “Keep an eye on it and call us if it gets worse or doesn’t get better in 6 months” rather than having to go to two appointments to get that answer! And I wish I had the backbone and clear thinking to come up with that conclusion myself before calling! But at the back of my mind is always, “but what if it’s something serious…..”
After Monica flipped the switch on the surge protector, turning off my computer and all of the routers, cable boxes, etc. underneath my computer desk – again – I pulled her out from there and expressed my displeasure. She looked up, waved her finger at me and said, “Mo, Mo!” (no, no) Really it was hard to be mad at her after that.
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