Birthdays

In case you haven't heard, everyone gets to go free to Disneyland on the day of their birthday in 2009. Frills! Details HERE. If you need a place to stay for your celebration, consider that we have plenty of floor space and a huge comfy couch.

We were discussing birthdays tonight. Scott came over to me and said, "Mom, my brother's birthday is (date here)."

"That's right!" I said. "When is your birthday?"

"When I turn 4, I will have another birthday," he answered.

I persisted, "But do you know the date of your birthday?"

"No."

"Your birthday will be (his birthdate)," I told him, in my best teaching voice.

"AGAIN?!"

Mr. M and I cracked up. Yep. The same date, year after year.

What Can Go Wrong Will or All's Well That Ends Well

In our new congregation, I work with the kids, ages 3-12. Today it was my turn to teach Sharing Time, one for the junior group and one for the senior group. This was a Sunday when ALL the leaders from the region would be visiting. I diligently prepared my lesson during the week, so that on Sunday morning, I would only need to print it out. Our church doesn't meet til 12:20 pm, so I knew I had plenty of time.

Saturday night, while putting on the finishing touches, our computer went wacko. The sound card and the plug-in for the ethernet cable fell in to the back of the computer, if that makes any sense. Mr M helped me to take the case off and put Humpty Dumpty back together. When we turned it back on, the screen flashed some funny signals, but didn't work. Since it was midnight, we turned it off and figured we'd fix it in the morning.

This morning, we got the CPU functioning again, but for some weird reason, the mouse and the keyboard wouldn't work. Not the wireless mouse and wireless keyboard. Not the plug-in mouse and plug-in keyboard. After panicking, I reconstructed my lesson in a notebook as best I could, and at 12:10 pm, walked out to the car to drive to church.

As I opened the garage, I saw that the car door was partly open and the light on inside. When I turned the key in the ignition, I got a weak clicking and then nothing. The battery was dead. URGH! More panic! I ran back in the house, and we had a family prayer, grabbed the stroller, and started walking. Church is only a mile away, but by this point, we had only 5 minutes before Primary would start.

Luckily, someone from the ward drove by. She had room for 1 in her car, so I hopped in, and Mr M trekked it with the boys. I made it to church before Primary got going, and my lessons were fine.

My favorite part of the lesson was teaching the 3-7 year olds Doctrine and Covenants 10:5 : "Pray always, that ye may come off conqueror!" and on conqueror, we punched our fists into the air.

The irony of it all was that my lessons were on prayer. Perhaps these experiences were to teach me a little less trust in the arm of the flesh and a little more trust in God?

I'm teaching Sharing Time again in two weeks. Hopefully without any computer or car drama.

Day 4 of Kindergarten at Home

Most of our faithful readers will already know that we decided to try homeschool this year. This is our 4th day of kindergarten at home. We are following a public school curriculum which gets delivered to us online and through the mail from K12. We registered last week, so we are still waiting for the delivery of our computer and other materials to arrive. However, we have been able to do phonics, math, art, and a little history.

I waffled for a long time in the decision of where to school, but I have no regrets at all about doing homeschool. Here are some of the things I love:

• We follow our own schedule. Today we woke up at 9 am, made whole wheat pancakes, and started school around 10 am. Our public school starts at 8:15 am and finishes at 2:30 pm.


• When Ethan is tired of working on math worksheets, he likes to sit down on the couch and read a book, sometimes out loud. He just finished reading Pete's A Pizza to Scott.


• Scott enjoys doing worksheets, too. He is very happy to have Ethan home.


• On odd days like today, Mr. M is around. He is a gifted teacher, especially for our boys, because he has the same kind of curious mind. They explored colors and distortion, as seen in Picasso, while doing Ethan's art lesson on self-portraits.


• Ethan can move at his own pace. He doesn't have to spend weeks and weeks learning to recognize letters and the sounds they make. Yesterday he finished reading his second Hardy Boys book.

I cannot remember a time in my life when I felt so much peace, even with the regular arguments between the boys or moments of frustration. I attribute this to several factors. One is that I have made an effort to pray aloud in a private place, morning and night. The other is that when we moved in June, I left behind a lot of responsibilities: teaching 8 private violin students and Monday night group classes, the MOMS Club board, RS presidency, heavy visiting teaching duties... It has made a tremendous difference.

I feel really happy. I am surprised by how much I am enjoying this because I always looked forward to getting my kids out of the house and having time to myself. For our family, this is working wonderfully.

California

8 years ago, California voters passed Proposition 22 by more than 61%, saying that a marriage in California is between a man and a woman. Earlier this year, four activist judges based in San Francisco overturned the people's vote, legalizing same-sex marriage, by a vote of 4-3.

If you are concerned about the future of families, if you believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, if you believe in the voice of the people, please visit http://protectmarriage.com/about#issue and vote YES on Prop 8.

Minnesota, land of my nativity (except it isn't)*

*The title of this post reflects the erroneous, but longheld belief of mine that I was a native of Minnesota. Not until fully grown did I realize that I could not be a native of Minnesota because I had been born elsewhere.

The boys and I recently returned from visiting Grandpa Tom and Grandma Sue in Rochester. We stayed for 2 marvelous weeks and were the recipients of my parents' generosity!

The boys did fun things every day, including seeing a juggler at the public library, picking raspberries, visiting an organic dairy farm and riding in a tractor, playing at the Silver Lake wading pool, going to the waterslide at Soldier's Field pool, visiting Oxbow Park and feeding the goat, reading Calvin and Hobbes with Grandpa, feeding the geese at Silver Lake, catching fireflies, hiking up Chimney Rock at Whitewater, and going to the playground every day. Ethan learned to ride a bike without training wheels (thanks, Grandpa!) and Scott zoomed around on a Bigwheel. Both boys loved watching The Little Engine That Could and Peter and the Wolf. Scott's character repertoire has now expanded to include Tilly (the little engine that could), The Intruder (an airplane), Garfield, BYU, Mitt Romney, Lightning McQueen, Buzz Aldrin (2nd man on the moon), John Beck (a former BYU quarterback)and Bob the Builder.

Candice and her adorable Eden were also visiting and there was some definite cousin bonding. Despite the age gap of over 4 years, Ethan and Eden were pals and could often be found giggling together.

Ben and Christy made the long drive all the way from Illinois to see us before they head to the Big Apple. On Saturday afternoon we had Dad upstairs on his desktop, Erin on Dad's laptop in the bedroom, Ben on his laptop in the dining room, all engaged in a furious online Scrabble game, with Hugh patched in from Utah to boot. Good times. Technology allows us to have this special interaction, which is one step away from our typical extended-family reunions, with everyone sitting in the same room and reading a book.

Kudos to Grandma Sue for all the extra time she spent grocery shopping for yogurt, berries, ice cream, and other children's delicacies, not to mention the delicious meals we had everyday. Even sandwiches taste better at Grandma Sue's. It must be those Minnesota pickles. Sing along if you know the song: Gedney, it's a Minnesota pickle... Where else but Grandma's house can you throw 3 kids in the tub for some good clean fun? Where else but Grandma's house can 3 moms stay up to the wee hours of the morning watching Anne of Green Gables or BBC greats like Cranford?

This afternoon at our swimming pool, Scott informed me, "Mom, I'm going to invite Grandma Sue to our house tomorrow." We are looking forward to welcoming Grandma and Grandpa to our house for Thanksgiving and showing them a great time in our town!