Simple Sleepover

Sleepover friends, playing with Play-doh.

Since we have ten little feet in our family, we don't always find time to invite anyone else over. The kids have enough friends just with each other, but as they're getting older, I'm realizing that they really do need some outside association. So, to kick off this fall break, each of the three big kids got to invite a friend over to spend the night. Before they arrived, we hit the Dollar Tree and Target to make some preparations. We wanted to keep it simple, but be sure there was plenty to do, so no one would be saying "I'm bored!" I think we succeeded. We decided to get a couple of games, some puzzles, and supplies for making ice cream sundaes. We also bought new Play-doh and glow sticks and brought out the Legos and blankets for building forts. We ordered pizza for dinner and had an assortment of choices for breakfast, including: hot chocolate, Reese's Puffs, egg sandwiches, berries, oranges, bananas, popcorn, and pretty much whatever else they could find to get into (ice cream again!). After breakfast, the kids all helped clean up the house, and we took our football, basketball, volleyball, soccer ball, and baseball and walked to the park. Everyone stayed active, and nobody once said, "I'm bored!"

Here are some pictures - I know I need a new camera. These were taken with my iPhone, which I think my kids have played with too much. Also, I don't like how hard it is to put my pictures where I want. Why can't I put them side-by-side. Bear with me while I learn the basics of this blogging thing. I'm a little behind the times:)

Playing the game of Life.

Building with Legos.

Playing dress-up.

 

Glow sticks in the fort.

 

 

Blanket fort #1.

 

Blanket fort #2.

 

Breakfast of Champions (great book by Kurt Vonnegut btw).

 

A clean house!

 

Volleyball at the park.

 

I ate ice cream, too:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chili Cook-off

The kids' elementary school had a chili cook-off at this year's harvest fest, and since chili is one of my specialties, I figured I'd teach the kids some cooking skills and let them enter as youth competitors. As you can see in the picture above, it was a success. My son, Jacob, won first place for people's choice. Here's the recipe for Jacob's Meatastic Chili:

1. 2 pounds ground beef
2. half red bell pepper
3. half green bell pepper
4. half medium sweet onion
5. 4 cloves of garlic
6. large can of kidney beans
7. smaller can of garbanzo beans
8. can of Rotel tomatoes
9. salt, pepper, and chili powder to taste
10. pickled jalepenos, sour cream, and grated cheddar cheese for toppings

Dice all the veggies.

Saute veggies in olive oil until soft.

Brown your ground beef with the veggies.

 Add beans, tomatoes, and seasonings. Let it simmer and simmer and simmer.

My daughter, Jocelyn, made a vegetarian version that also got quite a few votes, putting her in second place. She was very disappointed not to get a ribbon. This is her recipe:

1. 1 medium zucchini
2. 1 medium yellow squash
3. half red bell pepper
4. half green bell pepper
5. half medium sweet onion
6. 4 cloves garlic
7. 1 can pinto beans
8. 1 can black beans
9. 1 can garbanzo beans
10. 1 can corn
11. 1 can Rotel tomatoes
12. salt, pepper, and chili powder to taste
13. pickled jalepenos, sour cream, and grated cheddar cheese for toppings




Dice veggies.

Saute.

Oranges for Sale

Lots of kids have a lemonade stand, mine sell oranges:) We have two dwarf orange trees that put out hundreds of oranges each November, and of course that's more than even a family of seven can eat. Especially when they all seem to ripen overnight. This will be the third year the kids have picked, washed, bagged, juiced, and sold the oranges and orange juice at the little stand they set up on our corner. Luckily we live on a street that gets a decent amount of traffic and most of the passersby are friendly and supportive. After 2 hour-long afternoon sales sessions, the kids made a combined profit of $30 and got a $20 donation as well. They still have boxes of oranges left and the tree is still putting out fruit, so I'm sure there is more money to be made. My daughter is especially happy because she can tell her friends she has $50 too, and she worked for it (she didn't just get it as birthday money). We also have a fig tree and a pomegranate tree that put out lots of fruit. Maybe next summer the kids will decide to sell those, too. Do you have fruit trees that produce more than you can consume? Give your kids a lesson in consumerism and let them be entrepreneurs - just be sure to supervise and remind them to be cautious with strangers.

Handprint Tree

This is a simple craft that would work for any season (just change the color of the leaves). I did this project with my 4 year old and 20 month old. Obviously, my 4 year old was able to do more of the work independently, but my 20 month old still enjoyed having her hand traced and gluing the leaves on the branches.

Materials:
Red, orange, yellow, and brown construction paper
Brown shopping bags
Pencil
Scissors
Glue

Instructions:
1. Help your child trace his/her handprint on the construction paper. I put as many handprints as possible on one piece of paper and then used that piece of paper on top of the others to cut out all the handprint "leaves" at one time.
2. Cut open a brown shopping bag so your child can lay down on it, and you can trace the outline of his/her head and body with hands up above his/her head. This will be your tree.
3. Cut a few "branches" from what's left of the shopping bag.
4. Glue the branches and leaves onto your tree body.
5. Display proudly on your wall.

Halloween

Sophia usually loved school, but after five years in elementary she knew that October, November, and December could be rough for someone who didn't celebrate holidays. So when she opened the classroom door on October 1st and saw the skeleton in the back corner, the Jack-o-lantern on Ms. Martin's desk, and the "Witches' Welcome" sign on the wall, she couldn't help but let out an exasperated sigh.
"Don't you just love Halloween?" asked her friend Emma with a big smile on her face.
"No," said Sophia, "You know I don't celebrate. Remember?"
"I know. I know," said Emma. "I'm sorry. I just get so excited about costumes and haunted houses and ghost stories and trick-or-treating and candy!" she gushed.
"I know," said Sophia. "But it's not really a good holiday. It's about evil spirits and demons and stuff."
"But it's just for fun! I'm not trying to worship the devil or anything," argued Emma. They had the same conversation every year, so she already knew that Sophia didn't like Halloween, but that wasn't going to make her like it any less. After all, there was a whole bucket of candy involved.
Sophia had never had any problem with not celebrating holidays. She didn't feel like she was missing out on anything, and she didn't just not celebrate because that's what her parents told her. Even though she was only 10, she understood what she had learned from the Bible, and she knew that Jehovah God didn't want people to participate in any sort of false worship, even if it was "just for fun." She had started turning down holiday candy and cards all on her own when she was just 3 years old. She could still remember the bag of candy with the hearts and the red ribbons that her dance teacher, Miss Evaline, had offered her for Valentine's Day years ago. "No, thanks," she had said," I don't celebrate Valentine's Day." Her mom had been so impressed. She'd told her that it was even hard for adults not to accept holiday treats sometimes.
Sophia's stream of thought was interrupted by the morning bell and Ms. Martin's request for them to please stand for the pledge to the flag. Everybody stood, faced the flag, and put their hands over their hearts. Sophia stood and faced the flag, but she kept her hands by her side and kept quiet while everyone else said the words. The pledge to the flag was something else she didn't participate in, and every year she had to explain to her teachers that Jehovah's Witnesses didn't get involved in patriotism or politics, and that her allegiance belonged only to God and his Kingdom. In first grade, a substitute teacher had made her cry because she told her to put her hand over her heart and say the pledge with everybody else. The substitute felt bad when Sophia was finally able to explain through her tears that she was one of Jehovah's Witnesses. The substitute thought she was just being disrespectful, but Sophia never wanted to be disrespectful. She was a people-pleaser, so that made it especially tough sometimes because she wanted to please Jehovah, too.
"Please take out your Writer's Notebooks and write about the prompt on the board," said Ms. Martin. "Please be sure to use proper punctuation, capitalization, grammar, and spelling. Today I would like you to write a scary story. There are ten words on the board. Please use at least seven of them in your story."
Sophia looked up at the board. The list of words included: apparition, creature, frightened, ghoul, haunted, horrifying, invisible, magic, netherworld, and supernatural. It seemed like Halloween came earlier every year. She sat and tried to think of a way to write a scary story using seven of Ms. Martin's ten words without it being a Halloween story or a ghost story or something about the supernatural (even though supernatural was one of the ten words). Just then she saw Emma raise her hand.
"Yes, Emma," said Ms. Martin.
"Ms. Martin, Sophia's not supposed to write about ghosts and Halloween and stuff," said Emma, looking over at her friend.
"Yes, thank you for the reminder, Emma," said Ms. Martin. "Sophia, if you're not comfortable using these words, feel free to choose seven of your own," she said, "But that goes for Sophia only. The rest of you need to use at least 7 of the ten words listed on the board." Some of the students in the class groaned. Sophia blushed and stared intently at her Writer's Notebook. Sometimes it was embarrassing to be singled out in front of the whole class, but teachers never thought about stuff like that. She started writing about a trip to the dentist. That was the scariest thing she could think of, especially if there was a

So I Say I Want to be a Writer

All my life I've wanted to be a writer. My first story got published in the local paper when I was in kindergarten. I kept a diary all through middle school, high school, and college (though they have since been burned in the fire). I majored in Creative Writing as an undergrad. And yet, I don't do the one thing I have to do to be what I say I want to be! The only requirement for being a writer is . . . . WRITE! And so, now, 16 days before my 36th birthday, I am going to become what I've always wanted to be. To that end, I am making myself the goal of writing at least 1 page a day. Honestly, I'd like to write more (like 1000 words a day), but with a full-time job and 5 kids, I think a page a day is a more realistic goal. Especially since I have the feeling many of my first writings will be ramblings. According to my LinkedIn profile, I am currently writing a picture book about figures of speech and a novel for young adults about facing persecution as one of Jehovah's witnesses. Truth be told, neither of those projects have gone beyond the brain-storming and note-taking stages, but I think I might use this blog space to get those up and writing.

Figures of Speech
We use so many metaphors, similes, idioms, and other figures of speech in the English language, that I'd like to create a kids' picture book that illustrates some of those expressions. For example, one page would say, "When it's raining cats and dogs, be careful not to step in poodles!" My illustration would be a collage of a little kid with an umbrella splashing in puddles while cats and dogs fall from the clouds. The title of my book might be Going Bananas! or Cat Got Your Tongue? An Illustrated Guide to Silly Sayings. I could possibly arrange the book into sections about colors, animals, foods, body parts, etc. Here are some of the expressions I'd like to put in pictures (I'm sure I can find a more complete list of figures of speech on the internet): caught red-handed, seeing red, feeling blue, the green-eyed monster, yellow-bellied, horsing around, monkey business, frog in your throat, pigging out, going bananas, all thumbs. And as I'm writing this my four-year-old is over here crying his eyes out - guess I could use that one too.

Persecution
Jehovah's Witnesses face difficulties every day. We are trying to live in the world while staying separate from it, and that is not an easy task. I think it must be especially difficult for kids who face pressure from not only their peers, but also from their teachers, coaches, counselors, and other adults everyday. Some of the constant pressures those kids face are: the pledge to the flag, student government, patriotic and holiday songs in music class or chorus, holiday activities, bad language, dating, over-involvement in extracurricular activities, pressure to go to college, drugs, invitations to birthday parties, inappropriate entertainment, etc.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I love gardening, but I am by no means a pro. In fact, I know I've got a lot to learn, and much like my previous furniture post, from what I've attempted so far, I've learned that being lazy just means I'm going to have to do it again.

When we moved into the house we're renting, the backyard needed some serious TLC. I bagged about a dozen contractor's bags of dead grass, raked the gardens, planted, mulched, and put down stone, but then my pregnant belly got too big, and the backyard was once again neglected. All my hard work and my husband's hard-earned money, went down the drain (or in this case, got swallowed by weeds.) Lesson learned? Don't be lazy like I was - put down some weed-block.

In any case, the backyard is still pretty much unusable. There's a giant rock waterfall and pond structure right in the middle that takes up any playing space. On one side of the pond there's a pomegranate tree and a baby avocado tree. On the other side, there's a fig tree. What grass area there is is overgrown with weeds or brown. I love the fruit trees, but after filling the pond and running it for the past 6 months, we've decided it really ought to go. I'd rather have that area for the kids to play - maybe we could build a little clubhouse.

I'm going to attempt to add some pictures once again, but the upload has not been working today. Still not working. . . . . . . . . . .