What We've... (New Moon: Eleventh Month)

It's a new moon. Happy New Month!   What we've done over the past (tenth) month...

What  Periodicals We've Read…

My grandpa used to subscribe the kids to Wild Animal Baby, just as Ranger Rick and Ranger Rick, Jr. (formerly Your Big Backyard).  Over the years, though, I noticed that basically the same material would be repeated in Wild Animal Baby, as in the exact same pictures, so I requested for him to save his money on that one, because I kept all the issues.   I've started reading these to Elizabeth.

We didn't catch up on the others this past month, from when we got behind over the summer, because we've read so many other things.  We got through September. 

What We've Louped and Microscoped…

Various mosses, leaves, dried grasses and spearmint, snail shells, fern.  The moss was my personal favorite to loupe.

What We've Eaten…

From top left to bottom right: Fajitas (we've had both beef and venison); chicken and dressing; taco salad (with various greens); pecan pie (Nathan's Sabbath pick one week); chili with beef and pinto beans and rice (pintos, because we have a huge store of them, and the rice turned out as a delicious addition); cheese pizza and salad; French-fried potatoes, salad, and baked macaroni and cheese (perhaps not the most healthful meal, but I do fry in organic coconut oil); and chocolate mousse (my Sabbath pick).  Should have taken a picture of that delicious meal we had of deer steak, mashed potatoes, white gravy, and green beans.  Nathan loves when I fix that.

Can you tell I've been craving Mexican food?  And chocolate.  But, when do I not want chocolate?  LOL

What We've Watched Outside From Window…

Elizabeth watched the first snowfall while holding her deer toy.

Oh, he's a blur!  I looked outside to check on Jaden William as he restocked the back deck with wood, using his old wagon.  He's an excellent helper, and he's well-compensated for his wood stacking work.

The kids and I enjoyed watching a doe and its fawn from the girls' window one morning.  These deer got to eat in peace, as Nathan had already shot two deer, and I like the ones in our yard to be safe visitors.

I took a lot of pictures of these beautiful animals.  I absolutely love watching wildlife.


What We've Done Outside…

Elizabeth got to go play in the snow!  If I remember correctly, she didn't go out to play in any snow last year. I carried he out in it and talked about it, but I don't think I ever set her down then.

As you can see, she loved it at first.  I knew she'd eventually start crying, but I wondered how long it would take.  Just a few minutes, and sure enough, the joy and happiness abruptly vanished, and she started squalling.  I knew it'd happen, because I've seen it before!  ;-)  Little ones that age just can't take that for long.

Before Elizabeth lost her joy and broke down, I was able to snap some pictures of all the children.  Love these babies!  (Since Olivia wasn't wearing her suit, Elizabeth is wearing it.)

All the kids are wearing their camo attire that their Daddy has bought them over the years, in these pictures.  Nathan and the three oldest threw snowballs at each other.  I just enjoyed watching.  My Love and I are posed in front of the creek.

There's always plenty of chicken-catching going on here.  Plenty of exploring.  Jaden William is going down the creek in the woods, as Elizabeth, Olivia, and I watch.  Trusten stayed behind at the house to play a video game.  But I got a couple great pictures of him another day running across the snow.  Elizabeth got a new wool penguin hat, a gift from my beloved Canadian friend Meg.

We got a new dog!  We've considered a dog for awhile, though over the years while we've had kids, they've never worked out.  I didn't want to train a dog when I've got kids to train.  I wanted a dog who could eat the baby's food that falls (or is intentionally dropped) to the floor, and I wanted a dog that would go in the woods to dump its waste. I also wanted a dog that is easygoing and good around kids.

Well, lately we haven't really looked for a dog that is already trained, because we figured we can't afford one.  But our friend's daughter and husband could no longer keep their dog, and her father-in-law was keeping the dog and took him to the pound.  He had to be rescued, or else he was going to soon euthanized.  So our friend actually paid to get the dog neutered and chipped for us, and we are happy with him!  His name is Atlas, which is ironic, because it's the name of a Greek god, and the last dog I loved, whom I trained myself, was a female boxer whom I'd named Artemis, which is the name of a Greek goddess.  LOL  We're keeping his name as it is.

He's a great dog.  He immediately went across the road in the grown-up pasture to do his business, and he is great around the kids, very quiet and obedient.  He doesn't jump all around when he's inside, nor does he try to hop on the furniture (a no-no in my book).  He runs like crazy with the kids outside.  He's just the kind of dog we'd wanted!


What Else We've Done...

Jaden William helped his daddy skin two deer, and he also ground up meat himself so that he could make jerky.  He cut out all the little rib pieces himself to contribute to jerky meat. There he is flattening pieces in the dehydrator.  We've had two batches of jerky, and it's been good!

This is Jaden William's doing.  He set these places up in his weather on his iPod. These were the closest things he found for all our names.  He calls Elizabeth "Fizzy Chicken," supposedly because Fizzy rhymes with Lizzy (which we usually don't even call her), and she is "sweet like a chicken."  Hahahaha!  Anyway...Fizi Territory is in the Dominican Republic, according to William.  He said, "I typed in 'Fizi Chicken,' but that's all I got that popped up in the search results."

Jaden mixing up flour, salt, and coloring to make a salt map of Israel.

He labeled places we studied, like the Masada and Qumram.

Land brown, bodies of water blue.

Two of his glazed pottery pieces he made in art class, that were glazed before they were supposed to be, as he was still working on details.  I like them a lot, except the paint could be better, but I honestly don't know how well I could even do that myself free-hand.  He uses these these for food and drink.  He's got more things coming, once they're glazed and we get called to pick them up.

Two relatives gave us money, and the girls got more, because they were getting birthday money.  Besides a few things, the above shows what I picked out for Elizabeth.  I got her a different wooden stacker, since she likes the other so well (and she loves this one, too) and a wooden shape sorter.  I got her some neat wooden puzzle boards (five two-sided boards for ten puzzles in all) that use colored shapes to fill in parts of the pictures, a chunky wooden insect puzzle (so cute!), a wooden airplane, a real natural biodegradable rubber frog without any hole (which means no nasty mildew), an Audubon bird that can be pressed to emit the real bird's sound (I chose a red pileated woodpecker, but the choice was difficult!), some books (the ones shown, plus two more), and a drawstring bag of soft colored "shape" bean bags (not pictured).  Elizabeth LOVES birds like her momma does, so hence the bird, airplane, and insect things (because my guess is that she'll love flying machines in general, just like her momma).

I chose several neat books for Olivia, too, including a horse sticker book, the Snowflake Bentley we used with our snow theme, and some nursing books and a book about mothers carrying their babies (since she's so very into mothers and babies).  She also got the ebook Are You My Mother? by Dr. Seuss.  I got her a rubber duck like Elizabeth's frog (not pictured). Then, since she really didn't need any more toys, I bought her spring and summer wardrobe, minus shoes.

So blessed to have been able to get more books for our library (I write the children's names in their books, so they'll have them to pass on to their children), because I'd cleared out around fifty books back in the summer that I no longer wanted, and we were overcrowded.  And so blessed to be able to get Elizabeth those nice educational toys and Olivia's future clothes.  I had cleared out so many neat wooden toys of the boys' a few years ago, because they never cared much for toys, except blocks.  Liv is into toys now but wasn't in earlier years.  Elizabeth is really the first one to seriously sit down and want to use stacking toys and such.  All the others just wanted to jump all around and get into my stuff, especially the middle two!  Actually, William would sit quietly and play, but it was more often with my pots and pans and such than it was his own toys.

Anyway...that's all I'm posting this time!  I had forgotten to add my scripture verses that I used with the kids for the "Snow and Babies" post, but I did go back and add those.

Until next time...

What We've...

This time will be somewhat different, as I will mainly update what each one of the kids has been doing and how they're doing.  Though we have been doing plenty of reading, I  haven't recently taken any pictures of reading materials, school work, etc.  I'll be doing another "What We've Been..." posts around the new moon, just a few days away!  This post will go up to November 13.

Jaden William

Has been...

Working in his Perplexors book.  He's hooked!
 

Has been...

Knapping arrowheads (as of just yesterday).  Shown below is his first one (sorry, quick bad picture):

Has been...
 
Not only been picking up walnuts, but he's used some of the walnut hulls from last year to experiment with walnut staining.

Has been...

Taking pottery wheel classes and taking his iPod in to take pictures for me.

Second class, before he worked on the stuff after his first session from the week before.  The picture on the left shows a line for trimming.

Third session, all pictures taken at the beginning, except the far right. The little vase at the lower left he said he broke down, because he didn't like how it was turning out.

He has looked forward to taking the pottery wheel classes for years (min. age ten before, though they allow nine years of age now).  He didn't like the teacher during the first session, but he has since then.  I guess she was having a bad day. 

Has been...

Planting seeds, mainly for trees.  He's got big plans of planting all sorts of things and perhaps starting a tree business.  He's been saving seeds from everything.  I'm so excited!  Below are pictures of different stages of an apple tree with which he's soon got to do something else, as it can't stay like that, especially with that second one in there, too:

Has been...

Raking and burning leaves.  He doesn't need to be asked to do such a thing.  He kept telling me we needed a new rake, and then he's been at it.  He loves outdoor work (yeah, so do I, but it'd sure be nice if I got more willing help with housework, you know). 

Has been taking care of chickens...

This boy just loves "his" chickens.  He spends a lot of time with them and has really enjoyed the chicks.  He also laid down insulation in the chicken house, covered it with black plastic, and nailed black plastic to the sides and back of the house, to keep them warm in the cold weather.  We never asked him to do this.  He just takes care of them.  He gets up early each morning to let them out, even though he usually goes back to bed for awhile.  He almost never forgets to lock them up before dark, either. 

Has finished...

His book report on the last book in the "trilogy" (not quite, though) by Lois Lowry, Messenger.  It's a sequel to the second book, Gathering Blue. They are a companion to The Giver.
  

I was horrified when I took this book from the set to snap a picture, to find the cover damaged!  Guessing what had happened, I calmly explained to Jaden William the proper way to put the third book into the box--to take them all out, then put it in first, then put the other two in, one after the other.

I'm pleased that he's improving with his writing skills, although his neatness has tapered off. He can be neater.  I thought the first page was rather sloppy.  In his reports, he also adds way too many afterthoughts.  I explained to him in final drafts, he should always go insert those details where they really belonged in the first place, reworking it.

So, he's done four book reports: these three and the one on The Children's Homer.  I told him that is all I required at this time, and I plan to teach him next year how to write essays and then shortly after that, research papers of increasing difficulty.  Nathan, however, assigned him a report on each of the Ten Commandments, one due at the end of each week, on each commandment, for ten weeks.  He's completed the first one.  

He's been cooking and baking plenty (mostly breakfast). 

He's doing fine in history, language lessons, spelling, science, etc.  Math is a continual hardship, but I'm confident he'll make it in life.  He's just going to be very delayed in finishing knowing all he needs to know to start his adult life.  Then again, I've noticed when he's doing math on his own, it seems to come quickly and naturally, whereas I'll ask him the same kind of thing (needing quick addition or subtraction, for example) while we're doing math as a sit-down subject, and he'll be blank.  He takes after me, too, where he's a strong-willed self-learner and hates having his learning guided. 

He is continually thinking up inventions and making his own tools and such.  He makes sketches of invention ideas.  He told me this week that he constructed his very own metal detector with a rod with a magnet on the end, and he reported that it worked very well in picking up bbs and all sorts of other things in the yard. 

There's so much more I could say, but there's got to be a limit.  I think he's a neat and interesting kid.  

Trusten

Has been...

Drawing.  He still loves to do the fascinating shapes of all sorts, which I love.  I'm not sure whether the following picture is an example of such that ended up looking like a mountain goat, or whether he intentionally drew a mountain goat, but either way, I think it's neat that we'd just got done reading in one of our magazines about mountain goats.

Mountain goat butting a man

   
Has been...

Baby care-taking.  He loves babies, and he's always been such a wonderful babysitter for Elizabeth.  He's always entertained her when I needed a few minutes, or he helps me watch her.  He is better to help me with her than Jaden William is!

   
He's making sure Elizabeth doesn't wander to the back of the house by herself.  This helps me enjoy my time to write in my prayer journal while we're outside, and then when I'm finished I chase her all over while he plays. He rarely ever complains about taking care of her in this way. 
 

Has been...

Doing super well with his Explode the Code.  He finished Book 1 and is working on Book 2.  He's been reading The Adventures of Tintin.  Jaden William handed over all his books to Trusten.  Trusten will read them at night, when they're in bed.  He will visit William in bed for awhile before climbing up to his top bunk.  Jaden William still uses his light wedge sometimes, but other times he uses a flashlight and they overlap their books and share the light, while lying on their bellies and propped up on their elbows beside each other.  They look so precious and like the best of friends when they're like that.  Trusten can't read the books perfectly, yet, but he thoroughly explores the pictures, and he says there's some of it he can read.  He's been doing well during his daily read-aloud sessions. 

He's also doing ok in math, history and geography.  I'm considering putting a halt to the science curriculum and just going totally free-style still with him on it, because I'm thinking it may be too over his head, whereas it was fine at that age with William when we started the plant science book.  

Has been...

Singing songs, rhyming rhymes, and joking and imitating personalities, all of which keeps us laughing and entertained.  He even includes quite a bit of humor in some of his drawings.  

Olivia    

Has been...

Looking at our photo albums.  This is one of her favorite things to do.  She loves, loves, loves pictures.  When she's not looking at the photo albums, she's grabbing an iPhone or iPod to snap a few pictures of her own!  Her favorite albums are the two of her as a newborn and her first year.

 Olivia and Elizabeth looking at a photo album together

Olivia has also been practicing writing her letters and numbers with an iPad app called Writing Wizard.  She'd had a tracing letters and words app on the old iPhone she was playing with, but it was among many games and things that were deleted by one of the kids.  Then my friend Chel shared about this other app, and I really like it.  After a bit more practice I'll start her on her first Language Lessons book.  

She plays a lot with her Melissa & Doug horses I got her for her birthday, as well as her Barbies that she's received from others.  She also plays with other dolls, pretending to nurse them.  She still talks about her imaginary friends and tells me long stories of her own at bedtime.  She likes to pretend I'm a mother horse and that she's a baby horse, and she also talks a lot about unicorns, although she always just speaks of them with horses that have a horn in their heads.  

She, along with Trusten, helps me in the kitchen a lot.  I'll have pictures for the next post.

Elizabeth

Has got...

New diapers!!!!  Most of her old AIO cloth diapers have worn out completely so that I had to cut the cotton inners out and add to the rag bag.  Since we've had to cut way back on finances, I only bought four new AIO, but I got a full dozen new organic cotton Chinese prefolds, and I already had covers still in great shape. 

I LOVE cloth diapers!

Has got...

A new looking window!!!!  This looking window is in her and Sister's bedroom with a new view!  She likes to stand in the sill and look at the trees and the chickens, if they happen to be in that part of the yard.  I was in the process of getting her dressed for the day in the picture below, and when I was getting her pants, she went to the window.  I had to snap a picture.  :-)

Has been playing with...

Her toys.

Above, she's sitting in our bedroom stacking them.  Below, she's playing around with them, being funny, in the girls' bedroom.

She and Liv both play with their wooden animals, people, trees, etc.  Seen below the animals and things are kept in a bag along with Liv's dollhouse furniture.  I'm also hoping to use the alphabet wooden blocks to teach her the letters, which is one of the main things I used for William, and he knew all his letters before his second birthday (that's highly unlikely to happen for Elizabeth).  Her purse and play silk have been in Liv's dress-up box for awhile, so they will be like new things for her.  She used to love her purse!!!

   

I have been using of of Liv's dollhouse shelves as Elizabeth's "daily shelf."  I try almost each day to put out a hand-selected variety of toys on this shelf for Happy girl, because it's difficult for her to open the toy box and find something of hers with which to play, especially since we keep a big stuffed play horse on top of it.  Here are examples of two different days' selection of toys:

The wooden cell phone and the cloth Curious George book were William's when he was little.   The necklace is Olivia's, but she likes to share with her baby sister.  She shares the bean bags, too.

Has had fun playing at...

The park.

Some days that I've taken Jaden William to his pottery class, I've taken the other three kids to the large park in Fayetteville.  If you look carefully, you'll see in the one picture below, Elizabeth is in pursuit of a gray squirrel.  It's leaping from the fence into the trees.  She loves animals!  It was so much fun that day following her around as she chased after two different squirrels and listening to her squeal and giggle.  

Then another day it was enjoyable to hear her happy sounds of glee as I pushed her in a swing.

Has been having fun being...

A two-year-old!!!  Well...almost.  She will officially turn two in three more weeks.  But she's acting the part.   You can see her on top of the table, standing on a pumpkin (or whatever is available) to reach a counter top, go loving on one of our two cats or a chicken if she gets the chance, pulling all the books off the toddler and young child bookshelf, and sometimes falling asleep on her own, because she's so worn out after all her adventures.

What We've Been Eating...

 Mmmmmm....nothing but goodness!  We had a package of filet mignon left over from Feast of Trumpets, so Nathan grilled them outside on one cold night, while I made up mashed potatoes, asparagus with garlic butter, and a red wine glaće.  We've had muffins, of course, as we are big muffin eaters.  Blueberry happens to be seen below, but I make quite a variety.  A cheese dip with which I've fallen in love!  Oh, it's so good!  After several times making it, I finally got both the consistency and the ingredients down the way I like.

Then since it was pepper season, and when I'd visited my parents my mother had made stuffed peppers, I had to buy some jalapeños and banana peppers to make some myself.  Pizza!  Just cheese this time.  My own pie crust!  Oh!!!  I finally found a pie crust recipe that works well with freshly ground whole wheat and isn't too difficult to work with and tastes wonderful.  So now my pumpkin pies are totally from scratch, whereas I was buying whole wheat crusts.  That's a white pumpkin!  It tastes just as good, if not better, than the orange ones.  It was a huge pumpkin, too!  I got fifteen bags of pulp (2 cups each) frozen for pies, and that's not the only pumpkin I had to bake!  

I've been making stew nearly every sixth day for our Sabbath evening meal (with leftovers for lunch), along with cornbread, which is what I normally do throughout the cold months of the year.  I've been baking bread, as I've been transitioning to baking all our bread.  And I've fixed hamburgers and french-fried potatoes a few times lately.  Yes, I cut my own potatoes, and that's homemade bread for the burger (which includes lettuce, pickle, sauerkraut, mustard, and mayonaisse) with leftover cucumber pieces from a salad the night before.

Looooove eating good food!  And fixing wholesome food is an important part of a lifestyle of learning.  

What Else We've Caught on Camera...

 Happy snuggling with the Da

Oldest three kids sitting and drinking water while they wait for me to check out at our co-op

A nature walk the oldest three and I took when they collected nature goodies in bags, while Happy slept at home where Daddy was.

 Trust and Liv playing at the park

  I loved this message, which I saw when we took Liv to ride the pony on her birthday

 Fuzzy picture, but good memory.  Elizabeth was being silly back behind the couch when we had just sat down to do some reading.

 I love mullein!!!

 My firstborn and I

 My sweet Trust and I

Each time I drove to town during the changing of the leaves, seeing this tree was the highlight of my trip. Sure, there were LOTS of beautiful trees, but this one was absolutely breathtaking in the sunlight, and this picture (taken while I was driving) DOESN'T COME CLOSE to depicting just how great it was.  It was like I entered a different world each time I drove past that tree.

Okay, well that's it for this post.

Until next time...