Highlights from Last Week

At the company picnic, Cory told Kaith to go sit down to watch the animal show. Kaith chose a spot right next to some young woman, cuddled up, and put his hand on her knee. We have no idea who she is.

Miriam got a turn choosing and making family night treat. She chose star cookies, and was very proud of the result. Our lesson was on prayer, from the new nursery manual. That worked well, since Trevor was assigned to give a talk in primary on that subject (his teacher, who assigned it, said, "your kids give good talks. I learn from them"). We got our hard copy of Behold Your Little Ones just a few days ago, which was much sooner than I'd been expecting it.

About a month ago, I subscribed our family (under Trevor's name) to a magazine called High Five. It's the preschool cousing to Highlights magazine. We got our first two issues (they sent last April's and this October's) this week. We cut-out the bug dominoes, and played that. They also had a recipe for homemade tortillas. Trevor helped me make those, and wow, they were good.

My school started Thursday. I've had three days to work on things and am only two days behind schedule.

Our ward had a "Corn Ball" on Saturday. We brought dinner rolls, as usual. Silly us, we gave the kids lemonade before lunch. They hardly touched lunch, and that includes the cake. However, they did take frequent trips to the bathroom. I think we totaled seven, in all. I've included a picture of that toilet (sorry if you don't know that story. I think its unbloggable). Sterling, who did not drink lemonade, did eat most of a hot dog bun.

Kaith's school starts tomorrow. K-12 has been changing suppliers, I think, and so we haven't received the supplies we'll be using. We got an automated phone call Friday night saying our box would arrive Monday evening, at the latest. It must be costing them a lot of money to express ship a lot of big boxes. I'm glad I don't have to pay for the shipping fee.

Three Birds, One Stone

I have had several elusive desires, my Three Birds:
*spend one-on-one time with each child
*have a good kitchen education
*kids involved in staging family night

A couple weeks ago I had a humble stroke of genius, my Stone:
*Let one child a week choose and assist in making treat for family home evening, rotate so everyone regularly gets an opportunity.

This stone first flew three weeks ago. Trevor chose Chocolate No-Bake Cookies. Last week Miriam chose Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies (from C is for Cooking). Kaith had been anxiously waiting for his week. When his Monday finally arrived, he spent the morning perusing cookbooks. I did not have to entertain him, and he wasn't whining! After musing aloud, "We could make ___" numerous times, he finally settled on Rainbow Sprinklers, which are a soft sugar cookie rolled in colored sugar. He was so proud to be making (or helping to make) such fancy cookies! I think we need to have the children rotate responsibilities on the lesson, now.






As you can see, Sterling enjoyed the forbidden contraband that his sister gave him.

Call Me On a Mission

For Family Home Evening, we sang "Called to Serve," prayed, reviewed the children's Behavior Charts, and colored unidentifiable pictures for Uncle-Elder West. Kaith's is a snake. He draws ghosts the same way. It appeared that the Liahona was not available in online PDF format for Japanese, so I had to scratch my hope of printing-off a coloring page with a Japanese caption. To prove my forethought, ingenuity, and effort, however, I printed "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in Japanese.

I'm sorry the picture is fuzzy. The children broke the camera. It no longer zooms or focuses. I guess we're doomed to buy a replacement before my fall classes start up.