If you can't say nuthin' nice, say somethin' funny

The weather situation here in Utah has been very wet. The newscasters are continually comparing our rainfall to 1983, the last great flood in the area. Anyway, as I have been contemplating (and often cursing) the rainy/snowy (Yes, snow, they are predicting 4 inches in the valleys tomorrow.) weather we have been having, I have been thinking of a story that I read in a book called Sanpete Tales: Humorous Folklore from Central Utah. If you can get this book, I recommend it, it was funny. Many of the settlers of Sanpete County were of Scandinavian descent. The story preserves their spoken accent.

"One year it had been unbearably hot the entire summer; the canyon streams had dried to a mere trickle. We had done all that we could do to conserve water, but it wasn't enough. Unless it rained, the crops were doomed; so Sunday was selected as a day of fasting and prayer for rain.

Hans P. Peterson was chosen to offer the prayer. He had been away to school and later gone on a mission to the Southern States, adding a Southern drawl to his Danish accent and his polysyllabic vocabulary. This is how he supplicated the Lord for rain: "Oh Faathehr, thou great and all-powerful antecedent of all that lives and grows upon the earth, we do beseech thee to meticulously guide us in our meandering on this mundane sphere and to help us in this present crisis. Thou knowest that hydrogen oxide, sometimes known as oxygen hydride, is essential to plant growth and we beseech thee to let it descend from the heavens onto the earth, and cause that our plant life may assimilate it and grow to maturity and be food for our bodies and strength for our souls. This we pray for in the name of thine only perfect Son, Jesus. Amen."

It didn't rain. Faithful Andrew surmised that God couldn't understand Brother Hans P. and Mormon Preacher Nielson seconded this position. So they decided to try once more. This time Lead Pencil Petersen was chosen to make the prayer, for said Faithful Andrew, "His prayer vill be straight as a ramrod vit not even a kink at de top to pull it back vit."

This is how Lead Pencil Peterson put the case before the Lord: "Our Heavenly Fadder, ve has come togedder, de whole bunch of us, to pray for rain. Tings look very bad down here and de plants looks purty drooped oond veary. Now vat ve arr praying for is rain, but understand, Fadder, ve don't vant von of dese tunder oond lightening showers, for dey neffer do much good oond often dey do a hell of a lot of damage, oond ve don't vant no gully vasher either. Let de rain be a slow and gradual von vit plenty of vet in it. Now, Fadder, ve hope dat you vill gif dis supplication your undivided attention for it mean much to both us oond you. You understand effen ve don't get no crops den you don't get no tithing. In de name of de Son. Amen."

Well, you know, it clouded up that afternoon and by evening there was a steady, gentle downpour which lasted a couple of days. Lead Pencil Peterson gave full credit to God. He said, "I know de Lord vould see dat it vas a good deal as soon as he understood how de business affected Him."

An excellent lesson in praying for what you really need and having the faith that it will be granted. Now, if everyone in Utah would just pray for a little dry. Sunny would be nice too. And don't forget warm.

Caleb's Dream Job

You all know how much Caleb loves animals. I recently told him that he could be a zoo keeper as a job. Apparently this was a revelation for him. Today during church he said, "When I am older and you come to the zoo, you will see me in the cage scooping poop." He demonstrated the poop scooping. Then he said, "I will say 'Hi, Mom!'" and he waved at me. I was laughing so hard. It's too bad that this was during the sacrament and I couldn't tell anyone because all the giggling would have been totally inappropriate. When I finally was able to tell Aaron, he laughed and said, "Well, at least he doesn't have any misconceptions about what the job entails."

We had a very cold January. Weeks went by without the high temperatures creeping above 32. It was also inverted (smog trapped in the valleys), but there was little snow. All of the nasty of winter, without any of the fun. We had to do something to keep our spirits up. So, we put out a lawn display that I had seen in Family Fun magazine a few years ago.

Penguins flocked to our house for Penguin Auditions.

The kids and I made almost 30 penguins out of pop bottles. The kids had a lot of fun making and personalizing the penguins. Then I put out the sign. The kids would put out a few penguins every day.

A small family of penguins.

A whole herd of penguins in our front yard.

We had quite a few neighbors comment and laugh about it. One family from our ward kept driving by our house to count how many penguins were out that day.

The kids love to go on business trips with Aaron. They asked me in early January when we would be able to go again. When I mentioned it to Aaron, he said that he would be going to Cedar City to do a final on a building on the SUU campus. So the last week of January, we went on a quick trip to visit springtime. We drove down to Cedar City early Friday morning. Aaron worked all day. We visited the toy aisle in Walmart and went to a park to play. It was lovely. After Aaron was done, we got to go into the replica of the Globe theater that they have there. We walked all around and talked about how theater was in the time of Shakespeare. There was a stage door open, so we walked out onto the balcony. It was cool to see the stage and theater from that vantage point.

Then we drove to St. George to stay with Aaron's Grandmother Renee. It was lovely to see her again. The temperatures were in the low 60's, lovely weather for playing outside. The kids all jumped on the trampoline and played in the sandbox. We had brought scooters, so they rode scooters up and down Renee's street. In the afternoon we visited the dinosaur museum they have in St. George. The museum is built on a spot where my dad's cousin found dinosaur foot prints. The slab below has the foot prints, tail prints, and hand marks of a dinosaur who squatted near a lake or stream and was probably eating.

Katrina, Caleb, Hannah, and Maggie posing like the dinosaur who made the marks.

Maggie eating something, Lexi, Renee's granddaughter, and Sophie.

This is a drawing of what they think the dinosaur might have looked like.

Here's a diagram of the prints and an interpretation.

The original prints are in the far corner of the museum that you can see in the top picture. Then the dinosaur gets up and walks across the stream bank. The museum has twenty six of his foot prints. It was pretty interesting. The kids played outside in a sand dino-dig for quite some time. It was so lovely to just be outside and not have to be bundled up to our ears. After dinner, we drove home. We didn't get home until midnight, but everyone slept in the next morning.

On a side note, it has been so cold and nasty since then, that I haven't cleaned out the car yet. It still is full of garbage, sleeping bags and scooters. Maybe sometime soon it will warm up enough to make me want to go outside and get that cleaned up. It's not looking likely anytime in the next week.

Happy Birthday Katrina

Having your birthday on Christmas is super exciting. A whole day of presents and people just for you. We got up around 8:30 and opened presents from Santa. Then we went to my mom's house for Christmas brunch and opened more presents. And finally, in the evening, after a delicious ham from my brother-in-law, James, Katrina got the blow out the candles on her cake and open more presents.

Katrina kept telling me, "Take a picture, Mom." Then she would run over to see it, run back and say, "Take a picture, Mom."

A little before Katrina's birthday, we asked her what kind of cake she wanted. She said "Duck." Then we were trying to teach her that she was going to be three years old. So we asked her "How old will you be on your birthday?" And she said, "Duck." She was not going to be side-tracked by this new topic.

Katrina with her ducky cake. She ate some frosting, hence the blue mouth.

Katrina helped me make the cake. She put the ingredients in the bowl and licked the spoon. She was so excited about it that we had to go visit it while it was cooling. Then she helped me decorate it. Mostly this consisted of her talking a lot and sampling the frosting.

Christmas day was really nice. The temperatures were in the 40's, so in the afternoon we went outside and shot off rockets with Grandpa. The kids jumped on the trampoline and Katrina and Lia played in the sand box.

Here's Katrina in her "Santa" coat and barefeet. They were blue by the time she came in.

Katrina got so many fun presents. She played and was happy all day.

Dora and Backpack figurines that came with a Dora Candyland game.

Katrina and Jakey playing Hop goes Froggio.

Now that Katrina's reached the ripe old age of three, she has some big mile stones ahead of her. She's getting a big girl bed this week and her crib and binky are going away. She's also on her last pack of diapers. She's really excited about learning to go pee in her special potty. And she's a Sunbeam this year. She is such a happy and sweet girl.

In the air there's a feeling...

Our Christmas season got off to a roaring start this year. Festivities started on Thanksgiving day. Sure, we stuffed ourselves silly and plotted our yearly shopping trip, but the main excitement was Caleb's birthday. It's hard to believe he's five. He wanted a jungle birthday cake, of course, and picked out the animals for it himself.

Caleb's jungle birthday cake. There's a hippo, rhino, cheetah, yak and ram.

He asked for a sled for his birthday. Luckily it had snowed a few days before so Aaron and the kids went out the next morning to try it out. They had lots of fun. Caleb was also old enough this year for a friend birthday party. He invited his cousins and a couple of girls from his primary class, where he is the only boy--poor thing.

Caleb blowing out his candles. Everyone made an animal ear headband. Caleb wore his monkey leash.

He was so excited about his jungle party. We played a lot of games where you could run around a roar, so it was a great time for everyone. After the excitement of Caleb's birthday, we put up the tree.

Hannah and Maggie decorating the tree. Maggie will be trying out for Vanna White's job soon.

Caleb stood on the stool to put on the ornaments.

Mom hands out the ornaments and the kids get to put them on.

Sophie coming back for another ornament.

Where was Aaron during all this, well now that his light stringing duties have been eliminated, he took a nap on the couch.

Pictures of Dad asleep--there's nothing better.

Just kidding. He actually helped the kids put on the ornaments and took all the pictures. He even had Maggie take the staged nap one.

We always celebrate Sinterklaas with my family. It was fun to have my brother and his wife and cute new baby here to share that with us. Somehow we didn't get any pictures of them. Sometimes I wonder why I am the one in charge of taking pictures. I am so bad at getting the really important ones. Sinterklaas brought all the kids new snow pants and gloves.

Look Dad gloves!

Katrina got gloves too. If only it wasn't so early in the morning.

Unfortunately, he forgot the snow. We had to wait two weeks to try them out.

We were excited this year to be able to enter a gingerbread house competition put on by our school. We decided to make a gingerbread camp. I put together the tents and set up some of the gingerbread people. We made a gingerbread person for everyone in our family. We even had Dad poking the fire with a candy cane and Hannah fishing in a pond.

The kids kept asking why Dad always pokes in the fire. He just does.

Maggie and Sophie decorating the gingerbread scene.

The kids did most of the decorating. Sophie made a really cool bird out of starbursts that landed on one of the tents. The gingerbread competition was fun. There were a lot of fun houses and we got to go ice skating for free. The kids LOVED ice skating. They pestered me the whole way home about when we were going to go again. We were also excited about winning a prize for our gingerbread campsite. We even got a "major award"--a commemorative mug.

Aaron and Caleb have the good fortune to spend a few days with his brother in Maryland. They went to see a 3D dinosaur movie. Caleb was so excited about that. You could almost reach out and touch those dinosaurs.

We have exciting plans for our Christmas break. We are going ice skating with the Smalleys. Every day since we planned it, some one has told me at least once, "I can't wait until we go ice skating." We will be watching a fun movie on Christmas eve. We haven't reached a decision yet, but Despicable Me and Tangled are in the running. And, what I think the girls are most excited about, we will be painting Hannah and Maggie's room. We got paint samples at Walmart the other day. According to the girl's plans, their room will be a kaleidoscope of color. I think they have seven or eight colors picked out for various parts of their room. I'm going to try to talk them down to one or two.

We also have plans to stay up to 11pm every night and sleep in until 9:30 every morning. There's the all important TV watching that needs to be done, not to mention the computer gaming. And let's not forget the fudge, toffee and other evil treats that abound at this time of year. Sounds like a great holiday. Merry Christmas to you all!

Snow Day

Katrina LOVED the snow. She was happy the whole time and threw snowballs and laughed hysterically at you.

So we woke up last Wednesday to 7 inches of snow. It was super exciting. We decided to take a snow day from school. After an hour of scrambling around trying to find snow pants, boots and gloves that fit everyone, we trouped outside. Maggie and Sophie made a snow fort. Caleb wanted a snowman. Grandpa came out and helped us. And as it was just before Halloween, we actually made a snow witch. Then Hannah thought it would be funny to dress her up in a hula outfit. You can't see it in the picture, but she's wearing Hannah's flip-flops.

Our fabulous snow witch.

Then we had to go over to the park to go sledding. We were there for another 45 minutes, until everyone was crying. Then we came home, snuggled up under blankets, drank hot chocolate and read about the Romans. (If you haven't read the Magic Tree House research book on this, you should. It's really interesting.) Then we also finished the Rapunzel retelling that we had been reading. I think it was called Rapunzel, the one with all the hair, or something. It told the story from both Rapunzel and the Prince (who was called Benjamin)'s point of view. Then I think we may have watched Mythbusters. So, let's see--that's PE, history, reading, and science. Not a bad snow day. And no one thought they were learning anything.

Three kids on a sled.

By the time the regular schools got out, the snow had melted quite a bit. There were still big patches in the shade, but nothing like what we enjoyed in the morning.

Home School

As I suppose you are all now aware, we decided to home school our kids this year. For those of you who didn't know, I apologize. I told Emily and Dad Abbott called me about it, so I just figured everyone knew. Let me explain a little about the program we are using. It's called K12. It's an online school, so it's more like a traditional school than what you are probably thinking when you think of home school. It's a charter school, so the state pays for it. They sent us a computer and all the books and supplies we need for the year. There are two teachers who check work samples from the kids once a month. They are also there to make sure we are on track and if we have any questions. The kids do get a grade from the school. There are also lots of chances to meet other kids from the school in outings and clubs.

I really like it because I don't have to come up with lesson plans for three kids. I get up in the morning, check our schedule for the day, and do any minimal prep work that I might need before they start school. It takes me around 15-20 minutes. Hannah does most of her work on her own. I am only there if she has a question. Maggie needs a little more prodding and closer supervision. I especially have to help her in science and history. Sophie can be set small tasks to complete on her own, but I spend most of my time working with her.

One of the fun things is that we can start school when we are ready, usually about 9am. We can also designate fun dress up days. We've had several pajama days and the other day we had hat day, because the kids wanted to.

Hannah, Maggie and Sophie on Hat Day wearing their super-cool new hats.

We use our project room as a school room. All of our computer work is done here. But the kids can take their offline work anywhere in the house they can concentrate. They like to work in the toy room and our spare bed room. Aaron's office gets used and we've even gone outside.

Here's Hannah at our main computer. I love the color scheme in this room. Miekka designed it. It is so fresh and upbeat. We have supplies in the boxes and our school folders on the shelves. To the right you can see the magazine rack we use for on-going projects. And on the left is a spot for posting work. The pink page is an essay Sophie wrote and illustrated about parakeets.

This is our other computer work station. The cupboards holds all of our art and science supplies. You can also see a red topped jar. It holds pom poms for motivation. When you finish a lesson or Mom says, you can put a pom pom in the jar. When it is filled we get to go on a outing.

One of the subjects that I enjoy most is science. Each science lesson has an experiment of some kind. So it's fun to see the science principle in action and do it yourself.

Sophie doing an experiment with parachutes and quarters. She is trying to find which of three parachutes will be safest. She is experimenting with friction.

Maggie had a fun experiment with static electricity. After this we went out to the trampoline and played shock Mom. Caleb was especially good at it. I actually saw the electric shock come to me. Freaky!

I don't have a picture of it, but Hannah finished school in an hour one day, and I asked my Dad to take her up to the canyon to see some recent landslides. She was talking about soil erosion and composition. She and Caleb had a lot of fun climbing around in the dirt. Later, my Dad emailed Hannah some pictures and an article about a big landslide that happened in 1983, in Thistle, UT. It was pretty cool.

The kids are also taking piano lessons from Aaron. We are so grateful for the way in which we got Great-Grandma Abbott's piano. It was a real blessing and is a very important part of our home school. Thanks too to Emily for giving us her kids old piano books. They have been just perfect for our kids and very helpful.

Has it been hard? You bet. There have been a few days when I have thought, what were we thinking? But the kids have really enjoyed it, for the most part. Utah curriculum requires that kids take Utah history in 4th grade, but K12 doesn't have a good Utah history course. I decided to supplement it and was looking around for resources, when my Mom suggested that I let Maggie go to the elementary school and take history. I thought she would jump at the chance to hang out with her friends for an hour or two a week, but she didn't want to.

Overall, I think it has been a good experience. I have been able to help the kids in ways that I wouldn't have been able too. And I think that the kids have grown closer together. We have a lot less fighting and meanness. The kids have also been more helpful. There's been less whining at requests for help.

Caleb is starting preschool this next week. It's also a free online school. I think he will really like it. He went in for some preliminary testing last week and was so excited about the test, he wanted to go back and do it again the next day. So, I can't think of anything else to tell you, but please email me or comment with questions, because I would love to answer them.