Happy Birthday, Caleb!

Caleb turned 8 on Thursday! He got to bring Laffy Taffy candy for the kids in his Classical Conversation class, which he really enjoyed. He also got to pick his dinner, and again he picked "tuna pockets", which makes me laugh, since that is something I make when I am stretched for time and need something easy! Hey, it's a favorite. We had garlic stir-fried green beans too.

We gave him a Redskins jersey, which he was really thrilled with. We all know the Redskins aren't very good this year, but he really wanted a jersey of some kind, and well, Redskins ones are what they sell around here, so he was quite happy.

He requested an F-22 cake, which I made today and we took to Bible study tonight. It went together fairly easily, although I was worried about the tail fins, since they are at an angle. As it turned out, I should have secured them with skewers because the left one did topple once we got to the L's house. Oh well. We put a toothpick in so we could take pictures there! Can anyone guess what I used for the nose antenna? It's not a pretzel, since I didn't have any little sticks, only huge pretzel rods. It's a . . . .

. . . piece of dry spaghetti! It worked out just fine!

The reason the frosting is all mottled is that the real planes are painted in 2-tone gray like that. Radar-deflecting and all, you know. We got out several books from the library, even some specifically about the F-22, so I know of what I speak, LOL.


At home, Caleb laid out how he wanted his candles to be positioned. He had the clever idea to put 2 sticking out from the engines, like afterburners. It did make for a cool effect!

Happy birthday, Caleb! I hope this next year is a wonderful one for you!!

Radio Silence

Luke was scrolling down my blog today, and he noted that I had not been posting very much lately. He's correct, and it's going to get worse before it gets any better at all! The next 3 weeks are going to be crazy for me. They are my 3 weeks to teach at our big co-op, so I am furiously trying to get my lessons in order for that. For the first week, we're going to talk about hieroglyphics, numbers, papyrus, scribes, and anything else about writing that I can think of. Right now I'm working on making cartouches of everyone's names. I'm making all the letters, then cutting them apart and putting them in baggies so they can glue the pictures that make up their names onto a brown construction paper cartouche. Even though I borrowed a stencil for the hieroglyphs themselves, this is still time-consuming, and I have other activities to prepare. And that's only for the first week!

For the second week, I'm going to talk about some of their false gods, particularly the ones relating to the 10 plagues of Moses. I'm also going to talk about a few of the famous pharoahs, and we have to make some necklaces and arm bands for them to wear at the 5th week activity. The 5th week is what I am doing all the chicken mummifying and cardboard painting, so thatis also taking up some time!

In the middle of all this, I still have to tutor at Classical Conversations, and since I volunteered to teach tin whistle to the 3/4 and 5/6 graders, I have that as well to prepare for! I think I must have been impaired when I signed up for that, LOL. It has been fun, even though I don't think we're going to get anything really approaching harmony. Some kids really do work at home (this would not be mine, however, LOL), and they sound really good, and then there are those who could be really good, but don't put in the effort required, and then there are those with learning disabilities. Definitely a challenge, and the prepared lessons move at a snail's pace, so that's why I am doing so much of my own stuff.

We have 2 more weeks of Upward soccer. Nathan has already started practices for his junior high homeschool basketball team, and Luke will start his Upward basketball practices soon as well. We are going out to Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow night for our annual non-Halloween celebration with our Bible study. Sunday night we have our monthly church growth group at our house, so things have to be picked up and decent around here! Caleb's birthday is next Thursday, so I have a cake to make for that (he has requested an F-22).

In the middle of all this is the on-going uncertainty of a potential overseas move. Talk about radio silence! It seems that AFPC just becomes a ghost town in September, after the summer cycle is over and done. No one is there! Bob's assignment guy is supposed to be back Nov. 16, so I guess we will know more about a report date, etc. then. In the meantime, the people in Guam are thinking we're coming. Carolyn, my friend over there, talked to the vice wing commander's wife at a function, who told her they were expecting us! Bob continues to sort of be hot and cold about the whole thing. Just the other day he told me he was sending in a resume to a guy from church! But I think we are leaning towards going, unless something really miraculous and clearly from God drops in our lap soon. Of course, that leads to its own set of busyness! I have been deluttering right and left, and trying to get things organized. If this all happens, then it looks like we will try to drive back to Ohio right after Thanksgiving in 2 vans, with Bob pulling a trailer behind the Honda filled with stuff to leave at my parents' house. Then he would drive back here with my dad, and they would work on painting, repairing some drywall, putting the trim around the hardwood, etc., without the distraction of lots of other people around. I think we could stay away for maybe 10 days or so, since the boys will have basketball. We're thinking, based on what the AFPC guy said way back in August, that Bob will probably have a report date in January. Since we have so many commitments here, the kids and I would most likely follow the end of March, when those are all winding down. I am just not thinking about a 25 hour plane trip with 7 kids by myself, so kindly do not remind me of this, LOL.

So that's where we are now, and if you are wondering why I'm not posting much in the next few weeks, just think "Ancient Egypt"!

Wonder Fix?

Grace has started what has become a big annoyance. We have a small CD player in the kitchen, and a few weeks ago she figured out what button was the "play" button, and she started pushing it when she wanted to hear music. That didn't really bother me, so I didn't say anything. Next she moved on to changing out the CD in the player. Soon enough I noticed that, strangely enough, all the CDs in the kitchen were developing terrible skipping problems! They were getting filthy dirty, and several of them developed permanent scratches. Now the CDs we are talking about are mainly kids' ones, and at first they were ones I didn't really care about--a Little People animal one that is a favorite of hers, but which drives the boys bananas, a free Disney one with 7 songs (sung by "Goofy" and "Mickey") that came in a diapers box . . . etc. But then, as I would move over other CDs, like some kids hymns ones, she would work her magic on those as well. I told her not to move the CDs around anymore, but she would be "helpful" in other ways, like by making sure to put away any CDs that anyone had left out for just a minute! It was getting to the point that any time we turned on a CD, we were all ready to leap out of our chairs around the kitchen and family room to run in and skip to the next song when it would get stuck, which would happen about 5-6 times a CD! I was getting very frustrated, plus I was worried about something happening to an actual disk I cared about, like a Latin one or something.

A few weekends ago, Bob and the kids were working outside on the deck, and they brought the CD player outside. I noticed that Grace had switched a CD while out there, and the next day I discovered that one of the kids hymns ones was actually missing. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she must have dropped in outside somewhere, probably through the slats of the deck. Grrrrr. I was very annoyed at that.

Today it all came to a head. CDs were skipping everywhere. The boys were working outside. Lo and behold, they came in to tell me that they had found the missing CD! It had fallen through the deck (I should be a detective), landing in the roof of the shed under there. I didn't think it was rescuable, but Bob managed to reach it. It was, if you can imgine, pretty scratched up though. I wasn't willing to just give up without a fair try, so I googled "repair CD scratches". A number of sites recommended rubbing with Brasso, which we don't have, but several sites also suggested trying toothpaste. Well, that is something we have a good deal of, so I got a tube of toothpaste and several Q-tips, and I started rubbing (out from the center only, of course; never around!). I rubbed all the problem CDs, and I have been trying them out the whole evening. To my amazement, the toothpaste really helped tremendously! The animal CD was the worst, and it still skipped 3 times, but that is a HUGE improvement over its previous performance! A few of the other CDs still had a few trouble spots, but most of the time they were able to correct themselves! No more leaping up to skip the player to the next song! Now Grace is under strict orders to never touch CDs under any circumstance (at least until she gets better about keeping her hands clean, LOL). I'm sure tons of people already knew about this little hint, but I wanted to pass it on for those who were in the dark, like me. Don't just toss your skipping CDs! Try toothpaste first! It can't hurt!

Sickness Again

I think this sickness is never completely going to leave! Luke and Faith both ran fevers today. Nathan is still coughing, and it's been at least 2 weeks since he started. He is not running a fever or seeming sick in any other way than the hacking sound he makes every so often, but still, I think we're all ready for that to go away!

No one has really been all that sick, but it just keeps coming back. Bob is teaching children's church tomorrow, so that means I'll be home during church with Luke and Faith. I'll probably keep Grace home too. She is better, although she is still a bit snuffly, and I know she has sinus congestion. She keeps pointing to her cheek and telling me it hurts, but she's not running a fever anymore, or having gunky green snot, so she doesn't have a sinus infection (yet). Nathan is also having sinus congestion. He asked me the other day how one knew if one had a cavity, because his tooth really hurt on the right side of his mouth up on top. I told him I thought it was sinus pressure, and it would go away soon. I asked him yesterday how it was feeling. He said better except when he did this: and he threw his head violently forward: or when he hit his pillow like this: and he threw his head violently backwards. LOL! So my prescription was "don't do that".

Anyhow, Bob stayed home last week, and I stayed home the week before, so it's been awhile since we were in church together as a family! I'm ready for us all to be better. Amazingly, I haven't gotten this bug. I pray that continues because not only do I have my Classical Conversations duties, which now include teaching tin whistle to the 3rd-6th grades, but also it's coming up on my turn to teach at our other co-op in another week. I'll teach on Ancient Egypt for 2 weeks, and then we'll have the 5th week activity, where I am in the "mummy room". So this would not be a good time for me to be sick!

Mummifying--The Final Steps

Way, way back on Aug. 25, I posted about starting to mummify King Cluck. Well, I continued to faithfully change his salt/baking powder/baking soda/spice mixture until, after 4 weeks or so, the salt no longer got wet. By that time he was residing comfortably in his gallon ziploc freezer bag on top of the dryer, and I had started a second chicken mummy. That one is going to the demo one, the one which isn't wrapped, so everyone can see what a mummy looks like under the wrapping. Well, that mummy ("Am-Hen-Otep") is also finished, and I figured I had better get busy wrapping King Cluck, or he wouldn't actually be dry for the big 5th week presentation on Nov. 17!

Step 1: Dust off all the salt possible with a damp paper towel. Dry thoroughly with another paper towel. Here you can see what mummified flesh looks like, since I'm sure this has been a burning question in your mind.

Sterp 2: Rub with teriyaki marinade . . . just kidding! This is actually scented oil I made by filling a jar up with spices, adding oil, and letting it sit for over a week. I told the kids this was the sort of thing the ladies who went to Jesus' tomb on Easter morning would have been carrying, and they were wanting to prepare his body by rubbing oil on it. Of course, he would not have been a mummy, LOL.


Step 3: Fill cavity with cloth strips, and then dip other cloth strips in glue/water mixture. Wrap those around the chicken. You wrap the legs and wings first, separately, and then you wrap the whole thing up.

And finally, you display the finished product: a throw pillow! No, kidding again. This is actually King Cluck himself, all ready for his journey to the next world. In person, you would not really be tempted at all to lay your weary head down on him. He is quite smelly, not in an absolutely terrible way, but not in a good way either. In fact, Bob just walked in and suggested we move him out to the garage while his wrappings dry. And I will never be able to enjoy the smell of cinnamon and cloves in quite the same way that I did before.

So just another few weeks, and then I will be able to dislodge permanently both chicken mummies from the house. I am looking forward to that day, believe it or not. We need to make a little coffin and sarcophagus for King Cluck first though. We already have one shoe box picked out.

Date Night!

Bob and I went out to Chili's last night on a real bonafide date! We had their "3 for $20" deal, where we got an appetizer, 2 entrees, and dessert for $20. Can't beat that! We had a lot of fun. The best part was that we just left. Nathan and Luke watched the kids--no babysitter! It was wonderful! I started heating up leftover spaghetti sauce before we left, and they reheated some noodles to go with it. They served everyone dinner (Faith had already eaten), and then they all went downstairs and watched a video. Faith was poopy once, but Luke was a super stud and changed that. We were gone a little over 2 hours because we also had to pick up Bob's van from a shop. We had taken the big van in for an estimate on the damage from when Bob was rear-ended a few weeks ago. Bob had stopped by the shop after work, paid and picked up the key, and he drove it home, leaving his van there. So after we ate, we drove over there to pick up his van. But when we got home, everything was quiet and normal--just what we wanted to see! I foresee more date nights on a more regular basis in our future. THIS is the nice part of parenting--having kids who are older and responsible!!

20 and Counting

One of the books I've recently read during my nursing times was The Duggars: 20 and Counting. My friend Carri recommended it as a light read when we were visiting their farm back in June. I finally got around to requesting it from the library, and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it! They seem like such a genuinely nice family! Disclaimer: I have never actually watched any of their shows on Discovery, but I do read articles about them in magazines and newspapers, so I felt like I was already familiar with them and their beliefs. I am not a huge Bill Gotherd fan, that's for sure, and I know they follow his teachings pretty faithfully, but there was no attempt to convince anyone they are right or even any putting down of those who might have looser standards for modesty or whatever. Really, there was no preaching in the book at all, but they were so open and sincere about their faith. I loved it!

I always enjoy hearing how couples met, so I was glad they started with that part of their story. I knew they had lived in small houses before they built their big new house because they were commited to never going into debt, but I didn't really know exactly HOW small the houses were, or how very long they lived in them before finally moving. Their first house they had children in was a 900 square foot one with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom next to a busy road with their used car lot in the front yard! They lived there until after their 5th child was born. Wow. I think I would have gone crazy. And then they moved up to . . . a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house. Woo! That's really spreading out! But they were committed to not going into debt, so they saved up until they could pay cash, and then they had to save up to be able to fix it up. They lived there until their 15th child was born, at which point they could finally move into the big house they live in now, most of which they built themselves. Amazing!

Michelle is really honest in the book. She talks about the exhaustion and the tears, with so many little ones in such a small house. She shares openly about her inverted and sensitive nipples that crack and bleed, which has made nursing very difficult and painful for her. She has talked to many La Leche League volunteers for help, and she has nursed each of her children several months even with the pain. She also shares that her cycles return, even with full-time breastfeeding, at 6-8 weeks, and she's usually pregnant again by the time the baby is 8-9 months. The Well-Trained Mind board has had several vitrolic-filled threads about the Duggars, with people always pompously suggesting that she weans as soon as possible to try to get pregnant, and how that isn't letting God decide the size of the family, but that does not seem to be at all what happens here. Michelle in particular shares a bunch of pretty personal details to try to clear up the nosy misconceptions of people who still won't like them just because of who they are and what they believe.

The book talks about all the businesses they have had, and they were very honest about failures there too. I was very impressed by how the Lord led them into making deals and buying properties, and then how the Lord used those properties later on. Another way the Lord led Jim Bob was to run for state legislature, where he was elected and served for 2 terms. Then Jim Bob felt the Lord telling him to run for the U.S. Senate. There was already an imcumbent Republican, so he didn't even have the support of his party. He lost with only 22% of the vote, and he wondered what had really been accomplished with the run. Some photographer took a picture of Jim Bob and Michelle, along with their 13 kids, as they went to vote. The photo was picked up by the NY Times, which was interesting but nothing to take note of. A little later a freelance writer who had seen the picture called, wanting to write a story about their family. The magazine who had originally been interested decided not to take the story, but eventually Parents magazine ran it. An executive at Discovery Channel saw the Parents article and wanted to do a documentary on the family. So now with all the shows made about them, they have reached maybe even more people than if they had just been sent to D.C. as a congressional family!

I alos got some good hints about how to make things work with a big family. One thing that won't work now, but I am definitley filing away in my "dream house" file is that they have one big room for all their family's clothes, right by their big laundry room (4 washers and 4 dryers). Everything is hung by size, and every night everybody picks out what they will wear the next day and takes it up by their beds. As our boys get older, I can foresee when they are wearing mainly similar sizes. It is already a hassle, and I am somewhat arbitrary about what shirts go on say Caleb's side of the closet versus Jonathan's side. So haivng one big clothes room seems like a great idea! Also, and I don't really think we'll ever be doing this but it is nice, they have a huge (350 sq. ft.) pantry with a roll-up garage door, so they can back their van right up to it and unlaod! THAT sounds convenient!

At the very end of the book, they talk about the upcoming birth of their 18th child, who was born in January 09. They write, "We know it may be difficult to understand how excited we are about another baby's birth, but it's absolutely true. . . When we hold that baby in our arms for tthe first time and admire its unique face and tiny features, we know we'll be filled with the same sense of awe and thankfulness for God's amazing power and grace that has filled our hearts as we've welcomed each one of our children. Each and every child truly is a blessing from God." I know that back when we had maybe 3 or 4 kids, I remember thinking about a family who found out they were expecting #8 and thinking, "Why?" I guess I figured out they already knew basically what their kids would look like, both boy and girl models, so who keep going? But what I have come to realize, and what is hard to explain unless you have lived it, is that you eventually reach a point, believe it or not, when it is not the huge jump to add another child like it is when you are having your second or maybe third. And then you start just looking forward to seeing who it is that God is adding to your family. You get excited to see how the older kids will interact with the new one. You are even more keenly aware of exactly how individual each and every child is because you already have so many very different personalities, with such decided likes and dislikes, and you wonder how each new person will fit, and what their unique gifts and talents will be. I think I am enjoying each baby more and more, as I become more comfortable as a mother, and as I have more and more help from the bigger kids!

So I recommend the book, even if you don't have a big family. I appreciated some of their child-rearing and other tips as well. It's always fun to read about a family that makes ours sound like a small one!