Kids in the Kitchen - Baking Cookies with Susannah

This past Sunday evening Daniel played for a special Thanksgiving Service at church while the rest of us stayed home (and the littles finished their naps).  Sundays after church are low-key for us, mostly resting and spending time together as a family.

This particular afternoon I decided to give Susannah some baking experience. She has helped me with baking a lot over the years (when she was a toddler she would stand on a stool watching and sometimes helping dump ingredients into the mixer). This time I decided to let her be as independent as possible, barring something terrible (salt instead of sugar, that type of thing).

I chose my favorite Gingersnap Cookie recipe, partly because I was in the mood for them, and partly because it is a very simple recipe. And they are super delicious!

I had her read through the directions of the recipe BEFORE she started putting ingredients into the bowl, to help her learn that ingredients list order isn't always the mixing order.

From there she just started making the cookies! She had questions from time to time but I only had to intervene once when she used baking powder instead of baking soda. I was able to scoop out the baking powder, and I told her that I've made the same mistake before. :)

She did all of the work from start to finish, even putting the cookies into the oven and taking them out when the timer beeped.

I was proud of her and she was excited to have gained and earned that level of independence. I'm looking forward to lots more cooking and baking together in the days and years to come!

Almost 2 Susannah

I'm not sure what my intentions were with this post, but it has been sitting in my drafts folder for over 5 years. 2 cute pictures from when my days were mostly just me and Susannah. This was about 2 months before Sylvia was born. 

In the first picture Susannah is playing with some fun "bumpy blocks" that were a Chrslistmas gift.

In the second picture I am pretty sure she was telling me something about whatever she was holding in her hands. Even though she didn't use words mich yet at that age, she still enjoyed communicating. 

Tiny Talk Tuesday ~ No Noodles! ~ From May 2013

One day this past week we were eating leftovers for lunch which included some pasta.  Susannah was telling me about all the different plants we have in our garden.

"Peas, broccoli, tomatoes, cauliflower... MOM! Noodles! We don't have any growing noodles!!"

I tried to explain to her then that noodles don't grow on a plant, but instead they are made out of flour, eggs and water.

*****

At the supper table, Susannah reached over and pushed the short sleeve of Daniel's work shirt up. Then she wrapped both arms around his upper arm, gave his arm a big hug with the side of her face smooshed up against him and said "I LOVE your big muscle!!"

Daniel grins, flexes and a big S for Super-Daddy glows on his chest when she admires his strong biceps. :-) I hafta say... I kinda like them myself. ;-)

*****

After lunch today I had planned that we would run to a local produce farm to get another flat of jam berries. It was time to begin getting ready to go so I instructed Susannah to go to the bathroom by herself (which she can do). I turned the light on for her and went about my own preparations which included going outside. While outside, I hear "Moooom!! Mooooom!!!" coming from the open living room window. She had finished and walked out to the living room looking for me.

I went inside and she asked me to help pull up her pants as she was finished going potty. I noticed that her undies and capris were wet. I asked if she forgot to close her knees while she was on the potty and that's how her pants got wet. She said that wasn't the case. Then I asked her how her pants got wet and she said "I peed like a boy!" ... meaning, instead of sitting on the toilet like girls have to, she stood as she has seen some of her boy cousins do. Like Daniel said, "well, now she knows!" that it doesn't work that way for girls.

Pictures from Christmas 2013

Susannah age 3 3/4, Sylvia age 1 3/4.   I was 6 months pregnant with Charity.

We had very simple gifts this year. Now that I am editing and publishing this 3+ year old post, I don't even remember what they were! I think books. Maybe coloring books and special colored pencils or something.

We also had Christmas stockings for the first time.  I bought sweaters from Goodwill and made stockings from them. 

In the stockings were new toothbrushes, some fun individual snacky things that are special, and in the toe of the stocking an orange, just like in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. :)

One gift we gave Susannah was a ladybug necklace. She loved all things ladybug and Daniel called her "Ladybug".

I made a birthday cake for Jesus, we sang Happy Birthday, and the girls blew out the candles.

Tucking their dollies into a hand-me-down cradle we were given, and I had kept hidden away to give them at Christmas.

A {Doll} House!!

A few weeks ago the mail-lady delivered a very big, very mysterious package!! (Susannah now thinks that the mail-lady brings us surprises!!) I had not ordered anything and was not expecting anything so I was a little puzzled. I did some thinking and putting two-and-two together (the address, the handwriting, etc.) and had a good idea of what the packaged contained.

Reading the letter from Miss Wendy

A phone call to my sister confirmed my suspicion. Her sister-in-law had built a doll-house and sent it to our girls!! The rest of that week was full with happenings and Daniel was busy so we waited until Sunday afternoon to open the Big Box.

Susannah and Sylvia were very excited to see that it was a doll-house and they were eager to help pull off the packing paper and find all the goodies carefully packed inside the house.

Wendy built doll-houses for her nieces (Sally's girls) and Susannah and Sylvia recently had enjoyed playing with their houses while they were visiting Sally's family in July. Little did they or I know a doll-house had been in the making for them since January!!

They love the house and spent many hours each day playing with it for the first several days. They have since moved on to other toys, but the house is still here and I know they will enjoy it again when they get tired of the "regular" toys.

I love the house!! I think it would be a fun house to live in if I were a tiny person. :) The details are so intricate, down to TEENY-TINY, framed photographs of our girls and a larger one (maybe 1.5" inches tall?) of our family hanging in the living room. So many details that personalize the house to the girls, our family and lifestyle (a rooster wall-hanging in the kitchen, a cat, ladybugs on one of the bedroom walls...).

A big, BIG "thank you!!!" to Miss Wendy for the love, time and detail put into making this beautiful house for the girls!! This is a treasure they will have for the rest of their lives.

A GOOOOOD Day

In the 10.5 years that I have lived here, I don't ever remember having such a cool summer.  We had the air conditioning turned off for an entire week in JULY. I turned it off yesterday and opened the windows and it's still off. I don't know if the official temperature has hit 100° this summer (I suspect it has on a few days).  Usually summers are so hot and muggy that I dread going outside.

God has been giving us a wonderful gift of lovely, lovely summertime weather this year. Oh, I know it could still get super hot since sometimes our "summer" lasts through October, but I am thoroughly enjoying this mild summer!

I guess Daniel and I must comment to each other about what a "nice day" it's been weather-wise, and apparently little ears pick up on that. :)  Yesterday several minutes after one of us said how nice the day was, Sylvia said "It's a GOOOOOOOD day." It was a lovely day. After lunch I strapped on Charity (I think with baby #3 I have finally gotten the hang of baby-wearing!) and we went to visit the chickens. After we gathered the eggs the girls frolicked in the yard, running up and down the hill several times.

While it was Sylvia's turn in the swing, Susannah went over to the tree, sat down and said, "I'm going to sit and talk to God for a bit." Then she told me what all she was going to talk to Him about. I don't remember what all, but it was appropriate 4-year-old conversation topics. :)

Sylvia wanted to swing for a while so I was pushing her "up to the sky" as we call it. After a bit she called out, "Mama! I see the great, big sky!!"  I turned around and indeed, it was a lovely view of the sky. 

I love where we live. I do miss the mountain views that I grew up with, but these little 2.5 acres are pretty nice. :)  It's usually quiet. Dark at night so we can see the stars. A rooster crows in the mornings, and afternoons. :) Country enough that we can walk down the road and watch the combines in the field, or hear the hay-haulers driving back and forth on the road. Some evenings if the windows are open and the air is still I can hear cows lowing somewhere nearby.

 

I am so thankful for these GOOOOD days that we are given. Not only in terms of the weather, but the time given to me with our girls.

Wordless Wednesday: I "Must-ache" You a Question

 

Mustaches courtesy of a Vacation Bible School prize that Sylvia won. :)

First Day of Home-School, 2014

Susannah, age 4

Kindergarten

Goal: Learning to Read

Sylvia, age 2

Observer and master of wooden puzzles. :)

We're eager to see what the year ahead holds for us. :)

Charity was napping when I took the previous photos, so here's her First Day of School picture:

 Charity, 4 months and 2 weeks old

Charity's goal: figure out how to move!

Mama's goal: get her to like food

Preparing for Homeschool - The First Year

Do I really dare call it "homeschooling" when all I will really be doing is teaching Susannah how to read and doing some math? Since I have ordered the material and it will require me to use a portion of each day to teach the material, then I guess yes, it is homeschooling.

As I face the quickly approaching school year as a first time homeschooling mom, so many thoughts cross my mind.

Can I do this? Can I really teach her how to read, do simple math, AND do everything else that must be done? Can I keep up with the dishes? The laundry? The baths, potty trips and diaper changes? Can I keep two other little people happily busy while I teach one something specific?

Is she ready? Yes, of course she's ready. She wants to know how to read. ...but what if it doesn't click? What if I don't know how to teach everything in a way she can understand and learn and retain and and and...  

Will she pay attention long enough to do each lesson?

Will I recognize if it's not working so we can step back and take a break if we need to? I don't want to frustrate her...

I want it to be fun. I know that all learning cannot be "fun" but as much as I can I want homeschooling to be a good experience. For all of us. What if either of us gets tired of schooling? You can't just stop doing school like you can stop playing with kitchen toys or blocks or whatever.

And on and on go similar thoughts in my head. So many "what ifs."

On the other hand, I am so excited for so many reasons. Mostly to see her mind unlock the treasure of reading. I love books. I think Susannah will enjoy reading so much! She wants to be able to read so badly. I haven't told her yet that we will be starting school soon, so that she can learn to read. I am excited to see her excitement.

I'm excited at all the fun adventures the future holds. All the fun field trips I want to do.  We had gone to the printers to pick up some teacher's handbooks that I had printed off of a disc. While standing in the print shop I had the idea to someday take a field trip to a printing place. A working dairy. Museums. Historic places and landmarks. Factories (Hershey, PA is top of the list when they are old enough!!!). So many more ideas go through my head. I know these aren't homeschooler-specific things to do but things that I think will make homeschooling "the bee's knees!"

I've heard about many ways to teach reading and have honestly done little-to-no research on what method I wanted to use. For a while I thought I would just use the same curriculum that I had learned with, but then I heard about American Language Series from a friend. The more I heard about it the more I wanted to use it. 

We will be using American Language Series which covers phonics & reading and spelling, writing & vocabulary simultaneously. (I didn't order from this site, but you can read a very good overview of the course here.)

For Math, we will use Horizon - K (overview here). It was recommended for going together well with the learning to read program. I have had fun looking through these books and anticipate that Susannah will have fun, too.

I don't anticipate that at 4 years old she will grasp everything covered and my guess is that we will make it so far and then put the books away for next year. My goal for this year is to teach her how to read. We can worry about nouns and punctuation and graphs and math later. :) 

We are fortunate that when we built the addition we included a school-room. It's the least-finished room in the entire house but finished or not, here we come!!  One thing I am really excited to do is to make our school room an enjoyable place to learn. I don't know how realistic it is, but I plan and hope to put up some decorations and use various decorative/creative ways to help with learning. I bought a huge bale of colored contruction paper at Costco the last trip and plan to put it to good use!! 

The Good Ol' Summertime

It is hard to believe that we are already to August!! I was gazing at Charity today (yes, gazing :) ) and felt some sad twinges to realize that she will be 1/2 a year old next month. The end of next month but still...

 
She enjoys playing and holds her head up well. She CAN roll herself over but has yet to do it intentionally. That is nothing new for our babies. They learn at their own speed. :) She is one happy little girl! Matchbox cars are a little advanced for her, but I took these pictures when Sylvia so kindly shared a car with Charity. :) 

I feel like I am finally back on the wagon of maintaining our house since Charity was born. A big boost in that department was when my sister invited Susannah and Sylvia to spend a few days at their house last month. Charity and I hung out here and I did some serious "get things back in shape" cleaning!

I am learning to harness the power of the natural energy that lives in our house. ;) The girls love running the vacuum sweeper so I let them each take a turn or two after we've cleaned up the floor. Once it turns into a "turn it on/turn it off" game I take over and sweep up everything that's left.
 

I'm pretty fortunate that at the age of 4 (almost 4 1/2) Susannah still takes a nap almost every day.  However, if I put her down for a nap at 2:00 she is like a jack-in-the-box and doesn't get any rest (and ends up not in the greatest of moods by bedtime). So most days she gets the privilege of staying up and we work on something together until 3:00. Then she has to stay on her bed and rest at least until I go open her door at 4:00. It is rare that she doesn't fall asleep and take a good 2 hour nap. :) That tells me she's still benefiting from naptimes.  Unrelated, but I'm pretty certain she's going through a growth spurt. She, who never complains about being hungry and typically eats like a bird most of the time, has been coming to me about 2 hours after every meal asking for more food because she's hungry. Last night she polished off a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at 9pm!!

One day this week she helped me finish making the bread I started at lunch time. She used her little wad of dough to make tiny cinnamon rolls. It thrilled her to no end and she and Sylvia had them for their after-nap snack.

We have now officially experienced the Coxsackie virus in our family (also known as Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease). Daniel had it the mildest several weeks ago and we didn't even realize that's what it was (he had 3 spots on his arms) until the rest of us got it and we put two and two together. Susannah and Sylvia were great little patients and were pretty happy through the whole ordeal. Susannah did have an ulcer in her mouth but rarely made mention of it and always ate well. 

Poor Charity had it the worst on her skin. She didn't seem bothered by it, but two of the days she didn't have very good naptimes and didn't like being down to play. I ended up pulling out the Snugli baby carrier and used that some since she was happy if I was holding her.

I feel like I suffered the worst. Since it's more prone in children I was hoping to escape. Not helping was randomly getting Strep Throat out of nowhere to start my round off. I went to the Dr. to have that checked out and while we were getting my prescription filled I noticed the first blister forming on my thumb. That was Saturday at noon, and by Sunday morning I had 3 ulcers in my mouth from the virus. It was complete agony as my feet had blisters on the soles and felt like walking on stick-pins when I walked, and anything with my mouth besides carefully moving my lips and tip of my tongue hurt like fire. I lived on drinking smoothies and pureed soup through a straw from Saturday evening until Tuesday night when I very, VERY carefully ate some "real" food. 

At first I was thinking "it's just a virus, no big deal..." Well, I will never, ever, EVER consider it to be "no big deal." I admire Susannah's pain tolerance (or perhaps the Lord's protection over her?) and am so grateful to be mostly on the other side of this now.

Now August is here and I am turning many of my spare-time-thoughts towards school. I'm pretty excited that this coming Monday is our first day of home-school. Susannah doesn't know it yet, but she will be learning to read. :)  She really wants to be able to read and is showing all the signs of being ready. I am eager to watch it "click" in her brain! She has seen two "secret packages" come in the mail (the school books) and is very, VERY excited to find out what was in them. We plan to tell her this weekend. You might want to stay tuned for a post or two about that. :)

The Good, Full Life

I have written so many blog posts in my head that never made into the real thing. I feel like Charity's life has had so little recorded about it!!  A condensed version of her life would be that the first 5 weeks of her life was miserable for her and me. She was not a good sleeper and just cried and fussed her way through SO many naps unless she was being held. I don't know how many of her naps I laid in bed with her on my chest so we could BOTH sleep. She was a good eater, she didn't have unusual amounts of burps or gas. There was no rhyme or reason. Sometimes she slept great, others she didn't. And she wasn't spacing out her feeding times, either. I finally had a light-bulb moment when she'd had a few great days and then suddenly she was having a horrible time of sleeping again. I thought and thought and thought, going over each and every single detail of what I had eaten, where we had gone, what she had done over the last day and realized that I had eaten ice cream 24 hours before. I had been surviving on ice cream and yogurt for my "I'm starving, I don't have time to make food, there is no food ready to eat RIGHT now, I am so tired (caffeine isn't really an option)..." snacks and "get me through to bedtime" meals. I quite eating dairy and she turned into the happiest, smiliest baby just like I thought she would! Thankfully I don't have to read labels, but boy oh boy do I miss cheese and yogurt and ice cream! Hooray for Almond Ice Cream and other non-dairy frozen dessert things that I enjoy from time to time. She is just now to where I can have Parmesan Cheese on Spaghetti again. Yummy!! :) She sleeps through the night, from about 10/10:30pm to USUALLY about 6 or 6:30am. Now if I would go to bed at 10 or 10:30... ;)

 Daniel's work never had a slow season this spring. That seems typical of our baby years for some reason! He just came out of two 75-ish hr. work weeks so we are really looking forward to the 3-day weekend this week!

We make the most of his time at home when we're awake and can visit and hang out as a family.

Susannah and Sylvia adore Charity. :)  Susannah has developed and interest in the written word. She spends big chunks of time writing our names and from time to time other peoples' names. She is showing an interest in reading, too, so learning how to read may be in her future for this fall!

One day I decided I was going to make a set breakfast and lunch menu for a week, and we just go 'round and 'round with that. I eliminates 2 things for me to think about and figure out each day. :) I enjoy it and so do the girls. Ice-cube tray lunches are one of their favorites!  It changes a little each week depending on what fresh fruit and vegetables I have, but it's usually similar to below.

L-R: Organic Animal Crackers, Strawberries, Lunch-meat Roll (cut into wheels), Cheese, Avocado, Ranch Dressing, Bell Pepper, Croutons, Cucumber

I love being mama to this sweet girl!!!  It is strange, though, to look at her sometimes because she just has peach fuzz for hair. Both Susannah and Sylvia had at least 1" long, dark hair by this age. :) Charity looks a lot like Daniel when he was a baby.

Walking on the ceiling is fun when Daddy's home

 And sleeping on the ceiling, too... :)

In Daniel's "spare" time he has been busy building a large chicken house onto the back of our shed. We are very eager to have chickens again!!  He has made a lot of progress since I took this photo, and we hope that he will be able to have it chicken-ready very soon!!

 

I don't plan to leave you all hanging for another 2 1/2 months before I post again, but for now I must go see about dinner. Happy 4th!!!