The Battle of the Patio Door

Not the real one of course... but notice the proximity to the potentially stifling hot kitchen?

Oh my little blog....how I have missed you so.  I attempted to write up blog posts on the road on my laptop, but got as far as four sentences and then Microsoft Office crashed.  Damn.  So, I've done a lot of stuffing.  And not the turkey kind.

We've spent the past week at my inlaws.  It is an 80's era house.  The kitchen is centrally located, and is roughly a 12 x 16 rectangle.  There are two breezeway doorways on adjacent walls.  There is a window on an opposite wall, and one of the doorway walls also has a patio door that goes out onto a small deck.  The house is kept pretty warm - uncomfortably so for us CO folk, so cooking in a hot kitchen in preparation for Thanksgiving is, well, not fun. 

I spent the better part of Wednesday and Thursday in the kitchen.  I am not complaining - it was pleasant, the kids helped from time to time, and we worked at a leisurely pace.  My MIL made cornbread stuffing and prepped all of the cookware she would need for the turkey and the ham, and I made my artichoke heart/spinach dip (to be baked the following day), 6 dozen rolls and a large crockpot meal for that night.  It got hot and uncomfortable in the kitchen.  So I cracked open the patio door about 4 inches to get a nice breeze flowing through.   Aaaaaaahhhh.

Pretty soon, FIL arrived home, took a panicked cursory look around the kitchen, noticed the source of irritation (an opened, unlocked door),and strode across the kitchen, shut the door and locked it.

He left.  I opened it.

We repeat the scenario at least three times during the next hour.

Next day... Thanksgiving.  Now we have 5 - 6 people in the kitchen.  Cooking, helping, or just getting in the way.  Let's repeat the door scenario a few more times, just for kicks.

Holiday Road

 

It's a day early, and ready or not (which we are not) we are leaving this morning.  I still have a couple of suitcases to pack, some dishes to wash, and four children to get up.  Other than that, we are ready.  Oh... and a million little details that will fritter away at least a couple of hours.  Sigh.  I'm sure lots of different post ideas will be generated through out the day. 

If you are a regular blogger, do you find yourself always writing out a blog post in your head???

I do.  All.  the.  time.

Update....

Nope - that was the way it was supposed to go down at 6am this morning.  It didn't.  We hit the road at 4 am tomorrow morning.  And this time we truly are ready.  Funny thing is..  we are right on schedule!!

Keepin' it real...

Sigh.  One of my biggest complaints about my college education is that the pedagogy was weak on the how aspects of teaching.  HOW do you teach a child to read?  I got all sorts of ideas on how to support literacy, but not the nuts and bolts of the HOW.  Same with math.  I had one - O*N*E math class.  We mostly played games and had an incredibly boring textbook to read.  Ninety-nine percent of it was about aligning your lessons to the NCTM standards.  Super-helpful.

Most of the ideas I use (to compliment Rylan's MEP curriculum) with Rylan are either something I came up with on the fly or something I saw on some one's blog.  For me, the best blogs for ideas are Magic and Mayhem, No Time for Flashcards, and Homeschool Creations.  There are sooo many good ideas from these terrific moms!

Yesterday's math lesson was all about 0's, 1's and 2's -adding and subtracting, inequalities and writing practice.  We've been doing the same thing for the past two weeks, and each day it's just a little more involved.  I've noticed that Rylan does great when she is working with something tangible and not-so-great when she is working in the abstract.  Well, duh... kids aren't wired for the abstract quite yet.  I wonder why the curriculum developers, the so-called education experts that advise the curriculum developers, and some of the teachers that use the curriculum, keep pushing the issue that kids need to be reading, writing and completing abstract calculations at increasingly younger ages.  I think it is an issue of politicians needing quantifiable results to push their agendas - and true education just gets swept out the window.  I wish they (the out-of-touch politicians) could sit in the front lines and see what their unreasonable expectations are doing to kids.  I really, really do.  Once again, I am so thankful that I got out of public education.  But, still, even as a homeschooler, I feel compelled to get the reading/writing ball rolling - it is so hard to resist the pressure not to do so.

Rylan is five years and six months.  She can count to about seventy.  She can't skip count - and oh, how I have tried.  She can recognize odd and even, and knows about inequalities.  The 'Alligator Mouth' did the trick - except now she wants to draw the teeth in every time.  She can count objects, play along with a number story (I'll detail that in a moment), she can divide things out equally and group according to attribute.  She recognizes patterns and loves to play with unifix cubes and Cuisenaire rods.

But.

When I ask, pointing to the printed problem on the lesson's worksheet for the day, "What is one plus one?", I get a blank stare.  I pull out two counters and try again.  Then I get results.  I know this all takes time - but some days I just feel like abandoning the worksheets altogether because I feel like they are getting in the way.  I don't ever want math to become a negative thing between us.  She loves to do all of the activity stuff - and I want to keep it that way.

Yesterday we did the little flashcards for the first time (pictured at the top).  She happened to have her Lego Jessie with her, so Jessie 'helped' her count.  This is probably about the third time we have counted using a number line.  I've had this mat for a long time, I just never remember to pull it out.  We are working on jumping up the number line to add, and jumping down to subtract.  It just so happens that Jordan is also doing a lot of number line work lately- he is working with positive and negative numbers right now.  So he pipes up and starts telling her about negative numbers.  Then I have to send him to the kitchen table to finish his work before he completely confuses her.



In a part of her lesson we needed to demonstrate the concept of 'equal' with a balance.  That is a tool I wish we had... we had to settle for a good-old-fashioned wire hanger and plastic bags.  It worked for the most part.  I had to pull out the marble-jar, which has been in hiding for the greater part of a year.  Owen and Colin were delighted and of course begged and begged and begged for marbles.  I now have about 15 marbles to fish out from underneath the stove alone.  Doing 'real' activities like this works really well for Rylan, so I try and make the bulk of the lesson doing stuff like this.  I know that kids do this sort of thing in public school too, but with us, it's individualized.  Owen doesn't like using counters as much as Rylan does, give Jordan too much 'stuff' to work with and he gets completely distracted - keep it simple.  You can't quite expect that to happen in the regular classroom.

The dryer completed its cycle right in the middle of our math lesson.  (I have a hard and fast rule that you drop everything and tend to the clothes, immediately.)  So as Rylan and I stood in the closet and sorted and folded and hung up stuff, we counted.  "Rylan has three pants.  She puts one away (puts in on the shelf), now how many does she have?  Daddy has two pairs of socks.  If we put both pairs on the shelf, how many do we have left?  Two minus two equals zero."  And so on.  This works pretty well and we use this number story activity in sorts of different scenarios.

As long as we keep it real, a connection can be made.  I think that might be good advice for all facets of life.

Bread Machine Recipe 1 of 4: Butter Crescent Rolls

You will not believe how e*a*s*y this recipe is.  My five year old almost has it down pat.  It takes about SEVEN minutes of minimal labor on your part.  If you love soft, dense rolls, this is the recipe for you!

As long as I can remember, my mom has made these rolls.  She got the recipe from her sister, who got it from a fellow USAF wife in the 70's.  Then, several years ago my aunt came up with a way to make it in the bread machine - thus removing any of the labor that goes along with it. 

Ingredient List:

• 1/2 Cup of water
• 1/2 Cup of milk (use whatever % you have on hand - I've even used skim)
• 1 stick butter, cut into eight equal pieces
• 1 egg
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 C sugar
• 4 C flour (you can use regular flour - I use High Altitude unbleached flour)
• 2 1/4 tsp yeast (I use Fleischmann's BreadMachine yeast, in a jar)/or 1 packet of RapidRise yeast

About 1 hour 45 minutes before you need the rolls (because they are out-of-this-world-good fresh out of the oven), you can start the dough in the bread machine.

First, get a 2-Cup size glass measuring cup - or use a large glass bowl if you don't have one.  Just don't use a single cup glass measuring cup because it will overflow.  Measure the water in your measuring cup, then add the milk.  Take the eight tablespoons of butter and place them in the cup as well.  Microwave the water/milk/butter mixture for 1 min 20 seconds to 1 minute 30 seconds and then pour into the bread machine pan.

Don't ditch the measuring cup yet!  Crack the egg into the buttery cup and mix with a fork for a few seconds and then pour into the pan.

Then pour in the salt, sugar, and flour.

Then add in the yeast.  I buy it by the jar because I make rolls about 3 - 4 times a month.  I should cut back.  But then life would lose all meaning.

Select the dough cycle (the timer should read 1 hour 20 minutes) and start 'er up!  Check the dough about two minutes after you start the machine, because it is notorious for mixing everything underneath, and leaving this heavy flour layer on top.  Scrape the sides and make sure everything is mixing evenly.  The dough should look like this when the machine gets rolling...

When the machine reaches the end of the dough cycle, go ahead and unplug it. Here comes the hard part.
Dust your counter top with flour, lift out the pan and dump.  (now wipe your brow...)

I use a small shaker, filled with flour, to dust the counter and the dough.

Take the dough and divide it in half.  Roll the dough out into a large circle.  It can be just a tad sticky, so keep the flour handy.  Cut the circle in half, and then half again.  Then cut three wedges in each quarter.  I've found that using a pizza wheel makes this job super-fast and easy - the dough won't stick to the wheel either.  I also use it directly on the counter top (which my mother does not approve of), and it has never left a mark.  I also have nineties-era crap Formica counter tops, so I don't really care...
 

Roll the dough from the wide edge towards the center and place on a ungreased baking sheet.  I do a dozen at a time.  There is no second rising time, so the rolls are ready to pop in the oven as soon as you are done rolling (told you this was easy!).

Bake at 400 F for 8 - 10 minutes.  I prefer my rolls soft and underdone, so I bake mine at 390 F for 9 minutes.  Every oven is different, so experiment and find out what works for you.  I immediately place them on a cooling rack, and place the next twelve rolls (which were already rolled and left waiting in the counter) on the same warm baking sheet and put the next batch in the oven.  I don't try to bake both dozen at once - they never turn out as well for me, even if I switch the pans around halfway... 

And there you have it!  They keep well in the fridge, and you can also make ahead and freeze.  My mom makes a batch, freezes them, and then pulls a roll out here and there and microwaves it to heat it up.

Variations:

You can add herbs to the dough mixture when you add the flour.  I often add a little dried dill, oregano, basil or a dash of sage - just use what you like!

A breakfast variation might be to mix a mash of butter, brown or white sugar and cinnamon.  Spread it into a thin layer on a peice of waxed paper and freeze it for a half hour.  When you roll out the dough, cut the frozen butter mixture into little peices and sprinkle onto the dough and then roll up the cresent rolls.  I just thought of this, so I haven't tried it yet, but gosh that sounds good.  Hmmmm....

Happy baking!!!

Weekend Project: building a wall

We're not hoarders...just never-put-awayers

We don't let small children wander downstairs into the basement.  For no other reason than that they might end up trapped under a pile of schtuff.  We have lots of schtuff.  Boxes of old school paperwork.  Teaching schtuff.  Baby schtuff.   The kind of schtuff that happens when you combine two households and half of it gets relegated to some other space.  It was semi-organized at one point.  Then, around this time last year, we had the bright idea that it was time to prep the basement for finishing.  Our mission was to clear out about two-thirds of the schtuff.  We began by pulling the eight bookcases that lined the longest wall, and moved them all to our master bedroom.  Then I could - at a leisurely pace - begin to toss/donate all of the books, CDs, cassette tapes (what are those again?), and VCR tapes that we didn't want.  For the past eleven months I've tossed like five books.  I've picked up the pace in the past month and have now donated A CAR LOAD.  I still look at the books that are left and wonder why do I still have my Plant Biology 101 textbook?  Why do I have six different First-Year Teacher prep books?  WHY?

So when we moved the bookcases, everything that was either on them or in the way had to be shoved in a big pile into the middle of the room so that we could get them out.  The big pile is still there, only it's even bigger now.  We were stopped in our clearing-the-clutter tracks by evidence of mice.  Lots of evidence.  Then we discovered a nice little hole that they were using to get in.  Right near the sweet spot of a heating duct, where the foundation and wall meets.  And then another hole.  And then a third one.  And then a hole that was chewed away near the dishwasher grey water pipe, that allowed the mice access to the kitchen sink cabinet... and of course,  the kitchen itself.  AAAAGGGGHHHH!!  Yuck!  So the clearing-out project was temporary scraped and we took on a new project:  Kill the mice and plug the holes.

We attacked on both fronts.  Armed with spray-on expanding foam, screws, boards and insulation, Dean patched and plugged the holes, and also discovered another problem.  Right above the main hole the mice were using to get in is the bay window in our kitchen.  The subfloor had separated from the sole plate just enough that there was a good 1- inch gap that was hanging down - a nice entry point for vermin.  While drilling a peep hole from the basement side (at the top of the foundation wall) to see into that bay window area, Dean also saw that the builders 'forgot' to put any insulation under that section of floor.  In the winter time, if you stood barefoot on the kitchen floor, with one foot in the bay window area, and one foot on the regular kitchen floor, it would feel like you had just stepped onto ice.  No wonder!!  So Dean drilled several peep holes into that section, and then stuffed the whole cavity with cellulose insulation.  What a mess...  All of the peep holes are filled up with the expanding foam now, and you can't feel that cold draft anymore.  It just makes me mad about all of the heat energy that has been wasted all these years. 



The peep holes that were drilled to look into the cavity under the bay window.

 

The mice were getting in via a small hole right next to the vent (which comes up in the bay window area).  We knew to look there because the cat would routinely sit right beside the vent, listening to the mice scratching away underneath the floor.

With the multiple holes discovered and then plugged, we could now go after the mice.  Eight of them in all, as it turned out.  Snap traps proved to be the quickest and most effective, and we found peppermint patties to be the most desirable bait.  Since there were mice running amok in the basement, there was mice poop in just about everything.  They had chewed holes in a couple of things, so I wasn't taking any more chances.  I snatched up the most important things and found new homes - upstairs and out of the basement.  I made the decision to move all of our Christmas stuff upstairs to a closet in one of the kids' bedrooms.  Since we don't keep clothing in there, I could fill it completely with Christmas stuff.  It is packed to the gills, but amazingly enough it all fit - including the Christmas tree.  The nice thing is that I can't/don't need to purchase any more Christmas decorations... there is no room to store it!!  If I do get something, then something else has to go.  I think the 'Christmas Closet' deserves it's own post...

Then all work stopped.  Spring was here, and we wanted to be outside.  We dragged up all of the camping gear and put it in the garage, so that we could have easier access to it over the summer months.  I was ditching baby gear left and right as Colin no longer needed things, and the basement pile was growing.  Nothing was getting put away.  Then, late one night, Dean and I decided that we had had enough of the kids not putting their toys away, so we cleared out a semi-filled shelving unit and stuffed it full of toys we confiscated from the upstairs playroom.  Over the past few months, the kids have been swapping out toys - and yet nothing gets put back. 

So now our basement looks like this...



The first sign of laziness - open the basement door and chuck it down the stairs...



View from the bottom of the stairs.  Remnants of camping, Halloween and toy raids remain...



View from the bottom of the stairs looking into the larger area.  I feel..... faint...



View from far corner of the basement.  A pile of "What the hell do we do with this crap??....along with another pile.  And another... and another.  If you look closely, you can see Jordan's head peeking up over the pile. 

 

School files.  None of these files have been opened in the seven years we have been together.   Seriously... WHY do we need to keep this stuff??  Don't get me started on the china... 

 

View from the opposite end of the room.

 

Jordan standing with his foot on a pile of 2x4s that are about to become a wall...



Shop area that is about to be walled-off.  Dean is hanging a plumb bob (behind the circular table saw).  This is the first step to finishing the basement - wall off the 'room of serious injury and possible death'.  We need this place to be kid-safe.



Done!

This latest stage of the project took the better part of this past Saturday afternoon and evening, but it went very smoothly.  Dean used a ram set to nail the sole plate (the board that goes across the bottom) into place.  It is built to code - so the wall must be a floating wall, attached to the top plate.  The ram set was quite impressive - you load it with the equivalent of a .22 caliber shot in order to drive the nail into concrete.  It was very loud.  Even more so since it was bedtime for kids at that point.  :)   You will notice that a section of the wall does not have braces (I think that is the right terminology...)  This is a future doorway.

I am so glad that the work is finally starting.  Due to our very tight budget constraints, the work will be at a snail's pace, but that is fine with me.  This was a nice, weekend-length sized chunk, and about a month from now, on another weekend, we can set another $50 aside and put up drywall.  In the meantime, we can continue on clearing the clutter, 15 minutes at a time.  I would think that in a month from now, most of the floorspace (in the larger room) will finally be cleared.  Oh, how I hope so...

It's lonely at the top...

Green belt, 11/12/11

Another nine week cycle has ended, and today was the day for belt promotions.  Rylan has moved up from a blue belt to a green belt.  During the blue to green cycle, the student learns a form called Tiger Set #3.  Rylan is/was the only blue belt, so she has practiced on her own, with her instructor, Mr. Baptista.  As the students lined up for promotions today, Rylan was at the end of the line, which made her lead student in her class (I wasn't aware that an older, more experienced student had moved up to the next age group, the Eagles).  This meant she would be doing the form all by herself today (with her instructor by her side).  I was a little nervous for her, but Rylan took it all in stride.  Here she is performing her form... (and I love, love, love, her confident voice - loud and clear!)

(I am having issues with loading this video...grrrrrr)

Jordan and Rylan have been taking karate lessons for one year now.  They have learned so much!  I am constantly amazed at the skills they already know and how much their technique is improving.  I love to watch them individually and when the school performs as a whole.  The instructors are so dedicated and invested in helping the kids succeed (many of them have children in the school as well) and the whole atmosphere is positive, yet you can readily sense the high level of expectations placed upon each and every student.



Advanced orange belt, 11/12/11

 When this upcoming cycle ends in January, Jordan will be promoting to purple belt.  Which means he will also be eligible to join the black belt club, which he wants to do.  So next promotion Jordan will also receive a red gi.  It's a big step up, and Jordan is pretty excited about it.  A junior black belt is still around three years away, but Jordan wants to go for it.  It is awesome that he has a goal like that.   We will be watching and waiting...

Sacrifices...

Thank you, papa...

Pictured second from right
US Army Tank Battalion, fought in France, Belgium & Germany during WWII, took part in second wave on D-day, awarded Silver Star

Thank you, grandpa Lee...



US Army, stationed at Fort Laramie



Thank you, FIL Ron...



Dean's late father.  US Navy 1955-1959, USS Keppler DDE-765 & USS Yosemite AD-19



Thank you, cousin Kenny (USMC)...

Whose name is etched here...

Thank you, FIL Van (US Army)

Thank you, uncle Dale (USAF)

Thank you, cousin Brad (USAF)

Thank you, cousin-in-law Robert (USAF)

Thank you, SIL Carrie (US Army)

I will never forget the sacrifices you made to ensure the freedom and safety of all Americans and for helping other nations in peril.