The Little Rajah

Our family has taken to calling Isaac the Little Rajah.  Since he's the smallest person in our household, he has become quite spoiled.  An often heard phrase at our house these days is, "He's the Little Rajah.  Give him what he wants."

What's that?  You want yet another graham cracker?  Why certainly.  Oh, you want to take off your clothes and put on your p.j's in the middle of the day?  Well, let me help you change.  You want to read that book right now?  No problem, just let me put down this spoon.  The others don't need dinner right away, do they?

Even Joel and Jude (generally) give Isaac what he wants.  They're quick to surrender a car or a toy horse in deferrence to the Little Rajah.

The Little Rajah has also discovered that if he flashes that deadly little toothy grin of his, he can pretty much absolve himself of any wrong doing, especially when he's caught in the act.

Now that the Little Rajah is nearly two, it's time to start cracking down on the "I'm-a-prince-so-give-me-what-I-want" behavior.  Too bad he's so darn cute.  It makes it awfully difficult to follow through, even with the best of intentions. 

Paul's First Camp Out

Paul went on his first camp out this past weekend.  He went with his dad and his Boy Scout troop.  Being that it's December, it was cold.  We gave Paul the sleeping bag we had gotten him for Christmas before the camp out so that he'd be well prepared for the below freezing temperatures.

All in all, Paul did very well.  Matt, confident before leaving that the whole camping thing would all come back to him and he'd take to it like a duck to water, didn't fare as well.  Thirty years between him and his last Boy Scout camp out  has wrought some changes to his body.  He felt every bump under his sleeping bag and sleeping pad.  He heard every sound at night.  And it was cold.  Very cold.  He hardly slept the whole weekend.

Both Matt and Paul loved the meal that was served on Saturday night.  One of the Scout leaders prepared a turkey in a garbage can.  Charcoal and chicken wire were also involved.  Matt said it was by far the best turkey he's ever eaten.  I'm guessing anything would have tasted good after a day of hiking in the cold.

Sunday morning, Matt prepared a huge breakfast for the men--scrambled eggs with ham, fried baby red potatoes, sausage and banana bread.  (The boys were in charge of their own meals, with the exception of Saturday's dinner.)  He also lead the troop in a devotional time before they packed up to head home.

Matt looked liked he'd been through the wringer when he returned on Sunday.  Paul excitedly told all his siblings about the great time he and his dad had.  Except for a few bug bites, Paul is none the worse for the wear.  It might take his dad a few more days to recover, however.

Road Trip Sans Kids

Matt and I were able to get out of town for a couple of days over the Thanksgiving weekend.  Once again, Matt's parents were spectacular caregivers of our kids.  The kids are blessed to have grandparents who love spending time with them.

Matt and I enjoyed a dinner at a favorite German restaurant on Friday night.  We hadn't eaten there in at least ten years.  The place was still there with the same owner.  The only thing that had changed since we'd last visited was the name.  I even had a coupon, which made the meal that much tastier.  We were both stuffed when we left the restaurant.  Everything tasted just like we remembered it.

The next day, Matt and I toured four or five different thrift stores. I was able to find quite a few items on my list, including a light winter coat for myself (Land's End) and skirts for all of the girls in the family.  Yes, I do have a very good and patient husband.

We also went to a guy store.  It was filled to the brim with hunting, camping and fishing stuff.  Plus it had toys.  What a combo--my boys would have been in heaven, had we had them with us.  Matt was in heaven, too.  He purchased a mummy sleeping bag for Paul.  Amazingly, I found something I wanted there--a pair of forceps.  They were in the fishing section for $1.99.  I can't even count the number of times I've wanted one of these doodads to solve some little predicament around the house.  The next time a small toy falls down the bathroom sink drain, I'll be ready.

We also visited the mall that day.  It was crazy busy, as we expected.  I really wanted to visit Williams-Sonoma (a potato masher for $50? seriously?) and Crate & Barrel.  Matt bought me a couple of mercury glass votive holders.  They look just as pretty on our mantle as I imagined they would.

We ate at a place on Saturday night that had been visited by Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-ins & Dives.  I ordered some sort of fiery pasta dish that they had served Guy when he came.  Needless to say, after we finished our dinners, we went straight to the drug store to buy some Zantac.

Sunday morning we attended a local church service and then we headed home to see our kiddos (and to rescue Grandma & Grandpa).  We came home to a decorated tree, complete with repaired lights and a bunch of little ones that were awfully happy to see their Mama & Daddy.  There's nothing yummier in all the world than toddler hugs.

Matt and I were so appreciative of this time away.  We got to really talk (not just chat) about a lot of different things.  We kept referring to Abraham (whom we are studying right now in BSF) and the incredible faith he displayed even though he could not see how everything would turn out.  The Lord blessed our time together, for which we are grateful.  He truly is the Giver of all good things. 

Giving Thanks

Last night we had our annual Pilgrim Feast.  We headed down to the basement with our friends Floyd & Peggy so that we could sit in the coldest, darkest part of our house--our pantry.  We cuddled in blankets and pretended we were in the cramped quarters of the Mayflower.  As the sound of ocean waves came from the CD player, we sang Oh God Our Help in Ages Past, read psalms and portions from Pilgrim Stories, The Landing of the Pilgrims and Of Plymouth Plantation by candlelight.  We ate soda crackers (which subbed for hard tack) and salami (after years of eating dried canned beef on this night, we decided to go for the more edible Italian dry cured meat).

Once our worship was complete, we convened upstairs to eat fish chowder around our dining room table. After dinner, Floyd's enthusiastic readings of Brer Rabbit and Richard Scarry's Mother Goose entertained the little boys.  The girls and I chatted with Peggy.  I think Floyd & Peggy are beginning to get used to the loud volume of our household.  It was a nice, relaxed evening (aside from a few minor little boy squabbles).

This morning we attended the Thanksgiving service at our church.  It was a time set aside from the busyness of meal preparations in order that we might give thanks to the Lord and the abundant provision He has bestowed upon us.  As my Uncle Keith said to me this morning, "It would have been enough."

Late this afternoon we will head over to Matt's parents' house for the big feast.  Seventeen of the nineteen grandchildren will be there.  We'll have more food than we can eat, even with all those people. We are blessed beyond measure. 

Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!  Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing.  Psalm 107:21-22

Leaves

Fest at Home, Round Two

I've already written about how we had our German Festival at home this year.  As nice as that Fest was, it just wasn't the same without family.  So last Saturday we invited my parents and Uncle Keith & Aunt Leanna to our house for a German feast.  Again, the menu was cabbage rolls, kartoffel und kloss and sausage (thanks, Uncle Keith!).  We also had a very rare plum strudel, instead of the usual apple, which my aunt & uncle also provided.  Grace made my German Great Grandmother Katherine's rolls.  Uncle Keith was in heaven.  Great food and great company.  Es ist gut!

Jude's Request

Friday at our house is not the most longed-for day of the week by any stretch of the imagination.  Fridays are chore day here.  Last Friday, Jude came to me and asked, "Mommy, could we please get a robot to clean our room?  Please?"  No, son, your name is not Elroy, it's Jude and you'll need to pick up your room every Friday for the next two decades, give or take.

A Good Day

Yesterday was a good day.  I got to the dollar store in time to buy the advance edition of the Sunday paper.  I buy a few papers every week for the coupons, but the competition around here is tough.  If I'm not there early, I miss out.  However, yesterday I made it in time, plus I had a chance to squeeze in a walk and shower before I left for the store.  So the day started off well.

After I got home, the kids and I sat down and made good progress on our BSF lessons.  Lydia told her older siblings how to spell, "Tigris River."  I had a nice conversation with my mom on the phone.  She was excited because it was snowing where she & Dad live.  She always gets to enjoy snow before I do.

It's getting cold here.  Matt and the boys drove out to the country to pick up a cord of firewood yesterday morning.  He got back to the house in time to sell his 1994 Subaru Legacy.  It had only been on Craigslist for a few hours.  Matt bought the car used ten years ago and drove it to work and back every day.  He bought it when it had 115,00 miles on it and then put another 90,000 miles on it.   

Grace worked hard outside all day, cleaning the chicken coop and the shed, putting away the patio furniture and the bikes for the winter.  Liz helped her with the shed and she also helped me get some work done at church.  Matt and Paul sorted and stacked the firewood.

Early in the evening, Matt got a good fire going in the fireplace and I made chicken noodle soup for dinner.  Grace made two loaves of challah bread.  We celebrated Shabbot last night, something we haven't done for a long time.  For dessert, we ate apple pie that I had made from the Granny Smith apples we picked a few weeks ago.

After dinner, Grace and I got the kitchen cleaned up and got breakfast going for this morning.  Daddy gave the boys haircuts (Isaac is nearly bald! oh well, it'll grow) and they all got baths. Jude put on his heavy fleece pajamas.  I finally gave him permission to wear them as it was cold enough here that I knew he wouldn't wake up in the middle of night because he was too hot.  He was one tickled little boy--he's been dying to wear those p.jers.

Matt stoked the fire one last time before we headed to bed and aside from a low battery alarm from one of Matt's electronic devices (we finally figured out where the noise was coming from), we had a restful night's sleep.

Happy Sweet Sixteen, Elle!

Autumn

Moola & The Mustache

This little mustachioed boy has cost us a lot of money this past month.  Breaking glass has become his new found talent.

A few weeks ago, he broke the back window of the van.  As in shattered into a thousand pieces broke.  He was mad at his big brother, threw a rock and missed his intended target.  I called every junk yard near & far looking for a replacement window.  It would have been easy to find had the glass not been heated.  My mechanic brother-in-law did an out-of-state search on the computer and couldn't find anything either.  Since we have no garage and the van must be parked outside, Matt and I decided the heated glass was a non-negotiable.  So we had the window replaced with a brand spanking new one.  Cha-ching!

This past Monday evening, Joel broke another piece of glass--the microwave turn table.  He was trying to help me by heating up my bean bag (a nightly ritual which provides sore muscle relief in my back).  When he dragged the bean bag out of the microwave, the glass tray came with it.  Once again, a thousand pieces.  We've been making due with a dinner plate, but that's not a long term solution.  I often put 9" X 13" pans in our microwave and a larger surface area is needed.  Matt ordered another turn table from Amazon.  They're certainly not giving those things away.

The microwave glass was truly an accident.  However, the van window was a result of Joel losing his temper, a problem we have been working on with him.  So Joel did have to do some extra chores for that one.  These certainly aren't the first problems we've had with boys and glass, and I'm sure they won't be the last.  Someday I'll look back and wish I still had a little boy around the house.  The truth is, I do love this guy to bits and mourn when I see how fast he is growing.  But I sure do hope his glass breaking talent will not be developed any further.  After all, shouldn't he allow his younger brothers a chance to hone their glass shattering skills?

Reformation Party 2012

Matt & I weren't so sure we wanted to go through with our family's annual Reformation Party this year.  Matt had a major work project coming to completion and our party would be smack dab in the middle of it.  We seriously considered bagging the whole thing.  However, we thought we could make a go of it and we're glad we did.
Matt decided this year's theme would be "The Saints."  A saint is any believer in Jesus Christ.  Matt gave Grace & I the names of five saints from history and we set to work designing games and activities to teach the kids about those folks.  The five saints were: Dorcas from the Bible, Alfred the Great, James Clerk Maxwell, John Knox and George Mueller.
We had a nice turn out for our party--12 adults and 13 kids, plus our own family.  We started with dinner and fellowship, then moved into a worship time and then onto the craft and games.  This was the first year that we had a different "track" for the older kids to follow.  They're getting too old for kiddie games, so Matt designed a scavenger hunt for them to do outside.  The kids used their flash lights to look for clues all over our property.  The trail of clues followed the travels of John Knox.
We ended the evening with worship.  The kids seemed like they were engaged and really listening this year.  Hopefully some of what they learned will stick in their little brains and go deep into their hearts.  Once again, God was gracious to provide our family with the time and energy to pull together another Reformation Party.

 

 

 

I would be remiss if I didn't thank Matt's folks for their help before and during the party.  Thanks go to Brian for constructing a French Galley boat (on very short notice, too!) and to Julie for helping the little kids with the craft.  Also, Tamara took pictures to record the evening as Grace was too busy to be holding a camera.

Sweet Music

I had come to the end of a very long day yesterday and knew that I was facing a very long week ahead.  But, as the house quieted down and the children were tucked into their beds, I heard two little boys singing.  Soft voices sang together in the stillness, Soon and Very Soon.  Sweet, sweet music to my ears.

Book Worm

Isaac is crazy about books.  He is constantly begging (demanding?) for someone to read to him.  If he were my first baby, I don't think I'd accomplish much else during the day.  However, with lots of readers in the house, the responsibility doesn't rest on just one person's shoulders.  I do enjoy reading to Isaac, probably even more than I did to my older kids, because now I realize just how fleeting the young years are.

Isaac's favorite books are the ones by Richard Scarry, especially the ones featuring Goldbug.  Goldbug hides on every page and the challenge for the reader is to find the tiny little insect.  It took Isaac about two weeks to memorize where Goldbug was on each page of Cars & Trucks & Things That Go.  Here's a video of him finding Goldbug, taken about a month ago, when he was 21 months old. 

Punkin Patch!

We didn't really accomplish too much punkin pickin' at the pumpkin patch, but we did pick Fuji and Granny Smith apples and Asian pears.  It was a gorgeous day for a hayride.  We were down three cousins this year, but up one Grandpa.

The Aspiring Baker

The Tale of Two Field Trips

Our family has recently taken two educational (and fun!) field trips.  The first was to the King Tut exhibit.  The entire Macduff Homeschool attended (6 adults & 17 kids) courtesy of Grandpa Bob and Grandma Dianne.

We knew about this trip several months in advance, so Matt read the book Unwrapping the Pharaohs to the family before we left so that we'd be a little better informed once we got there.  This book did an awesome job of reconciling the biblical record with traditional thought on Egyptology.

I've written before about my dislike for managing my large crew in the midst of a crowd.  My sister-in-law (mother of 10) feels the same way.  Her solution was to write her cell phone number on her three youngest children's arms before we entered the exhibit.  Our family's solution was to buddy up.  Each person had to hold the hand of their buddy--no non-hand holding allowed.  Jude was my buddy.  Once Jude entered the exhibit and realized that it just wasn't as interesting has he thought it was going to be, we ended up taking the accelerated tour.  I sped read all the exhibit signs and Jude sped looked at all the exhibits, all the while dragging me to the next room and then on to the next.

 

  

Half way through the exhibit, Daddy and I traded buddies.  After that, Lydia and I were able to take the slightly decelerated tour.  The most interesting thing to me about the exhibit was the fact that the displayed items were in existence before Christ walked the earth.

The other fact I finally clued into was that the Egyptians were stinking rich and militarily very powerful.  Even King Tut, the least notable of all of the pharaohs, was surrounded by gold and other precious things. No wonder the Israelites often ran to Egypt to rescue them in times of trouble.  I just didn't get it before.  Why, when God said NOT to go to the Egyptians for help, but to rely on Him and Him alone, did the Israelites continually approach the Egyptians during times of trouble (and even not so troubled times)?  Duh!  The solution is just right over there.  "There's gold (and armies) in them thar hills!"  Yet they forgot that the God they served owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  It's all His and He is the Great Provider, Jehovah Jireh.

 

Our second field trip was to a Lewis & Clark reenactment.  We watched "Lewis & Clark" and company land on the shore in dug out canoes.  Once they disembarked, the reenactors were available to answer questions.  Daddy challenged Paul to ask either Lewis or Clark a question about the expedition.  Paul, the history buff, thought he knew just about everything there is to know about the trip.  However, when Daddy asked Paul who many guns were carried by the Corps of Discovery, Paul couldn't answer.  Paul then posed the question to the captains of the expedition.

 Well, neither Lewis nor Clark knew the answer to that question, because that fact was never officially recorded by the Corps.  However, they guessed at least thirty guns were taken, probably more.  The guy who played Clark said that he'd been on every major river in the U.S. in a dug out canoe.  Pretty crazy.  These guys take their reenacting very seriously.  All except the lady dressed in period costume that I spied drinking a Capri Sun.  I think she thought she'd hide the evidence by throwing the empty container in her camp fire.

Our homeschool year started off with a bang.  Two field trips in the first month.  I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up that pace for the entire year.  We sure had a great time, though.  Three huzzahs for field trips!    

Paul is Eleven

Paul's birthday was last Thursday.  The day didn't start out so well.  Paul was a little under the weather, (mostly overtired) so he wasn't very happy about much of anything, least of all the school work I asked him to do.

After I got the littles down for quiet time, I took Paul to the feed store.  Exciting, I know.  But Paul really really likes the feed store.  On the way there, we stopped at the McDonald's drive thru so I could buy Paul a rare treat, a milk shake--chocolate, to be exact.  The day started getting better after that.

When we arrived at the feed store, the woman behind the counter said, "I know you!  I know where you're going--straight to the knife case!"  Apparently Paul and his Daddy never miss an opportunity to check out the knives when they go to buy chicken feed.

Paul had already made up his mind about which knife he was going to buy.  He had purchased a knife for Grace for her birthday (which she carries in her skirt pocket every day), but he really wanted one for himself.  Grace returned the favor and gave Paul some money to buy a knife like hers.

That night we had a steak and mashed potato dinner and fudgey chocolate cake for dessert, all of which were Paul's requests.  Grace made the cake and Elizabeth spent a good part of the day fashioning some really fantastic decorations for it.  The little clay hunter figure is a replica of Paul, right down to the left eye he squints when he shoots a shot gun.

Paul then opened his presents.  I think he was most pleased with the sling shot his dad and I bought him when we were in Texas in July.  We ended the evening by starting a brand new read aloud, Man of the Family by Ralph Moody.