Happy New Year's Eve!

I've just spent the last five hours or so putting together my Household Management Notebook. God bless my husband. He made dinner AND cuddled the vomiting four-year-old so I could get it done. The camera is still lost, so no pictures, but I was able to scan the cover:


My scanner adds shadows where shadows don't actually exist. Odd.

The quote in the lower right corner is:
Start by doing what is necessary.
then what's possible,
and suddenly you're doing the impossible.
and is credited to St. Francis of Assisi.

If I ever find the camera (please, St. Anthony!) I'll post pictures, but for now let me tell you what the sections are.

First off, I have emergency contact information. If I ever lose this baby, I want to make sure it finds its way home. Then I have tons of blank filler paper (15 cents a pack at Staples back-to-school sales).

This is followed by:
Calendars and Schedules: So far, there's a 2008 year calendar, blank monthly pages, and some blank daily routine sheets. I also typed out their weekly commitments (Scouts, ballet, Odyssey of the Mind, etc). Eventually I'd like to map out our routine, but it's pretty loose so I'm not sure how it will look on paper.

Housekeeping and Homemaking: Right now I have a schedule of the room I focus on cleaning each day, a page of natural cleaning solution recipes, a seasonal chores checklist, a page on handwashing the dishes and mealtime clean up, and a page on cleaning in a hurry. There's a lot more I would like in this section. For one thing, I want to start an every-two-months deep cleaning rotation. I also want to start the kids doing chores without complaining. I'm still pretty much doing everything on my own, and when I ask them to help they do it grudgingly with much weeping and gnashing of teeth. It occurs to me that the oldest two at least should be helping out a little more. I downloaded Motivated Moms and may print it off to use here.

Food, Shopping, and Meal Planning: I printed off a Healthy Kitchen Basic Inventory (found at Kitchen Comforts), blank weekly menu planners (I like these because they include space for snacks!), a master grocery list, and a page for favorite recipes. I'd really like to be doing more from scratch, so I envision this going in here as well. I want to come up with some sort of routine/schedule for making things from scratch. I have a freezer and a pantry, and I want to come up with some way of keeping up with the inventory. Also, I need a meal routine. I'd really like to incorporate the Waldorf practice of different grains each day.

Volunteering and Service: I'd like to put my LLL info here (including those pesky meeting reports I forget to send!. I teach Sunday School as well, and can put some of that in here. If I was really good, I'd call my little ones on their birthdays and send postcards when they don't show up to Sunday School. I don't really have any MDC paperwork, but if I did I could put it here as well. There are also occasional things, like the Angel Tree at church at Christmas that could go here.

Planning and Projects: Right now there's just a vague 2008 month-by-month planning sheet, but oh, do I have plans for the plans and projects section!

Learning Together: All I have here so far is a print-out on making timeline books. I want to put the Waldorf curriculum chart in here, and my plans for the year and for the month. Plus a copy of Michael's affidavit and our daily log and a list of the resources and supplies we have. And... and... and... oh, there's lots that can go here. Library receipts! Not only will this help with our book log (oh, that's something else that can go in here- book logs!) but maybe we won't end up dropping $20 to clear our fines-- and that was at half off!

Faith and Family: Right now, there's just a list of saints' days. This is a subject that's near and dear to my heart, though, and I have lots to add to this section.

Contacts: This is my friends and family section. I downloaded birthday calendars from Jan Brett's website, and will add phone numbers here as well.

Health and Healing: Nothing here yet, but eventually I want to have PA law and our immunization exemptions, doctor and dental info, some natural healing resources, including a list of what remedies we have on hand because I always forget, and the like. I also want a page for each kid with a current photo, and maybe even the childsafe kits we had done at the health fair.

Gardening: Nothing here yet, but one of my goals this year is to get serious about gardening, beyond the few anemic tomatoes that manage to survive our tender mercies.

Vacation and Travel: You know, just in case we ever go on a real vacation and travel.

Finances: I'm not sure what will go in here because DH manages the finances. I am saving up for a laptop.

Other: Because there has to be an other.

So, wow. All those hours of work and I still have a lot to go.

I've gotten a lot done (but alas, no pictures). I moved the craft stuff to the basement and created a craft area. Where the craft stuff used to be, I moved our extra food. My next step is to move the superfluous school stuff to the basement as well. I also need to do a lot of cleaning tomorrow, and a huge pork roast to cook with sauerkraut. Yum.

Happy New Year!

I lost my camera

I wanted to post pictures of our nature table.

And of the play corner I made in the schoolroom/dining room.

And of before and after I rearranged the art supplies and pantry.

And of my favorite Christmas gifts.

And of the baby, because he is looking particularly sweet today.

But I can't, because I lost the camera.

Some Christmas photos...

So many presents...


Finding the Pickle




And the magic seeds that grow into candy canes


Teething baby


Ecstatic about a Gameboy




And a quiet calm thrill with a Molly doll






Teething Gnome and Paper




Handmade Grandma sweaters

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... a chest x-ray?!?!

Every year it's like the plague around here at Christmastime. One year it was head lice. Another year, chicken pox. Last year it was pink eye and double ear infections. This year we decided to start a round of Echinacea and Vitamin C beginning the day after Thanksgiving. So far, everyone is pretty healthy, except for Babymort, who obviously did not get the memo.

He's had this weird strainy cough that ends in him gaggy on his own phlegm until he can't get his own breath. Lovely, eh? And it's been over a week. At first I thought it was a weird reaction to cheerios or he was choking on his own teething drool. Then my imagination kicked into overdrive and brought out the big guns. He must have asthma. He's allergic to me. He has a lung tumor. Pneumonia. I had no idea.

We went to the doctor, who thought he might have heard some cracklings in his chest. Chest x-rays with almost-eight-month-olds are tres unpleasant. But the x-ray is clear and hopefully he will feel better soon. The doctor wrote a script for antibiotics ("This probably won't do any good since it's most likely viral, but just in case..." which I won't fill. I could wallpaper our bathroom with all the prescriptions they write and I don't fill. What I will do is nurse him tons, give him some Hyland's vitamin C, and run the humidifier with sniffletime aromatherapy in it. And if I need to, we'll cuddle up in the bathroom at 4 AM with the shower running on hot again and try to loosen things up.

Of course, I've also been bitten by the organizing bug. This is tough with a sick babe. I would say that at least 50% of our "getting out the door" issues (and oh, boy, do we ever have issues!) are due to hats and shoes. (In case you're wondering, in my estimation 25% of the issues are baby needs that can't be helped and the remaining 25% is pure unadulterated original sin and contrariness) I moved the changing table up to the bathroom--it's not beautiful, but it works--and am trying to create a "landing spot" for hats, shoes, boots, etc. I bought a shoe rack and brought down the coat tree from Katie Grace's room. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow.

What I want to get done before we start school again:
Plan out the next quarter of school
Tweak the daily routine
Do some Waldorf reading to get re-inspired
Move the craft stuff to the basement
Move the extra food to the mudroom shelves
Move the bulk of the books to the basement
Rearrange the living room (after the tree is down on Epiphany)
Make a Household Control Notebook
Organize the kids' rooms
Finish this new "landing spot"
Add a play corner to the schoolroom/dining room
Move the easel

That's a lot.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Happy Almost-Fourth-Sunday of Advent!

Ah, peace. In the midst of a crazy weekend at the end of a crazy week and the beginning of an even crazier one, we have peace. Katie Grace and Nicholas are upstairs playing train, Michael is reading, Daniel fell asleep on my lap while nursing, even Daddy is occupied checking his email on the church laptop.

I need to plan a menu and grocery list and we need to go to the store, and we're supposed to go to a Christmas Caroling party tonight, and we had Christmas pageant practice this morning, and church decorating, and packing up Christmas baskets and gifts and delivering them, and a sudden realization that I had no idea what the little ones would wear for Christmas, but just right now, this minute... peace.

We're finished with school "for the year," a phrase which delights the older children to no end and seems to frighten Nicholas a bit. We wrapped up our work yesterday, although we'll still probably do some fun stuff like make sugar cube pyramids next week. We seem to be settling into a pattern, so now I can tweak things and make them a little closer to my ideals.

Last night we met a bunch of people from church and walked "Candy Cane Lane," a beautiful yet ecologically disastrous light display. DH told the Christmas Story at the live Nativity, and we ended with cookies and cocoa at a church member's house. Lots of fun. One of the little girls found my sling and was carrying around teddy bears in it, LOL! Sadly, there are no pictures because our rechargable batteries don't actually seems to recharge.

So, party tonight. Church, Christmas Pageant, choir rehearsal and more caroling tomorrow night. Monday is Christmas Eve and then it's Christmas. If I don't get back online, Merry Christmas, everyone!

Today dealing with the children was a little like being pecked to death by a duck. Do they always talk to me this much or is it just because I'm overtired?!?

We caught up on our Jesse Tree. It's really kind of lame this year. Or I could say it's very child-driven. Michael drew the tree and the kids are adding an ornament made of paper each day. I'll have to take a picture eventually.

We're also doing our own spin on O Antiphon Windows. We're making them from black construction paper frames and kite paper/tissue paper and hanging them in our kitchen window.

Katie Grace is wrapping up a math unit on probability, fractions, and geometry, and Michael learned about centimeters and decimeters. Ah, the metric system.

I decided to wait on mummifying a chicken until we hit book one again. Everyone will be three years older, and it will probably be more meaningful. I have this feeling mummifying a chicken is a project you only do once.

Michael finished excavating the Egyptian tomb painting reliefs and coins that were part of a kit I found at T J Maxx, and both he and Katie Grace made crayon rubbings.


Then we painted our names in hieroglyphics:




We started our exploration of which stands the test of time better: clay tablets or papyrus parchment. We put both outside and we'll see what happens.

We're planning on wrapping up the day reading Tomie de Paola's The Night of Las Posadas and listening to Harry and the Potters sing Wizard Chess.

Mummies on Monday

We're carrying on with Story of the World. We're doing some experiments on parchment vs. clay tablets. The kids made cuneiform name plates for their doors






And Katie Grace rolled out the papyrus for our homemade parchment (we bought a kit from Rainbow Resources)

It's getting kind of stinky to work with!

We're trying to decide if we're going to mummify a chicken or not. On the one hand, it's a pretty big expense and seems like a waste of supplies (baking powder, baking soda, salt, oil, and, of course, a chicken). On the other hand, it's mummifying a freaking CHICKEN-- how cool is that?!?!

Clueless comment of the day goes to DH: "You're not bringing a dead CHICKEN into the house--that's gross!!" Um... honey, I bring dead chicken into the house all the time. Usually you think it's yummy.

We also put up our tree today. Daniel seems very confused by the presence of this much nature in our living room.






It's our 13th wedding anniversary as well. We celebrate with the little ones, telling them it's the birthday of our family. Michael keeps insisting our family began the day he was born and not with our wedding, LOL!

Three snowy children and one happy teething baby!









Another icy snowy day.

Blessed Santa Lucia Day!

Katie Grace loves playing St. Lucy!


Cheesy smile, butchered bangs, and lots of buns!


Buns in bed in a messy room


We had lots of Santa Lucia fun today. We colored St. Lucy pictures and sang a song. We also watched a video of a girls' choir singing Santa Lucia and another about a shared Swedish/Mexican Santa Lucia celebration.

Most of our Advent saint stories have come from the book Winter Saints: Stories for the days of Advent and Christmas.

We also sponge-painted stars on white paper to make Star Boy caps, which we'll finish tomorrow.

And what was going on in our world while we were celebrating?
This!

Our Lady of Guadalupe and Getting Ready for Santa Lucia

Today we read the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The the two older children drew pictures in their main lesson books. I found this blog too late, but it has some awesome ideas. I can't wait until next year!

Tomorrow is Santa Lucia, and we spent a good chunk of the day making our Lucia buns.
Katie Grace kneaded the dough:

See those bangs? She cut them herself. Sigh.

Rolling the dough




The rolls are cut and ready to bake (OK, I admit it, we used a mix. But we still had to add yeast, knead the dough, etc. The only thing the mix did was premix the flour and stuff!)


And we have Lucia buns!


Nicholas helped clean up.


Katie Grace is very excited, although she has to do sans wreath. But I am trying hard not to let perfection be the enemy of the good.

Then, we put together our Advent nature table (finally). We are adding stars to the sky each night.


We also have a family altar, with an Advent wreath Katie Grace made at Advent Family Craft Night:

The October/November Update

Holloween/All Saints Day
St. Therese (The Little Flower), a cowboy, and Frodo




Pumpkin Carving










Pumpkin Butt


Pumpkin Heads


The Butterfly Project I Never Did Post About






And Thanksgiving Dress-Ups