Bringing Back our Buddies

Three of my friends and I have recently read a book about a mutiny on excess (specifically in the areas of waste, stress, clothing, food, media, clutter). It was a powerful book that spoke to each of us a bit differently, but we all decided to try some of the experiments as new year's resolutions... or new year's improvements. We chose to do a trial run on reducing stress in December.

Each of us are choosing slightly different ways of reducing stress, but it seems the one thing that all of us have in common is that we are pausing several times a day for prayer -- sometimes longer prayers, sometimes a quick "Thank you." Last week, in Bible study, I read a section about our hearts being like an untended garden; the weeds can choke out the pretty flowers if the gardener gets distracted for too long. I felt like I needed to clear my weedy REAL garden, as a way to clear my heart of the weeds, but also because I was ready to have the birds visiting regularly again.

This weekend, I made time to work in the garden while Will was playing his new Wii game with Allen and the others. It has been a huge weedy, grassy mess since about the end of July, but the mosquitoes kept me away. I finally cleared a bunch of the mess out, and found lots of healthy plants underneath. I cleaned and filled the birdbaths, refilled some of the birdfeeders, and spent a lot of time just talking to God about all my blessings, asking him to show me what the weeds are in my heart, which parts need nourishment, and which need to be pruned to grow stronger. It felt great to be outside on such a beautiful day, and it looked great when the job was done.

In October, we had nine of our trees taken down, and I was afraid we would lose a lot of our bird visitors, but with fresh water and seeds nearby, they started returning on Monday. Tuesday afternoon, Maddie noticed a small mouse in one of the suet cages. It scurried away when it saw me coming. I moved the feeder, but it returned to pick up some of the fallen seeds, and the kids giggled from the window. Last night, Maddie prayed at dinner: "God, please protect the bluebirds and please let all the birds come back to our garden for Mama." He must have heard her because we've seen many!

This morning, I spied the mouse again. It seemed frustrated that it couldn't get the seeds, but it creatively climbed one of the basil plants. As the stem bent over, the mouse grasped it and nibbled the stalk. The little fella took off with a stem of basil and seeds that was three times longer than it was. Then and there, I named it... I know I probably shouldn't, but I promise not to bring the cute brown fuzzy into the house. PROMISE!! But, I named him "Remy" after the rat in the Ratatouille movie. When this little one took off with basil, it just seemed like he was working on a recipe.

This afternoon, the birds were keeping the garden full of music. Though it was a cloudy, somewhat dreary day, the male cardinals and bluebirds added vibrant splashes of color. The goldfinches brought a bit of their sunshine, and the chickadees and nuthatches seemed like they were home again. The woodpecker, sparrows, and house finches all showed up for an afternoon snack. I love it!! Sometimes I wish I had a comfy chair next to the kitchen window, but then I'd probably spend the whole day watching the birds. I guess that would be a sure way for me to reduce stress, though.

Recent Posts

Sadly, I'm often better at keeping up with Facebook than my blog. Lucky for me, I can go back through all my posts to see what has been said and done that I want to remember. Here are a few that didn't get their own stories.

Nov. 4 - Cub Scout family camping weekend: LOTS of shooting stars, trying to sleep while the owls and coyotes sing, hours of fun games and laughter, and dewy Chinese water torture bringing me to tears.... that was the first night. Saturday was a fabulous day with hiking, fishing (I watched), raingutter regatta, and lots of kids running and playing non-stop.... then storms threatened us and the field of tents cleared out in under an hour. Three and a half tents/families stuck it out, and had a beautiful DRY night with vibrant electric storms in the distance, an easy-going morning, with six children (4 mine) creating and leading the fire-circle church service. What a blast!!


Nov. 4 - I was frustrated at Maddie for putting her wet & muddy camping clothes on her clean bedsheets. I told her she needed to think things through and use the wonderful brain God gave her. She replied, "Mama, I know that 20 minus three is 17, and 5 plus 5 plus 5 plus 5 is twenty, and that two and two are four, and four and four are eight. I have a math brain. Not a laundry brain."


Nov. 10 - Yesterday: the worst day in our life with kids to have the washer break. Today: best day in our life with kids to take a field trip to the laundromat... With more than a dozen loads of clothes, sheets, comforters, towels, and more. Really hoping I can get by without just quarters.

Nov. 9 - Today was crazy. Jon was sent home because his class had lice. Thankfully, it seemed he picked it up at school today, and none of our other kids had it. I put the medicinal shampoo on his head and combed out his hair before it was time to go get Will. By evening, I piled everything in the laundry room: sheets, comfortors, towels, jackets, stuffed toys, etc. After the first load, the washer looked at the 15 mountains of laundry and decided it had lived a good thirteen years. It quit. I've been scratching ever since the school called...


Nov. 15 - When I know I will have company, I usually try to make sure the house is half decent. I didn't take into account how to deal with the FaceTime home tour Will is giving his friend. :P


Nov. 28 - The 6 Kaisers swapped names for our in-home gift exchange. This is the third year we've done it and I love our young tradition! Today, I taught Maddie how to shop... First get the comfy pillow, then turn on the tunes, check the prices, pictures, and comments and choose wisely. Now *I* am excited as she is to see how much Ben loves his "perfect gift!"... On a similar note, Jon has been boasting that he has an AWESOME gift idea for Maddie. This morning, he told me NOT to get him any awesome gifts because the "awesome presents are too girly." :)


Nov. 29 - I really never thought I'd ever be SO excited about doing laundry... at home! Glad to have a new working machine.

Dec. 2 - Shorts and flip flops donned for gardening today. I love 80+ degree weather in December!!



Dec. 3 - Breakfast date with my husband. We've been together for 19+ years, but I'm still giddy with excitement waiting for him :)

Lesson Plan: Experiment (age 6)

by Maddie, age 6 (translated by Mama)

What we're going to learn about is EXPERIMENT.

Ok. Thank you for letting us know.

An experiment means you try somthing new or a scientific

test to try out a theory or to see the effect of something.

And that's it.

Maddie was excited to memorize the spelling of "experiment." The word is printed on a colorful poster about the scientific method that is taped to the back of our bathroom door. (Once I realized the kids soak up all the information on posters in our home, I changed my decorating standards to be more educational than the "Better Homes & Gardens" style I couldn't seem to pull together.) She spelled EXPERIMENT to me many times and asked what it meant. I told her to look it up in the Children's Dictionary that we keep near the kitchen table. She opened the dictionary -- never having been shown how to use it, as far as I know -- and got to the "EXP..." section before asking me how to find the word. I showed her how to find the word, and she read the definition over and over again. She found a notecard, wrote for a while, erased and wrote some more. I found the card after she went out to play.

I am fascinated that she wrote
... not just a definition, but BOTH the definitions.
... not just a list as it was in the dictionary, but a sentence that combined the definitions.
... not just the meanings, but a script for what she planned to tell her class in the morning (real or imagined class, I'm not sure, yet.)

Celebrating NINE: Minecraft Style

What a FABULOUS party! Will decided he wanted a sleepover party for his ninth birthday. He asked that it be a Minecraft theme (the name of a video game that is really popular with kids his age). Specifically, he asked for a square chocolate cake with green icing... to look like a block of dirt with grass on top, like the game graphics. He invited three buddies -- Kaleb (from scouts and school), David (from school), and Caden (from scouts). I think part of what made the party so much fun for ME is that all three boys are good-natured, polite kiddos.

The boys came Friday around five. They played for a while until the pizza came. We enjoyed dinner with creeper juice -- the boys told me that creepers (the green bad guys) have red dynamite inside them, but I had a couple quick seconds to sneak some little pieces of extra red Twizzler candy into their cups. Cake was next and the Ben, Maddie, and Jon were picked up by Kaleb's mom. They got to enjoy movie night with their friends, then they spent the night at the Brown's. The little kids had a great time, and Will and his buddies had a little more space to play freely. The big boys played Wii games for a while, we did a Perler bead craft (making magnets out of melting bead designs like the cake characters), then Will opened his gifts.

First off, Will was over-the-top THRILLED with his birthday cake. He said it was tastier and so much better looking than what he asked for (and, YES! my goal was to exceed his expectations.) He awarded me the "awesome mom of the year" award for designing cool crafts for his friends and him to do. He loved all the gifts he received, but picked out the one from us right away due to being wrapped in "dirt" and covered with "grass".

I had to contain my laughter when he opened the Monster Lego set from David; he was so excited he was jumping up and down, reached out to shake David's hand, but somehow they ended up in a bear hug instead. Some of Will's gifts included a marble-run set, magic set (with different tricks than another set he has),Wii Lego Batman 2 game, the monster Legos, a Lego car and minifigures, a Star Wars light saber optics set, and a neat book that has online puzzles to go with the storyline. 

I expected Will to have fun at his party, and he did. There were a few touchy moments with Kaleb and Will -- nothing major, just the typical tiff about who is playing which Wii character that boys who spend so much time together often have (Kaleb rides to and from school with Will, they are in scouts and Sunday school together, our families get together often, and they get several hours of playtime a week.) The pleasant surprise was how much fun I had! It was nice to let go of my expectations and just enjoy the boys laughter, dancing, silly jokes, and craziness. It was fun to hear them playfully teasing each other, and the laughter was just contagious. As I mentioned, all the boys were so polite that it was delightful to have the bunch of them here.

After hours of Wii games and Legos, we sent the boys upstairs for bedtime. They were tucked in by eleven, and all was (mostly) quiet by midnight. There was time after breakfast for a bit more game time, and some of the new toys came out for exploration. After two of the left, we took Kaleb home, stayed for a card game with Will, Kaleb, and Kaleb's parents, and came back with all our kids. I expect the afternoon to be full of snoring because all four of our kids (and their parents) have a bit of sleep to catch up on.

Questions and Answers: Columbian Mammoths

This was a day with the idea that starts with "What do you want to do today?" I'm not sure what order it was decided, but we talked about hunting fossils, then Ben brought up dinosaurs, and we ended up thinking about going to the Mammoth Site. In the end, that's what we did.

As described by their website, "The Waco Mammoth Site sits on more than 100 acres of wooded parkland along the Bosque River. Surrounded by oak, mesquite and cedar trees, the site offers an escape from the modern world and provides a glimpse into the lives of Columbian mammoths.... it is 'The nation's first and only recorded discovery of a nursery herd of Pleistocene mammoths' -- National Park Service."

Our family arrived just as a tour was beginning. I think the group consisted of my parents, Allen and me, our four kids, a stoller-toddler, about seven or eight other adults, and the tour guide. As we walked, the guide explained about the history and prehistory of the area. She asked if anyone had questions, and Jon bravely raised his hand to ask, "How many people come here to litter?" The guide was kind enough to answer the best she knew, but it was definitely what I'd consider a kid-question. I figured a lot of the information would be beyond what the little ones could understand completely, but all the boys continued to surprise us.

As we reached the entrance to the building that protects the mammoth excavation, the guide stopped the group, told us where the first bones were found by some hiking teenagers. She told us a bit about the type of mammoths that were there (Columbian mammoths, not the well-known Woolly mammoths). When she asked if anyone had questions again, Jon raised his hand... again. This time, he asked a great question: "How old are these mammoths." What a great question! These were old -- probably over 10 thousand years old.

We went into the building and we could see several sets of mammoth bones that had been uncovered. We learned more about their diets and size. There was a painting as large as an adult Columbian mammoth so the kids (and adults) could understand the enormity. As we were on the path looking into another pile of bones, we could see what looked like stone shoe-treads that were teeth. The guide asked everyone to guess how many teeth the mammoths had in their mouths. Jon guessed hundreds, Will guessed twenty-something, there was a buzz as the adults thought about it, but Ben was the kid in the crowd who surprised the guide: "Who said four? I know I heard it!" Ben was proud to raise his hand to that correct answer.

Overlooking a strange skeleton, we learned from the guide that they were bones from a camel. Yes, an American camel. The guide got us thinking again, asking how many humps an American camel should have. Again, the question was meant for the crowd, but our kiddo showed his thinking. Will raised his hand to answer, "I don't think it would have any humps because it doesn't need to store any food with all the plants here." The guide shook her head amazed that a child would know the camel had zero humps. She started to ask, "Does anyone know WHY the camel had no humps?" when she mumbled the last part because she realized that Will had already answered that part -- there was plenty of food to be had.

After the tour some of the other adults were commenting to us that we had smart kids. They started joking with each other that they wouldn't get very far on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" game show. They kind of included us in on the joking, but then kept commenting that our fifth grader knew way more than they did about mammoths. We politely smiled, and as we walked away, we realized the strangers expected Will to be a fifth grader. They were off by a couple of years, but I decided not to point that out.

Some of the things we learned today:
•Columbian Mammoths (Mammuthus columbi) lived during the Pleistocene Epoch (2.5 million years to 10,000 years ago).

•The Columbian mammoth was one of the largest mammals to have lived during the Pleistocene Epoch. Other animals that lived during this time included giant ground sloths, short-faced bears and giant beavers.
•The Columbian mammoth is a distant relative of the Woolly mammoth, but Woolly mammoths stayed farther north in much colder regions.
•Columbian mammoths grew to more than 14 feet in height and weighed up to 10 tons (20,000 lbs). They stood 2 to 4 feet taller and weighed up to 8,000 pounds more than Woolly mammoths.
•A mammoth’s tooth could be as large as a four-pound shoe box. Mammoths had six sets of teeth during their lifetime, which could span up to 75 years.
•The mammoth’s tusks were modified incisor teeth. The tusks grew as long as 16 feet and weighed up to 200 pounds each.
•Mammoths spent up to 20 hours a day eating between 300 to 700 pounds of grass and large fruits. As a result, mammoths produced around 400 pounds of dung a day.
•Columbian mammoths walked on their tiptoes. A sponge-like pad was behind the bones of their feet, which cushioned their immense weight.

Homestead Heritage

When I was younger -- after I had left home, but before I was married -- I was visiting Waco for Thanksgiving and my parents took my brother and me to Homestead Heritage. The weekend after Thanksgiving a community of homesteaders has a festival to share their life with the public. This isn't a living history-type place, but these people choose to live a simpler life and master some of the almost-lost arts of taking products from farm to craft. We took the kids two years ago when we were there for Thanksgiving, and this year we went again, but did a lot more than before. It really is fascinating to watch men start with an eight foot log, cut it down to the point they can make spindles for a chair. Had we stayed a bit longer, we could have watched them put the lumber on the lathe, make the spindles and legs, carve the seat, and build a chair. There are demonstrations all day -- sheepdogs rounding up sheep, sheep sheering, spinning wool, making yarn from the spun wool, weaving and other textile arts, kids making apple cider, building violins, hammering brass, and so much more!

We started off the morning at the animal farm, and this may have been one of the kids' favorite parts. Will and Ben were cuddling with some silky baby bunnies, but the day was blustery enough that Ben's little buddy preferred being in the warmth of his hood. Ben just kept the huge grin on his face while he rubbed his cheek on the soft rabbit.

 Rather than just being spectators as we have in the past, we decided to try our hands at something new. Since the younger kids dipped candles last weekend, we encouraged them to pick something they haven't done before. Right away, Jon knew he wanted to do the leather crafting. He chose a picture of a horse and bull to stamp into a key fob. A teen from the community showed him how to hammer the tool, and then the nice young man held the stamp while Jon hammered -- the kid didn't not even flinch those many times Jon hammered his hand instead of the metal end. Jon was quite proud of his key chain; though none of the photos showed his work, they all showed his joy at completing his project!

Ben, Maddie, and Will all chose to make a woven coaster. Even after the ladies explained they would need to mail us the finished product (after they cut the weavings from the loom after the festival), all three still insisted that was what they wanted to try. I sat with Ben as one of the teen girls explained how the foot pedals move the strings. Gramma stayed near Maddie in case she needed help, and Allen and Granddad were near Will. All three of their projects turned out great! I had a good time watching Ben concentrate on his task: push the shuttle through, pull the comb-thing down, step on the other pedal, repeat. Will's loom was more complicated since he had to use his hands to switch the string positions, but he got the hang of it, too. Ben's coaster is the one that is mostly orange, Maddie's seems pinkish, and Will's is red, blue, yellow, and white. 

While we waited with the weaving kids, Mom and I were eyeing the sorghum taffy pulling. After the kids finished, Mom and I washed and buttered our hands, then started pulling at the sweet treats.

Sometime along the way, we had lunch, visited the working gristmill, tasted more of the homegrown grains, learned about making essential oils, and played with a few more animals. We left as the day was warming up, but we had a full day of fun and learning. I'm certain this trend will continue and we

will be back again to learn something new when we are back in Waco for Thanksgiving in two years. 

Indian Summer

Here it is the end of November and it is nice that the kids can choose to wear what they want and still be comfortable. Most of the time, they are running around outside without shoes and socks because the weather is so pretty. The colorful leaves float through the bright sky everytime the breeze even whispers, but a looming cold front occassionally fills the air with leaves. Yesterday the boys wrestled with Dad in the backyard. Both generations have plenty of ornery in their blood (I think it must skip a generation ;) and it wasn't long before they were stuffing each others' clothes with the crumbly leaves. After a while, they decided to rake leaves into a pile worthy of jumping.

Jon, Maddie, and Ben took a rest after their hard work. They patiently waited like birds in a nest for Granddad to come add to the fun.

Later in the day, Will was anxious to show Allen how hard he worked to make a tunnel for the canoe. Will and my dad trimmed the branches so they could pass underneath easily. Allen took all four kids out in the canoe, and it seemed the younger crew relaxed quickly as if they had been busy all day long.

Thanksgiving Day was just as pretty of a day. I spent the morning watching the Macy's parade on television and all four kids watched for a while, went outside for a bit, returned to see more of the parade, and went back to playing. We had a traditional turkey feast with all the fixings, and the kids went back out to play. Will carved sticks, Jon and Ben watched and helped him find more. My dad saw the boys attempting to make a bow with a stick and some string, so he helped them make one that would work. Next, he worked with each of the kids to make sure they understood how to hold it and shoot an "arrow" (pointy stick) correctly. Jon and Will stayed busy with the bow and arrows for quite awhile.

Some of us played or sat outside, some watched football on TV. I was glad to have an opportunity to take some pictures as the sun was setting. With the golden orange light, the deep blue sky, and red leafed trees all around, it was quite beautiful! It was a relaxing day, but we missed my brother's family who didn't come as planned because they all were sick.