Beautiful moments

"You have a beautiful family ma'am." The waitress told me this morning, as we went out for breakfast to celebrate hubby coming home from one of the few trips he takes away from us each year. "And you look so happy." 

I smiled, "Thank you. I am." .

A few minutes later a different waiter came by, "I'm not sure if you know--the elderly couple that just left paid for your meal." We looked around for them to thank them, but they were already gone. 

Having a large(ish) family is best decisions I ever made. It's hard sometimes--but that's always true of parenting, no matter how many kids. These people bless me every day, from the 6 year old with her startlingly accurate evaluations of spiritual things, to the 3 month old and the way he meets my eyes, grins the sort of grin that makes the sun come out on cloudy days, then shoves a fist quite deliberately into his mouth ("Yeah, kid. I get you. Just a minute."). It's a sobering thing to be a parent and have all these miniature reflections of myself walking around, magnifying and reflecting back every personal spiritual struggle I have.

 But also beautiful. I get to be there for the joyful, off key, 100 decibel (seriously, I measured) group renditions of "cockles and mussles" and "Marie's wedding." I get to be there for the dismayed shout as we are walking out of IHOP, "Ah! I left my shoes!" and see the grins from the waitresses as she darts barefoot under the table to collect the too-big hand-me-down shoes she wore because they were pretty (even though they fall off every 30 seconds.) I get to be there for the sunshine grins, the peanutbutter-sticky-hugs, and the "WHAT? Butterflies have SCALES like DRAGONS?" moments. Also the horrified look when the hear--for the first time--the doom pronounced on William Tell (then cheer when the apple is split in two).

So, yes. I'm happy. And one of these days, I want to be the elderly empty-nester couple that goes out once a week, gets a cheap breakfast of eggs and coffee, and secretly buys a young family their breakfast just for the heck of it. Because it's hard being a parent, but it is also one of the most beautiful things ever.

Why Ambleside Online?

I talked a bit in a previous post about why we are using Charlotte Mason's method to educate our children. As the primary requirement for books is that they be high quality "living" books, there are many different curriculum to choose from. Each one has been created with different goals in mind, and it's important to know what those goals are when settling on a final curriculum.

Ambleside Online may not be the only way to put Charlotte Mason's philosophy into practice, but it does have some wonderful things going for it. The curriculum has been around for long enough to have many graduates who used it all the way through their schooling, and who are able to answer questions about what their experience was and how it served them through life so far. Many of these graduates have chosen to use AO with their own children, which speaks to the quality as well. Some of the women who designed the program are still homeschooling their younger children, and in many cases available online via Facebook or the AO forum to answer questions.

But it isn't just the founders who are available. I doubt there is any sort of count to the thousands of families who have used this program, but finding help from a more experienced AO mother is not difficult. The forum is very active, and the Facebook page has more than 10,000 members. In larger cities, it is very likely that someone else is within driving distance who uses the very same curriculum.

Another thing AO has going for it is that it is affordable. The women who designed it have never been paid for their work and do not charge for the use of the materials. The books will need to be purchased, but as it was a priority from the start to make homeschooling affordable for everyone, nearly all the books are public domain (meaning, available for free online or very inexpensive in print). There are only a few books each semester that need to be purchased, and often these can be found in a library for the truly shoestring budget.

The curriculum content follows Charlotte Mason's recommendations--Art study, composer study, monthly (or so) hymns and folk songs, science, geography, history, nature study, poetry and biographies. The books are laid out according to grade, with clear weekly schedules for those (like me) who really don't want to spend their time tweaking and adjusting.

I think the thing that strikes me the most about AO is that the curriculum is both deeply loving and nurturing, but also rigorous. It is "generous" in the deepest sense of the word, and I am so excited to be able to give my kiddos this gift (and to be able to learn alongside them!!).

For those of you who are using Charlotte Masons educational philosophy, what curriculum did you end up going with? Or are you free flying and creating what works best for your family as you go? I'd love to hear more about it in the comments!! 

Charlotte Mason in a Nutshell

For our school we will be following a curriculum based on the works of Charlotte Mason. Charlotte Mason was a school teacher in the 1800's who devoted her life to the nurturing of children. There are several things that define a Charlotte Mason education, and I probably can't cover them all in a single blog post--particularly not in depth, and this won't be in order of importance either.

Quoting from the Ambleside Online Website: "First and foremost, Charlotte Mason is a 12-year Christian Character Building curriculum. Books are chosen not for cultural literacy so much as the literary quality with which they were written, and even more, their ability to develop the whole person and inspire his character. For all those years that children are getting a CM education, what's really being trained more than anything else is their character. Students receiving a CM education don't need any character building program because the entire curriculum is geared towards building character with the use of personal habits, quality books, teacher guidance, the work of the Holy Spirit and personal reflection."

A Charlotte Mason Education involves living books. A living book is a story well-told, one written as a first hand account, or by someone who knows their subject well and loves it well and writes it well. It is not a dry textbook. It should spark interest and delight in the child, and impact his or her mind with its ideas.

The world is a great treasure house full of things to be seen,
and each new thing one sees in a new delight. ~Charlotte Mason

A Charlotte Mason Education involves narration. Narration is when a child "tells back" what was just read to him. There is only one reading allowed, and he may not look back over the text in order to do his narration. Once read, once told. In the early years (grads 1-3 or so) narration is oral, and is required after every reading. Gradually as the child gets older, written narrations are added. Narration takes the place of formal writing lessons and even tests. Grammar is not required, particularly early on. Outside of the end-of-term exams--which are also oral in the early years--there are no tests. Even the exams are not graded, instead they are for the teacher's assessment, in case there are adjustments to be made for that particular student.

A Charlotte Mason Education involves time outside--especially in the early years.

It is infinitely well worth the mother’s while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them, the love of investigation. ~Charlotte Mason (Home Education, p 71)

And another one I love:

The study of natural history and botany with bird lists and plant lists continues throughout school life, while other branches of science are taken term by term.” -Vol 6 Charlotte Mason 

What to do outside? A nature journal focused on different things per term--stars, trees, flowers, animals, bugs, etc. Drawing helps them to see what is really there, rather than what they expect to see. Learning names, learning uses, learning what plants look like one season to the next. Learning the sky. There is so much that can be learned, and this area of study is typically absent in education now--at very least, it is given a low priority--despite the growing body of evidence that it is an absolute necessity for a well formed mind.

A Charlotte Mason Education involves Habit training. To ignore a child's habits--or to separate that out from the schooling process--is to miss the mark of education.

 This relation of habit to human life––as the rails on which it runs to a locomotive––is perhaps the most suggestive and helpful to the educator; for just as it is on the whole easier for the locomotive to pursue its way on the rails than to take a disastrous run off them, so it is easier for the child to follow lines of habit carefully laid down than to run off these lines at his peril. It follows that this business of laying down lines towards the unexplored country of the child's future is a very serious and responsible one for the parent. It rests with him to consider well the tracks over which the child should travel with profit and pleasure; and, along these tracks, to lay down lines so invitingly smooth and easy that the little traveller is going upon them at full speed without stopping to consider whether or no he chooses to go that way. ~ Home Education, P 109

There are many habits a child needs in order to travel along smoothly through life, and the appropriate place to address those needs is both at home and in the school room (which, in my case, are the same).

This is a nutshell version of what a Charlotte Mason education looks like for a student. There are so many other aspects of the Charlotte Mason Philosophy that really couldn't be covered in a single post. Some other topics that I would like to cover are: Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles of Education, What a Charlotte Mason education looks like for a teacher, and ways that her principles impact daily life outside of "school hours." I suspect that list is going to grow the more I write--there is so much depth to this lifestyle!!

For those of you who are also using Charlotte Mason's philosophy for teaching your children, what would you add to my list? 

A Continual Feast

I was introduced to this book through Cindy Rollen's Advent book, Hallelujah: a Journey through Handel's Messiah. It has well earned it's place on my shelf over the last 6 months of heavy use. Something I have been studying is how to work the traditional church calendar into our daily lives. There are many reasons we have begun to embrace this, but one of the greatest is that the cadence of the calendar draws our attention from one aspect of God to another in a beautiful, steady rhythm. We can make one thing our focus for a season, knowing that soon enough that season will be passed and we will be moving on to the next.

In the Old Testament God gave his people different feasts and fasts to keep through the year. In much the same way, the church calendar is a litany of feasting and fasting. Lent, Advent, 12 Days, Easter, Pentecost--each of these bring with them a season of joy or sorrow, of feasting or fasting. Each of them cause us to question--why? Why are we celebrating the day? What has God commanded us to remember? What is important about this dish, this day, this season? Each of them focus in on a different part of God's work. And, what more useful as we observe these traditions than a beautiful cookbook focused on the traditional recipes and observation rituals of each season?

 Divided into sections based on each feast, ordered according to the calendar for ease of use, A Continual Feast has been the perfect addition to my cooking library. Most recipes contain commentary about how that recipe was used traditionally, and what it symbolizes in the feast (which I find personally interesting, and is also helpful as the children ask questions!). The recipes range from very, very old--I loved the reprint of a recipe from the 1600s involving pheasant feathers "cunningly set about" a roast bird--to more modern ideas like the Pentecost Cake that is piped with symbols of the holy spirit. Most of them comfortably tiptoe between ancient and modern.

Some of the feast recipes can be fairly complicated, but they are doable and not intended for daily use. I found many of the more labor intensive Christmas recipes were actually made well in advance, because traditionally that was how it was done. Other recipes are fairly simple and meant to either round out the feast or be a daily go-to in seasons where creativity is the key (Lent can be a challenge!!).

All in all, this book has been a delight and has added a great deal to our year. I haven't pictured my personal copy because, well, a few encounters with the counter have made it not particularly pretty. But only because it has been so well loved.

Norms and Nobility--prologue

As part of my continuing teachers education I'm taking a course next year through Circe Institute's Atrium program. We will be working through the book, Norms and Nobility by David Hicks. This book on offers a compelling argument in favor of classical education and how true education involves so much more than the small areas we have relegated it to in modern thought. Education involves the whole person, not just a body of facts that must be learned over the course of 12 or so years.

I'm going to try blogging my way through the book, chapter by chapter (or, likely, section by section. It may not be entire chapters at once) over the course of the next year. I'm starting my read through a bit early as I find that I have a bit more time on my hands for reading now than I had expected. (More on that in a future post, possibly.) So, without further ado, here is my summary-with-thoughts of the Preface

 Norms and Nobility--Preface

Written ten years after the publishing of the book in 1981, David Hicks seems to have mellowed a bit. I found it interesting that he said, if he were to write this book again, he would make fewer sweeping claims for the ancients. They did not have all the answers, and the answers they had were not unified. They did not all come to the same conclusions. Rather, Norms and Nobility is "about an ancient ideal expressed as "classical Education" against which the modern school is weighed and found wanting."

The ultimate aim of education, he goes on to say, is not thinking but acting. It isn't knowing what to do, but doing it. "The sublime premise of a classical education asserts that right thinking will lead to right, if not righteous, acting." Children do not just need to be trained into rational, logical thinkers. Facts are not enough. They need to be able to act in a wise and noble way.

From my commonplace:

Those who believe as I do that teaching students to reason well is not enough threaten, Alder would argue, to turn education into indoctrination while placing a greater burden on the teacher and his lesson than either can bear. Yet it seems to me that the difference between indoctrination and education is more one of degree than of kind, and my teaching experience has lead me to believe that unless my aims are more broadly defined than to make my students rational thinkiers, I will surely fail to achieve even that. Education must address the whole student, his emotional and spiritual sides as well as his tational. The aims of education, the teachers methods, the books and lessons, the traditions, and regulations of the school--all must express not just ideas, but norms, tending to make young people not only rational, but noble.

 This is why the high value that modern methods of teaching place on skepticism is, perhaps, misplaced. In modern thought, dogma is bad but skepticism is good. Students are encouraged to accept nothing, question everything. These adolescent students are, as yet, untrained and inexperienced and yet they are expected to have the capability of being able to distinguish for themselves right and wrong. Skepticism rejects the idea that anything deserves our wholehearted allegiance--everything must be questioned.

The emphasis placed on skepticism and analysis has likely come from those who watched these tools used in the field of science, and saw the wonders that were discovered as a result. The tools were taken and applied to the areas of traditional wisdom and morality to grave consequences. Surely it is possible to both accept that there are certain areas that are simply right or wrong, and other areas where the use of skepticism and analysis is a useful tool.

Perhaps, though, it is not the schools curriculim, but rather the teachers themselves that are most in need of reform. A teacher must first be a student, and as soon as a teacher stops learning he or she can no longer truly teach. The greatest value in the curriculem he proposed, David Hicks continues, "is that it sustains and nurtures teachers as practitioners of the art of learning while discouraging nonlearners from entering the profession."

Only a school (and by extension a curriculum) that encourages teachers to be always learning will keep its teachers fresh and fearless and its students happy and motivated in their studies, ready to test their lessons against life. 

I have to admit, as I enter my fourth week of first grade homeschooling my oldest, I am so excited to read this book. As I see her eyes light up as she comes into contact with the Great Books and makes her own connections makes me fully believe that this is true. There is so much more to education than passing a series of tests.

St Lucy Day

The prepped dough for our St Lucy's Day breakfast.
Braided in a circle like this it is called "St. Lucy's Crown."
Once baked, I'll drizzle it with icing before serving.  

St. Lucy day is one of my favorite holidays that we have added this year. Although widely celebrated in other countries (particularly Sweden), it is not traditional in my part of the world. I don't know anyone else personally who celebrates it, but it is such a delightful holiday I'm not sure why not.

St. Lucia's was a 3rd century Christian Martyr under Diocletian. As the story goes, she was born to wealthy parents but her father died when she was 5. After God answered her prayer for her mother to be healed of a long term illness, Lucia sought--and received--her mother's permission to distribute much of their wealth to the suffering Christians. Lucia did much of this with her own hand, delivering food to the Christians hiding in the catacombs. As she wanted to carry as much as possible to them, she devised a crown with candles on it to leave both hands free to carry food. Denounced as a Christian by a  rejected suitor, she was martyred in Sicily around 310AD, at about the age of 27.

Traditionally the celebration of St. Lucy's day starts early in the morning as the eldest daughter in the family dresses as St. Lucy in a white gown and red sash. She wears a crown of ligonberry set with seven lighted candles, as St. Lucy did. Younger daughters are her handmaids, also dressed in white with a crimson sash but instead of a crown with candles they carry a single candle.  The daughters serve coffee or mulled wine and a special yeast bread, called "St. Lucy's Crown," to their parents in bed, to commemorate St. Lucy bringing food to the Christians.

Given the ages involved we did not do real candles. Someday, maybe. We didn't actually do fake ones either, mainly because I completely forgot to buy any. It turned out that the greenery I had for the crowns had white berry bunches, sooooo those were the "candles" this year. Fortunately I hadn't mentioned anything about candles--real or otherwise-- to the girls, so there was no disappointment on their end. We'll do something more fancy next year.

The bread is quite similar to cinnamon rolls, except instead of being flavored with raisins/cinnamon it is flavored with oranges. This gave me the idea to use a trick I'd learned years ago on cinnamon rolls. I made the dough ahead of time, braided it, and put it in the freezer. The night before St. Lucy's Day I unwrapped it, put it on a pan, and put the pan in the (cold) oven overnight. I set a timer for the oven early the next morning and went to bed. Overnight the braided loaf thawed and rose, and sometime much earlier than I cared to get up, the oven turned itself on and began baking. By the time my alarm went off the next morning, the bread was almost done and the house smelled amazing.

Given the ages involved, I got up early and got the plates ready. I woke the girls up, helped them get dressed, handed out the plates and the crowns and the mugs of coffee half-filled (lots of trepidation on that last one....). Then I hurried back to bed and pretended to have been asleep all along--and completely astonished--as "St. Lucia" and her "handmaid" brought us breakfast in bed. My guess is it'll be a few years before St. Lucia is old enough to take over, but in the meantime, the more authentic we make it the more excited they'll be about independence next year. It's the long game. I can wait.

The nice breakfast was the main event of the day this year, but next year I would love to have another family or two over and have a Swedish feast. I'm thinking meatballs, ligonberry jam, a St. Lucy's Crown for dessert (probably coffee cake, so it isn't exactly the same as breakfast). We could do a procession leading up to the feast, and have the children serve. Or, perhaps, the kids could put on a play about Saint Lucy's life. There are also traditional songs to go with the holiday, which I didn't have a chance to learn or teach this year. But that is okay. The beautiful thing about family traditions is that they can be added onto gradually, and every stage is special.

Have you ever celebrated Saint Lucia's Day? If so, what did you do?

St Nicolas Day

This year we celebrated St. Nicolas day for the first time. Falling right at the beginning of Advent on December 6th, St. Nicholas Day focuses in on the man behind Santa Claus, Nicolas, the Bishop of Myra. The name Santa Clause comes from his real name Saint (Ni)Clause.

There are almost as many legends around the real person as there are around the jolly old man in a red coat. Depending on where you look you will get many versions of the same story. It is a consistent theme that he was a man of mercy, and fought against poverty and prostitution. In one of the more common tales he secretly spent a great deal to give dowries to three daughters of a poor man who could not marry without a dowry. They were to be sold to be prostituted to pay for their father's debts, but the gifts that St. Nicholas gave were more than enough for them to be married instead.

In early December we read many stories about Santa and St. Nicholas--both the real and the fictionalized man. We read about the legends associated with the Bishop, and the little elves who help Santa make gifts. I had picture books and audio stories for both. I'm sure there are movies also, but we don't tend to watch many movies these days--though I do think we made room for a fun evening of popcorn and Arthur Christmas (the family favorite Christmas movie).

The traditional way to celebrate St. Nicholas day is with moulded cookies called Speculaus. Speculas cookies are claimed by assorted countries--Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland being a few. I had never made Speculas before, so I did a lot of reading up on it, and found out it was quite a challenging skill. I purchased a mold and tried a test recipe. It was a complete flop. So then I purchased a book full of recipes. The second try went better. It was still pretty obvious that I was new to the fancy-cookie making business, but all the cookies were the proper shape, only a few stuck to the mold, and I could even see most of the image on most of the cookies. I felt like a magic worker.

Another tradition of the holiday is for the children to set their shoes by the window. In the middle of the night St. Nicholas comes and fills their shoes with either apples, oranges, candy, and nuts (for the good children) or switches and coal (bad children). In our version I had the girls each set out one of their shoes outside their room before they went to bed. The next morning the shoes each held (spilling out) a candy cane, a pouch with a couple St Nicolas cookies, and an orange. They were delighted.

Something I wasn't expecting happened as we added this holiday to our Advent season--suddenly the conflict between the secularized Christmas focused on getting gifts and the Christian Christmas of focusing on the true Gift, Christ the babe, melted away. Santa had his day. December 6th. There was room to spend a week or two reveling in the silliness of fat elves and an imaginative story of the North Pole. There was room to spend time with the true Bishop, to talk about the legends and guess at what seeds of the legends had actually happened. There was room to celebrate him simply. And then we moved on to the rest of Christmas--most of Christmas--which was focused on Christ himself. It was quite lovely--and I'm sure the good Bishop would approve.

Hallelujah: An Advent book by Cindy Rollins

When I found out that Cindy Rollins had written an advent book I was so excited!! I first heard of her when my hubby directed me to her blog right before it was closed. He wanted me to look it over before all the good stuff was put away (It's up again, so take a look!). Later she published two books, Mere Motherhood, and A Handbook to Morning time. These books were so wonderful to read in the immediate postpartum after Robert was born--in fact, I'd finished both of them within his first week! Her writing style is easy to read, and I felt like I was growing and learning right alongside her as I read the story of her homeschooling years.


Hallelujah is her plan for listening through the Hallelujah chorus throughout the advent season. She's broken the piece down to daily sections with corresponding scripture readings that make daily listenings very manageable. They run from about 3 minutes to about 11 minutes long, and we typically listened to it over dinner while lighting our advent candles. It was such a joy to hear my daughters singing along with it--even though they are not reading quite yet there was enough repeat in the piece itself that there were many parts they were able to sing along.

In addition to the daily guide to listening to the Messiah, Cindy has included some recipes and thoughts on celebrating the advent and Christmas seasons, weekly hymns, poems, and suggestions for the smaller holidays in the season of celebration and anticipation. There was more material than we could cover in a single season, but I loved it so much I am not planning on moving on to a different book for some time. I expect as we use this book over the years the rhythms will become more and more familiar.

Church Calendar

This year I've been making an intentional effort to embrace the traditional holidays and celebrations. In our church tradition there is not much talk of the Church Calendar, other than the major holidays (Christmas, Easter). But as I learn more I've found so much rich church history to draw from. The Advent season this past year, for example, was such a joyful anticipation this year as we slowly, day-by-day checked off the days until we reached the Messiah's birth and All Joy broke out in glorious light!

I know this is an unseasonal time to write about Christmas on a blog, as proper blogging means writing about it in advance rather than after-the-fact, but I was busy savoring the season. And I want these thoughts to be available for next year.

My inspiration this year started with an advent devotional by Cindy Rollins. Cindy Rollins is a mom of 9 (8 boys!) who schooled her children at home and blogged about it through the process. You can find her blog here. Sadly, the paper copies of her advent book were sold out by the time I was ready to purchase it, but fortunately it was available on Kindle so I still was able to read it! My other inspiration for this year was a cookbook recommended in the back of her book, A Continual Feast. I think I'd like to give each of these books their own book review, so I will leave this here for now.

I'm going to write about several posts about different parts of the season this year, and update this post as a directory:
Hallelujah: A Journey Through Advent with Handles Messiah
A Continual Feast
St Nicolas Day--December 6
St. Lucy's Day--December 13

Blessings abound

We've had a lot of pans on the fire the last couple months, some of which will be the subject of future posts. But perhaps the biggest news for the moment--we are expecting! Another baby is due next spring--three now with us, one with Jesus. Our arms and our hearts are very full. Thank you, Lord, for your blessings! 

Made in the image

One of the qualities of a complete education is to teach children what it is to be made in the image of a creative God. Everything we can see was made by God. The grass the flowers, the trees, storms and sky. All the animals in the world were made by Him. We can see that our God is endlessly creative just from creation itself.

Even if we just looked at Man we can see that it has been thousands of years since creation, and no two men are fully alike. How many millions of people have existed and never two the same? And yet each one of us is made in His image.

When we as people choose to create we are joining in the act of creation with our creative God. Of course, we can't create from dust but we can create from the materials God has given us.

Creation can take many forms. A musician will create a new piece of music, an artist a work of art, a mechanic a new machine, an engineer a new bridge, a barista an artistic cup of coffee. The possibilities are truly endless--there are as many creative possibilities as individuals. Emily Freeman explores this idea in depth in her book, Million Little Ways.

One of the foundational goals of any education program should be to train the students in creativity. They should learn to to express the art that God has put inside them, no matter what form that art takes. Teaching creativity would involve a wide exposure to many disciplines of study, along with a great deal of practice.

If our children are made in the image of a creative God, they should learn to create.

Gardening exploits

It happens every spring. The weather gets pretty, the plants start growing, I start seeing the occasional flower, and I get the bug to grow things. Every time. I'm not a particularly skilled gardener (yet). I'm not sure what color my thumb is (probably not green). But I make up for what I lack in skills and experience with a bushel of enthusiasm combined with a few hours on pintrest and long conversations with people who do garden.

There are two things I like to grow--flowers for my own personal enjoyment (whether as cut flowers in a vase or in my yard) or fruits and veggies to eat. Unlike my hubby, I'm pretty unenthusiastic about landscaping as an art form, or "curb appeal." I just want to see things grow.   That said, I was outlining my rather ambitious plan for a HUGE square foot vegetable garden and HUNDREDS of flowers in the back yard, when hubby told me we really should do something with the front of the house before we planted our entire acre with tomatoes and gladiolas.

I had to admit, he had a point. While the front of the house does have three really pretty arched windows that I adore, everything else is overgrown and ignored. We have a couple bushes obviously intended for some sort of sculpturing, but they've been growing wild and free since we moved in. Those overgrown ugly bushes are the only nod to "landscaping" around, and I actively dislike them.

So, we put our heads together and came up with a plan. It's going to involve ferns, and I might have used the words: wild, fairy, elf and garden as I planned it. The old ugly bush/trees are coming out, and good riddance. Pictures to follow once we get the project started (the plants arrived yesterday, so that should be soon!)

The vegetable garden is still happening--we have a lot left over from last year, and so will just expand a bit on what we already have. I'll be posting updates on the veggies as well. I think I learned a lot last year, and should be able to make it more productive this year.

My favorite sprouted bread recipe

I make this sprouted bread recipe several times a week, and we all enjoy it. The bread comes out with a good crumb, and makes excellent sandwiches. I haven't had to experiment with the recipe at all, which is a major bonus for a mom of toddlers!

• 4 tablespoons room-temperature butter
• 4 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/2 cups room-temperature water
• 4 cups Essential Eating Organic Sprouted Flour (wheat or spelt)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
• 2 teaspoons yeast

Combine all ingredients in the bread machine, in the order listed: wet ingredients first, followed by the dry ingredients. Set bread machine cycle to "quick bread" and press start. On my machine it takes about 2 hours, and the house smells amazing the entire time it is cooking!

NOTES:
When I ran out of butter I successfully made this recipe with avocado oil.

I have also used this bread for pizza crust, by starting the "dough" cycle instead of the "quick bread" cycle. I usually sub olive oil for the butter, and add some Italian spices to the dough.

I purchase sprouted flour through my monthly Azure Standard order. It is also available on Amazon, though the price is not quite as good.

This recipe works just fine with regular flour, though I prefer both the flavor and health benefits of sprouted flour.

I'm sure this will work just fine if made by hand. I prefer the machine, and so have never tried it. If you do, please let me know in the comments how it goes!!

Recipe Credit: I found this recipe on Essential Eating, however because they have changed their website I can no longer link directly to the recipe. 

Chicken update

Well, the last four months have been full of LOTS of learning about chickens. I guess I knew adding a totally new animal to our mini-farm would be challenging, but the biggest challenges we faced were totally not on my radar.

Challenge #1:  AKA Heinz. The best, most trainable dog in the world. It took 4 chickens, 4 incidents, before he really figured out that he MUST NOT play with chickens until they stop playing back. He knows it now. I trust that, if exposed to a chicken, he will resist as long as his still-semi-puppy nature will allow. Think the kid and the marshmallow test.  I think the chicken would have at least 15-30 minutes unmolested. Not that I'm willing to test that theory and risk another Incident.

Challenge #2: Random possum attack. One chicken down several months ago. Hasn't been back. My theory is the dogs might kill the chickens, but they also scare away predators. So that's sort of a win, right?

Challenge #3: This adorable puppy, RollyPoly. You wouldn't know he's a chicken killing machine, would you? He looks all adorable and sweet. He's cuddly and fluffy, too. And he REALLY likes to play with the chickens. Until they stop moving. Because really, they are just fluffy squeaker toys, right? Oh, man. He got in the pen with a new batch of chicks through a hole in the fence we didn't know about. It was truly awful. Our fences are so much better now. He's also starting to respond to training, so there is hope he'll calm down once he gets out of the young puppy stage.

 Challenge #4: Random chicken stupidity. I forget what all the chickens have done to get themselves killed.  We've lost at least a couple to sheer birdbrained stupidity (and that's not including the ones that flew over the fence to play with the dogs. Fence is taller now). I'm ALWAYS sad. I ALWAYS cry when I find one. But at the same time--seriously? How many crazy things can a bird do?? That said, we always fix whatever it was that the chicken did and never loose two to the same stupid thing. At least we are learning, even if they are still birdbrains.

And, for all that, we still haven't gotten our first egg. Though it is really hot here right now, and they are still a couple weeks out from normal egg producing time.

New family additions

A couple weeks ago we added 12 new additions to the homestead. Chicks!!

I'm a total newbe to chicken keeping, but a backyard flock of chickens has been high on my new-home wishlist. I selected a dozen chickens--five Buff Orpington, five Australorp, and two Black Copper Marans. They are all female, since our city isn't crazy about roosters in city limits (which is okay, roosters don't tend to lay many eggs).

I chose breeds that are considered "dual purpose." They will be good for both meat and eggs (but won't get as big as a meat-only breed, or lay quite as many eggs as a layer breed). Eggs are the most important part, but I also want my daughters to grow up okay with the idea that we eat meat, and the meat we eat used to be an animal. We raised the creature in a humane, loving way and then gave it's life to make our dinner. It's part of the cycle of life, and it is silly to be squeamish about it. (That said, I am squeamish about it, and I'll have to work on that before any of these girls end up going in the soup-pot.)

The chicks are living inside with us until their feathers come in and they can move outside. Right now they are in two giant uhaul boxes that I've taped together to make a brooder. It isn't nearly big enough, especially now that they have started growing. Later today I'm going to add two more boxes so they have a bit more room.

I'm not naming them. I'm not sure how many will become chicken soup, but just in case I don't want to turn them into pets. Some of them are easy to tell apart, of course. The runt is half the size of the others. There are only two Marans. A couple of the Buff Orpingtons are HUGE. But no names until I know I'm okay with "Runty McNugget" potentially turning into real McNuggets.

Whoops. So much for not naming them. I guess Runty has a name now. Well, we won't name the other 11, then.

In a future post I'll introduce you to the Hall of Golden Yolks, which hubby built with a good friend of his. It is absolutely beeeeeyoutiful, and deserves its own post.

What is your art?

I've been reading A Million Little Ways by Emily Freeman of Chatting at the Sky. I started it a well over a year ago after hearing her speak and being given a copy. It isn't an easy read, but it is such a good one. In it Emily Freeman explains that God is a creative God and has made each of us in his image--an artist. Our art reveals a small part of His nature. Perhaps our art is the traditional kind--painting, drawing, music. Or perhaps we are called to show God's glory in accounting. Or Teaching. We all have art, and each of us is called to make that art a little differently. There are A Million Little Ways for us to show the glory of God.

As I read the first portion of the book I struggled to see where my art fit in. I like to draw, but drawing isn't my calling. I sew beautiful things, but it isn't something I must do. I like to blog, but blogging isn't a primary ministry outlet. There are many things I enjoy doing, but few of them are drives the way that Emily Freeman describes.

And then it hit me, around page 91, my art is right in front of me every day. My art is covered in jam and oatmeal, and marker art from yesterday evening. Mothering is my art. My children are the canvas upon which I show the glory of God. Sometimes being a mother means I sew cute things for my girls, or write a blog post, or take marker in hand and show my daughter how to draw a person (or, more often, every person in our family and extended family with "ABCD names" right beside). But those things are not my art, they are expressions of it. Mothering is the art.


This morning I was thinking about this as I began my day. The children were still in bed, and after yesterday it was easy to think of mothering as an art. I had the most pintrest worthy morning yesterday. I got up early and drank my coffee while reading a few pages of a Christian classic. I had breakfast on the table in time for the family to eat together. My husband had a homemade lunch to take to work. I worked on Bible verses with the children, complete with handmotions. I taught my oldest to balance on a balance beam. We learned about Noah while coloring pictures of Noah's ark. we spent time outside. We went to the store. Yesterday morning was art, if ever mothering was art.

The baby woke up while I was thinking these things. I got her up and as I was walking to the kitchen felt something run down my leg. In the time it took to walk to the kitchen the diaper had exploded and was running down my leg. Did I mention we're on day 6 of norovirus (for her--she's the last to catch it) and I've been changing poopy diapers nearly every hour? Nursing around the clock? Yeah. Baby cried for the next 3 hours. I never put her down. It wasn't a pintrest worthy morning. It wasn't a blog-worthy morning. It was a down-in-the-trenches, jaw gritted, holding on till naptime sort of morning.


When I'm a pintrest mom it's easy to see how my mothering is art. It's a little harder to see the art when the baby is crying and I can't decide which poo to clean up first. Sometimes art gets messy--but messy, imperfect art is still art. An artist can't throw in the towel every time their art doesn't turn out just the way they envisioned--any artist knows it NEVER comes out entirely perfect. We just keep making art, keep reflecting God's glory, even when it isn't exactly how we'd had in mind. And that's okay.

What is your God reflecting, messy, beautiful art?

A Day in the Life Of:

4:11ish--Baby starts fussing. Morning feed. She goes back to sleep. So do I.

Some-random-morning-hour-after-that-but-before-7--Baby starts wiggling in the bassanet beside the bed. I'm not really conscious. I try patting her back. She relaxes as long as I'm patting her back, wakes up as soon as I stop. End up nursing her again.

7:00 Hubby is up. I wake up. Want to be in bed. Decide I should be up. Get on FaceBook for awhile as my protest to being awake ("I may be up, but I'm not going to do anything useful!")

7:30--I decide to do A Day in the Life Of. Maybe that will motivate me to make it a good one.

7:53--said goodbye to hubby. Ignored the munchkin banging on the bedroom door for about 10 minutes while I picked out 5-6 recipes to freezer cook from a shopping trip to costco. Fed the dog and put him out. So not ready for today to begin.

8:20--got the tot up, went in singing to hide the fact that I'd rather be in bed. I think she thought I was playing when I pretended to fall asleep on the floor. BUT singing got us both in a cheerful mood. We cleaned the kitchen while I was warming up leftover oatmeal. Tot put silverware away. "Good job! You can do it--wait, no! You put the silverware away in the drawer--don't take what's already in the drawer out! Okay. Good--that's right! There you go!" First tantrum of the day--"I want to listen to music on the TB!"

8:55--ate breakfast (sort of. Legos were more interesting. We didn't really eat breakfast,  I just made the tot sit at the table for 5 minutes and eat a few bites before going to play). Sorted 2 loads of laundry, but didn't put them away since the baby is still sleeping in my bedroom.(at this hour sleep is questionable, but at least she's entertaining herself quietly and I'm hoping she might still be asleep). I even swept the floor in the playroom--with the help of the toddler. Third tantrum of the day was her thinking I WOULDN'T let her help with sweeping.

Umm--toddler just packed her bags and is standing by the door. (literally. Bottle sticking out of tiny purse hanging from one arm, baby doll in the other, hand grasping half a recorder--the non-noisy part, thankfully) Maybe time for the costco run?

9:44--Got the baby up (she had soaked through her pajamas and her sheet. Changed the diaper. Threw the sheets in the washing machine). Tirza discovered window blind strings while I was nursing. Changed everyone's clothes--or at least made sure everyone was wearing them. I informed Tirza that "ladies don't go out in public with no pants on! You have to wear something over your diaper." Tirza was delighted at the prospect of going shopping, many exclamations of "We're going shopping!!"

I feel gross and want to take a shower, but I'm freezer cooking with a toddler using tomato sauce today. No way there's time for two showers, and I'll definitely need one later. Will deal with it till this evening.

9:55--finished the last 10 minutes of Pimsleur German lesson 10 while driving.

10:09--Did a co-op pick up, or attempted to. Apparently forgot to communicate that I was picking up, so wasn't able to get it. Oh, well. On to Costco.

11:05 Wore the baby into costco, let Tirza be in charge of showing off the costco card to the checker while we went in. Tantrum #9 today was because Tirza wanted to do more shopping. Maybe I should be worried about a 2 year old that likes shopping so much?

11:45--My suspicions on the tantrums were correct. Tirza ate nearly 2 1/2 hot dogs and a banana when we got home. Skipping breakfast in favor of legos didn't agree with her mood at all. Baby fell asleep in the swing. Won't try to keep her up till we all can nap as I usually do--I have energy and need to get the freezer cooking done.

12:30--well, that was a short nap.Elizabeth's eating now. In the last 45 minutes I got (almost) 6 meals prepped. Tirza was genuinely helpful with putting the food in bags. Eventually she got tired of that and started playing with toys in the playroom. Without being told she cleaned up her last box of toys before requesting a new one. Mommy win!

12:43 Still nursing. Doorbell rang for a delivery--it was an amazon box. Find it interesting that the pandora station went from bouncy silly kids songs to lullabies. I'm starting to question my decision to not try for naps happening at the same time today. *yawn*

1:33--Went back to cooking. Scolded Tirza for getting into the "medicine" keeper (just vitamins, nothing harmful for kiddoes, but still). I saw she had stolen a fish oil softgel, and let natural consequences take place. She now smells like fish oil, but maybe now she'll believe that pills are nasty and not candy? She definitely wasn't expecting THAT flavor when she bit down! Baby has started shrieking--not just crying--in the last few days if I don't get to her quickly enough.  Tirza started crying too and announcing that "Baby needs milk! Baby needs milk! Diaper change?" I nursed her again, and put her down to bed. Hopefully she will sleep while I finish up the meals.

1:51--Told Tirza it was naptime. Another meltdown. Which tells me I was right.

1:59 All babies are in bed. Shouuld be asleep soon?

2:12 Babies all sleeping. Watered the dog. I've done a quick tidy of the kitchen--not perfect, but decent considering the 9 freezer meals I've done in the last 2ish hours. Time for a nap.

2:43--heard the baby waking up, so got up and ate a banana and computer-ed for a few minutes. Fed her again. Now reading a chapter of Wrestling Prayer while she is eating

4:33--Got up a few minutes ago to another snack (raisin bran). Hubby got home from work early, we sat on the couch and talked for awhile before the kiddoes woke up.

5:25 both of the kids are up, dinner is in the oven.

5:40 Tirza spent the last 15 minutes suggesting--and attempting to get for herself--different snacks. She has been given a snack of her leftover lunch--dinner was just not going to be ready soon enough. So many hungry melt-downs! We then opened the Amazon box from earlier.

6:10 Talked to a friend on the phone about some church stuff while getting dinner on the table. Just took away a butcher knife from my daughter which she had managed to get from the silverware drawer. I think she wanted it to open a box? Yay for me.

6:48--finished dinner, and I retired to the bedroom to play with Baby since she was full of the giggles. Suddenly found myself mobbed by Robin, Joker, and Superman. Proceeded to play with all of them and Tirza.

7:06--went outside to check the mail. I got two packages and a wedding shower invitation. I'm exccited about my water kifer grains coming in the mail! Elizabeth watched from the swing while I opened the packages. Tirza then grabbed the scissors and attempted to open a few packages herself. Watched daddy from the front window while he mowed the yard.

8:03---Big kid in bed after normal bedtime routine involving Richard singing both mountain songs (Misty mountain from Hobbit, Hushabye Mountain from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). I then sang an assortment of songs. Played Peekaboo. Prayed with her, and then sang The Baby Monkey Song (from Tarzan). She hasn't wound down at all.

8:28 Both babies are down. Elizabeth went down no problem. She was worn out. T was still crying so I gave her a bottle of water and round 2 of Baby Monkey Song and now she's quiet. Time for that shower. And then a movie with hubby.

9:00 Woke Elizabeth up taking my shower, so she's finishing the second half of Prince of Persia with us.

9:40--finished the movie, headed to bed.

Bloom

Joining Lisa-Jo and others this morning for Five Minute Friday, where we cut the words loose for just five minutes, and see where they fall. No editing, just encouraging the others who play along. The topic today is Bloom.

START

It's Texas, in July, and I'm sitting on our front porch enjoying the weather. It's 67 degrees. How did this happen? Inside my babies are still sleeping at 8:25am. It's a blessing I don't take for granted, this sleeping in they do most mornings. 

This week has been a successful week. Why do I say that? Before my littlest was born, I was afraid of what would happen when I had two babies. I remember how long the "postpartum stage" lasted with my first born. At 3 months I started looking around for the balls I'd been juggling (activities, commitments, basic housework, etc) before baby was born. At 6 months I began to pick them up one by one. At 9 months I awkwardly tried a few tosses. At 1 year I had finally learned to juggle again. It took awhile. Longer than I realized it would, and I was afraid the second round--with a baby and a toddler--would be even more difficult. 

In some ways it has, but in other ways not so much. I don't have to learn how to be a mama this round, and that is a big difference. My toddler is young, but growing to be helpful. In my fearful moments I forgot how sweet it is to just sit and hold a new baby while she grins happily up at me.

Have I learned to juggle yet? Goodness, no! At 2 months postpartum I'm only just starting to re-orient. But that's okay. I can take this one day at a time. Every day I learn and grow, and fear doesn't have a part in that. Motherhood is hard, yes. But this is the place I'm at right now, and I am happy to bloom right here. 

The adventure begins

We started school today, and entirely by accident. Though my husband and I have been talking quite a lot the last few months about our philosophy of education, I feel very strongly that the first few years of a child's life should be left free of book-work. Let the child play outside, explore, find bugs watch a flower grow. Children are sponges for knowledge and are learning scads every day--don't make learning boring by forcing book-work too early.

And then this morning my daughter pulled out her Einsy Weency Spider book and sat down on the couch while I was looking after her little sister. A moment later I heard a quiet, "Eight.... Seven.... Nine...." I tiptoed over to the couch and peered over her shoulder. She was pointing at all of Einsy's spider siblings and counting them.

I had to laugh a bit at myself as I sat down beside her. "Look how many spiders there are!! Would you like to count them?" A few minutes later she was counting from one to five without much trouble at all. Sponges indeed.

While I probably won't be buying curriculum any time soon, school is officially in session. Let the adventure begin.

Grateful

Joining Lisa-Jo and others this morning for Five Minute Friday, where we cut the words loose for just five minutes, and see where they fall. No editing, just encouraging the others who play along. The topic today is Grateful.

It's Mothers day weekend. Saturday, and the house is quiet as I'm writing. "puppy tuan" (as my daughter calls him, his actual name is Huan--without the descriptive prefix) is curled up in his crate beside me, the rest of my family is enjoying the one day of sleeping in they get each week.

Pregnancy, of course, is on the forefront of everyone's mind. I'm nearly a week past the sonogram due date, and tomorrow is my official 40 weeks. Yes, this time my due date is on Mothers day. Is there a more perfect day to be due than Mother's day? I've started collecting guesses for when this little one will make an arrival, none are farther out than a week from today (though with a cobbler cookoff at church a week from tomorrow if this little one is going to hold off a week, she might as well hold off a week and a day so her mommy can get some tasty cobbler and ice cream!). The guessing process has been fun.

Life itself has slowed from the frantic pace that I described a couple months ago. Yes, sometimes a hard stop is needed simply so that we have a chance to savor the gifts God has given us. And He has given me so many gifts. Here are a few that come to mind on this quiet Saturday morning:

--Rest. I have slept so well this last week. Every night my head hits the pillow and I sleep the sleep of one who has earned it. Solid, refreshing, rejuvinating sleep. I have started taking magnesium, and while I'm sure that has helped tremendously, solid nights of sleep at 39 weeks of pregnancy can only be a gift from God.

--Comfort: I mentioned in my only pregnancy post a few weeks ago that I'd had increased pain levels this pregnancy. I started seeing my chiropractor regularly, and that (when combined with faithful execution of the at-home exercises she gave me) has made a tremendous difference. I thank the Lord moment by moment for the gift of being able to move without pain.

--my daughter has become a tiny little mother. I have neither encouraged or discouraged imaginative play, and yet to my great surprise she has decided she is now a mommy to her collection of baby dolls. She changes diapers, puts their shoes (and socks) on, brushes their teeth, bathes them in the sink, and pushes them around in her tiny shopping cart. She makes sure that they ride along in the newborn carseat (which is now in the car), and insists that they also should be properly buckled in. I would not be surprised to see all these actions in a few weeks--as she models them after my own actions with her sister. But for her to start nurturing her babies now? Without watching on? And just before the tiny one arrives? It makes me smile every time.

--a clean house. No, no. It isn't perfectly clean. I've chosen that hard-stop, grateful, focus-on-my-family life, remember? *smile* Looking around I see a few toys on the floor, a mug my husband drank out of as we sat on the couch together and read in the evening hours, and dirty dishes in the sink that remind of entertaining dear family members last night. While it certainly isn't perfect, I've been at the "20 minutes to company ready" state for a couple weeks now. It feels nice to know that whenever this little one arrives we'll have a tidy house to welcome her into.

There are so many other things that bring me joy on a daily basis--things that are harder to quantify.

The early morning light now streaming in the bay windows.
Our playful puppy cavorting with my daughter on a sunny afternoon.
My husband--in so many ways, my husband.
A well stocked freezer, allowing me a 10-minutes-and-done dinner when I need a restful evening not focused on the kitchen and cooking.
My little orchard in back, a birthday present, all trees growing well.
A slower, more peaceful pace of life.
My pre-baby check-list--all the tasks done, even if I did choose a few weeks ago to hand it all to God, to choose rest and trust instead of frantically rushing. Is it possible that God had it all under control all along? *smile*

I don't know when this little one will arrive. Perhaps it will be tomorrow, but I suspect I have a few more days at least, and that is fine too. Due dates are only estimates--and babies don't generally care about calendars or estimates.

 In this stage it is easy to understand the attitude of patient expectation I am to have toward the return of my Savior. I do not know the day or the hour He will return (or my baby will be born), but I do know it will be soon. I can rest in peace and joy, knowing that the hour God has appointed is perfect--whether thinking of the return of my Lord, or the birth of my babe. In the meantime my task is to welcome each moment that God has given me in the interim with joy--as a gift He has graciously bestowed.

(And no, that wasn't 5 minutes. But I started writing, and today just seemed to need longer than that. Which is okay. Slowing down, remember? )