"I Hep....I Hep"

On most Friday nights we eat homemade pizza for dinner. A favorite family tradition is often accompanied by one child or another wanting to help.

Liam has joined in the group of wanting to help. This past Friday he kept bugging me...yes, I should joyfully let them help me in the kitchen, but I just want to get the pizza in the oven and be out of the kitchen quickly....a helper slows things down drastically.

Yet, I'm really glad I relented and let him "hep" me. I had a great time with him (until he splattered sauce all over the place :)

Even then, he had fun spreading cheese and putting the peperoni's on top.

As for me, I loved the smiles and constant chatter we shared....and we still ate dinner in a reasonable amount to time.

On the Road Again

Our history group is on the road again....this time we're out visiting the Transportation Museum of Roanoke. We are begining our study of the industrial revolution and we've gone to the museum to see the changes that occured in the transportation field during this time period.


Our first stop is the amazing miniture train set display. They had a circus display.... Thomas the Tank Engine was sighted too.

I loved the windows down on the kids level. Ohhhhh, Liam was in heaven. Cars, cars, cars and trains, trains, trains!! All the kids stayed here, totally enthralled, for a good 20 to 30 minutes.

Cailin enjoyed the playground. It was neat to see the City of Roanoke--in miniture form!

The kids got to see the progression of cars....from the horseless carriage all the way to our modern transportation. Ryan loved the replica of Jeff Gordon's car from a movie.

They weren't as impressed with the cars as they were with the trains....

They had a fun train engine that they all loved to play in...pretending to be an engineer.

They loved making the bell dong loud and clear.....ouch my ears hurt after a while. Why do kids never seem to tire of loud noises?

Okay.....let's leave the bell and go outside to the real trains..... Connor was great, I didn't worry about Liam at all, Connor and his friend Noah kept him under eye and care for the whole trip.

Along with the trains we found an older fashioned semi-truck. Great Grandpa Grant use to drive one of these types of trucks for the Centex Company when Grandma Stumm was a girl.

Semi's have changed quite a bit.

We saw how trains changed from steam to diesel. We even got to go through what would be the equivelent of Air Force One...the luxury train that carried the President of the US around during the first of the 1900's time era.

The museum had a fun little playground and the kids had loads of fun playing on the different modes of transportation shown.

Delaney the Engineer

Time to refuel the group.

Off for more playing and discovering throughout the musuem. I had to leave early for a doctors appointment. My great friends divided up the kids so they could stay for more adventures and I was able to have a few hours to myself....hummmm how long can I stretch this out for?

Helicopter fun!

A Trip to the Fire Station

Every Tuesday Delaney attends a writing workshop class. During Fire Prevention week the class got to visit the local fire station for a tour/field trip.

"I thought it was pretty neat. My favorite part was going in the fire truck.....because, well, you got to see what it was like inside the truck."--Delaney

They got to see the different equipment, trucks and boats that were used to help others when they are needed.
The firemen put on their fire gear to show the kids that it's a real person under all those masks and coats.

Inside the truck.

The department recently purchased a new ladder truck (custom built and cost over 1 million).
The tires were quite large....Liam doesn't even reach the top.
"The men are nice and I hope they will come to our house if we have a fire." --Delaney
"I just hope we never have the need for them to come!!"--Mom

A Class Trip to the Civil War

At the begining of the school year we started our history studies with a global--or country by country approach. I have since discovered that this will take more time for me to plan and put lessons together. I won't have much time with a new born baby to take care of so I needed to find a different approach. Barry and I decided to go with a curriculum book--Story of the World--this book teaches history by timeline. If it's an extremely busy day, just open the book, read the lesson, do map work and go over discussion question. Done! The book also provides many enrichment activities, that, if we have time we can do.
We used this book a few years ago and had good success, so we're back to the tried and true. Our history group friends (not to be confused with our book group) are also timeline based and we all have just finished spending a month or so learning about the Civil War and what was going on in other countries during the 1860's. We've had a great time doing projects and going on various field trips.

Before switching our plan of attack on history we made paper mache' globes. Here Connor and Delaney work on theirs.
Connor also spent some time making a salt dough map of China. Liam and Delaney loved playing with the salt dough too. Sadly we didn't get a picture of Connor's map, the Himalaya's are now erroded, the Gobi Dessert has bike tracks on it and the China Wall is no more.

Cailin did a research project on panda bears. She created a diarama using the salt dough of a panda bears habitat.

On a quick impromtu field trip we drove Route 100 to a way station that is close by. Here in our own "backyard" a battle of the Civil War took place. Obviously not well known, but a battle nonetheless. We were going to visit local musuem but plans changed and decided to spend some time eating a picnic lunch and playing tag with friends.

Cailin, Delaney and I spent a morning learning about the dolls little girls of the civil war era used to play with. We read about corn husk dolls, hankie dolls (aka church dolls-because a child could take it to church without fear of making noise. If it dropped the cloth wouldn't make a sound.) and sugar dolls--mothers would put sugar lumps in the hankie doll's head in place of cotton and the girls would suck on them for a treat. We then went to my dresser to find some cloth hankies and the garden and gathered corn husks to make some of our own dolls.

The finish products--the results of our fun morning studies.(Not to be left out, Liam wanted a doll too).

Presentation day with the rest of the history group arrives. The kids have worked for the past few weeks on a certian aspect they found interesting of the Civil War. Ryan is studying various principles of liberty --one's that the founding fathers used as a bedrock in forming the Constitution, this year. He spoke of one of those priciples--"The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law."

Cailin spoke about the food people ate, mostly the slaves at that time. She also shared with the group how food prices sky rocketed in the South during the war. At the begining of the war, 1861, bacon could be purchased for 12.5 cents per pound. Butter was 20 cents a pound. A barrel of flour was $6.00. In 1863 prices were very comparable to what we pay now, bacon was $1.25-$6.00 per pound. Butter was $2. to $4. a pound. A barrel of flour( which we're guessing was anywhere from 50 to 100 pounds) was $30 to $75 a barrel. By 1865 bacon was $11. to $13. per pound, butter was $15 to $20 per pound and flour was $325 to $1000 a barrel. Wow, could you imagine--paying $1000 for 100#'s of flour. What an inspiration to keep going with our food storage, for what ever reason we're asked to gather a surplus of food.

Connor chose to study about General Robert E. Lee. He presented his facts in a "Guess Who I Am" type of way. He learned many things but his favorite new facts were that his father was a Revolutionary War hero and that he married the grand daughter of General/President George Washington.

Delaney had fun sharing her dolls and the information about them that we learned.
At the end of the presentations we always enjoy some food that could be found during that time period. We enjoyed biscuts, pinto beans, hoe cakes, sweet potato pie and Cailin made a peach cobbler. yum.

Earning the Webelo's Badge and Arrow of Light

For the past few years Connor has enjoyed being involved in the Cub Scout program at church (and school--for his first two years) He's had a goal to earn his Webelo's badge and the Arrow of Light. These past few months he's worked hard to complete that goal.

In August, after cramming to finish a few last requirements, Connor earned the Cub Scouts Webelo badge.

Connor and his scouting leaders--Joel Taylor, Michael Fisher and Jon McClure. These guys have been wonderful at encouraging and inspiring him to keep at his goals. Bro. McClure, in particular was wonderful, one night he spent over a half hour talking with him and passing off requirements over the phone. Thanks so much Jon, that is above and beyond the call of duty. (Disregard the Tenderfoot badge on the uniform....he borrowed Ryan's old scout uniform.)

One month later, he's cramming again, this time to finish up a campout for the outdoorsman activity pin so he could earn his Arrow of Light. He had to pitch a tent and sleep in it overnight. In all fairness, he wanted to do this much earlier, but due to various circumstances, if just didn't happen till a night or two before the deadline (it was now Barry and my turn to do the cramming). It was a cold and windy night, Ryan helped Connor pitch the tent and Cailin stayed the night with him. (Barry had to work midnights) While I was in bed I had fun listening to them talk and laugh before sleepiness finally overcame them. They claimed that they stayed warm and had a wonderful night.

Barry is given the opportunity to put on the Arrow of Light pin that Connor worked hard at earning.

Being welcomed by his new scout leaders, Sis. Izzy Kirby,as the 11 year old scout leader and Bro. Mike Turpin, the Boy Scout pack leader.

Conference Weekend Traditions

As this blog is my way of keeping up with our family history, I'm documenting what we do on General Conference weekend....be fair warned, this is a boring blog entry!
For the past few years we have been able to stay at home and watch general conference broadcast from Salt Lake at home on the computer. This sure has made it easier to see all 4 sessions each April and October.
As a family, we sit in the family/school room and play games or work on any sort of quiet activity that will allow us to listen to what the prophet and apostles want to teach us. In between, or even before the meetings start, (as the first broadcast doesn't start until noon,) we work on updating our 72 hour emergency kits or go on walks.

A Sunday morning walk....Liam got tired and Elizabeth, who was visiting for the weekend, had pity (or got tired of hearing him whine) and gave him a shoulder ride.

At the creek near the path we were walking, we took some time and Elizabeth taught the kids how to skip rocks. This was more difficult for Connor, due to being a lefty, but he finally got it and had fun skipping many rocks.

What a mess this school room is.....playing games or coloring pictures while listening to a Sunday session of conference.
On the side you can see the small suitcases that hold individual 72 hour kits.

Ryan and Cailin playing a game together.

Last year, we went through the food and found that most of it was past due. The kids had fun eating food, like poptarts, granola bars and fruit chewies that we don't normally eat. It wasn't until this weekend that I finally got food back into the kits, (thank goodness we didn't need the kit before now). Again, they had fun putting the food packs together, savoring the day that they would get to eat such goodies. Delaney asked me when we were going to use the kits, I told her that I had hoped that we never would have to use them. I don't think she liked that answer, but I really do hope to never use them!

11 and Growing

Another year...another birthday! Connor keeps growing and growing. I've only been using a digital camera for the past 2 years, so going back in time with Connor hasn't taken me very far....but if you could see his scrapbook, ahhhh, my handsome little man has grown. As a baby I called him my solace baby, he was always so calm and happy....and he still is (okay, let's be honest, most of the time he's still that way.) Yet, for the most part, he's such a help and peacemaker in the family. He's often been attentive to his younger siblings--quickly coming to help me with them when I call, even when I ask him to stop his favorite play--legos. He's always been that way, I have many pictures of him cuddling and caressing his little sisters when they were a baby.

Connor at age 9 His love of science was begining to show, he wanted a science themed birthday party with a volcano cake.

Connor and Cailin--Christmas 2007

The kids, Valentines 2006

In our family you only get to have a birthday party every other year. The other year is a special date with Mom and Dad. This year was his date year. He wanted to go to Olive Garden for an authentic Italian dinner. He loved the chicken and gnocchi soup...I even told him that gnocchi was made with potates and he still loved it. He also had the 'tour of Italy' meal, a sampling of 3 pasta entrees. I was suprised, but he couldn't finish the meal and enjoyed the leftovers for lunch the next day. It was a lovely night, with just him--and I think he really enjoyed that part because in our family alone time with mom or dad doesn't happen often.
Connor's grandparents often send cash for birthday presents. He's been planning and schemeing on how to best spend that money. Because of his love to legos he's decided to purchase an X-wing fighter, from the Star Wars lego collection. At the present time he's eagerly awaiting the mailman to come and hopefully bring his new X-wing.

Yet, no birthday is complete without a cake!! He's been planning his cake for quite a while, his two favorite loves were to be included--chocolate and candy. His cake was chocolate topped with crushed Butterfingers and Recees's peanut butter cups.
After an evening of fun at cub scouts we all enjoyed his scrumptious cake. MMmmmmm. Happy Birthday Connor Boy!