The Virginian by Owen Wister

Great Classic! This is the Western of all Westerns, the first one that all others are based after. It has adventure, bad guys and good guys. It wouldn't be complete without a girl. I love how a rough and tough cowboy is finally brought around and the girl also had to reevaluate what she really stood for too. I love the stories of the west. I love this cowboy book! I have an old copy with a dedication to Theodore Roosevelt, the authors good friend. It also has pictures sketched throughout to illustrate some of the things that people in the East are not too familiar with...like tumbleweed and prairie dogs. There was a movie and a tv series based after this book. I have never seen those but if I could I would. Whole Book

The Cay by Theodore Taylor

This was a surprisingly really great book! I think I will add it to my classic collection. It takes place during WWII. It had adventure and more. A boy gets stranded on an island with a guy from the ship. The boy is blinded in an accident. It is amazing the things he learns and how the guy from the ship teaches him how to survive and see without seeing. I cried in the end. It was so good. I can't wait to read the sequel. Whole Book

The Gingerbread Man pictures by Karen Schmidt

For the book review today we have the classic tale of the Gingerbread Man!



Of course we had to make a few just to see if the would make a break for it.


The story is about the Gingerbread Man jumping out of the oven off the pan and out the door before the little old woman can eat him. Everyone along the way tries to catch him and eat him but he chants, "Run Run as fast as you can you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!" He gets away with it until he meets the Fox.
I don't know why the Fox is always so smart and the wolf is always so mean and dense in the fairy-tales but as you know the Fox out foxes the Gingerbread Man in the end.
This version of the story is different then the one where he helps him across the river then has him scoot a little higher as the water supposedly gets deeper until he is on his nose and he eats him!
Here we have the Gingerbread Man running and singing his song reciting all the poor people and animals he ran away from and the Fox says, "I can't hear you come a little closer."

So finally he is close enough for the wolf to just, snip snap. He eats him completely all gone! There is a great picture in the book of this and he carefully wipes his lips with a napkin afterwards. Such a refined and cunning Mr. Fox.

The kids guarded the door with their guns so he wouldn't get past them!


We have all our ducks in a row ! The gingerbread recipe had real molasses, which I just happen to have some in the pantry. I think molasses is nasty but with enough sugar and spices it is okay for gingerbread.

Jill insisted we make a Gingerbread Girl. She was so plump she did not even try to make a run for it. They also had her at gunpoint the whole time.

I don't remember him running into an elephant along the trail but you never know how desperate the Gingerbread Man can get for friends after all that drama in the book! Elephants are vegetarians and they never forget to take the garbage out.

Where did Autumn go?

SNOW! Yes is has snowed already. So is it Autumn or Winter?


I picked these before everything froze in the garden. Yum!

This is Maggie's fish that never dies even if she forgets it for days. It is happy to swim around. She just changed the water and he is happier now.


During Conference we got out the hot curling iron and added some style.



Edmund wanted his hair done too. All little boys do until you are done. We had to chase him down to get a picture.


He really needs a haircut if it long enough to curl like his sisters!

Super fancy! She didn't want to wash her hair for days to make the curls last.


That smile is worth a thousand bucks!


Aunt Danna came to town to celebrate her Birthday! She made her husband make dinner and it was so yummy. Lettuce wraps with this meat and nut stuff in the middle. YUM! Pam brought a bean dip and Kami, Fried Rice. I love good food with family!
We all sang Happy Birthday and she blew out the candles! We had cheese cake squares with blackberries and her daughter is turning 2 so we had a pile of popcorn balls with candy corn!

Cousins came from North Logan!


We sang a great rendition of Happy Birthday! I was so much fun to be all together!

The Silent Boy by lois Lowry

This was a bit creepy yet really cute book. It was written like it was a historical fiction book but it was actually just FICTION.
The story is told from the point of view of Katy Thatcher, the curious daughter of a doctor, but it's really about the lives of three families, The Stoltz Family, The Bishop Family, and The Thatcher Family, and especially about Jacob Stoltz. If Jacob was around today instead of living in the early 1900's he would have been diagnosed with Autism, but back then people just knew that he wasn't all there. This matters little to Katy, who connects with him and feels an understanding with him as he pets her horses and gives her a kitten.
I love the innocent yet wise little girl Katy is. She isn't afraid to watch her father the doctor, take out stitches. She was getting told a lot of lies about where babies came from but her father simply explained it in a way that was the truth and it completely made sense to her, not like the lies that babies are found in the garden.
The book was created around some old photographs that the author found at a garage sale. They make it seem like it is a real story but she just made it up.
It was a short easy read with some tragedy in the end.

Whole book

Canning Pears!

I Am Woman Hear Me ROaR!

It was so good to get all 80 pounds finished in one day before they spoiled. When they are ripe they are RIPE! Okay so it was probably 60 pounds because I dried the early ripened ones and we ate a bunch.


In the pantry waiting to be labeled. They are sticky, I think I will have to work on that. I can't wait to eat them this winter!

The cats did not help. I was in and out of the garage so they constantly thought they needed to run in and have kids chase them. BAD KITTIES! This little kitty was good and took a nap without bugging me.

Happy Birthday Aunt Kim!

She is older and wiser!

Look at those homemade Popsicles! We ate pear pops and root-beer float pops!

Pink is of course her favorite color tonight. I adopted the theme, "more is better then less", when decorating the zucchini, carrot applesauce cupcakes. They are healthy, really, well, until the pink took over! OOH, princess cupcakes, they were a hit with the nieces.

BLOW OUT THE CANDLE! We are waiting!

Making a wish is a very important moment to a Birthday girl.

What a great book! Just what she needed!


Thanks for coming Pam and Kami's family! Come again on my Birthday in February!

Fall is here!

Look at all those scary Scarecrows! We had fun at our schools Fall Festival Fundraiser. The kids like their school and they wished they could dress like this everyday.

Random fun in Sept.

Scouts went repelling at City Rock in IDAHO. I was so jealous!


Peter was very brave. He finally finished his repelling merit badge!

Mike the Belayer. He also went "Aussie" down the mountain. That means face first.


Made Oatmeal bread for the Ward dinner. It seemed like it would be gross but turned out okay. I want to try again and see if it will rise a bit more. I also did a Dried Fruit demonstration. It was fun to share dried apples with the ward. I have been experimenting with jello dipped apples because they turn a beautiful red and make a great Christmas treat. I have given up on drying Zucchini, no matter what you do to it, it just tastes gross.

We had extra salt clay so we made creations!

We painted them after they came out of the oven. Cool Beads Jill!

Airplane, can you tell?


He likes BIG guns!

Our poor cat Slinky has been missing for 3 days. We have been so worried. I just needed to know if she was dead or alive. So I called the Animal Control and they checked their files for dead cats cleaned off the road. She wasn't on the list and then that afternoon my sister came home early from work and said she thought she just saw the cat in the driveway. I said it must be the neighbors cat that looks like our cat. I was just so sure she was dead and didn't want to get my hopes up. Then later I went in the garage and what do you know there she was. She must have been hit by a car, or at least nicked because the side of her face is not looking so good. She wouldn't stay in the garage and she looked really sick. So she is off somewhere by herself to get better or die in the backyard. I am glad we got to see her and say good-bye. I do hope she gets better but I am just so relieved to see her and know that she isn't roadkill or suffering something worse all by herself in a ditch. We never did find out what happened to Tiger Princess earlier this summer but we just never saw her again.

She has nine lives but I am not sure which one she is on. Sometimes she just sits in the road for no reason but to tease the cars coming straight at her. I hope she learned her lesson.

Being just a normal mom, not a homeschool mom...

Life is really weird not having big kids home anymore. They all go to school and it is just the two little ones and me. We clean the house, hang out in the garden, play with the pets outside, run errands and clean the house some more. It used to be that the big kids entertained the little one and everyone shared the daily chores. If I wanted to run an errand I just quickly got in the car and the little kids were watched by the big kids. Now when I simply need to go to the store I have to find shoes, sock, help them put them on, load them in the car, seat-belt...get them out, hold their hands, argue with them about getting a treat...back to the car, fight over who gets to open the door...it is so exhausting. I have been so spoiled I forgot how challenging an errand can be without big kids to help. Even if they were with me I still had someone to entertain them as we shopped, help buckle them in and someone to hold onto a little ones hand in the parking lot. I feel like a new mom with my first two toddlers all over again.
Getting dressed...there wasn't a big kid home to help her and this is what she came up with. It looks very stylish but not acceptable for preschool class.


We have melons! Sadly this one looks like a deflated balloon. Weird.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy by Gary D. Schmidt

This was a great book illustrating bias and prejudice. A boy comes to live in Maine in the year 1911. It is based on an event that happened there long ago. The boy makes friends with a girl named Lizzie and that changes everything. She lives on an Island near the town that was founded by former slaves. The town decides to rid the whole place of colored people and so that it would be more suitable for tourists to come and vacation there. It is amazing how much hatred can come from "good christian people". Sadly things don't go to good and the story is very tragic. The boy learns to stand up for what is good and right but is it too late? You read it and find out.

Whole Book

Corn!

First we shuck the corn on the trampoline and bounce the pincherbugs off for the chickens to eat.



Then we boil,cool and bag the corn!


We didn't get very much this year because the grasshoppers took more then their share.

We also harvested the potatoes. It was quite a treasure hunt! We found red ones and brown ones. Too bad my kids don't eat potatoes. I hope they don't rot in the pantry all winter.

"Mom, my project is due tomorrow!"

2am = project finished. What did we learn? When you go to public school you have deadlines and an obligation to finish projects on time. AND I guess you learn that mom will stay up with you and help you finish it. Should I have taught him a lesson the first time and just not do the project last minute? The consequences would have been a missed assignment and a bad grade. Hmmm, my mom always stayed up late with me. I don't know what the right answer is but I do know that I have always liked doing projects with salt clay! I hope my children learn to love it too!

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

I finally read this book after having in my to read pile for 5 years! It was worth every second. I loved it! Not only is it written from a completely different perspective on the time when Jesus lived but it helps you understand the people and era better then just trying to read religious books or the bible.

My favorite part is that the main character is a young boy named Daniel. He isn't exactly the good guy you cheer for through out the book. In fact you question his choices again and again and I personally didn't like him, not until the end. He was probably what a lot of people were like back in the days Jesus walked the earth. He hated the Romans, wasn't quite living like a Jew and keeping all the commandments, was poor and looked down on yet trying to live a life that he could survive the best he knew how. He was angry and vowed to avenge his parents deaths yet he had to be responsible enough to care for his sick sister. He was smart and resourceful yet completely irresponsible when it came to reason and safety. This book will take you on an adventure and might even change how you view your neighbors. I couldn't help but cry at the end as the Daniel discovers the greatest strength there is and looks deep inside to change into a better person.

Loved it! Added it to my classics section and will read it again. My son has read it a few times but even though it had been sitting next to my bed in a pile forever and he said it was good I finally just now got to it.

Whole Book

First Day of Speech Class

Jill had a first day of School too! Speech class started again. She is very lucky to have a time of day when there is only one other child in her class so she gets extra one on one with her teacher! She has class 2 times a week and then a preschool on early Friday morning.

Little Edmund and I sometimes hang out waiting till her class is over. He really likes the knights. They are mysterious and scary.

Edmund and I tried to catch a bus last week to pick up his sister. We waited at the bus stop for 40 min. and finally gave up. We were 15 min. late after walking home from the bus stop and getting in the car and driving 3 min. to the school. I completely looked at the bus schedule wrong and poor little Jill was the last one left at her class. She was sitting in the reading nook with her backpack on looking at a book and trying not to cry. Edmund was very very disappointed about not getting to ride the bus. We will try again another time on another day.