Vendor Day 2011

It was the annual homeschool Vendor Day yesterday. We sold things! We bought things! Everything had to be under a dollar.

This year, we changed our marketing strategy. We abandoned the stationary booth idea. The boys were mobile, moving from person to person. Mark had the cute factor going for him. He was our most successful salesman. He sold fruit snacks. Timothy sold candy.

A group of kids put on a carnival with a cakewalk, games, face painting and PRIZES!

Snow cones!

Jewelry!…and everything was priced under a dollar! The jewelry booth girls probably didn’t make a profit, but they were popular with their nice jewelry, organic lollipops, free balloons, sand art, prickly pear jelly and a raffle for books by their mother who is an author. They became friends with everyone.

This booth provided my lunch. Yum.

One problem with Vendor Day is there are too many salespeople and not enough customers. Just when things began to look bleak, the retired bicyclist club arrived! They engulfed our snow cones, bought all of our Popsicles (it was 85 degrees) and spread their money around in heroic ways.

Aloe vera plants, anyone?

This teen was selling things he had made out of DUCT TAPE. I liked the water lily, myself. It was only 75 cents.

There were many booths I didn’t photograph. There were homemade cards, water bottle holders, sodas, about 5 cupcake booths, refrigerator magnets made with walnuts and googly eyes (I bought two), and sachets. There were about 30-40 cute kids there.

Daniel’s artistic sugar cookies were a hit. He made about $6. Later that evening, we had 3 kids show up on our doorstep to buy more.

Planting Day

1978 Angie and Joe

It’s about time to plant the garden. We have a little work to do in the raised beds in the backyard: some waterproofing of the stones, some more dirt to haul, and then some planting. Richard threw old leaves and odd things on the soil this winter. The other day we found a bunch of eggshells scattered in the dirt. I guess tomatoes need calcium.

As a child, I always looked forward to planting the garden. I’d admire my parents’ strength as they turned over the soil with shovels. Dad’s investment of leaf and grass compost really made for a wonderful garden. I don’t remember a motorized plow in the early days.

I didn’t mind weeding the garden. I could nestle in beneath the corn plants and breathe in the smell of the tomato plants. It was a good time to tell my dad secrets and squish my toes in the mud. You can’t beat that.

We don’t do coloring books


Our house is full of unused coloring books. If I ask one of my sons to color something, I can count on him turning to stone before my eyes, immobile but for the menacing glare directed at me or the offending uncolored paper.

The unused coloring books are a treasure for the friends who come to play. Sometimes I find a stray friend who has made her way into the schoolroom and has surrounded herself with all of the coloring books she intends to use. To the little girl, it’s almost unbelievable that our boys haven’t used them.

My boys are more into using things such as scissors and glue. The picture above is by Daniel.

To my sister Susan; or, Little Men

This boy is not wearing shoes so the dirt can settle in the little creases of his toes and under his toenails. He may not have combed his hair since Sunday. His pants are clean, though, and he is so proud to sport the armor created by his big brother.

My thoughts are on my sister Susan who gave birth to her first son last week. I’ve been taking a good look at my sons, reflecting on my time with them. I’ve thought about their little baby bodies that have grown up; I’ve thought about their current activities, the scouting and the school and music lessons and sports; I’ve thought about their future, going on missions and someday being responsible for families of their own.

My life is so entertaining with sons in the house. Ours is a house of boys, of collections, machines, and castles. Books about battles and building magazines cover the family room ottoman; countertops are spattered with dirty water spots from hasty washings of hands.

Paige’s room and my bathroom drawer full of cosmetics and sweet smelling lotions are no match for the piles of tennis shoes, baseball mitts, rackets, and many, many socks. Oh, the socks! I’ve never met a mother who could talk objectively about her sons’ socks… the number, level of soil, and sorting solutions seem to make the most capable woman’s lower lip begin to quiver.

So we’ll just stop talking about that.

And let’s move on to a few of the reasons I love raising sons. It’s terribly rewarding. Girls are expected to be good, but when your sons show good behavior, people will compose an aria about your son’s helpfulness and perform it for you in the church hallway. Boys are good at carrying firewood for Cub Scout activities. They kill the bugs that get into the house and dispose of them, no charge. They decide that once they have their Sunday suits on and there are ten minutes left before we leave for church that it’s a good time to shoot the bb gun in the backyard. Instead of saying no, I decided to love that original thought. I love, love, love, homemade presents from boys such as a twig with my initial carved into it; a love note, carefully hidden inside a book at my bedside; a bracelet with every color of bead so it will match everything.

I watched a mother run around the playground with her son today. This little mother had force fields; she ran, she fell when wounded, she deflected lasers. She had obviously studied her son and had the lingo D-O-W-N. I have never been that kind of mother. I do a lot more observing than playing. Somehow it’s not in my personality to have fun. But this makes me a good observer, and I watch those boys carefully, looking for attitudes and behaviors that are good or not so good. And then I compose sneaky plans for how to improve those behaviors and attitudes.

In all my thinking and observing and (sneaky) planning, I’m hoping to prepare my sons to be the men who will stay after the church activity to clean up chairs and sweep the floor; to be the ones who notice when someone needs help and know how to help them; to be the ones with the spiritual skills to teach the gospel; to be the ones who are trustworthy and can take a task and complete it without supervision or hassling; to be the ones who take a righteous stand; to be the ones who love the Lord and love their families enough to leave them to complete their home teaching and church assignments and come home ready to wrestle with their own sons.

It’s a big list, I know, but I’m serious about trying to raise good sons.

Hooray for Susan and her Richard, whom my mother calls, “Richard II,”  and the girls. I’m so excited for you to have a son and a little brother!

Poetry

Some days it feels like I’m scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar for ideas to entertain and inspire. I see my role as a teacher resembling the role of an inspirational speaker…although I admit I probably sit on the couch too often to be considered very inspirational. I don’t tell the kids what they need to know as much as I try to inspire them to go and figure things out for themselves. Some days it would just be a lot easier to sit everyone down and tell them to take notes. This happens every February/March.

On days when I am tempted to

a) begin lecturing,

b) question my own sanity,

c) lose my temper,

I know it’s time for a little pixie dust in the form of books on CD.

One of my high school English teacher’s classes began with a poetry reading every.single.day. He would write (in colored chalk) long poems on the south panel of his chalkboard for us to discuss. Did I *ever* take notes? Did I even *think* to keep a running list of the titles? NO! Aaaack! “Youth is wasted on the wrong people.” (It’s a Wonderful Life)

I have looked for a good collection of poems for children for years. This collection needed explanations and definitions and biographical information about the poets. The poems needed to be funny, entertaining, and meaningful to children.

This book is the best replacement I have found for my non-existent notes on poetry from 9th grade. I have pulled it out each spring for the past 3 years to get us through the rough times. I read a short lesson about a poet, which is maybe 3-5 paragraphs. We listen to the CD of an actor reading the poems and then discuss form, vocabulary, themes, etc. Then we go and write poetry of our own. We might have a little chocolate. But the important thing is we’re learning something and thinking and it’s DIFFERENT. The kids truly enjoy this book, which is slowly being digested over the years. Today we began the section about the poet who was a “Rebel without Applause,” Emily Dickinson.

The poetry which resulted after our little discussion about metaphor, minimal use of words, and emotion rather than description made me want to pat myself on the back and hug my kids. The poems will remain unpublished. You see, we’ve decided to closet our Emily Dickinsonesque poems in hidden panels of our desks to be discovered someday after we have died or had a yard sale and sold the furniture…whatever comes first.

He has 40 good years

Richard turned 40 this weekend. What a dashing age.

Mark suggested that Dad’s gift should be some more power cords for the closet in our bedroom. I tried to spy on Richard’s Amazon account to find what he had been viewing lately. This worked for me last year when I was shopping for his gift. Alas, this year there were no electronics in his internet history. Finally, on the day before his birthday, we just took him to Costco and said, “Pick one!” He found a Blu Ray player…with cords…and another remote! The birthday boy was so thrilled that he forgot to let us wrap the present when we got home.

The kids and I made Richard a 40th birthday music mix CD. We spent a pleasant weekend listening to Pandora and watching instant movies from Netflix. We could, because we now have a Blu Ray player. It still smarts to spell Blu without an “e”.

Richard’s birthday party was quite an event. We invited guests. I made a double layer chocolate cake. Richard smoked some chicken on the barbecue and we served an array of barbecue sauces. Richard’s homemade sauce beat Rudy’s in our taste test. We spent the late evening eating black licorice and enjoying more music and movies.

I like how Spanish speaking people answer the question of age by saying “they have” so many years.  Richard should be proud of each and every good year of his life. He’s a good man. And he grows more dashing every year.

Making it

This week we’re just making it.

We made pulled pork for a Cub Scout dinner for 80.

We made collages and 1 of us cried over it and 3 of us stormed off.

Paige made it to one day of seminary this week because she’s so very sick.

Timothy wrote an epic essay about Genghis Kahn. You never know what will inspire a kid to greatness.

Richard spoke in the Spanish branch on Sunday. He worked to get his talk translated into Spanish and then presented it with a slight Portuguese accent.

This weekend I’m looking forward to celebrating Richard’s birthday. Pretty soon I’ll be kissing a 40 year old.

Eric Carle Art Class

We decided to make Eric Carle style art with the homeschool club today. To prepare, we asked each family to paint 5 pieces of tissue paper with tempera paint, using different textures and color combinations and bring the dry tissues to class. We followed the same techniques that Eric Carle taught during a Mr. Rogers episode. You can see the clip here. (Start at minute 16.)

I have to admit that I was a little worried how it would turn out. The individual tissue papers we made were not very attractive.

Once we got to class, we shared the painted tissue paper to make some wonderful collages.

Hannah’s fruit art was so cute I had to post it. She’s playing at our house so I’m claiming the right to share her beautiful art.

We had dozens of patterns from which we could choose. I came home with a sample of each so I can do my own artwork/therapy this weekend.

Anyone can do this. And it is beautiful and simple and very inexpensive.