OOPS!

Today didn't turn out quite like I anticipated.

We were up early and ready to go, and I was actually thinking we'd be on time for our fieldtrip to see the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company performance. But as I entered the I-15 on-ramp in Centerville, the cars were all backed up. I hit my brakes, slid about 20 feet (it is downhill) and rear-ended the SUV in front of me!!!

Luckily, no one was hurt, and the only damage to the SUV was the trailer-hitch, which took out part of my grill and disfigured my hood. The driver of the other vehicle was so nice and kind. She kept apologizing to me! Unfortunately, we did have to call the police to report it, which means I got a ticket. :P

Between the cost of the ticket and the increase in our insurance premium, this wasn't a cheap accident. But I am grateful for a car that still works and a family that was safely seat-belted.

We were able to be on the road after only half an hour and still made it to our field trip! Though I was supposed to be in charge of the whole thing; I called someone else to fill in.

I am supremely embarrassed but since I haven't had any driving incidents in over ten years, I don't feel too bad. Hopefully, this means I'm covered for at least another ten!

Shadow Children

I just finished the Shadow Children book series by Margaret Peterson Haddix. They're geared toward children ages 8-12, but I found them fascinating. Each of the seven books is short, only a couple hundred pages at most, which is nice because I only spend a few hours each time I pick up a book!

Imagine our country when there's a huge famine, so the government sets a population limit. All families are allowed only two children, in order to survive the food shortage. The books take place from the point of view of a few Shadow Children, third children. They live in hiding but still do everything they can to liberate and protect each other.

This series would be a great discussion starter, especially considering the population laws in China. I like that it doesn't see everything from one angle only. There are different people and different points of view. There are no simple, easy answers when faced with some of life's big questions. It really makes you think.

On a slightly different topic, I have been using a website called 'Good Reads' which keeps track of books I read, as well as books my friends read, and our reviews. I have gotten some great book recommendations through this site and would recommend it to all avid readers.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

It is now, officially, the year of the ox! And we are having a great time celebrating at the Perkins house! We've hung up our Red Decorations, we are wearing red and the kids were thrilled to receive red envelopes (lai see) with a brand new crisp dollar bill inside!

We started the day with crepes folded in the shape of a giant fortune cookie (even though fortune cookies are actually American). I wrote special fortunes for them pointing out their unique talents and abilities. You can probably read them if you click on the picture to see a larger versino. We then did a little math and cursive.

Our next project was chinese writing. We have some fabulous watercolor brush pens from someone's birthday that were perfect. We wrote the chinese character "Fu" for luck, on, you guessed it, red paper! The kids decorated a bit and I laminated them. We'll use them for placemats at lunch, then hang them up as decorations. The chinese always place a 'Fu' decoration over their door, upside down. That way all the luck will dump out into their home!

We decided to make our dragon the kind where the kids hide underneath the body, so we'll be practicing our Dragon Dance this afternoon. It's been so fun and the kids love experiencing the different culture. Their favorite, beside the lai see, is the tray of eight different fruit candies. I just bought a bag of fruit slices, so we only have four different flavors, but it is great incentive for the kids to follow directins today!

The Great Dragon King

This is our dragon head. Pretty good, I thought. The kids favorite part was painting, of course. The egg carton pieces really made a great nose and eyes. We'll have to finish the body another day, we're still debating whether to do a body on poles that people hold or a body with people hidden underneath.

We did these decorations yesterday. For Chinese New Year, uplifting and lucky thoughts are written on red paper and hung throughout the home. We used short scriptures and the kids wrote in their best cursive.

The English Language

You think English is easy? I saw this and had to post it...

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out of his shoes.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer.

16) To help with planting, the pig farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it--English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England, or French fries in France . Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Why do we park on a driveway, but drive on a parkway? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the
unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.

P.S. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick". And why doesn't "dough" rhyme with "tough"?

Puke

This morning began at about 4 am with those dreaded words "Mommy, I threw up in my bed." Blech! In my opinion, the stomach flu is tied with potty training as the worst part of being the mom. I was lucky this time, Sadie didn't have a huge mess; only two blankets and her jammies (and her baby doll's jammies) were dirty. I got her a bowl, cuddled her back to sleep and was in my own bed within half an hour. As far as middle-of-the-night puking goes, it was pretty tame. I stayed home with her while Nick took the boys to stake conference. Sadie recovered quite quickly and I thought we were done with throwing up for a while.

Not so.

Nick has ALLERGIES! Hazelnut allergies, to be specific.

I knew my sweet husband was allergic to nuts when I married him, tree nuts most intensely. But it is another thing altogether to see him hunched over in pain, with his throat swelling and his eyes watery from repeatedly throwing up. (I'm not posting pictures of this!) The most difficult thing for me is not being able to do a darn thing about it! Benedryl couldn't help because he couldn't swallow it, so we just had to wait it out. As a mom, I am used to fixing things and making everything all better; usually a kiss and a band-aid solves the problem. This was out of my hands, and I hate feeling so helpless!

We've decided to get another epi-pen, just to have around in case something like this happens again. Anaphalactic (sp?) shock is not something we want to have to deal with.

Here's the story: My dad just returned from Dresden, Germany, and was kind enough to bring us all some delicious european chocolate bars. I thought Nick would be safe with just a plain milk chocolate, but evidently that wonderful chocolate flavor is enhanced with hazelnut extract. Two bites was enough to cause a seriously scary reaction! I'm just going to have to eat all his chocolate for him from now on. ;)

I'm so grateful that he's all right and since he has Monday off, he should be fine to go to work on Tuesday. Hopefully a good night's rest will return his poor, abused body to normal.

What a wake-up call! I really need to be more careful about checking ingredients, and if they're in German, we'll just have to pass.

I really hope that's all the sick tummies we'll have to deal with today! I'm crossing my fingers and praying I get through the night without hearing those hideous words again!!!

Dragons, Parables and the Pledge

Wow! What a week. I thought life was supposed to slow down after the holidays! Evidently not at our house. It's been great, even though we were busy. We're still studying China, and I'm amazed at how little I know. It's been fun to learn with the kids. Next week we will really get into our preparations for the Chinese New Year. I think it would be fun to make a full size Chinese Dragon that the kids could parade around with, but we'll have to see... I might have to settle for mini-dragons.

We've also begun studying all the parables with a little activity go coincide with each one. This week we made a picture of the parable of the sower, a goal from the pharisee and the publican, and a loaf of bread from the importunate friend. I'm trying to focus more on spiritual enlightenment, not just secular education.

Sadie's been really working hard on memorizing the pledge of allegiance. This was her own decision and I love her enthusiasm! It's so sweet to hear those words in her precious little voice! We're still working on figuring out which hand goes over her heart, but it's just adorable. I'll have to take a picture of her next week and post it.

Tonight we had a wonderful meeting for the adults in our stake. Elder Oaks spoke and had us all laughing sooo hard! I always think of the apostles as being serious and sober, but they do have so much personality that we rarely see. The other speakers were wonderful, too. I can't wait for tomorrow's stake conference!

Happy Birthday Tyler!

My nephew is three today. Happy Birthday Ty!!!

Last night my big family all went to the new Chuck-E-Cheese's in Layton to celebrate. The kids had a blast! There were enough games to keep them all entertained for hours. I could have done without the giant robotic mouse and the very repetitive, very cheesy music videos. :o)

They also had a blue-screen camera, so the kids could dance in front of the screen and show up on all the T.V.s in the room. Brandon really enjoyed that, but Sadie was terrified of it. Overall, it was noisy and crowded (Monday night FHE) and extremely overpriced, but the kids had fun. We did save a little money by registering on the website and getting a couple of really good coupons, but it's not something we'll do very often.

I had more fun holding my month-old little niece than anything else. She's still only six pounds! None of my kids were ever that small; it's so amazing to me! We went back to my mom's for presents, an adorable robot cake and ice cream. Hopefully, I'll post some pictures in a day or two.

Sadie's Snipping

Sadie had been feeling a bit left out, since all my recent posts were about the boys and their school work. This is what she brought home from preschool. As I've mentioned before, she LOVES scissors and she had a great time cutting out pictures of toys to fill the train. Super job Sadie!

Also, the funniest thing happened today! My youngest sister, Lori, is the only person in the family who is still shorter than me. As the oldest of seven, it was nice to have the baby at least be shorter than me. Well today we measured and I'm only the teeniest bit taller. Since she's only twelve, I'm sure she'll pass me up before long. The weird thing was when we put her height on the closet door (where our family keeps track of growth) her name was even with mine! So we measured me again and guess what!!! I've grown!!!!!! Sometime in the last few years I went from being only 4' 11 1/2 " to 4' 11 3/4 ". When I have my shoes on, I'm over 5 feet tall! Wahoo!!! That may not seem like much, but when you're as short as I am, every little bit helps!

yi er san si wu!

Yi er san si wu is chinese for 12345. It's pronounced "E" "R" "san" "C" "wou" (like in would). Hopefully we'll make it up to ten next week. It's definitely easier to say than to write...

While Sadie was at preschool we did some more painting! The top picture is Nathan's. He really thought the brown ink on the cream colored paper looked authentic. Brandon went for a more fun version with a few video game illustrations. We decided that the brush makes a big difference. The cheap, crayola brand paintbrushes were much more difficult for the kids to control than Nick's old art class brushes.
Someday, maybe we'll try some calligraphy!!!

We also talked about the chinese zodiac and the way each animal has certain characteristics, which they believe are in the people born that year. It led to a very interesting discussion on telling fortunes and zodiac signs, and how they are all made to seem like a perfect fit, but really are very general. After our talk they could see how parts of any animal's description could fit most people.

Salt Dough Maps

Wednesdays are so relaxed for us! No papers to deliver, no cub scouts meetings or other appointments. We really enjoyed taking it easy and staying home today.

The kids finished their 3-D maps of China. Painting is always a favorite at our house. Sadie did one too, but hers just looks like an ink blot. She had a good time, but the picture didn't turn out very well. The boys look great and Nathan was very careful to make his desert yellow, lower elevations green and mountains brown.

It turned out to be pretty difficult to label anything or even do rivers, so we ended up doing another map of China, just a plain old flat map that will fit in their lapbooks when we're done with the unit. It really helped us to be able to label all the bordering countries and a couple cities. I only scanned Nathan's in, because Brandon decided to color almost every country red and it's just a bit difficult to see some things. :o)

I love seeing their personalities in their project and this is one we will probably repeat when we study other places. I'm not sure what we'll do with them all, but they're fun to make!

We also worked a bit on Cub Scout requirements. Nathan's a Bear now, and Brandon was just dying, waiting until he turns eight. We took pity and got him a Tiger Cub book for Christmas. He's not official, but at least he has some goals to meet and things he can work on, just like Nathan.

China and the Ghost of Christmas Past

We have decided to learn about China, including Chinese New Year, Chinese numbers, The Great Wall, and Ancient China for homeschool this month.

Today we made 3-d salt dough maps of China, which we will paint and finish tomorrow. I will post pics when they are done. We also started learning to count in Chinese. Nathan had a book called Kid Concoctions, which we are using in our projects. It had the recipe for the dough and we will use another one to make window paint. We are going to attempt to paint Chinese numbers and words on our big sliding glass door! We are all excited and there is so much to cover! The kids can't wait for me to attempt to make fortune cookies. I told them they could think up the fortunes we put inside.

We had a funny experience today. We delivered the paper (The Davis County Clipper) as usual and when we got back Nick was looking at it. And there was a picture of my sister Katie from a couple years ago! She was in "A Christmas Carol" at Rodgers' Memorial Theater, as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Evidently they will be doing that play again this year and printed this picture along with the story! I called and told her (she lives in North Carolina now) and she was excited and surprised. After all, it was two years ago! Anyway, we think it's great. Don't you love the big, blond wig?

Miscellaneous Musings

As a new year began and we reached the end of 2008, I thought about some of the wonderful moments of this year that will always stay with me. (This is a bit long and rambly; hope you don't mind. I guess I have a lot to think about.)

Traveling to Nauvoo at Easter to be present at the sealing of my sister to her husband and feeling the spirit of those pioneers was energizing. They went through so much! It makes our economic slump feel like a vacation in paradise, and yet they were strong. They were better people for their hardship and we are better, too. I have a warm home with a healthy family. I've never had to sleep in a tent (at least not unless I wanted to) and I've never had to leave behind all my earthly possessions in order to keep that Heavenly treasure, my testimony. My eyes fill at the thought of all I have been blessed with, thanks to their diligence and unwavering faith. I pray I may someday prove myself worthy to dwell in their presence.

We began homeschooling this year, in September. And it has turned out to be every bit as life- changing as I had thought it might. My time has been well-spent and the Lord has blessed us and made it possible financially for me to stay at home. I have thrilled at the moments of joy and excitement as we learn together. We have worked toward goals and overcome challenges. We are by no means finished with our struggles, but I know now how much it is worth all the effort. I have made many mistakes and many changes as we tread through unexplored territory, but at least we are together, learning with the spirit and growing closer as a family. Witnessing progress makes all the hard work so very fulfilling and I am excited to proceed into the new year and discover the world with my children.

We've had changes this year in our extended family, two deaths and two births. Both my grandfather and Nick's grandfather passed away, and both funerals were wonderful experiences. We come from strong, exemplary ancestors. Both men had many accomplishments and it was wonderful to hear stories and experiences from their lives. I was reminded how important people are; the way we treat them and think about them. I pray my own funeral will be such an uplifting and pleasant experience when my own life's tale is told.

Baby Micah and baby Trisha, both healthy and beautiful have been much admired by our family. Each little spirit so innocent and tender, so full of love and trust. Looking into the baby blue eyes, I can only imagine the kinds of people they will become and adventures they will live. I anticipate so much joy as they grow and develop their personalities and characters.

With the unstable financial future of our country, we have spent much time this year considering our preparation for the future. We have been blessed with opportunities to get our supplies in order and to be more ready for whatever we may face. I cannot claim to have everything accomplished that we would like, but we have been able to do enough that we are not fearful of the future. I had never realized what a peace this would bring to our home!

So, as the world swirls around us in a rush of panic and worry, we have been blessed with a shelter, a refuge, a safe place. We have each other and our testimonies, and those are the most important things in this life.

Christmas Pictures!!!

I finally got my phone back, so here are some Christmas pictures! They are a bit dark and blurry, but the best my camera-phone will do.