Praying for Cente

When we tuck Cente in each night we pray three things for him. One, that he will come to know Jesus. Two, that he will be raised in a safe home where people will love him and care for him. And three, that he will sleep through the night. We ask the Lord for these every night. So far, Cente sleeps through the night every night. I hope the Lord will answer other two prayers as well.

The kids are growing up!

It seems like this beach trip was yesterday.

Teacher Ethan

Ethan reading Cente his favorite book (ironically): "Are you my Mother?"

Someone has been messing with my bookshelves

While we do our school work, Cente plays with his toys and rearranges my bookshelves.

Friday Night Movie for the Parents

Todd and I have really enjoyed viewing earlier episodes of Foyle's War, a British mystery series. I recently noticed that Season 5 is now available and ordered its first episode off Netflicks.

Friday Movie for the Family

Dreaded Awana Derby Car Race

Tonight Levi brought home notice of the upcoming Awana Derby Car races... a dreaded event in the Miles household. We are completely inept at woodworking but feel the pressure to be "good parents" and so every year, instead begging out of the contest, we cobble something together late the evening before while promising each other "never again".

We usually going for creativity in design instead of sleekness and speed. (Notice the "we"... this is supposed to be a kid thing, but 6, 7, 8, even 9 and 10 year olds cannot operate power tools so this is mostly a parent deal. Our kids usually do the painting.) The kids have entered cars that looked like a watermelon slice, a piece of cheese, a derby track, a whale, a phone and assorted blocky cars. Somehow we have accrued a shelf full of Awana medals that my children will not let me donate to Goodwill.

Fortunately, we have only one child left in Awana. What would be really nice is if Levi's wonderful, creative Grandpa would help him out this year. (hint, hint)

Did not mean to imply...

Just to be clear: In my last post, I did not mean to imply that my kids were like the kids in Miss Nelson is Missing. My kids are for the most part well behaved and rarely rude.

It is just that sometimes a personal day or a sick day would be nice. I feel great empathy for the teachers in the one room school houses of yesteryear. To teach multiple grades and ages in one room....whew! What a challenge. And add to that a 23 month old...

I need a substitute teacher

When I was paid to be a teacher, I had 10 sick days a year and 2 or 3 personal days to use. Now that I am not paid, but still a teacher, I have no sick or personal days. And boy, could I use one. So could my kids.

I may have to do the Miss Nelson is Missing thing...

If you haven't read that book, here's a description from Amazon:

"As the book points out immediately, the kids in Room 207 were the worst behaved class in the whole school. They were rude and nasty and they didn't pay any attention to their sweet-natured teacher Miss Nelson. One day, however, Miss Nelson does not come to school. In her place is the nasty, mean, foul-tempered witch Miss Viola Swamp. A true crone through and through, Miss Swamp immediately whips the children into shape. They are crushed by homework and forced to work that's long and hard. It's not too long after Miss Swamp's arrival that the children start yearning for the lovely Miss Nelson. Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to find her. Finally, one day Miss Nelson comes back and the class is as well behaved as it can be. Only the telltale black dress hanging in Miss Nelson's closet suggests that there may have been more to the class's transformation than initially met the eye."

What we are reading aloud right now

The kids love to be read aloud to, especially if it is a humorous book. Often I'll have two or three books we are reading through at the same time. The two we have going right now are The Great Turkey Walk and Never Miss a Sunset. I recommend both.

Here's a brief synopsis of the books

The Great Turkey Walk by Katherine Karr (Copied from the Amazon):"I've always been fond of birds, poultry in particular." From that first sentence, readers will gobble up Karr's hilarious novel of a boy who resolves to walk 1000 turkeys from the Show-Me state to Denver, Colorado. Simon, who's 15 and newly graduated from the third grade, may not be too bright, but he figures he can make his fortune by buying Mr. Buffey's bronze turkeys for a quarter apiece and selling them in Denver for $5 each. With his schoolteacher as an investor, Simon picks up a former drunk and a runaway slave to be his partners, and starts herding those turkeys 900 miles down the road.

Never Miss a Sunset by Jeanette Gilge My dad read this aloud to us when I was in grade school. (From the back of the book): This is a tale of tender, not-to-be missed years. Ellen, oldest girl of a family of 10, struggles with her family through a bitter winter on their northwoods Wisconsin homestead. Hard work is the byword and good times come through love for each other, faith in God, and the joy of sharing.

Our budding artist..

Thankfully his medium of choice is washable marker and porcelain.

Ethan:My own fallacy detector...

Fallacy - Snob Appeal

Fallacy -Transfer

My kids are reading a book called The Fallacy Detective where they learn about common errors in logic. Ethan has become very good at recognizing bad reasoning. I saw him skimming through one of our magazines yesterday and asked him what he was doing. "Looking for fallacies, Mom." Then he proceeded to show me ads he had bookmarked and explain to me their faulty arguments.

Today, on a drive to the library, he pointed to different signs advertising restaurants and asked if even the names of businesses could be fallacies. (I supposed so but I had better read the book to be sure.) Ethan then began to describe commercials he had seen on TV and why they were designed to work on the viewers poor reasoning skills. One example he told me is the commercial where a mom in a car has to suddenly slam on her brakes. The camera zooms in on a baby in the backseat and says something like "Aren't you glad you have such and such brakes." Ethan says that commercial falls under the propaganda label as an appeal to fear. It does nothing to educated the viewer as to the real quality or description of the product.

Ethan wondered why fallacies in advertising work so well on people and I got to quote the Professor in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. "Logic! Why don't they teach logic at these schools." Advertisers present their products wrapped up in fallacies because it works.

Then Ethan proceeded to use what I am sure must be some sort of fallacy on me..."Mom, I need to watch more TV because it will help me practice my skills at identifying fallacies."

Ethan, I'm not buying it! I think that's a "Barking Up the Wrong Tree" fallacy.

My Kids' Obsession with Comic Strips

My kids latest comic strip obsession is Get Fuzzy. How this all works is my children will get a kick out of a comic strip and then proceed to check out every book of that strip from the library.
Get Fuzzy is only the fourth in this streak.
A few months ago it was Baby Blues and we wore out a few of the Multnomah County Library copies. Reading in the bathtub is tough on books.
There was a Garfield phase about a year ago.
Their first favorite and still all time favorite comic strip is Calvin and Hobbes. We actually own these books and they are well worn.

The kids must come by this fixation naturally. I get almost daily Pickles strips emailed from my dad and Maxine strips send to me by my aunt.

Looking forward to Thursdays

I look forward to piano lessons on Thursdays... a lot. We go to the seminary and while the boys go into the chapel for their lesson time with Melissa, I sneak away a few blocks down Hawthorne to my new favorite coffee shop, Albina Press. They make the absolute best coffee I have ever had. I think my Starbucks days are over...too burnt. Albina Press uses Stumptown coffee made by a local company that roasts coffee in small batches. It is so smooth and delicious. I need to get Todd to try it. He will not drink coffee and I have the thought that if only he would, our life would be so much richer...I could drag him to all the little coffee shops in Portland, and he would actually enoy it. I don't need to convince Natalie. She loves Stumptown coffee even though all I let her have is sips from my cup.

Summer Trip around Oregon

We pulled out an Oregon map on Wednesday and circled locations to research as possible sites to visit on our "Celebrate Oregon's 150th Anniversary" tour. Here are some we listed: Fort Vancouver, Fort Clatsop, Champoeg, the Oregon Caves, Jacksonville, Ashland, Crater Lake, Timberline Lodge, Salem (state capital), Columbia Gorge Highway, Astoria, French Glen, Diamond (where Todd's parents taught in a 1 room school house when he was born), Burns (Todd's birthplace), Baker City, and the Whitman Mission. Of course, the kids also added to the list Eugene (where grandpa and grandma are), Coos Bay (where grandma and cousins live), and Sunriver and the High Desert Museum(where Aunt Lib and Uncle Wendell are). Now we have to start researching and decided if we should camp out while doing the tour.

Dancing Violins

The boys have been playing along with their violin Cd and I cannot get them to stand still in front of their music books. They insist upon moving up and down the stairway, hopping, skipping, and dancing around the house while playing. Is it a boy thing?

Bob the Builder?

The boys thought that Cente should watch Bob the Builder and they volunteered to view it with with him. The boys are illustrating the fact that when you are not allowed to watch much TV, you will watch pretty much anything.

Mixing Talents

Who knew you could fence and cook at the the same time with the same equipment. Here the kids are making homemade stove top Mac and Cheese (another Alton Brown recipe).

Good Memories

A social worker is writing our home study for the state of Oregon so that we will be official foster parents. We had long question forms to fill out that include lots of inquiries about our childhoods. She read through mine, laughed, and joked "boring". I had a delightful childhood and have many wonderful memories including the time above...camping in Alaska and my dad reading aloud to us each evening. Thank the Lord for good parents.

Looking for Ideas to stay motivated

This time of year I need to find ideas to stay motivated in our schooling. I think it is the lack of sun or being stuck inside... I feel sluggish and get a little bored with our routine. I think we need a trip. I may plan some fieldtrips for next week. Stay tuned.

No more Hershey's Syrup

Natalie is on a cooking kick. I hope it lasts for a few years. I think it is a mixture of genuine interest combined with the fact that baking and cooking in the kitchen is a nice diversion from home schooling. We watched an Alton Brown cooking video from the library last night where he explained how easy it is to make Chocolate Syrup from scratch and how much better it tastes than the store bought stuff. So today, Natalie and the boys shut themselves up in the kitchen this afternoon and made it. The syrup was AMAZING. Thicker and tastier than anything we have ever bought. And we do like our syrup for chocolate milk and ice cream. Wow!

They also made brownies from scratch following intructions on the same video. Mmmmm. If we look a little rounder next time you see us, you will know why.

Natalie's Buttermilk Biscuits

Last night for dinner Natalie made biscuits to go with our soup. They were delicious especially with butter and a little honey.

Ethan's Tooth

Ethan lost a tooth!

Todd's Preaching and Slurpees

Todd has been preaching at Hinson for the past few months. We are without a pastor and while the search team is looking for a candidate, Todd has been the lead preaching elder. Going to church and listening to my husband preach each Sunday changes the Sunday morning experience for our family in good ways and in not so good ways.

One change is my children lean over and whisper to me more. Today it was "mom..mom... mom...where did Dad get that tie? I've never seen it?" I put my finger to my lips and said "Shhhhh." (This is my usual response so I don't know why they keep talking to me.)

In our family there is an agreement that if Todd mentions us in his sermon, the person mentioned gets a "Slurpee" on the way home or in my case, a coffee. I instituted this so that my children would not cringe if they were used in an illustration or had attention drawn to them because of their dad's role. This had backfired a bit on me. Todd might say something offhanded with the words "kids" in it and immediately my three are leaning over whispering "Does that count mom?' (No, it doesn't.) Or if Todd mentions just one of the kids, that child sits up straight, grins at his siblings, and gloats throughout the remaining service and then I hear about how unfair it all is on the way home.

Another change in my church experience is where I sit. I used to sit in the 2nd or 3rd row. I think being up close to the action helps my kids to pay better attention and it helps me not to be distracted by "people watching" which I am tempted to do. Now we are either in the back row or up in the balcony. I am proud of my husband and think he does a wonderful job preaching but there are times I will think "I can't believe he just said that" and not having a poker face, I think it is more discrete for me to be out of sight.

Nan making a cake

Natalie is making a yellow cake from scratch. She got the recipe from an Alton Brown "Good Eats" episode which she is viewing while she bakes.

He was wishing he was bigger..

Levi and Ethan put on their orange sweatshirts this morning and went outside to shoot baskets. Cente went into his room and dug out his orange sweatshirt and asked to have it put on. Then he climbed onto a chair and stood there watching them play, knocking on the window, calling their names.

Billboard in our neighborhood

This billboard we drive past each day makes for interesting discussions.

Piano Lessons

The boys have piano lessons today and I am posting this just to bug them. When they see the illustration they will be mortified at the sissy boy... just so everyone knows, the Miles boys play the piano in a very manly way.

Clash of the Titans

Our movie for Friday night... we are studying the ancients this year and this fits in with the Greeks. It was made in 1981 and has cheesy special effects. I predict that the kids will like it a lot.

Our reading this week is Plutarch's Lives.

Our Happy Guest

Cente is a delight, a lot of work, a challenge, and a blessing all at the same time.

He has us all on a schedule which is great. He has me getting up at 6:30... which I don't enjoy at 6:30 but which does allow me to get more done and is better for my family in the long run.

He needs a haircut but I think I have to get permission from the caseworker first.

Scenes of a Chicken's Death

Levi hanging back.
Todd holding a light so we can see what JohnMark is doing.
Checking to see if there were any eggs.