Merry Christmas

Our Christmas surprise: We bought a few small gifts for the fine young gents and a lovely young lady, then we pooled the rest of our Christmas budget and some savings, and we took them to Mexico for a week-long vacation. The picture above is where we stayed. I was relaxing on the balcony, picked up my camera and snapped that shot. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

We'd been planning this for almost a year. The kids knew something big was up, but had no idea what it might be. "Is it the mall? Is it a trip to Baker?" asked the younger lovely young lady. I am terrible at keeping secrets, but I did it despite nearly blowing it several times. Thank goodness for oblivious children, eh? By Christmas Day I was thrilled to finally reveal the big secret, partly because I was so excited about it and partly because I could finally stop worrying about accidentally telling. Heh.

A little funny story: The eldest of the fine young gents opened his packing list on the outside of the big box. His mind immediately leapt to the most cool and exciting trip he could imagine: "WE'RE GOING TO GRANDPA'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The annual trip to Grandpa's is the highlight of our year, especially for the ladies and gents, who love to fish with Grandpa and work at the store for donuts and hot chocolate. So excited was he at the prospect of going to Baker City that when his sister opened the box and pulled out a Puerto Vallarta travel guide, he groaned. "We're not going to MEXICO are we?????"

Heh heh.

Obviously they changed their minds:

Our vacation was spectacularly perfect. More to come.....

Pumpkin Buttermilk Pancakes: Edited

Fine young gent requested pumpkin pancakes for his birthday breakfast and even helped make them. He's decided that he wants to be a cook when he grows up. These buttermilk pumpkin pancakes are a lovely rich orangey color, with a mellow pumpkin flavor and they're not too sweet, perfect with just a little maple syrup on top.

Note (12/30/09): I'm changing the recipe. Want pumpkin pancakes that are even better? Add 1/3 c. sour cream for pancakes that are even fluffier and more flavorful.

Buttermilk Pumpkin Pancakes

Heat your griddle to about 350 degrees.

Mix in a large bowl:
3 cups flour
4 Tablespoons brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon salt

Mix in a smaller bowl:
2+ cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (directions for making fresh pumpkin puree here)
1/3 c. sour cream
2 eggs (For fluffier pancakes separate the eggs, mix in the yolks now and set aside the whites in a small dish)
3 Tablespoons melted butter

If you've set aside the egg whites to make fluffier pancakes, beat the whites until they're nice and fluffy but not stiff. You can use a stand or hand mixer, but with two egg whites it's almost as easy to beat them by hand in a small bowl with a whisk.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until just mixed. Particularly if you're using fresh pumpkin, the thickness of your pancake batter will vary. Add more buttermilk or milk until your batter is of the desired consistency. If you've set aside and beaten the egg whites, fold them gently into the batter. Let sit for 5-10 minutes before pouring your pancakes.

Pour the batter onto the griddle, about 1/4 to 1/3 cup per pancake, depending on how large you'd like your pancakes. Brown on both sides. Serve with maple syrup. This recipe makes about 2 dozen pancakes, giving my family of seven enough for breakfast with a few pancakes left over for lunch or the freezer.

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Still have pumpkin to use? I'll post my pumpkin oatmeal scone recipe soon, and fine young gent and I are are planning on trying out a pumpkin gingerbread recipe this week so we'll let you know if it's delicious.

Or try this pumpkin bread/muffin recipe from The Fresh Loaf. It is to die for. We made nearly two dozen muffins, some with mini chocolate chips and some without, and they were all gone by the end of the afternoon.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553). The Nativity, ca. 1515-20

Whom have we, Lord, like you?
The great one who became small,
the wakeful one who slept,
the living one who died,
the king who abased himself to ensure honor for all,
blessed is your honor.

It is right that heavenly beings worship your humanity.
It is right that earthly beings worship your divinity.
The heavenly beings were amazed to see how small you became,
and earthly ones to see how exalted.

(4th century prayer, Ephrem the Syrian)

A Wordless Wednesday (Very Late)

Cave Painting

History and art rolled into one big messy fabulous project. We're studying ancient history, so what better way to start off the year's art studies? Cave painting has several advantages as an elementary-age art project: It's big. The materials are easy to find and to use. Cave paintings are very simple when it comes to subject and color. The pictures are not intimidating for children to imitate. You can fingerpaint or paint with sticks, draw with charcoals and pastels, or get even more creative and try to mix paints using dirt, leaves and spices.



You need:
Printed pictures of cave paintings from around the world and/or books with photos and brief explanations of cave paintings
Brown paper bags for practice paintings, or for your project if you choose not to do a large wall painting, crumpled then flattened
A large sheet or two of brown paper, crumpled and flattened
Charcoal sticks for drawing
Pastels for drawing (reds, browns, oranges and yellows)
Paints (Black, brown, red, yellow, orange)
A drop cloth
Rags for clean-up


Session one:
We studied cave painting as an art form. Look at cave paintings from aroud the world. Notice what makes them the same. What differences do you see? Why might people have painted these paintings? What did they paint? What do you think they used? Then do a warm-up drawing. Cut open a brown paper grocery bag. Crumple then flatten the bag. Draw your cave painting on the bag using charcoal and pastels. This step allows the children to experiment with the materials to find out what works and what doesn't, and to experiment with themes and lines and colors. Naturally, the fine young gents drew many weapons. Arrows, spears and blood were popular.


Session Two:
If you've got the time, the materials and the space, create a wall-sized cave painting. Use large paper, the kind teachers put on their bulletin boards. Crumple it then flatten it to simulate the curves and rough texture of rock. Attach the paper to the wall, put down a drop cloth if you're using paint, and let the children paint and draw their cave paintings using paints, pastels and charcoal, even dirt, sticks and leaves. Allow plenty of time for exploration of the materials and of the subject matter.

A flash from the past, a segment of our first cave painting, painted by our eldest lovely lady when she was in seventh grade:
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Internet lesson plans:

Cave paintings: Animals in Art

Art History: Create Cave Paintings

Cave Art: Discovering Prehistoric Humans through Pictures

First Day of School

First day of school: Journals in backpacks, pack a lunch, ditch the books and get outside for an Explore, an expotition.

It was a beautiful day for a trip to the river. Sunny and warm. Bit of a breeze. Dragonflies and minnows and a scolding Steller's jay.

The pear orchard is on the way to the river. We picked pears. Perfect.













Third-grade gent was so excited to break out his new paints that he skipped lunch to paint in the dry creek. There's something absolutely delightful and satisfying about that kind of enthusiasm.









Down the trail they go! It's been a while since we had a full-blown nature outing.





The fine young gents were thrilled to be hiking in a favorite place, eager to follow their feet.

First-grade gent. Look at that smile! He loves collecting things. Mount Pisgah is mostly oak savannah, with many varieties of oak trees. He collected acorns.










The fine young gents found a new place along the river with many rocks. They spent nearly an hour re-engineering a rock dam built by a previous visitor. Bonus: One of the fine young gents chose bridge-building for a fall study, so we all got a hands-on head start on the Bridges unit.

After a grand time splashing in the river, we all settled down with nature journals.



Writing, handwriting, spelling, science, nature and art all rolled into one. And we're out-of-doors. Perfect.

I'm going to print this picture and post it on the refrigerator. This is why we homeschool.

Life is good.

Gone Fishin'

Where has the summer gone?

I've been so busy living my life there's just been no time to write about it.

Boys are as funny and loud and boy-ish as ever. Thinking up crazy things to do much faster than I can think of things to forbid. Don't golf in your soup. Don't sit on your brother's head. No, you cannot try to open the laundry chute and slide down, and it's not a good idea to try to hurdle the picket fence or to use whatever that is as a sword either. Do hug your momma tight.

Lovely lady the elder has moved to Portland to live with her mom. A wonderful opportunity for her to build a different, more daily, relationship with her mom and her mom's husband before she's grown and off to college. And an opportunity to attend a wonderful alternative school. But it's still a little too close to home to share without tears. I miss her.

Lovely lady the younger is....lovely. Relaxed and funny. Her quirky, charming self. Storms are fewer and farther between. She's confident in who she is and where she wants to go. Where did she learn that? I wish I could send some of that self-assurance back to my fourteen-year-old self.

Loving husband is as loving as ever. Calm and steady.

And me. I've been in the garden, in the kitchen, at the park, riding bikes, scolding kids and hugging them too. Painting, planting, pickling, picking, preserving. Playing. Steering the ship. Squeezing every last bit of summer out of these days. If I give my children no other gifts, I want to give them the joy and contentment that comes from a life well-lived, work well-done, people well-loved.

Life is good. We'll be back when school starts.

Today's Harvest

Eight sweet onions

Two medium pickling cucumbers, planted at lovely lady's request
(Imagine her disappointment when she found that the plant grows cucumbers, not pickles.)

Three zucchini

A bowlful of raspberries

A bunch of fragrant lavender

And two buckets of blueberries from the blueberry field down the road.

And I picked sour cherries yesterday, so there are cherries in the dryer, and cherries in the fridge waiting to be made into pie and jam.

Life is good.

Catching Up: Fabulous Fourth

"Hey, Mom!"

I called my mom on the phone just before the Fourth.

"Want to come sit on a hot sidewalk for two hours, sweating and watching tractors? For a bonus, you might get your eardrums blasted out by sirens and get hit in the head with Smarties."

Why do we do this? Every year, I think to myself, It's going to be hot. I want to stay home. I've seen all this before. And every year we go to the parade, barbecue, go to the fireworks. Why do we sit in the blazing heat watching firetrucks and Boy Scouts on bikes? Why do we eat outside in the back yard? And why do we pack everyone up, drive for forty minutes and sit for an hour waiting for a thirty-minute fireworks show then drive home to tuck in tired, cranky, sticky kids?

And every year....We sit on the sidewalk chatting and stealing the Smarties from the kids' candy bags. The people in the parade smile and wave. We see the same tractors and horses that we saw last year. We gather in the back yard, family all together, with good food and good fun. And we sit in the cooling evening next to the river. I remember why I love the Fourth.

This year's highlights:

The parade. Always. There's nothing like a small town parade. No fancy floats here. The veterans wave and salute, farmers bring in tractors, the insurance agent drives his car through town, the churches pass out fliers, the horses and bikes and red-white-and-blue everywhere. People are smiling and waving.

Our guests. It is perfect that our friends from China are here for this oh-so-American holiday. They get to celebrate our country with us. This year I learned that in China, they too celebrate a holiday with fireworks on the riverbank, standing in the gathering dark awaiting the show. It was familiar and foreign to them.

Backyard gathering. It was 93 degrees, but in the shade of the filbert and magnolia it didn't feel like it. Our family was there, the people I love. That's my favorite part. I insisted that someone play Uno with me, so there was an Uno game at the picnic table. The food was delicious, melon salad and chicken and watermelon and macaroni salad and hot dogs, even delicious vegan sausages. And an impromptu talent show, which deserves its own line.

The impromptu talent show. I don't know how this came about, but we held The First Ever 4th Family Talent Show. We had yo-yo tricks, silly acts, a contortionist, singing and even...eating. Come prepared with a talent next year! Note: Eating no longer qualifies as a talent unless you're going to eat something gross or amazing, like bugs or fire.

Fireworks. I grumped about having to go to the fireworks. I groaned. I tried to think of a way to get out of it. In the end, like every year, I went anyway.

And just like every year, settled in the cool evening by the river, surrounded by my family, watching our children play with their cousins.....

I realized (again....when will I learn?) how much I love this holiday. And why. I like the parade and the picnic and even the fireworks. But my favorite parts are the quiet moments, and the silly ones, and even some of the loud ones: The children playing, visiting with the people I love, waving at smiling strangers in the heat, watching the sun set by the river at the end of the day, and even tucking in tired, cranky, sticky children.

Life is good.

Pictures of last year's Fourth here, featuring the same old dude on the same tractor, and the same firetruck too. Oh yeah, same kids too, just shorter.