Tree of Life Mothering

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of having a Hero Awards Night for the Hero Project class that I mentored this past winter semester for a class of homeschooled youth ages 13-15. This is a LEMI project for scholar phase. We learned so much together!

These are two pages from a Hero Stories book one of my students made. That was one of the requirements, to compile stories about heroes into a book. I love her artistry. She just took an old board book for kids and covered it up with pictures. Most of the students focused on heroes from the two world wars, but one of my students focused on Patrick Henry as her hero.

I invited Elder Enzio Busche to come and speak, since he lived in Nazi Germany and was part of Hitler’s Youth Army. I knew he lived in my area because my friend Aneladee had invited him to come speak to a Thomas Jefferson Youth Certification class about 7 years ago at our Commonwealth School. He is such an amazing man! If you want to know for yourself, just go read his book pictured below.

Here’s a clip from one of his speeches at BYU. You can just feel the love oozing from this man!

Some of the books we read for the class were the two Uncle Eric books by Richard Maybury about the two world wars, The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, and Flags of Our Fathers. I wanted to give the students a non-statist view of war and heroes, so that’s why we read the Uncle Eric books.

I also invited Connor Boyack to come speak, because I love his non-statist perspective on politics and war. He is one my heroes. He is the president of The Libertas Institute, an organization dedicated to preserving liberty in Utah. Connor was featured in The Huffington Post last fall and on the Tom Woods’ show last January. He and Tom are definitely my favorite sources of news with a liberty perspective. Connor even started a news blog called The Golden Rule News Network.  He did a great job of talking about heroes in the true sense of the word.

He showed us pictures of true heroes and then asked the youth to guess what these heroes all have in common. The heroes included Rosa Parks, Sophie Sholl, the Chinese hero who stood up to the tanks on Tienenamen Square, Alexander Doniphan, Helmut Hubner, and Edward Snowden. He offered his new book as the prize for whoever could answer the question. That generated a ton of excitement among the youth! The shot up all of their hands and started guessing.

One of the students, pictured above, came up with the closest answer, although it wasn’t exactly what Connor was looking for. The answer was that all of the heroes stood up to government authority to do what is right. It’s important to realize that the government is not always doing the right thing and the right choice is to stand up to it.That’s why the Uncle Eric books are so good because they show that needless murders have happened in the name of government and war. They point out that war tends to expand government and encroach on liberty.

Here is Connor’s new book. It’s an explanation of the book, The Law by Bastiat, for kids. What a great idea! Connor plans on writing many more books about the Tuttle twins as they learn about the proper role of government and inalienable rights. You can order the book here.

Here is a quote Connor used from President Spencer W. Kimball in his presentation that night. I agree! Someone even started a website based on the article.

In spite of our delight in defining ourselves as modern, and our tendency to think we possess a sophistication that no people in the past ever had—in spite of these things, we are, on the whole, an idolatrous people—a condition most repugnant to the Lord.

We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:44–45.)

You can read the whole article right here.

Who wants to come to the Utah Waldorf Conference next week? It’s Monday June 2 to Friday June 6 in Highland Utah (my hometown! Yay!). You can get more details over here. I got to go for a day last year and I am going again this year!

I know it’s a last minute announcement, but I’ve had higher priorities this week than blogging. I am doing my best balancing all of my responsibilities. If anybody wants to win a ticket for one day to the conference (worth $75), you can enter for a chance to win one by making a comment below. I will announce the winner tonight.

Who wants to learn about the upcoming Waldorf charter school in Utah? You can click this link and participate in a survey about a Waldorf-based charter school in Utah.

If you have no idea what Waldorf education is, watch the video below.

Last night I had my Hero Project Awards Night for our Commonwealth School (a homeschooling group involving youth, children, and their families). We had the amazingly inspiring Elder Busche and the awesome Connor Boyack of Libertas Institute and connorboyack.com come and speak. I was thrilled to find out from Connor that the meeting I missed a few weeks ago that Connor sponsored with Tom Woods was recorded. I missed it because it was the Thomas Jefferson Youth Certification graduation night for my 16 year old. I have been waiting for Tom Woods to come to Utah for years. So here’s the video! And everyone go listen to the monumental daily podcasts Tom does, involving liberty and limited government, over here.

Elder Scott made a huge promise in General Conference October 2012. He answered the question of “How can I eliminate the influence of satan in my life?”

Here is his answer… are you ready?

(drum roll, please)

It’s…do family history research AND temple work. They fit together. If you are doing one without the other, then you are not getting full blessings, such as the elimination of satan’s influence.

You may say, OK, I go to the temple, that’s easy enough, but #1. I don’t have time do the research. Or you may say, #2.all the work for my family has already been done.

Let’s address both of these concerns.

#1. To quote Elder Quentin Cook from General Conference April 2014:

“We finally have the doctrine, the temples, and the technology for families to accomplish this glorious work of salvation.”

Even moms of little kids can do this work. This is so wonderful! It wasn’t like this when I was young mom 20 years ago!

Do you have time to do Facebook, read blogs, or surf the Internet? My guess is you do if you are reading this right now. Then you have time to do family history research. It as simple as sitting at your keyboard. You don’t have to get a babysitter or go out to a Family History Center.

And with the rollout of free access for LDS Church members to ancestry.com, findmypast.com, and myheritage.com, the ease of searching will get a lot better! Here is a video that shows some of the amazing records you can find at ancestry.com.

I am so excited about this! I have been able to use ancestry.com and I find that I can find a lot more records than I can at familysearch.org. Here is the plan for when the account access will be available:

So start using familysearch.org so you can be considered an active user by the end of May and get your ancestry.com access in June or July!

#2. You may think that “the work is all done.” OK, I grant that maybe the work is all done for four generations of your family going back from you, but if you start going back from there, and go back to your pioneer ancestors who first got baptized, THEN go back from there AND start looking at collateral lines, meaning the siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins of your ancestral lines, you will find a lot of work to do.

The most awesome website, Puzzilla allows you to easily see these collateral lines so you can see where the dead ends are. I encourage you to go there right now. It’s addicting for an eternal cause! You can watch Elder Neil Andersen’s excellent video describing this. He gives prophetic instruction at the end of the video, asking us to submit more names for work then we take out. I testify we will be blessed if we follow his instruction.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

Enjoy climbing your family tree! Here’s a great tutorial on how to get started.

I have been immersed in sewing Shakespeare costumes the past two weeks, and I am just now recovering. All done while dealing with my springtime allergies! Whew! I like to sew when the fabric and machine work harmoniously together, and when I have clear directions. When one of those things is missing then sewing can be torturous! Let’s just say that after 3 to 4 hours spent every day staring at a needle and thread, two early mornings of sewing starting at 2 AM, three fichus to make, several seams of picking out to do, a few holes to repair, two broken and one bent needles later, one hem to let out, three mob caps and one vest to make from scratch, and three hems to take up, all with a deadline of a dress rehearsal looming over my head, I have finished my apprenticing to the expert seamstress and costume designer Aneladee Milne. I will never volunteer for helping with the costumes for the school play again! All those hours and I didn’t even get billing on the program! Hmph!

I have been fighting back blogging every day in order to sew. But now that the play is over, I can blog more! I have been wanting to share the great news that if you are an LDS Church member, you can get a free membership to ancestry.com! I listened to several videos while I sewed, which made the sewing more bearable. Ancestry.com has soooo many cool resources! 

Who wants to win a Mothers Who Know registration for the June session?

It’s time for another giveaway! I have been teaching the Mothers Who Know class since Feb. 2013. This class will equip you to fight your battles. We all know how hard it is to be a mom! The principles in this class are based on the Book of Mormon. They will help you to silence the voices from the dark side and overcome your plateaus. You will be amazed at the quantum leaps you will make from this class, if you apply the principles.

Please comment below if you would like to enter for a chance to win the giveaway. Winners will be announced on Friday May 30 around 5 PM.

Sorry about the hiatus in blogging! I am up to my ears in sewing costumes for my son’s Shakespeare play next week. It’s Merry Wives of Windsor set in colonial times! I am learning about fichus, mob caps, and more. I can hardly stand to stay away from the computer while I sew. The sewing machine is about two yards away. I keep feeling this magnetic pull to the Internet.

Somebody asked about healthy snack ideas. I couldn’t resist blogging about that. Ahh, it feels so good to be back at the keyboard!

I put the watermelon stars as my top picture just because they are cute but if you are like me, watermelon is not a complete satisfying snack. I need some protein and fat. Here is a great recipe for homemade beef jerky that fits the bill. It does take some time to make, because you have to slice the roast (best to do when slightly frozen), marinade it, and then dry it in your oven or dehydrator. The results are very worth it! Here is the recipe.

These orange creamsicles are very yummy and very good for you if you use raw milk (assuming you don’t have a dairy allergy) or coconut milk. Use ice cube trays to get the job done quick or popsicle molds to be fancy!

Here’a quick recipe to satisfy cravings for sweetness and fat. Just toast some coconut chips in a dry pan on medium heat. You can get those at a natural foods store and then sprinkle a bunch of sucanat.

Here are some different web sites I love with healthy, real food snack ideas:

These are Cara Fauss’ GAPS-friendly snack recipes.

Sarah Pope’s site has great real food snack and treat ideas, including grain free brownies and granola right here.

Last of all, I love these 21 snacks to go ideas here at Heather Dessinger’s Mommypotamus site. I love the homemade Larabars and the homemade fruit snacks, pictured above (I used pineapple juice)!  You don’t have to use any artificial food coloring with them. She always has such beautiful photos and delicious recipes! Enjoy!

My 12 year old son is taking an online simulation class this spring from Tatiana Fallon through Leadership Education Academy. Here is Tatiana’s description:

Each week we will run a 45 minute to 1 hour simulation. Every simulation will have a different goal and challenge. We will be running simulations that range from learning diplomacy by working with new alien races to learning how to work under almost impossible situations as spies for the government. We will try to start a revolution and try to stop a mutiny on a pirate ship. After each simulation we will discuss what we learned about our own character, human nature and leadership.  The students will be asked to write a detailed personal debrief after each simulation helping them stretch and grow and learn the vital skill of self evaluation. I will also help the student learn how to create and run simulations, so that they can create and lead one with their peers.

You can register right here.

Happily and most providentially, I stumbled upon this video of my friend Valerie Hudson. I met Valerie over 16 years ago in La Leche League, a breastfeeding mothers support group. I have fond memories of a gathering at her home with a potluck dinner. She was a professor at BYU and is now at a university in Texas. Her presentation totally rounds out my Tree of Life Mothering concepts. Watch for her cute facial expressions at the 18  minute mark. This is the most beautiful explanation of Adam and Eve’s roles, which are the guides for our roles as man and woman, husband and wife, father and mother, that you will ever find! I love that she has a placenta image at the beginning!

Can you believe that Easter 2014 has come and gone?!? I feel like I have been in a whirlwind this past school year (OK, really ever since I started having children!), wifing, mothering 7 children in different phases (mission, college, and then varied ages down to age 4), homeschooling, navigating academic and social calendars of my amiable and active 16 year old and 12 year old boys, disciplining, refereeing fights among the littles, enduring trials, homemaking, teaching, blogging, mentoring, helping with Liber Academy (my kids’ commonwealth school) by helping with the World War heroes class and the young children and love of learning classes, and finding joy amidst all of this chaos.

Easter just sprang up on me and I didn’t even blog about it beforehand or find my trusty copy of the book, A Christ-centered Easter. I just had to wing it this year and rely on my husband’s memory of what scriptures to read every morning of Easter week.

Fortunately, God provided me with help to make this a Christ-centered time. First, I love the reminders He sends me just outside my front door in my flower bed before Easter comes. Every year, at the middle of March, without fail, the flowers in the dirt outside my front window pop up after a long winter, reminding me that there is a force beyond my own will that is guiding this world. This force is always beckoning me to light and life and love. This force is embodied inmy Savior Jesus Christ. I never planted these flowers, the previous homeowner did. But I get to benefit from her act to bring beauty into this world, just as I benefit from Christ’s ultimate act of beauty and kindness to redeem all of us. I never have to do anything, these blossoms just burst forth.

Second, my 8 year-old daughter reminded me that I had promised we had have her birthday party in the spring. She turned 8 in the winter. We have a tradition of having birthday parties with friends when my children turn 5, 8, and 12. She wanted to wait until spring so we could play outdoors in warm weather for her party. She didn’t want to invite everybody in her obvious circles of choice for friends (our neighborhood, her Liberty Girls’ Club, or ward), she wanted to invite two little boys from Liber Academy and her cousins. She wanted cookies and ice cream and was OK with me picking out everything else. Whew! For not acting like a princess or liking girly things, she can be rather picky sometimes. Fortunately she wasn’t too picky for this event.

I called my sister up to invite her girls. She has little boys too, and I wanted them to come along as well. It was such a tender mercy to find out that her kids were on spring break from their school so we could start the party before noon, share a lunch, and have lots of time time to play. It was a beautiful, windy, spring day, which was perfect, because I had planned kite-making for the party’s top activity. I saw these directions in the Friend for making Easter kites. I enjoyed learning that in Bermuda, people celebrate Good Friday by flying kites. The rising kites remind them of Jesus rising from the tomb. I think I have found a new tradition for us to do every Good Friday. To top it all of, the day I picked for the party happened to be on Good Friday.

Seeing that instructions involved tissue paper, I opted for some different directions for my rambunctious offspring who could easily break a tissue kite before they even flew it. In another post I will put directions on making a sturdy, easy to make kite for kids that really flies.

One of my mom friends who brought a guest to the party brought a real kite to fly. My 12 year old took to it really well. I love the symbolism of the kite for Jesus rising from the tomb. Maybe we will do this every Friday before Easter!

Third, my mom and dad hosted an Easter picnic at their home Saturday evening, with an Easter egg hunt afterwards. My oldest son wasn’t there because he’s on a mission, teaching others about Jesus Christ, but “Virtue” my 18 year old daughter got to be there because she is home from college. “Honor” my 16 year old, couldn’t be there either. He decided to ask a girl to prom and had been gone all day to a speech and debate tournament. I didn’t even get to see him leave to pick up the girl or take their cute picture. 

The cousins had a ton of fun on the egg hunt. My mom had each kid assigned to a different color of egg so that everybody would get the same amount of eggs.

My 12 year old son recently hurt his arm ice skating with his friends. I was pretty sure it was just a sprain but he kept insisting it was broken. Do any of you hate having injuries like this interrupting your schedule? I felt like forbidding him from ice skating for the rest of his life if he is going to play so rough when he ice skates. It simply was not convenient to get him to the doctor right away. My husband gently reminded me of how silly it is to take a stance like this. This child is active, and him getting hurt is part of life. Dh took him in and then I did the follow up visit this past week. The verdict? Not a break, just a sprain.

These are two of our cousins! They are so adorable!

Finding Easter eggs reminds me of our mortal journey. We seek and find truths of eternal life that our Father in Heaven has hidden for our delight.

Opening the eggs and finding little treasures is so much fun!

Some of the cousins needed help seeing where their eggs were from an older sibling or cousin.

Fourth, I loved snapping photos of all the sweet, promising signs of spring in my parents’ backyard to remind me of new life and the new life Jesus gives us.

Checking out all the goodies that they found!

The sun started to set and we had to move inside when it got cold. We continued to visit. I had work I had wanted to get to at home in the evening but we just keep talking and didn’t leave until 9:30. We always have such a hard time departing from our grandparents and cousins. My daughter stowed away in one of the cousins’ car so I had to stop and pick her up on the way home. 

My fifth help for having a Christ-centered Easter was the video that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made. Truly, because of Him, Jesus Christ, our family times will never end. I testify that He lives again and because of Him, we will too. Happy belated Resurrection Day to all of you!