Tree of Life Mothering

Are you still wondering what to get your husband or brother-in-law for Christmas? How about a membership to sonicdad.com? This new web site has project instructions for dads (and moms) to make cool things that fly, pop and fizz. You can even try it out for yourself for free. I’m passing this message on from Joyce Kinmont, founder of Latter-day Saint Home Education Association: Looks fun! The text below is copy and pasted from the web site and the email Joyce sent.

“In a sense, SonicDad has existed since the first time a Father spent time with his kids working on some crazy project and formed that special bond that can only exist between a parent and child. It’s about turning off the TV and turning on the excitement, passion, and joy of exploration and curiosity.

At SonicDad.com you will find an impressive collection of super cool projects. Most are 100% original, and others are popular favorites with a SonicDad twist. You will have access to great videos and detailed instructions to help you build these awesome projects! Now, let’s take a quick tour of some sample pages from actual projects.

  SonicDad.com has launched!

JoyceKinmont

joyce@ldshea.org

Here’s a link to a lovely 30 minutes of sharing or so from Sister Susan Tanner, the author of the new book, Daughters in My Kingdom  She tells her story of writing the book. She had a place where she got stuck, but then she had a dream and it helped her finish the book. She tells of one of the male leaders of the church who read the book and told her that the book was so good that “almost thou persuadeth me to be a woman!” http://mormonchannel.org/relief-society/daughters-in-my-kingdom/2 Doesn’t that sound just like Elder Holland? The point is that LDS woman have such a great heritage of service and nobility, enough to make any man envious.

And did you know that the Mormon Channel has a page devoted to Relief Society with 27 episodes to listen to? http://mormonchannel.org/relief-society/daughters-in-my-kingdom/2

lds.org has a page devoted to the book http://lds.org/relief-society/daughters-in-my-kingdom?lang=eng. If you haven’t received your copy, you can go to that link and download a copy.

Here’s a video to encourage you to “open the gift” meaning the gift of this book. It’s about Sister Beck and her childhood story of discovering a forgotten Christmas gift. http://lds.org/relief-society/daughters-in-my-kingdom/about-the-book?lang=eng#modal=the-gift-daughters-in-my-kingdom

Once a month, the last week of the month, the Mormon Channel features a vignette about the book.

And you can email questions to Sister Julie Beck. Once a month she will answer questions on the Mormon Channel.  Here’s what the site says, “If you want to ask Sister Julie B. Beck the general Relief Society president a question, Now is your chance! Send us your questions by e-mail at mormonchannel@ldschurch.org and they could be answered in an upcoming Relief Society question and answer episode. You may also record your question by calling 1-877-MYLDS32 and leave your question with our answering service.” Cool!

My daughter with my two nieces at my mom’s birthday party.

This past week we have been catching up and recovering from my trip to the emergency room last Friday morning.The short story is, I fainted early in the morning after intense head pain, got a huge goose egg in the process, and agreed to go to the ER because my husband thought that I had had a stroke. They ran a bunch of tests on me and could find nothing wrong. I had intense abdominal pain through the whole thing but it’s gone now and I am feeling as good as new. The whole experience made me feel very grateful for normal mornings where I can get up and move and use the bathroom without pain or fainting and go about a normal day!

The long story is the following… Venture kept begging me to put the Christmas tree up. I refused. I am not one of those people who puts a tree up simply because it’s the day after Thanksgiving. The calendar may say it’s Christmas time, but I have to feel ready. Ready as in the house has to be more clean. I gave up the idea of doing a total spring cleaning in December but insisted that we at least purge some toys.

After reading the Headgates ebook almost 2 years ago (see http://headgates.org) I have been stirred up. I feel partly in agreement, that I could have fewer toys, and partly wondering how it would be to only have 15 toys. And no Legos or Lincoln logs. I could see the value in simplifying our toy collection but wasn’t ready to pare it down to only 15 toys, which is what the Headgates author suggests. I just don’t want to be that spartan! My compromise almost 2 years ago was to stick them all in a big box in the corner of our family room to be reckoned with later. We left out a few. I wanted to be able to have them back if I could see that we missed them. Well, we did. Now I know why my toddler was so bored and why I was resorting to Barney so much. Most of the toys were stashed away! 

So the day of reckoning finally arrived. 18 years of Christmas and birthday presents were upon me. Any Toy Story character would have been shaking in his boots. It reminds me of Babe where the animals in the barn say “Christmas means carnage!” That’s what it means to some toys as well, especially in homes where purging is an annual pre-Christmas tradition.The first full week of December we went through the big box and organized and I came up with a better toy organization system. I did get rid of a bunch of broken toys, and I almost parted with the Lincoln logs, which the Headgates lady urges me to do, but my husband says to keep them. Whew. I was beginning to think I needed counseling in order to part with them. Anyway,  as my kids have gotten bigger we have needed more space for them to have desks to be scholars in our family room. Unfortunately we don’t have an office or study room. The family room is this narrow long room for DVD watching, surfing the Internet, homeschooling, playing with toys, crafting and now sewing, and all the other hard to name activities that kids engage in. So the storage space for toys has become smaller and smaller. So I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me figure out how to store the toys now that I had spent three days purging and organizing.

He gave me an idea! He knows I don’t have money to go buy fancy shelves or bags. I don’t really like too many shelves or bins for toys anyway because then the toddlers just go and dump all the toys.  He told me to just use all the tote bags I have. All these years, since reading Daryl Hoole’s Art of Homemaking book I thought I had to have drawstring bags for toys but was too lazy to sew some or hunt some down. But I was told through the Spirit to just take bags I already have, non-drawstring as they are, and the coat hooks that my dh bought years ago and never finished putting up. I decided it was time for me to put them up myself. I wonder what Helen Andelin would say about that. Actually, my ten year old boy Venture put them in so maybe Helen would be OK with that. So we put these coat hooks in the corner where the big box used to be, up high, and hung the tote bags full of toys, bagged according to categories. So that solves the problem of not having drawstring bags that I can knot. Just put them up high and that helps control the toy flow, since only big people can get them down. We have all the Little People buildings down low but the actual little people and other little toys are in bags.

So the next day, after finally getting the toys organized, I fainted while going to the bathroom. I guess I need more excitement in my life. Homeschooling, mothering seven children, continually organizing and homemaking and cooking three meals a day and getting ready for Christmas and chauffeuring aren’t enough. I wasn’t out for very long, according to my husband, but when I woke up I was on the floor, kicking the wall involuntarily. So my husband called 911 and the ambulance came, fortunately, without the siren going. The people asked me all these questions. One of them was if I am still able to have children. I was in a lot of pain when I answered the question so I am afraid I sounded worn out about the idea of having more children when I answered. They probably thought, “Oh, this poor woman, the picture of the typical middle-aged woman who is tired of kids and being a housewife and deathly afraid of having any more.” Actually, I am very grateful I am able to have more children. Having children is a privilege and I do hope to have more. Then they asked me when my last period was. I think they were trying to rule out an ectopic pregnancy since I was having intense abdominal pain. I said the date and then my husband pulled out our handy dandy fertility chart to confirm and say it himself. 

So we go to the ER (thankfully without sirens blaring) for some tests (CAT scan, ultrasound, and blood work) and they ask me there, “Is it true you are taking fertility drugs? We heard that you are.” 

“No, I am not.” Inside I am thinking, where did they get that from? I don’t need any help getting pregnant, thanks. Just for the record, I am not pregnant and this trip to the ER was not because I had an ectopic pregnancy.

Later on, I realized the helpful friendly young paramedics probably have no clue about the ordinary purpose of fertility charting. In my case, the purpose is natural family planning in order to prevent pregnancy. I would love to have a baby right now if only I didn’t weigh so much and were completely healed from the stress and trauma of the last pregnancy (whole other story). Even if I were wanting to achieve pregnancy I would be fertility charting. They probably thought that I was doing it to go along with taking fertility drugs. I am wondering if that’s because fertility charting and NFP are so out of ordinary. Are they so out of the ordinary that paramedics, mostly men who are probably married, don’t recognize them? It’s funny how something I say and do can be mistranslated into something completely untrue. It’s also funny that something so natural is so misperceived. Every married couple should learn fertility signals before marriage and should track them. It’s part of being healthy and being connected to your body.

All the tests came back normal, except for the urinalysis, which showed I have a UTI. After taking it easy for a few days and feeling inspired by my younger sister’s efforts to fete my mom for her birthday, we got the tree up. And I have finally started my Christmas shopping. 

So my questions. 1. What are some natural ways to treat a UTI? and 2. Does anybody have any stories to tell about fertility charting?

If you are like me, you enjoy food! So much you sometimes overeat. Actually, I don’t do it much if at all anymore. Taking coconut oil helps. If you are deathly afraid of bingeing this holiday season, get some coconut oil. Eat 2 Tbsp. before a meal or a party where you know there will be food and you will be too full to eat too many goodies. Eating healthy fat like coconut oil and plenty of saturated fat is the key to not overeating carbs!

But if you don’t follow my suggestion and binge anyway or  just need some hope that there is a smaller size within you. Take a look at this…

I am so inspired about this woman, a mother of 12, who went from a size 22 to a size 6 and has kept the size for three years!

She did it through this exercise system called T-tapp. You can read more about her story here http://www.t-tapp.com/success/charlotte/default.html

Yesterday we celebrated my mom’s birthday. What fun to have so many grandchildren when you turn 72!

My sister whipped a batch of gingerbread cookies. I was amazed at how ambitious she is. She had homemade apple pie, these cookies, her tree already decorated, and a nursing baby to boot! I was impressed.

Martha Steward and Betty Crocker move over. This is a non-white sugar pie that looks good too!

Oh, and did I mention she put together some silhouettes she made of the grandchildren as a birthday gift? They are not all done, but this is an idea of what the finished product will be. We will frame it too, of course.

Here is a video that Joyce Kinmont recommended in her latest LDSHEA newsletter (if you aren’t signed up to get it, go to http://ldshea.org and sign up for free). LDSHEA stands for Latter-day Saint Home Education Association.

My life just keeps flowing more and more with beautiful ideas like this. Enjoy!

We enjoyed watching Sunday night’s Christmas devotional with the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If any of you want to read The Mansion, one of the stories that President Monson recommended, it’s free on the Internet. Find the link under “free classic read alouds” above. Of course, if you want the pretty pictures, you’ll have to buy the book. But you can see three of the illustrations here (click on the thumbnail images below the image of the book cover) http://deseretbook.com/Mansion-Henry-Van-Dyke/i/5063024

I think it’s cool that the LDS church has created new Bible videos on the Savior’s life, as announced at the devotional. Go here to view them http://lds.org/bible-videos/?lang=eng. I heard that Mary is babywearing Jesus in the Flight into Egypt video, between four and five minutes into it.

Saturday was day for homemade Christmas presents. Every year my friend KeeNan does “Emma’s Holiday Marketplace” for her daughter’s December birthday celebration. It’s always the first Saturday in December. Usually we can’t go because of the Focus on the Founders competition the same day, but this year FOF was in November. Since I postponed my conference, we got to go to the marketplace. Of course I didn’t decide to go for sure until the day before. The ticket to getting in is that you have to bring 10 homemade gifts, per child. The idea is that each child gets 20 dollars of play money for the ten gifts he she bring and then they can spend the money on the gifts that the other kids bring. Since I wanted to bring three kids, that meant 30 gifts. Hmmm, what could we make that wouldn’t cost a ton and that is easy? I know! Duct tape wallets, using this pattern http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/fathers-day-wallet-664865/

Well, here’s what I found out:

1. Duct tape wallets are not that easy to make if you have cheap, dollar store duct tape. I spent half the time unsticking my fingers from the tape and the tape from the tape as well. The Family Fun article had a comment below saying someone made them with her Cub Scout troop. The thought of 10 eight year old boys with duct tape and scissors, and constant “It’s sticking to me again! and, “What do I do now” made me shudder with fright.

2. I should have planned for this a lot earlier.

3. I should have believed the instructions when it said that making one wallet would take an hour.

4. I can see that I am not as organized as I think I am and I want to be more organized for next year.

After two hours on Saturday morning of not quite finishing two wallets, I did the math and cut my losses. It was 10 30 and the party was at one, in Huntsville. I had a forty five minute drive and lunch to still fix, plus a snack to prepare to bring and share. Yikes! Definitely not one of my organized mother moments. So… I went shopping! I got some Christmas mugs, three for a dollar at Deseret Industries, and some hot cocoa, not at Deseret Industries. We put some cocoa in ziploc bags and stevia, enough for one serving, in each mug, and then put a recipe for Sugar Free cocoa in each one as well. Plus I decided to just bring 10 gifts and have the three kids split the 20 dollars. With a meager lunch to eat in the car, food to finish fixing in the car to share, we took off. After a lot of yelling and bossing on my part and frustration. We got there twenty minutes late, but with time to still shop.

I didn’t get any cute pictures because I had to spend all my time manning our “store” while the oldest child in tow helped the younger two shop. And I am too lazy to go take pictures of the duct tape wallets I almost finished. So I am posting pictures from other days.

The most popular gift by far was the homemade PVC bow and the dowel arrow. We got there too late to get one, (fortunately Cowboy didn’t notice them in peoples bags or under tables) but I Googled it and here’s one that looks just like the ones we saw http://youcraftmeup.blogspot.com/2010/07/pvc-pipe-bow-and-arrows.html It uses a saw, so this one would need help from adults.

For sugar free cocoa with a Christmas mug, get one at a thrift store. Then the recipe is 2 T cocoa, one cup hot milk or water, and 3/8 tsp stevia.

pvc pipe marshmallow shooters http://raisingolives.com/2010/11/marshmallow-gun-tutorial/

duct tape wallets http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/fathers-day-wallet-664865/

crocheted baby hats http://raisingolives.com/2010/03/crocheted-baby-hat-with-flower-pattern/

magnetic photo frames http://familyfun.go.com/sitesearch/results/q=magnetic%2520photo%2520frames/

flower clips http://lifewiththree.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-make-cute-hair-clips-with.html. Since this uses a hot glue gun, it’s one of those “mom does most of the work and child helps a bit.”

Here are some ideas from Mothering.com http://mothering.com/green-living/ten-frugal-gift-ideas?page=0,0

KeeNan ‘s family made playsilks to sell, I am so impressed she managed to produce these at 38 weeks pregnant! http://raisingolives.com/2009/05/make-your-own-playsilks/

One year for Christmas a relative made us the scripture flannelboard stories published in the Friend. Cocoa over at chocolateonmycranium has them compiled here http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/2007/11/flannel-board-stories.html

And here are more ideas http://raisingolives.com/2010/11/homemade-christmas-gifts/

if you (of your children) aren’t technically challenged, you could probably burn CDs with mp3 files of Christmas classic songs or stories in the public domain. Go to the “cool audios” tab above to get you started.

here’s a video with directions on how to make natural lip balm.

Someone just asked me for book recommendations for her teen boys for Christmas gifts. She wants something “clean, adventurous, inspiring and uplifitng.” Guess that rules out Ender’s Game, huh? I liked the book but did not like all the garbage talk, so I can’t recommend it.

All I can think of is the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites books and the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander the Lord of the Rings books. That’s what my older son read, but as he got older he had less time for reading books other than those for school. Now with my other boys, they only have eyes for the Tennis Shoes books.

And what about for a tween girl who has read all the Little House books but is too young for Anne of Green Gables?

What do you all recommend? They don’t have to be Christmas books.

Thanks!

So I finally went visiting teaching last week for November (yes, I occasionally, ok, ok, . . . um,  lately, it has been always, wait until the last week). I found out that my new sister I am assigned to visit teach is a self-proclaimed atheist. She let us know that right away up front. Hmmm, so what now? What would you do if you were in this situation? I feel completely out of my league with this experience. Do we continue to visit and be sneaky about fitting in a spiritual message by saying it is from Gandhi? Does anybody have experience with this? I wonder if the blogger over at http://visitingteaching.net can help me out. My friend Wendy Roberts sent me this cute bookmark, a printable, from the just mentioned web site. It is a cute bookmark with the color and pattern from the new book Daughters in My Kingdom, http://visitingteaching.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/visiting-teaching-relief-society-bookmark.jpg. It is so lovely and inspiring, just like the book! I am loving reading the book.

As we were leaving this sister’s home, my partner wished her a merry Christmas. I started wondering, do atheists celebrate Christmas? What about Thanksgiving? If you don’t believe in God, then who do you thank? The rest of the day felt a little cheerless and glum as it sank in that I had met my first atheist, face to face. I wanted to have her tell me her whole story and then talk her out of it. Not a debate, but a heart to heart talk. I just want to look her in the eyes and say, “Oh, honey. Tell me all of your troubles.” The trouble is I am not a “gooey” type of person, as my daughter puts it, but more of a prickly person, at least with someone I have met for the first time. Maybe after building some rapport we can have such a talk.

I have been switching things around on this web site a bit, wanting to make it more navigable by consolidating tabs and reordering them.  I just have so much I want to share. If anybody has any tips to help me, please comment below. This technology thing is a learning curve for me, most of the time I have to ask my teenage kids to help me.

I finished my Christmas apron! I am so excited. It’s cute, but I forgot that one thing I learned from the “What Not to Wear” books is that gathered skirts don’t look that swell on people with poochy tummies, like me. My apron has a gathered skirt. I used the pattern here http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=2309.msg15734 It looks a lot better on my daughter. I think next time I make an apron I will go with this pattern http://sensibility.com/patterns/ladies-edwardian-apron-pattern/. But add ruffles. It can’t be a flirty apron if it doesn’t have ruffles. I finished it on Wednesday and was glad I did because the next day the power went out so my sewing machine was out of commission.

Yes on Thursday our power went out. We had this terrific wind storm in Davis and Weber counties that made Winne the Pooh’s blustery day look mild. It almost felt like the Second Coming was here. The book, Wild at Heart, has a section on the wild heart of God, as evidenced by all the wild, strong forces in nature. We definitely saw this wild force in the form of wind on Thursday. The wind knocked down four panels of our fence. It uprooted tons of trees, not spindly ones, but four feet diameter, heavy pine trees, root balls, turf and all. The news reports said the wind got up to 100 mph! I had to drive Honor to commonwealth school that morning and only after we got there did we discover that school was canceled because the power was out. I was so scared driving on I-15! Semi-trucks were knocked over on the side of the freeway! I could not drive more than 50 mph or we would go sideways. I was happy to get back home in one piece. We lost shingles on our roof, which my husband was actually praying for so that we could get our insurance to pay for a new roof. Now we are eagerly awaiting the claims adjustor to arrive. One brother, a young father in our ward, confessed in fast and testimony meeting that the storm was all his fault, because he is going to college and didn’t have an assignment finished that was due Thursday. He prayed for help, the storm came, and school was canceled!

We missed our outing to go make gingerbread houses with my friend and Homes School Coach, Mary Ann Johnson. I just didn’t want to go out driving any more during the wind! She posted some cute pictures at the link below. When I got the email invitation I was thrilled because I have always wanted to make gingerbread houses with my kids like my mom used to do with us. But I’ve been too lazy to do all the work involved. Now I know why she was able  to offer this activity to so many friends, it’s because she cheated and used graham crackers instead of real gingerbread. Smart lady! I guess nobody cares about not having real gingerbread but me. http://home-school-coach.com/easy-gingerbread-houses-for-kids-make/ I missed being able to visit with Diann Jeppson and Jodie Palmer and Mary Ann but i just didn’t want to brave that storm again, even though it had started to die down.

This day without power from 9 AM to 6:30 was the longest power outage I have ever experienced. I’ve always wanted to experience a day where we could just curl up the by fire and read but it didn’t work out that way. The reality of having to do certain things at certain times set in. When you don’t have electricity, your economy level slips back down to a much more personal scale. It means washing things by hand and eating dinner before it gets dark at 5 PM so you can maximize candlelight. We didn’t have as much time for leisurely sitting by the fire as I had hoped. But fortunately we were mostly prepared, with firewood, candles, a camp stove powered by butane gas, a hand-cranked-power radio, and flashlights. We were low on matches so I called my husband, who was staffing a Kirk Duncan event to come home and buy matches on the way. No way was I leaving the house to drive and find some. I learned from the kids that we could light the fire in the fireplace by sticking a toothpick, since we thought we were out of matches, into the gas flame of the stove. Kind of dangerous so don’t try this at home kids, hee-hee..

While the boys hand washed all the dishes, since the dishwasher didn’t work, I read aloud to them. I read from this old book I picked up used somewhere, probably D.I, called All About Scientific Expeditions. Talk about wild at heart! Why do men willingly leave the comforts of their home to climb snow and ice, falling in crevasses disguised by snow, and brave whipping wind, all while surviving on Pilot biscuits and pemmican? I guess it’s because of that inborn desire of men to seek wild adventures. I like wild adventures too, but more of the kind that comes from reading about them in a soft chair with roof over head.

Cowboy is really liking this set of stickers for homeschooling. It provides a great launching off place for stories about world and American history.

I read the chapter aloud to them about the conquest of Mt. McKinley. It told the story of this guy named Dr. Frederick Cook and his expedition. They didn’t climb the mountain all the way because of problems and turned back. Then Cook told everybody he wanted to go exploring a different way with one guy and they separated. Then a few months later he claimed that he reached the top after the expedition party separated. At least one of his original party, Belmore Browne, doubted the claim right away. His claim was proven false later by people who took photos that looked exactly like the photo he took of the supposed summit, it was a peak 19 miles away from the summit. Later, this guy named Hudson Stark, an Episcopalian priest who lived in Alaska, made the first successful ascent with his party.

I like that the author of this book published before PC days pointed out that Stuck was an archdeacon and had a mission in Alaska. I really liked the end of the story. It described the contrast between Dr. Cook, who had an advanced, professional education, but a low character, with Johnny, the boy who helped Stuck by being the housekeeper of the base camp and the sled dogs while Stark and the others reached the top. Johnny, although a boy with little formal education, had the noble character to decide that he would not eat any of the sugar or milk in the camp during the party’s absence so they would have something good to eat when they came back.

That made me ponder. Would I be willing to be so selfless and deny my appetite? The power outage made me snappish because of my lack of comforts. I felt humbled by this boy’s example and wanting to be more unselfish. I also felt inspired to become more prepared for emergencies with a power generator and more food and fuel in case the power is out for weeks or months.

We eventually did have our story around the fire, after the power came back on, with some Christmas bedtime stories. My older son kept saying, if only we could listen to the Christmas Chronicles, when the power was out. He later listened when the power came back on.  If you haven’t heard them, go here. They are delightful half-hour episodes, that tell the complete and true history of Santa Claus, and the story doesn’t leave Jesus out. You can also get the book.