Tree of Life Mothering

This is a random home I drive by whenever I take Venture to Knights of Freedom. I just think the flower bed is so lovely!

For my finishing school two weeks ago we learned why Mary Poppins was so right. Children need cod liver oil daily. It makes healthy children who have round heads, broad chests, and glowing skin. Imagine what life would be like if there were no cavities or tooth decay, no wisdom teeth to be pulled, no degenerative diseases, no birth defects, no ADD, no autism. This is what life was like for the 14 primitive groups of people that Dr. Weston Price studied, because they got 10 times the nutrients, namely vitamins A and D, that are in cod liver oil, than the standard American does. I have a whole other blog post about this coming up. Why are the children of deseret so sickly? Even though we have the Word of Wisdom, LDSaints still have health problems.  I once got to see a list of youth going on a Pioneer Trek for their summer youth conference. The majority had major health problems that required taking daily medication! Is that what a multitude of children bright and strong is? Our bodies are like temples, but do we truly treat them that way? No! We put in junk like MSG, and food dyes made from petroleum. I thought it was quite ironic/hypocritical that in Primary last month my kids were being taught to treat their bodies like temples and then at the end of sharing time they were told to go to the bishop’s office after Primary was over, tell him what they learned, and then they would get a piece of candy laden with petroleum based food dyes.

Two Fridays ago I got my hair done. I love it! Whenever I go to get it done I get a peek into the real world out there. My hairdresser has a salon in her basement, which I love, but I always feel a bit guilty when I go and see her kids watching the boob tube upstairs and then fighting. I feel I am pulling away a mom from her children. She and this other client were talking about their kids’ classes and homework in second grade and preschool. It made feel so relieved that I don’t have to deal with homework for my seven year old.

Two Saturdays ago we did the Knights of Freedom Summit. That was so much fun! We experienced a miracle. Around 3 Pm or so the beautiful day of blue skies disappeared and nature released her fury with a downpour. Fortunately we had a pavilion’s roof in the park to shelter us. The 149 boys prayed mighty hard for the rain to stop so they could have their final battle and the family feast. God granted a reprieve from the storm.

When I first started going to these summits I thought there was nothing for the moms and sisters of the boys to do. Boy, was I wrong. The sisters like to dress up as pretty maids and cheer the brothers on. I love to see the pretty hairstyles they sport. The moms can volunteer as matrons for the camps.

I ran into my friend who I met at LEMI Training, Rebecca, and she give me some laughs. At the end of the feast at the dessert table she and my other friend Shauna came by to get treats. “is this dessert you made healthy?” she asked me. “No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s got brown sugar.” (I didn’t want to take time to go get sucanat or rapadura and I was out of both, so I used brown sugar.) “Good,” Rebecca said, “I want some!” LOL! It’s true, lots of times healthful cookies taste like cardboard. One time my dear mother-in-law whipped up a batch and nobody would eat more than one. She had no fat in them and hardly any sweetener, hence they were as dry as toast and just as sweet.

I have figured out a way to make chewy, yummy cookies that are healthful if you use sucanat and don’t take a lot of time, since they are bar cookies and not drop cookies. That’s the one thing that I don’t like about making cookies, is the back and forth thing of taking them off the trays and putting them on racks. I just want to mix

em up, put em in pan and bake them. I sent a bunch to my son for his birthday since he is gone away to college. It is so strange to be this old to have a son in college!

For our first day of school, the day after Labor Day, I slept in! It’s my inner rebel coming out, from a buried memory I have of having to leave for public school choir practice in grade school at 7 AM. Actually, I couldn’t sleep the night before and was catching up. It is really luscious to enjoy the freedom of homeschooling and not let public school dictate my daily schedule.

Princessa felt inspired to  make a Santa Claus with her new markers, not sure why, when it’s only September, but that’s the fun of giving your kids freedom to create what they want.

For our first day, the kids enjoyed their brand new crayons and actually colored for about 15 minutes, a record! For some reason they have never been big on coloring. I am so proud of myself for getting our school corner more organized.

Venture begs to do his Rosetta Stone Spanish every day. The morning of the Knights Summit he got up at 6 AM to do it before he left! He’s truly in love of learning season.

Some of my books to inspire a love of learning.

For the first day of school I let Cowboy play with his Duplos while I started reading a new book for the kids that I picked up at a yard sale, Miss Hickory. It’s the perfect book for fall. I was excited to see it recommended in the Friend November 2010 issue. Every November the Friend has a two page spread of good reads for kids.

I have always wanted an official school room with non carpeted floor to be happy about spilled paint and play-doh, walls of shelves and drawers that are all matched like in Pottery Barn, and a lot more space. When I was pregnant with #7 I nearly cried wondering how I was going to get around that homeschooling table that is squeezed between the dressers and the closet and bookcase that we use for homeschool materials. I visited a friend after baby #7 and actually did cry when the visit was over, because she has the beautiful school room I want, and doesn’t even homeschool! Then I have to remember to count my blessings. At least I have a homeschool table, and don’t have to use the dining room table. At least I have a closet and dressers and a bookcase for our homeschool materials and a corner of a room to do it.

I cleared off my desk, dejunked the home school filing system I started when I started homeschooling my college-going son 13 years ago, organized one bookcase, and put posters up on our homeschool closet. I like this one from the Friend that states, “Let Learning Lift You.” It has a quote from President Hinckley, at the bottom, “Education  is the key that unlocks the doors to opportunity.” The Friend has so many colorful posters to inspire a love of learning and a desire to be fluent with the Holy Ghost.

Most of school for the rest of the week was harvesting tomatoes. I love knowing that for my little children it’s OK to delay academics and have school be helping mom do gardening, harvesting, and housework.  TJED calls it core phase. We clean walls, the bathtub, the floor, thier bedrooms, and that week we dried tomatoes.

I learned at Relief Society all about dehydrating. Thank you Relief Society for bringing that answer to me! For years I have felt stymied, knowing that I want to plant a big garden, but not having a freezer to preserve all the harvest. And I hate to can. I already had a dehydrator but thought it was just for fruit and tomatoes. But I didn’t realize I could dry the tomatoes and then grind them into a powder.

Now with drying food and grinding in a blender I can store the harvest in a much smaller space! We dried 4 trays of tomatoes and the grand result was a 1/4 full Mason jar. I can store my whole tomato harvest this year in very little space! I learned about this cool web site, http://dehydrate2store.com and feel I have stumbled upon a treasure trove of info!

Who wants to discuss When Queens Ride By? It’s a charming old-fashioned story about a woman who reclaims her womanly wifely arts and improves the happiness in her marriage and home.

I’m opening up my online Zion Finishing School for another free session. We discussed Fascinating Womanhood last month. It’s so fascinating that the principles of that book are popping out to me in other books/stories, like in When Queens Ride By.

If you want to participate, put your name in the comment box below saying you want to participate and I will send you the link for the discussion on Thursday Sept. 15 from 2 to 4 PM Mountain Time. Then please go to http://treeoflifemothering.ning.com/page/an-online-finishing-school-for and scroll down to get the link to an online copy of When Queens Ride By. It’s not very long so you can easily have it done by Thursday.

We normally meet on Fridays but because of Diann Jeppson’s Moms Retreat we are meeting on Thursday this week. Please don’t think you have to have a daughter to join the class on a regular basis, it has turned into a mom’s scholar class on the classics of wifehood, homemaking, and motherhood. If you feel like Relief Society doesn’t give you the kind of connections you want on a regular basis with LDS women who are actively seeking to follow the Spirit and not mainstream culture, then this is the class for you! Come join us!

My husband and I were asked to help mentor a LEMI adult scholar project for our Commonwealth School. IT’s called the Freedom Project and it starts this Thursday, September 15th. We’re meeting from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Bountiful Heights Church at the corner of 400 N and 400 E in Bountiful. It did the class last year and loved it!

This class is for adults and meets twice a month (on the first and third Thursday of each month). We’ll discuss principles of freedom and good government learned from our inspired Founding Fathers.

If you love what your youth are learning at SDLA, this is a perfect opportunity for you as parents to become engaged in your own leadership education class.

We hope you will join us. If you can’t make it this week but want to come next time, our next class will be the first Thursday in October, 10/6/11.

I am going to this event next weekend in Heber Utah! Who wants to come with me? Diann Jeppson is sponsoring a Mom’s Retreat for her Leadership Education Family Builder program the weekend of Sept. 16-17 for moms.

Would you like a little break, with some time for connecting with other women, and time for introspection to help you create a vision and plan to build your family so that you increase the harmony, happiness, and study of the classics in your home?

Come to this Moms’ Retreat!  It’s going to be so fun! The first eight people who leave a comment below can get a $20 discount from me. Just enter your name below and I will email you the coupon code. If you bring your own bedding and pad or mattress then you can pay only $65. What a deal!

Registration Fee: $95, Beds provided, including linens, quilts and pillows.

Discount Registration Fee: $85, Save ten bucks and bring your own sleeping pad, sleeping bag and pillow. Carpeted rooms allow plenty of floor space for moms wanting to save ten bucks, and this allows us to open the retreat to more moms! (Don’t worry, we’ll still feed you!!)

All registrations includes Friday dinner, Saturday breakfast, overnight stay, and a fantastic experience with other moms, planning your great adventure in Family Building! You will get to eat gourmet handmade tamales for dinner!

You may bring babies too! No age limit is specified. I like that. You be the judge of whether or not your baby is ready to separate from you. What a relief for attachment-oriented mamas. Diann has been there, done that, and knows the needs of securely attached babies.

Dive into a weekend Moms’ Retreat featuring a series of workshop-style presentations by Diann Jeppson, and in-depth, supportive dialog with other moms, as you work on developing your unique plan for nurturing and building your family.

Great food and a rustic lodge full of mamas! What could be more fun?

WHEN
Friday, September 16, 2011 4:00 PM  –  Saturday, September 17, 2011 12:00 PM
Mountain Time

WHERE
Lindsey Lodge
2620 E. Lake Creek Rd, Heber City, UT 84032

FEE
View Event Fees

View Event Summary

View Event Agenda

RSVP
Friday, September 16, 2011

Register for Family Builder Mom’s Retreat

We let the kids camp out in the living room a few weeks ago. Then we let them do it in the backyard too a few times.

OK, I can’t sleep. Every once in a while I get insomnia and instead of lying there awake with my mind racing for two hours I have screen time and check up on my email and FB and sometimes blog until I am so sleepy I am nodding off.

Today was a marathon day of dejunking to cap off the two weeks I have been doing this. I also spent time with the boys cleaning their room again. We are getting rid of most of the stuffed animals! Lara Gallagher would be so proud of me! After lunch I focused on finishing up the schoolroom junk. I really wanted our schoolroom ready to start homeschooling tomorrow. Sorry about the lack of pictures of it.  I finally got my desk cleared off, which is in the schoolroom,  and the yard-high pile of papers that was on top of it filed or thrown away. I am determined to be better about filing and stop putting papers in a pile! I also went through the files I created when I first started homeschooling, 12 years ago. I cleared off the homeschool table as well. We don’t have a huge basement to stash things so things that would normally go into a craft room, a sewing room, a laundry room, or a storage room end up on the homeschool table. We have two small storage rooms and I cleaned up a lot in the one room and organized the games.

The homeschool closet has some new crayons and markers in it too to surprise the younger kids. I am excited for tomorrow. It’s always fun to say, “let’s hurry and get the breakfast dishes done so we can go see what surprise is in the closet for school.” It almost feel like Christmas. My little girl Princessa has been begging me to start school. When I told her we would start tomorrow she said, “Yes! I love homeschool!” I can’t say enough about Mary Ann Johnson’s program to teach homeschoolers about “the closet” in homeschooling. It really works, to get your kids beg for school, at least for Princessa. Cowboy, who is 18 months older, has been telling me he doesn’t want school to start. He’s such a funny kid. He secretly likes it I think. He actually asked me to teach him to read a few weeks ago so I am somehow going to fan that spark into a flame. As far as academics is concerned, I prefer waiting for kids to beg for it. It’s so much easier that way. It’s time to pull out the Cowboy Andy book that I thought we had lost but happily found during my dejunking.

Cowboy learned how to ride his bike without training wheels. Yee-haw! His big brother taught him how to pop a wheelie.

Tonight I remembered that we have been meaning to move my toddler into a big bed instead of his crib. With Valor off to college, my husband decided it was time to play musical beds and move Cowboy into his bed and Bugsy into Cowboy’s bed. Bugsy has been sleeping in a crib next to our bed in a sidecar arrangement so I can nurse him easily during the night.

My baby is two. He’s the youngest of 7. We are “still” breastfeeding and proud of it. I just found this fun post from my sister’s sister-in-law, Jen. I got to meet her at the California beach last summer. She apparently is quite prolific, both in terms of babies and blogging. She has ten kids and five blogs. Here is her post about extending nursing of her twins http://rtheyallyours.blogspot.com/2009/07/breastfeeding-post-since-its-been-while.html She is a woman after my own heart. Her mom and dad went to La Leche League meetings when she was a kid.

After baby #2, I finally figured out the cosleeping thing to make it harmonious for both parties. I read about it with baby #1 in the Sears’ Baby Book, but i didn’t fully embrace it. I guess I just thought that babies are supposed to sleep in cribs. I did keep his crib in my room though. I’ve never been able to have a baby and separate them into a nursery. Nurseries are usually more about a mom’s need to buy and decorate than they are about the needs of babies.  I remember one night getting up to nurse him and sitting up in bed. The next morning he was in his crib and I didn’t remember putting him back! I still maintain to this day that an angel put him there. With Baby #2, I still started the baby out sleeping in a bassinet by my bed but eventually mastered the lying down to nurse in bed. By the time #3 came, I started nursing in bed from day one, literally, since he was born at home.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a long time because it’s a great shot of my dh and daughters after church one Sunday. My older daughter just showed me how to post is so it wouldn’t be sideways.

Well, fast forward to baby #7. I have let him nurse the longest for night nursing. Usually by the time my baby is 18 months I wean from night nursing. It’s a habit instead of a need for nutrition, at least for my babies, and I prefer to get more sleep at that point.  He usually wakes up in the early  morning hours of 5-6 AM to nurse and goes back to sleep. But he always kicks me a lot and tugs at the breast and it’s so uncomfortable. I don’t know what it is, maybe my milk flow is slow and the supply is low. Here’s a case of where a La Leche League Leader needs a Leader. He doesn’t need to nurse for nutrition during the night any more. I am finally to the point of being ready to break him of this habit.

So I put him to bed in the green bed as we call it, since the bed sheet is green, and then went to bed myself. When he woke up crying a few hours later I went into him and promptly started nursing him back to sleep. Then I remembered that the whole point of all of this was to wean him from night nursing. Oh yeah. Old habits die hard, especially when you have been sleeping. We will start again tomorrow. I’m going to do with him what I did with the other kids, which is to hold him and offer water and rock him and remind him that we don’t nurse at night any more. He might be mad about it, but at least he won’t be sad from me letting him cry it out because I will be holding him. There’s a big difference there and I have to keep reminding myself of that.

This is Valor and all the kids before he left for college. We got to see him this week when he came back for an ortho appointment. I am so jealous that he gets to take these awesome classes at George Wythe. He is studying Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations right now and is going to be reading Laddie! I am determined to figure out a way to go observe a few classes.

These Fascinating Womanhood principles are working! I’ve been applying them and I do feel happier in my marriage. Today my husband told me not to do something I planned to do and gave the reasons why, namely, because he feels I need to spend more time homemaking and childrearing. I decided he was right and agreed instead of fighting back, even though the “natural woman” part of me wanted to. Later today he fixed our gate, which is something I have been wanting him to do for a loooong time. My baby keeps running away when he is outside, no surprise there. He also agreed to something in the provider department that I asked him to do. I don’t know if it has anything to do with me being more fascinating but I like to think it does.

I had an absolutely lovely time yesterday with my online finishing school. Anyone who isn’t a part of it is missing out!. My dear friend Michelle who moved to Guam has joined and she had so many wise points to share. We discussed Deborah, Hannah, and Huldah from the Bible. I really love discussing with these women because as I discuss I come up with ideas that I wouldn’t come up with in any other way. I can see why Oliver DeMille says that discussion is one of the great environments of learning. So come join my Zion Finishing School, you will love it! Click on the tab about it above to learn more. You know you want to. Here’s what is coming up for us to learn and discuss: Nourishing Traditions, Dr. Mom tips, how to teach emotional purity to our youth as they court, and the book Good Wives, the sequel to Little Women. I can already see principles of Fascinating Womanhood in Good Wives and it’s lots of fun. I can’t wait to discuss them! Jo is such a hoot!

We talked about Deborah showed FW principles in working with the men in her community. She did the feminine thing of inspiring, and then the men did the hard physical work of fighting the battle. We also discussed Hannah. I thought it was interesting that Hannah combined fasting with prayer when she prayed to have a child. So that opened up a huge discussion of why fasting makes prayer more powerful. I shared that it has to do with the Law of the Vacuum. When we create space in our lives by literally creating space in our bodies by going without food, that helps us attract the blessings we want. I also like to create space in my home before each Fast Sunday, like I did for this Fast Sunday, by dejunking. We sent a ton of stuff today to the trash pile and the thrift store. As i talked about this idea it also occurred to me that I can create space in time as well by giving up something timewise. One of the class members mentioned giving up time on Facebook. I have been better about that lately and I’m pleased with that.

I didn’t even know who Huldah was until I read about her for my class and I think she’s cool too. It’s amazing how I graduated from seminary and BYU and still didn’t know who Huldah was! I want to be like her too, and have the courage to tell the truth to those in authority even if it might mean bad news for me.

We are getting ready for our new homeschool year to start the day after Labor Day. I am so excited to start this year, thanks to the terrific mentoring I’ve had from Mary Ann Johnson and her grand idea of the Closet, and how to actually use it. See http://home-school-coach.com

In preparation, and to create a house of order out of chaos, I have been dejunking the school room and the storage room that is next to it. Here, no kidding, is a sampling of what I found:

• a bag of potatoes with 10 feet of sprouts growing from them (one of my littles must have been pretending to be going shopping and left it the storage room)
• a darling brand new sun hat and a now -too-small sun suit that were given to my baby as a new baby gift. He’s 2 now and doesn’t fit the suit. Sigh. I put it on him for a day anyway just to be able to say that he wore it.
• Two checks that I had misplaced and blamed one of my kids for losing them. Yikes!
• Papers about homeschooling that I filed over ten years ago, including a list of goals that i had for my firstborn for his kindergarten and first grade homeschooling years. Now he’s in college. I think he’s achieved those goals, although not all by the deadline of the end of those years. I’m so much more of a relaxed homeschooling mom than I used to be, thanks to TJED and Headgates (although I still don’t agree with everything in Headgates)
• Lots of things that I finally feel free to throw away, like newsletters and magazines. Hooray!
• A map with the words to the Geography Songs tape that I played for the kids last year. I kept wanting to have they lyrics in front of me and couldn’t find the book. Now I have taped the map with the lyrics on the wall in the school room.
• my collection of LDSHEA newsletters with an old interview with Rachel DeMille that I can’t wait to read
• an email that Kelli Poll sent to me long before I met her in person, with answers she gave to questions I had
• so much more stuff that I won’t go into! Suffice it to say that I am really glad I’ve dejunked. I’m actually not done, it’s a continual process around here. I’ve learned to not let that overwhelm me.
  

Nicholeen Peck shared this cool video about planning for a new school year. I am going to do this on Sunday to plan our year. I am not going to worry about overlapping with my Master Inspire Plan.

I love summertime! I love lovely summer evenings in backyards. This photo is of our neighbors’ entry to their backyard. They had us over for a barbecue. Don’t you just want to walk right in and sit a spell?

The ending of summer is always a bittersweet time for me. I hate for summer to end, because it means going back to stricter schedules of schooltime and it means fall and cold weather are around the corner. My inner Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes wants to rebel and have summer and no school go on forever! Yet my inner-parent-of -Calvin knows that school is good for my character and my kids’ characters and future. So I compromise and wait until the day after Labor Day to start homeschool.

With back to school time upon us, people are thinking about school and education. They are thinking about what education is and what it involves. Does it  always have to involve sending kids away someplace for four-plus hours a day? Does it have to involve spending a lot of money on curriculum? Does it have to involve teachers’ unions? Does it have to involve teachers who are state-certified? Do all those things ensure the best education? What is the best education? Does it matter? You bet it does! Education determines what you know, and what you know influences your choices, and the results of your choices determines how happy you are.

I love this photo above because it captures what summer is: colorful, pleasant, warm, and inviting. And even though summer usually means a vacation from “school,”  summer epitomizes the ideal education to me. Summer means freedom, because summer usually has good weather and good weather facilitates a lot more activity, movement, and travel, which all facilitate learning, more so than winter does. Summer also means a break from school, and sometimes a break from the rules and attendance at school actually invites more learning.

The best/ideal/celestial  education, like summer, invites us to explore and learn and become all that we can become, which is ultimately, to be like Christ and our Father in Heaven. Just as summer has the right temperature for trees and flowers to bloom, so does celestial education have the right, warm environment to help us to bloom.

The best/celestial education involves freedom. Freedom to choose. Neil Flinders wrote a book about that called Teach the Children: An Agency Approach to Education. Latter-day Saints believe that agency is so important, a war in heaven was fought over it. Is it still important today? Does it apply to education?

Did you know that the LDS Church is behind a movement to promote agency-based education? That’s what Aneladee Milne reported at a recent parents’ meeting for our commonwealth school. Aneladee is a homeschooling mom, cofounder of Leadership Education Mentoring Institute (LEMI), and founder of LEAP, Leadership Education Alternatives to Parents. Aneladee said that BYU-Idaho is completely changing and is becoming the example in the LDS Church of what a school can be based on agency-based education. She said that BYU-Provo is to be the church school focused on research.

Aneladee shared that she recently went to an education conference sponsored by the Sutherland Institute. It was by invitation only and she got to sit by Janeen Brady. I am soooo jealous! This sounds like an “inner ring” regarding education in Utah. Janeen’s daughter, Michelle Stone, was there as well. Michelle has a presentation on what Celestial Education is. You can watch it here

Celestial Education – Michelle Stone from Gospel of Liberty on Vimeo.

They all got to hear from Neil Flinders who was the keynote speaker. Doesn’t this sound so cool?!? I am hosting a fireside on Celestial Education so we can all learn more about this. ( I will blog the recap for those of you who live too far away.) For the fireside, I am going to open up the floor for parents to share what has worked for them to create a celestial education for them and their children. Then Aneladee will share what she learned at the conference.

It will be Sunday evening Sept. 11, 2011

6:00 to 8:30 PM

Layton UT in my backyard so bring your own chairs

If you want to come, please email me at celestia_shumway at yahoo dot com and I will email you my address and directions.

Many in the world don’t know the secrets to being a happy wife, mother, and homemaker. Yes, it is possible to find joy in these traditional roles! If you feed your body right with classic foods and your brain with classic books, and feed your spirit with a relationship with God and other women and a fascinating relationship with your husband, joy abounds.

(joy abounds except for Cowboy, who looks like he was poked with a barbed wire!)

In the Zion Finishing School, LDS women are studying about classic foods for the body and classic books for the mind. We are learning to be the best homemakers in the world. We meet weekly online on Fridays and discuss what we’ve read or have a presentation. Come join us! It’s only $24 a month.

Here’s what we’ve already studied. By signing up you can have access to the recordings of these classes:

• Eve and the Choice Made in Eden
• The Art of Homemaking by Daryl Hoole
• The Lost Art of Gardening
• Fascinating Womanhood by Helen Andelin, the womanly art of wifing
• the first few chapters in The Women of the Old Testament
• G.K. Chesterton’s essay on What’s Wrong with Feminism
• Etiquette on Eating
• elegant, feminine hairstyles

Here is what is coming up to study in the coming year, September to end of November, we break for December, and then January to April:

• why Mary Poppins was right about cod liver oil
• how to eat so you don’t get sick
• how you have the power to keep your family from getting sick
• etiquette on being a hostess and a guest
• the power of creating meals for your family and discussion of the movie, Babette’s Feast
• how to create a hope chest
• proper courtship, how to prepare your youth for such
• the lost art of family dining
• how to incorporate Weston Price’s diet ideas into a modern life with lots of kids
• how to be a Dr. Mom in your home
• the lost art of sewing
• the lost art of quilting
• the lost art of handicrafts
• Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott
• Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskill
• When Queens Ride By
• the lost arts of simple, fun holiday traditions
• the rest of the book of Women of the Old Testament

Just to go to the Zion Finishing School tab on this web site to read more and find out how to sign up! It’s only $24 a month, and you can get $6 off each month’s tuition for each person you get to sign up with you,.

My son and his college friend Andrew Humiston are mentoring this class for youth-aged scholars called Be Andau Now! It’s for youth preparing to enter college, any college, but especially George Wythe College. My son has worked hard to get a great education in his teen years. He gave up scholarship offers at BYU and SVU to go to GWU. Youth who take the class will get mentoring on how to win the Andau Character Prize, a scholarship for one year’s tuition at George Wythe. They will also polish their public speaking skills, their interviewing skills, and their scholar skills.

It starts Sept. 12th and it’s online so anyone anywhere can take it. The first class is FREE!

Here’s more info from Unleashing Your Voice, the organization sponsoring the class:

We’re building on the success of last year’s Let’s Be Andau Now! class by teaming up Andrew Humiston with the 2011 winner of the Andau Character Scholarship from George Wythe University, Hilton Shumway.

Let’s Be Andau Now! is a weekly online class which provides a source of motivation and inspiration for scholars as they:

·        Develop their character through learning the Five Vital Abilities of someone who IS free.  So many people fail to implement the principles—even when they know them!  The environment of this class encourages scholars to own their lives and to live with integrity.

·        Meet one-on-one with a mentor each week to report progress in their educational goals like study hours and self-improvement.  Accountability with someone beside mom and dad is so helpful! 

·        Focus on broadening what they are already doing in their own education to include bodies of knowledge covered in the Andau competition.  There’s a reason why the oral boards in that competition require a working knowledge of geography,  World History, and the Founding documents!  It is because all well educated people should have that breadth.  The students are inspired to master the information incrementally rather than cramming and consequently forgetting.

·        Participate in a positive social environment and connect with other scholars who share a desire for continual improvement.  Watching the class support each other during the final simulated competition was a great experience.  They had bonded together and the encouragement and sincere congratulations for the winners proved that their time together had been well spent.

The first class is on September 12^th and is free!  We want you to meet the mentors and get a feeling for why this life-changing class will enhance what you are already doing!

For more information, the flier for this class is attached and pasted below.  To attend the first day, send an email to unleashingyourvoice@gmail.com for the link.  Registration is limited to 20 students and is available at http://unleashingyourvoice.com/online-classes.php

Let’s be Andau Now!

A Character Class for Those Striving for Greatness

A life-changing class for scholars—whether or not they plan to compete for the Andau Character Prize Scholarship from George Wythe University

Class dates: September 12^th-December 5^th

Join Andrew Humiston and Hilton Shumway, the 2010 and 2011 Andau Character Scholarship Recipients, as they continue their journey of becoming Andau and teach you to implement the Five Vital Abilities!

This Class will help you:

·       Improve your character by learning and applying the Five Vital Abilities!

·       Be accountable through individual weekly return-and-report sessions.

·       Master the content listed in the Andau requirements* over two semesters rather than cramming.

·       Have fun broadening your education with other awesome scholars like you!

Be inspired by guest speakers including:

·       James Ure, Headmaster of Williamsburg Academy

·       Aneladee Milne, President of LEAP, author of New Commonwealth School.

·       Tatiana Milne, 2004 Andau Character Scholarship Recipient, Founder of Tip to Tip.

You can choose to participate in a simulated Andau Competition! (Free with 2-semester enrollment, a $30 value!)

·       Includes Essay, Character Watch, and Oral Board Exam

·       Win a $30 gift card to the place of your choice!

* See Andau requirements at www.youthforfreedom.org

2 Hour Class once per week, 12 week Session for $95 (plus $7 workbook)

Mondays 11:00-1:00 p.m. Pacific Time/12:00-2:00 p.m. Mountain Time

This will be a two-semester class. Registration for second semester is not yet available.

This class is limited to 20 students. 

Don’t procrastinate registering! (That would be so un-Andau!)

Register by going to http://www.unleashingyourvoice.com/online-classes.php

Meet the Mentors!

Andrew Humiston, is the winner of the 2010 Andau Character Scholarship from George Wythe University where he has completed his freshman year.  For more than two years, he has been a coach for Unleashing Your Voice! in seminars around the country and online classes.  He has a broad range of experience as a public speaker, he has spoken at the opening session of the TJEd Forum and been a featured speaker at youth conferences. During the years he was developing his talents in this area he experienced a broad range of events in speech and debate, you can see him presenting a Humorous Interpretation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMWnh9DwBtU  He has also produced a debate DVD to augment learning and teaching debate.   In addition to being a TJYC graduate, Andrew wrestled for four years for his local high school and was involved in musical theatre, Shakespearean theatre, ballroom dancing, and piano.  He has also achieved the Eagle Scout rank and was elected as Student Representative by his peers.  Mentoring Practice and Apprentice Scholar youth individually and in last year’s Let’s Be Andau Now! class has given him the experience to be a source of inspiration and the skills to bring out the best in people.  Andrew will co-mentor this class until he departs in December for Villahermosa, Mexico to serve an LDS mission.

Hilton Shumway, is the winner of the 2011 Andau Character Scholarship and is joining the Unleashing Your Voice! team of mentors.  His scholar years were spent achieving a great education and developing a wide variety of skills.  He is a graduate of TJYC, an avid reader, and takes a particular interest in Medieval combat which included participating in re-enactment activities.  He has experience competing in Oratory, Lincoln-Douglas debate, and Student Congress.  For the last four years, he participated in the AYLI Freedom Bowl and took 1^st Place in three of those competitions (and a very respectable 2^nd place in the fourth!) In his spare time he enjoys ballroom dancing, eating, and sleeping!  Hilton is an Eagle Scout and a lover of freedom. He got scholarship offers to BYU, Southern Virginia University, and GWU. He plans to use his expertise in technology to guide legal policy and liberate people’s lives.  Having a great education and an understanding of the struggles that scholar-aged youth go through will make Hilton a great asset as a mentor for youth.

Take advantage of receiving mentoring from these two amazing young men!

Virtue has arrived at the point where she can style her own hair at age 15, better than I can. When she was little, I had a hard time doing her hair every morning amidst all my other duties, including a constantly nursing baby.. Many a Sunday she went to church without curls and other hairstyles I dreamed about doing for my daughter when she hardly had any hair at age 2. Then by the time I refocused and figured out how to make time to do her hair, she lost interest in my doing it.

She got these lovely curls by using Curlformers all by herself.

But now she can do her own so I am happy about that. She gets inspiration from http://babesinhairland.com and http://hairromance.com. She gets very creative! I am so pleased that she wants to wear her hair in a feminine elegant way. I think Helen Andelin would be pleased. We both have thick hair that is perfect for messy buns and twists. Now I get to start all over with Princessa, who at age 5 doesn’t like me to do her hair and messes it up right after it’s combed.

She loves to do all sorts of buns and twists and braids. FUN and FEMININE!