Tree of Life Mothering

We started this book last week on Audible. (It’s not part of the free collection being offered right now during the pandemic…but here are my recommendations of the free ones being offered.) We’re doing a chapter a day. I learned about it from my sister Emily who highlighted it on her “First Friday” book recommendations on her blog. She quotes Kate DiCamillo as an enthusiastic reader of the book, who actually wondered how it could be the author’s first work. What a great testimonial! My sister gushes over it, saying she’s jealous of anyone who hasn’t read it and that it gave her many moments of mother-child bliss while listening to it and sipping cocoa. See what you have to look forward to? So far I’m loving it, especially that it shows the main character as a teen who doesn’t have a phone and is cool about it.

Then I let my son read aloud the book below. I love that it touches upon each of Dr. Gary Chapman’s five love languages. Next year I will read it during Valentine’s Day week. Sometime soon for Family Night I’m going to encourage my kiddos to brainstorm about the five love languages and family members and encourage them to act on that. Why wait for Valentine’s Day for that?

We then played a rousing game of Apples to Apples Jr. Bugsy, at age 10, won the game. The metagame went well, as nobody got upset or stormed out of the house. Everybody smiled or laughed at some point. This is such a great game! I love that everyone can play on every turn. It teaches new vocabulary words. It’s a good game to peek inside people’s souls a bit to see how they perceive definitions, also to see if they play seriously and pick honest matches (“small=mosquito bites”) or just want to be silly and pick crazy matches (“tame=pillowfights” ?!?!). And…it’s always fun when someone, the “judge,” picks a person’s card that if that person knew who submitted it, wouldn’t pick it. As is what happened this morning.

I love the surprise in that moment! I was pleased that a certain someone was slightly foiled when he/she did that. It’s also good for showing the players that some people can actually agree with them with clever choices, who they thought maybe couldn’t or wouldn’t. It’s fun to see when people are thinking on the same wavelength. We’re going to play this more often on Mondays, our language arts days. Another game that makes my mind reel with DIY-themed possibilities! Like using family photos or family-themed words and names.

With all the turmoil going on, it’s just soooooo good to feel the bright spots coming up…General Conference this Sunday, and Easter, the following Sunday!

So watch above and below for ideas on how you can prepare spiritually.

Foodwise, it’s time to get some Easter molds from amazon if you want to make Easter chocolates. Here’s my recipe for the chocolate. Then here’s my recipe for marshmallows. Combining the two together makes one of my favorite Easter treats, chocolate dipped marshmallows.

For more spiritual helps, here are more resources. Scroll to the bottom and start with Tradition #1. Also see the video above.

I’ve been sharing restoration stories with my children the past weeks and now I’m going to start sharing Easter stories.

I made a cake last night to celebrate the birthday of the Book of Mormon, which is March 26, 1830. So instead of celebrating on March 26, last Thursday, we celebrated last night, with cake, ice cream, and a movie!

We ate our cake, sugar-free and grain-free, while watching the video below. (My new version of a classic yellow keto cake. Recipe coming soon!) This documentary is very interesting! It says that the birthday of the Book of Mormon (March 26) is the same day as the First Vision, but ten years apart, 1830 vs. 1820. I love that the video shows interviews from four scholars, an astronomist, a church historian (Dr. Susan Easton Black), an economic historian, and a meteorologist, PLUS a maple syrup farmer, to pinpoint the exact date. So fascinating!

I just love that April General Conference, Easter, the anniversaries of the Book of Mormon, the First Vision, and the birthday of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (April 6, 1830) are all in spring. So symbolic!

For Friday’s art day we read the above book, based on the true story of a guy who stole the Mona Lisa painting from the Louvre and hid it for two years.

Then we played some art games. (We are group of fewer than ten people so it’s OK that we are meeting together for games every morning.)

(All three of these came from Goodwill.)

and…

the latter was to practice acting/drama skills. It’s like Charades on steroids, because everyone is doing charades at once. We sent the boys out to play football and played it. I’m glad we sent them out, it might have been too much noise. It’s a great game with the right kind of people who don’t mind being silly or acting but can also not get too intense about it and will play fair.

I read this one aloud over Zoom to some homeschool friends! Such a beautiful book about Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s childhood in war-torn Europe. It gives me hope for this crisis we are in now.

This one was a bedtime book for Bugsy. It’s the true story of a scientist, Charles Henry Turner. It’s so fun to discover along with my children people I never heard about in public school! He was a renaissance man for sure.

Guess what this is? It’s an online version of Codenames! We played it long-distance over Zoom with some homeschool friends that afternoon. Then the next day we played in Zoom with cousins in Maine, then the next day with my adult sons in Utah and Texas, for an online Family Game Night. We played brown eyes vs. blue eyes. Just go to horsepaste.com and you can play too! You share the link to the website and then speak your clues over the phone or through video chat. My life just got a lot more fun during social distancing!

If you need rules on how to play Codenames go here. If you want to make your own Codenames cards, go here. It’s seriously one of the most brilliant games ever invented. You could use it for any subject that involves words, which is anything right? I love the subtleties of the clues and the excitement of wondering if your teammates will get it and then the rush when they do! Then when I’m not the spymaster I love collaborating with my teammates to decipher the clues. I’m going to make a family photo Codenames version, then a family history version. My mind is going wild with possibilities!

Wednesdays we do history and geography for our gameschooling. I read this picture book above to Bugsy for his bedtime. In the morning, on Wednesdays lately, I’ve read a few chapters from the book below. We will finish it up this coming week.

Then we played Scotland Yard. This was one of the six games I picked up at my local Goodwill in my amazing, historic board game haul, on March 6 (6 fabulous games for $13.55 in case you missed that news, including Codenames, still in shrinkwrap!) We were going to play it the day before for logic and strategy (which we do for Tuesdays) but ran out of time.

So we played it on Wednesday and I counted it for geography, since the game board is a map of London. A great game, but if you have people involved who are intense personalities, it might bring out the worst in them. It gets exciting! It’s a game where up to 5 players are the detectives for Scotland Yard, chasing a criminal, Mr. X, all over London to nab him. We had strong emotions at the end with the winner storming out of the house because one of the “losers” had a hard time acknowledging that she won. We ran out of time and had to end the game even though it wasn’t finished, and since the winner, who was playing the elusive “Mrs. X” hadn’t been caught, I proposed that she either be the winner, or we could put a bookmark in the game and save everything to come back to it. The winner was rubbing it in that she won and that it was so fun to watch us not catch her.

Then the afore-mentioned “loser” decided to peek at her location when he shouldn’t have so then I said since he did that we couldn’t bookmark the game, it was now over, and she was now the winner. So then he claimed he disqualified himself but she still wasn’t the winner. What?! We are obviously still working on being humble winners and gracious losers. Definitely part of a study of the “metagame.” See video above.

That night I got to play a new game. (Yes, most days we do more than one game. If you’ve read this blog for long you have noticed that :-). ) I was super excited to play Compose Yourself with my daughter for our parent mentor date after dinner. It’s a music game I’ve been eyeing since seeing at my-little-poppies.com.  It had just come in the mail that day, because I ordered it in on ebay for less than $20, brand new, significantly lower than on amazon.

photo credit: amazon.com

So for our date, we sequestered ourselves in her bedroom, listened to Jane Eyre on audio, and drew. I’m going through the “Drawing Textbook,” which I’ve had forever and have attempted to draw one drawing a day for years now. It’s a fantastic drawing education book by Bruce McIntyre, even though it looks so humble with it’s paper cover and stapled binding.

Photo credit: amazon.com

I’m currently on a jag of being consistent in drawing for 15 minutes or so a day, so yay! Dear daughter draws for hours everyday, and will never say no to more time for drawing, especially on the iPad with her stylus she got for her birthday. After listening to two chapters,  we played the music game.

Since before Christmas, it’s mostly been unavailable on amazon. I found out why. The website that allows you to upload the music cards included in the game is no longer functional. Apparently the game is no longer being printed or supported. So we had to play the notes on the piano, but because we didn’t want to leave the bedroom, we downloaded a keyboard onto the iPad. The tunes we made weren’t like John Williams’-movie-scores-bowl-me-over-spectacular-melodies but I can see that if I have more time I can really get into this and hopefully create music I love. I plan on playing with this a lot more to hone my music composition skills. Since I’m not driving back and forth into town two hours a day for seminary and track, I have time! Yay!

 

I usually don’t gameschool on Saturdays, but I did read a book and play some games today anyway which can count. 

I read the picture book to Bugsy for his bedtime story.  I did that after my husband and I had our online date night with friends. We played Mind Trap. See way down below. 

I had bought Mousetrap the day before at the thrift store for less than $3. So that was Bugsy’s fun thing he got to do when his Saturday morning chores were done. He put it together, first attempting his own way, then finally asking me and looking at directions.  I had more fun with this when I was a kid than I did playing it with him. My grandma gave it to me for Christmas when I was 9 maybe? I thought for sure my mom still had it in her games closet but lo and behold when I was in Utah in February, and looked for it, it was gone. I had told Bugsy if I couldn’t find it at Grandma’s, then I’d get it for him while thrifting. So yeah, I went thrifting to my local Goodwill because I don’t have any viral symptoms. I found it deserted so I felt I was social distancing. I bought Mind Trap and Mouse Trap and those Story Cards I mentioned a few posts ago. Anyway, I’ve realized Mouse Trap is a toy, not a game. So I’m in the process of adding in science trivia questions and tying those into earning cheese pieces. 

That night, hubby and I played the Mind Trap game in Zoom with some longtime friends we’ve known since we each had only two kids. We dispensed with spinning the spinner and just picked whatever category we wanted. We played that the winner was the first to answer 5 cards correctly. My friend Becky won. It’s a lot of fun, good for when you want a mental workout. The nerd in me wants to go back and study the cards I missed and figure them out but the practical mom in me has more important things to do :-). When we play again I’ll just only pick the word riddles and avoid all the other categories, LOL!. I’m definitely feeling rusty on algebra. When my  kids hit algebra in homeschool they correct their own work using the Mathusee teacher’s manual so that’s why I’m rusty! 😉

Feeling stressed? Freaking out? Here’s a giveaway of an amazing webinar series to help parents during this troubled time!

I’m pleased to announce that my fabulous friends, Kent and Amy Bowler, homeschooling parents of 7 and grandparents of 4, are starting a 6-week online course to help parents deal with stress, anxiety, and burnout.

Aren’t they cute?

It starts tomorrow, March 26th. They are giving away one registration to the winner of a random drawing. Please comment below in the comments section if you would like to be entered into the random drawing. Winner will be announced tomorrow here on the blog in the comments at 5 PM Utah time.

Look at all these tools you learn to be revolutionary!

Here is a special message from Amy and Kent:

“This could be the ugliest week we’ve ever lived through” was a particularly savory quote this weekend from Christine Romans, CNN’s Chief Business Correspondent, describing the expected economic impact of the virus this week on regular families like yours and ours.

Pretty grim.

But we all feel it.  The weight of the unknown.  It is palpable.

However,

“Heroes are made by the times,” Star Wars, The Clone Wars, Season 1

And it’s true.

This is an amazing time for you to stand up as an incredible, heroic Parent, and to help your children to become Heroes as well.

This is an opportunity to break through the constant bombardment and attacks that are working to pull our families apart and to instead make our families stronger than ever.

We want to help.

We’re starting our Revolutionary Parents mastery course this week and we’ve deeply discounted it so that anyone can participate.  The course has 6 live classes, multiple paradigm shifts, and a parenting toolbox with 14 tools you can implement now to completely change the dynamic in your home.

We’re also including our Revolutionary Youth self-paced program that includes 5 pre-recorded webinars and an accompanying workbook.  Both together are only $97.  Get details on our website.

Those who have taken the course describe how they were able to break through the walls their kids were hiding behind, connect in truly meaningful ways, and have real impact in their lives.

Revolutionary.

In the meantime, we have lots of helps on our online private FB group: Revolutionary Heroes Forum [click here to request to join].

Remember that you as the parents, are the captain of the ship. ou own and control the atmosphere in your home. Break through the noise, stay focused on your purpose, and help your family fly.

If you want to minimize the following in your home:

-anxiety

-burnout

-contention

-discouragement

-emotional outbursts

Then this course is for you! Register here! 

If you would like to enter the drawing for a free registration, comment below.

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”

If you want to register for this course, go here. It starts Thursday March 26. If you want to enter the drawing for a free registration, comment below.

Rick Steves’ videos on YouTube offer wonderful free glimpses into famous museums in Europe.

Perhaps you’d like to get more in-depth looks and a bigger variety of offerings, beyond Europe.

Here is a site, travelandleisure.com that features 12 of the most famous museums and galleries in the world offering virtual tours.

Google Arts and Culture has curated a list of 2500 museums and galleries here that have some kind of way to peek inside at their offerings.

You can see inside Ann Frank’s home here. Corrie Ten Boom’s is over here. These have been availalble online for years, but now we have more time to avail ourselves of these fabulous resources!

Then if you want some coloring pages related to libraries, museums, and galleries, here you go.

Tour the world and color some art without leaving your couch!

I listened to the above amazing talk last Sunday while taking a hot soak in my tub and oh how luscious the whole experience was! Meg is a beautiful, fun, smart and engaging speaker who will rock your socks off as she tells of how angels work, based on the Book of Mormon scripture from 2 Nephi 32, “Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

I love her talks as well as those of John Bytheway and Hank Smith. I have a few of their CDs that we listen to on long drives, especially on Sundays. For years I have checked every few months on YouTube to see if they have new content, but they still have the same ones I’ve heard before.

Guess what? Hank, Meg, and John have an app that is loaded with their talks and resources. It’s called ourturtlehouse.com. It has free services as well as paid-for, monthly subscription, premium services, like podcasts by John and Hank that are updated weekly. I signed up for the premium service and that’s how I was able to listen to the angel  talk.

Right now, during this -world-turned-upside-down-by-the-pandemic, when we are being asked to homechurch and homeschool, you can get the premium part for free!
Just go here and use the code “HOMECHURCHHELPS” to get a free month! Then you can listen to the angel talk by Meg too and see if you love this resource.

If you already know you want the premium service then you can go here and use the code “97CENTS” to get the premium service for 97 cents instead of the regular cost of $9.97. Sweet! Again, go here to sign up click on the monthly plan, then apply the code “97CENTS.” You will be charged 97 cents a month, and can cancel anytime.

I don’t get any commission for promoting this resource, I just love Meg, John and Hank! I think you will too!