merry christmas

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

Love,
Merilee

Laundry

Monday is my laundry day. It always has been. When I was growing up, one of my favorite book series was the "Little House" books. Actually, they are still among my favorites. In the first book, Little House on the Prairie, one chapter talks about the daily lives of Ma, Mary and Laura. They had a specific job for a specific day. The saying went like this,

Wash on Monday
Iron on Tuesday
Mend on Wednesday
Churn on Thursday
Clean on Friday
Bake on Saturday
Rest on Sunday.

Those pioneer women were smart! Yes, I realize they probably did things that way because some jobs took a long time (laundry) due to not having the convenience appliances that we have today plus they also had other things to do (cook, wash dishes, chores, tend the garden). But the principle is good. Do one major job a day and then you'll have time to do the other things you want and need to do.

So anyway, I channeled my Pioneer Woman and set Monday as my laundry day. I will do laundry on other days if necessary but the Big Laundry Day is Monday. And yes, there's times when I put it off for several days. This week was one of those times. Doing laundry is not my favorite job to do but there is something really satisfying about seeing those baskets of dirty clothes disappear, to be replaced by the clean clothes, and to see previously empty drawers and hangers get filled with clean clothes, and to replace the empty hampers in their respective homes. This state of laundry bliss only lasts a few hours--until the first person changes clothes, but I know that those clothes can (and will!) stay in the hamper until the next laundry day.

Even though there's 5 of us now, laundry's not quite the chore it might be. I've set up a system that works pretty well and gets my two older children doing their fair share of work in the laundry area.

So this is how it goes: I tell my children to gather their dirty clothes and bring their laundry baskets to my room. (Even though they have laundry baskets in their rooms, they still throw things on the floor, in the closet and under the bed). They separate out their own clothing. I'll separate the clothes in the basket in my room and from the hamper in the bathroom and gather up kitchen linens from the kitchen). During the day, I'll wash and dry the loads. Then I'll bring the baskets of clean laundry to my room. At this point what happens next depends. If I've procrastinated and started laundry late, I'll dump everything on my bed and call everyone in for a Laundry Dig. Everyone (me, DH and the two older children) will dig through the pile and gather their own things. DH will hang up/put away his own things. OK (older kids) will dump their stuff in their baskets and cart them back to their own rooms and hang/put away. I'll deal with my own stuff, the baby's stuff and "public" stuff like bath towels and kitchen linens. If I'm a good girl and keep on top of laundry, I will put away my stuff, DH's stuff, baby's stuff and public stuff. As I find the OK's stuff, I will toss it into their baskets. When they get home from school (or when I'm done), they'll cart their baskets to their room and put away their clothes. It works pretty well!

So, I finally got everything done yesterday. I know I only have a few days to enjoy the laundry-less time but I'll enjoy it while I can!

long time no blog

Well, it has been forever (it seems) since I last blogged in August. I've had plenty to say and I've written many posts in my head but when it came time to actually type said posts, I thought about it and said, 'forget it'.

What has happened since the last post in August? The biggest thing was that we had a baby boy! Baby Boy was born in early October. He is 2 months old now and is such a joy! Also Older Sister and Big Brother started school. We have also done some house projects. We celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving. And now it's time to think Christmas!

I hope to blog more regularly about what's happening in my life as well as my thoughts on random subjects such as homemaking, scrapbooking, sewing, gardening--in short, all the things I like to do.

Organizing and projects

Well, the "nesting" instinct kicked in this summer. I have been working on various organizing projects around my home.

[ scrapbook stuff ]

I have 8 banker style boxes labeled "scrapbook" of various flavors (mission, wedding, kids, high school, college, etc.) stacked up next to my work table. One day last week I pulled out one of them to see what was in there. I was surprised to see a bunch of hanging folders labeled with different categories and some stuff already in them. I put them in one of my crates and started going through other boxes, filing pictures, cards, letters and other memorabilia in the appropriate category. I have now got 3 empty boxes. The crate with the hanging files is stuffed rather full now but things are organized in a way that when I am ready to start scrapping, everything will be together. Once the organizing is done, the actual scrapping should go pretty quick. I admit I did throw away a lot of stuff. Some of it I couldn't identify and other stuff was old cards and letters. I read through them and didn't feel any particular desire to keep them so out they went after a few moments of enjoying them. Can't keep everything!

I finished the Disney scrapbook and put those pages along with the pages from our 2003 trip to Washington State (for a Swain family reunion) into a new binder that is labeled "Vacations". That really thinned out the Family book--which will get filled right back up soon. Another part of this scrapbook project has been to find pages that are partially done, get them done and put in chronological order by year and now they are ready for page protectors and to be put in the family book. I have a stack of finished pages 3 inches thick ready to go in!

[ cross stitching ]

Another hobby of mine is cross stitching. I had a lot of partially finished projects that I decided I would just buckle down to and get done. Most of them just needed the sort-of-boring part done. For example, one project was a snowman that just needed the white part filled in. Which doesn't sound so bad except that there were large areas of just white and I find that gets boring after awhile. But this time I just did it. I need to go get those finished projects out and count how many I've done. Some I will frame, others I'm going to try my hand at making wall hangings, pillows or other decorations. I'll post pictures later.

[ sewing ]

My third hobby is sewing. Again, I had a lot of partially finished projects. Right now I am working on a Peter Pan costume for Jordan. I originally started it as a dress up costume but Jordan wants to be Peter Pan for Halloween so I am working on that one first. With Baby Swain due 2 weeks before Halloween, I need to get costumes done early! Christie wants to be a witch so as soon as the Halloween fabrics come in, I will go get some to make her a cape and a black dress. I also had a basket full of clothes that needed mending. Mostly replacing missing buttons or fixing hems. I was surprised at how quickly I got those mending projects done. I have a box full of old blue jeans that have been outgrown or worn out that I want to cut into squares and make a blue jean quilt. So that's another sewing project to work on.

As I finish projects and get boxes emptied, those boxes go out! The banker boxes I collapse and bind together with bungee cords and store in a closet for other use. Packing boxes get recycled. And I get more "open space"! There's something very freeing about finishing projects and finding places for them in my home and getting rid of the boxes and opening up space. Same for going through storage boxes that usually are full of junk that gets thrown away/donated.

summer school

I am not a homeschooler but I do believe children should have learning activities during school breaks (especially summer) to keep them mentally sharp and learning. Each May I vow I will have my children do learning activities and each summer we don't do it.

This year I found a new idea that I thought would help us with the school activities. It's called lapbooking. We have really enjoyed and are on our second week of school. June 9-13 we did an unit on outer space. Last week (June 16-20) we were supposed to do a weather unit but we had something going on nearly every day so school got pushed aside. This week (June 23-27) we are doing an unit on the human body. We made lapbooks for the space unit and C&J had so much fun making them.

Before I explain how we made the lapbooks, let me explain how I decided on topics. I decided to use what my children learned in school over the past year for our units so we are not really learning new stuff but reviewing what they have already learned. Next week we will talk about America, and then other topics we will cover are: Australia, Native Americans, Pioneers, South America, magnets, plants and animals.

We cover one topic each week (we do school 4 days a week with a field trip on Thursdays). I choose a religious story that has to do with the topic. I also find books that have information about the topic. Tuesday is our library day. My children can choose 4 books: one must be about the topic we are discussing this week, one must be a grade-level book (to keep up their reading skills) and then the other two can be whatever they want. They write a book report about their topic book. We collect information, draw, color or cut out pictures that illustrate what we are learning, and find other information that then goes into the lapbook. We also do math review.

So, here are some pictures of our outer space lapbooks.

First, I took a file folder and folded the outer edges so they meet in the middle. Then C&J wrote the title and their names on the outer flaps.














I cut a piece of construction paper to 8x11" and used clear packing tape to tape the paper to the left side of the folder at the crease. Then I cut another piece of paper to 8x11" and taped that to the right side of the folder at the crease. This made two extra pages. We made planets out of construction paper and glued them on the black page.








The other side of the black piece of paper has the vocabulary list. The green paper has pictures the children drew of the Creation story (as told in Genesis 1 and 2).













The other side of the green paper has pictures I took at the Clark Planetarium (our field trip) of the International Space Station and a weather set like the one our local TV station uses.

The back of the folder (blue section) has pictures of the scale model of the solar system at the Planetarium.








The left flap of the book has a picture of the space shuttle and one of the children looking through a telescope with a brief explanation of why they are important.



















The other flap has pictures of C&J "visiting" the moon and Mars.






















We had a lot of fun making these lapbooks. We did something every day to add to the lapbooks so the children were excited about school time. I think this will make it easier and more motivating to do summer school because it is fun and the children have something to keep and read.

i'm an old-fashioned gal

Yep, I'm an old-fashioned girl. I love homemaking arts and being at home. My favorite books are the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I can't decide which is my favorite--Little House in the Big Woods or Farmer Boy. I enjoy these two books in particular because they have so many details of farm life--the work of a farm, butchering, making candles, making fabric, making cheese, smoking meat, etc. etc. So I decided I'd do a book review chapter-by-chapter of Farmer Boy.

FARMER BOY, chapter 1

Almanzo's clothes are described. How the wool that made the fabric came from his father's sheep and what his mother used to dye the wool. I bet the only thing that was "store-bought" were the buttons.

They walked a mile and a half to school. In the snow. Deep snow. I can't imagine too many kids doing that these days--either they ride the bus or their moms take them to school. That would be character-building--to walk a total of 3 miles a day in cold weather and not grumble about it.

Apparently bullying knows no time boundaries. Those big boys from Hardscrabble Settlement sound like quite the bullies. I'd be scared too, if I knew they only came to school in the winter and for the express purpose of beating up the teacher. I do wonder, though, why other families in the school didn't do something about it. Like tell those boys they couldn't come to school or something.

Interesting that a term was defined as the length of time it took for the teacher to spend two weeks with each family. Wonder how many families were in the school.

I like the standards of expected behavior: no whispering, no fidgeting, keep your eyes on your book. Students today could take a page from the pioneer school book.

Well, that's it for chapter one. More tomorrow.

so long, marlee

Well, it was great while it lasted but this week Marlee Matlin got voted off Dancing with the Stars. She had two low scores in two weeks and apparently the fans decided not to keep her. I'm disappointed because I really enjoyed watching her but I'm also proud of her for making it this far and showing the world what she could do.

Thanks for a great ride, Marlee.

dancing with the stars

I'll admit it--I wasn't too excited about this show before. Occasionally I'd catch a dance or two on previous seasons but never made a point of watching it.

But for Season Six of DWTS, I'll be watching! Why? Because a Deaf actress--Marlee Matlin--is on it! Tonight (Tuesday, March 18th), the women performed for the first time. Marlee was the last performer and she did an absolutely fantastic job! She was in step with her partner, she had expression, she looked like she was having fun!

On this first show, they filmed footage of the dancers explaining their backgrounds, the first meeting between the star and dance partner, and their practice sessions. Marlee had an interpreter with her and while the background footage didn't show a whole lot of the interaction between Marlee, her interpreter and her dance partner, it was enough to be interesting.

Then after the dance, when they were talking to the judges and later backstage, you could tell Marlee was watching her interpreter--even though he was not shown on camera, her eyes were looking off to the side instead of to the camera. But she still looked at the hosts, her partner and the camera enough that you didn't feel she was ignoring anyone.

I went to vote at tv.com and she already had over 3,000 votes! Go Marlee!

Sorry there's no picture--I can't figure out how to load a picture from the web.

six-year-old logic

Jordan's class had a big 100th day of school celebration not too long ago (sorry, I can't remember the exact day of the 100th day of school).

For his homework he filled in this questionnaire:

If I had a hundred…

If I had a hundred dollars, I would buy candy

If I had a hundred pencils, I would write with them.

If I had a hundred mosquito bites, I would put ice on them.

If I had a hundred friends, I would play with them.

If I had a hundred legs, I would walk with them.

If I had a hundred eyes, I would see with them.

If I had a hundred Moms, I would play with all of them.

If I had a hundred dads, I would play with them too.

If I had a hundred computers, I would play games

If I had a hundred books, I would read them.

Then in class, the children made a 100th day book. It had cute activities like counting to 100 by 2s, 10s, etc. And the last page was another little questionnaire.

Jordan said,

I could eat 100 M&Ms.

I could eat 100 pizzas.

I could eat 100 spaghettis (he later clarified that to mean "scoops" of spaghetti").

But I could never eat 100 sweets (meaning candies).

M&Ms aren't sweets or candy? What are they, then?

Gotta love 6 year old logic!

this and that

[ winter: hello, goodbye, hello again ]

The last couple of days we've had some lovely weather. It's still cold in the mornings and evenings but the days have been really pleasant. It's been so warm over the past 2 days, in fact, that most of the snow in the front yard has melted. Today (Feb. 13), another snowstorm moved in. It's blustery and windy and hard to see. The first pictures are from my sister's house. The last one is looking out the window of Jordan's bedroom at the storm today.




This winter has been reminiscent of the winters I remember growing up. A storm every few days, and more than 3 inches of snow in the yard! As far as I am aware, we have not had any inversions so bad that the children have to stay inside during recess time.

My sister and brother-in-law win the award for having the most snow. I went up to visit them about a week after their new daughter was born and I couldn't believe how much snow they had.

[ farewell, president hinckley ]

The media coverage for President Hinckley was incredible. I bought the Deseret News the day after he passed away and plan to make a scrapbook page. He has been the only prophet my children have known thus far. We watched and recorded the funeral and some other programs that Channel 5 ran about him.

[ welcome, president monson ]

It was no real surprise that President Monson is our new prophet. Steven and I were pretty sure that President Eyring would be retained. So the big question was who the other counselor would be. And it is...President Dieter Uchtdorf! Now we get to wonder who the new Apostle will be. April 2008 General Conference should be quite interesting!



[ science fair ]

The science fair was on Feb. 7th. We worked right up until it was time to go to get everything ready. Note to Mommy: do NOT procrastinate next year! Christie's project was research on the relationships between the sun, moon and earth. Jordan's was about the water cycle. They both got participation awards and Jordan got a special participation certificate that was given to K, 1, and 2 students.





[ winter blahs ]

This week Christie, Jordan and I have all come down with colds. Not fun.

[ church ]

Not much new here. I'm still teaching the Deaf Valiant class and assistant music leader and Steven teaches the 2nd/3rd Sunday Priesthood lessons.

[ work ]

Again, not much new here. I'm still working on various projects for Deaf Mentor and Steven's doing his usual at Sorenson.

first home improvement project

Saturday, January 26: We did our first real home improvement project! We installed shelves on the wall above my table to create more storage space. I am so excited! Now most of my scrapbook stuff is off the table, which gives me more room to work--now I will be more likely to scrapbook and do other creative projects because I WILL HAVE SPACE TO WORK!

This is the before: I took the picture after I had already cleared off some stuff but this is is pretty much how it looked:


This is the wall space after everything was removed from the table and the table was taken down:


The mess I made of our office with all my stuff moved:


The shelves installed:

That was quite a project! What we thought would be a 30 minute project turned into about an hour project. The walls in the office are soundproofed so the screws didn't go in all the way with the cordless drill fitted with a screwdriver bit. We screwed in the last quarter-inch or so by hand with a screwdriver. That was rather hard work! We found out our drill COULD screw them in all the way with an adjustment to more power--when there were only 2 more screws to put in. *rolls eyes*. Oh well. We got it done!

And the finished project:


I'd like to do a little more in the way of decorating and I may move things around a bit, but for now, it seems to be working.

Happy crafting to me!

jordan's weather book

This is a slideshow of a weather book Jordan worked on in school. I thought it was really cute!

christie's indian project

Here are some pictures of Christie's Indian project she did for school:



This is the speech she gave in class:

The Teepee

The Comanche were Plains Indians. The Plains Indians lived from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to Mexico. They lived along rivers and streams so they could have water for bathing, drinking and cooking. When living in their villages along the rivers, the Indians built earth lodges. The Comanche tribe mostly lived in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico.

The buffalo was very important to Plains Indians. Buffalo provided meat to eat. The skins were used for teepees and clothing. The bones were made into musical instruments. No part of the buffalo was wasted. The buffalo herds roamed the plains in search of food and water. The Comanche Indians followed the buffalo herds. When hunting, they lived in teepees.

Teepees were made of animal hides. The hides were stretched over poles arranged in a circle. The poles leaned together at the top. The teepee opening always faced east. If the teepee flap was open, a visitor was invited to enter. If the flap was closed, the visitor was to announce himself and wait for the host to invite him in. Teepees could be set up and taken down quickly to follow the buffalo herds.

When a teepee was taken down, the poles were used to carry the teepee and the family’s belongings. This was called a travois. The travois allowed the Indians to travel with the buffalo herds.

The Power of Routines

This is what my kitchen looked like this afternoon:


A mess, huh?

Some time ago I developed a routine for cleaning up my kitchen quickly and efficiently. It has 11 steps. I know, I know, that sounds like a lot. But trust me, once you get into some kind of routine, it goes fast.

So, the steps are:

1. Clear off the table. By this I mean clear off every last thing--the dishes, the food, the used napkins, the salt and pepper shakers, the hot pads.
2. Give the table a good wipe-down. Pay attention to sticky spots.
3. Make the table pretty. This can be a tablecloth and centerpiece; placemats and a basket of fruit or whatever you have that is attractive. My table decorations change with the season or holiday. Right now I have snow-scene placemats and a wire basket of fruit on my table.
4. Put away all food. Leftovers, food used in preparing a meal, spices--any and all food is put away.
5. Put away anything that is not a dirty dish. Recipes, cookbooks, trash, small appliances--all this is put where it belongs.
6. By now the only thing left to deal with should be dirty dishes. But before we can deal with dirty dishes we need to have a place to put them. So the next step is to put away the clean dishes.
7. Now we're ready to move on to the dirty dishes. This is significantly easier if you have a dishwasher. And it gets even easier if you have the kind that doesn't require pre-rinsing.
8. I always have some things that need handwashing, so that's the next step.
9. After dealing with all the dishes, I wipe down the counters and stove top.
10. I then collect everything that does not belong in the kitchen and put it in a laundry basket to put away where it belongs.
11. Final step is to sweep the floor.

This is what the kitchen looked like after I was done:


How long did that take? From start to finish--45 minutes. Some days it takes less time, some days more time.

I love having a kitchen clean-up routine because no matter how bad the mess, I know I can get it cleaned up without feeling overwhelmed. I just start out with the table and continue all the way to sweeping the floor and putting things away.

Set up a kitchen clean-up routine for yourself! It'll be much easier to keep your kitchen clean!

Open House

SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 2008

[open house]

Welcome to my blog! I hope to share my thoughts about lots of different ideas, from homemaking to scrapbooking to gardening to child rearing to...whatever! I'll post pictures and videos and tell stories...whatever strikes my fancy. Hope you enjoy your time here in my little corner of the blog world!