tornadoes, Primary, and toes– oh my!

So, it’s been 2 weeks since I last posted. It seems that when I feel like I get into a rhythm and start to feel like I’m on top of things I get a wrench thrown into my little world. I’ll try to catch you up a bit.

First off, I was called as the Primary President of our ward a few weeks ago. (For those of you who aren’t Mormon, Primary is the children’s organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints.) This is fun and exciting– but I’m still trying to learn the ropes and my mind has been occupied with trying to understand Cub Scouts, moving 14 nursery kids and 4 adults to a room bigger than 10′ x 10′, finding substitutes for the teachers who are moving, you know, stuff like that.

The Sunday it was all official I was just hanging out and following the old Presidency to learn how things should go. We were really hot, so we had the door propped open a bit to get some fresh air. After awhile we heard sirens –constant sirens. Looking outside we realized that they were warning of a possible tornado! I started moving classrooms of kids away from windows and into the gym. Once everyone was in there we heard what sounded like a herd of elephants running across the roof. In reality, it was these:

Golf ball sized hail– some even bigger. All of cars were pelted with it. Even a few wind shields were smashed. After it was all over the kids were beside themselves with exciement. We’ve got the hailstones in the freezer and the holes in Jonah’s Easter dress pants to prove it. The funnel cloud actually touched down at a mall a little over a mile away.

But, as wild and exciting as tornadoes are, the real excitement at our house is this:

Toe grabbing!! Who could be happier than a chubby little guy who has discovered he has built in toys? Cute, round, squishy, pink wiggly toys?

And so, I have switched to disposable diapers. Hunter has been pretty miserable whenever he gets wet and since he is the 4th baby to wear my Mother Ease One-Size diapers the washed and worn terry they’re made of is pretty rough and scratchy. Add to that the misery of being able to see his toes but not reach them with a diaper on and we had a pretty mad baby on our hands. I’m not loving the poop blow outs however, so I may be investing in a new cloth system. I’m trying a couple of these so we’ll see.

Aaaah— what could be cuter? I sure wish I could freeze time.

Summer Mom-School

So, I think our computer is back for good. Yay! I’ve had a project in the works for several weeks. I’m a little late in getting it going, but better late than never! Here’s an e-mail I just sent out:

Hi friends!

I’ve been working on a project. For my Ohio friends– do you remember the book group I started where we read books about educating our kids with a few literature classics mixed in? I’ve been desperately missing those discussions and need some ideas and reminders so I came up with a plan.

Anyway, I’d like to get people together to read homeschooling books this summer and then we’ll discuss them via conference call. Here’s the schedule I came up with:

June 27– How Children Learn by John Holt
July 11– Leadership Education: the Phases of Learning by Oliver and Rachel DeMille
August 1– The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
August 22– Teach Like Your Hair is on Fire by Rafe Esquith
September 12– The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

The calls will take place at 8 AM Western, 9 AM Central, 10 AM Eastern. We’ll try to keep them to an hour. The beauty of the discussions being via conference call is that I can chat with some far away friends and do some discussions while I’m on vacation!

Here’s how to participate:

Send me an email at jessica (at) seedpodbooksandart (dot) com with the subject “Summer Mom-School Sign Up” and tell me in the body of the e-mail which books/ dates you would like to participate in. You don’t have to commit to all of them, just those (or the one) that you really would like to read. Then I’ll send you an e-mail with the conference call phone number and access code.

Barry has also set up a blog at www.summermomschool.org where we can write about and discuss the books. I’m also going to post pod-casts of our discussion calls so that we can add some inspiration and thoughtful discourse to cyberspace and maybe help other parents out there.

I know summers are crazy– but when you get a second go through the book list, read book reviews on Amazon, check your library’s availability, and give it some thought. Then write me be back if you want to join in.

You all are so inspiring!!

Love,
Jessica

(And thanks to my friend Jessica for the cool logo thing. She should be playing along and I’m super excited!)

again

Our computer is out of commission, again. Hopefully I’ll be back soon.

moms need to learn how to do new things

For Barry’s birthday I got him a rock climbing rope and some other gear he didn’t have. He had been saying that he really wants get into climbing now that we live by mountains again. We’ve taken the kids several times– me chasing Ian, bouncing Hunter and taking pictures, him belaying. Our best friends from college came last weekend with their 5 little girls and because of some stroke of insanity we took 10 children under the age of 10 rock climbing. Let me just say that our hands were a bit too full to get many pictures of that adventure.

Yesterday we got to go with other grown ups with fewer kids, so I actually got to give it a try.

Good thing this picture can’t show my legs totally shaking.

I learned that I need to have shorter fingernails.

My arms are a bit sore today.

(For pictures of the kids climbing click here.)