Poetry Memorization

I am so proud of Davin for completing level 1 of "Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization" by Andrew Pudewa....the title is quite a mouthful, isn't it? What that means is that over the course of several months, we have been working on memorizing 20 poems, with a total of 200 lines. After memorizing all of the poems, Davin recited them all to us over the course of two days. It has really been an enjoyable part of our homeschool, and as with everything we study I am so thankful to be learning right alongside him. It is amazing how children's brains are like sponges, soaking everything up! As a reward for his hard work, Davin was allowed to pick out any book of his choice from Barnes & Noble this weekend. He chose the new "Lego Idea Book" and hasn't put it down since he got it :)

Here is one of Davin's favorite poems that he's memorized:

The Ingenious Little Old Man

A little old man of the sea
Went out in a boat for a sail,
The water came in
Almost up to his chin
And he had nothing which which to bail.

But this little old man of the sea
Just drew out his jackknife so stout,
And a hole with its blade
In the bottom he made,
So that all of the water ran out.

-- John Bennett

Nature Study with the Boys

It has been SO hot outside lately that we have not enjoyed the outdoors very much this past week.  It rained earlier today and cooled it down to a comfortable 85 degrees, so it was a perfect day for exploring :)  There are so many exciting things to discover outside, and getting to see the world through the eyes of a child brings me such joy!  "Nature study" and letting kids spend a lot of time playing outside is an important part of Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy, which I have read quite a bit about during our homeschooling journey.  You can read more HERE if you're interested :)  Here's an example of our nature study, which is really just enjoying nature!

As I was sitting on the patio, Dorian was bringing me rocks that he thought were interesting and telling me why he liked them: like, "This one is shiny!" and "This one is white and brown and gray." Then he decided to start smelling the rocks (I have no idea why!) and after sniffing several he said, "This one smells like Daddy!"  I had a good laugh about that one :)  This was Davin's favorite rock:

Then, Dorian was looking around the rocks and discovered a butterfly on the ground.  He told me it wasn't moving, so I picked it up and carried it to the table.  We told Davin to come and look and the boys got quite sad at the fate of the poor butterfly and hugged each other to mourn their loss....I have two sensitive little boys!  It was adorable, though.  Here's the butterfly Dorian found:

When we got inside, we looked online to identify the butterfly and discovered that it was a Black Swallowtail.  Such a beautiful butterfly!:

My keen explorer, Dorian, next spotted a beetle among the rocks.  He called me over to look at it and this is what we saw:

We're not certain about what kind of beetle it is, but it looks like it may be a stag beetle:

Then, the boys were walking around the house and came to one of their favorite spots: the lavender growing beside the garage.  We all love to pull a piece and take a good whiff of that heavenly smell!  Davin often smells it and gets a little woozy with relaxation and falls to the ground to rest for a while :)  It must be very potent!

So, that was our nature study!  It's so much fun to spend a few minutes really appreciating the outdoors with my children.

Day 7: The Curse {31 days to clean}

Day 7: The Curse (What We're Up Against)
I had a bit of a hard time understanding this chapter and I do not claim to be an expert in the realm of theology!  Of course I've heard/read the story of the Fall in the Garden of Eden many times, but I did not ever see the connection between "The Curse" and the frustrations of homemaking, as Sarah Mae wrote about in this chapter.  In the verses below, it's clear that Adam's life and work would be much more difficult:
“Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you shall eat the plants of the field...” (Genesis 3:17-18)
And Eve's curse:
To the woman he said,
   “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
   with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband, 
   and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)


As far as how this relates to my struggle with homemaking, I think the cause can be found here, where God is cursing the serpent, Satan:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman.. (Genesis 3:15)


Satan has a special hatred toward women; after all, we are givers of life!  He despises life!  Satan is crafty in his ways and tries with all his might to drag us away from being the life-giving women God has called us to be.  Some of his tactics:

• Distractions
• Perfection
• Procrastination
• Envy

All of those things can certainly work against us to make us unproductive in our homes.  One thing to remember is this:
"Work is not the Curse, unproductive work is."
I really liked that quote!  


After all that bad news, herein lies our hope:
"Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay." Romans 8:20-21 (NLT)



The frustration and pain are only temporary in this life, as we have the hope of the coming glory of God and freedom from the bondage of death and decay....Hallelujah!


Martha Challenge: Clean and organize your pantry-already done when I cleaned out my cabinets!

Day 6: The Six List {31 days to clean}

Day6: The Six List - The $25,000 Piece of AdviceI am very far behind on this challenge, but after a few detours I am still trying to work my way through it.  I'm not going to give up even if it takes me all summer...which it might ;-) 

"Every night before bed write down the top six things, in order, that you need to accomplish the next day (no more than six). Then, go systematically through the list, completing the tasks in order, crossing out each thing as you go."

Mary Challenge: Use the Six List for 6 days: what doesn't get done one day goes to the top of the list for the next day.  

• This has been very helpful, as it forces me to prioritize and work towards checking things off my list!  I have always been a list-maker, but I usually make lists that are unrealistic and have a whole page full of things I need to do.  Having just 6 things makes me feel like I can actually accomplish something!

Martha Challenge: Clean out and organize all of the kitchen cabinets.  This took me a few days, but I finished it! It felt pretty good too :)

Here are a few before and after pictures of some of the cabinets I cleaned out:

Before: 

 After: I also found a pearl earring I'd been missing! It was in a coffee cup on the top shelf :)

 Before: Yikes!

 After: better

 Before: cabinet that holds school supplies, baby food, and who knows what else!

After: 

 After: the same cabinet from another angle and door-art supplies and other school stuff:

Before: an upper cabinet.  I found about 5 lego sets in this cabinet that we had forgotten about!

 After:

 After: cookbooks, forgot to take a before picture of this one.

Day 5: Priorities {31 days to clean}

"It’s easy to say what our priorities are, but it’s really important that we take an inventory of them so we can honestly evaluate where are weaknesses are, and where we need to find ourselves bent down before the throne of grace."

This really hit home to me and I felt pretty convicted of what my priorities really are, versus what I'd like them to be.
My Priorities:

1. God: Spend time daily reading His Word and in prayer, growing closer in my relationship to Him.
1. Work-in-progress goal: Get up before the kids for devotions and prayer (and coffee!).  If I miss a day, don't get frustrated and give up, but try for the next day.
2. Verse: “In your presence is fullness of joy.” Psalm 16:11
2. Husband: To be encouraging and supportive of him in his work and show how grateful I am that he is such a good provider for our family.  I want to make our home a peaceful and relaxing place to come home to after work.  I also want to remain his best friend and biggest fan :)
1. Work-in-progress goal: Make an effort to serve him and think of his needs first.  Praise him and only speak positively of him in the company of others.  Don't nag!
2. “Man finds fulfillment and glory in two main areas-work and love. When he succeeds in his work, his masculinity is confirmed. When a man wins the woman he loves and she responds to him sexually, he is marvelously glorified as a man.” Barbara Mouser, Five Aspects of Woman
3. Children: To instruct them in righteousness and plant God's Word in their hearts.  I also want to protect their innocence and purity and shield them from bad influences and fill their lives with positive, godly influences.  
1. Work-in-progress goal:  Read the Bible daily with my children and memorize scriptures together.  Sing hymns and work at memorizing some.  Make sure everything we allow in the home and activities we participate in are a good influence.
2. “Teach them to your children, And talk about them When you sit at home And walk along the road. When you lie down and when you get up. Write them down and tie them on your hands as a sign. Tie them on your forehead to remind you and write them on your doors and gates.” Deuteronomy 6:7-8
4. Home: A comfortable home that is a blessing to my family, not one that causes stress.  I would like to have an organized home with less clutter, since it is more conducive for homeschooling and for my husband to work on art in a tidy environment.  
1. Work-in-progress goal: Take pride in my home and show my thankfulness by diligently caring for the home.  Do not be lazy, but cheerfully do what needs to be done as unto the Lord!
2. “She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness.” Proverbs 31:27
5. Personal: Use my free time wisely by spending it on a hobby I enjoy: reading, sewing, baking, etc. instead of wasting it.  
1. Work-in-progress goal: Read one book at a time and finish it, instead of reading 20 at once! 

Martha Challenge:  Wash your window treatments and windows.  
I was not expecting this challenge to be so difficult, but that is just my style I guess: to make everything more complicated!  Here's what happened:

I took the curtains off of this window, washed them, pressed them, and cleaned the window.

 Here are the curtains back up and looking pretty!  Not too bad so far...

 Next was this window:

 It was going so well until I wasn't careful enough pressing them and got a few burn stains on the curtains!  I was thinking at that point that my curtains would have been better off left alone!

 Here's the marks, which maybe wouldn't have bothered some people, but I knew I wouldn't be able to let it go.  So I tried a few different treatments: first using vinegar on a clean cloth to blot it out.  It helped but didn't completely get it out.  Next I tried soaking a cloth in hydrogen peroxide and putting it over the spots and an iron on the low setting on top.  (By the way, I did not just come up with these ideas but looked them up!)  

 Can you see them now?  They're gone!  This isn't a very good picture, but I swear they are gone..hehe.

Needless to say, I do not want to do that again for a long time.....at least not until I get some lessons from my mom on how to properly press curtains (and clothes!).

The 1832 Cup Cake recipe

I was browsing through a book first published in 1832 called "The American Frugal Housewife" by Mrs. Child, which you can download today at Homeschool Freebie of the Day.  I think it is so fascinating to look back in history and see how people went about their daily life, and especially for me, to glimpse into the lives of homemakers.  To see the recipes they used, hear tips on how to perform housework, and remedies for sickness and other maladies is just so interesting!

As I was looking I came across this recipe for "Cup Cake":

"Cup cake is about as good as pound cake, and is cheaper. One cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs, well beat together, and baked in pans or cups. Bake twenty minutes, and no more."

I decided to try this recipe out and here is how they turned out!  They tasted like a less rich pound cake and I think they would be sweet for a tea party with a lemon or pink glaze on top.


I did a little research on the history of cupcakes and found this on Wikipedia:

"The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796, when a recipe notation of “a cake to be baked in small cups” was written in “American Cookery” by Amelia Simms."

There were two uses for the name "cup cake" in the 19th century: to describe the cups or ramekins they were baked in, and the other for describing the cake whose ingredients were measured by volume in cups rather than weight.  

"...these recipes became known as 1234 cakes or quarter cakes, so called because they are made up of four ingredients: one cup of butter, two cups of sugar, three cups of flour, and four eggs.They are plain yellow cakes, somewhat less rich and less expensive than pound cake, due to using about half as much butter and eggs compared to pound cake. The names of these two major classes of cakes were intended to signal the method to the baker; "cup cake" uses a volume measurement, and "pound cake" uses a weight measurement."

And now I understand why this recipe tasted like a less rich pound cake!  It makes perfect sense that it was included in a frugal homemaking book :)  I think it would be fun to try out some more recipes from this book in the future.

Day 4: A Place to Put Your Feet Up {31 days to clean}

"Cleaning isn’t just about scrubbing floors, making beds, and clearing out clutter (although those are good things), it’s also about creating an environment that encourages people to feel welcomed, loved." 

I need to think of how I can bless my guests in my home by having a "put your feet up" atmosphere.  This means that it is okay for it to look "lived-in", because "lived-in" is far more comfortable than pristine.  A few other things suggested in today's reading that I liked: 

• Always have coffee or tea made (or ready to be made).  
• Be a listener.  

Mary Challenge:  Invite a friend over.  I hope someone will accept my invitation to come over, otherwise I'll invite the neighbor kids over and treat them to popsicles or something!
Martha Challenge:   Clean the oven and microwave....suppressing my urge to grumble and complain about this right now!  

The microwave obviously needed cleaning; lots of smudges and fingerprints:

 Much better:

 Inside is even worse:

 Ta-da!:

 Okay, this is just disgusting:

 Clean!:

Now for the oven, which unfortunately is not self-cleaning!:

That looks better:

Ugh, yuck! I don't want to admit how long it took me to scrub this:

There's still some work to be done, but it looks much better!

There was a lot of grease and grime on the door:

And now there isn't!

Phew, I'm so glad to be done with that!  I probably shouldn't have stayed up until 1a.m. doing it, though!

Day 3: Giving life to my home (and cleaning the cabinets!)

Day 3: 10 Ways to Give Life to Your Home


Three days in and I'm feeling pretty good about this cleaning challenge.  I hope the enthusiasm can last throughout the whole thing :)


By the way here is the link to buy this ebook on Amazon:

I really liked the list of 10 ways to give life to my home today, and here are my 2 favorite ways (You'll have to buy the e-book to see the rest of them; it's totally worth it!):

• Offer life-giving and grace-filled words to husband and children.
• Make our homes a place of grace where mistakes and sins are not met with anger but with love and hope.

It is hard not to get angry when a child does something that is willfully disobedient.  I mean, it's nearly impossible to react in love when my toddler draws with marker all over the sunporch wall (which he did recently!)  I do know that my children respond much better to discipline when I am calm and gentle, but firm;  not when I react harshly.  Another thing that helps immensely is finding ways to praise the kids for good behavior and any other thing that you are pleased with.  My mom taught me this and it is so cute to see how proud the kids are when I praise them.  


Mary Challenge: I was supposed to ask my family members what I do that makes them feel loved when it comes to caring for the home.  My husband's responses (after I forced him to!  He never complains about anything, so I really had to pry for these) :  

• When I wash the dishes (and do other chores) without grumbling and complaining.  I thought it was cute how he used the phrase "without grumbling and complaining", because that's something I remind the kids of a lot.  I hadn't realized that I often grumble and complain about homemaking tasks, which must be unpleasant for him to hear....better change that!
• Dinner being ready when he comes home from work. Though I've gotten better at this with subscribing to e-mealz and having my meals planned, I still do not have the best time management skills and sometimes start dinner too late.
• Picking up a little so it's not a complete disaster when he gets home from work. I remember doing this when I was little before my dad came home from work, so I know it's a nice way to show love to the head of the home by making it a pleasant place to come home to!
• Davin said that he feels loved when I make yummy food, but not noodles!  (He does not like any pasta dishes, which I cannot understand!)

Martha Challenge:  Dust the top of refrigerator (I did this yesterday, yay!), cabinets, and shelves.  Wash cabinets and drawers.

Here's the top of the fridge I cleared off and cleaned yesterday:

These little shelves sure had some dust bunnies on them!  I like my kitschy little knick knacks :)

The cabinets didn't show they were very dirty, but the water was sure yucky when I dumped it out at the end!  With 28 cabinets and 14 drawers, there were quite a few to wash down. It brought back memories of when I was little and helped wash the cabinets.  This has been pretty fun so far!

Life-Giver and Fridge Cleaner

Day 2: Created to Give Life

"We as women have been blessed with the very nature of life-giving! At its core, life-giving is all about love – loving others with what God has given us."

Mary Challenge:  As I think about ways that I can give life to my home, my children, my husband, and my sphere of influence, here are a few things I can do:

• Use my words wisely, in a positive and life-giving way.  Children have such tender hearts, and they can easily detect annoyance, sarcasm and other negative tones in my voice.  I need to guard my tongue and make sure my words will build them up, not tear them down.  I also need to make sure to affirm and encourage my husband more, and thank him for working so hard to provide for our family!  
•  Declutter my home and only keep what we need or love.  I tend to hang on to things I don't need and clutter does not take long at all to multiply, it seems!  De-cluttering will give life to our home and make it easier to clean and more peaceful.  
• Limit the time our family watches tv or uses other electronic media and entertainment.  There's not a whole lot of life-giving going on while wasting time doing these things! 

“Life-giving is about receiving from God in order to give to others.” Barbara Mouser, Five Aspects of Woman 

Martha Challenge: Kitchen-Clean out and scrub the refrigerator and freezer.  Oh boy, here we go!  I'm also going to clean off the top and outside of the fridge because it's been driving me nuts!

Outside: Before

 Outside: After

Another outside view: Before

 After:

Inside fridge: Before

Inside fridge: After

Fridge door: Before

Fridge door: After

Freezer: Before

Freezer: After

Freezer door: Before

Freezer door: After

And here is the amount of trash from this cleaning project! 

I didn't think my fridge and freezer needed cleaning that badly, but I'm glad I did it!  It wasn't actually too dirty since it's only 1.5 years old, but there was a lot of expired and old food in there.  Now, here's hoping it stays clean for a while ;-)  Have you cleaned your fridge out lately?