Four Days Later

Four days after our first visit to Mt. Rainier, the kids and I went back again,

but this time we took Grandma!

We took an easier one mile hike that had plenty of views like this one.

Our destination was Myrtle Falls,

and this was the view looking up from the top of the falls.

Half of the kids thought the bridge was great

(the other half weren't so sure it was engineered properly), 

and they were all delighted to make a new friend

(from a distance).

Such a beautiful hike... too beautiful to only visit twice...

Mt. Rainier

On Sunday, we went on a four mile hike to Mt. Rainier.

We saw some fun wildlife:

 a buck,

 two does,

and a few marmots.

Wildflowers were everywhere.

 Everywhere.

 On the way up, there was the mountain to look at,

 

and on the way down, there were vistas like this.

And lots of wildflowers.

Did I mention those?

Such a beautiful hike...too beautiful to only visit once...

Our Piano

Shortly after we moved to Washington from Tennessee, we inherited my grandparents' piano.  Its move from my cousin's house in Oregon to ours in Washington was not its first, nor its last.

When we moved from our rental two years ago, we just couldn't figure out how to make it fit in our log house, so we tried to give it away to any family member willing to pick it up.

Heavy, old, well-loved...no one wanted it.

So it moved with us to the log house, and went straight into the garage.

It was slightly out of tune, but not too bad, so when the girls started piano lessons last fall they went out to the garage to practice.  They practiced all winter out there, too, in coats, hats, and fingerless gloves...brrr.

Now that it's actually being played again, we made a space for it inside so the kids' fingers won't turn purple when they practice this winter, and we enlisted four strong young men to help move it in.

And then I made an appointment for a piano tuner to come out.

He wanted to know about its history, so I told him how my great-great-uncle (an organist who believed in quality instruments) picked it out for my grandparents when they wanted to buy a piano for my aunt to use.  It has a mid-1960s date written inside the lid next to the store's stamp, so I wondered aloud if that's how old it is, or if maybe it had some work done on it then.

He looked around a little and decided that some of the pins had been replaced sometime after World War II, so he guessed the date was written in at that point.

I asked him how he knew the pins had been replaced after World War II.  He admitted that he was just guessing, since they looked so much newer than everything else, but he was pretty sure that the piano itself was made post-World War I.

Of course I had to ask how he knew that!

Before World War I the coils and strings for the lower registers were made out of copper, but as part of the war effort, piano manufacturers switched to steel.  Mine were steel...

...wait a minute...

He took a tool out of his bag and scratched a spot on one of the strings.  Nope, they were copper!

So we decided that beyond a doubt, my piano was made before World War I, and we joked that it couldn't be older than 1895 because that was the most recent patent date stamped inside the piano.

And then, just as he was finishing the fine tuning, he found it.  Tucked away in a little corner, like an artist would sign a painting, he found a barely legible name and date.  The last name matched a signature that is scrawled elsewhere inside the piano, (along with a P.O. Box address in Chicago) and the only part of the date that we could read with any certainty was 1903.

It's still heavy, it's still well-loved and missing most of the ivories, and it's still old.

But it's really, really old.

And the offer to give it away to any relative who would come pick it up...

...is most definitely expired.

Gifts You're Glad You Can't Smell

My children decided to make me some early birthday and Mother's Day presents:

First they gathered some purple and white wildflowers and greenery

and wrapped the stems in a skunk cabbage leaf.

Have you ever smelled skunk cabbage?

It came by its name honestly.

Then they made multiple trips up our back hill to get the supplies to make me these two beautiful yellow wreaths 

out of Scotch Broom.

The leftover supplies joined my collection of "too beautiful to hide inside" bouquets on the front porch. 

Who needs roses?!?

I've got noxious weeds colorful flowers on my front porch!

Happy (early) Mother's Day!

Our Chicken Whisperer

The chickens love this girl!

They run to her...

...and will follow her anywhere!

Not-So-School Desks

Months ago (and months and months...) I picked up these two mis-matched old school desks at a thrift store.  I brought them home with the idea that they would get incorporated into a really neat little area in our attic; a writing nook with bookshelves and cozy reading spots.

Unfortunately, that area still only exists in my imagination, so they moved from the truck straight into the garage.

And sat there for months.

Then one day last month, since I was already wearing painting clothes, I dragged them out of the garage, cleaned them off, and prepped the one I wanted to paint.

I papered and taped all the wood to protect it from over-spray, shooed away the cats and the kids, and went to work.

One can of black spray paint and a few minutes later, I had an almost matching set of desks!

When the paint was dry, the desks moved...

back into the garage.

Last week, I finally had a chance to work inside, and I created a spot for them on our landing.

My two oldest daughters promptly claimed them and filled them with paper, notebooks, pencils, and dozens of unfinished stories.

It's not the cozy little nook in the attic that I'd imagined,

but it'll do for now!

My Saturday Morning

After breakfast and chores were done Saturday morning, I curled up in my favorite chair to work on scheduling a few more books into our fifth grade curriculum.

My children had the entire house available to them for playing with their little plastic Cowboys and Indians...

and they chose the space right at my feet.

Organization and chaos...

Isn't that how Saturday mornings are supposed to be?!?

A Cleaning Party

After the chicks moved out of the house, we had some serious cleaning to do before we had company this weekend. My oldest daughter and I tackled the bathroom, then her sister and I cleaned the guest room. We dusted every surface (including the ceilings), polished the logs, and deep cleaned until every last bit of chicken dust was gone. We had so much fun that everyone wanted to get in on the action, so my youngest daughter decided to take care of the cobwebs and dust the high parts of the log walls while she was at it...

then Mr. Adorable dusted and polished the staircase and all the parts of log walls that he could reach.

He asked to vacuum next, so of course I let him!

Daughter #1 wanted to mop the bathroom and kitchen,

and Daughter #2 wanted to mop the laundry room.

Daughter #3 and Mr. Adorable worked together to "mop" the hardwood floors, then she finished mopping the dining room by herself.

***

Who knew housework could be so much fun?!?

For the Love of Eggs: Part 3

We started with fifteen chicks in a box...

in our guest room.

A week later, the fourteen that survived moved to the bathtub.

They quickly outgrew the bathtub too, so they've moved into the chicken coop a little ahead of schedule.

The chicken run is almost done; just a few more finishing touches left to add...like chicken wire!

Reading Record: March

I'm making progress! I previewed quite a few books for the upcoming school years, re-read some favorites, finally read some that I've always wanted to read, and said an unexpected goodbye to a few that I thought would be treasures.

Feathered Friends

The sun was shining this morning, so I took my camera outside to get a few pictures.

It quickly became a bird-themed photo shoot.

...Wait a minute, what's that?!?

Sure look like chicks, don't they?

That's because they are!

We got 15 of them to start with...we'll see how many actually make it to adulthood!

Kindergarten Plans

On Monday I told Mr. Adorable that he will be starting Kindergarten next year. He was very excited that he will be finally starting school just like his sisters, and for the rest of the day we heard all about his ideas for what he is planning to do once he starts Kindergarten.

On Tuesday I spent most of the day on the computer, searching for and researching books for 5th grade (but that's another story), and every time I went downstairs for something, Mr. Adorable would ask me, "Are you working on my Kindergarten?"

On Wednesday morning, as I sat at the table correcting Math and Grammar for the girls, Mr. Adorable brought up the subject again. "Mom, I don't think I'm ready to start Kindergarten yet." I told him that was OK, that we could wait a while. He sat quietly for a few seconds then responded, "OK, maybe tomorrow."

This evening I asked him to get out some kid plates for dinner, and he told me, "I got two plates and then two more so there would be four, because two plus two equals four." I thanked him and had him set them on the counter for me, and he asked, "Mom, am I supposed to know that already, or will I learn that in Kindergarten?"

The Fight Against Fuzz

I do not regret reading any of the books that I read in my childhood. At least not that I can remember at the moment!

I'm sure that some of the literary choices I made were less than stellar, but none were really awful, bad books. Part of that, I'm sure, is due to the fact that I was finding my reading material in our little library in Peru (yeah, that would be the little library on the missionary base), and therefore must also partly be due to the fact that any book I checked out had to make it past "Aunt" Theresa*, the former-nun-turned-missionary-librarian.

Aunt Theresa scared all of us kids, I think. She was a tiny woman even from a child's point of view, with short cropped gray hair and a no-nonsense attitude. She ran that library. She might have even been officially in charge of it. NO ONE crossed Aunt Theresa. If she didn't approve of a book I was trying to check out, she would call my mom to make sure it was OK if I walked out with it. It drove me crazy, and eventually Mom told her that I could check out anything I wanted and they (my parents) would look at it before I read it. And yet, although I was in awe of her, there was a certain sparkle in her eyes that made me feel like I was her favorite among all the kids that passed by her desk. My speed-reading, book-devouring little self certainly kept her busy, at least!

My girls read just like I did as a kid; fast and often. And, just like their mother, they read far above their grade level, which is where my battle begins...and where I begin to appreciate Aunt Theresa's efforts at a whole new level.

Our school curriculum is heavy on reading. (Imagine that!) We have multiple books for each subject, as well as "free reading" books and scheduled literature. We have books for Kindergarten through 5th grades on our shelves, and I've started collecting books for 6th through 12th grades as well. It would be an understatement to say that we have a lot of books.

And it is precisely because we have a lot of books that I keep a list in my purse of all the books on our school shelves. It's printed in a font about this big, and it's currently 9 pages long. I started it a few years ago because I kept coming home with books I was looking for...only to find a copy already sitting on our shelves! I am constantly updating the list: when I pull a book off the shelf to get rid of, that book gets deleted from the list, and when I find a new treasure, it gets added to the print-out before it gets shelved. It's a system that has worked well for me, and I've successfully kept it to "only" 9 pages. (So far!)

The other day I entered some new books into my list, and in the process decided that one of the books, although harmless enough in subject matter, wasn't worthy of "living" on the school shelves. (I call these kinds of books "fluff" books. They are books that are mindless, quick reads, with nothing to grow on. They have little, if any, educational value and contain nothing worth thinking about later. They are books with no "meat" to them, only "fluff".)

I told the girls that I had decided that it was a "fluff" book, and that if they wanted to keep it they had to squeeze it onto their shelves. They kept it, and later, one of them asked me why I had called it a "fuzz" book, yet put a similar book on the school shelves.

I asked her if she had learned anything from the fluff book (hereafter known as a "fuzz" book!), and she said, "Well, no, but it was fun!" Then I asked her if she had learned anything from the other book. "I already knew about most of it...but in the end Mr. X learned that he shouldn't be rude to strangers, and ... OH! I get it! One of the people in the book learned a good lesson that we can learn too! That's why it's not a fuzz book and the other one is!"

I think Aunt Theresa would approve!

*All of the kids on the missionary center called the adults "Aunt" and "Uncle". It was like having one really big family. :)

Four-year-old Theology (In a Nutshell)

Discussing his Pre-K/K Sunday School lessons (with disgust in his voice):

"The week behind, we learned that God made everything. But I knew that already! Today we learned that God made plants, but I knew that already too!"

***

"God is the boss of all the bosses."

***

Mr. Adorable: "There is only one God, Mom."

Me: "Right. But He is at the same time three-in-one; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

Mr. Adorable: "Ah ha! So that's how He can see everything at the same time! The other two help Him!"

Peasant, Pee-sant, Pheasant

Playing dress-up, my oldest daughter asked me:

J: Mom, don't I look just like a princess?

(She's wearing two dresses, three layers of shawls, and a scarf tied over her straw hat...)

Me: Actually, you look more like a peasant girl.

J: Really?!? (runs back upstairs to tell her sisters...)

Later:

J: Mom, did I really look like a pee-sant?

Me: No, you looked like a peh-sant.

Her sister, a few minutes later:

M: Mom, wasn't that funny when J asked if she looked like a pheasant?

Me: No funnier than when you called her a pheasant instead of a peasant!

Reading Around the Fire

After your little brother is in bed and the house is quiet,

there's just nothing like curling up with a good book next to a warm fire,

especially when you're already in your jammies.

Daughter #3 opted for some poetry tonight:

Shel Silverstein, to be exact.

***

Daughter #1 is reading Prince Caspian

(from the Chronicles of Narnia)...

...for the second time in two days.

***

Daughter #2 is tackling The Spirit of St. Louis

by Charles Lindbergh

(because Daddy liked it).

Pieces of Fall in My Living Room

Today is the first day of Fall, so I had the kids collect some of the elements of the season to bring in and display indoors.

Apparently our trees don't know it's supposed to be Fall.

And it's 80˚ outside today.

Maybe we'll try again next week...