MaeLyn's Musings

  Monday was Martin Juther King Jr Day, and the kids were home from school. At one point, I sent them outside to play, thinking that it would be healthy for them to spend some time running around out there instead of staring at a screen inside. Silly me. After a little while I heard the sound of screaming from outside. This isn't a rare occurrence, so I didn't react immediately, waiting to see if it would stop quickly. It didn't. Peter came inside clutching his hand tightly, crying very loudly, and Joshua followed on his heels protesting that he didn't know Peter's finger was in the way. Calmly, I looked at Peter's finger, noticed a cut, and got a damp paper towel - the closest thing I had available to press on the cut and stop the bit of blood while I tried to hear the story over Peter's screaming. Josh had been hammering with rocks, lifting them high and then bringing them down, hard, on a larger rock. Somehow Peter's finger got in the way of the h

Last night was our Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. It kind of crept up on us this year and we ended up cutting and painting Joshua's car on Monday night at 8pm, and attaching the wheels at the church just before the Derby started. Josh named his car the "Delivery Truck". Amazingly, Josh's car did really well. He got 1st place for the Bears Den, and 2nd place overall.

On Saturday, our family had a family fun day. We went to a nearby open space and filmed a movie, then came home and edited it. What do you think? (Lindy - we borrowed your song for background music... hope you don't mind.)

In August, 2011, I wrote about receiving a box full of beads and wires for jewelry making. I posted the first couple things I made here . Since then, I have made many more pieces of jewelry, but apparently, I haven't posted any pictures of them here. So.... Here are some of my favorites:

I was putting Peter to bed a few days ago, and he was sad because he wanted his monkey to sleep with. "You have a pillow monkey", I told him... But he didn't want that one. "How about this one, from Christmas last year?" But he didn't want that one either.   "The one I want is smaller," he told me helpfully.     "Well, how about this one? Or this one?   Or this one? Or this?" "No, no, no, the one I want is brown!" "Like this one? Or this one?" "No! None of those are the one I want!" "That's all the monkeys I can find!                    Does it have to be a monkey?                                    Could you sleep with Elmo? Or his good friend Cookie? What about a chipmunk... ...Or a cow... ...Or a moose? You might like a duck... ...or a fish." "I don't want any of those!" the poor, tire

9 News featured my boys school yesterday, and Peter and Joshua got to be on TV briefly. You can see it here: http://www.9news.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=2096042119001 . Watch for my boys at about 9:01-9:08, and again at about 10:25.

We have lived off our food storage for a while now, and there are several things I would suggest to one who is building up their food storage, even if you don't foresee yourself unemployed anytime soon. (You very rarely get sufficient notice, so it is always a good idea to start early!) Store the things you need to eat the things you like. Make a list of the meals that your family eats, and store all ingredients needed for those meals. Don't forget about things like side dishes and desserts.  Make a menu plan for several meals that you could eat if you only had your food storage to live on. (A couple years ago our Providential Living Specialist suggested planning 19 days of meals, and acquiring all the ingredients needed to make each of those meals 19 times for a one year supply.) Center your meals around inexpensive grain/starches like rice, pasta, or potatoes, add a tasty sauce and vegetables. Meat is more expensive, and not necessary for every meal. Breakfast for

A little after 10am on a Tuesday morning, the house is quiet except the whir of the dryer, my typing on the keyboard and an occasional meow from one of the cats. Wow. Does anyone else feel the huge relief of Christmas holidays being over, decorations put away, normal routines recommenced? I realize the change might not be so great for single people, empty-nesters, those with preschoolers, or those who home school, etc. but for me, with all the kids back at school and Steven away at work, the peace is amazing. I can finally hear myself think again! We had a wonderful holiday. The kids played with Legos, watched movies, played games and had fun. New Years Eve was spent at a party thrown by ward members talking and playing games. Yesterday the weather was nice and warm (40s and sunny, anyway... It is amazing what this California girl now considers "warm"!) and we rode bikes to the park to play. Steven has been working at his contract job at Richmond Homes for over a week no

Did you ever wish that in your home, you had a room of requirement - like at Hogwarts, a room that would change to meet your exact needs at any given moment? Or maybe even several of them? Steven and I were discussing this last night, and here were a few of the ideas we came up with that we would like to have: 1. A children's playroom. This would include sound-proof walls (except maybe if someone were in serious pain and needed help...) and an ever changing supply of appropriate toys and activities the children could do.  Any toys removed from this room would be automatically sucked back into it as soon as a child was done playing with it. This room would ideally never be seen by parents' eyes.    1b. An offshoot of this room could be a Lego room, and would include a building table, bins for the different kinds of Legos, and a coinstar type sorter that you could dump assorted Legos in, and it would automatically sort them into their proper bins. Occasionally, the floor mig