MaeLyn's Musings

Last night, I felt like making another logic problem, but I was out of ideas on what do make it on. The kids suggested I do one on their favorite vehicles. They each came up with some kind of vehicle/way of getting around, along with its color and top speed. Can you figure them out? The horse is not bright green. The submacarpter (a cross between a submarine, a car, and a helicopter)can travel faster than Joshua's transport. John wants neither the airship nor the vehicle that can travel at 500 mph. Hannah's transport can travel faster than the brown vehicle, but not as fast as the yellow transport. The teleporter is neither the black transport nor the one Peter wants. The four transports are: the one that can only travel 10 mph, the horse, John's transport, and the yellow one. The teleporter can move a person at an amazing 188,000 mps! The green transport can move faster than the vehicle that only travels at 45 mph. I'm not providing a chart for this one. T...

Last week , I started a game of "two truths and a lie." Here are the answers: 1. When I was a child, I    A. had two imaginary puppies who I called "Penny" and "Copper". (True)    B. frequently pretended that my bicycle was a horse named "Silver". (False. I may have pretended it was a horse, but I don't think I ever gave it a name other than "Desert Rose" - which was printed on the side.)    C. enjoyed pretending I was a princess locked in a tower whenever I had to clean the bathroom. (True) 2. Instruments I wanted to learn to play when I was a child included    A. the harp. (true)    B. the flute. (true)    C. the banjo. (false. I think Steven may have wanted to play the banjo at one point in time.) 3. When I was child, the things I wanted to be when I grew up included    A. a fashion designer. (false. My interest in designing clothes came much more recently.)    B. an artist. (true)  ...

You may know about our four crazy Hiatt cats and their idiosyncrasies. Can you figure out each cat's favorite toy, favorite place to sleep, and annoying habit? Abish and Ishmael The four cats are the one that loves to play with pipe cleaners, the one that drools, Abish, and the one that sleeps in a box. Ishmael is not the cat that sleeps on the printer, nor is he the cat that eats string. Of Abish and the cat with the loud purr, one sleeps on the bed and the other plays with pompoms. Lala either likes to sleep on the bed or plays with marbles, but not both. Momo is neither the cat that plays with hair nor the cat with the very loud purr. The cat that sleeps under the table also loves to play with hair. The cat that shreds cardboard does not play with marbles.  You can print a chart here .

So I've heard back from a couple of you in regards to my logic problems. I'm glad that you are figuring them out. I guarantee that they are possible. For those of you who solved the other three already, here is a fourth one for you. This one is actually based on a true story, and answers could potentially be found in other sources, but I would recommend using the clues to find the answers. It's more fun that way. Each of the Hiatt kids selected a book to read from a library. Can you figure out the title, author, # of pages and picture on the cover of each book? The four books are the one Cressida Cowell wrote, the book with 89 pages, Insurgent, and the book Joshua read. Shel Silverstein wrote Runny Babbit and there is a dragon on the cover of How to Train Your Dragon. Squish has more pages than the book with a white rabbit on the cover. Hannah read the book with 525 pages, which did not have a white rabbit on the cover. Of the book Joshua read and the book with 214 ...

Last night was our Blue and Gold Cub Scout Celebration. The tradition in our pack is that all the cubs and their dads make cakes. (No women are allowed to help.) Steven and the boys baked the cake Monday evening, and then decorated it last night after Steven got home from work. Luckily he was able to get home earlier than normal so they had plenty of time. They decided to make a dalek, which is a robotic looking alien from Doctor Who.

At institute this morning we discussed the war chapters of the Book of Mormon. Here are a few of things I came away with. 1. Covenants. These are powerful and important things: The people of Zerahemnah would not make a covenant that they feared they would break, in spite of the fact that they were wicked, power-hungry Lamanites. (Alma 44:8) The Title of Liberty that Captain Moroni was a symbol of a covenant with God. The torn coat represented the coat of Joesph (who was sold into Egypt), and the promise that a remnant of Joseph's posterity would be saved. (Alma 46:23-27) A similar symbol today might be a picture of a temple in our home. The Nephites (and presumably other Jews as well) would tear or rend their garments as a token that if they broke the covenant that they were making, that God would rend (or destroy) them. (Alma 46:21) The Anti-Nephi-Lehies, or Ammonites, had made a covenant to never again shed blood. They had been willing to die rather than to break this cove...

On a recent Sunday, the four Hiatt children attended different Sunday School classes. Can you figure out the name of the teacher, the room number and the subject for each class they attended? The four classes were: Peter’s class, Bro Knowles’ class, the class in Room 115, and the class about enduring trials. Sis. Barnica did not teach the class about Noah, nor did she teach in room 110. Hannah’s class was in a higher numbered classroom than the room in which Sis. Serr taught, which was not 108. John’s teacher was neither Bro. Knowles, nor the one in room 112. Bro. Chin taught about motorcycles, as he frequently does. Neither Hannah nor Joshua learned about Noah. Sis Barnica taught in a lower numbered classroom than the class where making good choices was taught. For a printable chart, click here .

On Saturday, John participated in the North Metro Chapter MouthCounts competition. He came home with a trophy for tenth place, which means that he gets to go on to the state competition which will be held in three weeks, on March 15th. Great Job, John!

I enjoy doing logic puzzles - you know, the ones where they give you a list of clues and you get to fill in the charts to come up with the answers. I've been solving a lot of them lately, and a couple days ago I wondered how difficult are these to make up? So, I made a couple. They aren't terribly hard to come up with. Essentially I started with the answers, then wrote a couple clues, then solved the puzzle as far as I possibly could using those clues, then added others to fill in the gaps solving it as I went, until I had enough clues to solve it completely.  I thought I'd share them with you. (Note these are entirely fictional. While the names may correspond to the names of my children, the details in the puzzles were made up for the sake of the puzzle and have no bearing on real life.) Problem 1. One Saturday morning, the four Hiatt children woke up at a different time, ate a different cereal for breakfast, and wore a different colored sweater. Can you figure out w...

Remember the game "two truths and a lie", where you say two true things about yourself and one lie, and the other people try to guess which is the lie? Have you ever played this game with family members? It is difficult because they know so much about you! What can you say that they wouldn't already know? Last night as I lay awake in bed waiting to fall asleep, I tried to think of some things that my family members might not already know. Here is what I came up with. 1. When I was a child, I    A. had two imaginary puppies who I called "Penny" and "Copper".    B. frequently pretended that my bicycle was a horse named "Silver".    C. enjoyed pretending I was a princess locked in a tower whenever I had to clean the bathroom. 2. Instruments I wanted to learn to play when I was a child included    A. the harp.    B. the flute.    C. the banjo. 3. When I was child, the things I wanted to be when I grew up included ...

A year ago (February 2013) we received notice that the park down the street from us was going to be improved by the city. Steven and John attended a city meeting where they discussed the changes that were planned, and suggestions were made by the residents of the area. They planned to add a larger pavilion, expand the play area and put in more swings, and even install a skate park. We were excited for the changes to occur. But the wheels of progress turn slowly. Last fall, the city posted a big blue sign at the park announcing the rehabilitation of the park, listing the time of construction as Fall 2013 - Summer 2014. Again, we got excited thinking that they were going to begin work soon. But whatever work was being done was not obvious to those of us who walked by the park on a regular basis. One morning a couple weeks ago, when the ground was covered in snow, we noticed a person from the local utility company spraying lines on the snow and placing little red flags to mark the l...

Today I was able to attend institute again after not being there for three weeks, and I realized that I have really missed it. One week the carpets at the church were being cleaned so class was cancelled, the next week my ride had a funeral to go to and I wasn't feeling well so I skipped it, and last week our teacher was sick so she cancelled it. Because of the cancelled classes, we've gotten a bit behind schedule, but today we covered Alma chapters 31 through 42. The main theme that I got from today's lesson, was prayer: how, where and what to pray for. 1. The Zoramites (Alma 31:8-23) The Zoramites met once a week. In the center of their synagogue, they placed a high stand, the top of which could hold only one person, and one at a time, each person would mount the stand, raise their hands to the heavens, and recite a set prayer in a loud voice. The prayer which they recited was proud boasting, thanking God for choosing them, for making them better than other people, d...

Yesterday I got to teach Relief Society again, this time Lesson 3 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith, entitled The Plan of Salvation . I've always loved teaching about the Plan. To begin with, I find it profoundly comforting to know that there is a plan. We aren't here by chance, just because some fish decided to climb out the sea and grow legs, but we were placed here by a loving Father in order to help us grow and mature and to gain the blessings, the knowledge and wisdom that he has. Because so many of us are visual learners, from the first time I read through the lesson I decided that I wanted a visual aid - something big and colorful that would show the entire plan. So, last week I created this:  I used butcher paper for the background, so the whole thing is about 2 1/2 feet tall and about 4 1/2 feet wide. I printed out the words and pictures and then glued them to the paper, and drew on the pit and the arrows. When I put the poster on the c...

I love my husband. He is sweet and romantic, and I am really grateful to be married to him. On Thursday he came home from work with a dozen red roses, and then took me to hear some romantic music. (Actually, it was Hannah's orchestra concert at school, and we took the whole family, but they did play music from the romantic era...) Friday morning (Valentine's Day) I returned to my room after Steven had left to take Hannah to seminary to discover a box of chocolates on my pillow. That evening we left the kids at home and he took me out to dinner at an Italian restaurant, which was very thoughtful since that is my favorite type of food and I don't get it much because my kids don't like pasta. We spend the evening talking and enjoying each other's company. I had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Today was parent teacher conferences at my boys' school. Each of my boys is incredible. They each have things they need to work on, but for the most part, their teachers love them and enjoy working with them. After conferences, we came home, cleaned up the house a bit, and then the boys pulled out the LEGOs. While they played with those, I played on Photoshop, experimenting with a way to make pictures look kind of 3D-ish. Here is the result.

Last Saturday, I had John with me when I went to the library, but I had a list of books that the other kids wanted me to look for, including a request from Josh to get a book about robots. I picked up this book ( Welcome to your Awesome Robot , by Viviane Schwarz) thinking that it looked interesting. This book is full of ideas and inspiration on how to build your own robot out of a cardboard box and other things that can be found around the house. In the book, the child climbs inside the box and functions as the brain/motor of the robot. Of course my kids had to do things their own way, but they used the ideas in the book as a jumping off point. They found the stash of cardboard boxes from Christmas that I never got around to breaking down and taking to the dumpster, and now the boys' room is full of scraps of cardboard, duct tape, scissors, paper, and a few very cool looking creations. Josh's creation features a keyboard on top, with a view screen, antenna, and vario...

There was a cool white frost clinging to everything this morning that fascinated me. I thought it was beautiful. When I got home from taking the kids to school I had to grab the camera and take pictures of some of the plants around the house that were coated in a beautiful layer of ice crystals.  

I'm sick of the cold. I'm ready to move somewhere warm - like Tahiti. Yes, it may be their rainy season right now, but at least their temperatures are in in the 70s and 80s, not the 0s or -0s like we've had here recently. (Yes, I realize that some of those who are reading this are experiencing colder temperatures than these, and all I can say is I'm sorry. This is plenty cold enough for me.) Usually, Denver, Colorado isn't a bad place to live. We get seasons, which means a gorgeous autumn, a green summer, a wet spring, and snow in the winter. But usually the snow in the winter melts off really quickly. We can have six inches of snow and have it all melted off within three days. It doesn't usually stick around the entire winter, turning black and dirty on the sides of the roads. We don't have to keep chains on our tires from November to March. We have winter days that reach 60 degrees, and that feels warm! And then we have weeks like this one, snowing ...

I mentioned a while back that I started watching Doctor Who after Halloween last year. Since then, I've watched seven seasons of the show in a little over three months. The kids have been watching the episodes at a slower pace, but they are enjoying them too. Josh has made his own sonic screwdriver out of paper, and occasionally he talks about what his tardis would be like if he built one. Peter is scared of the weeping angels, and insists that when we talk about one, we call it a  "W. A." or "WAs" if there are more than one. He also is not a big fan of the "GMK"s (Gas Mask Kids) or the question, "Are you my mummy?" On the other hand, he does enjoy going around yelling "Exterminate" (Daleks) or "Delete" (Cybermen) at random times. It is interesting how some random things can really scare us and others we can pass off without a worry. Of the seven seasons I watched, I liked the 9th doctor the best, I think because of h...

If you chose anybody from tale, book or movie,  to trade places and lives for a while,  Who would you choose? What would you do? Which character best fits your style?  Would you like to have tea with Anne-with-an-e?  Or ride on a raft with Huck Finn?  Would you like to consort with Darcy or Wart?  Or Pocahontas or Abraham Lincoln?   Would you go to school to learn how to rule, To become a wizard, or spy?  Or maybe a ranger, or viking in danger, An inventor or wise private eye? Would you put up a fight to become a great knight? Or would you rather find pirates and treasure? Would you ride a big horse as a matter of course, Or find some sweet child to nurture? Would you climb up a mountain to drink from a fountain  that promised you eternal youth? Would you follow a star or drive in a car As you sought for an egg or a tooth? You could be a hobbit, fairy, elf, or rabbit, Or would you rathe...

Yesterday, I was thinking about names, and what they mean. The first name a person is given in this life is bestowed by others at birth. The given name is a reflection of the parents' tastes, hopes, and admirations. It may be the name of a family member or historical figure that the parents admire. It may have a certain meaning, or represent some trait that the parents hope their child will exhibit. As a child grows, he may embrace and love the name he was given, or he may find ways to alter it to suit his own taste, perhaps going by a nickname or a middle name rather than the first given name. The surname a child receives at birth designates the family the child is born into. This surname may change if a child is adopted by a step parent, or into a different family. It occurred to me that the giving of a surname should be a form of contract: It says, "You are my child, you are part of my family and I will take care of you." When a woman gets married, she has the op...