MaeLyn's Musings

It's Saturday. Some time today, Steven should return home from the Scout canoe trip he's been on since early Monday morning. I haven't heard a thing from or about him, so I assume that he's okay. I hope he's having fun. This week has passed kind of quickly actually. We've kept busy for the most part doing something or other and nothing too disastrous has happened. On Monday we went visiting teaching, to the park and swimming. On Tuesday we borrowed some movies and had a movie day at home. On Wednesday I had two visiting teaching appointments, then we went to the park and that night John had scouts. On Thursday we took Abish to the vet, and later we went to the library and then swimming. Yesterday (Friday) was spent shopping. We made our menu plan for August, from that we made up a shopping list, then we went to Sam's Club, came home and unloaded, then went to Walmart to complete the shopping as well as pick up school supplies for the coming school year. With

Yesterday was John's birthday. He turned 9. Before church (We have church at 1pm so we had plenty of time) I baked his cake and then covered it with a towel to cool while we were at church. (I once left a cake uncovered to cool... only to have a cat lick a bare spot on it! ) Church went as normal. I taught sharing time in Primary, and during our closing exercises we got to sing a birthday song to John. We returned home to decorate the cake, pop a pizza in the oven (purchased the day before at Sam's Club) and eat dinner. decorating the cake After dinner, John opened his presents, including several packs of origami paper, a deck of cards, a couple books, homemade "Pretty Pink Pony" wrapping paper (compliments of Hannah), a tackle box and lock (for protecting his stuff from his little brothers) and a bat and balls. Later we sang Happy Birthday and ate our snowman cake and ice cream. John blew out his candles in two blows... the first one didn't count though, because

Over the last few days I added a page to my website just for my kids. There aren't any links to it from anywhere else on the site yet, but my kids have all made it their homepage. I thought I'd share. http://stevenmaelyn.com/kidlinks.html It has links to sites my children enjoy going to online, as well as a few other sites they could check out. Most of them have some educational benefits. They include sites for Hannah and John (like a scigames.com that has games about solar systems and stuff) as well as sites with activities Peter can do. (like PBSkids.org) There is a link to the Friend activity page as well as a MAD LIBS Widget that they can do right on the page. I plan to add sites to it as I find ones I think my children will like. So, I was wondering if any of those who read this know of any fun, age appropriate sites I could add to it. Yes, I've tried Google, but there are so many options there, it's going to take me a while to find the good ones. I'd like to k

Yesterday, looking for something to do, we pulled out the modeling clay and started sculpting. Hannah, always the artist, created an entire family! I was very impressed. This is the entire family. These are the parents. These are the children. Notice the girl licking an ice cream cone and the baby with the rattle! What a talented daughter I've got!

I was cleaning out a file cabinet and came across this old geometry quiz. The kids and I had fun figuring out the answers. The answers are below, but try to figure them out before you peek! No actual knowledge of geometry is required. (Warning: these require some imagination and disregard for spelling, grammar, and the like.) Match the correct term to its description: 1. That which Noah built. 2. An Article for serving ice cream 3. What a bloodhound does in chasing a woman 4. An expression to represent the loss of a parrot 5. An appropriate title for a knight named Koll 6. A sunburned man 7. A tall coffee pot perking 8. What one does when it rains 9. A small dog sitting in a refrigerator 10. What a boy does on the lake when his boat's motor won't run 11. What you call a person who writes for a hotel 12. What the captain said when his boat was bombed 13. What a little acorn says when he grows up 14. What one does to trees that are in the way 15. What you do if you have yarn an

I am NOT HAPPY!!! I went to take a picture today and discovered that someone broke my camera!!! It looks like someone hit the LCD screen on the back with something sharp and hard. When I turn on the camera, it looks cracked in the middle with black streaks radiating out from the center. I can still turn it on and I can still take pictures, and download them to the computer, but I can't see what I'm taking a picture of (there's no view window), and I can't see what I'm doing to change any of the menu options. Grrrr! We didn't need another big expense. (We already replaced the fridge and dishwasher this year!) We'll probably have to live with it for now... but can I repeat? I am NOT HAPPY!!!!!

I'm way overdue for an update, but it's been hard to find the time this summer. The week after our South Dakota Adventure was busy. John had Cub Scout Day Camp that week. I was busy unpacking, cleaning, doing laundry, enjoying Kristy and Family's visit, and on Friday of that week I got to leave the other three kids with a friend while I went to help out with the day camp. That was fun. Since it was the last day, the boys got to shoot off rockets that they had made earlier in the week. They pounded stamps into leather, learned about putting up and taking down tents, learned how to play some volley ball, and played dodge ball. The challenge was keeping track of the boys' water bottles and making sure they were all drinking enough in the hot sun. John and I ended up leaving a little early, and I'm glad we did: at the time that they were supposed to let out, a summer storm had arrived and it was pouring rain and hailing! The following week we were finally able to settle