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Fall Read-Alongs

With M. and Jilly becoming amazing readers, and the other two being such good listeners we've entered the exciting new world of children's novel bed time reading. At the end of our bedtime routine, we give one last kiss, turn out the lights, and then I read in the hall between the rooms while everyone listens. (When everyone listens) It is MAGICAL!

Some of the books we've read are Laura Engles Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, My Father's dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett, and The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DeCamillo.

Please join us for our next Family story. We are reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

We are excited to hear how your family likes it. Please comment below if you've already read this one together or when you finish. What is your favorite part? Which characters do you love? What themes did your kiddos identify with? What touched you as you read?

I've also picked up a children's book series that I love and would love to read with you all. The first book is Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge. The characters are spunky, the writing is clever, and I can't wait to talk to you about it.

Happy Fall Reading!!!

Signs of Spring

Have you heard that saying about March: "In like a lion; out like a lamb"? I'm convinced a New Englander made that up (probably Benjamin Franklin) because it is an accurate assessment of the weather right now. This is the view out my front window this weekend. We had a foot and a half of snow last week and now things are warming up and melting away.

Before that massive snow storm there were signs of spring popping up in the flower beds. I was afraid all that snow had crushed and killed all the baby flowers, but look . . . aren't crocuses the most amazing spring flower. They just pop right up out of the snow and give us hope of warmer days to come.

Ahhh Spring, the calendar told me you had come, but I didn't really believe until now. But now that I'm sure, I've noticed other signs of Spring:

My children have cabin fever like I've never seen. This is the week to dawn galoshes and kick everyone out side to splash and scream.

I keep adding things to my "new skills to learn" list, like tap dancing, and photography.

And the colors I'm choosing to wear are getting more and more Easter-ish.

I'm just so happy those little flowers made it. I will never doubt again.

The Happiness Project

Have you ever read a book that left you feeling like you were having a conversation with an old friend, or a new friend, someone you connected with so well and could talk to ALL DAY LONG? Well, I'm a bit behind the times since this particular book came out in 2009 and then was followed by another equally great book and a sequel, AND a 107 (and counting) episode podcast, not to mention a website and more.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the memoir-esque tale of a woman who searches for happiness within her already good life by working on being a better person through personal goal setting. I wouldn't call myself a highly motivated person, but I am a goal setting person. I'm a person who sets goals, works on them for a week or two, tells everyone how well I'm doing, and then quits, just to start up the same goals a couple months later. I'm also the type of person who sets many little tiny goals to work on all at once instead of one huge goal, so Gretchen's approach of working on 4 or 5 goals a month that accumulate over the course of a year seems very natural to me.

My sister suggested I read Gretchen's books. I suggested all my friends read it too, because I love having people to talk to about things like books. During our after reading discussions many of my said things like, "Let's do Happiness Project." and "When are you starting your Happiness Project." and I thought I should at least write down my goals, maybe even set up some kind of monitoring system (because I also read Better Than Before and stocked up on sweet goal setting tips). When wrote down my 32n't goal I stopped to breath.

IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE for a person to be working on 32 goals at the same time? I'm banking on my goals being small enough that they are more like practice steps to a more awesome life; like I'm learning a little dance that will help me be my best self and if I don't get all the steps right one day, it's alright, the recital is a ways off. I have time for more practice.

Here are some of my goals. Promise not to laugh! I broke them into categories so that I didn't just have an unending list.

Daily Habits:

Drink more water / Eat more veggies

Workout at least 20 minutes a day

Shower

Hobbies:

Practice music regularly

Set up a book club

Make time for crafts

Home Improvement:

Organize / give everything a home

Create a laundry system

Stick to the meal plan

Build a minimal wardrobe

Relationships:

Call my family

Make time for friends

Plan date night

Plan play-dates for my girls

Personal Development:

Look for needs to fill for others

Stick to my task organization system

Rounding it off:

Finish the kitchen chores at night

Floss

Plug in my phone and check my calendar every night

So there it is. A little sample of my mini habits. I've never considered myself a gold star person, but I'm thinking a little chart for gold stars would be a nice way to see how I'm doing. Look for an update, and please let me know what some of your goals are.

"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow."

Melody Beattie

Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever read. Maybe not ever. But it is beautiful. 

Happy Thanksgiving. We have a hundred leaves on our thankful tree that say "friends & family" on them. That is you! (In case you forgot.)

Big Kisses for all of you!

We recently took a trip to Chocolate World in Hershey, PA. We wanted to send you all BIG KISSES!!!

 

Grey is hugging this Hershey's bar because it's the closest thing we could get to hugging something as sweet as you.

Boy do we miss you guys.

Our Valentine's Adventure

This year for Valentine's Day we and our friends took a trip to Boston. We went to dinner Friday night at Five Guys because my kids LOVE burgers, and then we babysat for our friend at the hotel while they went to the Boston LDS temple. M. wasn't feeling well, so she and I stayed in with Grey while Matt took Jill, Hannah, and our friend Sam swimming. The girls had so much fun bouncing around and having a late night party with their friend.

Saturday morning we had a lovely, HOT, complimentary breakfast. Then our friends watched the girls and Grey while we went to the temple. A big storm was rolling in, so we didn't stay in town long. To round out the day we took the girls to see the temple for themselves. What a fabulous time we had. And what beautiful children we have. They are so very excited to go inside someday.

Singing With Angels

This year I got the opportunity of a lifetime.  Last night I went to Capital Distric's Handel's Messiah Sing-A-Long but instead of being one of the chorus, I was asked to sing the alto aria "He Shall Feed His Flock." It was a wonderful experience.  The best part was getting to sit by the best singers in the house as we sang the chorus parts.  Grey really enjoyed it too. He sat on my lap on the front row. A few of the other sweet chorus members held him while I sang my aria, and then he helped me receive flowers at the end. What a young professional he was.

Cooking with M.

This week I have hidden the potatoes, and the chips, and the mini loaf pans, the salt and pepper, the computer paper, and the scissors. I would hide the water too, but I need it to continue to flow from the taps.

"Why," you ask, have I hidden all these things. Well, because one of my children has suddenly taken an extreme interest in cooking. Not cooking with Mom, nope. She wants to be independent in her culinary experimentation. And so, I've found a lot of cut up potatoes and shredded paper mixed with water and spices in mini loaf pans in various rooms in the house (usually close to a water source, water being one of the main ingredients in every recipe.)

Today I kept her busy helping me clean the house with a new game I called "The Quick Clean Up" in which I wrote 5 minute jobs on little strips of paper and put them into a bowl. The children would pick a job, set the timer, and try to complete the job in 5 minutes or less. It worked really well, especially for Jill.

Then we had lunch and a movie, and I drove into town to check on a Craig's List  doll house for Christmas. I came back empty handed, and found cut up yams in mini loaf pans full of water as an extra little bonus. Sweet!

We cleaned that up right before our friends came to play . . . baby sitting for a friend. We had a good time. So good that no one noticed M. sneak away while I was feeding the baby. I found her later in the kitchen making this scrumptious meal:

We will call it,
M's popcorn and pudding yams. 
(another possible Thanks Giving delight)

Popcorn
Vanilla pudding
BBQ sauce
Yams
honey
Salt
Pepper
Basil

Cover the bottom of a casserole with un-popped popcorn. Mix in Honey. Place yams on top of popcorn base. Spread BBQ sauce over yams and sprinkle with vanilla pudding, salt, pepper, and basil. Stand back and marvel at your masterpiece. Call others to marvel as well.

20 different words for snow

I've heard people say that the Eskimos have 20 different words for snow. I only know about 5 ways to talk about snow, but my vocabulary is expanding. It snowed over Thanksgiving weekend and was about all melted by the time we returned from Grandma and Grandpa's house. We thought about buying a shovel, but didn't.

Yesterday the day started out with freezing rain, then rain, the freezing rain again. Then in the evening the rain became heavy wet snow flakes. Every evening event was canceled, and we listened as two of our neighbors shoveled their drives together.

This morning Matt shoveled most of ours and then left for work. He called from work early to tell me that everything was very wet. Snow was still coming down and I called it a snow day for our family and we stayed in our PJ's and did laundry. The children found their snow clothes and played outside for a little bit.

After lunch, everyone went down for naps and I attempted to clear the rest of the drive and front walk. All I can say is this is not Idaho snow. It's mostly water and a little bit of ice. It's so heavy that my shoulder hurt after doing just a few shovel fulls. It's going to make great snow forts, snow men, sledding hills . . . but it really stinks to shovel.

The Thanksgiving Tree

This year we tried something new. We made this lovely tree. We have had a good time and many FHE activities full of writing our thank yous and putting them on our tree.

We wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. And know that most of you made the tree.

xoxxo,
The Svedins

The Color of Butternut Squash

Have you seen pictures of my house yet? I keep promising to post some and then never do. Here is a picture for your imagination. My house was built in the late 40's and has some very interesting colors in it. The most interesting and dated color can be found in the kitchen which coordinates coincidentally with the master bedroom. (You think the previous owner liked this color much?) Some might call it Pink. Some might call it Mauve. But as I prepared dinner tonight I realized that it is neither pink nor mauve. The color of my kitchen is the beautiful fleshy, pink color of Butternut Squash skin, which I think is an absolutely beautiful color, especially next to the bright orange color inside the squash. (That is the color of my back bathroom.)

As I peeled squash tonight for this recipe it accursed to me that the skin I was peeling off was an identical match to my counter tops. Although it is not my favorite color in bulk I can appreciate it a little better now. I sure do love the color of butternut squash, especially in the Fall.

By the way, the squash recipe was delicious. I kept thinking it would make a wonderful Thanks Giving Day side dish. You might even try making it with yams instead of squash.

Smiling Grey

Check it out! Isn't he handsome!?! Two months old and already smiling like a pro. He must know something about how great his life is . . . or is going to be. LOVE IT!

Grandma, this is for you.

Ups and Downs

The trees are down. The fence is up. The leaves are raked. And all just in time because today it snowed, and then it rained. The flurry of Fall work these past few weeks reminds me of this book:

Hurry Hurry Mary Dear by N.M. Bodecker

Only in this book poor Mary is alone in her endeavors, and I have a hard working husband to blame for most of what get's done around here. I feel like very few people around here believe in their own ability to get things done. They are always saying they have done something when what they really mean is they have hired someone to do it for them. When said people visit and see the work Matt has done taking down trees and putting up fences they are truly amazed that he did it himself. I think they also consider him a little bit crazy for working so hard. Time is money around here . . . or something like that. Maybe it's, "Why do it yourself when you can boost the economy by paying someone else to do it for you."

My only contribution this fall consists of 1 quart and 1 pint of apple sauce (almost all eaten) and a freshly raked lawn threes weeks in a row.

Driving At Night

The ladies here meet every week for volleyball at the church. I like (in all little letters) volleyball, but I don't love it. It reminds me of all those activities and tournaments you can probably read about in the journals of my youth. I'm sure I'm the only non-volleyball enthusiast who knows what it means to be "second hit," or who has a solid under-hand serve. Every time I see a ball fly toward me I hear Brother Moon's voice telling me to cushion the hit, slow it down, and stay in my half moon formation.

So I've been spending my "volleyball nights" doing other things, like shopping the JC Penny's sales. But Matt talked me into it this week, and as I drove to the church I realized why I don't like to drive at night. Like any other place, it's dark here, but unlike other places, there aren't very many street lights, even on major roads.

At one point I was on a section of road that had been recently repaved with only the middle line repainted. I watched the yellow line to make sure I was staying on the road. No big deal, right . . . until a couple of cars come your way and you have to stare right into their head lights because there is no where else to look to keep yourself on the road.

Oh Upstate New York. I don't know why you have to keep it so dark at night; perhaps so we can always see the beautiful stars.

Leftovers Night

I never thought I would say that I feel lucky to have had leftovers tonight, but I do. This day was a fun one. While Jill was in school I watched my friend's little boy and raked leaves. Then I picked up Jill and drove to meet Matt for lunch. The girls LOVED that.

Then we went to play with some friends for the afternoon. We got home around 4 and pulled out the leftovers. I happily started my dishwasher half full.

Happy Veteran's Day

The weather today was beautiful, and the girls and I had a plan, which we wrote on a scrap of paper with a crayon last night. Mostly it was my plan and the girls just signed their consent. Here was the plan:

Wake up!
Eat breakfast
Take bathes and get dressed for the day (very important because all my children were very dirty.)
Find the missing library book
Return books to the library and go the the grocery store
Eat lunch
Rake leaves
Quiet time
Make dinner
Eat dinner
Deliver dinner to a sick friend (planned service, not random)
Go to bed

Notice that waking up was probably the most important part of this plan. Because it was a holiday and none of us had to actually be anywhere (except Matt, who did not get a holiday) we had the potential for never waking up the entire day.

Other high points in the day include actually finding the missing library book, making it in and out of the store without losing any children, or fingers (I may or may not have made threats about fingers falling off if my children let go of the cart to touch unneeded items.), and raking most of the front yard and part of the back. At one point MaryEllen stood on the stump of a felled tree looking very Lorax like. She also won my heart when she offered end of season mums to Jill who was hiding under my big black leaf moving tarp as if the whole leaf raking project had thrown her into deep mourning.

Now it's late and I'm tired. The laundry is still in piles, but at least they are clean piles now instead of dirty ones.

The Thankful Tree

Today started out as a normal Monday with normal type goals. We are in charge of snacks for Jill's preschool class this week. Nothing fancy. We took animal crackers and fruit snacks. At home we started some laundry, watched a show, and talked about President Monson's Sunday morning conference talk with my visiting teachers. Then we picked up Jill, and had lunch.

And then I got an idea. I got a box for the garage, and while my children got into all kinds of mischief, I cut out a tree trunk and 6 limbs for our living room wall. Half way though my random project my friend called and asked if Jill and M could play with her daughter. Perfect. She picked them up, Grey fell asleep moments later, and Hannah and I spent some quality time together pushing leaves down the drive way. Then she took a nap too.

I had all afternoon to do very productive things, like laundry, or rake more leaves. Instead, I finished mounting a cardboard tree to the wall and cutting out beautiful construction paper leaves. I was so into leaf cutting that when Matt and the girls came home from work and play I hadn't even started dinner. We had something very random and then had a Family Home Evening lesson on being thankful and taped leaves to the tree that said what we were thankful for. We again had something very random for FHE treats, and then went to bed.

I'm thankful for a loving family that puts up with my randomness and plays along.

Happy Birthday Jill

Sunday birthdays are interesting. You wake up and everyone tells you Happy Birthday, but you still have to wear your least favorite tights and be still and listen and be extra helpful until dinner time. Then you have to eat dinner and help clean up from dinner. Then you have to sit still and listen to the Home Teachers give a lesson while all you can think about is the frosted cake calling your name in the kitchen.

And after you sit through church and sit through dinner and sit through the Home Teacher's visit, you still have to sit and wait for Mom to wrap your presents and Dad to light your candles and everyone to sing Happy Birthday to you before you can blow out the candles and eat cake and ice cream and open presents.

Being 5 is so rough.

This year all Jill wanted was a locket and a bike bell. So she got a locket, a jewelery box, some rings and other necklaces, a few headbands and bracelets, and a bike bell. Maybe some day I'll learn to just get the kids what they ask for.

4, 3, 2, 1, CAKE!

This morning, Matt was with the 11year old scouts, so we took it slow and easy. Jill and I chatted in the family room while I folded some laundry from yesterday, we got dressed after Hannah and MaryEllen finally woke up, and we had breakfast for an hour as I puttered around the kitchen. I made bread. I made smoothies and more kefir for another day. I made sourdough pancakes. I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it with breakfast dishes. I swept. I fed Grey breakfast.

Then Jill and I picked out a cake mix. The girls helped me gather the ingredients and equipment.  Jill preheated the oven. And all of the sudden I was out of non-messy things to do. We had to just bite the bullet and make the cake. MaryEllen had the box ripped open in no time. She poured the mix into the bowl and everyone had a taste. Yep, it was good. We determined that cakes are OK to keep in food storage. Jill helped me add the water and flour. Then we needed to add two eggs . . . But I have 3 girls . . .

The 4 year old did a great job cracking her egg into the measuring bowl. The 3 year old cracked her shell, pulled it apart, and threw egg and shell into the bowl. The 2 year old was sad when I said we had enough eggs and instead of putting hers back in the carton she dropped it on the table. SPLAT! The baby just slept though it all. We mixed the batter longer than recommended because everyone needed a turn. A small price to pay for happy children. And then everyone tried the batter. Yep, still good. Jill said it was too good to stop trying it, so I helped everyone stop by putting it in the pans and in the oven.

After the cake baked we went outside to trip one of the last hydrangea bushes left from the yard, tree, and bush clean up project. We had lunch. Then Dad came home from the camp out, Hannah went down for a nap, and I took the other two girls and Grey to a friend's house for a Thrive food company party.

Then home again, quick dinner and bathes, and back in the car to a friends house for some fun while Matt and I went on a date (and shopping for Jill's birthday.) Tip: Everything you could ever need to make a 5 year old's dreams come true can be found at Wal-mart. And now we have gifts to go with the cake. Happy Day!!!