Spring is Here

March 8:   

What's the best about homeschooling on a beautifully warm spring-like day?   

The opportunity to rearrange our schedules and spend time outside enjoying it!   

They still got some schoolwork done, but Ellie and Adam also ended up playing frisbee golf with their friend, Andrew, and Emma and I went for a walk at Gravelly Point with friends.  

Later Adam and his friend, Luke, spent time outside unwinding a baseball...

and eventually found out what the center looks like.  

Tonight we had one more youth family history night at our house and helped a few of them find 50+ more names to take to the temple tomorrow night!   

All in all, a beautiful and successful day! 

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A Delight

March 6: 

Glen and I have been talking a lot lately about making the Sabbath day more of a delight in our home.   The idea is based on the scripture, Isaiah 58:13, and it's been a thought provoking process for us.   For a long time, we've thought of  keeping the Sabbath day holy more of us keeping to a list of things we can't do, but now we're trying to be more deliberate about making it more of a day to bring us closer to God and help increase our faith.   

So what kinds of things are we doing to make the day more of a delight?   

Well, in addition to going to church, today we did boatloads of family history to get ready for our youth temple trip this week, 

we made and brought cupcakes to one of my young women whose birthday is today,

 we ate a simple break-the-fast meal of nachos, Glen and the girls went to their Savior of the World play practice, Emma got caught up on her seminary reading, I wrote a few letters and got some YW work done, Ellie did some artwork of a temple, and we listened to beautiful music on my favorite Sunday channel on Pandora.  

We're not perfect at it by any means, but as we've tried to be more deliberate about our Sabbath observance, I've definitely felt an increased peace and sense of renewal to begin our week.   

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Awesome to Lame

February 20: 

We had another youth family history night at our house on Saturday.    Together the youth found about 100 names to take to the temple and the whole experience lit a fire in Ellie.  Now that she knows how to do it, she's gone and found another 25 or so more names for a total of 31 in two days' time.   

Ellie has a family history buddy (another 10-year-old), who also found several names to take to the temple. 

Emma and Elena together found over 50 names. 

February 21:

On Sunday we had an extra six kids sitting in our row at church and although I didn't get anywhere near as much out of the talks as I normally do, it was absolutely delightful to look down the row and see the row of cuties!   We had the kids' cousins, McKenzie, Bridgette, Lauren, and Davin with us, and two other friends whose baby brother just had surgery.   

February 22:

When all else fails....post pictures of your food.   In this case it's chicken breasts "breaded" with a cashew, coconut, chia seed concoction.   It actually was pretty tasty with some spinach and a little dressing.     

This week is looking to be C-R-A-Z-Y to the extreme with a lot on my plate (and I'm not talking about food anymore), so don't be surprised if my blogposts this week are a little on the lame side....you know to match my lame sense of fashion and my lame personality.      

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This Week (January 15-21)

Ugh!  I can't decide whether I like this photo-a-day thing or not.    On the one hand, I like that it challenges me to capture more of the little moments in our lives, but on the other hand, I feel like it's going to get really boring, really fast.    Most of our days are not only not exciting, but they're often rather similar from week to week.    I'll keep it up for now and try to keep it interesting, but I'm not going to be surprised if it fizzles after a while!  In the meantime, we are hunkering down for the snowstorm of the century....literally.  They're predicting 18-30-inches of snow, which is pretty steep snowfall totals, even by my Minnesotan standards.  I'm anticipating a whole lot of nothing happening around these parts for the next several days, which, lucky for us,  will mean loads of sledding, hot chocolate,  and board games for us!      

January 15--Once I started homeschooling the kids a few years ago, I realized that for my sanity's sake, I needed a fudge day thrown into the schedule.  Not a day that we literally eat fudge, although that does sound nice too, but that we needed a day with less {or no} structure to give us a chance to go on field trips or finish up work that needed to be done.  Other years that fudge day has been Friday and I attribute our keeping this day free of obligations to one of the main reasons why I've been able to stay somewhat sane and keep homeschooling.     This year, though, our schedule has jacked up a notch and  we do not have a true fudge day anymore.   I believe that everything we have on our schedule is valuable, but I still miss our laid back Fridays.   Last Friday was even busier than a  usual one with a YW presidency meeting first thing in the morning, then straight on to our Friday coop, and on to our evening activities.  My siblings, Tim and AnnaLisa, came over at some point and were showing Ellie something humorous, which is when I finally remembered to take a picture for the first time.  

January 16--It's a little sad how long it took us to put away our Christmas decorations and then put our house back together afterward.  We hosted a family history night at our house that night, so we were motivated to get it all done, even if the project did take up most of the day!

13 youth  came to the family history night at our house, and most of them found names to take to the temple, so we're considering the night a smashing success! 

January 17-- This Sunday was much less busy (not as many meetings) than last week and I was excited to get back to my Sunday letter writing time!   Being an introvert means that sometimes I have a hard time connecting with the young women in person the way that I would like, so I try to write a couple of meaningful letters to girls every week.   We, as a presidency,  keep a list and make sure that all 33 girls gets a letter from us at least quarterly.   We also send postcards to anyone who wasn't there that day.    



January 18--After an unseasonably warm beginning to winter (it was 75º on Christmas Day), winter weather has officially arrived and everyone is starting to buzz about some snow potential later this week!

January 19--I have a minor obsession with the sunshine and natural light.  My family laughs at the fact that I keep the windows uncovered all the time and turn off all artificial lights possible if there's any natural light to be had.    I think my obsession stems from two sources--one from my childhood in Minnesota where I craved/needed more sunlight in my life and two from my interest in photography.  We've lived in this house for 14-1/2 years now and this spot in our dining room is "my spot".   The sun streams in every afternoon and I find myself drawn there to soak up the warmth and the light while I accomplish whatever task needs to be done.  

Also, right before bed the kids got out the dominos and started working together on a track.  It was cute to see their excitement and willingness to work together on it.  

January 20--Ellie and Adam got distracted right after scripture study today and started using my phone and iPad to text lots of silly things to their cousin, Davin, who was texting from his Dad's phone.

How silly were they being?    I'll let you judge.  

  Later that night we tracked down new sleds and a shovel to replace a broken one.  I was quite proud that we tracked them down two days before a monster storm and helped a couple of other people get them too!   That evening we got a mere inch of snow, which on the untreated roads led to a long slippery trip home from Emma's dinner cooking job.    There were over 1000 accidents reported in the area and Glen passed four of them on the way home from work.  I blame it all on the coming blizzard, which distracted everyone (including VDOT who should have been treating the roads) from paying attention to the inch. 

January 21--After yesterday's inch of snow shut down the capital of the free world and caused people to have 8+ hour commutes home, the school systems just all shut down today. Never mind that  everything had melted by 10:00 and that schools are already closed tomorrow for the impending blizzard and will almost certainly be closed for most of next week too.     We live in an area where an abundance of caution is given to all kinds of weather and today's cancellation caused a bit of giggling on my part.

Today Ellie got a bee in her bonnet and decided to go for a run on the treadmill.     So she put on her running shoes with her dress and went for a run.  

How far?    Only 5-miles or so, which randomly was her goal.    Why she randomly decided she needed to go for a 5-mile run today I have no idea, but she certainly was pleased with herself afterward!  

Meet Rocky (Pets: Part 2)

 In 2009, a friend of a friend offered to let us adopt their already neutered and house-trained pug-beagle mix before they took him to the pound.  My kids had been begging for a dog for years before that and although I already knew that I was not a dog lover, I let the rest of the family persuade me into giving him a try.  The dog previously called Oliver, was quickly renamed the much cooler sounding name, "Rocky," by the kids.  He was about one-year-old and although quite cute, was also quite a handful.  

You see, although I had had two brief stints as a dog owner in my childhood, nobody had yet cued me into the Dog Statement of Belief.  What?  You've never heard of the Dog Statement of Belief?  Well I have it on good authority that it goes something like this:      

"We claim the privilege of rolling in poo, pulling things out of the trash, chewing up leather shoes, and barking at any and all people, animals, and vehicles that come within sight of our house.  If there is anything stinky, meaty, or in any ways gross, we seek after these things." 

Apparently most people already know all about dog's beliefs and have either come to an acceptance about them in exchange for their cheerful companionship or have decided that they don't want anything to do with them.  Although by nature I fall squarely into the latter category, over the past few years Rocky and I have come to a reluctant peace with each other.

While I may not love all of his antics, I've grown to appreciate his presence during the day and his eager willingness to accompany me on a walk.  I find it sweet when he snuggles up next to anyone who sits on "his" couch and mostly I love that the kids adore him.   And on really good days  when he hasn't acted too crazily (not very often),  I even occasionally find myself wondering what kind of dog we might get next.

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More about Rocky:  

Rocky's favorites

• Likes to sleep snuggled next to Ellie
• Is attracted to dirty underwear and socks and will chew them to bits if given the opportunity
• loves going on walks
• loves to chase squirrels, but never even comes close to catching them
• is very sweet with the kids

Things that annoy us about Rocky

• Although the owner and dog are very friendly, Rocky hates the greyhound that lives around the corner from us, and goes embarrassingly crazy whenever we cross paths.
• Barks....a lot!

Other pets owned: 

• hermit crab
• 1 gerbil and a devil-gerbil, Fui and Lucy
• a couple of fish

Family History: Pets Part 1

I recently read a fascinating article from the NY Times about how valuable it is for kids to be familiar with their family's stories--stories from their own childhood and stories from their parents' and grandparents' pasts.  It was found that people who were familiar with their family history were more likely to feel connected and a part of something "bigger" and as such had higher self-esteem and were more resilient when hard times hit their lives.

After reading the article I felt comfortable that through this blog my children were getting a good glimpse at our lives from 2007 on, but I wondered how I could do better at capturing some of the stories from before that.  Because I'm a person who likes routine,  I've decided to devote a blogpost every Thursday to delving into our pasts.  It's likely that I won't use as many pictures in these posts, but I hope in sharing these stories that they will get an even better glimpse of where they came from and who they are.  I will be using a writing prompt each week and will cover a wide variety of topics.

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I was born into a family of pet haters.  It's not that we are cruel to animals or don't love other people's animals, but more that they just seemed like one thing too many to take care of in a bustling house filled with eight busy kids.  Twice we tried dog ownership and twice it was a dismal failure.

The first time was when I was about ten and my dad surprised us by bringing home a puppy.   We named him "Cinnamon-Sugar" and thought he was great fun to chase around the yard.   Too bad my mom was not in on the surprise and was not happy about the new member of the household.  A couple of days later, in a very puppy-like moment, Cinnamon excitedly greeted a neighbor kid and in process scratched him on the face.   My mom panicked and dragged us all back inside as quickly as she could.

Next thing I knew the police were pounding at the door and my mom had locked us in a bedroom and told us not to make a peep.  She had no desire to talk to the police about the dog's crime and she figured if we just hid, they'd have to come back later when my dad was home from work.  I actually have no idea how the issue with the neighbor was resolved, but suffice it to say that Cinnamon didn't last the week at our house.

The next time we tried dog ownership, we were in our house in Andover.   A family friend was moving and had given us their two trained Pomeranians (I think that's what they were).    We were older, had a bigger yard, and the dogs were actually very sweet.  Oddly I don't remember their names, but I do remember that they used to spend most of the day under my dad's desk.  We took good care of them and made sure they had everything they needed, except for love and cuddles.  Most of us Crains are not the touchy-feely type and it just never occurred to us to sit on the couch and snuggle up with the dogs.  Eventually after I had graduated and left for college, one of them was hit by a car, which when I think of our dead-end street in almost rural Minnesota, seems like it had to have been quite the careless driver.   Shortly thereafter my family moved to Russia and gave the remaining dog to a loving family.  We heard that it was a good fit and they were quite happy together.

After that they recognized that dogs were not for them.  They now own a cat, Tux, who spends most of his time outdoors.  Other than when we come to visit with Glen and Cami's cat allergies, it's a perfect fit for them.  

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Mom, Dad, and siblings:  Feel free to chime in on this post and let me know where my memory is faulty.  

  Stay tuned for Pets Part 2--- my adult experience with pets.