Halloween

Today I felt like such a scrooge.

I just really don't like Halloween.

And I really don't like dressing up.

This is the extent of my costume . . . an orange shirt with a black shirt over it. I've at least got the right colors.

I don't even do costumes for my kids. I send them downstairs to the orange bucket and let them peruse through all the costumes I had as a kid. Isn't my mom nice to give me all that? I don't know how I got to be so lucky. I guess being the oldest has perks sometimes.

Erik came up with Alex's costume . . . a pumpkin pirate. I think I'm a little biased. He's by far the cutest pumpkin pirate I've ever seen.

Ash flew off in typical witch style like every year.

Nate traded in his ninja mask for a ski mask and became a robber instead.

Elder Leary, aka Erik, was such a hit at a trunk-or-treat several nights ago that Scott decided he wanted in on the action and they became a companionship. Elders Leary and Ruebush. Has a nice ring, doesn't it?

Kiersten was the candy goddess, although she sure had to be quick on her toes to beat Alex to the door.

I guess I don't mind Halloween if I have someone to take my kids door to door (Erik took Alex this year) and hand out the chocolate while I relax with my own cup of hot chocolate and a handful of my own miniature candy bars.

A pilfered blog post about media

I've gotten out of my groove lately. I've got a whole list of things to write about and document but the ambition just isn't there right now. I've been enjoying a lot of time outside getting my yard ready for winter and enjoying a lot of time inside turning my blog into a book (hopefully for Christmas). And those two things are very time consuming. So today you get a post from a blogger I follow who happens to also be the Young Mother of the Year for Utah, Michelle Lehnardt.

I like what she said about the consumption of media contributing to raising our children more than perhaps any other factor. So because of that we have to be vigilant, very vigilant, where media is involved. The key is teaching children VALUES, not RULES.

I deleted her family pictures since that seemed irrelevant here. But if you'd like to read the original article with pictures intact, just click the title or here.

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Raising Real Men: Mixed-Up Media

By Michelle Lehnardt

We are what we eat, but even more so, we are what we read, watch, listen to and play. And the question behind media consumption is, "Who do we want to be?"

I want my children to be smart, kind, respectful, considerate, well-spoken. What I don't want: any objectification of women, coarse language, violence, mocking others or any form of cruelty. I worry about pornography every single day and protect my family.

At my children's ages, I can't monitor them every minute of the day. Yes, I have a good internet filter and check the history regularly, but more importantly we've instilled in them values to direct their actions. My boys understand WHY we don't read/watch or listen to certain books, movies, TV shows and music. Even when Ben was in high school, he called me before watching a movie with his friends. Not to get permission, but simply to get advice on the content. He didn't want to put anything in his mind that would impair who he wants to be.
In our modern world, our consumption of media contributes to raising children more than perhaps any other factor.

Media comes at us from every direction, nearly every moment of the day: books, magazines, Facebook, YouTube, TV, video games, cell phones etc. To neglect it's influence (good and bad) is pure foolishness.
We're a pretty moderate household. Many of you would find us too strict and many others would find us too lenient. Ben was 13 before he ever saw a PG-13 movie. Gabe was 6. And at 11 he's seen every X-Men movie and a whole slew of James Bond films. We listen to a lot of classical music but also to Imagine Dragons, Train, Maroon 5 etc. A wide screen TV lies behind my family room cabinet, but it's not hooked up to cable or satellite.  Everyone over 13 at my house maintains a Facebook account. We're not Luddites, but we'd lose at any pop culture quiz games.

Teaching media awareness starts young and changes with every new bit of technology, but when children are driven by values, rather than rules, our decisions are pretty simple. Every family cultivates a slightly different set of values and parents have varying abilities to monitor media and devices. With a big, brave, deep breath, I'll outline our approach to various forms of media. This is not a to-do list, simply ideas for consideration. As I've said before, I'm not skilled at monitoring devices so we don't have very many. Also, there are a whole lot of things I wish we could do better (really, Gabe did not need to see James Bond seducing women or getting kicked and beaten). And I'm going to stop apologizing right now. At least I'll try.

BOOKS-- I believe books impact our thoughts more powerfully than movies. Readers spend more time in a book (usually) and know the characters intimately. In fact, a new study reveals those who read the classics exhibit more empathy than readers of pop fiction. I'd scarcely call everything written this century pop fiction-- children's and YA literature have attracted brilliant authors-- but the study proves one book is not like another. Too many people are afraid of books dubbed as "classics" with the assumption they are boring. They are classics because they are awesome! I'll never forget the first time Stefan read The Count of Monte Cristo. Over and over he exclaimed, "How come nobody told me this was such a good book!?"

Look for reviews on commonsensemedia.org, but you might want to get a feel for their reviews before trusting them implicitly. I promise a list of great boys' books coming soon.

TV/MOVIES/VIDEO GAMES--  I said more than enough about this last year and about handheld games, the iTouch and smartphones so I won't repeat it again.

INTERNET-- Basics: keep computers and TVs in public rooms and password protect computers. Even if everyone knows the password it provides a conscious moment to say, "why am I turning on the computer?" Some of the boys' favorite positive websites are listed here: nerd power

A few new finds:
Minute Physics  
Veratisium
VSauce
CGPGrey
Studio C
FamilySearch
and of course, KhanAcademy and TED talks.

AVOIDING PORNOGRAPHY-- Happiness in life is more about the DOs than the DON'Ts. Finding a hobby, playing sports, studying, hiking, time with friends and family-- all these insulate our children from pornography more than any filter. Addiction to pornography stems from an emptiness, a hole in the heart a person tries to fill with an artificial thrill. Alcohol and drug abuse and overeating stem from the same emptiness. Sadly, many in our country still believe pornography is a harmless pastime and fighting against it is a job for the religious right. But pornography hurts EVERYONE. Our entire society pays a price for increased sexual assaults, broken marriages, destructive attitudes towards women, job loss and depression. In the UK, as a response to violent porn-related crimes, Prime Minister David Cameron is waging war on internet filth. By the end of this year, everyone in the UK will have to 'opt-in' to receive any kind of explicit material, hard-core everything will be banned and those typing in certain search terms will be black-listed. And hurray for Google who are working to eliminate child porn from the Internet.

How can we best protect our kids? Love them. Fill that hole in their heart. And if/when they do mess up, love them. Tell them they are still good people, teach them to resist temptation. Teach them why pornography is wrong how it will hurt them: impairing relationships, putting grades at risk, taking time from positive activities, increasing feelings of worthlessness and shame.

Every one of our children will be exposed to pornography in some degree. As Ben so wisely informed me when he was in high school, "It's not a matter of seeking it out; it's a matter of turning away." My older boys have all dropped off certain sports teams because of the overabundance of pornography and crude talk in the locker room and on the field. To them, staying on the team wasn't worth WHO they want to be.

And I'm raising men. Real men.

Playing hooky with my girls

Well there goes Kiersten and Ashlyn's perfect attendance awards. Shame on their mother!

Last week my nephew turned one and of course Grandma needed to celebrate and invited me and Alex along to go with her and my other sister to Logan.

Kiersten casually mentioned 10 minutes before catching the bus that maybe she should come too.

I didn't have to think too long and agreed to let her sluff school with me.

Ash got wind of our "girl party" and wanted in on the action . . . so we left Alex home and commenced our journey to Logan.

Sometimes I forget my camera and I get really bummed. So these are the only pictures I got (from my SIL) of our random, spontaneous, all-day jaunt to see family.
It was the most beautiful day and so glad we went. We got takeout and had a picnic at this fun park. Kiersten made a 3-year-old friend who pretty much idolized her. Can you blame him? She played with him for a good 30 minutes and even introduced her to his mom. As we were leaving, the mom stopped me to tell me what an awesome daughter I had and how nice she was to entertain her son.

Spontaneity used to kill me. I felt like in order for me to leave the house, I needed everything done and clean. But I've changed my ways. Spontaneous outings are such a good thing, especially when it involves my kids.

This one's for you Linda

I should probably clarify my blog title. My sister-in-law Linda had left a comment wanting to know how my chicken canning went when I finally tried it. So this one's for Linda.

Chicken went on sale . . . $1.79 a pound, although I had to buy 40 pounds of the stuff. I should have waited a week because Smith's had it for $1.69. I hate it when that happens.

Anyway, I'd been waiting for this chance to try canning chicken. I got 7 quarts filled up and it looked like I hadn't even made a dent in my 40 pounds of chicken. Seriously, all I did was put a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of chicken bouillon granules in the jar and put my chicken breasts in the jar, leaving about an inch of head space (I actually cut my chicken up because man were they HUGE! I was pretty sure those chickens must have been fed some kind of growth hormone.).

I didn't even put water in the jar (it may look like it, but the chicken creates its own broth as it cooks); just wiped the rim of the jar, put my lid on and I was ready to pressurize. My only mishap was when the canner started to steam, it was coming out of the side also and I knew that wasn't right. So I shut the entire process down to check the seal and started over. Second time worked like a charm. Ninety minutes later . . . 

I can't say they're the prettiest things I've seen. In fact it all looks so unappetizing to me. But I knew I just couldn't let them sit on my storage shelf; I was going to have to actually try it.

Tonight's rainy, cold weather was calling for Chicken Noodle Soup. When I opened the jar, it smelled like canned chicken I buy from Sam's Club, it shredded very nicely, and it tasted wonderful in our soup.

Canned chicken was a success and by far the easiest canning I've done yet.

Now what to do with the rest of all that chicken. I froze some and grilled some to freeze for later use.
I just put the entire cooked chicken breast in a ziploc baggie instead of cutting it up or shredding it. That way I can use it how I want. You want to know the secret ingredient to cooking most meat:

Yep, it says steak on it, but I use it to season my chicken, ground beef, homemade fries . Just sprinkle some on whatever you're cooking. Definitely one of my favorite things.

You're gonna want to stay tuned for a later post. Last week I learned how to make wheat meat. What? You know . . . for that day you're going to want some meat and have nothing but all that wheat you've been told to store. All I can say is it was some funky stuff.

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CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP for those cold, rainy days that call for it
8 c. water, divided
3 chicken bouillon cubes
2 c. carrots, cut up
2 c. celery, cut up
1 onion, chopped
2 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded or cut into chunks
3 to 6 ounces of egg noodles (I use the noodles called Country Pasta rather than regular egg noodles, although you could just use those. I put in about 3 big handfuls of noodles.)
2 cans cream of chicken soup (a must!)

Heat 6 cups of water and bouillon until bouillon is dissolved. Add carrots, celery, and onion and cook until softened, about 7 minutes. Add chicken and 2 MORE cups of water. Add noodles and cook until softened. When noodles are done, add cream of chicken soup and salt and pepper to taste.

Black cow analogy

A couple of weekends ago I ended up at home for a wedding shower for Katie. While I was there Dad needed help moving a couple of cows from the lower field to the upper field where there was grass for them to eat. All we needed to do was get them into the trailer to be hauled over.

Simple, right?

No, not simple.

Why?

Because cows are just plain not the submissive type. They are really stupidly belligerent. At least this was the black cow's temperament.

Apparently the night before Dad had tried to do it by himself and the black cow didn't like being coerced and decided to jump the fence. Except the dumb cow didn't realize that number one he is a cow and number two cows don't jump high fences. Yep, he got caught in the barb wire at the top and was stuck. Dad somehow managed to get him free but decided to wait for recruits.

Those cows looked at us warily and tried bolting several times and even got to the doorway of the trailer and still didn't think this was a good idea. After several minutes of a stalemate, they clamored in and Dad got them to greener pastures.

This whole incident got me thinking about the cows and how different they are from other animals that are easy to herd or be led.

Aren't we like cows sometimes, maybe a lot of times?

Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, only wants to lead us to greener pastures and all we have to do is follow. He knows what's best and how best to get us there. I know I'm a lot like that stubborn black cow who thinks she has a better way or just plain doesn't want to be led. And I pull a Jonah and run the other direction saying, "I just don't want or have time to do that today."

And then what happens?

I get caught in the barbed wire attempting my escape.

Just like my dad knew what was best for his cows, the Savior knows where he wants us to be, where we ultimately want to be whether we know it or not, and how best to get us there. Our job is to not be so much like that stubborn black cow.