Kids and Dessert

It is amazing what kids will do for dessert! I don't make it as often as they would like. Here is a story of what they will do to get it!

The other day, I had a soup pan that was burned terribly when I left it on the stove at the height of seven, when I went to answer the phone. I then forgot all about it, and came back to a ruined soup, and a blackened pan.

I let it soak for a while; put it on the stove with baking soda and let it burn itself off for hours. Nothing did the trick. It still had a layer of black on the bottom.


That was when I thought about the kids. I was making a Fudge Sundae dessert and planned to give them some. Of course! But I figured it wouldn't hurt to use it as a lever. *evil grin*

I called out the door, "Whoever wants dessert can clean this pan." Or some such thing.

You should have seen the rush! Seriously, they came barreling and raced to get spoons to do the scraping. No convincing them!

I would hear them saying, "Hey, I'm working there."


If someone got in their space. In no time at all I had a clean pan and they had earned dessert. Everyone was happy.

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I wonder how many other children from Ethiopia eat like my girls do? They have been home for two years now and they still eat as much as I do! Actually, they used to eat double this amount!


This is Briton's dinner beside Raine's. They are 'supposed' to be within two months of each other in age. She is a girl! Seems to make no difference! And have you seen how incredibly skinny she still is? I am curious about others with children from Ethiopia. Do yours eat a huge amount?
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Friends From Switzerland

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When I was a child my family immigrated to Canada with two other families. My mum and my "Aunty Morag" were old boarding school chums. They had met at age 11. We grew up with the boys and Aunty Morag and Uncle Bryan living about an hour from us. They were like cousins to us. Now Aunty Morag is gone, but her boys are still out there. At Christmas, we were fortunate enough to have Alastair and his family visit us. That was wonderful as we had not seen him for about sixteen years.

In August, Duncan and his family came to visit us.

Waiting for Our Friends

Their boys are the same ages as Cassidy and Austin.

Missing Three of Our Boys

It was only an overnight flying visit as they were on the road visiting many people, but it was great all the same.

Our boys introduced the other boys to the PS 2. They don't own one at their house. These boys are the kind that hike up in the Alps and do all kinds of outdoor adventuring.

We took the boys and their parents to our land to ride the motorbikes and ATV. That was a royal hit!

Our Van Almost at Full Capacity

Robin and Cassidy

Lessons on the ATV

Solo Driver

Briton Showing How It's Done

Riding Briton's Bike

It was a wonderful visit and we are now talking about sending our boys back and forth over the next few years. What a wonderful way to experience the culture: stay with family friends for summer holidays! Our boys were so sad to see them all go home and wished they lived closer. So do I!

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Getting to Camp One Verse at a Time

Sending our children to camp is a wonderful, but expensive summer activity. It is about $300 per child, and so we have not sent them each year. Cassidy has been a couple times, Austin went twice when we were in Ethiopia, and Dane has been once. Going this year was out of the question because we just didn't (don't) have the money. I have even had to cancel three road trip excursions that I was going to make.

Then something happened. Two of my children were dealing with a sin issue. This was something that really needed to be addressed. We had been addressing it, but it was not going away. Then I had the idea to give them a passage from the Bible to memorize. Now you have to know my children and memory work to appreciate this story. I have tried, tried, tried to get them to memorize a verse at a time.

Last fall, the children worked on verses as a group. No good. No one really learned. I did have Austin work with the kids and get them to learn a couple, but that was it. I figured there must have been something wrong with my children. Others learn, why can't mine!

But in desperation I gave the passage Exodus 20: 1-20 to two children - a big and a small one. In no time at all they had both learned it.

I realized then that I had something. These two children had shown me they could memorize passages. Perhaps the key was that they were on their own working on it. So I decided to give it to the other two. I now had Cassidy, Austin, Cooper and Raine memorizing this passage.

What I did was buy them each a notebook from the dollar store. Each different. Each attractive to that child. I then gave them a version of the Bible that I felt was good for them: International Children's Version. It is very readable and simple to memorize, yet true to the original meaning.

They each sat down and wrote out the passage. Some wrote the whole thing out. Others wrote out what they were going to memorize that day. The ones that were more proficient would memorize 3 verses a day and the ones that struggled memorized 2 verses. It proved to be quite painless for them all! They would spend about 15 minutes writing out the verse and about 30-60 minutes practicing.

It became a routine. During quiet time, while doing dishes, mowing the lawn, having a shower, walking through *stores*, I would hear children quoting their verses. It was absolutely wonderful! One day, I drove to the town near me and on the way there it was remarkable. All the children had their verse books and they were all on different parts of their passages. I had Cassidy's verse book in the front and he and I were both using it. I could just imagine God looking down from heaven and seeing this car where five voices were simultaneously practicing the Word of God quietly to themselves. I have to say it was the best moment in all our memorization for me!

I then had an older child do something that was upsetting. I was reading my Bible one night looking for a word of comfort/direction/guidance. I came to Psalm 119. In this verse it says: What can a young man do to cleanse his ways...

This was perfect. I continued reading and loved what I was reading. It was relevant to all of us. So I added this to our list. We had already conquered The Ten Commandments. Why not this one?

During the course of memorizing this passage I remembered that a Bible Camp in the Interior of our province had a deal where the child could memorize himself to camp. For every 20 verses a child could have a day at camp for free.

I decided to call up the camp and see if the ones our children had already done would be accepted, since they were not on the camp list. They were thrilled to hear the children were memorizing and said, Certainly!

I printed out the required verses and put them in plastic page protectors. The children then copied them out verse by verse into their notebooks. Each day they were required to memorize 2-3 verses before their play began. I had no battles, no complaining, simply because it became something we did every day. Even Briton and Savannah began memorizing verses. Because they both have language problems, it is much harder for them, so they were not at the calibre of the older kids, but they did well!

By the time, Cassidy was ready for camp two months later, he had memorized 108 verses. He headed to camp and the Director picked up the verse book, chose a verse, and Cassidy spoke it out. He was very impressed with Cassidy. Cassidy's cost for camp? $67 (His memorization saved him nearly $250!) Not only that, but 108 verses are now hidden in his heart!

When it came time for Cooper to go to camp he was also ready. Before he went his dad said, "It'll be good if he can remember them." It was the funniest thing. I turned to Cooper and said, "Cooper, Exodus 20: 1-2"

Ray bust out laughing when Cooper proceeded to race through the passage. I then showed off a little more and kept on giving him passages, and passage after passage, Cooper did not fail. He was able to recite 106 verses.

At the end of it, Ray said, "They should start giving memory verses instead of spelling bees!"

I agree. I like spelling bees, but memory verses change the heart!

On the last days before camp, as Cooper was practicing his last verses, he would grin and say, "I'm so proud of myself." He wasn't being bigheaded; he was simply so amazed at himself, and he sure deserved to be. He is 7 years old and blew the socks off the Director at camp! His camp cost us $27!!

Reciting His Verses

Cooper's First Sleep Away Camp

Filthy Upon Pick Up Day!

Cooper's Book

Fat Little Book Full of God's Word
A Real Precious Keepsake

Austin was the third child to get to camp. He had extra weeks to do the work and so was able to keep on memorizing past where the other boys got to. He did the full 140 verses, and somehow ended up with 2 extra. He recited his verse for the Director and earned his admiration, FREE CAMP, plus $13 tuck money for all of his hard work.

The Director told me each time I dropped off the children how our family had blessed him and inspired him by the fact that they had earned their way to camp. Truly, we were blessed. Those children could have taken a Campership, but I really don't feel that we could. That just wasn't an option. We are building a house. We have made that a priority financially. But there is no reason the children couldn't *earn* their way to camp. And truly, they spent a good hour or two a day working on their verses, and so they really did earn their way to camp. And I really think that is the *best* way to get to camp! They get camp and hide God's Word in their hearts.

Tom said the verses would be up on the website by November. I asked him if he could please put them up sooner, so we could get on with memorizing in September, rather than cramming in May - July. By the time I dropped off Austin at camp (August) he had already printed out the sheet. Let the memorizing begin!
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Living Books and My Passion for Homeschooling

There is nothing to compare to having a book that you can't wait to pick up and continue reading. As a child I was moved from Canada to England and then back again. It was a painful process with a lot of rejection, as I was a foreigner. The thing that sustained me was my love of books!

I lived about 2 miles from a library and in those days you could only take out four books at a time. For someone who devoured books as I do that was not nearly enough. I can so clearly remember my walks from my house, down an English town road, take right onto Main Street, and then cross over the bridge that led to the Thames River, and then take a left down a side street, and there... there was my beloved library.

No matter what bullying I was enduring, no matter how I missed my friends in Canada, no matter how school was not what I was used to - no matter. I had my beloved friends - my books. I would browse the shelves and pick every so carefully four wonderful books and then begin the walk back home. But I didn't just walk. No I held my book in my hands and read my way home. That walk was so much shorter on the return that on the way out.

I remember one thought that you might consider silly, but honestly, it just showed how books could carry me away from my problems. Sometimes when I walked home it would be late winter nights and it was dark. I was normally scared of the dark, but not when was carrying my books. They gave me a little extra courage. Yes, I would dash as quickly as I could to get home, and I would jump at shadows, and hide when cars passed me by.

At the same time, I would have silly fantasies of what might happen on those late evening trips to the library. Perhaps I would be kidnapped and held to ransom. In my fantasies I always returned home safe and sound. Probably because I never read books that were horrible - more romantic and adventurous in nature.

I figured I would be okay, because I had my books and I would at least be able to read them while I waited for my parents to pay the ransom. Oh the memories!! How funny!

When I was in Grade 7, my library privileges were revoked. Can you imagine!! Taking books from a child. To me that was ludicrous. Their reasoning was that I was supposed to be doing such dry subjects as Spelling or Science, while sitting at my school desk and not secreting a book on my lap. You see, I could pretend I was doing desk work, while actually looking down at my lap where I had the book between the desk and my legs. I could see a sliver at a time; just enough to read. I would slide the book further down my legs as I went down the page. I just couldn't bear to not read!

When I lived in Banff, I would also read. I was a maid in the Banff Springs Hotel. I was a good maid and my reading did not detract from doing my job. This is my disclaimed for those that think I took advantage of my job. *grin* I won employ of the month one month out of 1000 employees, so I know I was doing my job. Buuutttt at the same time.... I figured why not do my job faster and have time to read? So I would do my required number of rooms in a day, and then some more, which earned me points. *grin*. So then I did not feel guilty when my motivator at the end of each room was to stand at my maid cart and surreptitiously read a book for ten minutes before moving onto the next room! This motivation certainly caused me to work speedy fast, and of course, being the Banff Springs Hotel, we had not one, but *two* supervisors checking behind us on each room we cleaned. So there was no way I could slack off.

But those amazing adventures and experiences I read about kept me motivated while doing a mundane job as I did.

When I was a teen of 15 to 18 and had a newspaper route, I read. I used to tell my dad that I was the oldest newspaper carrier out there. *grin* I lived out in the country and the opportunities for making money were extremely limited, so I carried papers. I hated my route, as I was still scared of the dark and it was seven long miles! In the summer and spring it was fine. In the winter it was scary! I had to ride my bike down long sections of dark woods, and due to the fact that my imagination was wild from all the books I had read, (grin), I used to imagine what terrible things could happen to me. My dad probably laughed when I told him my biggest fear was being found dead and the newspaper reporting. Found dead: the oldest newspaper carrier of all time - eighteen years old! (laugh) My imagination was certainly active!

In the spring, summer, and fall days, before it got dark, I would take my stack of newspapers and put them on the bike carrier. I would then pack my novel along with me. If the roads were good I would hold my book on my handlebars with my thumbs and read as I rode down the roads! Can you imagine? If that was my child, there is no way that would be allowed to happen. Well, I didn't advertise to my parents what I was doing! lol I have *very* good peripheral vision, and I suspect it was from all those years reading books when I wasn't supposed to and having to watch for teachers, bosses, and cars! (laugh) But it made my seven miles quite enjoyable!

My love of books has not waned, but my time to read has. They say what is on the bedside table tells alot about a person. I try to squeeze in a few minutes before and after the days begins or ends. Right now, I have The Power of a Praying Wife; The Power of Praying Parent; They Are Already Gone (about adult children leaving the church); Choosing to See - a personal story about Steven and Mary Chapman's loss of their precious baby girl, Maria and their ability to celebrate their faith through it; A Lasting Promise - a book about marriages. Sometimes, rarely, I have time for a riveting good read. But mostly, I love a book about someone's life. I love biographies. I loves stories that triumph or adversity. When I was a girl I loved stories about families and devoured anything I could get my hands on. World War II and the human side of that became a passion for me. Reading about escapes and people helping others drew me in and I couldn't put the books down.

My children have been exposed to classics since they were babies. The first books they are read are Beatrix Potters stories, and the the Winnie the Pooh books. These are followed by: Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, Aesop's Fables, Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson, Charlotte's Web, Just So Stories, Peter Pan, Pinocchio. They adore these books!

As each year goes by my children are given more and more to read. To quote a site that shares 1000 Living books with you:

The criteria we used to judge inclusion are: Does the book have literary value? Does the book re-emphasize a Biblical worldview or the Judeo-Christian heritage in some way? Does the book teach, through whatever means, what is moral or just or true? Does the book encourage to love and good works? Does the book exemplify warmth, tenderness, courage, humor, and other values and characteristics that we desire our children to be exposed to? Does the book nourish the intellect and fire the imagination? Does the book cross age barriers to be enjoyed by all?

1000 Living Books

The site has books organized according to ages. I am thrilled to be able to say that though I read a lot of Twaddle growing up, I have learned to appreciate a Living Book. They are truly *so much better* than Twaddle. For those that haven't heard this word before:

Twaddle: (n) silly, trivial, or pretentious talk or writing; nonsense

So much that is on the library shelves today is twaddle. When the libraries have had their book sales for the last fifteen years, I have been there to clean out the books they want to get rid of. The books that they consider not necessary. They are throwing out books that are not borrowed frequently, and sadly, for the children of today, that means the good old books are gone! Books that are really enjoyable to read, for all ages!

Thankfully for me, this means that my library is huge. I keep on adding books as I find them. And then, when I don't find them in libraries, I find them in Best Online Classic Children's Books or Project Gutenberg - these are two sites that are bringing back books from the past. This next one is specifically books that are in the public domain and are Canadian books: Canadian Gutenberg Project.

I hope you enjoy discovering the difference between Twaddle and Living Books! Do you realize how many people don't even know some of the classics! That is outrageous to me! When I was a child my dad always read in the evening. Behind the living room couch there was a floor to ceiling book shelf filled with classics, and books from my parents' childhoods and youths. I can still see myself going behind that couch to choose another wonderful book to read. This evokes such special memories to me.

When I moved to England at age thirteen, one of the first thing I did was search out the library at my school. There were librarians there, but really, they weren't doing much, as not many people bothered to check out books. Why? The shelves were filled with cloth bound books. No flyleaves, no write-ups on the books. Nothing to entice you to read any particular book. That didn't stop me. I picked up a stack of books and took them to the large window seat and sat back to see what I had. Book by book, I opened the covers to see what magic or treasure was hiding within the old, dusty, covers. And magic there was! The feeling is so clear to my memory. Each book was an old story, but so full of life and adventure.

Another magical memory of childhood I have is when we moved into our tall duplex house in a southern English town. This house was four stories tall with a main floor, two upper floors, and a cellar. Each floor had two main rooms, a bathroom or closet area, and a staircase and landing. You can imagine how many stairs there were in this house! My bedroom and my brothers was up on the top floor, and there was a tiny bathroom and a quaint little kitchen right at the top of the landing for us. I loved it up there!

When we moved in, we discovered a coal cellar in the basement, complete with a coal shute. The basement wasn't really used so the areas under the stairs were just like something out of a good old book: dusty, cobwebs, old cobblestone and brick. There were two fireplaces on each floor and so you can imagine being the chimney sweep in that house!

Down in one of those rooms was an old cupboard. When we opened it we discovered a huge treasure! Books. Glorious books! Some of my favourites that came from that cupboard were the William book series. Wonderful, funny stories about a naughty boy named William and all of his adventures. Ageless, timeless stories. The first book is called Just William, by Richard Cromptom. They were published in the early 1900s'. These books were like the others: red cloth bound books that might have been passed by by someone who didn't love books as much as I. I wouldn't call these 'moral books', but rather delightful adventures of William and his friends. These are books that make a wonderful read a loud, simply because you, the mum, will enjoy them also!

If you want to find old books that are no longer published, try going to Abe Books. You can find almost anything you want. The prices are good and you can reckon on paying about $10 shipping on each book, which when you consider the cost of a new book, is about right.

Enjoy discovering the wonder of books, if you have not before. You may find yourself and your children hooked! *smile*

Next to come: My Passion for Homeschooling has come back. Watch out. You might want to get out your notebooks. *laugh* I am talking to those that have told me they like the homeschool posts. *grin* Wait til you see what we are up to! Funny.... hmmm... I thought I said I was barely going to homeschool this year??? Well, the passion is back, and I will just have to figure out how to get it all done: wiring a new house, insulating, drywalling, laying floors, and homeschooling! lol
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