An old poem

I found a cute poem last night. I think this is a poem that my Aunt Lee used to recite. It is very close, anyway. It was written in the 1800s. We are not experiencing this kind of sibling rivalry at our house! I hadn't thought of this poem in a long time, but yesterday I told Bubby I couldn't give him any "tandy." It all came back, so I had to go look it up!

THE NEW BABY

I'se a poor little sorrowful baby,
For Bidget is way down tairs,
The titten has statched my finder,
And dolly won't say her payers.
Ain't seen my bootiful mamma
Since ever so long adoe,
And I ain't her tunningest baby
No longer, for Bidget says so.

My mamma's dot a new baby;
Dod dived it, he did, yesterday;
And it kies, and it kies, so defful,
I wish he would tate it away.
Don't want no sweet little sister,
I want my dood mamma, I do,
I want her to tis me, and tis me,
And tall me her pessus Lulu.

Oh, here tums nurse wis the baby!
It sees me yite out of its eyes;
I dess we will keep it, and dive it
Some tandy whenever it kies;
I dess I will dive it my dolly
To play wis 'most every day;
And I dess, I dess -- say, Bidget,
Ask Dod not to tate it away.

Why do we have Christmas?

Not that we haven't talked a lot about Chrismas around here, but I thought I would get a feel for where Junior is in his understanding.

Interview
Mama: Why do we have Christmas?
Junior: Because it's fun and you get lots and lots of presents and it's about God and you get lots of presents. It's special.
Mama: What do you mean it's about God? (trying to help him out here...)
Junior: What you do is you make a Christmas list and you give it to Santa and then he brings you what the Christmas list says.
Mama: Help me out here, son. What is Christmas all about?
Junior: It's about sharing. God gave us baby Jesus. That was the first Christmas. Jesus is the Son of God.

Third time is the charm.

This was very revealing, because we really try to emphasize that Christmas is Jesus' birthday. Just goes to show what part of the message is coming across!

Christmas Cookies

When we were at Grandma's for Thanksgiving, I enjoyed reading their newspaper. Every Thanksgiving, they ask the local kindergarten classes for the instructions on how to cook a turkey. They publish the responses, and they can be really funny. So in that spirit, I asked Junior if he could tell me how to make Christmas cookies. He has an advantage here because he usually helps me make cookies:

Recipe for Christmas Cookies

Start with dough. You go with eggs. Then you go with chocolate chips. Use a cookie spoon. Now squeeze the cookie spoon and cookies will come out. Put the cookies on a cookie pan and put them in the oven at 30 degrees for 3 minutes.

Since we are not doing a scheduled "school day" right now, Peanut and Junior are going to be helping with this blog so that they can practice what they learned earlier this year.

Peanut's Report - 2

A few weeks ago, Peanut had to give a report to her co-op class on an Oklahoma product or something invented in Oklahoma. She chose the shopping cart, which was invented in the 1930s in Oklahoma by Sylvan Goldman. It is an interesting story. Here is her report:

Sylvan Goldman was the owner of a chain of grocery stores in Oklahoma City, called Humpty Dumpty-Standard. In those days, when people shopped at the grocery store, they carried a basket in their hand to hold everything they wanted to buy. In 1936, Mr. Goldman got the idea to make a folding cart that would hold two baskets, so that it would be easier to buy more groceries. A maintenance man named Fred Young helped him design the cart. It took them a while to get it
right, but in a few months, they had shopping carts in all the stores.



At first, no one would use the carts. Men thought their arms were strong enough to carry around a little shopping basket. Women thought the cart looked too much like a baby buggy. A few days later, Mr. Goldman got the idea to hire men and women models to pretend to shop at the front of the store where people could see them when they came in. The lady at the front of the store would say, “Everybody is using these, why not you?” So their idea worked and now everyone uses shopping carts at the grocery store.



Mr. Goldman kept improving the cart, and he made them bigger so that people would buy even more. The shopping cart is the invention that has helped grocery stores the most.

Just as I thought...

A few weeks ago, I got an email that said you could go to Dr. Phil's website and sign up to be on one of his shows about homeschooling. I thought about it, but then decided not to. I wouldn't get picked anyway, I'm not extreme enough. (And I figured that the show would be taped really soon, and it's not like we can go anywhere for a while!)
I had heard that he has a low opinion of homeschooling, especially the homeschooling of teens. I never watch his show, but I have heard some of his quotes, which show he either has a great deal of ignorance, or is misinformed on the whole subject. Here is an article about one family who was invited to be in the studio audience of this show. I don't know when it will air, maybe it already has. Dr. Phil Article

*Update* I got an email this afternoon from a different source that says this program is scheduled for October 27th. I don't know if I'll try to watch it or not. Stuff like that usually just makes me irritated. If he'd give his source for the "research" that shows that teenagers need the socialization of a public school environment, that would be worth a look.

Piano Juggler Video

Oh, my! This is worth the wait if you have to download it. BTW, he is not juggling pianos...just watch!

A surprise for mama!

I looked out in the backyard yesterday and noticed that my bell peppers were still growing. They looked pretty small, but I thought I'd better go check them out. I couldn't believe how big some of them were!

Some of them are really nice and big, and the undersides are flat, so I can even stuff them. I have never been able to stuff peppers out of my garden! They always taste fine, but they have pointy ends. They are also rather small, so I would have to stuff a whole bunch to make a meal. I think this kind of pepper needs some cool weather!

There are also some green tomatoes, I don't know if they have time to ripen before we have a frost, so I might bring them in anyway. But it is supposed to be above freezing at least one more week.

Peanut got us tickled the other day. She plays with the boy next door who is six years old. His dad sometimes will go out there and play football with them. Peanut is right in there playing with them. (She was always scared to play soccer with our former neighbors, but she likes good old American football.) One night I asked her if they played touch football or tackle football. She told me that they played both kinds. I guess I looked kind of surprised (or dismayed), because she put in really quick, "But I don't tackle hard...I just kind of grab their shoulder and let them down easy." Oh well good, Peanut. That wasn't what I was worried about, but I am glad you are not so rough on them!

The Gerbils

Even though my camera is not cooperating, I finally got a couple of pics of the little gerbils. I am "babysitting" them today since Peanut has gone to her Grandma's. She was looking forward to the trip, but not looking forward to being separated from the little animals. So I promised I would play with them, which I did. They slept most of the afternoon, but when I went in to see them about 5PM, they were running around the cage, so I scooped them out and let them play in a deep plastic storage box. That way they had more room to run around. I made it a point to hold both of them for a while. They still are not used to being held. They were nice and did not try to bite me. I think they are starting to like it. They are very mouse-like to me, so playing with them is actually an act of motherly-love (for my daughter, not for the gerbils!) But I have not gotten so much as a tear in my eye. Maybe it is good therapy for me.


This one is Princie. She is the biggest one, and the most friendly. She spends most of her time on her hind legs, looking around. She is very curious.

Here is Pastell. She is a little younger. She is still pretty small. She is more of a shy girl, and a hider. I couldn't get a picture of her for the longest time because she doesn't like being out in the open. She runs from hiding place to hiding place.

They ran around in the box for about an hour. They seemed to like it, and I put them back in the cage when they started slowing down and acting tired. They have an exercise wheel, but they don't use it. One of the first things they did was to move their bedding into the wheel, and that is where they sleep. I guess it is cozy for them.

Now that everything is cleaned up, Mr. B and I are going to get some Chinese food! Yum! And probably rent a movie from the store.

Camera Troubles

Sorry I have been so slow posting. I have had camera troubles lately. I though maybe my rechargeable batteries had gone bad, they are over a year old. So I bought some new ones. Turns out, the batteries were probably fine, it is the camera. It is sucking them dry, sitting overnight turned off.

We had a fun day Saturday, though. Here is Peanut's cake.



The guys got the trim all painted on the house. Thanks Dad! That has been such a load off Todd's mind. And the house looks really good.

Peanut got a lot of great stuff. She is now the proud owner of a pair of gerbils. I have a picture of one. I am trying to take a picture of the other one. It is hard to get good pictures of them, because they are pretty fast.

The weekend...

Yay for Walmart! They now have Brach's Mellocreme Pumpkins in a bag! Soooo good!

We had a good weekend. We went out for hamburgers Friday night, and on Saturday we got some things done around the house. I got some sewing done, and Todd painted. Saturday night our friends let the kids come over while Todd and I went out to eat and did a little shopping. We had a nice time, and I think the kids did too. I think our friends' little boy liked having them over, because they mentioned a couple of times that they would like to have them come over again some evening. Peanut said he kept laughing until he would lose his breath. After the baby went to bed, they watched The Incredibles. They hadn't seen that in a long time.

Today was a lazy day. We all ended up taking short naps. The only problem is that now it is 10:35pm and the kids cannot sleep. Ugh. You can't win. They didn't sleep that long!