Alyssa successfully had her first babysitting gig

We are so proud to announce that Alyssa has graduated her first babysitting session. The Page family took a chance on us and allowed Alyssa her first experience. Thank you Lindsay.

Alyssa went to Lindsay's house at Noon on Friday to begin learning and getting her bearings! Lindsay showed her how to change Isaac's diaper and put him down for a nap. Alyssa played with Eden and they all felt comfortable. Lindsay tested out the situation by going grocery shopping.

Later, all was going well, so Lindsay and Ryan were able to leave Alyssa with Jack, Eden and Isaac for nearly 4 hours. They were able to go to the airport (drop off the Pace family) and then go to dinner in Bellevue alone, which you know is a treat for them since Ryan lives out of town 4 days a week.

Isaac chose yesterday to be his first day to climb out of the crib at bedtime, so that made Alyssa a bit nervous. Alyssa was most pleased getting the kids to the dinner table to pray and eat together, she felt that was important. (CUTE)

Alyssa is offering her first 5 sittings free to get references and gain comfort of the local moms. With Alyssa homeschooling, we have more daytime flexibility. Give us a call and call Lindsay for her reference. Alyssa's official babysitting class is on 1/30 at Seattle Childrens Hospital and then we will sign her up for CPR class soon after.

Babysitting Class

Alyssa has found a babysitting class geared for 11-13 yr olds taught at Seattle Childrens Hospital in January. Before we spend the $40 for the class in January, would any of you local MV mom's even feel comfortable with an 11 yr old or do you tend to wait until the girls are 12? Alyssa is quite mature and responsible and does not have trouble staying attentive. She enjoys spending time with kids at all ages and she would not be a tv watcher or phone talking babysitter. She is not afraid of the dark and is used to spending time alone unsupervised. She also has no trouble cooking on the gas stove or doing dishes and cleaning up.

We definately have not done any baby care so we/she has no experience in changing diapers. BUT I bet she is willing and could learn.

Let us know if you have short time frames she can start practicing. She is willing to do some short jobs free of service to build up trust and comfortableness.

Home School update

Alyssa is loving her home school, however with 13-30 degree weather, ROXY really loves the new home school schedule. She has a permanent place inside by the fire and she gets daily walks with Alyssa.

See her smile?!

Duped

This Thanksgiving weekend, our lives have been changed. It was not what we expected. (And I am not talking about the 5 days of no hot water either). We had never known much about 'home school', in fact we had negatively stereotyped this process. However, after 4 days of research and interviews, we want to change our life. After learning that other local families have been successful into getting their children into college by using their home studies, I feel duped by society. We just didn't know we had options, that we didn't have to follow the boring traditional route.

We learned that these other kids didn't keep transcripts of their education. They learn the knowledge they need in life, test each year for tracking their progression, and prepare for the community college entrance exams. The public school system doesn't create the perfect protocol. They do the best they can in bulk spitting out 7200 students in this district, but we can do just as good of a job at home. Our kid is well socialized and will get what she needs via other avenues (such as swim team and church activities).

TIMELINE

Thursday Night: We met Cathy's nephew Ryan, an 11 yr old fifth grader who studies independently with the coaching of his mom when she comes home from work. After hearing about his life, schedule and curriculum, our minds started spinning.

Friday: We told Alyssa about it and she was intrigued. She liked the idea of learning at her own pace, onine, with coaching, but without all the daily disruptions at school. She wanted to learn more and we spent the day talking about how it could work for our family, with our schedules. We discussed how much responsibility she would need herself. We would coach her, but much of the learning/studying would need to start with her reading, watching DVD's, and taking online tutorials.

Saturday: She brought it up again while we were working in the garden. I called Ryan's mom and learned about WAVA. We visited the Vachs and learned how they put 5 kids through home studies. It was amazing to me that at age 16, the Vach kids take a $10 compass exam to be accepted into GRCC where they begin running start. 2 years later, with an AA in hand (no high school diploma), they get accepted into BYU. What I love about the Vachs and Petersons is that their kids are AMAZING. I feel they got that way through living the gospel and keeping those kids away from the daily disgust that kids bring to the schools. I feel so proud that Alyssa wants to keep that junk out of her life.

Sunday: Spent time learning about the Peterson's process and how they put 9 kids through different home study programs in the past 20 years. We learned how their oldest kid got a full ride scholarship into BYU even! He is graduating from Vet School this year at WAZZU.

All of these moms have chosen different routes. There are no wrong or right ways to do this. We feel relaxed to just start allowing Alyssa to learn and we will figure out her path as we go along through life. I feel armed with enough to get us started for now. Our family is praying about this decision and we hope to start in January.

It is amazing to me that we can pull our kid from school with a letter of home school intent and that is that. In 20 years, my friend Christy has never once been questioned on what she teaches her kid. No proof of curriculum is required. Wierd, at first to accept, but again, I just didn't know we had this option.

Alyssa is excited to leave behind the icky talk at school, the disruptions, the farting 5th graders, the girls already 'going out with' the boys and changing boyfriends each day, and the wasted minutes of the drama that occurs with 30 other kids in a classroom. The nice thing is that if a homeschooler wants to do something with the public school (such as be a part of the school play, attend honors biology, or drop in for an art class - the school welcomes the partcipation).

There are so many programs out there we can tap into and many are funded too. With all the sports we do, she doesn't need school PE. With her piano lessons and daily 60 minute practices, her music subject is being covered. We do plan to encourage her to study music history on her own. We can definately teach her home ec too! We are already starting her on typing tutuorials and she wants to take a Spanish online course. We are ready to bear this responsibility.

We welcome support, but not criticism. Please trust our decision making skills. You'll know in 5 years if we made the right choice.

Our first experience with Applesauce

Thank you to Camilla who gave me all the knowledge I needed today to use 80lbs apples. AND for her loaning me her juicer/steamer and food mill. It was a steamy day in the kitchen indeed. Our family all worked together for many hours processing applesauce and apple juice. It was a great experience. I am so glad that Alyssa gets to learn how to do this at an early age.

Alyssa washed and cut.
First batch in the steamer.

The whole set upMashing and cranking
Troy did a whole batch on his own.

The finished product.

All stored for winter.

So pretty, I don't want it to be eaten and my feet/back ache from standing so much today.

Boot Camp

In August and September, I did 2x a week Boot Camp at the Proclub.

Here are my before and after testing results. I improved.

Now, I am onto Winter Sports Conditioning and eyeballing some K2 Tough Luv skis!!

Panoramic pics of SLC

WOW..

http://www.utah3d.net/GalleryTempleSquare.html

Alyssa's sewing lessons this summer

Alyssa took sewing lessons this summer and her final project was this jumper. She had never known what a jumper was until I told her I made one in the 8th grade. Wish I had a picture of it. Anyhow, after $40 in materials and over 10 hours of instruction, here is the final result. We had it cut for a size 12, even though she is a 10, so it is a little big for now. THANK YOU WENDY!!!!

Mt St Helens trip 8/31/09

The night before, Andy(brother) eating my blackberry cobbler. Breakfast at 5am
Lys' messy hair

The Fam! (2 brothers, Uncle, daughter, hubby and me)

Still smiling..

It's getting hawt in here.. so take off all your clothes....

We are just feet from the top, the Schuring family

The first glance.

Quick pose, we can relax.

The boyz in wonder

The view

More gazing into the hole

My hunky hub

here comes the Unc...

He surrenders

Relax and soak in the accomplishment

The boyz are pooped.

The amazing 10 yr old...youngest on the mountain.

My Unc

My bro...

All in a day's work!

How to can peaches

This is what I do for canning peaches.

I bought a boxof 20# for $14.95 and took them out of the box to sit for a few days and ripen. Do not leave them in the box or they ethanol gasses from the top peaches will cook the bottom peaches and you get uneven riped peaches. I had 30 peaches in this batch and they were so big, I got mostly 2 peaches (4 halves) per jar = 15 jars from this batch. Wash your jars.

Blanche them in hot water to make the skins removable.

ice bath them after the blanching process so you can touch the peaches to peal them.

My peels came right off, easy as butter.

Slice in half

pull pit out

I keep my jars warm in the oven at 200 degrees if I don't time the dishwasher drying setting in time. Jars must be hot when you are working with them.

compost your peach skins.

prepare your syrup with 4 cups artesian water and 1 cup sugar - for a light light recipe. If you like more sugar, add it! Use bottled water to keep the cholorine out and for a pretty perfect syrup.

Heat up the syrup. At this point, you have the lids heating, syrup heating and you are preparing the stock pot for the jars. It feels like a lot to manage.

pull your jars from the oven/dishwasher hot, place peaches in a pretty format, pour in your hot syrup.

Use a stainless steel knife to carefully go down the sides of the jars to release air bubbles. I broke a few jars being too rough at this point, so be gentle and know that the heat is already causing pressure in the jars.

Take a sterile rag, dip in hot water, and clean off all the rims and areas that will be important for sealing.

if you own a canning utility kit, this great little magnet tools helps retrieve hot lids.

Place lid on, place ring on, just to finger tightness, don't go as hard as you can. Carefully, place hot jar into hot boiling water and cover by an inch of water above the top. Set for 30 minutes. I broke 7 jars in my 2 days of canning and learned lessons. I angle my jars in so the bottom of the jar doesn't hit flat against the water as I go in, due to pressure. I also learned that you have to be careful when you set the jar on the bottom of the pan as there are air bubbles at the bottom, creating pressure. Just treat the jar very delicately is my strategy.

After 30 minutes, let stand for several hours on towel on the counter. Use a dry rag to dry off top of jar, don't jostle the jar as you remove it, there is pressure escaping still and you need to keep the jar level as you lift it and set it in it's resting place. Test seal by tapping on the lid after it has rested for several minutes. You should hear no popping on the lid.

Prepare next batch.

Later when cool, you can store in your cupboard for winter.