Knapp Times

Birthday Interview with Ben - Age 4

2012-01-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

I have to say that Ben wasn't terribly interested in doing this interview, so the answers should be taken with a grain of salt. I conducted it during breakfast, because mealtimes are pretty much the only times he's sitting still enough to carry on a conversation. It was a little difficult getting him to answer me, like he couldn't be bothered to give 'ol mom an interview while munching on his english muffin. The answers are funny anyway.

So how do you think it'll feel to be four?

I wish we could go to LegoLand when I’m four.

What kinds of things can you do now that you’re almost four that you couldn’t do when you were littler?

I can spin the tire swing when I’m in the middle without anyone helping.

What is your favorite color?

Green

What is your favorite food?

Strawberries

What is your least favorite food?

Egg sandwiches - those things you make us when we go to Mothering by Heart.

What is your favorite book?

Daddy’s Star Wars pop-up book

What is your favorite toy?

My police car

Do you have any friends? Who are they?

Kirsten. (Any others?) Maffew.

What is your favorite thing to do with mom?

Have ice cream.

What is your favorite thing to do with dad?

Play on the bed.

What is your favorite thing about yourself?

I don’t want to do this one.

What is your favorite thing to do outside?

Play jump ball.

Where is your favorite place to go?

Pump it Up, Gilroy Gardens, and LegoLand.

What do you want to do for a job when you grow up?

Read the Star Wars pop-up book to our foster child. (No, I mean for a job, when you’re a grown up. Like, how Daddy works on the computer.) Oh. Policeman.

Where do you want to live when you grow up?

Near Diana Park. I would go there every day after naps.

Do you think you’ll get married when you grow up? Who do you think you’ll marry?

Kirsten. (Actually, you can’t marry your cousin. Anyone else you'd like to marry?) But I want to! (more explanation about marriage rules...) Ok, then. Essie.

How old will you be when you get married?

Thirteen.

Where do babies come from?

Tummies.

Is there anything you’re afraid of?

Monsters. And lions, ‘cuz they are gonna eat me.

Food Artist

2012-01-25T10:24:00.000-08:00

The other day at the library we found a new series of books by Saxton Freymann. We all got really excited about these books because the pictures are just so cool. They use scenes made out of food to tell a story. I got almost all Freymann books the library owned, five in all, but I left a few so as not to be a hoarding library patron. Tommy pored over these books as soon as we got home from the library. Then he decided to make some of his own food creations. He got to work cutting up all the veggies and experimenting with how they fit together. Below is a sampling of some of his creations. He constructed these completely on his own.

His first creation: Cucumber Car

Carrot Jet

His pièce de résistance. I have no idea what this is, but I do know he was working on it diligently for over an hour. It started out just being a carrot car with turnip umbrellas (if you look closely through the gobs of grapes, you might be able to find it). Then he kept adding grapes and more grapes, until, he decided he was finished.

It was fun to see him get excited about something new and take initiative to figure things out for himself. He now says that he wants to be a food artist when he grows up and he's going to open up a restaurant that only serves fruit and vegetables. He's going to call his restaurant "Tom's". Stay tuned, because this is one vegetarian restaurant you're going to want to try when it opens!

24 Hours of Foster Care

2012-01-20T19:40:00.000-08:00

The last 24 hours have been a crazy whirlwind of activity. In that time, we got our first foster child and then saw her reunited with her mother. We've heard the advice from veteran foster parents that we need to be flexible and open to sudden change of plans. Now we definitely see what they mean. Here's a timeline of the past day:

Thursday morning:

10:00am: I get a call (while I'm in the middle of baking cookies with my boys) about a two day old baby girl, about to be discharged from the hospital, who needs a foster home. Amidst a flurry of phone calls, I make all the arrangements to pick her up. At this point, we know very little about the baby's situation, but we do get the idea that this will be a short-term stay. We figure sometime later next week she might be reunited with her mom.

2:00pm: I head to Target to pick up last-minute things I'll need for a baby girl. Important things like pink pajamas. And some diapers, bottles and formula.

4:00pm: We pick her up at the hospital.

5:00pm: Baby comes home. The boys are totally in love with her. Tommy, in particular, keeps trying to find ways to help out with the baby by bringing me her little hat, a stuffed animal, and asking to hold her. For the next several hours, she eats, sleeps, and poops. She repeats the cycle several times. She has a normal newborn night, waking up a few times and pooping a few times.

Friday 9:30am: I follow foster parent protocol by scheduling a doctor appointment for baby and contacting her social worker.

10:30am: I get a phone call from baby's social worker that she is going to be reunited with her mom later in the day, and could I perhaps bring her to the social services building right after her doctor appointment? I say "Of course", but my mind is totally reeling from the sudden change of plans. After another flurry of phone calls, a load of laundry, and some frantic running around the house to gather baby items, baby is packed up and ready to go.

2:30pm: Baby has her doctor appointment.

4:00pm: Baby is reunited with her mama. I drive home in the pouring rain and traffic trying to gather my wits about me and come to terms with the newest change of plans.

I'm sad that this experience is over so quickly. It was fun to take care of a newborn baby girl, despite the several wake-ups at night. But ultimately, I'm happy that the baby was reunited with her mom.

I wasn't prepared for the complex emotions of it all. When we picked up the baby at the hospital, I was near tears most of the time. Driving up to the hospital all I thought about was the fun and excitement of caring for a brand new baby girl. But when I got there it really hit me that there was another mother on the other side things who was going home without her baby girl. I could imagine the pain she must have.

Foster care is not about finding ourselves a baby to keep; it is about helping children and their parents become well enough to stay together.

We are so thankful for all the support and love from the people who read our blog and facebook. However, something that caught us by surprise was the comments of hopefulness that we will keep our new foster child, or comments of sadness when the child was reunited.

It is easy to understand these reactions, since most people know of our history with miscarriage and infertility. We know that our friends are hoping for the best for us. However, that is not what this is about. We are not doing foster care to facilitate a longed-for adoption. We are open to adoption. If it happens, that would be great. But that is not the purpose we are working towards.

When a child is reunited with his family, that is the best outcome that can happen. A broken family is made whole. The loss we feel when we let the child go is temporary. The purpose of foster care is to serve, not to keep.

Someday we may care for a child who ends up staying with us forever. But when that happens, it will be bittersweet because it means that another family failed to stay together.

Tommy multitasking: feeding the baby and doing his reading lesson. He was begging to hold her practically the whole time she was with us. It was really sweet to see him act so lovingly.

A New Reader

2012-01-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

For the past two years, Tommy's reading has been at about the same level. He could sound out words (very short ones in the beginning, then longer ones as time went on), and he could even string them together to read a short sentence. But the process was drudgery and he didn't like to do it for longer than five minutes at a time.

But something clicked with him in the past month. Now reading is more fluent and almost effortless for him. Just after Christmas he became interested in reading his Bob books, and he breezed through three sets of them. Now he's working through easy readers from the library and mastering them quickly.

I've always heard that one shouldn't push a child to learn to read. I'm glad I didn't push Tommy even though he seemed interested in reading. It really is true that they'll pick up reading quickly when they're ready for it. Watching him zip through books and improve so rapidly has been like seeing a miracle take place before my eyes.

Mother of Invention

2012-01-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

It's been said that necessity is the mother of invention. In my case, lately it's been growth spurts that is the mother of invention. These boys are eating almost constantly, despite having full and well-balanced meals three times a day. Yogurt has always been one of my go-to snacks for them during growth spurts. It's healthy, full of protein and calcium, and when I buy it by the single-serving cup, they can get it themselves. For the longest time, I would buy the large quart-size container of yogurt and then mix in jam and granola on an as-needed basis. But that became time consuming and made me not even want to do it.

I've always bought yogurt cups at Trader Joe's because they are the cheapest and least-processed ones I've found. But they are tiny cups, and not a match for my boys' appetite anymore. Especially at $4 for a pack of six cups. Once I got a big pack of Yoplait yogurt once because it was a bigger cup and cheaper than Trader Joe's but didn't realize until I got it home that it had 26 grams of sugar! That's 6.5 teaspoons in one little cup!

So I had the idea to make my own yogurt cups. I got a pack 8 oz. of canning jars at Target. Then I had the kids help me fill them up: 1 tbsp. jam on the bottom, then yogurt (enough to fill the jar 3/4 the way), and 1/4 cup granola on top. We've been having yogurt this way for a few weeks and it's been great. It saves a lot of money, and I'm happy knowing that my kids aren't getting any processed junk.

Adding blueberry jam (Trader Joe's reduced sugar type) to the bottom...

...then comes yogurt...

...and finally granola.

I wrote R for raspberry jam and B for blueberry jam on top of the jars. Some people are very picky about the flavor of their yogurt.

2012 To Do List - And 2011 Report Card

2011-12-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

I'm continuing my tradition of looking at the goals I set for myself over the past year and grading myself based on how well I stuck with them. I also came up with some new goals for this next year.

1. Lose weight. C

I lost the 10 lbs that I'd been trying to lose for the last few years. My clothes felt looser, I felt fitter and had more energy. And then I gained 5 lbs back because I stopped being careful about my eating habits and slacked off with my running. Boo.

2. Decrease Internet time. B

My overall success with this was good. For the most part, I've been good about not mindlessly browsing the web when I should be doing other things (like losing weight). But there were a few weeks here and there that I wasted way too much time on the web.

3. Read the whole Bible again. B

I read the Bible just about every day, but didn't get through the whole thing again. I stopped doing my reading plan for a few months to try a few other methods of study. One method was to read the same portion of the Bible each day for a month. There are some great advantages to reading the Bible this way, but I really missed going through the whole story this year.

4. Take part in a Photo-a-Day project. F

I dropped this back in January because it conflicted with goal #2.

5. Read more good books. A+

I was able to read lots and lots of good books over the past year. Some of my favorites are:

Raising Real Men, The Read-Aloud Handbook, Just Do Something, Adopted for Life, Think, How to Read a Book, Positive Discipline and Bossypants. Okay, so that last one wasn't really great literature, but it certainly was entertaining!

For 2012:

1. Run a 10K. I ran a 5K last July and am planning on running another one in March. If I do two more 5K races the few months after that, I think it's within the realm of possibilities to squeeze in a 10K by the end of this year. I've started doing training for 10K using an app on my phone, which will hopefully get me back in the groove of running and help me with my next 5K. I'm on Week 4 and it hasn't been too bad. It is longer than I'm used to because the run/walk cycles go for 50-70 minutes instead of 30-40 minutes that I was used to with the 5K training.

2. Spend at least 10 minutes one-on-one time with each of my kids every day. Something that I've been slacking off on the past half year is spending quality time with each of my kids. We have plenty of quality time all together, but not much with each of them personally. This is partly because we've been busy. But mostly it's because they love spending almost every minute of their day playing together, so there's hardly a time when I can get them alone. But since I've been thinking about this, I've noticed that there are actually small pockets of time when one boy is off doing something and the other one is still in the room with me. I want to be more purposeful about snatching up those moments and starting a conversation or do something fun with them.

3. Commit to eating only real food. Using the 14-step plan from this website, I want to try to cut out all of the processed foods and extra junk from our diet. We generally eat healthy and we get most of our fruits and veggies from local organic farms. But there is still so much room for improvement. Some of the items on the 14-week plan will be easy (like giving up sugary juices - we only drink water and milk anyway), but some others will a lot harder, like Week 3: Eat Only Local Meat or Week 12 - No Extra Sweeteners: I wonder how my kids will eat their oatmeal when it's not drizzled with honey? Or how I'll eat my oatmeal without honey!

4. Read the whole Bible again. I plan to use my favorite reading plan, from Discipleship Journal and stick with it this time. :)

Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T15:38:00.000-08:00

We had a very enjoyable Christmas weekend. On Christmas Eve we just hung around the house, visited family, and had a relaxing day. We went to church in the evening and took part in West Hills' beautiful Christmas Eve service.

We put our gifts out on Christmas eve

Christmas Eve pancakes: gingerbread pancakes with sprinkles (and others had crushed candy cane)

Christmas Day was a lot of fun. Mark's parents and grandma joined us for Christmas morning and enjoyed watching the boys open their presents. The boys loved having their grandparents over for Christmas morning.

Present opening

One of the boys' favorite gifts was a pack of water guns which, I have to admit, we didn't even buy. Throughout the year, Mark's mom will give us thrift store and garage sale finds for the boys - stuff she finds that she knows the boys will love, and that she got at an incredible discount. Sometimes we'll give the stuff to them right away, and sometimes we'll tuck it away to save for later. These water guns were one of the things I tucked away and totally forgot about. I didn't remember them until I was doing some pre-Christmas purging and found them in the back of a closet. Tommy immediately filled his with water and headed outside to 'test' it. The boys played with them the rest of the day.

After present opening, we played with our gifts (the boys played with their guns, I played with the ice cream maker Mark gave me and made some strawberry ice cream ;). We took a walk through our local vineyard - the boys brought their water guns and shot everything in sight with water. In the evening we had dinner with Mark's family. It was a relaxed, low-key day, but still very full and a lot of fun.

Doing Christmas Things

2011-12-19T21:06:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I haven't been able to get into the "holiday spirit" this year. All month it hasn't bothered me too much; I think I was hoping that the closer we got to Christmas, the more I'd get in the spirit of things. But so far, it feels like a normal month, just with more stuff to do. Since I've got kids who are old enough to remember doing fun things last year at Christmastime, I haven't been able to get away with actually pretending it's a normal month (not that I would actually do that. Ahem.)

So, here are some of the fun Christmas things we've been up to:

Cutting down our Christmas tree at a local tree farm.

Decorating our Christmas tree. This year we let the boys have full autonomy with decking it with ornaments. So what if all the ornaments ended up in the bottom four feet of the tree?

Fast forward two weeks. The tree in the above photos died. It was really depressing having a completely dead tree with two weeks left until Christmas, so we got a cheap replacement from Home Depot. That'll teach us to keep a closer eye on the tree's water level! Sidenote: Don't these LED lights make our living room look like a disco?

Making Christmas cards for family.

Rolling molasses cookies. I love that the boys are old enough to be able to help with useful (and tedious) things like rolling cookie balls.

Frosted and sprinkled molasses cookie. Not sure why the cookie maker was so somber.

Glitter snowflakes.

One night we surprised the boys with driving around looking at Christmas lights. Mark researched all the good spots in San Jose. As you can see, some of the houses were just incredible.

I'm thankful that the real reason we celebrate Christmas isn't about cookies or twinkle lights or presents. When I think about it, much of the 'Christmas feelings' that I'm missing out on are just associated with cultural traditions. The real purpose of Christmas is to celebrate and be thankful that God sent us his only son, in the humble form of an infant, who would grow up to be our savior. It's about more than being in 'the holiday spirit'; it's remembering every day throughout the year that Christ has saved us. When I think of Christmas in that way, it doesn't bother me so much that I'm not feeling so holly-jolly.

Licensed for Foster Care!

2011-12-08T07:32:00.001-08:00

As of November 30, we are officially licensed as foster parents! This means that we can start taking in children, however, our licensing social worker recommended that we hold off on accepting kids until our adoption home study is complete and approved, so we probably won't get The Call for a child until after the new year. Thinking about all the unknowns can be overwhelming - we have no idea of the age, sex, health conditions, or emotional temperament, let alone that we don't know when we'll get that call. We're praying that God would give us what we can handle, and that he would give us the grace to handle whatever he gives us. It's both really exciting and a little scary waiting for that first placement.

This whole process has been confusing as we have gone through it, but it makes sense now that we're done with it. When we started, I don't think we realized how involved it would be. To get a bigger picture of the process, here's a complete list of all the steps we've gone through to complete this process:

1. Attend foster parent orientation (August 23)
2. Complete 10-week long PRIDE classes (October 18)
3. Hand in applications for foster care and adoption (November 8)
(This step included many appointments for fingerprinting, TB testing, physical examinations, CPR training, and other things that are too many to list!)
4. Home inspection for foster care (November 16)
5. Foster care license issued (November 30)
6. Joint interview with Mark and I for adoption home study (November 29)
7. Two-hour long interview with me (December 6)
8. Two-hour long interview with Mark (December 7)
9. Home visit for adoption home study (December 9)
10. Homestudy submitted and approved (Hopefully sometime in the next two weeks)

We've been getting the house ready for a new little one. The Baby Room furniture was ready a while ago, but now things are really ready. The closet is filled with cleaned baby gear and boys' and girls' clothing sorted by size from 0 to 24 months (which are the ages we're accepting). Everything is organized so that we can grab what we need at a moment's notice. When we get the call to go pick up a new little one, we'll only have hours to scramble to get ready for his or her arrival.

Baby toys sorted and sanitized.

Baby and toddler books - I'm looking forward to re-reading these favorites.

~~Our new baby~~ crazy son who played baby all morning after I reattached the side to the crib.

Beach Friday 2011

2011-11-25T21:48:00.001-08:00

This year we continued our tradition of going to the beach the day after Thanksgiving. We went to the aquarium first, then had a yummy lunch at a café. After lunch we headed to the beach to frolic in the tide pools.

Ben got completely wet from jumping in the beach puddles. Good thing I learned from past experience to bring several changes of clothes.

Pointing at a tiny crab, who is trying to escape the sticky suckers of a sea star.

We had a wonderful time at the beach this year. On Thursday night we were exhausted from cooking and cleaning up from our meal, and I was thinking that I didn't even want to go to the beach this year. But by Friday morning, I couldn't wait to get out of the house. The timing each year is always perfect. We've all been cooped up in the house all week preparing for the Big Meal, so by Friday morning, we can't wait to get out of the house and go on an adventure.

There were a few moments on our drive home from the beach (it was around 4:30pm) where I was trying to figure out what we'd have for dinner when we got home. Then it hit me: Duh. Leftovers! We got home and had a feast of Thanksgiving leftovers and put tired little boys to bed with tummies full of turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. It was a great day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T22:50:00.001-08:00

Life on the Knapp Farm

2011-11-21T11:52:00.001-08:00

I use the term 'farm' tongue-in-cheek, because I know we don't really have a farm. But it's fun to pretend we do. :)

My winter garden is low-key this year. We're getting some carrots, beets, and chard, and we're still eating the leeks that have been growing since the spring. This is my third season growing a garden, and I think I've gotten a good handle on what grows well (doesn't get too buggy) versus what we actually eat. For instance, we eat a good amount of broccoli, but it gets way too buggy. Since I want an organic garden, but don't have the patience to practice the organic methods of pest-control, I chose to get our broccoli from our CSA and grow something else that is more pest-resistant. I found out that I love butternut squash and use it a lot, so I'll probably be planting that come spring to use for next fall.

There isn't really much going on with the animals these days. The chickens, who once provided us with enough eggs to have scrambled-egg breakfasts several times a week, have gone on strike for the winter. Hens stop laying when the plentiful sunlight of summer fades, and ours are no exception. I actually had to buy eggs at the store the other day, for the first time in months! I was a bit sorrowful as I cracked open each store-bought egg and saw its pale yellow yolk fall into the bowl.

This is what our property looks like early in the morning when I walk out to let everyone out of their respective dwellings.

One of our eleven hens. This one always tries to beat me to the gate and so she can make a run for it when I come to let the goats out. Silly girl.

Finding noms in the ground.

Our faithful rooster, Mr. Roo. He's good at his job of keeping the hens in line and protected from wandering cats, but this guy makes me nervous whenever I'm around him. He does his rooster thing of flapping his wings and puffing himself up whenever I'm near him or 'his' hens. He's jumped at the kids a few times and scared the daylights out of them, so I'm always on edge when he's close by.

The goats (the blue-collared one is Swingtail). There's not much growing in the way of weeds, so they're just hanging out eating alfalfa hay while we wait for more weeds to grow for them. Our loose plan when we first got the goats was to breed one of them so they would would birth a kid and give us milk (and thus yogurt and cheese). But we're still wary of taking that step quite yet because of the work involved. I can't picture what life will be like with a foster child and having to milk a goat twice a day, not to mention having to process the milk into cheese and yogurt). But the idea of fresh and free milk sounds so good!

Preschool Weeks 10 & 11

2011-11-18T16:16:00.001-08:00

Clay caterpillar. Made mostly by Tommy. I just attached facial features.

Days of being cooped up inside are perfect for making nests and caves.

Ben started reading simple words. It astounded me when he found our magnetic letter sent and started making and sounding our words. I didn't know he could do that! He can read any 3-letter word, and some longer words where the vowels sound like themselves (like 'still' and 'open'). I completely credit Letter Factory for this.

Reading our new library books by the fire on a chilly day.

Making birthday cards for Mark (we celebrated his birthday this weekend). I got the idea from this website.

Homemade bow! I was the coolest mom that day. :)

I decided to put down our chapter book, The Magician's Nephew, to be picked up again at another time. We got about halfway through the book, only because of my own willpower to muscle through it. I finally had to put it down because the the kids had a hard time staying interested. They did learn a few interesting new words like minion and treachery, so I suppose our time wasn't totally wasted. We've been enjoying books by Rosemary Wells, particularly those about Max & Ruby a bunny brother and sister, and Yoko, a Japanese cat who has adventures at school.

I've been feeling like we need to get out of the house and go someplace fun. It's been a while since we've had a 'field trip'. Next week is Thanksgiving, so I doubt we'll go anywhere then. But hopefully we'll continue our tradition of going to the beach the day after Thanksgiving.

Preschool Weeks 8 & 9

2011-11-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

We somehow managed to slip back into summer mode in the past two weeks. Maybe it was visiting the beach a few weeks ago that did it. Or maybe it was just the fact that things have calmed down a bit and it's been too easy to let the kids play their own made-up games all day. For whatever reason, we've been having a lot of free play time and not much "preschool" time.

We did manage to do a few preschool-ish things:

- finished reading James and the Giant Peach and started The Magician's Nephew. This is by far the most complex book I've read the boys. It's taken about four chapters for them to warm up to the story, but now that the story is getting more interesting, they're more into the book. I've been itching to read them The Chronicles of Narnia for awhile now, so I really hope they enjoy the story. If not, we'll put it off for another year or so.

- Read and re-read (and then read again) The Red Chalk and A New Coat for Anna, among other library books. These were particular favorites this week.

- did lots of self-directed crafts. It's amazing what a 3 and 5 year old can come up with using just tape, paper, glue, markers, and scissors.

Wrote thank-you cards to family members for birthday presents. I wrote out a simple message lightly in pencil and Tommy traced over each letter and drew a picture for each card.

Both boys practiced writing. Tommy practiced lowercase letters and Ben practiced uppercase. He only recently has become interested in writing and it was fun to see him take to it so easily.

A small glimpse into their free time activities - the "city" they built one rainy afternoon this week, complete with train-track freeways and army men citizens.

Happy 5th Birthday, Tommy!

2011-10-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

You don't even know this blog exists, so when I write to you on here, it's really in hopes that someday you'll be able to read about yourself in our family books.

You are five years old today. On one hand, I have to believe it because it says so on the calendar, and because 2011 minus 2006 clearly equals five. But on the other hand, I really can't believe it because it truly feels like we just brought you home from the hospital just a little while ago.

I look at pictures of when you were first born, and when you were a tiny tot, and it feels like those days just happened. You'll probably hear us say that more as you get older, and you might hear other parents say that, and you'll probably roll your eyes. But really, until you have children of your own, you'll never realize how quickly time goes by. Someday I hope you'll know what it's like to look at your big five year old and wonder where that chubby giggling baby went. Or the tiny peanut who lay in his crib sweetly (that is, until a few minutes after this picture was taken):

But onward to topics about yourself that you'll care to read about someday:

Personality: You are a classic first-born. You are a rule follower. You are cautious. Ben's fearless activities make you nervous and you often implore him to be careful. Strangely, though, you're very brave and daring when it comes to climbing and jumping over rocks, even (or maybe especially) rocks that are piled high next to the Pacific Ocean.

You're a caring big brother. You continue to love babies. You'll find toys for them to play with, play peek-a-boo, and will push them around the deck in our Little Tikes car. You're so in love with your new baby cousin, Aaron. After visiting with him the other day, you told me, "Mommy, I love Aaron so much. He's so sweet."

You can be quiet and contemplative at times. When we went to the beach recently, you would just stand and watch it for a few minutes. At other times you're a stereotypical crazy, rough boy. There are times when you think about things a bit too hard and overanalyze them. You'll start your sentences with "I'm afraid that..." or "But what if...happens?" I think this comes from your engineering nature. You have a great ability to think about things from all different angles and a few steps ahead.

You are a joy to be around. We have a routine now where you and I spend about thirty minutes together between the time you get up from your quiet time and when Ben wakes up from nap. We'll read books, play games, or just draw together. I look forward to that little pocket of one-on-one time when we can have fun conversations and I can get to know you a little better every day.

Likes/Dislikes: Your least favorite food is cooked spinach (or any other greens). You actually love raw spinach, preferably surrounded by cranberries, feta, and salad dressing. Watermelon is your favorite food ever. You could eat half a watermelon if we let you.

You discovered a love geography this year when I hung on our wall a map of the world so we could see where missionaries live that we were praying for. We realized that you had a knack for geography when you started to remember the names of most of the countries that are outlined on our map. Geography is often a topic of conversation at meal times since you can look over at the map and ask questions about what the other countries are named, what people there are like, and how long it takes to get there.

Abilities: You are slowly learning to read. You really want to learn how to read, but you get frustrated easily by the drudgery of sounding out all the letters. So we're slowly going through our Bob Books whenever you're in the mood to do some reading. I'm realizing that the way you like to learn is to be shown how to do something a few times and then be given time to figure it out own your own. You always have a stack of books to look at during your afternoon quiet time and I think that's when you apply your reading lessons. Weeks after a reading lesson, you'll read a sentence that I didn't know you knew how to read, and it always surprises me!

I've been working with you on learning some independence around the house. You can make your own lunch now, so long as it is peanut butter and honey sandwich with sides of cheese and fruit. You can also do your laundry from start to finish (although you're enthusiasm for this is seriously waning).

Tommy, I know that some day you're going to be a strong, good man. You have a good work ethic and you enjoy being helpful to others. My main prayer for you is that you would grow up to love and serve God, and I also pray that you would be a godly husband and father someday. Happy birthday, Tommy!

Sidenote: All day today you kept saying things like, "I can't really believe I'm five!" and "I'm not used to being five yet." I have a feeling you're going to enjoy your new year. :)

Birthday Interview with Tommy - Age 5

2011-10-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

We're continuing the tradition of interviewing our children for their birthday. I'm finding that as they get older, their answers are getting funnier! I have a feeling that Tommy is going to make himself laugh someday when he reads this interview.

So how do you think it'll feel to be five?

I'm feeling very excited because I'm bigger, and finally I'm five.

What kinds of things can you do now that you’re almost five that you couldn’t do when you were littler?

I can pick Ben up.

What is your favorite color?

Red

What is your favorite food?

Um, maybe strawberries. (What about watermelon?) Oh yeah! I love watermelon!

What is your least favorite food?

Chicken. That's boring to eat.

What is your favorite book?

Wacky Wednesday. And Anna's New Coat.

What is your favorite toy?

Matchbox cars

Do you have any friends? Who are they?

My natural friends are Eliana and Kirsten. All the people that I know are my friends.

What is your favorite thing to do?

Wrestle with Daddy.

What is your favorite thing about yourself?

(After much explanation about what exactly this means...) How I can draw really well.

What is your favorite thing to do outside?

Usually it's to play in the sandbox.

Where is your favorite place to go?

Gilroy Gardens!

What do you want to do for a job when you grow up?

I want to be a worker. (What kind of worker?) Like, to make houses. And I want to be a daddy.

Where do you want to live when you grow up?

I want to live with Hannah. She will be my wife. We'll live in Spain. (Why Spain?) Because it's fun.

(Ben: "I wanna live in Candyland!")

Do you think you’ll get married when you grow up? Who do you think you’ll marry?

Yep. Hannah.

How old will you be when you get married?

Sixty or seventy. I prefer seventy because that's older.

Where do babies come from?

(Ben: "Tummies!") God designed that babies come from girls.

Is there anything you’re afraid of?

Tigers, if they're out of their cage. Oh, and our rooster because he attacked me. I'm going to call him 'Stinker' because he's so mean to me.

Preschool Week 7: Beach Edition

2011-10-23T20:45:00.000-07:00

We had a busy week Monday through Friday and didn't do much of anything in the way of structured learning. But we did go camping at the beach this weekend. So that has to count for a lot, right?

Some highlights of camping this weekend:

Boys running freely up and down the beach and playing in the ocean.

Finding interesting treasures in the sand, like crab legs, holey rocks, and pieces of glass with rounded edges.

Climbing a huge gnarly tree near our campsite.

Rolling down sand dunes. Again. And again.

Watching the sun set on the ocean together.

Building a campfire...roasting marshmallows...making s'mores.

Creeping down to the deserted beach in pitch darkness. Stargazing. Seeing the Milky Way for the first time.

Sleeping with the sound of the roaring ocean just outside our RV.

Playing on the beach before sunrise. Watching the sun rise.

Having pancakes for breakfast, at the beach.

Playing in the [freezing cold] ocean until your teeth chatter and you can't feel your toes.

Preschool Week 6

2011-10-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

HIghlights of preschool this week:

Watercolor painting. This was the first time the boys kept the watercolors separate. They usually see how quickly they can mix the colors to make brown. I made sure to get 'real' watercolor paper because the results are so much nicer than using regular printer paper or butcher paper.

Tommy spent a lot of time making lists of words. He would look around the room to see what objects he could spell. I love his creative spelling. See if you can find: Gloo (glue), Pexl (pencil), Buc (book), Papr (paper), Pichr (pitcher), and of course, dog, robot, and pot.

One day Tommy had the idea for an "adventure walk". He wanted to take a walk in the opposite direction of our house from where we normally take walks. Normally, we'd turn left out of our street and walk down to the high school down the street. But this time he wanted to turn right and go over a nearby overpass to look at the cars on the freeway below.

He made a map of our neighborhood and plotted our course as we walked. I have to admit that I wasn't crazy about this walk, since it involved walking towards heavier traffic and paths that aren't exactly pedestrian-friendly. But he was SO excited about doing this that I couldn't say no.

Tommy learned how to play mancala.

We had very warm temperatures this week, so the boys were often found playing outside with water making mud puddles in the dirt or rivers in their sandbox.

I backed off of our Bob reading lessons a bit this week because Tommy was getting frustrated with them (and I was getting frustrated with him!) But then one night he took it upon himself to read a book to Ben:

Foster Care Update

2011-10-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

Next Tuesday marks our last class of our foster parent training (PRIDE training). The next step is to hand in our application, and then complete our home study. A home study is where a social worker comes to our home and inspects it to make sure it's suitable for children according to the county's regulations. We will also be interviewed. It's looking like it will be one or two more months until we get our first placement, that is, a child who comes to live with us.

When we first started this process, we were wanting to take in children 3 years old. It is general wisdom that it’s best to take in kids younger than one's youngest. But since Ben is still pretty young, we were advised by an experienced foster mom (she's had 55 kids in 16 years!) to only take in non-ambulatory kids. You’re probably thinking, “Non-what?”. This is one of the many new words we've learned over the past 10 weeks; it just means non-walking. So, now we'll be asking for kids around 12 months and under. We plan to adjust the age upwards as our youngest gets older.

This is the "Baby Room", as the boys call it. Originally, we were planning on going with a private Christian foster agency, where the application process would have been streamlined and we could have gotten a placement as early as November. So we got the room set up with that timeline in mind. Since then, we decided not to go with the agency, but to go with the county instead. I did my best to make the room gender-neutral, which is hard given that green and blue have been my go-to colors for the last five years! The crib has been converted to a toddler bed so Ben can still nap in this room. Once our baby comes, the boys will nap together in their room and baby will move in to this room.

God has changed our hearts so dramatically over these past ten weeks that we are now completely focused on and joyful about the likelihood of fostering children for a long time. It could be years until we are placed with a child who would eventually become ours forever. In retrospect, I feel pretty silly thinking about how naïve I was when I wrote this post about adopting a child right away. Now we are looking forward to welcoming babies into our home for as long as they need to be with us. One of our prayers is that God would prepare our hearts to be able to let go of these children when it's their time to be reunited with the parents.

We've been thinking a lot about how our lives are going to change when we start getting children in our home. While we don't really know what it will be like until it happens, we do have a concept that it's probably going to be difficult. In our classes, we've been prepared for many different scenarios of why a child might be removed from the home and what they might be like when they come into our home. Each scenario will require us to give our foster child lots hands-on love and attention. There have been a few times during this process when we've taken a step back and asked ourselves "Do we really want to commit to this? Isn't life hard enough just trying to raise our two boys to be good men? Why are we trying to make life more difficult for ourselves? .... Are we doing the right thing?"

When I start thinking this way, the Lord reminds me that as a follower of Christ, my goal shouldn't be to make my life easier. My desire should be to do what I can to show love to others, in the way that I'm able to in this season of life...even if it messes up my comfy life. Yes, doing foster care will be hard, and I'll probably feel inadequate much of the time. But what a great opportunity to lean on my Savior for the help I'll need. An easy life would make me feel like I've got things under control, I don't have to ask God for help.

Please keep us in prayer over the coming months:

- That God would prepare our hearts for the particular children he has planned for us

- That he would equip us for whatever situation he gives us

- That he would enable us to be joyful through everything!

Preschool Week 5

2011-10-09T20:51:00.000-07:00

This week in preschool we:

Read aloud*

Played outside

Played board games

Had (lots of) friends over

Played with clay for the first time

Had a Bob Book reading lesson every day

Had a blanket & lunch picnic in the living room on a rainy day

Free play

Both kids were very interested in drawing and writing. I often found them like this.

*Last Monday I went to a Mom's Night Out arranged by my church's homeschool support group. It's not your normal Mom's Night Out at a bowling alley or nail salon, but rather it was an evening where all the members give advice about a certain topic. What I heard there was advice that I've heard a lot before, but hearing it repeated over and over made it since deeper into my brain: 1) READ ALOUD! 2) Read some more! 3) Don't stress out about things, especially with kids below first grade.

Sequoias

2011-10-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

This past weekend our family took a small road trip to the Sequoias. The trip was prompted because we drove Mark's grandma to see her son (Mark's uncle) who lives in the area. We thought we'd drop her off and drive a little bit further and have some fun in the mountains, and maybe see the world's hugest tree on earth. What we didn't realize was how far away everything was! It was about an hour and a half from his uncle's house to Sequoia National Park, and then another two hours driving up five thousand feet in elevation on the windiest roads I've ever driven. Although it was a ton of driving, we had a lot of fun.

We stopped by the Kaweah River and played in the mud and the water. It was only two feet deep at its deepest parts (at the point where we were), so it was perfect for the boys to play and splash in.

As we were hiking to see the General Sherman tree, we came upon a bear, which we affectionately named Number One by us because of his fancy yellow ear tag. He was munching on a pinecone on the side of the trail and seemed to be unbothered by the human around him. He reminded me of pigeons in New York City that will walk right underneath your chair while you drop your lunch crumbs. Mark walked towards him and the bear lumbered off to find another pinecone to munch.

HUGE sequoia.

Tired boys after a day of hiking at 5000 ft. elevation.

Click here to see more photos from our trip.

Preschool Week 4

2011-10-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

We had another busy week. I'm starting to think I shouldn't even bother writing that anymore, since almost every week has been busy since we started preschool. It was a week full of unexpected errands and appointments that popped up here and there. We had a weekend trip to the Sequoias. In between everything, we managed to have a playdate with cousins, some reading aloud, and lots of drawing and crafts.

Stencils. And brother.

Beads

Drawing and coloring. Lately Tommy has really been into drawing lots of fun things. There's a caption on the picture that reads "A house that was built in China."

Read aloud with Daddy

Field trip of the month: going to Sequoia National Park. Here the boys are playing in a river in Three Rivers, CA near the park.

Watching Letter Factory in the hotel room. This totally counts as a learning activity; this DVD is what taught Tommy his letter sounds.

Changing Seasons

2011-09-29T07:29:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to California from Connecticut six years ago, I felt like this place had no seasons. I take that back, I felt like it had only two seasons: warm and sunny (April through September) and cool and rainy (October through March). Since I lived for twenty-two years in a place that had four clearly defined seasons (COLD, warm, HOT/HUMID, cool), it was really difficult for me to adjust to two less-defined seasons. Over the last few years I've finally come to appreciate the small differences between the seasons here in California. I've noticed nuances that mark the beginning of fall, like cold mornings and the honking of geese in the early evening, and the sound of football games ~~in my backyard~~ at the high school behind us.

One way that I've learned to mark the seasons is with the food I cook. Before I taught myself how to cook properly, I just made whatever sounded good at the moment. It usually wasn't very healthy, and usually had nothing to do with the season in which it was being made. In the few years, I've tried to prepare recipes that remind me of the season in which they are made.

What this looks like is that our summer blueberry pancakes turn into autumn gingerbread pancakes. Summer quick-grilled veggies and grilled meat gives way to winter all-day stew and fresh bread. In the beginning of each of our (two) seasons, I'll go through my recipe binder and take out the old seasonal recipes and replace them with the new seasonal ones. I've been doing this for a few seasons now and each time it's so much fun to rediscover old favorite dishes that haven't been enjoyed in half a year.

While it's technically fall now, we're still having 90 degree days. I'm just waiting for 'real fall' to start. As soon as it's cool enough to leave the windows open and feel a cool breeze blow through the kitchen, I'm going to plug in our slow-cooker for the first time in months and make something hearty.

Irish Beef Stew

Some of my favorite seasonal recipes:

Irish Beef Stew

Roasted Winter Squash with Rosemary

Chicken and Vegetable Pot Pie

Indian Spiced Chicken

Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce

Pumpkin Bread

The pumpkin bread is my all-time favorite fall/winter thing to bake. I've baked this bread so much, I could probably do it from memory!

Christmas gingerbread pancakes: gingerbread pancakes with sprinkles and crushed candy cane. Truth be told, they don't look too good once they're flipped over, but the kids absolutely love that there's candy in their breakfast.

Preschool Week 3

2011-09-24T17:20:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to realize that in the world of homeschooling, days and weeks must be flexible. There's rarely such a thing as a 'normal' day or week. Thankfully I scheduled one day a week as a 'free' day, and we've been using that day to either catch up or to just relax and recover from a busy week.

This week we listened to lots of Shel Silverstein poems and Dr. Seuss stories, both from books and on CDs in the car. Because of all the nonsense the boys have been hearing, they've been making up some really silly poems of their own. The only one I remembered to write down was one of Ben's:

Napkin a day

Where are you,

Napkin a day?

Practicing reading with Bob books. We've been keeping our lessons to only 5 or 10 minutes long. After ten minutes he starts to get frustrated and antsy and he's simply done. But the more we do, the more excited he is the next time to read his Bob books.

The boys learned to clean their bathroom. Ben is on mirror duty here. My goal is one day to be able to say "Hey boys, go clean your bathroom" and they go off and do it. Talk about a dream come true.

Mark and I had to go to the sheriff's office to get our fingerprints scanned as part of our foster care application. Before our appointment, we talked to the kids about fingerprints: what they looked like and how every person has a unique print. Then the boys and I made pictures with our fingerprints using our jumbo stamp pads. None of this was planned, by the way - I just made it up as we went along. Then it was time to go to the sheriff's office and the boys watched the big computer screen as we got our prints scanned. Community field trip: check.

Free play: brothers drawing pictures for each other and coloring them. Earlier in the day Tommy asked me to draw him a picture of a lion so he could color it. Then he got the idea to draw pictures for Ben so he could color them.

Free play: The boys built this "machine" out of bits of things they found around the yard. It's hard to tell from the picture, but there's a sprinkler attached to a hose inside the overturned black bucket. There are ropes winding inside and around all the different objects. I can't remember the purpose of this machine, but it sounded very complex from their explanation.

Our field trip of the week: the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Here they're in the aviary watching the indoor 'sandy shore'.

Other things not pictured:
- Lunch picnic in our backyard on the grass. Laid on a blanket reading more Falling Up.

- Tommy was really into writing this week. He wrote a card for Mark's birthday (which isn't for another two months) and wrote signs for around the house. The funny thing about young children's writing is that they have no concept of spaces between words, so his sentences all run together. Must remember to work on that. :)

- We finally finished The Mouse and the Motorcycle and have moved on to James and the Giant Peach. I've been excited to read this with the boys because it was one of my favorite books as a child and was my 'gateway' book into the world of Roald Dahl.

Monterey Solo

2011-09-23T15:00:00.000-07:00

This week I did something I've never done before: I took the boys on a day trip by myself. It's amazing to me that in almost five years of having children, I've never actually taken them anywhere far away on my own ('far away' by my definition is a drive one hour or longer).

This has mainly been because Mark's job: it used to be that he had flexiblity during the week to occasionally do house projects or other chores, so we would often have our weekends completely free to do fun things together as a family. But in the past year or so, his job has changed so that he doesn't have time to do those things during the week, and we end up doing them on the weekend. Therefore, we have less free weekend time as a family to do fun day trips.

Mark has been encouraging me for quite sometime to get out of the house with the kids to do day trips, but I've always disliked the thought of going somewhere fun without him. Not to mention that an extra pair of hands is always a good thing with a pair of energetic boys.

Finally this week I summed up the courage to do a day trip by myself, so we went to Monterey. We visited the aquarium first and explored eels, penguins, puffins, and kelp. Then we got some lunch and hit the beach. We had a good time for the most part, but the day was not without its challenges: Tommy's attitude was very disagreeable and he was just all-around difficult most of the day. But he mellowed out once he was released onto the open sand. Then Ben cut his foot open at the beach and, being without a first aid kit, we had to scour downtown Monterey for a pharmacy to buy some Band-Aids and neosporin. An hour and $20 later, we were all patched up and had our hot cocoas* in hand and were headed in the general direction of Home, so the day ended on a pleasant note. On the way home Tommy remarked, "Mommy, this day has been really big." I couldn't agree more.

*Getting hot cocoa after visiting the beach is another tradition. Northern California beaches are so cold and overcast that we're usually chilled to the core after spending a few hours there. A hot cocoa really hits the spot.

Breakfast at our favorite pre-adventure bagel shop. We usually come here right before we set off on a road trip, even if it's just an hour long.

Zebra eel

Huge Sunfish. I think it was about the size of my car.

The kids love this water tank. It's a tunnel about ten feet tall. Every few seconds there's a huge wave that crashes down and startles the kids. Every single time.

Drawing at the beach with some burnt wood.

Jumping!

Obligatory beach kids-on-log photo

Preschool Week 2

2011-09-16T22:52:00.000-07:00

It was a really busy week and I was feeling like we didn't do much in the way of preschool. Then I looked at the photos from my camera from the past week and realized that we actually did a lot of good things. Most of the activities the kids did were things they took upon themselves to do.

Writing practice. Tommy decided to try to write his name ("Tommy Napp") and his brother's name ("Benge Napp") and most of the family's names ("Grampa Napp"). Can you tell they're spelled phonetically? Being a first-born perfectionist that he is, Tommy really wanted me to tell him how to spell each word. Sometimes I do tell him how to spell things, but more often I try to have him spell them for himself and praise his efforts, even if they're less-than-perfect.

Paper craft. Glue + strips of construction paper = 30 minutes of peace and quiet.

Play and lunch with friends and cousins.

Outside craft time with cousins.

Brother playtime.

Sweeping out the chicken coop.

Making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I had planned to go to the library and then the playground on Friday morning. But after our busy week, I just felt like staying home and hanging out with the kids. So we made cookies together.

And enjoyed them with a cup of milk.

Other things we did not pictured:

- The boys watched intently while Mark gave the goats vaccinations and trimmed their hooves. Fun, no?

- Played a few board games together throughout the week

- Had a few reading lessons with our Bob books. I've been putting off reading lessons because Tommy's attention span is so short. He can only sit and focus on sounding words out for about five minutes before he gets frustrated and "forgets" how to sound things out. So I'm going to aim to work on reading every day, even if it's only for five minutes. Hopefully each short lesson will build upon another and bring us closer to the goal of reading.

- Lots of free play both in the house and outside

- Unfortunately, we didn't do as much read-aloud as I'd like. We're slowly working through The Mouse and the Motorcycle and Falling Up, as well as The Tales of Beatrix Potter.

Preschool Week 1

2011-09-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

Each week I'll post a summary of what we've done for preschool. This will mostly be for my own record (remember the book of our blog that I print off at the end of every year that holds our family record?) Hopefully it will give some good ideas too.

Obligatory posed first-day-of-school photo.

Playing Zingo 1-2-3. I really like this game because it helps with both counting and reading. Plus it's just plain fun. Tommy really loved playing, but But got bored after a few turns because his counting skills aren't fast enough.

Free play: The boys constructed a "tree house" in the dining room. We had lunch and read aloud time under the yellow tent.

Letter practice: We traced in colored sand to practice writing letters. (I helped him with the B, but he did the T by himself).

Laundry time: Tommy did his laundry from start to finish. I was totally shocked and impressed that he folded everything and sorted it all into the right piles. He was so happy with himself.

Books we're reading this week:
Falling Up by Shel Silverstein
The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
Big Truths for Little People by Susan Hunt & Richie Hunt
The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter (we're about 2/3 through the series)
Plus various picture books from the library

Preschool At Home

2011-09-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

Today begins our first year of homeschooling, for preschool. For the last year I've struggled with the decision of when to start kindergarten with Tommy, who will be turning 5 at the end of October. He seems really interested in learning how to read and write, so it seemed to me a good indication that we should start kindergarten material sooner. Over this past year, I've closely observed him to decide whether he would be ready to start K this fall. I watched how he played, how well he sat still, how well he listened to me and how he related with his peers. While he is very smart and is eager to learn to read and write, he just doesn't have a lot of the maturity that comes with learning K material. I also asked lots of different people (moms with young and older school-age children, older moms who are done home-schooling their children, and everyone in between) about their opinions of when a boy should start K. Ultimately we decided it would be best for Tommy to do preschool this year and kindergarten next fall.

So here we are. My preschool plan is based on my (currently rather loose) understanding of the Charlotte Mason method of homeschooling, which emphasizes lots of play, reading aloud, outdoor exploration, more play, and not very much sitting still and doing table work. Sounds great to me and exactly what Tommy needs right now.

The major elements of my preschool plan include:

A daily routine. This is basically the same routine we've had for about two years. I just put it down on paper so that I can stay accountable to it. Sometimes the routine goes out the window, like if we're visiting friends for most of the day. But it's always there for me to follow when I need to know what to do with my time.

Sixty minutes of read aloud per day. When I was first told that my kids should be getting sixty minutes of reading aloud per day for their ages, I was floored. At the time, I was barely getting in thirty minutes and couldn't imagine squeezing any more minutes of reading into the day. Finally I figured out that the best way I can fit in all that reading aloud is to break it up into smaller chunks throughout the day. Mealtimes are a great time to read aloud because I usually finish my food long before the kids do. Instead of leaving the table and doing dishes, I'll stay and read them a book. In just a few months we read through both Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner in this way and we're currently two-thirds through the Beatrix Potter series. I'm working off several 'recommended reading lists' for children, including reading non-fiction books, poetry, chapter books, and picture books. For more information on why reading aloud is extremely important, check out The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease.

Bible time. Continue working through the catechism. Memorize scripture. Read directly from the Bible, as well as children's Bible stories. No matter what we have going on during the day, Bible time is always first, directly after breakfast and morning habits, and is non-negotiable.

Outdoor time. My kids are always playing outside within the confines of our yard, which is great. But they need lots more time out in nature, to play with sticks, ponder bugs, throw stones in a creek, and discover new types of flowers. One morning of our week is dedicated to being outdoors in a natural environment. Some places I plan to go with the boys is Uvas Canyon, Anderson Lake County Park, Henry Coe Park, tide pools, and the like. I have a feeling a once per week outing might be too much, but we can always scale back as we go.

Arts/Crafts. One morning a week is set aside for an art/craft project. I have a few books that have given me good ideas for art/craft projects for kids, such as Preschool Art by MaryAnn Kohl, Kids Create! by Laurie Carlson, and Cut-Paper-Play! by Sandi Henry. I also have a stockpile of open-ended craft supplies like construction paper, scissors, glue sticks, clay, watercolor paints, etc. While I'm grateful for all the art/craft ideas, quite honestly my favorite thing to do is simply to give the kids some basic supplies (like a huge piece of paper and some paint) and see what they come up with on their own. But I also realize that the directions-led art/craft projects give them ideas that they can use later on when they decide to do a craft on their own.

Personal habits. Something we've been working on for the past few months is training the boys to get ready for the day and get ready for bed on their own. They have a simple four-step chart that shows them each task they need to complete. They've gotten quite good at doing the whole process by themselves, but sometimes they do miss a step and need to be reminded (like brushing their teeth). I have to say that it's really awesome to just say, "Go do your four things!" and they go do it, instead of me having to stand over them saying, "Okay, now brush your teeth. Now wash your face. Now go get dressed."

Responsibilities (chores). I've already started training the boys in chores around the house. I recently read in a book that boys should be expected to do any job that they are physically strong enough, or smart enough, to do. It gives them a sense that they are doing "real work" and are important and needed in the family. Right now they're great at putting the dishes from the dishwasher away. (We bought unbreakable dish-ware and rearranged our dishes to the bottom cabinets. Whatever the boys can't reach to put away, they just leave on the counter.) They empty all the trash from the house on trash day and roll the cans out to the street. They're currently learning to clean their bathroom (Yay!) and folding laundry. Admittedly they sometimes complain about having to do chores around the house ("Mommy why do I have to do all this wooork?") But usually they are visibly proud of being able to do things they see as grown-up work. I praise them for being strong and helpful and make sure to tell them how great it is to have someone to help with the work of the home.

Food prep. One of my goals is to graduate boys from my house who know how to cook. They've already been helping me with food prep since they were old enough to stand on a stool. But I'm not always good about having a patient mindset with them when I'm rushing trying to get dinner ready, so I've built in to the day some time for them to help me with dinner. Lately I've been consciously giving them more responsibility in the kitchen, like allowing Tommy to cook eggs on the stove or letting Ben cut fruit with a butter-knife. As I see their knowledge and abilities grow, I plan to expand what I allow them to do in the kitchen. Having the kids help with food prep is also a great time to talk about things, particularly food. We talk about where it comes from, how it grows, and what is and is not healthy food for our bodies.

Free play. Last, but not least, there is lots of time for free play built in to each day. This is probably the most important part of their day, since it's the time where they incorporate everything they've learned into the activity they choose during their free time. They ride bikes in the backyard, visit chickens, play in the sandbox, and get into spats with their siblings (and learn to work it out).

You may also notice that there isn't any TV time built in to our day. For the last six months we've managed to live almost completely TV-free. Exceptions include an occasional Saturday morning when we parents aren't ready for kids bounding with energy at 7:00 am, or days when the kids are so sick they physically don't have the strength to play. The kids used to whine and beg to watch TV whenever they were bored. Now that we've been TV-free, they don't even think about it anymore and always find something else to do with their time, even if it's rolling around on the floor wrestling with each other.

I plan to do some reading and writing activities with Tommy this year, which will most likely be in the afternoon after his quiet time and while Ben is still sleeping. This is usually a nice time we have together when I don't have anything to do around the house and he's mellow enough to sit still for ten to fifteen minutes. This is just long enough for some writing practice, reading aloud, or working on a puzzle together.

My plan isn't rigid and there is plenty of room for flexibility. I made it mostly for my own peace of mind so that I would have a plan of what I wanted to do with Tommy in this last year before he officially starts homeschooling. I owe a lot of thanks to a seasoned homeschooling mom who told me over and over that at four and five years old, kids just need to play. They don't need curriculums, workbooks, or desk work. So if all my boys do is play outside, take some nature walks, get their hands dirty with some paint, learn some chores around the house, and listen to me read a ton of books, I think we'll have quite a successful school year.

Learning Curve

2011-09-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

We're now two weeks into our classes to get certified for foster parenting (PRIDE training). We've learned a lot in these past few weeks. One of the most important things we learned was that the foster care system is not an adoption agency. Our teacher actually said this on the first day of class. Oops. We went into this thinking that we would be focused on adopting, although it would be from a pool of foster children who normally are passed over by those seeking traditional domestic adoptions. We thought maybe we'd have a few kids for a few short stays of care, and then after a few months we'd find the child who would become our own. Wrong.

The way it actually works is that we could have a child for two years before parental rights are terminated. We could have a child for two years and then they get reunified with their birthparents. We could have a child for a few days and then they get reunified with their parents. Reunification happens in ninety percent of cases. And in that other ten percent where parental rights are terminated, it may not happen for a very long time, since the process of going through the courts is crazy circus act. So, foster care is not an adoption agency.

Another major thing we learned, that really should be obvious, is that the foster care system's main objective is to reunify children with their birthparents. This means that a part of our job will be to take our foster child(ren) to visits with their parent(s), and we can even form relationships with the parents. For the first time this would put us into regular contact with people who are likely very different from us and need Christ's love.

The crazy thing is, we're okay with this. In a way we never would have predicted even a month ago, our hearts have made a 90 degree turn on a dime. We are content... no, excited... to become foster parents and welcome children into our home for whatever length of stay they need, even if it doesn't result in adoption. We still hope to adopt someday, and we hope that at some point a child will come along who could stay and become our own. But we're at peace with the fact that this may not happen for a long time. And in the meantime, God can use us to bless and nurture many kids (and even their parents) along the way.

To be completely honest, it's not all been selfless sunshine and rainbows over here. The fact that I'll likely never have another biological child is something that has been hitting me slowly over the past week. I've had moments were I become envious of those who are able to decide when and how many children they want. But in those moments, the Holy Spirit has been faithful to remind me of God's word, and the Lord has drawn me close to himself. In those moments, I am able to place all those cares on him and repent of my covetousness.

The Bible verse we've most often been turning to lately is this one:
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. James 1:5

We ask for your prayers, that God would give us wisdom along this path, and that he would use us for his purposes and his glory, and that he would align our hearts with his.

Play-Doh

2011-08-29T21:48:00.000-07:00

The other morning the boys and I made play-doh. Making homemade play-doh is one of those things most people don't realize is really easy to do and so much better than store-bought (add to that list homemade popcorn and homemade marshmallows). All you need is flour, water, salt, and a bit of cream of tartar (actual recipe can be found here).

While they were playing, it struck me that play-doh can be an amazing tool of play and learning. They played all morning with their dough and thought up lots of different things to do with it. At one point they made hammers out of the dough and were banging the table with them to "fix" the table.

Tommy helped measure the ingredients and mix them together as they cooked (cooking skills!).

Finished play-doh. Looks a lot like mashed potatoes. Needs food coloring.

Next we added food coloring to each of their balls of dough to make it their favorite color. They learned that yellow and red make orange, and blue and yellow make green. They kneaded their dough until the color was uniform (they needed help with this part, as kneading can get tedious). (Science! Fine motor skills! )

Ben making a dessert with his play-doh. He called this strawberry-banana soup. (Imagination! Creativity!)

Tommy decided to make "dinner", so he made carrots with his orange dough, and negotiated some of his brother's green dough for peas. (More imagination! More fine motor skills!)

Then the boys decided to "have dinner". They brought out every little bowl they could find and filled it with dough and declared each bowl a unique type of food ("This is egg soup!"). In this picture Tommy is folding a "napkin" made out of paper. (Cooperation skills! Make believe!)

(Not pictured) - cleaning up the dough. After they were done playing, there was a big dough mess in the kitchen and dining room. So the boys cleaned up everything by themselves (I took care of the dishes). They got out their broom and dust-pan and sweeped everything up. (Life skills! Responsibility!)

An Open Door

2011-08-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
- Alexander Graham Bell

This week marks the official end of our infertility journey. At the time that we started the process of IUI four months ago, we had decided to end it at three cycles. Then we realized that the first two cycles were actually just practice. It took the doctors two months to hit the right combination of medication necessary to make my body do what it was suppose to. The third IUI procedure was the first that actually had potential to succeed. When that try failed, we opted for a fourth round. We decided that we would be content with the outcome of two good tries.

Now that the fourth procedure is complete and was definitely unsuccessful, I do feel content. I feel relief that this crazy two-year-long roller coaster ride is finally over. There won't be any more medication, tracking of cycles, or wondering if every little twinge of my body is a pregnancy symptom. Two years of that was quite exhausting, mentally, emotionally, and physically. We are relieved that this door is closed and we can finally walk away from it.

And so...

We are opening the door to adoption. We first talked seriously about adoption two and a half years ago after my miscarriage when God changed our hearts to want more children. After I miscarried in March 2009, I didn't want any more children. I honestly felt like I had dodged a bullet. But over the next few months, that changed to the point where God was able to show me the blessing of having more children. We talked briefly about foster adoption, but for various reasons we ultimately decided to reverse Mark's vasectomy. That was two years ago this month.

We started talking about adoption again about six months ago while we were still pursuing infertility treatments. We started reading books about adoption. One that really struck our hearts was Adopted for Life (I highly recommend this book, even if you think you're not interested in adoption.) We also read Radical, which has nothing at all to do with adoption, but seeks to jolt Christians out of their cozy American dreams and urges them to do something with their life that reflects the faith they profess. These two books combined was the beginning of my shift of focus away from my desire to get pregnant and towards adding to our family through adoption.

We want to clarify that our choice to adopt is not us settling for second best. It's true that we spent a lot of time trying to conceive a child before turning to adoption. In retrospect I see that we needed to complete that part of our journey before we could peacefully shut the door on it. We are excited about foster adoption. It's a huge need, as there are some 1,600 children in the foster care system in our county, but only about 400 licensed foster care homes.

Please keep us in prayer for wisdom and discernment as we navigate this new course. I know this will be a difficult road, as all adoption journeys are. But we will be depending on God to guide us when we can't see what's ahead.

This Kid...

2011-08-18T20:51:00.000-07:00

...made his lunch today almost completely on his own. He assembled and cut his peanut butter and honey sandwich, sliced an apple into wedges (I'm still wondering how he managed that with only a butter knife), and made a really good attempt at slicing cheese, but ultimately needed my help slicing with a sharp knife. Then he decided he needed a banana, so he sliced that up too.

He ate everything on his plate and was still hungry, so he had a some yogurt afterwards. Now I understand the stereotype about boys eating everything in sight!

Winter Garden

2011-08-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

It's August. Time to think about school. Recover from vacation. And figure out what to plant for the winter. This will be my third season planting a garden, and already I've learned a lot about gardening. Like always obey the fine print on the seed packet, because it knows what it's talking about. And don't plant a whole box of chard all at once because in four months you'll be drowning in it. And don't be stingy when you thin seedlings...crowded plants mean less food.

Here is my plan for this winter's garden:

Boxes with 'x' over them are summer crops that are still growing from the summer garden. Boxes with dividers that read '1,2,3' are where I'm going to attempt stagger planting: sowing seeds at intervals of 2 weeks so that crops ripen at a rate that we can actually eat them. The first round of seeds were sown today, the next round will be on or around September 1st, and the final round on September 15. Most stagger planting advice I read said to plant at intervals of 3-4 weeks. I'm speeding up the process to just 2 weeks because I can't plant any later than September 15. I hope it works!

Lineup of this winter's yumminess. Missing from the lineup is quinoa, because it's hanging out in the refrigerator to improve germination. At least that's what the fine print on the seed packet said. And I plan to listen this time. I chose veggies that we really like and we eat a lot of. The exceptions are beets and quinoa: I got beets just for fun to try them out. I picked up quinoa because the watercolor painting on the seed packet showed an enticing rainbow of red, yellow, and green grain and the fine print promised it's an easy plant to grow.

Benji sowing some Oak Leaf lettuce.

Tommy sowing beets.

I joined a local CSA called Eating with the Seasons and our family has been trying to eat only produce that's in season, grown locally, and grown organically. That means no apples in May, no blueberries in February, no asparagus in September. At times this can be inconvenient because it forces me to work my meal ideas and recipes around what is currently available. But on the other hand, it makes me savor each food item so much more because I've had to wait for it to arrive.

We've been mostly eating 'in season' produce for a while. But for a few weeks now, we've been eating only what grows in our garden or comes in our CSA sack. The exception is bananas because they simply cannot be grown anywhere locally and they're too useful to give up. This has given me new motivation to take my garden seriously! I'm so thankful that we live in such a temperate climate and we can grow our own produce throughout the year.

Staycation 2011

2011-08-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

This year, in lieu of a traditional family vacation, we opted for a 'staycation'. We did the math and reasoned that a seven-day-long plan of staying in the area and visiting local places would be about 50% less expensive than just two days at a vacation destination. So we opted to stay home, sleep in our own bed, and not have to pack any luggage.

And so, I bring you, the 2011 Knapp Family Staycation:

Day One: San Francisco

This was actually our first trip to San Francisco in five years, and the first time with kids. Our previous trip was a really bad experience, so we never wanted to go back. It was only because friends urged us to try it out again that we finally relented and decided to give SF another try. We're glad we did because we all had a lot of fun.

Taking the early morning Baby Bullet train to San Francisco. The kids were thrilled to be on the top deck. We were thrilled that the trip only took one hour since it only made about five stops along the way.

Watching and waiting for Muni. Riding public transit was half the fun of our trip. During our visit to San Francisco, we rode a high speed train, a light rail train, a bus, a streetcar and a cable car, and the kids were thrilled with each ride.

Exploring a boat on Hyde Street Pier.

Concrete slides of Golden Gate Park. Quite possibly the longest and fastest slide our kids will ever ride.

Day 2: Gilroy Gardens

Mark took the boys to Gilroy Gardens in the afternoon while I stayed home and had some time to myself. I used the time to clean, catch up on laundry, nap, and read.

Look at how fun things can be when Daddy takes kids to Gilroy Gardens!

Riding a worm orbiting an apple core.

Dinner with Daddy at a local Mexican restaurant. From what I hear, the kids absolutely loved this place.

Day 3: San Francisco again
We enjoyed the first day so much and only got to do a fraction of the things we wanted, so we came back for a second day.

We took a boat tour of the bay and went underneath the Golden Gate bridge. The kids were really excited to see the bridge the first day we came to San Francisco, but it was so foggy that we couldn't see it at all. They were pretty bummed about that. So they were excited to go close to it and underneath it on the boat.

Tommy has been asking to go to the beach for a few months now. We found this little beach area right by Ghirardelli Square and the boys had a lot of fun playing in the water. There was a man nearby making a sand sculpture of a mermaid, so the boys were inspired to make their own sand castle sculptures.

Playing with sand at the Exploratorium. This was an amazing place for kids to play and learn. It's a little too old for our kids' ages, but I can see ourselves making many visits here in a few years when they can understand the exhibits a little better.

Blowing bubbles at the Exploratorium.

Waiting for a bus.

Taking a late train home from SF. We tried to be on the 6:30pm train home, which would put us at our house by 8:00pm, but we missed it by an hour. So we ended up pulling into to the station at San Jose at 9:00pm. Tired kids and tired parents (and I'm sure tired commuters) were very thankful for the peace afforded by the tiny edition of Cars on my iPhone.

Day 4: Gilroy Gardens again

For our second trip to Gilroy Gardens, we took two of our nieces. The kids had a ton of fun together, and we learned that taking four kids to a park isn't much different than taking two.

Day Five: Monterey

We went down 17-Mile Drive because it has several diverse beaches, all within a few miles of each other. There are sandy quiet beaches, rocky cliffs with loud crashing waves, and everything in between. The boys loved exploring each beach, playing in the sand, climbing over rocks, and exploring tide pools.

The seagulls were fearless and aggressive. They actually stole food right out of Benji's hand while we were sitting at a table eating our lunch. And I'm sure doing things like this (feeding them out of our hands) aren't helping!

Exploring tide pools. Tommy was afraid this crab was going to hurt Mark and wanted him to put it back in the water as soon as possible.

A trip to the beach isn't complete without burying kids in the sand.

Click here to see the full photo album of our Staycation 2011 adventures.

7th Anniversary

2011-08-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Happy 7th anniversary to my love and my best friend!

Photo by Benji

Gilroy Gardens

2011-07-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

Our family took our first trip to Gilroy Gardens this weekend!

Getting a pre-roller coaster pep talk.

Obviously still not too happy with roller coasters.

Furrowed brows...trying to figure out how the race cars work.

Spinning fun. Mark and I were sick just watching them.

Ben at 3½

2011-07-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

You're three-and-a-half, but you say that you're four when people ask you how old you are. You insist that you answer this way because that's what size clothes you wear, but really it's because you're always trying to find a loophole so that you can be the same age as Tommy. The other day on the playground, a few people asked you how old you are and you said, 'size four!', and of course, they thought you meant that you're four years old. You didn't bother correcting them.

You're a fun-loving little guy and you're usually happy and cheerful. You're still just as physical as ever, and you often get along well with other kids who like to be physical, even if they're one or two years older than you. You're still adventures on the playground, as evidenced in this video, which is just a small glimpse at your skill as a monkey:

Books: You're not really into books, but you'll sit and listen when it's time to read a book. You're enjoying Daddy's reading of The House at Pooh Corner and A Cricket in Times Square.

Food: Peanut butter and honey sandwiches remain your favorite food.

~~Shows:~~ Since the television hasn't been on in months, (except for a rare occasion when other kids are over and we put on a movie at night), I'm probably going to retire this category, at least for summer time. Ever the warm weather came, I decided to keep the TV off so you kids could find creative ways to spend your time and not keep begging me to watch a show. It worked, and you haven't asked me to watch a show in quite awhile.

Toys: Tools, anything that can be made into a tool. Drums, and anything that can be made into a drum. Tinkertoys frequently become hammers or percussion instruments. But mostly, you play outside and find things to do and games to play with your brother. You really love Tommy and much prefer to do whatever he's doing.

Activities & Skills: You're able to ride your bike completely on your own now, and you don't need us to help you push off. You love to sing. Frequently throughout the day, you'll find a few sticks (see Tinkertoys, above) to bang together and will parade through the house singing praise songs. You can only remember a few words of most praise songs, and then usually inaccurately, so your songs end up sounding something like this, "Nothing our God can do!.....Nothing our God can do!....Nothing that we do!..." (The real song goes, "My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do!")

Behavior: You used to be incredibly stubborn, especially when it came to obeying a simple instruction like, "Clean up your blocks." You seem to have left most of your stubbornness behind in your second year.

These days the behavior issues we have with you are more about the heart. For instance, a little while ago we had a situation where a boy hit you with a stick. He was disciplined by his parent and then he apologized to you, but you refused to forgive him. After praying about it together and talking about it, and then praying and talking some more, you eventually forgave him happily. But getting to that point was a lot more work than I was expecting!

New things: You recently started pronouncing your "L" sounds correctly and clearly. It's sad in a way, because it means no more hearing the words "bwankie", "wuv", or "pwaybround".

Other stuff: You don't like to do work. If I ask you to put to do what you think is too much work around the house, you'll whine and say, "But my aaaarms don't wooooork!" or "I don't know hoooooow!" We're working on this. You also don't like to walk long distances, but you've gotten a lot better about this in the past few months.

You like to help in the kitchen and you're getting really good at cutting fruit and vegetables with a butter knife. Often I'll give you a pile of carrots or zucchini to cut and you slice everything up for me. You're also learning how to make scrambled eggs.

You really love people. One day you told me, "Mommy, I like to say hi to people because I love them." I believe you! You always say hi to people wherever we are, whether it's a really strange-looking man on the sidewalk downtown or an employee stocking shelves at Target. You're friendly to everyone and ask them about themselves. I have a feeling you're going to be a compassionate and friendly man when you grow up.

You insist on looking at books upside down. You know the right way to look at books, but you like them upside done for some reason. Whenever I fix it for you, you turn it back the way you had it.

I'm looking forward to your 4th birthday, because you'll finally be four and then I can finally stop lecturing you on the importance of telling the truth. Unless, of course, you start insisting that you're five, since you were already four.

Garden

2011-07-11T11:39:00.000-07:00

My garden is exploding. Well, most of it. Some things like my strawberries, zucchini, and bell peppers have gotten a slow start I think because we've had unusually cool weather this year. But everything else is thriving and giving us lots of things to eat. It's been amazing to watch it grow so quickly. Some days we don't get out to the garden to look at it, but when we finally do it surprising how much it's grown in just a few days.

Left to right: Onions/shallots/leeks, chard, strawberries, zucchini, bell peppers and broccoli. Along the back fence is spinach and snap peas.

Here's our broccoli in all its glory.

My favorite thing in our garden: leeks. I started them from seed back in February and transplanted the seedlings in the garden in April. They looked really pathetic and I didn't expect them to grow at all, especially because we had a lot of rain right after I planted them and it looked like they got washed out. But to my surprise a few months later, I had leeks growing! It brings me joy every time I go check on them to see them growing strong.

This is what I'm doing with the plethora of carrots, chard, and spinach we're getting: washing, cutting, and freezing. We have a chest freezer which is almost full of bounty we've been collecting and freezing from farmer's market, our garden, and family's garden. I had originally had dreams of learning to can and preserve, but after reading about it (and other's experience) I decided it's too much work for me right now. So instead, I'm saving everything in the freezer to be used for soups and smoothies later. It's going to be a yummy winter.

June In Our Family

2011-07-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated our blog much because, well, there's not much going on with us. We've been mellow around here. So mellow that I haven't bothered to pick up my camera to document how laid back we've been. If I do take a snapshot, it's with my cell phone because it happens to be the closest thing to me.

Our days have flowed into each other so that there are some mornings that I wake up and it takes me a few minutes to remember which day it is. And that's a good thing. Because it means that we don't have anywhere to be (most days) and we don't have anything we need to do beyond the basics of living.

I still wake up early to run and to spend time with God, but after the boys wake up our usual morning routine has dissolved into whatever we feel like doing. If it's a warm sunny morning, the boys might feel like playing in the sandbox, even though it's only 7am and they haven't had breakfast yet. Most days, we have breakfast and then the boys head outside for the rest of the morning. It's amazing what kinds of things they find to do when we don't have anywhere to go all day.

So, pardon the picture quality, but do enjoy a sampling of our little adventures from the past month.

Tommy and Ben all geared up for a 'venture, as they call it. They packed up their little backpacks with random toys from around the house, grabbed their sunglasses and hopped on their bikes to go see what the great big world had to offer (in our back yard). They came home about 15 minutes later complaining they were huuungry and asking when it was time for peanut butter sandwiches.

Our first family s'mores night of the summer. We put the boys to bed at the normal bedtime of 7:30pm, then got them up an hour later for a surprise marshmallow cookout in our backyard. After stuffing them with s'mores, we laid on the grass and stargazed for awhile, until it was the parents' bedtime. Then we all went to bed.

The boys asked permission to use some of Mark's tools, nails, and scrap wood (don't worry, they know how to use tools properly!) We found them attempting to construct Noah's Ark on our back patio. This kept them busy for over an hour.

We celebrated Father's Day and Grandma's birthday with an egg and balloon toss at the park. Amazingly, no kids got egg on them, though the eggs didn't last very long. It was certainly entertaining to watch a bunch of preschoolers try to toss eggs back and forth to each other.

One Saturday we had a trip to Monterey to go to the aquarium. We had lunch on the wharf and got the kids a treat at the candy store. Almost a month later, they still speak with awe about the giant lollipop they saw in the window (Benji got a much smaller version and Tommy got cotton candy).

The boys resting on the couch together with a snack. I think Ben is trying to balance Cheerios on Tommy's head.

Painting a mural. This is the best kind of art project: give 'em a huge piece of paper, three colors of paint, some brushes, and let 'em have at it. They even cleaned themselves up afterward.

My adventure: I finally realized my dream of finding a recipe for bread that is quick, easy, and yummy! (Hey, I like to dream big). Next on my list is to try the healthy version of the recipe which uses whole wheat flour instead of white. I'm just waiting for a key ingredient to arrive in the mail and then all my bread dreams will come true.

Tommy being goofy at the big shoes outside the Children's Discovery Museum. We went there with some friends, and unsurprisingly, I think the kids had the most fun outside the museum, exploring the park and discovering a nearby creek.

Father's Day

2011-06-18T15:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day to an awesome husband and father. You are an awesome role model to our boys of what it means to be a man who loves his family and works hard for them. I pray that they follow your example when they grow up and create families of their own.

Summer Time

2011-06-14T17:06:00.000-07:00

After spending most of the spring in long pants and jackets, summer time is finally here!

It's time to jury-rig our kiddie pool and water slide together to make a backyard splash park.

Time to slather the boys in sunscreen and kick them outside at 8am to make their own fun.

Time to make homemade popsicles out of orange juice.

Time to drape soaked swim trunks and beach towels on deck railings.

Time to fire up the fire-pit and stay up past bedtime making s'mores with kids.

Time to stay home all day with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

Time to sit on the deck swing in the dusk with my honey and talk about the day's events.

Time to have our family meals on the back deck.

I think summer is my new favorite season.

Chickens

2011-06-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

Because nothing compares with the electric-yellow yolk of a home-grown egg.

Because pastured, organic eggs can't be bought at the grocery store.

Because fresh eggs from pastured chickens is about 7 times healthier than store-bought eggs.

Because it puts us one step closer to sustainable living.

And because a friend had a rooster they were looking to get rid of...

We're getting chickens!

Starting to build the coop. Mark tells me this is called "framing".

Benji "helping" build.

Almost complete...

Boys helping to paint. They actually painted all the red seen in this photo. They were awesome helpers. I just had to touch up a few spots they missed afterwards.

Here's a conversation I overheard while the boys were painting:
Ben: "Tommy, I'm done."

Tommy: "I don't think you're done. I think you're just tired of painting."

Ben: "Yeah, I'm tired of painting."

Tommy: "Well, I'm tired too, but I'm still doing it. You just need to do it!"

Completed!

Tommy bonding with one of our baby chicks, currently being raised by Mark's mom.

Chicken secrets.

Stay tuned to find out what's next on the Knapp Farm!

Goatville, Population Two

2011-05-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved on to this property a year ago, we've been thinking about how we can best make use of our back acre of land. Our long-term dream is to be as self-sustaining as we can stand, and to use many of the ideas from The Backyard Homestead by having a garden, an orchard, and varoius livestock. So far we're doing well in the produce category. However, since I never had so ouch as a hamster as a child, I was nervous about venturing into the area of living things. But this week we finally took the plunge and got some goats! Meet our girls Daisy and Swingtail (or Swing for short), three month old Nubian/Oberhasli mixes.

These girls are the sweetest things. They were a bit skittish when we first brought them home, but now they run to us and follow us around like puppies and bleat at us mournfully when we walk away from their pen.

The pen that Mark built for the goats.

The goats' house, which Mark slapped together in a few hours using remnants from the compound. This is where the girls sleep at night to keep safe from predators.

"Swingtail", or "Swing" for short - Tommy's goat. He named her all by himself. The irony is that Swing's tail doesn't actually swing very much. Daisy is much more affectionate and even the slightest touch make sheer tail swish with excitement.

"Daisy", Benji's goat. She's a sweet girl who loves to nuzzle and play with us.

So far the goats' purpose is to be pets and to eat down some of our weeds. We're still deciding whether we want to milk them sometime in the future. Having a supply of fresh, raw goat's milk to make cheese and yogurt with sounds great, but milking a goat once or twice a day and figuring out what to do with a quart of milk a day sounds daunting at this point.

Infertility

2011-05-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

"Mark and I are seeing a specialist for infertility."....That is one sentence I never thought I'd say. Infertility is one of those things that happens to other people, not to me. Especially because pregnancy has always come so easy to me. It took us only six months to conceive Tommy, three months for Ben, and zero months for Samuel since he was a surprise. How could infertility happen to someone like me? Well, apparently, it's not all that uncommon for someone like me to become infertile for seemingly no reason at all. It's so common, in fact, that there's a name for it: secondary infertility, which affects about 3 million Americans.

To give a brief history: two-and-a-half years ago we were four months pregnant with our third son when Mark got a vasectomy. We (foolishly) decided that three kids in two-and-a-half years was enough for us. Two weeks after his vasectomy, we lost our son. A few months later, God changed our minds and our hearts about children and gave us the desire for more children. We got Mark's vasectomy reversed and have been trying to conceive ever since. That was almost two years ago.

After trying the old fashioned way to conceive a child for about fifteen months, we finally sought the help of a specialist. We went through a battery of lab tests (both Mark and I) and ultrasounds (just me). After all the tests, the doctor didn't yet have a clear idea of what the problem was. So we tried a fertility drug (Clomid) for three months to see if it would help move things along. It didn't. In fact, it didn't affect me much at all, besides giving me crazy mood swings one week out of every month. In addition to that other week that gives most women crazy mood swings. After all the tests and after seeing how my body reacted to Clomid, the doctor's best guess is that my ovaries are aging at a much quicker rate than my chronological age - they're behaving as if I'm 40, even though I'm only 28.

There have been a lot of different thoughts and feelings churning around in my head for these past eighteen months. To use a cliché, it's been a roller-coaster ride of emotions. Since the beginning, I've been struggling to be content with my two children and not want any more. I've prayed for a long time that if more children weren't in God's plan for our family, that He would take away that desire. By now I've realized that maybe this was not very realistic, and so I've settled for being content in waiting for God's plan to unfold, whatever it may be. Then over a period of six months God shifted my heart away from yearning to be pregnant - I still desired a larger family, but I would be happy with any child, adopted or biological. This was a huge milestone for me!

And then, just when I adjusted to being content not to be pregnant, we started the process for Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI) - a labor-intensive process to get me pregnant. Go figure. I was feeling confused and anxious about everything, to say the least. I was very close to deciding against doing IUI because the odds of success seemed so low and the risks and effort involved seemed so daunting. In a nutshell, the 'work' involves several blood tests to check hormone levels, daily drug injections, and driving 45-minutes each way for almost-daily ultrasounds for two weeks. It was the advice of a few more-mature ladies that convinced me the risks and the work involved were worth pursuing. Our first cycle of IUI takes place this week, and we'll see if it was successful in about two more weeks. We've decided to pursue IUI for only three months.

The Lord has used this trial to teach me so much about how to deal with life when it isn't all sunshine and rainbows. These are some verses He has used with me:

"Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
This verse doesn't say to give thanks only when things are going well. It says to give thanks in all circumstances. So the Lord has shown me what I can be thankful for in our infertility journey: having lots of help with the boys when we have to go in for our numerous doctor visits; Mark's amazing health insurance benefit that covers about 97% of all of our costs. Without his coverage, we wouldn't be able to afford even a single doctor visit, let alone the slew of ultrasounds, medication, tests, etc.; friends who have gone before me in this journey who have given counsel and comfort.

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." (Colossians 3:2)
I need to be reminded on a constant basis that adding more children to my family is not the defining thing of my life. The defining thing in my life is the fact that Jesus took the blame for my sins and now I can look forward spending eternity with Him. Whether or not I have more children is a small blip on the radar of eternity.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths." (Proverbs 3:5)
and
"...Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)
When hard decisions have to be made, it is very easy for me to feel overwhelmed and anxious about what the "right" choice is. But when the Lord helps me put my trust in His power to make His will known to me and His perfect plan unfold without my "help", I can let go and allow the His peace to fill my heart.

"Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things." (Phillipians 4:8)
There have been plenty of times that I've driven home from a doctor appointment thinking things were hopeless and we'd never have any more kids. Now, this wasn't necessarily true based on the information I'd received. My thoughts just usually lead to the worst possible outcome if I don't keep them in check. Sometimes it's all I can do to just keep running the words, "...whatever is true..." through my head to keep my thoughts in line with the facts that are known.

In the end, there are a few options of things that could happen:
1. The IUI could be successful and I could get pregnant sometime in the next three months.
2. The IUI could be unsuccessful and I could never have any more children.
3. The IUI could be unsuccessful and God may choose to open my womb and bless me with children at some later time.
4. At some point we could be blessed with the finances to afford adoption.

I can say that right now I could be content with any of these eventualities. Option #2 would be the hardest to deal with, but God will give me the grace to accept His plan. Whatever happens will be within God's sovereignty and will be part of his good and perfect plan for my life.

One final scripture that has given me comfort, from Habakkuk 3:17-19:

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
he makes me tread on my high places
God, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;

Born to Run?

2011-05-04T17:33:00.000-07:00

For the last six months, I've been doing a program called C25K, which stands for "Couch to 5K". It's a training schedule that helps non-runners complete a 5K (3.1 miles) in nine weeks. Beginning a few weeks before Christmas, I've been waking up at 5:15 AM, three times a week, to run on my treadmill. However, I've been stuck in the third week of the program for a very long time, unable to run more than three minutes. And my weight hasn't budged downward as I expected. Overall it's been a very dull and sometimes frustrating experience.

The change all started when I walked past a copy of Born to Run at the library. I'm one of those people who can't just walk briskly to my destination when I'm in a library or bookstore (or anywhere that has shelves full of books). I walk slowly and my eyes linger over the titles and inevitably I find myself snagged by an interesting book. Born to Run is a book that I've heard lots of praise for from friends, even friends who don't care at all about running. I had heard that it's a great story and a real page turner. So I dropped it in my bag and moved on.

Born to Run was written by a journalist who wanted to answer a simple question: Why does my foot hurt when I run? Eighty percent of runners will incur some foot and/or leg injury every year. In short, what he found out was that people weren't meant to run in running shoes. He found a tribe of Native Americans living deep in Copper Canyons of Mexico called the Tarahumara- you've heard of these people: they're the ones that live high up in caves in the side of tall cliffs, accessible only by hanging ladders, and we Westerners can't imagine how they train their kids to stay away from the edge of the cliff. The Tarahumara can run amazing distances (100+ miles) without getting tired. Even their elderly still run distances most people in America wouldn't think of walking on a good day. And the kicker is, they have zero incidents of running-related foot or leg injuries.

The author discovered that we were designed (he says by evolution, I say by God) to run in our bare feet. When we do, our body receives information from the amazing array of nerves in our feet and knows exactly how to align itself so we don't get injured. Put a cushy running shoe over our feet, and all those nerves are covered up and our body moves in such a way that it ends up injuring itself. We come down hard on our heel, which does long term damage to our legs and feet. Bottom line: Nikes, bad; bare feet, good.

I thought this was all very interesting when I first started the book. My only connection to running was my three-times a week early morning session on the treadmill, where I wheezed my way through a series of ninety second and three-minute runs. Though Born to Run was an engaging story, I didn't see much of a connection to my life.

It wasn't until I finally closed the book that I was inspired to make some changes in my exercise. I decided to ditch my pre-dawn treadmill date and instead go running through our beautiful neighborhood vineyard in the afternoon. I also got myself a pair of Vibram FiveFinger shoes, which would allow me to try out barefoot running.

I have to admit that I tried really hard not to get these because, well, they look plain weird. I looked into other minimalist running shoes (those that have a very thin sole), but the more I read, the more I learned that even those aren't flat enough to get the benefits of being barefoot. And so I decided to throw fashion discernment to the wind and get my feet into these. We took a family trip to our local REI and got outfitted.

The first time I ran in these shoes was an amazing experience. Instead of wheezing my way through three minutes of running, I breezed through four minutes, walked for a few seconds to catch my breath, then breezed through another four minutes. A few days later, I'm breezing through five-minute runs. I've only ran in the shoes four times so far, but each time I do, it amazes me that I barely get winded.

I'm happy to say that I really enjoy running now. I actually look forward to my runs, instead of dreading them. It may seem unbelievable that one pair of shoes that mimic the barefoot experience can change so much. Check out the book, and you won't regret it.

Here is an article that has most of the books best information in one place:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html

Easter 2011

2011-04-26T15:10:00.000-07:00

Good Friday, before leaving for church.

Easter morning, before church.

Extra points were earned for fishing the egg out from under the spiky rose bush.

Ben 2009 and 2011. Seems like he's finally got the hang of this egg hunt thing.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

2011-04-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

The other day our family took a surprise trip to the aquarium: we woke the boys up on Friday morning and took them out to breakfast. Then we started driving south towards Monterey. They had no clue where we were going. Eventually as we neared Monterey, they started to see sand dunes and guessed that we were going to the beach. But it wasn't until we were in the building that they realized where we were. The last time we were there, Ben was just a newborn, so neither of the boys remembered anything about it. But they sure got excited when they saw all the sea creatures. Their favorite part of the aquarium was the touch tank, full of sea stars, kelp, anemones, and abalone shells.

My plan is to familiarize them with different sea animals, then take a trip to the library to find books about the animals they are most interested in so we can learn more about them. Then in a few weeks (or months) we'll take another trip to the aquarium to visit the animals they're now acquainted with. That's the plan anyway, we'll see how it actually works in Real Life.

Truck picnic outside Dennis the Menace park

Ice cream break

Exhausted after a full day of fun!

Tommy - 4½ Years

2011-04-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

It's been rewarding watching your personality develop more as you've progressed through age four. The newest thing about you is that you are talking a lot. And I do mean A LOT. You are constantly asking questions about everything: "What does ____ mean?", "What's for dinner?", "Why did you turn the car around?", "What are we doing after nap? And after that? And after that? And after..." Sometimes I have patience with your increased chatter, but often I have to say, "It's time to be quiet for a few minutes."

We've also noticed something a bit funny about you. When it comes to climbing and being physically adventurous around the home and playground, Ben has you beat. But when it comes to a natural environment like a hiking trail or the beach, you will scramble over, climb, and jump off of rocks like a monkey. (And equally interesting, Ben is uncharacteristically cautious and timid in these environments).

I've mentioned this in another post, but it bears repeating since we keep seeing this on a regular basis: you LOVE babies, especially ones that are 9 months and older. A calm, tender, and gentle side that we don't usually see comes out when you're around them. You're protective of them and you get so happy when you can make them smile. You also want to take them for rides in your Jeep, but we've nixed that idea.

Books: You love to be read almost any book. Your favorite books to look at by yourself are those that have simple words you can read, like The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, and those that are about how things work. Some of your favorites are books about race cars, construction machines, trains, and how the body works. A steady favorite is anything by Richard Scarry.

Shows: You're really into trains lately, so we've revived a few old favorites like Thomas the Tank Engine and I Love Toy Trains. In general though, you only watch a few shows a week.

Toys: These days, you spend most of your time outdoors playing made up games with your brother. Today I saw you boys playing "Crash the race car", where you zoomed your bikes around the deck and pretended to crash each other and other imaginary cars. As for inside toys, Legos are your current favorite. Unsurprisingly, your favorite things to build are cars and trucks.

Activities & Skills: The other day we did our sand-writing activity and I was surprised to see that you know how to write almost all your uppercase letters. There are a few complex ones that you don't yet know how to write, like G and R.

I've noticed that you learn best when you can figure things out for yourself. For example, with reading, you will show interest in a certain sound combination (say, the "-er" combination), so I'll spend five minutes working with you on learning how to read it and listing out words that use that sound. After five minutes your attention span is spent, so you'll move on to another activity. Then a week later you'll surprise me by randomly pointing out a word with -er that I think you don't know and reading it to me.

You're also more interested than ever in learning your catechism. It's been amazing to see how much you can remember. You seem to be happy with yourself when you can remember all of your questions (you're up to 45 questions now!)

Behavior: Ever since you were about two, we've noted that you go through cycles of good and challenging behavior: you'll be a well-behaved angel for about four months and then go through a short period of very challenging behavior for a few weeks. Right now you're in the midst of an angelic period. I know it's going to come to an end soon, but for right now I'm really enjoying it.

One aspect of your good behavior recently is that you have periods of being very eager to help around the house and learn how to do new things. You're actually becoming pretty helpful. You (sometimes) get excited when it's time to fold your laundry because you (sometimes) like to help me fold things. You're getting really good at folding your pants, and so I set them aside in a pile according to owner and you fold and stack. Honestly, sometimes I'm the one who gets excited because I think laundry folding time will be cut in half for me, only to find out that you're not interested in helping at the moment. But when you are interested, it's a huge help.

You're also able to put dishes from the dishwasher away. I recently heard a speaker at my moms' group talk about how she rearranged her kitchen cabinets so her small children could help put the dishes away. This sounded good to me, so I tried it that afternoon and was surprised to see that you were able to empty the dishwasher and put almost everything away by yourself! Makes me wonder what else you're capable of...

Quotes: One day we had pot stickers with our dinner. I mistakenly called them dumplings and Daddy corrected me and said they were 'pot stickers'. We kept using both words interchangeably. Finally you declared, "I know! Let's call them Dump Stickers!" We all thought that was pretty funny.

When talking about how to write letters, you decided, "Mommy, I think that the letter R is kind of like a B, except it only has one bump and then a slide."

While grocery shopping with me, you asked me what the red onions were. I told you they were called 'red onions'. You looked confused and said, "But Mommy, they're purple. They should be called 'purple onions'." A nearby shopper overheard you and said, "Heh, the kid's right!"

"Mommy, I love God more than anything! Even more than you!" (Music to my ears, son!)

"Mrs. ____, I'm very curious about your house! May I see your room, please?"

Sizes:
Shirt: 5 or 6 (depending on the brand)
Pants: 5
Shoes: 11

Morning Friends

2011-04-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is what I see outside my dining room window in the early morning as I have my quiet time. I admit that it can be distracting at times, but it's so much fun to see the silhouettes of hummingbirds as they come to feed.

Sick Day

2011-03-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

The only thing good about sick days is the extra snuggles that come along with the fevers, coughing, and sneezing. Benji started a high fever a few nights ago. This photo is from yesterday morning, at the height of his fever. The poor guy was so tired that he actually fell asleep on my shoulder while I was talking on the phone - canceling today's preschool co-op, which was to be held at our house. He still has a low fever today, but he's mostly back to normal, playing and running around the house with his brother. And he took his snuggles with him. :(

To-Do List 2011 Update

2011-03-20T16:46:00.000-07:00

It's three months into the new year and a new To-Do list, so it's a good time to take stock and see how well I'm doing with my goals:

1. Lose weight. I wanted to lose about 10 lbs by my birthday this month, but that didn't happen. Actually, I barely lost any weight since committing to the goal over three months ago. I've been frustrated with myself because while it felt to me like I was putting in a lot of effort (cooking healthy meals with lots of vegetables, working out three times a week), it seems like it's been so hard to lose anything.

But I did keep a journal of what I ate throughout the day for three months and I learned some things about myself:

1) I think it's okay to eat unhealthy food when we eat out. BIG mistake, since food offered at restaurants is some of the most calorie-dense stuff around.

2) I think it's okay to overindulge on the weekends, since I've "been good" all week. One yummy snack isn't going to hurt, but two full days of overindulgence can (and has) prevented me from losing weight.

3) I think it's okay to overindulge on special occasions.

When you put together each scenario where I think it's okay to eat badly or overindulge, it works out to several days a week. When I look at it this way, no wonder I haven't lost weight! Once I realized where I was going wrong, I made some changes to my eating habits that will hopefully produce some results. We'll see where I am in three more months. :)

2. Decrease Internet time. I've been successful with this. I keep my computer off during the day and give myself 15 minutes of "veg-out" time on the Web a day.

3. Read the whole Bible again. More success here. I started off with the same reading plan I used last year, which takes the reader through the Bible in chronological order, starting at Genesis and ending in Revelation. Recently I changed to a different reading plan which takes the reader through four separate sections of scripture each day. This way, I'll get to read the gospels and wisdom books twice through the year, and the rest of the Bible once.

4. Take part in a Photo-a-Day project). Big fat fail. I stuck with it for eight days, then realized that between taking pictures, uploading then, selecting (the very few) good ones, editing them, and adding them to my Flickr account, it was really interfering with goal #2: Decreasing Internet Time. Also, it wasn't much fun when I had to put so much work into it. In the end I decided that for now, I'll just stick with taking pictures of my cute kids doing cute things and work on my photography skills when I have more time and interest on my hands.

5. Read more good books. Success! Some of the books I've read this year are Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, Intimate Issues, by Linda Dillow, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lews, Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis, and I'm currently reading Heaven, by Randy Alcorn. I was given a TON of good books for my birthday. Glancing at the growing stack of To-Be-Read books throughout the day has been great motivation for me to spend more time reading.