The List for Summer

This is going to be a long post. I made a list of fun things to do this summer when my kids say, "I'm bored". I love lists, ya know? My sister, Heather, posted a few on her blog that I should add. I am going to cut them up and put them in a jar/basket/bucket. I did it 2 summers ago and it was a big hit. Anneke especially enjoys it. Oh, and it turns out that we have an extra week of school. It is a big bummer thinking this was the last week and finding out otherwise. Enjoy the ideas!

Go for a bike ride

Make homemade ice cream or visit an ice cream parlor

Bake a double batch of cookies and deliver one to another family

Learn a few magic tricks and produce your own magic show

Have a picnic

Hike or climb trees

Make popcorn or maybe even caramel corn

Blow bubbles

Go swimming

Plan a scavenger hunt for outside. Or plan one for in the house using every letter of the alphabet.

Draw a map of your block or of your town, or trace a map of your country and fill in the states or cities or other feature

Make playdoh

Read a good book aloud

Look through photo albums or view family movies, or videos

Make a collage from magazine words and pictures

Plan a family game night

Work on a jigsaw puzzle

Paint a picture

Have a candy treasure hunt

Try origami or make a paper airplane and fly it

Make an obstacle course in the yard

Visit a tourist spot near your home

Write a poem

Walk around your block and pick up all the litter you can find.

Go bowling

Make your own homemade pizza

Invite another family over for a game

Listen to your favorite music and dance around

Go without TV for a day

Make a collage using seeds, rice, cereal, old buttons and sewing scraps

Run around the block 3 times

Open a day spa

Go camping–or stay home and camp out in your own dining room.

Build with LEGOS

Make puppets out of lunch bags, old socks, felt, wooden clothespins. Put on a puppet show

Write a letter

Sketch a picture of your house from the outside

Find a joke and tell it someone else

Make a piece of art out of objects you have around the house

Sign up at your local library for their Summer Reading Program

Color a picture or write a letter to send to grandparents

Make a list together of all the things in your house that use electricity.

Enjoy a shopping trip for something little, but fun---a jar of bubbles, stickers, paper dolls, a matchbox car

Play store, library or school

Play a new sport- badminton, volleyball, tennis, Frisbee, yard darts or ping pong

Play hide-and-seek (inside or outside)

Share a favorite movie with a friend

Draw a family tree on paper and complete it as a family. Add old photographs if available

Go jogging or take a walk together

Go to the library

Gather a variety of leaves and identify them

Rearrange the furniture in your bedroom

Memorize something meaningful: a psalm, a poem, a passage from the Bible, the Gettysburg Address

Make caramel apples

Jump rope

Visit a friend

Make a summer snack

Read favorite poems aloud

Put together a scrapbook describing a favorite vacation or any special event (pictures, writing, souvenirs)

Play a card game

Go to a ball game or play one---football, kickball, softball, baseball, basketball, soccer

Finger paint with chocolate pudding

Make a milkshake or a smoothie

Have a real tea party with some friends

Practice playing a musical instrument. If you don’t play an instrument, try learning to play one, maybe the recorder or the harmonica.

Make a yummy salad and eat it

Build a fort

String beads to make a necklace

Write and illustrate a short story

Volunteer to help a neighbor for free—just because

Play with water guns

Make your own list of things to do when you’re bored

Paint with watercolors

Make friendship bracelets

Use potatoes carved with simple designs as stamps

Make Christmas decorations or ornaments (Christmas in July)


Create scrapbook pages


'Stained Glass Windows' - Cover the sticky side of contact paper with several colors of tissue paper, make sure to leave about an inch edge all the way around so it will stick to the window


Coloring pages or coloring books

Write Secret Messages


Bake a cake, decorate it, and sing "Happy Unbirthday to Us!"


Make popsicles


Bake mini loaves of bread, make butter to spread on them


Decorate sugar cookies


Bake cupcakes and deliver to friends


Choose different cookies recipes

Make Ice cream in a bag


Trip to the dollar store


Go to the movies

Go bird watching


Learn a new Primary Song or Children's Song


Check out a book from the library on paper airplanes. Make all different kinds and have competitions.


Make 'Slime'


Make a list of what you want to learn about this year

Buy school supplies


Learn about different types of poetry (haiku, limerick, acrostic) and write your own


Take a week to learn about a country: cook a food from it one day, color its flag the next, listen to native music on another day, etc.


Sing the other verses to the Star Spangled Banner


Paint toenails and fingernails.


Make hair accessories –

Try geocaching or letterboxing.

Have a nature scavenger hunt. Write a list for older children. For younger children paint different colors on the bottom of egg cartons (different shades of green, brown, other colors of nature) and see if you can find objects matching those colors. You'd be surprised at what they can find!!


Water balloon fights


Have different races: wheelbarrow, crab walk, crawling, etc.


Relax on the lawn watching for shapes in the clouds

Play stick-ball


Stay up late and look at the stars



Draw pictures and send to the Friend Magazine


Write down everything you are thankful for. Be very specific.


Read pioneer or ancestor stories. Act out your favorite ones.


Try writing your own song


Choose a cousin to write a letter to. Make sure to tell them all the things you admire and like about them!


Make your Christmas wish list

List 5 nice things about each member of your family


Play board games all day


Think of a good service project to do. Plan it out and carry through with the plan


Music Mix CD


Make your own "books on tape"


Write your own skits


Create a puppet play with stuffed animals


Turn off all the lights, turn on a flashlight and make shadows on the wall


Eat dinner by candlelight



Backwards Day - Have dinner for breakfast and breakfast for dinner, etc.


Make up a board game

Make up a game

Drive in Movie

Make a mini puppet theater and put on a show

Make your own stationary and write a letter on it

Play the Minister’s Cart Game

Find $1 in change in the yard

Paint with water colors

Car wash

Go for a walk

Go to water preserve

Prepare an FHE

Make a puppet play with your stuffed animals

Do something nice for someone else in secret

Play hide and seek

Read a story to Luke

Play charades

Make pencil pinwheels

Do Wii Fit

Make a pompom ice cream cone

Fingerprint art

Go to a playground

Memorize an Article of Faith

Play “freeze dance” with the family

Choose a favorite story and act it out for the family

Have a tea party

Go bowling

Read books with Mom

Don’t Eat Pete

Give each letter a cent value then figure out the value of words. (for example a = $.1, b = $.2, etc.)

List all the sounds you hear for the next 10 minutes

Play Marbles

Plan an imaginary trip to the moon

Finger paint with shaving cream

Create a family chant

Have a family talent show

Have a silly jumps contest in the yard

Take pictures doing fun activities while holding the Friend magazine

I wish...

Luke just said, "I wish we had a puppy. But we don't. Instead we have a baby." Yeah, that's the same thing, I guess.

Changes

Life has been crazy. We have had something every day. I have been awful at taking pictures, too. Plus my computer takes a very long time to upload anything. (It took 15 minutes for these 3 photos. I feel like I am stuck in the 90's. ;))

Something very important happened on Thursday.

Before

After

The orthodontist gave him a gift bag with popcorn, caramel, jolly ranchers, etc. All things he couldn't have for the last year. We are having corn on the cob tonight. (He has been sick.)

This little princess has reached 3 very important milestones.

She can clap, sit by herself and crawled a bit for the first time today! Time is going so fast. Seriously, look at that hair! 

(Mallory still won't eat anything though. I am quite frustrated. Luke did the same, but argh!)


While others are enjoying the summer, we are still in school here. 1 more week, I think. I have big summer plans, so I will try better to post. I think I lost some steam realizing I had not printed any pictures since before Luke was born. I printed off the pictures to complete Anneke's baby book, and bring Luke and Mally's up to date. It was less than 100 pictures and it cost more than I liked. *Sigh* So much for scrapbooking.


Oh, I realized I didn't update about Andy. He has changed his committee and is so much more happy. He is working on a new reading list for his qualifying exams and gets to put things on it like Ender's Game, Dune and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He seems so much more happy. His Chair calls him and takes care of him. She has had more contact with him in the last month than his old chair in the year. She really care about him and wants him to succeed. I am please with how things are going. It still adds a year, but we are following the Lord and that feels right.

Service

Mosiah 2:17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.


We talked about service yesterday in church. The whole time i was sitting there I thought of my family and their example of service. My dad was always helping people move in and out. We were always there helping Brother Mueller clean up our stretch of road by the VA. Dad would plan and carry out Scout camps and such. He stayed current on his lifeguard skills and always came to girls camp to cook and keep us safe. Mom would always make food and treats for people. We had people over all the time to share meals. Mom adopted some strange friends that would just show up when they needed to feel loved. She, too, came to girls camp and helped cook and take care of us. They say that service begins in the home and I was so blessed that my parents were examples of that. I saw it with other family members, too. Thank you for your examples. 

Here is my hair. Sorry, my program went crazy and cropped it funny. But, you get idea. Anneke got a haircut, too, but I am not allowed to post a picture here. It has to be on her blog. So, if you want to see it, go there. ;)

By the Numbers

I like lists and numbers. (Though I am not too great with anything but remembering the latter.) Since I have been up since 4:45am I decided to do something with my time. Here is my life in numbers.


3, the number of decades that I have been on the earth.
1/2 my life I have known my husband.
1/3 of my life I have been married.
3/10 of my life I have been a mom. 
4, the number of children to which I have given birth.
4, the number of towns I have lived in since marriage.
5, the number of degrees we have between us.
6 year old, 3 year old and 6 month old, the ages of my children when we moved here.
9 year old, a six year old, 3 year old and 6 month old, the ages of my children now.
10 inches, the amount of hair I had cut off yesterday.
25, the amount in pounds I would like to lose.
40, the number of books I have read so far this year.
12, the amount of hours until I get to go on a date with my husband for his birthday.

A picture book

I have a picture book I wanted to suggest. Go to bahlmannkids.blogspot.com to see more about it. :)

Talents

Yesterday we talked about talents and the parable of the talents (Matthew 25). I realized that after you are done with school it is harder to remember what your talents are. It is hard for me to come up with what my talents may be because I don't want to seem prideful. But also, I am truly not sure what they are a lot of the time. My husband says that reading is not a talent. But, it was argued that no everyone can read and there is something to be said for reading well. Plus, reading out loud and upside down apparently take talent. I used to think singing was a talent but then I heard so many amazing people with that talent and realized that I am not as good as I once would have thought. One woman mentioned that she has the gift of love and it is very true. You feel very loved when you are with her. (My mom has a similar gift, the gift of friendship. She makes everyone feel like her best friend.) I was going to get really needy and ask people to post what they think my talents are, but I decided against it. 


Along with this lesson as I was studying I read in True to the Faith that every person is given at least one spiritual gift. In yet another book I read recently the author talked about how everyone has one overwhelming godlike quality. It is the same premise. She mentioned things like giving of worldly wealth, not being able to see people in pain, solving puzzles, etc. I never thought of those as godlike. I think of patience, faith, etc. when I think of spiritual gifts. (See 1 Corinthians 12 or D&C 46 I can't figure out the new link feature, sorry.) But, Heavenly Father gives us all that we have. He offers us comfort when we are in pain. He puts ideas and solutions into our minds. He has created so much. Food for thought, for me anyway.


All this was going through my head and I wanted to share. Have a beautiful day! Go share your talents so they grow.

Departures

Departures by Robin Jones Gunn
I chose this book mainly because Anneke is getting older and books are getting more and more inappropriate. I wanted a book I knew would be safe for my daughter to read and send a good message. This book looked like a good candidate. Unfortunately, I didn't realize these characters have been in many of their own books. This was a stand alone book, but I did not care about the characters or understand some interactions that I otherwise would have if I had read any of the other books. It was a wholesome read, though. Now, I want to know more about the characters, too.


I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Songs

I believe that there is a song for everything. People say a word or phrase and I can think of a song. My sister and I used to make a game of it. I listen to music to feel better. Remember REM's "Everybody Hurts" or Toni Braxton's "Breathe Again". In my high school angst I listened to them a lot. I love hymns and children's songs. They are always relevant. Lately I have had the song Hold on from The Secret Garden musical stuck in my head. I have always loved that song but I didn't realize how appropriate it was to my life until now. I could not find a good version to link to, but here are the lyrics.


What you've got to do is
Finish what you have begun,
I don't know just how,
But it's not over 'til you've won!

When you see the storm is coming,
See the lightning part the skies,
It's too late to run-
There's terror in your eyes!
What you do then is remember
This old thing you heard me say:
"It's the storm, not you,
That's bound to blow away."

Hold on,
Hold on to someone standing by.
Hold on.
Don't even ask how long or why!
Child, hold on to what you know is true,
Hold on 'til you get through.
Child, oh child!
Hold on!

When you feel your heart is poundin',
Fear a devil's at your door.
There's no place to hide-
You're frozen to the floor!
What you do then is you force yourself
To wake up, and you say:
"It's this dream, not me,
that's bound to go away."

Hold on,
Hold on, the night will soon be by.
Hold on,
Until there's nothing left to try.
Child, hold on, There's angels on their way!
Hold on and hear them say,
"Child, oh child!"

And it doesn't even matter
If the danger and the doom
Come from up above or down below,
Or just come flying
At you from across the room!

When you see a man who's raging,
And he's jealous and he fears
That you've walked through walls
He's hid behind for years.
What you do then is you tell yourself to wait it out
And say it's this day, not me,
That's bound to go away.

Child, oh hold on.
It's this day, not you,
That's bound to go away!

Baby, Baby, Baby Mo

We had Mallory's 6 month check up this week. She is growing beautifully. Sad to say, my tiny baby is not so tiny anymore. She is still the smallest because she is only in the 90% for height, but that may not last. Her eyes are pretty much brown, but not as dark as her siblings. I would say a tan color, lighter than her dad's but more like his than mine. Her hair is strawberry blond with a wave in it. On top it waves to the back of her head. On the back of her head it waves up. It is so fine I can't get a good picture of it, but for now it is super cute! Anyway, her stats are:


Length - 27 inches (90%)
Weight - 16 pounds 12 ounces (75%)


Mobility - limited but has learned to awkwardly scoot/roll around when she wants to eat something left on the floor by a sibling. (Unfortunately, I have to watch Luke. He still can't understand that coins and little gems are not baby toys and he purposely gives them to her.)


Eating - Marcus has been the only one of my children to like baby food. Anneke did for a bit, but always hated rice cereal. (She still doesn't like rice.) Luke would literally never eat it. He nursed exclusively until about 9 months when he could eat softened peas and carrots. Wait, no, he would eat cheerios sometimes while sitting in his chair. Mallory has taken a few bites of sweet potato and squash. She doesn't really like plain cereal or carrots. I tried bananas and applesauce but it takes days to get through a tiny container. Not sure what we will do. Keep trying like I did with the others.


Sleep - she has always been my best sleeper. Lately, though she has to be good and tired to take a nap or go to bed. Since I feel that is not okay because of the screaming and whining I may have to try something different. The doctor suggested a routine and comfort object like a blanket or stuffed animal. I tried giving her the build-a-bear the kids made her, but it is her size and she kinda freaks out when it falls on her. She has awesome blankets, but all for cooler weather. I am working on finding something, though. Marcus never had a comfort object no besides my hair (no matter how hard I tried) and I laid next to him to get him to sleep until he was about 5. Um, I would rather not repeat that.

Science Saturday

For my 800th Post I give a Saturday that any nerd would appreciate. My husband has enhanced my nerdy nature I guess. Anyway, did anyone else know it was National Free Comic Book day? Really it was. They apparently do this every year on the first Saturday in May. So, while Marcus was at a birthday party we picked out some comic books. (I am not a comic book reader, so I got him 8 and me none.) Upon arrival Anneke was super excited to see Poison Ivy! So, Andy got a picture with her and Harley Quinn too.

The kids got comics of things like Inspector Gadget, Kung Fu Panda, Fraggle Rock and Betty and Veronica.

Then we headed to the Science Expo at the Cashman Center. Marcus loves science and was super excited to go to the event. One big reason stood out to him.

First thing they made aluminum foil boats and had a contest to see which was sturdiest. Luke's won holding 13 marbles before sinking like the Titanic.
This is the reason Marcus wanted to come...touching real human body parts courtesy of The Bodies exhibit. (It's 1/3 of a lung and I stayed away.)
Marcus and Anneke controlled an underwater camera called The Bumblebee.
Anneke's favorite thing was making necklaces out of cables and electrical tape. Marcus was too cool for it at first but then decided he wanted to make one too.
Andy loved this Gyr falcon. The owl was gorgeous, too, but I didn't have the camera.
Luke was entranced by the baby falcon. Right after this they started to feed it a dead baby mouse and Anneke left. Luke, of course, stayed to watch.
That little tool is like a microscope. It lets you take a closer look at things and it appears on the computer monitor.
Here Anneke uses it too and Luke uses the finger light he got while learning about curcuits to make things more interesting.
The event was totally free. I learned that earlier was probably better. We missed out on things because of long lines or they were no longer available. How neat would it have been to have ice cream made from liquid nitrogen or go inside a portable planetarium? Next year we will know better.

P.S. I tried hard to come up with a good blog title. Saturday for the nerds or Big Bang Bahlmanns, but I just went simple. Still, can you see Sheldon in this day at all?

My Mother's Day

Anneke insisted on giving me breakfast in bed. She thinks it is so glamorous. (I think for her birthday I am going to give her breakfast in bed.) Andy helped them make me this:

It has their hand prints on it and a quote by Jeffrey R. Holland about moms.

Since I didn't get to match for Easter we matched for Mother's Day.

The girls and me:

My boys and me

My beautiful children and their mom:

(Andy didn't want to try for a family picture.)

Anneke wanted to walk to church. Since it is coming to our "winter time" (ie the time when the weather is too much to go outside and you are stuck in the house for 3-4 months with little spells of reprieve.) I thought this was the last chance for a while. It took almost 1/2 an hour and we were late because of poor timing. But, we met a nice guy that walked all the way from The Strip to come to church. It was fun to get to know him. Andy drove him back to his hotel after church.

Unbirthday

Jason F. Wright, author of Christmas Jars and other books, has an interesting way to stay connected to his children. Each month on his children's number birth day he takes them out to do something. For example, the first of every month would be my special day.

Marcus mentioned that he was sad there was no Brother's day like there is a Mother's day. So, we have tried this idea starting in April. So far it has been tame. Marcus watched the sixth Harry Potter, Anneke watched Princess Diaries and Luke watched an episode of the old TV series The Littles. We always have a treat (Popcorn, candy or even Anneke's choice of cinnamon toast) and they get to stay up late once a month with just Mom and Dad. The dates will evolve to games, movie theaters and more I am sure. They can choose to go out and do something, but then they have to choose Mom or Dad to go with. Anyway, it is a fun idea and I wanted to share it. Next Saturday night is Marcus's unbirthday. Wonder what he will want to do.

Tough Love

I have been pretty depressed lately in case you couldn't tell from my last post. That translates into reading a lot. It is my escape route. Knowing it, doesn't help me fix it, though.

Andy has decided to change his committee. This means an extra year and dissertation change. Which translates into me being very tired and sighing because I thought we were so close.

Marcus won 3rd place in the high jump at his school's Little Olympics. I forgot to take a picture of them in their shirts. Which translates into stellar mom award here. I have one on my phone, but I am still not sure how to get it off. Anneke was sad her class's color was brown. I will try and post a shot of them in their shirts and Marcus with his medal later.

Anneke tried out for the talent show way back in February. She loved the idea of performing in front of an audience. Yet, she refused to practice. We worked out a dance and hula-hoop number to Twist and Shout. She had better things to do than practice. I forced her a few times, but I did not like nagging her. So, the result was not awful, but not great. I was going to post the video, but I will not put you through over 3 minutes of her doing very little. She kept looking to me for help, but I was taking care of Mallory. Which translates into tough love from me. She doesn't care. She thinks it was awesome. Oh, well.

Luke informed me yesterday that he and his best friend have been peeing on trees outside. 4 of them. I am not sure what to do with this information. (We have discussed that unless there is not potty like camping out that you need to go in the toilet. I am not sure it is working.) Which translates into a cry for help from my oldest sister. ;)

With my other children I made sure to take pictures of them in my favorite outfits. I felt like I was taking too many pictures of Mallory, so I haven't been doing that. I remedied the situation.

Right after these shots she pulled the hair bow out and broke it.

But, that gave me these shots:

Ignore the drool and look at that hair!

These also make me sad because she is getting ready to crawl. (I took a video of her efforts, but don't want to bore you.) Tomorrow she will be 6 months old. Which translates into the fact that time is going by too fast.

Options

I am feeling quite lost at the moment. Things at least make more sense when they are written down for me. So, you can read on or just skip this one.

We are fasting. We fasted last weekend. We are not getting any concrete answers. Sometimes I wish that God would just tell us what to do. The worst part for me is that there is little I can do. It is all on Andy. Our options:

*Take the test again in the fall with the same committee. (They added more to his reading list and don't feel that he is giving the priority to Medieval studies that he should. They were not too nice about his 2 fails.)

*Restructure the committee and take an extra year. (His funding is up next May, another year would be out of pocket. Plus, he really likes Medieval lit and has very little experience at this level outside that field.)

*Get a job and forget about the PhD.

*Take time off and possibly go back.

*Start over at a different university.

*Kick it into overdrive - write a dissertation, take and pass quals in fall , finish up dissertation in spring and graduate on time.

*Live like this for the rest of our lives. Andy can teach part time and work security part time.

*Curl into a ball and sleep for a while. (That sounds great!)

He just wants to teach. He is very good at it. He doesn't want to be world renowned or an expert. You can't get a degree in teaching. He did this so getting a job would be easier and more of a guarantee. He wants a good life for his family. We are doing all we can. What is the next step?

We are both wondering if we missed something. If we were overly ambitious to think of getting a PhD. If we didn't listen to something along the way and we are now being redirected. Did we misstep? What have we done to our children?

We were told that this was supposed to happen and that it would be for our benefit and draw us closer to each other and the Lord. How long until you can see these things? And, is it a final fail or do we pick ourselves up and try again. One more chance and it is all over. That part is very scary.