Here’s what I found recently on Jake’s iPod:

As I imported the video into the computer, Ruthie sat on my lap squealing and laughing. Must be the big eyes.

Jim is traveling to Nashville with a co-worker today and tomorrow. His original plan was to pilot the Cessna. But then the weather forecast came out: freezing rain. Cessnas don’t get along well at all with freezing rain.

So they’re driving.

As I explained to Jim this morning how ice is coating everything, he replied, “Better coating a tree than an airplane.”

Sure is pretty to look at, though. From the ground.

can one experience such a contrast in weather in just one week?

Last Saturday, we went for a walk in the grass and sunshine. One child traveled by scooter. We made tracks through puddles.

Today, we walked in the snow. One child traveled by sled and made tracks through the snow.

Last week, children and dog ran to their hearts content through the swampy, muddy field.

Today, children and dog romped and rolled in the snow.

Last week, boys explored on the rocks.

Today boys explored in the snow.

Last week Peter carried Ruthie.

Today Peter carried Ruthie. (some things remain consistent, no matter what the weather)

Today Daddy carried Ruthie as well. In his own signature style.

Last week Ruthie climbed the hill with very little problem.

Today she climbed/slid down/climbed/slid down the hill. She is a determined little girl.

Last week children and dog walked home covered covered in mud.

Today we went home covered in snow.

Before we left, Ruthie and Molly stood for a moment looking out.  Spring? Are you there?

What does this picture tell?

a)  Molly–ever believing she is human–is now into wearing cute white patent leather shoes on her front paws. But knowing that we humans don’t wear shoes in the house, she obediently takes them off before exiting her cage.

b)  A certain 1 year-old girl, who is way more interested in shoes than I care to think about, is in the throes of toddlerhood. She understands that part of the role description for “toddler” is “mover of all things from order to disorder”.

Here is what our ice rink looks like:

As you can imagine, there isn’t much skating going on around here. But our boys are resourceful. They took their hockey nets, sticks, and testosterone to the street.

Ruthie cheered her brothers on from the curb. She did NOT understand why they were in the street and she was forced to remain on the driveway. After many thwarted attempts to join them, she finally gave in and accepted the fact that she must stay on the high ground.

Jeremy tired of hockey after a while, so he joined his sister on the driveway.

Jim was the all-time goalie, and it was every boy for himself. The competition got pretty heated.

Meanwhile, the cops were out watching for penalties.

Peter proved to be quite skillful with the hockey stick. He scored the most goals.

I’m seeing many summer days on the street in our future.

Proving to be our little Joan of Arc, Ruthie has been walking around the house lately in the boys’ armor.

Peter helps her get suited up:

She may try to look tough,

but she can’t hide the fact that she’s a cutie pie little girl.

In other news, the boys entered their own battle in the minefield, a.k.a. the backyard. They went out two-by-two to remove the mines, and when it was Jake and Jeremy’s turn to scoop, Jake was determined to arm himself and his brother well.

With bags to protect their shoes, and more bags to protect their hands, they were impenetrable by the poop enemy.

OneWay was given a window-washing franchise last month, called Squeegee Squad. This generous company, owned and operated by two brothers, donated the franchise, a truck and equipment to the ministry.

Jim flew up to Minnesota with another guy for training (we’ve already mentioned his harrowing flight home on this blog) and came home with some mega window-washing knowledge. He can now claim the ability to wash a window in less than 20 seconds.

Not to keep this squeaky clean knowledge bottled up inside, he is in the process of training the boys. Yesterday Jake spent his recess time after lunch washing windows and mirrors around the house for practice. In our household, between the 80-pound lab with a wet nose and big tongue and the 1 year-old with sticky fingers, you can imagine how beneficial it would be to have knowledgable window washers with the right equipment.

Here is Jake in action:

Ever since we banned the word “like” from the Johanik vocabulary, the kids have been doing marvelously (the adults, on the other hand…). They are consistently using synonyms for the dreaded l-word.

Thanks to Great America, the older boys taught Jeremy the dance song that was played over and over and over during our visit in August. But because the lyrics contain the word “like”, he recently had to make some substitutions. Yesterday, he was walking around the house singing,

“I enjoy to move it move it, I enjoy to move it move it…”  If you are familiar the song, you can understand how Jeremy’s version of it would cause some laughter; not to mention a few rolling eyes.

We had friends over last weekend, and it was toward the end of their visit when I saw Peter come to me with a concerned look on his face, walking out of the bathroom with the faucet handle in his hand. It took a minute to register that the same handle belonged on the sink faucet. Normally, these handles are firmly affixed and can easily handle normal use. But what I’ve learned in my 12 years of being a mom of boys is that most products are not put through any kind of vigorous quality assurance testing. You may remember one year ago, when the other washroom appliance acted up.

It has now been a week since the handle snapped off, and the decapitated faucet still stares at me when I’m visiting the lavatory. In a vain attempt to prove that the faucet was still usable, Peter cranked the mechanics so that the water somehow turned on and he was able to wash his hands. But he soon realized that he couldn’t turn the water back off, so he came out with the same concerned look on his face to tell me the water was stuck on. After much muscling and cranking, I turned the water back off and lectured to the boys not to lay a hand on the faucet.

I refuse to let the cold weather confine these hyperactive healthy, normal boys to the indoors, thus they have continued their daily recess outside after lunch. But sometimes they need a little punch of creativity, so the other day we mixed together food coloring and water in some water bottles.

Unfortunately, out of the two food coloring packages I had on hand, there was exactly one red and one blue that were not dried out or empty. (I suppose they’re not meant to sit in the pantry for ten years) So we made red, blue…and purple snow paint. It would have been nice to have some green, but we were quite content to get along without yellow. There is entirely enough yellow snow adorning our neighborhood.

Jeremy started out by randomly squirting snow mounds.

Then Peter took a turn and immediately claimed his snow tunnel.

Notes for next time if we do this again: we need more colors and better water bottles. Our cheap-o sports bottles didn’t quite cut it. The paint looked more like dribble dots. Nonetheless, it was an easy, cheap activity to encourage these guys to continue playing outside.

During school, we’ve been learning about who God is, and about a month ago, we spent time specifically answering the question: if God created the world, why isn’t it perfect?

One of our activities was to think about the world if it was perfect–what if there was no sin? The boys came up with examples of things we would not need if there was no sin in the world. For instance, we wouldn’t need door locks, eyeglasses, or hospitals.

It had been quite some time since we discussed this, but evidently the thought had been brewing in Peter’s mind. Out of the blue yesterday, he said, “I wish there was no sin, then we wouldn’t have to do school. We would already know everything we need to know.” He has had a case of the winter doldrums lately, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at how it came out.

It can be challenging to find a lunch meal that everyone loves. So when I do find one, I stick with it…and make it frequently. Homemade macaroni and cheese is just such a meal. The kids have been eating this at least once a week for about two years now. I sure hope they don’t tire of it, because the creative juices do not flow when it comes to what to make for lunch.

Mac and cheese doesn’t get any more rich and creamy than this, plus it is surprisingly fast and easy.

Ingredients you’ll need:

Directions:

Boil a pot of water.

Once it’s boiling, pour the pasta in and stir it up.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan. As the butter is melting, cook the milk in the microwave for 2 minutes to get it warm.

Add the flour.

Whisk the butter and flour together until no clumps remain; let cook for about a minute over medium heat. As it cooks, you can explain to your children that this is called a roux. They can then impress their friends by telling them that they know the meaning of a french cooking term.

It will be nice and bubbly while it cooks. This part of the cooking process is Jake’s favorite, because it combines science with food; it is precisely what makes the cheese sauce thick.

Now you’re ready to add the warm milk. You could add it cold, but it won’t mix with the roux as well.

Whisk it over medium heat until smooth. Add salt. Make sure the lid on your salt shaker is firmly attached. It would be instant cheese sauce disaster if the lid fell off while pouring salt into the pot.

Continue cooking and whisking until the sauce bubbles a bit and becomes thick.

Turn off the heat and add the cheese. Stir until smooth.

Drain the pasta.

Stir in the cheese sauce.

Enjoy.

You may recall this picture taken the day after the blizzard snow fell:

We wondered if Molly would ever notice the convenient ramp over the fence toward freedom. It took her a couple days, but she did.

Jim was sitting in the den looking out the window one afternoon. Some movement on the pond caught his eye, and as he looked out the window, he saw his loyal mutt romping around in all her free glory. She happily jumped back over the fence into her yard when called.

The next time the boys let her outside, Jake grabbed the camera and photo-journaled the event.

The escape route.

The approach.

The premeditation.

Lunging the head over the fence, ready to leap.

Molly, what do you think you’re doing?

Drat, caught red-pawed.

It all started one night at dinner when Jim noticed that every other word out of the boys’ mouths was “like”. He spontaneously declared that every time someone used the word like, they would lose 5 minutes of weekend video game time (a.k.a. electronic time, since this includes any time on the computer or iPod, playing games like Cookie Doodle–thanks Uncle Brian!).

They are allotted 3 hours of electronic time on Saturday, and 3 hours on Sunday, which means that if they say the l-word 12 times, they have already lost an hour of electronic time. It didn’t take the older boys long to figure out the math. This was serious.

As soon as Jim made the announcement, Jake put his head in his hands and said with exasperation that “That is like the lamest rule ever!” When he realized he said the l-word, he immediately stood up from the table. Then Jim handed down the sentence: minus 5 minutes. Jake stormed into the kitchen to begin washing the dinner dishes. Then out of the blue, our discerning, compliant firstborn son began spewing the newly declared bad word, “Like, like, like, like, like….” He must have racked up negative 90 minutes in that short rampage of his. Meanwhile, the three younger boys were staring at Jim and me, watching for how we would respond. Honestly, we had such a hard time keeping it together, we just busted out laughing.

For the next few days, Peter was so afraid of using the word that he would half-cover his mouth in an innocent attempt to catch the word before it reached anyone’s ears.

Jeremy would say it half a dozen times in a sentence, someone would call him out on it, and he would get seriously angry. He ranted that he didn’t know what to say, why can’t he say that word, blah, blah.

Derek, disciplined Derek, has said it maybe three times in the last two weeks. And he corrected himself every time.

It has been two weeks since we established the rule, and this is frankly the most challenging thing we have done as a family–for the kids and the adults.

Jake now catches himself before saying the l-word and takes more time to consider what he is saying.

We have all become more creative in our vocabulary, and goodness knows we needed an injection of verbal creativity around here.

We’ve also developed a non-verbal warning to the person who used the l-word: subtly make an “L” with the thumb and forefinger. Needless to say, some of us are not as subtle as others, so Jeremy and Peter enjoy making a loud siren noise, “wee-ooo, wee-ooo, wee-ooo” as they wave the “L” sign up and down.

Sadly, as time has progressed, the biggest culprits in the family have been the adults. And the kids love that fact.

Because Ruth indicated almost nonstop her desire to play outside yesterday, we struck a perfect compromise: put on boots in the house. She walked laps around the house for 20 minutes straight. And she fell at exactly the same spot on every lap.

There is just something about rosy cheeks and noses with a pure white background that begs the camera to click away.

So at the risk of looking like a photo-freak, I snapped some more shots of the kids.

Thankfully, once the sun made an appearance and the wind died down, Bubbie was in all his snowy glory.

King of the hill.

Derek called to me from a pile of snow, and when I turned this is what I saw.

Even Molly joined the fun by bounding through the drifts and eating snow.

Knowing how cold it’s supposed to be the next couple days, I wanted to seize the moment and get a picture of all the kids together. This required stealing some of Ruthie’s freedom.

Yep. Sometimes you just have to settle for less than perfect because it’s an accurate picture of life. Once Jake put her down, she was back to happily walking up and down the driveway.

Look at all that snow!

The Preparation

Preparations were made the night before, as the boys made an assembly line from the patio to the deck and transported firewood.

The Anticipation

Yesterday the boys were giddy with the anticipation of the blizzard. Jake, being the weather buff that he is, was especially excited. In the morning, he thanked God for the opportunity to see His greatness in the storm. Then in the afternoon, the winds began to pick up. After every gust, he ran from wherever he was in the house, raced into the den, and waited for the wind speed to register on his weather station. Once it registered, he would yell out the mph so that we could share the thrill with him.

Later in the evening, our next door neighbor called to tell us that the gate on our fence was swinging open and it didn’t look like it would last the night. I immediately sent Jake out. He put on his science lab goggles, braved the wind, assessed the damage and fixed it as best as he could.

The Aftermath

Here is what our backyard looks like after the storm moved through.

That’s our four foot fence.

Jim and Derek then began the arduous task of clearing the driveway. Here is what the front of the house looks like.

I used to daydream when I was younger about how great it would be to have to shovel your way out the front door and make tunnels leading to where you needed to go (this was before I knew how much work it was to shovel a driveway). Well, the boys have begun digging their own network of tunnels throughout the yard.

I don’t have any pictures of Jeremy romping in the snow, unfortunately. About 5 minutes after he stepped outside, he got hit with a wind gust in the face. Then it was game over for him. I could show pictures of him sitting on the couch in front of the fire, drawing pictures of hockey guys…but that’s not very blizzard-y.

Ruthie on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the outdoors.

When she couldn’t stay on her feet any longer, she sat on the driveway and watched the action. The wind blew constantly on her rosy cheeks, but she was not to be deterred; she was determined to remain outside.

I couldn’t bear to watch her poor face being pelted with snow and wind any longer, so I brought her inside. She did not agree.

She stood by the front door, tugged on her coat, and patted her legs while grunting. I translated this to mean Please, Mommy, will you put my coat on me and take me outside? Well, since she said please and all, I gave in. Coat back on.

Yes, Ruthie, we may go back outside.

It sure is hard to resist those chubby cheeks.

Her brothers were happy to see her. Jake asked if he could bring her into his cave.

And Derek asked if he could walk her around.

Now we’re off to start some school. Heh heh…there are some downsides to homeschooling, you know.