NZ Filbruns

Celebrating Simon

December 26, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Simon recently completed his apprenticeship, and is now a fully-qualified mechanic. His boss put on a party this week to celebrate. I had been thinking about doing it myself, but the boss wanted to combine it with an end-of-year party, so that worked out well. The family who run the workshop where Simon works did most of the work for the party, although we had it at another friend’s house. These people have an outdoor pizza oven, so pizza was the main course of the meal. A number of people helped get the pizzas ready to go in the oven. The owner had built a fire in the oven earlier in the day, and then scraped the fire out when it was time to bake the pizzas.

One of the boss’s daughters made the Land Rover pinata, and Elijah bought a race car pinata in town. There was plenty of candy!

They had a lot of fun with the drinks! I didn’t get any pictures of the dessert bar, but the idea was to build your own car, with pink wafers for panels, oreo cookies for wheels, jello for grease, different colors of custard for paint, and other bits and pieces, like nuts and bolts made out of chocolate. There was also ice cream. Some people got very creative, but it didn’t occur to me to take a picture till all the creations had been eaten.

The children had a lot of fun, hopping around in feed sacks while the older children played soccer. Some of them tried to hop up this steep bank to the house with their feet in a feed sack!

Simon has these two certificates as a record of his accomplishment.

It was a great evening, with lots of talking and laughing (and good food!), as well as a time when anyone who wanted to give Simon some encouragement could stand up and give a speech.

Book Review—Eat God’s Food

December 22, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

About the Book

Book: Eat God’s Food
Author: Susan U. Neal
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Release date: June 21, 2021

Kids have strong opinions about food. Some foods they love and others they don’t. Eat God’s Food teaches them early to love the right kinds of food, preparing them for a lifetime of eating and living the way God intended.

My Thoughts:

I enjoyed reading and working through this little book with my 6-year-old. It took us about half an hour to read and talk about the whole thing, and she did most of the activities. She really had fun ticking off the fruits and vegetables she has tasted and counting them up. I liked the way the author talked about the nutrients we get from various foods, in a way that children can understand. The pictures are very nice, too.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

About the Author:

Susan Neal RN, MBA, MHS teaches both adults and children healthy nutritional guidelines. She is the author of eight healthy living books. Susan helped thousands improve their health and weight with her award-winning bestseller, 7 Steps to Get Off Sugar and Carbohydrates. Now she’s educating children about developing wholesome eating habits. You can find Susan on SusanUNeal.com.

More from Susan:

How to Persuade Kids to Eat Healthy

Did you know God created over 100 vegetables and 50 fruits? Most kids probably don’t know this either. Have you eaten all of those produce items? Wouldn’t it be fun to try each one with your children? God created humans, and he knew exactly what we needed to eat. That’s why he created double the amount of vegetables than fruits. Fruits are God’s dessert and vegetables are his staple. So how do we get kids to eat them? You’ve got to make it fun.

Each week, ask your child to choose one produce item for the family to try. Take your kids to the produce section of the grocery store on a scavenger hunt to find the colors for each vegetable and fruit. Take photos of interesting items and when you get home, ask your kid to draw them.

Try a new recipe each week with your children. The new picture book, Eat God’s Food, provides a recipe for parents to do with their child for each of the following food groups: vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, grains, and meat.

Create snack bags with your youngsters that include their favorite nuts, seeds, and dried fruit. Put a half cup in each bag and place them in your pantry. The next time you’re running out the door for an athletic event, your kids can grab a healthy snack.

Educate your children about the health benefits of consuming vegetables, fruits, whole grains (not processed), nuts, seeds, and meat. Have them determine the vitamins in different foods. Help them figure out what produce item might improve their vision or give them more energy.

Teach your children to read food labels. When I took my kids to the grocery store, we had the rule that we couldn’t buy any item with over 10 grams of sugar. They would grab the package, find the sugar level, and tell me, “Mom, it has 24 grams of sugar in one granola bar.” So we wouldn’t buy it. They understood why and would look for another snack. Many times they found an item with 12 grams of sugar, and that was close enough, so we got it.

I taught my kids to read labels to see if it included hydrogenated oil, because that ingredient causes health problems. A couple years later, all foods in the United States had to be labeled if it included this ingredient. Mama knew what she was talking about.

Teach your kids that products made from white flour have been stripped of their nutrients. In fact, they may cause a child to grow wider instead of taller. Explain how food manufacturers want consumers to buy more of their products, so they add sugar, salt, and fats to get them hooked. Food manufacturers want to make a profit, and sometimes that profit comes at the consumers’ expense.

Check the Environmental Working Group’s findings that showed that almost all oat-based cereal products marketed to children contained the carcinogen residue from glyphosate. Check the list in this article for the level of glyphosate found in your child’s favorite cereal. Therefore, you should buy organic oat products.

Expand your child’s palate, knowledge, and point of view about healthy foods versus unhealthy foods. If you do, they may grab a grocery store product, read the label, and tell you why it is not healthy. And they may select some fun, interesting fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle. Enjoy exploring all of God’s food with your family.

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Mount George

December 19, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Last Sunday, we went to Punakaiki to have Thanksgiving Dinner (a few weeks late due to unavoidable changes in plans) with some friends. Esther and I and the little girls went early to get the turkeys cooking and spend the afternoon hanging out with our friends, and Gayle and the boys came later. On the way, they climbed Mount George. There is a track going off the main highway, but the beginning of it is rather obscured. Only locals know where it is, for the most part. Some of our boys climbed it a couple of years ago, and have wanted to go back, ever since. This time, both Simon and Elijah took a bunch of pictures with their phones, and let me have them. I’ll see if I can combine the photos in an order that makes sense.

This first one is a panorama that Elijah took from the top. What a view! It was quite foggy, but cleared a bit for a few of these shots.

On top the mountain! The bits of white near Gayle’s head are the surf breaking on the shore of the Tasman Sea.

Mr. Imagination

Elijah taking a picture…

…of Simon taking a picture of him!

Mr. Sweetie decided to climb up a cliff.

This part of the track looks doable to me.

See the bit of road off in the distance? Mom, you have been on that road, when we drove from Pancake Rocks to Greymouth, on our West Coast trip seven years ago.

This part of the track, on the other hand, looks, to say the least, challenging to me. The phone was pointing straight down to take this one.

Apparently, it’s easiest to back down this section!

Climbing a mountain is on my bucket list for someday. I hope to give Mount George a try. Someday, when I no longer have tiny children and pregnancies to deal with! In the meantime, I’m thankful that my boys can have experiences like this, and bring back pictures to show me.

Book Review—The Nutcracker’s Suite

December 8, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

About the Book

Book: The Nutcracker’s Suite
Author: Chautona Havig
Genre: Christian Christmas Historical Mystery, Fairytale retelling
Release date: November 26, 2021

“Time to dance, sugarplum.”

A painter at the Meyer’s Toys factory, Clarice Stahl, knows something is strange about the way so many men come and go through Mr. Meyer’s office, especially one in particular.

Then murder strikes a little too close to home and uncorks a barrel of secrets.

When mob king, Mario Topo’s, enforcer goes missing the race is on to prove he’s behind the murder. Police and mobsters alike are after Milo Natale, and he who finds Milo first might determine the enforcer’s fate.

A race through the city, a new friend… or more… a new life in the offing. Milo and Clarice must find who killed Topo’s man and why before the police arrest him for murder or Topo’s men bump him and Clarice off, too.

This next book in the Ever After Mysteries combines “The Nutcracker Suite” with a murder mystery set in the heart of 1920s Rockland.

My Thoughts:

As a rule, I avoid murder mysteries. I don’t like reading about murder. However, if Chautona Havig writes a murder mystery, I’ll read it because I haven’t found very many books by her that I don’t like. Her most recent book in this genre is The Nutcracker’s Suite. It is based on the fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which I haven’t read, so I have no idea how closely or loosely it follows that story!

There are so many fun elements in this book. I really enjoyed reading it. Finding unknown family, adjusting to many new things, avoiding the rival mobs and figuring out how to run business honestly in a corrupt world. Milo is fun, too—he stutters and mixes up his words all the time! I also liked how feminine and ladylike Clarice is. Bottom line? Although this is a murder mystery, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will help to finance Esther’s website.

About the Author:

Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More From Chautona:

Here Are Several Fun Facts & a Secret about The Nutcracker’s Suite

You’d think that while writing a book based on the fairy tale of The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, I’d have heard “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” in my head as I wrote. Well, I guess for a brief moment I did, because at some point, someone actually says that. “Dance, sugar plum!”

But Tchaikovsky isn’t who played in my head as I wrote. Over and over, word after word, my fingers did their bourres and glissades across my keyboard to one, rather unexpected song. “Ballerina” (I prefer the version sung by Buddy Clark. You can listen HERE.)

However, there are so many elements of the original ballet’s story in mine. I thought I’d share a few of them.

Let’s talk about the cast of characters.

Clarice Stahl is our “leading lady.” It’s kind of obvious where I got her name since the original character was Clara Stahlbaum.

Clarice works for Mr. Dieter Meyer, the owner of Meyer’s Toys. He gives her the job of painting nutcrackers. So, it’s not too difficult to see the connection to Uncle Drosselmeyer who gives Clara the nutcracker, no?

All of 1925 Rockland is in the clutches of mob king, Mario Topo. For those not fluent in Italian, can you guess what “topo” is in that language? Remember… he’s the mob “king.”

But I think my favorite name of all is Emiliano (I call him Milo) Natale (Christmas in Italian… just sayin’) who is known as “the nutcracker.” He’s an enforcer for Mr. Topo, and that means he squeezes people until they crack and do what Topo wants. Let’s hope he repents!

Yes, I had a boatload of fun coming up with this stuff! How’d you guess?

I have a secret to confess about this book. I’m writing this post when I’m only about a quarter of the way done. I went to get the synopsis for this tour and went, “oops!” You see, I forgot that I’d planned to make Milo going missing a big part of the plot.

Guess who has to flex? I’d better get back to it. They need to figure out who killed our victim… and why. And before Clarice is next!

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

November 2021 Photos

December 5, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Can you believe it’s December already? Here are the last of our photos from November.

The first weekend of the month, on Mr. Diligence’s birthday, we drove across the mountains to attend a friend’s 21st birthday party. Mr. Diligence turned 16, so I’ll start calling him by his name, James. He is excited to be working full-time, and, Lord willing, will be starting an apprenticeship in the new year. Anyway, this picture was taken on the way over. The boys in the back of the van thought they were tired! James is on the bottom, with Mr. Imagination to the left and Mr. Sweetie on the right. Now, of course, since James has his license, you won’t catch him in the back—at least willingly!

This was taken that evening. After we sang Happy Birthday to the 21-year-old, her mother cut a slice of cake and put a candle on it for James, and we sang for him.

This may actually have been taken in September or October—I’m not sure. I just found it on Gayle’s phone recently. It was taken in Waikari, near the church we attend when we’re over there. Near the church is a public restroom, and these concrete sheep are in front of it.

Mr. Sweetie went with Gayle and some friends to the sea one day, and Gayle took this picture of him.

Someone found a crab that day.

Simon often picks up vehicles for his boss. This was a day he had driven an hour to pick up a farm vehicle to be fixed, and stopped by home for a few minutes before taking it to the workshop.

Elijah was laying on the couch reading one evening when Princess decided he would make a perfect place for a nap!

Elijah saw this pretty flower when he was doing a job in Westport one day, and took a picture to show me. It sure brightens up an otherwise uninspiring fence!

Science and Carpets

November 28, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I started going through a new science textbook with my three schoolchildren in October (sure seems strange to only have three in school! Technically, there are four, but Mr. Diligence is now working almost all the time, since he turned 16.). We are working through Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics, from Apologia. I’m finding it quite interesting. I think I may have done some chemistry in high school, but I really don’t remember for sure—and if I did, I don’t remember it! The children are struggling to understand what we’re learning and to enjoy it, but they love the experiments!

This experiment was to show how substances of different densities react. We mixed differing amounts of salt into these cups of water, and then put some into a straw. It was a lot of fun to figure out how to do this.

One jar held salt water, the other plain water—the egg floated in one of them.

What things float and what things sink?

Each of the children got to fashion a boat from a piece of foil. Which ones would hold up the most coins?

Mr. Sweetie was the winner! He shaped his foil over a bowl.

Elijah is enjoying his apprenticeship as a floor layer. One job he did a couple of weeks ago was to lay carpet tiles in the dining room/lobby of a seven-story hotel in Greymouth. He was given this diagram to follow. It is supposed to symbolize the Grey River, the sea, and the mountains. I was in town several days later, while he was working on the upper floors, and stopped in so I could see this amazing floor. It was still under plastic to protect it while renovations continue, but even so I could tell it is beautiful!

Here is a picture Elijah took from an upper floor. What a view! That is the Grey River, emptying into the sea in the distance.

Review Crew—Blue Ribbon Awards

November 24, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Every year, the Homeschool Review Crew asks for votes on favorite reviews. I didn’t manage to get my votes in this year, but when I looked over the list of reviews we did this year, I realized this was our best year yet! I wrote 20 reviews, and 9 of them were for products that I liked well enough to continue using or use again. The Crew just posted their list of Blue Ribbon Awards, and I noticed that several of the winners were also among our favorites!

I have been pulling Superstar Spelling out periodically to help Mr. Imagination practice spelling. I like that I can make up my own spelling lists for him with it, using words that he misspells in his regular work. When he’s using Superstar Spelling, he’s definitely more careful with writing his answers!

Teaching Textbooks turned out to be a perfect fit for Mr. Diligence for this, likely his last, year of high school. He did Geometry, and the video lectures worked well for him. By the end of the year, it was taking him two hours to work through one lesson, but he maintained a 92% average all year. I remember struggling with Geometry, even though math, in general, was easy for me, so I was very glad to have a course that worked so well for him. Teaching Textbooks is a math course that I will be happy to pay for in the future, for high school math. Teaching Textbooks was voted the favorite Middle School resource this year by the Crew.

My younger children loved One More Story. They spent a lot of time for awhile listening to books on it, and Little Miss was asking if she could use it again a few days ago. I like the selection of older, wonderful picture books on this site.

We’re still working our way through Sparkling Bits of Writing, from Creative Word Studio. I really like this creative writing course! Lessons don’t take very long, and they are quite varied. Each one is fresh and new, and requires creative thinking! We’re doing a lesson, on average, once a week.

We’re also still working through Project Passport: Ancient Egypt from Home School in The Woods. We started using this course in June, and are up to Stop 13 by now. We’re doing a stop about once every two weeks at the moment, which seems to be about right for us. I am liking the variety of activities that are used to teach about different aspects of Egyptian life, history and culture. Home School in the Woods was voted the favorite history/social studies resource by the Crew.

The Fallacy Detective is a very good book. We haven’t quite finished it; the goal was to read one lesson each evening, but after I got the review written we let life get in the way. We read one this week, though! It has made a difference in the way several of us think. We were talking to a friend a month or so ago, and twice during the conversation, as she was relating things other people had said, we identified fallacies. We also, now, more easily notice and identify fallacies in things we hear in the newspaper and from the government. This book is the favorite elective with the Crew.

Little Miss is still enjoying Beginning Thinking Skills from The Critical Thinking Company. We’re almost to the end of it now. She most enjoys the pages we can do on the computer; the ones that I print out for her to do something with are less popular, because they require work. She likes figuring out the puzzles.

I’m planning to use the Wagon Wheels Progeny Press guide again when Miss Joy is old enough. The trick will be remembering we have it! I really like that kind of study. Progeny Press was voted the favorite literature resource of the year by the Crew.

MathRider will continue to be used as extra practice for math facts, too. Even the speed drills and flashcard practice built into our regular math program isn’t enough to really get my children fast with their math, so I’m hoping MathRider will be a help. This was the favorite math supplement with the Crew this year.

From other years, there are a few review products that really stand out. We reviewed Let’s Go Geography twice, in 2017 and 2020. We’re still working our way through that course, a lesson every couple of weeks. We’re using Page a Day Math here during our summer break, for more practice with basic facts. As a family, we’re working our way through Experience Astronomy from Journey Homeschooling—we only have a few lessons left. I think everyone is finding it very interesting! We just finished going through Bible Unearthed from Drive Through History. When we first did the review, those of us who are at home every day went through most of the lessons; later, we started watching them in the evening so Gayle and the older boys could see them. Grammar Planet was also a winner. Elijah and Mr. Diligence both made it through the entire program, and I’m planning to buy it for Mr. Sweetie next year.

I’ve always had trouble fitting in “extras” like history and geography. A couple of months ago I changed tactics and, instead of trying to fit them all in every week, we’re rotating through them. We’re using Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics for science right now; it has 14 lessons, which are each a chapter of the book. We spend several days or a week working through one of those chapters, then do a writing lesson from Sparkling Bits of Writing. Then, we spend three days doing a geography lesson from Let’s Go Geography, then another writing lesson. Next, we spend a few days or a week doing a lesson about Ancient Egypt, and then another writing lesson. Then, the cycle starts over. So far, this is working well. We get in all the extras I want to do, and are able to focus on each subject for an entire lesson, but don’t get burned out on one subject. I don’t know if it would have worked with my older children, but with the three I’m teaching right now, it’s fairly popular!

To see what other programs or products won the Blue Ribbon Awards, check out this post. Also, if you have a blog, public Facebook page, YouTube channel, or Instagram page, and want to join the Homeschool Review Crew, fill out the application here. New members are always needed as families age out!

Little Girls!

November 21, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It is so much fun having two little girls in our home. After having a lot of boys, I especially enjoy the girls. Miss Joy is old enough now that the two of them play together a lot. Playing house is now a thing in our home, something we rarely, if ever saw, while we had lots of young boys. This day, they had most or all of the dolls, doll clothes, and soft toys in the hallway, and were doing puzzles while holding their dolls.

Miss Joy loves to write and draw. She often spends a lot of time writing long letters or stories like this. The most recent example had a lot of circles, carefully drawn in the lines.

She discovered Little Miss’s pick-up-sticks. Her way of playing with them is to dump them on the floor and then carefully lay them back in the box.

I glanced out the window one afternoon this week and saw Miss Joy walking down the street in front of our house (it’s basically a driveway), telling Grizzly to follow her.

Product Review—I Know It

November 16, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.

We finished our math books for the year early, in October, and we won’t be starting our new books until February, so I was happy to try I Know It to fill in the gap so that Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Imagination, and Little Miss won’t forget everything they’ve learned! I Know It has math lessons for grades K-5, so it worked perfectly for us right now. It is intended as a supplement to any math curriculum; I just picked lessons that reviewed or reinforced concepts that I felt each child needed a bit more practice with before we drop studies altogether for the summer.

I Know It is very easy to use. We were given a Family license. With this license, there is only one login/password for everyone in the family, and when we login, we simply click on the picture with our name. I like that, because it can be tricky to have a different password for each child! It’s very easy to switch users with this system. There are two ways to approach lessons. You can let each child choose their own lessons, or you can assign lessons. I chose to assign lessons, which is also very easy. I simply got onto my page, browsed through the topics and looked at the sample problems, which appear when I hover over a lesson. Then, if I want someone to do that lesson, I click the check to the right of the lesson title. A box pops up which allows me to assign the lesson to any or all of the children. I can also choose how long the lesson stays on their home page, how many problems I want them to work (1-40), and whether they need to redo the lesson if they get less than a certain percentage correct. Then, click Assign Now, and the lesson is on that child’s page for them to work through when they next login! After I showed each of my three students how to use the program, I didn’t have to help them much at all except for assigning more lessons when they had completed the ones I had already given them. I did find out that Mr. Sweetie can’t remember what add, subtract, and multiply mean. He gets them mixed up! Oops. (I think he’s slightly dyslexic.)

The parent dashboard gives all sorts of reports about the children’s progress. One tab shows fun graphs of what they have accomplished. Another shows the lessons they have worked on and the scores they got. Obviously, one of them is struggling with decimals!

Children are given immediate feedback for each problem. If they got it right, a banner shows up across the problem, saying “Good Job!” or something like that, and the robot in the lower right corner of the screen does a dance. If the child doesn’t like the robot, it’s easy to switch to an emoticon or nothing by clicking the arrow beside the robot. Mr. Sweetie, doing 5^th grade work, was automatically given the emoticons, because the program figures that older children like them better. He was delighted, however, to figure out how to get the robots that the others had! If the answer is incorrect, the correct answer is shown and explained—and the robot acts very disappointed.

Little Miss enjoyed this program. She did very well with it; school is easy for her. She just finished 1^st grade, so that is the level of lessons I assigned to her. She found all that I gave her quite easy, especially since directions can be read aloud so she didn’t have any trouble understanding them. Mr. Imagination didn’t have any trouble, either; he just finished 4^th grade, so that’s the level I assigned to him. The first day or two, he had to learn the terminology that was used. He was working with place value, and the wording was different from what he was used to. He soon picked up on it, though, and had no more trouble. Mr. Sweetie, however, had a lot of trouble. I assigned him to work with decimals, and it turned out to be adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with decimals, which he struggles with. He has just finished 6^th grade, and I gave him 5^th grade work, but it was still quite a challenge for him.

I Know It is a great way to supplement a math curriculum. It does well at giving more practice in areas in which a child is weak, and for keeping in practice through holidays. Each lesson, except the decimal ones Mr. Sweetie struggled with, took about 10-15 minutes to complete, so it’s a quick, easy way to keep up skills. Click the image below to see what other families have to say about it!

Children Playing in Water–Videos Then and Now

November 14, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I remembered a funny video Esther took in September 2010, so we found and watched it. It made me laugh again, just as in the past! The baby is Mr. Sweetie. Seth is in the yellow shirt on the bike. Simon has a yellow and brown striped shirt, Elijah has a blue striped shirt, and Mr. Diligence is the cute little fellow in the maroon shirt. They sure have grown up since then!

This was yesterday, with Little Miss and Miss Joy starring. Puddles were made for children!