Busy days

  I have spent the day away from my husband and blessings today. I enjoy an occasional time away from them but only a couple of hours and I am so ready to see them. I stopped by our church where they were with my husband to drop off some things. It was so refreshing to see them.
May the Lord find us faithful.

Morning

This is our second cloudy, breezy day. It did not rain one drop yesterday which is odd. We will see what today will hold.

We had one of the missionaries we support in our church last night. He gave an update of the work and he preached. He shared with us from Romans 15:30-32. He spoke on how our praying here at home greatly impacted the work on the field. It gave me a renewed thought process on that. It is something I know but had filed in the back of my mind. Maybe all this is coming together since I have started a Bible study on prayer. But I know I will pray more specifically for our missionaries. Praying for our missionaries will be a part of our homeschool schedule this year, specific prayer for each missionary.
May the Lord find us faithful.

Learning

If any one would have told me 20 years ago what I would be doing now I would have laughed and thought they were crazy. I only knew one person who was homeschooled and they were very strange, and the reason they homeschooled was mysterious.

I am learning so much from homeschooling the blessings. I am researching everyday, reading about education "genres" and seeking what works for us and how and what to teach the blessings, how to be Biblibally balanced, teach the word of God to our children so they have a firm foundation on which to serve God. I am not looking to raise "good" kids, our goal is to raise useful servants of God. We do not seek to raise kids like everyone else, the goal is to go beyond the status quo. Not for our glory but for God's glory, they are his not ours.

On another subject, I am trying very diligently to get back into some kind of routine. I miss our daily schedule where chores and violin practice fall into place without much thought. We are taking baby steps to get there, inch by inch.

May the Lord find us faithful.

School prep

Good morning to you,

No jelly making to day, I have a sick child, we had to cancel violin and we will not be going into town. No pectin, no jelly.

We are gearing up for school to start. I am going to run down what we use.

I am planning for my Kindergartener and 1st grader to follow the amblesideonline.org booklist and schedule for year 1. I am not quite so sure about my 3rd grader yet. (I am classically and Charlotte Mason minded, alot of overlap with both and I am trying to figure out where I stand on the differences! I love the concept of the gentle art of learning!!!!) So,

Bible:

The Bible

Character Sketches

 

Phonics:

I have used Scardey Cat Reading system last year and will continue on.....

I might use Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons with my younger 2

 

Grammar:

Maybe Rod and Staff? 3rd grader

 

Math:

All- Math-U-See

 

Science:

Apologia- Exploring Creation with Astronomy

 

History:

Mystery of History vol. 1 Chronological Study

 

Foreign Language:

Hey Andrew, Teach me some Greek

 

Penmanship:

We have StartWrite

 

Writing:

Writing Strands

 

Along with nature study, artist and composer study, narrations

 

We are making notebooks little by little. Last year I focused on Science with our oldest blessing. (We also worked on a timeline notebook a little, more on that this year)

May the Lord find us faithful.

Blessing in frustration

Well, I learned a lesson today. Our dog has a habit of exploring outside her boundaries. We are working on teaching her the boundaries but she wanders on occassion, and today was one of those days. We were driving trying to find her and I spotted tons of raspberry canes that I have never seen before. So, once the dog was safely in the house the blessings and I and the neighbor kids set off to pick raspberries and tomorrow we are going to make jam!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Life as we know it

Life as most Americans lives it, is full of fast paced, overcommited, busy, fast-food eating junk. Our Sunday School lesson for day included the statement, "Overcommited lives and underdeveloped spiritual lives." That statement stuck out to me like a sore thumb. I have always work diligently to keep our lives in check and not overcommit, especially when it comes to our children. They are too young to be overcommited. They need time to be children, to play in the sand and dirt, ride their bikes and all the other things they do. Swimming was an eye opener to me, lessons lasted for forty five minutes but there was the prep, drive(short as it may be), it effected our whole day! The blessings learned a lot and we will do lessons again in the winter, BUT we will not be on the sign up for this and that lesson bandwagon. We will be working on developing their spiritual lives this school year!

May the Lord find us faithful.

school supplies

We walked through the school supply aisle at Wal-Mart today. I realized that we really did not need much this year. Maybe a few pencils and a couple of new things to get the blessings geared up for school. I do have a few more things to order curriculum wise but we will get to that soon enough. We did go to Barnes and Noble today and I could have spent a small fortune there but decided to go when the blessing were with Dad so I can take my time and get what  we need and forgo unnecessary purchases. The kids did have their own money to spend and they made a few purchases at Barnes and Noble.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Rhubarb

    We harvested our first rhubarb today. I made a rhubarb crisp to take for dessert at a friends for dinner. It was yummy!!!
May the Lord find us faithful.

Many blessings

The days are slowing down here a bit. Swimming will be over on Friday, I am glad. The blessings have enjoyed the classes but two weeks is long enough for Mom. I need to sit down and plan out my orders for school. I normally do a lot of odering in the spring to avoid the fall purchase rush, but not this year. I need to place an order with Bright Minds and couple of other companies. I am ready to plunge into this classical education thing with both feet and make a big splash. I do not want to belly flop!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Birthday

One of the blessings had a birthday today. I used to do the whole birthday thing and then I decided not to do the whole birthday party thing with all the stuff that went along with it. Now, the birthday person gets to choose meals for the day and what kind of cake they want and we usually do some thing special that they want to go do. So, today we went for target practice as a family. Generally, this is a Dad and blessings event but I went along for the birthday special event. ( I do enjoy target practice but rarely take the time to go with)

A good day was had by all.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Summer

I really enjoy summer, the warm weather, walking outside without a coat, the green trees and grass, flowers, being outside riding bikes, the list could go on and on. BUT, I enjoy the slower pace of winter. I am frazzled by the time September rolls around and then in September there is the moose to put in the freezer and school is in full force. We usually follow the school districts and start in August, but I think this year we will gradually fall back into school starting with just a couple of subjects a week. We have already started back with  Character Sketches and regular violin practice.

Swimming is going well, Levi jumped off of the diving board which is a major accomplishment. He is not swimming well yet but he is working on it and hanging in there. Elisabeth is a fish and Judith is doing well in her preschool class.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Looking forward

"School" starts soon. Many mothers around the country are counting down until the children are out of the house, that is if the mothers are even in the house! I enjoy my blessings, sure there are the days when I want to scream and run away, but those are few and far in between. Most of us want the "idealist","perfect" home, family and marriage. But, reality is we are all horrible, wretched, sinful, unperfect human beings. It is good to have goals and high ones but we should not lose hope and give up and do nothing just because we cannot reach our goal, which often times is unattainable in the first place. I once heard an evangelist say that if people are not reaching your expectations, then lower your expectations! That statement has had an effect on my life. Instead of getting frustrated at my husband or the blessings, I have to look at what they do well and what they have learned,etc. Also, do I add up to all that I expect others to be?  Not at all.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Now, get me to the school supply aisle, I love school supplies!!!!

Swimming

I finally got the blessings into swimming lessons, I know this is a bit overdue and the oldest will be 8 next week, but life kept happening and I did not make swimming lessons a priority. They all love it though, even the one who is struggling with the whole thing and is the least experienced and least willing to swim, stills loves lessons. I guess he does not realize he is the only one not doing some things. Maybe that is because he has been allowed to move forward at his own pace and not been in constant competition his whole life. I think competition to a degree is good but I remember hating competing as a child. Maybe I allow his to keep on being this way because I remember how I felt in those situations and I had no choice but to be there and endure. Any way, we are in lessons now and he will learn something from it even if it is only to go under the water for a few seconds.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Hospitality

It seems that some times I have blinders on. I often forget the needs of others or think that some one else is taking care of them. One goal for this school year is to work on being hospitable. We should be alert to the needs of others and taking action to help meet those needs. I do not want my blessings to go through life with blinders on or looking in a mirror and not outward at all. What can I do to meet the needs of some one else today........ when does the maid come, my floors need swept, of yeah, that's my job today! May the Lord find us faithful.

Sunday

We have had a full day. Church this morning, then we had a family come out for lunch. Then back to church and home to celebrate a birthday for a dear friend of mine. I made her an Italian Cream Cake, yummy!! I have not made this cake since her birthday two years ago.

We are visiting this evening and enjoying time with good friends.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Thunder and lightening

When we have a thunderstorm in Alaska, it is a doozy!!! Last night we had some LOUD thunder and a good dose of rain. Today has been around 70 degrees and sunny all day, but the black clouds and thunder are rolling in. I am not sure how long this one will last or if we will get any significant rain as I see blue sky and white fluffy clouds also.

I think the blessings are ready to get back into some school work. We should be pretty settled for the remainder of the summer. We have signed up for swimming lessons for the next two weeks, that will be fun. Well, the thunder sounds closer, so I am going to sign off and shut down.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Home, Home, Home

It is so nice to be home.Although I feel as though this is a Monday, it is good to be home. I have taken a slow approach to the day. Catching up will come today. It is a beautiful day. Sunny and very warm, the blessings are out in the back yard playing in the sand box and swinging. I think they are glad to be home and in their own element! I plan on getting my house back to order today and tomorrow, that will be wonderful. Enjoy the day where ever you are. May the Lord find us faithful.

Independence Day

  We are having a lazy day with friends, grilling burgers, brats and dogs. Just the fun stuff! We are thankful for our independence and the freedom to gather with friends.
May the Lord find us faithful!!

Real life

We are getting back into real life as it is for our family. We have had an abundant blessing of visitors to our home this summer. The last batch left last night. It was good to sleep in my own bed(we have been traveling with grandparents). We will begin our Monday morning, although my husband has tomorrow off from work so it will not be a typical Monday, at home and with our usual chores and routine to take care of. Yeah!!!

I have a mountain of laundry to take care of tomorrow but the blessing is that I can take care of it all. I am home and I have the physical ablity to do laundry. So, I am finding joy in the mundane things of life.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Whirlwind vacation

I feel as though it has been a long time  since I have  written. The blessings and I have been traveling with the grandparents. The grandparents were supposed to arrive last Saturday night at our house. Their flights were completely changed due to a computer glich. So, they were not coming to our airport but to another city. Well, in Alaska that means an 8 hour drive, but we were going to that town any way so the blessings and I loaded up and headed out a day early and without the grandparents!! We checked into the hotel and collasped into bed. The grandparents arrived around 2:30 am without luggage.
Sunday am, breakfast and trip to get a few things to get them through until the luggage arrives. I made it to church to visit some friends there. Swimming for the kids. We did the downtown sunday market. Dinner and a drive.
Monday, we did the chuck e cheese thing, and some shopping.

Tuesday, we went on a flightseeing trip. Wednesday, Talkeetna River rafting.
Thursday, Denali Park
Friday, Home
The grandparents leave Saturday night. It has been fast but tons of fun.
May the Lord find us faithful.