Friday, February 26, 2010

Goodbye Anger Hello Soft words

Too many times lately I have found myself on edge, cranky and just plain impatient. I feel like it's snowballed and I just haven't been able to stop.

Then yesterday I read this post that Angel wrote. She said all the things I've been feeling. If you haven't read it....GO NOW.


I'll wait.


...


...

Good isn't it?

I love it when conviction comes from the Lord. For me it feels freeing. When I try to do something on my own it feels burdensome and impossible. Knowing that you are trying to change because it's something the Lord wants in your life is SO encouraging! Not that everyday will be a success, but that if I struggle or fail, He's there to lift me back up.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Top Ten Tuesday

Over at One Thing she's got a fun thing going today: Top Ten things that don't make sense to me.

Here goes....

10. How super skinny kiddos can consume so MUCH food!

9. How I can tell someone to go get dressed fifty times before they do but yet barely whisper the words 'ice cream' and they can hear me from another room.

8. Why all errands can't be done at drive thru's.....all post offices should have one, am I right?

7. insurance talk (love ya Ian)

6. How people maintain sanity without coffee.

5. How I ever figured things out without Google.

4. How in the world toothpaste ends up in some of the places I find it.

3. video games

2. bifocal contacts

1. Laffy Taffy jokes. They are either completely idiotic or don't make any sense at all.

Wanna play too?

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Life

I'm in the mood for a list today.

1. Stephen turned 7 last Friday! For one of his gifts we signed him up for a gymnastics class (that meets once a week). We figure it'll be a good fit for him, he's full of energy and prefers doing cartwheels rather than walking! :P

2. We've had a friend visiting for a week. His flight was supposed to leave today but was canceled due to the snow, so he'll have to endure our chaos for another day.

3. It snowed for the last three days. I think there's about6 inches total. Today the sun is out and my mood is much better. I don't like dreary cloudy days.

4. I took Kathleen in for a check up last week. They confirmed (what I knew) that she's a tiny one. Not even on the charts for her weight and they want me to try and fatten her up. The Dr. was not satisfied with my explanation that we've been through this before with several of the other kids (who are all healthy & happy). So, I'll be feeding her and feeding her and having her reweighed in a couple of weeks to see if it makes a difference.

5. We bought a piano! This is something we've been wanting for awhile now. We'd like to get our girls (Amanda & Jessica) into lessons, but owning one for them to practice on was necessary first.

6. CoffeeMate had a peppermint mocha coffee creamer out around Christmas time that I loved. I was sad when the stores stopped stocking it, but this week I was happy to find that Aldi had their store brand creamer in peppermint mocha flavor! (and I think I like it even better!) Sometimes it doesn't take much to make me happy. :O)

Monday, February 1, 2010

Homeschool Part 3

In Part 2 I explained that the kids work on Science and History all together. So for Amanda and Kenny they are working on the same Exploring Creation and Mystery of History that Stephen is. Usually this consists of me reading the section aloud to them and then we discuss it and work on the project that goes with it. Some days this is a short thing and some days it's more in depth, just depends on what we are covering.

Kenny is in second grade this year. He seems to do fairly well with math and has caught up with Amanda this year. They are both working through Teaching Textbooks Math 5.
The cd-rom set up of this program keeps the kids interested and if they miss a problem it walks them through the solution step by step. It's nice to be able to walk them through things myself but to also have another resource!



For language arts he's working on Explode the Code book 7.


Wordly wise book 3 for vocabulary (LOVE these books!)



A reason for handwriting book B.



And he is reading aloud from the Pathway reader series book Busy Times.



I have a list of books that I had typed up that I wanted him to read independently....but then I read Stacy's list and I may chuck mine and just go off of her's. (yes, it was that good!)

Kenny goes with his dad and brother Stephen to the BSF bible study once a week and works on the assignments weekly. He is also memorizing verses for AWANA's and is also studying hard for the bible quizzing team!

Something that we haven't started yet (but need to) is Just Write book 2. I've purchased this recently and I just need to work it into our schedule.

Amanda is in fourth grade this year. For Language arts she's working on finishing up Just write book 2 (almost done!) and then she'll be onto book 3. She should be able to finish that by June.

Vocabulary is Wordly wise book 4, A reason for handwriting C...are you detecting a similarity here?

She reads faster than I've been able to keep up with. I REALLY want to start recording the titles of all that she's read. (note to self: DO THIS!)

Amanda is on her second year of the AWANA bible quiz team. The kids really put in an amazing effort to memorize verses and questions for this! In a couple of weeks a class has opened up so she'll be joining the boys and going to the BSF study too.

Most days I feel like we've just covered all the basics. In my next post I'll discuss the goals that I have for the rest of the year. I'll also talk about all the things I'd like to add in that we haven't been able to accomplish thus far.