Peg doll fun!

We've been busy! How about you? Our homeschool co-op had a great little  Thanksgiving program. And I forgot my camera! So no photos but just know it was sweet with a handful of toddlers, preschoolers, and a few kindergartners.

 We had our obligatory turkey nap at Grandpa's house.

Visited Santa at his workshop.

Fought bears.

Played in the snow.

And mostly just had a lot of family time and togetherness. And opportunities to show our individuality.

We've also between getting ready for Christmas. We're trying to focus on giving instead of what we get to receive this year. It's a though sell for kids this age, but everything takes a little practice. Yesterday, we went to the Library Station's "Holiday Store," where the big kids could spend a little allowance money on gifts for family and friends. They would even wrap the items up for the kids. Such a good experience. But kids being kids, they still wanted things for themselves. I'll let you know how the experiment works, but we already plan to do it again every year.

As for me, I love making gifts for my children. Some may need to be purchased, but there's something really special about a gift handmade by Mom. One year I made hobby horse type animals (a unicorn and a giraffe). These are still wildly popular around here. This year I found the idea for making peg dolls and I love them!

They are many for different sets of children in the family. And they all have different characters they love. Two of my girls will be receiving a set of their own and I'll probably add a doll house to at least one of them. I wanted to make a turtle van and a castle and an X-wing or something for the different sets, but I just don't have the time or energy for those right now. These are still a lot of fun anyway! My littlest caught me in the design phase and started playing with them, so I know they'll be a hit with at least one kid. ;-)  The bridal set was originally all was I going to make, since my girls are really excited about weddings right now. I remember lovely weddings and brides and all, but surely I was at least 7 before all that craze, right?! Anyway, I've had a lot of fun with these! What projects are you working on?

Back to Home School Fun

We officially started our 2013-2014 school year yesterday.  What a big girl!  She's been so excited to finally start kindergarten.  There's not a huge difference in our routine from over the summer, except that we've added history, science, art/music, and PE, but we won't necessarily be doing all those every single day.  So far, it's been going well.  We're following the Easy Peasy curriculum still, which we both enjoy.  Ms Z is doing the "Getting Ready 2" program for language arts/reading (their version of Kindergarten following the McGuffey Primer), 1st grade math, and the Year 1 elementary level program of study. Click the link above to get most of your questions answered.  We'll be learning about the Egyptians for History and making connections in the Bible.  Today we read about Joseph and Mary escaping Herod with Jesus to Egypt and made a pyramid and learned what they were for. We also talked about why the Egyptians would set up a civilization on the Nile River.  We're building a lapbook as we learn more.  For Science we're studying many things.  Today we learned about what organisms need to live and learned to distinguish between living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) things.  We did a little observation game where we gathered several objects, both living and non-living (and previously living) and picked them from the bag.  About halfway through the game, we really got the idea of what was living (or had been living) and what was non-living.  For the purpose of our discussion, we considered something made from wood as non-living, even though it was previously a tree.  Here are our results. The non-living objects were a screw, a nail, some crayons, a clothespin, a block, and some rocks.  The living objects were some grapes, a carrot, some leaves, some flowers, and an avocado.  I considered putting a bug in the bag, but I wouldn't want to pick that up blind, so decided against it. ;)

  

 Some of the words in the online text are a little advanced for kindergarten, but I explain them on her level.  Even if the kids don't understand everything, frequent exposure to new words and vocabulary and an inviting conversation and relationship helps them learn a lot.  In math, she's been learning even/odd, skip counting by 2s, learning to write number words, and ordinal words (like first, second, third).  We were doing some school work through the summer and she's really been enjoying math, so we're a bit ahead in that area.  The music and art subjects are nice.  Yesterday, we explored some of the "first music"--nature-- and got to use a program to make our own music compositions from animal sounds, nature sounds, instruments, and everyday sounds.  We've done a bit of ballet each day, too.  It's been fun and instructive and is good exercise, so we'll see how it continues for us.  The girls usually stick around through the stretches and plies, then come back for some of the jumps.  It's cute and I get a nice exercise. ;)

Pioneer Day Celebration

Our co-op got together today to celebrate the pioneers.  For those who don't know, July 24th is Pioneer Day.  It celebrates the day the first group of Latter-Day Saint pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley in Utah in 1847.  In Utah, it is a HUGE celebration, perhaps rivaling Independence Day celebrations.  But around here in Missouri, it's only observed by the few LDS who make a point to celebrate it.  

The kids posed for a picture at our Pioneer Day picnic.

We didn't do anything huge, but we wanted to introduce the children to some of our history.  Mostly we sang pioneer songs, like "Pioneer Children" and played some pioneer-style games, like "tug of war" and "jumping rope."  We also enjoyed some really tasty foods the pioneers had eaten.  We had potato cakes with ketchup and Swiss Apple-Cherry pie.  Yum!  You can find the recipes for them here, if you want to try for yourself.  Another friend made up a recipe she found in Nauvoo for Haymaker's Switchel, a pioneer version of Gatorade.  Apparently, when the pioneers would go work in the field they would take some of this drink to stay hydrated.  I agree it would do the job!  It was a sort of ginger root tea flavored with molasses, lemon juice, and vinegar.  Two out of my three girls slurped it down.  And I thought it was pretty good, too.  A bit like a "real" ginger ale. 

I tried to make some ice cream by following this recipe, but the bag started to leak and we just poured the cold and sweetened half and half over our pie. :)  That'll teach me to try things out BEFORE showing them to the kids!  They were so excited about my promised ice cream that we had to have a cone when we got back from the park.  We spent the rest of our morning chatting and playing in the park.  It was such a gorgeous day we couldn't let it go to waste!

Coming soon: NOT Back to School Party!  What would you do to celebrate homeschooling?

My girls playing while waiting for our friends.

Tree Ring Analogy

Have you missed me? Well I've been contemplating the words in this talk by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf entitled "Of Things That Matter Most."

He starts with this wonderful observation.

It's remarkable how much we can learn about life by studying nature.  For example, scientists can look at the rings of trees and make educated guesses about climate and growing conditions hundreds and even thousands of years ago.  One of the things we learn from studying the growth of trees is that during seasons when conditions are ideal, trees grow at a normal rate.  However, during seasons when growing conditions are not ideal, trees slow down their growth and devote their energy to the basic elements necessary for survival.

Nothing really huge has been going on in our lives, but there have been a lot of little things.  I've had to slow down and devote my energy to the basic elements necessary for survival.  I call this "survival mode."   It's no big deal.  Most everyone, at some time in their lives, finds the wisdom in going into a survival mode.  We've been catching up on rest, eating simple meals, enjoying family time together, learning new things, re-enjoying old favorites, working on talents, and thinking on the future.  We just cut back on many extras like blogging, excessive social media time, shopping, and too many extracurricular activities for a little bit.  We "unplug" everyday for at least an hour or two.  This sounds pathetic, but since we do most of our homeschooling online, we enjoy listening to streaming music, and much of our communication happens using some form of electronic device, you can probably understand.  This time allows us to focus on more important things like enjoying our family relationships and developing talents or skills.

Have you ever gone into "survival mode"? What gets axed first?

Digging at the Dinosaur Museum!

We visited the Missouri Institute of Natural Science Tuesday and got to dig for fossils!  Real ones! We started out in the museum and looked at our favorite exhibits again.  Then moved to the ice block table.  Dinosaurs were frozen in a big chunk of ice and the children learned how researchers have to slowly removing rock or ice or dirt from fossils so they can be removed in one piece.  They showed this by allowing the children to put warm water one drop at a time on the dinosaur toys until they FINALLY came out.  Some kids didn't even get one out in their time.  Sometimes researchers have to pass on the responsibility, too.  Good lesson here.

Next, the researchers showed us some real fossils that are found in Missouri.  These are called crinoids.  They told us that crinoids are underwater animals that look like plants, much like coral.  The segments we find are the stalk of the plant-like animal.  Click here to learn more about the crinoid.  Then we went for a short walk up the hill to find our own crinoids.  Can you see them here?  The black arrows are pointing at the donut shaped crinoid fossils in the rock.  This is evidence that Missouri used to be underwater!

Next, we set to work.  Here's my little paleontologist on the hunt for her own crinoid fossils.  We got quite a good collection.  We even found a rock that looks a lot like a seashell.

Kids on the fossil rock at the "Dino Museum."

Wandering around after our "dig."

 After we found our fossils we took a look around at what activities the library had for us.  Ms K really enjoyed the Alphabet dig.  She found quite a few letters!

Ms Z made a rubbing of a leaf that looked a lot like how fossil would look.  All the kids enjoyed reading some dinosaur and ice age related books, making their own stegosaurus with a model and clothespins, and playing with clay and models to make foot prints and impressions just like fossils.  We had a great time and learned so much!  What fun things are you up to lately?

Field Trip Shirts and ID cards

Thursday is our co-op day.  Since it's summer time, we expect to do even more field trips. One day on a field trip this year, it occurred to me I couldn't remember exactly what my children were wearing.  What if they got lost?!  It was a pretty busy day at the zoo that day and completely possible, but a lot of the children there were in large school groups with matching shirts.  So I've been thinking on this idea for some time.  If we had matching shirts, I could easily see my kids from a distance and could describe what they were wearing if we still managed to be separated.  My sister-in-law has a cutting machine so we designed our school shirts, cut out the stencils, and painted the shirts.  The kids had a nice time finger painting, too.  Ms A wasn't in to it and I was, frankly, afraid to let Ms K have a try.  But Ms Z enjoyed exploring paint possibilities.  We just used the craft paint since we had quite a stash to explore with.  And it washed off their hands easily.

 I think the shirts turned out nicely.  Each kid has the same front.  The back has their initial pretty large on the back and their hand prints, for those who didn't mind touching the paint. I look forward to calling to the kids "Put on your field trip shirts!" and seeing the look of wonder at what adventures we would go on today. :)  Bonus:  I bought 5 shirts for about $8 and only used 3.  I already had the paint and my sister-in-law already had her cutter and paper.  That means this craft cost me about $2 per shirt and I have 2 extras!  Whoot!

Said sister-in-law also has Adobe Photoshop, so we designed some pretty swanky ID cards.  The QR code goes straight to our website, in case there's ever question about the validity of our school, and it lends a certain professionalism to them, I think. We'll update cards and photos each year, probably in the summer so there's little rush and excellent opportunities. Feel free to copy our design.  The black bars are for privacy of our information.  We had such a tough time finding a free download for a Photoshop compatible template that we designed our own.  We had to leave her house before we could finish making a generic template, but once we can, I'll post it here for anyone else who wants one with all the layers editable. We plan to order these cards as photo prints and laminate them for protection.   In case you don't know, ID cards are great for getting discounts at museums, movie theaters, and more.  If you bring in your report cards, many companies offer free or discounted items for As each semester/term.  The cards serve as identification for obtaining your own library card.  There are probably other advantages to making your own identification cards for your homeschool, but these are a few that come to mind. Bonus:  I ordered these from Walgreens for about 21 cents each!  Extra whoot! What do you think? Do you have "official" t-shirts or ID cards?

Happy Father's Day!

We sure love our Daddy!  The Boy Scout is quite a man.  He works so hard at work then comes home and takes care of things around here, too.  He is so supportive of my work in midwifery. It's my passion and he has so much patience for the strange hours required.  He loves to play with the girls.  They are his biggest fans.  Many times he has commented how he feels like a rock star when he comes home.  "Daddy!" is the battle cry while the mobs charge forth to hug him. He is one fantastic cook!  There are a few things he makes extremely well.  We call him the "Master of Leftover Masterpieces."  I like to cook so that we have leftovers and he makes them over into something completely different and wonderful.  For these and many more reasons we wanted to do something special for him, so we went to the park on a gorgeous day with a good friend and my sister-in-law, a very talented amateur photographer.  The kids had a lovely time and we caught some great photos.  And these were just taken on a camera phone!  Can you believe it?!  Anyway, she did great.  Then we asked the girls questions about "Daddy" and added them to the collage.  Round it out with chocolate candies and breakfast in bed and he thought this was quite a wonderful morning. :)  

Bonus: Walgreens was running a free 8x10 collage print! I should have shared that with you all, but I blanked out, so apologies!  But I totally took advantage of that and also made a smaller collage of all of us that he could keep in his wallet.

Mmm. Granola

We are granola freaks around here.  Well, I am actually.  The kids put up with it when there's nothing else around.  I eat it with yogurt, kefir, milk, ice cream, as trail mix, whatever!  Love it, love it, love it.  And it's so easy to make, I don't know why people would want to buy it.  Hmmm, maybe I should start SELLING mine!  Anyway, sidetracked.  I've tried out different recipes over the years, tweaking them until I've found my favorite.  And I may still tweak it again.  And, of course, sometimes it's just nice to have a different flavor or variety.  As with so many other recipes, I like a basic formula that I can adjust to my mood.  You can easily use a different nut, type of oil, or use maple flavor instead of vanilla extract. Today, I'll share the recipe I  made this morning.


Excuse me while I rescue my 16 month old daughter from the bunk bed.  She literally climbed the ladder herself and then, when she saw me, she climbed back down.  This is just plain scary! But look how pleased she is with herself!

Anyway, here's the recipe.

Granola

Preheat oven to 275F

Combine in a large bowl:

6 cups old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup wheat germ

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup pecans

2/3 cup coconut

2 Tbsp ground flax, optional

In a medium saucepan combine and heat to a simmer:

2-3 Tbsp real maple syrup

2 Tbsp molasses

3 Tbsp coconut oil

1 Tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Drizzle the liquid mixture over the oat mixture and stir well to combine.  Place on two large ungreased baking sheets and bake for 20 minutes.  Stir then bake an additional 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and stir in 2/3 cup raisins.  I just put mine back into the bowl I used earlier.  Allow to cool completely then store in airtight container. 

Mmmm.  If you want to make this a trail mix, add in some dried bananas, sunflower seeds, coated chocolate candies, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, and/or peanuts.  So good!  We took it with us on our camp out with some peanuts and chocolate covered raisins mixed in. :D


Last chance for my giveaway!

An Invitation to Come Unto Him

At April 2013 General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Henry B. Eyring spoke to my soul.  (Read his full talk here.)    Here's a gem for you to consider for your life.

President Eyring started by sharing his experience with drawing near to the Savior.  In the Doctrine and Covenants 88:63, Christ says, "Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."  This direction is echoed through the Holy Bible.  Like President Eyring, I have "experienced the joy of coming closer to the Savior and of His coming closer to me most often through simple acts of obedience to the commandments." He shares some of His sweet experiences, but may I share mine? I have learned through experience that when we pray for answers and are in the right places at the right times, God is able to so sweetly give us those answers.  Among other things, I've been seeking ways to come closer to my Savior.  I started by reading the scriptures on a more regular basis, pondering the words I read, and praying for more guidance.  I must say that so many times when I question came into my mind, the answer was found so quickly in the Scriptures.  I would pour out my gratitude to my Father in Heaven for those sweet and simple answers.  Then came Conference.  I've said before how much we love watching General Conference. And it remains true.  I had a prayer in my heart throughout the session that I would feel the Spirit working in me and help me find my answers.  And every single talk, I felt the Spirit burning within me!  Telling me that what these men said is true.  I felt guided to record these feelings of revelation, to start working on certain areas, to focus on particular doctrines or actions in my life.  These last 2 months I have felt so near my Savior.  I've had setbacks, of course, but I have been making strides in my life again.  And I'm sharing with my children my excitement for my Savior and His Gospel.

stock photo source

Back to President Eyring.  He tells us we "are under covenant both to lift up those in need and to be witnesses of the Savior as long as we live.  We will be able to do it without fail only as we feel love for the Savior and His love for us.  As we are faithful to the promises we have made [at baptism], we will feel our love for Him.  It will increase because we will feel His power and His drawing near to us in His service." I can testify that this is happening for me.  I had been feeling overwhelmed by so many things.  And while some things are still difficult, I feel lifted up. I feel encouraged to serve my friends, neighbors, family, and strangers.  I feel the love of my Savior more as I draw closer to Him in prayer and in scripture study.  I feel His love growing as I also feel Him drawing nearer to me.  I see more purpose in my life and less drudgery in the everyday simple things.  What is a mother but a servant to her family?  After Christ washed the feet of His disciples, a task normally left to servants, He said

Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.  If I then, your Lord and master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet.  For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.  Verily, verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.  If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. (John 3: 13-17)

What a blessing we have to serve God's little ones in this way!  What an expression of love and service.  It may sometimes feel a drudgery or unrewarding.  But we are helping to raise God's children.  This is not something that happens in a day or even a year.  It requires a lifetime of daily service, one tiny step at a time.

President Eyring continues:

My promise to you who pray and serve the Lord cannot be that you will have every blessing you may wish for yourself and your family.  But I can promise you that the Savior will draw close to you and bless you and your family with what is best.  You will have the comfort of His love and feel the answer of His drawing closer as you reach out your arms in giving service to others.  As you bind up the wounds of those in need and offer the cleansing of His Atonement to those who sorrow in sin, the Lord's power will sustain you.  His arms are outstretched with yours to succor and bless the children of our Heavenly Father, including those in your family....There is a glorious homecoming prepared for us.  We will then see fulfilled the promise of the Lord we have loved.  It is He who welcomes us into eternal life with Him and our Heavenly Father.

I bear testimony that our Savior knows our needs before we can even express them.  He is anxiously waiting to bless us.  When we draw near to Him in prayer, in faith, and in service, He pours out blessings upon us.  I know that when we are obedient to His commandments, we are blessed with so much more than temporal blessings.  If the fullness of joy that is promised us in the eternities is anything like the fleeting times of joy I feel during this life, it only makes me more anxious to serve Him, in whatever way or place.

Kids and cameras

Ever wonder what happens if you hand your kids a camera and let them have a great time? Well, I'll tell you. You end up with 128 pictures.  Of those, 68 were either completely black or so out of focus you couldn't tell what you were supposed to see.  Bu the others came out something like this.

You can probably tell who took most of the pictures since you can see who's in most of the pictures. ;)  But I think they turned out nicely.  Except it makes parts of my house look like an episode of hoarders. Eeek! I have very little excuse, except that at this time, my bathroom is under renovation so the rest of the house is messier to compensate for everything being torn out of there. Anyway, they had a wonderful time and I now have documentation of it! :D 

But now I'm intrigued about a new-to-me photo editing site, my friend and sister-in-law from Ozark Mama Reviews  told me about.  Maybe I can make these even better!  Let's see.

I'm new at this, so I'm sure with practice it will get better, but I think this is an improvement.  How fun for us!   I need to print this and save it for the future.  I think they'll cherish it as much as I do now. And boy, I really need to learn how to make a fuzzy picture look less fuzzy.  Or maybe teach my kids to stand still when they click a picture.  Either one. ;)

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the editing you can do with this website.  Many tools are free and some require an upgrade at a reasonable fee. Can't beat that, right?

Be sure to enter my rafflecopter giveaway going on right now!

Children Have the Potential to Build Up Our Homes... Or Tear Them Down

Have you ever seen the movie "Yours, Mine, and Ours"?  I haven't seen the old 1968 Lucille Ball version, just the one with Dennis Quaid from 2005, but it was wonderful and fun.  I really recommend it, if you haven't seen it.  But maybe I should go watch the original, too.  They're usually so fun.  Anyway, we were watching it and I realized an important point that may not have been intended.  Near the end of the movie, the kids decided that they actually didn't want to break up the family after all.  That they actually liked each other and WERE a family.  So they find the parents and tell them the break up was all their fault, that they started the fight, but that they changed their minds and wanted them together again.  I think the important point here is that if they had the power to cause the family to break up, they also have the power to help a family stay together.  Now let's be fair.  Some parents truly have irreconcilable differences, including infidelity, abuse, and no desire to work on a marriage.  My comments here shouldn't be misunderstood to say that kids are responsible for holding families together or that some families don't have big problems.  My point is that children can make it impossibly difficult or so beautifully easier by their attitudes and actions.

Mary N Cook

Mary N. Cook, speaking to the young women in the church, shared this talk entitled "When you save a girl, you save generations." Sister Cook tells us how children can build up the home. She encouraged young women to search for and "stand in holy places."  She compared each daily act of obedience to God's commandments to putting oil in our spiritual lamps, as the wise and foolish virgins awaiting the call of the Bridegroom in Matthew 25:1-13.

"Living the gospel in your home will also add oil to your lamp and weave spiritual strength into your home now and bless your future family in countless ways. And furthermore, as Elder Robert D. Hales has said, 'If the example we have received from our parents was not good, it is our responsibility to break the cycle … and teach correct traditions for the generations that follow.'

Decide now to do all you can to fill your lamps, that your strong testimony and example may be woven into the lives of many generations—past, present, and future. I testify that your virtuous life will not only save generations, but it will also save your eternal life, for it is the only way to return to our Father in Heaven and find true joy now and throughout eternity."

I know I want my children to have strong testimonies of Jesus Christ and God's plan for us.  I want them to follow correct traditions and life lives of virtue.  I want them to be strengthened by these things and stand above the world.  I want them to "stand in holy places and be not moved." I want them to raise future generations of children who also know these things.  One way they can do this is to help make their homes "holy places."  We can read scriptures, say fervent prayers, and work to keep out the evils of the world.  We can work on being peacemakers in our homes.  We can be selective about what shows we watch, what music we listen to, and what content we allow on our computers.  We can be selective about what comes out of our mouths.  We can work to make our homes clean and orderly and keep our appearances tidy and attractive.

Parents have a responsibility to teach children what is right and to bring them up in a good environment.  And children can contribute to the peace in the home.  We can literally reverse and heal centuries of abuse, misuse, and neglect by caring for our daughters properly and allowing them to blossom.

Zoo day!

Usually we go to the zoo with at least 5 other families.  While that is fun, there's usually an agenda to follow and we always feel rushed.  Today we got to do and see exactly what we wanted.  Of course for my little loves that meant we had to start at the park. :)  And for little Ms K, this was her first time walking around a public place, so that was to be celebrated.  We soon made a beeline all the way to the back of the zoo where the elephants live.  How fun! She was plucking bits of grass from the ground with her trunk and eating it.  It was fascinating to watch.  Then the big girls saw the elephant statue around the corner and made a run for it.  We're busy around here.  Can you tell?

 Next we strolled around the zoo, completely at random and met some new and old friends.  We are major flamingo fans around here, so they were a requirement.  We found this strange reptile called the Mali Uromastyx.  That's one strange looking lizard.  It's got what looks like armor plating on its tail. The black bears (they look brown to me, but whatever) were taking a break from their semi-hibernation to enjoy the sunshine and they came right up to the glass/fence.  It was great.  This little guy seemed to be chomping on grass, too.  To each his own.  Almost at the last moment we went to see the giant tortoises.  And they're huge.  The tortoise in this picture was one of the "babies" and it must've weighed over 100 lbs.  The older two are about 100 years old.  I'd have to check my facts on that, but it's what I remember from previous visits.  It was such a nice day to be at the zoo.  A little cooler and windy, but so bright and sunny and just a perfect zoo walk day.

Last, but most certainly not least, were the SKUNK MONKIES!!!  And, yes, that exactly how it is said and spelled.  They're actually black and white Colobus monkeys, but my nephew dubbed them "skunk monkies" at our last visit and that is what they will always be called.  You can see why they would say that, I'm sure.  These guys are usually quite expressive and playful.  In fact, my niece played a game of "Monkey See, Monkey Do" with them a year or so ago.  Today, they looked a bit sad. Maybe they weren't happy about being separated.  Two were in the yard and the one my girls call the "Mama Skunk Monkey" was in the inside playhouse, apparently locked in.

Of course there were other animals.  These were just our favorites and what I managed to remember to snap a photo of.  I'm kicking myself over the hippopotamus.  Nearly every time we go to the zoo, he is sleeping in his water hole or inside with the staff.  Today, he was having a nap in the mud early in our visit.  When we made our loop around, he was swimming laps, making snorting sounds when he came up for air, and even gave us a sort of roar.  It was so fun.  Ms. K tried to jump the fence to get to him because she was so excited about him.  Each time he would come to the surface, he would wiggle his ears.  I think I enjoyed that more than the kids.  And enjoying life like a child is important.

I love the freedom of homeschooling.  We didn't make a plan for this field trip.  We didn't have to send permission slips to parents.  We didn't have to re-schedule for weather.  We just completed our morning school work and chores and left.  And we had a great time!  I hope we can enjoy more of this during the summer.

The Home: The School of Life

This talk from Elder Enrique Falabella in the Sunday afternoon session of the April 2013 general conference really touched me, The Home: The School of Life.

He starts out by telling us that the best university we have on parenting is called The Home.  I truly and honestly believe that we can make so much change for the good in this world, just by focusing more on our families.  Please, even if you are not a member of the LDS church, watch or read this talk and see what nuggets of wisdom you can find.  He teaches 6 special lessons.  First, the temple is the place. Second, to contend you need two people (and I will never be one of them).  Third, a child who sings is a happy child. Fourth, I need you to hug me.  Fifth, I love the Book of Mormon and my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Sixth, it's not enough to know the Scriptures; we have to live them.  We've made these are new family rules.  We talked about it as a family for Family Home Evening on Monday and we decided we could all work on these.  We repeat these words when conflicts arise.  I've already learned so much from this!

The temple is the place. It's a focus for our lives, for our families. It's a beautiful covenant that Andrew and I have made and that we want our children to make with their future families.  It's a promise that continues into the eternities.

To contend, you need two people. I follow some parts of the Love and Logic parenting/teaching system. One of their "rules" is "I love you too much to argue with you."  I feel this statement really falls in line with that.  It takes two to fight.  If you start a fight with me, I don't have to fight back. I love you too much to argue.  I can wait until you are calm, so we can talk out the problem.  Not fighting doesn't mean that I always give in.  It simply means that I value our relationship too much to argue and I value having the Holy Spirit as a visitor in my home.  I don't want to drive Him away with fighting.

A child who sings is a happy child.  This goes both ways.  Sometimes our children sing so much, we just can't stand to hear that same (usually incorrectly sung) line or verse one more time!  But we need to remember that they're likely singing because they are happy!  And we need to allow that.  We also need to consider that if our children aren't singing, how can we help them learn to be happy?  Are they not singing because they've always been told to be quiet?  Are they not singing because they were just fighting or disappointed or distressed by something?  We as parents can help our children to be happy and we can learn to gauge their happiness by how much they sing.

I need you to hug me.  So often this is an unspoken thing.  The children feel it or we feel it, but no one says it.  We need to say it more often.  When I read this new "rule" to our children, their eyes brightened up.  We are a hugging family, but maybe we haven't been hugging enough.  So now, whenever anyone is seeming sad or angry or tired or disappointed, one of us has started to say, "I need you to hug me" or to ask, "Do you need me to hug you?"  It has definitely brought more peace to our home.

I love the Book of Mormon and my Savior, Jesus Christ.  John 14:15 states, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."  And what are His commandments?  Where can we find them?  We can find them in the scriptures.  There are so many more than just the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament.  They are important and so many are still broken today.  But we have more commandments: to attend our church meetings, to pray, to love and care for our children, to teach our families to follow the commandments.  The Book of Mormon, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the words of modern prophets are so important.  They contain the words and doctrine of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  We need to read from these words every day. We need to pray every day, personally and as a family.  We need to thank our Heavenly Father for giving us this world and for making this plan for us.  We need to thank Him for giving His Son Jesus Christ and that He followed through and did all the Father asked of Him.

It's not enough to know the Scriptures, we have to live them.  The ability to quote scripture or know where to find a particular story is good. It will help us in living the Gospel.  But if we don't LIVE the Gospel, it's worthless.  Our Savior came to this earth to overcome Sin and Death, so that we can become clean through Him.  We need to have faith in the grace from our Savior.  We need to believe in him and also believe Him when he says we can become perfected in Him (see 1 John 2:5, Moroni 10:32).

I plan to share through the next few months bits of the conference talks that really touched me.  There were just so many jewels throughout the conference that I really hope you'll take the invitation to listen, watch, or read the talks. I bear testimony that God knows you and your situation.  He has inspired these men and women to share messages that will have eternal significance in your life.  I'm certain you could select any talk at random and find an answer to a prayer.  Even talks that had nothing to do with my particular time in life were still so filled with inspiring information that I was able to clean truths for me from EVERY SINGLE talk.  I know you can, too.

Progress and a Lesson On Being an Example

I'm really not going to blog every day about homeschooling.  Keeping track of it on my free tracker program is enough for me, but I like to preserve my pictures when I remember to take them.  I know the lighting is awful and the pictures were taken on my camera phone, so the quality is not great. But I have documented my work, so there!

Ms A is learning about the letter C, the sound it makes, and so on, so today, we made this paper bag cat craft. I already had white paper bags and the girls insisted on their cats being white. OK.  No problem. Print off the templates, let the girls color, and away we go. Ms. A named her cat "Abby" and insisted he was a boy.  Great job, kiddo.  Ms. Z named her cat "Belle."  That's what she names nearly every female animal right now.  That's cool.  She likes the name.  And may I take a moment to brag?  Yeah, she's totally reading her McGuffey Primer stories so well!  She needs a little encouragement at times, but she's doing great.  And I don't mean that in the "my kid is SO above average and I'm going to rub it in your face" sort of way. She's having a good time and she's excited to learn.  She definitely has problems with certain letter combinations and sight words are not really her thing, especially when they try and change things up like "cat" and "cap." But a month ago, she couldn't read for real.  She would memorize stories, which is still a great step in learning, and she would pretend to read scriptures (like she's doing right now), but she wasn't actually reading words.  Please excuse the spilled over laundry basket in the background.  My kids were making memories before I invited them to start school. ;)

Obviously she has a couple good examples to follow of people who like to read.  I read as often as I can and I tend to let other important things fall to the wayside while I'm reading.  If you're an avid reader (or love one), you know what I mean.  My husband has also been wrapped up in books lately.  So they girls have been really seeing people reading and loving it and talking about what we read.  This is SO important: if you want to have a child who loves to read, let them see you enjoy reading.  It's true in many areas of life.  If you want a child who loves to help, always (or nearly so) happily accept their help and don't criticize their work (at least not while they're small and learning).  If you want a child who is kind and respectful, use respectful words and actions, be a courteous driver, and generally serve people. On the other hand, if you can't figure out why your kids yell, tell people to "get out of the way," or refuse to share, consider how you treat them. Then consider how you treat other people.  It's not a cure-all, but if we want to make our world a better place, we need to start with ourselves and our children.  Courtesy and kindness really are contagious.  Give it a try. :)