A Work in Progress

"Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing."  

  -- I Thessalonians 5:11

"Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to thsoe who hear."

-- Ephesians 4:29

Sometimes I feel like I am so focused on academics around here that I put character training on the back burner.  I let things slide because "I just don't have time right now to interupt our entire day and work on ______.  I mean, we are going to have to work really hard to get a grade level ahead in math and if the boys don't get around to all of their reading today - I just don't know.  And History - good gracious.  Sonlight has given me all these boxes that need to be checked and what if. . .  what if . . . what if."  And then finally I remember.  I remember one of the main reasons that I wanted to homeschool in the first place.  I remember how much I value and desire to raise up godly men with Christ like character.  I remember my ultimate goal -  to help my children conform to the image of Christ.  (My ultimate goal for myself - by the way.)

So, I just stopped.  I couldn't take the negative words and name calling any more.  We sat down and went over the above verses.  Again.  They know them.  I know they know them because I had them memorize them months ago.  But knowing them and putting action behind them are two completely different things.  So here is what we did.  Each little one was given some "bricks" to write edifying words on.

Then, we hung them on the wall in the playroom. 

Making our own brick wall full of words that build others up.  Hopefully, we will continue to add to our brick wall.  And I am even more hopeful that they will remember something from this lesson! And that I will always remember the importance of stopping for the truly important things.

Weekly Wrap Up

*This post was supposed to go up last week.  I have been so behind that I am just now getting around to posting it!  Surely baseball will be over soon and our schedules will calm down a little bit!

WooHoo!  We did it!  We finished our first year of homeschool!  I can't believe that it has already been an entire year!  We have had our ups and downs, but I hope to write an entire post about our first year on this homeschool adventure at a later time.  Also, I can not wait to write a post about our curriculum choices for next year.  I mean, seriously, curriculum shopping/choosing is almost (if not more) fun than actually implementing the curriculum!  Okay so about this week . . .

We started off the week with some fun science experiments from this activity kit we got for Christmas.

This was a very cool experiment where we talked about acids, bases, and forming gases.  We were mixing citric acid and baking soda to create carbon dioxide.  The kids really enjoyed it!

My little man is doing such a great job with his reading and I am so proud of him.  He is working his way through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and we are using some Sonlight readers.

D and D are still working their way through Saxon 3 for math and I hope they will be ready to start Saxon 5/4 around September or October.  This particular lesson was about measuring perimeter.

We ended the week (and our official school year) by celebrating at the park with some of our friends.  We had a picnic lunch and played in the fountains.  We even brought our scooters.  I wish I had remembered my camera.  Honestly, I was doing to good to remember food, drinks, extra drinks, towels, change of clothes, toys, balls, scooters, and all the kiddos!

How was your week?  Don't forget to head over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and see what everybody else has been up to this week!

Times - They are a changin'

We are about to celebrate our one year anniversary at our new church.  It's hard to make changes, but when you go where God wants you to go, you will never regret it.  I love our church.  I love the people in our church.  I love the truth (sometimes the hard truth) that is taught at my church.  I love the worship at our church.  It's contemporary and most definitely "innovative" as our pastor would say.  So, it is no surprise that as Drew was looking at some Bible curriculum that I am thinking about using for the upcoming school year that he came upon a word that he did not know.  Do you know what that word was?


HYMN! 


He was like, "Mom, what in the world is a hymn?"  After I pulled myself out of shock,  (I mean seriously, you don't know what a hymn is?)  I explained all about hymns.  So, I asked Dalton if he had ever heard of  hymns.  His response, "No."  Looks like I need to get some cd's with some of my favorite hymns for us to listen to.  I love, love, love contemporary worship music, but I also really love some of my favorite hymns.  They bring back such great memories of church as a child.  Do you have a favorite hymn?

Anyway, I couldn't help but ask, "What about a pew? Have you ever heard of pews?" 

Are you ready for his (Dalton's) answer?  No, seriously, are you ready?



"Of course I've heard of puke, but nobody calls it pew mom!"

You gotta love little boys!

Wordless Wednesday

                                                      Happy Wordless Wednesday!

This Kid

I have already done a post on why I love this kid and this kid, but now it's time for why I love this kid.  My middle child.  Yeah, I know my oldest two are twins, so how do I have a middle child.  But, I look at them as my oldest, my middle, and my youngest.  Technically they are and if you believe in any birth order characteristics, this kid definitely has some middle child qualities. 

There are lots of reasons why I love this kid.  I mean look at that smile and those big ole "I haven't grown into my teeth" teeth.  How could I not love him?!  It also doesn't hurt that most mornings when I go into his room.  It looks like this:

without me even asking!!!!!  I mean, acts of service - now your speaking my love language! No, for real that is my love language. 

I love this kid because he's a good eater, doesn't complain very much, and will wear whatever I tell him to wear.  (As long as it doesn't match his brother!)  He is a perfectionist just like me and is so incredibly hard on himself.  He is eager to please and gets very upset if he loses his temper.  If his little brother aggrevates this mess out of him (which of course never happens at this house!) and Drew yells at him or (gasp) hits him - he is so upset at his inability to control his anger.  He doesn't like to be mad.  And he most definitely does not like losing control of his anger. 

I love this kid because he thanks me for milk (especially chocolate milk), and he really enjoys the little things in life.  This kid is my outdoorsman.  He would hunt, fish, hike, climb, and just play outside all day if he could.  I once caught him sitting outside by himself and asked him what he was doing.  His response, "Just enjoying the sunshine."  This kid is sensitive, caring, and emotional.  All qualities that will one day make him an amazing husband and father.  He is always the first to volunteer to lead us in prayer every morning and his prayer always goes something like this: 

"Dear God,

Thank you so much for this day you have given us.

  Will you please help us to have good attitudes and listen to our mom?"

Seriously, how could I not love a kid like that?!  I just know that he is going to do great things for The Kingdom.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for him! 

My sweet sweet sensitive middle child.

Weekly Wrap Up

It has been another great week!  Can you believe that this school year is just about over?!  Only 5 more days for us and we will have 175 days completed!  WooHoo!  Anyway, this week started off a little bit weird. . . . Sunday evening I was getting everything ready for the upcoming school week.  The boys were upstairs doing the shower thing and the next thing I see is this:

3 kiddos in their pajamas doing school work!  What in the world?!  Without being told?!  I don't know what that was about!

Our school work was pretty much same ole stuff this week.  Just wrapping up some loose ends.  We did finish our volcano lapbooks (but I forgot to take pictures of the final project).  Here we are working on the front cover.

 

Today (Friday), our co-op group had field day!  So much fun!  We divided into groups and went around to the different stations playing games.  I had 7 boys in my group and we had a blast.

Here is my little man and some of his cutie patootie friends . . .

But now for the main reason that this was an excellent week.  On Wednesday during Bible, Drew announced that he wanted to ask Jesus to live in his heart and be baptized.  We talked, we prayed, we celebrated!!!!  I talked with him about going and talking to our pastor at our church.  I was a little worried because my oldest two tend to be very shy.  I didn't know how he would respond to this, but he was all about it.  In fact, when we asked him on Wednesday night if he wanted to talk with Pastor Scott, he jumped at the opportunity.  Our pastor gave him some booklets with information and questions to help him (Drew) better understand exactly what it means to be a child of God. 

Here he is working hard.  He is so excited that he reminded me the past two days about doing his assignment!

I guess at some point I should tell him that it is word not wurd, but I'm pretty sure God doesn't really care how he spells it just that he is reading it and loving it.

How has your week been?  Great, I hope.  Don't forget to jump on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to see what everybody else has been up to this week!