Camping Adventure

I know I've promised you guys a camping adventure update, and here it is. . .

Bean Boy reminded us that this was the first time we made it 3 whole nights camping.  We almost canceled our trip on account of rain.  But, Sunday I checked the weather, and it still said only 20-30% chance of rain.  If I had checked it Monday morning, we would have canceled!  Hubby and I decided that a little rain won't hurt anyone.  Uh...someone forgot to tell God what the weather was supposed to be! When we pulled up in Orange City, FL at Blue Springs State Park, we quickly put up our tent (with ponchos on) while rain was coming off and on.  Because we were a glutton for punishment, and the rain was at a temporary stop, we tried to set up our huge tarp for "outdoor" cover.  Success!!!  We sat down, mostly dry, and decided to eat tomorrow's lunch, since the rain was pelting and we couldn't build a fire.  Then, as it turned out, we weren't as successful as we once thought.  The tarp ended up mostly on my head while we finished up dinner!!!  Oh well!  We tried.  The rain did stop, and we had enough time to unpack, check out the area, see some manatee, and get to bed....so sleepy!

The next day, it was beautiful when we woke up.  That was a great thing!  The only bad thing, is that no one slept well and everyone woke up when I did.  Now, even when camping, I like to have a little time to myself before everyone else wakes up, but it was not to be this time...oh, this was Tuesday, our birthday too.  So, being the lovely wife who shares a birthday with her Hubby, I kindly let him know that if I couldn't be alone, neither could he...heheh! SO, he got up, we made a fire and made breakfast.  Listen, sausage was supposed to be made on a fire!

Sooo, good!  We went for a bike ride and came back for lunch.  Noticing clouds heading our way, we decided to try to set up the tarp again.  We wanted some way to build a fire and keep it going in the rain.  We ended up using my husband's truck on one side and trailer on the other to tie up our tarp.  It was decent, and ended up keeping us dry.  I felt like we were building couch forts with blankets!  It was challenging, but no one got hurt, upset, or ugly!  Success on many levels.  I just kept telling Hubby this is an adventure.  We're going to either succeed or fail if we try. . . So, since we had success, we made dinner, and birthday cake!  I had seen recipes for making cakes inside of an orange peel.  We (the girls did) pre-made and froze the batter, so all I did was cut the corner of the bag and squeeze it in.  They were delicious!!!  Uh..we each ate 2!!!  Happy birthday to us, honey!

We covered them with aluminum foil.  A few recipes said that yo can wrap them individually in foil and throw them in the coils, but I wanted to be able to check on when they were done.  Plus they were all different sizes. . .

I know they look black on the top, it was just smoke, with frosting, you couldn't tell... I forgot to take pics with the frosting on!  Everyone ate them and loved them!!!

We used the screen house for extra "support" and to help a little with bugs.... I'm not even going to talk about how well the mosquitoes were fed on this trip...just now getting us all out of the itching phase!

Poor Hubby could barely stand under it all!  The rest of us were fine though.!

It did get a little smoky, and loud when the rain came, but we were glad to be dry. We were able to fit a few chairs around the fire too. . . it was more room than it looks like. 

A good view from my chair of how the tarp and the trailer were a good fit. 

So, since it gets dark so early, we thought we'd bring along the DVD projector.  We had everything almost set up, when Hubby looked up and said, "Um, I think we were supposed to bring the DVD player to connect to this!"  Oops!  Poor kids...we had the perfect set up, under the tarp, with the sheet on the back of the trailer door. . . no movie tonight.

See the sheet on the back of the trailer door?  And the box for the DVD projecter (that's not a player!)  

The next day was much of the same.  Rain off and on.  Wonderful camping food. Bike rides. Special time with my favorite family in the whole world.  Hubby and Bean Boy went for a canoe ride, while the girls and I walked up the spring run to look for manatee, then played in the park.  Our tarp stayed good most of the time, with a few adjustments here and there, and we didn't catch anything on fire that we weren't supposed to.  We packed all our soggy things up the next day to head home...haha... then we stopped at Camping World and Gander Outlet on our way through St. Augustine!  Yes, we did.  Just to browse and add to our wish list!  It was fun.

We plan to wake the kids up early one cold, cold morning in January, and skip on down there again to get a view of a LOT of manatee.  The most we saw was on our first day. . . maybe 12-15 all together.  They're amazing.  Little Bit said, "Mom, they have no necks."  God is creative!

Oh... I almost forgot one of my favorite parts about this trip, until I pulled up pictures!  We drove separately this trip, so Hubby could bring the trailer with our bikes.  It was such a blessing.  We had extra room, and the back of the trailer was under the tarp, so we kept our coolers and "stuff" there.  But, genius mom that I am. . . (insert snickers here...truth is some other mom from Pinterest is a genius). I had brought some stuff to organize the back of the van, and one of those things included a hanging shoe organizer.  After about the 5th time of looking for the scissors and lighter, I took about 20 minutes, and came up with this beautiful organized camping trailer.  (see pic below) If I can talk Hubby into, the trailer will always come, and I will add 2-3 more of these sweet babies! Camping unorganized has always bothered me, and I'm always looking for ways to rectify that problem.  This made life soooo much easier. Does anyone else find it sad that this was one of my favorite parts?

The kids said one of their favorite parts was the "rain bucket" that I brought.  Fearing we would be cooped up in the tent quite a bit, I bought some games, and "stuff" that we could do in the tent.  One thing was Little Debbie Christmas Tree Snack Cakes.  You guys have no idea what a treat that was for the kids... I have NEVER bought them Little Debbies!  My son's favorite thing from the rain box was the knot tying app that I downloaded to the Nook.  I bought some small rope and had it in the bucket, and we tried learning some knots.  Boys are much better at this than girls!  The girls ended up making up and naming their own knots.  We had a lovely, looong game of Uno too.  I still have things in the "rain bucket" for next time too.

To sum it up, this was not our favorite camping trip, but I would put it up there with one of our most successful and most challenging trips.  And, we made it and enjoyed it! And there's so much more I didn't write about too.   I'm glad everyone in our family seems to love camping!

I'm Ba-ack!!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm back from one of the most amazing vacations ever!  The only things that would have made it better would be if Hubby could have gone and if it were just a tad bit longer!  I'll be posting about our amazing time with some great pics. For now just know that I'm back, "plugged in"

 again, and ready to go!

Enjoy the preview!

Weekly Wrap-Up: Grateful for "Normal"

• In my life this week…  It was a plain, old, normal week!!! Yippeee!!!
• In our homeschool this week…Let's just say that we've come to the end of the week, and I'm just so thankful that it was NORMAL!!!  I didn't have to share homeschool responsibilities; meaning Hubby nor Grommy were teaching this week, just me and my kids!  Work did not interfere this week!  The last couple of months have not afforded many weeks like this, and I'm just so grateful to have one.  I remember now that I actually like to homeschool, I hate sharing my kids (even with family) and time is so precious and fleeting!  I wish I could make time stand still on our normal days!

       Little Bit started a Jr. Homemaker course.  This semester is cooking.In less than 2 hours they made a 7 layer bean dip, cinnamon/sugar tortillas, and an ambrosia! She did great, and the tacos from our local Mexican restaurant went great with her bean dip.... YUM!I'm excited to have help in the kitchen! (Can you believe I forgot to take pictures?)

       We are working on a review for Math Made Simple, and my son is doing algebra...and likes it!  He is 11 people...oh my word!!! More on this in a couple of weeks.

       We did make it to the park and to a field trip.  Poor Bean Boy did school at the park, and late in the afternoon the next day to keep up!  I'm proud of him.

• I am inspired by…  Pinterest...I tried, tried, tried so hard to resist... but it got me.  My mom yelled at me for actually doing the things I pinned saying I make everyone else look bad. Well... truth be told, I'll never measure up to those amazing people. Ha!  I'll just stick with gluing fabric on plastic cups, and move on! 
• Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… Our field trip this week was to see the lego movie Jericho that was written/produced by a homeschool family.  It was hysterical!  AND, very well done!  Impressive! Here is a link so you can sneak a preview...
• My favorite thing this week was…  as stated above, having a "normal" week.
• What’s working/not working for us…  Work is not working for me...anyone adopting a homeschool family????  Though, I have to say I'm getting excited/nervous about transferring to the Trauma ICU....this is my last weekend on my current floor!
• I’m praying for… my friend Angie.  She's a long way from home, and I love her dearly.  Angie, I know your purpose is mighty, and that you are serving the Lord with all your heart!  I love you!

Linking with Kris as usual, and iHomeschool Network
I also love this lady! Rachel always displays a theme of gratitude...something God's teaching me so much about!!!



                                                 

Weekly Wrap: First Concert!!!!

So, this is only 3-4 days later than usual!  My work schedule has been very tough to deal with.  In the last 2 weeks, I've probably worked over 90 hours!  I'm very thankful to my husband, mother-in-law, and friends who have helped keep us sane during the crazy....

Despite that, there are a couple of really good memories from the week that I wanted to share.  First, I re-started SOTW in order to "do it right". I had just been putting in the CDs and moving on.  For my son, that's enough...but for Little Bit, with no history foundation in the 3rd SOTW book, it was, well, just not fair to her.  So, I decided to actually listen with them (fortunately I can do 2 things at once!) and do some of the activities... This week's activity involved 10 lbs of flour... I couldn't imagine throwing all that flour away, so I threw it at my kids!  (Yes, we did this outside!)  It is a lesson I have learned...while the fun was hysterical, I STILL have flour on my driveway and car!!!  My husband is going to pay my son to pressure wash the driveway, and eventually, we'll get the car scrubbed... But, it was fun!!! The neighbor came out to get her mail and got a good chuckle while snapping a picture for us!

Baby T did not enjoy this...she got flour in her eyes. 

This is how it started...

The other fantastic memory was of Little Bit's first concert.  She is my music lover, and singer.  Through FB I discovered that Kari Jobe was coming in concert.  Who doesn't love to sing with Kari Jobe? So, we invited a friend for a girls night out, went to Panera, and jammed with Anthony Evans, All Sons and Daughters (bought the album and LOVE it!!!) and of course, Kari Jobe... It was fun to see the girls jumping on the pews, dancing, singing, worshiping!  Every song asking, when is Kari coming out?!  And what a beautiful first concert.  It wasn't huge like some are.  It was low-key...lots of kids at the front on the floor. Little Bit was fascinated with the lights, so I know the bigger concerts will be exciting for her too.  But, my friend was saying that her first concert was Cranberries...remember them?  So, I was glad that Little Bit's first had such a focus on worship... several times Kari was on her knees before the Lord. Hands raised more often than not, and just speaking the name of Jesus....it was lovely!

Breaking  my rules and showing "face"... but, I was shocked at how much she looks like me!

Sorry for the cruddy cell phone pic, but you can get the idea and see the worship in her heart! God is good!

This week should be better as far as being on time with my update!

Let's Talk About Food

Okay... so we all love to eat.  We all need to eat.  But for me, food is truly a love-hate relationship.  When I first got married, I loved to cook.  It was fun to surprise my hubby with new meals every night.  Of course, he stayed toothpick thin while I packed on the pounds!  No fair!  As the children came along, the new meals every night became more of a chore, and we now have a few select favorites.  Then you get bored with your favorites.... as life gets busy, it is just easier to grab something fast or go out to eat... also a love hate relationship.  While I love eating out, it is harder to make good choices, and of course, more expensive.

Over the years, I've made grocery list after grocery list. I've scourged the internet for more and more simple recipes.  I've tried really hard to make a plan, stick to it, waste less, eat out less, and provide healthy meals for my family.  I've also tried losing the weight gained in the first year of marriage and with each pregnancy.

In the last year, I've lost 50 pounds, and have kept it off.  While I did begin my loss with a juice fast brought on by watching Sick, Fat, and Nearly Dead, I've had help from a few other sources.  First, Skinny Taste has countless low calorie, healthy recipes that are now on our new favorites list.  Never have I tried one of Gina's recipes and been disappointed! They're wonderfully delicious.... and she uses a lot of cilantro, which we love. (If I believed in reincarnation, I'm sure I was Mexican before this life!)

The second tool that has helped as far as my weight loss has been Myfitnesspal.  It is a great site and has an ap for your phone where you can log your food.  Logging food has proven to be a major factor in successful weight loss. Myfitnesspal has a ton of foods already in their list.  I can put in hummus from 2 or 3 different brands, and they will already be there with nutritional info ready.  I select the one I want and add it to my list.  I can plug in my own recipes and it will give me nutritional info for that, or I can add a new food to the list by plugging in the nutritional info on the label.  The ap is handy when you are out to eat and want to know how many calories in a specific restaurant's dish.  It lets you know how many calories you have left to eat. Oh- and you can track your exercise and how many calories you've burned from that!  I love it... now if I could just get back to using it, and losing again!  I did lose weight when I was faithful with logging my foods! You can also have friends and leave them encouraging messages! It's great! By the way, this site is completely FREE!!!

Lastly, on the grocery shopping side of the food dilemma...  Being as I don't experience weekends the way most of you do, finding time to make a list and shop is very challenging.  Last week we ate out a ton because I hadn't shopped (big shopping) for 2 weeks(almost 3 now)!  Thank God for freezers and fast food!  One day, in desperation, I came across SayMmm.  I was floored that someone had created this and was sharing it for FREE! Woohoo!  SO, with SayMmm you can plan your meals.  Most of the meals I've used from Skinny Taste are already loaded into the database, so I can simply link the meal to my calendar.  Then, all the ingredients go directly to my shopping list.  Spices, and things you normally have on hand go in the "check pantry" section and you can simply click to add them to your list if you are running low and need to replace them.  I can also add my own recipes.  It does take a minute or to add the recipe and all the ingredients, but you only have to do it once.  There is also a database of recipes you can use; you can search by ingredient or title, or browse for fun.  You "click" the recipe to add it to your plan.  Once your weekly plan is on your nice calendar, you can view the entire calendar, one day, one month, or one week at a time.  Then you "create list".  SayMmm takes all your ingredients for all your recipes in that time frame you set, and creates you a list!!!!  You can choose to arrange it by recipe or by store sections, for example: dairy, produce, frozen, etc.  There are some "premium" options I have not used, but I believe they will estimate your cost and calories!  Fantastic.  Oh, and did I mention that all but the premium options are FREE!!!

I try to make my list when I'm at work and give it to hubby to shop for me.  Then, he can go to the website and find out what's for dinner, print the recipe and have it ready before I go to work!  Yippee!!! Easy, FREE, and wonderfully helpful. 

The last thing I do to help with our crazy schedule, is organize a casserole swap.  Every 6 weeks or so, my FB homeschooling group gets an invite to participate in the casserole swap.  I've just sent out the invite to our 3rd event.  About 6-7 people have been signing up, which is just right.  So, you make 6-7 of the same casserole and then exchange them on one evening.  It works out great.  Every Tuesday, I pull one out of the freezer and stick it in the oven before we leave for gymnastics... Hubby gets home a little later and pulls it out when it is done.  And...tada! Dinner is served, just add salad!

Maybe some of these things will be helpful to you!  Happy meal planning!!!

Linking up with Darlene

A-typical Day in the Life

There aren't "typical" days around here.  They are all unique unto themselves.... though there are typical Tuesdays or typical Wednesdays, etc.  Due to our outside activities, each day is different... HOWEVER, I do try to keep our morning routine as best as possible.

It is supposed  to go like this....

• Wake up and quite time for mom... (0600 every day baby!) LOTS OF COFFEE!!! Sweet time with the Lord and planning out the day happen at this time... I also check email, FB, and other stuff.
• Wake Hubby and kids (0700ish)  Sigh.... wish the quiet time would last all day!
• Every day it is my HOPE that in 1 hour they will be dressed have finished chores and finished breakfast...I cook while they clean (or Hubby does the cooking sometimes!) We rarely make it in 1 hour!
• Then we start school with our gratitude journals, hymn study, Bible, and Scripture memory.  This usually takes about an hour, but I don't limit it...ok... I do clock watch, always hoping to be done with school as early as possible!
• Then we split and Bean Boy goes onto his independent studies while I work with the girls. ***Survival mode so far has meant a focus on Bible, math, reading.  And I try to finish those by lunch (1200). I used to do nature study, composer study, art, etc.... maybe one day.... sigh
• After lunch I try to work with Bean Boy on things that he needs a "grown-up" for...  Some days though he gets left behind because Mom just needs a nap... I'm working on this!!!  This is also when we do our science lessons. 
• Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons are our gymnastics days... Monday afternoons we go to the chiropractor.  Thursday is the only I don't have to leave the house, but we usually do end up out somehow or other...  

The last couple of weeks we've done a good job reading in our Apologia Science book, and I even got creative and found a documentary on Netflix that we are really enjoying...one part at a time.  We watched that one night before bed with Hubby.

We are going to take a break for at least 2 weeks.  I plan to plan!  I'm really hoping to ramp up our history and get better at doing some of the activities SOTW recommends, since we seem to have gotten the rest under control. I hope to add in some of the readers too.  It is hard for me to do all of those extras.... being a Type A and wanting things to be just right, put in their place, and already dealing with so much out of place (refer to School Room- The Ugly Truth), knowing the activities require messes and "things" to be pulled out, and then knowing that it will take TIME.... oh well, do you get the picture?  I tend to find it more stressful than enjoyable.  I know my kids don't though, and that the memories of both the fun times and the lessons learned will be worth it.  This is one of the areas I refer to when talking about self-sacrifice...I'd much rather be a textbook/workbook mom, but that's just not who we are as a family and I believe my kids would hate it...except maybe one.  I wonder if I could have a little fairy come along and pick up after us so we can move right on to the next activity!!!

Every so often, we take planned breaks from school. During this time I re-evaluate what is working, what isn't, and try to gear up for the next go round, fixing what's not working along the way.  Every so often, we have unplanned breaks from school.  Someone gets sick (though unless puking, I tend to make them do some school work so our days off are fun days!), someone outside of our home needs help, or last minute plans come up with family or friends... I'm flexible.  Every so often, we take mental health days for mom's sake!  Every so often, you can find me hiding in my room with the door closed...the kids are so good at hide and seek though...it never lasts long enough! ;)

*Of course, all of this is altered any time I have to work during the week or on a Sunday night!  But, we're flexible! And, I'm ever so grateful for the opportunity to be with my amazing chilies!

I'm really looking forward to reading what others are doing and gleaning some insight through this bloghop

Weekly Wrap-up

Well, we've survived another week! (That's good since we are in survival mode.) It was an unusual week being as I had to work in the middle of it!  I worked Wednesday and Thursday from 7p-7a (ish).  Hubby came home early Wed and took off Thursday to be available to take kids to gymnastics and the summer movie and to make sure they don't burn down the house!  It was still a pretty productive week though!

Accomplishments!!!!
We finally, finally finished our Olympic lapbooks! I'm not sure what we did wrong, but all of us have decided we hate lapbooks! LOL!  Crazy K said it best, it's so messy, and unorganized, and it takes forever!  I think if I were to do it over, I would do it differently.

Because each of them cut at different rates, we've been just cutting, cutting, cutting... I saved all the gluing for the final day, which turned out to be a mess.  IF, and that's a big IF, we do it again, we'll make the actual book first, then cut and glue after each lesson (or during).  Perhaps that would help.  We've done lapbooks before, but this was the first time we've had all 4 kiddos doing them.  They turned out pretty good, but we're all glad they're over! 

In addition to that accomplishment, my wonderful Hubby hung the monkey pictures for me!  I was surprised to come home to them hanging in the bathroom!  Yeah!

In School
School did happen this week, though it was a short week, with light days.  Bean Boy finished his fractions book from Life of Fred last week, and has started on decimals this week.  He finished the fractions book in about 2 months!  He is still loving it!

Grommy came and worked with the kids again this week.  She and the kids said she worked them pretty hard!  Yeah Grommy!!!  We will be filming our news production this weekend and rehearsing on Friday, so hopefully we can get that out of the way.  I will try to post that, though I've not had much luck posting videos... here's another opportunity to practice, right?

Miscellaneous
This weekend my cousin is getting married!  It will be exciting.  My husband and I eloped 12.5 years ago, and had an extremely small wedding the next day.  (That's a funny story....for another time!) I haven't been to a wedding since we first got married!  Makes my thoughts linger to the time when things were new and exciting and we had the whole world at our feet.... and it makes me glad to be here, where we are friends as well as lovers, where we trust each other more and love each other more; where we've learned that even when we don't "feel it" we can "love" each other in an active way... the way God tells us to.  I'm so glad that we've come through hard times, rejoiced in good times, watched God provide during the worst times, and still are committed to one another.  Every day in our lives with each other and God as the Captain has been a wild adventure! 

Check out Kris at

 

Weekly Wrap-up

This week has been amazing... a few field trips, a little school, some time in the kitchen, and wonderful fun together, as well as a nice surprise... I can't believe I'm already to the end of the week, and about ready to head back to work! It will probably be easiest if I go day by day for this wrap-up.  

Monday
Monday was a fantastic day.  I was just getting over my 24 hour "death bug" and might have overdone it, but it was wonderful!  Swim team is over. . . that means no more leaving by 0730 every morning!!! Woohoo!  So, back to my wonderful routine! Mommy is so happy!!!  However, we didn't have school on Monday.  Just a field trip.  Baby T spent most of the day with some friends, while Crazy K, Bean Boy, and Little Bit and I went to this great place called Yes You Canvas!  They painted these amazing monkeys that I'm going to hang on my bathroom wall!  *I got the hooks, and then discovered I don't have the right nails! Geesh!  I'll post a picture of the completed monkeys after I hang them.

And, it all started from just one yellow circle! The instructor was great!  Step by step he led each student through and they all made fabulous monkeys! 

 

After that, we went to visit Hubby at his work/internship.  We were able to have lunch together.  What a treat for us all. Then it was back to get Baby T, home for a short siesta, and then the cooking commenced...

I organize a casserole swap where each participant makes a casserole for all of the other participants.  So, this time we had 7 people sign-up... I made 7 tonight, 1 for myself and 6 for the other families...all the same casserole.  The girls had fun helping in the kitchen... Yummy Chicken Enchiladas from Skinny Taste!

One of 3 pots of chicken I made to go in our 6 casseroles... fortunately I had some left over I was able to freeze.

 The girls were so helpful all doing whatever was asked of them, and offering to do even more! I'm so blessed!

 Well...they're all piled in our deep freeze waiting to be exchanged now.  It has been invaluable to know that once a week I can pull something out of the freezer and dinner is ready!!!

 Oh... and, Hubby the Hero even helped clean up the mess! And what a mess it was!

Tuesday

Tuesday was just a regular old school day! I'm so thankful that Bean Boy had the opportunity to be on swim team, but even more thankful that it is over, and I have my mornings back.  We spent the morning doing chores and school, and then the afternoon was spent at the gym while the girls tumbled and jumped and walked on their hands!  Nothing special to report except that routine makes me happy!

1st grade math is fun!

Wednesday

Wednesday was some more routine, with a twist.  I had bought some clipboards for the girls and myself to keep our daily "list" on.  This year I started to use Scholaric for keeping up with our lesson plans and Bean Boy is starting to get some grades that Scholaric will keep up with too.  So, I print our lists from Scholaric and put it on the clipboards...anyway- all this to say that I got to spend some time using my creativity to color and decorate the clipboards with Crazy K.  It was something I wouldn't normally do, and was a ton of fun and very relaxing.  As time started to get by, we started to sing our memory verses and hymns while we were coloring! Then onto Bible and so forth.

Baby T saying her memory verse with hand motions!

Wednesday is also a gymnastics day, so I dropped the older two off at the tutor and headed to the gym.  On the way, I got a phone call from a friend who was ill and said she couldn't go to the painting class she had signed up for at Yes You Canvas... she wanted to know if I wanted to take her spot.  I wasn't sure about this.  I did want to, and the picture they were painting was one I had wanted to do, but it was just outside of my comfort zone.  When I talked to Hubby about it, he actually pretty much told me to go.... so I did.  And, I'm so glad that I did!  I had a good time, though I found some parts unnerving and a little stressful, I really like my painting.  What do you think? 

Thursday

My MIL comes once a week to play, I mean school the kids.  ;) She does a lot of the stuff I don't like to work on... flashcards, drills, rote memory type stuff. Usually she comes while I'm sleeping or going to appointments or such, but today I didn't have any of that, so I cleaned! It was fabulous. I cleaned out Baby T's drawers, cleaned the bathroom, cleaned the kitchen (which was a nightmare!) and more!  Then I took a shower.  The kids and I said goodbye to Grommy and headed out to lunch and bowling.  We had a great time bowling with our friends (despite several break downs of the ball return machine!).

After bowling, we returned home to start on dinner...then the ladies came to swap our casseroles... 6 new yummy casseroles in the freezer.  I have one free pass for the next 6 weeks!!! Yippeee!

Friday-

I'm writing this ahead of time, but the plan is to school, have lunch with my mom, and then I go to work...nothing special.  Another week will have gone by, and we will not have finished our lapbooks before the start of the Olympics! :( BUT, we will finish them next week! Then onto our government study, hopefully.

Favorite Part of the Week

I've noticed a spirit of ungratefulness in my kids lately.  And, I must confess, I've had a spirit of dis-contentedness.  So, last week I asked the kids to list 5 things they were grateful for.  They were not allowed to say people, unless it was a specific thing about that person or something they had done. We continued the list each day, and they were not allowed to repeat anything.  This starts to get hard after several days.  I'll share a couple of things from each kiddo here and probably make a whole new post on our Thankfulness Journals.  It is interesting to see the progression from day 1 to day 5...

Crazy K
Day 1:  House, food, God, Peace, Love
Day 2:  Happiness, animals, Bible, bed, stuffed animals
Day 3:  Ms. Kristy keeping me this summer, my family is healthy
Day 4:  Little Bit saying good job on Baby T's clipboard, quiet time with God
Day 5:  Grommy doing school with us

Bean Boy
Day 1:  math, rain, monopoly, pets, Josh cuz he is funny (Bean Boy's writing cracks me up!)
Day 2:  Bible, God, exercise, scientists, Life of Fred
Day 3:  Ozzie (our dog), physics... and I just caught that he re-listed Bible.... I guess I can't complain
Day 4:  Mom cuz she is my teacher, Dad cuz he is my math teacher
Day 5:  water, my brain, clothes

Little Bit
Day 1:  movies, Mellow Mushroom, shelter, clothes, toys
Day 2:  furniture, trees
Day 3:  going camping with my family, money for our family
Day 4:  Mommy doing my clipboard, Bean Boy being nice to me
Day 5:  ice cream, Jesus

Baby T
Day 1:  family and friends, God dying on the cross for us, house butterflies and rainbows, toys
Day 2:  chickens (our chickens are hers), Little Bit making breakfast, gymnastics
Day 3:  God, Crazy K helping with chores, flowers
Day 4:  Crazy K and Mommy making my clipboard nice, sunset, thankful that we sing our memory verses

This proves that we have so much in our every day lives to be thankful for.  Many of these things are things others don't have... sadly including Jesus!  We are so very, very blessed.  What a lesson I'm learning as I keep a journal too!  It has been a great way to start our Bible study.

Our Bible Time... Thank you Jesus!

 I'm linking up with Kris again at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.  Have a great weekend and week

Feeling Inadequate

This weekend proved to be a doozy!  I ended up calling in sick for the first time in over a year!  It started out as one of those bugs you think you can push through and work through it... but ended up being a, "honey come rescue me off the bathroom floor," nightmare!  Thankfully, it seems like it was just a 24 hour bug!  I'm getting back to normal...

I know many of you are getting ready to start your school year, or have even just started.  I thought I'd share something I wrote several years ago.  I wrote this during the time that we were having our son tested and diagnosed with ADD/Gifted... I actually gave this at a talk for a small group.  I re-read it tonight, and thought some of you might find it encouraging.

Feeling Inadequate

When I was asked to speak here, I said, "sure," willingly, thinking no big deal this should be easy.  Then we started having some struggles with our oldest, and I became EXTREMELY discouraged.  I thought, Lord, I am not the right person to do this talk… right now I have nothing encouraging to say… Well, you know how God is! He worked in me through those struggles, and well, now to encourage you, I am going to talk about… being inadequate!  

Pretty much that’s what I find encouraging these days…the fact that I AM inadequate.  Well meaning loving friends tell me that I am quite adequate or FINE, but we all know we really aren’t.  Now that I have you all squirming in your seats about my backwards view of encouraging, I’d like you to take a moment to really ponder where you struggle the most with not feeling good enough.  Is it with cleaning your home? Being a mom? A wife?  Teaching your children? Anything else?  Really think about it.

LET’S PRAY 

Lord, please show us where we really don’t measure up.  Help us to be honest with ourselves about where we aren’t good enough.  Lord, please help us to place our confidence in you.  May you personally show each of these women where you fill in the gaps in their inability to measure up. And Lord, even though it may seem backwards, I pray that you’ll use each lady’s inadequacy to encourage them, and to help them have hope in You, and to glorify You!  We love you Lord, Amen.

Ok…so, that oldest child of mine that I alluded to…well, he’s been challenging since he could speak!  Strong willed, defiant, needing constant attention, talking without ceasing, know it all… Oh my!  He’s in 4^th grade now, and still not really able to do independent work…so, we had him tested, and it turns out…he really does know it all!  He’s gifted and ADD-fortunately, not the hyperactive type.  So- the entire week prior to and after the diagnosis I kept thinking…God why would you give me a kid who is smarter than me??? I can’t raise this kid! I can’t teach this kid!  While at this point, I may have more knowledge, I certainly won’t for long…not at the rate he reads! I can’t do this, I’m not ready, I don’t know how, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!!!  I walked around for about a week and a half ready to give up the fight for my kid’s soul, thinking there is nothing I can do, because I’m not enough!

God really showed me how discouragement, and feeling inadequate, are a good beginning… God knows me.  He knows Bean Boy.  He knows what He’s given me and how He made me.  AND, despite how I feel, Bean Boy did not get switched at birth, nor did God make a mistake! So now what? Prayer!  And, relying on God’s promises.  I’m not sure which came first, but along the way God reminded me several things.  First, He said, “Kristy I know you; for I have created your inmost being, I knitted you together in your mother’s womb.”  In that same chapter (Psalm 139) He declares that He knows when I sit down and rise up, He discerns my thoughts from afar and before I utter a word, He knows it!  This isn’t a God who knows me from afar.  He knows me intimately…and He knows where I am in my walk with Him, and just how I need to be challenged, strengthened, stretched, and loved.  

I’ve learned over the years to pray about everything.  I mean EVERYTHING.  I guess I’m actually still learning…but God cares about the little things, so I talk to Him about them.  I’ve prayed about everything from schedules, to naps, to lunch, to patience, strength, faith, and the hearts of my children.  God has given me insight on the small things.  He says in His Word for me to cast all my anxieties on Him, because He cares for me.  I’ve heard many of you talk, and aren’t those the things that make us anxious?  Shouldn’t we pray about them too?  

A couple of years ago, we had a huge medieval feast for my son.  I spent months gathering decorations, sewing costumes, planning a traditional medieval meal, researching how to roast a hog, and even practicing with many chickens!  I bought shields (cardboard ones) and spray painted them gold.  I had asked a friend to paint the virtues we were learning on them, and said that just plain black was fine.  Well, I had the table set with real silver candle holders, real silver goblets, and as much gaudy silver and gold as I could find.  We had a throne for King Jesus, and I had decorated it with a red table cloth…it looked like a red backed throne!  When the shields arrived, I was amazed.  Theresa said that no paint would stick.  She tried several different kinds.  The only thing that would stick on my gold shields was silver glitter paint…it proclaimed valor, humility, teachable, honorable, etc. were our virtues!  And, on the shield that would sit on the throne…red glitter paint saying King of Kings!  Now- I know that in the scheme of things, all of that isn’t important.  I certainly did NOT pray about the letters and their colors…I was busy praying the hog would turn out edible, and that Baby T would behave (she was very sick that day). But I honestly did think about it quite a bit…that black really wasn’t going to look great… BUT- God KNEW!  HE KNEW!!! It was very important to me to have it all beautiful and magnificent and even matching.  I felt so loved, and was convinced that He cared about the little things!!! He discerns my thoughts from afar and before I utter a word, He knows it!  What kind of God is this?  What kind of love is this?  Not even my husband cared about the letters!!! Now I have more boldness in asking for even the little things.  Mentally make a list of what they are, and test Him…see if those things that seem little but are important to you, aren’t important to Him as well. God calls us His friends, and the little things are a HUGE part of our friendship with God…

The next thing I’ve learned through being inferior; is that it’s ok, because in my weakness He has been made strong.  There are just times when I can’t. I don’t have the words, the strength, or the wisdom.  I grapple with these feelings of inadequacy the most when I think about my children’s hearts and souls.  Oh how I long to be the mom with the right attitude, words, touches, and perfect sentiments all given at the perfect time… But, I’m not.  I’ve come to realize though, that even if I were the BEST mom out there, it still wouldn’t be enough!  My kids need the Holy Spirit working in them and working in me, more than they need me to be perfectly capable of handling everything.  There was this one time when I thought Bean Boy might be cheating on a spelling test…he just kept looking down and I thought that was weird.  When I questioned him saying, “What are you doing,” he said nothing, and we went on with the test.  I didn’t notice it again.  All tests were done in the same spiral notebook so I wouldn’t lose them… When the next week rolled around, and I had him go do a practice test, he came to me crying.  When he began to tell me why, I could feel my anger rising up, and began to pray (very unlike me by the way).  He confessed that he had indeed cheated on his last spelling test because he had never gotten all of them right and he really wanted to.  Somehow, the Holy Spirit overrode my fleshly desire to pummel him, and turned this into a moment neither one of us would forget.  I was able to say that he was forgiven.  I tore that spelling test out, which had been a reminder to him of his sin.  Then, I threw it away, and told him how when we confess our sins, they become like this paper and are thrown away and forgotten! 

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Ladies…I must reiterate that I did NOT plan that ahead or come up with it on my own.  My short little prayer of “Lord, what do I do, help me not to kill him…” was enough for the Holy Spirit to take over in my weakness.  

I want to take this opportunity to say we aren’t perfect.  We aren’t all going to be like that person in our mind…you know the homeschool mom whose house is always picked up, kids are perfect, has a great husband, has all the fun during school…I think we all secretly have someone specific we are thinking of right now!  I have 2 and one of them is here tonight!!!  It’s ok if you’re not like that mom!  In fact, there’s no room for improvement when we are already perfect or perfectly competent… we are supposed to be in the process of sanctification- we are being made to shine, not already “shiny”!  There will be challenges this year in school.  Everything will not go according to plan.  Our kids, our husbands, our friends, and ourselves, will all let us down!  But God won’t.  Take time to pray. Pray about the BIG things. Pray about the SMALL things.  Trust Him.  He knows you. He loves you. He wants what is best for you.  Allow yourself to be weak so you can rely on Him more.  

One last thing… God is faithful.  Did you hear me?  HE IS FAITHFUL, and hope does not disappoint. There is a cycle of suffering here. We suffer in feeling inadequate…it is a painful feeling.  But, as we learn to pray and look to God, we learn He is faithful. We learn He is trustworthy, and we have a little more faith for the next time!  Record God’s faithfulness in your life, and look at the record or put special markings…Romans 5:4-5 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. 

My feelings of inadequacy could really keep me down.  They are discouraging!  Until I remember, that this is an opportunity to see God work…and the work He is doing, is usually for me and in me…to make me more like Him, to bring me closer to Him, to strengthen me, and to glorify Himself.  And, well, as hard as it is I love Him all the more because of it.

In this time of challenge with my son, I would love to see God just totally redeem the situation…either by making me gifted and ADD too so I can understand him, or by making his brain normal.  BUT, I’m ok with the fact that instead, this is an opportunity for me to persevere and for God to produce character, for me to hope in Him, and for His faithfulness to be proved. While the outcome is certainly uncertain, I am already seeing Him do a work in me.  He is so good!

Sacrifice? Not really....

Yesterday, as I pulled up to the gym where the girls take gymnastics, I pulled up, got out of the car looked down, and there it was.... a stain on my shirt.  Oh, wait...there were 2!!!  My hair was in the usual ponytail-turned bun and frizzier than you can imagine due to the imminent rain.  I thought to myself, "Ok, here we go again.  Frumpy, messy mom entering the gym, embarrassed to be seen looking this way, but completely out of options."  I felt like the mom with a baby that always has spit-up on her shoulder....only I don't have a baby anymore!

This morning found me in tears as we headed out the door for another 0800 swim practice.  Once again I had not had time to dawn make-up, fix hair, eat breakfast, etc.  I did manage my cup of coffee... Here I am running, running, running, for everyone but me!  Then, I took a nice bath in self-pity for the rest of the day... even while at the movies with the kiddos, during our Bible time, and well, the rest of the day!

Suddenly, I snapped out of it. Got dressed up (mostly before Hubby arrived), dawned make-up, and played my get out of jail-pity card to Hubby.  He took us out to dinner.  Later we went for a walk, and I was able to vent my frustration.  I was able to finally verbalize the root of what my problem is.

While yes, I would occasionally like to have time to myself, fix myself up and act like a girl, I really don't mind sacrificing those little things for the bigger picture.  The blessings that I spend all day serving and sacrificing for are so worth it.  I would do anything and give anything for each of them.  It really isn't a sacrifice.  My true problem, is that I'm frustrated I can't do more.  As the weekend draws near, and work is coming into focus, my heart is heavy.  I'm sad that I'll miss the championship swim meet this weekend, and the party next weekend. I'm frustrated that all the housework, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. has to be done and things organized and ready to go for the weekend.  It makes my heart hurt when Little Bit says, "Mom, I thought we were going to make icees this summer."  I can't do it all!  I want to, oh do I want to... but I can't.

Hopefully, one day, they'll see the sacrifices I make.  They'll see the love I pour out into each one, and know that I did the best I can. I am doing my best- and far better than I ever thought I could  thanks to Hubby and Jesus.  Even if they don't understand, I would still chose to do it over.  I would still chose carefully every labor of love and every sacrifice.