Christmas Countdown: Days 4-20

I am not very good at blogging in December. Okay, I probably could have stopped after the word "blogging", but in December it is especially hard for me. There is just so much to do and to enjoy, that it is hard to find the time to get on the computer. I'm sad that I haven't taken more pictures over the month, but I thought I'd include a little bit of what we've been doing this Christmas season.

Sleeping next to the the Christmas Tree.

Sitting on Santa's lap at our Church Christmas Party. That night when putting Little C. to bed, she told her dad, "Sorry I freaked out on Santa's lap dad." She was really worried she was going to be put on the "naughty list" after that. We had to assure her that Santa understood. How cute are 3 year olds?

Making gingerbread houses with Grandma.

Attending the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. That was a highlight of the month so far. The music was beautiful, the spirit was so strong, and Doug and I had a wonderful evening with H-Man, and I-Mac. I'm so grateful we were able to get tickets this year.

There have been so many more things we've enjoyed this month, but unfortunately that is all I have captured on camera. 

I love Christmas time.

1 Down 179 to Go!

(First day of school 2010)

We did it! We officially completed our first day of the new school year! We started a little earlier than normal because we will be taking off a week and a half in September to go to California. I felt so underprepared heading into today that I was rather nervous and stressed out last night, but now that the day is over I think things went pretty well. 

Little C. started school with us today and was incredibly excited for her first day of "school". I am doing Before Five in a Row with her, and started the reading game I made and used for all of our kids (I'll post more on that later). She just turned 3 last month, but she so wanted to do school with us this year, that we are just going to take it slow and have a lot of fun. I can tell it will be a good thing for her to get this special one-on-one time during the school day because she was able to play on her own so much better today after having her time with me. I was able to focus more on the boys and not have to spend as much time worrying about keeping her busy and happy. Hooray!

G. Diddy isn't thrilled about starting school, and we had our battles today, but he did a great job on his Math-it game and it was fun to see his sense of accomplishment in that. I-Mac wishes summer wouldn't end, and just can't wait for our California trip to come, but he is so easy going that he just does what we ask without complaining. We are reading some fun books together right now, so that is always a draw for him. The three of us will be studying about American History this year (my favorite subject) so we should be reading a lot of interesting books this year, which we are all looking forward to. If everything goes as planned, we will be taking a trip to Washington D.C. at the end of this school year to wrap up our history studies. Everyone is excited about that prospect.

H. Man was excited for school to start today. He is entering his "Middle School" years this year, and that is one of the main reasons I have been so stressed. His work load is a lot heavier this year, and I'm not sure I'm fully prepared with what I need to do on some of his courses. Luckily, most of his work is done independently and he is a very motivated student so hopefully everything will go smoothly.

Although I have thoroughly enjoyed our summer, and it didn't seem to last long enough, it is exciting to be starting our new learning adventures this year. It is so fun to watch the light bulbs turn on as a child grasps a new idea, to learn about people and places you've never heard about before, to feel the wonder with your children as you ponder on the many amazing things God has created for us. For these reasons and so much more, I am grateful for the blessing and challenge of homeschooling my children. Here's to hoping I can remember to savor those moments all year long.  

Birthdays, and Blessings, and Baptisms, Oh My!

This has been one full and amazing month for our family! It started with Claire's blessing,

and was followed by G. Diddys birthday a few weeks later.

This was the birthday he has been waiting for forever. He turned eight and got to start scouts and get baptized! (More photos are coming of that event.)

The next week was H. Man's birthday.

 

This was also a "big" birthday for him. He turned twelve and got to receive the priesthood!

We were so proud of him. It was so awesome to watch him as he worthily passed the sacrament this Sunday. I can't believe we have a twelve year old child!

The week after H. Man's birthday, G. Diddy was baptized.

He was so excited! The day was awesome and he just radiated joy all weekend. I've never seen him behave so well in church. He read his new scriptures through most of sacrament meeting, and bore a wonderful testimony.

The final event is I. Mac's birthday today! 

He turned 10 and is an amazing child. We're getting ready to go swimming this afternoon and have his birthday dinner at Grandma's this evening.

The overwhelming feeling I have had over this past month is how much Heavenly Father loves His children. I have been struck by the fact that although these are my children here on earth they were His first, and it is my responsibility to do all I can to help them get back to Him again some day. I am so blessed to be the mother of these wonderful children. I hope I can be the mother they deserve. 

Week in Review

This was a great week!  That probably stands without saying, because I'm not likely to be posting about it if it wasn't, right?  Anyway, this was our second week "back to school" since C. Bear was born, and things really went pretty smoothly considering.  We finished our family read-aloud, Just David, this week and the kids loved it.  I read this book on my own a couple of years ago and posted a review about it here.  I was excited to share it with the kids and was glad that they enjoyed it as much as I did.  We were all sad when it was done.  It was one of those books where we felt like we were saying good-bye to a good friend when it was over.

For our character training this year we have been reading from the book Created for Work during our "School Opener" and we read a couple of great chapters from it this week.  You never know how much your children retain from things like this, but it is good to see them making connections with great ideals and you hope that through repeated exposure they will eventually incorporate them into their lives.

We purchased a new camera this week so that H. Man could be Doug's  "Campaign Photographer".  In addition to his regular studies H. Man has spent the week learning everything he can about photography.  He read the entire camera manual in two days and has taken hundreds of pictures.  He really is showing a lot of talent, and I am now constantly asking him how to do "this" or "that" on the camera.  Here are some of his candid shots of our school week. I hesitated to post them, because I don't like seeing pictures of me, but they give a good taste of our school week, so here they are:

(Writing time.  In my defense, this was our transition from snack time to writing time.)

We did spelling every day this week, which is a real accomplishment since we have had the tendency to skip it on hectic days.  We have loved The Writing Road to Reading this year.  Not only has the boy's spelling improved a lot this year, but I-Mac's reading ability has really flourished as well.  For those of you who don't know,  I-Mac is dyslexic and we have tried so many different things to help him learn to read proficiently.  This program is the first that has really seemed to click with him.

We are reading about The Renaissance and The Reformation in history right now.  The kids loved the chapter about Michelangelo and DaVinci in A Child's History of the World.  We spent some time after reading, looking up various works by each artist and we all hope we can get to Italy some day to see them in person.

G. Diddy did a great job of sitting still and paying attention during our reading times this week, which is a huge achievement, because he's our child that I'm sure would have been labeled with ADHD and been medicated, if we had put him in the Public School system.  

I. Mac on the other hand gets tired of listening to Mom lecturing. ; )  Actually, I think this was exasperation because H. Man was taking his 50th photo of him for the day. 

In addition to school work, we spent lots of time outdoors in the beautiful spring weather, working in the gardens and just having fun.

We even fit in a field trip to the park this week.

H. Man also got to take a "field trip" with his dad this week to Fillmore, Utah to hear him speak at the Millard County Constitution Party Convention.  

H. Man got his first experience as Campaign Photographer,

and they met some wonderful people.

Granted, our house could be cleaner, and the laundry is piling up, but we accomplished a lot this week. With a new baby I find the need to take joy in the things I am able to do, and try not to worry about the ones I'm not.  That could be a good formula with, or without a baby.  I just hope this next week can be as productive.

Ringing in the Season

This weekend was a busy, but festive one for our family.  Thursday, H. Man, I. Mac, their Grandma and I rode the train down to Salt Lake to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert.

It was 10 degrees outside when we arrived downtown and the walk to the Conference Center was quite cold and miserable.  The performance was well worth it though.

The guest singer for the evening was Natalie Cole, and the guest narrator was David McCullough.  They both did a fabulous job.

The boys favorite part of the performance though was the Chrismas Around the World number.  They performed six different Christmas songs from around the world with dancers in costumes from those countries, and then at the finale they pulled a giant Christmas Tree out of the floor with a huge cable.  It really was breathtaking.

 

My favorite number was an organ solo of Good King Winceslas performed by Richard Elliot.  He started out with a slow, classic rendition of the song, and then on the second verse he began to weave it together with selections from the Nutcracker Suite.  It was amazing.  I am hoping that a video of it comes out on U-Tube soon so I can see his hands and feet up close.  It didn't seem possible for one man to produce so much sound at once.

The evening was truly magical.  Music is one of my favorite parts of the Christmas Season.  Nothing seems to capture the spirit and magic of this time of year like music can.  It was a great way to hasten the Christmas spirit for each of us.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday were each filled with activities and celebrations as well, but I will have to post more on those events later,  as we are off to do more celebrating today.  I love this time of year!

Lessons From the Garden

School is out! Our whirlwind Family-Reunion trip to Yellowstone is over. I'm officially done teaching piano lessons for the summer! Now that the commotion is settled a bit, it's time to try to organize our crazy life. This week we are focusing on weeding our back-yard gardens. They have been somewhat neglected in this last month's push to get everything done. The kids have been troopers, weeding every morning for an hour or two.

Today was our fourth day working in the yard and with the heat of summer finally arriving, it was a bit harder getting I-mac motivated to work this morning. I had been thinking about how, even though our yard still needs a lot of work, because of the efforts we have made this spring, it looks so much better than it did last year. I thought about how that was like life, we are never perfect, but the more we work at improving, the better we get, and the easier it gets to do what we should. I thought I would entice I-mac to work by asking him to help me think of ways that gardening is like life. Believe it or not, there is little he likes more than philosophizing about life with an interested adult. My enticement worked and he was soon working beside me, enlightening me with his insights into weeds and life. Here are some of the lessons I learned from him today:

1. We are the plants. Like plants, we need good things in our life to help us grow and become what we need to be. Some of those good things include reading the scriptures, praying, going to church and making good choices.

2. Weeds are like sin. When they come into our life they choke out the good things in our life. If we don't get rid of them they will eventually kill us (spiritually speaking). Some weeds (ie. sins) are harder to get rid of than others. It's important to get rid of them when they are little or they can be nearly impossible to get rid of later. Morning glory is easy to pull, but it grows fast and quickly chokes out the plants. I-mac thought this was like t.v. or other things that aren't necessarily sins, but don't really help us to be better. When we do them too much they cover up who we really are and it is hard for us to choose to do the good things we need to grow.

3. Weeding is like repenting. As we repent, we remove the bad things from our life. We can't do the weeding ourselves, we have to turn to the Savior for repentance. He is like the gardener in our life. He fills us with the good, and allows us to get rid of the bad. It is important to get the roots out or the weed will just keep coming back. This is the part of the repentance process where we turn from our sin and promise never to do it again.

4. The soil is like the gospel. Plants in good soil, grow stronger and bigger, and the weeds are easier to get rid of. These are people with the gospel in their life. Plants in poor soil are smaller and the weeds are really hard to pull. These are the people without the gospel.

These are just a few of the ideas that he shared. This kid never ceases to amaze me. He thinks so deeply. He often comes up with things that I never thought of before. What a blessing it is to be taught by our children.

Happy Birthday I. Mac

I. Mac's birthday was last week, and I was determined to be on top of things for him, but here I am posting late again. Oh well, better late than never right?

I. Mac had the birthday he has been waiting for for as long as he can remember. He turned eight! His birthday was such a wonderful day, and he still has his baptism to look forward to in a few weeks! We can’t wait.

I. Mac is such a special kid. He has such an amazing, tender heart. He has so much love for everyone and everything. He makes you happy just to be around him.



He is a great brother. He is a wonderful helper with Little C.,



and a good friend to H. Man and G. Diddy.

I. Mac has amazing spiritual insight and constantly surprises me with his depth of understanding. I learn so much from him and love to talk to him about his ideas about life, and the world around us. He is definitely prepared for baptism, and will make a great missionary some day.



I. Mac has a great imagination, and can make up a game out of anything. It is fun to see the way his mind works.



I. Mac just got a bike for his birthday and is pretty fast on it. It was fun to watch he and his dad and H. Man going for a ride in their team gear. In a few years the cycling world is going to have to keep an eye on this bunch.



I. Mac has so many talents and gifts and I am so glad he is a part of our family. I am so lucky to be the mom of such an incredible kid. I love you I. Mac! I hope you had a wonderful birthday!