Baby Jamba Juice

Where we live Jamba Juice is very popular. We have one within walking distance of our house! We all love it including Emily. But because they use nonfat milk and sorbet (a little too much sugar for the baby), we've taken to making hers at home. Yesterday it was pretty much the only thing she would eat! Here's the recipe for any other 1-2 year olds.

Baby Jamba Juice

One 4-6 oz container of whole milk yogurt
1/2 very ripe banana
1/2 -1 cup frozen fruit
whole milk to make it the consistency you want

Blend it all up in the blender. Leftovers keep for a day or two but are more like a yogurt drink. It also freezes well into popsicles. Yesterday we used peach yogurt and frozen raspberries. Yum!!!

Schooling At Home

My friend Jessica introduced us to the world of blogging. (Thanks Jessica!) She also introduced me to an encouraging blog called Girl Talk, and her circle of blogging buddies. One of them asked her homeschool readers to post about their homeschooling philosophy and curriculum choices. So here it goes... I hope it's helpful to any of you who teach at home or are thinking about it.

I follow a Classical Christian approach to Homeschooling. Since we are still in the early stages(2nd and 4th grade next fall), we are in what classicalists call the "grammar stage" where students learn the "grammar" or building blocks of each subject. They then build on that foundation in later years.

We started homeschooling three years ago when my son was in 1st grade. I don't qualify for "veteran homeschooler" quite yet, but there are some things that have been working for us that I am really excited about. I won't bore you with the flops!


Bible: We started out using Greenleaf Guide to Old Testament History. This guide takes you through the history of Israel by reading one or two chapters a day from Genesis through Nehemiah then asking a few inductive questions to get your kids discussing the chapter with you.
Another series we have enjoyed is Susan Hunt's ABC Bible Verses, Big Truths for Little Kids, Discovering Jesus in Genesis, and Discovering Jesus in Exodus. When we were through, Evan asked if there were "Discovering Jesus" books for all 66 books of the Bible! Solid doctrine, scripture memorization, engaging stories and even a recipe for Miss Jenny's Shortbread made this devotional series a favorite for our family. It's one we will come back to again when Emily is older. By then she will have learned (hopefully) that our "A" verse is "A quiet answer turns away wrath." Proverbs 15:1 (Just a note, in Big Truths for Little Kids, she talks about infant baptism. I thought it was presented in a way that we were able to talk about why some Christians practice this and it wasn't a big deal. But I wanted to mention it.)

Math: One thing that we have been doing this year to help with multiplication is a timed multiplication table drill. My husband did it in 3 and 1/2 min. with no practice. I give the kids 5 min. to see how much they can fill in. We do it every day in the morning. Evan is now up to 120 out of 144 possible. You can click here for a link to a blank multiplication table.

Language Arts:

• Reading: We have used Phonics Pathways to teach reading skills. It was simple, inexpensive and thorough. To jazz it up a bit at times, we would play the kids favorite games but switch out the dice or cards with flash cards that had the words or sentences they would have read in the book. My kids loved that. We would also go through readers each day. Evan really liked the ones from Veritas Press. (You can order them separately if you call and ask.) Amy liked Modern curricular Press. I would also recommend Educators Publishing Service's Primary Phonics readers. They are phonetically based and my kids really liked the stories.
• Spelling: This year Evan started Phonetic Zoo, a program put out by Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW). It was a little expensive, but well worth it. It comes with flash cards of all the spelling rules with the words they will work on, an instructional video, CD's for the kids to listen to for their lesson practice, and reward cards. Basically, the child listens on CD and spells out the word and writes the word correctly everyday until he can get it right two times in a row for mastery. Evan really liked working with a CD player, and he is learning to spell! The auditory approach works well for him. It is recommended for 3rd grade and up.
• Handwriting: We have been using Italic handwriting with a lot of success. It has even improved my handwriting!
• Grammar: We really like First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise. It covers two years worth of material. My kids really liked it because they got to do fun chants to learn things, and memorize poems. I liked it because it is scripted and required almost no prepwork. It has beginning writing assignments that start with copywork, move to dictation, and end with the student writing his own paragraph.
• Poetry: This spring I ordered Developing Linguistic Patterns Through Poetry Memorization from IEW for next fall. We started listening to it and my kids have already memorized 4 poems and are working on their 5th. They love it! The program is laid out so it's easy to understand, and we are enjoying the poetry selections.

Latin: Last year Evan started Prima Latina by Leigh Lowe. He really enjoyed learning the prayers in Latin. I thought it was fairly easy to teach. The CD really helps with pronunciation.

Science: We are following The Well Trained Mind's suggestion of doing Biology the first year, Earth Science and Astronomy the second, Chemistry the third, and Physics the forth. This year I had Evan keep a science notebook of the experiments we did. I purchased a black and white composition book and had him write definitions, observations, results and draw diagrams when appropriate. We have had a lot of fun with science. It is probably one of the easier things for me to teach since my major in college was a scientific one. (Nutritional Science) I loved organic chemistry! If anyone is interested in more specific science ideas just let me know, and I'll post more.

History: We have been using Susan Wise Bauer's Story of the World. It has been a lot of fun for me and the kids. It is probably their favorite subject. I really like the activity book with reading lists, crafts, maps, coloring pages and games that all correspond to the lesson. We started with book 1, Ancients in first grade. Next year we will finish up the series with book 4, Modern History.

Art: Amy has enjoyed the Draw Write Now series. Step-by-step instructions are given for simple drawings that can be expanded on. There are handwriting exercises too, but we haven't used them.

My weakest area as a teacher is writing. It was my weakest area as a student also. I'd love to hear any suggestions, especially for boys.

Fun Boy Adventures

Today Sean and Evan headed out to Cub Scout Camp. Having grown up with 2 sisters, I am really enjoying being the mother of a boy. While looking through some photos of this past year, I came across some of the fun "boy" things Evan has done that I would have never dreamed of doing in my childhood.
















Sean and Evan built a catapult to fling water balloons and/or buckets of water. They also built birdhouses with Amy for Christmas presents.

I remember being teased in first grade by a boy because I called them "Lightsavers". I was pretty clueless. Having a boy who loves all thing Star Wars, I can now answer any trivia question you want to throw my way. Not really, but I think I have watched it with Evan and Amy about 20 times.

We had Legos when I was growing up, but it was the cute little animals with houses. By the way, if you dump Legos on a blanket, clean up is a breeze. Just grab the corners of the blanket and lift up into your storage bucket.

Have fun at camp guys! I love you both!

A Passionate Pursuit

On Monday, as I was stuck in LA traffic on my way to Evan's appointment, I sat behind a car who's licence plate holder said, "Lexus: The Passionate Pursuit of Perfection". It got me thinking. I'm certainly not pursuing perfection with my car. I drive a Toyota minivan with coffee stains and Cherrios on the floor. But what would people say about me. I want to be passionate about Jesus and living a life that glorifies Him, growing in likeness to Him and thus into "perfection". But sometimes, I'm afraid my actions are like that licence plate stating to the world that I passionatly pursue a perfect body image, or a perfect house, or perfect kids, or a perfect homeschool.

I just finished reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. He talks a lot about passion.

God created us to live with a single passion to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives. -John Piper (emphasis mine)

I think it took me two weeks of thinking about not making much of myself, but making much of Christ before I could even read anymore of his book. It seemed to make sence to me that I would feel better and more loved if people (and God) would make much of me not the other way around. Again Piper writes:

God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is the most loving act. Anyone else who exalts himself distracts us from what we need, namely, God. But if God exalts himself, he calls attention to the very thing we need most for our joy. If great paintings could talk, and they saw you walking through the gallery staring at the floor, they would cry out, "Look! Look at me. I am the reason you are here." And when you look and exult in the beauty of the paintings with those around you, your joy would be full. You would not complain that the paintings should have kept
quiet. They rescued you from wasting your visit. In the same way no child complains, "I am being used" when his father delights to make the child happy with his own presence.

I am still thinking about this and God is changing me and the way I think about people. I also just finished reading When People are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch. He says, "We need to need people less and love them more." Hopefully, by God's grace, I am learning to do that. Then, my "licence plate frame" will point more toward my heavenly Father, and less to my imperfect self. And I'm learning that actually, in doing so, there is joy.

Emily's Dedication

"Children are a gift of the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward."
Psalm 127:3

A little over a year ago God blessed us with the gift of Emily. While on bed rest during my pregnancy with her, I thought about this verse a lot. Even though bed rest for 6 months was a trial at times, it did help to remember that her life is a gift. She has truly been a blessing to our whole family.

This past weekend we had Emily dedicated at our church, to publicly acknowledge that she is a gift from God. We reaffirmed our faith in Jesus and expressed our desire to train Emily according to His Word, the Bible, and teach her about Him. Our church body pledged to support us in this, and pray for her as they are prompted by the Holy Spirit, or as a special need arises.

Grandma Ree and Papa were there to take these pictures. The day before, they watched the kids for us while Sean and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. It was just as hot at the day we got married! (105 in the shade) But, we had a fun time getting to see a movie, and a play all in one day.