Poor Child

Last week, Amy was lobbying for a game. She pouted, "All our family ever does together is read the Bible and eat dinner as a family!" Sean and I snickered and then played UNO with her.

She never has any fun.

The Week In a Nutshell

Last weekend Sean and Evan went on a backpacking trip to Yosemite. They came home sweaty and tired, but they had a great time! I gave Evan a day off school to recover, then we were back full time to school. Here are a few highlights.

The week was full of art and writing. We normally do an art class on Tuesdays, but this week, the kids didn't seem to want to stop drawing. I think the colored pencils were out all week. I found an interesting website that teaches drawing portraits. I almost have all the supplies so we can get started. The first videos came this week and while I know we won't be able to draw quite as well as the instructor, I'm going to try and keep it fun so the kids can learn some more techniques.

We started The Institute for Excellence in Writing's Continuation Course this year. The first assignment was to write a story based off pictures. The kids were working late last night trying to get it done. They were laughing at each others stories and frustrated at all the details of the assignment at the same time. Writing has been particularly hard for Evan. Sean and I were proud of him for sticking it out and learning that it can get easier with practice.

Emily will be taking beginning piano with our friend Jenn this fall. She came up to me at church and exclaimed, "Guess what, mom?! I'm taking piano with Jenn, and Riley is taking piano with Jenn, and Maggie is taking piano WITH JENN!!!" She is so very excited to be taking piano with Jenn, whom she loves. It's even more fun for her knowing that some of her friends are doing the same thing as well. Jenn and I agreed that their recital will be a hoot!

Love and Double Digging

Galatians 5:22 "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. "

Yesterday, my mom told me there is a new science in gardening. As a master gardener, my mom would know the "dirt". Her next door neighbor, a landscaper by trade, was explaining it to her. It used to be that you would dig out a site, double dig if you were serious, to get the soil all nice and fluffy soft before you would plant your garden. The new thought, that has been proven by science, is to just pull out the weeds, only dig a hole for your plant, then add compost all around after your plant is in the ground. In other words, instead of getting the plot perfect, just dig in and then add lots of the good stuff. The result is less weeds, healthy plants and a lot less work.

Our pastor is preaching a series on marriage. Today he correlated marriage to a garden. He talked about pulling out the weeds of selfishness, laziness, and fear, sowing the seeds of love, joy and peace, and bringing about good fruit by keeping in step with God. Instead of trying to manipulate my way into making everything perfect whether in my marriage or my garden, it seems the "new science" of gardening and the very old timeless words of scripture ring true: pull out the weeds, dig in deep, and add the good stuff.

Double digging a garden is really hard work. Can it be that there is an easier way that still produces great results? We have a lot of ground to plant at our new house, so I'll have ample opportunity to try it out. In the same way, can it be that loving Christ above all else, even my spouse, will help me to grow in love for him more than all the "double digging" work I've been trying to do on my own? (Yes, of course it will; you'd think I'd learn!) Loving Christ in some ways is so much simpler. So is mulching like crazy instead of digging several feet! But when weeds are covered by a thick layer of mulch, they can not grow. "When sin becomes bitter, marriage becomes sweet." When Sinners Say I Do by Dave Harvey

Galatians 5:13 "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

A Big Week for Emily

"That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;" Romans 10:9

Emily confessed Jesus as Lord this week, praying for forgiveness of sins! We were sitting in the kitchen and she just out of the blue started asking what it meant when people say "Jesus died on the cross". So we talked about sin and how it separates us from God. I got to share the gospel with her and pray with her. She was so excited to be a Christian! I was even more excited for her. I told her that we had the date Amy became a christian written down somewhere. Emily said, " I don't think she's a christian all the time; sometimes she's mean to me." Yikes! So right away I got to explain, in 5 year old words the difference between justification and sanctification.

She also recently learned to shoot the pink daisy BB gun. Every time she shouted, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!" and then shot the gun. I'm pretty sure aiming was optional in her mind. It was all about the yelling.

Finally, it's been a year now since we took Emily off wheat. Since then we've discovered that she is extremely sensitive to gluten which is also in barley, rye and spelt. She may even have celiac disease. I don't know because we didn't have her tested. But when when we challenged her by adding wheat into her diet she had severe flare ups. Now we know that she is sensitive enough to have a reaction even from eating something that was processed on the same equipment as wheat. Going gluten free has been an adventure, but a fun one. And she is growing like never before.

So spiritually and physically, this has been a milestone week for her!

Meditations on a Sunday

Today our pastor continued a study on Marriage. It was the best talk on that subject I have ever heard. You can listen by clicking on the link here. I'm still processing what he said. Forty five minutes of grace filled truth can at times be a bit overwhelming in a good kind of way. I've read most of the books he recommended, so it's not that what he said was so new. But God used our pastor's presentation of God's Word to specifically bring more clarity to what God has been teaching me recently. Sometimes God uses different mediums to direct our thoughts all in the same direction. After church I spent a little time catching up on some other blogs that I read from time to time. Although not all dealt specifically with marriage, what I read just reinforced what I learned this morning. I commend them to you as worthwhile reading!

Practical Theology for Women
Girl Talk
Shepherd Press
CCEF

First Week of School

"For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then you will discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course. For wisdom will enter your heart and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul." Proverbs 2:6-10

This is the verse we started with on Monday. It was very fitting! I'm reading a Proverb or Psalm each day to the kids and then we are working through Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware. I'm really enjoying this time teaching them. I love the questions they come up with and I especially love seeing truths of God's Word come alive as we study together.

After taking a short summer break, the kids were a bit hesitant to start up again so soon, and I wasn't sure I would be ready in time. But, God is good! We had a great week. Despite the fact that I didn't have all my curriculum ordered yet, I was not stressed out. And after the first round of protests the previous week, the kids dove right into school and everyone proclaimed that it had been a great week. Here are a few highlights.

Emily is now an official kindergartner. She begged to do Math each day. I'm using Saxon K with her and she loves it. Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons is living up to it's title. She is loving that too. We're on lesson 37 since we began a few months ago and already she's starting to sound out words as she sees them around her. I'll follow up with Phonics Pathways. She loves to color and do "workbooks" unlike my older two. So far she's tracking with us as we read through Bible, History, and Pilgrim's Progress (in old English no less!).

Amy seems to have made the jump to being an independent learner much the same as Evan did at this age. I got a planner type book at Target for a dollar to write out her assignments for the week. She eagerly checked off boxes as she did her work. It was so exciting! She said her favorite part of school this week was reading a biography on Helen Keller.

Evan said it was all good. He had a lot of fun doing his science experiment in Exploring Creation with Physical Science (Apologia). I changed the way I scheduled things this year. All of the subjects that I read aloud to the kids or need to direct, I assigned a specific class time. The other subjects that Evan and Amy can pretty much do on their own with a bit of coaching, I left flexible for them to learn how to organize their time best. This has helped me to stay on track and make sure that I'm giving the spelling quiz each day. But isn't so rigid that we're run by the clock every 15 minutes. So far, it seems to be working out well.

Since I knew I was going to be busier this week teaching and organizing school, I tried something new and baked up a weeks worth of muffins and cookies on Saturday. I wrapped them up in groups for each day and put them in the freezer. When the kids needed a snack, I just pulled it out with no mess, clean up or baking required. With leftovers for lunch and cookies already made up, lunch was quick and easy too. If I can, I'll try and do this again. It made time in the kitchen more streamlined, and the kids loved having homemade goodies all week long.

We are starting early this year so we can end early. We're planning on taking the kids on a tour of the country next spring. We'll be driving up to Zion, over to Niagara Falls, down through Washington DC and then south to home. It seems far off in the distant future, but it takes a lot of preparation to make a trip like this a reality. My part so far has been to get school up and running. I'm thankful for the knowledge and understanding He gave us this week as we got started.