Month: November 2011

Not Another One!!!

Yes, yes, I have another homeschool post. Buckle up, people, these may happen periodically.

I wanted to share a fun little project I did with Rachael. We made a book about shapes. Rachael worked very hard on this book, tracing and coloring in each of the shapes. On the backs of each page we traced and colored six of each shape (repetition, repetition, repetition). I don’t have pictures of Rachael making this book because between instructing and chasing down Abi as she “borrows” items from the table, I was a little busy.

But alas I share with you one of Rachael’s accomplishments:

Her book on Shapes.

These are each of the 8 pages.
These are the backs of each of the pages that had backs to them. 
And this is what little-one does most of the time while we homeschool:
She loves her books.
The following two pictures is a placemat I made for Rachael to aid her identifying of numbers, shapes, letters, and her Bible verses. Since I couldn’t find a placemat that had all these things on them, especially not the Bible verses, I just decided to make one. At each meal she can decide which side of the placemat she’d like to face up, and accordingly we get to talk about and rehears that side of the placemat during meal prep and sometimes during the meal itself. Since Rachael just sits at the table nicely many times while we prep/serve the meal I figured it was a good time to use the captive audience wisely. =)
 The front: Rachael’s 3 Bible verses. Believe it or not she know the top two and we’re working on the last one, “God is love”. She almost has it down. We put these verses to song and she picks them up lightning fast!
 The back: letters, numbers, and shapes. Thus far she can ID A, C, E, H, L, and R (her name) and she can ID all the shapes (confusing some occasionally) and 1-10 with some confusion about 9 and the fact that 10 is ten and not 1 and a 0. 
Proud of my little smarty and her excitement for exploring and learning amidst our day of fun and play. She is absorbing much and hungry for much learning too. 
Thanks for checking out our little world.

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How It’s Been Lately

Posts have been a little slow lately (I know my reader(s) are hungry for my constant news… NOT!).
Between homeschool and watching a little boy (2 y/o) now during the days there has been minimal time to breathe around here. (My last day watching him was today). We just got off of a Discipleship Now weekend with the youth group. I think all enjoyed it. And now comes the usual exhaustion of a completed busy weekend.

I’ve found myself some time to reflect amid prepping the “new family member” room as we are finishing our last few pieces of adoption paperwork. While I feel like the phrase, “finishing our last few pieces of paperwork” is a lie, it feels nice to say likewise. =) There’s always just one more. But that paper takes on another meaning when it brings you that much closer to your new family member.

We did our child survey, identifying all the traits we would or would nit consider tonight. Matt joked that filling out the paperwork during Sunday Night football may have been a mistake.
Me: “Will we consider a child who has been convicted of murder?”
Matt: “YEAH!!! GO, GO, GO!!!!”
Me: “Will we consider a child with the characteristics of honesty?”
Matt: “Man!!! No way!!! What was that?!?!”

=)

I’m looking forward to spending an evening out of the house with no kids (say what?!) with Amanda tomorrow night. I feel like it’s been dark ages since we’ve sat down. And a good cup of hot chocolate at a bookstore is in order for sure. Don’t you love how a good Christ-centered conversation leaves you marveling at how quickly the time has passed?

Matt’s playing some war video game. I’m sure he loves that I keep asking questions during his relaxing time blowing up of “the enemy forces”. It’s a boy thing, I tell myself. Girls aren’t supposed to understand. 😉

So that’s how it’s been lately. A little busy, with laundry on the side. And the joy of lazy Sunday afternoon naps and good husband-snuggles during this wonderful football season. 

Looking forward to returning to a less-busy schedule (after the photo shoot, vet appointment, house-cleanup, and girls night out scheduled for tomorrow of course-hehe).

Some errands left to before our final safety audit in this adoption process (lock box, smoke detectors, and a convertible car seat to buy). I’m putting primer paint on my Christmas list. I figure I’ll try to get that room painted white and then when we meet/make the matching conference on a child we can ask them what color they’d like their room. Just trying to think of ways to make the room theirs and make them feel welcome.

sigh… alright, that’s all for tonight. Thanks for reading my randoms. =)

Happy Sunday night to all!

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Who’s control is in Control?

You know, I just wanted to take a moment to bring up the interesting conversation/battle of birth control into the topic ring.

I have many times heard the birth control method argued by Christians to be “responsible” and “enabling you to control when you have a kid to best care for the child.” I have also heard the conservative approach, and even “excessively” conservative approach argued that “we’ll take whatever the Lord gives us.”

I find this conversation interesting in terms of the Duggar’s new announcement that they are pregnant with their 20th child. So many feel challenged by that information and often throw in their two cents of, “those people are ridiculous” judgement. I could easily find myself in that camp when my kids are obnoxious. I could also find myself in the “test of faith” camp wondering how many other feminist thoughts we are going to try to justify by the Word because the thought of not controlling our family feels uncomfortable and we want to feel justified with our level of control.

Matt and I have had this conversation many times and probably will continue to have this conversation as we continue to surrender our family to the Lord. I agree with him that birth control, whether it be abstaining during your ovulation cycle or a non-abort-effasive method, in many instances can be very responsible. I think it can also be very wrong. I think it boils down to the heart, which is what the Word seems to bring me back to.

Am I saying, “no, I don’t want You plan over my own,” to the very one I call Lord? Am I saying, “it’s not convenient,” and viewing children as the “burden” that first began the feminist movement of birth control? Is my heart in line with what God says about kids? Is my mind with Christ’s on valuing and delighting in children? And does not being on birth control really mean that I’m going to end up with 30 kids? What about Hannah? Or those in the Bible that were barren? Or those in the Bible that only had a handful of kids?

Or am I using my “faith” in God’s plan as a cop-out? Am I being irresponsible in ignoring the things we so clearly know about women’s bodies and how and when contraception is at it’s most harvest-filled time? Am I being selfish in wanting a particular number of kids and controlling in being non-controlling?

The battle is in the heart. And the surrender, on either side of the argument, is in the heart. But what I do know is that God calls us to self-sacrifice. His Will in exchange for our will. And His Will stretches us and is not comfortable because it defies our fleshly nature. His Will challenges and grows us. And while we can still be Christians and still be controlling, I just know one thing… the Judge looks at the heart to determine who is and who is not sacrificing in worship and evidence of their faith.

Paul states it this way in the Word, that all things are permissible for us, but not all things are good (or beneficial). It is important to weigh out the consequences of either side of this “birth control” argument and surrender our families fully to the Lord. For He even said, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).

We need to be certain His motives are ours in all things, the make-up of our family included.

– to God be the Glory.

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Our Joy and Pride

No one prepares to be blown away… otherwise they’d hang onto something.

Homeschool has been trucking along with this Mommy creating random letter-focused practice sheets for Rachael to do and coming up with various other curriculum ideas and Rachael just going along for the ride. It’s been fun to be creative and watch Rachael’s discovery and pride in her accomplishments.

We have been slowly working on Rachael’s letters in her name each week. Repetition, repetition, repetition in tracing the individual letter per week, recognizing each capital letter in books and amongst other letters, and learning shapes, colors, and numbers along the way. I’ve been very goal-focused in targeting Rachael’s weaknesses (fine motor control) while blending them into her strengths (identifying shapes, colors and numbers). We’ve had our frustrating days (sigh) and our moments of victories. And then came today’s in which I found myself blown away.

We were sitting down to the normal homeschool with an audience of Abi and Rachael’s newest “goes with her everywhere” stuffed animal. We were working on squares today, Rachael showing off her advancements in fine motor skills over the past 3 weeks of focus and I decided to try it out… Rachael has learned the letters R, A and C (we’re working our way through her name – other letters didn’t really sick). Thus far we have only been tracing them because her fine motor skills are *ahem* “age appropriate”. This is not a problem, but I do like to challenge her. So I decided to try it out… NO DOTTED LINES….

And man did she blow me out of the water writing the letters she knows…

It’s so cool to see her advancements and her increased focus and hear her ecstatic laughter as she masters a skill for the first time.

– love homeschooling.

Some pictures of her work over the past 3 weeks:

Week 1: “R”

Week 2: “A”
Week 3: “C”
We had done other homeschooling prior to this, it was pretty light and didn’t focus on writing at all. Then we took a break from it for a while (helpful of homeschool) after I started getting my feet wet so I could reorganize and so life could happen. And then we started into a more “let’s get ready for our real written preschool curriculum for the winter” process which I have charted above.
But anyway, thanks for celebrating with us on Rachael’s great successes!

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