OK - enough already we have been preparing to go for weeks now.  I am just ready to get on the plane.  We have picked up a little living literature to take with us.

The Secret of the Andes will get us into the mood.  I have found a few good maps online to supplement our time in Peru so we should be set.  I think?

Latah!  

Before you click the links see if you can figure out who I am talking about. 

I’ve been thinking about some of my heroes.  This is one of my all time heroes, interviewed on a rare you-tube video. If you know me well, you will already know who this person is. 

This person, to me, embodied incarnational living is such a way, that to be in their presence you experienced the peace of God.  Thanks to Tivo, and you-tube, my children know this person too. An activist, humanitarian and advocate for young people, their life inspires me to be “best I can be.”

Who are your heroes?

I am in the mood to change my skin and want a clean, clear skin that lends itself more towards photography.  I am thinking black background, one column.  Clean things up a bit.  I will probably move my nature blog and just upload our nature photos here.  I want to do a ton of photo work in Peru and I want you all to be able to see it, live and in color.

Got any word press recommendations?

I have been praying for deep friendship between our children.  That they would truly love each other, and be “for” each other instead of the typical bickering and fighting, although we do have some of that at times.  I think that siblings need to be together a ton, in order to learn how to love each other. They need to play together and have adventures.  Just like any friendship, it needs to be nurtured and developed.  These first interactions will shape how they deal with relationships their entire life.

I keep scheduled play-dates to a minimum.  Honestly, we would like our children to interact first with each other and our family and secondly our church family, after that we limit other play-dates.  I have been around too many other families that let their children at 5 and 6 watch HORRIBLE things on television that our children have no concept of.  The stories and conversations that we have had, after  the few play-dates we have had, are so shocking to me that I am left speechless.  I was unaware that most 5/6 year olds have seen Hanna Montana and High school Musical  and know about kissing boys, or have watched Transformers, Spider Man and Star Wars (the PG-13 ones)?   I didn’t know this, I was shocked.  Jackson came up to me the other day at the park. He said “Mom, that boy right there is only 5 and he has seen Transformers the movie.  What are his parents thinking?”  I chuckled and was half embarrassed because the boys mother, who I didn’t know, was sitting next to me on the bench.

This morning, we are listening to Yo-Yo Ma and enjoying warm porridge.  Our children are giggling and laughing with each other.  They are talking about doggies and veterinarians and we are getting ready to go to the post office for a field trip.  Life is good, the children are happy and the air is crisp. 

Sounds like a Hallmark card doesn’t it?…..well except for dirty dishes in the sink and the children who have colored marker all over their hands, other then that it is pure Hallmark.  Thank goodness for washable markers.

Peace to all Friends in the house today~

I found this great site that gives you step by step instructions on how to make ice cream at home. It is also a great science lesson.

I intend to do this once we are home from Peru.

Jackson has been putting some pieces together theologically speaking.  I love to watch God call our children.  Anyone who doesn’t believe God speaks today hasn’t spent time with a thoughtful child.  There are days you could knock me over with a feather with things that my children say to me concerning God and his overarching rule and reign. 

About a year ago, he realized that not everyone decides to follow Jesus with their whole life.  A few days ago he asked me, what happens to people who don’t follow Jesus when they die.  Let me tell you,  it was a fascinating discussion.  By the end he was completely perplexed at why anyone would ever choose to not follow Jesus. 

After our discussion he said “Mom, Satan walks around this earth taking on different forms, in order to trick people to follow him instead of God, like when he took the form of a snake in the garden.”  I said yes, he said that is why we wear our armour to fight him. I again said “yes”.  Then there was a long period of silence.  I wonder what he is thinking about and what God is showing him.  It keeps the mystery of our faith alive and exciting to me almost every day!

I left our children quietly carving soap at the dinning room table as I prepared our dinner.  As you see from the picture, the soap is setting next to our little fish tank.  I vaguely remember hearing Hudson say something about the fish being hungry.  I obviously never thought it would end in this.

 He explains that the fish were VERY hungry, and that is why you see the tablespoon in the fish-food.

The fish were gorging themselves on food. If fish do grow according to the amount you feed them, I should wake to find Shamu in our living room.

As I frantically try to recover the fish from suffocating on food, I absent mindedly poured them both into the same container. (People - You try to think clearly when you have the life of family pets on the line.  It is clear why I never went into the medical profession.) I move about my business of cleaning out our grubby little tank when I hear a sweet angelic voice say, “But Mom they are fighting fish. Now they will have  a war.”  I forgot they shouldn’t be in the same container so I frantically am trying to scoop “red fish” out of the way of “blue fish” with a 1/4 measuring cup.  I called my girlfriend “stat” who is well versed in such matters and she said “Be Brave and use a Dixie cup!” Note to self, “Buy a fish net.”

Chloe and Hudson hid their eyes for fear that I would squish them.  Jackson calmly played legos as the rest of us were in a “code red” situation. I prayed I would not drop them down the drain, in front of little eyes.  That would be tramatizing for sure. I can hear it now “Mom killed our first pet.”

            “red fish”                                   “blue fish”

Chloe rubbed my back after the episode was done and said “Good job Mom, that was a close one.”And people think stay at home, homeschooling Mom’s don’t lead an exciting life.  Hillary Clinton I dare you to do any better! On the up side, we got a clean tank out of the deal, and I REALLY needed to do that.

Hope the spaghetti’s good tonight.

Narration is a beautifully, simple concept that allows the child to interact with a given text on their level.  If you have been homeschooling for any length of time, and been using the Charlotte Mason method, you have undoubtedly read For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.  If you are new to homeschooling or just thinking about homeschooling in a few years, I highly recommend getting this book and digesting its principles.  It inspires the reader to develop an enjoyable environment at home that stimulates active, thinking and learning as a lifestyle.

Narration is the retelling of a story in ones own words. It is the natural result of enjoyable reading.  With the Charlotte Mason method a child retells a story in his own words.  A very young child can draw, or tell back what he heard and an older student would write out what they heard.  In doing this, they have to sort, categorize, and digest the story in such a way that their brain holds its meaning long after the initial first reading.  One of the many benefits of narration, is that it eliminates the need for fill in the blank testing.  The deeper meanings of the text will quietly work away and seep out into their play time and other free times, all the while molding and shaping them.

That is why it is so important to feed their little hearts and minds with “living books”.  In this way, they are able to sit and be trained by the greatest minds throughout history. You will be amazed to find that even a six year old can love the work of Shakespeare.  It does not matter the age of your child, or how long you have been homeschooling, you can add the “art of story telling” into your schooling plan and reap the many benefits. 

Here is a wonderful link with many thoughts and ideas on narration.

Well, we have had no problem renting out our home as a vacation rental.  In fact, we have been able to be a bit “choosy”, as we are getting 4-5 requests a day.  Mike and I are still in amazement, although we are excited because it will allow a regular, old, normal (OK - not so normal), homeschooling, telecommuting, simple church family who holds fast to the kingdom of God, be missional, without having to raise support.

My posting has been light lately, not because I don’t have anything to say, but because I have no time to say it.  School was wonderful last week.  I am thoroughly enjoying “For the Children’s Sake“. We had a great Nature walk on Friday. I hope to record that on the nature blog…..soon.

Cleaning out the house, touching up paint and other maintenance projects are on the books for the day.  I am starting to think about packing…for 5 weeks and the problem is, unlike most women, I am a notoriously light packer.  I will tell you why in another post, but for now, my dear husband is encouraging me to pack for comfort…I am not backpacking around Europe but going to live in the same location for over a month. 

That’s all from the home front here!  I am cleaning and listening to “Over the Rhine”. Wish you all could go with us:-) 

A Tesla Coil!

Jackson loves this science website.  I had no idea he was actually local to us.  We found the site at the beginning of our homeschool journey and he watches the experiment of the week all the time.  

 So it was great fun to go see Robert Krampf at our local FPL plant.  He had  a blast seeing him in person; plus we learned more about lightening and lightening rods.  It all tied in nicely to our studies of Benjamin Franklin.

Purge, Purge, Purge! We have decided that we should go out of the country every year.  Yeap it forces us to really spring clean.

We have moved almost every year for the past 6 years and that has forced us to get rid of stuff.  Now we are staying put so every quarter I go through our closets and get rid of stuff.  I am even getting rid of other peoples stuff.  You know, the things passed on to you.  You hang on to them thinking you may use them and rarely do.  I am starting to just say “NO” before it even comes into my house!

I am taking 4 boxes to good old good will and 2 of them are all clothes from my closet. 50% of them where given to me as hand me downs, and I am passing them on and the other 50% I have been holding on to for 5 years.  I am fairly confident I wont be wearing them in the next 5 years.  Feels good to clean out. Plus I found some goodies to sell on eBay and made $200 last week! even more reason to clean. When it comes down to it, you really only need a few things to live comfortably.

Give yourself a clean sweep.  It feels GREAT!

I am embracing my time with our children.  It is a precious gift.  People ask, “How long will you do this?” and “Doesn’t this overwhelm you?”. When they were all 3 and under, I was loosing my mind.  People would ask if I was going to home school and I would almost go into hysterical laughter.  Then they grew a bit more independent and I came to realize I LOVE being with them and I just quit fighting God and asking every one I knew what they thought and just said “Yes, Lord!”  Those are 2 very important words for me. I think I will get them tattooed on my person somewhere!

Being present to them, with an overarching plan and vision for where we are going, is probably the most fun (yes hard but anything worth doing is hard) I have ever had.   So I leave you with some goodies from Ms. Mason.

“Now, that work which is of most importance to society is the bringing-up and instruction of the children - in the school, certainly, but far more in the home, because it is more than anything else the home influences brought to bear upon the child that determine the character and career of the future man or woman. It is a great thing to be a parent : there is no promotion, no dignity, to compare with it. The parents of but one child may be cherishing what shall prove a blessing to the world. But then, entrusted with such a charge, they are not free to say ‘I may do as I will with mine own.’ The children are, in truth, to be regarded less as personal property than as public trusts, put into the hands of parents that they may make the very most of them for the good of society. And, this responsibility is not equally divided between the parents : it is upon the mothers of the present that the future of the world depends, in even a greater degree than upon the fathers, because it is the mothers who have the sole direction of the child’s early, most impressionable years. This is why we hear so frequently of great men who had good mothers - that is, mothers who brought up their children themselves, and did not make over their gravest duty to indifferent persons.” Charlotte Mason, 1893, “Home Education”, pages 1 & 2.

So there are a few things I have been thinking about.  I will write a few more developed posts next week, but for now I just want to capture them here as I continue to think and pray through them.

1. Fostering an atmosphere where God is the primary and central theme of our day, without going into overkill and suffocating your children.  I am running into so many homeschool moms who are hyper frenetic about making sure their children are “getting the word” that I fear they may be smothering them over zealously.  I want to be mindful of this.  Charlotte Mason talks about this too in one of her volumes.  I need to go find that again, does anyone know off hand?
2. How to help your siblings be friends.  I have  a few theories on this.
3. Praying for the Holy Spirit to keep me soft to his leading in regards to training our kids.   Not too much and not too little.  It is a fine balance.
4. Starting early with your children in regards to how to treat the opposite sex and how to work in the home.
5. I finally have a plan for how I will tackle school in Peru and it feels so right for us.  I have been thinking through it for some time and the other day it all just came to me.  I am excited about it!

I have been reading through the past few posts and I realize I am writing about tons of training issues and not as much about practical home school ideas.  The reality is whatever year you start homeschooling, your first year is really all about getting down a rhythm.  I am taking as much time as I need to weed my little garden as far as family dynamic is concerned.  We are moving along with our readings etc., but I really feel like it is much more important to have good foundation in habits then it is to be hitting every cylinder with our curriculum.  

Ok - that’s it, have a great day!

We have been reading  Our Island Story  and Jackson loves it.  So far in year one of AO this and Trial and Triumph are his favorite books.  He runs to the couch when I say we are going to read some out of one of these two books.

Today King Arthur created the round table.  While reading the story the knights got into a huge fight at a great feast because they couldn’t decide who was to sit at the head of the table. ( The highest place of honor.)  While narrating Jackson said “The knights  had a  huge food fight because the couldn’t talk kindly to each other and figure it out.” He was kind of laughing as he said it, almost as if it seemed so absurd that grown men could fall to such silliness. 

I giggled to myself.  I am having a blast today with my kiddies. We are off to do some nature study!  Enjoy the great outdoors today!

OK - so I have been hearing about it forever. 

Anyone else out there a face-book junkie?  I am not sure if I am so down with it but I am slowly looking at it.  You know, knew things tend to take me some time to get my head around. I am still trying to figure it out so give me some pointers people!

So I have been adding role playing to my training mix.  Why you ask?  Maybe it is because I want to see the kids let “no’s” roll of their backs a little more easily and respectfully. I am using some resources form www.drtodd.net In the morning,  I like to ask our children what type of behavior they think I expect of them.  I love to hear them verbalize what we expect of them.  It means they have a grasp on it and that to not get it means swift correction.

So, I have been helping them think through responses to things when I say “no” to something specific like “Mom, can I have chocolate for breakfast?. Of course the answer is “no” to which they say “OK Mom no big deal, I can have some later.”  They get a kick out of role playing something so silly.  I want them to get in the habit of taking a “no” and being flexible instead of “Ohhhhhh Mommy, PLEEEEEAAAASSSSE!” as if saying please as long and loud as you can will change my mind.   What do they think I just fell of the turnip truck yesterday?

Flexibility is the key kiddos.  Life doesn’t go your way all the time, and the sooner we are OK with that, the easier your life will be!  I know it is hard, but I promise one day you will thank me. So when I hear them use a flexible thought process at some point during the day I freak out encouraging them, hugging them, giving them “the nucks”, “atta boys” etc.  It gives me extra excuses to get those hugs, and kisses in all through out the day because well you know, ”Mamma needs herself some suga”

I started it!  Some children’s book.  Can you believe in all my 33 years I have never read The Hobbit?  I know I have led a sheltered life. You know a book is good if it can hold the audience of both children and adults.  I am not sure they are writing books like that these days?  So instead of posting something I am off to read. 

See you all tomorrow:-)

Despite all of my pleading,  the last faint bastions of baby days with my big boy are dissolving, or should I say, falling out….out of his head.  Another baby tooth is gone. 

Here they are coming in!

And here they are coming out!

We have now taken to calling him the “Double toothless wonder.”  He thought of it himself. Turkey!  Chubby hands and diapers have been long gone, so I guess I have to wave good bye to baby teeth too.  Shhh! don’t tell anyone, but he still likes to snuggle.  I will take it as long as I can get it!

I just finished reading “The Duties of Parents” by J.C. Ryle.  It did a good job of reminding me of what we are doing and working towards with our children. It is always good to be reminded of the big picture to keep you consistent in the day to day discipline/training of little minds.  The one thing I have come to see, is that training is a small consistent, daily activity.  It doesn’t end, the tools just change and things become more and more refined as things move along.  Little concepts, add up over a long time to take you where you want to go.

I have been thinking about how to help all of our children understand how they are supposed to treat the opposite sex as they grow and mature and how they are to  be treated.  Last year we began working on simple modesty and privacy, Yes Mom and Yes Dad, ladies first etc..  Now we are starting to help the boys understand how to treat girls and eventually women.  I figure if they start at 6 and 3 with their sister a few things will happen.  It will become second nature and their sister will understand how she should be treated as she grows into woman hood.  We will parlay that into using “The Tale of Three Weavers” with her Daddy in a few years.

We are starting to train the boys in  opening doors for their sister and ladies and general and helping ladies to carry items.  If they see a woman(or any grown up really) carrying something they are learning to immediately stop what they are doing and help.  That is the goal anyway.  Part of it is training them to be aware of their surroundings, and what others are doing and how they may be of service to others.  Maybe I will have to remind them a thousand times a week so pray I have the strength and courage to stay consistent.

Give me a break people, I am working the SEO. Anyone want to come to Florida in February.  The weather is reeeeaaaaaally nice. We will happen to be in Peru. Shawn (our house mate who lives in the back house) will guard the home front. Between Spring Training, the Honda Classic and the lack of snow, northerners flock to our home town in droves.

Check out our Craig’s List ad.

Well here they are in all their glory.  I don’t have the time to do all of the amazon links for you.  So if you want to know more about it, just Google it, like I did! Maybe when I have more time, I will update this with links, but don’t hold your breath. Throughout the year, I will be crossing off the list and writing reviews if they are worthy of the time and energy. 

Homeschooling

• How to Get Your Child to LoveReading: For Ravenous and Reluctant Readers Alike
  by Esmé Raji Codell 
• For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School 
  by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
• Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason 

Parenting

• Duties of Parents by J. C. Ryle
• Raising Kids for True Greatness: Redefine Success for You and Your Child by Tim Kimmel  
• Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends
• Childs Book ofCharacter Building, Book 1: Growing Up in Gods World at Home, at School, at Play by Ron Coriell 
• Finding God at Home: Family Life As a Spiritual Discipline  

Theology

• The Shinning Sword
• Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology by Eugene H. Peterson 
• Run With the Horses by Eugene H. Peterson  
• Living More With Less by Doris Janzen Longacre
• Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity Transforming
• Discipleship by Greg Ogden.

Fun

• Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss
• Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants
• The Endless Steppe: Growing Up inSiberia by Esther Hautzig
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
• Verses of Virtue by Elizabeth Beall Phillips   

Housekeeping/organization

• Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House
• Get More Done in Less Time– And Get on With the Good Stuff
• Speed Cleaning: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Get Everything Done in Half the Time or Less
• Who Says it’s a Woman’s Job to Clean? by Don Aslett 

Random Goodies

• Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
• The Joy of Cooking
• The Oil Painting Course You’ve Always Wanted: Guided Lessons for Beginners and Experienced Artists by Kathleen Staiger
• The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class by David S. Kidder and Noah D.
• Janson’s History of Art: The Western Tradition

So I have been working on my new reading list for 2008.  

I have carried over a few I was unable to read in 2007 and added many more.  I am averaging about 2 books a month, so I decided to think about different categories that I wanted to read about so that I could stay well rounded.

The categories are as follows:

• Parenting
• Homeschooling
• Theology
• Housekeeping/organization
• Fun
• Random Goodies

I have found a few great ones to share with you but before I do I want you, dear friends, to go think about what you want to read this year and then if you feel so inclined share your list with me.

Happy Reading!