Random Photos

Chipmunks and Snowballs

 We planned on going to Grand Mesa to see fall colors while Michelle and Laura were here but all we saw were bare trees and many hunters. The kids and Laura all made friends with the chipmunks and had them eating out of their hands and were even able to pet them. Meleah was sure that she would be able to catch a girl and take it home so it could have babies. She did catch one but it squeaked and scratched so that Laura convinced her it would be far better to let it sit in your hand and pet it.

 We did find some snow and were able to have a quick snowball fight. Michelle and Laura were thrilled, I guess I was too when I didn't always see it every year. I can wait as long as possible to see any more. We can put off winter as long as possible.

Uh-oh. This looks dangerous for the photographer.

Ahh! Nice and cold.

On Top of Mount Garfield

 Michelle Ely and Laura Gill came to visit and one of the things they wanted to do was hike up Mt. Garfield. We did it. The picture above is of Michelle and Meleah on top of the mountain. It is a difficult hike for sure. There are many steep places and even though Bob kept telling them that the beginning is the really "hard" part, there were many difficult areas.

 Here we are all fresh and ready to start our hike. 

On the edge of the Grand Valley. On the VERY top of Mt. Garfield and it makes my legs hurt just looking at them hanging so close to the edge. It was Meleah's first time hiking it and she did a great job. She kept asking if she passed the test and could hike the Grand Canyon now.  Yes she did!

Brothers

Sometimes I wonder if they will make it to adulthood.

Who Can Find A Virtuous Woman?

Who can find her?
I have been studying girl related topics for my Sunday School class and Proverbs 31 was one of the ones I thought about. I remembered previous Women's Retreat discussions about her. 'Of course she could do all she did because she had "maidens" to help her.' 'She probably did all those things over the course of her life.'

The "maidens" got me thinking. I know that I don't have servants or housekeepers but what do I have that helps me manage my responsibilities?  I have quite a few once I started thinking about it.

1. Prayer and Devotion Time- I do spend time every morning focusing on His word and praying. I do fall down in the prayer area many times. This blog from Sonlight focuses on the importance of prayer. Why did Nehemiah pray?
2. Physical Exercise- This is an area I have ALWAYS put off for a number of reasons. This year events made me really think about the importance of taking care of my heart. The added benefits: I do them with my kids so there is a lot of laughing involved, Endorphins help my mind and body feel like I can face anything, and it wakes me up in the morning. We follow the Crossfitkids because it does a bunch of cross-training and it is FREE! We do most of the workouts that we have equipment for. We have slowly added things like jump ropes or medicine balls. The hard part will be when winter is here and wanting to do any of it when it is so cold outside. The kids get some exercise and so do I.  I started out at the "puppy" level and have worked my way up to "big dog". They are another "maiden" that helps me take care of my family.  Crossfitkids
3. Flylady- One of my recent discoveries has been the Flylady. She breaks the house down into zones. Then each week you focus on just one zone. This week's Zone is the Main Bathroom and kids rooms. She sends out a daily e-mail to help you stay on track. I have heard about her years ago but I figured I was a good housekeeper. Trying to juggle the kids, home school, chores, and housework...I wasn't getting it done. This plan is EASY. It makes cleaning a quick process. Check her out, she has a lot of great tips like 5 min. Room Rescues, Baby Steps, 27 Fling, 1 Hour House Blessing, 5 min. Hot Spots, etc. Another "Maiden" that is FREE
4. Timers- Sounds simple enough but a timer has become priceless for school and housework. I use it in math for math drills. I have discovered that if I set the timer, my daydreamer, T****s, who can stretch his math out to two hours sometimes, can finish his lesson in 35 minutes. I tell him that 30 minutes is just for the halfway point. It helps him stay focused. I have even given Bob a 5 minute timer to work on his desk. Did you know there is wood under all the stacks and piles? He did agree that it does feel better to walk in and have a place to work.
5. Another thing that has been worth every penny is my weekly menu from E-Mealz. These girls from the Southeast make their meal plan for the week based on the store sales and have a variety of diet plans to cater to a variety of food needs.  These "maidens" are like my cook. I have been saving money and the kids have been exposed to a bunch of things that I would never had tried before. Some meals are better than others and many times I substitute a family favorite, but for the most part they are easy. Cody or Bob can start a meal for me when needed. It ends up costing $1.25 a week but it has been worth it. It changed my picky eaters. They LOVE Tilapia. Plus, I don't feel bad if a meal tastes bad. We rate the meals 1-10. Anything above a 5 we will see again. Most of them end up being in the 5and above range.
6. I combine my menu with coupon momCouponMom. She is a FREE "maiden" that helps me save money at the grocery store. I take my list from e-mealz and match it up with the store sales and my coupons because I have learned that the store brand ISN'T always cheaper. I also have been following the Krazy Coupon Lady  for some of the EXTREME savings. She also has been doing deals lately for $4-$5 magazine subscriptions. She also points out retail store sales as well.  This "maiden" has helped me save LOTS of $. Maybe she has helped me pay for things that I would do without but when it is only a $1 I can handle it.
7. Last but not least is our school curriculum, Sonlight, I have everything scheduled and a list of supplies ready for science. I think what I enjoy the most is that we love to sit on the couch together and read a great book. Lately, I have taken Jenn Y. suggestion and I sit in a wooden chair so I don't fall asleep. LOL. It happens. I have learned this year, it has taken this long for me to learn this lesson, that I don't have to do everything on the list. I need to focus on what is really important first. Then I have combined Travis and Meleah into the same History and we all do science together. Bob has been doing "Mad Science" with them on Fridays. That is when we do experiments and he gets to share his knowledge with them. Both their sciences are studying the body this year so they have covered first aid, lung capacity, and we are looking forward to many other fun experiments as well. We have scheduled an Art day. A day we don't have to go anywhere. I have checked out books from the library and we all do the projects together. I love it. I think it helps when they see me trying new things to encourage the kids to try it. Plus, in Art, there isn't a wrong answer. We can enjoy our time a little bit more.
8. Last but not least, is just taking some time to do something I would like to do. I have been painting with the kids, we all started a writing journal, I leave on Friday to meet some of the ladies from church for breakfast, you get the idea. I think it is just having something to show for my time spent giving to everyone else. Sometimes I just sit outside and enjoy the sunset. Slowing down and enjoying the scenery makes me less frantic.

I have many "maidens" and "menservants". The kids have been doing the yardwork. It will be nice when our "Maintenance" guy comes back from light duty. He contributes a lot to helping the household.  It is a good life even if it is a busy one. I was sitting during our 2 hours at Piano Lessons writing down our free time in the week. Most days there is 1-1.5 hours between the finishing of school and starting dinner. One of those days has to be spent at the grocery store. If I could just find a "maiden" for that one I would be in good shape. 
I still have the "Virtuous" part to work on. I have a bunch of work to do in that area but baby steps in the right direction will keep me striving for the goal. I know it will be worth it.

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1Corinthians 15:58

Evening Reflections

As I sit reflecting on today and all the stuff we manage to pack into our days, I have been thinking I can't take home schooling anymore. There is such a fine line in pushing your child to do their work and knowing when to back off. There are bad attitude days, there are really good days, there are extremely long catching up days and then throw sickness or hormones-theirs and mine- and it makes for some pretty challenging situations.

Part of the reason is a lack of encouragement to continue. Even though we have met home school families in the area, they are just like us. They have their activity filled lifestyles too. I haven't tried too hard to get involved in too many activities because we have so much school that needs to be done and the kids really enjoy their free time and don't want to give it up either. I think I was just feeling like life is easier when I am not the teacher. It reminded me of a lesson I just learned recently.

I learned that, "the grass isn't always greener" if someone else was teaching my kids. One of the areas my boys don't do as well is writing, in particular the one whose name ends in "s". There was a class being offered on Mondays from 1pm-3pm. I thought that it would be a great time for grocery shopping or Meleah and Mom time. The boys would have the opportunity to write for a different audience and experience a small group class setting with deadlines and all. It sounded great, they would be focusing on children's classic literature and mixing in some creative pieces as well.

The boys came out of the class the first time telling me that there was a boy in the class that did a lot of cursing. He was a "home schooler" because he was expelled. He told the boys that he spent most of his time at his grandma's playing video games and getting mad when his grandma made him do stuff.  This was a good opportunity, in my opinion, for the boys to experience this type of personality in small doses and for them to step up and be an example.  Okay, we could deal with that. I was thinking this is good. The boys can see that a life filled with video games doesn't look so appealing now. Then, ...

Week 1-The first assignment was due Wednesday. It was a paragraph based on a fable from Peru. Its main point was not to make assumptions or judge people. Okay. This paper took approximately three hours for Travis with great help. The second assignment was to come up with a creative piece to bring to the next class. This one also took hours for Travis. During this process he tells me the teacher doesn't care about spelling because she couldn't live with out spell check. A bit shocking for me who is still working on improving both boys spelling but not as bad as how much time and energy I was spending trying to help him to complete his assignments. I e-mailed the teacher asking whether Travis was too young for the class because of the difficulty it took him to write his assignments but "no" they said. He had great ideas and participated in class. His paper received a B after rewriting it.

Week 2- This assignment was to write a paper based on a fable about a man that blamed Adam for all his troubles. This was an opinion piece about whether you thought all men were naturally sinful.  Travis put off doing the assignment but managed to get it done. This paper received a C after he fixed it according to the teacher's suggestions. The second assignment was to write about a time when you faced temptation. Travis barely got this assignment done after 2 hours of brainstorming, tears, and begging for me to write it for him. The first paper received a D.

Week 3-This week was to write two paragraphs based on your opinion on a writing about a futuristic event and which character you most identified with. The second was to write a current event, speech, poem, or cartoon about the future and exaggerate it. Their example was a political cartoon about OPEC.  Something that was totally unfamiliar to Travis. The idea of exaggerating a current event was just too much for me even though I could see their reasoning but it is just too much like our media today.

That night Bob and I were discussing the last few weeks and it wasn't worth completing the class.  First of all, after the first class I asked the teacher for a syllabus to know when they were going to cover classics instead of these fables that linked Adam and Eve into the fable category. I felt they were getting a teacher who was coming from a totally different worldview. They were teaching from ideas we agree with but they felt a bit off or a bit twisted. I was doing ALL the work with him anyway. He was writing based on things that were unfamiliar to him and was such a chore. They did little or no writing in class, I was hoping for maybe even just the pre-writing help to get them started.  It made both of us crazy. The idea that this class was going to be "better" because I didn't have to teach...not true. I had the same amount of work if not more and the teachers deadlines to meet so the rest of our schoolwork suffered. I didn't want this class to frustrate his writing even more so we dropped the class.

Skip forward to last week and I found out that the teacher, who was a resource consultant for the school we are a part of, was terminated. I don't know why but I felt like I had done the right thing about the situation. 

On a side note, Cody did extremely well in the class and did the assignments on his own. Most of the class were 8th graders and Travis was really an "academically young" 6th grader when it comes to English. Previously, this teacher had taught the class to 9th graders so I think it just wasn't a good fit for Travis at this time but I wasn't about to give away 2 hours just for them to give Cody A's and not challenge his writing skills. Especially when the teacher was trying to compare both their assignments which was totally unrealistic to think that they could both produce and perform at the same level.

Even though the idea is tempting to think that my kids would be better off in the public school setting, no one loves my kids as much as I do and wants to see them succeed and overcome the areas that they struggle. Our curriculum was fine and covered all the same types of papers with a variety of pre-writing  ideas. I do feel that one thing that we did gain from the class was Essay/Paragraph Rubrics. They help the paper to be graded more objectively and they help me to figure out how to grade a paper.  I wish I had know about them a long time ago.  We have taken the time and are doing some really fun projects now that Travis LOVES. That is the whole point is to overcome his dislike or difficultly writing. I believe Cody became the writer he is because he is an avid reader and has better comprehension and an incredible vocabulary. 

Okay, I can do this. We will make it through this challenge. I am not even going to think about the next one. I will just have to remember the hurdles will be worth the finish line.