Erin – Page 27 – Fillingquiver

Neglect

I feel bad…I’ve neglected this blog for the last while. I have been so busy getting things ready for this upcoming fall semester. I am teaching full time for PCC for this fall and am on overload for this semester. So lots to do.

We also started our homeschool work with the boys this last week. It always takes us a few weeks to find our rhythm and routine. We’re finding it so again this fall. It makes me seriously consider schooling year round so that we don’t have this huge adjustment every fall. Our curriculum is definitely more in-depth this year (as it should be) but we may end up cutting stuff out or rearranging our schedule a bit to make it a little less stressful during the day. The boys are doing well though.

I’ve also been putting off another “Leave and Cleave” post. I am working on a post (well several) about respect and why it’s so important to our husbands. I want to get it right, and with posts like that I usually like to have Kerry proof them to make sure I’m on the right track. It’s just taking me longer than usual. But I promise they’re coming…hopefully the first one next week (if not this weekend sometime).

So those are my excuses. I’ll be sure to pick up the postings. 🙂 I need my writing outlet probably more than I’d like to admit.

Fall…

I guess it’s officially fall when all the kids go back to school. The funny thing about it is that it doesn’t really feel like fall. And while we’re “officially” starting school this week, the kids never really stop learning and we never really stop doing school.

We view homeschooling as not just an opportunity to educate our kids in the “traditional” subjects, but we see it as a time for discipleship and training. Our priority with our kids and our “homeschool” isn’t the educational aspect of it at all really. It’s about bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

So many people think that because we homeschool we have genius kids. While *we* certainly think so…we’re okay if they’re average too. We want them to succeed in academics, but we feel that it is a biblical mandate for Christians to educate their children at home. And not just teach them how to read and write, but also how to live for Christ and what it means to be a follower of God.

So as school starts this fall…it gives us a great opportunity to review how we’re teaching the basics, but it also gives us a chance to remind ourselves and others of the importance of the discipleship that takes place in the home during “school”.

First few days at camp!

Well here we are at camp. Here are a few photos of the last couple of days. We’ll try to post more as the week continues. We’re enjoying it! Otto has made several new friends with the families who are here for the week. And praise the Lord there have been no major emergencies thus far. Keep praying everyone stays relatively healthy and we have an uneventful week healthwise at camp. 🙂

This is the Putt Putt course. It’s right across from the nurses cabin where we are staying. Otto and Kerry have spent a lot of time over here.

Looking up the road towards the nurses cabin

Side view nurses cabin

Otto, Zeke and Isaac (a new friend) building their own campsite complete with a fire pit, teepee and mouse roasting sticks. They’re pretending to be survivor man.

Mom and Zeke on a walk. See how dirty you get at camp?

Titus has spent a lot of time in the backpack or my wrap. He really does seem to enjoy it though.

Kerry carries.

This is the lake. There is a zip line that goes across one end. Kerry and Otto went fishing yesterday and kayacking today.

We ate snacks. 🙂

Otto and Dad. Kerry is showing Otto how to maneuver the kayak.

Headed back to shore…Otto wants to drive by himself.

Solo Otto. He was actually pretty good at this. It takes a lot of muscle to make this thing move and Otto did pretty well. Gabe went earlier with his cabin and Kerry watched. He said Gabe was pretty good at it. Maybe our new family sport will be kayaking?

Zeke wanted to try too. He got most upset when he couldn’t hold the paddle.

It’s not white water, but they sure had fun! There is lots to do and explore here. We haven’t done much hiking, but plan to maybe later this week. We’ve been joining the campers at chapel each night around the camp fire. Otto and I sat in front of the cabin this week an imagined a big blue whale swimming through the two mountain peaks during the flood. God’s creation is amazing!!

Camp

We are off to camp tomorrow! I’m so excited! I didn’t go to camp as a kid so I really don’t have a lot to go on here, but it sounds like a lot of fun. I am going to be the camp nurse (fun!) and Gabe is going as a camper. Kerry and the 3 little guys get to come along for the ride! Gabe is a little nervous I think. Otto is too young to participate this year so he gets to hang with dad.

We’ll see Gabe throughout the week which will be nice and probably a good transition. Here is where we’re headed. Gabe will be going to the TB adventure camp for 3rd to 6th graders.

Wanna hear the best part? I’m told there is no cell phone access and only intermittent internet access. Yes!! I actually get a week off. Sort of. I do have plenty to do to get ready for school in a couple weeks so I will be kind of working, but hopefully with some break time in there too. 🙂

I’ll be sure to post pictures and updates as we have time!

Household organization — The kid stuff

Yesterday I outlined what I do each day and how I organized my chores and plans. I take a similar approach to setting out what the boys do each day. I first wrote out what I wanted them to do each morning between breakfast and lunch, lunch and supper and supper and bedtime. I tried to alternate the completion of some tasks like loading and unloading the dishwasher . There are some tasks that each boy does everyday. I want them to master a task before they move on or change. You can view their task lists here. I printed them, covered them with contact paper and have them check off each task as they complete it. I ask them to have each routine completed by a specific time. So morning chores are done by 11:00 so that I can check their chores before lunch. Afternoon chores are done by 4pm.

We do pay the boys twice a day for their “work” but we also expect them to contribute without pay when asked. We pay them 50 cents for their morning routine and 50 cents for their afternoon routine (Zeke gets 25 cents). However, if chores aren’t complete by the designated time or not done well, if I have to ask or remind more than once, or if there is an unusual amount of arguing, fighting or foul attitude I take off 25 cents. I try to incorporate Zeke into many of the chores during the day so that he is learning alongside the big boys and still feels “useful”. He really gets a charge out of carrying dirty laundry to the back porch, setting napkins on the table and emptying the dishwasher. In fact, he almost empties the dishwasher almost all by himself each morning.

I want to say a couple things about having kiddos doing chores.

1. Work alongside them. Let them see you working too. Let them see and know that many hands make light work. And that they have an integral part in making your family run smoothly. It is part of being a family. We all must work together so we can all play together.

2. Train, train, train. Training children is hard work. Gabe has been sweeping the floor for the last year, yet I found myself re-training him this last week about how to properly sweep the floor. It takes time. In general the steps we follow when training for a new chore are as follows…

a. Tell them what you expect

b. Show them what you expect

c. Do it with them

d. Supervise their practice

e. Independent practice (with routine checks and then move to intermittent/spot checks).

And then train again if needed. Sometimes you need to write out the steps or take it step by step and help them master a step first before moving on to the next step.

There are some things that I didn’t include on our daily expectation sheets, but that we still expect. Things like clearing their dishes from the table after meals etc.

I also have a similar system for their lesson plans and school work. It very similar to what Amy talks about here (at one of my favorite blogs). 🙂

So far this system is working well for us. The boys know what is expected of them and are accountable for making sure it is complete by the “due time” (there is a little bit of give if I see they’ve been working on it and are almost done). It saves me from having to run around and chase them to make sure everything is getting done. I have 2 scheduled check points (11 and 4) to make sure daily chores are getting done. I have a schedule for getting bigger projects done each month and I don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of work there is. I have found after going through a couple cycles of this that the projects aren’t as big and they are taking less time to get complete.

Hope it helps! 🙂

Raising Arrows: Homeschooling with Purpose

This has become one of my favorite blogs to read. Amy does such a great job of passing on wisdom, encouragement and being transparent. She has challenged me as a mom, wife and homeschooler since I’ve been reading her blog (all of 3 months or so). I appreciate her willingness to give us all a glimpse of her life, her struggles and her thoughts. I encourage you to read too!

Thoughtful Thursday — A monkey's uncle

So we took a little unplanned trip back to Kansas last week and I’m complete off my “schedule” of blogging. Here is my attempt to get caught back up. Today is thoughtful Thursday and I’ll tell you how I was and continue to be blessed by my brother.

Luke and I are 14 months apart. (I’m older, but much shorter). I’m sure that when we were little that must have been really tough on my mom, but it was really great for us. We did lots of stuff together and were great friends.
Luke is a great husband and father to 2 beautiful girls! And I mean beautiful! (His wife, Jenna is also beautiful!).

Luke is a fantastic uncle to my boys. He is a hunter, fisher and general outdoorsman and has made many efforts to give my kiddos some great experiences. About a year ago he helped set them up with bows and a target in our backyard. The boys love the time they have to shoot out there. This last week we were in Kansas and the boys could hardly wait to get to Luke’s house to shoot with him. The bows and arrows were carefully and thoughtfully packed in the trailer and were some of the first things to be unloaded. Luke took time to spend with them outside and especially with Gabe. I have yet to get on the phone with the boys and not hear them talk about spending time with Luke. It makes my heart happy to hear them chatter about what he taught them or how well they could shoot the target or arrows or whatever. Lately I’ve been hearing about how excited they are to hunt bullfrogs in July. (apparently there is a bullfrog season…who knew?)

A few weeks ago Otto shot a lizard in our backyard. He wasn’t trying to be mean, but he had his BB gun and his manly hunter instincts took over and he shot it. He was so excited. And then he thought about it and felt bad for the lizard. He was worried about whether it was going to help other lizard friends or if it had a family etc. I was trying to do my best to comfort him and be a good mommy, but I had no idea what to say to make him feel better. I was approaching it from the angle that God gives life and that we have the ability to take it away, and that this was perhaps a good learning opportunity about the blah blah blah…it didn’t help and to be honest it wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. So I called Luke. Luke told Otto that sneaking up on a lizard takes a lot of skill and it’s a feat that most hunters can’t achieve. It’s something I’ve never done, he said, and you should be proud of yourself for doing something most other people couldn’t.

While that it was certainly a different approach, it was exactly what my son needed to hear. He asked Luke later if he ever felt bad for the animals he shot and they had a very good conversation about hunting and it’s purpose etc. I appreciate that about my brother. He always seems to have the right words, sometimes a little unconventional, but a good grasp on the world around him.

So this week, I was blessed by my brother. He doesn’t know it and will probably be a little irritated that I blogged about him. But it’s true. I feel honored that he takes an interest in my children. They feel special because he takes time with them. He makes them feel important and that blesses me.

No more pencils…no more books…

We are officially done with school for this year! Gabe came down the stairs this morning and said “Mom! Do you know what the best part of today is going to be…No school!” So true son. So true.
But you know…eventhough we didn’t officially have school today, we did a lot of learning. We had a life skills day.
I have had a growing mountain of laundry on my back porch this week. I don’t know why, but it’s seemed just about impossible to get caught up. So we spent our morning sorting, folding and hanging up laundry. We learned several important lessons…1. It’s much easier to hang up shirts if you put the hanger through the neck hole rather than the arm hole. 2. Baby brothers crawling into the laundry basket are cute the first time they do it, but the cuteness wears off each time we have to drag him out. 3. He’s even less cute when he comes along and wipes all the newly folded laundry off the table before we have a chance to put it up. 4. Little boys giggle when they have to touch underwear. 5. 2 year olds giggle when they put underwear on their heads. 6. After said 2 year wears the undies on his head, it’s hard for mommy to get anyone back on track.
So we moved on to sweeping the floor in the kitchen. 1. Yes the floor needs to be swept after each meal. If mom can feel stuff sticking to her feet…it needs swept. 2. Babies are not part of the dirt needing to be swept on the floor. 3. Do not let the baby chew on the bottom of the broom. It’s gross. 4. Either sweep the floor before the laundry basket gets pushed across the floor, or push the basket first. Don’t do them both at the same time. It makes a mess and causes fights. 5. Let the 2 year old help. Even if it means we have to do it again. We’re training him too.
We also hung out laundry this morning…we only learned one major lesson (well mommy really learned it). Don’t set the laundry basket down where ants are trying to build a home. It makes them angry. Pay attention. Although the baby thinks it’s funny when mommy dances around trying to stomp on the ants biting her toes.
We had a great day. And the boys learned something even if we didn’t have school.

Leave and Cleave–Family Worship

I’m taking a little break from becoming a godly wife and focusing a bit on becoming a godly family. My brain has been full this week and this has been something on my heart lately. I hope it speaks to you.

Family worship was a totally foreign concept to me until recently. But we’ve been incorporating most evenings in our family for the last couple of years. It looks a little different each night, but it has been such a blessing. I would encourage you to begin some type of family worship in your family.

We’ve found that family worship gives us a time to bond as a family, it’s been time for us to really discuss issues that we may be facing as a family, it’s proven to be a great training opportunity and it’s been huge in providing spiritual growth for our family. We look at family worship at building a family legacy, we are building the legacy of a family built on faith and a family built of God.

Here are some of the things we’ve done as a family during our worship. We usually start the worship time off with time in the Word. We don’t have a perscription or a guide. We usually study a book, piece by piece. We started off with Luke. We’ve also studied the 10 commandments and are currently in Genesis. Dad (Kerry) usually reads our passage, although we’ve mixed it up a bit lately. We’ve been listening to a dramatized version of the Bible we bought on CD last year. As a family, we generally enjoy audio books so it’s been a nice change of pace. Sometimes we cover 2 or 3 verses and other times we cover 20 or 25. It depends on the content of the passage and how many questions the boys have about what we’re reading. We use our time to talk about what the passage means, how it applies to our lives and what it might look like to live it out.

After we read our passage we will sometimes sing a few hymns. We try to sing the same one or two hymns a week so that we learn them well as a family and the boys learn the words. It’s been so fun to hear our family sing in the evenings. It’s even cooler to hear the boys sing the hymns during the day while they’re doing their daily chores or just playing. We’re kind of a musical family so it’s been fun and it has turned into such a blessing for me.

After we sing we take time to pray. Sometimes we’ll ask all of the boys to pray individually and then Kerry and I will pray. Sometimes we’ll just have one or two of us pray. We look over prayer requests from Sunday or through our prayer chain. We’ll also ask each of the boys for prayer requests, specifically what we can pray for them each day. Occassionally we’ll focus on a specific character quality we’ve struggled with during the week.

Family worship has been a integral part of our days and evenings. If we miss a night, we feel kind of crummy the next day. We feel “off” as a family. We look forward to our time together each night. We have a rule that we don’t answer the phone (I even shut of my email alerts for my cell phone), we don’t have any TV or radio on so that we can focus totally on worship together as a family. If you have young ones, this is a great time to teach them reverent behavior for church. Not to say our kids sit perfectly still and don’t fidget during church, but they do sit still during prayer (most of the time) and we’ve taught them how to be respectful during the service.

I should note that this family worship is separate from our morning devotions or Bible time as part of our school. We usually use that time in the mornings to read our Proverb of the day and morning prayer. I would encourage you as a family to begin some kind of worship time each day. If you miss a day, no biggie. Do it again the next day. Your Lord will be glorified and you will be blessed.

Ladies, one of the big challenges can sometimes be if your hubby doesn’t feel comfortable taking the leadership role during family worship. You don’t want to be a nag about this. It’s great if you can suggest to him that you start family worship together, or you can gently remind him that this is something you wanted to start. Maybe things like “honey, do you want me to read our passage tonight or would you like to? I’d be happy to do it, but remember you asked me to remind you we wanted to start this with the kids” or “Kids! Go get the Bible…Daddy is going to read it to us!” And for those of you who don’t think you can sing…get a good worship song DVD, you can find the lyrics online and sing to your heart’s content! Who cares if you’re off key. It’s delightful to your Father!

The biggest thing is, start building that legacy.

I didn't run this week!

Really I didn’t. I didn’t run at all this week. Why? Because my knees are killing me. I suspect it’s because I’ve been lugging this 9 month old baby around on my back and I don’t use the best form when he’s in the backpack. I usually use my wrap, but didn’t have it with me. So I decided not to run.

But that doesn’t mean I didn’t exercise. Remember…I was carrying around a 20lb 9 month old on my back for extended periods of time. According to my little calorie counter app, I burn 70 calories for every 20 minutes I carry around a 15lb load. So…I figured I burned 630 calories 2 days in a row last week. (We walked around a street fair for 3 hours 2 days in a row). Yes!

I also spent a fair amount of time cleaning, and I mean really scrubbing, someone’s house (unfortunately it wasn’t mine). All with Mr. T man on my back, so I figure I burned a fair amount of calories there. I have lost 3 pounds since I last posted. Victory! But I need to keep working on my cardiovascular health and not just dropping weight. And I don’t want to huff and puff my way through a 5K in a few months. So back to running I go. It’s getting hotter outside so I’m gonna either have to start getting up earlier or running later. I enjoy running outside so much more, but I’m kind of a wuss when it comes to heat.

Oh yeah! And I’ve done push ups and sit ups each day. Woot woot! I also have a new motivation to get my behind moving…my class decided to have another reunion this year and if I’m back for it I don’t want to be so fluffly looking!

Keep going…We can do it!

PS. I’m working on my leave and cleave post for tomorrow. I took a day off yesterday!