Highlight of the Day!

Every night at dinner we sit down to eat, pray over our meal and then everyone starts shouting about sharing their "highlight of the day". We pick a kiddo...they start off, then we go around the table. When we ask the babies, they reply with something that doesn't fit the conversation at all, which makes everyone laugh. When the kids are done Chad and I share ours. It's a great way to find out what was important or special to everyone. It often is something small, like snuggling on the couch with Momma or helping with dinner. I see it as a tool. It is how I know what is most important to them. I strive to make time for the things that they consider important after they have shared their hearts with us. It's a small thing but in a large family I believe that you have to pursue your children or some of them (especially the easy going ones) could easily get overlooked. My plan is to make a "Highlight(s) of the Day" binder and fill it out every night at dinner. So far, it's just a plan. I would like to have it all set to start by February. Each Saturday I will be sharing some of my favorites from the week of mine, Chad's and the kids. Since I haven't officially started I am just going to share mine from today!

A love letter from Bella:

Watching Chad and the babies playing their "dancin's"

New nerf gun fun! Seeing the fruit of my sons labor.

Tristin worked awfully hard to earn the money for his!

Hudsyn thought it was especially funny to shoot hers at the ceiling and jump off the back of the couch to retrieve it!!!

Even The Best Laid Plans....

Today I woke up ready to tackle the mess that our homeschool cabinet has become. It's really hard to have a successful homeschool day when you are afraid of opening your cabinet! Yikes!!!

I decided the best way to clean something out when it seems a little bigger than your ambition is to start at the top and work your way down. As I started cleaning out the top shelf the rediscovered treasures that we had forgotten about. I dumped out some pattern blocks for the babies so they would stay close to me and out of trouble.

The big kids watched some educational movies while they snuggled with each other and their animals.



I did have to stop a few times to look for a busy boy who was a getting a little silly!

But for the most part I was doing well...on the first shelf. Hudsy started getting bored of the movie, she is not much of a TV person. She wanted to play in the water with her tea-cups. Since I couldn't be in the bathroom upstairs watching her and the dining room downstairs cleaning out the school cabinet that plan was shot down. Her Daddy thought she might like a sensory bin to play in instead. We put some oats in a bowl, and later a bin and she was thrilled to play with her tea cups in there for quite some time, as was Maezy!!!

We were all enjoying some no-bake cookies that Kait made last night!

Then Kait started feeling yucky...

At 10:30am and just two shelves in I realized that my organizing day was over. Kait was in so much pain that we had to take a trip to the ER. Thankfully my step-mom works there and was (as always) wonderful to us. It made a crazy situation so much better. While we were waiting on a room (they were packed) Kait snuggled in Miss. Carlyn's office. She got her a pillow, warm blanket and a heating pad. :) Seriously...so thankful. Just as we were getting a room Kait started feeling better. Lovely. Needless to say, they couldn't find anything wrong with her. I was just happy she was better and it was nothing serious.

I was so happy to grab some dinner and come home to my family! My hubby was so sweet to keep the babies up past their bedtime so I could spend a little bit of time with them before they went to bed for the night. So I will wake up in the morning, thank the Lord for new beginnings and (hopefully) clean out the rest of the school cabinet. Even though it wasn't how I saw my day going it was how God saw it going and that's good enough for me!!!

Heart Issues

This year God has lead our homeschool in such a crazy direction I never saw it coming. School had became a great source of tension and frustration in our household. I really started searching out my motives for homechooling. When I really dug deep, beyond my perfectionist side, I found Jesus at the root. I was so focused on getting everything done that I had began overlooking their hearts. I was yelling ugly at my precious son, yelling ugly at my sweet little girls who were talking just a bit loudly, disrupting their brothers lessons. I was the issue, not my kids, not our curriculum. It was my heart. I just wanted to get the work done so we could check it off our list, I wanted to feel like we were accomplishing things.

It wasn't until I began really contemplating stepping off the homeschool carousel that God showed me that my expectations were way off. Not just my expectations to get the work done but more importantly I was expecting more than my son was capable of. In the process, I was crushing any love for learning he had left. I hadn't taken into account that my son has some vision issues far beyond what we originally thought. He has always had some issues with number and letter reversals but I hadn't realized that it might actually be dyslexia. For some reason, this year it has became very clear. Not only are there written reversals but blending reversals. Ahhh....the root of the reading issue became crystal clear. I have been pushing so hard for something that without the proper tools I wasn't even able to teach him. All this sacrificing of heart and self confidence and my flesh was the issue. Not that I have been some crazy lady,he never expressed that he truly was not able to do it, just that he didn't want to read. I took him at his word (you know, because he is eight and all) and thought it was a battle of will. Oh how I wish I had let some things go and truly dug into the heart of the problem much sooner.

I am so thankful that God has brought us to where we are now. We are learning as a family with very little curriculum at all. We are still going to be using MFW for reading and we will be working through some written math. Beyond that we are going to be spending time reading the Bible, reading good literature, working off of their interest lists (more on that later), baking, taking nature walks and going on learning based field trips! I can't believe that just a few shorts months ago I had been stubborn enough to almost walk away from something I have always been so passionate about. I am so thankful that God always pulls me back in when I get off track.

New Year, New Start

School officially began at our house last Tuesday. By Wednesday I was thankful for fresh starts! I had tried doing school with my four oldest kiddo's on Tuesday without laying the babies down for their naps. Big mistake. It was a chaos. Kait started her online classes and had a ton of questions, the other three were begging to start and the babies were, well...babies. By the grace of God alone, we made it through and managed to make it to the kids homeschool gymnastics class in time!!! Wednesday started school after the babies were laid down and school went as well as I could have dreamed! We switched from Sonlight to My Fathers World this year. I loved Sonlight, I loved the readers. However, last year we didn't accomplish as much as I'd hoped. In December we took a 12 day trip to Florida and in January we moved and by February my entire kitchen (and most of my main floor) was gutted. It was a very trying year for me as far as homeschooling goes. The word "successful" doesn't exactly come to mind. I really felt like we needed a slightly less intense work load this year. I felt like I needed to switch to a unit study-type curriculum to meet everyone's needs, and so we did. So far it is working wonderfully! The only down side I see to MFW is that you have to go to the library weekly. In theory it sounds okay but I know myself and we live in the mitten and winter with six little ones are brutal. I know I'd never make it to the library every week. So I decided to order a book recommended in the IG for each week. If we make it to the library frequently, great. If not, that's fine too. Each week, MFW recommends an exploration day. On this day the kids go out and explore nature. We also do any science experiments listed in our science book. Each week our exploration day will be on Tuesday. Tuesday mornings the kids have spanish at 10:00. A family friend will be coming over and teaching them spanish for an hour or so each week! Then from 3:30-4:30 they have their homeschool gymnastics class. I am excited to dig in to our curriculum a little deeper in the upcoming weeks. The girls are working on creation, which is super fun and Tristin is doing review work, necessary but I can't wait to get to the good stuff! We will be doing a bunch of projects and activities this year. I am looking forward to making lots of memories with my kiddo's this school year!

Our Schedule (again)

The girls at their homeschool gymnastics class! So I am totally aware that I only seem to post when we have a schedule change. It seems like we always have a schedule change. My hubby is finally on a regular job (for the first time since we have been married) and a routine seems to be falling onto place! It is so nice to feel some sort of normalcy. Our current "schedule" is: Clean up and love on babies in the morning until around 10:30 - 11:00 Start pre-school with the girls around 11:00-12:00, while the we do that T does all of his handwriting, spelling and math. If he needs help he is welcome to ask anytime. After that is lunch then naps for the little 2 or 3 At night we do all the rest of our work, usually Language Arts, Reading, and Science. T still struggles very much with focus during the day but he is getting so much better at writing assignments and math that I never even have to tell him it's time to get them out. When I say it's time for pre-school he gets his books out and heads to the desk. He almost always can get through his work with no help if I have explained it well before I begin reading. The biggest problem has always been reading, in fact I almost hired a tutor because I thought he just wasn't getting something (that I was also missing) but one night over the summer while we were laying in my bed with a school book he read the whole thing. I realized that the problem might have been timing and focus more than ability. Now that we save that for night time, when we are alone he does great. No focus problem at all at night time!!!!!! He sounds out the words he doesn't know and zips through a story in no time! It is so rewarding to see your child reading and know that it is because you sat by his side patiently (for the most part) until he was able to comprehend. Looking back I think a lot of our issues stem from the fact that he is a boy and his brain is wired in a way that makes slowing down difficult. Homeschooling is a journey that for us has been wonderful. I can't imagine ever sending our kids to school, it is so much fun to watch them learn! I am so thankful that God has led us down this path!!!

Covenant

Tristin, tonight you and I were talking at bed time. I said that I was thankful that you came before any of the girls or Grey and you smiled big. I told you how badly I wanted a boy when God gave you to us. I told you of your umbilical cord being knotted and how you could not get food or oxygen if God had not sustained you! You were shocked, I explained that our doctor (the same man who delivered me) came to me and shared that he wasn't a believer but he knew our God had performed a miracle because you shouldn't be alive. I told you that was part of your testimony. That even as a newborn God used you to show his power. You thought a moment and asked if I wanted more kids after you. I reminded you that God gave us four more. You repeated your question, implying that I had not disclosed everything in my answer. So I told you how badly I wanted more kids because I did not want you to be alone and Kait was only here part of the time. You smiled and said that's how we got Bella, I shook my head and you stared back at me puzzled. I gently told you the beautiful story of three babies who never took one breath of air on this earth but their lives birthed four more. You wondered aloud why they weren't able to join our family on earth and if we would know them in heaven. I tried to explain God's providence to you the best way I could in six year old terms, that those babies may have been very sick and would have had to endure much pain, but because God loved them (and us) so much he did not allow them to suffer even one moment. I assured you we would know them in heaven and Granny is able to be with them now. Then you asked a question far beyond your years, "why did God even allow you to get pregnant with them then?" A question I myself have pondered so many times before, yet the answer is more clear to me than most things will ever be. To increase mine and Daddies faith, I told you that faith is believing in God even though we can't see him. You said you wanted to be a christian when you grow up, I told you you don't have to wait until you grow up, you said "I don't?, then I will be one when I am a teenager!" I told you that you could be one now, that because you are young God has been with you and in your heart but to be a christian is to ask Him in because you want to live a life that pleases Him and brings Him glory. You said you wanted to ask Him in right now, so I lead you in ( a not so eloquent) prayer, stopping in the middle to define every word I said so we could both be sure the words you were offering up to your Savior were fully understood. After we prayed you said you didn't think you were going to get the job, I was a bit confused but then you elaborated. You thought it was doing something for God, I explained it was being someone for God. That you are a christian while you are sleeping, playing, drawing, swimming, in the shower, everywhere and all the time you seek to bring glory to God by the fruits of the Spirit of God in your life. I tucked you in and left the room, a few minutes later you came to find me. You said an angle came to visit you and told you that God has something for you to do for him, and thank you for taking God into your heart. We chatted about that for a few minutes then I took you back to bed. You said you wanted to call everyone to tell them that you are a christian now, you wanted me to drive you to peoples houses to tell them about God, you wanted to wake up Bell to see if she wanted to be a christian too. I told you it's not time for her yet, that I want to wait until she is old enough to ask have the understanding for herself. You told me you though God wants to be a missionary, and asked me to help you pray that you would know what God wants you to do for Him. We prayed then you asked me if you could have your own Bible, because Kait has her own but you don't. I told you that Daddy and I will take you to get one very soon! You wanted to go right then, I informed you it was after 11:00 and the Bible bookstore isn't open! You asked me if I could write on your head that you had asked God into your heart so that you didn't forget, I told you that I didn't think that would work (since you can't read quite yet) and so you asked if Daddy could cut your hair tomorrow and we could spray paint it on your head. That question might have made me laugh under normal circumstances but I knew that the Holy Spirit working through you. Deuteronomy 6:4-12 are verses that I hold very close to my heart, they are my parenting life verses but I have never made mention of verse 8 aloud to or in front of you. "Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. It was not a random six year old thought process that brought that to your mind. I shouldn't have been surprised but I stood amazed in the presence of God in my bedroom you my son. Whenever you feel that know that you are in the presence of a Holy God.

I am so proud of the person you are growing into, you let me peek into your spirit so often and I am amazed at how much love, gentleness and tenderness you possess. Tonight I will crawl into bed with dishes in my sink, clutter on the floor and wet paintings on every counter and desk surface available and know that I spent time with you today in the Word and was blessed enough to be the one who was able to lead you to the feet of Jesus.

Hudsy Girl!

Hudsyn; my dear, precious, sweet and loving girl: YOU ARE CRAZY!!! I have heard of terrible two's but those stories don't even scratch the surface of the tings you think up. I need to clone myself at least twice just to keep up with you. In the past year you have created quite a name for yourself, everyone that knows you has come to expect great shenanigans from you. Sometimes they are funny, more often scary. As a matter of fact, just this very second I asked your brother to locate you and he found you on the counter, clipping your teeth with toe nail clippers. I can't quite wrap my mind around what goes on in yours.

Most recently you have painted your entire body (meaning to paint your toe nails), I thought you were sleeping. You inadvertently painted your carpet as well, it now needs to be replaced. Then another time you painted my carpet. I am not at all sure of the details of that.

A couple of weeks ago you climbed up onto the counter and got into the medicine cabinet in the kitchen, you proceeded to take a men's multivitamin, a children's tums and a metformin. That is how I came to know that you could open the kitchen gates (which, by the way most adults can not open). We just got back from vacation a few days ago, you guys were watching a movie in the camper and we were in the barn. Aunt Cora popped her head in and let us know you were (again) eating medicine. Uncle Brandon was already checking on you and you told him you ate one, as you spit them out in his hand he counted six.

A couple of nights before left for vacation Kait was sweeping the kitchen floor so she put the bench by the counter. I went to get Bell some jammies out and you came to me with you hands behind your back. When you pulled them out to show them to me they were blood red, I was panicked, until you said "I probably, um, I probably painted myself". I ran in the kitchen to see what happened and you poured out liquid food coloring on the counter. It got onto the floor, the walls and the fridge as well. It took me over two hours to clean.

When you were a little baby you would scream every time we were in the car, not cry scream but super loud, super high scream. Nothing was wrong, you just wanted to hear the power of your voice. I pray my sweet Hudsyn that you never forget that power, each time you pray you say God is whispering a secret in your ear, you say that he has a present for you. I think that present is gift. A spiritual gift that God has gave you at the time of conception. Your name means charismatic adventurer. That has proven to be so true already. Your personality is different than any child I have ever met. It is a bit overwhelming as a parent but I know that plays into the gifting that will be used for God's glory.

You are charismatic and an adventurer and I couldn't imagine you any other way! I love you!!!