Painting Class

Tara's Butterfly on Canvas

Michaela's Butterfly on Canvas

Tara's Picture Frame

Michaela and I have joined a painting class...just us girls along with some other friends from church. We are really enjoying the class. I painted the picture frame at the first class that Michaela did not go to with me. Then we both did the butterfly on canvas. That one took two nights, about three hours each night! Totally worth it though. It's very relaxing and rewarding and a great time of sweet fellowship with my Micky.

Benji's Nine!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My baby's 9!! I can't believe it! We celebrated by going to Downtown Disney for a night's stay. We ate at the T-Rex Restaurant, which is very cool....similar to the Rainforest Cafe, except that it's animated dinosaurs of every kind in jungle and ice age environments. Way cool. Of course, the kids had to have a Build-A-Dino...similar to Build-A-Bear. Ben named his dino Dino-Mite. Today we woke up and went to Sea World for the day. And the best birthday gift of all, as far as Ben was concerned, was finally making the 54" tall mark and getting to ride Sea World's new roller coaster, Manta....twice in a row!

Scholl...A New Year and a New Beginning

Yes, summer is over and I too did my share of crying over it. I was just as sad to see it end as my kids were. I felt as though we didn't have much of a summer with running to SLP and OT therapy for Jerry twice a week. It's just been busy, busy, busy.

I was a little apprehensive to get back to school this year too because we were embarking on a whole new journey complete with new curriculum. Out with all the textbooks! That became our motto this year. No, we're not insane. In fact, just the opposite. Let me explain. A few years ago, my girlfriend Kim and I both attended the same seminar at our annual homeschool convention by R.C. Sproul, Jr. called, "The Three G's". At it, he spoke of kids needing first and foremost to know who God is, what He did for them, and what He requires of them (the kids). Everything, R.C. surmised, could be taught using nothing more than the Bible. He challenged us to find education, math, or even school in our concordances.

Kim and I left convicted, to say the least...as we dragged our portable Office Depot file boxes overflowing with all of the textbooks, helps, and other curriculum we had just bought over the weekend. Now Kim and I had always been the textbook type, though Kim did have more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants reputation when it came to homeschooling. We have kids who are so close in age, it has been awesome being able to share teacher manuals and reading books from year to year, passing them back and forth as we make our way through the grades from oldest to youngest.

About midway through our school year last year, Kim and I both, without the other knowing it, were feeling convicted by R.C.'s message from the previous year's conference. We had both, again separate from one another, read another friend's blog about a Bible-based curriculum she used, looked it up online, and began to research alternative teaching options. Both Kim and I were apprehensive to tell the other of our desire to change curriculums for fear that the other would be angry about not being able to share books anymore. Needless to say, when we finally confronted each other in the midle of Chuck E. Cheese's about our hearts desires, we knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was at the bow of this ship!

Thus, SOW! Student of the Word was just what we were looking for, a Bible based curriculum, written by Christian parents who desired to teach their kids more than just math, American history, and literature. We ordered the curriculum and, after several hours of, "Oh my goodness, what did we get ourselves into?", while trying to decipher how to make lesson plans from the student and teacher's manuals, we finally got it! Be sure that the confusion was on our parts solely. Once read thoroughly, the curriculum is quite easy to comprehend.

Basically, within six years, our kids will have read the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, having learned everything they need to know about prayer, penmanship, English, language arts, science, geography, history, literature, creative writing, spelling, art, music, and physical education. The only subject not included in SOW is math and for that we have A Beka. Some have questioned, "But what about American history, like World War II or our government?" It's in there. "Nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, sentence structure?" It's in there. "Spelling?" It's in there. I promise you, it's all covered...and so much more...using the true stories found in God's Word. And like our pastor says, "Hollywood's got nothing on the real-life drama played out in the Bible."

And when you think about it, they didn't have textbooks back in Pioneer days. The Bible was their only textbook. When I think of all of the money I've wasted on textbooks over the years, I have only one regret...that I didn't hear R.C Sproul, Jr. speak earlier or find SOW sooner. But God's timing is perfect. he knew my anxieties about not using those textbooks and my obsessiveness for structure found only in workbooks and textbooks. It took Him time, but He patiently changed my heart and changed our homeschool...for the better. Here's a testimony for SOW. Even Jonathan loves school this year! All of the kids agree that this way of doing school is so much better.

And it's only been one week! But oh what a week! We've outlined Genesis 1, memorized Scripture while practicing penmanship, completed a book report on a Max Lucado book, discussed why creation couldn't have just happened the way big bang theorists and evolutionists say it did (and wrote a paper about our findings), made a notebooking page on all of God's attributes, studied vocabulary (including finding the Hebrew words and writings for the words), wrote a commentary, completed a character study on God, made our own gospel tracts, and studied spelling words. And I mean studied them...their roots, prefixes, suffixes, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, definitions... Whew! And did I mention we're tracking the phases of the moon this month? Sounds like a lot, but it takes no longer than our textbook school ever did...some days, even less time. And the stress on me has been greatly reduced as all of the kids are learning the same things at the same time and so I now teach a "class" instead of three individual grades and kids.

Anyway, here are a few examples from Ben of some of this week's work. I am so excited about all the kids are going to learn this year, in their core subjects and about their God and know that I will be learning just as much right along with them.

Weaving the Day Away!

Michaela's friend Katy has turned her onto weaving and it's proved a great hobby so far. The loom is only $5 at WalMart and we've learned that with a little sturdy thread we can make more than just potholders. My girlfriend showed me how to turn four of them into a nifty water bottle holder. Micky gave me her first one and I love it!!

Club Louis

We have a carpeted room under the stairs with a light in it as well. It WAS my storage area, but who needs storage? Now it is Club Louis and the kids have spent hours under there making it their own. I put a tension rod and curtain up at the entrance. The boys have a wall and Michaela has a wall. The boys already have Episode I Star Wars glow-in-the-dark appliques on their side. Micky is working on her butterflies. Light Sabers and butterflies...hhmmmmm...should be interesting!

They have a list of rules, which includes no passing gas while in the clubhouse. They learned the necessity for that one real quick with no windows or ventilation under there. The penalty for breaking this rule is to have to wear the "hat of shame" and banishment from the club for one hour. Nice....democracy at work!

Ben made a basketball hoop with Louis in the center and it hangs from the back wall. The kids also charge themselves and others a 5 cents a day entrance fee into the clubhouse. They are saving for $5 gift cards to fast food restaurants to pass out to homeless we see while at red lights.

Such fun!

Pets or Pests?

Now that the inside of our home is done for the most part, we're working on the outside...our butterfly garden. We had fun with one of these in the past when we had our own yard and so we're at it again! We love the dozens of butterflies that visit and the flowers and colors are all so pretty. Anyway, pics of the garden are yet to come once we've completed it. In the meantime, we've also attracted these mutant gargantuan grasshoppers! They're like two inches long and quite creepy (for mom anyway). As you can see by the reflection on the sliding glass door of my camera lens, I was NOT opening the back door for a better view!

Cirque du Soleil: Saltimbanco

We were blessed by a friend who works at the YMCA and was able to get tickets to this show. What a delight! The acrobatics were astounding. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before. The kids were glued! Yesterday happened to be the 25th anniversary of Cirque and so blinking clown noses in little silk pouches were given to everyone for a photo opportunity at the end of the show. It was truly an incredible experience, and one we would not have been able to afford anytime soon as a family. Thanks Amber! And thank you Suzanne for always being ready with a camera!