Year in Review-December 2017 Part 1

We took a lot of pictures in December, so I'll post a few at a time.

Photo Credit: Meghan Schultz
The Lambs favorite art class so far was the day they used clay to make boats.

Photo Credit: Meghan Schultz
I ordered a print to remember our babies. Row one is our 3 Lambs birthstones. Row two is the birthstones of our miscarried babies. I got it here. Her work is beautiful and I am so glad to have this to remember all our children. I would like to order more prints from her, but was so pleased to get this one for our family. I framed it and it is one of the few pieces of artwork on display in our rental home instead of still packed after moving.

Our city had a tour of churches night. The first 3 photos are the church where my parents got married. They did extensive remodeling recently to restore it closer to the original. It is beautiful!

This is the church where Ram and Ewe got married 16 years ago. We have so many fond memories of this church.

This is the church that we attend now. It was still Advent so we did not decorate for Christmas yet. We went to a few more churches that night, but I didn't take any more pictures.

The Lambs went to a Science Central class and dissected frogs.

Trying to identify if it is a male or female frog.

I used coupons to get 5 nice greeting cards for $1.56 total including tax.

I bought a necklace/keychain for my sister for Christmas from here. I bought myself one a few years ago. My sister's was larger than mine and it was not her favorite gift. I don't know this etsy shop owner, but I love her items made out of postage stamps and she has wonderful fast service.

This was her favorite gift. I bought it here. I bought her the set of 3 prints from the Anthems of Zion. I also used some of my birthday money to get a set for myself. It was so interesting because they are hand lettered, both sets were different. When these arrived I wrapped and finished shipping all our gifts to far away family. It was so good to have that done early this year and not worry about it near Christmas.

Thankful for interruptions today

We didn't start school on time this morning. First, we slept in a little after a late night last night. Then we were notified that my sister and her husband are going to be moving closer to us. We were so excited that of course we had to take time for a phone call for that! My parents can't believe that both of their daughters are going to be back living in the Midwest soon.

Second, I checked our bank balance and I thought there was a mistake because the balance was so high. I was so surprised that we had our tax refund deposited already. I paid a few bills with this refund and put the rest in savings.

Third, we made a phone call because we previously received a discount for a subscription we received and I didn't know if we still qualified for that discount since Ram is no longer pastor at a church. We found out that we could continue to have that discount. It's only a $20 discount, but I am glad we can still have this membership.

Also today Ram took the lawnmower in to be serviced before our yard needs it; we baked a birthday cake for Lamb 3; and Lamb 2 had gymnastics class. We did eventually get to our school work because we plan to take off Monday in honor of Lamb 3's birthday. It was a full but good day and I am thankful for the interruptions that we did have.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Apple pie for birthday dessert. New shirt from my sister. One candle instead of 77.

The Lambs read in their Botany book that God designed hummingbirds to be able to recognize and prefer the color red. They learned that a good way to get hummingbirds to notice your feeder is to direct them to the feeder with artificial red flowers. They immediately remembered that Grandpa gets excited when hummingbirds visit his feeder. So they thought he needed some artificial red flowers for his birthday present. I'm sure he didn't expect that for a present, but he will enjoy it when the hummingbirds come.

We are thankful to be in town with my parents to celebrate birthdays with them. This kicks off birthday boy season at our house!

Not my best moment of 2017!

A few weeks ago, right before we all got sick, I had a difficult time with one of Lamb 2's math lessons. I was upset with myself for not being able to handle 4th grade math. I thought I had bought his math book used and figured I could handle doing grade school  math and did not need to spend extra to buy a teacher's edition with answer key. I planned to set aside some time to look at it again without Lamb 2 and then sit down with Lamb 2 and redo the lesson. I wondered what my problem was since I didn't remember having trouble with this lesson when Lamb 1 did this book a few years ago. Then we got sick and after we were well I never found time to work on that lesson. My hope was that since it was before we got sick, maybe my brain just wasn't functioning well that day.

Lamb 2 is almost finished with this math book, so I went to get out his next math book today. What a surprise that right by his next math book was the answer key for his current math book! No wonder why I didn't have a problem with this lesson with Lamb 1, if I did, I checked my work in the answer key! When Lamb 2 did this book I forgot that we owned the answer key and I worked all the problems out in my head as he did each lesson. Instead of being upset with myself, I'll give myself a pat on the back that I did 118 4th grade math lessons by myself.

I could blame misplacing the answer key on moving, but unfortunately he began this book last spring and I didn't use the answer key then either. Hopefully I can remember that I own this answer key when Lamb 3 does this math book! Since I own several levels of math books, in the future I am always going to check if we own the answer key before one of the Lambs begins a new math book!

Quick Family Update

1. I think we are finally all healthy. We missed a week of homeschool while the Lambs and I were sick with a cold/cough/fever. It was a rough week where nothing got done. This week is very busy making up doctor checkups etc. It was so ridiculous that I was too sick to go to the doctor for a thyroid checkup and appointments like that. We are finally scheduled to make some of that up. I am so thankful that we never had stomach flu at our house, just the colds.
2. Our church had a wedding on Feb. 5 during the regular Sunday morning service. I do plan to blog more about the wedding soon. The wedding reminded me of our wedding with the same version of the Te Deum that we used. Ram was happy to have a copy of the music in front of him because he did not have a copy during our wedding and he did not have it memorized like I did!
3. Our church has a fish fry fundraiser for medical expenses for one of our members coming up on Friday. We are happy to be going to help on the fundraiser day. I am so impressed with all the behind the scenes work people from our congregation are doing to get ready for this fundraiser. We are praying for a very successful fundraiser to help this family.
4. The ladies at my mom's church are having an apron party this spring. I have dug out some of my books and aprons to help my mom with her planning. It has been fun to get all that out and look at it again.
5. I volunteered to present at a teacher's conference this fall. I don't know if I will be asked to speak or if they will have enough speakers, but I am hoping for a chance to do a little back in the teaching world again.
6. Ram is working hard on his schooling. Reading, writing papers, and doing interviews are all going well.
7. The Lambs are continuing with homeschooling and piano lessons and confirmation class at church. We just keep plugging along and when we finish one book we go on to the next.
8. Because I was sick I have not gotten everything together for our tax lady yet. Hopefully I can finish that by early next week.
9. The dishwasher is fixed. There was some food stuck in it and when that was removed it worked fine. It motivates me to scrape/rinse the dishes a little more. If I owned this house I would invest in a better dishwasher, but I don't so it means scraping and rinsing better.
10. We are studying what activities and day camps this area offers for this summer. So far Lamb 1 and 2 want to do several camps and Lamb 3 hasn't found any that he is interested in. I think it will be a very busy couple of months being chauffeur for what each Lamb is interested in. I am going to look into what the Science Museum offers because I think that is more what Lamb 3 would like to do instead of sports like his brothers. I am happy to let them do different activities in the summer for a week or two instead of committing to an entire fall or entire spring of chauffeuring. Plus I like that they can try out a wide variety of activities and see what interests they would like to pursue more.

January update

Here is a glimpse into our life right now. Hopefully I can blog about these in more detail soon.

*Ram will begin classes for his degree next week. Our family really needed the down time for the last few months to get ready for this next chapter of our lives. We are all excited that he will now begin classes.
*Ram preached at our new church once in December and did pulpit supply (substitute preach) at a church a little south of us on New Year's Day. It was strange to be the pastor's family again for these. I am so glad he had a chance to use his talent for these before he begins classes.
*Our health insurance ended at the end of the year and we are trying Samaritan Ministries this year. I will blog about this as we get more experienced with our new "insurance".
*I was determined to return to more homeschool subjects and accomplish more in homeschooling than we did last fall after moving. I did some serious planning over Christmas vacation with the goal of getting Lamb 1 ready for high school whether we put him in high school or continue to homeschool. I plan to blog more about what we are doing in homeschool this semester.
*We are getting settled into activities at our new church and continuing to meet people there. We are going to have all the Lambs sit in on confirmation class this spring with the goal of confirmation for Lamb 1 and first communion for Lamb 2 and Lamb 3 in May.
*The Lambs are continuing piano lessons. I love that their piano teacher assigns Lamb 1 LSB hymns to practice. They also enjoy going to a weekly program at the library. They want to do more activities, especially sports, and we are still working on what will be a good fit for the Lambs and will work with our schedule (working around church activities and Ram's classes).
*The Seminary Symposia is next week. We are looking forward to seeing many friends, some of whom we have not seen for several years. Ram begins classes for his program next week so he is unable to attend Symposia, but we will still see friends. Our rental house does not have room for visitors so I look forward to getting our own place when Ram graduates so we can host for times like this.
*Recently I spent some time reading some of my old blog posts. I am determined to blog more often in 2017. It is interesting to go back 6 months or a year and reminisce both the good and bad times. So much that happened in 2016 was not recorded due to our move. I also hope to go back and blog about some more of 2016.
*We are still getting settled in our rental home. This is a slow progress, but it is progress. We are waiting for a few more repairs to be done by our landlord.
*We took the Christmas tree down the day after Epiphany, but there are still Christmas decorations to organize and pack away.
*We have had some car repairs recently. I am thankful for a husband that takes care of scheduling all that so that all I have to do is drop him off or pick him up if it is going to take more than a day.
*I am getting used to grocery shopping here. Today I was pleased that a raincheck and a digital coupon worked together. I am learning how to use my smartphone at the grocery. Our pantry is gradually getting stocked when items we use frequently are on sale. This makes life so much easier.

Happy 200th Birthday, Indiana!

One item that turned up in our move was my Indiana history notes from 4th grade. I respect what the public school teachers did for us taking us all over the county and to our state capitol to see historical sites. One reason why I was a history minor in college was because of 4th grade. I never quite got to teaching Idaho history to the Lambs when we lived in Idaho. If I can read my messy handwriting and the mimeographed copies from 30+ years ago, I plan to use this with the Lambs to teach them Indiana history. Mrs. Mosely, your notes are being used for a second generation!

My mom and I did a little small business shopping on black Friday. One store we went to was Mr. Polymath. They sell a lot of items made in the USA and some are even made in Fort Wayne. They had a lovely nativity made out of coal. (Sorry Hannah, I did not buy it for you!)

I heard that the LCMS Synodical office has some church workers that love using Field Notes. I had to see what Field Notes were after hearing this. Mr. Polymath was the only store listed in Fort Wayne that sold Field Notes. Mr. Polymath might be the only store in Indiana that sells Field Notes. Of course I had to buy the Indiana version in honor of the  200th birthday!

Ram enjoyed reading all the facts on the back of the Field Notes. It was fun to be quizzed by him and see what facts I remembered from 4th grade history class. We'll have to see if we can get the ID version for Ram.

Ram and I have watched a couple of episodes of Hoosiers: The Story of Indiana online. We have both enjoyed hearing the history. After growing up in Southern IN, I learned that the state was settled from bottom up, like a glass of water, from the southern counties to the northern counties. In 4th grade I didn't realize how much important history took place in our county. I also bought a used copy of the book this TV documentary was based on. Ram is anxious for me to finish reading it so he can read it.

Indiana had some celebrations and the library did some special Indiana history activities with homeschoolers in honor of the bicentennial that I would love to have done with the Lambs, but unfortunately we arrived too late in 2016. We did take the Lambs to the local history museum.

Podcast of the day

Today I listened to a podcast by two of my favorite authors, Katie Schuermann and Cheryl Swope. I highly recommend listening to the podcast HERE. Segments apply to those with children with special needs, mothers, single women, barren women, writers, and homeschoolers.

Full disclosure: I did contribute to Eternal Treasures by Cheryl Swope. I gained so much from Cheryl from the few necessary e-mails for that contribution. Cheryl was so encouraging about Lamb 2's academic journey. This podcast is encouragement from both authors!

Great Day!

Yesterday we received this in the mail:

Today we went to the Seminary bookstore and bought this:

Then we went to the library and had a treat from Dunkin Donuts to celebrate that we have library cards. We bought a few books at their used bookstore section for $2 total. The Lambs picked books to check out. We found out about Minecraft time at the library and Ram took the Lambs back later in the day to participate in that. The Lambs loved Minecraft at the library! My dad stopped by to see the piano and visit while they were at Minecraft.
When we got home this was in the mail today:

The months of packing, cleaning, unpacking, and the bureaucracy when we arrived were all worth it to now have an IN Driver's license and an Allen County Public library card in our wallets and be in the same town as my parents for my dad to stop by for a visit!

Piano lessons

I desperately wanted to take piano lessons as a child, but my parents could not afford it. Finally when I was in 7th grade my sister and I got to take lessons. I only lasted a few months because I had other interests by middle school. I do know how to read music because I did keep up playing my flute all the way through college.

Lamb 1 was a natural at playing the piano. He started lessons a little later than I would have liked due to our move. It is just recently that he has really been challenged in his playing the piano-the teacher did a great job keeping him challenged with piano theory work. It was just so natural that he didn't need to practice much before now.

Lamb 2 is much more motivated to play piano, but he really has to work at it. Around the time he started Vision Therapy, I really worked with him during his piano practice time. We did flash cards, I counted as he played, etc. After he graduated from VT I started letting him be more independent about piano practice. But I still work with him more than I ever worked with Lamb 1-I just told Lamb 1 to practice. Last week at piano lessons the teacher thanked me for all my work with my boys as it is really paying off for Lamb 2.

I consider piano lessons part of homeschooling since they aren't in music classes with a school class. I expect them to practice often because we have paid all this money for lessons. Because they are homeschooled they can easily practice during the school day while I am working with their brothers on school.

I recently had to buy the next level piano books for Lamb 1. Usually this is an exciting time to pick an extra book to go with his lesson book and theory book. He usually picked hymns or patriotic music. This level the hymn book was combined with an earlier level and there was no patriotic music. He doesn't want Disney songs or pop songs. He finally settled on a recital book that he could tell had some classical composers in it, but it was not what he really wanted. When I told all this to the teacher, she said we can get him extra sheet music at his level if we need to. She also said if he can make it through this level, he will basically be able to play anything (with some practice).

The thought that Lamb 1 just has one more level until he can play anything was such a new thought to me. At that point we will allow him to choose if he wants to continue lessons or go on to another instrument. Lamb 2 still has several more years of lessons until he is at that point. I hope that Lamb 3 can begin lessons next fall. It's amazing the progress that Lamb 1 made in just 2 1/2 years of lessons.

Reading Progress

Lamb 1 taught himself to read when we were on a homeschool break after Ram had major surgery. One day everything clicked and he knew how to read.

I have worked and worked with Lamb 2. We have used several different "teach your child to read" programs, he knows his phonograms, etc. but he just has not had that moment when everything clicked. This worries some of our family and friends and they have given several nice suggestions to help him. Some may not believe that Lamb 2 has even worked on reading at all. I haven't been worried, I've patiently waited for that moment for everything to click while continuing to work on teaching him to read daily.

I thought we were close to that point towards the end of Vision Therapy. He is able to go on to more difficult lessons in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. Motivation is definitely not a problem-he has lists of books in his head that he is going to read as soon as he knows how to read. But that clicking moment has not totally happened yet.

A few weeks ago I remarked to Ram that I really didn't know what I was going to do when Lamb 2 did learn how to read. He is not interested in most easy readers, they are too babyish. But I want to give him lots of practice reading short books before chapter books. I'm talking about that point between very easy readers and Amelia Bedelia books. I'm talking about him not being interested in Biscuit books or books about Thomas the Train. Unfortunately Lamb 3 is not a baby either so Lamb 2 can't even practice reading easy readers to him.*

Last night Lamb 1 was taking a long time to get ready for bed before we had family read aloud time. Lamb 2 was impatient to hear the next chapter in Little Town on the Prairie. I had the book open waiting for Lamb 1. So Lamb 2 started reading the chapter aloud. He needed help with a few words, but he did great.

I think he'll do just fine. He may skip the easy readers and go on to easy chapter books. We have had a short break of school recently due to sickness, Lamb 1's standardized testing, family visiting, and other activities. It wasn't a complete spring break, but it wasn't 5 days a week school either. Perhaps this was Lamb 2's moment to put everything together during a break like Lamb 1 did. Whether it was or not, I look forward to our next regular week of school to see his progress some more.

I don't even want to think about Lamb 3's reading progress. Motivation is a problem for him.  He thinks, "Why should I learn to read when there are 3 others in the family that will read to me?" He's smart and he'll learn to read when he is motivated to. I will pounce on that moment and help him, but currently I'll keep snuggling and reading aloud to him.

*Note: I realize that the library has easy readers on other topics that aren't as babyish and we even own some many of them too. Elephant and Piggie books have been a hit with Lamb 2 and 3. I also saw this as problem when I taught in the classroom though. If you have a child that doesn't learn how to read in kindergarten or first grade, they aren't going to be interested in the books that are written at K or 1st grade reading level. I know there are worse problems in life. I realize Lamb 1 teaching himself to read and Lamb 2 needing vision therapy are special cases. This has all been interesting to me to see 3 boys from the same family and how they learn so differently. In the classroom there wasn't time to focus on each child like there is in homeschooling. Unfortunately in the classroom even with the children that I held back and worked with them for two years, there was never time to really get to the root of the problem such as Lamb 2 needing vision therapy. Especially for boys that learned to read later than "normal" finding books they were interested in was difficult.

Legislative Day 2015

Since we moved to ID I have wanted to take the Lambs to our state capitol building. We have stood on the steps during the March for Life, but we hadn't been inside. Yesterday was Legislative Day for home educators so we attended. It was interesting to see what they did and perhaps in a few years we will also participate. All the Lambs enjoyed seeing the capitol building. Lamb 3 insisted that we take the steps to go to every level to see as much as we could.

I forgot to have them take their coats off, but we dressed up to go to this. The students presenting wore business attire. Lamb 2 wore a bow tie and Lamb 3 wore a tie. Lamb 1 wore what he wears almost every Sunday!

Students had displays all the way around the 4th floor. This one was a Hobbit scene. He asked the Lambs if they had read the book and told them he highly recommended it. Then he explained how he made the display-it was much more complicated than it looked. The boys were very interested in this display because it had Legos. It was definitely a boy kind of book report. This is the kind of display I see my Lambs doing in a few years. The students were friendly and ready to share about their displays. Socialization was no problem for these homeschooled students!

This is one of the reasons why homeschooling is so easy for us in ID. Homemade pies were provided those that serve us at the Capitol. They even had gluten free and sugar free pies. Lamb 3 really wanted a piece of pumpkin pie but they weren't for us. I'm sure the lawmakers remember their piece of pie when it comes time to vote for education laws.

They also had homeschooled students playing piano and other musicians throughout the day. Perhaps that will be a possibility for Lamb 1 to play piano for this.

Looking at the ceiling from the ground floor. There are stars in the middle.

The second level had displays of the history of home education in ID. It was interesting to me that the "dark times" of home education were exactly when Ram was being home educated in ID. We are so thankful to the brave home educators that fought for our rights that we have today. It was also a good reminder to not take homeschooling for granted.

Also it was interesting to me that I would not be required to teach Lamb 3 until he turns 7 and with a spring birthday that wouldn't be until next school year. 

Standing on the bottom floor looking at the ceiling.

Afterwards we took the Lambs out to eat for pie since we couldn't have any there. Lamb 3 had chocolate cream, Lamb 2 had cherry a la mode, and Lamb 1 had blueberry a la mode. Trying to decide what kind of pie was almost as good as eating the pie!

The Lambs weren't thrilled about this field trip, but they cooperated and made the best of the afternoon. It accomplished what I wanted it to-they saw where the governor's office is, saw the capitol, and saw what is done on Legislative Day. Perhaps we can participate or at least make a pie in future years.

*Note for my homeschool friends in other states: ID is a very friendly state for homeschooling. We need to educate our children from ages 7-16 in the subjects that are usually taught in the public schools. That is it. There is no paperwork to fill out each year. There are no required hours of instruction. There is no mandatory standardized testing. Curriculum is decided by the parent. We are given tremendous freedom but I take that seriously. We occasionally have field trips or take a day off, but from September-May they do school work 4-5 days a week. They do all the school subjects routinely taught in the public schools plus religion and Latin. I think I am stricter on this than many ID homeschoolers after coming from MN and after teaching in the classroom. We are thankful for the freedom especially last year while Lamb 2 had so much therapy that some of his schoolwork was postponed. This year all three of them are doing more school work than last year.

Libraries

I worked for Allen County Public Library for a few years after college. I was spoiled living in a town with such a great library system. In high school I often met classmates at the library on Sunday afternoons to work on school projects.When I was teaching I would put on hold about 50 books at a time, just go to the library and check them out for my class, the librarians found all the books for me. We had a few overdue books but the students never lost or damaged any of those hundreds of books that I checked out. Sometimes I would give the librarian a topic and they would reserve as many books on that topic as I wanted and then I would just go pick them up, I didn't have to do the research myself.
Then we moved to MN and I think our home library had more books than the small town library 7 miles away. I never went to the library to browse and check out books. Instead I put on hold about 50 books at a time for homeschooling and would go to the library to pick them up when they arrived at my small library.
Everyone told me we would love moving here with the wonderful library system. All programs were canceled in December so I haven't been able to take the Lambs to storytime or programs so I can't judge those yet. The other night I sat down to order some books to be helpful as new homeowners (when we get to that point), about purchasing a piano and gardening in ID. Then I decided while I was there I should probably order some books for homeschooling. And maybe I should get a book for myself just to read for fun. The book that I chose for fun-the library owns 21 copies and there are 67 holds. It will be a long time until I get that book for fun. Then when I got to my 6th book to order, the computer said I had exceeded my limit for holds. Really, you can only have 5 books on hold at a time? Even when you know you are going to have to wait months for at least one of those 5? This is going to be a pain to order 5 books at a time and remember to get back to it after I check out those 5 books, instead of sitting down and ordering all the books while I am lesson planning.
I think I have a high standard for libraries after living in Allen County, IN. I am hoping that the homeschool program on Wednesday afternoons is great. I am thankful that we are part of this library system and can check out books from the neighboring city library, even if it is only 5 at a time. If we only lived one town over we would not be part of this library system.
So, is there a limit on holds at your public library?

Homeschool Christmas Vacation

At one time Lamb 1 was a whole year ahead in math, doing Saxon math 2 book while he was in first grade. Then Ram had major surgery, I had some miscarriages, and we had a major move. I am happy to report that Lamb 1 finished his Saxon math 2 book on Thursday. He will begin Saxon math 3 after Christmas vacation. After he completes Saxon math 3 I do not know what math curriculum we are going to use. I like Saxon for the lower grades but not for the upper grades. After our major life events I'm proud that he is still half a year ahead in math.
Lamb 2 finished his handwriting of capital letters on Thursday too. Writing is very difficult for him and lower case letters will be a challenge. He is only in kindergarten and as a boy, I don't push him in this area. I know it will eventually come. He is eager to write like Lamb 1 so I'm glad he at least knows his capital letters now. He is plugging away in Alpha MUS and doing very well.
Lamb 3 will begin preschool in January. In homeschool he has been working on coloring and cutting with a scissors, both skills that will help him in preschool.
Since Lamb 1 and 2 were at a good breaking point I declared Christmas vacation began on Friday. They have their Sunday School Christmas program on Sunday and we have cookies to bake!
We are all looking forward to adding all subjects in after Christmas vacation. After our move we just did the basics in homeschool the last few months. I especially want to add more memory in, using Andrew Campbell's book, Living Memory. The Lambs want to resume Latin studies and study of Egypt in history.

Stuart Little

We just completed our first chapter book read aloud as a family. We read Stuart Little. All the Lambs were finally old enough to pay attention to a few chapters a day and remember what we read before on the next day. Ram did the reading and Lamb 1 could have listened to the whole book in one sitting, Lamb 2 listened well too as long as we only read one or two chapters, and Lamb 3 did ok listening for a 3 year old.

I remembered seeing the movie in the theatre about 10 years ago and all I remembered was the movie was one of the rare movies that I thought was better than the book. I also remembered that the movie was very different from the book.
This afternoon we had a movie afternoon. We turned on the air conditioner, popped popcorn, put root beer in cups that wouldn't spill on the living room carpet, and popped in Stuart Little DVD. The Lambs were so excited to hear the popcorn popper. We did this in the afternoon in the hopes of putting the Lambs to bed on time if not early.
Lamb 1 was glued to the TV for the entire movie. Lamb 3 got bored, but laid on the sofa and made it through the whole movie. Wow was there a difference between seeing the movie in the theatre before kids and seeing it in my home with my kids! Lamb 2 got completely freaked out and cried through some of the movie. He was so afraid that Stuart (a mouse) would be eaten by the cats. I continually told him that Stuart would be ok and Ram held him for most of the movie and we made it through.
I asked them afterwards and Lamb 1 liked the movie best. Lamb 2 and 3 liked the book best. Hopefully they have memories of a fun afternoon as a family watching a movie with pop and popcorn instead of memories of being freaked out by the movie!
1. We hope to continue chapter books read aloud as a family.
2. Perhaps our next book choice should be one that I don't know is made into a movie.
3. The next movie that we watch as a family, will be previewed by Ram or Ewe before the Lambs get to watch it.

Lambs enjoying root beer and popcorn while watching
Stuart Little at our home theatre.

Home again

We were gone for nearly two weeks to Fort Wayne, Saint Louis, back to IN, and drive home. I have lots post about our trip. We had a great time and didn't rest much on our vacation, but we saw lots of family and friends-some of whom I hadn't seen since our wedding in 2001. We were also able to spend time with my sister before she goes to South Korea for a year. We were able to shop at a used bookstore and go to the zoo in Fort Wayne too.
Today I tried to unpack and do a little laundry. I was able to do laundry at my mom's so I didn't have much to do when I got back besides Ram's laundry that he made after he came back last Saturday night.
Tomorrow I am going to a Carole Joy Seid seminar. I enjoyed her seminar last May so I'm looking forward to it. Plus I get to have lots of time to myself in the car to listen to my music and think without 3 little Lambs.
Next week we hope to begin homeschool after summer break, Ram has a conference to go to, I hope to begin potty training Lamb 3, and there is a lot to catch up on here after being gone two weeks. In there some time I hope to post about our trip.

Dumbing Down Kiddie Lit

My mother-in-law sent me a link to this article. I'm sure it caught her attention because she has sent us so many Enid Blyton's books. I will admit that I have had to look up (or ask our walking dictionary, Ram) a few words to answer the Lambs questions as we read Blyton's books. I don't know all the British vocabulary. We don't own The Adventures of the Wishing Chair that was mentioned in this article, but we have made it through all of the Blyton books that we have read without any problems more than looking a few words up.

I don't know what this author's problem is because I loved reading the Chronicles of Narnia and I can't wait to read it to the Lambs. I haven't read Swallows and Amazons yet, but it is highly recommended by Loopers. When I taught at a classical Lutheran school I learned the value of reading the real classics like Bambi and Little Mermaid instead of the Disney versions.

Beatrix Potter and also Enid Blyton are classics that no one should tamper with the way they wrote it. These are classics that show the time period they were written in. Part of the beauty of these classics is to learn more about the time period these books were written in. If you have a problem with it, DON'T READ IT. It's that simple. If they change Blyton's books, what other classic children's literature will be next? People don't want to increase their vocabulary. They want everything handed to them as easy as watching a movie. The Lambs love Beatrix Potter and the vocabulary doesn't bother them. I read real Beatrix Potter to them, not an adaptation. I just went through our library and gave away all the adaptations as I wanted them to read real Beatrix Potter and real Washington Irving when they are old enough.

As for the little girl's character name mentioned in the end of this article, I probably never would have thought of that if I hadn't read this article. I guess I'm too naive that I would have just thought about that being her name. Now that I've read this article I'll have a difficult time reading this book without laughing. Big sigh from Ewe here.

The article mentioned that Enid Blyton wrote about 800 titles. We probably own about 30. Lamb 1 and 2 enjoy them and I do too. We've probably read about 1/3 of those that we own. We'll continue to read the original versions, not the updated ones here at Agnus Dei Lutheran Academy.

Mini Family Update

I'm still here, we've just been very busy recently.

On Sunday and Monday we visited two of my college roommates (Stacy and Buffy) and Stacy's family. It was a short visit but it was so good to get together. I hadn't seen Stacy since her wedding 9 years ago. It was a wild visit with 5 boys ages 6 and under-and none of them play with other children very often. I'll post more about our visit later.

I've been trying to catch up on sleep after staying up too late on Sunday and getting home late on Monday. I've also done some more decluttering-working in the main bathroom mainly. We have a big closet in the bathroom that opens into the hallway. I don't think I have ever cleaned it out since we moved here 7 years ago. Not only did I have items like medicine that you usually have in your bathroom, but batteries (to check and see if they are any good), spare change (to get together to take to the bank), and candles. I have done 2 shelves. It is good to get organized and see what we really have-I don't think I ever need to buy shampoo again in my whole lifetime. I threw out a lot of old makeup (I never wear makeup any more) and a lot of expired stuff too.

I also have been working on a schedule for homeschooling. We aren't getting back to all subjects until after Labor Day, but I need to do a little planning. Most of this has been done in my head and I'm finally getting some of my ideas down on paper. Since Lamb 1 is 6, I don't have a lot of planning to do, but I need to do some. My style, especially after teaching in a classroom, it makes me feel so good to have it planned.

Today Ram had a medical test done. Please keep him in your prayers that the doctors can find what (if anything) is wrong and how to help him.

12th Week of School Report

On Monday we traveled 1 1/2 hours for Lamb 2 and 3 to have their well visit checkups and also for the 3 Lambs to have photos taken at Sears. It was a busy day and I took our school books along but we didn't find time to do school that day. On Tuesday we traveled about 1 hour for Lamb 2 to have a hearing test. We did some school in the car that day. Wednesday-Friday we did school. Saturday we had another busy day and only did a little school. After the transition from classroom to homeschool, I am learning to "go with the flow" some days, and especially in December. I know that we are doing more school now than I did with my students when I was in the classroom. We don't have any Christmas program practice, we aren't having a Christmas party, we aren't making Christmas presents, and we aren't going on any field trips to see gingerbread houses or see the Nutcracker. Nor are the Lambs all hyper about Christmas and unable to concentrate on school this time of year.
Math: Lamb 1 continued the same lesson of adding 2.
Handwriting: Lamb 1 continues to practice his letters-one upper and lower case letter a day. I am seeing small improvements when we concentrate on them one at a time.
Reading: We finished My Book House volume 2. It was fun to read The Night Before Christmas and stories about The Nutcracker and other Christmas stories at this time of year. We began volume 1. We will be able to go through volume 1 quickly as we have done it before. We are taking a break from Five in a Row. We finished another book of poetry that we were reading so we will also take a break from that. Lamb 1 has Psalm 23 memorized and Lamb 2 almost has it memorized. We called Ewe's parents and they recited it over the phone to them.
Phonics: Lamb 1 is doing very well in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. He is reading the 2 or 3 letter words well.
Religion: We did more Bible stories of Zechariah and Elizabeth and baby Jesus. We began practicing singing Christmas carols. At Ladies Aid, the ladies were impressed that the Lambs favorite Christmas carol was Hark the Harold Angels Sing and they knew all the words. We worked on memorizing the 9th commandment.
Latin: We continue Prima Latina. I like to do it when we are in the car, on days that we are at home we don't always get it done. My dad suggested that we make Latin a priority to keep Lamb 1 challenged. I think my dad is right so I'm going to make more of an effort to do Latin at home. Without giving specifics, I suspect that math is too easy for Lamb 1 sometimes. Memorizing Latin vocabulary is more difficult for Lamb 1 than it is for Lamb 2. Lamb 1 is better at applying Latin than Lamb 2. Plus Ram reminded me of the importance of doing math and Latin daily to learn it well.

Eighth Week of School

Here's what we accomplished this week:
Math: Worked on MUS lesson 5. The concept here is adding 1 to a number.
Handwriting: Lamb 1 practiced writing his first and last name and October some more. He is improving. I got organized and printed off some more handwriting papers for him to use in November.
Phonics: We reviewed vowels and the consonants we did before. We learned the consonants m, n, p, and qu.
Religion: Memorized Hebrews 13:6 (for Sunday School), worked on memorizing the fourth and fifth commandments and the hymn For All the Saints. The boys only had one week to learn For All the Saints after we had worked on A Mighty Fortress is Our God. They did not do quite as well this week as they did the week before. We did more Bible stories about Abraham and Isaac.
Science: We read more science books on fall topics like leaves and pumpkins. Lamb 1 is getting tired of these, Lamb 2 is still learning from them.
Reading: We started The Rag Coat. This is too long of a book for Lamb 2 to sit and pay attention. I plan to do some extra activities with quilts with this book so we will spend 2 weeks on it. Read a few stories from My Book House and a few poems, recited the R.L. Stevenson poems we had been working on.
Latin: Worked on Lesson 4 and 5 from Prima Latina.
Art: Painting with babysitter on Tuesday.On Tuesday our babysitter came and we had ECFE so we didn't do school. The ECFE theme was bodies/food. All 3 Lambs enjoyed having their bodies traced on large paper. We brought them home and we plan to cut them out and color them.

We had a very busy, but fun weekend. On Friday evening we went trick or treating at the neighboring town's businesses. You don't realize how many local businesses there are until you walk down the whole street on a windy night! The Lambs came home with overflowing buckets and we even had to carry them for them at the end. Then we ate at the our insurance agent's customer appreciation dinner. We had a nice supper of pork sandwiches. On Saturday we went to the open house for the veterinarian's new building. She is one of our church members. The building was so nice with boarding for cats/dogs, animal hospital, exam rooms, laboratory, and even a drive through drop off large animals part. She served a hot dog/hamburger lunch and had lots of Halloween activities/treats for the kids. She loved the Lambs costumes. Then we went trick or treating to a few church members homes in the same town as the vet and then also in our town. With them working on our town sewer system, we couldn't go to everyone that we usually go to. We were glad we went in the afternoon instead of going through the muddy streets at night. Saturday evening we had brats and sauerkraut. Sunday we had church and then Ram took Lamb 1 to a concert over in SD. Lamb 1 enjoyed having time with Ram and the other Lambs enjoyed playing together without Lamb 1.