Ewe's Recent Projects

1. Our home library is organized in Dewey Decimal system. I organized/weeded through/typed up a list of what we have in the 300s. This includes education books (which I have a lot of from teaching in the classroom and homeschooling), nursery rhymes, and fairy tales. It also includes political science and economics which Ram has a lot. The section was a mess. This was a huge project to haul the books downstairs from one end of the house to the other, decide what to keep and type it up, and then haul it back upstairs to reshelve what we were keeping. (I couldn't use our laptop because Ram uses it during the day so I had to use the computer in our schoolroom.) The give away pile has a lot of education books that we didn't need any more. I would love to go through our whole library this way, but that will have to wait until next fall as other projects are now more important. I also worked on our fiction section-not the picture books, just the chapter books and the adult fiction. There were lots of books that Ram purchased at library book sales that were not on my list. It is good to have that updated so we know what we have for future book store shopping. I did complete the fiction and 300 sections.
2. I just began going through the tubs of baby stuff. We still don't know what the future holds for our family, but I hung on to too much. When we moved we got rid of the crib and other baby "furniture" but a lot of other stuff went in plastic tubs and has sat in my garage since then. There were a few years with miscarriages that I couldn't handle even looking at baby clothes, toys, books, and other supplies. Add in that Ram's mom also had 3 boys and gave us a lot of that when Lamb 1 was born, and we have a ton. The most difficult for me to go through is the baby books. Many of the books have specific memories for each Lamb. Lamb 3 loved the Gingerbread Man. Lamb 1 loved this book about lions. One of the first words he said was "mane" from that book. I have so many memories of reading classics like Goodnight Moon. I have a feeling this is going to be like a few years ago-go through and get rid of some stuff this time, pack up the rest to go through again another time. You would think with my youngest being 7 now it would be easier, but it's not. Sigh. I give myself some forgiveness on this since it is difficult to do emotionally. I also try to remind myself that it would be better to give it to people that could use it instead of just sitting in a tub in my garage.
3. Ram and I weeded through the church library and decided to get rid of a lot. A church member volunteered to take a bunch of Bibles to a local mission. We separated old Bibles and hymnals that were worn out to burn so they are taken care of respectfully. I boxed up our old hymnals and not sure what to do with those. We have a whole table of books to give away. We are allowing our members to see if they want any of these books and then I will box up the rest to either donate to the thrift shop or if they are good Lutheran books we'll take them to the Seminary when we go to Fort Wayne for our summer vacation. We reduced about 8 bookshelves to just 1 bookshelf of books we really want in our library.
4. The next project will be to organize all this give away stuff from church and the books from our library and baby items. Pack up what we are taking to deliver on our vacation, make trips to the local thrift store, try to resale some stuff at the local used kids store, etc. I keep thinking about how nice it will be when these projects are completed instead of getting overwhelmed with what I want to accomplish in the next few weeks!

2015 Preschool Fundraiser

Our church preschool had a fundraiser back in February with the Luau theme. Here are some photos of our family from that night.

My Lambs were scared to get their face painted before we moved to ID. Now they see  it as a chance to have a beard, mustache, or be a pirate!

Lamb 1 outgrew all his Hawaiian shirts and I didn't realize this until the day of the fundraiser. Oops! I think he'd rather wear a MineCraft t-shirt any way.

At one time Lamb 1, Lamb 2, Ram, and Ewe had matching Hawaiian outfits. None of the Lambs can fit into those toddler size clothes any more, so now it is just Ram and Ewe!

What are you teaching your kids?

We've been reading Little Town on the Prairie. One chapter talks about what Laura saw while she worked in town. Last week before track practice, Lamb 2 was repeating what he heard in the book. I was horrified to hear him saying over and over again:

"My name is Lamb 2 and I'm DRUNK!"

*The Lambs participate in track with the Idaho CHRISTIAN Running Club.

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.

Lamb 2 and Lamb 3 photos

I'm attempting to get caught up on posting photos. These photos are from February. I decided to start here, but eventually I have photos from before February to post too.

This is the best photo that I have of Lamb 2's chipped front tooth. You can also see why he was more worried about his nose than his tooth.

This photo shows Lamb 3's first lost tooth and also two of his new favorite toys, Teenymates. He was thrilled that his Easter basket had one Colts Teenymates.

Sorry for the picture quality. This photo shows a craft that Lamb 2 made in Sunday School. I think the teacher wrote the last line because they ran out of time, but I was so impressed with Lamb 2's handwriting on the first two lines. It was written with a pen and without a line to guide him. No, it's not perfect, but this was huge progress compared to handwriting in Sunday School last year. Since I homeschool, I look for examples of good work when I am not his teacher. Lamb 2 is making steady progress!

He is Risen!

Happy Easter!

(Ram had a fit about wearing his hat in the church,
but it was raining so photos were taken indoors.)

(We don't have an Easter Vigil service so this is glorious
to see after Good Friday services)

(entryway at church, see last year's blog about the yellow flowers)

Cute treats for the Lambs from their Sunday School teacher

The Easter Bunny doesn't come to our house until after church, which meant the Lambs begged to go home several times during the brunch after church.

(My SEVEN year old still poses for pictures unlike his older brothers.)

Happy Birthday, Lamb 3!