Raspberry Cake and a New Yamaha Keyboard

I don't think there is a lot to explain about this cake: unless that it's to inform you that it's raspberry and there isn't any left. It was in honor of great grandmother Simonne coming for coffee yesterday. I am writing mostly about our new keyboard: It was the furthest pictured keyboard that we bought, with the bench and a fine pedal, for practicing on,just so the winter holidays don't sink us like they did last year with no practice!! The shop owner who sold it to us said, "It's a breath of fresh air to hear you play in this shop- most of all we get loud punks in here who know only one song, and play it as loudly as possible!" There were a lot of electric guitars there. We put the new keyboard in the car (without the box! The car was too small-typical!) and drove through the snow and wind to park it in the kids' bedroom upstairs. Their great uncle enjoyed an impromptu recital a couple of days ago! Today much to his surprise he found himself accompanying me on my violin! That was really enjoyable! The kids have had not too many bookishly academic moments recently, but have had a lot of language practice! We have our Saxon math books and Explode the Code in a drawer nearby. But first on our to-do list we need to experience some trains and some water slides. The kids also had the experience of sitting very, very, very quietly in the morning meeting today... not as usual. Also singing from hymnals with notes in them.

Bigger House Post

"When you have the right puzzle piece, you don't have to push."

-(Wisdom from Mom)

We prayed all summer long about adding on the our house and the answer was no. And the Lord's "no" is far better than our "yes!"

On the day we found out for sure it was "no," it took less than our very first five minutes of looking on Zillow to find out why: The Lord had an entirely different house prepared for us all along. As soon as I found it, tears came to my eyes- it's perfect! The Lord provided us exactly the property for our family: it has the three bedrooms, the loft for studying the scriptures and keeping the office, the fireplace in the living room, the kitchen with the place to put the food (and eat it of course), and a shop for painting and a studio for music teaching! Also a place to exercise. And a place to ride a scooter and throw a basketball. No one needs to stand desperately outside the bathroom door any longer. And it's less than a mile and a half away.

The whole process has taken less than five weeks, and it is so touching to my heart that the Lord has so carefully crafted the house and the timing of everything to our needs, our schedule, our hearts. I really like it that the children had the experience of praying with us for something and having the answer come back so decidedly opposite the request and so much better than we could have ever planned! I hope that helps them trust God for whatever the answers to their prayers through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, will be.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths!

Small House Post

We are officially permanently 820 square feet. Our 1918 home will never grow in size due to well permitting.

You know you live in a little house when...

You have to take a number to go to the bathroom

The only room to put the groceries you brought home is in your stomach

You can only eat spaghetti and you have to bring it in sideways

There are no private conversations

You don't have to take steps to clean the kitchen

Your books line the shelves in double rows (and the one you want is in the back)

Every surface is full of stuff you actually use

The oven doubles as storage

You get stuck going out the door because everyone else is going out the same door at the same time and the broom behind the door was blocking the way

When you make your bed your room is 80% clean

You feel really tall at home because the doorways are so low

You always know where your kids are

Everyone sits on the same couch for evening Bible readings

Throwing away completed homework is a necessity!

Your house's only heat is a small fireplace

You are a really close-knit family... literally!

busy eating crackers. Yup.

This dear baby definitely got his nap immediately thereafter!

Our kids' summer checklist

This aggregate list compiles what our children did this summer with accompanying smileys to interpret the events.

Toured an aircraft carrier :)

Visited Alki beach to play in the sand :D

Saw the Blue Angels :o

Climbed Mount Si :P

Ran a 10k :)

Learned a Sonatina :*

Cleaned room again and again and again :(

Lost a few wiggly teeth :f

Went to camp :D

Checked out hundreds of library books :E

Did musical performances at rest homes :l

Big birthday party with friends :D

Played remote control cars :)

Played with cousins ;)

Played in the pool with cousins 8D

Improvised jazz for hours on the piano B)

Picked lots of berries and made jam :d

Forgot Math 8(

Confident Homeschool Nerds

These homeschoolers warmly embrace the potentially nerdy tone of homeschooling with talent and a great sense of humor.

I was homeschooled until I was about 12, (then my mother turned my education over to others, much of it one-on-one and I learned to run my own homework). I appreciate most of all the different perspective, the time I was able to spend doing the things that really interested me.

unwind the mind

This is one of my most "unwound" moments just taking this picture. No stress. Somebody else is making dinner. No work. Just drive on these long, nameless roads until you end up where it is good and peaceful. Like heaven.

Honesty in Homeschooling

I can't stand some of the homeschool books I've read recently. They are decidedly monosyllabic, written on a third grade level, telling you more or less that having a casual conversation about the digestive system while eating a peanut butter sandwich counts as "health" which goes under the label of "science" which goes under the umbrella of "academics." This just doesn't Speak to My Soul, As It Were. We need to drill these kids- they are brilliant minds begging to be stuffed. This is not a casual endeavor. I don't like to be told that Homeschooling is successful because Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were homeschoolers. That's spurious: how do we know they wouldn't have been brilliant anyway- that it was in the nature of their being to be brilliant? Just because we homeschool doesn't guarantee us a spot in history. We have to sweat for a good education! This is the PURSUIT of happiness. Kids don't want to just sit around their houses and call everyday life education. Education needs to be a special event that takes effort and work.

All day long I am telling myself, "We can do more!" And I can go full board on academics and end up with a pile of clean laundry so large that a boxcar is about the only thing left that can haul it. We homeschool mothers. Do we ever win? Today we fell far short in the academics department. We got only a little done. But our floors are really clean, and we all went 8 miles skating and biking on our own steam through the sunny, windy afternoon! No, this is not school, this is just housework and wonderful frivolity! This freedom is one of the dangerous advantages of homeschooling- it's way to easy to have fun instead of hit the books. It's not like we didn't learn during that time, though. We learned not to brake suddenly going downhill when Mommy is rollerblading directly behind us if we don't like to see her swerve and careen past us yelling at the top of her lungs to never do that again because she is an object in motion that tends to stay in motion and has no idea how to stop on rollerblades. (See, this moment would be where the Homeschool Books I Read That I Don't Like would say, "Ahh, physics. Yep. They're doing physics.") Thankfully I did not end up demonstrating the force equals mass times acceleration formula.

I wish I had a book like Rafe Esquith's There Are No Shortcuts (a great book!) but tailored to the homeschool model and not quite as boring as The Well-Trained Mind that lights my fire.

The Source of Strength

The Lord gave me a rich early morning Mother’s Day gift: I went into the children’s room to get a hanger: when I turned the light on full strength one of the children giggled in her sleep. It was an adorable sound. Instantly it reminded me how much I love the threesome, and how much the Lord loves the gifts that are on loan to us from Him. Later at the breakfast table the children were glowing when I opened the card on the table. These kids. I need to do my best for them.

My husband spoke to the children this morning saying that if we walk a godly walk in close communion with Him, we will have an" abundant entrance into the Kingdom of God." 2 Pet. 1:11 This (he continued in a later conversation) has to do more perhaps with our return with Christ at the start of His thousand year reign than with the rapture of His saints at His coming: what we do on earth now directly affects our responsibility, our status, our abundance in His kingdom. We indeed have responsibility there! The Lord is the one to make that judgement how our talents multiplied or were squandered in our lifetime , but the bottom line is, our cup of enjoyment of the Lord will be full in the coming day, but the size of our cup can certainly depend on our faithfulness down here. Much later, in the eternal state, all is found in God, there is no more work to be done, but the verse about the abundant entrance into the glorious Kingdom have much to do with the rewards and responsibilities of reigning with Him in the millennium. The mustard seed of faith in my heart leaps when I think of this!!

Yesterday he said to our own children “God really cares about every part of our lives.”

After my husband said these words to my three children, we prayed together as a family, then we kissed the children good night. I went to the laundry room and the thought was with me: “God really cares about every part of our lives”

How much do I really believe that? Is God looking down from heaven at me right now, His heart rejoicing that I am thinking of His love for me? Is God watching my hands do the family laundry? Is He following this train of thought? How much does He think about me? How much does He esteem me? How much does He love me?

If God’s love and the power of the Holy Spirit are going to have some impact on my life this is something I am going to have to consider.

The hairs of my head are numbered.

He cares about my hair more than I do, to go to the trouble of attaching a number to each hair.

My tears are in His bottle. I have forgotten the last time I cried: I have been pretty happy lately in spite of myself: God’s earthly gifts to me of a secure marriage relationship, a worthy family, a comfortable home and sweet, rich fellowship with other Christians have been priceless. Yet He has not forgotten the last time I was sad.

If we think on His name, He writes in His book of remembrance.

I am here to write about our homeschool, and this time it is just about tapping into the source of strength and energy to carry out this mission. The privilege and the responsibility are enormous.

FREE CARDBOARD! Use #1

TIP: If you shop at Coscto- Get the big pieces of cardboard that they slide between those layers of paper towels and toilet paper packages- they are enormous and perfect for gluing presentations or pictures or lists or whatever! We got about six and started a language project on one today. We make colorful lists of vocabulary words on the computer copied out of a language book, print it out, glue it to the board, then the kids copy it out by hand and hand in their papers to me. The whole time we are translating the words and reading them aloud to check for proper pronunciation. It's computer skills, language, handwriting, and paper/scissors/glue stuff all wrapped into one. It is very popular at this house.

Reasons to Homeschool

Why do people homeschool?

I had a dream recently that I sent my two littlest to the elementary school up the road and they were late getting there - not only a week late starting because I was trying to make up my mind, but even late on the first day, and they came home in the middle of the afternoon with the sunshine pouring down, dragging their jackets and their lunch boxes and backpacks thumping... I'd had all this time on my hands all day and I felt really... displaced! I lost my job as their day teacher. I also wondered what they had heard and done all day, not knowing what their input that day was. Most of all I had missed them. I suppose that's some of the reasons why I homeschool, anyway. When I woke up I wondered wow, what about that? Would I consider sending my kids to school?

Homeschooling is not all fun and idealistic. Being Mom and primary teacher is really hard. You have to find ways to cope. Living all together all the time can really be a challenge. Incorporating the kids into the household routine is necessary. This morning one little one took a loaf of bread and prepared cheese sandwiches for lunch. Before we ate lunch I had supper starting on the stove. I got help there too. And they all cleared the pile of clean wash Daddy made on the couch the afternoon before at lightening speed: If you pretend they're invisible robots that are stealing your folded laundry to put it away they love it and work much faster. ("Let's see... I was sure I put the towels right there, and now they're gone! What on earth??") This is so necessary to have them shoulder a part of running the house because nobody can feel academic in a chaotic environment!

We watched the baby eagles on webcam today. As we watch them we all like to narrate what it looks like they would say if they could talk:

"Hey, move over. Move. Hey, hey, I see someone flying it our sky! Is that mom? MOM! HI MOM! HI!!! No, wait- that's a goose. Aw, where's mom?? I want some more cat bits to eat. Is this edible? (no, guess not.) -Hey!! stop biting my toes! THERE's Mom. Me! Me! Me! No I want to put my head in mom's feathers! you stay over there by the skeleton."

Eagle Webcam Live

This Eagle Webcam is worth your time at least this month!

Home School Moment

We were eating shell pasta at dinner and my little one said "Hey, Mommy! These noodles are shaped like... um... like mollusks!"

Kids like to check stuff off on lists. They get important and businesslike with their own lists and I sometimes find lists they have made themselves later.

I'm not a great time manager, so I use a day plan list that includes everything from flossing teeth to music theory. We hardly ever get everything finished, but we don't get as much done if we don't use it. We change it often to include more areas of study- like occupational education and writing books. I cut and pasted our current one here.

cccccc Wash quickly, hang up towel, clear out pajamas from bathroom

cccccc Dress, comb hair

cccccc Eat breakfast, clear table

cccccc Brush, floss teeth, rinse

cccccc Make Bed, tidy room

cccccc Help with housework

cccccc Read Bible, Memory work

cccccc Piano, Theory

ccccc Writing, Spelling, Grammar (Explode the Code)

cccccc Reading/Poetry

cccccc Dutch

ccccc Spanish

ccccc Sign Language

ccccc History of the World, Geography

ccccc Science (right now we are working through the Extreme Snap Circuit Set by Elenco. The kids can't get enough!)

ccccc Drawing

cccccc Exercise

ccccc Math

cccccc Drink two full glasses of water other than mealtimes

cccccc I did something nice for (fill in sibling's name here)

cccccc I did something nice for (fill in sibling's name here)

cccccc I listened quietly in the Bible reading

cccccc Thought of doing good things on my own

There are too many items crammed in on each line: kids like to check off more often to see results faster, so next time I edit this I will separate History/Geography and so on. The color coding is according to the day. Monday we use a red pencil and fill in the red day, etc. Saturday is not really a school day, but we still have to floss our teeth and be nice to each other. I sometimes read history to the kids over lunch to save time!

If you have ways to share that help you get through your day efficiently I would love to hear about it.

Science: Tornado versus Cow

Do tornadoes really make that sound?

Tornado

The cow is like, "This is not fun."

Science - See a complete launch and reentry of rocket boosters

Somehow I didn't imagine that it would all go this fast.

Atlantis: Blast into space

Way to Save Time #1

Fastest and Best French Bread I ever made:

CLICK HERE.

Using Space Well

I needed a light and I needed a globe. Then I found a globe that was a lamp.

I needed a world map and a shower curtain. Then I found a shower curtain that was a world map.

Since we home school in 820 square feet, I like things that double up.

What do you have that doubles up?

We put our maps in the bathroom and also put a world map in the baby room over the diaper changing table so every time we had to change a baby we'd go over a few countries. It worked. Eventually we got up to about 100 countries. This was years ago, but anyway, it went like this:

I think most home schools -or any schools- have walls doubling as education!

Go babies! Babies can learn so much.

I think we forgot a lot of the 100, but we also don't use a diaper table anymore either. Yay.