Bring on the Two-Wheeler!

Each person in our family made goals at the beginning of the year. One of Carston's was to learn how to ride his bike-no training wheels. Learning to ride a bike is one of those events in life where your personality can show itself in full force. Some kids show that they have no fear, that nothing (like scrapped body parts) is going to slow them down. And then there are kids whose personalities mirror Carston's. He is a thinker. He likes to study things out until he knows just what to expect. He is not one to throw caution to the wind. He is a careful, cautious indiviual and that is a good thing. Although, that makes learning how to ride a bike a bit more of a challenge. I mean, how do you explain to a cautious 7 year old that you have to just get on the thing and go for it, that any scrapes received will be worth it?

John and I decided we'd better get a move on helping Carston reach his goal before the nice weather deserted us. Our plan was to have John practice with him each night after dinner. Well, one Saturday, I took the girls somewhere and John decided to get a jumpstart on the plan. I pulled onto our street and saw Carston riding his bike, all by himself, no training wheels! He was SO unbelievably excited to be riding his bike. He couldn't wait to spill the whole story to me. His friend has a driveway that slopes down. He went to the top, and tried going down once. He didn't quite make it all the way before he took refuge in the grass to avoid scrapes. Next time down was the charm. He made it to the bottom of the driveway and just kept going. He called all the appropriate relatives to share the news, which resulted in Grandma Robin taking him to the park where he could have a long proper ride around the track. Lucky boy. The next day he jumped out of bed bright and early, got dressed, and asked for permission to get out on his bike. He has been riding ever since.

I love that he got a huge boost of confidance because it only took him "2 tries." We could have really pushed him last year and I'm sure he would have got it, but it would have come with a price. Waiting another year came with a bonus :)

I'm living my mother's life!

When I was growing up, I remember a lot of grape juice. This wasn't the kind that you bought at the store; we had jars of it downstairs in the basement on the food storage shelves. My Aunt had grapevines and my mom and her would make juice and bottle it. My aunt called me about a month ago and asked me if I was interested in learning how to do it. Canning is one of those things I've always wanted to learn more about so I said yes. It was fun hanging out with her and my mom as they taught me the process. We used a steamer and that worked pretty well. It took quite awhile to do all the grapes she had, but my mom was so nice to come back another night and stay late while we finished. I also ended up making some jelly (or jam, I don't really know the difference!). I did that part by myself so I hope it turned out well. In the end, I ended up with over 3 dozen jars of concentrated grape juice and 1/2 a dozen jars of jelly. It took several nights, so I had to keep telling John, "You're going to LOVE this grape juice!"



PS. If anyone has a juice steamer or a steam canner they don't want, I'd love to buy them!

Macy=Daily Dose of Laughter

MooMoo, you make me laugh. You make me laugh when you insist on wearing your bright blue footsie pajamas to Target. You make me laugh even harder when you then decide to run around in circles in front of the store SNORTING like a pig as loud as you can (and we both know how loud you can). You make me laugh every single day. I can't wait to see the woman you turn into!

Kate is not to be dissuaded...

Please excuse the messy pantry, but do you see that red and white basket at the top left? Well, apparently Kate saw some treat wrapper sticking out of it while I was doing school with Carston. Seeing as how she is only about 2 feet tall, I would have thought she would have admitted defeat and moved onto the next item of business. No, not Kate. I guess it is a good thing that she feels so capable. She got the stool, climbed right up there, and helped herself to 3 suckers...

I love how she just looks at me like, "What? Why do you find this so interesting?"

PS. She has made it a habit everyday to take advantage of times when I am not in the kitchen. She pulls a chair over to the cupboard, climbs up on the counter, and helps herself to the treat bowl.

PPS. The night before we left for San Antonio, she fell off the counter-height table and got a deep gash on her head. She sat still for about 5 seconds while I tried to put pressure on it, and then she was fighting to get away from me. She is a crazy girl sometimes!

Jinxed

I always thought I'd never be one of THOSE people. You know who I'm talking about. The people who spend absurd amounts of money on their pets. Who does that? Pets are a dime a dozen right? Um.... I am ashamed to admit that I have joined that party. But when I walk in on circumstances such as these just about every night........what choice did I really have?

Sadie (our dog who now has higher medical bills than all 4 of my children combined) had been babying her back leg for a few weeks. It seemed to fluctuate, so I kept waiting, hoping it would go away. It didn't. I took her in expecting a broken bone or something (maybe from the bat Macy dropped on her leg!). Oh no, it was a torn ACL. The Vet (Orthopedic Specialist if you want to be specific) told me I had two choices: a $1200 surgery or a $2400 surgery. (John said their was a third choice but I stopped him before the cruel words left his heartless lips!) So yep, Little Miss Sadie got her surgery (the "cheap" one of course). I don't know what is more embarrassing: the fact that we paid this crazy amount for her surgery, or the fact that I got teary-eyed dropping her off!

Hee Haw Farms

Alpine Online hosted a field trip to Hee Haw Farms. It was a sweet deal to get in and do everything. It was nice having John come over since we were right by his work.

This is what happens when you ask a stranger to take your family picture. Carston? Where are you? Apparently he didn't look like he belonged with the orange shirt family (And my husband is color blind because he considers this shirt mostly red :)!

So we went with the double picture approach. Here's one I took of John and the kids by him...

And here is the other half!

My Monster Organization Board

Sometime in the summer, I did a post on organizing my home. I've done a lot since I posted my intentions :) I think I felt a great need to have our house running smoothly with as little direction from me as possible since I knew we would probably be homeschooling. I am pleased with how things have turned out.

First of all, I made this board. It is huge (4x7), and I love it! Everything I need is right at my fingertips. Lists and schedules are highly visible for everyone.

(I should have straightened it up before the pictures!)

It has a whiteboard at the top (I need to divide it into sections with vinyl tape, which I have but haven't done yet :). There are little magnet things with the days of the week so I can write dinner and daily activities for everyone to see. There will be a grocery section, to do list for me, to do list for John, misc. notes, and anything else that is needed.I implemented a token system in our family. At the beginning of each week, each kid receives 6 tokens in their canister (they can be redeemed for 30 minutes electronic time). I have kitchen timers at the computer and video games so they are responsible for their own time. If they fail to turn it off when time is up, they lose an extra token. Let me say that because their electronic time is fairly limited, tokens are VERY powerful in our house. They can be taken away, but it is rare that it gets to that point because the kids value them so much. And there are times where they are rewarded with tokens, they get free movie nights on Friday, etc. So hopefully you'll erase the image that I'm a mean mother :)

I also made charts for everyone in the family. Each day of the week is listed with categories: Hygiene, Responsibilities, Education, Activities. These were placed in a sheet protector, and things were crossed off as they completed them each day. On Monday, money is deposited in their canister with the amount depending on how many things they completed.

Pegboard is at the bottom of my giant work of art. Each person has a clipboard that holds their chart and any other papers necessary. There are also bins holding markers and crayons.

The canisters are placed up high so Kate can't get them! They hold pens, scissors, money, tokens, pushpins, etc.

I LOVE this thing. Ideally, it would not be in such conspicuous place, but there isn't really anywhere else for it to be in our current home. I love that everyone can easily find the information and things they need without my help :) I think a huge thing for me has been learning to keep my mouth shut. I set up the system with rewards and consequences, and they get to chose. As their mom though, I hate dishing out the consequences, and desperately desire the rewards for them. I have to constantly work on letting them learn that they are in control of what happens to them.

10-8 Party

What started out as a wacky tradition for the adults has now turned into a Halloween party for the kids! Here are the girls. Avery was a Zebra Princess (sporting a pony hawk and everything), Macy decided to be Superwoman after two other costumes didn't quite suit her, and Kate had her choice between a princess and a ladybug. She screamed and fought me with both of them, just less on the princess so she was that by default! Here are the boys. Carston was an army guy last year, but this isn't just an army guy, it has some special name that I can't recall.

Start 'em while they're young

Carston will be turning eight next year. He'll probably be getting baptized. I can't believe that time is almost upon us. It fills me with a drive to make sure that he is on the right track, that he knows what he needs to know, that he has the experiences that will help him build his own testimony. As part of this, I decided I really wanted to focus on helping our kids establish the habit of personal scripture study. We had a Family Home Evening lesson on it, and made charts for a month to help us remember. I have to say, I've been touched by how my children have responded. They have hardly missed a day in three weeks. The way they have responded has reinforced my own testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I watch Avery. She turned 5 a few months ago. She probably doesn't understand or even know how to pronouce half the words in there. But she is excited about reading it. She will read a whole page in a night. She helps Macy read. She reads with expression even when she's not sure what she's reading about. She'll remind me that she needs to read her scriptures. She'll read them even without a reminder. I know she feels the spirit that is tied to the Book of Mormon. What other book would a child love and keep reading when there was so much in it they didn't understand? I don't think there is any other book out there. The same is true with Carston and Macy. Macy loves to repeat word by word each night. Sometimes she uses the picture version. One night we read about Joseph Smith praying, and that night in her prayers, she was "grateful that Joseph Smith prayed." She loves finding and pointing out pictures of him now. Carston is supposed to choose 3 new goals for school. They can be personal, academic, or family oriented. We were talking about him being baptized soon, and I asked if he wanted to have the goal of reading every day until then. His response was, "No, I want to read the WHOLE Book of Mormon." I know the Book of Mormon is a book from God. I want my children to develop their own testimonies. I want them to know that this gospel is true. I want them to know what it feels like when the Holy Ghost is speaking to them. I want them to know that God loves them. I have confidence that this is a way to accomplish that. I believe that studying the scriptures everyday can do all that. It has meant spending more time with them each night, helping them with words they don't know, but it is well worth it. I would do great things for my kids if it would ensure their safety. I can do small, daily things as well.

Loving Homeschooling

It has been a little over 2 months since we began our homeschooling adventure, and I love it! I have to say that the first two weeks were definitely challenging. I had to figure out when to do everything, what times Carston worked best, what a reasonable amount of focus I could expect, how much I should expect him to accomplish in a certain time, how involved I should be in the work, what to do with my other kids, figure out the K12 program, etc. It was a little crazy during those weeks. But now, we have it down. I think an important aspect of that is feeling free to adapt it as I see fit. There is a lot involved in the K12 program. I have no problem skipping parts of the lesson if he has mastered the concept. When the way they were doing the multiplication facts wasn't working and Carston was frustrated, we just stopped K12 lessons altogether and we found other ways to master those. I love that we can skip concepts he understands. I love that he gets to spend so much more time at home. I love that he is able to work on a level more appropriate for him. I love that he has more free time to play and read and be a kid. I love that he is not stressed out by all the demands on him. I love that he still is going to school for a couple hours most days, that he learns about friends, respect, authority, etc. At some point, I might want more freedom in the curriculem, but for right now with the time I have to devote to it...I LOVE IT!!!

And it is probably important to note that Carston loves it too. There have been a few times where he has gotten upset, not over the fact that he does homeschool, but that ALL of his education isn't at home :)