What's This White Stuff?

Proof that God answers prayers: it snowed in Louisiana. Auds had been praying for snow all last year, desperate to fulfill her dreams of building snowmen. She talked about it so much that my mother-in-law dug up pictures from the last time it snowed in this part of the state -when B was 3!

It did snow where we were when I was pregnant with Auds. But we lived over an hour away and this part of the state didn't get any. Still, suffice it to say it doesn't snow often at all. It's a miracle when it does and the entire state shuts down. I mean SHUTS DOWN. Not only are bridges and businesses closed, but the interstates and even small roads are. You can't get anywhere. If you need milk, you're walking and praying the employees walked to work so the store is open.

So it snowed last week! What?! Pipes burst, heaters froze over, people were calling it the snow-pocalypse. We ran our faucets and kept our heater low, so we didn't have any problems, but a lot of people weren't so lucky. The snow lasted on the ground for over 24 hours and it turned into ice and is still in some shady places and on roofs. It's weird to look out and see white instead of brown. Granted, only about an inch or so accumulated on the ground, but that's so rare here!

And miracles, it's supposed to snow again tomorrow!

We only lasted 5 minutes all bundled up last time, so I'm not sure how we'll do tomorrow. But it sure is interesting!

Happy

One of the things that makes me incredibly happy is that my daughter sees my happiness. I know that sounds strange. But think of the society we live in. It's viewed as common to not marry, to divorce, or to have an unhappy marriage. It's not out of the ordinary to view one's kids as a burden and to want to get away from them. I'm not discounting needing time to recharge with that statement. We need full cups in order to fill others' cups. But seeing the world through a lens of bleakness is much more prevalent than la vie en rose.

But my daughter sees my happiness. That's not to say we don't have hard times -we do- but we have joy. The joy of The Lord is our strength. It's something I've completely had to rely on and build myself upon. When you hit rock bottom, it's always a good idea to build up on the chief cornerstone that's our Lord. :) She sees that and wants to memorize Scripture so she can know Jesus more. My husband and I have a fairy tale love with a downsized castle. So she wants to be married and has planned her dream wedding. It's become a bit of an obsession lately and is precious. When she sees pretty flowers she'll ask if she can have some in her bouquet or if she sees a pretty dress she'll ask if she can get married in it. She views the covenant of marriage as a beautiful and happy thing. She even planned her wedding on her magnet doodle board as we cuddled one night.

She sees how fulfilled I am with the vocation of motherhood and is making it her mission to help me as much as she can while she's young so she can learn how to be a mommy for when she's older.


She sees how much I'm loving homeschooling her and wants to teach the boys. I'll catch her reviewing her school work with Tony during snack time as I nurse the baby.


She sees how much I love giving to others so she suggests ways to bless others. She's such a sweetie. It's a joy to me to see her this happy. I'm reveling in this season in her life where she's just full of joy and the world is right and agreeable in her eyes. I know she'll face difficulties in life as we all do, but I'm praying she sets deep roots in this season that can sustain her little heart and build her faith as she grows.

One Week In Musings

So we've been at it for a week and so far...we love it! We feel a great peace and joy that just confirms that we made the right decision for our family and are covered by God's grace.

I did get Auds' work from school, so we've added that in now.

Of course it's hard when Auds asks to see her friends for recess during the day as opposed to her brothers, but she still sees them often. We did not get accepted into the large homeschool group on account of doctrinal differences, but we know God will guide us. I'm currently looking for some smaller groups. There's also a mom in our church who just pulled her son out of the same school to homeschool so I plan on reaching out to her to set up play dates.

Our routine so far is:

Wake up and eat and get ready
Family prayer
Pledge of Allegiance (I don't want them to not know what it's like to say that and want to try and instill a reverence for our country and her leaders)
We sing My Country Tis of Thee
We sing a fun kids' song like I Am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, The B-I-B-L-E, or I've Got the Joy Down in My Heart to shake out wiggles out.
I then read a lesson from our learning Bible and we discuss it and watch any supplemental stuff they have.
Then Auds quotes her school scriptures (we're at about 15 verses aside from Sunday School and ones we teach her independently)
Then we do the Abeka work, which is really colorful and she enjoys. I give Tony color sheets from our Bible coloring book at this time.
We have a snack and break. Often the baby nurses to sleep.
We finish up any other work that needs to be done or if she wants to do extra.
Lunch and recess or quiet time.
Then we have free afternoons to do what we need to do.
The kids play with lavender cloud dough to calm them down while I make dinner.
Dinner and either get ready for church or just have time at home then bed.

Some minor "issues" I've noticed this week:

Tony gets jealous that Auds is working, so I'm trying to get creative with things to keep him occupied. Often times her scraps from art projects are perfect. He won't accept his normal non-school coloring books coz he's a big boy and wants to work.

Auds would do the entire curriculum in one day if I let her, so I've got to work on pacing her so she doesn't burn out.

Good things:

I love having her at home and I've seen a lot of her behavioral issues she'd recently developed sort of taper off. Meltdowns aren't as prevalent or as dramatic. I think it's because she's able to get more sleep and not have to be rushed in the morning to get out the door. The peaceful time sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Hopefully this good time will continue and the newness won't wear off. :)

Interesting Start

So far we've had an interesting start to the new year. This past weekend we experienced record-breaking cold temperatures in the upper teens/ lower twenties. It NEVER gets that cold here. We consider upper thirties to be frigid and worthy of the arctic. The town above us lost water when the main water mane froze (say that five times fast) rendering many of our friends, and our church, who live outside of city limits between here and there without water.

Yesterday I got into a wreck. Just a minor one - the kids thought we hit a pot hole. No airbags deployed and we don't even need to replace the carseats. But enough to render replacing the drivers door and the side door. Although no accident is ideal, this one was as pleasant as you could have. No injuries, minor damage, the kids were amazingly well behaved and the other driver was as sweet as pie. Her husband, who came to meet her, even helped me open Auds' new doll to give her something to entertain her. The officer was very nice and we have the same insurance so things should go quickly. Thankfully we're friends with a guy who runs a body shop so repairs shouldn't be too awful.

Then today we're in the 60s! We were actually able to go outside for some "recess" and ride scooters, swing on the swings and enjoy the beautiful day.

The warm weather should continue through the weekend, which will be nice as B doesn't want up drive the van too much until it gets fixed so we'll be home except for church all weekend.

Here are some pictures of our fun today. You'll notice Auds' new doll in her carrier on her back. The two are inseparable right now and it's precious.

New Year New Day

We decided to pull Auds from school over Christmas break to homeschool her. We made the decision after much prayer and counsel and feel good about it. It's a little nerve-wracking, but B and I are intelligent individuals and we have some great homeschooling resources locally so I think it will be a great experience for us all.

We went ahead with Abeka Book because that's what he was learning with at school and we figured we were rocking her world enough without changing the curriculum. It should arrive tomorrow. :)

Over the weekend, we went to one of the local homeschool stores to pick up some supplies. I got a huge bin of cuisenaire math manipulatives, a new Bible for Auds, a new learning "Bible," a coloring book, and a bunch of rewards.

The bin is the Saxon math complete bin. Although we'll be using Abeka, I love the manipulatives and we've got a ton to use from k-3, which means they'll get a lot of use.

The Bible is a pink KJV with a butterfly. Pink was important to Auds, KJV is important to us. Next year we'll be starting a Bible Quizzing department at our church and the memorization is done in the KJV Bible. I was absolutely shocked to sped $30 on a kids' Bible, so we wanted to make sure it was one she'd get a lot o use out of.

The learning "Bible" is really neat. It provides a Bible story synopsis, how Jesus ties into the Old Testament (He is the Law fulfilled, after all), questions to ask, pictures, and some QR and AR codes. The QR codes bring up some really neat videos about the story, an the AR codes bring the pictures on the page to life. Both of these lagniappes are good for visual learners.

The coloring book is reproducible so I can run off copies before we start of sheets that tie into our lesson. There's NIV and KJV translations for each picture, which is nice. It gives Tony something to keep him busy while I teach and gives Auds a creative outlet.

The rewards are just little papers and stickers for when the work is completed well. She got really attached to receiving rewards from her teacher, so I wanted to keep that going.

So here's a few questions: how do you deal with the inevitable crankies that arise during the day? Generally, the perpetrator goes to their room to calm down, we have a chat about expected behaviors, and then have a snack if the individual is - anger caused by being hungry. But this seems difficult if you're in the middle of a lesson.

How do you keep interests engaged? If someone wants to move on but the assignment isn't complete do you scrap it or push through to get it done before you move on to something fun? How do you get cooperation?

How do you deal with siblings fighting? This is always a problem with multiple kids.