Friday, March 31, 2006

Many Sons Incorporated

I am beginning to see that I can make some money off of this whole having children thing. Why, you ask...and how can your kids qualify as well?

Here's the qualifications:

1) If your child can be sent up to clean his room and emerge 2 minutes later proclaiming it is ALL finished, when it takes you 2 hours to properly clean his room, then you are on your way to a lucrative business.

2) If he/she can walk the dog in less than 30 seconds and be able to claim that the dog has thoroughly relieved himself, when it takes you 20 minutes, you are yet one step closer.

3)If your child can pick up the yard.... front, back and sides in less time than it takes you to shut the door and walk to the other side of the house than I say my friend, we are sitting on a gold mine.

So here's my thinking.....At this rate with 3 children (so far) with these super power skills (and 3 more brining up the rear) I figure I could hire them out at 10$ an hour. At the light speed rate of cleaning of which they possess, I could be sitting on the beach in Hawaii by Sunday. Well Im off to print up the flyers, and if you need your house cleaned give Many Sons Inc. a call.

Disclaimer, I promise that your house will appear clean at first glance, then after that all bets are off

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

A New Addition

For the last 7 months there has been an empty spot under the dinning room table. That spot was filled last Saturday by Maverick................


Monday, March 27, 2006

Out of The Mouths of Babes

I wont get into what led to this conversation but thought many of you might like the insight of a 10 year old little boy who has just learned that there is no Easter bunny

Setting the scene, my ten year old son is in the kitchen washing dishes...which is where I do quite a bit of thinking myself. We had had the conversation about an hour earlier.

Devon: "So mom all the parents in the world who have said that there was an Easter Bunny lied?"

Me: Ashamed at myself for being one of them says...."yes honey we all lied"

Devon: "well parents most of all should know that even a white lie is sin...it may seem harmless, but it is still a lie"

I walked away from that conversation with a new insight as to what a child may think. Devon, even knowing that these things were "fun" for kids, realized that all parents are lieing about it. I make no claims here...just thought I would pass along something I thought was profound.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Homeschooling Part 2

I have tried many different types of teaching styles. We began schooling with the mindset that teaching at home should be just as it would be at Public School, just in the safety and warmth of our own home. Well...that didn't work. Recreating the "PS classroom" at home, didn't feel right. I then tried different workbooks and learning styles, until I found what worked best for us. So to best describe our homeschool...it is eclectic and very loosely structured. I have come to learn that my children all will earn the things that interest them most just in there daily living. This is called "delight directed learning" The child finds what they love most and learns that!

Now this does not mean that they aren't exposed to other things of importance, such as history and science, but these things are learned in a unit study fashion. The materials that I use to teach my children are located hear at Heart Of Wisdom. The approach here is that the children learn all about Gods Word and Gods World through internet linked unit studies. We use the library and purchase whole books (not text books) to enhance each unit study. I use Saxon math, simply because we need a bit of guidance in this area..do to my loathing of math LOL, I have taught my boys to read using 100 Easy Lessons and Pathway readers. Both of these resources are super cheap, and can be passed on down to younger children.

Here is what a day would look like in our home. I am not a schedule my day down to the minute type of person. I envy those moms who can do that, and secretly wish I was one of them....but Im not. I will throw caution to the wind and pick up on a beautiful day and head to the park or the lake and enjoy life. I like to think I am pretty balanced...but most definitely not strictly scheduled. So the way it works best for my family is allotting blocks of time for what needs to get done.

7:00 to 10:00 breakfast, getting dressed, morning chores, my personal quite time.

10:00 to 12:00 school... we basically stick together and role through each area of learning together. We will do focused reading and then do some copy work and things of that nature...then move to math.

12:00 to 1:00 lunch and cleanup

1:00 to 2:00 school...this is when we do our unit study as a group with each child working on the same thing but at their individual level.

2:00 to 3:00 Free time or catch up time for the olders and story time for the littles, which will include touching on basics like colors and shapes and speech.

3:00 to 4:00 Afternoon chores

That is our day in a nut shell. We are done with "school" in about 3 hours.
With such a relaxed schedule I find it works best if we school 10 weeks on and 2 weeks off, with all of May off to enjoy great weather. This helps the kids stay on a basic schedule and they retain things much better if its constant.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Home Schooling Part 1

I want to do a few posts on homeschooling and my views on the subject as well as what we do as a family to teach our children. I want to start out with this little story, it is very insightful.

There is a story about a man who once had three horses: a racehorse, a plow
horse, and a pony. The man made up a schedule whereby he could get the
most work out of his horses. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, all
three horses worked in the fields, hooked up to a plow. On Tuesdays and
Thursdays, the man took all three horses to a racetrack so that each horse would
learn how to run fast. On the weekends, he used all three horses to give pony rides
to children. At the end of the week, the man complained that not a single one of the
horses had met his expectations.

The racehorse turned to the man and said, “I could not run properly when my back
ached from plowing. If you had let me stay at the racetrack all week, I could have
spent time doing and improving at what I do best.”

The plow horse said, “If my feet were not so swollen from racing, I could have pulled the plow straighter and farther. If you had allowed me to stay in the fields all week, I could have
spent time doing and improving at what I do best.”

The pony said, “I have had it! If I didn’t ache all over from doing things I was not made to do, I wouldn’t have been so grumpy to all the children who rode on my back. If you had only allowed me to give rides to children all week, I could have spent time doing and improving at what I do best.”

Each of our children has different gifts and talents. Who was the person who decided
that educational goals should consist only of certain subjects, some of which are only used by a small percentage of the population? Is the goal of education to make everyone the same? Should the goal of education be to make everyone the same? You can’t make everyone be the same by forcing them all to learn the same thing. No one person can learn everything there is to know, and God has given us all very different gifts and talents.

The metaphor used by the apostle Paul (see 1 Corinthians 12:12–31) that the Church is the body of Christ illustrates this perfectly. We can’t all be the arms, or the eyes, or the ears, or the feet. We need each others’ gifts and talents in order to be the most effective people we can be.
God knows more about our children than the public school system does! And we can
trust Him with our children’s futures. God’s Word promises that if we acknowledge God
in all our ways, He will direct our path (see Proverbs 3:6). We know that God has made each of our children for a specific purpose. If we teach them what He commands us to teach them, He will guide us to prepare them for the plan that He has for them—
knowingly or unknowingly.

God can prepare us for the future in many ways. Just think of your life right now. What had to happen in your past to prepare you and place you where you are and for what God has called you to do and be today? Did you learn what you needed to know in school? From your parents? At church? From different situations or relationships? God uses all things for good—for the people who love Him (Romans 8:28). All of life is a classroom. God can and often does use bad situations to help us turn our weaknesses into strengths. Each of our children is different from any other child who is currently being educated—or has ever been educated throughout history.

(excerpts taken from HOW)

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Camaraderie...well just a little anyway

I sat in awe of this family as I saw there picture, and yes I felt a small sense of camaraderie with this lovely mom of sooooo many boys. I must say my house full of boys pales in comparison to hers. I had to laugh out loud when I watched the video of them taking there family photo. You have to watch it. Scroll down abit on there website and you will see it...watch the extended version! Any mom who has tried to get there precious little ones to sit still for the annual family photo will get a real kick out of it. Enjoy!

Monday, March 20, 2006

To cute not to share

So my boys are always searching for more fun things to do with books rather than read them. There was the previous book tower that reached to the library ceiling and today there is.......



My Deepest Appologeez.......

...for not posting in such a long time. I guess I have been busy doing other things. I am working on another blog, so that has been taking a little extra time from my main blog. So I will try to catch yall up.

Lets see, Ethan had to have his front tooth pulled...so now he is my little snaggle puss, and Seth is so upset that his little brother lost a tooth before him.



My lovely little princess has turned 9 months sense my last post. Yikes I cant beleive she will be a year old in 3 months. She is such a blessing and soooo sweet!



Alot of people say that we look alike but I think she looks just like Seth



We went camping this past weekend, even though I knew it was going to be a bad idea, due to the weather.....and I yes I was right. Thursday was OK, but the rest of the time was miserable. So no pictures of that. My husband was home all weekend which was a real treat. We vegged out on the couch and watched the first 2 discs of season 1 of LOST. I wanted to watch it, but got way behind...so now I can watch it on DVD...with no comercials which is the only way to go. In fact I like it so much I might just do that with any other series that comes out that I would like to watch. I can wait a year for it to come out on DVD, and then watch it all in a few days.
That is about all the excitment we have had around here lately. I will do a "real post" tomorrow on homeschooling and the materials that I use for those of you that are interested.

Friday, March 03, 2006

A Day at the Zoo

No, this was not a day spent at my house....this was actually a trip to the "real" zoo. Yesterday was Homeschool Day at the Fort Worth Zoo. We had tons of fun. My friend who has 6 kids as well as my self went and spent the day. The weather was perfect and the children behaved nicely. As usual...snicker!
We saw Rino's


the white Bengal Tigers


the lioness and her 4 cubs...so cute.


We saw the Arangatangs


But I must admit as much fun as all these animals are to look at, my favorite zoo attraction are these cute little monkeys....

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

So pretty... oh so pretty

For the last 2 days I have worn skirts, and shoes LOL. And I plan on finishing out the week in them. My goal here is two fold. I am a bit of a lounger. I can stay in a pair of sweat pants for a few days in a row, and I really dislike shoes, perhaps my Indian side coming through. To my defense I was raised by my dad and have basically been around guys my whole life, so when I sit I like to have my legs up to my chest or back behind me, not much of a legs crossed nicely in front of you kind of gal. I like being active, gardening or running around the park, going fishing and hiking and swimming. All these things are most easily done in a nice comfy pair of caprice. So the 1st goal is to be more lady like, and a good example for my daughter.

The second part and perhaps the part I am most passionate about is setting a good example as to how ladies should dress. Such as the time I dropped my children off at Sunday church and the teacher bent down (which you should never do in low rise pants)and hello there before me and my boys eyes were her lovely thong undies. Now I have a problem with this...if I want to see thongs I will go to Victoria Secrets. I don't have a problem with thongs, use-ta were them myself...but please ladies we all don't want to see them, and we DONT want our young sons exposed to your hinney.

This happened the other day at Wal-Mart. I was minding my own business buying toothpaste and there was a 19ish year old sitting on the floor fronting the toothpaste....sounds harmless right, well it would have been had she not been wearing low rise jeans and NO underwear. I could see all the good LORD gave her back there. If that were my daughter I would be ashamed. So I stand before you now and say that I will not contribute to this J-Lo Booty phenomenon, to the relief of most Im sure. But it seems I am trying to bring back the Marilyn Monroe era, because I just walked outside to check on my boys and the wind blew my skirt up over my head.
Cant win for loosing...note to self sew fishing weights to bottom of skirt.
Oh that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! Duet 5:29