Botanical Gardens

Last Saturday while Steve headed to New Mexico, I headed to the Botanical Gardens with the kids and my parents. A great time was had by all!

This is my parents and my four kidlets through the really beautiful fountain.

They currently have these 'sculptures' for lack of a better term all over the garden. Most can be climbed on and so many are very beautiful!

Not the best picture, but we all made it on the wagon together.

Ethan's first ever slide.

Shannen would have gone down the slide all day if we had let her.

These two had an absolutely blast on the water playground!

So did these two.

If you look really closely, Ian and Jordan got eaten by this giant skull.

I found these beautiful plants in so many varieties that I lost count of. They are both called Coleus. It is a mostly leafy plant, but the leaves are all sorts of vibrant colors! I fell in love with it. If we move anywhere where the water level is normal to moist, I will absolutely use these in my garden. The only downer is that they are annuals instead of perennials.

Just a Thought

I watched this You Tube video that my friend Kate posted a link to on her blog. I found myself longing to live in moments like the pictures that are shown, and I realized that God surrounds us with moments like that all the time. Often times, we're just too busy or we're moving too fast to realize they are there and to really stop and enjoy them.

Possible Solutions

After really thinking this over and talking with Steve, we decided our answer to the problem is two fold. First off, when our older kids have 'rest time' each day, for half of it, they will take school books and will need to read. There's another half an hour of school per day. After their rest time, they will be allowed to play with a quiet toy or color in our back room and we will put in an audio CD or tape for them. We have a set of 18 tapes each about a different composer's life. Each one also contains the music of the composers. We also have the Bible on CD; two volumes of Lyrical Life Science; the Westminster Catechism on CD, Phonics songs, hymns on CD, various audio books. We are also considering getting The Story of the World on CD. Between all of those, we will easily be able to keep them happy (because they can play also) and we will get in another hour of school. Both my older kids love to listen to things and retain them SO well. These two things together will give us another hour and a half of school per day. That will definitely help!

We most certainly will count our field trip time also. Thanks for the suggestions. Feel free to shoot any more our way.

Homeschool Hours Struggle

I have been told by people both in the non-religious home school setting as well as in the religious home school setting that in Missouri, you count an hour of instruction as anything from 20 minutes to one hour. In Missouri, 1000 hours of instruction are required to fulfill the law. If it were merely 1000 'class hours' of 20 minutes to one hour that would be easy. On the other hand, I have a friend who told me that someone from the Home School Legal Defense Association asked how legally a person would be able to defend that position.

Also I purchased Edu-Track. While I love it for the ability to put my assignments in and be able to print out a days worth of assignments, it logs your minutes for each subject, not "class instruction hours" of 20 minutes - 1 hour. I had quite an eye opening experience when after two weeks of logging my school hours (which are very difficult for me to get in), and I am only averaging about 16 hours a week. In order to make it through school in the approximate 36 weeks, I would have to be schooling about 28 hours a week.

Okay, call me crazy, but that just doesn't seem possible! 28 hours a week is between 5-6 hours a day. With two other children under the age of 3, I don't see how I could not neglect my little ones and school for that amount of time. Even with great curriculum, if I filled 5.5 hours a day, my school aged kids (6 years old) would be absolutely bored to tears and would learn nothing because all they could think about is getting outside to play.

When I taught 6th grade, there was no way I actually taught those children for 5.5 hours a day. When you take out 45 minutes for lunch, sixty minutes of an activity, forty minutes for recess, they received maybe 3-4 hours of instruction per day.

While I want to obey the law, I also want to do service to my children and their needs. If my children would learn more by being schooled for 2 hours in a day than they would for 5.5 hours a day, as a parent, I think that's a good thing.

Change in Schedule

Last week, I finally had it. I end up staying up so late at night (even 11pm is late for me) and end up getting up so that I don't get even seven hours of sleep some nights. I had made a comment in Bible study last week that (and I admitted that I was completely guilty of this myself) that so often we get less sleep than we need resulting in us being less effective in our dealings with our family and others whom are in our circle of influence. Well Wednesday evening, I decided that enough was enough. I was in bed by 9pm. Now, granted, I was up at 4:30am which was excellent. With the exception of Friday night which I blogged about already, I have been in bed between 9 and 9:30 pm and been up by 4:30 am. It has been such a welcomed change!

It's interesting. I, like most people, work hard all day. I school our kids, I feed and take care of the family, clean house, do laundry, wash dishes, and do all the other things that most moms do. By the time the kids go to bed, I'm ready to relax. When I do this, I either don't get things done that need done - like menus and grocery lists or I play for a bit and then try to tackle the necessities of life in our house, resulting in staying up much later than I should.

When I go to bed early, I am in the best state of relaxation there is - sleep. I get up early, ready to go because I feel well rested because I got at least 7-7:30 hours of sleep. It has resulted in a much more consistent worship time, in daily record keeping strides in schooling, in daily ironing being done, and then in another activity being accomplished whether that's correspondence or mending or menus, etc. I am much more productive!

If I just try to go to bed early, I can't do it because I come back down stairs after putting the kids down and then get entangled in something. If, however, I just decide not to come back downstairs after the kids go to bed, I don't have to worry about anything drawing me in so that I don't get to go to bed early. It's been a real blessing.

Devotional Living - Entitlement Attitude

In general, we, as a people, believe in entitlement. I can understand how a man who works hard making money for his family would want to come and feel like he deserves to relax. I can understand how a mom who works really hard all day long with her little children, feeding them, washing their laundry, keeping the house relatively clean, giving hugs and endless 'owie' kisses feels like she deserves to veg in the evenings.

Last night I went to the hospital to spend a little time with Steve. My sister so very kindly kept the kids. I came home about 9, and she and I ended up talking for over an hour. I had wanted to walk on the treadmill yesterday (my goal is 16 minutes 3x a week). When she left, I hopped on and walked my mileage. Our latest Netflix was North and South, I had watched about 45 minutes of it on Tuesday of this week. I wanted to send it back and since the house was quiet, it seemed like a good time to finish off the last 45 minutes. By the time I had gone upstairs and showered, it was 12:30 before I crawled into bed. At 6:15 this morning, I was awakened by a child yelling for Daddy. It was all downhill from there. The kids (especially the younger ones though they can't voice it) really miss their daddy.

That doesn't make it easy on a Mommy who needs 8 hours of sleep and who is going on less than 6 hours instead. I finally gave up trying to keep the kids in bed, and earlier than any other day this week, everyone was downstairs. Ethan and Shannen have yet to learn to play together well. Screams from the living room were a commonplace thing. I sat in the back room and while I was completely under control, that didn't stop me from fuming in my head because I deserved some quiet. After all, I having had the kids by myself for over a day, and with anyone with four children would tell you it is doable, but not always easy. While I sat in the back room and inwardly fumed, I asked myself why I was so upset. "Because I deserve more sleep, because my kids are fussy, because I 'need' some quiet!"

In the moment that I stopped the Lord spoke to me about two things. First off, the ONLY thing that I, or anyone else for that matter, deserve is death in hell. Screaming children, lack of sleep (which is totally my own fault!), squabbling older siblings is SO much better than death in hell. It made me stop and thank the Lord for my screaming children, lack of sleep, and no longer squabbling older kids. I am a rich woman. The other thing that the Lord convicted me of was Philippians "Do all things without murmurings and disputings." But I Thessalonians 5:18 "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

So today, with me, give thanks for those things in our lives that we would otherwise find irritating at best. They sure beat death in hell.

Surprise

I just got a call from my dad. Steve's surgery went well; they were able to do the less invasive procedure. We were surprised to find out, however, that Steve will be kept overnight. We were previously told this was outpatient surgery. I need to get the kids up. We're going to go visit Steve in the hospital as soon as we find out the room number.