So Much to Blog About

but not time to blog!! Homeschooling Norah and Lucy is keeping me busier than I expected. I can hardly keep my house clean. Er, I mean, I can't keep it clean. I can't keep up with the laundry. My family is lucky right now to get meals.

Daphne doesn't help the situation because she is into EVERYTHING!! I don't get much housework done during Daphne's nap - we are usually still doing school. Then once Daphne is awake - she is usually attempting to destroy things. If I am unloading the dishwasher - Daphne is usually trying to put clean dishes in the dishwasher - or she is trying to climb in. If I am folding laundry - she is unfolding it. If I am picking up toys - she is following me, taking them all back out!!

While school is going well, and we are thoroughly enjoying Daphne's toddler-hood, I still need to find a balance. I have come to the realization that my house will not be clean on a regular basis. It's fine. When the girls are grown - I don't want them to look back and remember that all I cared about was having a clean house. I want to enjoy them. I want to read to them. I want to teach them about Jesus. The best part of homeschooling is that we can do this all the time. Talking about Jesus can be a normal part of our day - not just in the evenings and the weekends. When learning about animals - we have talked everyday about these animals as God's creation and he made every animal unique.

I have pics to post from our trip to Chicago, Pumpkin Festival and several field trips we have taken. I will get the pictures uploaded sometime soon. . . I hope.

Mother's Day Out & Ballet

First day of ballet class:

First Day of Mother's Day Out:

I know, she seems way to little to be going for the whole day!!! Although, they may kick her out if she doesn't start napping.

Lucy just realized she doesn't get to go back until next week - and she is NOT happy about that. I think once a week is more than enough for them to go.

Paintings

Oops, I forgot to post pics of their final paintings when I wrote this so here they are.

Guys Weekend

On Friday, Kevin headed to Nashville with Michael and a friend of Michael's. They (and several other friends of Ryan's) stayed with Morrison's then they headed on Saturday morning to Knoxville for an Oregon Ducks game.

I really don't like it when Kevin is gone and I am so thankful that he doesn't travel for his job. Not sure how I would survive. After the girls being gone for 5 days, this week was rough getting back into a groove. Everyone was EXHAUSTED so school did not go well and we had some serious attitude! Plus, Daphne woke up on Saturday morning with a low-grade fever, Lucy was up at the crack of dawn and I woke up with a headache.

However, despite a rough start to our girls' weekend, I tried to make the best of things.

We started with a pajama tea party first thing Saturday morning. I set the table on Friday night after the girls went to bed - we used my grandma's china that she gave us as a wedding present and a little tea set from my mom. We enjoyed Trader Joe's chocolate chip scones, grapes and yogurt. I filled the teapot with milk - the girls enjoyed pouring their own milk into their little teacups. I had coffee - seriously needed some caffeine this morning.

Then we did an art project. We spent several days looking at the book Come Look With Me: Exploring Landscapes with Children. Norah loves Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night" so the girls made their own night time landscape paintings with texture. They turned out wonderful! I was totally impressed!

Then the girls worked hard to clean their room - fun, I know! Ha!

After rest time and lots of playing, we did some experiments with magnets. First, we tested the magnet pull of some of our magnets by putting a pin at 0 on a ruler and dragging the magnet closer and closer to the pin until the magnet actually pulled the pin towards it. Then we made butterflies dance. We tied a string to tissue paper butterflies and taped the other end of the string to the table. We put a paperclip on the butterflies and using the magnet wand we lifted the butterflies up and pulled the wand about an inch from the butterflies - making them look like they were flying!

We ended our day by playing with Legos. After Daphne went the bed, Norah, Lucy and I played with Legos for a long time. They decided to leave everything set up so they can play with Kevin when he gets home today - and, thankfully, he is close to home!! Yea!!

Honoring the Sabbath

Seems like honoring the Sabbath is something that many Christians don't do anymore. Why is that? Do we feel like because it is part of Old Testament law, but isn't in the New Testament we don't have to honor the Sabbath anymore? Or have we just become so busy that we forget or don't think it is important? I don't know, but I do know that we often spend our Sundays working on projects, doing laundry, getting things ready for the coming week, etc. Sure, we go to church every week (although, as I am typing this we are not at church because Daphne is running a fever) and if the weather was nice, we would try to do something fun as a family - but that was it.

Several months ago, our pastor preached about the Sabbath. It was convicting to us. He said the it is the one commandment that we don't feel guilty that we aren't doing it. Actually, he said that we often feel guilty if we do honor it because we feel like we have to always be working. This is the commandment that God spent the most time talking about. Resting is part of God's plan. We find our value in being busy - not in being refreshed. He said God wants his people who can find refreshment, people who can be still. The Sabbath should be something we do/enjoy as a family. We can build relationships by resting as a family. Pastor Terry also says we are free of the legalism of making the 7th day our Sabbath but there is a "principle of rest that is so significant." You can listen to the whole message here - scroll down to 3/07/10.

Sunday is the most logical day for us so we have tried to actually take time to reflect as a family how God has worked in our lives over the last week. We are building relationships with our daughters - that is an everyday thing, but all week long we have so many things we are doing or thinking about. On Sunday, our focus is God and our family. No more laundry, no more projects, no more preparing for the next week. We do what we can on Saturday and the rest gets done during the week. As we talked about this, I thought, "I am too busy. I will never get everything done on Mondays. I don't want to feel chaotic and crazy at the beginning of the week. Honestly, I don't feel like Mondays are any less crazy now than before and we are taking time on Sundays to rest and be refreshed by our Creator God. Obviously, we fall into old habits easily, but Norah is the first to remind us that it is Sunday - so we shouldn't be doing any work (I do clean up the kitchen after meals, though). In fact, today, I told Norah that our babysitter is coming over to play so that I can go for a run. It was quite difficult to convince Norah that running is not work. LOL.

I am excited about the cooler weather so we can be outside and just enjoy each other and God's creation!! We are doing occasional movie nights or game nights. So often on Saturdays, Kevin will mow or work on a project while I play with/keep an eye on the kids and then we switch. I work on a project and Kevin is in charge of the girls. We are trying to make Sundays different. It is so nice to be together - all 5 of us. We have been blessed so far - and I am excited to see the blessings that come from more time together being refreshed and refueled!

Tot School

(19 months)

Last week Daphne just did some really random things for Tot School. This is one of her favorite books right now. We also read this one alot.

Daphne enjoyed using this Shape and Color Sorter. She took the shapes on and off and on and off. Lucy also joined in on the fun - but was a little stressed that Daphne was not actually sorting by shape or color.

Daphne continues to LOVE coloring. She is always so focused and she BEGS to color every day - especially if Norah or Lucy is writing/drawing/coloring.

Lucy was working patterns for school last week and Daphne thought she needed to join in on the action. She worked really hard taking the unifix cubes apart and putting them back together.

For more Tot School Ideas go to 1+1+1=1.

Family Pic

We spend part of the weekend in Indianapolis for Kevin's cousin's wedding. My mom bought the girls' dresses - so, Mom, this picture is for you!! More picture to come!

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