Bible Study, Getting Fit, and Starting School

Today, three important things are starting in my home.

Still not doing what we're supposed to...

School - Today is our official first day doing school work. Right now is quiet time while the baby naps. My Kinders and Preschooler are sitting down with a snack and watching Barn Yard. We had a rough start today, the boys didn't want to do anything they were told. We started our devotional two days early, so instead of the planned DAY 1, we were on DAY 3. I made a statement as I was trying to get them sat down, that they were not making good choices by disobeying so much just in the hour we had been awake. I opened the book to DAY 3, and had to laugh. Today's reading was choosing wisely. After reading our devotional, we have had a much better time. If you want to read more about our schooling, you can check out my schooling blog, Schooling Lowry Style.

Working @ Mom's desk on Math.

Bible in 90 Days - I'm going through Mom's Toolbox and reading the Chronological reading plan. They have set me up in a group with 9 other women, one being a mentor, so that we can encourage each other and pray for each other. I am really looking forward to enriching my life with God's word, and being drawn closer to Him. Not only will I get a closer relationship with my Creator, I will hopefully become a better Daughter of the Most High, Wife, Mother, Person, and Friend. I struggle in many areas, and I'm hoping that I can become a stronger (and more gentle) person because of Him. I'll be writing about my journey along the way on this blog.

Pretending we know what to do.

Forty-two Days to Fit - I'm joining Brandy @ The Marathon Mom on her journey to becoming fit. I struggle a lot in this area. Even before having kids, I wasn't in shape. I was thin, yes, but I was not in shape. I tire easily, and my bones ache every time I attempt working out. I give up easily in this area. I will definitely need encouraged in this department.

In other news, we bought a 1/4 size violin last night. We're hoping to find someone who can help Daddy and the kids learn. Daddy found a full size violin for a good price that we're hoping to get this week as well. I would love to learn, too, but I just feel like I have so many other things on my plate that now is not the time for me to be learning an instrument. Daddy wants to learn for part of what he's wanting to do with his career, so it's important for him. If I ever want to focus on something other than the things I already focus on, I will focus on writing - my dream is still to be a Christian sci-fi-ish writer. As in, I'll have sci-fi themes, but I really feel like they're real good depictions of the battles and daily struggles we have as Christians. My fear, though, is that I will never get published as a Christian author because my writing will be too edgy. I have some hope that I can succeed because my favorite author, Ted Dekker, is an edgy writer.

Manic Monday - Salt Dough Cakes

Yes, I know it's Tuesday, but I wanted to post about our crafting activity and knew it wouldn't be done until today, so I waited.

My neighbor and I have decided to start doing crafts with the kids (hopefully) once a week. This week is the first one. We made salt dough yesterday and had them look at a book to figure out what they wanted to make. Keona, who is 6, and my neighbor's daughter, decided to do a cake. What did everyone else choose to do, you ask? A cake. Why, you ask? Because Keona chose to! My kids adore her, and want to be like her (yes, even the boys!).

After doing the cakes, which Zarek and Josiah (neighbor's 2 year old) quickly lost interest in, we had to bake them at 200 degrees for 1-4 hours. I did them for 3 hours, and they still weren't done, but I didn't really want to put them back in, so the bottoms are a little undercooked.

Today Joy (my neighbor) brought over paints and we let the kids have a blast painting them. Keona and the boys were done really quick. Josiah lost interest, and Kaleii wanted to have some fun so I tried to let her do it, but she just wanted to try to eat the paint. I ended up doing Josiah's, and I guess that's a good thing because it still looks like a 2 year old did it! I'm horrible at crafts, but that's not what matters. ;) Not when I'm the one writing about it, anyway. Syleii, my sweet little 3 year old, took the longest, but hers turned out so amazing! They all did, actually, but Joy & I were just so amazed by hers because of how great she did. She was determined to get it all done and she was really focused. 

Bottom left up and back down to bottom right: Keona, Syleii, Malaki, Zarek, Josiah

This was a really fun project, and I can't wait to do more. We think that next time we're going to do animals. We'll probably make them and just let the kids paint, because they are so much harder to make.

What kind of crafts, or fun inside activities do you do with your family?

Catching Up

Things have been really hectic around here. From making the boys bunk bed, to planning Kaleii's first birthday celebration, I've been incredibly behind on everything.

In the last month we have:

• Made a set of bunks - and are preparing to make a loft bed that is lower than a normal loft.
• Got a new washer & dryer because my old ones went ka-pooie on me. 
• Got a cute little counter top dishwasher. It's small, but it helps a lot. I can fit all of my dinnerware into it, and now I only have to hand wash my pots & pans. 
• Had a birthday celebration for Kaleii, who will be one TOMORROW! 
• Had sicknesses, TWICE, and they usually last at least a few days each around here for each person, and not everyone gets sick at the same time.
• Got tablets. (L.O.V.E.)

Tonight I started reading A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snickets, to the kids at bedtime. The boys fell asleep before the first chapter was even over with. Either it bores them to sleep, or they really enjoyed it, I'm not sure which yet. Syleii, on the other hand, was a terrible mess at bed time - and that's putting it nicely. We've begun our drama queen stage. I'm not sure I'm really looking forward to this. We've got foot stomping, screaming, "Leave me Alone!'s", and, of course "I don't like you!!!'s" ... We've had many conversations in the last few weeks about how it's not okay to do/say these things, but they haven't seemed to work. Any ideas how I can lead her toward better actions and attitudes?

Friday night I got Syleii's hair cut. It looks really cute. It's a bob in the back with a sort of side swoop bang. This was her first haircut - Yes, she's three and never had her hair cut before. Her hair doesn't grow. And now I realize that if I would have gotten her hair cut before, it would have grown more. My neighbor (our stylist) told me that at this age I'm going to have to keep her hair short to get her follicles to grow. I hate that her hair doesn't grow. It brings be back to my jealousy that my friend's daughter has gorgeous curly hair (her mommy's white and her daddy's black), and my irrational desire to have mixed babies (because mine are mixed, but their daddy is native american and doesn't have curly hair). Any ideas on how to get her hair to grow better? 

On the school front, we haven't been doing much this month because mom's been really unfocused and out of it. Next week we start catching up on everything that I have planned. I have the boys until just before noon, and then they go to preschool at a public school (which I really like right now). Next week we will start working on letters (they know the letters, and know how to write some, but not all) - they both know how to write z a r e k & m a l a k i, but not much more than that. We will work on one letter per day - sound, writing, and words.

Spring Break - for public school - is next week. Daddy will be taking off the week so that we can start working on the school room.  Really, we should have it done by now, but it took a long time to get the bunk done, so he couldn't start yet. I will be pushing hard to get the room finished fairly quick so that we can start doing school downstairs by summer. My house has started to look like a book hoarder has moved in. I start feeling bad about this by 8am everyday, but then I remind myself that most of these books are for school, and will soon have a place to call home on a shelf in the basement.

The Midwest Parent Educator's conference is next month. I'm really excited, as this will be my first conference. I'm looking forward to hearing Israel Wayne speak. I was reading about him on his website today, and read something I really liked:  

The average parent spends about 19 minutes per day interacting with his or her child. In contrast, a student in public schools receives over 12,000 hours of instruction by high school graduation, mostly by secular teachers who are shaping their worldview. When you add to this the 7.5 hours per day that students spend engaged in digital media, plus time with peers and extra-curricular activities, it is clear that most Christian parents today are not the most influential factors in the lives of their children.

I really like what he says here, and I'm hoping that I can gain a lot from him at the conference. 

This is the third time writing at least part of this post, because either Firefox, or my computer, is messing up. So, although I had a lot more written initially, I am done for now. I will come back and add pictures after I post this, because it seems like the pictures are what make it mess up each time. 

What have you been up to lately? What is it that you need to catch up on? Or, what are you excited for?

Fun Stuff

Rough model of basement design.

This weekend was full of fun stuff - for me. The kids didn't enjoy it as much as we did, but that's because they don't understand how much work has to go into good things. In the long run, they will hopefully appreciate all the 'fun' mommy gets to have during this period. Hubby and I spent several hours shopping on Friday for school stuff - a lot of it was 'window shopping' because we didn't buy most of it, but we did buy a few things to get started. Saturday night we spent all night in the basement planning out what we wanted to do. I don't know if I've ever seen him so excited to do something - He's doing all the building of everything himself. Tonight we're going out to do pricing for the tools he needs to get and all the materials.

The boys are really excited to get to go downstairs to have their school down there, but they just don't want to wait and they don't understand that it takes time to build everything. I'm hoping it will be ready by summer, but I'm not sure.

My new book.

Last night I got a new book. I'm so excited to start reading it. I spent $9.99 + tax on one book, which is a lot for me. I usually don't spend more than $2 + tax on a single book, now $10 is easy to spend when I'm buying several books at a time (and they are usually for school). This time it is strictly a book for mom. Immanuel's Veins by Ted Dekker. I've been wanting this book for months. I love Ted Dekker, he's an amazing writer, and I just can't wait!

The kids' book of the week.

The book we're reading this week is Don't Forget to Come Back! The boys really like this book. It's about a little girl whose parents are going out for the night and a babysitter is coming. She tries many things to get her parents to stay home from saying all these bad things will happen, to saying she'll run away. She ends up having a great time with the sitter, and she says that her parents are glad she didn't forget to come back from the South Pole (which she didn't go to because it's too cold!). It's a pretty cute book, and we'll continue reading it for a few more days.

The boys have continued to be very excited about their school work. This week we'll be focusing on math two days and writing three days. I'm only doing one subject with them each day since they also go to preschool. My favorite part of this is that we get to do what we want, when we want. Some of the reading comprehension worksheets we have are first grade level and daddy worked through one of them the other day - they did great! They can't read yet, but they understand the way things should be worded, which is wonderful. I'm going to take advantage of the places where they excel and go deeper in some places than they would be able to in a formal school setting.

What are your favorite parts of homeschooling?

Getting organized

Today has really been one of those days that I just full out focused on finding things for school. My plan is to do it without a formal curriculum as much as I can. I've found so many good sites for each subject. I did a little more shopping today at a specific store that I know gets some homeschooling books in every two weeks, but I didn't find much. I would have done more, but we had my birthday dinner tonight -- Yes, I turn 26 tomorrow, don't remind me. So, tonight I bought Where the Red Fern Grows and three Dear America books about people in history who came into America or lived during one of the great wars/depressions/etc.

I have a bookmark folder that is specifically Homeschool Resources. In that folder I have 20-30 websites that have some awesome things - and a lot of those websites connect to more websites that have even more awesome things. What I've been focusing on is trying to organize them by subject, but when they have so many random subjects on some of them it's hard to decide where to put them. Plus, a lot of them have work for MANY grade levels, so it's not just a "K Math" folder or anything like that, it's just "Math".

I've downloaded LOTS of worksheets. Right now I'm focusing on the simple things because the boys will only be in Kindergarten. Handwriting sheets, Scripture Memorization Handwriting sheets, My Family sheets, Animal Notebooking sheets.. things like that. Things that will be simple for us to do starting out. That's not to say that we won't work on harder things, but we will definitely take it slow.

Is it sad that my husband asked what I wanted for my birthday and my first response was "organization stuff for school"? I seriously can only think about school and all the things I want to do. I need to get started on getting the basement cleaned up and ready. We need to buy some rugs or carpet pieces for downstairs. Daddy is also going to make a gate instead of a wall because it will be so much easier for him to do that. Buying wood to make our bookshelves is one of the first things on my list. Then comes the desks, we need more wood to finish those as well.

I'm getting kind of overwhelmed by how much information I've been digging into lately, but I'm also so very excited. My family thinks I'm crazy.

Weekly Reading

So I've started reading each book that I read at bedtime for a week instead of just one time and switching to a different one. Monday night we started reading David Goes to School. I love the book. It talks about how David does all these things wrong, and it gives me a chance to talk to the kids about what we should and shouldn't do in 'class'. The boys love having this conversation every night. They love talking about how we keep our hands to ourselves so that we don't hurt or bother other people, and how we don't run in halls (or the house) because we could get hurt, or we could hurt someone else. I like this book, and I'm glad it's our first weekly read.

I also started a new book myself last night. It won't last me a week, but I'll update when I switch. It took me a really long time to read the first book in the series I'm reading. Sometimes books just don't catch my attention too much and I have to force myself to read them, and I end up loving them. So I took months to read Left Behind, and I finally started Tribulation Force last night. I'm really excited to completely dive into this series. I have the complete series, plus three of the four books in the series that came after it about the lives of the people before they were left behind. I haven't seen the movies, either, so I'm really excited to get through the first three books so I can watch the movies.





We started something months ago that I thought I'd also share today. We watched the movie Letters to God, in which the little boy writes a letter to God everyday. I loved this movie and thought we would do this with the kids. Everyday, the kids and I each write letters to God. I think it's a great thing to do, and makes them really think about what they want to tell God everyday, and how they want God to help them.


What do you do for reading with your kids? Do you read the same book more than once, or do you read a different one, or even multiple books, each night?

For those of you who are believers, have you done anything interactive to help your kids really think about God during their day that isn't simply prayer or a Bible story? What ideas do you have for a creative way to bring Jesus into your day?

Shopping and Reorganizing

This weekend we went to the book store. It's our favorite thing to do. I'm a bargain book shopper. We shop at Half Price Books. They have an awesome selection, and they have a HUGE clearance section. We also found a store a while back at the "Great" mall (I say it like that because it's called the Great Mall, but it really is a horrible mall that's not got many stores in it..) I found some fairly good books - the most I paid was $2!  The blue books that have no title are "A Child's Book of Character Building" - Books 1 & 2.

There is Everything for Early Learners Pre-k to K book, Grade 1 Comprehensive Curriculum, Writing for grade K, and five different books that aren't school related but are going to be good readers at this young age (that I still have to go through for six more years!).

Reorganizing is going to take a long time, and I'm glad that I still have the rest of this school year to organize and get things ready for next year when the boys will be home for school. I'm starting with our normal rooms - kitchen, living room, bedrooms, etc. If I don't have all of those organized, there's no way I'll be able to keep a school room clean and organized. The hubby and I have issues with clutter - we are clutter bugs. It's not a purposefully done thing, we hate it, but we can't help it. We've got books piled up on every surface - we just read a lot! And the top of my microwave and fridge are 'collect all' places for just about everything you can imagine -- There is still sunblock on my fridge from the BEGINNING of summer! So my plan is to get all rooms organized by May so that when they are out of school they can start their half day school in the summer and be completely ready for full day school in August.

Here's a list of the things I need to do:

• Organize Kitchen - get all things off fridge and microwave, make sure all cabinets and the pantry are organized (we just did this so it shouldn't be a big deal)
• Organize Living Room - We just got a 'grandfather of all big screens' - that's what I call it, anyway - and so now we need to completely redo the living room because this beast of a TV just doesn't fit well in here the way it's organized right now. Plus, I'm planning on getting a new couch in February. -- Actually, I'm hoping to get a new TV, too, and have DH take the mammoth one downstairs into the will-be school room.
• Organize Boys Room - The boys are all 3 getting new beds soon and I would like to find a nice dresser from one of the used goods stores or from Craigslist. They need new curtains, too, which I might just make myself. The ones they have are too short, they just barely reach the bottom of the window and let too much light in. Plus, the curtain rod is broken so it needs to be fixed. I do have a pair of curtains that are longer, but they are too little kiddish and I don't think Azariah would like them.
• Organize Girls Room - I want to paint the girls' dresser and possibly the room as well. I'm debating getting Syleii a new bed since she's in a toddler bed, but I may wait another year or so because she's still so little.
• Organize My Room - My room just needs to be organized - there are books piled everywhere because they don't fit on my bookshelf. That's not even counting the piles of books in the basement that are my husband's because we are using his bookshelf as the kids bookshelf because they were in desperate need of one. I need to take the TV out of my room and get rid of it, repaint my dresser, and I really want to paint my bookshelf but hubby says it's not paint-able because the paint won't stick to it. So I don't know what I'm going to do about it. All of our room is black stuff - our bedframe is black, black comforter, curtains, dresser.... I would like my bookshelf to match. 
• Organize Linen Closet - Azariah (11) broke the lowest shelf in our linen closet, leaving no place for my sheets and many many blankets except for the floor. I need to box up a lot of the blankets because they aren't needed, but I can't get rid of them because my husband's grandma made all of them. 
• Schoolroom - This is a lot of work. We are putting the school room in the basement, which is where everything the littles can't get to right now. I asked the hubbs to build a wall in the basement to separate the school area from the washer & dryer area. I plan to make the other half a 'storage' type area where we can store things that the kiddos can't get to. This area will only be accessible through a door with a lock - which will kind of stink because I'll need to get over there to do laundry... but it's the best option. I also asked the hubbs to build floor to ceiling bookshelves. I plan to take all the kids books that they already have down there, and I am hoping to find a TON more books before we start. My husband has started making the boys desks - they are going to be great when they're done.

I think that's it.... but I'm not entirely sure. I may find more things to do before we get ready to start school.

School room & gym project

Recently we decided to turn our basement into the school room. We were doing school in my bedroom for Azariah because it was the most 'secluded' space & allowed him the quiet he needed. At first, we were just going to use half of the basement for the school room & keep the other half as storage/washer&dryer space/daddy's work space... but then daddy got this really cool idea to use one half as school & the other half as a 'gym' for the kids. So far it's turning out great.

Since we don't have the money to do a full 'remodel' of our basement, we're doing it with what we HAVE... which means taking home supplies & changing things around in the house. We had an older mattress & box springs that my dad had given us. The mattress was hard & uncomfortable, plus the boys had torn it apart - so we used it as a 'divider' of rooms. Along with the mattress, we used the crib that can no longer be used because the boys jumped on it & broke it. The crib parts serve as a 'gate' from one side to the other.

Two days ago I took the kids to Wal-Mart to pick out paint colors. The colors we ended up with are Burning Orange, Kelley Green, and Electra for blue. Last night we got our paints & supplies & started painting. We stayed up until 1:30am painting & trying to make it look right. We're no where near done... we're doing an ocean theme on the school room side & still need to paint fish as well as doing numbers & letters. We also need to do a 'divider' for all the colors in the gym side, as we just did alternating lines of color down the wall.

For some reason, it's not letting me post my pictures, so one day I will have pictures, I hope.