back to school co-op

On Monday we met with our home-school co-op group at a park to have a "Back-to-Home-School-party". It was so much fun to get together after a long summer and make plans for group time and watch the kids play.

I enjoyed watching Sarah pair up with her usual girl friends; it's so funny to watch the dynamics of girls and thankfully, at this age, they all seem to get along so well!

Emma still doesn't leave my side, maybe to play in the dirt for a while, but always within arms reach. The great thing about this group (that we've been with now for 2+ years) is that all the siblings have their own age group--even the babies! So hopefully Emma will break out of her shell and make some friends this year!

Sarah at the start of 2nd grade.

Emma at the start of pre-K

Parachute games.

Sarah jumping on the left.

The whole group.

Incidentally, Morgan is now 6 months and scooting into other rooms when left alone, and is also just as chubby and adorable as ever!!!

back to school

The past couple weeks have been spent cleaning and preparing for this coming school year. As a home-educator it is usually a very busy time sorting through curriculum and supplies, and making decisions, but this year we are WAY ahead of the game and have hit the ground running.

We've received our K12 curriculum for the year, the "school room" is clean and decorated and organized, even including Emma's pre-K stuff. I am loving this K12 curriculum--it's so thorough and organized and easy to follow. Sarah is taking 6 subjects: Language arts, Math, Science, History, Art & Music. Every Monday after we are done with the academics we get together with our homeschool co-op group for field trips, holiday parties, science experiments & book club. So, this is our schedule:

• 8:00 eat breakfast, get dressed & do chores
• 9:00 family prayer, scripture study & pledge of allegiance
• 9:10 Math
• 10:00 Language arts
• 11:30 Music/Art (we switch days)
• 12:00 lunch
• 12:30 Outside "get your wiggles out" time
• 1:00 Science/History (we switch days)
• 2:00 clean up/Monday co-op time

Emma doing her Pre-K book

Looking in through the doorway

She's into wearing her headbands that way lately, silly girl.

My sewing table and the curriculum shelves.

crazy making behavior

It's the perplexing behavior of a person, usually close to you, that makes you feel like you're the one going crazy. Also known as Passive-aggressive behavior. A few people in my life come to mind when I think of crazy making behavior and/or passive-aggressive behavior. I've been reading a lot of articles on the subject lately, so as to know better how to deal with these people and come out of these relationships SANE! One such article from Prevention magazine states that passive-aggressive people "aren't hostile one moment and then kind the next. Instead, they perform the maddening trick of being both at the same time." They never learned the right way to convey anger and hostility, and learned "tricks" in their childhood to couch their feelings in excuses, blame, forgetfulness, back-handed humor or sarcasm. Worse yet, if not called on it, they continue these tricks into adulthood wrecking relationships along the way.

To quote the article "He's so uncomfortable with self-assertion that he tries to get his way by doing nothing. By allowing others to take charge, he leaves himself only one option for getting what he wants: sabotage." They say one thing and then deny they ever said it because they don't want to be held to their word, because they didn't want to do whatever "it" was in the first place. It's this behavior that makes me want to smack my head against a brick wall when dealing with certain people in my life. I think it would be an awfully exhausting life to live--constantly undermining one's self. They often don't feel appreciated and say that they haven't done anything wrong, trying to pass blame onto you. Making you the "bad guy".

Unless you know how to react the right way: Nix the guilt; it's their problem! Don't let them get away with it; confront them about their dishonesty. And then try to create an atmosphere in which they'll feel comfortable sharing their feelings with you. Something that I've been working on, within myself, for the last year or so.

These articles got me thinking about teachings from the Savior and about forgiveness, accountability & the power of our words. My mind raced as I remembered talks and lessons and even though it seems a bit scrambled and rambling, I think the common thread is Choice.

Thomas S. Monson, in a conference talk, said "Let us not find ourselves as indecisive as is Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You will remember that she comes to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. She is confronted by the Cheshire cat, of whom Alice asks, “Which path shall I follow?” The cat answers: “That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter which path you take.”"

We can choose not only our actions but also our words and thoughts. In a talk by Jeffrey R. Holland, he said:

"Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today. With such words, spoken under the influence of the Spirit, tears can be dried, hearts can be healed, lives can be elevated, hope can return, confidence can prevail. .....

"In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable."

We can learn great and simple lessons from children too, they being so close to the spirit themselves. The other day Emma was goofing around and Sarah said to her "You're crazy!" to which Emma emphatically said "I'M NOT CRAZY! AND IT'S MY CHOICE!" Summed up very well, I thought.

three pints thursday

This past week has been fun with trips to the park & scrapbooking, but with mommy PMS-ing the days have been progressively less & less fun. I hope to find a clip on Youtube that will illustrate how I've felt & shamefully acted a couple times. So this weeks kids' post is not only belated, but to the point and mostly photo filled.

Sarah is in the middle of placement testing for this year's curriculum. She does so well on the math portion of the test that it's amazing, and I find myself wanting her to achieve the same scores in the reading, but she is her father's daughter in that regard. She is on level with the reading, but struggles at times and I find myself struggling to be patient with her. During "mom's time" is NOT a good time to have your child tested if you hope for them to retain a fragment of confidence & self esteem.

Emma is summed up in this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid. Let's just say that this second daughter of mine has her vocal cords still to this day, by shear mercy on my part.

Morgan cut her second tooth this past week and also is up on her hands and knees rocking back and forth preparing for that day that she'll crawl her way into havoc. She is a sweetie that melts my heart. I am running around with this ever impending sense of urgency and doom to baby-proof this house better and shampoo the carpets, etc. We've been all too lax on the home remodeling clean up for the past several...yeah.

At Liberty Park. We brought along Sarah's friend, Christina.

Sarah looking so tan and cute on her two-wheeler.

Emma posing infront of her bike.

Morgan looking just simply adorable.