Our Family Project

As personalities come, these two girls are like night and day. Both are silly at times, and both can be serious at times. And yet, that rarely happens at the same time! We have entered the world of teenagers, and it is quite the dramatic world! My oldest daughter is dealing with all the drama that teenagers bring: ostracism, judging, and feeling friendless. My younger teenager is just full of fun dramatics: silly faces and expressions, acting wonky and crazy, and saying that "everyone is my friend, even their mom and dad!" At any rate, I couldn't be more in love with these two. They fight over their littlest sister ("I get to hold her!"  "You've been hogging her all day!"), fight over who spends more time in the shower ("I do NOT spend an hour in the shower!"), and fight over who gets my MacBook ("She always gets to do her school on your computer!"  "But, all my stuff is on there!").  My world would be quite dramatical...

Just in case any of you wondered whether we love each other over here: Yes!  Yes, we do!

After a few years of piano lessons, Eliza has really started to take off!  I love it too.  I can always tell when she is bored because I will hear her playing through her lesson books. It has taken a few years, but she's now loving piano lessons and playing the piano.  Back in September our piano teacher took a break because she had a baby.  Eliza decided she wanted to go back to piano lessons in November knowing how to play all the songs in her performance book.  So, she frequently practiced them without my nagging.  And, that habit has continued ... I rarely have to remind her to practice her piano.  The only thing I wish she would learn is when  to play.  Many times Jon and I are in the kitchen trying  to have a conversation and she will be playing every.single.song as loud as possible.  It's so hard for me to ask her not to play when she has the desire to play.  But, alas, sometimes we do.  She's pretty good ...

This last Saturday was our homeschool group's science fair.  Andrew decided to make a lava lamp.  He actually made it at the beginning of January, but didn't have his presentation put together until Saturday right before the fair. Jon sat down with Andrew in the morning and helped him to understand why his homemade lava lamp works: the oil not mixing with the water.  So, Andrew brought our kitchen scale and measured water into one water bottle, and the same amount of oil into another water bottle.  He put them on the scale to show that the same measurement of each liquid had a different weight or density.  Andrew's was the first presentation, and he did such a fantastic job!  You never would have thought that he was nervous. Eliza's and Kate's project had to do with what we've been talking about for science.  We've been studying plants this year, and they prepared a presentation about the parts of plants: the roots, stem, leaves, and flo...

Today I've spent the entire day doing laundry.  The last couple of weeks I haven't had the time to get caught up on our laundry ... I just can't figure out where all of my time has been spent.  Most moms can say that they have been running their children to and from school, to their piano lessons, to their church activities, to their sports activities, etc.  I, on the other hand know that we have "done" school everyday the last two weeks (yay!), we've gone to group classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, we've had church activities, and singing classes.  But, I cannot account for our Monday and Friday afternoons!  Normally, I do laundry on Mondays, but I just haven't had the time to do it the last few weeks, and I have no idea why. So, today, I spent all day folding laundry and switching loads between the washer and dryer.  And, what were my children doing during this time?  Honestly, I have no idea.  I think they watched some tv ...

I posted everyday about something I'm grateful for a couple years ago and really loved it, so I'm going to do it again. Today, I am grateful for the opportunity I have to school my children at home.  I know it sounds selfish, but love the feeling I get everyday after I've spent a good part of my day teaching my children.  A feeling of satisfaction, joy, love.  And, I've loved watching their progress.  I see it a lot in Eliza in regards to her math skills.  Before, when she was in public school, I was a terrible mom at looking at her work and knowing what she was learning.  Now I know that she is learning about algebra, interest rates, algebraic equations with integers.  I know because I've been relearning all of it with her.  And, I love it!  I never really realized how much I like algebra ... not until I started to teach Eliza the basics of it. I also see the growth in all of my children ... but, Eliza is most profound to me today becaus...

Eliza turned 12-years-old in April!  Can you believe it?  I don't even have any pictures of her cake (which was an angel food cake), or her presents (which were clothes).  But, I do have a picture of her special quilt that my mom made for her.  It is a queen sized quilt for her bed (she sleeps in our guest room and gets kicked out whenever we have guests ... it's the price she pays for her own room).  Anyone else see a pattern beside the "E's"? Anyone?  Anyone?  Yes!  The "E's" are in the Young Women Value Colors.  So pretty.  So applicable.  So very like my mom to be so thoughtful.  All I did was take her shopping for clothing that was true to her nature (she's dressing her truth now as a Type 4 ... in all aspects).  My mother is the best, is she not?

In April we participated in our homeschool group's Geography Fair.  We went the easy route because we were throwing together our project at the last minute, and chose to do our project on Chile!  It was easy because that's where Jon served his mission.  So, we had a bunch of little items that showcased the culture there.  Jon and I traced the map on a long sheet of paper, and, okay, we colored it too.  We are such control freaks.  Oh well.  The children drew little pictures/icons of exports, produce, and other things that symbolized specific things we learned about Chile.  We got to the part and everything was set up trunk-or-treat style ... which was so great!  Although, our friends in the car next to us did their report on Argentina ... the sworn enemy of Chile! Then, came the presentation!  This was the fun part.  Eliza, Kate and I got together the day before the fair and wrote a rap for our presentation.  Then, we broke u...

Can you believe that this girl has started babysitting???  Not just for us, but for other families.  She's really only had two "jobs" with two different families, but I can see there will be more in the future.   Her first job seemed to be fairly easy, except that she got bored.  :-)  However, she really worked hard at her second job.  She was babysitting a family with three children, ages ranged from 9 months to 4 1/2 years, two older boys and a baby girl.  From the moment the parents left for their date, the baby girl cried until two hours later when her mom came home to pick her up and take her with them. Eliza called me with ten minutes of being dropped off at the family's house.  She was practically in tears, not knowing how to calm down the baby.  I gave her a few suggestions, and it seemed like nothing was working.  It was so hard for me to stay home and not just jump in the car and go over there to help her.  But, I deci...

I decided since I haven't posted about anything that we've done in the last few months, that I'd go back to Christmas time, at least for a little bit.  Eliza's and Kate's singing group, Shine Your Light Singers, sang at a church's Christmas Party in December.  Outside of the church, they had a small set up of a manger scene, with actors, and a small "petting zoo."  There were donkeys, and sheep, chicks, and bunnies. Poor, Adam stood by the pen for the bunnies waiting and waiting for his turn with a particular bunny.  Finally, when he was given the bunny, he was scratched and it startled him enough that the bunny needed to be put back down.  After that point, he waited and waited patiently for another turn, which he never got.  I was surprised by his persistence.  He stood there for easily 15 minutes waiting for another turn.  While, Andrew held a bunny for probably 8-10 minutes alone.  He sure got attached to that cute furry thing. Eli...

Our Christmas was so much fun.  In the past I've been ready well before Christmas, with present wrapped at the end of October.  Not so for this year.  I was shopping for presents the Saturday before Christmas.  And, after going out there in the masses ... I will not do that again next year!  Traditionally, our children have stocking stuffers and presents from us.  We don't do the Santa thing.  Just haven't ever wanted to.  Also traditionally, all of our children get similar items.  Most of the time it's because they all want what each other wants.  But, sometimes it's not the case.  This year, they all got lapdesks to use for school when we do our science or history in the living room.  (Of course, they each got their assigned color as well.) Traditionally, we all get toothbrushes in our stockings.  This year I got them all battery-powered toothbrushes.  I've never seen so many children get excited over a toothbru...

Jon has been having some tooth pain recently.  He went in to the dentist's office yesterday to see what could be causing the problem.  Leaving with a prescription for an antibiotic and Vicatin, he came home with the understanding that he needs to get a second opinion form an endodontist.  Not reassuring.  But, the pain killer has only been taking the edge off ... that's how painful it is. Anyway, this morning he took the Vicatin on a completely empty stomach (he's supposed to take it either 2 hours before eating, or 2 hours after eating) and promptly started to feel dizzy.  Not the best thing to feel when you have to present a webinar to over 40 people.  So, he asked me to come check on him in 30 minutes to see if he was saying some really loopy things during his meeting.  This is a precarious situation for us all because I DO NOT have the most quietest children in the world. I knew I needed to give them something to do in the school room so they w...

Our first science experiment last week was about camouflage, specifically why animals have/use camouflage and how it keeps them alive.  In our science book there is this experiment that my children really enjoyed.  In fact, they asked if they could do it for our next Family Home Evening activity when we invite another family to participate with us. Step One: Dump out some M&Ms onto a paper towel and sort them into groups by color.  Count the smallest group and then take away as many as you need from the other colors to make them all equal.  (So, most of my children had groups of 9.) Step Two: Pick three colors of construction paper that match three of the colors of M&Ms.  Take seven papers from each of the three colors and tear them into six pieces.  Crumple those pieces and throw them into a laundry basket.  Line the sides of the laundry basket with six pieces of construction paper, two of each of the three colors. Step Three: Dump all ...