Birthday Boy

He's two!

Country Girls Guide to Polishing Rocks

First, gather rocks:

Second, roundup the polish (lip gloss is optional):
Third, apply a thin or thick coat (the choice is yours); wait 5 seconds, repeat:

(Where do my kids come up with this stuff?)

S L O W I N G down...I think

The past three weeks have been a whirlwind from dance-twirl recitals:

to the children's musical at our church:

Above Cayli debuts her acting career as she cracks a joke. I want to be a frog so I can eat what buuuggggs me!

Mabry and Kenna each sing a verse about their invisible dog, Germs.

During all the hullabaloo of May, Micah entertained himself by trying to flush Little People, drawing on everything but paper, building towers of blocks and then knocking them down, contaminating himself with viral croupe, staying in bed with a fever and an ear infection, digging holes outside, riding the dog, staying up late and then getting up early, biting holes in loaves of bread, refining his yelling of "NO!" and "MINE!" and unrolling mountains of toilet paper.

Sadly, our whilwind of May commences tomorrow at the barber shop. This last thing on our to-do list this month is cutting baby boy's hair. In the girls' free time, they've began putting his hair in pigtails. So it's time.

Besides, I'm more than ready for the lazy days of summer.

Happy Mother's Day

This year, my precious family blessed me with a handmade card:
Sweet roses (fresh from their dance recital bouquets!):

And a ever-so-practical pack of tape and a stapler:

Love these girls! We had such a sweet day of simply enjoying each other. I'm so blessed to be their mommy!

Memory Box

A year or so ago, I read this article about creating and using a scripture memory box. Like many ideas, I tucked it in the back of my head for future use when I had plenty of time to institute it.

I still don't have plenty of time, but I do have much desire to implement a system to assist my family as we store the very words of God in our hearts.

We don't participate in an Awana program or Bible drills, but we do actively read our Bibles. This system allows for everyone's input into what scripture they would like to memorize.

For starters, I chose a box. I picked a pretty one over a practical one because I'd rather look at colorful flowers over boring plastic anyday. Please, friends, don't laugh at me as you now see that I, Mrs. Flybytheseatofmypants, actually own an organizational tool:

The box also contains dividers (and yes, I really did know what to do with them!). I altered the system to fit perfectly on 24 dividers instead of the 41 that the program utilizes. I made the changes because the box only came with 24 cards this way will be a bit more practical for our family.

My labels:

• 1 label for Daily
• 1 for Odd
• 1 for Even
• 5 for weekdays (because honestly, we won't even think about this box on the weekends)
• 16 for numerical days of the month (one label is for days 1 and 16, the next is for days 2 and 17, then 3 and 18, etc because it won't kill us to review our verses twice a month instead of once a month as prescribed by the original post; Day 31 is all alone so those verses are reviewed 7 times a year and by then the kids should be able to recite them in their sleep)

As you may suspect, I did have to purchase index cards. I never, ever thought that I would actually use these, but I have come to find many good uses for them throughout my homeschooling career.

There are many, many lists online of verses that are excellent for remembering. But I simply flipped through my Bible and wrote down key verses that I had highlighted over the years.

Everyday we read a card, mainly focusing on the verse or passage that is in the daily category. Then we review the ones I've moved to other places, starting with an even or odd day of the month and then the actual date of the month.

So for today, 5/5/09, we read Joshua 1:9 twice and the kids said it with me. Then I'd read a few words and let them say the rest. They sort of knew this verse, so I moved it to the odd category-- We won't read it again until 5/7. I then picked the veres out of the odd section and those happened to be Psalms 23. We read through it, saying it together. I put it back and we'll revisit it in two days. When the kids can say it fairly well, it'll be moved to one of the twice a month labels.

The only discipline this takes is remembering to actually do it. But my kids seem to remember to actually eat breakfast every morning, so I just serve up some Daily Bread along with their cereal. I love copying scripture so I keep a stack of cards with my Bible and will add the box as I come across something we need to or would like to memorize. I'm also letting the girls contribute whatever verses they find meaningful.

So what's your method for memorizing scripture?

The ugly spider

My uncle brought us a sand pit to play in. Since then, spiders think it's their home. But my sisters and I found this unique spider that was jumping on our sand pit. Isn't it ugly?!

Mom's note: This was an unintentional blog posting as it was suppose to go on Cayli's personal blog. But that's okay, because everyone needs to see an ugly wolf spider every once and awhile, don't you think? I used to think spiders were nasty--and still do--but as long as they are viewed at a distance, preferrably away from my kids' playthings--I'm beginning to find them fascinating. That's homeschooling for you--the whole comes alive!

Precautions

With this whole swine flu floating around (and local school districts closed indefinitely) you can never be too cautious. Moments after giving my kids the scoop--sans media hype--these signs appeared all over my house:
The creator, my germophobe elder dear daughter, also taught her baby brother how to blow into a kleenex and throw it away.
It seems to take me years to teach my kids basics like this, but only seconds from them to learn from each other.

Hope all is healthy where you are!