Cutest T-ball player ever

I am having so much fun watching this kid play T-ball. This is his first year, and he has learned a lot in the first couple of weeks. For instance, only in the first game did he let two girls from his team pass him before he took off running from second base. Isn't that the greatest smile? He might be having just as much fun as I am. 

 He will talk to anyone and everyone while he is on the field. If he makes a good play, I get a kick out of watching him tell the closest coach all about it. If no one is listening, he'll just talk about it to himself. When he is at the pitcher's mound, he gets to know the umpire -- or the umpire gets to know him!

 

And the team snack after the game just might be the best part of the night.

Laundry

I am so excited that I actually have a few free minutes before bedtime tonight. Lately I feel like I am always running a step behind and trying to catch up. Tonight I'm going to sit here and breathe. I will ignore the unfolded laundry and celebrate the fact that the clothes are clean, and I can fold them tomorrow. Nate has been gone for the last week and a half on a business trip, and I was trying to find a silver lining in that fact this morning when I noticed it was time to do laundry. As I was sorting the clothes I realized that his clothes probably account for a third of our wash. Those long legs of his require pants that fill up a laundry basket in no time. So, there is something good in having him travel after all! I had less laundry to do today. And I can promise I won't complain one bit when he brings his suitcase home and dumps it in a waiting laundry basket.

Help when it's needed

Nate was visiting another congregation this morning to fulfill the responsibilities of his calling, so I had all the kids at church by myself. I have such wonderful children, and I am so grateful they are the ones sitting on my pew every Sunday. How could I do it with any other children? The Lord just knows how to make everything work out just right. Anyway, after church we had choir practice, and I had to stay since I play the piano for our choir. But Natalie doesn't really like to sleep anywhere except for her crib. She fell asleep in my arms in Sunday School for a while, but by the time church was over she was done. Hannah is singing in the choir now, so that left Nikki trying to watch Natalie. Natalie would have been okay if Nikki could have walked around with her until she fell asleep, but the baby is just a little too big for Nikki to hold her comfortably for that long. Thankfully, there was a sweet lady who was waiting while her daughter was singing who went over and held Natalie for Nikki. I so appreciated her helping when I couldn't. Then, the next time I looked up Nate was standing in the back of the chapel holding Natalie and gathering Ryan and Nikki and all of our stuff to take them home. I was so thankful he came to church to pick them up instead of just going home. He didn't have to do that. In fact, I'm sure it would have been easier for him not to. He still had to pack for a business trip he needed to leave for in a couple of hours. I'm grateful for a husband who serves the Lord and serves his family.

Learning

Over the last 2 weeks, Hannah has learned to draw the United States from memory and label all of the states and capitals, as well as a list of about 15 major land features (including the 5 Great Lakes, which I can never keep straight myself). She has been studying algae and protazoa, fungi, and wildflowers. She has written an essay on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She has learned about the first declension of Latin nouns, the first conjugation present tense of Latin verbs, and a list of Latin vocabulary and rules. She has been reading and discussing a couple of books about the logic behind the Christian faith (the fallacies of evolution and the Big Bang theory, etc.). And math, math, math! We are going to be great mathmeticians in this house! She may think math is difficult now, but one day all of this hard work is going to pay off for her.

Nikki and Ryan are memorizing events on a history timeline, and they learned about Charlemagne and William the Conqueror. They are learning the parts of speech and what they do. Nikki has learned the 112 different classifications English sentences can be when their structure, purpose, and pattern are combined. She is memorizing more about verbs than I ever heard during all of my years of schooling. They learned about the seven biomes and the three different kinds of consumers. They drew the five basic elements artists use to draw and played with symmetry. Memorized the Latin endings of the first conjugation, present tense. In math, Nikki is working with fractions and Ryan is learning to draw his numerals and skip count by 2s, 3s, and 4s. Ryan is studying phonograms and learning to say and write them. Nikki is learning to use a thesaurus and dress up her writing with better words than go/went, say/said, etc. Ryan is learning to point to the continents and oceans and some bodies of water in Europe, while Nikki is tracing and drawing the maps. Nikki also has spelling, dictation, and penmanship, and she is reading Anne of Green Gables. Anything else? Probably. And yes, this has just been the first two weeks.

Natalie and I are hanging on for the ride. She is learning to crawl and eat table food. I think we could all just spend our entire day staring at and playing with her and be perfectly satisfied. But I'm so glad we're doing more than that. I am so tired by the end of the day, but I feel like we are all getting a fabulous education. A friend introduced me to Classical Conversations, and Hannah participated in their grammar and writing program last year. We absolutely loved it, and since I was pregnant this was our saving grace. If she didn't have to go to class every Friday and show her work, I know nothing would have gotten done last year! Since it went so well, and we all learned so much, we put all three kids in their program this year. We go to school on Tuesday every week where they have a tutor who introduces the new information they will be learning over the next week and review the work from previous weeks. I love how they make it a point that the mom is the teacher and I have the final say over assignments and work required. Their tutor is simply a resource. It is such a fabulous program!

When I first started homeschooling, I kind of thought talking about philosophies of education wasn't very important. I knew I didn't want to unschool, but for the rest I just wanted to make sure my kids knew what they were supposed to for each subject. The longer I do this, though, the more I realize what a product of public education I am! I did very well in school growing up, including in college (when I went to class), and I thought I had a pretty good education. Now I am learning how much I don't know! I must say the more I learn about the classical model of education, the more it makes sense. Proverbs 24: 3-4 states, "Through wisdom is a house builded, and by understanding it is established: And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches." Leigh Bortins, the founder of Classical Conversations, connects the learning stages of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom with how to teach our children. Anyway, that's a long way of saying that I'm finally catching on to the importance of a theory, and it is affecting how I want to teach my children.

Homeschooling is certainly not a path that I thought I would take, and after failing at it once when Hannah was in 1st grade, I certainly didn't think I would be traveling down this road again. It is not easy. I am exhausted, and I feel very inadequate. However, I can also honestly say I am so grateful that I can do this for my children. I have heard so many people say they could never homeschool. I'm not going to say they are wrong. Every family has their own path to take, but I don't believe any mother is incapable of teaching her child. They are learning from us all the time, maybe even when we don't want them to be. I don't feel capable of doing this either, but I also love Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." For my family, I feel called to educate my children at home, and the Lord is being so kind in guiding me in this path.

A little August catch up

 Natalie turned 5 months in August. I haven't figured out how to turn off the red light on my camera without completely turning off the flash, so she is always frowning in the pictures I take lately because that light shines in her face. Anyway, in reality she is a very happy girl. She loves people and thinks anyone who smiles at her is the greatest. She has been trying to crawl this past week, and we all get a kick out of watching her because she doesn't really know what to do with her arms yet. She gets up on her hands and knees and then launches herself forward like a frog jumping, but she doesn't catch herself with her arms -- she just faceplants. Love this baby!

This little guy is so excited to be 5 years old. Just ask him and he'll tell you all about it. He continues to be the most talkative and energetic person in our family. He's always looking for someone to play a game with him. I am amazed when I look at him and see how grown his is. He has his first T-ball practice this coming Saturday, and he is counting down the days.

Recording Blessings

I have been thinking about President Eyring's message from last month's Ensign about keeping a record of the Lord's blessings in our lives. It's not the first time I have heard him give this counsel, but I want it to be the last time that I need the Spirit to give me such a strong reminder to follow it. After all, the main reason I have a blog is to keep a record of what happens in our family. Lately, the pace of my life has picked up and I have used that as an excuse to not blog, when that really means I have more to record. What I need to work on is prioritizing how I use my time. So, here is a first post to get me started.

I have a sweet friend at church who loves babies. She's a baby whisperer. She put Natalie to sleep during Sunday School and then fed and played with her through Relief Society as well. I so appreciated being able to sit through the lessons without holding a squirmy worm. What a great service she offered to me!

Nate and I spent an evening away on Friday to celebrate our 14th anniversary coming up next week. We are only about two weeks into our new school year, and I already needed a break! I'll write more another time about our homeschool, but for now I'll just say that I'm excited for all that my kids are learning. And I am excited to be learning along with them. Speaking of school, it's a bit ironic that I was telling Nikki last week that we don't start a sentence with a conjunction, but I think I've done it at least twice so far in this post! I write my blog like I'm talking, so I guess maybe I should work on my speech and then my writing might improve. :) While school is going to be great this year, I think we are going to work harder than we have ever worked in our homeschool. I'm excited, nervous, and worn out just thinking of it. Anyway, it was so nice to get away even for one day with Nate. With both of us being so busy these days, it takes a greater effort to just spend time together. I love him, and I love being with him.

On a side note, as I have been writing this post Nate has been playing a card game with the kids on our bed. They started fighting with each other, so I heard him say they needed to quit playing and read scriptures. Then they weren't listening to him, so he made them recite the scriptures after him. They thought his voice inflections of the people speaking was silly and started paying attention and giggling. Somehow, he turned a contentious moment into one where they are now happily reading scriptures together. He is such a good man, and I really appreciate the few minutes he gave me to myself this afternoon.