Six "F's"

Well, our week without daddy is wrapping up! We had a wonderful time with my mom this week. It helped having her here while Steve was gone. I wasn't so lonely :) Unfortunately, my camera also traveled to El Salvador, so I have absolutely NO pictures of all the great happenings of this week! We did not do any school, and even my great plan of catching up on some things failed! All we did was finish our Olympic lapbook and play MathBlaster.

I have many ideas milling around my mind, but I am going to go and sit down for a few quiet moments before everyone's "quiet rest time" ends abruptly. We have had some beautiful spring-like weather here and the other day, my mother-in-law came to give me a reprieve for 3 hours! I ended my (much needed) time ALONE at a park with the windows rolled down and bible and journal in hand. It was so refreshing, although I was still too cold to brave a walk :) Anyway, I was left with 6 "F's"...Words to describe what each member of our family is going through right now. Fruit, Failure, Fears, Frustration, Following, and Fury. Steve is seeing a lot of FRUIT on his trip! I am struggling with my constant FAILURES to obey the word of God. Zeke has developed some FEARS that come out in different ways. Abby is trying to find a good and helpful way to handle FRUSTRATION. Eli is learning how to FOLLOW Jesus in practical ways. And Micah is a ball of FURY at times :) and we are working really hard at training him. The older the kids get, I see that my ability to control things in their lives diminishes (as it should!). It is scary, yet really good to see them struggling with things and being here to (hopefully) turn them to the Lord.

Feel free to prayer for us in these areas :) I look forward to having my camera back (I think I missed it almost as much as Steve :P), and sharing some of the great work that God did in El Salvador!

Texting and the New Testament

I had to post this, even though it's been awhile since this conversation happened. About 2 Sundays ago, as we were driving to our favorite lunch spot after church, the kids were discussing what they "learned" in their Sunday school classes. Eli's story happened to be about Zaccheus. Zeke took over the conversation, narrating the entire story. And here is the all important climax of the story, 2010 techie kid version: "Jesus texted Zaccheus to come down"! I could hardly believe my ears.

"Did you just say Jesus texted Zaccheus to come down?" asked daddy.

"Yeah, he texted him to come down," quickly replied Zeke.

I laughed so hard all the way to lunch! :)

PS. Daddy, perhaps you do a little too much texting!!!!! :)

Missing Daddy

Well, we said good-bye to daddy for 9 days. We are glad to be able to sacrifice our time with daddy so he can lead some college students on this yearly mission trip. We are praying for him everyday and waiting to hear what awesome things God will do on this trip.

In school time this week, it was a little bit of a jumbled schedule, but we managed to get most of our work done. We have my mom visiting next week, so we will have a very light school week. But that will give us a chance to catch up on science...we are a week behind...and we are way behind on our George Muller read aloud, so we need to finish that up! We also are slowly completing our Olympic lapbook, so we need to finish that as well. It will be a good catch-up week. Steve and I have been discussing how our eldest needs to work on his math drill facts more, so I purchased a math game and plan on having him spend a good chunk of time on drilling facts with it this week.

We had a really fun weekend, which helped the sadness of having daddy gone for awhile. We had some friends over Saturday afternoon, then Abby went home with them to have more time with her girlfriend while the boys and I went to Zeke's Upward basketball game. Then Zeke got to go home with grandma and have an overnight time all by himself with her...one of the perks we are enjoying having a grandma living closer now! We all re-convened at Zeke's soccer game this afternoon, including my mom. We had BOTH grandmas over for dinner after the game; that never happens and was great!

I have no camera this week, since Steve took it to El Salvador with him. But when he gets back, I should have a cool new toy to try out and be able to post videos of all our happenings here!

Very Ordinary

With the exception of a few unfortunate "PMS moments", last week was quite enjoyable. We had a short, but intense study of Germany, ending with a meal out at a locally owned German restaurant. Here's 2 shots from school this week: Eli and his Cuckoo clock (we modified the crafts for this week), Zeke's drawing of a lake.



Steve is gearing up for his yearly El Salvador mission trip. He will be co-leading a team of 19 students. This yearly trip really refreshes him and refuels his passion for the gospel and great commission, although it means extra time without daddy :(

I was thrilled to look out my window this morning and see many inches of snow :) And thankful I did not have to go anywhere today as I watched about 3 cars get stuck on our street! Unfortunately, the snow was not the best snowman making snow, but darn it! we were going to make a snowman sometime this year, so above is the picture of our "snowhead". You can see how proud Eli is of his decorating abilities!Here is Zeke shoveling the many heavy inches of snow!


I was NOT thrilled on Sunday when Abby came down with the stomach virus...wondering when rounds 3-6 will come about...sigh...

School Times

We've had some good school time this week. We enjoyed the scheduled crafts for our France study, as you can see! Zeke spent an hour and a half (although he claims 2 hours) on his Eiffel tower model. I really enjoy giving the this much time and freedom when they are "in the mood" to accomplish something and work hard at it! Abby and Eli had a good time with the building too...Eli just kept building and building...and eating and eating the marshmallows! It feels like we've been reading about France forever because of a few interrupted weeks. I'm glad to be moving on next week to Germany, which I am going to condense into one week.

Abby's model:

Eli's model:
Eli is reading amazingly well...I am flying through the kindergarten On Track book(SSRW) with him. I like the strong foundation SSRW gives young readers, but once they are getting it, I see no reason to draw it out. He reads a new story every day! He works really hard for a little guy...I'm so proud of him and can't believe he'll be turning 5 soon! I thought this math activity was cute, although a little girlish...And then there is a picture Eli drew of his best friend Gabe, in his bathing suit, no less! This is one I want to remember forever and put in his baby book :)



Abby has moved onto the 2nd grade workbook for SSRW and then I just listen to her read from a Pathway reader every day. It is good to see her challenged a little more in language arts. She was very excited about starting subtraction this week. This gal is FULL OF ENERGY and she is CONSTANTLY jumping up (not exaggerating here) from her desk every 2 minutes and LEAPING over to her brothers' desks to see what they are up to. I moved her desk to the living room to see if that would help her distraction, but no, it just provides room for the leaping moves....sigh...her daddy claims she's just like him...her brain just moves so fast and is always thinking, onto the next thing...I am SO OPPOSITE! I sway between getting frustrated with her and trying to figure out how I can get her to sit still--to embracing who God made her and loving the freedom that she has being schooled at home. I think watching her sugar intake would be helpful. If any one has any suggestions, I'm all ears! Here is her with her doggie that she chose from the prize table at piano lesson, a portrait of the doggie and her and her cousin Anna.


Zeke is doing great. He still loves geography, has been doing some extra science sheets this week out of the big book of animals (for ECC users), and we are amazed at his math. We did have a little discussion about how he needs to start writing neater for his math! He will sometimes write 1 inch numbers for the problems, very sloppily. Mom is not a pushover when it comes to sloppy work.

Micah received a little "desk" in place of where his sister's used to be in the school room. One day he informed me that he needs do school too. Come to find out, he is really good at using scissors just like Eli was! And he loves to glue beads and noodles onto paper, although I usually just find them all over the floor. Maybe he will start having a little 10 minute school time!


If any ECC users have any advice about bible times, I'd love to hear it. How do you do your bible times? I try to have us all read together, but it is too long and too deep for the younger kids, and I wind up very frustrated, angry, and discouraged by the end of our "bible time". But I love having discussions about it with Zeke. I already do the read aloud for Zeke at bed time, so can't move it there...I need something shorter and more interactive for my younger kids...but don't want Zeke to miss out on the content. And we've been wanting to focus more on character with the kids...start learning some Proverbs, for example. But I'm not sure I want to miss what the curriculum has for Zeke. Help?!

Well, I'm off to make Quiche and Crepes for dinner ( I grew up eating my mom's awesome crepes!!!), although Zeke can't partake since he's the one that came down with that awful virus. :(

Fun in the snow, finally!

We are so glad to finally see some snow here! The kids have been having recess outside after lunch for the past two days, working on their "clubhouses"! We'd love to make it sledding this weekend, but one of us just came down with a nasty stomach bug...we'll see who survives it and who doesn't. Yikes and Yuk!

What We've Been Up to....

We have settled into our normal life again, and I am glad! We had a fun week at home getting back into full-time school...a highlight was a visit from some dear friends that moved away a few years ago...we love it when they come back to visit!

Here's Micah, Janine, and Zeke

Eli and Isaac chillin' with the guitars...I'm so glad I got this picture!



This week, we have also:

Finished a 1,000 piece puzzle! Some repairs are in need by now :)



Enjoyed our new TAG reading system!

Helped mom cook by dragging all the pans into the family room :)


Started watching the Star Wars trilogy! Tomorrow night's showing: The Empire Strikes Back


And, since we have been watching Jedi fighting, we pretend to be Jedi warriors, fighting the "bad guys". Micah was included in their war yesterday and kept walking around saying "Who you say I am, Zeke? R2-22?" He was hilarious!