her gift

she slipped into our room this morning and placed this on the bed next to me.  "it's a present for you," she said with a smile.

she went ahead and opened it for me.

i recently told the kids the story of how i lost the ring daddy gave to me when we got married.  she in particular has felt bad about the missing ring ever since.

and so decided she'd make a replacement one for me.

and guess what?  it's a perfect fit!  

she says someday she wants to go to costco and buy me a real one when she's bigger.  she's still under the impression that you can get everything from costco.

i don't know though... it's going to be pretty much impossible to find something that's more special and precious to me than the gift i already got.  and the one of a kind, made from her heart ring she made for me is just about perfect, too.

i am so, so blessed.

some 'splainin

this picture of lauren has nothing to do with the post that follows.  it just feels strange to me to have an entry with no pictures.  plus, i love this girl.  so there's that, too.



these are just some thoughts swirling around in my head these days and i figure if i write them down here, they might just stop swirling so much and let me sleep at 3 in the morning.

regarding schooling.

thought 1- we know and love families who homeschool their kids and have either done it all the way through or plan to go all the way through.  we call them the 'lifers'.  and we love them.  we also know and love families who have done some combo of homeschooling/outside schooling.  they're the 'drop in-n-outs'.  we love them, too.  and finally, we know and love families who have always done outside schooling (be it either public or private), and their kids have managed to turn out okay, too.  and i don't have a name for them, but we definitely love them, too.

so here's the thing.  phil and i have never felt convicted that one way is better/more biblical than another way.  we have, however, made the decision to be open-minded about the many options and to give them an honest try and our best effort to see if it works for our family.

thought 2- i gave an honest try and best effort to keep everyone at home last year to see how that would work for our family.  with a first grader, kindergartener, preschooler, and nursing baby, i honestly felt overwhelmed and spread too thin.  and ultimately felt that i was not doing even an adequately good job at any one thing and feeling forever frustrated at myself.  and guilty over the bare basics mikey and allie were getting, or the many hours lauren was just getting completely ignored and overlooked, or the fleeting, precious baby moments i was missing out on with jonah.  i just couldn't do and be everything i very much wanted to be.  so phil gently concluded that we should look at changing some things up for this coming year as much for my sake as for the rest of the family's general well-being.

i have a good husband.  :)

thought 3 (and this is the long one)- once upon a time, i was a painfully shy little girl who often had to be the new girl in school because her family moved around so dang much.  being the new girl was high on my list of terrifying experiences and i even now clearly remember those shaky feelings of dread upon entering a classroom, praying the teacher would be nice, trying to avoid the stares of the kids as they eyed and whispered about the new kid, and basically trying to be as invisible as i could to avoid any negative attention.  and i remember hoping that there would be just one nice little girl who might say hello and might ask me to play even if i was the new girl that nobody knew.  and that didn't happen more times than it did.

and even when i wasn't the new kid, i often felt like the one standing outside looking in and wishing i could just somehow fit in better and feel like i belonged.  to be honest, i still struggle with that to this day.  but even with all that, being at school felt safer to me than being at home.  because things at home were rough more times than they were calm and being at school offered some relief from that walking-on-eggshells feeling at home.

along the way, God did place some wonderful teachers, kind friends and their caring parents in my life just when i needed them most.  and i am grateful for each one to this day.  sometimes i wonder where i would be today were it not for just such a strategically placed person to offer a smile or an encouraging word to my scared and lonely self.  it gave me hope.

flash forward to my teaching days and there was a new little girl who showed up in my class who looked every bit as scared and forlorn as i used to feel and look myself.  her clothes were rumpled and stained.  she needed a bath.  the other kids in my class snickered and whispered.  and i came down HARD on them.  probably too hard.  i had a soft spot for this little girl and did what i could to help her, but often wasn't sure how best to help.  and one day she asked if she could come and live with me.  i came home that day and cried.

i haven't shared most of this with our kids yet.  i will one day.  but for now, i try to encourage them to look for the person who looks like he needs a friend and go BE his friend.  to offer that smile or say hello because you never know how God might use that.  God blessed our kiddos with lots of siblings so they've had lots of practice including one another and not leaving anyone behind.  i hope that follows them into other friendships they make as they get older and that they would make that extra effort to be that friendly face to someone who might need it.

that is why i do want our kids to be in public school.  to be on the lookout for the new girl.  or the boy nobody eats lunch with.  or the one always picked last for kickball (because that was me, too).

as our kids grow, i want them to always feel that our home is their home to open up to others.  mikey in particular, is very good at this and i am so thankful that God wired him that way.  i hope this continues and that their friends would feel welcomed and safe here.  because i remember very well the feeling of needing a place to go when home was the last place i wanted to be.

yet the mother bear in me worries for my kids.  part of me wants to keep them at home, safe, forever.  protected from the mean things kids might say and do, or unbiblical teaching, or negative influences.  i don't want them to grow up too fast and too soon.  i want to teach them in the way they should go.  i want them to continue to have close relationships with me, their dad, and their siblings.

but i also realize that i am far too good at staying within my own safe, comfort zone among our church friends and homeschool groups.  and in so doing, might just miss that one kid who reminds me too much of my own kid self who needed a friend.  and i'm just not comfortable with that idea, either.

and so, we are going to take it year by year.  some years they all might be in school.  other years, they may all be home.  and there may be some in-n-out years in there, too.  and not all the decisions we make are going to be the right ones.  but i trust that God knows all of this and knows his plan for us and won't let us down as we try and seek to honor him in the way we educate and teach our kids about the things that really matter.  in knowing Him, and loving His people.

we won't do either perfectly.  a lot of times we'll fail at teaching our kids to be compassionate and kind and patient because we aren't being compassionate and kind and patient ourselves.  and a lot of times we might avoid reaching out to others because it's not comfortable for us and doesn't come naturally to do it.  but even so, i do hope we'll keep trying as our kids are here watching us.

"the King will reply, 'truly, i tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'"  -matthew 25:40

her first day

so after all my angst about letting my baby go...

tuesday was her first day of first grade.  she was excited and ready to begin her new adventure.  not nervous at all.  i, on the other hand, was nervous enough for the both of us!

we brought a "happy first day of school/survival kit" gift for her teacher which included reward stickers, stress-relieving lotion, advil, chocolates, tide stain remover, antibacterial hand sanitizer, mints, lip balm, and of course, coffee.  :)

no pictures of her actually at school though.  it was pandemonium there on the first day of school and i actually decided not to take my camera with me so that i could really focus on being in the moment while there with allie.  oh, and also keep the other three kids from getting lost in the shuffle.  that was important, too.

and since it was her first day of school, i decided it would be his first day, too.  he didn't have even a moment's indecision about wanting to go to school after seeing all the other kids with their shiny new backpacks all gathered together with all the excitement in the air.  didn't even bat an eye when we left allie in her new classroom and instead turned to me and asked, "are we ready to head back home now?  and can i have my second bowl of cereal after we get inside?" 

i'm doing the heart of dakota curriculum with mikey this year and so far, he loves it.  and so do i!  we both look forward to spending that time together and it's been a really great fit for the both of us.  lauren has also been sitting in with us and i've even managed to have enough time to do the hod preschool curriculum with her while mikey does his independent work.  she's been totally loving her "school" too!  her preschool class starts next week, so i think i'll continue to do this program with her on the days she's home.

so allie came home from her first day of school absolutely raving about it.  she's loved it every day since.  and was even sorely disappointed when i told her she wouldn't be going on the weekend and that monday was a holiday to boot.  she can't wait to go back!  so yes, she loves school and i am SO relieved and happy that it's gone so well thus far.  God is so good!

and because i didn't quite have it together to have these little buckets ready to celebrate the completion of the first day of school, we celebrated the first week instead.

just as good, right?

i knew their very favorite thing from those buckets would be their very own roll of special tape.  tape is a much sought after commodity in this house and we are forever running out of it because of the yards and yards of it that gets wound around all their little projects.  they like to use five feet of tape where really an inch or two would have done the job.  so yes, each getting his or her own personal tape to use however they chose was a pretty big deal.  especially to this one.

because of her penchant for doing stuff like this.

so yes, the first week of school has gone over awesomely well in our house, praise the Lord!

so

so.

today is ('was' cuz it's 10 pm now?) the official last day of summer.

wait.  what?  aren't i homeschooling and can therefore decide to give ourselves another week of summer if i feel like it?  and for the record, i really, really feel like it.

ah, so much to update on and so NO time to do it.

long story short, i am still homeschooling this year.  and i'm not.

wait.  what?

yes, exactly.  i'm confused too.

ok, so phil and i agreed at the start of this journey of educating our kids that we would make our decisions year-by-year.  and that we would try to make those decisions trying to balance both the needs of the individual child with what would work best for the family as a whole. so after many discussions with phil, lots of prayer, and getting the kids' input for this new school year (not that we left it up entirely to the kids, but we did take their preferences in to consideration), what we've decided to do for this year is keep mikey home for school (imagine my shock when my most social child insisted that he loved staying home and never wavered from that choice), and to let allie try first grade at our local public school (imagine my double shock when my more timid and reserved child insisted that she really, really, really wanted to try school this year and also has never wavered from her choice).  lauren will go to preschool three times a week.  jonah will do his best to throw a wrench into all the carefully laid out plans.  it's what he does best.

so less overwhelming for me in terms of trying to be and do everything for everyone all at once, but still totally overwhelming in terms of trying to remember everyone's different schedules of school pick up/drop offs, homeschool co-ops, and after school activities.  i think "hot mess with a side of crazy sauce" would be a fitting description for me this coming year.  

also, i feel like i have no closure from last year's venture into homeschooling.  mostly because, uh, i didn't actually have an official last day of school.  it just sort of petered out sometime in may because i had to kick it in to high gear with the packing and moving and unpacking, y'all.  and then here and there in the summer, i'd throw in a day or two of schooling to make up the days we missed.  so homeschooling sort of ended and it sort of didn't.  and i didn't get my last day of school pictures of the kids like i wanted to.  *sob*.

and that is the biggest tragedy of all.

ok, maybe that's a little overly dramatic, but it's the reason why i feel like i have no closure.

but maybe that's just what homeschooling is anyway- throwing schooling in there with all the rest of life and have the kids learn alongside you while everything else is still going on.

or something like that.

so my thoughts about our first year of homeschooling are a jumbled mess right now.  but two things stand out very clearly to me.  number one is that i do not regret for a second all the precious time together and all the memories made with having the kids around all day everyday.  having talks all day long about all things big and little.  God talks.  heart issue talks.  encouraging talks.  correcting talks.  i loved it.  and i was overwhelmed by it.  number two is that i do regret feeling perpetually frustrated and overwhelmed.  mostly at not being able to do everything that needed to be done all at once.  it was hard feeling like a crazed, disorganized, forgetful, impatient, super tired mess most days.


so here we are on the eve of allie's first day of school.  she is so very excited.  i am excited too for her, but also nervous.  praying that she makes good, kind friends, that she wouldn't run in to any bullying, that she would have a great teacher, and that she wouldn't ever feel ashamed to talk about God.  because she loves to talk about God and was just saying tonight how she would love to introduce her new friends to Him if they don't know Him yet.  i love that about her and i don't want that to ever change about her.  and so that is why i am a little nervous for her.  i shouldn't be, because God's got her, but i am.

and so while i wrestle with doubts over the decisions we've made and the changes that are headed our way, i keep clinging to the truth that God will take care of her better than i ever could.  i very well know that i am not a perfect parent and am not capable of making the perfect decision for each of our children at every turn, but i take comfort in the fact that we have a loving Savior who is capable of knowing what is best for us and is leading us every step.  i trust that He has a purpose in this and will make it all come out for our good and His glory.

my baby's all ready to start off on an adventure all by herself.  we got her backpack this past weekend and she's been toting it around with her ever since.  even while she and her sibs were playing in their "hideouts" in the backyard last night.

project 52, week 26

there were quite a lot of decorations put up inside and outside the house for lauren's party.  but the fireplace remained bare and rather stark looking.  that is, until the kids took it upon themselves to decorate that area with an allie-made paper chain as well as signs and pictures they drew.  it ended up being my most favorite decorations of all.  lauren is a very loved little sister.

the fair

because it's just not summer without our yearly trip to the fair.  this time it was mikey who saw the commercial for it on tv and kept reminding us that 1) the fair was here! and 2) when could we go?

first order of business: mini corn dogs.

little dude was not going to miss out on the eating fun this year.

he polished it off not even two minutes later.

'twas okay though because daddy made sure the food choices kept rolling in the whole day.

beverage choices too.  it was rather hot that day...

we finally let him out and let him walk around on his own in an uncrowded spot.

there was no turning back after that.  he was a free man!

so while i was off chasing little dude and trying to keep him from getting lost in the crowd, the olders were intently making beeswax candles.

mikey proudly informed me that we'll be okay now in case we have a blackout at the house.  always good to be prepared.  ;)

meanwhile, someone was happily sampling a mango honey stick.

we also caught part of a chinese circus show.  i would think this would surely put a crick in your neck.  ouch!!

and of course, it wouldn't be a trip to the fair without our annual trip to the balloon popping booth.

there was no "30 ticket special" this year at the balloon booth, so daddy bought a whole bunch of tickets and asked the booth people if we could get three stuffed animals in exchange for all of the tickets.  they said yes.

i have no idea why he does this every year. 

no idea at all.

the kids were getting tired so we decided to call it a day.  but not without getting some chocolate covered bacon for the ride home!

thanks for the memories, oc fair!

and maybe someday we'll actually ride some of these rides.

or maybe not.

project 52, week 25

trying to keep them independently occupied while mommy's busy unpacking.  this particular idea unfortunately only lasted a day because we left them out the night we had a freak rain shower in southern california in july.  of course.