One school year down

We have finished out our school year. One year of homeschooling behind us. It was kind of a rollar coaster this year. Some days I felt like it was working and other days I wistfully watched the school bus drive by. I did enjoy watching my kids finally grasp a concept and get excited about what we were learning about. It took time to get used to being the teacher and the mom, knowing when to let them work it out or when to help. Biggest accomplishments this year was getting Hannah caught up to grade level, she was severly behind. Getting JD, Riley and Caley reading and teaching Alex and AJ about amazing missionaries! My favorite thing this year was learning myself about the life George Mueller. We asked the kids what they wanted to do for next year. They all picked homeschooling again so we will once again picking out curriculum and getting ready for next year!

We also finally found a house to buy and we are closing mid June. This house has room for us to have a room specifically for homeschooling, which is fantastic! Its also close to our rental house, so nothing has to change (doctors, dentist, library....). With 7 kids this is a huge blessing! So in the next 4 weeks we gotta pack up and get to the new house. This will be our last move for a long long time, we choose carefully a house we can grow in and in an area we can put down real roots. After almost 12 years of marriage and too many moves, we have never done that!

Date Night

For the past 9 years Randy and I have made one night a week date night. Having young children for the past 9 years and for many years little extra cash we created our date night. Usually Friday nights we order in (or make something we like that the kids don't....very frugal!) The kids get to eat leftovers from the week (again frugal!). We put the kids to bed, our kids when they are younger go to bed at 7. Now the older kids stay up till 9, but they are sent to the game room and allowed to watch a movie or tv, the only night its allowed. After that we either wait for the delivery man or make dinner. Sometimes we will rent a movie and pull up some tray tables to the couch or we will catch up on DVR shows. Other times we will pull out Scrabble or play cards while listening to music. It is how Randy learned that I am quite knowledgeable about the music of the 50s and 60s. I grew up with a mom who loved that music and I grew to love it too. Or we will switch to the 80s or 90s music and relive good memories, or make fun of each other for actually liking that song (cough Abba cough). Its a good time for us to remember that parenting is this season of our life, but our commitment we made at our wedding is forever. Its also good to do something fun and just hang out together. I highly suggest it for any couple or even single parent. Take a night any night but make it a regular thing!

Mothers Day!

I was treated to a paper crown, homemade necklace and multiple homemade cards. A feast of french toast and bacon was made for me and my sweet husband took all the kids to the playground so I could have some quiet time. It was one of those days I try to stop and take in all the memories. I know how quickly life changes, I know how blessed I am to be surrounded by my gaggle of kids. I know that despite the drama some days that all 7 kids love me and my husband is a true partner in my life. Someday they will all be grown up and maybe be moms of their own. I still plan on having as many as possible gather at my house, just like my mom did. There is always the conflicting emotions on this day though in my heart. My own mother died 8 years ago. She was a great mom and though I had my own kid dramas with her, she never gave up on me. Even when I walked in the door 19 and pregnant, she wasn't thrilled (at all....) but she stood by my decisions and loved me anyway. I wish I could have appreciated her more when she was here, I tear up just typing this. So many times in my quest to be independent I pushed her away. I miss the relationship we had. I lived at home until I was married at 20. I grew up her baby, I was never a big one to leave home. I was content sitting and playing scrabble or watching tv with my parents. Even after I moved out I would call my mom multiple times a day and we spent almost every weekend at my parents house. When I was pregnant with Alex and sitting in the respiratory ICU not knowing my or Alex's future, she walked in with a headband with big blinking red lights. She found them in the gift shop and just wanted to make me smile. She drove me to the hospital when I went into the labor (crazy through windy roads and tried to pass a truck!!!) She loved Randy like a mother. She was the first one to welcome us home with AJ, waiting at our little apartment with Alex having it all decorated with balloons for us. She watched Alex while I went back to college without complaining. Now I see mothers and daughters shopping (her favorite activity, but only if its clearance) and my heart aches. I hope someday I can be half as loving as she was! Happy Mothers Day!!

Generation Parent Guilt

I have been pondering parenting lately. What I am doing right, what I am doing wrong...what works what doesn't...that sort of thing. I despise parenting books, I prefer to look towards people I know or people in history that have qualities in life or parenting that I find valuable. What I have seen is we are generation of parent guilters. Perhaps its the access to information that nags at us. A fifteen minute trip on the internet you can quickly find your child should be involved in sports, music, activities, but just enough and not too much and you should be firm but not too firm. You should give them freedom but too much damages. You should homeschool unless you want them to be normal is socialization in which you should send them to school except don't let them be bullied. You will see how testing in schools and big classes are hurting their education, but sheltering them in a homeschool environment doesn't allow them to achieve full potential. You will find that its damaging to not touch them, but it is damaging to hover. We don't want the roots to be too deep or the wings to be too wide........

I stopped and realized a few things. One parenting has taken on so many different forms in the past. Some generations had families working the farms, some years had kids who played in the streets till the sun went down, some years had wars raging around and fathers off to war. However we have survived.........generations after generations of people that have quirks, histories and pasts. Yet somehow we seem to think that the harder we try we somehow will overcome all history and figure out how to parent near perfect children, who somehow will avoid problems and mistakes. What we find is a generation of parents who carry guilt. If I had done this or that. If I had been home more or if I had left them alone. If I had given them this or not given so much. If I had pushed them harder or pushed them less. If we didn't truly believe parents could achieve "perfect" children through "perfect" parenting we wouldn't be intrigued by shows like "Worlds Strictest Parents" or "Supernanny". I myself fall in the trap of thinking if only I had or I would or I can........Truth be told, there is no secret no special formula no perfect method. No guru has the answers. If we want the answers it comes down to the same answer for every area of our lives, the Bible. I have learned through life that my responsibility is to living for Jesus and studying and following the Bible. Through that my children will get what they need from me. It won't look like your family or a neighbors family or a friends family but I can be confident our kids will all become adults who all know how to navigate life. For some it will seem easier, but it nary is for them on the inside. We all have to find our way, regardless of our parenting.

Side note......I do not condone bad parenting :) In that I mean abusive type! I just think parents need to drop the guilt and worry and realize that if we are truly giving our best to our children, our children will turn out OK in the end :)

Brothers!

Its been awesome for me to see AJ and JD's relationship develop over the past few months. AJ was so excited to be getting brothers when we adopted after having only 3 sisters to play with. Only to find out as new brothers do, that playing with a 3 and a 1 year old isn't always as you dreamed, they eat your legos, drool and generally break your stuff. But somehow I am seeing firsthand when brothers are then 7 and 10 the fun begins! They have spent countless hours in the backyard playing football, baseball and with nerf guns. JD is loving the individual attention of his brother and AJ is soaking up having someone to play the boy games with! No one stopping to make tea or trying to play catch in their fanciest dress..... I have to say I don't always get the way they play, only having been a sister all my life. Things like throwing each other onto the ground and turning a wagon into a tank where they are firing on invisible bad guys. Brothers are great and I am sure in 2 or 3 years it will be the 3 brothers out their tackling each other. Good times for the boys!

Life is going on

I have been such a blog slacker! I do love to blog but lately I find myself mentally checked out by 5pm. Therefore once I have a quiet few minutes in the night I am afraid all I can produce is some sort of buzzing noise, or at least thats what I am hearing in my brain. To get caught up, homeschooling is going well. Caley is reading at a 4th grade level (in 1st grade!), Hannah is caught up to grade level, she was almost a full year behind in August, Alex started 9th grade English (she is in 7th grade), AJ is pulling an A in 6th grade math in 5th grade, Riley is starting to read, JD has made awesome progress and is on grade level (last year he was behind with an aide with him all day). So academically its working. Caley, Riley JD and Zeke have memorized all the books of the Old Testament and are working on the New Testament. Here's the kicker I have spent this whole school year freaking out....thinking I am forgetting something or that they aren't listening or that they are falling behind. I have spent NUMEROUS days in Randy's office in tears because I can't get through to so and so or because of so and so's attitude. I think I ask him once a week are you sure God is asking this of us, because hoowee do I miss that big yellow bus! I am still watching my sweet nephews, until the end of May. We also are trying to buy a new house. We found a great house, perfect in so many ways, just waiting for the appraisal to come through (this may be a problem). And lastly the wonderful IRS is auditing our taxes. They implemented a new tax refund for adoptions (it used to be a credit). Now that its a refund we are due a huge chunk of money, however due to this they want receipts and proof of our adoptions........so we have 30 days (really 25 since its post marked a week ago) to get together cancelled checks and receipts for 5 adoption from 2006 and 2007! Wait till they see the pile we are sending! Really God is taking care of it all and I wish I could say I did life with grace........but really the IRS letter 2 days ago sent me in a torrent of tears and I know that the appraisal results could do the same. I am sure on a tough day next week I will swear homeschooling is just an evil ploy to ruin my life :) Yet just when I am ready to through up my hands and quit God sends me an angel, whether is Randy encouraging me, a kid saying mom PLEASE don't send us back to school, I LOVE being homeschooled, or a simple mommy don't go I will miss you as I head out for a 5 minute break at the grocery store. We all have stress, no one is immune, I am learning there is no way to avoid the mini occasional meltdowns and luckily Jesus is big enough to take my temper tantrums when I swear He forgot my situation. So life goes on, muddy floors, sticky fingers and hope for number 8 to come home from Liberia............I am hanging on to the hope my Savior promised.....Life in abundance !!

Never know when its coming....

I was watching the chaos in Egypt yesterday and thinking about all the everyday people like me. The moms just trying to raise their kids, the women who had plans this week. Then suddenly their world changes, everything is uncertain. I started to think about how that would feel or what it would look like. It made me think about when the bible says not to worry about tomorrow. I always thought of that verse as speaking of not thinking about the future, dealing with today, as though preparing for the future shows a lack of faith. However yesterday I started looking at it in a new way. I live in an assumption that I will have tomorrow to do the laundry, hug my kids, teach them my values, cherish my husband and all the other things. We all do, just look at our calenders with lists of things we will do next week, next month, next year. Now we probably will get to all those things if God allows, but life is also full of unknowns. I started to think how crazy it is to be bored (which I am guilty of a lot!) God has blessed me with today, today to finish the laundry, to make the family dinner, to make a special cold day snack, to spend time with my kids and husband. I have no guarantees that either I will wake up tomorrow, that the world won't be changed tomorrow or some other event will alter the course of my life. Heck if the world collapses tomorrow I will be pretty relieved to have a clean house to hunker down in, a pantry full of food and clean clothes and blankets. Even as small as an injury, I will be glad when I had the chance I got that cleaning down, groceries bought, goodies baked....whatever it is. The point is we don't know if I will be able to do what I can do today tomorrow, if Randy will have a job indefinitely, if the world economy will stay stable, if we aren't a few years down the road from Egypt like crisis...........I do know that there are some Egyptians who are glad they took care of their homes and families while they could and those who are wishing they didn't spend so much timing doing something else last week, month or year. I have a new perspective. I am going to do as much as God has given me the ability to do today not because I have to worry about tomorrow, but because I can and so I don't have to worry about tomorrow.