spring

Lately we've been in a more relaxed mode of home schooling. We are finished with our core curriculum and we're wrapping up math and phonics.

I've learned that education isn't the hard part about teaching at home. Loving each other 24 hours a day is. Putting down what we're doing and addressing a heart issue with patience is MUCH harder than memorizing times tables.

My ladies Bible study is doing an overview of the bible right now and I am soaking it up. We're still in the beginning and talking about God's covenant of grace with Abraham. I'm amazed by all of the ways Jesus is pictured and promised as the coming Messiah and how even then, Abraham knew that God would make a way for all people, not just the Jews. It makes me so hopeful for my future and my children's future the more I see God's faithfulness (despite the Israelite's weaknesses) to so many details in the Old Testament.

 John Patrick is almost 8. Will I always be in shock of kids growing up? He has a crazy ability to understand math to the point that it's almost silly to take more than 1 minute to explain a concept because he just gets bored and starts playing drums on the table with his fingers. BUT getting his understanding out onto the page carefully is another matter. I've started implementing (thanks to a seasoned mom's experience with this same thing) "understanding and challenge". If I ask him a math problem orally he can say it immediately most of the time. So we go through a bunch of those and that shows his "understanding". Now we can move on to the challenge. (with a lot less stress on me because I know he already has the facts mastered) the challenge is if he can concentrate long enough to get what he knows onto paper before he's drawing army men crawling all over the paper. :-)

Watch out! You never know who may be spying on you through the centerpiece doily!

things I don't want to forget

• Anella calls cupcakes "pupcakes"
• Hope called her cup for the longest time "mine da bup"
• They all say "hooked on" when describing being very intent on anything. "Mommy, I can't stop coloring, I'm just hooked on this new coloring book"
• Hope called baby's "wawa's" until the last few months (this is why you may hear any of my sisters call your baby a wawa at some point.
• Grammy is "mimi" to Hope
• John Patrick told me he knew how to do "boy signs" with his fingers. I was immediately concered about what signs he was describing. He held up two fingers and showed me a peace sign. I said, "oh yeah, that one. cool." and he said, "I don't know what in the heck it means though." 

•