It's A Wonderful Life

There are moments in life when everything just seems...great. Really great.

Today the girls got all dressed up in their Sunday best so I took them out for a quick little "photo shoot" and life just seemed pretty darn good.

 And then a Christmas tree picture. Notice the tree is crooked. Oh, well- that's to remind us that not everything can be perfect all the time:) We need to get another picture, though- I'm pretty disappointed with all the back light that washes us all out. Photography is not my strong suit.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a great Thanksgiving! We have so many blessings and so very much to be thankful for. We did a Thanksgiving tree again for the kids to write what they are thankful for. They put everything from "Rainbows" to "Family." It's always so sweet to hear what they say, and to remind us to be grateful for the little things like clothes and hair.

Today we went over to Ben's parents where we enjoyed a wonderful feast, football, and a walk to the park. This year I was in charge of rolls, jell-o, and pies. The girls helped me out- and for the first time, they were able to actually help, not just get in the way. It was nice.

Continuing one of my family traditions growing up, we put together a puzzle. This year we got a 300 piece puzzle, and the girls did most of it themselves:

Three of my greatest blessings

It was a lot colder than it looked!

The Nutcracker

On Saturday we took the girls to The Nutcracker. This is a yearly tradition which we thoroughly enjoy. Amazingly, even Camille sat down for most of the show- she just got restless for the last few minutes.

The girls were hilarious and decided they wanted to pose before the show. Since I always insist on getting in line an hour early so we get good seats (this drives Ben crazy, but we got front row seats so it was worth it), this was a good time killer. 

With Clara, after the show:

Thanksgiving Party

There really are not too many things I miss about school. But, one thing I do miss is the holiday parties that Audra got to participate in. It was always something to look forward to in order to break up the monotony of the regular schedule.

A lot of my co-op offerings are holiday parties. I probably do too much- pretty much all of the other moms just do 1 or 2 co-ops, but I'm doing three Magic Tree House book clubs and also doing three holiday parties. It's a lot, and I think next co-op session I will not do nearly as much.

But...it's so fun, and so I do it- even though it is a lot of work.

 The kids made Pilgrims/Indians costumes. Then the older kids who can read put on a little skit about the history of Thanksgiving.

Here's the cutest little Indian:

 They made Indian necklaces:

Then, of course, we had a Thanksgiving feast.

It was a success!

Go-Karting

Our normal date night consists of going out to dinner. We enjoy this tradition immensely, but we mixed it up a little bit this last weekend when friends called us to see if we wanted to go Go-Karting with them.

We decided to give it a shot. I haven't been in probably 8 years, Ben longer than that.

It was intense, but a lot of fun! We both got incredibly sore, and I may have caused about 4 crashes. But it was still fun.

 Ben beat the first round, but I beat him the second round.

I don't think this is something that will become a "thing" for us, but it was fun to do something a little different. Maybe we aren't so boring after all.

Today's Science Lesson

Pre-home school days, if my kids said, "There's a trail of blood in the snow- we're going to follow it to see what happened" I probably would have been quite disturbed.

But when that came out of Claire's mouth today, I thought "OK. I wonder what they will find. What a great science lesson." My, how times have changed.

Can you guess what it is?

The owl that came last year has come back- along with two hawks. These hawks have been watching the owl, and we were afraid it had finally gotten its' prey. We were happy to be wrong, as this is a pigeon.

Don't worry, the girls didn't touch them or anything. And, our neighbor who loves birds, came over with plastic everything to clean the bird up for us, which was very nice of her.

The circle of life in our own backyard can be quite cruel sometimes.

Feeling Defeated

There is an interesting series of events happening in my neck of the woods that has me feeling a bit defeated. This time, however, it is not the school board (they are already so disappointing that they can't make me feel any worse than they already have). This time, it involves church.

Before I start on my rant, please understand that I have a very strong testimony. I believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. I believe the Book of Mormon and the Bible to be the word of God. I believe in modern-day prophets and apostles. I firmly believe in eternal families- and the love of that thought alone is cause enough to never leave the Mormon faith.

But that doesn't mean I can't get annoyed at certain things sometimes.

Here's the brief low-down: I have been serving on the Public Affairs committee of our church. Basically, our job is to break down barriers and build relationships with political leaders, other churches, and the community. It's a perfect calling for me right now as I enjoy all of those things. It also allows me to be in charge of our stake blog, which has been a lot of fun because I get to see all the good that is happening in our stake.

We also try to help a new church initiative called Just Serve. This program links members of our faith as well as those outside of our faith with community service opportunities- something I am very passionate about.

Community service has been, in my very strong opinion, a major concern in our area. Pretty much all of the service projects we do- including roughly 95% of Eagle Scout projects- are donating items. We collect socks, toothpaste, eye glasses, and anything else that is very easy to collect without having to do any actual work or actual service. This has been the case ever since we moved here 6 years ago.

In my ward (congregation) I have been able to convince the ward to go to a food bank and volunteer our time.

I have spent hours upon hours researching various projects.

Recently I came up with two ideas:

1) Organizing our teenagers to do various service projects in the area. There are 10 wards in our stake (geographic region). Each ward could be assigned a month to do one service project- so one service project a year. We would then invite the youth from other churches to join us- thus building relationships with other churches. NOT to proselyte, just to serve.

This idea stems from one of our apostles, Elder Holland, visiting the pastor of one of the major churches in the area. In this meeting, he apparently said to the pastor, "We are very worried about the youth of today- not just in our church, but in the world. I believe service will help them."

It fits with Public Affairs because it would build relationships with the other churches in our area- as well as, of course, providing needed service to our community.

2) Our ward wants to have an on-going service project that we can do on a monthly or on a bi-monthly basis. This is for Just Serve. There are rather specific criteria for this project, and it is very hard to find something that fits. The other night I remembered that there is a women's shelter in the area. We have done service for them in the past. The location of the shelter is secret, but we can make dinners or cookies or scarves for them and donate them through their main office.

I thought- why not serve them? It fits all the criteria. We can divide the different groups (Relief Society, Laurels, Mia Maids, Beehives, Cub Scouts, Activity Day Girls, etc) and they can make dinner or something for them for an activity once a year. With all the different groups, we could provide them dinner about every other month.

Please note: The  only other idea for service that has been brought up is doing yard work for our rich neighbors to make sure they meet HOA standards and that our property values stay high. Not exactly useful service.

Or, of course, there is always buying socks to donate.

Every meeting I attend-without fail- I am the only person with service ideas. I'm not joking. When I first mentioned a ward activity at the food bank (this was about 4 years ago), several people said they didn't want to do it- too far, too cold, not quite right. We agreed that everybody would research project ideas and we could decide at the next meeting what we would do. Not one person came up with any other idea, so by default the food bank won.

Tonight I went to a meeting. Both of my ideas were squashed.

Why? Because a service project once a year for the youth takes too much away from our families, and the missionaries can't go to the women's shelter so it doesn't quite fit into the teeny, tiny box that the leaders of our local church have set up for service guidelines.

I'm so frustrated! I have spent hours upon hours trying to find meaningful service opportunities, but it seems the people here don't want to ever do anything meaningful. They just want to spend a little money and forget about it. They don't want to actually serve people.

I have had a teenager trying to get his Eagle Scout tell me that he just wanted "the easiest project he could find." I once had the young men's president ask me for service ideas because they wanted to do a service project in three days. I spent an hour writing down dozens of different projects and the contact information of those in charge. What did they do? Bought pizza and watched a movie.

There are serious problems and great opportunities that we could do- things like decorating cookies with children at a local homeless shelter, sorting food at food banks, painting over graffiti in downtown Denver, or dozens of other things. We could really get out in the community to help others.

But, no. Instead, we come up with every excuse known to man to come up with ways NOT to serve.

The leader of Public Affairs said at our meeting tonight, "We need to not worry so much about administering, but instead on ministering."

Um....HELLO! That is exactly what happens every time we turn down a service idea for silly reasons like the missionaries not being able to attend.

Perhaps you think I am over reacting, and maybe I am. But I have been fighting this battle for six years, and it's really frustrating to have all of your ideas turned down again and again and again.

If I get asked to donate toothpaste ONE. MORE. TIME. I might spontaneously combust with anger. I so hate where we live sometimes (most of the time).

I'm truly ready to throw in the towel. 

Magic Tree House: The Knight at Dawn

We had another Magic Tree House book club. We built catapults and castles, and then attempted to knock down the castles with marshmallows catapulted through the sky. Was there any doubt this would be a huge success with the kids?

Our Tiniest Diva

The other day Camille came downstairs yelling in her high pitch squeal, "MOMMEEEEEEEE!" This means she wants me to look at her RIGHT. THIS. MINUTE. I dutifully looked, and this is what I saw:

I don't know how I ended up with three girls so into fashion, and dress-up, and looking "beautiful"- but I sure do love these girls!

For the Grandma's

Audra really wanted to get recorded playing the piano. This is one of her favorite songs to play.

We are finally at a point where Audra can practice the piano without me being right next to her. She will also just sit down and play songs she already learned which is great. It's very nice when all the years of practicing are starting to click!

1/3 Of the Way

Yesterday officially marked the end of 1/3 of our school year.

Whew!

We celebrated by going to Waterton Canyon after school yesterday.

 It's so nice that Ben has every other Friday off! We love to take advantage and go on field trips.

 We saw a herd of big horn sheep coming down the mountain. That was pretty awesome!

Now that we are in the thick of homeschooling, I have certainly learned a lot.

Some weeks have been rougher than others, I admit. I certainly feel inadequate often, even with my educational background. I wonder if I am totally screwing up  my kids and if I am letting my pride interfere with what is best for my kids (ie., am I letting the local politicians anger me in such a way that I refuse their services, even if what they provide is better than what I can provide).

We are still experimenting with different curriculum- we mostly use Sonlight and Ray's Arithmetic, but we have added in Life of Fred math in addition to Ray's, and I am going to start supplementing with Susan Wise Bauer's grammar as well. I imagine that figuring out curriculum will be a lifelong pursuit as our kids' needs change.

Ben and I have contemplated moving into a house where we can have a "homeschooling room" and we have figured out a way to reconfigure the basement to add one so we don't have to move (part of the idea of moving stems from teenage neighbor boys who insist on shooting their BB guns in their backyard while my girls are playing outside. I HATE being so close to all the neighbors and want more space).

This has begged the question: If we move to a school district with more of the educational values that Ben and I agree with, would we go back to school or continue homeschooling?

That has been an interesting question for me to ponder.

Even though it's hard and I'm not sure if I am truly up to the task, there are a million positive benefits that would be hard to give up.

Here are just a few that we are realizing in our home:

-Family time. We can easily put family first and we can easily fit family activities, Family Home Evening, family dinner, etc. into our schedule. Even if the kids are in extracurricular activities, it doesn't feel like it takes away from our family time because we have so much of it.

-Flexibility. If the kids are sick or I have a funeral to go to, we can easily adjust our schedule without having to play catch up with the other 24 kids in class.

-Time, time, time. This goes with the others. When Audra was in school, I always felt rushed. She would come home from school about 4, we would try to do homework, I would get dinner ready, we would eat dinner, go to bed, and then get up for the morning rush. I rarely feel rushed now- we can take the time to get the chores and the scripture study and the homemade dinner done- with plenty of time to still just enjoy each other.

-Besides our school board, there are so many other reasons we're doing this that continue to make sense. My girls don't have to sit through 6 weeks of testing. We can do subjects that the kids enjoy, not just what the district says they should learn. Each and every subject is as hard or as easy as it needs to be for the kids to "get it."

-Audra and Claire are so much closer! They tell me all the time that they are "best buddies" and they are always coming up with games to play together. It is really sweet to see. (yes, there is also fighting)

-Even though Audra can get obstinate and refuse to do work, overall she is back to enjoying school. No more tears over homework or feeling stupid or of having to be gone all day long! (Let me tell you, when your 6-year-old tells you she is "stupid" and "not as smart as the other kids in class"- like Audra did last year- that's a wake up call that something isn't working and something needs to change)

-Both girls are thriving. They really are. Claire is picking up reading unbelievably well, and both girls are doing great with writing and math as well. I'm pretty sure they are learning quite a bit. The other day Audra said, "Mom, can we go to the Valley of the Kings and search for the tomb of King Tutankhamen's grave?" How many 7-year-olds ask that?

-We can get out in nature more. That's big for us, and it has been nice. The girls aren't stuck in a desk for hours on end- they can be outside.

For right now, I feel like this is working out for us, so we'll continue to do it. When it stops working, we'll come up with something different. I can honestly say that I have no idea what the future holds.

Only 2/3 of the  school year left to go!