Holidays Are Over!

The holidays were so anticipated here and I think in hind sight my children will tell you that they loved the two weeks they got with their father. I saw things another way. I saw children who were tired, miserable, sick and having emotional come aparts at every turn. It was not good for them and saying goodbye was harder this time than last because they knew what the weeks on end would feel like and the reality of how long he would be gone and that we never will know if he has to leave again.

The kids took an emotional beating over Christmas. Thank heavens for their school work, their teacher, their friends and our family. Because of all these people and structure they have been so much better than if they were lacking these. I failed to mention but should note church, scouts and I am sure there are more people and events that I have forgotten.

We are now having a new shipment of curriculum. Things fell apart a bit for us at the beginning of this school year and we got a little behind. We are now gradually getting up to speed. Rather than beat myself up for this I am just plugging along one day at a time and grateful for the little moments with my children.

Scouting needs to get underway.

Since we moved our boys have not been involved in Scouting. That has been six weeks now and I really don't want them to get too used to not being involved. My younger son got his Bear early and is now in Webelos. He has yet to go so I am anxious for him to get started. My other son will turn 12 in just a few weeks and needs to be in with the 11 year old Scouts for just a while before he goes into Young Men's. I just want the transition to be smooth for him.

With homeschooling I find that Scouts is a great time for the boys to go be with their peers and learn things from other adults. I love to be involved as much as possible but I really love for the kids to make new friends and have as many opportunities to be with other groups as possible.

Tithing and our economic crisis.

My husband e-mailed me today to tell me that everyone in his department at work besides him and his boss had been laid off. Evidently, the whole company had a 25% reduction in force. Effective immediately. The people were handed their checks and walked out of the building. Can you imagine? I'm sure some of you have felt it first hand. All I know is that what was once a slight fear in my mind is now a huge weight on my shoulders. I am terrified.

My DH is ever so strong. He keeps telling me that it will be okay. He is not in denial, he wants to think positive and reassure me that he will take care of all of us and seeing as he does quite a good job of caring for us, I should just trust him. Still, there are a lot of good people that happen upon hard times, especially with our economy like it is.

Anyway, the double whammy was that I realized that we had not been paying tithing for the last few months. This made me want to crawl under a rock and die for a few moments (until a child or DH called for me). In my Patriarchal Blessing I am promised that if I pay my tithing I will have enough for my needs and more. I do know Heavenly Father well enough to know that what He considers needs and what I consider needs may be completely different.

My husband and I have struggled endlessly since before we were married. Yes, it has all been our own doing. Some life circumstances have stunk but we could have been prepared had we don't things wisely during good times. Still, I do not know if I can take another dunk in the economic dunk tank of life. I have felt like I live there, maybe I'll pick out curtains for the tank.

What I do know is that I am not missing on anymore tithing payments and I am preparing myself and this household to be as prepared as possible in as short a time as possible. For once in my life, when the rug gets pulled out from under us, I want to know that I did what was right and can pull my family through the hard times.

Sorry that this varied from the homeschool topic. Perhaps we could all ask our children pointed questions about how to be prepared and why. This could be a great family learning experience.

I'm glad we homeschool, I am learning so much! LOL

Finding inspiration and resources

Aren't all parents, homeschoolers, moms in general and other people all looking for more inspiration to keep plugging away at their daily jobs? I know that I am. I can always use new ideas, resources, and tools to make me a better mother and a better homeschool parent. It's a rare day when you find all of those put together and have the luxury of it being applied with my religion in mind.

Homeschool Helps (Help for the New and Veteran LDS Homeschooler) is a great resource for homeschool parents. It truly has something for everyone and I love it that it is for new and seasoned homeschool families.

Answering vampire questions

Today wasn't my finest moment as a homeschool mother. I think the most information my children got into their heads was at dinner where they all picked my brain for the facts on vampires in the Twilight books. Not my favorite topics.

I don't want the subject of vampires to be completely off limits to my kids but I don't really want to encourage it either. It feels like if I tell them that vampires are off limits, they will just want to read more books about them or see movies about them. On the other hand, I don't want them to think that it is something worthy of their time and focus because by all means, they are horrible fictional creatures no matter what. Drinking blood just doesn't work for me.

Morning devotionals.

Last year (I think I blogged about this before) we did a morning routine where we had some scriptures study, discussion and prayer before we started on our other curriculum. I would like to implement something like that starting next week. One thought that I had is that I have four children which means that they are in four different Primary classes. Perhaps I could use the lesson that they had on Sunday at church as a starting point. This way it allows us to be more involved in their Primary learning as well as reinforcing what they learned. I have most of the Primary manuals as I find them priceless for Family Home Evening lessons. With five days in a school week I thought that we could cover each lesson that was taught on Sunday and then do something different on Fridays. As soon as I get more organized I can post more on what we do.

Looking for ideas?

Last conference someone sent me the neatest printable pack for children to have during conference that helped them watch for things and make it exciting and age appropriate. Has anyone seen anything floating around that they are willing to share that is like that for this conference? My kids are still adjusting to a new prophet. I need to hype it up all I can and help them let go of the past but keep fond memories.

Please reply if you have any ideas. Thanks!

Church History Field Trips & More Ideas!

I was just doing an article on field trips for Homeschool Playground and got to thinking about church history. I live in Utah so there are a lot of places with church history to visit. The greatest thing about all of these is that they are free.

I had a few other ideas that I thought would be great fun for kids and families. Your community or somewhere close will most likely have a Bishop's Storehouse. If you ask your Bishop or Branch President, they may be able to help you arrange a tour or at least give you information on who to contact.

Another idea is to take your children to a stake center that is equipped with a family history center. These are very common now and family history is a popular thing to do for all. It would be fun for your children to go with a goal in mind. The missionaries and other people called to take care of these centers love to share it with people.

Any visitor's center. We have a temple in our town and we love to go to the Visitor's Center. It is great to hear a beautiful message. Great for the children to see missionaries at work and to learn more of the gospel. This is a great family home evening idea.

For a stay at home idea, you can ask your ward or stake library if you can borrow a church video. All stakes (in my experience) have different policies regarding this. I have found that stake center libraries are much better equipped.

Anyway, I hope that some of these ideas are useful to someone.