Family History

We have decided to put some family history into our history lessons. We are doing the History of the U.S. since 1865. This is great because I can actually easily find history about our family on both sides from 1865 to present date. I also hope that this will help my kids see history as a personal story for them. They already love it so this should be the icing on the cake.

Personal Finances for Kids

As part of our curriculum I would love to come up with a way to teach our children how to deal with their personal finances. We have always paid them an allowance thinking that they would learn some basics about saving and shopping wisely. Now I would like to implement more.

We were lucky a few months ago to have our son work on the Personal Finance merit badge for for Scouts. He had to track some stocks and that was a lot of fun. We had many great discussions and looked up some great information when we both wanted more information.

As homeschoolers, I feel like we are so lucky to be able to teach our kids about these things while instilling our values and morals. I want them to be better stewards than I have been. I want them to know the things that I didn't when I was college age and just married. It would be wonderful to come up with a good way to teach them how to be responsible and frugal without resenting these attributes.

This post isn't really a complete thought so I apologize. I just hope to find some way to include these lessons in the curriculum that we have so that the lessons are learned early on. If I come up with anything ingenious, I will be sure to post more on the topic.

Giving up, hanging in, moving on.

A week ago we thought we had to move from our ward. My DH and I both have callings but with the summer schedule we have not been in church much. So, when we thought we had to move it seemed easy to throw in the towel even though we knew that it wasn't right for us to do it or right for the children to see what we were doing.

Now, there is a prospect that we will be staying in this ward and I am feeling ashamed about my attendence, or lack thereof.

I wonder what it is inside of me that makes me want to veer the "wrong" way. Not that I want to do a whole lot that is really wrong but getting to that church building kills me most weeks. I seriously have a resistance to the building.

I guess that the thought of moving makes me feel like there will be a fresh start where I don't have to feel bad about my past absences.

It would be wonderful if this weren't really how it is, but it is this way. I don't know how to change how I am about church things. And for all of those like my best friend who ask if I am praying and reading my scriptures, I will answer a solid "no". I don't know if I want to feel differently so that it would do anything to spark something in me.

It seems odd that I feel the need to confess this somewhere. My DH knows about me through and through and oddly, he still loves me.

Enough rambling, just had to get this out of my system.

SLC Temple, Conference Center, Capitol Building

We went to SLC this weekend and took the kids to the zoo. After that we took them to Temple Square to see all the sights. While we were up that way we took them by the state capitol building. They were in heaven and so were we! A perfect family day.

To read more please visit http://kadiddle.blogspot.com.

Thanks!

Websites and our values.

Is it hard for anyone else to find websites that are truly family friendly? I'm not saying that they aren't there, it is just hard to be vigilant and careful. Today our curriculum steered the kids to a Yahoo kid's site that I liked on one hand but didn't like the commercial aspect of it. It is very much marketing things like Hannah Montana to kids. Most of it I don't mind but I have to be careful or it feels as though we are saturated by it.

Kids are so influenced by all media types that it astounds me. Today my five year old asked me if we could by Trix Yogurt so that she could find something under the lid. She won't like the Trix Yogurt even if I guy it so I resented the television for having put this bug in her ear about her "needing" to find the clue under the lid or whatever it is. I know it is the job of companies to market. I just used to love the early morning hours of a particular channel on television that showed kid's shows without ads. It was so refreshing. Gone are those days unless I'm missing something.

Back to the web. As the kids get older it is easier to feel the want to just have them be self reliant and find what they need on the Internet without me standing watch. We are lucky that in our home, the computer is in the kitchen so hiding things would be hard but it still wouldn't prevent something inappropriate from just popping up. It happens to me a lot.

I guess that as parents we don't have the luxury of being lazy if we want our children protected. As wonderful as the Internet is, I don't want my kids exposed to the negatives of it this early. I'm sure that all parents with values understand that!

Making judgement calls without being judgemental.

We recently were at our family reunion and our little family of six are the only ones on this side of the family that are LDS (or active LDS anyway). The alcohol flowed and there was even an undesignated "smoking section". We also had an experience with a family member who is addicted to prescription drugs.

Upon coming home I tried to talk with my children about what they were exposed to and realized, once again, how hard it is to teach children certain things without instilling a disposition to be judgemental. We want them to make good decisions based on their judgements but to also keep a soft heart and not feel "holier than thou" or superior to others.

It has always been a struggle for me to teach the younger children who are wonderfully verbal that they shouldn't tell strangers that "smoking is bad for you". Or "you shouldn't do that, it is bad". I am glad to be reassured that they have learned but it is hard to teach them to know and not preach to complete strangers! Children can say the most amazing things as we all know. Here's hoping that we don't have any "wonderfully verbal" incidents due to our latest chat about our extended family's lifestyle.

Babies crying in the night.

Last night I was up all night and finally got two hours of sleep between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. What was strange was that at about 3 a.m. my toddler was up crying and drenched in sweat. She was so sweet and just wanted to be loved. What really tugged at my heart is how much she wanted her daddy. I changed her and gave her a bottle and put her back to bed. In 30 minutes she was crying again. She still wanted Daddy. So, despite the fact that my husband had to be to work in an hour I got him up so she could have a minute with him. She was delighted just to have his attention. You could literally see her bubble over with happiness at the sight of him. Could anything be sweeter.

So, despite being a bit tired for school today, I am so glad to have this not so little family of mine. Even with all our trials and problems we are together and enjoy being together. It doesn't get much better than that!