Under the Son: June 2013

So far June has kept us busy! I turned 31 so Jared took us all out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. Oh yum! The kids were perfect...happy birthday to me!! We had so much fun being together.

The girls...

and the boys.

Mr N danced the night away! He loved the music.

I never get dessert at restaurants, but thought since it was my birthday I'd get a piece of cheesecake (with extra forks!) It was so good!

The next morning Miss R wanted to make pancakes. She has mastered the art of Bisquick pancakes, but today, we were out! She begged to make them from scratch, and did everything herself- getting out the right cookbook, finding the recipe, measuring, mixing, preheating the griddle, and cooking. (I did clean up for her though!)

They look good, Miss R!

Later Jared picked up the toddler bed we had purchased at the thrift store. It was such a deal!

Of course Big Brother had to try it out too!


This is a much better fit than the crib!

So far, a great start to this month!

God has used homeschooling to teach me so much, and one is His Sovereignty over our lessons. He knows exactly when we need which lesson. I have seen this over and over again. We'll get behind in a book and when we do get to the chapter we find that it was the exact lesson we needed on that day.
One reason I have been quiet on this blog for a few months is because I was going through some health issues. After months of chronic pain and fatigue, and lots and lots of tests, I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Right around that time, R finished up her school year and we started on the next year. As much as I LOVE putting together her curriculum myself, I sensed the LORD wanted me to pour my energies into other areas. (I also blogged about this on my other blog here.) We decided to go with Ambleside Online, a wonderful wonderful Charlotte Mason curriculum. I started her in Year 2 as we had done most of the Year 1 selections (AO Years don't necessarily match up with school years).
One resource AO uses is the Handbook of Nature Study. Charlotte Mason believed children should spend a lot of time outdoors in nature. In theory I love this, but with my pain and fatigue, it can be so difficult to get out. But, I plugged along with the Handbook, following AO's schedule of what part of nature to focus on. Once a week, we would read the chapter, then search YouTube for videos of the animal or plant we were learning about. Recently we have been studying wildflowers. I have finally been making time for nature journaling. After we learn about the flower and see lots of pictures, we gather at the kitchen table and sketch what we see. The point is to become good observers - and as is usually the case, I've found Charlotte Mason to be correct! We have gotten to know some of the wildflowers. But we still hadn't seen them in nature....until today!!
This is where God's sovereignty comes in! This week we "just happened" to be studying Mayapples. I had never heard of them or seen them before. We read and watched a video of a naturalist showing Mayapples in the woods. Then we sketched. And today, we got a chance to go as a family to a local nature center, when what should R find but a large group of Mayapples! We would have normally walked right on by, but because we had been studying them, we knew them! R and O were thrilled!
The second big encouragement to me was being able to see them make connections between a Bible passage they have memorized and what they saw in nature. All three big kids have memorized Psalm 1 using this video. The nature center was green today - and we saw a lot of water. We were able to talk about how we wanted to be trees planted by the rivers of water in Psalm 1. Those are the green, beautiful trees, not the dry withered ones. This is the man who is blessed, who abides in the Word of God and not in the word of man. I am so thankful that the LORD gave us this picture today!
Here are some pictures from our time in nature: