Goodbye 2014

Just in time, I add one more post to 2014 and make my post number an even 150.  This has been my slowest posting year since I started the blog.  I find myself more and more often just posting a quick tidbit story to Facebook...it takes about five seconds compared to the 30 minutes or more I spend choosing and editing pictures, typing, editing for grammar and clarity.....  This is what I posted today:

Last year, my resolution was to not set myself up for failure. I'm really good at dreaming up awesome projects and schemes and perfect schedules and plans, but terrible at the follow through because who would think that seven kids would be completely compliant and do everything I ask and that I would have the self discipline to make sure I did what I said I would do? So, instead of failing at all my plans, I made none. And I survived Heidi's postpartum period, lost almost 50 pounds, met a whole new circle of Godly women to call friends, pulled out of the public school's homeschooling program, and expanded my family (due July 2015), and pretty much had the best year I've had in a very long time. To God goes the glory!
— celebrating New Year's Eve.

 

I've gone through some of my posts from this year because I was planning on doing a recap, but I just don't want to anymore.  Some of the posts are just too painful to read.  And then I just sorta burned out on writing right about the time I started feeling great about living my normal daily life.  And who wants to read about my normal daily life?

 

All in all, 2014 was a great year, only because it started so badly and ended so great.  Mark pulled some smoked salmon out of the fridge, so I'm headed off to live in the real world again!  Happy New Year everyone!

The Broken Window

Christmas was Christmas and the Downen family had a wonderful day filled with food and gifts.  Ian was thrilled to receive throwing knives from Santa.  One might raise an eyebrow at a twelve year old boy asking for throwing knives, but we all know that Ian has experience throwing sharp objects at targets...

Only for some reason, Ian "misjudged his distance" and "had a wild throw" and broke a window!

He threw the knife OVER the plywood and into the window behind the woodsheds.

Ian is darn lucky his dad was home.  I would have skewered him and roasted him if Mark hadn't come to his rescue.  As he was once a boy himself, he understands that boys break windows and learn important lessons from those broken windows. After all, a boy outside breaking windows is not a boy inside playing video games.  (But you should have seen Ian's face. I've read about blood draining from a person's face in times of trouble.  This was the first time I'd ever witnessed it.)

All patched up!

Mark fixed the hole with packing tape since he had drained his savings account just a few hours prior buying a Christmas/birthday present for me.  I yelled at Ian, "I am very ANGRY with you right now, but I FORGIVE you because I LOVE YOU LIKE CRAZY!"  Did I mention he had a friend over?  Then I hugged him, right in front of his friend.  Punishment served.

I'm trying to figure out how far back he stood and how hard he threw it to get over the woodsheds and into the window.

I had a sentimental moment when I checked the damage.  Mark had left the ladder and the tape right where he had used them, proving that he was his father's son and his son's father all at one time.  Three generations of Downen men have been leaving their tools where they've used them and I have had the pleasure of loving them all.

Christmas Cookies (part 2)

  After two surprise visits from friends yesterday, we got our Christmas cookies finished! 

Ogre cookies?

I think it's funny that certain people were worried that we wouldn't have enough...but we have plenty and even waaaay too much.  There is no need for me to even think about making anything else in the snack department this Christmas.  Mark and I already have stomach aches and the kids are behaving like they stayed up half the night watching movies and then had cookies for breakfast.....oh wait. They did.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookies (part 1)

 We made our annual trip to my parent's house to cut out and decorate sugar cookies today....

We got most of the sugar cookies cut out, but didn't get around to decorating...I kinda ran out of steam and everyone was for more excited for the Brownie Pizza project that my mom had the older kids assemble.

The Brownie Pizza was way too sweet for me, but my kids loved it... and now they can't say their grandma never makes them cookies!

(We'll decorate the real cookies tomorrow when Lula is napping)

Writing (Homeschool)

It's taken awhile for our current homeschool year to get up and running, and just when I think I have everything all figured out, I change my mind or find holes that need filling.  Thanks to my new (but now approaching one year) job, I can help support my own homeschool material needs.  I did go back and look at my posts that I tagged as "homeschool" since September and I saw I haven't posted anything but the fun things!  What a way to skew what we are doing everyday!

Christmas Came Early (or maybe September is late)

Since September, when we dug into savings and started homeschooling without the public school's assistance, we've done math, history, and literature.  I tried to patch together some science (this is our chemistry year) but what I had wasn't working for who I was trying to work with.  We were also seriously lacking in the writing department.  Writing is the subject that I feel least qualified to teach.

In years past, when I had plenty of school district money, I would buy all the "daily" workbooks and just set my kids loose on them.  The writing books were not appreciated by myself or my kids.  I do not understand why the schools start introducing non fiction writing to kids who can barely form their letters correctly, but they do and when I was using the school district, I needed to as well.  Now that I'm independent, I can work on letter formation, narration, dictation, and copywork and not worry about formal paper writing until middle school. 

My two middle schoolers will be starting on Susan Wise Bauer's Writing With Skill, which is an incredibly intensive writing program.  In the General Instructions, it states, "Ultimately, writing is a self-guided activity. This course will continue to develop the student's ability to plan and carry out a piece of writing independently."  She had me at self-guided.  As my homeschool has become less top heavy and more bottom heavy with regards to ages in the house, I've had to pull back on my direct teaching time with the older kids so I can keep the younger kids from destroying the house and developing bad habits.  The older three have become incredible self-teachers, so I'm thankful that this writing program encourages this.

If and when these kids end up in a brick and mortar school, if they can read well, write effectively, and understand mathematics, I will feel like I've successfully homeschooled.

A Shining Star

Last night, Ian was awarded his Star Rank in Boy Scouts along with five merit badges!  He has been working so hard and is the first in his age group to reach Star.  In just five quarters, Ian has earned 15 merit badges and four ranks.  We are seeing the fruits of the scouting program in Ian as he grows and matures into a wonderful young man.

The Perfect Tree

I really struggle this time of year.  The way Christmas is celebrated offends me.  If everything were up to me, we would attend church every weekend, my kids would know all the Christmas songs, and they wouldn't ask for Christmas presents.  There certainly wouldn't be people inviting me to parties and people wouldn't buy presents for my kids when I specifically asked them not to.  There would be no cookies or candy tempting me either.  And I wouldn't have to come up with a dozen white elephant gifts.  But I felt like I hit a wall when the topic of The Tree came up.

I really really hate spending money on a Christmas tree that gets burned on January 2nd.  I hate budgeting that much money when I could be using it to buy something useful...like books or something for the homeschool.....or even a chub of ground beef (have you seen the price of ground beef lately?)  In a fit, I suggested buying an artificial tree.  Mark responded that he didn't want to have to stuff it up in the attic each year, besides, wasn't I the one that wanted a cut tree each year?  A few weeks later, he saw my logic and actually looked at artificial trees at the store, but of course I had changed my mind.  What the heck is the point of Christmas if everything, including the tree, was plastic???

And then I heard a voice...and those who know This Voice know what I'm talking about.  That still, small voice? Yep.  I know my path for salvaging my Christmas.  I'm taking my leap of faith.

Today, we went to pick up a tree.  There is this cute little place near our home called Noble Farm.  Nothing is near our house, so we were happy to contact the owner and support the local economy.  The man who grows the trees loves his trees and has been growing them for decades, based on the size of a few of them (taller than his two story house)!  Unfortunately, a blight came through this year and some of the trees are too diseased to sell.  We found a tree that would fit our living room, but it had several blighty branches.  He looked so sad when he touched the branch and said that he was going to have to burn all the diseased trees.  He is also getting old and is thinking about being done with his trees in a year or two.  We then went on to look at some beautiful, perfect trees up on the hill, but I just couldn't shake a feeling.  It seemed a shame that this tree grew for so many years to become a beautiful tree, just to get a blight and get burned and never see a happy child's face or a string of colored lights.

Maybe I've read too many fairy tales.

As we walked back to the house, the man told us about his dog and how she had been a rescue dog.  She was a little jumpy and nervous, but even with these flaws, she was still a good dog.  We have a jumpy rescue dog too and he is darn good at chasing off the coyotes.  In fact, some people I know have been Rescued and are still jumpy.  We came back to the diseased tree and I realized that I wanted that tree and I wanted it badly.  "This tree? With the brown branches? I guess you can cut them off and it will still be okay..."  Nope.  I wanted it as it was.  Because that tree was the perfect symbol of Christmas.  Aren't we all flawed?  Don't we all carry evidence of a fallen world?  And without that, we wouldn't need Christmas or a little baby born in a manger.  As Mark went to bring the car closer, my mouth ran with this message that could only be from Someone else.  Because I'm a Scrooge and a Grinch, not a shining star leading the way to Bethlehem.

Daily Daniel

The day of Evie's birthday, Daniel found some money around the house.  He kept asking me how rich he was and what he could spend his money on.  "Not much, kiddo," I responded.  After we got in the car to head out for the party, Daniel again asked what he could buy at the store with his new money that was now three silver coins and two were big ones!  "You could probably buy a banana."  And that it what he did.  I helped him pick a solo banana and he proudly carried it through the store.  If there had been other shoppers at our tiny local store, he probably would have shown them his money and the banana.  At the check out lane, he insisted on paying for his own banana all by himself, but whispered to me that I could tell him which coins to give the cashier.  The cashier thought Daniel was adorable, which of course he is, and rang up his banana which came to $.23.  "Hand her one big coin," I whispered.  He handed her a quarter with a flourish and was so pleased to receive two cents change, his banana in his very own bag, and his very own receipt!  You should have seen him strut out of the store with his bag and receipt!

When he got in the car, he said, "I don't even want this banana! Here, Lula!"  He kept his two pennies in his pocket up until he got into the pool.  Mark insisted that Daniel not take the pennies into the pool and that he would keep them safe in the locker while they were swimming.  You better believe that Daniel remembered his two pennies and demanded them back as soon as they were dried and dressed after swimming!

About two weeks ago, I got a few bags of random Christmas junk at the tiny local second hand store.  It really is just junk and normally I would leave it right where I saw it.  But because I'm still going through my sensory bin phase and Daniel is always asking for "prodrects," I brought them home.  For a few bucks I got some pinecones, decorative sprigs of this n that, beaded snowflake ornaments, and some pompoms.  At home, I added some squished bows from the wrapping drawer and some ancient cinnamon sticks from the spice cupboard.  Fiona and Daniel dug through that bin and sniffed things and exclaimed over all the little doodads they found.  They were busy for at least 30 minutes!

After they were done digging, I brought out a sorting tray and asked how they could use it for their bin.  Fiona decided to sort the items, but I let Daniel decide the sorting rule.  I thought for sure he would sort by type: pinecones, bows, ornaments, pompoms...and then run out of sections and ask for a second tray.  Instead, he decided that everything would be sorted by shape: circles (spheres, technically), ovals, stars, and things with sticks poking out of them that looked bushy.  Everything else went in the center.  Boy, did I have fun watching them come up with their ideas!