Lucy is 4

Happy birthday, Lucy!



The kids helped me make the frosting for the cake yesterday.




Today we had a princess party, complete with a visit from Sleeping Beauty!

Our homeschool blog

I started this blog today for Nate and me to keep track of our homeschool ideas, outings, and discoveries:

Mama & Nate's Homeschooling Adventures

Nate was excited to get to write his own post. :)

"That's Nate." "No, that's Levi."

Sweet siblings

The boys

Nate has his first loose tooth!




The many faces of Levi:

Addressing an addiction

Over the weekend, on a wonderful women's retreat, Casey and I talked about our use (and overuse) of technology--computers, blog reading, emailing, TV watching, etc. I am guilty of using the computer way too much, so often for frivolous and meaningless things. I really don't need to read all those sewing and craft blogs. I really don't need to answer emails within an hour of receiving them. Probably 90% of my computer time is wasted time.

So now I'm making a conscious effort to limit my time on the computer. People will just get used to waiting all day to receive emails from me. I am going to stop reading almost all of the blogs I usually frequent. Goodbye, Young House Love; I don't really need you. I am going to keep the TV off when Lucy and Levi are home in the mornings.

I will never look back on my life and say, "I wish I'd spent more time on the computer." But I know I might look back and say, "I wish I'd spent more time just playing with the kids."

I'll still post on the blog--don't you worry, Nannie and Mama--because I do find this blog meaningful to my family and to me. But I'm saying goodbye to meaningless, wasted time!

Today's pics

The kids are having a lot of fun today with this long tube that came with some fabric. It's a perfect car tunnel.

Rainy day activity, or an easy way to "best mom" status

I take the kids to a park after school most days. Since all the parks are wet from the recent rain, I wanted to do something fun for them at home. I remembered the family movie idea from a MOPS speaker last year, so I created tickets, labeled our front door, set out the concessions, etc. I presented the tickets to the kids when we got Nate from school, and they had to wait on the front porch when we got home, tickets in hand, while I finished setting up (i.e., popping the popcorn).



They loved it.



We watched Land Before Time, which they had never seen before, and which was the perfect length (just over an hour).

Pretty day

New pics

Our new camera came yesterday. Here are its inaugural pictures and video. Nothing special--just life! :)

Chores and allowance

Did I really go over a week without posting? I guess having no camera has put me in a blogging slump. But I ordered a new camera--yippee!

At MOPS this week, our speaker spoke about teaching responsibility to our children--through chores and allowance. Chores and allowance are not necessarily tied together for her, but she did speak on both. Out of each week's small allowance, each child divides it into his/her own "save," "give," and "spend" boxes. The savings goes into the child's bank account; the give money is for church and giving gifts; the spending money is where the learning occurs! The child is free to do whatever he/she wants with the spend money. So, a child who keeps spending that money on things from the dollar bin at Target will realize (eventually) that if she wants something specific that costs, say, $10, then she'll have to refrain from those $1 purchases until she can save enough for the $10 thing.

The speaker also gave some good ideas on assigning chores to different ages of children, how to implement and keep track of them, and how to present them to the kids (a chart, or individualized index cards presented at breakfast each day, etc.). So I finally kicked in gear in this parenting area and actually assigned some chores this week. Before I even assigned any chores, Nate asked for a chart. (I could have predicted that one!)



The "10 things" is another idea from the speaker (though hers was 20 things): Find 10 things that are in the wrong place. Put them away in the right place.

It's still a work in progress, but Nate was thrilled to do the laundry today. I mean thrilled. (I wrote out step-by-step instructions for him.) And Lucy was very proud about sorting the laundry (which she practiced this morning). Levi already loves "helping" empty the dishwasher; I just have to think of a couple more appropriate yet helpful chores for him.

Homeschooling thoughts

Here has been my train of thought regarding homeschooling over the past few months:

4 months ago
I would never homeschool. I am not cut out for it. I want some hours to myself. I want my children to be in school, for sure. I loved school growing up. They will too. It'll be good for all of us.

3 months ago
Nate sure does fuss about going to school lately. And Christmas break is really nice without having to rush like crazy in the mornings. But Jon thinks I wouldn't like homeschooling. He's right. I wouldn't! I mean, what would I do with Levi? Too much work.

2 months ago
Why do I keep thinking about homeschooling? Well, Nate does love to learn and is so enthusiastic when we do learning-type things together. And he is having some minor behavior issues at school. But if we homeschooled and he got ahead academically, where does that put us if we want to send him back to school? This feels like a life sentence I'd be making. Do I really want a homeschooling high schooler? Instead, we should see if there is any way possible we can budget for his current school and just ask the teacher to offer some more work for him. Yes, that's the solution. Right?

1 week ago
Nate's school is closing down after this year. Now I know why God has been placing this homeschooling idea on my heart! But wait... If I commit to homeschooling Nate, does that mean I have to homeschool the other two children? I'm feeling overwhelmed, and it still feels like I'm making a long-term decision. And there are so many decisions to make, too! Curriculum? Routine? Send Lucy somewhere? Does that make me a bad mom if I homeschool one child but send another to public school?

Now
I'm in the middle of reading The First Year of Homeschooling Your Child on my Kindle, and I am so excited about homeschooling now! I had been worried about some things because I feared how they would look to outsiders. I'd been leaning toward not using a set curriculum but worried how that would look. I wanted to send Lucy 2 or 3 days a week to preschool, because I know she would love it and I think it would help me, but I also worried about how that would look (not only would anti-homeschoolers look down on me because of homeschooling, but then pro-homeschoolers would look down on me for sending Lucy!). Now, I'm confident that I'm just going to do what works for our family.

When I told Nate that I thought he would be home with me for first grade, learning at home with me as his teacher, he was SO excited. I mentioned some of my ideas to him (like doing a quilt together), and he was thrilled. Since then, each day he has said, "So mom, let's talk about homeschooling again!"

I still have a lot to learn, but now that the decision has been made, I am just excited.

Lucy art

Lucy drew this the other day. I scanned it so I could post it (since the camera is broken). Her description: "Daddy, this is you... crying really hard."

Last pictures from the camera

I broke our camera last night--dropped it while taking a video of Levi brushing his teeth (he does this cute imitation "spit" because he sees Nate and Lucy do it). I am so sad.

Here are some of the last pictures I took on the camera, of the embroidery project I finally finished:





Inspiration found here and here.

I also took these in-progress pictures of Lucy's quilt Sunday and yesterday. The baby clothes were some of my favorites when Lucy was tiny; I cut them up and used them in the flowers on the quilt:







And here's the final video, which includes the fatal drop:

Development

Nate is home sick today after having been sick all weekend. He was so disappointed to miss his favorite day, Sunday (church, lunch after church, and even a birthday party he'd been counting down the days to).

Last week, we received a letter home from school with a big announcement: because of reduced enrollment and continuing financial struggles, the church/school has decided to close the school down after this school year.

Well, there's my definitive answer about whether or not I'll homeschool Nate! Thank you, Lord!

Now I am getting really excited about curricula, materials, and fun things we can do. Nate said he wanted to have a quilt for his bed (since I'm making one for Lucy), and I said he and I could make one together. From figuring out dimensions, yardage required, cutting fabric, allowing for seams, and squaring up the final quilt, there is tons of math involved, and I know Nate would love that. I'd love to implement lots of "real-world" learning like that.

Nate's new hobby

Nate has been writing some cute things lately. It all started when we told him we needed to limit his video game playing and said he could make a schedule and decide which days he would like to play so we could discuss it. So he created this:



("The days I can play my video games
Friday - Thursday - Monday - Tuesday
Nate Varela")

He decided that was fun, because he liked the checkboxes. A few days later, he did this during nap time. It's some sort of discipline tactic he created for his toys (which, by the way, mirrors something his teacher is doing for him at school).



("For all of my toy cars
XXXXX
Oodie
XXX
All Xed means no played
for the rest of the week
Sooril
XXXXX")

He created this one the other morning for Lucy (and, although the last line made me laugh, we had to talk about that one):



("The days Lucy can play
with my Wedgits
Days for Lucy Varela

Lucy can never
come in my room")

This week, he has been creating games for us to play in the car. This one was for me to check off each box as I saw the required object on our drive:



("19 red lights
Only for my mom

My mom has to do this tomorrow")

My new toy

Using some funds from my Etsy shop, I got a new sewing toy: the Accuquilt GO! Baby fabric cutter. I also bought one die to make a few different flower shapes and circles. After just 2 minutes of playing with it, I had these!




The main reason I wanted this cutter is because the quilt I'm planning on making for Lucy (when we switch her to a twin bed) will have lots of appliqued flowers on it. I tried other ways of cutting flowers (using a scalloped-edge rotary cutter was one), but this will make them consistent in shape and size. And I'm so excited about it! (Nerdy, I know.)

Look what else came today:



the fabric I ordered for Lucy's quilt. The cheater print--the hexagons with pinks and greens and blues--will be the quilt back. The polka dot will be a border on the front/top. The stripe is for the binding. The rest of the quilt top will be white (I already have that fabric), with appliqued flowers all over it using all of my pink and green scraps (I have a ton!). I am SO excited to get started on it!