Words for the Weekend :: I Am

For by grace you have been saved,

through faith,

and that not of yourselves,

it is the gift of God,

not of works,

lest anyone should boast.

 

For we are His workmanship,

created in Christ Jesus for good works,

which God prepared beforehand

that we should walk in them.

 

--Ephesians 2:8-10

Our 2011-2012 Curriculum Choices,*Greatly* Amended

I posted ::HERE:: about the choices we had made for our 2011-2012 school year. 
Hmm.  I wonder how much coffee I had coursing through my veins then. 
In all fairness, it’s all good stuff, and most of it was pretty awesome, and we intend to keep some of it for later.

But the darnedest thing happens when you get hold of this:

Yes, friends, things change.  We have a super-mobile, adventure-seeking 2 year old living here, and a spit-fire cowboy the age of 5 that hangs his hat here, too.  That pretty little stick up there explained why Mama here had been so incredibly tired all the time.  It also ushered in some crazy nausea. And heart accelerations.  And mystery, debilitating leg pain.
So guess where most of that original plan went?  Mm-hmm, that’s right. 
Out de do’. 
So instead of pages and pages of lapbooking and pulling from this one and that one, I went back to Tried and True…

I love it.  EK is in Year 1, and MG is in Year 4, with a couple Year 5 books thrown in.

We are using Queen Homeschool Cursive for MG, still, but that is, erm…a challenge right now.

I am using Delightful Reading  from Simply Charlotte Mason and these I See Sam books that a neighbor gave us for EK’s reading. Sam, of Sam’s Noggin gives a great review of them, but all I have are the books and they are fine for the moment.

I also started MG on Prima Latina, and it’s pretty cool.  We are only beginning Lesson 3, but it’s fun to speak in Latin!

We are slowly working through Math-U-See, but I am not doing as much teaching as just letting them go with it.  I feel bad, but they seem to doing fine.  MG doesn’t like the bars; she wants to do it all in her head.  Papa vouches for it – he’s a the math professor, so I’ll go along with it (even if I can’t understand half of her thinking.)

HR is still sort of rolling along, but one of the things that has gotten consistent-er than most things (tee hee hee!  Shouldn’t that be a word?) is our time together.  It’s rough, I’m not going to lie, but I am determined to keep it and figure out how to make it work, which means, in part, child training.  I said it: Child Training.  They have to learn to sit down and listen.  Good skill, I think.

Our time together includes a bible story, Collette’s Jesus Tree devotion (gasp!  it’s over!), catechism, verse of the week, and then we get into poetry.  We have a poem of the week we hear, and can learn, then I read out of a poetry book for EK, HR, and MG.  It’s still growing on MG.

 

There has been no Mystery of History lately, only because of time and energy, and no Apologia Astronomy, mainly because I am bored with it.  (GASP!  Did I just admit that?)  And that I have run out of time and energy. 

There has been more of this:
  

And I would share his rocket play testing, but for I can’t find my cell phone, where all my pictures are trapped!

I am still using Debra Bell’s Ultimate Homeschool Planner and successfully trashing it, in an effort to work with my changing needs desires. Remember?  I posted a review about it  some time back, right ::HERE::   I am so darn picky!  Thankfully, it’s very forgiving and lets me have my way.  Next year, I won’t unbind it.  Bad idea.  Hard Knox, that’s where I learn.  :)
I am probably leaving something out, and will return later to update, but for now the thing to remember is we are doing less, with the Bible, Ambleside Online, and just enjoying the days!

Yarn Along :: 25 April

~ ~ Ginny shares what she is knitting and reading this week, and invites us to share as well.  Here is what I am up to and into this week ~ ~

Reading :: Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp.  I am just now really getting started.  Our Sunday School class is going to work through this together, and Amanda over at The Pelser’s has a Shepherding group already going with lots of great post link-ups and so much goodness! 

Knitting :: I am starting on the Garter Yoke Cardigan by Melissa LaBarre.  I have 5 skeins of this rich, burnt orange Peace Fleece in my stash (from a yarn swap at our yarn shop a long time ago) and started to make something else, but I just didn’t like the look of it any more.  It’s a tight knit, as this is a bulkier yarn and I am using US7.  Garter seems so saggy to me, so I very much like that I am knitting it so tight, it just makes for a bit of slow going.

Because my gauge is still off, even going down to the 7, I am knitting the smallest size, intending on it being a smidge bigger.  I am not into the shaping of the hips, because, let’s be real – I’ll be wearing this right after I have my baby, and any negative ease is not my friend :)

If I had to base my opinion of this pattern on this one picture, I would never have chosen it.  Ick,ick,ick.  If  you can go to Ravelry and see all the *normal* people who don’t wear this shade of eye shadow (that is what you call it, right?), or stand this way, or suck in their cheeks like this (ok, maybe they do, I don’t really know…)……what was I saying? 
Oh, yes.  If you can get to Rav, then check out the projects page – all 1,375+ are  fantastic. 
And not a one of them is wearing 17 layers of  midnight blue on their eyes.  Just sayin.

I think I might also tweak the sleeves to have long ribbing, like the store-boughten cardi my mother-in-law gave me umpteen years ago (that I am wearing right now.  I swannee, I will be buried with this thing.).  I saw someone else’s version like this and totally snatched the idea.

……This is a very simple pattern, which is right up my alley.  Yes, this Faulkner Knitter needs simple knits, lots and lots of stockinette stitch.  I will leave the hard-core, blow-your-mind construction techniques to my sister-in-law, the other Faulkner Knitter. 

So that’s what I’m into this week.  What about you?

Park Days with Papa

  
The past few Sundays have been beautiful, so after church Papa carted us to lunch and then a local park.  MG preferred high, spinney things, SA chose to spend her time in the swing!

  
HR and Papa were talking back and forth across the park.
I swannee all to Pete, Papa can NOT just be normal in a picture, the goofball……

    
…..oh, wait. Is that me? Hmm. I guess I can’t, either.

  

The park is a great place to make new friends, and the higher, the better!

Yarn Along :: Boy Wonder

        

He picked up the irresponsibly paired kitchen cotton yarn and small bamboo needles which I had handed over to his baby sister, so that she could “knit” and I could as well.

He wanted to learn.  I really didn’t have the fortitude, I thought, to do that.  In the afternoon?  No nap for me? 
Sigh….I went for it, not expecting any more than a couple attempts, a toss-down, and the retreat to the rope swing. 

WRONG.  This little guy has been persistent in his desire to learn to knit. 

And so knit he shall.  Only with a better pairing of needles and string.

(I am working through Shepherding a Child’s Heart.  Good stuff.)

Our Weeks: The Beginning of April

     

Math – Writing-ish – Poetry – Reading

All this makes ya hungry, and EK doesn’t disappoint when she gets MG on board to make a “snackie lunch:”

On the menu this day was:
mini-pepperoni, cut strawberries, raw cheddar cheese, everything bagels, peanut butter, and cool, refreshing raw milk…with straws.
Dessert (at lunch?  Oh, yeah.  This is EK here, remember?) was Nutella and strawberries and pretzel javelins, I mean rods.


Painting more often.  MG is working on a Resurrection scene.  Love.

As the days moved on, the call to work outside was too great to ignore.  We attempted Math-U-See on the blanket. 

. . . . When outside, we can’t seem to “do school”.  And so, we took MUS to the pavement….Doing some adding by number line, we are.
  

Heavens to Betsy, I love where I live.

How are springtime studies rolling in your home?

my own little sermon

I was sitting in bed, just now, looking over Pinterest and saw a pin for an NICU smock pattern, and of course, had to click over. 

Sigh….

I still cry when I see babies and tubes.  IT’s been 5 years, long enough to be able to distance myself from the first week of HR’s struggle, but seeing the images on the screen (or anywhere else for that matter) always brings those feelings back.  It was a difficult time, a time that I still hurt for words.  I sometimes think I have done away with the anger against that small hospital, whose actions (plural) were the reason our son spent a week in NICU. 

And then I see images of those little ones.  (which I can’t bear to post here)

And the struggle begins again. 

I have written about those days on my old blog.  Obviously, I was unspeakably upset for our son’s situation, but just to look at my boy, he didn’t belong there.  He was full-term, and healthy (other than that trauma induced).  But all around us were babies who came into this world months early, or were born with issues that I can’t even pronounce.  One baby came in on our third day in, had just been born via emergency c-section a hair over 24 weeks, because the mother had been shot during a fight with a girl friend.  I remember seeing folks talking to her boyfriend, and his shirt was completely covered with …well, you can imagine. 

And my son needs to take up space here?  Because of someone’s lack of knowledge and skill.  Because we were at the hospital around the clock (my mom and others cared for our two girls), incredibly particular about pumping and nursing him on demand and being with him as much as humanly possible, and because he was otherwise fine, we were able to basically take over the care of our son (fancy that.) so that all the nurses could care for this one child, who was fighting to live.

This post has very little point, I suppose, more of my own thoughts being put down.  I wish I could say that the wee one made it that day.  I wish I could make all the bad of the world go away, but we all know that isn’t so. 

And so what do we do with it?  What do we do with the knowledge that we have little control over this world, that no matter how rosy we paint it, will always be broken? 

We have to take comfort that there WILL come a time when Peace prevails.  When we are made new.  When we will no longer have to fight back tears, control the emotions, ask why, move through days and nights of “What if’s”, fight for breath, or thought, or hope. 

There will come a day for each of us when all this will be thrown asunder and we well be able to bask in the glow of Something so much more unspeakable than all this. 

Beating through my chest this morning are these words penned by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 40:31):

They that wait upon the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings

as eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

Can you imagine?  Can you just feel the wind lifting you up this morning?  Oh God, thank you that in the midst of trials, struggles, loss, confusion, pain, injustice, hate – you will give us what we need!  We will SOAR! 

What is it that is bearing down on you this morning?  What is it that seems to be ripping you from life?  It isn’t going to stop, we know that.  But our sights can turn to something better – something that IS pure, that is GOOD, that is HOPE, Realized. 

First you have to accept – ADMIT--  that you are part of this.  Part of this broken world, and that as part of it, you are also broken, a sinner. 

For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God – Romans 3:23

There is none righteous, no, not one – Romans 3:10

But friends, that isn’t the end!  NOOOO, it doesn’t end here!  God, the One who made YOU has given you a gift!  The gift of salvation, eternal life, the promise to be with Him for all eternity after this life passes away!

And God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us – Romans 5:8

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus Our Lord --  Romans 6:23

All this, for YOU!  No matter what you’ve been through, no matter what you’ve done, this price has been paid for YOU!!  That simply makes my heart sing this morning!!  But. 

You have to BELIEVE it.  You have to CONFESS it.  You don’t have to completely understand it now, but take that step.  You will have the rest of your life to learn, then eternity to revel!

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you WILL BE SAVED.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved – Romans 10:9-10

And are you ready for this?  Get this, friends:

Therefore, there is NO CONDEMATION for those who are in Christ Jesus – Romans 8:1 

Do you understand?  Once you are His, You are HIS!  He will not leave or forsake you! 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have PEACE with God through our Lord Jesus Christ – Romans 5:1

Peace my friends, comfort!  So THAT is what you cling to with the storms rage, the night never seems to end, the battle seems daunting.  You cling to the EXPECTANT HOPE that in is God and Jesus that YOU will be ok!

I sure needed that today…whew!

Yarn Along :: Easy Peasy, Pleasey

Knitting these days has had but one requirement: acceptable under the condition of Extreme Exhaustion.  This i-cord  jewelry set met that one requirement!

Oops, there were two requirements, the second being that the project must come from stash yarn.  There, now that’s it.

A couple weeks ago, one of my best friends, Lecia, hosted a birthday party for her youngest at a local park.  Our gift was the Daria bracelet, the matching necklace with beads, and then a similar headband.  Simple, fast, but oh-so-cute!  So much so, that I scrounged up more stash yarn and made some for my own two oldest girls – and will likely make more for SA!

Daria Bracelet pattern on Ravelry ::here::
My project page ::here::

Headband pattern on Ravelry ::here::
My project page on Ravelry  ::here::

And here are birthday partygoers, about to embark on a Nature Walk!  (We *are* talking about Lecia, after all, AND Amanda helped put this shindig together!  The Nature Walk was inevitable!)

I also knit the two oldest girls the Cross Bookmark, HR the Treasure Pouch with a cross like the girls, and SA got the cutie patootie Play Crown by the darling Julie Hunter of This Cosy Life (sweet etsy shop and equally sweet blog!)…..I just didn’t get snaps of them in time for this post :)

OOPS!  I forgot to add what I am reading…I am sorry to say I have no pictures, but I can easily-ish list them here:

For our Sunday School class, I am reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

We plan to dig into it in a couple weeks, and I hope to share some thoughts here…we’ll see!

What are you working on this week?

  

Yarn Along :: Easy Peasy, Pleasey

Knitting these days has had but one requirement: acceptable under the condition of Extreme Exhaustion.  This i-cord  jewelry set met that one requirement!

A couple weeks ago, one of my best friends, Lecia, hosted a birthday party for her youngest at a local park.  Our gift was the Daria bracelet, the matching necklace with beads, and then a similar headband.  Simple, fast, but oh-so-cute!  So much so, that I scrounged up more stash yarn and made some for my own two oldest girls – and will likely make more for SA!

Daria Bracelet pattern on Ravelry ::here::
My project page ::here::

Headband pattern on Ravelry ::here::
My project page on Ravelry  ::here::

And here are birthday partygoers, about to embark on a Nature Walk!  (We *are* talking about Lecia, after all, AND Amanda helped put this shindig together!  The Nature Walk was inevitable!)

I also knit the two oldest girls the Cross Bookmark, HR the Treasure Pouch with a cross like the girls, and SA got the cutie patootie Play Crown by the darling Julie Hunter of This Cosy Life (sweet etsy shop and equally sweet blog!)…..I just didn’t get snaps of them in time for this post :)

OOPS!  I forgot to add what I am reading…I am sorry to say I have no pictures, but I can easily-ish list them here:

For our Sunday School class, I am reading Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

We plan to dig into it in a couple weeks, and I hope to share some thoughts here…we’ll see!

What are you working on this week?