OCD

I do not mean to offend anyone diagnosed with OCD.

I have been a little "OCD" the past week. I have been making bead bracelets like crazy! I think I have made over 100! Most of them are for a yard sale for a little girl with cancer. They have gold and turquoise beads with little butterflies and "HOPE" awareness ribbons on them. Of course I made some Sea Turtle bracelets as well, Silas loved Sea Turtles. I hope people like them and buy them at the yard sale. I really want to help support other families fighting childhood cancer!

Making these bracelets keeps me busy and I really enjoy it! Of course there are many other things I could be busy with, but this also is an artistic outlet for me. I used to paint a lot before I got married but I haven't much since. I have some canvas now, and a paint set. I just need to make a spot to start painting.

I am about out of string now, so I'll have to stop making bracelets for a little while :) Maybe that's a good thing though ;)

Math on the go

Its a 40 minute round trip to swimming lessons. Yesterday I took full advantage of this time and we worked on math! We worked on skip counting and the boys did rather well!! Better than I expected. They knew more than I thought they did!

Jason is my real math kid. He really has a head for it. He so often blurts out things like "64 + 64 is 128 isn't it?". Then I say to myself "That's what you've been thinking about for the past few minutes while you've been so quiet???" He is constantly dividing things by 3 as well, so as to split things evenly between himself and Michael and Gideon.

When Michael and Gideon were very little we used to count trees, cars, flowers, etc. while we took walks in the mornings. It was a lot harder to take walks once Jason was born. Still, he picked up basic math concepts with very little help from me. Most of the math he has learned he figured out himself.

I have always tried to teach the boys "everyday math". Measuring for cooking/baking, measuring their height, measuring things around the house, dividing food servings, dividing toys, timing things, counting down, etc.

They don't have it all down, but we still have some time left, my hope for each of them is that by the time they leave our house, they will be prepared for whatever they do in life. May they each leave here with however much math they need! LOL.

Adventures in Odyssey

I have listened to Adventures in Odyssey before it was Adventures in Odyssey! Since the very very beginning. I love that show! For those who are not familiar with it, its a Radio drama produced by Focus on the Family. Its about a small town called Odyssey, and the people who live there. I highly recommend it!

We have been catching up on the episodes we have missed over the past few months. You can listen on www.focusonthefamily.com or at www.whitsend.org.

All 3 of the boys are in the target age range the show is designed for, ages 8-12. Of course we've been listening with them since they were much younger. The show gives us opportunities to talk with the boys about a variety of moral issues from lying, cheating, stealing, and being disobedient, to standing up for what you believe in, having godly relationships, building character, and seeking God's will for your life. (and much much more!). I love that we can listen to an episode and relate it to things that are going on in our lives. Or vice versa we can find ourselves in a situation where we say "Do you remember when this happened to Connie in Odyssey? How did she deal with this situation?"

In Odyssey many of the characters seek to glorify God with their lives. They attend church regularly, serve in the church, study the Bible, pray over the situations they find themselves in, and seek God to direct their lives!

I am very thankful for Adventures in Odyssey and I hope and pray it continues to air for many more years! It has been a big influence in my life and a valuable tool in raising my children.

God bless!

Keep on Swimming

We started the 3 older boys in swimming lessons today. All 4 boys were in swimming lessons 2 years ago. They loved it! The lady in charge was kind enough to give us Silas' booklet from his swimming lessons two years ago. It had marked all that he had accomplished during his lessons.

I wasn't sure which class to sign the boys up for since it had been two years, but after today the instructor felt that all 3 boys should be moved up to the next class. They told Jason if he would swim across the pool they would promote him but apparently he didn't understand what they were saying and didn't do it. I talked to him after the class and he really wants to move up to the next class, so we will talk to them about it tomorrow. Michael and Gideon both will be in the other class tomorrow.

If I remember correctly I also only took swimming lessons for two Summers. I think by the end of this class the boys will be doing pretty well.

I have been working on a project for the past few days. I am making bracelets to sell at a yard sale for a little girl with cancer in our community. They have gold colored beads, little awareness ribbons that say "Hope", and little butterflies, which the little girl likes. I have made about 15 so far, Gideon made 1. I plan to make them until I run out of materials or until her fundraiser yard sale in a couple of weeks. I love doing things like this and I haven't had much time for such things recently. I feel like I can give myself the time to do this since its for someone else.

We have been completely off schedule since we got home from our 3 week trip to CA. Sleeping in late and staying up late. I decided to give everyone, including myself, melatonin last night at 8 PM. It definitely helped! All of the boys were asleep by 10ish. I was up a lot later than that but I fell asleep faster when I did go to bed. We all got up earlier today too. Hopefully we can get back on track soon!

Finishing school

With Silas' fight with cancer, our homeschooling has looked a little more like unschooling. We have been very relaxed about school but still trying to get in plenty of learning. While we may have not done a lot of handwriting or algebra this past year and a half, we have learned a lot!

I have continued to keep a "school" journal, recording our school days and what type of learning was done. They actually got to go on quite a few field trips! The radiation lab where Silas received his radiation treatments, the South Carolina Aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, etc.

We have 5 weeks left of our school year. Or 24 days left to reach 180 for the year. If all goes according to plan they will be finished just in time to have the last week of August off, the week of Jason's 8th birthday.

My main goals for the next 5 weeks are to get Gideon and Jason reading better, and to have Michael writing better. Of course there will be other learning as well, but those are some areas that I really see a need for improvement in. Michael also has to take his 6th grade test this year.

Gideon can actually read better than he thinks he can. He has been in vision therapy for 4 years now and his poor vision really interfered with his ability to see to read. Now though, we have made great progress with his vision and its time to buckle down and pick up the reading! I think he mostly needs confidence and practice. He really does know the basics.

Jason has not really had an interest in reading before now, but he is showing some and I would really like to start working on it more with him. He is really bright and I think he will pick it up quickly. I worked with him some a few weeks ago and he flew through the lessons with ease.

Michael started reading at the age of 3. Which threw me off a little! I did not read until I was 11 years old and was determined not to push my kids to read until they were ready (my parents did not push me either). Then Michael at age 3 starts begging me to teach him to read and by 5 was reading at a 2nd grade level! His writing on the other hand.....well, we need to work on that.

We talked with each of the boys about what kind of extra curricular activities they would like to do this coming year. (We'll start back to school again in September). Michael wants to work more on making videos for his youtube channel. Gideon wants to do more art. Jason wants to do gymnastics. All three of the boys will take swimming lessons next week. Probably for the last time, they can all stay above water now, so I think this last year of swimming lessons will be it for them, unless of course one of them decides they want to get into swimming more.

Well, that's about it for this post. God bless!

Blogging again

I doubt anyone currently looks at this page since I have not posted anything on it in over two years! I want to pick it up again though. Writing has become very therapeutic for me over the last year and a half and I want to keep it up.

My youngest son, Silas, recently passed away. He had a rare form of liver cancer. I am not going to blog specifically about him here but you can read about him at www.caringbridge.org/visit/silasedenfield or www.facebook.com/prayingforsilas . Those two pages are devoted to him and to our dealing with his passing.

This page is more about our daily family life, recipes, homeschooling, etc.

I should be asleep now though, church in the morning! Goodnight! I'll be posting again soon!