What we're doing now

I missed posting on all the kid's birthdays. I didn't even get a yearly Christmas card/ letter out at all this year. Not that I ever do. I think the number of times I have actually sent out Christmas cards can be counted on one hand in the 13 years we have been married. I intended to write a post about each of my kids at the beginning of the year, and here it is the 3rd week into the new year. The fact is, I am not very good about keeping a record of our lives and the things we are doing. I have been way too busy for my liking with the new job and all but it will get better once I get all of my lesson plans and ideas into a system, and the home life into a system. I work so much better when I have a system in place for each area of my life. Maybe I need a system for keeping track of all my systems. ha ha. Anyhow a little about what we are doing now.

Clarence is working at Megadiamond. He is the programmer for the EDM Department. He likes it okay, but I sense that he misses the accomplishment that he felt after a long day of pouring concrete, and turning it into something beautiful. He has found many other ways to find accomplishment however. For instance, this fall and early winter he chopped around 2-3 cords of wood for us to use in our fireplace. We did not turn on our furnace once until mid December when we ran out of all of that wood. McKay has had a valuable education in hard work through this experience for which I am extremely grateful. He has also started many projects throughout our house. (I am crossing my fingers that someday they will all be finished.) Some projects got put on hold because of the basement flooding right before Christmas. The ceiling has to be replaced. Luckily, we saved the carpet. He went fishing with McKay every spare moment during the summer in his new boat, which he named Joy. Overall, he is doing well.

I am trying to keep all of my balls that I am juggling in the air. Sometimes, I feel like I am dropping all of them, but overall things are going well. I am homeschooling Elena full time, and Alexia part time, while trying to get my education as well. Trying to keep up with McKay at school now and all of his extra things, is harder I think. And now to top it all off, I am working 15 hours a week at Liberty academy. Crazy, but I love it. I am really trying to eat healthy, so I have the energy I need to accomplish these seemingly impossible tasks. I do have to say that Elena and Alexia really homeschool themselves, I just try to create the proper environment. Life is good but challenging, just the way I like it.

Mckay is doing great in school. I am very pleased. When I enrolled him, I was really concerned as he hasn't been in public school for 6 years. He is loving it and has wonderful teachers that are pushing him in a way that I was no longer able to do. He has learned so much and is teaching me a lot. I hope he always maintains this hunger for learning that he has exhibited. He struggles in a few classes, but overall loves it. He is in drum lessons and basketball and learning very quickly in both. He absolutely LOVES basketball. It has become his life. He is the deacons quorum president and has a great leader that really keeps him going in Young Men's and scouting. This has been a difficult year for him, but I marvel at his ability to push through challenges and continue to progress. What a great young man.

I finally found some of Elena's loves and motivations this past year. She was really struggling with writing and anything that requires sitting still for long periods of time. She is a ball of energy. We discovered that she LOVES acting. She was in a small play with Liberty Academy and this year is in Shakespeare and Reader's theater, which I am now teaching by the way. Hilarious I know, but it is so much fun. As a result of these inspirations, she has written 2 plays complete with props, cast, stage direction, etc. and made up many songs and poems. She is truly in love with theater. I love Elena. She keeps things FUN and light in our family. She has also become quite the little homemaker thanks to Princess Academy and the Hope Chest Journey. She has hand sewed several little things, learned to embroider, and is currently working on crocheting a hat and making a bag for her babysitting kit. She is also a fantastic babysitter for Oliver.

Alexia. What can I say about Alexia? She has grown leaps and bounds this past year as she has transitioned from being the baby of the family to being a beautiful older sister and young lady. Alexia soaks in information like it's going out of style. She really is the opposite of Elena in many ways. She is happiest doing schoolwork. Reading, writing, busy work, she loves it all. She loves to learn and a public school environment really works best for her because they have a never ending supply of work sheets and busy work. At 7 years old, she has neater handwriting than I do. People sometimes ask me why I would put my younger daughter in school and not the older one and this is why. It really fits her style. She is in a MAP(multi-age programming) class which I feel is more like a combination of public and home school. She gets the busy work but also the freedom to choose the things she learns, and it meets 3 days a week instead of 5.

Oliver is doing great. He is a little ham. He is always doing things to make us laugh and he seems to really enjoy the role of clown. He will do silly little dances, and all sorts of funny faces all in the effort of getting us to laugh. and when we do laugh he breaks into the funniest little chuckle I have ever heard. He loves to throw his dirty diapers in the garbage. Everytime I change him, he picks up his diaper and turns around and waits for everyone in the room to follow him. If there are people in other rooms, he will go find them, look at them with diaper outstretched and wait for them to follow. Once he has enough of an audience, he will run to the garbage pail and throw the diaper in, immediately turning around and clapping at himself. We of course all clap with him. He is a doll. He is also very adventurous. He climbs on anything and everything. The table, counters, the piano. He will gather toys, chairs, anything he can climb on, and push them to where he wants to climb. This early adventurism scares the crap out of me. He has already been off the counter, table, and piano numerous times. He always has a fat lip. I keep the chairs on the table most of the time, but nothing stops him. He is a very determined little boy. No one or no thing is going to stop him from doing what he is determined to do. Wish me luck in raising this little boy. He started walking the week he turned one, in October, and since then life has become very exciting. Oh he also loves to play in the toilet much to my chagrin. My husband says "It was a good thing Oliver came when he did because it takes all 5 of us to keep up with him." This is very true. Some of the things he is saying now are:

Ba-bye
Maria (he says this as clear as a bell)
whoisit (who is it all strung together, he says this when talking on the phone)
daddy
light
hot
this? (he says this when pointing to things especially pictures in books.)
uh-oh (he says this whenever he drops something.)

There may be a few more but these are the ones I can think of right now. I LOVE this little boy. He knows this and very often uses it against me.

We struggle and many times I can't see the progress we are all making, but it sure helps to look back over a year and see how much we have grown and accomplished. It gives me hope to continue to overcome challenges. Life is great.

I hope everyone has a wonderful year full of challenges to overcome and accomplishments to enjoy!

5 ideas to help children to LOVE the classics.

So if you read my last lengthy post, you will know that one of my new year's resolutions is to get a job. Yesterday, a job literally fell into my lap, and in my opinion is the best possible job I could have right now to help me reach my goals. The job description I have given it is, "Inspiring children to love the classics." For 2 hours a day Monday thru Thursday, I will be doing story time for children in the school library of Liberty Academy, which is the school that my children attend to varying degrees. On Fridays, I will be teaching various classes to part-time homeschoolers all day. I talked to the director of the school yesterday. She knows that I have been following the Thomas Jefferson Education system with my children for several years. She sees a need for the full-time children in the school to fall in love with reading-particularly the classics. So she offered ME the job. Next year she wants me to be the school librarian. Can you say miracles? I feel a little intimidated but very excited. My long-term goal is to be a transformational writer. This job will allow me to continue to have much exposure to great literature.

This morning, I have been brainstorming ideas to help me inspire children to LOVE the classics. Here are some ideas that I thought about:

1. Yours, mine, and ours. The goal here is to make the books THEIR choice but in a way that allows ME to produce the choices.

Yours- I will have a basket full of classics for young children, and they will get to take turns picking books from the basket. We will then decide as a group whether we like or dislike the chosen books. I will then write on a chart the favorites, and once they have accumulated a few favorites, they will be allowed to pick from those also. This will encourage ownership and the knowledge that it is GREAT to read our favorite classics over and over again.

Mine- I will have several slips of paper for kids to choose from that say different genres of classics. For example, poetry, fables, fairy tales, etc. I will then choose MY choice from that genre. The goal here is exposure or letting them know what kinds of choices are out there. I will try to choose things that are very fun at first and ease them into the more difficult works. If my choice is not going over too well, I will read something else. I want them to LOVE reading, not to be forced to sit through MY choices.

Ours- I will find out from the children what countries their ancestors come from or just countries they would like to know about and we will spend some time reading classics from these countries, and just learning some interesting things about the chosen country. I want to incorporate a lot of fun with this. Costumes, food, dances, etc. Again, the goal here is exposure. I will keep it very simple and light. Just enough to spark curiosity.

2. Incorporate different types of learning. Some kids learn best by hearing, some by seeing, and some by moving around. There are so many ways that kids learn best, and I want to incorporate as many of them as I can.

3. Stop often during reading to answer questions or discuss what we are reading. It is not necessary to get through a book or a chapter if curiosity and questions lead somewhere else.

4. Play simple games like spin the bottle or throw the bean bag to make question and answer period FUN.

5. Most importantly- BE PASSIONATE! If I am passionate and excited about what I am reading it can't help but rub off onto them.

These are a few of my ideas. I am so excited to do this. It is going to be so great! Yay for me!

Beauty Principle- Seeketh not her own

In accordance with Princess Academy, creator Donna Goff introduces beauty principles that go along with the books that the girls read as a part of their hope chest journey. I have been wanting to implement this for awhile, so I have decided to start blogging about different principles that I am learning about, sometimes with my girls, on my journey of discovering what beauty is all about.

Today while studying the word charity, I came across the phrase, "seeketh not her own" in Moroni 7:45. Moroni is a book in the Book of Mormon, which is a book similar to the Bible, but is written by prophets and others from the American Continent instead of the Jews. As I read these words, I asked myself the question, "What does it really mean to seek not your own?" Many thoughts came to my mind and I will share a few of them.

During the American revolution, and subsequent founding of the United States of America, many people who took part in this understood this principle. Every man who signed the Declaration of Independence was taking a huge chance on his life and the lives of his family, his property, and his personal comfort. Isn't it ironic that the very document they were signing contained these words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the very things they were sacrificing personally to achieve the greater goal for mankind.

I strongly believe in personal mission, and sometimes my personal mission will require the sacrifice of my personal comforts and those of my family. The word service connotes sacrifice. Realizing that the benefits for the good of all, including myself and family in the word all, outweigh the sacrifice, is a part of the answer to my original question. It would have been easy for the founding fathers to ignore their mission. Many of these men were very wealthy. They could have easily just lived their lives comfortably and ignored the needs of society. These were regular citizens who saw a need and did whatever they could to fill that need.

What would happen today if our leaders did not seek their own, but sought the good of mankind? Do leaders like this even exist anymore? We must create these leaders in ourselves and our children. How do we do this? I believe the answer is education. Our public education system today focuses on job training, or in other words, my own comfort. What if our education focused instead on personal mission for the good of mankind? How can we fill needs if we don't have the education to understand what those needs are?

I feel the need to focus myself again. I want to fulfill my mission. For the last several years, I have been self-educating. I have learned a lot, but I have come to the point where I need a mentor. I need to go to school. I have struggled with guilt about this for some time thinking that I will be taking away from the needs of my family. The scripture I read this morning and writing this blog have helped me to realize that sometimes seeking not your own means you do something for yourself that at first seemed selfish. It's not really about ME though, it is about my mission and the good of mankind.

SO, my first resolution for 2010 is to get a job. The family finances do not allow for school tuition, so I am going to get a job as a small step towards getting me to school. I am excited! "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass."

Letters

Dearest Ellie,

How can I even begin to let you know what your gift meant to me. Do you know how perfect this gift was for me and how much it was accompanied by God's love? Thank you for being so in tune to my needs and for acting on your impression, because I have to believe that is the only way you possibly could have known.

Did you know that I have longed to be beautiful for so long? I never spend money on myself. I can never justify the expense. My kids' and husband's needs always cry out so much stronger than mine. Thank you for reminding me that my needs are important too. I would never have picked out the dress and tights you bought. I love them. They are beautiful. Did you know that I have wanted a new dress for a very long time? I thought it was a selfish desire. You have a husband and kids too. I am sure they have many needs. Do you know how loved I feel that you would choose to buy those things for ME? I'm sure it was so simple for you, but it was ever so HUGE for me. The dress, tights, makeup, fingernail polish, and jewelry make me feel so beautiful. Thank you.

I know that true beauty is on the inside not the outside. Did you know that I have felt so ugly my whole life? My lack of care for the outside of my body is a reflection of how I have felt on the inside for so long. This past two years or so I have been going through intense healing on the inside. I'm not finished, but I feel the desire to make my outside self reflect the healing that has occurred on the inside. Thank you for helping me remember.

Do you know that you reminded me that God is watching over me and taking care of even my little needs that sometimes feel so insignificant? Do you know that you reminded me how precious I am to my Father in Heaven and that I am a beautiful princess? Do you know what it means to me to have someone who has known me for such a short time show such love and care? Do you know how beautiful YOU are? I am so grateful to have you in my life and that the Lord saw fit to make you my Visiting Teacher. You are a light to me. Thank you for sharing your light. I love you.

Love, Maria



To all of my wonderful friends,

Thank you for your support and love. I truly feel blessed to have so many who have shown support. Mostly for your kind words. I hope you feel the gratitude in my heart. I love you.

Love, Maria

Symbolism

Pain is such a weird thing. I use the word pain to describe the physical hurting that I have gone through the last 4 days. When the pain first started it felt like glorified cramps. I have felt that pain many times. It has become almost a comfortable part of me. But then the pain got worse. I was in labor. For 2 hours, I felt the excruciating pain that I have felt every time I have gone to the hospital to have my beautiful babies. For me those times of pain were followed by exquisite moments of joy. This time was different. I started to panic. The words, "I can not do this" were repeated in my head numerous times. I cried a lot. I did not want to feel this pain. Finally, at the moment of despair, it was over. At least, the intense physical pain. I held the baby in my hands. The baby was as big as the palm of my hand. That moment will forever be etched in my mind. A perfect creation, with no life. What sorrow. For several minutes, I just waited, wondering what to do with this beautiful part of me and my husband. I finally wrapped it in toilet paper and flushed it praying to God that this was an acceptable way to dispose of this creation. I thought the pain would then be over. I was wrong. For 3 days afterward, I had after birth pains. I didn't know this could happen with a miscarriage.

I also use the word pain to describe the emptiness and hurt I feel in my heart and my womb. Each pain I felt during labor and after labor was symbolic of the emotional pain. Every cramp was a reminder of the stab I felt in my heart that the hopes and plans I had made would no longer be realized. At least not now. And not in my way. I am not ready to resume normal life. I feel expected to resume. I don't want to. I want to still feel this pain. I want to cry and let the tears wash over me. It's weird to say, but this pain is also a comfort to me. This grief feels good in a way. I am not ready to let it go. I need to let it go. My children need me. My husband needs me. I just want to fill MY needs for awhile. Selfish I know. I am not strong right now. I don't want to be strong right now. For now, I just pray that I will want to soon. That is all the strength I have right now. I am a fighter. I SHALL conquer this.

Sad news

Today I am sad.

I just want to curl up back in my bed and ignore my duties and responsibilities. That would just make everything so much worse, so I am going to write about it so I can allow myself to feel and experience this sadness for just a little while longer.

Last night, I received a confirmation of something I already knew. Pregnancy # 8 has ended at around 12 weeks gestation, and I have yet to wait for the precious contents to be expelled. It is a baby to me, not just a fetus. I have already emotionally bonded with this precious baby, so the grief is hard to bear... again. This is the 4th time I have felt this grief. I've already told my kids they were going to have another sibling. I thought we were out of the woods. All of my other miscarriages happened before 9 weeks. I don't know how I am going to tell them the news. I have told too many people. I wish they all read this blog, so I could just say it here and be done.

I went to a midwife to get checked. She couldn't find a heartbeat, and she was so very compassionate. I am so grateful. I asked her how much we owe her for the visit and she told me not to worry about it. This was the first time I had met her. What a kind person.

Today I must find a doctor to reconfirm with ultra sound what I already know. I guess I will tell my kids after this. For now, I am just going to keep myself busy and focus on living instead of falling apart. I do feel Heaven's help, comfort, and sweet love. What a blessing. All will be healed and I will come away feeling grateful for the experience.

An amazing speech

Because freedom is my passion, and is what I want to share with the world, I am sharing a link to an extraordinary speech on freedom that I read. If you have a moment, check this out. You will not regret doing so.