Bountiful Baskets

Bountiful Baskets is a food co-op in several states throughout the U.S.. Every Monday, I go online and sign up for a basket and sometimes some other items they have. It is $15 for the basket and you get a variety of fruits and vegetables. Most of the time, the food is good quality. This past week I spent $50 and got 16 pounds of strawberries, and some other tropical fruits, plus the regular basket. This has been the best for our family. It is such an inexpensive way to get a variety of produce.

My mom bought us a Blendtec blender which we have been using for making awesome smoothies, milk shakes, hot cocoa and soup. Between the blender and Bountiful Baskets, we are eating a lot healthier!!!

Check out Bountiful Baskets here to see if they are in your state.

As Spring Break Comes to Close

As spring break comes to close and we are all facing the school week once more, we have all softened to the idea of home school. Even my most resistant kids are softening. Kate has said, "Why can't we just start home schooling now?" I have never liked the school schedule and rush and homework. I have never liked sending my kids away for so many hours of the day. I feel relieved that we won't have that next year. I know home school will not be all easy and nice and fun times. I know that this home school idea may just be the Lord's way of teaching me patience, but at least we won't have to wake up before 8am!

April 8, 2011

Outside our Back Window :-(((

Very Kate

Kate is pointing to the baby's spit up.

Kate is making a disgusting face about the spit up and asking for a cloth.

Kate is getting frustrated that John is taking her picture and not getting her a cloth.

Kate feeling more frustrated!

Kate gives up and pouts!

More on Home Schooling

A lot of books that I have been reading have an attitude that home school is the only true way to educate a child. I put those books down. I doubt that 90% of the population has it all wrong. Public schools have a lot of faults, but they also have done some good. The illiteracy rate did decline with the formation of public schools. Obviously not every family was able to provide schooling for their children. Education is necessary. It is good that it is provided free to the people. I am glad that we have it.

That said, I have always felt that the parents should be the people mainly responsible for the education of their children. That can mean different things to different parents. For some parents it may mean to simply send their kid to school fed and dressed. For me it means a lot more. I feel like I am responsible for the behavior of my children, for their success or failure to learn academics and morals. I have done this by keeping my kids home from school if they wake up emotional and tearful. We spend the day working together. If needed, I let the child lounge. But I feel work is a better way to cure sorrow. I have taught my 4 oldest children to read. This was especially important for Kate who had a very hard time learning to read. Kate would have fallen by the side and probably would have been labeled learning disabled, if I had not been working with her everyday and making sure she had could do what was required for first and second grades. Now Kate is the top student in math, science and one of the top students in reading in the 6th grade in her school. I also make sure my kids are behaving nicely to their teachers and the other students, as well as toward each other in the home.

As a result my kids have thrived in the public schools. All of them receive awards for their behavior and for academics. They win art and science contests. They have been able to make good friends while still being kind to the kids who are mean and would be bad friends to have. Adam is always receiving awards for being kind. Kate and Johnny have often been paired with disabled children because of their compassion. I really believe kids can thrive in both public schools and home schools.

One problem I have had with public schools has been with Johnny. Johnny exceeds his age and grade in academics. We have tried to move him up a grade, and we have placed him in gifted programs. School administrators are very unwilling to move a child up a grade. I have found that it really depends on the child's teacher and principle as to whether or not any individual child will receive different treatment. Since this changes yearly, school can be very frustrating for a child who is either well above or well below the norm. Johnny should have been moved up a grade when we wanted him to in kindergarten. His teachers have all said the same thing, but we had a principle that thought he knew best for every child. The gifted programs still do not let a child work ahead of the grade level. So Johnny has spent nearly four years attending school being taught things he already knew. This was okay when he had teachers who let him help teach the other children and work independently. But his this years teacher does not do this. In first grade, Johnny's teacher let him roam around the class and help the other kids with reading and writing. In second grade, Johnny's teacher first taught the prescribed curriculum for math to the class and then let Johnny teach the class how he did it. Johnny was also allowed to read independently when he finished his work. Now Johnny is told to sit quietly and listen. When Johnny raises his hand to answer a question the teacher always says, "Does anyone else besides Johnny know?" Johnny gets in trouble if he reads when he finishes his work early. In this situation, I feel that Johnny is losing his love for learning. He gets in trouble for being excited to learn and answer questions. Most of this year Johnny has been begging to be home schooled so that he can learn new things and still have time to play after school. Johnny's third grade teacher has said over and over that Johnny does not belong in this class. So, when I started feeling like home school was right for our family, I thought of Johnny first. Home school is what Johnny needs. We will see how the other kids take to it. But I know Johnny will do better at home than in public school.

Listening

There have been three big times in my life that I have not listened and acted on the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I always learned why I should have listened afterwards. And I was always sorry. The first time, was a very long time ago. John had just finished his PhD and had gotten a new job at SUNY Stony Brook in Long Island New York. As I looked online for apartments to rent I could find nothing in the area. I did find about 2 houses to rent. As I was looking I kept thinking we should buy a home. I even looked to see what a mortgage would be for a $100,000 home (about $900). I mentioned it to John. He thought the idea was crazy. We only had a 2 year position. I dropped the topic. When we went out to look for something to rent. We couldn't find anything. Again I thought we needed to buy. This time, I did not even talk to John about it. About the last day we were there, we found a rental home for $950. It was a cute little 2 bedroom 900 square foot house near the beach. We loved it. We could have bought a home just like it for $100,000. When we left New York, housing prices had risen dramatically. If I had listened and we had bought a house (which we even had a  4% down payment for) we could have sold the house at the end of 2 years for $150,000. With all said and done we would have had at least $30,000 in the bank.  We did not listen and so we did not receive the blessings. The second time was when we were praying about the job at WSU. I did not feel good about it. But it was the easy thing to do. John didn't feel completely right about it either. We didn't even talk to each other about it. We just did what was easy. That job did not work out. While we were moving to KS, we came to UT for a month and a half to save some money. While we were there, I frequently felt like we should not move to KS. I felt like John needed to get a job outside of acedemics in UT. I did not say a word of this to anyone even though I had strong impressions coming to my mind over the entire month and a half. If I had listened, we would have already been established in UT. We would not have had the big hard move and the loss of the money on the house in Wichita. John would probably be making a lot more money than he is now. Again, Heavenly Father was just trying to bless us and make our lives easier. I have learned to listen and I hope that I always do.

For about 3 months I had found myself thinking about home schooling. For three months, I just put the thoughts aside. (I have never really planned on homeschooling.) After three months, I thought, maybe this isn't me. I have had things like this before and it is usually the Holy Ghost patiently trying to tell me something. Maybe the Holy Ghost has been trying to tell me something. So I thought I would throw the idea off a few of the kids to get a feel for what they thought about the idea. Johnny liked it, no one else did. I let the idea go and didn't say anything for another two weeks. Home schooling thoughts kept coming to my mind for those two weeks. This time, I knew it was not me. So I casually brought the topic up to John and all of the kids one night after scripture study. John responded, "Why would we do that?!" Ruth emphatically said, "NO WAY! I WILL MISS MY FRIENDS." I told John that I had just been thinking about it a lot and wondered if it was the Holy Ghost trying to tell me something. John said, "I don't think we should home school, but  why don't we pray about it." We prayed about it right away during our nightly family prayer. After the prayer, the responses were different. John said, "This is weird, but I feel pretty good about it. I guess we better look into it." Ruth said, "I hate this, but I felt like it is what we should do."

Another week went by and we talked about it casually, but I did not do anything about it. Again, I had a lot of thoughts about home schooling. Honestly, I did not really want to do this. But I wanted to listen. I knew that I needed to listen. So I started browsing websites about home schooling and looking up the laws. Surprisingly, I liked everything I read. Eventually, I ordered books from the library. The more I read the books, the more I knew this is what we are suppose to do at least for Johnny.Then John came to me and said, "I really strongly feel that home school is intended for Ruth too." I began looking at different curriculums and pros and cons to different ways of teaching your children at home. I facebook messaged some friends I know that home school. Everything seemed good. I felt more prepared. The kids had softened to the idea. Ruth found out that two of her friends are moving and two others are being home schooled next year. John and I prayed about it together one last time about 4 nights ago. We both knew without a doubt that this is what Heavenly Father wants our family to do. We are going to listen and so we are going to start home schooling next school year.

Rachel Turns 5

I bought angel food cake and I frosted it with colored whipped cream, so we could have both an edible and little girl appealing cake.

The tea party for dinner

the kids were very mannerly

opening presents

blowing out the candle

Rachel has been waiting for this day for an entire year. For a while, she wasn't sure it was really ever coming. Well it came. My Rachel finally got to have her 5th birthday. Rachel had her birthday yesterday, during General Conference. I am afraid that will come up a lot in her lifetime. Poor baby.  I think we were able to make it fun, though. We went to Gramma's for the second session of conference. We had a tea party with cousins. We had a rainbow angel food cake and we watched Tangled on Gramma's projector screen. I think Rachel had fun. We all enjoyed the pleasant company together. And we will have a small friend birthday party in a week or two to make up for the having to sit and listen for four hours on her birthday.