Did I say I was excited?

Because now I'm not so sure...Yesterday Jacob decided to write a letter to our local Christian radio station for a contest. Gabriel wanted to write a letter too, but Gabriel isn't old enough to win a week at camp. He was upset about being too young and insisting that he could write a letter, so I told him that he could go ahead and write to the lady but he wouldn't be able to enter the contest.

A few minutes later, Gabe brought me a letter that said "I want too go to teh ranc when I am littl." I told that was really good, and that I would send it later - but reinforced that he was not old enough to win the contest. I continued on with dinner preparations until Jacob came in announcing that Gabriel had written a mean letter. Now, I had just read his letter and thought that it was perfectly nice... "Leave him alone, there is nothing wrong with his letter" I said to Jacob. But Jacob insisted, "He said it says he will kill the lady, and it does - I just read it."

I called for the letter, which Gabriel brought to me again. And sure enough, it had been edited to include "or I will kill you"! I stood there, somewhere between horrified and very amused wondering how to proceed. I explained to Gabriel how unkind it was to say such things. His defense was that he wanted to go and the lady deserves to die if she doesn't let him (perfectly logical in his mind)... I guess he was trying to use strong language to sway the argument in his favor. But I insisted that he write a different letter as I would not send the death threat. He quickly complied and came back something to the effect of "Let me go to the ranch when I am little so I don't kill you." Much better, right?

After another lengthy explanation about the use of threats to manipulate a situation (not to mention the wrongness of killing!!!) an acceptable, yet still a little demanding, letter was drafted and signed. I guess now that he sees writing as useful and valuable he has fully embraced it. Maybe he has a future as a speech writer for a terrorist organization....

I'm so excited!

Gabriel is writing his name! All by himself! He just did it twice and it looked pretty good! I have not really pushed writing with him yet, since is just barely 4. And until a week or two ago he seemed more or less opposed to the idea of writing. I didn't really know what to do because it was obvious to me that he possessed the skills to write - he just didn't want to do it. And isn't that okay, because he is so young? But on the other hand, he is reading on at least a 2nd grade level and grasping most (if not all) kindergarten concepts.



I kept going back and forth on whether or not to push him. I have a 1st grade phonics book that Jake brought home from public school with most of the pages intact. I have been giving Gabe one or two pages from it each day. This gives him a little bit of writing at a time and he enjoys the work (beginning sounds and end sounds). I haven't made a big deal about how to form the letters on the work he does by himself. But I usually help him write his name the right way.



On one of his pages yesterday he was supposed to draw a picture and write a sentence telling about the picture. I told him to draw the picture, but not worry about the sentence. He drew and wrote. His sentence wasn't written on the lines, but I could clearly read "with Jon and my brother" (brother was spelled wrong, but I could tell what it said!)

Learning to observe

We launched into science yesterday! And the first thing we are learning is how to observe. Well, I guess before that Jacob has to learn to keep the words "observation" and "hypothesis" straight, cause it will be confusing for everybody if I tell him to observe something and he is trying to form a hypothesis about it...

Since our work load is very light right now, I decided to take the kids to Beaver Lake this morning for some observing in the woods. It is a beautiful day, but as soon as we stepped into the woods it was cold! There was a very cool breeze blowing off the lake, and even though I brought jackets that made it a little hard for the kids to enjoy themselves. We walked through one and half trails despite the cold.

We learned how wild grapes can cause clearings in the woods and why that is an important part of the wooded community. The kids were very excited when they found one of those clearings on their own. Unfortunately, we didn't see any animals - Jacob blames that on the big noisy group of kids who were there on a field trip. He was more than a little irritated that those kids didn't know how to be quiet. Imagine, Jacob mad at someone for making noise!

What did you do?

To commemorate Memorial Day? How did you remember the sacrifices of those who gave their lives for our freedom? We went to see Prince Caspian. We originally planned to do that tomorrow (Todd took it off), but realized that it might be easier done today. As we were pulling into the mall, I thought about it. I felt disappointed in myself for reducing the day to just another day off. My own father fought in Vietnam and later died from injuries sustained in the war. I want to remember. I want to teach my children to remember.

Regardless of how one feels about the conflicts our country has engaged in, we owe our freedom to men and women who were willing to die for it. After naps, we sat down with the kids and looked at some books that I bought recently (on a discount shelf at Border's). They offer the history of our various wars in pictures. We talked about what the soldiers would have been thinking or feeling and what life would have been like for them. We looked at the piles of causalities from the Civil War, and the men burying their dead the day after a battle. So, we remembered and stopped to appreciate the freedoms that we have.

We finished!

Today we finished our "core" (Sunlight Condensed World History) curriculum! We ended world history with a very brief overview of WWII. I'm thinking it would be appropriate to talk about Memorial Day tomorrow. We also finished Language 3 (ABeka) today. Jacob supposedly knows how to diagram a sentence and indentify basic parts of speech now (although Gabe has a better grasp on nouns and verbs than Jake does...)

I think we will do 4th grade science over the summer since I am always bad abut getting science done. Jacob is so happy to be done!

Monday Blahs

First off, let me mention that Super Todd found the math book! When Jake was cleaning his room he was making piles that go other places (garbage, downstairs, etc) but decided to keep the piles separate by putting them in bags. Then we were having company and someone took the bags off the bedroom floor and stuck them in the closet. The math book was in one of those bags and daddy was smart enough to figure that out (I think he may have been the one to put said bag in closet).

I seem to have a case of the Monday blahs. Or maybe just the general blahs. I feel like I need a few more days of weekend, I really want to get out and do something fun. That doesn't make any sense to me since in the last week we have gone out to eat, gone on a field trip to Fort Stanwix and gone to the movies - Horton Hears a Who. I feel like I need a vacation!!! It isn't that I mind homeschooling, I've been enjoying that a lot lately.





Perhaps I am feeling bored and purposeless now that my class is done. I'm reading three different books right now (Some of My Best Friends are Books: Guiding Gifted Readers, Finding God at Harvard, and Bonhoffer's Letters and Papers from Prison), but I find that reading for the sake of reading isn't stimulating enough. I need a project or a purpose.





We're headed to library shortly to look for books about Abe Lincoln - Gabe announced at dinner the other day "When I grow up to be president, I want to be Abraham Lincoln!" He figured since Mr. Lincoln is dead, his identity is free for the taking. When we explained he will have to be president Gabriel Young and he can't be President Lincoln he settled on getting books out to read about his favorite president so that he can learn to be good president someday too. (He decided he would like to be president when he was about 2 and Todd explained to him about someone who was "running for office")


Ladies and gentlemen, your future president...

and lets not leave out his big brother...
These are pictures from their AWANA awards ceremony last weekend(Jacob is in a borrowed shirt)

Where did it go?

I need to vent...I am so sick of asking "Where did it go?" I could scream (and perhaps I already have). A few weeks ago Jacob lost his AWANA shirt, which caused lots of stress 'cause he was supposed to have for the awards night last weekend. It still hasn't turned up. Around the same time he also lost his ruler which is also still missing. Last week, the math book up and disapeared. Seven days and several hunts later, no sign of said book! Where the @#$% is this stuff going? It isn't just that he can't find it (with his less than excellent finding skills) Todd and I searched the whole house more than once and the stuff is gone.

I thought maybe he lost the math book on purpose, but he enjoys math WAY more than he enjoys looking for stuff he lost. He is getting pretty sick of looking but I am way past sick of having missing stuff. I'm starting to think I will need to buy another math book.

Mother's Day Music

My family all came over to my house for a Mother's Day get together. It was nice to have my sister and her family up for the weekend. After dinner, one of the dads started trying to make the glasses sing. And once they got it to happen, everyone wanted to join in. It probably provided a half hour of entertainment. It was a fun evening. we broke out the Wii after we finished making music, and I finally got to beat up my big sister.

Just when I managed to calm him down...

It seems that a good nights sleep was just what Jacob needed today. We were going through our morning work with the greatest of ease (except for the usual 2 or 3 trips to timeout for inappropriate, animal like behavior before we really settle into working), he totally rocked his subtraction time test today, clocking in at 4min 20sec for 100 problems. He was focused throughout math and history. He enjoyed our new spelling program (Spelling Power) a lot.

Other than the fact that Cadence took a Sharpie to the walls upstairs, I was thinking this is a pretty good day. And if your wondering, the Sharpie people are serious when they those markers are PERMANENT. I have found a few ways to get it off the wall, but they all seem to take my sunshiny yellow paint off with the marker.

The kids wanted to eat lunch outside, and I agreed to it in spite of the fact that it is a little on the cool side today. Gabe and Cadence were nearly done with their sandwiches when I came to the realization that eating outside today was not the best of ideas. Jacob had been in time out and so he had not started eating yet. And I'm thinking "Great! He managed the stress of the bike thief and the accident fairly well, but how is going to respond when I tell him that he can't eat his lunch outside cuz there is a black bear on the loose in Geddes?"

Yeah, seriously. My neighbor of questionable character shared this info with me, and I thought he pulling my leg. But it is all over the news. The 6' bear was spotted almost 3 miles from my house. We'll see how Jake does on his Lang. test today well craining his neck to see look out the window for a black bear...

Adventures in Kellyland

What a crazy couple of days we have had! Todd's bike got stolen in the middle of the day, but a few hours later he saw a kid ride right past our house on it - so he chased him. We were a little surprised by how young the perp was (he looked to be 12 at the most) and Todd was moved to have compassion on him. He talked the kid into giving the bike back and gave him a ride back to our house - he was going to take the kid to the Thrifty Shopper to buy him a bike of his own. But I was concerned that we could end up in trouble if we stuck this kid in our van and took him to Liverpool unbenownst to his parents. So I told Todd to call the parents. Talk of parents made the kid scared and he took off running. That made me mad, so I ran after him - for over a mile. Every so often he would stop and hide then I would find him, and he would sit there and wait till I was close before he started to run again. Twice I had given up and turned around to go home when he stood out in plain sight and yelled to me that I couldn't get him. All said and done, I talked to the cops 5 times and we never found the kid, but Todd got his bike back.

There was some discussion when I got home, because Todd felt like I was second-guessing his approach (he thought I was just mad and wanted the kid to be in trouble) but I explained that I was concerned about staying "above reproach" and the cop agreed that Todd could have gotten in a lot of trouble in a situation like that. But Todd (and I) had been hoping to give this kid some sort of positive interaction with adults who care, and the kid just couldn't accept that.

Today I was still thinking a lot about that kid and what Todd and I learned about communicating with (and trusting) each other. I went to the credit union to make our van payment and as I was leaving, I wrecked our van. I was turning left when a pickup truck appeared out of nowhere coming straight at me. I know the guy was going fast, but I must have just not seen him coming... The kids were terrified, but they are all okay, as am I (but my back is hurting a little). This makes two accidents in as many months for us. I didn't get ticketed, and neither did Todd, but we have a suspicious feeling that our insurance rates will skyrocket soon.

And now it 6:30 and I am frustrated with Jacob who is frustrated with math. I know that he can't remember how to borrow because he doesn't process stress well, but somehow that doesn't make it any less stressful for me. I wanted to drop it, but I'm always afraid that he will figure out he can act like he doesn't know anything to get out of doing his work. I had him take a little break and then come back to it (for the 3rd time!!!) and hopefully he will get it right this time.

April Birthdays

I have been meaning to post these pictures all week, but I have been more or less consumed with my term paper, which I finished yesterday - 3 whole hours before I had to hand it in! It isn't that I waited until the last minuet to get started, the paper was half done weeks ago. It is just that I write best under pressure so once I knew what I wanted to write about I stopped writing until the end was very near.




But now that monkey is off my back. And here are a few pictures from Jacob and Cadence's birthdays. This year was the first time Jacob wanted his own birthday party (their birthdays are only 5 days apart). I don't know why he didn't want a princess cake!




I gave Jacob a choice between having a "themed" party with family and taking a friend to Chuck E. Cheese (the trip to Chuck E. Cheese cost a little less than the TMNT cake). He decided to take his friend to Chuck E. Cheese, but his friend ended up sick, so the family went to Chuck E. Cheese. A few days later he went and played laser tag with his friend. One thing that I learned was NEVER go to Chuck E. Cheese on a Saturday afternoon. That place was a madhouse - we usually go at weird times (since I make up my own schedule) like Tuesday morning when all the kids are in school. He wanted chocolate cake with fudge frosting, and we had Grandma and Nate over to have cake with us.





Aside from some cool presents, he got $100 for his birthday. He has been planing for months to take the family out to dinner when he could afford it. He wanted to take us to Old Country Barfett (his favorite restaurant) but they recently went out of business. His second choice was Friendly's. I tried and tried to talk him out of it, but that just made him mad. I suggested cheaper places, places we had coupons for, just take everyone for ice cream. But he was insistent - he didn't care if it wiped him out (after savings, tithe, and putting money away for his trip with Dad in the fall). So he put up over $40 to take us all out to dinner. He has a very sweet and generous heart!

Cadence wanted a princess cake, but every day she wanted a princess. The day I bought the candle, it was Cinderella. Grandma and Nate came over again, and Cadence had a great time eating pizza (her all time favorite food) and opening her presents. For some reason, we have a lot more pictures of her than we do of Jacob. She was very excited to get a guitar from Bobby and Nanny, and she also enjoyed all of her presents that had anything to do with princesses. Thankfully, the Disney Princesses have replaced Gollum. Each morning I have to play "guess which princess name Cadence will answer to today." Giselle from Enchanted is probably her favorite. She is totally obsessed with that movie. Todd tells her "Your my best Giselle" and she tells Todd "Your my best Robert!" (the handsome man Giselle falls in love with).

Home Stretch

Over the weekend I finished my report for the 3rd quarter of school. The end is in sight. I think that in 6 weeks we will be done with everything (except math and spelling because we will do those over the summer). I am thinking that we might spend lots of time at the MOST over the summer since I just bought an annual pass and maybe we will study and report on some of the exhibits there.

For the most part, Jacob has progressed really well this quarter. But then there are days like today...He couldn't remember how to count past 79 today and all through math it was like he had no concept of anything. Maybe he just needs a day off...the school kids are all off this week, but I have found in the past that taking a whole week off of school makes my next week really hard.

Gabriel is doing really well too. Of course I don't have to report on him for two more years, but I do stop and reflect on where he is when I do Jake's report. Yesterday he picked out a book to read to my niece, Nicole (who happened to pop in for a surprise visit). He picked out Goodnight Moon and I said "that is an easy book" - Nicole thought I was nuts...until he read it and several more books to her!

Expelled

I am so excited about this movie!!! Check it out. You gotta love Ben Stein.

Point, Gabriel.

Yesterday I took my kids to the library to get out new books. On average, we have about 30 books out at a time and most of the librarians know me by name. So going to the library is normally nothing to write about. But yesterday was different. It has been a long time coming, but yesterday I really felt like I lost my first argument with Gabriel - in the basement of the Solvay Library.

One of the books he picked out was a chapter book - a Junie B. Jones book to be exact. I told him that he could not get it because it was too hard for him. "No its not" he said. "Yes it is, you aren't really big enough to read that book," I told him. "Yes I am!" he insisted. He was determined, but I was more determined (I thought). So I said, "Okay, open it up and read some of it to me." And then he did. He read the first page without any trouble. At that point, there was nothing left for me to do. Gabriel checked out his first chapter book. Gabriel finally won an argument with me (I'm not sure his father has even accomplished that one:) I can't even imagine trying to reason with him in ten years! Of course, he will probably be in law school by then...

My Apologetics

No, not my apologies. I'm not sorry about anything, especially not my faith. I am nearing the end of a course in apologetics being offered at a local church. I jumped at the opportunity to take this class for several reasons (including but not limited to "I have to get out of this house!") and boy am I glad I did it. The first several weeks I was thinking that maybe it was a mistake because it felt like I wasn't really gleaning anything new. It felt too much like a community education class (which is essentially what it is) and just wasn't heady enough for me. I have recently come the realization that I am nerd. I love to stick my nose deep in a book, or several books. I look forward to writing a research paper. Basically, I love to learn - it is one of my favorite things to do.

People often ask "What is apologetics?" or if they know what it is, "Why is it called apologetics?"

So here it is for you, a definition. My interest in apologetics stems from my interest in church history. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but I know that I became interested in Martin Luther in 9th grade and wrote a paper about him for English that year. I continue to be intrigued by the question "how did the church go from Acts 2 to the the church of the 16th century?" So anyways, my academic interest in the church was further peaked when I heard Ravi Zacharias on the radio several years ago. I am consistently frustrated and embarrassed by Christians who don't have any idea what they believe or why they believe it. So I have set out to educate myself...

My expectation for an apologetics class was that it would consistently challenge my intellect and help me to expand my understanding of Christianity while improving my ability to defend what I believe. What I absolutely did not expect, was to have challenge after challenge posed to my heart. Our teacher's theme is reminiscent of a concept that his father (a salesman) taught him as a boy " you can win the argument but lose the sale". He has stated over and over again in a hundred different ways that if our defense of Christianity is not rooted in love we will never be able to win anyone.

This week we examined some of Francis Schaeffer's ideas including the one that we are not just called to interact with the world but to impact it. This goes hand in hand with what Jordan has been preaching (it is basically the whole idea behind our church). How do we impact the world? There were a few different points that were covered, but this one really challenges me: "The principle of the practice of an observable love and oneness among all true Christians regardless of who and where they are" It is also referred to as "The Mark of the Christian" which Jesus laid out in John 13:34-35 "Love one another".

I know lots of people (I think especially of a few different pastor's kids) who have been completely turned off by the lack of love that they experienced in the church. How often does the church embrace God's holiness (outwardly requiring everyone to live by some or all of the standards God has given us) and reject God's love? Conversely, many of the mainstream churches today are all about God's love (tolerance) to the point where they have put His holiness on a shelf. Holiness without love produces a harsh gospel, and love without holiness produces a weak gospel. The challenge, for those who desire to be set apart, is to demonstrate God's holiness and love simultaneously. I think that if we can teach whole groups of people to really live by that standard, there will be great impact on the world around us.

On the Subject of Holiday Pictures

I realized that the Easter pictures were not the only thing trapped in the camera. I don't think I had ever even looked at the pictures from Christmas.

This one made me chuckle. I always tell Cadence that God must have needed a laugh the day he thought her up....

And what could possibly be harder than trying to take a decent picture of three kids?

Oh, I know, lets add the worlds most obstinate dog, Tasha! Great, now everybody howl!!!!

Holiday Pics

It took me almost a week to free them from my camera, but here are a few pics of the kids from Easter. People at church get a kick out the way our kids love to dress up. The boys almost always wear ties to church, and of course Cadence wants the prettiest, frilliest dress in the closet every day.

We had a nice, quiet Easter which makes it easy to focus on the things that matter - Jesus and family. We did a little egg hunt in the yard (the kids LOVE that part of Easter). I didn't manage to get a picture of Jacob looking for eggs because (even though I hid his a LOT better) he didn't need much help finding his eggs. I cooked a ham for dinner and my mom and Nate stopped by with some dessert.

Notice the hole in our fence in the picture with Cadence? That is from our neighbors having a New Years Eve bonfire! I guess they were running out of wood...

And I leave you with this - a picture of three of my favorite people in all the world. I wish you could see Jacob's outfit better, the boys both had black suits and matching ties (different color shirts). Todd even wore a suit to church so he could match too! Do you know how hard it is to get all three kids to look at the camera? I don't - because I don't think I've ever managed. I believe that it may be impossible.

And tell me, have you ever seen an uglier couch? It was $17 at the Rescue Mission (after Todd's discount, of course!)

School is fun!

I am just about done ordering books and materials for the next school year, and I can hardly contain my excitement! We will being doing Sonlight's Core 3 - American History Part 1, and we love history. I have put a lot of thought into what to do with Gabriel next year (having just turned 4 is reading the ABeka 1st grade readers, excelling at most K math concepts, and is an all around smarty pants). I decided that I will require him to participate in Jacob's "core" activities- that means he will listen to our history, Bible and read-aloud stuff. I'm sure he will keep reading everything in site, but I have (or can get from the library) all the grade 2 Sonlight readers for him, and we will most likely do those on our own schedule.

Math was what I struggled with the most...to start him in a formal math program or not? I decided not. From glancing over the Saxon math placement test it appears he would place in 1st grade now, but I'm not ready for that level of commitment with him. So I will teach him the things I know he needs work on (money, telling time to 1/4 hour, subtraction, patterns) and maybe when he is 5 we will do Saxon 2, maybe.

Not that I'm complaining, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of resources for gifted preschoolers - a lot of what I found on-line was parents saying "Maybe I shouldn't let my 3 year learn to read 'cause I don't want him to be bored in school..."

Only 10 weeks left of Core this year, 2 weeks of math (Jacob will start right in on 54 though) and not too much lang. It's funny how I'm really craving a good long break and at the same time all excited about next year. Does anybody have any tips on getting a wiggly boy to memorize multiplication facts?

Winter Break

Everything worked out okay, even if it did take a little bit of work and some name dropping. I remembered that we have rental coverage on our insurance policy, but Allstate said we couldn't pick up a rental car until our car went into the shop. And we couldn't take our car into the shop until the shop had the parts in. And they told us we had to go to their estimator in Liverpool on Saturday afternoon and we couldn't get anything sooner.

I called my brother-in-law who used be a manager at a big body shop and he said to take the car right to that shop and tell them that Roger said hi. I also called my agent and let him know "I'm not in good hands with... your insurance company." The agent said to go ahead and see what the body shop (who is a direct repair shop) could do for me. When they found out who my brother-in-law was they took a hard look at the van and found it undrivable, which meant I had to leave it right then and a few minuets later I drove off in a rental.

So Sunday morning we got the kids ready and piled them into our rental car. They thought we were taking Todd to church for worship practice (although I think Jacob suspected something different). After about 2 and 1/2 hours of driving Cadence said "Are we going to church? Where are we going?" To which Todd just replied "Watch" and pointed out the window. After another hour Gabe finally said "Are we almost to church? Can I take my new toy in with me when we get there?" I was cracking up, I couldn't believe he still thought we were going to church! Then, when we stopped to go potty Gabe looked at the building and said "Is this our new church?" At which point I chastised Todd for taking a wrong turn and making us miss church :)

When we pulled into Splash Lagoon, the kids were really excited. We had a great time on Sunday, even though the place was packed. I don't have any pics to show for it because the camera batteries aren't holding a charge. Sunday night Cadence got croup and then I woke up really sore Monday morning so we only stayed a few hours on Monday before heading home. But overall it was really fun!

Crash!

Todd got in an accident on the way to work this morning. He is worrying that it will affect our ability to surprise the kids this weekend (we are a one car family) - he says the van looks pretty bad, but it sounds like it is just mainly the bumper. He is pretty upset. Maybe I'll rent a car for the weekend or something, but I'm sure he'll worry about spending that money when we have a detectable to pay and our insurance may go up. (Although I think we have accident forgiveness with Allstate, so I'm not sure what that will look like.)

I would just like to take this opportunity to point out that everybody (at least everybody that is a man with the last name Young) says I drive like a maniac, but Todd has now scrapped the van up at the mall and torn the bumper off. The only harm I have caused it is a little scraping on the bottom of the bumper when I pull the nose of the van over the concrete things in the parking lot.