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There were many twist and turns to this day-I had moments of high energy and productivity, then even longer moments of extreme fatigue. It's a mostly good day. The morning was productive. I made yogurt, got a new batch of kefir going, made eggs for breakfast and I made Whole Wheat Cinnamon Graham Squares. I also hard-boiled a dozen eggs for egg salad for lunch. I pulled a venison roast out of the freezer to put in the crockpot and totally forgot about it until noon. By then it was too late, but that ended up being fine since my dh called to say he had to work later than planned. So, as I type, the kids are eating popcorn for dinner on the floor of the living room while watching a movie. Anyway, all this food prep made a huge mess in my kitchen and by the time I got all the food made, I was worn out and couldn't face the mess. So, I had to avoid the kitchen for most of the day. Which is hard since our house is mostly open. So, I just walked around with my glasses off-that helped a bit. LOL The 2 older kids and I did some reading out of The Trumpet of the Swan. I found free beautiful notebook pages for this book at The Notebooking Nook, so I had them do one of the pages writing about the chapter we read and illustrating it. Susanna played with playdoh while we did school stuff:
We did some things out of our Konos "Courage" unit. There's many people in the Bible to study who were courageous in the face of fear and doubt. Gideon was the main man for today. I haven't read about him in a long time and we were all surprised at how many times he asked God to prove himself before he obeyed. I didn't say anything about it while we were reading the story, but Hannah interrupted to ask, "Are you sure he's in the courage unit, Mom?" LOL-she had a point. But, then we talked about how God knew how Gideon was, met him where he was at, and then raised him above himself to obey in a mighty courageous way. But, it was a process-and we are the same way. How many times do we question God and ask him to prove himself to us time and time again? It's so easy to read about people from the Bible and know what they got wrong and think of what they should have done isntead. Yet, we can't see ourselves clearly to know what the right things to do are. I was very touched by the fact that before Gideon asked for proof before the taking of the enemy, God gave it to him in a special way to give him courage. So, I had the kids do a notebook page on Gideon, too-also free from the Notebooking Nook. We had a very good discussion on why God allows trials in our lives. I wish I could write it all-but it would take too much room here. Then Jonah mentioned that Jonah from the Bible was courageous. He said he had just read the whole book of Jonah and asked if he was in the Konos Courage unit. He's not and I asked Jonah why he thought he was courageous. I was kind of surprised and he surprised me even more with his answer. He said, "Mom, when Jonah was stuck in the belly of the big fish, he prayed." I can't convey how this affected me. "Jonah prayed." Yes, he did. You know, I know this story forwards and backwards, but for the first time ever, I had a picture in my mind of a man actually inside the belly of a whale/big fish and realized how scary that must have been-how impossible the situation must have seemed. Now, I know that God put him there for that very reason, but I don't know if Jonah knew that. He must have thought he was done for and he knew it was his fault and he deserved it. I can't imagine the panic & hopelessness of his situation. And he prayed. Yes, my Jonah. Jonah in the Bible was very courageous to pray. And, like Gideon, he also went through a process. We talked about how Jonah got himself into that predicament by disobeying God, but that God used him through all of his faults, just like he uses us. We're no better than Jonah in the Bible. We talked about how we can learn from Jonah's example-to pray when fear surrounds us and to have the courage to trust God. The kids went outside for awhile to swim in the pool. Susanna has become a water baby all of a sudden. She held onto Hannah's bathing suit straps and yelled "yaa! yaa! giddyap!" I love this picture of Hannah gliding under the water with Susanna on top:
The kids did some other schooly type things-nothing heavy. Jonah did copywork, Hannah did Grammar. Jonah practised his times tables on the trampoline. First, Hannah tried to help him. She is a visual learner primarily. Jonah is an audio/kinesthetic learner. Needless to say, Hannah got frustrated. Jonah came to tell me that Hannah wouldn't let him play with his cars while he did his times tables. She wanted him to sit still, but he said he couldn't think like that. And he can't. He has to be doing something with his hands in order to hear what you're saying. So, we had another discussion on learning styles, teaching styles and patience. She then did a pretty good job of helping him. It was a good lesson for both of them. I was totally exhausted by the time Susanna's nap came around. All those discussions wore me right out. So, I took a nap, too. It was wonderful. While I slept, Hannah cleaned her room and Jonah just played. Meanwhile, the dishes accumulated in the sink. LOL. I don't know that happens!! After Susanna & I woke up we went to the library to pick up a mountain of books that were on hold for me. The librarian (a really sweet older lady) asked me if we homeschool during the summer. I hesitated not sure of what to say-some people think it's cruel to do school during the summer. But, since I had a huge pile of incriminating evidence stacked between us, I said, "well, we did take some time off, but we're doing a fun unit right now." She said, "good for you-I think when kids have the whole summer off, they lose some of their reading and math skills and then they have to catch up every school year." Phew-that was an easy one. I hesitated for naught. We got home and Hannah gave Slugger his dinner. He's the only one that gets fed twice/day. The other two horses get fat just looking at grain. One of them gets no grain during the summer-and he's the fatest! Bonnie gets a little grain once/day because she needs medicine for arthritis. Susanna sat on Slugger while he ate-I didn't have my camera, which stinks, because it would've been such a cute picture. Oh, and I finally tackled the dishes. LOL Well, the kids are done with their |
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