Praise the Lord for getting to celebrate another year of our daughter’s life!
Selah asked to have her closest friends over for a day and a sleepover this year, so we made it happen. Year after year I am overwhelmingly grateful for these precious friends God has gifted Selah with. They are just truly my favorites, and I couldn’t have thought to ask for more!
I planned nothing other than food. Selah led it all. The girls pulled out all of our crafting supplies and went to work creating varies projects. I happened to be in the next room during this time and it blessed my heart to hear them singing hymns and an ancient Hebrew song in rounds in between giggling and laughing and crafting. Such a delight.
Then they had a picnic on our dock, went on a UTV ride, and played games. We had homemade pizza and Caesar Salad for dinner. Selah requested homemade milkshakes for her dessert. The girls all spent the night though I am not sure they got any sleep (obviously). The next morning was Sunday so we had a feast of a breakfast and all headed off to church together!
The day before she turned 12 she cut just over 12 inches off of her hair to donate.
On her actual birthday, we celebrated with French Toast for breakfast and Chicken Alfredo for dinner. She took Grandpa, Daddy, and me on a UTV ride and spent the rest of the day playing games with Elliott, Grandma, and Grandpa.
Perhaps the biggest milestone that occurred on this birthday was this:
Selah has always been an inch or so behind Elliott each year. But at 12 years old, Selah is a quarter of an inch taller than Elliott was when he turned 12. You have no idea how victorious she feels over her big brother.
Selah has been counting down the days until she turned 12 for one reason: so she could be old enough to work in our church nursery. 🙂 This is somewhat ironic because pretty much every mother in the church has wholeheartedly trusted Selah with her babies for years. Selah *ALWAYS* has a baby in arms on Sundays. She told me once that she has a specific rotation as soon as the service is over for how to get to every single baby. She first visits the ones whose families leave the soonest, and then she moves on to make sure she can hold each one before the day is over. It is surprising to NOT see Selah going through the potluck line with a plate in one hand and a baby on her hip. But, now she is allowed to officially be a nursery worker. She’s delighted.
Selah is 2/3 of the way to 18! I am so grateful for the spunk, joy, and zeal that explodes out of our tenderhearted girl. Just as her name suggests, she truly sings her way through life, wafting the sweetest melody of Christ’s fragrance in her wake. She brings so much joy and love into our lives!!
Fifteen plus years ago when Brian and I got married? That’s probably a good place to start. {wink}
The truth is, I remember having conversations with Brian when I was pregnant with Elliott about what “school” should look like for him. But soon, those discussions revolved around questions like, “What should EDUCATION look like?” “Who should be responsible for educating one’s own child?” “How has education changed over the centuries and what is good about that change and what is problematic?”
The education journey for our children has been an incredible one over the years, and it is so clear that Christ has been gently and strategically guiding us through it. He surrounded us with like-minded believers who have spurred us on and encouraged us and helped cast vision for us. All in the same year, as we were really searching for how to educate our children best, God led us to the best Christian classical community as well as our church, which is filled with homeschooling families who generally adhere to the classical model of education. We believe that education without Christ is not true education; we believe that the education of our children falls solely on our shoulders as their parents; and we believe that education within community can help us see our blind spots and can balance out our areas of weakness.
One evening, in February of 2023, I was in the kitchen of my dear friend’s home along with Brian and our pastor and his wife. We (the ladies) were in the kitchen putting the final touches on dinner and we were discussing what the next steps would be after our children graduated from the one-day-a-week Christian classical school that we had been a part of. And I said, “Why don’t we start our own school?” We threw around ideas and brainstormed some things, but truth-be-told, I’m not sure anything would have come out of that conversation had our pastor not approached Brian and me the following day at church and said, “Hey, I think starting a school is a great idea. Will you both put some thought into what that would look like?”
After months of discussion and prayer, and hours upon hours of reading laws, Brian and I had a plan to move forward in August of 2023. We gave our proposal to our pastor and, after many more months of discussion and tweaking and brainstorming, Brian and I launched a school for our church in September 2024!
Brian and I FIRMLY and PASSIONATELY believe that education begins as a baby. Education does not begin at age 6 when a child is required to attend school. We have long encouraged parents to think about training and educating their children as babies. (Education is so much more than simply reading, writing, and arithmetic; the foundation of character, academics, and love for the Lord all begins in those earliest years.) Thus, our school is open to enrollment for babies. We love the concept of a one-room school house, and that is generally how we have set it up, with a few “break-out” groups throughout the day to best meet the needs of the toddlers and middle school/high school students. All of the moms stay throughout the day and help–the babies generally stay with their mamas or get passed around to eager arms. We are working on stretching the self-control of those darling 2 and 3 year olds by sitting for short spurts with the big group, but they have tons of time to play.
And since I don’t think we will ever have a website open to the public, I can share its name here: it is called Via Bona Academy, or The Good Way Academy (Via is pronounced vee-yuh). We named it straight from the Latin vulgate in Jeremiah 6:16a.
Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.”
The Good Way–This is what we are always seeking as we educate our children, and now we get to “formally” do that in community with our church family.
The response from our church families was enthusiastic, and there are 9 families involved in our school this first year. We have just over twenty children, ranging from toddlers to our oldest student at age 16, plus the three babies that get to join us for the day. We have a very small church, so actually almost every family with elementary-aged children has joined. Though we have been so incredibly blessed by our former school community, there truly is nothing like the community of our church body and we are so grateful!
We meet together one day a week. During that time we work together on a hefty load of memory, we review and discuss the sermon from the previous week, and we study history, nature, and music. In the afternoon, the toddlers through elementary students have a watercolor class, while the middle and high schoolers have a Greek class and a Logic class. Brian and I are both teaching in addition to overseeing and our kids also have leadership roles as all the “big” kids are there to love, support, and encourage the younger ones. It’s truly beautiful.
All that to say, the four of us had a “First Day of School” together for the first time ever!!
To say it has been an enormous undertaking to get this going would be an enormous understatement. But, at the risk of sounding cliche, the joy of seeing so much fruit in such a short amount of time far outweighs the months of time we have spent on this endeavor. The joy of homeschooling with so many members of our church body has truly been a taste of heaven on earth. The joy of getting to encourage parents to disciple, love, train, and educate their children unto Christ has been so sweet. It has felt, in every way, that Christ’s wind is at our backs as so many pieces of this have come together seamlessly. Brian and I had no idea when we married that encouraging parents in these endeavors would be such an integral part of what we were made for, but I’m pretty sure God knew.
This little lady is turning into a lovely young woman. She was asked to join our church’s adult choir even though she was still 11 (13 is usually the minimum age) and she is having the time of her life. She is definitely a “little mama” at church, where you will almost never catch her without a baby in her arms.
And this young man is growing into just that–a man–little by little each day before our eyes. This past summer, he sent out 150 letters to the houses in our neighborhood offering to work for them mowing lawns, weeding, picking up dog poop, or any other job they had a need for. He developed a fairly decent cliental base and a good reputation, and he had steady work all summer. He was using Brian’s equipment, but was using a portion of his earnings from each job to pay for the equipment. By September, he owned the equipment outright, had bolstered up his savings account, contributed a significant amount of money to church, and had quite the cash flow as well. We think he is off to a good start learning how to make money and ultimately, Lord-willing, provide for a family one day!
Thank you for catching up with us by reading about our latest journey as a family, and for journeying with us from afar! Love to all of you!
Yes, we did finish the school year last year. No, I have not caught up with life enough yet to document it. But I’d better get it in before we start school again in September!!
We had a very bittersweet end of our school year because it marked the end of an era with our sweet little classical Christian homeschooling community. We weren’t sure up until the Spring whether or not we would have Selah “repeat” a year as a 6th grader there just to squeeze one more year in, but by February we realized it was time to move on, simply because of all that’s in store for this upcoming year (which is very exciting, but you’ll have to wait to hear about that!).
So she and I both finished out the year strong and with a number of tears. We are so grateful for this gift God has given us the last 5 years. We are all better because of our time there. I offered to continue my admin work for the school for one more year to help with my transition out, so I’ve been super busy working this summer on the biggest part of my job with the school, which is designing and creating an almost-200 page lesson planner book for all the moms. I finished that up a couple weeks ago and I’m officially done as an admin with them. Bittersweet.
Two of Selah’s biggest highlights of the year were getting to play Glinda in the school’s play The Wizard of Oz, and having a solo at the end of year performance. She was the PERFECT Glinda and it was really fun to watch her shine in that role.
She sang a verse of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” for her solo, and she did a wonderful job. She’s dressed up as Nicolaus Copernicus in her red and yellow outfit. She did a wonderful job doing a presentation from his perspective. We ended the year with a picnic to celebrate the fantastic year.
Top: The graduating sixth graders; Bottom: the three of us on staff who aren’t returning
Our last two official events of the year were our church’s homeschool end-of-year park celebration and the end-of-year recital. Both kids played excellently and it’s always rewarding when their hard work pays off.
As busy as this last school year was, it was another wonderful year of learning. We were back to studying the Middle Ages; we had studied this era five years ago, and it was fun to see all that the kids remembered. Though Elliott was home full time this year, he studied right along with us but also had a lot of time working. We studied Whistler, Constable and Millet, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. We studied Human Anatomy and all kinds of plants and animals from nature. We enjoyed too many stories to count, but revisited several of our favorites such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Robin Hood. They memorized tons of poems, tons of Scripture, tons of anatomy, history, and geography songs. Another DELIGHTFUL year of learning in the books!
Academically, Elliott made a huge leap this year by being able to do his very-challenging math curriculum almost totally independently. Each day he would read the lesson and tackle the problems on his own, only coming to us rarely when he needed help. He has become a fluent typer, which makes life far easier! Spiritually, he has grown in being more thoughtful and kind towards Selah and trusting us. Character-wise, he really is stepping into becoming a man more and more each day. He is truly an integral part of improving and maintaining our property. He drives big machines, keeps all of our new trees watered and helps Brian with most every property project, including spraying thousands upon thousands of cacti. At the end of May he took steps to starting his very own business!
Selah’s handwriting and spelling have continued to improve tremendously. Her art and watercolor skills have improved dramatically every single year. As I’ve already mentioned, she did a wonderful job performing as Glinda and singing a solo. It’s been a joy watching her come alive in these areas. As far as her character, she is truly embracing serving our family with joy and going above-and-beyond what is asked or expected of her. She is building the habit of taking care of little things daily versus letting this pile up. Spiritually, God is growing her so much. This year she has had lots of opportunities to learn how to follow the Lord versus her own feelings. She is learning how to commit to prayer when life is hard, versus succumbing to her emotions. It’s a joy to watch her sensitive little soul put more and more trust in the Lord with each passing year.
They have grown so much in their learning, as well as in their love for the Lord. And, as you are about to see, they have GROWN UP!! They are growing up so fast I can hardly stand it!!!
I am so grateful to the Lord that we have the honor and privilege of educating our children at home. I’m so grateful for the sweet homeschooling community He’s given us for the past five years. And I’m thankful for all of the grace He has given us each new morning.
Selah’s birthday landed on a Sunday this year, which, in my kids’ eyes, always makes life extra special. When special events fall on a Sunday, that means we get to celebrate with our church family! Our church is quite small–we have around 120 each Sunday–and so it truly feels like family. And in this small church of ours, there are FOUR people whose birthdays fall on October 8th like Selah! To make it even more extraordinary, two of those people are a mother-son pair. Wouldn’t it have been amazing if Brian would have been born one day later, and then we would have had a father-daughter pair as well! Our friend surprised the quad with a yummy birthday cake and everyone sang happy birthday to them at lunch. It was so special.
Though the sweet little boy in the top picture absolutely adores Selah, he wasn’t particularly keen on everyone singing so loudly 🙂
We ended up taking home Selah’s best friends from church and having a party that afternoon.
I ended up planning an “Escape Room” type party for her…I had very little capacity, but with Elliott’s help we totally pulled it off. It was so much fun planning everything out with him! And he even said it was more fun planning it than actually experiencing it! We did some internet searching and he helped me orchestrate everything.
The girls arrived to our living room, which was filled with balloons of many different colors, a Lego clue on the coffee table, and two locked suitcases in the corner.
They had to figure out that the Lego board was a clue, which meant they had to pop the balloons in that order (green, yellow, pink, red) in order to find a number in each one. Those numbers put together created a four-digit code, which opened up the smaller blue suitcase.
Inside the suitcase was a riddle that read: “What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?”
Selah knew the answer immediately–a towel. They tried the guest bathroom towel first, but when they didn’t find anything they ran upstairs to the kids’ bathroom.
Pinned inside the towel was a message that needed decoding. The decoder was also pinned inside. The girls found it immediately and got right to work.
The code read, “Sometimes when you get in this, you might choose to sing a song, you can get wrinkly fingers, if you stay in this too long.”
They raced back to the bathroom and pulled open the shower curtain. There was what was supposed to be a bath bomb…it was more like a glob of baking soda/water, but it worked! They cracked it open and inside the bath bomb was the key to our UTV. As soon as Selah realized what it was, the girls ran (screaming) downstairs and outside to the UTV. Unfortunately, I did not realize that nobody (except one girl) thought to put their shoes on. Total mom fail.
They ran to the UTV, where Elliott happened to be waiting, and found this taped to the dashboard:
In case you don’t want to take the time to decode the top puzzle, it reads, “How many Austrian Pines did we plant?” The girls had to solve that puzzle and direct their chauffeur to bring them to the trees to count it. Second mom fail was that I couldn’t actually remember what the correct number was, and the girls kept coming up with different answers. I had to call Brian so he could confirm! Once we all finally figured out what the correct number was, they had to plug it into the equation in #2. Can you tell that Elliott came up with that?! Once they got THAT answer, Selah had to figure out that the answer to #2 was a code that opened a lock, and the lock was located under the biggest pine tree that we planted, as indicated by clue #3.
There’s nothing like walking across a property riddled with cacti WITH NO SHOES ON. Once they unlocked the padlock, they opened the suitcase to find the following code:
The answer was “a flag,” and we were hoping Selah would connect that Elliott just bought a flag to put up next to his fort. He has spent years working on this underground fort! She figured it out and we headed to the fort, where she immediately began searching. With no shoes on.
Pinned to the bottom of one of the pieces of plywood was the following riddle:
They had a LOT of trouble figuring this one out. With a few guiding questions, they finally figured out that the answer was “tomorrow.” When I asked where they thought they should go next, Selah immediately knew to go to the kitchen calendar, where she found the following:
In case you don’t know, Jill the hedgehog has been Selah’s pet since February. A picture of Jill on “tomorrow” directed the girls to Jill’s cage.
This was a bit of a stretch, but they needed to find the paper that said, “Pull here.” That paper was attached to a long piece of yarn. At the end of the yarn was a magnet and a piece of paper that read, “Tall when seated, short when standing.” They had to figure out that the answer was a dog. (That took a few minutes!) Selah has about 101 dogs in her room, but I placed one of her sitting stuffed dogs next to a jar of dyed water on her desk. They had to figure out to use the magnet on the end of the string to get the key inside the jar.
Once they retrieved the key, they knew it went to the lock on the suitcase in her room. Inside that suitcase was a printed out photo of our home library book shelves. Also in that suitcase was a piece of parchment paper. Elliott had cut a corner off on the upper ride side of the photo. They had to match the parchment paper, which also had the upper right corner cut off, over the photo. If they did so correctly, they could see where there was an “X” drawn on the parchment. The “X” marked our box set of The Iliad and The Odyssey.
The girls ran down to the library and found those books. They pulled them out and found the final clue inside–
They pretty quickly realized that this must be the clue that opened the other locked suitcase in the living room, where they began. There were two locks on that suitcase, and they had to figure out that they needed to type in 1008 (for 10-08, or October 8) on one pad lock, and 2012 (for the year she was born) on the other pad lock. Working together they eventually figured it out and found their awaiting prizes inside. Each girl got a nice wooden logic puzzle, two small metal logic puzzles, two spy pens and two notebooks, and these cute little hedgehogs! Each hedgehog base came with stickers that the girls could place on him. There were acorns and pumpkins and fall leaves–could anything be more perfect than little fall hedgehogs?! I just couldn’t resist.
Selah had requested English Muffin Individual Pizzas and Caesar Salad for dinner, so I set up a pizza bar, complete with English Muffins, pizza sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, olives, pepperoni, canadian bacon, and homemade bacon crumbles. The girls built their pizzas and then went out side to play while they cooked in the oven. They had a grand old time building obstacle courses and eating outside on our lawn. Then they enjoyed some ice cream for dessert.
Here are a spattering of other special photos from her birthday:
Elliott got her a stuffed hedgehog 🙂At her request, I made mini fruit tarts to share at our weekly church pot luck on her birthday. Her new stuffed hedgehog helped her blow out the candles on her birthday mud pie.
It feels a bit like a tornado blew in in May and has swept our little family from one month to another so quickly that I truly cannot keep up.
There were delightful things that happened during the summer…like Elliott getting to work hard with his daddy helping his grandparents. He got to do “real” man things like drive excavators and lift steel. It was a sweet “foretaste of the things to come.”
We planted SO MANY TREES. Over 250. Working together as a family on this huge project was THE BEST. There may not be anything I love more than working with my hands with my family by my side. As a family, we read through the entire Little Britches series by Ralph L. Moody. Said books were read before, during, and after the tree planting, which provided thought-provoking inspiration!
Brian vs. the pollen monsters
The kids and I went on so many walks and truly enjoyed the beauty of our property, which was finally green with a full pond! The wildlife surprises us and delights us every day.
Dinner on the Dock
We had delightful times with friends and family.
But then Fall hit before I felt like we even had a moment to catch our breath, and before I knew it school was starting. The next week we had grandparents in town treating the kids to all sorts of fun. Then, the next week, tragedy hit and although the days kept coming and going, I was so broken. We all were, of course, but I was the one breaking down during math lessons. So, we took it day by day. One day at a time. One academic lesson at a time, one life lesson at a time. So many snuggles and tears.
Then came Brian’s and Selah’s birthdays. How important it is to still celebrate life and the ones you love, even while mourning the death of one you love. Hard, but important.
All that to say, we did, in fact, start school. And despite every unplanned (by us) circumstance, we have accomplished (what I think) is an extraordinary amount of school so far. THAT is by God’s grace and God’s grace alone.
This is a unique school year, as Elliott graduated from our sweet little Classical Christian one-day-a-week school last year. After praying about and considering many different options, he is home with us full time this year. The goal is for him to be trained under his daddy’s wise wings, learning the real life skills of working a trade and running a business. Though we are not as far along the business plan as we had hoped to be, we feel confident God’s timeline is best. And Elliott has had plenty to do with his daddy even before the official business has begun. As for me, I still get to teach him the academic things and it has been such a sweet gift to have one day a week with him to myself. Though we have no idea what next year will hold, I am so grateful that THIS is the plan this year.
Selah is continuing to go to “out school” one day a week and she loves those days as much as ever. At home, Elliott and Selah still learn all of their humanities lessons together, and I love this time with my children so much!
First day breakfast: sweet potato curry hash, fried eggs, grade-level bacon, and homemade bone broth.
Okay. This is probably a secret that the rest of the world has known since the beginning of time, but I JUST discovered it. If you try to shape bacon and THEN cook it, it never cooks until crispy because of the overlapping parts. But it dawned on me a few months ago that I could cook the bacon in strips (in the oven, which, in my opinion, is the easiest and best way to cook bacon) and then shape it as soon as I take it out of the oven–while it’s still warm, but hasn’t yet hardened into its delightful crispy self. I tried it for the first time with our grade-level bacon and it worked like a dream. Up next, I’m trying that with bacon-wrapped dates. I LOVE them, but I can never get that bacon crispy enough when I wrap the raw bacon around the date before cooking! I’ll keep you faithful readers posted. 🙂
It was a surprise attack!!! What would he do without her?!!! He would be far too serious. We all would.
You guys. We start school in two days and I haven’t even posted about their last day from last year. You are probably wondering if my kids actually passed their last grades. The kids had their last day at their “out school,” we did two days of exams and then had their End of Year Performance and then we went out of town for a month. We got home and still had about two weeks of minor things to finish up. Then our days were so full that I have not had time to officially “close out” our year. We had a super full year, an even fuller summer, and yes, it is true–this blog post is BETTER LATE THAN NEVER! 🙂
To sum up our 2022-2023 school year: The kids were introduced to the study of ancient history and the world of mythology and ancient writings–all from a biblical worldview. We enjoyed many wonderful books together and had another very sweet year with our little learning community. Since our school only goes through 6th grade, this was Elliott’s last year attending. It is bittersweet, as most “ends” are. He will miss the school and his friends but is also very much looking forward to what’s next.
Our studies included: ancient history; physical science; Vermeer, Turner and Homer; Kipling, Hughes, and Stevenson; Schumann, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. For nature studies we focused on pond life, birds and wildflowers. They memorized Genesis 1:26-27, Colossians 1:15-20, Luke 1:46-55, Habakkuk 3:17-19, and Proverbs 2:1-10 (and tons more Scripture for church, but these were their school verses). They studied some “Ancient Civilization” countries–several from Europe, Africa and Asia. For the first time in many years I just could not keep track of all of the books that they read. I tried, lost the list multiple times, and just couldn’t keep up with the hundreds of books. I’m a little sad because I really do love noting which books we thoroughly enjoyed but this year was SO FULL and busy that it just didn’t happen. However, I can list a few of our favorites: We did enjoy children’s versions of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, The Cat of Bubastes, The Golden Goblet, The Bronze Bow, Boy of the Pyramids, A Single Shard, Where Mountain Meets the Moon, A Triumph for Flavius, and Detectives in Togas. We finished the fifth book in a series we have thoroughly enjoyed the last couple of years called “Among the (Pond, Forest, Night, Meadow, and Farmyard) People.” They are sweet little stories about animals that have great morals. The kids both performed in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. They LOVED this play! Elliott was Don Pedro–one of the leads. He had 87 lines and did a wonderful job despite being sick for the performance! He got to wear a mustache and I think that experience will leave him clean shaven for the rest of his life ;). Though Selah only had a few lines as Ursula, she hit the ball out of the park and her character truly shone through her. At the end of the year, as is tradition, the kids each studied a person from ancient history, dressed up as that person and gave a speech from his point of view. Selah was Julius Caesar and Elliott was Hannibal. The kids continued with their Latin study this year and, of course, progressed with their math curricula. At the beginning of the year we hosted a “pond day” with our church homeschool group. The kids prepared little presentations and talked about the flora and fauna that we have seen in and around our pond. They taught our church friends a song about vertebrates and invertebrates, facilitated a time where friends could place an animal or plant life where it belongs on a huge mural we had drawn of the pond and surrounding area, read picture books and then I led a watercolor lesson for the group. Then, everyone jumped into the pond to play! Pond Day was definitely a highlight of our year! Winter Market was, of course, another huge highlight. Oh! And during the End of the Year Performance, Selah was one of five kids selected to sing a solo. It was her first solo! She did very well. A couple other things that stand out from this school year–we all wrote limericks and that was a hoot. I should post those below. The kids also really enjoyed doing research papers this year. It’s Elliott’s third research paper and one of his favorite parts of school. He wrote about fish and Selah wrote about hedgehogs. It was such a special and fun year of learning!
Here is a collage of photos from events with the kids’ classmates:
And here is a collage of photos from the Pond Day we hosted for our church homeschool friends:
One of the things we absolutely love about our church is the multi-general aspect of it. It really is like one big family–we aren’t segregated into age groups for events like these. The youth in our church are youth that I want my children to model after. They are strong in their faith and kind, and always take the littles under their wings. Pond Day was no exception as the big kids took the little ones on boat rides and everyone enjoyed a lovely day together!
Here are our limericks for your enjoyment:
I once had a friend named Pompey,
Till he met me in battle one day.
So Egypt chopped off his head;
And then I found a new friend—
Till my last words were, “Et tu, Brute?”
(If you haven’t heard, Selah actually has a hedgehog named Jill!)
Alright, and now it’s time for their end of the year photos and papers! This will possibly be Elliott’s last year of drawing first and last day self-portraits. I think he went out with a bang! Neither of the kids particularly enjoy drawing themselves but they also LOVE flipping back through their old ones. So I told Elliott he could be done now that he’s officially in Junior High :). The kids also complain every year that there isn’t enough space to write down all the books they love. I suppose if they’re going to complain about something, that’s a good thing to complain about.
And now for my favorites…the compare and contrast from the first to the last day!
Way to go, kiddos! We did it! We had another rich, fun, challenging and filled-with-memories school year! Thanks be to God!
*You probably noticed, but our website is officially UNDER CONSTRUCTION! Woo-hoo! So pardon our mess as we rebuild it, but for now at least you can finally read our blog clearly!!*
Our big girl turned 10!
We celebrated by having a PARTY! PARTY! More specifically, a DOUBLE DIGITS PARTY PARTY! This was really fun. I feel like there is so much more you could do with this theme than we had time for!
This was a big year, and Selah made a big decision–to invite all of her closest church friends, rather than just one. What a treat!! What a joy!! So we started the PARTY PARTY around 5 pm on a Friday with pizza and salad. Yes, I know I’m the only one in the world who cares about making the food match the theme, but come on–that’s awesome, right? Get it? piZZA and sAlAd!! Double Z and double A!
Next, she opened presents. She was so blessed!
We got her a gift that kicked off the DOUBLE DIGITS PARTY PARTY games: Pass the Pigs. You guys. Have you ever played Pass the Pigs? As I was trying to come up with games that had a “double” theme, this one popped into my head. Where has this game been the last decade of my life? I know we used to play it…I have a memory of playing it in our home in Tacoma…but I had completely forgotten about it! I couldn’t remember much about it other than I remember laughing A LOT. So we got it for Selah with high expectations for the first official Double Digit game.
And oh my, how these kiddos roared with laughter over these two little piggies! I also forgot how many gambling tendencies come out when playing the game so…oops! Man, it is hilarious. Enjoy it vicariously through these pictures. Notice how it starts off quite calm as they’re learning to play…and within just a few minutes, all calmness flies right out the window!
NEXT, we had deSSert: Double Dice, Double Scoop Sundaes. This was probably the highlight of the whole thing. Everyone got two scoops of ice cream and two spoons. I came up with 10 different toppings that corresponded with the numbers 2-12. #10 was a free choice, in honor of our 10 year old.
So, everyone took turns rolling the two dice. Then they got to put the topping of the number they rolled onto their ice cream! I think we went through three rounds and then I just let them all have free choice. That was a LOT of fun and a LOT of sugar! At least two asked me if they had to finish their ice cream, ha! #doublethedigitsdoublethesugar
Of course, then they had to eat their sundaes with two spoons and two hands!
At this point, it was pretty much time to wind down and go to sleep. This was Selah’s first multi-friend sleepover. And may I just take a moment to relish in and testify to God’s abundant grace over Selah’s life to provide these dear, dear girlfriends for her? This is a group of girls from ages 8 to almost 13. And they all LOVE each other dearly. There is no tearing down, no sassy talk, no cell phones, no worldliness. They all love the Lord and thus, love each other. There is just JOY and sweet fellowship and the love of Christ. WHAT A GIFT, not just for Selah, but for her mama who has prayed for this for so long. WHAT A GIFT.
The girls got their beds and stuffies (who were, of course, also invited to the sleepover) all ready and spent a while crocheting and doing each other’s hair.
I told the girls I would pray for them and then we’d turn out the lights. One of them responded with, “Can I pray, too?” And then another, “Me, too!” and “Me, too!!” So we all took turns praying and every one of them thanked God for Selah and her friendship and her life. WHAT A GIFT.
We finished praying and then the girls said, “Would it be alright if we took turns singing hymns to each other before going to sleep?” Most likely a delay tactic but, come on–who would ever say, “No” to that request?!! WHAT A GIFT.
We started out the next morning with a humongous breakfast. Shout out to Grandpa, without whom I never could have pulled it off. We had blueberry pancakes, homemade hash browns, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and orange juice.
Two of the girls had to leave by 10 am so we really only had a short amount of time to play some double games. We started off with Double Doodle Art: in this game, each kid got a piece of paper and two markers. They each folded their paper in half to create a line of symmetry. Then, holding a marker in each hand, they had to draw a symmetrical picture. Every single one of them completed their first drawing and asked to do a second. It’s kind of addicting!
Next, we played Blind Partner Draw. Each child drew a picture, only using basic shapes. So, for instance, if they wanted to draw a tree, they would need to draw a rectangle with a triangle on top. Then, their partner grabbed a blank sheet of paper and partner #1 had to describe his/her picture to partner #2. “Draw a rectangle in the middle of your page. Draw a triangle on top of that.” At the end, they compared their pictures to see how well their instructions worked! It was very fun.
Then, we went outside to play a few classic games that require partners.
First, the Balloon Head Race. Hold a balloon between yours and your partner’s head and race to the other side. The kids loved it.
Second, the three-legged race. This is one of Selah’s favorite games. She’s always asking to play it as a family. I didn’t think through how to tie their legs together ahead of time (oops) and my last-minute grocery sack idea was a failure. But they had fun anyway!
Third, we were planning to play cornhole (another of Selah’s favorite games) but it was 10 o’clock and two of the girls had to leave. However, the kids got to play cornhole with Grandma and Grandpa later that day, so we checked it off the list!
The remaining three jumped on the trampoline and played until lunch, which was homemade Double Cheese Mac and Cheese and veGGies.
The party favors were a pack of Doublemint Gum (obviously) and two pens.
“Double the digits, Double the gum! Double the pens, Double the fun!”
Oh, my darling double digit daughter! We love love you so so much. You are our joy joy. Happy happy double digit (birth) day!
Well, we are kicking off our last year of both kids being able to be at our sweet little classical Christian school together. When we first started this school, we bumped the kids up a grade (I’ll save the long story of why for another time). So Elliott was technically in 6th grade during the school last year. But since the school is very humanities-based (rather than skill-based) grade levels are really not all that important. Therefore, we’re having Elliott be a 6th grader at the school again this year, which puts him back at his true grade. The school is on a 4-year history and science cycle and he hasn’t had the fourth cycle yet. This year he will get the fourth and final cycle and I’m so thankful we get one more year of both kids together at our blessed little school. Oh, I wish the school still went through 8th grade! But I know God will provide for Elliott next year, whatever that may look like.
We did it! Another school year planting seeds and building up these kids of ours in the Word of God and His truth. We studied modern American history this year and boy, oh boy, did we study some HEAVY topics–obviously. But what a gift to get to work through these wars and hard events in our nation’s history from a biblical worldview. Lots of pondering, lots of discussion, lots of ties to our current nation and world issues.
So besides, modern history, we studied botany and zoology; Van Gogh, Cassat, and Monet; William Blake, Carl Sandburg, and Maya Angelou. For nature study, we focused on reptiles, fish, amphibians, Colorado Winter, birds, and flowers. They memorized Psalm 103:1-14, Isaiah 53:1-6, and Philippians 4:4-8 (and tons more scripture for church but I am just including school-related things here!) Selah can label all the countries in Europe and if you hand Elliott a blank piece of paper, he can draw and label all of Europe for you. The kids read well over 450 books just for school alone. We enjoyed so many together as a family, but some of our favorites were Amos Fortune, Number the Stars, Caddie Woodlawn, Elijah of Buxton, Rifles for Watie, Winged Watchman, Snow Treasure, Shades of Gray, and Across Five Aprils. The kids performed in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, which, you may consider an odd choice for an elementary school play. But when you look at this great work from a biblical worldview, it’s actually a fantastic learning tool, to recognize good versus evil and to see the depravity that lies within all of us. The kids each studied and dressed up and gave a speech as a person during the historical time period we studied–Elliott was Abraham Lincoln and was THRILLED to be able to tie coins into his presentation and Selah, who was Helen Keller, really enjoyed studying Helen Keller in depth and writing out all of her classmates’ names in braille. The kids excelled in another year of Latin study, which included memorizing the Lord’s prayer, The Sanctus, the Gloria Patri and the Table Blessing. Of course, the Winter Market was one of their highlights of the year. This year they tag-teamed and designed/built these adorable little reindeer together. They sold out at the Winter Market and received many more orders!
I’m really not sure a day goes by that I’m not exceedingly thankful for this sweet little community we have! I thank the Lord for another year with this little school and for another year of homeschooling.
And now for all the growth that happened this year:
Elliott. This man is growing up! I feel 100% dependent on the Lord being his mama, and seeking wisdom for how to shepherd his growth without stifling him or having “girl” expectations on him. I am learning *a lot*. He is growing more and more fond of aquatic animals and chose to do his science project on one of our new favorite animals: the tiger salamander. We have all learned so much this year about this animal, which happens to be the Colorado state amphibian! We didn’t know we had them in our pond until the end of last summer. I love seeing how the both the kids’ “want to be” sections change on the little surveys they fill out at the beginning and end of each year. This year we had several fires break out in Colorado Springs–three in one day once!–and one of them was within a few miles of our house. The kids got to watch a helicopter grab water from a reservoir and dump it on the fire over and over. So, aerial firefighter made his list of future jobs this year, along with coin collector and aquarium owner :).
Spiritual growth: He grew tremendously in self-control and obedience this year which made for very pleasant homeschool days for all of us! He has also excelled in Scripture memory, having memorized not only the verses for school but many different whole chapters of the Psalms, including all of Psalm 136!
Academic: He mastered his 13s and 14s in multiplication and division. I do not know those by memory so it was a lot of effort grading his tests each day, ha! His typing improved from 8 wpm to 26 wpm and he can also write in cursive much faster than he could at the beginning of the year.
Life Skills: He excelled in shoveling driveways during the winter and definitely prefers “going to work” than doing school. I’d say that’s a pretty important life skill for a man! He also improved tremendously on doing his daily chores with excellence. And, perhaps my favorite is that he has learned how to make a pretty mean chocolate peanut butter ball. He and I adapted our original recipe to be more whole-food oriented and they are DELICIOUS.
Selah has also grown in so many ways this year. In addition to selling the reindeer at the Winter Market, she made and sold balloon animals. It was such a joy watching her interact with the littler kids, patiently taking their requests and loving them well. She was quick to provide free replacements when a child got a little too wild with his sword and it popped. I think she just might have a balloon animal business in her future… I’m actually a *little* concerned over her total obsession with (addiction to?) reading. Can that be a thing? Addicted to reading? She has always lived all of life with a book in one hand, but this year she really got into audiobooks, so now she doesn’t even need one free hand to read. She spends hours in her room drawing, painting, building, and designing while listening to audio books. I literally can’t check them out fast enough from the library. Part of the issue is that she listens on 2x (or higher) speed, so she sometimes goes through several books a day. Well, there you have it. I’ve admitted it. That’s the first step towards getting her help, right?
Spiritual: She continues to have a more and more contrite heart each year with a true desire to grow and be like Christ. By God’s grace, she is learning to gentle her tongue towards her brother and trust me even when she doesn’t like what I’m asking her to do. It is a true joy to be her mom.
Academic: She mastered her 13s in multiplication and division and I finally got smart at the end of the year and started having Elliott check her times tests since I don’t know my 13s! (#momwin) Her handwriting is improving and she also can write in cursive much faster than she could at the beginning of the year.
Life Skills: This girl is FINALLY learning how to keep her room clean!! I will not write a novel about that drama but just take my word for it–this is a BIG WIN. She is also doing her chores with much more excellence and my favorite thing is that she always sings while doing them.
We are having a lovely snow day today. Very, very thankful for the moisture God is providing for us! In fact, our little lake is even slowly beginning to fill back up! Three cheers for snow!!
It started off as an ordinary snow day…the kids made waffles and then went outside to make maple syrup snow candy. Brian didn’t have to leave right away so he pulled the kids behind the four-wheeler on a snow tube. Good times in the snow.
And then suddenly, they got the idea to start shoveling our neighbors’ driveways. They have now been going at it for about 4 hours and are not interested in stopping. (Well, Selah came in for a half hour to eat, but Elliott refuses to quit working.) I think they have already done 8 houses**! But, during one of the times I went to check on them, they said, “Mom! It’s 2/2/22! Make sure you tell us when it’s 2:22 pm!!” These are the things that my somewhat-attention-to-detail children take note of.
So I set an alarm (because, who can remember something like that?) and went out to find them just before 2:22 pm. And we took a picture. Because, 2:22 on 2/2/22.
So there you have it. This is what was happening the EXACT moment it turned 2:22 pm on 2/2/22. Elliott wanted me to try to get it at 2:22 pm and 22 seconds, but I told him to forget about it!! (HA!!)
In other news, this is one of the reasons I *absolutely love* homeschooling–to have the flexibility and freedom to work a different muscle of hard work! I love seeing Elliott, especially, come alive when he has real hard work to do. My son, who is sometimes in tears when tasked with drawing a picture, is refusing to stop working–even to eat–after many hours in 12 degree weather because he’s so intent on blessing and serving our neighbors. (And, I should add…they’ve already been thanked with a plate full of cookies and a few bucks in their pockets, which certainly keeps the motivation factor high!) He’s a man. He loves to be productive and take care of others. God, may this character only grow and increase in him as he ages!!! And thank you for his daddy, who has modeled this character for him all his life.
So…what were YOU doing at 2:22 pm today?! If you missed it, you have another shot to document your whereabouts on the 22nd, when it will be 2/22/22!! (Set an alarm!!) If only we could be alive in another 200 years and take a photo at 2:22pm on 2/22/2222! I might even be willing to try to get it at 22 seconds if I could be on this earth for that!
