All My Ducks in a Row...

While we are on our trip I took this picture of this family of Ducks. I love how the father and mother duck were together with all their little ducks. They have a few more ducklings than I have but we are trying to catch up.

Yes, we are now expecting a 7th member to our ever growing family. Right now the tentative due date is March 14, 2010. We still need to find a doctor or midwife. We are also going to have to keep our eye out for at least a 7 passenger van. Right now we've been squeezing into our 6 passenger car. My husband told our oldest son that sits between us, "Right now a van would be a luxury, but in March it will be a necessity." :) So I know we'll have a van come March.

But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19)

Vacation

We went on a trip a couple of weeks ago to Michigan to visit some of my husband's family there. We had such a good time. I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures.

On our way up there we camped out a couple of nights to break the trip up. There was an associational meeting in Missouri so we had taken an extra night to stop and visit with some of the preachers we knew might be there.

We managed to afford this trip by camping out each night. This picture of the kids in front of the tent was taken in Illinois, right by the Mississippi River. We also found on this trip that Hannah and Jonathan have problems with car sickness, especially if we drive right after eating a good meal. We learned to eat real light while driving.

We arrived at Scott's Mom's house and were greeted by "the girls" as my in-law's dogs are called. Hannah had determined before we arrived at Grandma's house that she would not be afraid of their dogs anymore. I had to take a picture of her petting one of them. I told her if I didn't get a picture no one would believe she wasn't scared. So here is proof. :)

On Saturday we celebrated Joshua's 11th birthday. We had cake and ice cream and then we went to the lake and went fishing. I caught 3 small fish and my mother-in-law caught 1. I was praying someone would catch something, since the last time I took the kids fishing we didn't catch anything and it was a stocked pond. Joshua was sure I was doing something wrong at the time. I told him it's a matter of patience, which my four kids seem to lack when it comes to fishing.

Then on Monday we had a cook-out at my in-laws house where most of Scott's Aunts were able to come to. Here is a picture of Scott with his Mom and 3 of his Aunts.

Of course for Joshua the highlight of this trip is getting to drive the four wheeler. We let him give the girls a ride in the woods but we didn't plan on him taking Jonathan. I took this picture after we found out that Jonathan had already gone with them through the woods and he was waving at everyone and saying "Bye!!!!" They grow up so fast.

Over all this has been a very good trip. Scott and I both agreed that we were going to need a vacation from vacation, but once we got home the kids didn't have too much trouble getting back into the routine again.

Getting Rid of the Monsters!

Last night I was going through some of our mail and was looking at some homeschooling advertisements. We normally can't afford all the interesting homeschool resources that are advertised on the little cards but I like to look at them anyway. I found one card that interested me. It talked about a curriculum that the children teach themselves. They don't have to be "taught" by a teacher. They are their own teacher. I took that card to my husband. I'm glad I did. He said that it sounded interesting. So he checked out the website. http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/info

On the website it talks about unhealthy distractions. How that kids put in the right environment can't help but learn. They talked about the distraction of television, computers, video games. I knew these were definitely a distraction from personal experience. We used to watch t.v. all the time. Then one day a few years ago, I decided to get rid of our T.V. I started off by covering it with a blanket and putting decorations on top. Then after a month of not watching t.v., we watched a movie and realized how terrible some things we watched really were. We sold that television in a garage sale.

Then we were given another t.v. We never hooked an antenna to it. We didn't want the distraction of television in our home. We did watch a few movies on it and had a playstation my husband had obtained about the same time we got the t.v. Surely that won't be a distraction from learning. We didn't want our kids to be different from other kids. We could control the temptation and let them play it occasionally.

Then we gave our son his first laptop computer. I was a little afraid of giving it to him. I knew how addicted he could be to games. Sure enough. That was all he thought about. One time I tried to teach them a history lesson. He had been wanting to play a game all day and he knew I would let him after class was over. I was not happy when in the middle of the lesson he went into the kitchen to look at the clock. He had been thinking about the computer game the whole time.

This morning my husband was a man with a mission. I didn't realize how much he had been thinking on it. He was going through all of our computer CD's and then he informed me that he was going to take all the games off of all the computers, unless they were truly educational. He was going to replace them with Encyclopedias, Bible Software, Dictionaries, and only educational and beneficial resources were going onto it.

I was expecting that to be like pulling teeth for our son. He loves his computer games. I just didn't know how we were going to do it.

My husband started off by fixing us pancakes for breakfast without any sugar. He gave me a bite and said, "It will take some getting use to." At the breakfast table we talked about addictions and how sugar can be a big one. I'm a prime example of that. I sometimes feel like I have to have something sweet. We put sugar in everything. However if you don't have it for a long time, you don't need it anymore. Sugar becomes too sweet.

We told our children that we wanted to start changing the unhealthy habits in our lifestyle. Not only in the foods we eat, but in the things we put into our minds. We discussed how when you are addicted to t.v. and games, your brain can't think of anything else to do. You feel like you have to have it. However without those distractions, you can get a whole lot more done and learn a lot more as well. Then my husband told them that he was going to take all the computers in our house and remove all the mindless distractions.

Hannah was sitting in my lap and said, "What is he doing?" I explained to her that he was going to get all the bad games off our computers.

She said, "He's going to get rid of the monsters? I hate monsters."

We laughed and told her, "Yes, Daddy is going to take all the bad monsters off our computers."

I'm real proud of my husband and children. They immediately went to work getting rid of those monsters.

(Philippians 4:8)
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things [are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things.