August 2012: Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Homeschooling in full swing!!  We started our year round homeschooling in June with a fun beach unit.  Now we are starting our apple/farm unit.  I love love love teaching my children.  Clark is doing great!  He's reading and doing addition and subtraction all on his own!  It is just a joy to see the light bulb come on with the boys.  Even Joel is reading and blending words.  He doesn't want to be left out of anything! 

We replaced carpet and updated our front two rooms which are the playroom/school room!  The boys love the super soft carpet that replaced the old stained up rough carpet.  I love the pretty new paint and new baseboards!

Water leak  2012: Destruction of our downstairs bathroom

We discovered an in-the-wall water leak a few weeks ago.  After investigating, we had to rip up the laundry room, bathroom, and entry way.  We are currently working on repairing and fixing.  More pictures to come.

I have been working as the unofficial Children's Ministries Director of our church!  There has been so much going on that I decided not to worry right now with the hiring process now. It's actually easier to just serve without the pressure of a job title and responsibilities.   I have enjoyed working with our children so much, and I can't wait to see what God does with our ministries!

A team of friends pulled together and tranformed a room into the TREEHOUSE. 

 This is our place of worship now for our children's church.

My attempt of a treehouse in the TREEHOUSE!

The Fly or the Spider?

Today the boys learned that God charged us to care for the world and all the animals.  Clark found a little spider on our porch and decided to help her by finding her food.  We hunted and hunted and found a big fat juicy fly.  I caught it.  Clark carefully placed it into the web for an evening meal for our eight legged friend.  Clark was so thrilled that he has helped out God's little creature.

Then Joel walks up and begins panicking that the fly is in harm's away.  He begins to wail and beg us to rescue the fly from the dangerous web. He takes matters into his own hands and destroys the web and probably kills the little spider in the process to save the fly.

The boys are both upset and disturbed.

As I stand back and look at the emotional mayhem, I begin to see.  I explain to them that they are both right because each boy is taking care of God's creatures.  How often in life will they face the same dilemma of fighting against another over equally worthy causes.  Oh how often, Michael and I have gone round and round, but we both were in the right or at least sort of.

This is our little buddy that builds her nest in front of our window.  We watch it catch all kinds of bugs all day long!!

So the next time I find myself tied up in a conflict, I need to remember to take a step back and try to see the other's perspective. Chances are we are both right, or we both have strong points that are worthy of respect and consideration.

Back to Home School Party

It's back to school time at the Adventure Academy for Boys!  And we just had to throw a party to celebrate the beginning of this amazing school year.

So Clark planned all the details, and he threw his first ever get together!

The boys picked out these cupcakes from Pinterest. Clark did the icing, and Joel added the details.

We put out the bounce house for recess time!  We also had scavenger hunts and played hide-n-seek.

For the math part of our party, we built towers, made patterns, and build symmetrical shapes.

Then we had music class with Seeds Family Worship!

For reading time, we read Morris Goes to School.  We had a fun time laughing at that silly moose and his adventures of his first day of school.

We ended it with a commitment time.  Moms committed to their children to teach and love whole heartedly and to give grace freely.  Kids committed to working hard and learning a lot. 

Kiddos went home with baskets full of leftover lunch treats and little back to school goodies!

Clark, you did good!!!!