The sun was out today – what a delight! The children took several short breaks throughout the day to go ride scooters and bikes or just run around outside.

Rachel (age 11) wants to grow her hair long but she struggles with tangles. I recommended she try braiding it or otherwise putting it up at night. She looked a bit ‘curly’ this morning.

The Sonlight Forum (we’re using Sonlight for much of our homeschooling studies this year) has a wonderful list of supplemental resources for each of the levels of study. We are working our way through SL5 Eastern Hemisphere and just finished up a big stack of books on Korea from the library. We finished Korea a week or two ago but I was late in requesting these books (or they were late in arriving) so our reading is a bit off from our schedule. Still, I think the books (some of them for the younger reader) add a wonderful richness to our study on Korea. Sarah and David love to read books so lately I’ve been including them in our Korean studies. One set of authors, sisters, Frances and Ginger Park, have written several books about their family’s experiences in Korea. Some of them are poignant and all the more moving knowing they are based on true stories.

As we continue our daily study of Proverbs – the three older children and I read one chapter of Proverbs aloud each day – I find our comprehension growing, along with our Bible collection. At the onset of this study I had each of the children find an NIV Bible – I found it MUCH easier if we were all reading out of the same translation. Well, today things expanded a bit. It all started when Daniel wanted to use his New King James and then Joshua wanted to read the study notes in his MacArthur Bible. I couldn’t resist – I had to get my Life Application study Bible. And so it went until I counted and realized we had seven Bibles opened on our laps. That seems a bit excessive between four people. Lol.

We also worked through a Bible quiz that I received from a friend, years ago. It was fun going through the questions and seeing how much the children could answer. I think we might work further on it and see if we can memorize the different scriptures and get all the way through the questions. We stopped at #106 and there were MANY still ahead of us.

Jodi C.- are you reading this blog??? Thanks for sending the Bible quiz to me. I think it’s an excellent teaching tool. Are you all still using it?

In the afternoon we met Tim at the Y for swim lessons and wallyball. I actually remembered to bring my camera this time so I have pictures to post. Hooray. I didn’t get any great ones of David but it’s not his special day so I have until the end of the week to do better.

Rachel often helps Tim and Joshua get the net set up.

Here she is, ready for the ball!

Digression into dinner rambling:

My green salsa chicken dish (basically boneless chicken breasts baked with salsa on top) turned out a little spicier than I had intended (should have realized “medium” salsa would be a little much for my ‘like it rather mild’ family) so I used the leftover sauce from the baking pan to create a tortilla soup. I poured the chicken drippings and salsa into a saucepan, added two cans of stewed tomatoes, some pinto beans and a little lime juice and let it simmer. Yum! At the last minute I tossed in some frozen sweet corn.

I served it with taco shells (didn’t have any tortilla chips – had to improvise) and sour cream. Joshua loved it! He added his chicken to the stew and had at least two bowls. Tim said it was a little too spicy for him and the rest of the family stuck to the stir-fry veggies and chicken which looked safe and totally ‘unspicy’.

The children are doing a great job of taking care of the kitchen clean up after meals. Daniel is on dinner duty this week and he handled all the mess – put the leftovers into containers, wiped up counters and the table, washed pots and pans, and loaded all the dishes into the dishwasher. Such a huge help to their Mama!!

Back to Rachel’s Special Day:

Rachel chose to play Five Crowns and Wizards for her Special Day Game. It was our first time playing Wizards and we all enjoyed it. We didn’t have time to play very many rounds – we’ll have to play it again soon. It’s a version of my family’s favorite, 7 Ups and Downs.

Five Crowns has already become a favorite. It’s easy enough to teach new people (very important at our house where we like to grab the random visitor and include them in our game) and the rounds are fairly short/quick.

Tim started The Silver Chair after the games were over. I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised that the children are so excited to read the Narnia series again. It seems like the stories are VERY familiar to them – we have almost all of them on tape or cd (produced by Focus on the Family), we’ve read all the books, and they’ve seen various movie productions of the different books. Still, they are wonderful books and the entire group (with the exception, perhaps, of Sarah) are captivated by the story. How delightful that they have a father who is willing to sit down and read to them.

The children are fighting sore throats. Rachel had hot tea and Daniel requested some Tylenol this evening before bed.

Another busy, full day here.

Kathy

Share or follow

Related posts:

It’s Rachel’s Special Day. Hooray for Rachel (age 11). She is our oldest daughter and well do we love her. What a blessing it is to partner with Tim to raise Rachel up as a child of the King.

We went to the Y this afternoon – met Tim there – and played wallyball. Rachel is getting to be quite the skilled player. She and Tim were on the same team for a long time and they played really well together. I was impressed with how much she has improved and how often she was able to successfully return the ball (unlike me – I’m afraid I’m the only one in the family who seems to be getting worse).

We had a vegetable, pork, rice stir-fry for dinner. It was delicious although one child said it had too many veggies. In my estimation, as a mom striving to feed your family healthy foods, if you only have one out of five children complain about the quantity of vegetables served, you are doing REALLY well. Ha!

Tim got a telephone call in the middle of dinner so the children started without him and then slipped off to watch a movie so he and I could enjoy some time alone. It turned out to be a lovely hour of discussion and prayer. I am really falling in love with regular, lengthy prayer with my husband. What a powerful thing to bring to our marriage.

After the movie, Rachel chose to play The Awful Green Things from Outer Space. It is a two player game that we stole/ borrowed/ re-claimed from Tim’s parents game collection. I haven’t ever played it so I can’t give a detailed review. We’ll have to get Rachel and Joshua to chime in when they can. I’d love to see the children contribute more to the blog.

Joshua was there as counsel for Rachel and family photographer. He took these picture for me. Sarah, David and I read books on the new chair while the rest of the family was playing nearby. I know there is much speculation and wonder about what we are going to call the new chair. Or maybe there wasn’t any speculation or wonder at all (much more likely). Still, if the chair is going to truly have a place in our home, it needs a name. We call the double recliner that sits in the living room and is the ultimate spot for reading school books, Big Blue. We call the small blue recliner Little Blue (not very creative but it does get the point across). So you can see that beloved, well used pieces of furniture have to have names.

Rachel and I thought and thought and came up with….(drum roll) Cream Puff for the new chair. We thought it was perfect – describes the color, sounds tasty, and captures the soft, comfy essence of the chair. Already we are meeting some intense resistance. Joshua hates it and Tim is shocked we would name His Chair without him. Hmmm. We’ll see if the name survives. I wonder if we also need a catchy title for the couch. Any creative ideas?? Let me know.

Of course, I just realized my Orange Chair hasn’t been christened so that either shoots a hole in my theory or says something deeper about the chair itself. In reality we aren’t that creative of a family. My nana had a gift for naming things that always seemed to fit perfectly. Maybe I’ll start calling the orange chair, L’Orange (with a beautiful French accent). That does pose some problems if we ever have it re-upholstered but it’s too late in the evening to think of everything.

Back to Rachel’s blog. Sarah picked Cream Puff as our reading destination (usually we would retire to Big Blue). Everyone loves the new comfy chair. Daniel was on the computer enjoying some game time. It was noisy with music playing in the background, computer game sounds in another corner and a board game in the center of the room but it was family and we were all together. What a precious time! I am so thankful for a husband who encourages focused together time. It takes attention and energy and a decision to make it happen. I am thankful for the way he sacrifices his time and personal interests in favor of building up our family. It is Not easy but the rewards are priceless.

Rachel and I wanted to do a tribute to the special friends in her life but we ran out of time and night fell upon us too quickly. Rachel picked The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as her read-aloud for the evening and Tim read several chapters. The little ones went up to bed and I worked on my BSF in the living room. I tried to keep my interruptions to a minimum (“Why was Lucy all by herself? What did the monopods look like before they were ‘uglified’? How did the man get off the dream island and on to their boat?”). I mean, really, I was doing my BSF, not listening. It was their fault for being so interesting right when I was trying to do my Bible study.

Rachel and I will try to work on the friendship blog during the week and have it ready for next Tuesday.

We love Rachel!! She is a delight. She is helpful and witty and sincere and curious and passionate and knowledgeable about scriptures and on and on. As my mother likes to say, a very satisfactory daughter.

Kathy

Share or follow

Related posts: