Gratitude

I want to lift my heart in thankfulness and find the gifts - sometimes obvious, sometimes hidden - in each day. So I'm starting my list, I'll see if I make it to 1,000 eventually, I'm not in a rush.

1. The feel of Koa in my arms.

2. The sunlight shining through the trees.

3. Seeing my husband at the end of a long day when my patience is wearing thin and I'm starting to be a really "mean mommy." The relief I feel when I see him coming through the door.

4. Experiencing the heart change that comes with obedience. I recently did something that I felt God wanted me to do. Even though I put it off for months because my heart wasn't in it - the moment I did it I felt an immediate change in my heart and entire disposition! Sometimes feelings follow actions, not vice versa (*sorry for being so vague here - email me if you want the whole story).

5. Clothing. I made a New Year's resolution for 2008 not to purchase any clothing for myself for a full year. I made that resolution again for 2009 and now I'm starting my 3rd year for 2010. This has been so freeing for me and a way to let go and let God take care of me.

"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"
Matthew 6:28-30

In the last two years I have been given bags of clothing! It's almost like God knows that desire in me that sometimes wants to wear something different or "new," which seems so silly or selfish. Why would God even care about that? And yet I see His hand of provision and I am blessed.

3. Waking up with Koa snuggled in my arms (and sometimes Jude on the other side).

4. Hearing Jude learn how to speak and saying new words each day - the silliness and laughter that this brings to my heart.

5. All the books I received from my Amazon wish list, which totally, completely surprised me. I never expected to receive them and I love them so much.

6. A new week starting. The feeling of a Monday morning - a week full of promise and challenge and a chance to do things better.

A quick Saturday morning post

Ever try to "fix" your husband? I know I do! This is a great post I wanted to share that encouraged me to pray for my husband, stop trying to persuade or manipulate change and let God do it! Here's the link: The Perfect Marriage

Enjoy your Saturday!

My four boys

Today I'm not feeling well. I'm tired, I'm grumpy. But when I look at these faces my heart is so full. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

A Memory

I had some really cute pictures to post from our hike this weekend. And a few videos, they were going to be so cute. All 3 boys had their walking sticks out. Jude was riding his like a horse and making the cutest little horsie sounds. Koa was awake for almost the whole time and smiling away in his Baby Bjorn. But, I accidently deleted all the pictures in my camera! I almost cried. Seriously! I'm very sad. So anyways, going off on a tangent...





I was going through old photos and just wanted to share one of my favorites. This is Kai in South Africa in 2005 - it's one of my favorite memories. It was such a different life when I only had one child. I had such sweet days with him. This beach was amazing - just full of penguins. Kai and I were the only ones there that morning. He thought the penguins were his friends. We spent the whole morning following these penguins around on the beach. It was like being at the zoo without cages.

Outside Play

I'm having trouble rounding my kids up for school. The weather is absolutely beautiful! Plus it is still summer break for Costa Rican children and all the neighbors are climbing trees, riding bikes and just having fun outside. I'm taking comfort in this quote from Charlotte Mason,

"the claims of the schoolroom should not be allowed to encroach on the child's right to long hours daily for exercise and investigation...Vigorous healthful play is, in its turn, fully as important as lessons, as regards both bodily health and brain-power."

Kai and his friend Luca riding bikes and trikes

Kai lost his first tooth today!!!

This post was written in less than 30 minutes as part of the mom's 30 minute blog challenge. Click here to find out more about that: Steady Mom

Who does Koa look like?

I get this question all the time. And honestly, I don't know! He seems like such a mix of all 3 boys. The other thing is I forget what they all looked like as babies. It's so sad how as they grow those memories start fading. So I dug up some old photos and thought I'd do a little comparison.

Kai


Ezra

Jude

Koa

So what do you think?

A new approach

I never realized how much math you can do through playing with leggo blocks! Math is an area I've been struggling with Kai and myself - just not knowing how to teach it and basically all I've done is have him do a few work book pages each day - which he always resists. So, I picked back up Ruth Beechick's book, "The Three R's" and read the Arithmetic section.

She talks about three modes of thinking - the Manipulative Mode (working problems with real objects), the Mental Image Mode (the child imagines objects in his head and works out problems using those images), and finally Abstraction Mode (children can think about an abstraction such as 'four' without having to picture 4 plates, 4 dots on a domino, etc.) She says on p. 88,

"They must become proficient in [manipulation mode] as a preparation for other modes to follow. This thinking - this actual experience with objects - is the foundation upon which all later arithmetic understandings are build. Thus, we must teach young children in the manipulation mode. Failure to do this is probably the greatest single cause of children's arithmetic difficulties. It is why people grow up with Arithmetic Anxiety."

Wow! So, I'm definitely realizing I need to spend some time working with real objects and real life situations. So on Tuesday for math we got out the blocks and sat on a blanket under a tree. There is so much math you can do with blocks! Kai counted to 100 several times on his own initiative.

Kai counting

Then we started seeing how many blocks he could fit onto certain blocks. It started getting complex - even into multiplication concepts - but Kai was going with it! Then we measured each other.

Measuring each other

Finally we sorted all the blocks into colors. All the kids helped with this and we talked the whole time about which pile was the biggest, smallest, etc. etc.

Sorting

Finally we build a castle with each color. Here's our end result (Kai took the pictures).

Color castles

Meanwhile, school has been on hold the last 3 days due to the weather - the weather is tooo beautiful! Plus the Costa Rican children are still on summer break, so all the neighbors are playing outside and I think it would be cruelty if I kept my kids in. So they are running, playing and enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

Books We're Enjoying

We all know we're supposed to read to our kids. We've read the studies about all the benefits of reading to children. But sometimes, I'll admit, it can be tedious! It's so much more enjoyable when you have some good, quality reading materials. Good books are hard to come by here in Costa Rica and they have become like gold to me. For Christmas this year I received some great ones that we are loving. I'll share a few here.


The Boxcar Children This is part of our Sonlight curriculum and we read one chapter each day. It's Kai's favorite part of the school day. There is something delightful about reading a chapter book aloud with your children and anticipating a new chapter each day.

The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud
HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics: A Child's First Collection
These compilation books are awesome! They are full of so many of my favorite books when I was a kid and it's fun to read them again as an adult. There are also some newer selections that are adorable. The good thing with these collections is the editor has taken time to carefully select the very best stories to include. It also covers a wide age range so all 3 kids ages 2-7 can enjoy these books.

The Bee Tree This book completely surprised me. I had goosebumps at the end! It's a very sweet story.

People This book holds my children's attention for a very long time. The pictures are fascinating and lead to lots of interesting discussions about what people are like all around the world - how we are alike and how we are different.

There are more books I'd like to share, but I'll leave it at this for now. What are some of your favorites?

Those first sweet smiles

Koa has started smiling. It is the cutest thing ever! I think a baby's first smiles are just so funny and so cute. For the first few months all you see is their serious little face, big staring eyes and funny expressions. Then all of a sudden out of no where the first smile appears and it is glorious!

Yesterday Koa actually laughed out loud for the first time. It totally caught me off guard and I almost cried it was so surprising and so real. I have a mattress on the floor in our classroom and we were sitting there having "school" which turned into a huge wrestling match with Kai, Ezzy and Jude. They were jumping on each other and cracking up. Koa was sitting on my lap watching the craziness and all of a sudden I hear this giggling. I look down and Koa is giggling - open-mouthed, uncontrollably like it just bubbled up from inside of him. We were all stunned! He laughed twice during this wrestling match and it completely made my day.

Maybe this is a little foreshadowing of what is to come? Four wild and crazy boys, tumbling, wrestling, laughing together through life. I really hope so. I have a feeling Koa can't wait to just jump right in. I love seeing these little glimpses of his personality.

Found a treasure today

I convinced my family to visit a park that is really close to our house today. I've been wanting to go for awhile, but things have been kind of crazy. They still are, but I was desperate. I know what kind of week we have coming up - a really busy week for my hubby, which means looong days for me and the boys at home. I really wanted the boys to get out in nature and have an adventure! So we did!

Here they are heading off down the trail

We of course had to stop and check out all the bugs and butterflies

This butterfly has transparent wings - amazing!

Koa enjoyed the ride

the boys checking out the view

we got a little bit lost and it started raining -so fun!

I am so excited about this park! It's really amazing and less than five minutes from our house. I had no idea! It is truly an escape from the city and I would love to take the boys on adventures here more often.

It Worked!

I've been trying to apply some of the principles of "Siblings Without Rivalry." The fighting is driving me up the wall - something must be done! Here are five steps outlined in the book (there are other steps when the situation is potentially dangerous or really difficult to resolve):

1. Start by acknowledging the children's anger towards each other. That alone should help calm them.
2. Listen to each child's side with respect.
3. Show appreciation for the difficulty of the problem.
4. Express faith in their ability to work out a mutually agreeable solution.
5. Leave the room.

So here's one scenario from today:

Ezzy: Screaming. It's that close-to-a-tantrum kind of scream.

I walk into the room and Kai has the little foam couch and is hiding in it. Ezra grabs it. Kai lunges for Ezra, grabs the couch back and returns to hiding in it. Ezra continues screaming. Uh oh - volatile situation!

Me: Ezzy, you want to use the couch?
Ezzy stops screaming long enough to nod.
Me: Kai, you do too, right?
Kai grunts in agreement from inside his hiding place.
Me: Hmmm... two kids who both want to use the couch. That's really tough. I bet if you work together you can come up with a solution that's fair to each of you.

Then I left the room.

This is what I heard as I was changing Koa's diaper.

Kai: Ok, come on Ezzy, I have an idea. We can go in the living room and build a fort. It's going to be really cool.
Ezra: no.
Kai went on describing the fort and trying to convince Ezra. Ezra was so worked up he wasn't going to come around easily. They continued arguing for a little bit and then next thing I knew both boys were happily walking to the living room to build a fort together.

Success!

Here the happy brothers are playing in their fort together.

I cannot believe it actually worked!!! Now if I can just be consistent and continue to do this. It's hard. I really like this idea from the book. The authors say:

Basically we try not to interfere, but when we must step in, it's always with the thought that at the earliest possible moment we want to turn the children back to dealing with each other. We want them to experience themselves as solvers of problems. That's the best preparation we can give them for the rest of their lives (p. 174).

Work doesn't work for me

My mess

I'm glad these last two days are over. I put homeschool on hold to help my hubby get ready for running the children at risk school. (More info on this over at our other blogsite: www.fivefreemans.wordpress.com and www.ywamsj.org) My hubs has a lot of strengths but organization is not one of them. With two of his staff off at conferences I stepped in to help. Well, being at home with four kids and trying to work just does not work. The last two days I was a complete stress case! I was in such a panic working at full speed, I realized at about 2:30 pm that I completely forgot to eat! With no time for food prep I shoved some toast in my mouth. Meanwhile my kids were fending for themselves eating dry oatmeal, spoonfulls of peanutbutter and watching endless movies. I had papers everywhere and the house was in complete chaos. It is nice, though, now that I'm done to look at the neat stack of student manuals and the organized grading sheets. How do other moms cope when trying to accomplish some sort of project or work?

Angry Choices

Ok, I'm not an expert or anything like that, but since a few people asked I thought I would do a post. Actually, I sat down with Ezzy and he is going to share with you so you can have his perspective:


When I'm angry sometimes I want to hit my brother. But mommy says, "It's ok to be angry, but it's not ok to hit." So I'm learning how to make a better choice. One thing I can do when I'm angry is show mommy how angry I am and hit my monkey because he doesn't get hurt. Another thing I can do is draw a picture to show how I feel. Another choice is to run fast outside or I can read a book in my room. That helps make me better. I can tell mommy how I feel and say, "I feel angry."


So, that's it basically! I just sat down with him and we wrote down some ideas of what he could do when he feels angry. This is his little "chart" on the back of the door that he looks at every morning so he can remember. It got scribbled on by Jude, but it still works. I think that kids are all wired so differently and you have to find what works for your kids. This worked really well with Kai and is now working well with Ezzy, too. Both have such strong emotions and my challenge is helping them know how to deal when their emotions are taking over. It's really hard. This doesn't always work, but it's at least helping him move in the right direction. The bonus as a Christian is that we also pray together and ask God to help. I know He loves the prayers from the hearts of these children and He will be faithful to help them. I'd love to hear what other moms do and any other ideas!

What a day

Well, today was my first day back to homeschooling since having Koa and our first official day with Sonlight - our new curriculum. I think overall the day was positive but it was not without some tense moments.
This moment was a triumph. Kai was really giving me a hard time about doing any chores because he "just didn't want to." He finally made a good "choice" (I told him he could either do his chore quickly and we can move on to the next activity, or if not we could keep working on chores for the rest of the day). That kind of kicked him into gear and he actually went above and beyond what I asked him to do and was very proud of himself.

I have to include this picture because this is what I'm seeing a lot of these days with Ezzy. Actually taking this picture kind of snapped him out of this fit he was throwing, he was so surprised and then wanted to see his photo. Right now we're working on "Angry Choices." This is something that really worked with Kai at his age. Just knowing that it's ok to be angry - and there are things you can do when you're angry instead of hurting other people. I feel like I am saying the same thing over and over and over to him. I know he's going to get this - I have faith! Poor guy - it's tough to have such strong emotions and not know what to do with them.

Another struggle I have with Kai is writing - he does not like writing at all, especially any type of work with handwriting. I'm not sure what to do because he needs to be writing and he puts up a fight when it comes down to it. So we did this activity today - writing in shaving cream - bubbles and sticks. I think it really helped because a little later Kai sat down and did a whole page of handwriting. So hopefully this will get easier. I hope, I hope.

I love what I'm doing right now, but in those tense moments (for instance when every child is screaming or crying at the same time - last night at bath time this did actually happen) I sometimes seriously think I'm just going to lose it. I get frustrated, I get angry, I get irritated, I yell - and I know that is completely not productive or helpful in any way. Sigh. Luckily my kids have grace with me and we seem to pull through together and keep moving forward. In the end there's always lots of hugs and lots of love. No matter what has happened in the day, I can always count on laying down with Jude at bedtime and without fail he gives me a hug and kiss and says, "I love you so much mommy" over and over again. You can't beat that.

Tomorrow is a new day and a new adventure!

It's here!

My homeschool curriculum is here finally! I am so excited. I opened this bad boy up yesterday and I could not believe the amount of books and fun stuff in here, not to mention a humungous notebook to get me organized with lesson plans for each day. I am a book fanatic, so this literature based curriculum really appeals to me. I love the idea of teaching through literature - good, fun, exciting, well-written, classic books. Kai keeps asking, when are we going to start?? I need a little time to familiarize myself with everything and get organized but we'll be jumping in pretty soon. I am a little overwhelmed right now and not sure how this is going to work and how to organize all four kids so we can make this happen. But, I guess that's why I picked the title for my blog - ready or not, we're just going for it and we'll see how we do and learn along the way. Let the adventure begin.