God's Blessings--A Homeschool Update

I have been extremely overwhelmed by all the blessings God has poured down on my family since pulling DS out of school 4 1/2 weeks ago. Every time I stop to think about how much our family has already changed in just a month, it makes my heart so happy.

In one month, my DS has gone from a very beginner reader to reading on a 2nd grade level (according to the lexile measure of books). The first week of HSing, DS wrote a story on his own that had terrible penmanship and all his words excluded vowels. Last week he wrote another story and his penmanship was nearly perfect, and all the words were spelled right without my help. He went from barely tolerating his sisters to loving being with them and when he prays during our prayer time before bed, he always thanks God for a wonderful day, that we all got to be home together, and he has stopped asking about things at school.

Before we started HSing DS, I would lament to my DH how in doing schoolwork with my DD, it would ask questions like, "what do you do to show you love God?" or "how are you becoming more like Christ?" and how we really weren't doing anything beyond going to church and praying over meals. We wanted our kids to know and love Jesus, but we weren't actually DOING anything to help them know and love Him. Well, now we are every day. We pray before school and we pray before bed and read a short devotional. Even my 2 year old begs for her turn to say a prayer.

We are reading through the history of the Bible in school. We are memorizing scripture. And my kids are starting to apply that scripture to their actions. When they argue or complain, the other kid will spout off with "Do everything without arguing or complaining..." and it shuts the complainer right up. I hear my DD singing or saying verses as she is playing all the time.

I FINALLY feel like we are being proactive in our house rather than reactive and that my kids are actually learning what it means to love Jesus and to follow Him.

When My Kids Get Their Feelings Hurt

I am a bit down today because of a few things that happened and are hurting my "mommy heart." Natalie had preschool today and she told me that her 2 best friends (who are boys) did not want her to sit by them today at snack. Then I asked if that's why she sat by the girls today for lunch and she said no, that she sat by herself (she was the only kid on her side of the table while the other girls were across from her). That none of her friends wanted to sit by her today. I'm not sure what to do about that--she's so outgoing and active that she is naturally drawn to the boys, but the boys are starting to not want to play with a girl. While the girls are quiet and just want to play make-believe, so Natalie doesn't really fit in with that either.

The other thing that happened is we had to pick Frank's friend up from school today so we went in a few minutes early so Frank could say hi to his old classmates. When we went into Frank's class, he went immediately to his old cubby and noticed that his name was gone and a new name was up there. It was pretty obvious that upset him. I didn't know how to handle it, so I just ignored it and tried to take his mind off it. I told him that this was the last time we were going to go inside on the days we pick his friend up. It is a real hindrance to his adjusting to being homeschooled. We had to go in 2 weeks ago to drop off his library book and I could see his brain shifting from being content to not being content. Being reminded of the school is not helping at all.

I hate it when my kids get hurt and I don't know how to fix it. The mommy bear in me wants to jump in and save the day and demand the kids sit with Natalie or demand the teacher not remove Frank's name from his old cubby like he never existed in her classroom. I want to shelter them and protect them from ever getting their feelings hurt, but I know that I can't. Even as an adult, my feelings get hurt often. It is just a fact of life that I need to prepare my kids for. Learning to deal with disappointment is a necessary life skill I need to teach my kids.

But it doesn't hurt to dole out a few extra hugs and kisses to help make it all better:)

Losing Weight Hurts

Today is day 2 of the great "Biggest Loser-Family Style" competition. I have done really well today. DH had the day off so we took the kids to a museum and walked around for 1 1/2 hours, then I took Frank and ran errands for 2 hours, came home and went for a 1/2 hour walk with the family, then I spent 1 1/2 hours vacuuming up the leaves in my landscaping rocks (and let me just say that I am seriously considering sending some hate mail to the previous owners of our house who thought putting rocks in the landscaping was a good idea. NOT SO!!!!)

I have carefully watched my diet and have limited my Halloween candy consumption to only 2 mini candy bars (a minor victory). This morning I weighed in 1 pound lighter than yesterday, so I was happy the scale is going in the other direction than normal.

There's just one teeny tiny little problem. MY BODY HURTS LIKE MAD!!! I had to resort to pain killers just so I could get off the couch. Ouch! Ya, I know I was out of shape to begin with, but having every single muscle in my body screaming at me is just plain mean:( I am glad that my body is hurting because it means I'm actually getting a workout, but it sure would be nice if we all came equipped with a "instant muscle" button that we could push whenever we felt like being buff rather than having to go through the work and pain of actually getting in shape.

Despite the pain and hard work of losing weight, I am not giving up this time. I am going to kick some family butt and win this competition and be the Biggest Loser.

Losing Weight--Biggest Loser Family Style

Over the weekend I took the kids to my Grandma's house while my DH was out of town for work. During the course of the weekend we both lamented that we wanted to lose weight. We have a specific event in mind that we want to lose weight for, but I won't expand on that until it is official. Anyway, I jokingly said that we should do a Biggest Loser type competition with our family since we all want to lose weight never dreaming everyone would jump on it with excitement. So today is the official start day of our "Biggest Loser-Family Style" competition.

I hit the pavement running today. Frank rode his bike for moral support and I jogged. Or plodded. Possibly just walked really fast. But I did it. Only one loop around the neighborhood but I jogged the whole time despite feeling every muscle in my body screaming at me to stop. By the end of it, I felt like I was going to die, but I did it and didn't give up. Tomorrow I will maybe run just a tiny bit further and do that every day until I'm running a respectable distance. Like an entire mile:) And I also discovered that the asthma I thought I'd outgrown is still with me. I just haven't worked out in so long that I didn't notice I had it. But I am now coughing a ton and probably need to pull out Frank's inhaler to get my lungs back in order. Rather shocking to know I am that out of shape, which just proves this is a needed step in my life.
I also went shopping and put back almost everything that was unhealthy and stocked up on extra fruits and veggies along with soy and sun nuts for snacking. And my token box of tofu which I always buy when I am starting a diet for some reason:) But I'm going to stirfry it up tonight so it won't just sit there for months until it's spoiled like I normally do.
So far half my family (6 people) are in on the diet competition. I'm expecting almost everyone to join in. After Frank was born and I lost all the weight, the thing that really got me to be serious about it was that my coworkers at the time did a Biggest Loser competition with cash prize and we were all competing against eachother (with support to eachother as well) and having that extra motivation really works for me. I think maybe I am just competitive:)

I am hopeful that this time it's going to work and that I am going to see success in my weightloss journey.