June Begins..

We had a great time at the Dominican Republic and are full-swing into summer.

Things are very busy for the homeschool board with planning for the next year - setting up classes, taking care of legal things, organizing other things. It sometimes ends up being quite a bit of work. I'm a natural introvert, so the calling, meeting and talking with people can be really draining, but it's nice to contribute to a really great group.

I'll be heading to the HEAV convention (a large homeschool convention) later this week and ultra-awesome real-food proponent and farmer Joel Salatin is a special guest. He has four talks going on and I may just end up learning nothing about homeschooling and a whole lot about home farms,  the USDA and reconnecting with my "ecological-umbilical" as he likes to say. I seriously can't wait. I'm beginning to think of homeschooling as kind of like my job now as my kids are becoming school-age, but I still have a great interest in pursuing nutrition.

I will be teaching K-3 Poetry Memorization and also will be a group leader for a Junior First Lego League team for our homeschool group.

D has lately been very, very loving. He comes up to me probably 20 times a day to say either "I like you mom" or "I love you mom." He has a great interest in cars and is very proud of being the only one in the family that's able to do a skin-the-cat. D insists that he is a big-boy, loves to eat avocado and "apricons" (apricots). For the last couple months D has been making up imaginary friends and giving himself and his cars odd names like Rexer and Hex. Today he told me his name was "Scharts." LOL.

L has been very constructive lately. He enjoys inventing ways to accomplish things - coming up with totally impossible solutions. Just as an example, he'll tell me something like we'll build an airplane to fly in using some sticks, paper and scotch tape.. L spends much of his time recreating Star Wars aircraft with legos, doing lightsaber fights, and looking through books. He also really likes to listen to a cd of Story of the World, a world history book written in story-book format for children K-3.

We have discovered Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood after browsing through HULU, and I am honestly not sure if I'll be having my kids watch much else other than that. I really like the messages about feelings and relationships and most of what's on now for kids is complete garbage in comparison (in my opinion). There are great programs out there for learning facts, but Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is great for life skills and relationships. Wish I'd found this sooner! I love the messages about loving ourselves exactly the way we are. I myself have a problem trying to people-please, resenting that, and then wishing I weren't so blunt, or impatient, etc. etc. etc. I think it would be a great gift to my kids to ingrain in them very early that they are exactly as they are meant to be and if people don't like them just the way they are, too bad! I will spend hours dwelling on something I said that hurt other peoples' feelings even if I was just speaking on something I think is true! Or defending faith! And then I go into a cycle of hating that I even care! It's definitely a mental prison. Reminding myself that I'm made just the way I'm supposed to be and hearing Mr. Rogers say that people can love you in spite of you really makes me feel better. Maybe that's lame or hokey, but it's true.

J is back to work and he'll be continuing on in Drill Team. And, I'm ending this saying that we found out some very good news the day after we got back from Punta Cana. Hoping to see a doc or midwife soon for more and better news.