Happy Thanksgiving

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds. ~Theodore Roosevelt

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We have so much to be grateful for. Today I thank the Lord for a lot of things, but mostly for a husband who loves me to great depths, fingerprints on windows, crayon on furniture and a million messes to clean up - all things that remind me I have life in my home and purpose to carry out a small part of His plan.

Happy Thanksgiving!

First Grade, Fall Recap

Here's a summary of what we've done so far this year for school (h/t Jenn's inspiration). It's funny, I didn't think we'd accomplished all that much since September, but typing this out shows me we've covered a good deal more than I'd thought. Don't mind the grammatical errors - I wanted to get this up before I started dinner tonight so I'm leaving the grammar the way it is.

Faith:
Our religion focus this year is still First Communion preparation and it's going very well. Gianna is learning her Act of Contrition now. She knows which word of the consecration she needs to hear to know Jesus is present in the sacrament. In the spring Gianna will receive alongside her dear friend Caitlyn at the abbey, and Father Sebastian is overseeing both girls' FC prep. We get together every so often with our friends, the M's, and Father for dinner and some spiritual Q & A with the girls. Always fun.

Language Arts: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Italic Handwriting Series, Explode the Code phonics drills, misc. early readers.

We finished the 100 Easy Lessons book and now use early readers like Frog and Toad, Little Bear, Biscuit, etc. Some things we've focused on have been breaking a story into parts, narration, reading without the aid of diacritical marks, increase of reading speed, composing a letter, spelling words with silent e, punctuation and general neatness in letter formation.

Math: Arithmetic 1 (Abeka) and accompanying Tests and Speed Drills

Gianna enjoys Math very much and she loves her speed drills best (something I can't relate to). Math is the subject she wants to start with every day. This semester we've focused on counting and writing numbers 1-100 by ones, fives and tens; horizontal and vertical addition; word problems; calendar months in a year and days in a week; less than and greater than; telling time by hour and half-hour; linear measurement by inches; finding the area of rectangles by skip-counting (from Math-U-See); halves and fourths; adding money using quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies; telling temperature; liquid measurement.

Science
We've done most of our science through nature study/observation, often looking up what we've found afterwards online. The rest has been through fun reading on subjects all-over-the-place. Whatever we're interested in at the moment. My goal is to organize and plan this subject better for the spring. But for this year we've covered subjects such as the properties of solids, liquids and gasses; rainforest and freshwater habitats; bodies in the solar system; hibernation and migration of animals, introduction to animal classification; distinguishing bugs and birds by their properties. Our trip to the farms focused on how different vegetables grow in the ground and harvesting. We made three visits to the tide-pools where we observed sea urchins, purple ochre sea stars, algae, mussels, crabs, barnacles, and turban snails, and looked up tide-pool ecosystems and organism habitats online after each visit. I took Gianna's EEG appointment and made a neurosystem study of it using online research on brain waves and proper nutrition for the brain (which led to a food pyramid discussion and the importance of Omega 3 fatty acids).

History: Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans; U.S. children's atlas; Great States Jr. board game; online printable summaries of the lives of famous historical figures

This year so far Gianna has learned about the lives of of George Washington, Ben Franklin, Helen Keller, Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo, Alexander Graham Bell, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Harriet Tubman, Pocahontas and Christopher Columbus. This week we're reading all about the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, of course! Patrick does Gianna's geography with her, which she loves (and so do I). Their focus has primarily been on the states and their locations on the U.S. map.

Fine Arts
Gianna takes ballet once a week at a local studio. She's improved quite a bit in the last few months and it's a lot of fun to watch. She really enjoys dancing and says she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up.

Artwork: We use the Draw-Write-Now Books for learning basic drawing and background technique and the Gluck Method for focus on proper tone, texture and shading. We draw a lot, but with limited space I save only the best of Gianna's sketches. One day I'd love to have a home with some kind of art studio to put more of the little hands-work up on the wall. (Our refrigerator gets too crowded.) And while we're dreaming, let's make that an art/music/sewing studio....with built in floor-to-ceiling bookcases....white ones, with walls painted pale grayish green-blue! (I haven't really given this much thought. :)

Cute Christmas Gift Idea

Check out this pair of adorable friends! And at less than $10 each, including their dashing little outfits!! Cute for boy or girl, I'd say.

And no, I didn't spend a dime at the American Girl shop. That place is a little girl's dream. I found it rather delightful at first, but by the time we left I felt overwhelmed. So many possibilities. Expensive ones. The girls thoroughly enjoyed themselves of course! As they should have.

(And when I can find a good price on the one Gianna likes I quite know she'll be ours. :)

The Cleanest Room in My House

At the moment. I would've shown you the stream of syrup leading from the kitchen floor out our back patio door (you know, for the stray cat my little people are trying to lure into the house), but this mess doesn't make me growl. I can photograph this mess. (That brown thing below the book is beef jerky, and next to that is a ball of dryer lint. Of course!) And yes, we have a crib in our office, or an office in the nursery - I still haven't figured that one out yet. No one sleeps in that crib anymore, but we're leaving it up for a new baby (oh please, Lord, not too much longer).

Gianna finished her schoolwork by 9:00 a.m. today. We're meeting Grandma at the American Girl store/cafe in L.A. for lunch today. We've never been there. It's a big day for one American girl in this house. She's been looking forward to this for weeks. Gianna doesn't have an AG doll yet but I'm thinking one of these days we're going to cave in.

Thank you so much for all those kind comments on our EEG experience. I also keep meaning to respond to some of the great comments on our dietary changes. I love the idea of whole-food eating and have never been a fan of "fat-free" anything (I put ice cream in my morning coffee, people!) I'll try to get back to this topic when I get some free time.

In the meantime, have a great Thursday. I've got a sticky mess to clean up before we leave!

I Can Finally Look at This Picture and Smile

We've been concerned for some time now about a certain habit of Gianna's, and last week she went in for an EEG to confirm or deny some of our suspicions. We had to wait until yesterday to get the results at our neurologist appointment. A very long wait it was - something Gianna's EEG technician said last week had us spending the past five days in a state of angst and worry and prayer intermingled with trust in God's providence. But to our great relief, it was a mis-communication. There was nothing to worry about. Her test results came back stellar, and the neurologist insisted the habit we were concerned about is normal among some children, "especially the dreamy types" (and if you know Gianna, you know "dreamy" describes her to a T!). She ordered some blood work to be 100% positive, but said she expects those results to be clear of any problems also.

We're relieved as you can imagine. And last night I got my first good night's sleep in almost a week. Thank you, Lord. We trust in You.

Dietary Changes

We're making a few dietary changes around here for overall better nutrition. Though we're all actually quite healthy in terms of stability of mood and rarity of illness, there's no doubt our diet is less than optimal. I'm excited about the change - seeing flax oil and brown rice and plain, nonfat yogurt on my grocery list makes me feel like a more loving mother and wife, or at least one who is trying to love better - but, I'm scared. I've been eating a certain way for a very long time. I like rich, buttery meals and snacks with a lot of heavy flavor (I put rich sauces on absolutely every main course and rarely eat chicken without skin).

I'm not changing everything - I know I'll still make some of my favorite meals, but I'm adding vitamin and mineral-rich foods to our daily eating habits in general, hoping to help us all grow to love better foods.

My only question is for the finicky-eater. How do you get a child who cringes at the sight of a bean of any kind to like legumes such as lentils, beans, chickpeas, etc.? And hummus is not an option. Any suggestions are welcome.

There's No Doubt

Homeschooled kids have the best science classes!

A good woman embraces...

...her anguish and suffering, because she knows it is her Way, and the only Way. And she is made more beautiful because of it. She looks more and more like Him. Go, and be inspired to give ALL to Him. What is He asking of you? I know what He wants me to do. Let's do it together, and join her in embracing what is hard for us.

Tea and Scones at Noon: Too Fabulous Not to Take a Picture

Scenes From the Farm

We live in ultra-suburbia here. At times it can be discouraging, knowing how many houses the local builders can fit on one small street. Fortunately we have the ocean. And this place. A beautiful expanse of farmland just fifteen minutes away and in the heart of where I live. It's a pumpkin farm in the fall and a strawberry farm in summer. It's peaceful, quiet. Real. Last week we made our annual trip to pick our pumpkins, run through corn mazes, ride tractors, pet livestock and harvest vegetables. As we drove away with our hands dirty and our trunk full, Gianna let out a sigh and put words to my own thoughts, "Ah, life is so good, isn't it Mom?"