Teaching Life Lessons

In our home education is very important (as you probably guessed with me being a teacher and having teachers as parents). The expectation in our home has always been A's or B's as acceptable grades. C's are very rarely allowed (when the child is working their but off but is just struggling with content). D's and F's are completely unacceptable!

So with that as background you can imagine the uproar in our home when one of our children came home days before Christmas break with the report of 3 D's!!! I was furious! This child is extremely smart but can be dare I say lazy at times. He wasn't turning in his work. So he got a list of all missing assignments from his teachers and spent all of Christmas break doing the work, regardless of whether it would be accepted or not. He has also been grounded until I have written proof that grades are acceptable again. Has my little angel been happy with mom. No not at all. Especially when additional consequences are added for breaking the grounding rules. However he needs to learn now to be responsible for his work and understand that things are to be completed in the best manner possible (yeah he wasn't happy when I made him redo some work at 10:00 at night so it was done right).

This is new territory for this child as he usually passes all classes without even trying. I guess he just had to test the waters to find out what he could get away with and found out he couldn't. So now the real trial for him will be that if the grades aren't OK at report card time he will lose spring sports (track which he loves). Education will always come ahead of sports. I hope my son has learned his lesson this past month and chooses to work hard to excel instead of fail.

Way To Long!!

So I have not written in a really long time. Mainly because the time I used to blog during is now spent teaching Jesse so it easier to spend two seconds updating Facebook then the time needed to blog. I don't remember if I have written on here yet but we decided to teach Jesse at home through the Idaho Virtual Academy this year. He is doing great with it and we are seeing some great progress with many of his behaviors as a result.

Anyways, in the last few months we had a great but crazy Thanksgiving. The week prior Robert was in a car accident that totalled his car and sent the world upside down with doctors appointment, insurance companies, searching for a cheap car, etc. Well my mom finally found us a car in Pocatello just before Thanksgiving. So we decided to meet in Twin Falls to pick it up from them, sign all the paper work, pay for it etc. So as soon as our Thanksgiving meal was over we got in the car and headed to Twin. We sat in the Subway in Walmart to fill out everything, spent a little time together, grabbed a bite to eat, and headed back home. So as Jesse puts it we spent Thanksgiving driving a long time to go to a store. He wasn't happy about it!

Robert has been recovering and is now down to one chiropractic visit a week. In the beginning it was 3 a week and that really impacted us financially (all the loss of pay to go). I just look forward to getting reimbursed for it in the end.

Christmas was great as well. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with our traditional Shepherd's dinner. This is such a wonderful way to focus on the real meaning of Christmas and brings such a sweet spirit into our home. After all the activities centered around that we headed out looking at lights, put cookies out for Santa and headed to bed. Christmas day was a nice relaxed day spent opening presents and hanging out with our family.

The shepherds making their way to Bethlehem.Faith giving Jesse the family's gifts for him.

Writing the letter to Santa.The search for the green ornament to see who gets to open the first gift.Opening stockings. We are all back in school again now. Tyler is preparing for finals next week and just selected her songs for festival in the spring. Britain, who has been heavily into sports all year, is finally done with sports for a little while and is focusing on his school work. Jesse and Faith keep mom busy each day with school and play for them. Robert is busy as ever always striving to provide for the family. Hopefully it won't take me this long to write again. I will try to be more vigilant!

Faith's New Love!

We found this pink unicorn stick horse and the dollar store and Faith is in love! Her passion for unicorns at full height with this.

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Yesterday I took the preschoolers and Jesse to the pumpkin patch. A couple of kids couldn't make it, so there was only a few of us but it was still a lot of fun. We started out with the kids going through the hay bale maze. After the initial traffic jam from the kids on all the groups, they all raced through and had a lot of fun. Then we went and picked pumpkins. I think Jesse and Faith both felt they could only get a pumpkin from the very back of the patch because they both just kept walking without getting a pumpkin. Faith was very choosy about hers as well. Every one I suggested just wasn't quite right. Finally we had to just pick one or go with out so we could head back to where everyone else was.
We ended the adventure with a hay ride around the pumpkin patch. Jesse enjoyed taking pictures on the different colored pumpkins on the way. We had a great time finished the morning with a little shopping before heading home for school.

Gratitude

I am so thankful for the life I have been blessed to lead. It is by no means easy, but it is very fulfilling. I love my wonderful family with all there differences and quirks. It is amazing to watch them grow and become such amazing people.

I love being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is such a blessing to be able to know my Heavenly Fathers plan for us and to be able to have an eternal family. I love the joy I find in the gospel. I am so grateful for the temple and the opportunity I have to go weekly to partake of the peace and joy there. It truly sustains me through the week.

I am so grateful for the wonderful friends I have. It is such a wonderful thing to be able to turn to them when needed, laugh with them, cry with them, or just hang out instead of working out.

We have been very blessed to find the employment that allows our family to grow and develop through difficult times. It is far from glamorous, but it pays the bills and allows for all our needs.

I am grateful to have the medical assistance that is helping Jesse and Faith with their different medical needs. It is such a joy to see Jesse begin to improve lately and hope that it continues. While I don't know if they will ever be "cured" it is amazing to have only had one ER trip with Faith in the last 2 years instead of 3-4 times a year and to see Jesse improve from hour long (+) meltdowns that were extremely violent to ones lasting minutes instead.

I am so very blessed to have a husband that works so hard and does so much for our family. I love him so much. He is always concerned about taking care of us and is an amazing person.

I am so thankful for the many things I have in my life and for all that the Lord has blessed us with.

Briatin's Birthday or WHAT ANOTHER TEENAGER!!!!!!

Ok so there is nothing that makes you feel old like having multiple teenagers in the house!! On September 3rd Britain turned 13. That evening was crazy with his cross country meet, a baby shower for a friend, and a pack meeting that thankfully was cancelled shortly before it was supposed to start, so we decided to have his birthday celebration the following Saturday. We enjoyed Britain's birthday meal picks that included pancakes, pizza, and shepherds pie. For his activity he decided to go shooting, so we all headed to the shooting range and Robert helped everyone shoot for a few hours before heading back for presents, cake, and ice cream.

Britain was ecstatic to get an mp3 player and some wii games that he played the rest of the evening with Jesse. It was a great day celebrating a wonderful kid. I am amazed how hast they grow up. We love you Brit!!

Pictures will come in the future if I can ever get them off my phone! =P

Time, What's That?!

I have gotten so bad about blogging lately, since summer started and I can't use my camera, I am at a loss. School so far is going good for all the kids. Tyler is loving high school and really enjoys her French class. Britain has had some struggles again so far socially, but is excelling academically like always. Jesse is enjoying the virtual academy, but for mom it depends on the minute how her feelings are about it. Faith is loving preschool still and can never get enough of learning. She most likely will start reading soon as she is ready for it, mom just has to find the time to teach her.

Robert continues to remain busy with work and is working on adding some fun time in as well (it is so hard when you work the amount of hours he does). I am busy with preschool, teaching Jesse, and life. I love my exercise group as they help me maintain my sanity right now in life. Some days I feel like I am hanging off the edge. I am glad I have the knowledge that Heavenly Father know what I can handle, because I think we may differ some days on that issue but knowing he is there gives me some much needed comfort.