Liam is 2!

Our handsome little Liam turned two yesterday. TWO!! Can you believe it? I sure can't.

This boy is messy. He only know two volumes- whispering or SHOUTING! He is messier than I could have ever imagined and minutes after a bath he is already stinky. He laughs when he toots and has been known to give Wonder Woman a dip in the toilet. He is desperate to be like his big sister and will do anything she does. When given a Cars birthday balloon he told me to "Pop it Mama. I dont yike it. Take it, TAKE IT Mama! I want kitty bawoon!" Sophie had a Hello kitty themed birthday this year and he just wanted to be like her. (He has warmed up to his cars balloon- good thing since my parents brought him one too!)

He is also tender hearted, he trys hard to please us and will run to confess his sins immediately. When corrected he immediately melts, sinks into us and asks for forgiveness. I pray that his heart will stay soft every day. Every night at bedtime he yells for "BIG HUGS!" he just about takes your neck off and will whisper awwwww in your ear as he hugs you. It is so sweet. He teaches me patience. He understands jokes and loves to tell them.

Happy Birthday Liam, we love you!!

Snippets

Life is so crazy. I say I am going to update our family blog all

the time. Never do!

So here is a quick drive by while I wait for my next assignment today. (Im back to the school district)

-Sophies 4th birthday is Thursday. What?!?! How did t

his happen?! We are hitting Como on Thursday and then the cabin and then doing a small friends gathering at a local pool later in September.

-Liam is almost two. This week he initiated two monumental changes on his own. 1. Pooping in the potty (for which is he SO proud of himself, he thinks he is the coolest dude ever) 2. Got rid of his nuk. Just stopped asking for it. I honestly think he just forgot. Sweet and bittersweet all at the same time, my baby is growing up!

-I worked all summer at Deaf blind services MN, my normal job at ANU and did the photography thing with Kevbo. It was CRAZY

-We did get several trips up to the

cabin. Including one two week trip around the 4th.

-Liam hates the church nursery. Anyone have any advice? I think he will just need to get over this with time. Sigh.

-Busy busy with the photography business. Check out our most recent pictures at www.facebook.com/kjbphotographyanddesign.

-We are having a fall mini special- check it out, theres only a few spots left!

-I am done at DBSM for the most part and am back to the school district in morning kindergarten with one of our DB students.

-Kevin is doing daycare for my friend who is a teacher. He will tell you he is just like any other stay at home Mom, with a side daycare and photography business. :-)

-Kids moved the bunk beds. Love it.

-We need to order Sophias curriculum for this year and get going. She is anxious to resume school activities.

-We are thrilled to be starting back Sunday school in a few weeks with our parenting and marriage young family class.

-We went to the fair once and are dying to go again. If only there were more time and money trees....:-)

-Sophia went to VBS and loved it!

-We hope you all are well, if we have disconnected this summer, we deeply apologize. We still read everyones blogs when able and we think of you and pray for you all often.

Heres a ton of photos to finish it up

(some are cell phone pics, forgive us!)

Planning

Just printed off 21 pages for next week! Love having my ink cartridges back!! Starting next week we are moving from random teaching to more intentional teaching with Sophia. We have a lot of fun doing the random crafts and projects that we do but I'd like to focus more on scripture learning, character building, abc recognition, and number recognition. Along side some other skills areas that need growth; scissor use, and handwriting/drawing.

I found the perfect package to use. Its called Raising Rock Stars and the name is taken from two different verses;
Philippians 2:15
so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.

Matthew 7:34
Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

You can read more about the program here.

The only thing I can't decide is if I will start at her unit one which is the letter L or just start with A... there is a method to why she creates the units in that way. She wants her kids to learn to write each letter so L is a very easy word to start with. Of course, I printed the A unit this morning but think I will be back to the printer before Monday to print out the L packet. I'll need them both anyhow. :-)

I will continue on with Tot school for Liam. They have so many cool packages and lapbook ideas for him but hes just a little young yet and my thought of the day is that I don't want to wish away any of my childrens developmental stages because I am so busy anticipating the one to come. So he and I will just have fun doing what we have been doing. :-) He is so much fun and learning so quickly at 14 months! I thought he only knew 3 or 4 animal noises and started teaching them more intentionally yesterday only to realize he knows dog, cat, sheep, monkey, fish, squirrel, cow, duck, Lion, tiger, bear turkey, dinosaur, and bird already! So I guess we move on to horse, owl, and elephant! Also cracking me up from smarty pants is the fact that now when we say, "Liam, count" He veryquickly says "one, two, free!"

So thats whats on our plates starting next week! Keep checking back for some (hopefully) more organized teaching and learning photos! :-)

Blowing your budget

I got to go out grocery shopping by myself last night! Sophia was going to join me but decided she would "Miss the boys tooooo much!" so she stayed back with them. Funny the things we get excited about as parents. Time alone!!?? At the grocery store?! So much fun. :-)

However, at the end of EVERY grocery trip lately I come home feeling like a failure of a Wife. I have gone over budget the last five times I have gone out. I try so hard to stick to my budget. I don't buy frivalous snacks. I make a LOT from scratch. I didn't buy the grass fed beef last night because of the incredible price difference and wanting to honor my husbands wishes to stay under a certain amount. I put back a few things that only I could eat (filled with gluten) And yet, I went over. By $34. I even had coupons. I never have coupons. Maybe I thought the coupons would add up to more savings? This just isn't a skill area for me. Kevin is a GREAT shopper. At any point in our shopping trip he can tell you, almost to the penny, what your total is. Its amazing, really. But, by the time he comes home from work the last thing he wants to do is go back out again. So, I end up being the primary grocery shopper in our house. Also, since I am doing the brunt of the cooking (although, again, Kevin is the better chef) it helps for me to know what to get. I have done the most research on gluten free options and so that is another reason I go.

I asked on facebook for suggestions from people on not blowing your budget. Got lots of good responses and helpful hints. When I went to look at some of the blog sites I realized that we actually spend WAY less than a lot of families with 4. There was a site that claimed to help people by providing a weekly menu and shopping list with sale items from certain stores. Great idea! Great site. Backed by Dave Ramsey. But when I looked at their regular options and gluten free plans I realized I spend WAY less than their schedules so pay $5/month to get the plan really isn't worth it for us.

So, how do you keep your grocery costs down? Do you coupon? How do you do that without it eating up a bunch of time? Where do you shop? What is your budget? Do you stick firmly to it?

Advent/ Devotionals

How does your family do devotions together? We wondered for a long time what family devotions looked like. How do you start? What do you do with little ones? How do we best teach our kids the word alongside us and keep their attention....I had picked up the book Word Filled Familes while visiting some friends in California and visiting the awesome church and library at Grace Community Church this fall. It gave Kevin and I good starting place for the two of us and we also started the devotional "Tying the Knot Tighter" together as well.


In mid November we finally just went for it with the kids! :-) We bring the kids little chairs and have them sit with their guitars and bibles. From mid November until Thanksgiving we read Psalms 23 and then did some worship songs with Kev leading on guitar. Then starting after Thanksgiving we bought a Nativity set (the Fischer price one has been on sale for $13.99 @ Target) and started reading the Christmas story out of Luke before worship. We sing away in a Manager, one hymn, and then whatever other Christmas or worship songs the kids are asking for.

I know that kids are sponges but it still shocks me how much of the Luke passage Sophia already has memorized. She asks immediately after dinner now for the bible and singing which is really nice. Liam will stay in the chair for half of the time on a good night. I try to keep him on my lap if he will let me, but sometimes we just let him wander in their room while we do this.

I thought about printing out something for Advent, I know there was a free Jessee tree advent reading people were talking about, I looked at it, and thought it didn't meet our families needs this year so we are sticking with our schedule. After Christmas I am going to be on the lookout for a discounted Advent calendar.

I have no idea what passage we will move to after Christmas....

So, what does your family do? We'd love to hear your ideas?

Here we go

Its been over a year since we updated, and boy has it been a busy one. I've toyed with the idea of changing the name of our blog to fit with our family more but haven't decided on a name yet. Something about our gluten free challenges in the last 6+ months. Or something about the great home-school debates, discussions, and decisions happening over here.

We figured out last Spring that Kevin and Soph can't eat gluten. It seemed like an impossible challenge for me. E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G has gluten in it. But with a whole lot of research, advice from friends, and too many hours lost in gluten guru's blogs, we have figured it out (I think...)! We have experimented and had some awesome discoveries and gigantic mistakes along the way. More on these and our favorite products soon. Many thanks to family and friends who have helped us make this transition. It has made us much more aware about our health and what we are putting into our bodies. We tend to shop on the perimeter of the grocery store now (like we should have been all along) and avoid the middle as much as possible. We have grown to love Fresh and Natural in Hudson, Taylor Made in Woodbury, and Whole Foods in St. Paul, and Cub Foods in WSP, for their nice selections of healthy food. We also recently switched to eating grass fed beef and organic fruits and veggies as much as possible. Free Range chicken is our next switch. It is pricey to eat well, but we are preventing our health and future health care costs. We also save a lot of money not eating out and not buying the junk!

We recently pulled Sophia from her two day a week preschool in order to use the $90/month for a newer car payment. (our vans transmission is dying....again. Plus its a 1996 without a/c and with limited heat, not so dependable for hauling our precious cargo) We are currently researching the best minivans and crossover vehicles in our price range. My current favorite is the Chrysler Pacifica.

Another reason we felt peace about pulling her from preschool is because I can do pretty much everything her teachers were doing with her, plus devote more one on one time to areas she was struggling with. I really have enjoyed doing the at home work with her. We are having a lot of fun, she is learning tons and we are bonding in the process. I was one who was VERY against homeschooling for a long time. Kevin was homeschooled and has always wanted that for our kids. I told him no way. Its been a very recent switch in my mindset that I may really enjoy this. Here is my current list of pro's vs. Con's

PRO's
We can build character in our children:: I have met so many well balanced kids and adults recently that were educated at home and I have been blown away by them. They are kind, compassionate, smart, and totally normal and socially adjusted.

We can teach bible to our kids without it cost the $7,000+ a year tuition that a Private Christian school would charge.

Our kids would have the opportunity to bond more than kids who are separated most of their time.

Pretty much everyone we know is planning on or already educating at home and we would have such a strong community of help, encouragement and resources. Not to mention the social interaction that we could give them in field trips and team taught classes.

My husband would like me to. The bible calls me to be submissive to my husband and this is an area I can't really argue. We have spend time in discussion and prayer in this area. He is not pressuring me to or forcing me, but I would like to honor his wishes.

It would seem that God is greatly working on my heart in this area as it has been SUCH a drastic change in thought. I need to follow his leading, my husbands leading and do what is best for our kids.


CONS

My family is VERY against homeschooling. I think this is mostly because we were not around people who have home schooled successfully. The two situations that they have witnessed have not been positive. I am very concerned for how the reaction would be and if we would be supported at all. My husbands family is very supportive as is our friends and church family.

Can I do it? Sometimes I wonder. Am I skilled enough? How would I teach math to a high schooler? From what I hear from families who have home-schooled their children, you learn along side your child. Also, that is part of the beauty of co-ops and friends. People with strengths can team teach different subjects.

Money. Homeschooling curriculum cost money. Field trips cost money. Supplies cost money. Much less than a private school, or even less than the public preschool Sophie was attending, but still it is a consideration. It could also be factored in that I wouldn't be able to go back to work if the kids stay home. Fortunately, I have been very blessed to have a job right now that allows me to work overnights and then be home with the children during the day. I pray that this continues so that I can help provide for my family and stay home to train my children.


And that is where we are at. More posts to come with some fun activities and "school" that we have been working on.

Marking a year

I was asked this morning if yesterday was a hard day for me. It took me a while before I realized why I should have been sad yesterday. The memories then came rushing back.

One year ago yesterday (black Friday) I snuck out to get donuts for Kevin. What I didn't tell him was that I was also going to be picking up a pregnancy test. I got back and set the donuts on the counter and was able to take the test while he was still showering. I surprised Kevin with the news that we were again blessed with a child! Number two was on its way. While not planned, we were overjoyed.

We blissfully celebrated the next few weeks before I started bleeding a week and a half before Christmas. It led us to the ER where my Mom and I stayed for a few hours waiting for news. We saw a precious heartbeat and were reassured that while there was a small tear in the uterine wall- things would likely be okay. The doctor reaffirmed that the baby would be just fine a few days after our ER trip. We praised God and the bleeding had mostly stopped.

Then came a call that they wanted to set up a follow up ultrasound on Christmas Eve and so we did. I remember telling Kevin that he wouldn't believe how little this baby was- we hadn't gotten to see Sophie until much later in our pregnancy. Most of you know how this story ends, as the u/s tech furrowed her brow and stayed silent- I had already seen the baby's body- broken in two and the heartbeat extinguished.

It was a hard holiday for us.

Until it was brought up this morning however, I hadn't thought about it at all. I truly think Christmas Eve will be much harder for us this year. But, if our precious one wasn't taken to be with God- we wouldn't have our Liam. Born October 13th, weighing in at 9 lbs 9oz.

When busy with our two blessings yesterday, how could I be down? There is a song that really hits home for me. It explains how we can be healed from the pain of losing a child. It reminds me who my healer really is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvIEJ_PmqJ8

"Healer" Kari Jobe

You hold my very moment
You calm my raging seas
You walk with me through fire
and heal all my disease
I trust in you, I trust in you

I believe You're healer
I believe You are all I need

And I believe your my portion
I believe You're more than enough for me
Jesus You're all I need

You hold my very moment
You calm my raging seas
You walk with me though fire
And heal all my disease
I trust in You, Lord I trust in You

I believe You're my healer
I believe You are all I need
Oh, I believe

Nothing is impossible for you
Nothing is impossible
Nothing is impossible
You hold my world in Your hands