Awww!

  If the title confused you that was an awwww! With a light bulb lighting up above my head. It was to illustrate my "awww" moment when suddenly things clicked together.

  I have been reading The Simple Year Blog, a telling of a year where a typical American family doesn't buy anything new except consumables. Where instead of running of to the store for an impulse buy because they NEED it. They trade, garage sale, thrift shop in short buy used.

I have been inspired.

I have been enlightened.

I have been energized.

 The ideas sprouting in my brain won't stop. I'm eager, I want to do this. To try an adult size social experiment. Can a typical average family live a simple year? How would others handle this? What would my kids think? Would we save money?

 The benefits seem enormous. How green we would be living. Teaching our kids to be content, to resist the compelling need for instant gratification this society thrusts upon us.

 For now I am considering.

Thinking.

Consulting the Husband.

30 Days of Thankfulness

  For our family, November began our thirty days of thankfulness. My attempt to instill gratefulness in my small children. Every day we talk about what we are thankful for and why. I never want my kiddos to take things for granted.

  This year as we enter the holiday season, we are scaling down what we are doing for ourselves and focusing on what we can do for others.  The empathy, compassion and generosity that I have watched my children displace is so amazing.  It makes me feel confident that I'm raising remarkable people, that WILL make this world a better place.

   So many ideas were given to me by others, I feel I should do the same and pass them along. If we can't change the world, maybe we can change somebody's world.

1) After Halloween have children package some of their stash in goodie bags and then deliver to the elderly or those who live alone.

2) Whenever making cookies or treats try to give some away, random thoughts of kindness can make someones day.

3) If it's clearance, dollar store, gently used or outgrown, go with your kids and buy or gather nice items to donate to those less fortunate.

4) Take the kids and spend a day picking up litter, make our earth a cleaner place to live and teach them to recycle.

  I cannot strees enough random acts of kindness. I want my children to give out of personal joy, not obligation or pressure. Show them how you can be kind through actions the everyday way you live your life. Smile and wave, let others go in line ahead of you. Pick up someones tab in drive through or in a restaurant anonymously, Hand out Christmas cards. So many people live lonely lives, if we can't do anything this year. Lets at least give out friendship.

Schooling

Wow, November 1st already! Now that I have two months of homeschooling under my belt, I wanted to give an update. The first big change is Jasey, she is doing more school work with us and activities then I imagined she would. Why? She simply likes having fun and being included.

  Our schedule is still roughly the same start 8:00-8:30 and be done by noon. However, a couple afternoons a week we spend time doing experiments, projects,games, music or basically whatever is at the moment the most time consuming. I am embracing the flexibility. Alex has been teething and not sleeping really well. So, after a hard night I may let everyone sleep in a little longer.

  The kids and I are really loving the different ways to learn. C.J. has been learning all his addition and subtraction facts and about money. We have been spending a lot of time playing Monopoly. He has been learning fractions also, which is a lot of fun. We use fractions a lot in baking, or when we cut up different apples, then had everyone taste them and we created a bar graph charting the results. In Science we are learning about animals, specifically the different classes mammals,reptiles, birds and so forth we learn the characteristics of each and chose several animals from each class to learn. We have spent lots of time at the zoo. We discovered an amazing reptile pet shop that lets us be hands on, very exciting.

  We read as a family. Sometimes I read, sometimes C.J. reads. Sometimes I pick the books mainly classics, "The Tortoise and the Hare", "The Ugly Duckling"; sometimes C.J. picks like  "The Night of the Living Zombie Gold Fish." Whatever gets them reading right.

  I love that instead of my family revoling around life, Our life is revolving around my family.
  I love that!!