Over protective parent??? I think not!!!

It is really a good thing God gave this child to a parent who is not overprotective! can you imagine?? he has been climbing and jumping since he first could barely walk. many moms have partial heart attacks when they see him do stuff like this, but we are used to it. he so rarely gets hurt, and has a blast!!! Enjoy this one..it is fun!!!

The Vision...

I was blessed last week to be able to spend a whole 14 hours in a car with my husband...then another whole 14 hours in a car with my husband. A trip to South Dakota will do that for you!! I had spent the last few weeks doing a lot of reading on a new Homeschool teaching philosophy and i had so much to talk about with Dirk. We were able to really decide what it is our family stands for, what it is we are purposefully goign to teach our children, and in exactly what ways we are going to do it. It felt so freeing. We now have spiritual and character goals for each child defined and how we plan to reach them. We have the summer and fall all planned for schooling. We are trying a method i totally agree with, yet it goes against my whole personality so we shall see. We decided to try it for one year to see how it goes. I am believing God will use this time to either grow me to change, or to show us the way He wants us to go next year. Either way it will be a great year of learning. The bible says that where there is no vision the people parish. Well, we have our vision. We pray God blesses it. and we look forward to carrying it out. And WOW...do i feel great being all organized!!!

Elias Crawls...Life as We Know It Ends...

I was thrilled when i realized that due to all the siblings continually getting things for Elias, he was not interested in crawling a bit. i knew he was capable...he was developing normally in every other way. but why bother moving when 4 other people do everything for you? finally, i stayed on the kids to leave the poor baby alone and let him get frustrated enough to go after something. it only took a few days of his abrupt cessation of servants around him and he got to movin'. at 10 1/2 months old he finally crawled. everyone but daddy was there to see the very first crawl!!! he did great! and we got it on video! and now...life will never...ever....ever...be the same!!! The funny thing is...he was almost walking when he started crawling..it won't be long.

Feeble Attempts At Family Pictures...

I got this hair brained idea that i could somehow get all 5 kids in one picture...smiling...all still...all cute...what planet am i from???

This is the only one that turned out remotely good....enjoy the rest of the the "outtakes"

"i have how many sibings??"

This is what Elias does when you ask him where Jesus is...

He discovered a blade of grass...

Kenna was the only cooperative one...

apparently running in a straight line is not possible...that would be too good a picture!

this one was almost good....except bella looks constipated!

South Dakota...

We went to South Dakota to visit our friends, Steffen and Beth, what a place!!! Such beautiful country. i had no idea how amazing it was til we arrived. of course there is NO civilization around, so it would never be a place i could survive! But we saw antelope, deer, mountain goats, long horned mountain goats, and even buffalo...although i lost that picture somehow...

Gorgeous scenic overlooks everywhere.

Chipmunks that ate right out of my hand. they were so cute!

Needles Highway!

Little did i know Mt. Rushmore was there. til about 400 miles out of grand rapids when every single sign every 30 feet was about Mt. Rushmore, then i realized..hey, we can go there! i was so excited!

Quite an amazing feat...so glad i got to see it with my honey!

this mountain goat walked right by like he owned Mt. Rushmore...like we were the weird ones or something...

Steffen and Dirk

The Gateway to the West...

one of these days i am going to figure out how to get these pics in the order i want then to appear so as to make my stories flow...but obviously that has not occured yet. Last month we decided to take just the big boys on a weekend alone to St.Luois (per isaiah's request). We went up in the arch, went to the Magic house, the City Museum, and all sorts of fun. However, after the arch, i very suddenly came down with the flu and ended up in the hotel room the rest of the weekend. the kids and daddy had a great time though...

The boys in the turtle head at turtle park.

i love this pic. these boys sat here looking at a working construction site for almost 20 minutes. it was soooo cute!

Here is Ian making friends with yet another stranger...as always...

These boys did some serious bonding...it was funny to see how they handled things. at one point they were fighting over some insignificant thing...and solved it by wrestling for a few minutes..then laughing about it...why can't girls be that way????

a little fishing at the city museum. i wasn't there hence the reason we only have one picture...

At the Arch

The elevator ride up....and up....and up...

They loved this part...

Easter in Hurstbourne...

Last month Dirk and I were at our new neighbor's house that God has blessed us with. We were talking about how much i think constantly about doing outreaches, but never actaully do them. so...we decided on an easter egg hunt this year to reach out to all those neighbors we never seem to be able to meet. at first i hated the idea becuase i have always disliked easter egg hunts due to how much they distract from the greatest day of the year...Christ's resurrection! however, when i realized that this would enable us to know these people to then be able to reach out to them in a whole new way, i was game!

This is Layne and Meegan. Layne's wife, TC is the one who did the organizing.

Isaiah and Ian surveying their loot!

so many people turned up. and all we heard were thank you's upon thank you's!

Elias having his time with his daddy on his first Easter!

Mamalane and Elias

My mom and TC

Bella's Song...

I have no idea where she learned this song or why, but she is so cute singing it. i apparently told her she could watch herself if she sang it for me so she kept stopping to see if she could be done. of course i made her do the whole thing. she is so fun. i love this singing kick she has been on. i hope it stays with her.

Whoever Loses His Life, Will Gain It...

God has really been working on me the last 3 months in many areas. It has been an inner struggle, not something that has included others deeds, wrong-doings, or even their input. Just me and God. Just me trying to figure out what is most important in this world. What is it we are working for? Who is it we are out to please? And why, if that is God, am i struggling with other's perceptions of me and my family? As stated in a previous post, the negative comments made toward having a large family far outweigh the postitive a good 90-1!!! It simply wears on you after a while. I am so glad it has though. It has forced me to take a long hard look at my life, my family and what it is all 7 of us are here for anyway!

We are a homeschooling family and with that come many pressures that just don't exist otherwise. One is that there is this understanding among most homeschooling families that you are on this neverending quest for curriculum. it never ends because there is so much out there, your kids are always changing, and the beauty of homeschooling is you get to change how you teach to fit how they learn. it is pretty much a given that if two homeschooling moms are together give it less than 5minutes and the topic of what curriculum you use will inevitably be main topic very quickly! then the cycle starts over. you have now been introduced to yet another series you did not know existed, and the research begins, then the wonder of whether or not it will work for you, etc etc. however, for me i just leave feeling inadequate most of the time. So i am having to really step back and figure out what i really want to accomplish in my children. a mission so to speak. something to wrap our minds around, to measure our each and every decision against.

i was reading this book by an author i met 2 weeks ago. she and i had a very lengthy conversation about our children and the heart of homeschooling. at one point in the book i stopped to read John 15: 12,13. It talks about how the greatest form of love is that of self- sacrificing service that benfits others. She asks in the book "in our self-centered, self-indulgent culture, how does this priciple come into play in your decision to homeschool?" however, God knew what i was struggling with and i read it totaly different. i read , "how does this self-centered, self-indulgent culture influence how you homeschool?" a totally different question. one i needed desperately to ask myself and wrestle with God about! Our decision to homeschool rests largely on trying to instill values completely opposite of our self-indulgent, self-centered culture. Yet here i was looking to others incessantly attempting to define who i was by how well i was measuring up to them. The problem is that i was never taking into account what (and who) God has given me to work with. i would look at others with their 9 year old sitting for 30 minutes doing a math workbook, with their 2 year old playing, and their 7 year old in a first grade co-op class. i would instantly think, "wow...my kids would never sit and do that...they are so hyper, so loud, i must be a terrible mom...etc etc etc." that misread question made me realize that God did not give me a 10 year old, a 7 year old and a 2 year old. he gave me 5kids. 3 of which are very hyperactive, due to some wonderful chemicals their birth parents instilled in their bodies. they are all very young. i can not expect them to sit and do a math workbook. i have 3 kids who hate workbooks (so far..but i am still holding out hope). my other has asperger's and bless her little sweet spirit loves workbooks because they make sense,they have order , and she knows what to expect from them ( i love that in her ). that is just one example of how i have been comparing myself...the list seems endless these days. But God is showing me that i can have victory over this. i already am and i love that!

We have to seriously find what God has called each of us to do! if we don't we are blindly following one of two things...either others, or ourselves. i believe most of us are following ourselves. Our own selfish ambitions. Our own desires, our own made up religion that we only wish we could find in the Bible, but will not look to find out for fear we may be called to change. But calls us to change. He calls us to radically give up ourselves to follow Him. For "whoever looses his life, will find it" (Matt 10:39). I hope that at least one of you after reading this long, boring post will rethink just one aspect of your life and then....go lose it!

Anybody Remember Grigg's Park?...

When I was in Jr. High, there was an old tradition that the last day of jr. high each year everybody would go to this park and spray everyone with shaving cream!! it was a blast. so weird, but a blast. Well, i have two kids with sensory disorders and we play in shaving cream in occupational therapy all the time. however we useually do so only withour hands. so, i took that idea and let the kids have fun one rainy day in the bath tub...it was sooo fun!!! i hope it inspires some of you to do the same...

Poor Bella just kept asking, "can i put it here?" "cani put it here?" she just could not grasp that i was letting them do this.

Isaiah on the other hand, had NO problem grasping the concept...it was all over him in a matter of seconds...

this was a fun adventure we will be doing again soon. not to mention a wondeful way to clean your bathroom (and i mean the whole bathroom) and make it smell great too!

Ag Day At the Farm...

I discovered a local farm was having an Agricultural Day so we all loaded in the car for what proved to be Ian's greatest time in all his life! There were tractors, animals, food and popcorn. if any of you really know Ian you know that he is most likely ,at this point, a farmer in the making. now if any of you know him that well, you know me that well and you're wonderin' how the heck did he get that with Sarah's blood? well, we all wonder!

Isabella has become quite funny. she found the lambs, went in and quickly began directing them as to what to do. as though lambs do not instinctively know what to do...

Here she was telling it to "stay" "sit" and "be quiet!"

Isabella is about as friendly as they come. she quickly introduced herself and made freinds with Olivia.

Is there anything greater than standing on top of a huge tractor? isaiah didn't think so...

Bella was enamored with the blind wool spinning lady. she stood there for about 5 minutes...

This llama was amazing because llamas have brown/black eyes...extremely dark. this one has beautiful sky blue eyes...

kenna getting in on some tractor action

Elias really was there...he is so content outside he didnt' make a peep. just took it all in...i will say he was not too thrilled with the llama's eating his stroller... i think he felt some territorial invasion there....

This is Ian...the happiest boy alive at this moment!