This last weekend we visited my grandpa.  He lives about 700+ miles away so it's not a short journey.  He is 91 now and in poor health so he doesn't travel any more.  I don't know how much longer he will be on this earth. We lost my grandma about 17 months ago at the age of 92 and Grandpa's been missing her a lot. We went so my daughter could get her patriarchal blessing.   My grandpa has been a patriarch for about 35 years or more.  He has gotten too old to give them any more on a regular basis but he can still do it for his direct descendants.  He gave me my blessing way back in 1983.  My daughter is my sixth child and his 17th great-grandchild to receive a blessing from him.  I believe that the blessing comes from the Lord, so in theory it doesn't matter which patriarch gives it to her.  But it's a special experience to have my grandpa do it. Our visit with him was not long; we were only in his home for two hours.  We had a lot of obligations at home so w

  My baby started kindergarten today!  I didn't anticipate this, but I had some mixed emotions.  Yesterday with all the whining and complaining I was hearing, I thought that starting kindergarten would be nothing but great for all of us!  Today as I walked her to her seat and said goodbye, she was nothing but excited and pleased.  On the other hand, I was a little bit sad. I guess that's always how it is when you enter a new phase of your life.  There's no going back to that earlier time, for better or worse.  Children need to grow up.  They are supposed to become independent and I frankly work very hard to achieve that for them, but it's still a little hard to say goodbye.  Fortunately she is only gone for a few hours every day so I still have lots of time with her.  And I have BIG plans for the time she is gone.  There is no way I can get everything done that I want to during that time, but maybe this blog will get a little more attention! Soon I will hav

School starts in two days for all of my children except my college-aged and my kindergartener. We did a little school-supply shopping yesterday and it wasn't too painful! Hoping to help my middle-aged children be a little more organized this year, I read Organizing the Disorganized Child by Martin L. Kutscher & Marcella Moran.  If you're looking for an easy solution for your child's organizational problems where all you have to do is invest in some supplies and a one-time explanation of how to use them, this isn't it.  As they explain in the book, if that approach had worked, you probably wouldn't be reading this book. I like their explanation of why children are so frequently disorganized:  it's that darned frontal lobe which doesn't finish developing until well past your 20th birthday.  Your frontal lobe helps you use foresight, remember what happened when you didn't use foresight, not get distracted by less-important tasks, make a plan fo

To continue my vacation posts, I'll write a little about our trip to Kirtland which came after we visited Nauvoo.  Kirtland is near Cleveland, Ohio.  Kirtland was the headquarters of the new LDS church in the 1830's.  They were eventually driven out because of persecution.  Here's the historical background to the sites:  http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/summer-travel-series-historic-kirtland-ohio . Our family last visited this site in June 2000 and things have changed!  The church bought a fairly busy road that ran between the sites and re-routed it so that the whole area is a beautiful, walkable area and there are no worries about traffic.  The main things I love about the church historical sites:  plenty of parking, free admission to everything, and plenty of guides/missionaries to tell you about everything you may want to know.  And air-conditioning! I loved the details put into the Newel K. Whitney store: I also loved the details in the Newel

  My last post talked about a few homeschooling books that I did not find helpful.  So here's a book that I did find to be helpful.  I found it by poking around online and I got the book from the local library.  The book I read is called:  100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy.  It was published in 2005 and since then she has come out with an updated version called 101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum . I'm not sure the reason for the slight name change. She also has a website:  http://cathyduffyreviews.com/ . Here are some reasons her book is helpful: 1.  She discusses the different approaches to education and walks you through a process of figuring out what you envision your approach to be.  She lists 8 different approaches and explains each one which I appreciated.  The approaches:  traditional, Charlotte Mason, classical, unit study, unschooling, independent study, eclectic, and umbrella program. 2.  Is your child an auditory, visual, social,

I am what someone might call a homeschool dabbler.  Back when my oldest was a preschooler I read a few books by homeschoolers and I thought about doing it, but I just couldn't see how I could do it if I had more than one or two children.  Since then, I have homeschooled just a little bit--English for my 8th grader one year, afternoons for my 3rd grader one year, etc.  My biggest stint was a few years ago when I pulled my daughter out of second grade where things did not seem to be working well and homeschooled her full-time for the rest of the year.  It was actually good for me to finally do this thing I had been thinking about for so long.  I realized that it was just as time-consuming as I was afraid it would be.  And I also realized that I didn't really enjoy it very much.  It was hard to take time to teach my daughter for a couple of hours.  Every. Single. Day. I think my daughter benefitted from that year at home.  The area she was struggling--math--definitely improved.