My Year of Lessons in a Nutshell

Hello all my lovelies! 

I tell you what, as soon my classes started up, my extra time and desire to find the time to blog went right out the window!  Sheesh!  Talk about piling up the busy work!  Busy enough that I didn't get my Christmas cards out!  Oh well!  I'll have to post it here on my blog here in the next week for you all to see... that saves me postage anyway!

The thoughts on my mind are all of the things that I have learned in this past year.  It has been a speedy one for sure.  Here is my list of lessons learned, some hard, some great.

Fear God, not man... if you feel confident that God will not be displeased, then you are okay. 1, 2

God and Jesus Christ are always here for me.

I love the Constitution.

A wall hanging in my house.

Relationships are fragile.  They can end abruptly.

Gossip hurts everyone.

Excuses stink, and everyone has them (that one isn't a new realization).

I like to shoot guns!  I want to one day go hunting for real...well, more than once. (hint hint Hoss).

Not everyone sees the world the way I do.

True friends can be counted on one hand (wisdom from my dad... very true dad, thanks).

Needless to say, great friends are hard to come by.

Sorry its blurry.

Never were there better friends!

Hugs!

My friend is in the red dress in the doorway...I didn't have another pic.
Her whole family is represented by this picture. 

Life can't be lived on the computer/phone/ipad/xbox/_______ (insert your own distraction).

I miss family.

Grandmas!

Grandpas!

Memories are never done being created, so don't stop doing fun things.

I hate coaching soccer....but I loved doing it with my girls.

Losing weight is not an end goal... it is a way of life.

One of the best feelings in the world is to see your child baptized and and confirmed.

Its Bug's turn this August!

I really miss Idaho.

Everywhere I went, I found myself snapping pictures of the
scenery I drove and walked by every day before we moved.

I am ALWAYS right when it comes to politics. :) That is sarcasm in case you missed that.

But while maybe not always... definitely most of the time! Ha! :)

Happiness happens when you make it happen.

I LOVE teaching science!  I hope to delve into physics one day!

I can live anywhere on this green earth and know that my husband is always there for me.

Ten years of marriage down!  I couldn't have found a better man.  God sent him to me.

Hoss posing in front of the neighborhood oil pump.

Missions are amazing!  I hope to one day make my family a full serving family!  My mom and dad are heading out on a mission this March!

Since most of my siblings all live far away from each other, we did a
Google Hangout to watch my parents open their mission call

The events in my life are all at the will of God.

Scripture journals are the best things ever!

I am very VERY imperfect. (also not a new realization).

A sisters' bond can be better than any friend.

Raising a boy is VERY different than raising girls.

I might miss the snow, just a little bit.

Forgiveness is an important part of repentance.  Frankly forgive all men. I am still working on it.

Education or knowledge is not always in a diploma.  Education is living life.

My children fill my heart to the brim with love (again, not new).

I'm so lucky that God has trusted me enough to help them through this life.

Technology is fun and exciting, but it is only momentary.

My right to own a gun is very important to me...no matter the gun.

It is easy to focus on what should have been, but it does no good. Focus on what will be.

I'm still working on that too.

My right to educate my children in the way I see fit is very important to me.

Natural medicine in most cases is best...or I am trying to live by that as much as I can.

I am very interested in learning more about alternative medicine.

Support from my family is important to me, but not mandatory.

I love my scriptures, and my liberty of religion is also very important to me.

I am grateful for those men and women who went to so much trouble,

 sacrifice and war to establish my liberty here.

I am very aware that those liberties are being sold for temporary comfort.

Time flies faster with each year older I get.

I am in love with New Mexico sunsets.  There are none like it.. the silhouettes and colors are amazing!

I know there are a lot more things that I have learned in the past year, 

but there is no way I could name them all!

All in all, the world didn't end on my 10 year anniversary...everything is still ticking.  I am still waiting for my hover car as predicted in the Back to the Future series.  

It has ultimately been a pretty good year, with exciting changes for our family, and we look forward to what awaits us for 2013!

Happy New Year!

Evelyn

Disclaimer: Nothing on this list is meant to cause offense.

As my class starts back up, I will do my best to blog when I can.

Day Four of the Creation

Before we started studying the Creation, we read the scriptures for the exact account.

First we read it in Genesis, then we read it in the book of Moses, and finally, the book of Abraham.  All three are essentially the same, but I wanted the girls to be able to know that with the scriptures, there are multiple witnesses of the events, prophesies, and teachings written.

Since we are studying each day more in depth, including science, I decided that we needed to read at least one of the accounts, for that day before we begin.  Both girls love reading the scriptures, and they are very good at pronouncing the difficult words.  I can't think of a better way to become a strong reader.

Baby K was learning sorting.

Day four, God divided the day from the night, and created the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night.  He also created the stars.  The scriptures say, "and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years;" (Moses 2: 14).  A great opportunity to study the seasons, and time, right?  Well, next week, we are going to create our own sun dial.  I'll post that in a separate post.

 So I found a website that had a diagram of the Earth's rotation and revolution around the sun (that is the diagram that I drew on my marker board -pictured below-, but I had to erase part of it before I thought of taking a picture..so visit the link to see the full diagram).  Along with the diagram, I drew the four seasons that we usually experience.

My Diagram

I taught them about how the earth is on the axis, and it spins.  One rotation taking a full day.  Then we talked about how the earth revolves or orbits the sun, and it takes 365 days aka 1 year to make it all the way around the sun.  We then discussed that the earth is positioned at different angles toward the sun as it revolves... which causes the seasons to change.  You can see it in the diagram.

I needed a way to show them what it means to spin on the axis, and luckily, the Lord is on my side, because He fed me the idea that I needed to get the point across... in a fun way!

What you need:

1 apple
1 chopstick

Insert the chopstick through the center of the apple.  I suggest pushing it through from the top side, across the core and out the opposite bottom side.  That way, you can see the differences around your "earth" as you pretend to make the apple revolve around the "sun."  In this case, we used a trick-or-treat pumpkin to represent the sun.  Spin the apple on the chopstick, while you make it revolve around your sun.  

Baby K saw the apple on a stick, and he insisted that he have it.  So, we made up a fun Creation Day Four snack!  Apple on a stick.  Big T, and Little H both got one too!   

We finished up our lesson with vocabulary words, that both girls wrote 3 times.

Fun lesson!

Now it is on to sewing Little H's Halloween costume!  The kid's costumes are a surprise!  Don't worry, I'll post pictures!

Sincerley,

Evelyn   

A Magic Kind of Day

The girls have been learning about the Creation and everything in it.  We read the Creation directly from Genesis, then we compared it to Moses.  After doing that, I thought it would be fun to cover the universe!  We have so many tools at our fingertips to help us in our homeschool journey!  The Internet is chuck full of resources!  So, we began our research on the sun, the planets, the moons, and the stars in our universe!  Did you know that Mars has two moons that are not perfect spheres?  That is because both of those moons do not have a strong enough gravity to pull itself into the tight sphere!  Our universe is full of wonder!  I feel so blessed that we have it to ponder and learn about!

In the last few days, I have been doing more research on lapbooks.  We have been making everything

Lapbooks

Today was a bit cold outside.  Okay, for a native Idahoan referring to 65 degree weather as cold is pretty much disgraceful.  I'm sorry.  The south has a way of weakening any cold blooded person!  But, even a now southern girl, can appreciate the soft cool breezes that come with 65 degree, sunny weather!  So today, after some work on our school project, we headed to the park!  I call it the dinosaur park.

It is a brand new park!  Finished at the end of the summer, with fun new toys that spin, and