Videos

I got a cute little video camera for Christmas - only $20 - and I'm trying to figure out how to put things on YouTube and embed them in this blog. So, as a test, here's a video of Grace eating. This is not very exciting or amusing, but if it works, fascinating video will be forthcoming.


Here's my concern - this is currently "public," so anyone can view or share it. Does that matter? I don't know. Lots of people do this, don't they? Will anyone who doesn't know me care or even be able to find this? Am I exploiting my children if I put videos of them on the internet? I'll do some research on this and see if I can figure out the smart/safe/best way to do it.

Money?

The number one objection I hear from moms & families about having a parent stay home is money. It's tax time, and for the first time ever, I'm attempting to do our own taxes, so I've been looking at our income and expenses. It's not as scary as you might think. We've had one job now for 13 months (not counting my job at church, which doesn't pay very much and really doesn't count), and I'm telling you, it is totally possible to live on one income. We have a little bit of an advantage because of my kids' child support, but even without it, we'd be doing just fine. Last year, we paid off several thousand dollars in old medical bills, plus several thousand dollars for Grace's birth/delivery. We tithed. We supported a couple of other missions & charities. We bought gifts for all seven kids at birthdays and Christmas. We paid to fly David and Jennifer here and for a car for them to use. For a few months, there were 9 people living (and eating) in our house. We kept up on all of our bills and don't have any credit card debt. We all have plenty of socks, underwear, and food. Amazing? Yes, it is. I truly think that God is blessing us and our finances because of the decision we've made to reject the "it takes two incomes to survive" mentality that has infested our culture. I'm not trying to brag. We are not perfect. I waste money on dumb stuff ($20 yarn, the expensive yogurt, adorable baby shoes for a baby who doesn't walk yet) and make stupid decisions. I get crabby and yell at my children. I get mad at my husband for breathing funny in his sleep. We skip school once in a while because all of us are dreading it. I daydream about owning a huge house and a brand new minivan with those stow-and-go seats. I am, at best, just a normal person. This is all the more evidence that YOU - whoever you are - can do this to, if you want to. And if you don't, it's not as if I don't understand that too (and who would I be to judge your choices anyway?). I worked full time for the first 12ish years of my "adult" life and didn't even consider staying home until about a year and a half ago. I went back to work 4-5 weeks after each of my first three kids were born. Eagerly. I spent every bit of the two incomes we had, and sometimes more. At least once a week, John says to me, "I don't understand how we're doing it, but we're doing it." So we "only" have one car and rent our house and are the only people I know without a flat screen TV. If that's all it takes to have the incredibly rich life that we've got, how awesome is that?

Bad, bad blogger

I was reading someone else's (is that not a word? why is it underlined in red?) blog the other day, and I couldn't help but notice that not only was the writing much better than mine, but the content was actually organized, meaningful, and useful. There were metaphors, there was style, there were long words that I didn't recognize...research was apparently done beforehand in order to provide the reader with helpful tools and resources. I bet this woman even got dressed before she blogged. Or, at least, she wasn't wearing a robe with baby snot on the shoulder (I try to wash it regularly but it takes up so much room in the washer.) Anyway, it made me feel inadequate and hence, I have not blogged for a while. I'm over it now, though, and surely my goal is not, in the immediate future anyway, to be the most literary blog out there. Or the most useful. Maybe some of those bloggers look at blogs like mine and it makes them feel good. I've decided that this is my niche...along with sharing photos and the occasional useful tidbit with my close friends and family. So, that being said, this is the end of birthday week in my family: Alyssa Thams on the 9th, Isaac on the 12th, Grandma on the 13th, Grace on the 14th, Great Grandma on the 16th, and me today. I am now 34 and I suppose I have to admit to being in my mid-thirties. Here are some birthday photos (Isaac celebrated at least 4 times and had a sleepover that involved almost no sleep, for anyone):

 Birthday Breakfast

 The "Sleep"-over

 John and all of the girls

 Jen, David, and Grace at the Schoonover Christmas/Birthday Bash

Come on, Grace! Blow! Yes, I know the cake looks like a 10 and Isaac is actually 11. I didn't have enough room in the bundt pan for all of the angel food cake batter. Should have done this one last year.

Adult Children?

Is that an oxymoron? You know, like jumbo shrimp? I've been thinking a lot lately about my role as an adult daughter and about my role as a step-parent to John's adult children. I don't know whether it's the step part or the adult part that makes it hard, but these are definitely the hardest roles for me to fill in my family. I feel like I'm constantly and unwittingly offending someone, or disappointing someone, or making someone feel left out, even when I'm making a distinct effort not to do any of those things. I've even been checking out books on it from the library, which are so wildly different from each other that they're not really all that helpful. One says it's your duty to give your adult children whatever they need/want at the expense of your own finances; one says it's sink or swim and you have to watch from a distance...I guess at least no matter what I do, I'll be able to find a book to support it. All I know for sure is that it's strange to be on both sides of the adult parent thing, especially over the holidays. One day I'm in charge of coordinating everything and being the host and buying the good presents and being the grown-up; the next, I'm feeling twelve years old again and trying to be a good daughter. Maybe I'll figure all of this out and write a book about it that is actually useful. In the mean time, if you have any sage advice, send it my way.

Blog posts are no fun without pictures, right? Here's David, celebrating his 25th birthday (Dec. 12 I think - why don't I have this in my calendar?) with his little sister Grace (11 months - birthday Jan. 14!). They are totally in love. Grace is a huge fan of his beard (now gone) and ear-hole thingies. And of course, of him in general.

Dinner Time Devotions

John has been wanting to get more involved in homeschooling, and we decided he needed to teach a daily Bible lesson to the kids. We found this great book at the Christian book store in Ankeny: Dinner Table Devotions by Nancy Guthrie. It has a lesson for every day of the year, including a message, related Bible verses, and discussion questions. We've been doing them after dinner, while everyone is still sitting at the table, and I LOVE it. The lessons would work for anyone from my kids' ages to teenagers, and the discussion questions are really good. It's a lot easier than trying to come up with your own lesson, and I'm pretty sure we could use this for several years in a row, since the kids' understanding will evolve and they'll continue to get something new out of the material even after seeing it a couple of times. I like that everyone doesn't just get up and run away after they finish their meal, and it only takes 5 minutes or so to do the whole thing, so the kids pretty much stay focused on it. The book looks cute too - check it out:

We put up the tree!

I have nothing useful to share today, except that the Carroll County 4H group is adding "Clover Kids" this winter, a club for K-3rd graders, so get registered! You can hang out with Simon and do 4H-y things, like...well, really, I have no idea. But I'm sure it's wholesome and educational, and you only have to pay $30 per year for your child to be in as many 4H clubs as he/she wants to be in. Isaac is doing "Outdoor Adventures" and the "Health Careers Club," and I think there will be a book club later this winter. The ISU Extension office, where you register, is by Anytime Fitness and the laundromat.
Anyway, we did put up our Christmas tree, which is aggravating for me (perfectionist, not sentimental, annoyed by broken lights and ornaments without hooks) but enjoyable for everyone else (non-perfectionist, sentimental, like to touch and look at shiny things). The evidence:

 Isaac mad; Simon happy and pre-nosebleed.

 Isaac happy; Simon mad and post-nosebleed (see shirt).

Grace was napping and missed the fun, so here she is eating a Pop Tart. Could be her last; this was the worst mess to clean up ever.

Pictures

 Trick-or-treating at Grandma & Grandpa's. We debated whether this was an anti-Christian holiday or just harmless fun and decided on the harmless fun, but I'm not sure we're going next year. Family fun night might become our new Halloween tradition.

 Esme the Princess.

 Isaac the pirate (no eyepatch - he thought people would laugh), Esme the bobcat princess, and Simon the "ghost face," as he called it.

 Just about ready to go out & get candy. And oh my, the candy.

 Lego City - part of the reason I've been finding it difficult to exercise. The Lego people have overthrown my workout space and built an empire on it. I feel like Gulliver. Or maybe Godzilla.

 The TURKEY. Stuffed with caramelized onion and cornbread stuffing and rubbed with sage butter. It was good. Oh, so good.

 Kristin and Esme on Thanksgiving. Esme can't always remember her name, but she loooooves Kristin.

 Esme, Kristin, Grace, and Nick.

 The whole gang. (That's David holding up Grace.)

 David and Brittany enjoying Thanksgiving dinner.

 See the paper plates? We had a plumbing stoppage in the kitchen that we had to get cleared Thanksgiving morning, so we were afraid to do too many dishes. Thank goodness for Knobbe Plumbing.

Dylan, Brittany, David, Jennifer, Nick, Kristin, and Grace.

What a great holiday! And it's only Friday. Gotta love it. I never thought I'd have a big family - certainly not seven kids - and I couldn't be happier about the way things have turned out. Good thing God's in charge and not me.

Thanksgiving is Coming!

And I think I'm ready. I downloaded this wonderful workbook for the kids from http://www.scriptureadventures.com/ called "Give Thanks" - 102 pages of activities, crafts, memory verses, games, journaling, and other cool stuff - for only $7. I bought the Christmas one too. I think these would work for any elementary-aged kids; ideal age is maybe 2nd - 5th grade. I haven't fully explored the website, but it looks to be full of good stuff for homeschoolers (and church school too - pretty denomination-neutral from what I saw).

I also have our Thanksgiving dinner all planned and the cupboards all stocked. I raided the Food Network website and came up with the following:
Oven Roasted Turkey with Sage Butter and Carmelized Onion and Cornbread Stuffing
Classic Stuffing
Grainy Mustard Mashed Potatoes (you boil the potatoes in milk and cream...yum...)
Creamy Sweet Potato Casserole (topped with marshmallows and candied pecans - no, there is no such thing as "too sweet")
Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cakes (obviously a Paula Deen one)
Then, the piece de resistance: my grandma's green bean recipe. Beans, onions, bacon, vinegar, and brown sugar.
Have been depressed lately about the lack of time to do any of the following things: exercise, adequately plan school and church lessons, dust, read, knit enough to stay on schedule for Christmas presents, sleep, blog, pray, maintain my childrens' toe and fingernails, etc., etc. I'm not sure what I actually have been doing, but it's been keeping me very busy. One neat thing we did last week was to deliver our church's shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child (http://www.samaritanspurse.org/) to the drop-off site in Boone with our pastors. It's too late for this year, but if you've never been involved in this, you should check into it for next year. You pack shoeboxes full of goodies for kids in impoverished countries, and they receive the gifts, along with the gospel message, as Christmas presents.
I'm in the middle of knitting John's birthday present and it is going SLOWLLLLYYY, but I do have seven gifts done and another almost done. Scarves, cowls, gloves, toys, and more. Next year I'm starting way earlier. I wonder if anyone is interested in a knitting all-nighter sometime soon. Would that be fun? I'll have to ask the Yarnivores (my knitting companions). (Isn't that a clever name? I thought of it while I was feeding my way-too-old-to-be-getting-fed-at-1-am baby at 1 am the other night.)
My goal this week is to blog every day. Something useful. Can I do it?

My cute kids

I'm going to admit something very shallow and vain this morning. One of the things I worry about with homeschooling is that my kids are going to look...homeschooled. You know what I mean. Bad hair, clothes that don't match or fit, goofy, slightly vacant smiles - basic disregard for personal appearance and hygiene. I don't know why I associate these things with homeschooling, because I've been to lots of homeschooling things and this definitely isn't the norm, but I think it's the picture society has painted of our kids - backwoodsy hicks that are totally clueless about how to fit in with the rest of the world. I'm not so sure that's all bad, but it's not all true either. So for one thing, I need to focus on more important stuff and stop being so concerned with appearances (hygiene, yes; appearance, no), and for another, I need to be proud of my kids for who they are. And they ARE cute, darn it. Here's a picture from Grandpa Jim's funeral day, on which the boys got to wear "suits" and sunglasses and look grown up. Jim would have gotten a kick out of them strutting up to the church with their hands in their pockets and their glasses on.

We miss you, Jimbo!