Proud of My Boys!

I've been attempting to edit one of Chet's papers for an hour and a half now, but I'm totally delirious and can't focus. I guess four hours of sleep last night didn't turn out to be enough to sustain me for a late night of academic paper reading tonight. Shocking!

I just thought I'd post a quick note to say I'm so proud of my boys... all of them! Chet's been working HARD to get through this semester. In about six weeks, he'll complete his last full semester. Then he's got two classes to finish up. He's totally exhausted and has a ton on his plate right now, but the end is in sight! He's such a hard worker!

Ladan and I finished lesson 16 in Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons today. He's reading some short words, some short sentences, and has been introduced to some picture interpretation over the course of the last few lessons. And he's TOTALLY LOVING IT!!!! He can hardly wait for his lesson every day, and he is so excited throughout each one. It's so much fun to see him learning and enjoying it so much. I forgot what he did the other day, but when he finished, I told him he did a really good job. He replied, "Yeah, I'm so proud of myself!" This may sound a bit puffed up to some of you, but I am so excited to see this new confidence coming out in him. We've worked and prayed long and hard for this, and it's finally showing up! Rather than hearing him say, "I can't," I see him backing up, thinking, and then trying again until he gets it.

Gabe has really made some big progress in the last few weeks with his letters also. I wasn't too sure if he was going to be into letters and sounds, but he's really blown me away. He stands at the refrigerator or the white board and points out all his letters. He still gets about 5 or so of them confused every once in a while, but considering that he only knew 5 letters total about a month ago, I'd say that's pretty great. And considering that he does it all voluntarily, I think it's REALLY great!

Learning is so much fun! And lest you think that my boys are the only ones doing the learning, I'll let you know that I too am catching on to new things. I had a chance to take Beth Bloom's senior photos yesterday. In preparation, Chet had to teach me a little bit more about our big flash. Beth, Kathy (Beth's mom), and I went out to a few fun spots around town to snap the photos. We had so much fun! I almost fell in the creek about five times, but thankfully I managed to stay on dry land. I had downloaded the 30-day trial of Photoshop Lightroom to play around with, and I had a blast using Beth's photos as a learning experience!

Then tonight I went to a meeting of current and potential homeschoolers at our church to learn more about how to homeschool on a tight budget. Homeschooling freaks me out in many ways... but every time I think about acquiring materials/supplies, taking time to learn or re-learn all that content myself in order to teach it, and then watching my kids' faces light up every time they learn something new, I realize it could the perfect combination of all the parts of school that were my favorites!!! Only the Lord knows if it's what we'll end up doing for sure, but I'm so thankful for the opportunity to learn from so many wise, experienced people here. My friend, Becky, is always telling me that I'm already homeschooling my kids, and she's right. It's just not structured-sit-down-and-do-worksheets homeschooling.

Ladan and Gabe are both having a great time singing. Their current favorite is "Holy, Holy, Holy". Ladan knows all the words and sings it along with his air guitar while he dances around. And Gabe apparently doesn't want to miss out on the fun, because he inevitably chimes in, "Woewee, woewee, woewee!" and then belts into an endless stream of babbling with the occasional clear syllable until finally at the end, when Ladan is shouting out, "Blessed Trinity," Gabe ends on cue with "i-tee!" as if he just sang the song as clearly as his older brother. Great!

Ladan is loving his Jesus Storybook Bible. We've been through it quite a few times already, but he still can't get enough of it. Whenever it's time to read together, he only wants to read his Bible. I can't argue with that. He saves his other books for his independent "reading" time. Tonight we were reading about God's message to Isaiah, and the story referred to the coming king as a servant. I asked Ladan if he knew what a servant was. He kind of stumbled around for a bit, so I explained that it's a person who helps another person. He replied, "Yeah, Jesus is that servant. He helped us because he died on the cross to take our punishment." Okay! I guess he knew right where this story was headed!

Gabe, on the other hand, tends to have a hard time sitting still for books that have any length to them. But that kid cannot get enough of prayer time. Especially before bed, he loves it when we hold him and whisper our prayers in his ear. He bows his head, snuggles close, and says, "Pay?" So we pray with him, and when we finish, he'll ask again. My prayer is that this time will provide a foundation for him and that he'll know without a doubt that the Lord is near and that He hears us.