Progression and Pancakes

I've never thought myself much of an artist. I have little passion for it and, well, my general appreciation has room for growth. That said, I always loved it when my parents would make shapes with pancakes, and I resolved as a little kid to make shapes for my kids.

Next step, I am, for the first time, telling a short story with only pancakes. Fun! Here goes!

Another Phase

Our oldest Amy girl has now entered another phase of life!

One tooth gone, one dollar gained, one excited girly girl, and luckily no pain! Congratulations Amy!

Free Cone Day this year

For those who may not yet have seen it, I am indeed hosting Ben & Jerry's free cone day this year! Details can be found on either the Facebook event or the Google+ event.

All are welcome! I'm feeling pretty excited, and more so every time I open my freezer! It's hard to not feel it when this is what I see every time!

A New Blog

I made a new blog today called The Things of My Soul. I've been wanting to do it for a while. You can find it at iwanttosharemythoughts.blogspot.com. My plan is to post on here and facebook a link and the topic when I post on it to let people know. I know I have some opinions others will not agree with. I figured that way people can read what they are interested in reading and leave alone what they want to leave alone. I will also post links to articles that I read that I think are important.

Right now I am very interested in the concept of a personal mission - that each of us have one - and that my job right now is to study and learn a ton of stuff to prepare myself to be able able to do the work God wants me to do. So that is what I am doing and what I am passionate about doing right now. As I find things that I think are interesting and important, I will share them on that blog.

I'm sure there will be a variety of topics. Right now I am interested in parenting things, liberty, managing thoughts, to name a few topics. I study every day, and I take classes and attend seminars to help me in my journey. I just realized another thing I'd like to do is list resources on the side bar, and I'm sure I'll blog about books I read.

I hope that many can find something there that is insightful and important for them to read. I know each of us have unique paths, and my reading list won't be your reading list, etc. But I hope there is something that will help a reader think and learn and want to grow.

Along the way, I'd love polite feedback. Thanks!

Teaching Self Government

I have been reading and learning some really important (to me) things lately. I have gotten really excited about studying and improving myself and my family. I talk about feeling passionate about study and work, and I want so much to know and prepare for the work God has for me to do.

As I learn, I really want to share what I learn with others and hope to help them. Matt suggests I start a new blog just to put insights and references (mostly to books I read, seminars I attend, things I learn, etc.) so people can have access to what I learn as they want. I probably will at some point. I just haven't gone there yet.

Today, I have a plug for a WONDERFUL book I have been reading.

To give some background, I have often thought about entitlement. We hear about the problem in our society, and I think many of us see it. I want my children to understand about rights versus privileges and entitlement vs. appropriate responsibility.

With that general feeling and impelled by some behaviors and lack of self-control happening in my home, I recently have been studying a book called A House United by Nicholeen Peck. It teaches parents some structures and language and skills to teach their children in order to help them govern themselves. These are principles and tools that can be applied for children at any age. They are simple (albeit time and effort consuming especially to put in place.) Some things she suggests we were already doing; others we weren't. Reading her book helps me see where I was lacking in consistency and follow-through and how those areas I was lacking in were sabotaging my efforts to get what I really want - a happy home and obedient children.

As Matt and I have been reading this book, we have begun implementing some of the tools. I know there will be ups and downs and a learning curve as my family gets used to some new terminology and skills, but I am so excited to learn this.

Check out Nicholeen's website at www.teachingselfgovernment.com to see what she teaches and the other resources she has. I bought a few copies of the book wanting to share it with others. Let me know if you want to borrow a copy.

School Days

At the risk of influencing people to run away screaming at the thought of home schooling, I thought I'd share some of the pictures from our school day. (I thought it was a blast, despite the mess.)

 That is, in fact, two of my kids in the sink with melted snow and water and food coloring. The water level is to almost-overflow.

Three kids out of the tub. Amy and Noel often huddle in their towels and complain of being freezing. In convinced Eliza to joing them.

This is Eliza afterwards. I thought she made a cute flower with green pants and a flower shirt so I made flower hair (that she desperately wanted to add the clip to.)

If you want to read more about our adventures check out our home school blog: http://parkshomeschool.blogspot.com/2013/01/three-little-girls-playin-in-water.html

Common Core

I have been reading about the Common Core standards and have been rather alarmed. I know there are many opinions out there. Mine is that education should have as much local control as possible and no federal control at all. Parents should be the experts on their own families with schools there to assist. I am concerned that this is a step in a dangerous agenda towards global initiatives that jeopardize our liberties. It seems Common Core was implemented quickly by most states without sufficient time to study it. I am also concerned that this will affect even my little home school at some point.

If you are interested in learning about this - whether you think I am radical and crazy or right on - two sites I have been learning from (obviously very biased - I understand that) are http://truthinamericaneducation.com/ and http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/

There is a petition on one of those sites to convince the Utah legislature to abandon common core and lots of information.

If anyone is learning about this or has an opinion, let me know what you think.

Our Unique Missions

I have been doing and learning so many things that I have found really valuable but not mentioning much of anything here. Occasionally I think about how I'd like to share with friends and family who read my blog some of the great stuff I have learned and the wonderful resources I have found but often don't make blogging a high priority.

There is one book I read recently for my Lifelong Learning class (provided by the Ten Boom Institute) that was so wonderful I wanted to share.

It is called Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado. You can buy it on his website or here or here. It's also available at Orem Library.

This book speaks of the happy way we can live our lives if we follow our life's missions and do things that we are good at and that we love. He points out the need to do them for the glory of God, overcoming greed and desire for reputation. He calls those things we do that we enjoy and are good at our sweet spots and helps us see how even trivial seeming sweet spots can be parts of our life's mission and can build God's kingdom.

Lucado is a Christian pastor in Texas. His writing style is fun and funny, easily accessible, and full of analogies and anecdotes to prove his points. I had heard of some of his children's books previous to this but had not known he wrote adult books as well.

I enjoyed the whole book.

My favorite part was after the text when he provides prompts to help you go through your life thinking of times that could give you clues about your sweet spots and your life mission. I loved doing these exercises and shared them with my family over Thanksgiving.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the mission God intends me to fulfill and the general idea that each person has a unique mission. Each of us can learn from God what He wants us to do. That doesn't mean each of us need to be heroes, writing books, and leading movements. We can be ordinary people who try to do what God wants us to do. And He will help us do great things.

That's how I want to live.

Living the Joyful Life Teleseminar

Last week I listened to a telesiminar put together by a woman I met this summer at a retreat. She runs a sight and mentoring business called Living the Joyful Life. Each week day last week she hosted someone on a call to teach about different aspects of life. The topics were marriage, parenting, money, managing thoughts, and finding inner beauty. I especially loved the one on parenting and have been thinking a lot about the one about thoughts. I found both of those very helpful for me.

The seminar was free, and the links to listen to the calls will work through Saturday. I was just wondering if anyone I know would be interested in learning some of this great stuff. I think you can still register on her website (livingthejoyfullife.com), or I can forward you the email with all the links. Just let me know if you are interested.

Snow Day!

We had a HUGE snow day today. I don't know how many inches, but it snowed pretty much all day. It was beautiful and so fun.

Another video is not loading for some reason. It's too bad because Noel talks in it about giving our snowman hips. Who knew that was essential anatomy on a snowman?

We made snow angels and snowmen and decorated the snow with spray bottles of water and food coloring. We jumped on the trampoline. We caught snowflakes in our mouths and sang "My Favorite Things." Eliza didn't love it, but she had some fun. Noel and I loved it. Unfortunately for her, Amy slept through this whole thing. It was nice to have time with just the other two though.

Bucket List checkoff

When I was little, I would fly once each month to my Dad's in California for a weekend. This process through the years saw me driving past the Point of the Mountain perhaps more often than would be typical, and I saw lots of people through the years on hang gliders and parachutes. I dreamed of how cool it would be to fly. What kid doesn't?! Shoot, what adult doesn't? (Okay, so there's a few adults out there who have grown up. My sympathies to you.) ;-)

Now that I work in Riverton, I've seen them morning and evening many, many, oh so many times. And at least as many times as I've seen them, I've wanted to be there.

For my Christmas/Birthday/Father's day present, Bonnie purchased for me a voucher to do a tandem paragliding flight! WAHOO!!!!! I've wanted to do this for SO long!

 Getting set up

 Taking off (the second time). The first time there was a little knot on the corner, so we flew down to the bottom and drove back up to try again.

 It was really quite awesome!

Now, with this last video, there's something not quite right about it. It's pretty subtle, so you might not catch it. And no, it's not what Bonnie thinks it is when she's commenting in the video. :)

This one is by far my favorite recording of my flight! :) I just think it's fun and funny!

Thank you honey! This was such a blast! You totally rock!

Noel Just Said

Noel: I have a sister, Amy and I do.
Me: What's her name?
Noel: Celista.
Me: How old is she?
Noel: Eight o'clock.
Noel: She lost a tooth. Now I gotta take her to the denktist.

Some weekend fun

Bonnie bought a swing set this week for us. We planned to set it up today so I went out, opened the box, got the instructions out, began to read them, and that's when I began to work myself up. Some of you know that, well, manual labor ain't my thing. And this had more bolts and nuts and screws and other hibbitty-jabbers than I cared to every see at one time except when I thrust myself down that gauntlet people call a "hardware store."

Bonnie this morning was on the phone for her 2 hour awesome tenboom institute class, so I just started preparing to get myself out of the house and away from that. I've been thinking a while that I'd like to go see Battle Creek falls, which I've never done. So I started prepping food for Amy and Noel and I to go do this all together.

Here are some pics from our little trip. The girls were awesome troopers.

Standing in the coooooold water

 Eating Lunch

 A Cool Rock

Noel was brave and actually touched the waterfall (the one on the right). We had a great time. Not long after we got home, Bonnie and Melissa, with the help of T.H.E. and Tyler (our neighbor), the swing set was ready to roll!

Some Important Things to Me

I posted a huge 'ol post on my home school blog about what I am doing, what I am planning, and what I have learned the last few years. I share some great resources. These things are really important to me and have become a big part of my life. Please check it out. It includes some answers to FAQ I get about home schooling.

http://parkshomeschool.blogspot.com/2012/09/to-answer-question-or-two.html

At Home Kindergarten

We have big news in our family. Yesterday we started home school! Wahoo! Amy and I have been so excited about it.

I decided at the end of each kindergarten day to write about what we did. Then I decided to just make a home school blog and post pictures and videos there. It isn't a how to about home schooling, more a place to keep a record. I have no idea if it will interest any of you besides Matt and my mom, but you are welcome to see. My post for yesterday outlined the routine - opening routine and closing routine with Amy choosing activities in the middle.

So far, I love it.

You can check at the blog - if you are interested - here.