A Request for Prayers

I have a heart that is filled with sadness and joy at the same time.  How can this be?  Our beautiful, wonderful, sweet, 11 month old son, passed away on Tuesday.  He was picture perfect health and had a great day with all of us on Sunday.  I nursed him to sleep and didn't know that moment would be the last time I would see him and feel him with life in his body.  We don't know why or what happened, we might never know.  This is the sadness because we miss him dearly.

The joy comes from knowing that he died without sin on his soul.  He went straight from our arms into the arms of our loving Father.  It brings a tremendous amount of peace knowing that he is in eternal happiness. 

I desire with all my heart to live a life worthy of being able to see my son again.  I replay in my mind many things like watching him crawl around and then look up to smile at me.  He liked hanging out with me while I did the laundry and would pull all the letter magnets off of the refrigerator.  I would kiss his hands while he nursed and clap hands with him. 

I would always hold him and say, "Thank you God for William."  I encourage everyone to remember that life can send some very unexpected experiences - so live it with a heavenly goal in mind.  Don't have any regrets about the time, love, or support that you can give to others.  Love everyone to the fullest and if you have to say goodbye to a loved one then have the peace of knowing you truly loved them.

Please pray for our family.  William leaves behind 8 siblings here on earth and one that I carry in my womb.  We are all hurting and rejoicing as I mentioned before.  I know that we are floating on everyone's prayers for us.  Thank you.

The Completed Workbook:

A symbol of triumph or a missed opportunity?

There are some that are coming near the end of their current school year.  The excitement is building as both student and parent realize there are a few lessons left or a smaller number of pages in the workbook to be completed.  There can be a great sense of accomplishment as the workbooks are filled and finished containing a year of hard work.  

We use workbooks as well, but I want to be careful on how I use them.  I like the idea of finishing off a workbook and completing all the pages.  I also like the idea of just using what a student needs from a workbook to increase their skills and knowledge.  It can be tempting to consider mastery of a subject as complete once all the pages are done.  Oftentimes I have found that a workbook page can introduce a topic, but the real mastery doesn't occur with just getting all the answers right on the page.

Here is an example...

My boys were getting all the answers right on their grammar exercises.  One day I decided to play a game with them instead of using the workbook.  I made a story up with blank spaces for parts of speech.  I then would call out a part of speech that I needed to complete the story without them knowing anything about the story.  The resulting story would be pretty silly based on their choice of words.  It didn't take long for us to begin reviewing what I thought they already knew.    They started asking questions like:  What is an interjection again?  An adjective describes things right?  What is the difference between a verb and adverb?

Once we reviewed the parts of speech and they became confident of supplying an adverb when I called for that part of speech the fun really started.  They wanted to play over and over again and they were getting the correct parts of speech after we did real life examples.  The workbook helped to introduce the concepts but the real learning happened when we weren't using the workbook. 

A mom once told me she wished they had time to play games and do things like Fun School but there just isn't enough time to have fun and get all the workbooks done.  Is our goal to admire the stack of completed workbooks or learn?  Ask yourself that question when you feel there just isn't time for fun, perhaps if you think of the fun as learning then you won't see that time as wasted.  You won't feel the pressure of having to use all your school time to complete exercise pages because learning can happen even when you don't finish the book!

I have nothing against workbooks, like I said we use them.  I do think we need to stop and check to make sure the material is actually being understood.  If we can make it fun, then it makes school learning more enjoyable for everyone.

Mashed Potatoes

Mashed Potatoes can be a meal!  Our family of 11 usually has a few servings leftover when we combine it with a pound of shredded brisket.  Smaller families can cut this recipe in half or you can make the full amount and split in half so you can have one meal for now and freeze the other half for later!

5 lb bag of large potatoes

3 cloves of garlic

8 oz cream cheese

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup of milk (add more after mixing if you like it creamier)

salt and pepper to taste

Scrub the potatoes.  We leave the peel on the potatoes.  Cut into quarters.  Fill large pot with water so that potatoes are submerged.  Add the peeled garlic cloves.  Boil potatoes for 30 minutes on medium-hi heat.  While potatoes boil, put the cream cheese, butter, milk, salt, and pepper in a large bowl.  Potatoes are done when you can pierce them easily with a fork.  They should be soft but not smushy.  Drain the potatoes and add them with the garlic to your large bowl of ingredients.  Use a hand mixer to mash the potatoes, garlic, and ingredients. 

If you are freezing half, allow the potatoes to cool and then freeze.  Take your potatoes out and allow them to thaw the day before for a quick easy meal!

Add the following toppings to the individual servings according to preference:

Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Chopped Green Onion

Sour Cream

Paprika 

Leftover Bacon or BBQ meat

If you only have a little bit of meat; chop it up to feed more people!  Skip it for a meatless option.

Yield:  8-10 servings