Answers in Genesis

If you are a Christian parent or homeschooler, I cannot stress enough the importance of looking into Answers in Genesis. Recommended to me by a fellow homeschooler, Answers in Genesis is an organization that will provide you everything you can possibly need to teach your children (or learn yourself) why the THEORY of Evolution does not pan out. I attended a public school all my life, and for some reason, the church did not "cover" this, so I was totally ignorant about the many holes in the Theory of Evolution. It occurred to me as my children were ready to learn these important truths, that I did not know them! I know that I had the faith to believe that God created us all, but there are TONS of questions that come up, especially when you have "inquiring minds" of young children!

Answers in Genesis provides information for every age, including yourself! If you are like me and never got that education, it is never too late to learn it. So many of us stand up for "Creation" at our public schools, and most of us don't even know why! If you think about it, learning about Intelligent Design is one of the most important responsibilities that a Christian has. We have too often let evolutionists walk all over us, when the sad thing is, THEY don't even know what THEY believe! They simply think that more scientists support evolution, so they must be right. Wrong!

For our science curriculum this year, I have selected a book from Apologia Educational Ministries, Exploring Creation with Astronomy , by Jeannie Fulbright. We will follow each year with the next volume, and we are SO excited to start this book! I have been reading it myself and LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! They work well with the books from Answers in Genesis, by providing a God-based science curriculum that answers questions and provides information before some are even asked.

Answers in Genesis has a magazine, to which we subscribed on the recommendation of Dr. Jay Wile. We haven't gotten our first issue yet, but it should arrive in a few weeks. I'll report back on that after we get it. They also have tons of books, not to mention a VBS packet that I wish our church had gotten. Answers in Genesis also provides guides that you can take to the aquarium, zoo, or museum to provide you with the biblical perspective that these places often neglect. No matter what age your child(ren), you will find something useful to help them learn about Intelligent Design. And if you have't found a great science curriculum yet, be sure to visit http://www.apologia.com/ and check it out.

I am so grateful for all of these resources and hope to be highly educated about Intelligent Design very soon. So when someone comes across my path, I can tell him or her why I KNOW that God exists and that He created and designed everything. I'm so excited!!

Structure

Today I yelled at the kids. Not that I never yell, but it was almost as if I had PMS and I knew it wasn't THAT time. What was going on?!

Then it occurred to me how little structure I had been providing. Things were out of control. The kids were talking back. They woke up arguing with each other. They were not cleaning up after themselves. And I griped at them, but didn't follow up. I had become a lazy parent.

At lunch time, I apologized for the yelling, and told them that it was my fault that things had gotten so out of control. I told them that we would have more structure from now on, to help keep everyone on track with where we need to be, including myself. We did school, and there was no complaining! Gasp!

Later this evening, when my daughter yelled, "I HATE YOU!!" after I told her that her neighbor friend could not come inside at 10:15 at night and that she would have to come in for her bath at 10:30, I followed her outside and made her promptly turn around and come inside for her bath immediately. The night was over. When she knew I meant business, she said, "I don't love you anymore!" Well, it's good to see that things are back on track. :o)

Words from a Stay at Home Mom

I love this post on Dr. Laura's blog because I could have written it myself. For a short time, I thought I wasted my teaching degree, but before long I realized how handy it was for teaching my children at home. Moms who put their children in day care will never understand the vast difference in care that their children would receive if they stayed home with them. I did not really understand it until I discovered the day to day nurturing, teaching, and disciplining that happens on a daily basis in our home. Most of us know that nobody will love our children the same way we do. In most cases, it is not even close! It's sort of like comparing breast milk to formula. Most moms are told that formula is second best. But there is "cream of the crop" and there is "bottom of the barrel," and if nothing falls in between, isn't "bottom of the barrel" second best? Formula is a horrible alternative, as is child care for our children.

I hardly ever bring this up, although I secretly feel sorry for the kids I know who have babysitters and day care. I also feel sorry for the kids who must attend school all day, under the control of someone who may or may not give a rip about them. Especially when they get about 1/30th of that person's attention. On what planet does that even come close to making sense?!

Usborne Books At Home - Now is the time to join!

In early June, I signed up with Usborne Books, mostly due to my book addiction and my desire to save some money! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE their books. If you are also a book addict, NOW is the time to act if you would like to get 33 popular Usborne books for just $99.50 + $20 s/h + tax. You have until 10 a.m. CT, July 31st, 2008, to get your consultant agreement to the Usborne home office. Learn more at my Usborne sign up page.

Besides the great books you will get at a huge discount, you will have the opportunity to run a great business by hosting parties, attending fairs, or simply selling on the internet. No stock is required, and this is a great business to do with your kids, who will naturally share the books with others. Don't miss this great deal and the opportunity to work from home with your children!

Why can't we all just speak English?

I just finished reading an article from "Human Events," a national conservative publication on the idea of making English our official language in the US. Some might not care one way or the other, until of course, they learn that their tax dollars fund all the different language government forms and translators for various purposes. Yes, we PAY for that!

Contrary to popular misconception, it's not just Hispanic immigrants who find an issue with the language barrier. People from all over the world now feel it's their right to receive documents in their native tongue. Why is that? Because we have not required immigrants - legal or not - to assimilate to OUR way of doing business. We want to be everything to everyone- or, THEY (government whimps) want to- not US.

When Barack Obama implied recently that it's embarressing that travelers can come to our country and speak English, while we cannot speak the language in France, Germany, Spain, etc. I threw up a little in my mouth. Is he serious? Does that mean that the government is now going to fund all children learning in government schools every language that they might possibly need one day in case they travel to a country speaking a foreign language? Heaven forbid I should take Spanish in high school and have the audacity to travel to France, where I might embarress Senator Obama because I can't speak the language!

Instead of embarressment, Obama should be proud that other countries want to speak OUR language! Why should we want to be like them? Why can't we be leaders instead of followers? Sorry, I missspoke. English is not OUR language- officially anyway. Once we make it our official language, we will not have to fund all those special forms for foreigners who don't want to assimilate.

When my American father brought over his German wife and her German son, as well as myself and my German-born sister, we did not come here expecting to find German forms, German signs, and German neighbors. We were in America! My mother learned English by playing Scrabble. She barely has an accent (I don't hear it, but others do). My brother repeated 1st grade and learned English in school. My sister and I were babies, so we don't remember much German. The point is, if we wanted to speak German, why not stay in Germany? (Where, by the way, they learn English in school, probably better than we do!)

The ironic part of this whole thing is that we have children graduating from school who can barely speak correct English, much less write it, and Obama wants us to learn all these languages?! Yeah, WRITE! ;o)

Why Homeschool in Summer?

I've been asking myself that question since Memorial Day...WHAT was I thinking?!

Okay, maybe I'm overreacting. After all, ball games and swim meets don't take up the entire day. There's also the swimming for fun, playing with friends, riding bikes, computer games, and anything else we can come up with that we'd rather do than "school!" There are definitely benefits to homeschooling year 'round. I just don't like to think about those when I'd rather do school "tomorrow."

Tomorrow will get here eventually. Really, it will. I know it will. Won't it?!

We've been doing "school light" this summer, which is better than nothing, I guess. But for the past couple of weeks we've just plain been lazy. Admittedly, we have had swim meets to contend with, and when you are at a swim meet all day, the last thing you want to do the next day is crack open the books. So we have used creative play, educational videos, and computer games to help keep brain waves moving at appropriate speed.

While we are finishing up our final work before starting on our new books for fall, I have had a blast checking out the new curricula I've selected for science, history, and Bible. I'm so excited, and can't wait to get going with it. I will share more about the curricula we use when fall approaches. For now, I'm just trying to stay motivated, keep the kids turned on to learning, and enjoying the sunshine while we have the chance. Before long, we will be under a foot of snow for a month, and we'll have plenty of time to learn everything we need to then- I'm sure of it!

Anthony Swim Team Dominates the League!

For some reason in our small town of 2,000+, what happened 10, 20, 30+ years ago still makes the paper, but today's news does not! So I am posting here in my blog what SHOULD be getting published in our paper. We live in Anthony, KS, about an hour southwest of Wichita. No one really knows how many people live in Anthony, but the last census showed about 2400. Given that, I think you will be mighty impressed that our swim team boasts around 40 swimmers!

Our first meet got rained out. Just after the warm-up lap, the thunder started. Thankfully, they called it before the bottom fell out, and that "bottom" lasted ALL day. When we finally got to swim in our first meet last Friday, our strength was apparent to our parents, the other teams, and OURSELVES! I think some of the swimmers were really surprised at how well they did. The most impressive swim of the day was Heather Moore's butterfly. She did the entire length of the pool without breathing, which helped clinch her first place finish. As a 14 year-old, this is Heather's first year swimming (or is she hiding something? :o) and I'm amazed that she not only has beautiful strokes, but the speed as well.

I must also praise the following swimmers who have this season discovered the proper breaststroke technique: Brandon Clarke, Bailey Clements, Leslie Struble, Zach Duwe, Hope Clarke, Heather Moore, Elizabeth Francis, Veronica Morris, Estin, and there are a few more on the bubble who just need a bit of tweaking. Most improved definitely goes to Kayleigh Clements, who is improving every day in breaststroke and will definitely be a top breaststroker before long.

Our second swim meet was yesterday, which was the "relay meet" in Kiowa, KS. Basically, the entire meet is done in relays. They swim a backstroke relay, butterfly relay, breaststroke relay, etc. and medley relay. Each swimmer can swim six relays, so some of our 8-and-unders and 9/10 year-olds get moved up to swim with older swimmers. The meet is pretty fun, but also hectic for coaches. Somehow, our entire group of 9/10 girls missed their free relays and they were allowed to swim with the boys. That was interesting, as we had four lanes of Anthony swimmers swimming at the same time!

We have two more meets this week, and then semi-finals and finals next week. So far, we have won team overall both meets. I am announcing to the swimmers this morning some rather shocking news that might change our dominating power. Our swim league has no stroke judging. So you practically have to swim the wrong stroke the whole way or pull on the lane rope to get disqualified. Since the beginning, I have taught the proper legal stroke techniques, but some have not "gotten" it. In the rest of our meets, I will be personally disqualifying any swimmer 9 or above who does not do a legal stroke. This will make our points go down, but it will raise our standard to where it needs to be. There is nothing worse than seeing a really good race, where the winning swimmer is doing an illegal stroke! Not in MY swimming pool!

Story Time Felts

As if I didn't have enough to do already, I signed up as a consultant for Story Time Felts. I really love the products, and definitely see the benefits of them for children of every skill level and developmental stage. I had ordered the Castle Tales set for my daughter for Christmas, and six months later finally "joined the family" as a consultant.

If you are interested in getting felts as Christmas gifts, we are currently having a "Christmas in July" special that you will want to take part in. All of our Christmas sets and scripture sets are on sale during July!

If you have any questions after visiting my site, please don't hesitate to ask!