doing things

We went to a planning meeting for our homeschool group yesterday, at the beach...  It was beautiful.  L had thrown up that morning from the smell of citronella I spilled...  Thankfully P was able to give us time from 10:55-1:15.  We had such a lovely time at the beach with friends and got a lot of good planning done with the moms.  When it was time for our family to head home I gave the kids a 5 minute warning. 

M's best friend's (PF) float got blown away and she went after it.  My best friend (Q), M's best friend's mom, went after her daughter.  A short while later, I looked and saw that M had gone too.  PF has done competitive swimming and did lifeguard camp last year.  Q is an avid swimmer.  When they realized M was following them they chose to come back because of her safety. 

I didn't realize the danger she had been in and was just annoyed we were really pushing against a hard time limit.  I'm glad she is OK.  I'm glad she had the good sense to do all her work when we got home and write a letter to Q apologizing for the situation. 

M made some cards to invite girls from school to her birthday party.  She looked up the address and hand wrote, on cute cards, all the details.  I love it.

forever young

 A bag of things from the floor was recently returned to the girls and they were happy that their onesies still fit. 

M was wearing her choir shirt and wanted to eat so she squeezed herself into one of these bibs.

She has so much joy.  We went to see the musical Grease at her middle school with our friends.  These shirts were made and worn by the 5 of us.  A bedroom scene made us uncomfortable so we left at intermission and our friends took us out for cold cow.  Yay!

opportunities

M's piano teacher mentioned that she could soon start teaching lessons herself.  I had been asked previously if she would teach but for various reasons I didn't start her on that path yet.  The children were too close to her own age.  They were beginning and what if she taught them wrong!  They weren't very docile children and I didn't want her to have a bad experience.

So after a nudge from her teacher about how she could take lessons and also get coached in teaching lessons, we decided to proactively seek students that would be a good fit for her to start with.  I mentioned this to some friends and a family contacted me.  Their 5 and 7 year old are already taking lessons but their teacher is away for 2 months.  M will have the opportunity to help them progress on the lessons their teacher assigned them.  They already have a good start.  It's just 2 months.  Yay!

I'm so grateful that the Lord provided this way for her to start teaching.  M has sweetly already looked up their lesson plans and compared it against our own sets of these books.  It's music she already played for the 7 year old, and that lP recently played! 

Astronomy

M has had an awesome astronomy class this year.  She's been very blessed to have this class offered at the homeschool co-op.  The teacher has lit a fire of love for science in M's soul.  She loves it so much.

Paintball

M's friend P had a paintball adventure for her birthday party.  I can't even tell which one is M except for knowing her shoes.   She's the one on the far left with green pants and green boots.

I'm so grateful for M's friend P.  She's a smart, motivated, kind kid who lives in our neighborhood.

Life can be so lonely and it is rare to find such a friend and literally a miracle for her to live so close.

initiative

M is a go-get-er.  She works on things privately and surprises us with a finished project.  She stayed on top of the Faith in God program and had it done 8 months early.  When the announcement was made that she would start Young Women's 6 months early we just said "Good thing!"

We learned that the personal progress program will be changing at the end of this year so she's going to get that done in a year, or 6 months.  She brings her book to me and asks me to sign off activities every week.  I ask her if she really read the scriptures or did the journaling.  So far she is able to tell me all about it. 

I'm glad she has such a super power for sneaky goodness.

better living through communication

M has lived in G's wake her whole life.  Things we explained and walked him through, we let her experience with less guidance.  Some things are effortless for her but in other ways she is a normal kid going on to the tweens.  So there are some new things and we need to spend more effort helping her navigate. 

She had a math project due that she couldn't do via the scheduled route because it was only offered while she was at band.  The written option she refused to do, dissolving into resistance.  Eventually she emailed the teacher who gave her options.  She also let me know that it was a technology problem, not a knowledge problem with the written option. 

Communication is hard, but improves our lives and gives us opportunities to get help.