Series: Raising Amazing Teenagers

This is the first in a series of posts on teenagers.  I have avoided blogging about teenagers much because honestly, most of the time I had doubts we were doing anything right. But, since no one has been convicted of a felony or spent time in jail I decided that was a big plus and I would share a little of our experiences with our teens. (That was a sarcastic statement by the way). I don't know how many posts I will get out on teenagers, but I hope they encourage and show that even when the parents aren't sure if they are doing it right, the Lord has it all under control.

Before my husband and I were married we did what every engaged couple does.  We discussed having a family.  We talked about how many kids we would have, even what we would name them.  We decided 5 kids would be perfect for us.  We didn’t know anyone else with that many kids and thought it would be a lot of fun to have a houseful of kids.  Little did we know that God had more in mind for us.

Our first five kids were born in less than five years. Number 5 was born in February and number 1 turned five in May.  I had no clue God would give us our five kids so fast!  The Lord spread out the next 6 kids over a span of 14 years.  Yep, that makes a total of 11.  God double blessed us beyond what we thought was possible.  Isn’t that just like God.

So, when our first 5 kids were little, well-meaning family and friends had many warnings for us. The most common was,

“Wait until they are all teenagers!  Then you will find out what real parenting is about.”

So the day came when with each year we added another teenager to the list.  And to my surprise I absolutely loved having teenagers!  It was nothing like people had warned me about.  This dreaded stage by so many parents was for me a time of great joy and so much fun!  

It’s possible to enjoy your teenagers.  It doesn’t have to be such a difficult stage to go through.  But, it also doesn’t just happen. It takes hard work by the parents.

The making of an amazing teenager begins when they are born. We didn’t decide to teach specific principles to our kids when they turned 13.  It started when they were born. From the beginning we held our kids to a higher standard than our culture does.   It wasn’t an unattainable standard. It was based on their maturity and abilities and most importantly it was based on Scripture.

Culture says, “Kids will be kids, don’t expect too much.” We knew differently. We knew our kids, as teenagers, were able to make a big difference in the world around them if given the opportunity.  We used the Bible as our guide and that is the standard we held our kids to. 

Next time, I will write about what standards we set for our children, that lead to more responsible teenagers.

Scripture Meme's

If you are on Facebook, you may see some of the "memes" like above that I post.  When I find a  Scripture verse or quote I really like I will take a picture or image (either my own or a free stock photo from FreeGreatPicture) over to PicMonkey or Ribbet and create a Meme.  I have uploaded my favorites to a Flicker account for you to use if you want to.  The only thing I ask is that you give me the credit by linking the image back to this blog if you use it on a website.  Not all of the pictures have my blog address on them & I will be going back in & changing that over time.

I make these to share with others, so here I am. :) I hope you find them encouraging & helpful.

Simplify...The Saga Continues

I didn't know if I could get myself together in time, but we are starting school tomorrow.  I've been sitting at the computer so long I have pain in my hip when I walk from sitting in a hard chair.  BUT...I'm done. Do the happy dance with me! I have the first semester planned out for our 18 year of homeschooling.  Did I just say that?  Have we been doing this 18 years?

I still don't like it when moms ask me how I do things because I still feel like I have no clue.  I'm still figuring it out.  Yes, I am a slow learner. :)

This is our second school year living together in my in-laws house.  Bless their hearts. Our junk has taken over their house & I hate it. But they never say a word about it.  No matter how much I try to keep the level of junk to a minimum it sneaks in anyway.  And so the challenge to organize our school materials remained my biggest accomplishment yet.  In our house I had 11 bookshelves completely dedicated to school books & materials.  I had a huge filing cabinet packed full. There is no room for that here, so I had to learn quickly how to simplify & reduce.

I am excited that I have learned to simplify our school "stuff" tremendously.  The majority of our school books are still in storage even though I did bring some more here a few months ago. I pulled out what I thought we would need this year.  After I finally figured out who was using what & what I needed to buy I then packed up what we were not going to use & those boxes are in the garage waiting to go back to our storage unit.

I now have one and half bookshelves instead of 11. :)

 This is where our readers & History & Science books are kept.  The smaller shelf to the right is where I am keeping my books (Teacher Manuals, Solution Manuals, etc..).

My mother in law had this amazing piece of furniture made years ago. It is in the Dining Room which is also Scott's office (on one end of the table) and our school room (on the other end of the table). It is solid wood & beautiful & my school stuff kinda crept up on it & gradually took over the bottom part. She graciously offered to take the rest of her dishes off so I could have the space, but I told her no.  I'm making do just find with what I have.

Below is a plastic drawer unit I brought from home.  At first it stayed at my parents house when the younger kids & I stayed there more of the time.  When we moved here I brought it & it definitely keeps things more organized.

 

The four younger kids each have their own drawer.  In their drawers are their books, folders, pencils, and any other supplies they want to keep.  The top drawer are our art supplies that I do not want them to be able to get to.  I keep boxes of colored pencils, crayons, markers & pencils out on the buffet.  But misc type stuff is in the top drawer.

It isn't a perfect system, but we are making it work.  For years I knew I needed to simplify our school, house..life.  And the Lord has helped us do that.  Not exactly the way I would have chosen to do it, but that's ok.

Since we are short on bookshelves, I have learned to utilize technology.  Scott has a Kindle Fire & I have an iPad with the Kindle app on it so many of the books the kids will read are a Kindle download.  That saves on bookshelf space tremendously!   I'm also using some iPad apps for phonics practice, math drills & geography.

Another new thing for this year is I'm using a blog to post my oldest sons assignments.  I have 8th, 10th & 12th grade boys who would rather use a computer than a piece of paper any day.  I'm also trying to eliminate all excuses for not getting work done (I know you are shocked any of my kids would avoid school work).
So far, I have scheduled 5 weeks worth of assignments on the blog.  Each Sunday their assignments for the week will show up in a post.  For example, Collin's assignments will be in a post titled, "Collin: Week 1".  He had to subscribe to the blog so he will get an email.  The beauty of this is that when he is on break at work, he can pull up the blog on his phone & find links to his Bible, Science & History readings for the week.  He is so excited. **insert sarcasm HERE!**
This is an experiment, so we will see if it really works & if they use the blog like I hope they will.  If not, I will go back to my paper plans.

One more new thing this year is our Bible curriculum.  I have never really used curriculum for Bible, but since I am simplifying that meant less planning for me. Last year I really dropped the ball on Bible. This year I am excited to use Bible Road Trip by Danika Cooley.  She is writing a 3 year survey of the Bible.  She is still writing the 3rd year.  The first year covers the books of Law & History.  Year 2 covers Prophets and Poetry & Year 3 is covering the New Testament.  I spent many weeks pouring over this & the deeper I got, the more I loved it.  I'm so thankful for Danika's hard work on this & especially for offering it for free!  I went through 2 reams of paper to print all of this out & the more I printed the more grateful I became for her hard work!

So, I have spent all of this time planning & printing & creating.  But we all know what will happen.  I can plan all I want to, but if I have planned away from God, his plans will succeed, not mine.

"Many are the plans in a man's heart (and on a mom's lesson plan page), but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21 {emphasis is mine}

I'm excited about our new school year.  I can't wait to see what the Lord has in store for us.

Officially a Bailey Boy!

We finally did it.

Scott & I tackled the dreaded task of cutting Charlie's hair.  It wasn't his first hair cut.  I cut his hair back in March, but it had grown back & was a mess.

His blonde little locks just had to come off.  Scott pulled out the trusty old clippers & began to buzz.  Silly Charlie smiled & giggled & wiggled the whole time, but let us finish his hair.

My sister said it right...He is officially now a Baily boy!  All of our boys, by the time they were 2, had their first buzz cuts.  Charlie has so much hair that he got his a little early.

Here is the after.  Cute as a bug!  He looks more like his brothers everyday.  In fact,they all argue over who he looks more like.  Me?  I think he looks like Charlie with a little bit of brothers sprinkled here & there. :)