Learning sure looks a lot different these days...

{sparks burn me out!}
Today sparks were flying in our home...so many sparks were flying that I was literally burned out (lol) by the end of the day trying to keep up with my excited kids all day.

{horses}
This morning the kids had riding lessons. Which they are loving more and more each week. Today they begged to stay after 30 minutes to help feed, brush, and help with all the other horse care that was needed. I love it...my kids are begging to WORK! Now how do I get them to beg me to work at home? :)

{birds}
Once we got home Jarom came up with an idea to make a bird feeder to hold some of the bird seed he got last week with Scott. It was really quite clever and I was proud of him to create something all on his own. He also got his brothers and sister involved on the action. Then he decided that just in case the birds didn't see the bird feeder he should scatter lots of bird seed all around the backyard. He definitely got the bird's attention!


{bees}
After lunch Jarom's interests moved on to bees. I am not sure how this idea popped into his head, but without me really knowing (I was busy trying to balance my check book which I am totally lame at) he got our jar of honey and covered his hands in it. Then he went out to a small puddle of water in our back yard that bees had been drinking from and let the bees land on him and lick (do bees lick?) the honey off. Pretty soon all the kid's hands were smeared with honey and they were enjoying be 'Bee Whisperers' as Jarom described it. About the time there were 30 or so bees 'licking' honey off the kids hands Jarom came tearing into the house and told me what they were up to.


I have to admit I was a bit nervous about the idea of bees landing on my children and sucking the honey off, but I was excited about the adventure and discovery the children were having and so I didn't stop them. Instead I went out and took a few pictures and had to laugh at the whole situation. Learning sure looks a lot different than what I thought learning had to look like when I was growing up. :) Tomorrow Jarom plans on researching more about bees and bee keepers! How fun is that.

{the garden}
While Jarom waited for Megan to finish her riding lessons this morning he planned out his square foot garden. He was so excited to show Scott tonight. After dinner Jarom started to help Megan plan out hers...but pretty soon they decided to combine their two gardens into one. They were so cute working on it together. Tomorrow morning they are going on an early morning field trip to the Home Depot to get the supplies so they can start building their gardening boxes. LOVE IT!!!

{reading}
Reading time is improving! WOO-HOO! Today all I had to do was ask Jarom (after the bees swarmed the backyard and I was scared to let the kids out) once if he'd spend the next 30 minutes reading whatever he'd like and he did it!!! After about 40 minutes he came in and told me he'd gotten so into his book he had stopped counting down the time he had left, and had even gone over ten minutes. Now that's improvement!

{the power of writing}
My life is a bit crazy right now, and I haven't been taking the time to record what's been going on in our life. As a result I think I've been more frustrated with things because I find that if I don't write things down I tend to forget what I've done. So I've been feeling like the kids and I haven't been making the progress I've been wanting to make.

As I take time to write things down and record what is happening in life I begin to recognize all the amazing things that are happening to me and my family and forget all the negative thoughts and non-important things. My focus goes to looking at what I am learning instead of how I am failing. And I remember what is really important in life and believe that tomorrow is a new day...an opportunity to do better.

I am grateful for the gift of writing and the clarity it gives me!