Goodbye 2018!

I think besides the main factor of having less time, I think the other reason I don't blog as much is that I can't come up with an opener. I remember writing papers in high school or college and not being able to write anything until I go that first line written, or at least thought of. Livvy complains of the same thing when she is writing papers for English or history. Every good read needs a good opener. That something that draws you in and keeps you reading. This is not it.

In the past I would blog in my head through the days or weeks. When I got the chance to sit down, it all spilled out nicely. Now, I don't. It doesn't. Maybe I don't have time to think, maybe I'm just in a season of uncreativeness. I don't know. I do know that I wish I did blog more. I love that I can go back through the years and remember what the kids were doing, what Tom and I were doing. I don't want to forget what we're doing now.


I am thankful for 2018 being behind us. As far as the life of an average American family, it was a good year. Progress was made on the house. Kids were healthy and for the most part happy. Tom's job is going very well. I was able to get more involved in things that I love and be with my family. Good stuff. Right? Yes. But...it was one of the hardest years I can remember. Things in a key relationship seemed always at odds and there was a lot of discontent in my heart. I watered that weed and bitterness grew. I was willing to settle. To stop fighting for the relationship. Unfortunately that's my gut reaction - when the going gets tough, Jenn gets going. Not good. God's working on changing this in me.

Thankfully God stepped in. It's crazy to remember the details because it really could've been bad. But God...He changed my heart. He changed my mind. He pulled the weed. That was toward the end of 2018. Now that that is behind us, I am excited about what He will do. I just hope I do my part at keeping the weeds out of the garden.


End of 2018 Wrap Up
Ok. Now onto the good stuff. Hold on, it's going to be a long one.

We had a great summer. The three oldest kids enjoyed their soccer season. The three youngest enjoyed going to the park and watching the bigs play.





Danner and Jon suited up in soccer gear almost every Saturday along with the big kids. Danner kept asking when
he was going to meet his team. I told him it would be awhile. He was undeterred and kept happily dressing for a game.


 In July we got to attend a Campus Crusade reunion here in Flagstaff. It was fun to see so many people that filled my college years and get to reconnect with them.



Of course there was a lot of other summer-time adventures: fishing, hunting, Oma and Opa coming up, time with Grammie and Pop-Pop, 4th of July parade, Wet Beaver Creek, etc.



Sam and his buddy, Isaac, earned some money by walking behind some horses
- those two are excited about any kind of work.




Yes, Danner is in winter attire. The kid is completely backwards! He wore long
sleeved shirts and pants during the summer and, now that it is officially winter, he
faithfully puts on short-sleeved shirts and shorts every morning. Weird!

Zacky broke his elbow in July. It didn't slow him down one bit!



The spies were tracking down the bad guys.






We brought fall in with picking lots of apples at our Peaks house, going to the fair, and going to Prescott for our annual family camp with Oma, Opa, my brother and his family.








The house is looking so nice. We had a new driveway, sidewalk, and pad for a future pergola put in the front yard. We also added a covered back patio. Tom was up late several nights in a row painting the exterior - I called him the "midnight painter". And the most recent completions are almost fully remodeled bathrooms. I love the way it's coming together!











Opa built us a wood box. The top portion holds the computer and blue-ray player. The bottom
left part is for the kindling and the bigger portion is for the wood. Now that it's winter and
we're using the fireplace, it is so nice to load up the wood-box and keep warm and toasty! Love it!!
Pop Pop comes over every now and then to do some yard work - he likes to keep busy doing
odd jobs for us. He also serves as a very handy taxi for getting the kids to and from
different events.  We are blessed! 


School has been a struggle. We're getting everything done (for the most part), but it's just never become a fluid part of our schedule except for the two weeks after Thanksgiving. It just took a long, long time to finally figure out how to schedule everything around a very active two-year old who needs constant attention. Or else. I think I have finally have everybody doing together stuff and then on-your-own stuff while Zac is awake. Once he's down for a nap after lunch, we tackle the one-on-one stuff with Mom. Hopefully next week once we start school again I can regain that two-week groove and finish strong.

This year I'm doing another new thing as far as school goes. I am teaching high school biology at the one day a week Christian school called Cornerstone Christian Academy. I have 12 amazing students (one of them is Livvy, of course). I really enjoy biology and teaching, and I'm enjoying the challenge or relearning the material and sharing the information. It's pretty fun! While I'm teaching, the rest of the kids were also learning biology, PE, and missions for Sam, each in their respective grades - they loved it!

Livvy is 14 and is a freshman in high school this year. She's very independent and is quite capable of managing her time and schedule. Her curriculum includes math (because  we combined her 7th and 8th grade year she's been doubling up on her math lessons so that she can complete Algebra 1 this year - her idea. She didn't want to do math throughout the summer or be "behind"), world history, Spanish, Bible, biology, writing and literature during our Friday co-op with Mrs Finney, and voice. I was a little nervous to start high school stuff, but so far so good.






Sam is 12 and in 6th grade. I really need to find something else for this kid to do with his time. He blows through school so fast (and doing quite well) that he's usually done before lunch. Two afternoons a week he does a fun lesson and activity with Danner - it's fun for Danner and it's fun to see Sam take on that teacher role. His business, A Boy and a Rake, is on hold until the summer when Mom is free to chauffeur and people are wanting pine needles raked and weeds picked.

Ben is 10 and in 4th grade. He's doing great with math and his reading is improving. I'm hoping to get him into the speech and language clinic at NAU this coming semester to help with his reading, writing, and processing difficulties. He's very good natured (most of the time) about his struggles, but I want him excel and I'm finding it hard to give him that skilled one-on-one that he needs.
Jon is seven and in 2nd grade. He is a quick learner. He enjoys math and is starting to pick up little chapter books on his own to read - yay! It's so nice to have a kid that just naturally gets it after trying this and that to help a kid that doesn't.
Danner just turned five and is in pre-school. He's learning his letters and numbers and how to write them all. He loves to say that he's done his school because then he knows he can have 20 minutes of computer time.
Zac is almost three and wants to be a part of everything that we're doing. If we're doing Bible or history worksheets, he really thinks he should have one too. If I'm working with Danner on his ABC's, Zac is right there with us saying, "Me do mine ABCD's too."




















A few more random things to add to the list of what we've been up to this fall:

Livvy was Charlotte Dennon in the Alpine Community Theater's production of Elf Jr.



Sam got skunked again on his elk hunt. He, Tom and Ben had a great time "hunting" and bonding, but no kill. Poor kid.




Livvy packed 50 shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child! With help from friends and family, she was able to cover all the shipping costs for all 50, plus had some extra to go toward The Greatest Journey discipleship program!



Oma, Livvy, Livvy's good friend, Hannah, and I got to go to Fullerton, CA to volunteer at the Operation Christmas Child Processing Center. It was an amazing experience, one that I hope we get to repeat.



We were too close to the beach to not go. The girls HAD to go in. It was pretty cold, but they had lots of fun.

That's all for the last half of 2018. I'm excited for the new year and what God is going to do around me and in me. Choosing JOY, not living or parenting out of fear, following hard after God, loving my husband and children as they need are just some of my goals for 2019. Here we go!

Comments

Anonymous said…
He is gorgeous and very good looking. I am tempted to put him on display life size in my home in one of my large digital picture displays https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ViF1mg1eGSo/XC70hyqQlxI/AAAAAAAAHs4/RHeJFYQcAJUCFCAkQfhKC6ALhVehbu7gACKgBGAs/s00/IMG_4522.HEIC

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