When 5 of my children were all 7 years old and under, I started establishing  routines each summer.

Although I was with most of my children, most of the time, for 9 months of the year, because they were homeschooled, being together each day in the summer presented potential problems. Our routines while homeschooling ended when the homeschooling year ended.

Problems needed solutions. Routines became a major part of my solution.

I would STRONGLY suggest that you make the routine work for YOU!!!!!

I am a morning person, so our day begins early!

By 6:30 AM our children, even newborns, are fed, and then clothed for the day. The toddlers and pre-schoolers play together for 30ish minutes after breakfast while I get ready for the day. School aged children help me and complete assigned chores.

By 8:30 ish, I read stories to all of the children and physically play with each of them. By 9ish it’s naptime for the youngest, and the older children are sent outside to play.

Eleven o’clock is lunchtime for all. Older children spend 10-15 minutes before lunch cleaning up our main living areas. Before I had any older children, I got in the habit of quickly cleaning up our kitchen and living room for a few minutes prior to each meal.

After lunch, I again read out-loud for 15-30 minutes. I physically played with them again for 20-30 minutes, and then allowed them to play together, or on their own. We would all go outside until 1:30 ish, and then go back inside for a snack. Rest time for EVERYONE was from 2-3:00, or later, if they fell asleep!

After 3:00, I started making supper, and counting the minutes until my husband would come home

By 4:30 ish the main rooms were cleaned up again, and supper was served around 5:00. By 7:00, the children were bathed, and the youngest were in bed by 7:30ish.

I’d love to say that I then had hours of private devotions. No, that didn’t happen.

In fact, my goal was to have devotions prior to waking up the children in the early morning. That didn’t always happen either. Often, I read my devotions out loud to all of my children after breakfast. Not ideal. But ,I used it to  stimulate some interesting conversations!

In between the snacks, play times, cooking, cleaning, nursing the baby……I tried to snuggle and hug each child at least once before each meal and snack. Too calculated? Too planned? Maybe. But it worked for me.

I’d love to know what kind of routine has worked for you?

As each child became older, they had more say  about their summer lists, and eventually  took ownership of their goals completely.

As a young mom, I often felt overwhelmed. I was in ‘survival mode.’ Anything more than cooking, cleaning, laundry, homeschooling, and being a wife and mom was just TOO MUCH. So, by creating a modest bucket list for each child, I felt organized, excited and energized to conquer!!  Woo-Hoo!! It was managable, and reaped big rewards.

Here are some goals that I created when my children were as young as 2 years old:

-I would pick one godly character trait that I felt needed to be worked on, and when I witnessed them successfully using that characteristic, I would compliment and affirm them. Every time, all summer long. So, if little Jimmy was not generally patient, every time he demonstrated patience, I would affirm and gush all over him!

-I picked out one physical goal. Potty – training, or learning to ride a small riding toy, or using building blocks to create things to reinforce hand-eye coordination , etc. etc.

-We would work on memorizing scriptures. One verse a week, for a total of 7 -10 verses……… maybe….

-I would buy 8-10 books and we would read them all summer long.

-We would spend time together once a week helping an elderly neighbor, or visit residents at a local nursing home. We would only be away from home for a total of 30 ish minutes.  That’s all I could handle in my busy life.  Usually I would pack the car with 6 or 7 of the children when we went to the nursing home.  ( ALL AGES are a blessing to the residents who seldom get visitors.)

As the children got older, I generally kept the 5 basic categories, but changed the individual goals.

1-Godly character traits

2-A physical goal

3-Memorizing scripture

4-Read together, and eventually they would read a stack of books all by themselves!

5-Community service

Because of my personality, I need to be very intentional with goals for both my children and myself, or they would just be forgotten in the business of life.

Do you have a bucket list for your young children??

I KNEW it would be finished by the last day of school for my local district. Well, that was Friday June 7th, and I hadn’t even started it. UGH!

The ‘it’ is my bucket list for the summer months.

I’m learning to  ’be  OK with it’ as I posted here, but I also knew that if I didn’t have a list of goals for the summer, I would regret it by Labor Day.

Big mistake that I made ……….. read other blogger’s bucket lists for the summer. One mom wants to read 100 books. It stresses me to just think of compiling a list of 100 anything.

Another blogger wants to save $1000.00 in 10 weeks by learning to use coupons effectively. Wow, I’m happy to save $5-10 a week. I would feel stressed.

Both of those goals are GREAT, but they made me feel inadequate. Why do I compare?

Why don’t I just look at it as a good fit for someone else, but maybe not for me!

So, I will not be sharing my list with you, although I guarantee that you would not feel inadequate after reading it. I make a very simple list that I’m pretty sure that I can accomplish. Here is an example:

I have a pile of 12 books next to my bed that I hope to read in the next 12 weeks. They are non-fiction and deal with parenting, women’s issues and health and nutrition. I’ve learned  to read books quickly by skimming each page and taking notes. Speed reading and skimming is not my idea of a relaxing way to read, but it works for me.

I would encourage even the busiest and most tired moms to think about at least one or two things to accomplish by Labor Day. I think that it makes us feel better to reach a goal, however simple it seems, and it also helps us learn to snatch time, and make it work for us!

Tomorrow I’ll list some of my favorite summer goals for children age 2-13!

Or, should I say, MY foundation. I need routine. I need some semblance of normalcy, and that is spelled

R O U T I N E.

I don’t think that routine is a bad thing, but when it was interrupted, I would get frustrated or grouchy.

Spilled milk, chores not done quickly enough, clothes in the dryer that didn’t sufficiently dry, a lost shoe, a potty training accident, anything like this could set me off!

I will say that a lot of my frustration came about because I was sleep deprived. Because I knew that my sleep patterns were not going to improve quickly, (due to the fact that I was blessed with a newborn baby approximately every 22 months), I knew that it was my choice to change my attitude.

I chose a phrase that one of my daughters used often.

Be ‘OK with it’

Now, I know that I am not supposed to be ok with anything that God calls sin, but the things listed above, and the other things that bugged me, were not sins. They were not life threatening. They were not deal breakers. They were just parts of being a busy, healthy, active family. They were all ‘fixable,’

My children and I can clean up spilled milk. I can instruct my children to do a better job with their chores. I can find other shoes for a child to wear. A child with a soiled bottom can be bathed. I needed to calm down, and just be OK with it.

Choosing to be OK with it came with an unexpected side effect. I started to laugh more.

I was laughing more and stressing less!

As the kids got older, the stuff to be OK with changed.

Now we had kids driving. A fender bender, well, 2 or 3 …………..

Boys pursuing our daughters,   Yuk………..

Teens with not the neatest bedrooms.

But through it all, I’m trying to keep things in balance. Stuff is just stuff. Prayers are powerful and effective. Love never fails.

I’m great with that!

How about you? Do you have a favorite phrase?

I don’t remember having a problem with being content, until after my second child was born.  Suddenly. life seemed to be more work than fun.

I started to look around at people who appeared to be having more fun in their lives than I was in mine.

Self pity and the ‘if-onlys’ soon followed.

I started the ‘fill in the blank’ game.

If only…..I had money to hire a maid….I would be happy

If only…..I had a house with closets and storage space….I would be happy

If only….I looked like her………….

etc. etc.

Then I started to meet people who had the ‘if-onlys’ for which I was envying, and they weren’t happy.

I did what I should have been doing years earlier. I researched what God had to say about being content in the Bible.

I found 3 verses that have been a life line for me. I have been talking about what God says through these verses with my children. We talk about them often.

Romans 9:20-21

²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? ‘Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” ²¹ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

As a family we participate in activities that reinforce just how blessed we are to be  …..

Christians…..so we make it a point to be involved with people who have not yet seen their need for a Savior.

Living where we do…..so we participate in missions trips to parts of the world that are in the 10/40 window, or are impoverished,             and support missionaries that do the same.

To have our health…so we visit people in nursing homes and hospitals.

To be in a loving family….so we work with teens in our community, and invite singles to our home for holidays, and work with prison ministries.

We are still learning to be content.

I think that it will be a lifelong process, but I can see that by helping my children understand what it means to be content, and trying to role model the trait in our home, they are living it out years before I even understood what the word meant!

I would love to know about your journey with this godly character trait!

If only I   ___________________,  then I’d be happy.

Fill in the blank.

Then I’d be happy?

Is our definition of happiness having more than we have now?

As a young mom, I struggled with envious thoughts.

An example; I thought that if I could just have a close relationship with my husband’s family, like my girlfriend did, I would be happy.

Or, if I just didn’t have to move away from my hometown and friends, to marry my husband and move to his farm, I would be happy.

There were MANY other examples.

Then, on day I discovered these words,  “ I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Philippians 4:12

Ahhh, I had to LEARN TO be content or happy. Why didn’t someone tell me?

Did everyone else know the secret to daily happiness but me?

My next post will explain how my children and I are learning to be content.

How have you taught your children to be content??

I mistakenly believed that since I had recently made Jesus the Lord of my life, I would never experience another problem. I thought that my feelings would never stray from joy and peace.

So, when I would feel anger, or fear, or frustration, I assumed that I must be sinning or stupid or failing, or just too ‘far out there’ to really be a ‘true Christian.’

If I experienced any bumps in the road, or problems, I assumed that either I just wasn’t good enough, or I wasn’t ‘doing life’ very well.

I did know one thing. I could never let my children know that I was such a failure as a Christian, so I kept a plastic smile on my face.

The plastic smile only lasted so long.

Eventually, the emotions that I had bottled up inside would erupt in anger against my children or my husband.  It was not good.

Then, little by little, I learned that what I believed to be Christianity was not Christianity at all.

I will experience bumps in this life. I will experience tribulation.

I will feel many kinds of emotions.

Pretending in front of my children that life was always perfect, was actually depriving them.

As a mom, I am to help teach them, and be an example, (hence my blog’s title), of how to live and walk as a follower of Jesus.

I should be teaching them how to react to life’s problems and not to pretend that they don’t exist.

When my emotions are not in line with God’s word, and my feelings are leading me away from what I know is true, I need to bring them under the authority of scripture. I need to model the procedure in front of children.

I am not, nor do I desire to be my children’s savior. My  desire is to point them to the only true Savior.

I am learning that I can still be a figure of authority and respect, and not be perfect.

In fact, each member of the family is  learning to walk in the freedom of not being perfect, while serving and loving the One who is!!

Several days later, I asked the graduate the significance of the towel. Without hesitation she replied, “It’s a servants towel. It is meant to represent ‘washing of another’s feet’, which is just a small symbol of what we should be doing every day.” She went on to say that her degree is nothing, without using it to serve others.

After four intense years of classes, my daughter graduated with two bachelor degrees. However, I think that she and the other 160 graduates would agree that they graduated into Servanthood.

As moms, isn’t that our goal? When our children leave our homes to start their own lives, let it be our prayer that they have graduated into Servanthood.

I’m linking to:

Force is a harsh word.

I do strongly recommend that they spend 20-30 minutes reading a day, before they eat lunch. Or, maybe I should say, before they are allowed to eat lunch……..

Maybe that is a lot like ‘force’ but it is just part of what we do

Before my sons were old enough to read, I read out loud TO them. When they first learned to read, I had them read to me, and read to their younger siblings. I guaranteed success by providing very simple books, even if they were several  grade levels below their level.

Even if the book had only 3-5 words on a page, and they read the page successfully, I hugged and kissed and congratulated them as if they had just climbed Mt. Everest. To them, it WAS a mountain!

When they were more comfortable reading, we made a left hand turn in the library. The fiction section was on the right, the non-fiction section is on the left. Boys OFTEN enjoy reading non-fiction much more than fiction. They picked out non-fiction first, then QUALITY fiction. I didn’t care what grade level they were reading.

The problem is finding QUALITY fiction for boys. I use lists from Veritas Press,www.VeritasPress.com, Sonlight Curriculum, www.sonlight.com, and Schoolhouse Publishing,www.shpublishing.com, to find the names of good fiction. I then look for them in the public library system. ( I do buy enough other resources from those 3 companies to keep me from feeling guilty for using the library)

In my opinion,  using quality fiction for boys is a secret to developing future readers. In this technological age, reading for readings sake cannot compare to video games or computer use, unless the story captivates the reader.

Some favorites of my 5 sons for 4thish-6thish grades include the following:

The Whipping Boy

I, Juan de Pareja

Bridge to Terabithia

The Hawk that Dare not Hunt by Day

Where the Red Fern Grows

Amos Fortune

The Door in the Wall

Adam of the Road

Ink on His Fingers

Carry On Mr. Bowditch

Johnny Tremain

A Father’s Promise

The Yearling

SIgn of the Beaver

The Cay

Do your sons have favorites???

Photo of 3 of our 5 sons…..

I have received SO many questions about homeschooling, I thought that I would post about it today!
Just yesterday, 2 moms asked if I had any secrets to help with organizing their homeschooling supplies and lives in general. I don’t know if I consider the 5 tips in this post to be ‘secrets’, but they have certainly helped me, over the past 20 years.
1. Each of my children have their own inexpensive plastic crates to hold ALL of their books AND supplies. They carry it into our kitchen each day to do their work, and then carry it out when we are finished. No more lost books, or pencils, or worksheets. If we were going to my parents home, 85 miles away, and stay a day or two, the children each transferred ALL of their supplies from their crates into a fabric, reusable bag from the grocery store. The handles made it easy to transport, and it kept everything safe and sound. I know that some moms store all of their supplies in backpacks. That didn’t work for us. Papers became creased, and it seemed like it was harder to find items inside…..like finding a toy in a large toy box or an item in a large purse.

2. Start with the most important subject(s) first!!! That way if life gets in the way of homeschooling :0, at least you worked on devotions, math, and English, for example.

3. Try as hard as you can, to protect the hours that you homeschool. I kept the hours of 6:30 AM – 12:00 noon, sacred. No doctor or dentist appointments, haircutting appointments, play dates, etc. between those hours. PERIOD

4. Make keeping up with general housework and clutter control, part of every day life. Attach it to something that you do EVERY DAY. Every day, my children eat at least 3 times a day. SO, before breakfast, lunch and dinner, we quickly pick up misplaced items and put them away, wash and dry laundry, and do some simple cleaning, and meal prep. Emphasis on the word ‘quickly’. I mean 15-20 minutes before each meal. If you find that life seems to be spiraling out of control,(You probably need to have a whole-house decluttering and organizing day!), you can homeschool 4 days a week instead of 5, at least temporarily. I can hear you gasping. It really is OK! Your children will still be fully functioning adults.

5. Be open to change. If the expensive curriculum that you purchased isn’t working for your child(ren), CHANGE curriculum!!! That is supposed to be one of the advantages of homeschooling; the freedom to personalize the resources. Don’t let money determine what you use or don’t use, consider the relationship between you and your child. I have purchased, bartered, borrowed, and loaned out materials almost every year for the past 20 years. What worked with child #1 might not be the best for child #2. Or maybe, you are in a different season of YOUR life, and it would work the best to team teach your children this year. Be open.

Goal backwards…..when you have finished your season of homeschooling, what will you have hoped to have accomplished?? Think backwards and set reasonable and flexible goals!