Today we had a great family meeting. We discussed our overall vision for the Zinga family, including some things we want to see happening in our family soon.

ONe of the biggest deals for our family would be scheduling.

God is really dealing with me about both creating and keeping a schedule of routine for the kids’ peace of mind, and also for my sanity. We’ve created schedules in the past but never kept them. We are such a laissez faire group that at times it’s hard to really pin ourselves down, but I’m learning to see beyond being “pinned” down and embrace the opportunities that regular routine bring.

Which leads me to the point that I’ll actually need to be home more to make this work for us. Currently our schedule leads us out the door every other day and sometimes every day. As a homeschool family, I’m finding that most of our schooling is being done in bits and pieces, small chunks and increments here and there…and it’s working for me, but not necessarily for Nyomi. She’d much rather stick with a topic and explore it into full depth until she tires of it, while I’d rather hit and miss, touch on the topic lightly and break it up into interesting tidbits to chew on a little at a time. In homeschool, I’m learning that if my teaching style differs from my child’s learning style, then I must adapt to meet her needs.

So that’s what I’m doing now…

Anyway, the family meeting went well and we’re set for some changes in responsibilities (how we can all pitch in and help each other out), respect (how to honor one another more), and “visioneering” (how we can set the tone for the future of our family by creating a vision applicable to us).

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Our trip to Orlando was crazy and fun!

I can’t even believe we went to Disney World, after so many years of talking about it..but we finally did it.

So we arrived on Sunday, April 27th by plane…and Delta lost my luggage at the airport. Don’t know what happened and we’re going through the claims process even now…but I had packed away our whole life just about in that one suitcase (my stuff, and the kids’). All of our summer/spring stuff was in there - shorts, shirts, designer dresses, perfume, hats, shoes, bathing suits, underwear and socks — EVERYTHING… not to mention some other pretty important items like cameras, a Video Now Jr., my daughter’s special Strawberry Shortcake doll that she’s slept with every night since she was 2, and my most favorite study bible of all time.

All gone, just like that.

What’s up, Delta?

But moving on…

We had a great time that week regardless of the setback. We ended up at Walmart for a good bit of that Sunday after arriving to get more clothes, camera, shoes, and basic necessities that were in the bag which was lost.

Well we slept on it…it was going to be okay. We stayed at the Shades of Green resort , which was relaxing…so I got better quickly.

Monday morning we got up, boarded our rental SUV and set toward Sea World after eating at Olive Garden. We spent the whole day there and got to see Shamu!

 And here we are with little Zoe fast asleep…

A little water fun…

Sea World was a ton of walking. Walk, walk, walk. With no shuttles or lifts to transport you around the huge campgrounds you’re really glad to have strollers for the kids and wish you had one for yourself.

Day 2 we set out for Magic Kingdom at Disney World. This is where Nyomi had her most fun. she enjoyed dressing up like Aurora and getting a princess makeover at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. (Pictures coming soon).

She also got to take pictures with Belle at storytime by the castle. (picture coming soon).

There were so many attractions there. She loves the Merry go Round, visiting Minnie’s house and hanging out in Pooh’s playground.

We also hung around a bit at Epcott Center where she rode on a spaceship thingie with Fabien. Zoe and I just strolled around in the sun and I grabbed cheese filled pretzel. Fattening but good.

AFter her makeover we attended the big show (I can’t remember what it’s called) but it’s the main attraction of Magic Kingdom.

The next day (Day 3), we missed breakfast for sleeping in too late, but drove out toward Tampa to Busch Gardens.

Now THAT was my favorite place. There, we got to see attractions like Jungala, wild animals, the African “safari”, a cool show with African dancers…and we even rode the cable cars high above so we could see the view below. It was breathtaking!

There were face paintings, drummers, and lots of cultural sites to behold. Not to mention the variety of artistic shops set up to sell native African garb.

Nyomi rode on the bumper cars there with Fabien, but she didn’t like that her car was actually being “bumped”

Not to worry, her daddy made sure little Princess stayed clear of all mean little drivers.

We cut our time at Busch Gardens in half so that we could make it out to Adventure Island before it closed (and boy did they close early at about 5 or 6). I didn’t much there since it’s a water park and I don’t swim. Fabien went on just about every water ride while I stayed with the girls in a cozy beach like area near the sand and shallow water to splash our feet in. I took some vidoe footage of this and lots of pics. I’ll be sure to add pics when I can.

That night we took a detour by the airport to see if we might find our luggage (still no success), got sidetracked on the side of the highway while we waited on our GPS system to boot up so we wouldn’t get lost, then found our way to Cici’s Pizza for a late (and I mean really late) dinner.

That was our last full day in Orlando. The next morning we awoke to a beautiful breakfast at our resort’s restaurant in the downstairs lobby.

 Meanwhile my husband was secretly rushing me around so he could get me to some surprise that I had no clue about.  Before I know it we’re roaming around the golf course of the resort, circle the swimming pool, and end up right in front of a massage table!  So that was my surprise — my 1st professional massage.  Thanks, Hubby!  (and thanks Angela from upstate New York!)

we then rush upstairs to get our stuff out of the room and check out before 11 a.m.

Next was lunch, a quick stop at Disney Downtown for the last time (and while there we caught a movie - College Road- and ate a jumbo popcorn) and ate at Haggen Dazs from which I fell sick the next day by the way.

Then to Walmart to return some items, to the gas station to fill her up, to the airport, boarding the plane and off in the late evening sky back toward Birmingham, Alabama.  Through all of this, Zoe was AMAZING!  She wasn’t fussy at all on the plane rides and pretty much enjoyed being strolled around during the whole trip.  Nyomi, as usual, was eager to ride the plane for the first time and she just totally dove into all the new sights, sounds, and experiences.

We drove home from Birmingham that night and the kids fell asleep, exhausted from such a long trip.  We arrived home an hour later (around midnight) and tucked Nyomi in her princess bed with Disney ears on and fully clothed (except the shoes).  She was knocked out for the night.  Zoe went to her crib and it wasn’t until an hour later that Hubby and I finally got settled in for sleep.

What a trip!!!  Oh, but it was so much fun!

Exhausting, but fun.

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My hubby came back home last night after a 2 week departure with the navy…

I’m so glad to have him back.  Especially Nyomi.  She missed him a great deal while he was away.

One thing’s for certain: you really appreciate what you have all the more when it’s gone.

Tonight I’m just happy and blessed that we’re together as a unit again.  Amazing…only 2 weeks and I’ve felt like it was an eternity.

The one thing I am finding that really helps to keep things in order while my husband is away is developing routines for my children.  It really helps to take some of the edge off of the difference in atmosphere.  When we have routines to look forward to everyday is not as challenging to look forward to each day with anticipation of what’s new.

Well…

We’re at a sigh of relief right now, with our missing piece of the puzzle back in place.

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Another weekend, another day…

My bible studies– they’re going okay, but nothing like the euphoric world of intense, quiet bible study that I dream of.

Nope, nothing like that.

It’s more like I’m jogging and jogging and jogging to catch up and I never do.

I SO want to really get in tune with God’s Word in a whole different way this year.  I mean, REALLY study.  But (and there’s that “but” again)…I seem to find time for everything else and struggle to find the time to truly do in depth study.  Oh, I read my daily readings, but I want to be more intensely focused on learning the Word of God as I go along…

So, as I know , anything that’s important to us in life, we’ll make time for.  I’m just going to have to make it a priority, because it is my heart’s desire, and it is God’s will.  If I have to put study materials along with my bible, pens, notebook, and everything at hand on my desk so that each time I pass by my desk all day long I’ll be reminded of my studies, then I just have to do that.  Whatever it takes.

Family Updates:  Nyomi is doing much better.  The cold is gone, praise the Lord! :-)   Also, I’m feeling the pressure of getting back in shape.  Baby is now 3 months old and it’s time to start hitting the treadmill.  I’m feeling frumpy and saggy, and pretty much like a milk machine all day.  These days the self esteem has taken a slide downhill, and I know it’s because I don’t feel my best.  I mostly want to feel better about myself.  I did lose a lot of weight but fail to see it because, again…I’m too hard on myself.  (I’ve always been inclined to set extremely high standards for myself).  So…I have to keep telling myself “you just had a baby!  Chill out!”  Great thing Hubby continues to keep me uplifted.  He has nothing but good to say about my body.  He’s the one grounding force to keep me sane (he and my mom).  I’ve been readint this book by Jackie Keller “Body After Baby”, and hoping that some of the tips may help me.  I mean even completely try out the program with the menu and exercise suggestions.  Or I may just begin walking to my Leslie Sansone’s Walk Away The Pounds DVD’s again.

Business updates:  I have a new client.  I’m finishing up some updates on WAHM University - my site for professional work at home moms.

Okay- off to spend time with my husband now that the kids are in bed.

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We had a great time Sunday, taking family photos.

Here they are:

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Just thinking about the classical homeschool method again.

Gosh…there’s so much I didn’t know and so much I have yet to learn about it…I’m beginning to really fall in love with this methodology and wish that my upper elementary and high school education followed this. Man…I would have really soared in my college academics!

Not that I was bad…I did pretty good back in college, but not until my junior and senior year when I’d changed my major, and at this point had matured to the point where I knew what I was in school for (not to play around!) and had finally figured out HOW to learn and how to study.

Without the proper tools, children can’t learn (and neither can we adults). We need the building blocks…the foundational tools first. Then with the proper tools, learning becomes easy.

My first year in college was nearly a dismal failure. Not because I flunked out…I mean, I did okay. I was average, made mostly C’s and a few failing grades and an occasional A or B. But I struggled.

So for me, the key to my success my last 2 years in college (where I made Deans and Presidents list) was not some magic formula…but the fact that I discovered how I learned best!

And that was it.

I simply figured out how my own brain works.

I need audio. I need to hear things repeated over and over again until it becomes part of my thought processes and “gets in my spirit” as I like to say.

So I made tapes. (THis is back when purchasing CD’s was expensive). I recorded myself onto a tape recorder reading back my lecture notes from class each day, and I listened to my recordings over and over again, especially the week of exams.

By exam night, I knew the material backward and forward, and not just out of memorization, but now that I had listened to the notes, the content which may have once been confusing now began to clear up and make sense for me.

Anyways…back to today…

Today, I sat down with Nyomi and we worked on spelling.

Just plain old copywork. We also did some dictation and narration. “Tell me what you learned today about________” and wrote this down in her notebook.

We practiced handwriting. Then I called out spelling words which spelled orally and a few I asked her to write down as I called them out (dictation).

We did a math review of subtraction. (Last week was addition review). We finished the Math U See Primer back in December so now we’re just doing review sheets until we purchase the Alpha set.

In Science, we’re studying baby animals. Today her interest was in ponies so we did an internet search on ponies where we found a site that she could play puzzles and games and find out fun facts about ponies. Recently she loves everything ponies…(especially the over-commercialized “My Little Pony” at Toys R Us).

Now I’m looking up some great internet links by Usborn on history and ancient civilization. We began our study on history, timelines, and archaeology last week. It’s just a basic introduction to the concepts, nothing major. I mean she’s only K-1, so it’s not as though I have to flesh out the details nor be extensive, but I’m excited that she gets introduced to history so early, and even more grateful that that I found The Well Trained Mind to help guide me through this classical method.

Thank you, Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, for this LIFE-CHANGING book!

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I was reading a post by Lamplight Christian Academy who talks about how she uses the Charlotte Mason method in her homeschool (and, of course, putting God first).

I’m beginning to notice a few similarities between the Charlotte Mason method and Classical…

anyway, she mentioned a few resources I’d like to check out. She says…:

“For Elizabeth, she did one page of Horizons math, but when it came to the second page (a bunch of addition) we were met with tears. We decided to work on reviewing her basic facts for the rest of the week using Flashmaster.”

What is Flashmaster? I need to go find out…

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So it’s been an interesting week so far…and you’ll know why if you keep reading.

First of all, if you’ve been reading any of my earlier posts you’ll know that I’ve changed over to the Well Trained Mind classical method education for my daughter. This week’s homeschool structure has changed, and so has our schedule…and that meant getting ORGANIZED!

Here’s a little corner in our home near our washer/dryer that we weren’t using efficiently:

Quite a mess in fact.

There’s a little toddler art table, an end table, homeschool crates, binders, toys and organizing drawers that are in fact disorganized.

So… I brought in her computer desk, and did a little rearranging so now it looks like this:

Quite a difference, eh?

I’m quite proud of myself I must admit. Now we can think, breathe, and have school in a more organized environment.

Okay…now for the funnies…

What does a 5 year old do when she tries to flush a few wads (or maybe rolls) of toilet paper down the toilet?

Why, the only sensible thing to do, of course! Put up a sign!

Did you catch that? “OUT OF ORDER”?

yep.

That’s Nyomi for ya…my creative and orderly Little Lady.

Speaking of Nyomi…we spent a great deal of time last Thursday making out Valentine’s Cards for her little friends at our homeschool co-op. You remember back in grade school how important it was for our little boy and girl friends to get our Valentine’s in their goody bags?

This was an exciting time for her! We’re just really blessed that homeschooling doesn’t mean she still can’t have some of the social outlets we had as kids…and we’re SO blessed to be part of our local co-op, which is unbelievably awesome, (and I’m bragging!) but probably one of the best nationwide.

And one more pic for the day…

We always tell Nyomi she’s our little star…so here she is singing to her heart’s content (with her Daddy accompanying her on the piano next to her).

Wish I had a video of this!

That’s all for now.

Hope you enjoyed this update on family happenin’s in the Zinga home.

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The history texts are AWESOME. They’re full of bright, colorful pictures for the early elementary child with lots of descriptions, and a timeline. The idea is to study a period of civilization from the ancient times all the way to modern times - one period per year from 1st grade through the 4th grade, and then start all over again from 5th to 9th, and again through the 12th grade. It’s a great way to study history…in order. Unlike the way most schools teach history (american history/ Native Americans — skip to Civil Rights — skip to unit study on Thomas Jefferson– skip, skip, skip), the Classical Education method believes in presenting material in an orderly fashion so it makes sense to the learner.And me being a neat freak, of COURSE I love this way of doing things.

Let me tell you, when those books arrived…I felt like a kid in a candy store!! (and so did Nyomi)

Maybe it’s because homeschooling is definitely a calling for me. I absolutely LOVE the fact that the education of my children is in my hands. It doesn’t feel like a task. It’s a joy.

In fact, one of the reasons I’m so excited about teaching her World History and Science this way is because my education in these areas was not nearly as concise. I went to public school and my graduation class had about 500. My teachers did the best they could for classes of 25-30 kids each period, but the majority of our work was worksheet and answer key based where we learned to barely get by and cram for the next night’s rote memorization test on spelling words or the periodic table, etc.

One of the things about the Classical Education method that threw me for a loop was the idea of having young school age kids simply memorize for the sake of memorizing. At first I thought the idea of this was pathetic at best.

I come from a Child Development background where living studies and real life projects are honored above seatwork and drill…

But the more I looked into the classical education ideas, I realize the truth in the trivium. That kids ages 5-8 are generally sponges, still ready to soak up ideas and facts (ex.- multiplication tables, counting 1-100, reciting poems). All of these drill work activities are a daily part of the classical education method. It’s called “exercising the brain”. Kids at this age just love to recite things for fun.

They recite commercials and they have a great memory…so the idea is to give them the facts at THIS stage while they’re eager to learn.

The next stage of the trivium would be logic stage when they actually begin to piece their ideas together…

Well, Nyomi and I are also still working on French. We have a lot of French resources at hand but no set curriculum. So, we’re just using the different tools I have available.

Her dad is a great resource and he speaks to her in French whenever he can. And lately we’ve been listening in on The French Pod Class which is an AWESOME, awesome way to get exposed and submerged into both the French language and culture. Sebastien is just way too cool!

We’re still learning piano. We’re working on memorizing our notes. So far she can play Mary Had a Little Lamb and Ode To Joy. Nyomi also enjoys picking out notes on the keyboard to a song she’s heard…hence, the beginning of playing by ear. I encourage her to keep doing it…

We have other subjects too: Math (we use Math-U-See), Language Arts (we do spelling, narration work, handwriting, assigned reading, and grammar int he mornings), Biblical Studies (going through the bible beginning to end with The Daily Audio Bible and using supplemental workbooks for elementary age kids)

I’ll be updating soon on our studies together…

Right now I need to start our school for the morning…then later it’s office time (I’m pulling together some business info for my next couple of newsletter sendouts to my list).

On to start my day…

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As I sit here on my bed this morning with my little newborn baby in my lap, I am feeling tremendously blessed!!

Tired, but blessed!

Seriously, I never thought spit up could be so beautiful, but after waiting for years for this little one I am just in awe of God’s wonders, and HIs ways are beyond me.

I can’t believe it, but I”m already thinking of having more children…

MORE??? Already??

Well, not right away but maybe next year I’d love to be pregnant again with a 3rd. These children are SO precious and SO God-given.

I prayed to God that He would never catch me complaining about any of my kids, but rather, offer prayers on their behalf and watch God do marvelous works in their lives.

This is the one year I want to learn to be thankful and have a heart of true gratitude.

I’m reading yet another parenting book–this one by Lisa Welchel - “Creative Correction- Extraordinary Ideas For Everyday Discipline”. So far I’m really loving the idea of the Scripture Toolbox on different topics like controlling the tongue, arguing, anger, rebellion, or jealousy. There are a lot of topics. Lisa chose topics that we often have to correct our kids about. There are scriptures underneath each topic that we can use when creatively correcting our kids, and this I find VERY useful.

In our home a spanking hasn’t been given in about 2 1/2 years. From day 1 we really didn’t want to spank and we only resorted to it during Nyomi’s toddler years on very RARE occasion because it was our last resort to break the stubborn will–and even then, they were pretty weak spankings. Most of our correction has been verbal- teaching, explaining, and taking away priviliges. That’s why this book’s content rings so true to me–because it’s really about what goes in a child’s ears and heart rather than what goes on his behind. Granted, there may be occasions that a child needs a spanking, but in my humble opinion, it shouldn’t be ALL the time. Taking time to teach and train verbally is time-consuming, and takes more effort than carrying around a switch, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to commit to that with Zoe as she grows into her toddler years.

We shall see! (Easier said than done right?)

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