A Freilichen Purim and a Belated Mazal Tov!

KIMG0052A Freilichen Purim everyone! I just looked and it has been well over a month since I have posted. Wow, time flies. We have been quite busy over the last 4 weeks. From (finally!) purchasing a home in our new place to celebrating a Bar Mitzvah the next week. Baruch Hashem, our Beautiful Boy #2 has now become a “Man.” 😀 We merited to have almost all our family over here that weekend. We were still in our apartment, but ate at the new house. It was so nice! 17 people. The weather was even nice. The Oldest-Sister-In-The-Family Club met before everyone started leaving. I must say, it was pretty cool to have all the Oldest Sisters there.

After that, it was teaching our boys handywork jobs. Stripping paint off of cabinets, painting walls, etc. And yes, they20150201_144137 all had a hand in actually painting the house (and really painting, not just painting pictures on the walls. :D)  It was a hard 2 weeks. We ended up getting someone to do a lot of the painting for we bit off too much. Even the hired painters are taking a while (at least 2 weeks now) to do three rooms, but it is looking nice. Last Shabbos we moved the beds into the house and finally got to “move in,” even though most of our stuff is still at the apartment.

20150201_210923Movers came on Sunday, we were so excited! But, we only got 2/3’s of our stuff. Apparently they did not have a truck big enough for our stuff – they were all stuck in snow. That is what they say. We got most of our sefarim, the guitar, paino and some of our bookcases. Among the rest of the stuff that did not come, we did not get all our bookcases, our two big exercise machines and the big organ. We were told they were going to arrive a few days later, so we spent two days working and moving things around, emptying boxes and trying to find temporary homes for things, but they never arrived. When we called, we were told they were not coming and they did not know when they would have someone available. 😐 A little frustrating and annoying, but we keep telling ourselves, and our children, we have the most important things – most of our sefarim, and our beds (though not all sefarim and not all our beds came, but we bought some of both when we moved here,) and I can start teaching again.

It had been a challenge emptying the boxes for things that are labeled “school supplies” are opened in anticipation of them being books or crayons or whatnot, and only the very top is what the box says and the rest are something else. 20150208_201053Most of my kitchen boxes are labeled, “sewing stuff.” Hmm… I don’t remember putting most of my sewing goods in my kitchen. We scrounged around and Baruch Hashem were able to find Purim costumes for boys – one boy was missing his strimel (hat) but when I picked up the box labeled “lamp shades,” I just knew it was in there before I opened the box. (And yes, there actually were two lamp shades in there.) I just needed to spend $15 on costumes for the rest of the boys and we were all set.

It is all about perspective. We have not done schoolwork in a few weeks, and I can tell we all need to get back into a routine, and we are missing some of our stuff – like screws for bed frames, bookcases, our big organ, and some of our other stuff we miss, but things really are good. It has been a good few weeks to ponder on that idea and internalize it. Baruch Hashem. We are very grateful.

KIMG0051I think I will take a quick break in between delivering the rest of the shlach manos and going to the seuda to take out Saba’s piano music which was the one thing I wanted and break in the piano at our new place. Wishing everyone a Freilichen Purim!

A Freilichen Purim!

20140311_163628Finally, I get a few spare moments to breathe. The last while I have felt like I have been going in circles, but it has usually been good. Somehow I have not been able to get much done other than teach and today I seem to have some time, but with it being a fast day, I am not doing much for I know if I do then it will come back to bite me.

A few weeks ago one little (or big?) boy of 4 decided he was going to be a big boy, and while I was busy teaching his older brothers he went around the house and did chores such as emptying the dishwasher and putting most things away, all by himself and ripping toilet paper for Shabbos (and they were all in even square strips!) When asked why he thought of those ideas, he responded that he did not want his brothers to have to do the work. <3 <3 <3

The weather has been absolutely crazy this winter. It was not so much the snow that came, but the COLD that came along with it. Yeah, yeah, I have friends and family who will remind me that I grew up in the cold and I should be used to it. I’m a wimp, and I’m tired of the cold temperatures hovering around 0 F and below (-17 C and below). I do not mind it staying around the freezing mark; I like the change in weather, the snow, the crisp air, etc. and then the warming up and seeing the new buds. It is also hard to send the boys outside to stretch their legs. Many times we had to tell our oldest not to walk to shul in the mornings for it was just too cold, or icy, or windy. Things were just starting to look a bit warmer this week and it was gorgeous for the chassanah that we attended on Monday, but that was just a little Purim joke. And to mention that many of those people have moved out of the cold climate themselves.

On Tuesday afternoon we played some hookie with the weather rising to about 57 F! Actually, it was not hookie, it was a much needed stretch of the legs for everyone, you see, I feel very proud of myself for when I told my oldest that we were going to play hookie, he looked at me and said, “Huh? What’s20140312_121042 that?” Ditching school and taking advantage of the amazing weather to finally get a chance to stretch legs and soak in some sunshine and fresh air for more than 2 minutes really is part of schooling, and he understands that as such. 😀 Most of the snow was gone and one boy even wore shorts. Then came the rest of the Purim joke – Late Tuesday night/ early Wednesday morning it started to come. It came and it came and it came. Boy, did it come. Within 24 hours we had about 16 inches of white stuff all over the ground. My oldest used the snow blower at least twice on the driveway, the last time being around 5pm. DH and I went out for a Sheva Brachos and came back at around 9 pm and it was a miracle we made it not only home without getting stuck, but into our driveway! The snow was higher than the bottom of our van! And that was just 4 hours worth of it.

Schooling itself has just been okay. I put our schedule up on our living room wall for all to see. It is a good schedule, I just find myself missing out on things every week. I think the problem is more me than the boys. I have to really have my mindset to be ready by 8 am. We are not scheduled to daven until 8:30 am but I have noticed that my mind is just not ready. Something for me to work on. It is nice to have some quiet/me time before we start and I am up and physically ready, just mentally I am not. Perhaps if I take the time the boys are getting themselves ready (7:45-8:30), i.e. cleaning one bathroom, sweeping the floor, or other small task, I will feel a bit accomplished right at the beginning and that will help motivate me. I did notice that this morning when we got up at 5:45 am to eat a bit before the fast and I took about half an hour to wipe the kitchen counters and table and straighten the living room. I did have the drive to continue on, and would have if it were not a fast day. So, that will be my next task.

20140311_163641We did go out on Tuesday night to get some more firewood in anticipation of the cold weather the next day. We did order a cord of firewood in late December, but with the extreme temperatures (my husband told me this morning that this has been the coldest winter since 1912!) we had only 4 logs left. We had a nice fire for a few hours yesterday.  I would have started one more fire today, but there was not enough to make it worthwhile.

In the meantime, I need to make supper now – have to feed some bellies! Wishing everyone a Freilichen Purim!

p.s. Just an update on our new bookshelves – it really has helped out a lot. Some days it gets messy, but it is really easy for boys to pick up the books and they are so enjoying all the beanbags we have in there as well!

Parsha, Purim and Hamantashen!

hamantashenWell, I finally did it. I now have a Facebook page! Just go to Jewish and Homeschooling in an Amazing World and you can join the group.  This will hopefully be a medium where I can also post other interesting links and information that I find. Purim is but a few days away and I saw that someone posted hamantashen on Facebook and realized that with all our planning we did, we did not plan making any this year! Oops. That will not do. The little one and I made a batch of hamantashen after supper tonight.

For all those who are wondering, yes, we are having school this week. Room613 is not in session, but Harper Academy is. We swing to our own tune over here, though this year I actually had a boy who finally realized that everyone else around has the week off. The nice thing about homeschooling is that we are not tied to any other schedule but our own. We have a revised schedule for this week – trying to get everything except math done before lunch. We are doing pretty good with it. This afternoon we worked more on our Purim booklets that I printed out from Chinuch.org. Something fun but with some learning.

I had been alternating between parsha and reading the story of Purimkohain gadol (mainly for the benefit of the little one, but it still gives me a chance to add in stuff for the older ones.) Yesterday was parsha day. It was a perfect parsha for in it we talk about the clothes for the kohanim and the kohain gadol, and guess who is excited about being a kohain gadol for Purim this year? Thanks goes to his wonderful Aunt who had no more use for the costume and sent it to him. He was very excited and proud to be able to take out the costume and put it on for we really needed it for school! We compared what clothing the kohain gadol really wore with the costume version. There were a few differences, some which the boys asked if we could fix. But even if we don’t add any of the missing fixtures, we all agreed that it was a great costume and the little one looked quite spiffy. 🙂 The costume was put away again until Motzei Shabbos.

This past week I have been working on the narrations for the boy who was needing help. Last week I wrote about the suggestion of a mother to have the child visualize the “picture” of a short section, then to keep adding “pictures” to the previous ones until it is time to narrate. All the child needs to do is visualize the pictures in order while he narrates. This seemed to have been just what the doctor ordered. Instead of just being able to remember the end of the section, he is able to actually do a proper narration. Now, I can actually get through a nice section of reading before he narrates.

I think I am going to end of with our recipe. I have significantly modified a recipe I found on the internet to come up with our own delicious whole wheat hamantashen recipe. Hope you enjoy!
Ingredients (for approximately 3 dozen hamantashen):
Dough:
4 cups of whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
¾ cup of brown sugar – gives a better taste than white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup of margarine or oil
Filling:
You can use almost anything for filling from the traditional poppy seeds to pie filling, jam, jelly, preserves, or even chocolate chips!
Instructions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
The proper thing to do is to mix the dry ingredients together and then add the rest, but I am lazy and I just plop it all in and it works just fine. 🙂
Add more flour if needed to make the dough solid. Roll out the dough and cut into 3-4 inch circles.
Drop a tablespoon of the filling on top of the dough circles. Close and pinch to make 3 sides.

Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a nice golden brown.

Wishing everyone a Frelichen Purim!

Our Vacation During Non-Vacation Week

!משנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה
When Adar enters, happiness increases!

It’s Rosh Chodesh Adar, and there is a lot of good mazal (“luck” – for lack of a better word, when I find one, I’ll replace it) in this month.  We are told this month is a good month for success – if one needs to start a new business, get a new job, or just needs success in other matters, this is the month to start things.  (Permission was encouraged by the artist for everyone to share the image to encourage the spirit of Purim!)

This week was vacation week for the public (and some private) schools.  It was not supposed to be a vacation week over here.  The nice thing about homeschooling is that we get to pick our vacation, and it does not have to correspond to what anyone else is doing.  However, for a non-vacation week, it sure turned out more like a vacation week – that too is the beauty of homeschooling.  We get to change our plans and have unexpected “vacation”, and just make up for it later, either by not taking a vacation at a later date, or by adding a few days onto our school calendar.

Not quite sure what we did at the beginning of the week, but the boys had a few days off from their learning with their Rebbe (room613.net), and on Monday we got most of our learning done in 2 hours – all three boys!  We learned something new – one of my boys is a late reader, and begged me to let him do his reading opposed to having me do all his reading for him.

Tuesday I decided it was time to clean.  It was a hard morning.  I have one child who, because of his personality and his wonderful attributes, just cannot clean!  It does not matter what creative way I try, it is like pulling teeth to get him to do anything.  I have to say, I personally clean his room several times a year when I get fed up with it and fed up with trying to get it clean otherwise.  Last time I did it was about a month ago when I bought some nice Closet Maid cubbies, along with the cloth baskets to go inside, thinking if there was something to store things in, it would help, at least a little.  But this time the room was worse than ever. After all the other boys and I cleaned the rest of the house, and after trying for 3 hours to get him to clean, I went in and spent an hour cleaning.  I thought the funny part was when he came in and huffed and fell on top of the bed complaining that he does all the work in the house (as I’m finishing up cleaning his room!)  I was not quite sure what to say to him at that point.  Our house is still fairly clean (and surprisingly so is this boy’s room!)

Yesterday we had to go to the scout store to get needed items for all the boys (and even the 2 year old).  Anyone who has boys and lives in the US, Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts is definitely recommended! (There are only 2 countries in the world that do NOT have co-ed Scouts – the US and I *think* South Africa — definitely not Canada nor Israel).  The scout store is like a totally kosher candy store.  Normally, the boys need to look for hechshers (kosher symbols) on the candy, but in a totally kosher candy store, the only limit is what I say.  Same goes for a toy store.  Normally I say “NO” to most things the boys ask me (and  then I feel like a bad mom), however, in the scout store, I just let them roam around and “oo” and “ahhh” at everything on the shelves and then pick out what they want.

All three boys sold a lot of (kosher) popcorn as a fundraiser for scouting (totaling around $4000 worth of popcorn! Yeah boys!)  For prizes, they each got gift cards.  Two boys chose cards for the scout store… and yesterday was D-Day.  So, we made 3 different kinds of slime, I have a 2 year old who was excited for his “TV”  (translation: ATV – All Terrain Vehicle) that was made of wood that he will be painting this afternoon.  I had string tied across my living room and had space derby vehicles whizzing by.  I have 2 bear bells that keep dinging around the house (yes – bear bells — bells to wear in the woods when there might be a bear, and since I could not come up with a good reason not to get them, they got them for of course, the scout motto is “Be Prepared!”)  I actually felt like the stereotypical “Homeschool Parent” (see the image on my previous post!)

Today, my oldest went out for a scout camp out.  For some reason, no one would go into the car when it was time.  We were all finally in the car, I was going to pick up a boy down the street as well…… and then the car wouldn’t start.  Baruch Hashem, the other mother was home and was able to take both boys to the camp.  I purchased an AAA membership a few months ago (for the first time in about 8 years), and gave them a call.

Now, here is where religious-homeschool parents will take out their creative juices, for instead of just learning from a story or a book in school about things such as middos (character traits) and other lessons that need learning, homeschooling children many times learn through experience.  After AAA came and boosted the van, we drove down to the mechanics to get a new battery.  On the way, the boys and I discussed the events of the morning.  Even though it looks like it was a bad morning – the van died, we missed the market, and we needed to get a new battery – we have to understand that we do not know what MIGHT have happened if things did not go the way they did.  Hashem set up today months ago and put us in a position that we decided we needed an AAA membership.  Perhaps if the van did not die, we would have left on time and would have gotten into an accident.  Perhaps if the battery did not die this morning, it would have died in a very inconvenient time and place (like on the road in between towns, etc.)  Each experience we have, each decision we make, molds us.  By taking being able to teach Torah thoughts and attitudes through living examples ingrains the lessons inside the neshama.

Well, I was going to talk a bit about our Limudei Kodesh studies, for that is always a hot topic for Jewish Homeschoolers, but I guess that is part of homeschooling too – sometimes we step out of our routines!