Failure = experience

Probably the most prominent plague upon homeschooling moms is the thought of failure. All the time. "What-if-I-failed-today?--What-if-I-failed-today?..." runs through my mind nearly constantly. I am trying to overcome it. For example, I'm not even going to try to fill in the gap I left on this blog... unless I feel like it later. (I suspect I post so infrequently in part because it takes YEARS when I do get around to it, so I burn out.) 

Today we did an art activity with blowing paint... It was supposed to look something like this, but it turned out a bit less neat. 

Mine is probably the ugliest of all: a portrait of our family with blow-painted hair and bodies.   :/  So while we made ugly art, I read this article to my kids.

It'll be a good day. Or not. But we'll learn something...

Oliver Lewis Borup

Oliver Lewis Borup was born on Sunday, February 15th at 1:45pm. He weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long.

He is wonderful! He brings such a special spirit into our home, and he is very loved. What's special about Oliver so far? Well, he is very patient with all the kids holding and loving him all the time-- we all love taking naps with him; he was a very alert newborn and has been a champion eater; and, best of all, he is so smiley! He seems to always have a smile for us, since the day he was born.

It is pretty great having six kids! Each one of them is pretty fantastic, and I am so proud and thankful that they are turning out to be such good friends with each other.

And, just for fun, here are some more of Ollie in his blessing clothes:

Will I ever post regularly?!

I don't know. Once a year is regular, right?

Here are some things since last I wrote:

Andrew and Evie were in Seussical last summer. 

We spent some time with Great Grandma and Grandpa

... and we survived the Rexburg Flood of '14

In other news, we bought a house! It's in Hibbard and it's in a great ward (where Mikey has since been called to teach 17 year old Sunday school class and Jamie has been called as a Beehive advisor).  We love that it's in the country and has a whole acre of land!

The front of our house

The reason we bought it

A few days ago was our 12th wedding anniversary! At 12 years, I think we're more in love than ever.

This is us in Hawaii for our anniversary last year. This year we celebrated in Rexburg.

Homeschool

In November, we started homeschooling. Why I did it really just comes down to one thing: I felt that's what Heavenly Father wanted us to do.

And it's been the best thing.

I'm not saying this is for everyone. What I am saying is I LOVE it! It is crazy how much I love it. I love having my kids around, and learning with them, and setting our own pace, and making education a part of life and the Gospel part of education.

The kids all love it too, which makes me really happy. They often tell me how glad they are that I decided to homeschool them. They are more themselves. A couple months ago, I caught several of them holding hands and singing, "I found a brand-new best friend, and it's YOU!" That made me feel pretty good-- that my kids are best friends with each other.

Our first school year itself was a year of trial and error, of learning to work together and to trust ourselves and the Lord. Especially for me. I have never felt so much anxiety, but I found that when I turned to the Lord I felt peace, and I am still learning to trust Him, to lay my burdens at His feet and to move forward the best I know how.

Here are some highlights from our very first homeschool year:

The kids worked together and wrote a book for the Kids are Authors contest.
It was EXHAUSTING, but we were all really proud to have finished the job. 

Andrew played a villain in a melodrama performed by his skits class in our homeschool co-op.

We read and discussed a LOT of books.
After Peter Pan, the kids each drew a map of their own Neverland.

Of course we visited BYU-Idaho and went to the animal museum, among other places.

We made our own paper. It was kind of stiff and brittle, but a very fun project.

Some of my favorite things about homeschool are seeing my kids learn together and teach each other, and spending a lot of time out in nature together. 

Evie teaching her brothers an art class.

The kids love to read together (and Sam is learning to read!!!).
Here they're not really reading, but you get the point.

We spent a lot of time at the nature park, and lots of time outside even in the winter.

Little monkeys in the trees.

I kind of can't wait for fall to do it some more, but we're still doing a lot of those things now-- just more relaxed. We do tons of reading. The kids recently caught tadpoles so we're raising them and watching them change. We look up things we wonder about, and notice things about nature. The world is full of wonderful things, and I'm happy to get to explore it with my kids.

Evie's baptism... a year ago!

Evelyn Clementine Borup was baptized October 12, 2013. She was beautiful and the Spirit was strong, and we were so proud that she chose to make that covenant.

Lots of family and friends came to support her, and she felt very loved.

Evie in her baptism dress

With Daddy at the baptism

Here is Evie's testimony she wrote that week. 

Love that girl.

The kids stole my camera!

My kids are getting really comfortable using our nice camera. They have been making silly videos together and taking a LOT of pictures. Here's a sample:

Summer 2013

Summer of 2013 may have been our best yet. We loved our yard, we played outside, we visited family and sold lemonade, we went for long walks and bike rides to the park, the library, the ice cream store. 

Dinner by the fire pit in our backyard

Wrestling on the trampoline

Feeding the ducks

Mom date at Scoops!

Another mom date: A nice long bike ride

Great Grandpa Andrews with the little kids-- they love him! 

Trampoline reading fort

The kids had a very successful lemonade stand! The college students couldn't resist them.

One of the best parts of our summer was the Fourth of July. We decided to leave civilization for the day and spend some time seeing beautiful things as a family. We drove to Mesa Falls, had a picnic at Warm River, and swam at Monkey Rock. We were exhausted by then, so we had a quick dinner and watched a movie instead of fireworks. 

The first time I ever touched a waterfall! (at Monkey Rock)

Mesa Falls

Glad I'm getting back on the blog thing a bit, because looking at all those pictures reminded me of what a great summer we had, and makes me pretty excited for the rest of this one. 

So far this summer we haven't done a whole lot because Andrew and Evie are in a play and have to be at rehearsal a LOT! But they will perform soon (which will be really fun for them), and then we'll be off to have more adventures.