Thinking about Thanksgiving.....

Is your family getting ready for Thanksgiving? Does you family celebrate this Holiday?

I feel that this is (or should be) one of the most important "days of remembrance" to celebrate on the entire calendar. My personal reasons for this are these:

1. This holiday has important signicificance in the history of our country.
2. It has important spiritual ramificiations.

I have not personally been in a public school classroom that teaches the history of Thanksgiving, but from what I understand from the children in our neighborhood who attend public school, the teaching is rather anemic and by the older elementary grades it's non-existent. They certainly aren't being taught that the Separatists (Pilgrims) came to America from England to escape RELIGIOUS persecution and to seek freedom to worship as they felt the Bible leads us to.

I'm wondering how much history gets changed in our local public school system so that today's children grow up not even aware of what our forefathers went through fighting for the freedoms that we enjoy (and take for granted, I'm afraid) today. I see many Americans completely oblivious to how good they really have it BECAUSE of those who founded our country on the principles of Scripture, and were willing to give up their fortunes and even their lives to see these freedoms be put into place for us, their great-great-great-great-great (and so on) grandchildren.

I don't want my children taking these freedoms for granted. I want my children to know that Thanksgiving has its historical beginnings back in 1621 when the Pilgrims, after surviving a treacherous voyage from England, and an equally treacherous winter (where half of those who survived the ship voyage died), were finally able to plant and harvest some food the following spring and fall, and learn how to build up food supplies from the local Indians. They lost their first govenor that first year, and the man who they appointed to take his place, William Bradford, declared they needed to have a special time of "Thanksgiving" to God for all He had brought them through and had provided for them.

It wasn't until later, that our first President, the good Mr. George Washington, made an official declaration of Thanksgiving. You can read that here. That declaration was then lost and forgotten for awhile, until our equally-as-good sixteenth President, the honorable Mr. Abraham Lincoln, declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. You can now read that document here.

In 1941, the day we celebrate Thanksgiving officially became the fourth Thursday of November. You can read more about that here.

I also feel that I should be cultivating a spirit of gratefulness (thankfulness) in my children. Not just this one day of the year, but every day of the year. We have been so blessed by our Heavenly Father, and He daily "loadeth us with benefits" (Psalm 68:19). Even when bad things happen to us that change our lives or the way we do things, I want my children to have a spirit of gratefulness for the benefits that can be found in those hard times, as well as the blessings that come out of those times we might not have been able to experience.

So I've been taking them back through the history of this holiday and revisiting some of the hardships that our forefathers endured and how the Lord brought them through those times. We are talking about the little things we are thankful for in each other.

We've been listening to a wonderful story on CD told by "Aunt Carolyn" called "The Pilgrims." I remember my parents playing this for us when I was a child, and it left such a lasting impression on me, so I'm playing it for my children. You can find this tape or CD set here.

We're planning on taking some goodies to our neighbors on Thanksgiving day (or maybe the day before in hopes of catching everyone) to share the truth about why our country celebrates Thanksgiving along with the good news that Jesus Christ has given us so much to be thankful for.

We're also re-visiting Psalm 100 as our monthly scripture memorization together. The older girls remember it from past years, but it's new for the younger ones just joining us this year in our schoolwork. Always refreshing.

I would encourage you to try not to overlook this holiday all together and rush right into Christmas. Are you thinking about all you have to be thankful for? How are teaching your children about this lovely holiday?

A fun field trip

We have been having horrible computer problems this last week, so I haven't been able to really update all the fun things happening around our house.

But now that we're back up and running, although in a somewhat limited capacity, I wanted to share some pictures from the really fun field trip we took this last week.

We live near one of the largest airports in the country, so of course there is an aviation museum close by. We had never taken the children there before and it ended up being a great experience for all of us.

We arrived just in time for terrific IMAX type film about the history of American Airlines. All the children were engrossed with it as it gives you this feeling that you are really flying over the Grand Canyon and The London Bridge, and all the other well-known sites they highlighted.
This film was only 15 minutes in length, which is especially helpful for the ADHD-ers!!!

We all LOVED the gorgeous DC-3 airplane that you could actually go into.

Then there were all the other interesting hands-on exhibits too.

Plus there were lots of other wonderful things to just look at.

The funniest thing happened to us while there at this exhibit explaining the "Kiwis Club." They had this kiwi bird in the display that explained this was the club for all the airline stewardesses. Apparently, as we learned that day, this is the native bird of New Zealand, and it has no wings so it does not fly. While we were standing there looking at this bird, my 8-year old son began asking me what it was. There was a gentleman standing next to us also looking at this exhibit and in his broken English was trying to explain to Grant what this was. He then all-of-a-sudden whipped a small stuffed toy kiwi bird out of his satchel and said, "See, like this one that I got when I was in New Zealand." Like, who carries one of these things around in a satchel, and then happens to be standing in front of an exhibit of that actual bird so he can whip it out at that moment????

As it happened, this young man was visiting the US from Brazil where he is training to be a Security Agent for American Airlines. He was here for some more training I guess, and decided to go to the museum that day too. He has traveled to lots of other places, and asked me if I knew where he could shop for a cowboy hat and boots.

Overall, we had such a fun trip and I would highly recommend a visit to the C.R. Smith Aviation Museum!!

Friday's Fabulous Family Recipe

This "recipe" is so simple that I don't think it deserves the full honor and title of a true

"recipe". But we eat these a LOT at our house, and I thought I would

share this fun treat that can make a lot or a little and is just wonderful

day or night, hot day or chilly evening. We whip these up when we have friends over

and they just rave about them.

Easy Peezy Indoor S'mores

Line a cookie sheet or sheet cake pan with as many graham crackers as you need.

Top with chocolate chips. Use whatever kind you like.

Add either the little marshmallows, or tear a large marshamallow in half and put on top of chocolate chips.

Put the pan under the broiler in your oven.

Warning: These brown really fast, so don't leave them for a SECOND!!

When the marshmallows are nicely browned (or burnt if you prefer),

carefully remove from the oven.

Some of my children like them open-faced, some like them with a top on them.

Either way, we all LOVE them!!! Enjoy at your next movie night, sleepover, or whenever

you want!!!

Our first fields trips of the 2009/10 school year!!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Fall fun!!!!

Enjoy these pictures from this past Saturday of some things we did to enjoy

the season together as a family!!!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Crazy Halloween HIGH!!!

Okay, so we've seen some highs since we thought we had gotten a good handle on Ashlyn's blood sugar levels since her diagnosis this past February. I mean, come on, we've been at this for 8 months now. We've learned TONS of stuff, so we've been given the green flag to make our own adjustments in her insulin as needed.

But when you see this........

and can't believe it, so you try again and get THIS.......

it kinda makes you think you have no idea what you are doing.

Actually, we (her daddy and I) are pretty confident that what we were seeing here was a combination of a couple of things:

1. She has needed a bump up on her bedtime Lantus anyway so she's already running a little high.
2. Her eating schedule was off today.
3. She had a big birthday party this morning.
4. She had the "Fall Festival" at our church this afternoon.
5. I kept finding her grabbing a bite of brownie here, or a piece of candy there.

At least.......that's what we're thinking. After getting that sky high reading, we did of course treat it with lots of insulin and something a little healthier than candy for dinner, so by bedtime her reading (82) was back in her target range of 80 - 150. Just the craziness of this disease I guess.

Great article about ADHD

I recently found the following article in our local issue of the Thrive magazine. It explains the issues that a child or an adult struggles with if living with ADHD. I love how this article so clearly explains that the main problems are the lack of "executive functions". I used to think that these things were a lack of character in my children and that with consistent and firm discipline, these issues would resolve themselves. I'm not so cavalier anymore. After years of trying all the different appropriate discipline methods, I have observed that some things are NOT issues of willful disobedience, but are functioning problems inside the brain. How can you tell the difference?? I will give you examples from my home after each of the listed executive functions below.

http://www.dfwthrivemagazine.com/showarticle.asp?artid=47

The Eight Executive Functions

1. Inhibition: Ability to stop one’s own behavior at the appropriate time (If the thought to tease her brother pops into her head when he is already upset, Lexi will ALWAYS do it. If the doorbell rings, Grant and Lexi drop EVERYTHING instantly every time and RUN to the door and yank it open!)
2. Shift: Ability to move freely from one situation to another and think flexibly (Grant gets crazy angry if he's focused on an activity and we need him to stop and give another person a turn.)
3. Emotional control: Ability to manage emotional responses by tempering feelings with rational thought (Grant gets crazy angry if focused on an activity and it's time to give someone else a turn and we ask him to stop. Then ANY discipline for that behavior no matter how calm you are only escalates him and makes him screaming mad.)
4. Initiation: Ability to begin a task and independently generate ideas (If I tell Grant or Lexi to go clean up their room, they might get to their room, but then start to play instead of clean. They don't know where to start. This is not a problem with 5 year old Abby.)
5. Working memory: Ability to keep information in mind until completion of task (If I ask Lexi to make her bed, pick up her clothes off the floor, brush her teeth, and get on her jammies she will get on her bed and play with the stuffed animals.This also affects how long Lexi can remember math facts.)
6. Planning: Ability to manage current and future-oriented task demands (It never occurs to Lexi that she needs to begin working on a deadline days or weeks before. It doesn't hit her until we're ready to walk out the door. She never remembers to work on her Master Club projects until Wednesday afternoon.)
7. Organization of materials: Ability to impose order on work, play and storage spaces (Lexi could never find her pencil..it was always on the floor or in the other room where she took it to see what was going on out the window. Lexi's belongings are ALWAYS strewn across the floor and getting lost. She's leaves things out all the time and her baby siblings tear it up.)
8. Self-monitoring: Ability to monitor one’s own performance and measure it against expectations (I'm not sure that this is such a huge issue in my house. Both Grant and Lexi seem to be aware of other people watching them and worrying about what others think of them.)

*Source Joyce Cooper-Kahn and Laurie Dietzel, authors of the book Late, Lost and Unprepared

These all still sound like issues that every child deals with, but in my children which are NOT ADHD the problem can be straightened out with correction, and isn't something that goes on for years!! With my children who are struggling with ADHD, I found thoughts going through my head like this, "Why does this child not GET this??" "Is he learning disabled??" "Why am I so ANGRY with this child??" "Why did she DO that?? She KNOWS we don't allow that in our family." "Why am I so TIRED??"

Don't be afraid to investigate further if you are struggling with your children. You are not alone, and there are lots of things that you can learn to do differently that are much more effective than what you are doing now. The Lord has a very special plan, an important purpose, for your child's life. It's our job as the parent to help prepare them for that purpose and help them reach their God-given potential. I'm still on that journey!!