I was able to snap a few pictures of Mark at his game this weekend.  He and Sam almost always play at the same time.  Between trying to watch both games, cheer for both boys, video both games and snap pictures -- well, I don't do a very good job of getting all that done.  :-)

Mark and Jackson

I took this picture to show the green on Mark's face.  He had very much enjoyed the snack of a fruit roll-up thing.  The green doesn't show as much in the picture.

Bekah had surgery to repair her collar bone.  It's hard to believe it's been five weeks; however, for her, it has definitely felt like five weeks.  She hasn't been in pain but the restrictions have made that five weeks seem like ten weeks to her.  She had a follow-up appointment yesterday and the doctor was very pleased with her progress.  In fact, he released her and she doesn't return to see him until the spring.  He said she might even be able to play spring soccer.  She is now free to run but must be careful.  He told her he still doesn't want her taking a fall and no contact sports.  She is so happy to be able to run and play.  As soon as we returned home yesterday she was outside running and playing. 

Here are her x-rays from yesterday:

Last week Mark took his first official Math test.  I haven't been giving him any tests because I know if he's mastered the material or not and he's just in Kindergarten.  He wants to be just like the "big kids" and that means doing school like they do (on his own as much as possible) and taking tests like they do.  So last week he finished his Pace and took his test on Friday.  He was soooooo excited.  He ran to tell Bethany, "Bethany, I get to take a test tomorrow.  I finished my pace and I get to take a test tomorrow.  I love this school.  I love this school.  I love this school"  He was jumping up and down shouting how much he loves "this school", which translates to this curriculum.  It's funny because he has completed several other books but they were all thicker and didn't bring nearly as much excitement.  Something about these small paces and finishing one and starting another really bring him joy. 

Here he is with his completed test:

He was very happy to begin his new pace today and was sure to ask me "Mommy, do you have a lot of these for me?  I am going to be needing more very soon." 

It's such a joy to see Mark growing and learning more and more each day.  Yesterday morning while getting ready for church he had some "issues".  He wasn't happy about the pants he needed to wear.  He ended up getting them on but still had a bit of an attitude about it.  We went on to church and planned to deal with it when we returned home.  As church began, he still had an attitude and would pull away if I touched his shoulder.  I instructed him that he was being rude and he needed to get his heart right.  The service went on and we listened to the teaching etc....  It came time for communion.  During our quiet time to prepare our hearts for communion, Mark came to me and asked me to forgive him for being rude and not showing love.  He then went to Brooks and asked Brooks to forgive him for having the attitude about the pants (Brooks was the one dealing with that)  I thanked the Lord for working in the life of Mark and for Mark hearing and responding to the Lord working in his life.  God is so good to give us these glimpses along the way.  It is an encouragement to continue on this hard work that is before us. 

The boys were having a wonderful time in our beautiful weather yesterday so I grabbed the camera and snapped a few pictures. 

Mark is so blessed to have such an amazing older brother.  Sam is so patient and loving with Mark.  Equally, Sam is blessed to have Mark for a younger brother.  Mark looks up to Sam and wants to be just like him.  He is often doing -- or attempting to do -- a chore for Sam or something special for him.   As I watch the boys play and interact together, I am reminded of the seminar that S.M. Davis does on "Why Satan Wants Your Firstborn" and I completely see what he says and totally agree with it. 

This one is blurry but I love the smile on Mark's face:

I am certainly blessed.

Bethany is really enjoying this soccer season.  She had to move up to the U13 division this year.  She was so looking fwd to playing with Bekah.  Of course, all of that ended when Bekah got injured. 

Bekah's team had their end-of-season party on Sunday.  Here she is with Coach Jeff:

and w/ Coach Jon:

These two coaches are amazingly wonderful.  They love the Lord and we were blessed to have them as coaches. 

And here is Bekah's collar bone as it is healing.  This is just after all of the bandages are off so the yellow spot is residue from medical tape.

Her next appointment is on October 20th.  She is healing very nicely and is doing more and more each day.  She is feeling so much better that she is now tired of doing nothing (well, tired of just sitting around and reading etc...)  She's feeling so much better that she'd like to be able to run and play.  Her bone is achy when it is cooler outside.  She had that happen for the first time on Sunday when the temps were lower. 

I didn't take nearly as many pictures as I normally do on vacation since I was spending much time taking care of Bekah.  We had a lovely time and were so thankful for our time away.

Bekah spent much our time away reading:

Long before her birthday, Bekah had requested that we be on the beach for her birthday so we had planned accordingly.  We were to check in the day before her birthday and she was looking forward to spending the day on the beach.  Of course, we didn't plan for the injury to happen on 8/27.  The doctors told us that we could still go on vacation as she could sit and heal on the beach as easily as she could at home.  Of course, she was greatly disappointed w/ the injury because now she couldn't really play and enjoy the ocean like she normally does. 

Our friends, Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo, live near our vacation spot so we planned to get together with them while there.  We ended up getting together with them on Bekah's birthday and they made her day so special.  When we arrived and entered the home we saw birthday decorations.  Bekah was surprised.  Gary grilled out and we enjoyed delicious food, followed by cake and ice cream.  They even got her a present.  Another great thing was two other families came over so it was like a little party.  The children (except Bekah) all enjoyed going out on the boat w/ Mr. Ezzo.  Mark LOVED riding his golf cart and Mr. Ezzo even let him drive.  Yes, Mark talked about that for days. 

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends.  What could have been a not so great birthday ended up being very special.

I have a few pictures from our visit but they aren't all that great -- lots of back lighting in their beautiful home and I'm not good at taking pictures or editing them to counteract that. 

Here is Mrs. Ezzo getting the cake ready:

Bekah blowing out candles:

and opening her present:

And, of course, Mr. and Mrs. Ezzo along with Missy. 

My update on her surgery is very late -- sorry about that.  I think I've been able to answer all the e-mails that came through though. 

Her surgery went very well.  It was scheduled for 2pm but didn't actually get started until 4:20.  No big deal -- if there's any time I want a doctor taking his time, it's in surgery!!!  We love our doctor.  He is wonderful.  He went over the procedure and answered all questions etc...and then prayed with us before surgery began.  The surgery lasted about 45 minutes and he came out to share with us how it went.  As he shared, he gave God all the glory.  God was so good to us to put this doctor in our path. 

I forgot my camera the day of surgery so we had to use the camera on the phone, which isn't the best. 

Here she is after she had gotten her IV and waiting for the bag of fluids to enter her body :-)

Bekah is a Daddy's girl and she held on to his hand the entire time.  I am so blessed that she has such an amazing Daddy:

Bekah has surgery scheduled for tomorrow, Wed., at 2pm.  She has been wanting to attend one of her soccer games since the accident but it just hasn't happened.  We were either out of town, she didn't feel up to it or were at the doctor's office.  We found out on Monday that she would be having surgery on Wednesday.  We had planned to take her to the soccer game Thursday night but with this new information, we changed our plans.  We went to the soccer game last night.  She so enjoyed being with her team and watching them play.  The girls on the team are all so kind and caring.  When I looked to see where the game was I told Bekah:  "Guess where your game is tonight?"  She gave me a look and said "where"  Yep, that's right.... back to the place where the injury happened.  She laughed and said "the scene of the crime."  Her team had gotten a soccer ball and all her teammates had signed it.  It was such a thoughtful and special gift. 

Things have been really busy here.  I knew coming back from vacation that our schedule would be in full swing.  While we've been doing "full school" (as opposed to our light school) for over a month, our full fall schedule didn't start until we returned from vacation.  (music lessons, Spanish class for Bekah and fall soccer for the other three)  We are still dealing with Bekah's collar bone break.  We go in Monday for a second opinion for the best way to treat it.  We also found out this week that we need new plumbing/pipes run under our home AND that our sweet dog, Happy, has cancer. 

In the mean time, I'm reminded of Psalm 34:1

"I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips." 

Hope to be able to catch up soon. 

I've had many e-mails asking how Bekah is doing.  I've tried to respond to all of them but in case I've missed some, I thought I should post here. 

Bekah returned to the ped. today for a follow-up visit.  The x-ray revealed that her bone is not healing correctly so she has an appointment with the orthopedic tomorrow afternoon. 

Here is the original x-ray the night of the injury:

And here is her x-ray from today:

Your prayers are appreciated.  I'll update after her appointment tomorrow.

I recv'd this e-mail and just had to share it here.  This is an amazing deal for a one year PRINTED subscription.  I ordered right away. 

During Bekah's soccer game last night, she took a hard hit and fell to the ground on her left shoulder.  The coaches felt we should take her to the ER.  Upon arrival and first x-rays they said surgery would be required to repair the broken collar bone.  After much prayer from our faithful prayer warriors and a consultation with the surgeon, he decided that surgery would not be required and the use of a figure of 8 brace would allow the bone to heal. 

Here she is after we were finally home (around 1am).  Even in  pain and with this uncomfortable brace, she still managed a smile.

And the view from the back:

Mark fell asleep waiting to hear the final word on Bekah's condition:

The injury happened just a little into the second half.  She played a great game and had an assist on the first goal.  When we left for the ER, the score was 4-0 and that ended up being the final score as well.

Of course our vacation on the beach won't be nearly as fun for her now and she'll be spending her 13th Birthday in this brace.  We are changing up our plans a bit but as of right now, we still plan to go. 

Grandpa & Grandma recently came to watch Bekah play soccer.  Upon their arrival the children all ran to greet them.  I love this picture of Mark and Grandma

Grandma is so good about giving her undivided attention to her grandchildren.  She loves each of them so much.  My children are blessed to have such a great Grandma. 

Today Mark kept saying:  "It's smoldering.  It's smoldering."  He was saying it over and over and over so I told him to stop.  He said, "Mom.  What does smoldering mean?"  I answered him and he said:  "I think that's a cool word.  Don't you think it sounds neat.  It's a neat sounding word..... smoldering."   

As I'm typing this, he is telling his siblings all about the word "smoldering". 

The weather has been beautiful here the past few days.  Today is no exception.  As soon as we finished school today, we all went outside.  I had come back in to work on laundry and lunch.  As I was working in the house I could hear singing from the backyard.  I went to look and Bethany and Mark were sitting on the swing together singing.  They sang through nearly every Judy Rogers' song they know and then they began singing hymns.  Once they ran out of hymns they knew from memory, Bethany came in and got one of the hymnals and went back out and they sang more.  I decided to stop working and grab the video camera and video them.  I love taking video when they don't know you're doing it.  I then grabbed my camera and snapped a picture real quick before calling them in for lunch.

Psalm 100:1-2

Shout triumphantly to the LORD, all the earth

Serve the LORD with gladness;
    come before Him with joyful songs

This is a question I have recv'd in the past and I recently got another e-mail asking about this.  I dug through photo bucket and found an old picture of just the charts instead of taking a new picture.  Here is the chart that is being referred to:

The top two are our chore charts.  They have each child's name down the left side.  Then across the top it is divided into morning, meal time, afternoon and before bed chores.  Below the chore chart is our daily schedule. 

The next question that usually accompanies "what are the charts" is "what is the tape for"?  There are three pieces of tape (one beside each child's name)  From time to time (usually once or twice a month) I put special things on those stickers.  We have plastic disks and have special things on each disk.  I put them up on a Monday morning before the children are awake for the day.  They are surprised to see the disk and have all week to redeem the disk.   All disks have different things like:

*eat dessert first

*pick your favorite cereal

*foot rub

*choose seat in van all week

*moon walk with mom or dad

*and so on

We don't do this every week.  Most often it is once a month and sometimes twice a month.  We all greatly enjoy these special treats.  The children never know when they will appear and are always thrilled to see them.

Well I got one whole week done on my new attempt at "week in review" but I have no time to do that right now.  We are getting ready to leave for vacation.  Between getting ready for vacation, getting school done, soccer games, soccer practices, chiropractor appointments and shopping for vacation, I just don't have time to sit down and type out our week.  I plan to get back to it once we return from vacation. 

Sam played indoor summer soccer for the first time this summer.  He had a great time and learned a lot.  Indoor soccer is different than outdoor and it is also a much more fast-paced game.  He greatly enjoyed it and looks forward to playing winter indoor soccer.   His team made it to championship game but lost it.   I didn't get any action shots of indoor soccer though because of the set up of the field.  It is set up similar to hockey and the pictures didn't turn out very well.  Here is the only picture I have of him from summer soccer:

Bekah's fall soccer has begun.  She is playing on the middle school home school team.  Her first game was Monday night.  They tied 2-2. 

Recreation league fall soccer is getting ready to begin as well.  Evaluations are this Saturday.  Bethany Grace has to move up a division so she and Bekah will be on the same team.  This should make managing practices and games a bit easier.  In the Spring we had all four playing in four different divisions and some times games were at the same time. 

I receive many e-mails for me to add a "week in review" section to my blog.  I have resisted for a long time because the older children simply don't do much school that is "blog worthy".  It's not very exciting to read "completed pages x-x in Math" etc....  The requests continue to come so I have added this section to my blog and I'm going to give it a trial run.  We'll see how it goes.  :-)

We do bible and history all together so I'll cover those two first. 

Bible -- We are currently in the Book of Job.  This week we covered Job 4-11.  Things we covered were:

Eliphaz First Speech and the body's response to stress

Other speeches of Job's Friends and human limitations.  From Job 5:7 we discussed gases, fires and flames.  From Job 8:14 we discussed spiders and their webs. 

Job's second speech and the misery of man.  From Job 7:5 we discussed types of worms, the classification and parasitic worms. 

Job's Third Speech and God's Wisdom & Purpose in space and the human body.  From here we discussed ecology, biological community, ecological niche, plants, sources of oxygen and carbon dioxide, layers of the skin, muscles and capillaries.

We also read the Proverb for each day so this week we read Proverbs 3-7.  The children were reminded of many of the songs they have learned from Judy Rogers and her wonderful music.  Mark's favorite is "Awful Things".  You can hear a clip of it here.  I was reminded of what we put in is what comes out.  It was nice to hear these songs that we've been putting in, come back out and be related to the scripture as we read through these Proverbs. 

History:

We finished up studying Marco Polo and added him to our time line.  We began studying Christopher Columbus as we also worked on maps of Portugal, Italy and Spain.  We also listened to the Christopher Columbus from Your Story Hour. 

Science:

Bekah learned more about the plant and animal kingdom.  Some things she learned are about chlorophyll, cellulose, plant cells, plants with conducting systems, simple and complex plants.

Sam learned about Iron, Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. 

Bethany learned about matter and living and nonliving things.  She also learned about organs. 

That's about all that is "blog-worthy" from our week.  Of course, the children work in math, do lots of reading and Sam and Bethany do spelling.

This week Mark and I rowed Climbing Kansas Mountains.  (Five in a Row Volume 3)  Mark thought it was neat because Brooks is from Kansas and the little boy in the book's name is Sam.  Here is what the book is about:

When Sam's father suggests that they "climb a Kansas mountain," skeptical Sam says, "Sure . . . and watch pigs fly," but he changes his mind after his father drives him to the grain elevators where they climb "as high as eight houses stacked like blocks." Sam thinks the land looks like their tablecloth, "but with ribbons of road instead of red," and his house seems to be "hiding under trees like a sneaky cat." With homespun imagery and a laconic style, Shannon's ( Dancing the Breeze ) text emphasizes Sam's pleasure in "sharing time" alone with his father: "just me--no brothers--in the big front seat." Allen's ( In Coal Country ; Going West ) pastel illustrations are among his best and are particularly well suited to the text: the green patchwork countryside fairly shimmers in the hazy sunlight, while the heat at the dusty, small-town intersection is nearly palpable.

Mark placed the story disk on Kansas.

We also placed a story disk on our time line at 1993 because the book was written in 1993.  We learned about the State of Kansas and the state flower, animal, insect and tree.  We had lots of fun discussing metaphors and tried using metaphors throughout the week.  We talked about how fun and special times are with just he and Daddy and added a picture to his book of Mark and Brooks at a hockey game together.  It was also very sweet for me to hear Mark say "but family times are great too" 

Of course Mark worked in his phonics and math book this week as well.  One day he was waiting on me to come do his phonics work with him and I arrived to see he had done some pages by himself.  I was even more pleased to see what a nice job he had done.  He did great spelling all of the words.  He has his "s" backwards in "sip" and in "lips".