Our Climbing Minds and catching up

I thought that I'd finally present you with a couple pictures of the boys' work in their challenges from the last two weeks. Life is finally starting to feel normal again, I'm getting caught up! But wait! I just found a list of names for which I'm supposed to write Thank You's...I'm really late! Better late than never.

Anyhow,maybe these will inspire you to join us in our Monday Climbing Mind challenges. It's a fun project for us around here.

These are photos of Joey's comics....


And the boys did a couple of store activities this week, Nate made a rock stand and sold rocks...plain old rocks on the sidewalk for 3 cents each. We live in a neighborhood full of older folks who were happy to entertain Nathan by ooohing and ahhing over his rocks. Nate LOVES rocks and so it was a treat to discuss colors and textures for him.

Eli and Nate also set up a vet on my bed too this week. I love hearing them interact like little adults and seeing their compassion for the animals.

Hard Things

So I want to point out to you a book that I've shared on my sidebar. It's a book I learned about through the homeschool circles somewhere.

Do Hard Things is a book written by teenage twins, for teens. I would, however, encourage you to read this book if you will have teens one day, or even to apply to yourself. I am still reading it and will be happy to share when I'm done. The theme of the book is that there are few, and mostly poor expectations of teens in our society.

I couldn't agree more.

Even more, I'm challenged that I have poor expectations of myself. I do NOT like to do hard things. I did not realize how little I try and learn new things, how much I whine when I'm forced to do something that's hard, rather than knowing I can do it and take it on with grace and ease.

This applies well to my life all the time and this week.

I have taken on the task of finances at our house. I used to do this all the time, back when I was a single girl, but when I started having babies Ralph immediately took this task over and has been juggling it since. I've known for awhile that he's wanted me to take over...but have hesitated to take over this daunting task that has evolved from the simple balancing of the checkbook and sending out checks each week to (of course) online payments, automatic transfers and electronic checks.

Hard things, for this woman to learn.

I'm taking it on.

Now I'm thinking too on how I can challenge my sweet little ones to do the hard things. So many people spend summer thinking of things to try and keep the little ones busy...why not challenge them? Give them tasks, jobs, projects that challenge them.

That being said, I recommend the book. :)

Some photos to fill in the blanks of our month;