Inauguration Day

We had the best day today. I planned to post about it tonight and then it got late and I decided I would wait and do it another time. AND, then I learned I have a fan!!! I am really doing this blog more as a journal for myself so I really mind if people read it or not, or maybe I do. When I checked my email tonight, I saw a message from a sweet friend of mine who I rarely get to talk. She said she had been reading my blog, and I got so excited!! It motivated me to go ahead and post tonight!!! So, here's a shout out to Dawn! Thanks Dawn for your interest and encouragement! Now on with the story...

Sometimes homeschooling can be really hard and I think, what am I doing!! But somedays I think, "thank you, Lord for letting me do this!" Today was one of those "thank you, Lord" days. I planned a fun filled unit study on the new President and Inauguration Day. It included a lesson in everything, phonics, math, art, history, geography, you name it, we covered it! We had so much fun and learned a lot. All three older kiddos were into it all day! They even enjoyed watching the speech. We did things like make math problems that went like this...their are two parents and two children in the Obama family, how many family members do they have. We worked on ordinal numbers since President Obama is the 44th President and reviewed ordinal numbers beginning with the 1st President. Luke was so proud that he could sound out "President" as it's the biggest word yet for him. The girls had fun with it too! They enjoyed coloring sheets that we printed out, and they could not wait until tonight to see some coverage of the Inaugural Ball. They put on princess dresses and heals and fought over who would dance with Luke. We even had snacks and took our meals in the living room (snacks, tv, and eating in the living room all very special treats in our family) so that we could watch coverage on TV. It was really a fun day for us all!

I must share this really funny story. My kids act out everything, I mean EVERYTHING in their world of pretend. So shortly after Luke watched President Obama give his Inaugural speech, Luke took the stage. (The stage in our house is the fireplace hearth. All of the kids use it as such daily!!) Luke had watched and listened closely to the speech. So he cleared his throat and prepared himself to speak. This is what he said, (in a deep voice, with a serious face) "Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here on this special day to talk (putting his hand on his chest) about me" !! I cracked up!!! That's what he took from the speech!!! Is that not soooo funny! It was really so funny! Oh, out of the mouths of babes!

This brings me to one other story. I also took advantage of election day and took all 4 kids with me to the polls. Yes, that's right, all 4! Wesley had offered to let me go and vote before he left for work, but really what kind of a homeschool mom would I be I missed the opportunity to take them to the polls with me. So after a lot of talk about the importance of the day, with great excitement, we headed to the polls. The kids just soaked it all in! When we were there, Luke had a million questions. (Luke always has a million questions.) This day, he kept asking over and over is, "is our guy winning". To which I answered (because we voted for an independent and I knew only God himself could bring a victory), "no honey, I don't think our guys is winning." (Maybe if I ever get time, I will write one day about why we voted that way.) Everyone in our little volunteer fire department could here him ask this over and over. Finally a different question, "Mommy, whose our guy again?" It was so funny. Everyone laughed.

Later when we were watching coverage at home that night, he could not get the fact that "our guys" picture was not being shown. When looking at pictures of McCain and Obama he said, "so is our guy the brown one of the one with white hair". Also so funny!!

Well folks, our guys did not when. Frankly, the fact that Barak Hussein Obama is now the President of the United States of America scares me a lot! But guess what, he's our guy now. Not because we've had a change of mind or heart, but because he was voted in by our democracy and scripture commands to respect and honor those in authority over us. So we are teaching the kids that the 44th President, Barack Obama, is "our president". We are also teaching them that we need to pray for this man daily. Please join us in praying for our nation. Please pray that God would have his way in the heart of Barak Obama and in all of those in positions of leadership in our county.

As usual it was long, but hopefully it made to laugh.

Love,
Jennifer