A House Divided

Mark 3:25 states, "A house divided against itself cannot stand".

Our house has been divided against itself lately. The bickering between the three children is non-stop. In an effort to teach them a lesson, provide positive enforcement and allow them to see how often they mistreat their siblings, I decided to try an idea I read about in the book: Creative Correction, by Lisa Whelchel. (Remember the show The Facts of Life from the 80's?, She played the rich girl, Blair)

The idea was to give each child the same number of lego blocks with which to build a simple structure. As the day progressed, I would award or remove blocks from their structure for either building each other up or tearing each other down. The one with the most legos at the end of the day, wins.

Reese won the first day and was awarded a special dinner with mommy at one of his favorite restaurants. He likes to go to European Street Cafe and get beer cheese soup. Sophie won one day and had a few hours out with Daddy. He totally spoiled her. Drew also won one night and he got a new DS game that I had picked up at a garage sale.

They all three have memorized the verse and I plan to keep up the contests until we get some joy and love in this house! Now that we have them hooked we'll have to make the rewards a little more inexpensive, but it is amazing how this simple exercise changed the tone in the house.

I'd love to hear what you do at your house when the bickering gets out of hand.

My Scout

Several times a year the Boy Scouts host a Court of Honor ceremony to award achievements that the boys have completed. This was the first time we had attended a ceremony and Reese was to receive multiple awards. First, he received his Tenderfoot Badge. Next it was his First Class badge. These are the first two ranks on his way to Eagle Scout. The ranks are Tenderfoot, First Class, Second Class, Star, Life and Eagle.

I was in for a surprise when they called the mothers of the scouts onto the stage. Reese had to use the microphone to thank me for something I do that helps him with scouts. He said he was thankful for sewing on all his badges. Then he "pinned" me with the mother's pins for the two ranks he received. Finally, my favorite part, he had to give me a big kiss!

I'm proud of my Boy Scout!

Giotto Bondone

Today at Classical Conversations, we learned about the artist Giotto Bondone. He made paint from egg yolks and water mixed with crushed minerals, berries and even bugs! He was also one of the first artists skilled in making thing look life-like due to his skill in 3-dimensional art. He began life as a shepherd boy tending sheep for his father but after a meeting with the artist Ciambue, his father was convinced to let him study art.

Here are some shots of Drew's class, which I tutor, using the egg paint we made. We crushed colored chalk as our "minerals" and mixed it with an egg yolk wash.