without form

...reading 1 Nephi 1 with Emily. We finished again. Yay! We're also reading acts chapter 2 to broaden our exposure to the rest of the scriptures...

so...i like my job - but there's too much paperwork and I'm an unskilled organizer. it's getting better, but I feel snowed under sometimes.

Emily and I are trying to find moneywise plans of pennypinching. the art of coupons and yardsales. but we also need an additional income source. we're thinking of tutoring, at present. we may or may not try that some time soon.

I don't know what hayley and nathan and matthew really did today while i was at work - we jumped into dinner rather quickly because emily had to run to book club - so I haven't got the mom report of their day. But this evening, it seemed we cleaned the house, had some of emily's apple bread as a reward and started the bedtime routine. it went quick.

We're reading Narnia, the Friend, New Testament Stories, and the actual Book of Mormon at bedtime. So we have to start early because it takes a while.

I'm really enjoying reading the vision of Nephi to the kids - they seem kind of interested. We read about the Columbus/American Revolution part. Hayley seems to get it. Nathan seems to go along with it and answers some questions about what the angel is talking about. I think Hayley really gets what a gentile is, what the house of israel is, and how the scattering and gathering relates, at least, to the period between Jesus and Joseph Smith.

So she's in bigger trouble when she still whacks her brother. :)

I try to pull the kids into the cooking whenever I can as an activity. Helping them spread peanut butter, recently, was kind of fun.

Tonight I told Hayley and Nathan they could have apple bread (which thing they were most desirous to try, having been there anticipating while Emily baked it today) if they cleaned off the table and cleaned up their toys in the living room. Nathan wailed and whined for a while at having to clean to get a reward (he is a fan of the dole system), but he eventually got it and started helping -- even energetically, productively, and cheerfully for a while -- toward the receipt of the prize. Often he balks and despairs and proclaims whatever labor to be too hard. so i was excited to see him work toward something that didn't pay off immediately and actually show forth a good attitude. He has a good heart - no doubt - he just throws in the sponge at the first sign of difficulty. Nathan has the perception to see that it will be hard before the "good attitude start" is initiated. today evidenced that he’s figuring it out. Hayley starts right in and does her work quickly. in a very first-child manner.