Our family has been working diligently to get on a regular schedule with our stewardships. The girls have been trying hard to remember to keep things tidy and help clean the house. We have officially combined a few different "chore" systems to help the girls manage their stewardships: Accountable Kids, HAnnDi Household Work System, with ideas from Values Driven Family, and "The Parenting Breakthrough" as well as a checklist I made myself (yeah, how ever did I do something myself with all these books and systems to guide my path?) and the combination just might work. We'll see! At least the downstairs has maintained a level of tidiness it hasn't seen in a while (since Aurora grew old enough to drop things wherever she wanted to on the floor and would do that repeatedly until the floor could no longer be seen - all within the space of one minute).
I think it might also help that I have more vocal/piano/violin students and my new children's choir classes meeting here and I have to stay more on top of making sure they follow through with putting things away (and only getting one item out at a time). Hopefully we will all get the hang of the newish system relatively soon so that we can get more actual school time in. We've been slipping in our school time because I can't think in chaos and I've needed to get rid of clutter and mess. Goodwill has profited greatly from my need to be less cluttered!
Speaking of my new choir classes...I am rather pleased with how the first classes went this last week. We went over proper posture and breathing; matching pitches; listening and following directions; then we learned "Hot Cross Buns" (our first technical piece). At first I didn't know how quickly we'd be able to progress, but I have great hopes of moving quickly...if I can get the youngers to gather some better focus.
Aurora is starting to get serious and worried about getting baptised (and yes, I know that is spelled "wrong" according to American reasoning, but you will discover my British spellings scattered throughout this blog when the mood hits me!). We are going to be spending a lot of time the next couple of months talking about the doctrines and principles and ordinances of our faith, then defining terms and defining those definitions and writing it all down, then reasoning everything and writing that down until she understands as well as possible the commitment of baptism and wants to make that commitment. (We are also studying the virtues of honesty and kindness in the same manner....)
The twins are so excited about learning, and that makes me excited again! It's been so long that I've been struggling with Aurora's antagonism toward "official" learning that a lot of my spark disappeared. It's returning in full force (partly because of my house becoming a nearly livable space, too, I admit) and my time is spent gearing up for some exciting prospects. One plan is to start a trip around the world: I am making passports and world adventure books for the girls, so we can begin our journey soon. Other plans are a bit more hush-hush for now, but it's good to be excited again - thanks Aria and Belle!
