Tree of Life Mothering

Here’s part 2 from my chapter in my book about birth control, in celebration of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week…

Being a Literal Tree of Life to Your Baby that Undergoes Seasons

The seven standards of ecological breastfeeding help you to view your body as a literal tree of life to your baby so that all your baby’s sustenance comes from you, and your anatomical trees of life, your milk ducts. This means no bottles of juice, formula, or water, and no other artificial nipples, namely pacifiers, along with some other rules. When you view your body as a tree of life to your baby, you really will be like a tree in that you will undergo seasons: birth can be viewed as harvest time, or autumn. LAM is winter. Every woman is ready at different postpartum times to start thinking about having another baby. It’s nice to know what you can do to lengthen the winter season of being infertile. Spring is when your fertility comes back as signaled by an increase in cervical fluid, ovulation, menstruation, and eventual conception. Summer is when new life is growing inside of you, the long phase of pregnancy and the intense growth and change of this new life. (In the chapter on the postpartum time, in Volume III, I discuss the topics of  ecological breastfeeding and LAM more.)

My girlfriend Joyce Mitchell used to have a plum tree in her yard. I remember her talking about how it was so amazing that she never watered the tree, and yet every year, the tree would grow and bear fruit, at the same time of year. How did it know it was time to start budding and then bring forth fruit? No one ever told the tree. The tree had life force coursing through it that caused it to bear fruit. As women, we have life force coursing through us. This is the power to give life, either literally by bearing the fruit of our womb, or figuratively, by bearing the fruit of good works, or a combination of both. This power comes from God. We can honor this power to give and nurture life and the different seasons involved by practicing natural family planning and ecological breastfeeding. Natural family planning (NFP) means that a couple recognizes the wife’s signs of fertility. (In the chapter on seasons of the body in Volume III I go into the details of these signs, and the “how” of NFP. This chapter focuses on the “why.”)

If the couple wants to get pregnant, then they have intercourse during this fertile time. If they want to avoid pregnancy, then they avoid intercourse during the fertile time. For more “how-to” information, especially if you can’t wait to read about the how-to of NFP in Volume III, please download the free how-to manual about natural family planning at nfpandmore.org called The Art of Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach. This manual was written by a Catholic couple, John and Sheila Kippley, who wrote the original “Bible” of NFP,  The Art of Natural Family Planning, when they were with Couple to Couple, an organization they founded to promote NFP among Catholics.

Because of various reasons that are beyond the scope of this book, the Kippleys left the organization they started and started a new one, called Natural Family Planning International.5 Any copies of the latter book with a copyright date after 2007 have changes in them that aren’t authored by the Kippleys. Unfortunately, they don’t own the copyright to the book and can’t control these changes. If you do buy a copy, buy it used so that you get a copy that hasn’t had the text altered after 2007. The free manual they wrote, which I mentioned above,  available at nfpandmore.org is probably sufficient for you.  This site has an interesting article, “Not Just for Catholics,” about the history of artificial birth control. It used to be considered highly immoral by all religious organizations. It is fascinating how this gradually changed, so that now our society gives blanket acceptance to it. Our society doesn’t question whether or not artificial birth control is good or healthy for a marriage and society in general.

 

The Harmful Social Effects of Artificial Contraception—Blocking Your Tree of Life’s Fertility Artificially

Honoring our sexuality and fertility according to their seasons, or practicing NFP, allows a couple great  wisdom, order, and peace, because then they are following the natural law for sexual relations. It also benefits society with more marital fidelity and chastity. A thought-provoking article, which first appeared in the National Catholic Register, now can be found on the Couple to Couple League Web site. This article points out that Pope Paul VI predicted back in the 1960s, with his Humane Vitae letter, that there would be negative consequences to our society from the acceptance of contraception, or artificial birth control. The article cites two social scientists who say the following come from contraception: increase in premarital sex, increase in the divorce rate, an increase in men seeing women as sex objects, an increase in people postponing marriage and having children, an increase in men in general not “growing up” and committing to marriage, a decrease in the quality of sexual relations between men and women, and ironically, an increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.6

 

The Sweet Fruits of Honoring the Seasons of Fertility, or Natural Family Planning

On the other hand, couples who practice NFP have lower divorce rates in general. They also have happier marriages and find more satisfaction in their everyday lives. They also incorporate prayer more often in their lives and attend church more often, among other good things.7

Couples who practice NFP also enjoy three marriage-building benefits, as copied verbatim from  the Couple to Couple League Web site:

 

1. NFP provides couples with a built-in way of keeping a cycle of courtship and honeymoon in their marriage. To put it most briefly, this prevents either spouse from taking their sexual relationship for granted. It also prevents them from putting their whole approach to intimacy in their marriage on one aspect of their relationship: their sexual love for each other.

2. Couples who practice NFP find that by discussing and prayerfully discerning their aspirations and concerns about the size of their family, they find it more easy to discuss and handle other issues in their marriages: finances, ཁin-lawཁ strategies, how to rear their children, etc.

3. Wives tell us they experience increased satisfaction and greater appreciation for their husbands, who are practicing self-control and willingly sacrificing some pleasure for the sake of their beloved spouse. Husbands tell us of feeling a sense of privilege in being let into knowledge of their wives’ fertility, an understanding few other men can claim to have. Even if it seems more convenient for husbands to let their wives ཁtake care of this women’s business,ཁ most NFP-using husbands would rather have the true equality this knowledge introduces into their marriages, marriages that pay more than lip service to the ཁone fleshཁ that they have become through their marital vows.8

I love these speeches from Elder. Enzio F. Busche. You could use what he says to create a routine with affirmations:

“Greet each day with an enthusiastic spirit.”

“Take time to ponder the atonement of Jesus Christ.”

I hope you enjoy it!

Have you heard the news? Sally Fallon Morell has co-written a new cookbook! This time its target audience is children. Yes, now there is a cookbook for kids to teach them how to cook the “nourishing traditions” way. She wrote the cookbook with co-author Suzanne Gross, a young mother of 3. If you don’t know who Sally Fallon Morell is, she is a mom, writer, graduate of Stanford and UCLA, real food activist, farmer, and co-founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation. She says it’s OK to eat butter, real raw milk, and organ meats. I attest that since I started eating more the Weston Price way, I have been happier and healthier, contrasted to my vegan and vegetarian years. (I still haven’t embraced liver yet, still warming up to that one!)

Here is a link to an interview with Suzanne Gross and a sample page from the new cookbook!

Here is an interview with Sally about how to increase your fertility by changing your diet to traditional, nutrient-dense foods.

Then here’s another interview on how to have a healthy pregnancy by having a nutrient-dense diet. Did you know that your diet in pregnancy will affect the beauty of your child’s face, in terms of the size of your child’s jaw, and if your child has enough room for all his or her teeth? Your diet will also affect your child’s overall health, energy and behavior. Watch below and learn!

Here is a link to a page showing babies who were born to mothers who ate the Weston A. Price diet. They are beautiful!

I first heard about NFP (natural family planning) when I was a young single college student at BYU. My professor of my history of western civilizations honors class said that it was a traditional form of birth control for Catholics. That piqued my interest and planted a seed. I wondered why Catholics used it. When I met and married my husband, he was in no way interested in it. Of course, he used the old joke on me, “What do they call people who use NFP?…Parents!” (I didn’t laugh, because I wanted to be a parent!)

I had to gradually keep bringing up the idea to him and learn more about it myself. Was NFP just some old thing that was just for Catholics, or did it have relevance to me, a new Mormon bride? As I learned more and more, especially by reading these books pictured below, and reading statements by the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I decided that NFP applied to me as well and I wanted to use it. 

It’s Providential that NFP Awareness Week is in July because July is also the month when I celebrate our full conversion to NFP. After our fourth child was born in July 14 years ago, my dh was finally ready to rely on ecological breastfeeding and then NFP to space our children. So in July not only do I celebrate the independence of the U.S., but I celebrate my independence from the health hazards of the birth control conveyor belt! I am so happy with the results. Our marriage  has been made stronger because we use NFP. I haven’t suffered any side effects from artificial contraception. I have had babies when I wanted to and have avoided pregnancy when I felt my health warranted it. I hope to someday be at the point that Michelle Duggar is at when I can just have as many babies as can come. I hope I have a few years of fertility left and know my family isn’t done.

So every day this week I am going to post a section from the chapter on birth control from  my book, Tree of Life Mothering, vol 1.

Here’s the first part:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.

-Genesis 1:28

We have been commanded to be fruitful.  “The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force,” states the LDS Proclamation on the Family. Another way we are fruitful is through our good works. “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down,” claims Alma 5:52.  I know that many women are not able to be fruitful in terms of bearing children and my heart aches for them. They can still be fruitful and motherly by bringing forth the good fruit of good works, as Sheri Dew relates in her General Conference talk entitled, “Are We Not All Mothers?”1 In this talk, Sister Dew says that “Motherhood is more than bearing children . . .  It is the essence of who we are as women.” She says that being motherly involves loving and leading Heavenly Father’s children safely back home to Him.

 

I want to interrupt for a moment with a warning. There’s a proper season for reading the rest of this chapter. Don’t read the rest of this if you are visiting the porcelain throne daily because of morning sickness or are feeling weary and bloated at nine months pregnant and vowing never to have any more children. Come back to  this when you have a chubby six-month old baby who is as sweet as sugar.

“I Think I Was Made to Have Only ‘X’ Amount of Childrenཀ”

So, while I acknowledge that the “motherliness” of a woman is not determined by the amount of children she gives birth to, in this chapter I focus on being motherly and fruitful in terms of actual, physical fertility. Warning: this chapter my offend or bother you if you are a big fan of the birth control pill or other forms of artificial contraception. I may get flack for writing this chapter but I am willing to take it. It is very popular in our culture to talk in terms of, “Yeah, I think I was meant to have only two children (or whatever number we currently have).” As if God lined us up before earth life and sorted us into categories of, okay, she can only handle one child, the vast majority can handle two, and these few over here can handle ten.

We say we were made to only have three children especially when we are in the throes of mothering three little, dependent children. Especially when we have all of our children under the age of three or four years old, and we have to do everything for them, down to wiping their noses, getting them to potty and to bed, and buckling them into their car seats. Then  it is very easy to feel daunted about the prospect of any more years of this plus diaper duty, and night nursing, multiplied by however many more children you are thinking of having. You think you will be in this phase forever. As one who has been there and done that with three children ages four and under, I can say, hang in there, it gets betterཀ You won’t be stuck in that phase of feeling like the mother-slave forever, doing everything for everybody all the time. As you have more children, and IF you train them to do housework, your workload will become lighter, and it will feel less overwhelming to have more children.

You will even reach the cushy position that I have reached now, where you hardly ever do laundry, wash dishes,  or clean a bathroom, because your children do it. To quote Cherie Logan, of noblechild.com, “I have received my promotion!” In regular careers, if you work hard, you get a promotion. In the career of full-time motherhood, if you work hard by training your children to work (and that takes time and work, hence full-time motherhood), you deserve a promotion as well. This turning over of routine household duties to older children is a huge promotion. I even have the older children help the youngest ones with potty training. This is the motherhood lap of luxury! In my series of books, I focus on training children to work in the chapter on communicating with children in Volume II, which is forthcoming.

I remember reading the wise words of Joyce Kinmont, founder of the original LDS homeschooling organization, LDSHEA (LDS Home Education Association), and a pioneer of the LDS homeschooling movement. She wrote in her book, Diet Decisions, that we often say, “I was only meant to have X number of children.” Joyce suggested that instead of thinking that we can only handle X number of children, let’s instead raise our vision higher and increase the capacity we have to bear whatever X number of children Heavenly Father wants us to have. She further explained how we can increase our capacity, through proper nutrition, that is living the Word of Wisdom, the use of nutritional supplements if needed, and enough sleep and regular exercise. I would add to that list knowledge of how to train children to work and tend younger siblings, and how to teach children self-government. I realize now that what Joyce was promoting was how to fertilize a mother’s soil, which I expounded on in the previous chapter, so that she feels it is easier to bear children. Not easy, but easier. That’s a big secret in how to keep having babies and not go insane. Create the right physical, mental, social, and emotional environment for the mother so it is as easy as possible to bear as many children as God wants her to bear. This is the real environment that needs protecting and saving.

 

An Increase in Children is a Blessing, Believe It or Not, Because Children Call Us to Be Less Selfish

Why would we want to receive all the children God wants to send us? Because children are blessings, contrary to what our popular culture of death tells us. In the Book of Mormon, as my friend Joyce explained in Diet Decisions, there was a time when the Lord promised the Lamanites a tremendous blessing, in Helaman 7:24. The Lord wanted to show the Lamanites how pleased He was them because of their obedience. To show his approval, He lengthened their days and blessed them with an increase of seed.

Now how many of us think of “an increase in seed” as a blessing all of the time? We, for the most part, put restrictions on receiving this blessing, such as, only if I don’t have to be pregnant in the summer, or pregnant while moving, or pregnant if I am in school or my husband is in school, or, please don’t send me a baby until I have a bigger house with more bedrooms. I know there are legitimate reasons for delaying having children, such as chronic medical conditions and marital challenges, but I think we tend to legitimize excuses into reasons too often and don’t exercise more faith and work to put ourselves into a place to receive the blessing of more children.

Children are blessings because they each have missions to perform to bless the other children of Heavenly Father. President Gordon B. Hinckley, former prophet and president of the LDS Church, expressed this view in the First Presidency Message of the June Ensign of  2001. He said:

 

E. T. Sullivan once wrote these interesting words: “When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.”2

 

A great organization, One More Soul, has as its mission to foster God’s plan for love, sex, chastity,  marriage, and children. Steve Koob, founder of the organization, has written an essay entitled, “The Blessings of Children.” I refer you to Appendix #1 to read this delightful essay. He basically says that children are blessings from God, not liabilities, which is how today’s world sees them. Raising a child can make someone a more compassionate, more humble, and less selfish person. The one thing that we share with God as imperfect mortal beings is fertility. Remarkably, fertility will still be part of our identity if we inherit all that God has for us, including godhood.3 It’s instructive that the only scripture quoted in the Proclamation to the World on the Family by the LDS Church is that from Psalms 127:3,  “Children are an heritage of the Lord.” By receiving children (or at least being willing to) into our home, we start on the path of receiving the unspeakable, vast, eternal, glorious heritage God has for us.

In other words, to quote my dear girlfriend Joyce Mitchell, of Orem, Utah, “If having kids doesn’t cure you of selfishness, nothing will.” If there’s one thing this world needs more of, it’s less selfishness, so let’s have more babies. Another gem from the scriptures regarding having children is 3 John 1:4: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.” The greatest joy we can  ever have is to have children and to see them grow up to be righteous. This next thing I will write won’t be PC, but I am going to toss it out anyway,. Could it be that the more children we have, the greater our joy? Could it be that the most joy our Heavenly Father has in store for us involves doing all we can to qualify for whatever number of children he wants us to birth and/or adopt? “Uh, no,” you may say, “I can’t just be popping babies out every nine months for all of my childbearing years.  I would end up with 20 kids and go crazyཀ” I agree. I am not advocating that.

I know what you might be thinking, that you don’t want to agree to having as many children that God wants you to have, because it involves so much work. I know how that feels, because I have felt the same way. I remember after having my third child how exhausted I felt. I had three little children ages four and under and my husband traveled a lot for 2-3 days a week on business, including being gone overnight. I often felt alone, overworked, and underappreciated. During this time my two older children got chicken pox and we moved. I felt completely overwhelmed. I seriously wished that we could eat out for every meal and wear disposable clothes. I was so tired of doing dishes and laundry.

I remember seeing an acquaintance of mine across the parking lot at Target. She was blissfully pushing her cart out to her car, with two little children happily perched for the ride. She was obviously very pregnant with #3. I have to admit that I had the following unfriendly thought, “Just you wait. Sure you look happy now, but just wait until after that baby’s born! You have no clue what you are in for.” My youngest was about 18 months at the time and I had decided I was definitely in the not TTC (trying to conceive mode), whereas with my previous two children I had been TTC when they were even younger than that age. But after a nice break, and with some good old self-nurturing and God working on my heart, I was ready to have another child the following year.

The following scripture applies here, “And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.”4 All things should be done in wisdom and order. Another name for this idea is The Law of the Seasons. It is a Biblical principle. According to Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.” You can apply this idea to everything, including engaging in marital relations and having babies. A woman’s body has literal, physiological seasons. The time to plant, i.e. get pregnant, is her body’s springtime, her fertile time.

 

To Everything There is a Season

Spring comes after winter, right? Did you know that your body was designed to have a wintertime? This is when your body is infertile. Your body becomes infertile during lactational amenorrhea, LAM. LAM is when your uterus is at rest and you stop having periods because you are breastfeeding according to the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding. (I will go into detail about this in Volume III, The Seasons, of this series of books.) You can use LAM as “birth control” if you follow the rules (I don’t like that term because it implies that birth is negative and you have to control it; I prefer to use the term “fertility awareness”). For a detailed discussion of the rules, please see the chapter on LAM in Volume III. With LAM,  you can use breastfeeding as a form of natural “birth control” or rather, natural infertility inducer. We live in a culture of death that promotes birth control as  a pill to take, but really, which is more life-honoring and does less harm to our bodies and the environment, pills full of synthetic chemicals that cause side effects in our bodies, or using fertility awareness?

I know, I am sure you know plenty of moms who have gotten pregnant while breastfeeding. It’s probably a safe bet that they were out of the LAM time, or wintertime of their bodies, because they weren’t following the seven standards of ecological breastfeeding. When I lived in Provo, my neighbor had just had a baby. She told me she had heard of an NFP method that allowed you to know when you are fertile or infertile according to cervical fluid only (the Creighton method). She said she was going to host a series of classes at her home with a Creighton method instructor.and she invited me to come. Oh how unbelieving I was! I declined the invitation. (This was before I became converted to NFP. I had been interested in it in college but then chose other methods after I got married.) Before the first class even started this same neighbor became pregnant again and had babies less than one year apart. She ovulated even before she resumed her periods. This mom became pregnant not because the Creighton method doesn’t work, it’s because she lacked the knowledge of how the seven standards of ecological breastfeeding can cause infertility and therefore wasn’t practicing them.

I remember when I was a student at BYU, taking a course from Dr. Hal Black, now a retired professor of biology. One day in class somehow the hot topic of “Can a woman get pregnant while breastfeeding?” came up. I must have had a lot of Wymount Terrace residents in my class. (Wymount Terrace is the BYU married student  apartments, affectionately known as  “the rabbit hutches.”) Dr. Black said that a woman can get pregnant while she is breastfeeding, unless she breastfeeds in a certain way. He went on to say that most American women don’t breastfeed “this way,” but that many native, indigenous people do. He smiled most wryly, like he knew what the “the way” entailed, but he wasn’t going to tell us ignorant, commercialized, industrialized students.

Little did I know that I would stumble upon this “certain way” years later and even meet the woman who discovered and popularized the rules of the certain way.  The certain way is the Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding. Sheila Kippley discovered them in the early 1970s and wrote about them in her book, Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, and in her new book, The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: the Frequency Factor.

 

Have you heard about the documentary about vaccines and GMOs, called Bought?

You can go this link, enter your name and your email address on the right-hand side, and watch it for free, from now until July 27th 2015. You will learn about whistleblowers in the vaccine and food industries who courageously came forward to say, “Hey, something’s wrong here…” It features many testimonies from smart, and as far as I can tell, honest, people who see corruption going on in the medical, agriculture, and chemical industries. Watch for the testimony of Dr. Kelly Brogan, M.D. at approximately the 21 minute mark.

Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “I encourage you to take the time to watch this life-changing film…”

Here’s more about it copied directly from the web site I linked above:

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

• Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline plead guilty and agreed to pay a $3 billion fine for illegal marketing and withholding information about health hazards associated with several of its drugs, including Avandia and Paxil. This was the largest fine ever paid by a drug company.
• Since the first National Vaccine Injury Compensation (VICP) claims were filed in 1989, 3,981 compensation awards have been made. More than $2.8 billion in compensation awards has been paid to petitioners.
• Between 2012 and mid-2014, Monsanto and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) successfully blocked GMO labeling laws in over 30 states, at a price tag of more than $100 million.

The video below shows the host of Bought, Dr. Toni Bark, M.D., telling her story of how she got involved in the documentary. There’s some strong language around the 27 minute mark so you might want to turn down the volume for a few seconds or so after she says, “Can I swear?”

Two of the apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recently passed away. The first was Elder Perry. He is one of the mainstays, who has been around since as long as I can remember. I am going to miss him. My daughter got to serve food for him at the Lion House almost a year go, when Elder Russell M. Nelson had a birthday party. She said that Elder Perry was the life of the party, cracking jokes. He was definitely a jolly guy. 

The above video is his tribute and the video below is his funeral. 

Pres. Boyd K. Packer also passed away, about a month later, on Friday July 3rd. I know these men were apostles of Jesus Christ and they taught truth. Farewell!

I encourage you to watch these videos if you haven’t already. The Spirit can speak to you through these videos. It was enlightening to hear in the funeral tribute by Elder Ballard how Pres. Packer’s wife, Donna, helped him to see things he didn’t see at first, such as the importance of not calling his fellow apostles before 5 AM!

My three oldest kids went to Youth for Freedom youth leadership cam (YFF) last month and got back on Father’s Day. We had a great holiday, with heaven on earth for a few hours while they were all here. Then the oldest two headed back to Rexburg for their stuff at BYU-I. They were both counselors this year at (YFF). It’s like EFY for TJEDers. We started taking our kids to it back in 2008, and someone from our family has gone almost every year since. It’s a fun 3 day event where kids get to challenge old ways of thinking so they can have emotional freedom. I wish it were more intellectual, where they discussed a lot more books and did intellectual competitions, but maybe that will come with time. The camp no longer hosts the Andau scholarship competition like it used to. The two college kids have also attended Elevation, sponsored by Williamsburg Academy, and I asked them what the difference between the two camps is. They said that that Elevation is like Youth for Freedom planned by men. My daughter said that Elevation has more quiet time and an Eastern philosophy influence.

My four YFFers, although the youngest didn’t go this year, because he chose to attend a Scout leadership camp instead.

This is my son having on oral exam, given by the three people in the picture below, for the Andau scholarship competition. 

I thought it would be fun to put up some pictures of my different visits to Youth for Freedom through the years. The place it is held, Clear Creek Family Ranch, has a unique feeling about it. Maybe because it is in the mountains and just east of Zion National Park, one of the most beautiful places on earth! It just feels so peaceful. Maybe because so many fun energetic youth gather here for a few days every year. Or maybe because this is where I got to see my son showcase all of his hard work and preparation of scholar phase when he got interviewed intensely and won the Andau competition four years ago. The two pictures above and the video below are from that year. All three of my older kids went that year.

One year the organizers had a parents’ meeting. We got to hear from Aneladee Milne, Kirk Duncan, and Jim Rhoades. I remember the whole things just felt magical, peaceful, and exciting at the same time. They shared amazing principles and stories. Sorry the pictures are kind of blurry.

My fun son caught my camera and flashed a smile! Hooray for freedom and hooray for youth!

My daughter looks a little bewildered in this picture above. Her team won the city softball championship for the girls ages 9-10! We spent a lot of time in May and June going to softball games. This was a nice surprise. As you probably know, games with kids at this age are full of lots of overthrows and other errors. Way to go girls! (This is how I got so much reading done, of books about Louisa May Alcott and her mother, by reading between times she was up at bat!)

We had such a lovely Independence Day! Here is what we did. First we had our two big kids come home from college the night before to join in the festivities. We got to bed earlier than usual because we had to get up for a flag-raising ceremony at 7:30 AM at a homeschooling family’s gorgeous home out in the country.

As I walked into their beautiful backyard, I instantly recognized it as the home that hosted the Jill Bigelow fireside that I attended 2 years ago. The things Jill shared on having a gospel-centered home were life-changing for me. She said some things that got me started doing a Family “Power Hour” every morning where I get everyone up and we do our PoWeR actions (p for prayer, w for write in journal, and r for read the scriptures) together as a family.

So it felt good to be back in this lovely yard. The host family had invited my son’s speech and debate coach to speak, as well as my 17 year old son and his best friend.

The little kids had fun playing in the sandbox while the speakers spoke. They all basically spoke about doing things as an individual to bring about liberty instead of waiting for other people to do it.

Here is the wonderful view looking out into the neighbors’ yard. This visit made me want to move to the country even more!

After the speakers were done, the host family graciously served breakfast to everyone: French toast, sausages, fruit, and hash brown. They went all out! Because I am on a grain-free, starch-free diet, I had to abstain and just eat my rabbit food and visit with friends. I got to meet the hostess and that was gratifying, to find out that she is part of the commonwealth school in the county north of ours. She, my friend Katie, and I had fun “talking shop” about running a commonwealth school.

Then we were off to a baseball game for son #3. He got picked to be in traditional All-Star game for our city.

The game lasted 3 hours! Whew! His team won, 13 to 9. He got up to base once with a bunt and got to score a run! It was fun to have our college kids with us so we could talk about their education, their plans, and how to get our middle kids to take the hard classes that they took when they were in scholar phase.

Then we came home out of the heat, had lunch, and watched Episode 2 of John Adams, using our projector and a sheet hung on a wall. I had wanted to watch the whole movie and skip through the few objectionable parts. But I knew we didn’t have time for that. Episode 2 is about the Declaration of Independence, and it doesn’t have any of the bad parts, so it was perfect. One or two of the little kids stayed to watch the whole thing. We bought the episode from Google Play. Now I have it forever and can watch it next year. Then we went to my brother’s home an hour away for a barbecue and fireworks. I got to see my other brother before he moves off to India for diplomatic service. It was a fabulous day!