Who are we?
Just a few Mom's who are living their dream of raising their families and enjoying the blessings of spending each day learning, growing and playing together!
Stacey Lytle
Stacey is married to her best friend, Chad. Her favorite calling in life is Momma...she has been richly blessed with seven wonderful kiddos, 4 girls and 3 boys, and is now "Grammy" to the sweetest little girl ever & soon to be a Grammy for the second time.
Stacey has educated her children at home for the past thirteen years and anxiously looks forward to the many that lie before her. Stacey is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is the Founder and Director of the Idaho LDS Home Educators and former President of the Deseret Home School Association.
She has aspirations of someday writing her own books, in the hope of reaching out to those in need - one mother to another. (The first of these books is now available!!! Yippeee...FUNology was completed in the Summer of 2008!)
In addition to the joy she has from hosting events for homeschooling moms, Stacey cherishes the time spent playing with her kids and hubby! Her passions are teaching and reaching out to others, going for long walks, and visiting with her best friends!
Lynnelle King
Lynnelle King is married to Bill King and is the mother of 8 children, seven boys and one girl. This is her 6th year of homeschooling. She served as President of the Deseret HomeSchool Association for the 2004-2005 school year, and serves on the board of directors for this conference. She enjoys chocolate-chip milkshakes, and watching thunderstorms roll in.
Corrie Munson
Julia Bergeson
Jen Waite
Jennifer Waite is the eldest of seven children. She was homeschooled from seventh grade through high school. She got her GED & attended two community colleges before marrying Matt at twenty. She now has three daughters, ages seven, four and eighteen months. She lives in Star Idaho next to both sets of parents - lucky girl! She LOVES learning especially about parenting, gardening, crafts, money & time management, organizing and homeschooling, of course! She is just finishing up her first year of officially schooling at home. She is an eclectic homeschooler & likes Charlotte Mason, unschooling and unit studies. She loves music & feels the spirit best when singing the hymns or Primary songs. She loves to plan events & her life. She has struggled, as we all do, in various areas of her life but feels it has helped her have empathy for others & become educated so she can better serve those around her. She loves to share what she's learned & her talents with other women.
Idaho LDS Home Educators began as an inspiration...
Here is our "beginning story" ~
Talk given by Stacey Lytle on Saturday, August 10th, 2002 at the 1st Annual Idaho LDS Home Educators Conference
Let the Sunshine In
Welcome!!!
This is a very special day…a day that I am overjoyed is here. I know that we will all be greatly blessed by the wonderful speakers that are here to bring their messages to us. I wanted to share how and why this conference is happening, this was meant to happen on this day this year. The experiences that I have had over the past two months have been positively incredible! And all of you in this audience are the reason that we now have a home educators conference in Idaho, at last!
At the beginning of the summer, as we made plans to attend the conference in Utah, I kept thinking, Gee I sure wish someone would put on a conference here. There are so many people who would benefit from it, because traveling can be extremely difficult for some of us. Well, those were my first thoughts. The problem was they would not go away. I attended the conference in Utah with my very dear friend Lori Johnston, and while we were there that same feeling just kept coming to me over and over again. So I finally leaned over to Lori and said, "I have this awful feeling that I am going to have to be the Joyce Kinmont in Idaho." She looked a little stunned. Well I tried at that point to just get it out of my mind. The next week my husband and I had to go to the Laundromat because we were in the middle of a remodel of our home. I told him of my thoughts, that I could not stop thinking of this. That I really felt I was to put a conference on in Idaho. You can all thank him after this conference because he is the reason I finally decided to listen to the spirit. I tried incessantly to ignore what I knew to be the Spirit. I would say things like, "Well there has got to be someone much better to do this than me, someone with more experience, someone who knows more than I do, someone who…", well you get the picture.
My husband Chad was so supportive and encouraging and just said you can do this, I believe in you. At first I thought, "Well, we'll just do something small. We can't possibly bring in any speakers at this late of notice." But much to my pleasant surprise, I was wrong. With Chad insisting that it was worth a shot, just to see what I could come up with I gave it my all! My first call was to Jack Monnett, he was an absolute delight! After I hung up the phone with him, I ran into my husband, who I am sure at this point thought I was a blooming idiot, I ran in jumping up and down, guess what, guess what I have the first confirmed speaker. Then it got even better, Jack Monnett's wife called just a few minutes later and she would be joining him and would also love to speak. So yes, once again I ran in, "You won't believe it! Two speakers!" This excitement and craziness continued with each and every speaker I spoke to. They were all so wonderful and happy to be here! I guess the lesson that I wanted to share is that if you follow the spirit and just listen He will be there for you, he will open up doors you never would have dreamed could be opened for you!
I am delighted that you are each here. I want to share just a couple of thoughts with you on finding joy in your homeschooling and in your families. That is the focus that has driven this conference to the point is at. An Abundance of Joy is vitally important.
Over the last several years of homeschooling our children, there are some very important things we have learned. Probably first and foremost would be to enjoy each and every day with our kids, to help them to love learning, to love school, to love being at home, to love being with their Mom and Dad, and their brothers and sisters. I think this begins with discarding the thoughts that our homeschools need to run like a public school. That just is not the way our children learn, you know your children better than any other and know how to reach and touch them. Don't get caught up in what everyone else is doing, focus on what is right for your family.
With homeschooling there come many challenges. Each day is not easy, it can be very difficult on Moms to make everything happen in a day's time that needs to be accomplished. I just loved an article that was in one of our newsletters. It was from Geri Gropp. She made the cutest comment that I think most of us can relate to. She said, we either have a week of really great homeschooling or we have a week where our house is really clean. She said they hadn't quite figured out how to make them both happen in the same week. It is a struggle to homeschool and keep up on all of the household chores that we have. Sometimes you may wonder if you are doing enough, if your kids are learning everything they should be.
I wrote an article for our newsletter a couple of months ago that focused on Joy and I want to take a minute to reiterate some of those thoughts to you. My main goal of this day was to give you that little boost that we all need now and then, to remind of how very wonderful you are, of the incredible work you are doing, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing of greater worth!
If you ever have a day when you feel you just can't do it all, you just can't keep up. You have somehow managed to allow an entire week of laundry to pile up, the bathrooms need cleaning, you haven't done your Visiting Teaching, the dishes are waiting, you have to make it to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk, your kids all need you to go in different directions, one needs help with math, another wants you to get down on the floor and play cars, another may want to tell you all about the book they just finished reading, the phone is ringing and the doorbell too. Well, I have a story that we all know. It is the story of the Little Engine That Could. In spite of the engines small size, it agrees to pull a load of toys to children who live over the mountain. Motivated by a sense of mission, the engine begins the steep climb, exerting all the energy it can muster, all the while providing verbal self-motivation, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." The monologue continues as the engine struggles up and up against the odds. Then, amazingly, the little train reaches the crest of the hill, both exhausted and exhilarated by its victory, rolls down the other side chanting cheerfully, "I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could."
All of us have the power to push ourselves beyond our normal limits. This is evidenced as we strive to educate our children both spiritually and academically each day, this is pushing and we can achieve our ultimate goal as we joyfully go along each and every sunshiny day! We can achieve our goals; those seemingly unreachable stars really aren't inaccessible. WE CAN! If we just invite a little sunshine and happiness into our hearts.
The next time that you feel the need to compare yourself to others, STOP!
Don't put yourself through what we all have, "Oh, she has it all together, why can't I be more like her" or "My kids just don't love learning like hers do, I must be doing it all wrong", or "How does she motivate her kids to do all that work and without complaint?"
Please don't beat yourselves up unfairly, instead take a moment and remind yourselves of what you do accomplish. If it helps you, sit down and make a daily list of all the important things you did in your day, maybe you changed 12 diapers, read 10 little books, made a Lego tower taller than your children, maybe you baked cookies or a cake with your kids, possibly one of your children finally understood a new math concept, or they finished their first chapter book and you celebrated in their joy…whatever you have done, give yourself the credit you deserve. Build yourself continually. Find joy in motherhood, find joy in the wonderful little people you have in your homes. Let the sunshine in and bask in it each and every day.
Blessings!