Sometimes I can be a little impatient...

Could I get one of these for 3rd grade English please? That would be great.



Then I could just stand there and watch them learn saying Show me.

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Grateful

Some days, like today, I realize how much EASIER it would be for me to send my kids to school and go to work.  But then I realize that it's not about me...

It's all about them.  Homeschooling is both a sacrifice and a gift.  But it is worth it ALL.  What a gift God has given me!  I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a homeschool mom!

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Field Trip Into Space! (kinda)

Today we went on a little field trip to Ashford High School.  Astronaut Colonel Doug Wheelock is on a tour through Alabama.  Schools participating in the Civil Air Patrol's K-6 Aerospace Connections in Education Program, or ACE, were among those chosen to be part of Wheelock's tour.  Colonel Wheelock has spent 178 days in space throughout his NASA career and during his most recent trip assumed command of the international Space Station.

Here is a link to his Bio:
Astronaut Bio: Douglas H. Wheelock (12/2010)

Also there, was a character named Al the Astronut, who is basically a cardboard peanut that has traveled around the world and into space with the astronauts.  The idea of having this little piece of history there was pretty cool.

Jessi got to hold Al the Astronut, and was very excited about the whole thing.  Eli could care less, and Lena just wanted to see all his super cool astronaut patches.  :)

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My Assignments

 Homeschooling is the best decision I have ever made for my kids.  Yes, we have challenges.  Daily.  But I believe these are the types of challenges that will make us stronger as a family.  I found myself wishing for a break today, and I realized that I don't really want a break.  What I want is to overcome these challenges and see my relationship with my children become stronger than it ever could have been otherwise.

Jessi has been having a hard time focusing on her schoolwork.  It's really more of a "I don't want to do any work, anywhere, period" type of thing, along with an "I'm 8 years old going on 13" type of thing.  You mix those two together with my Jessi and you've got MAJOR DRAMA.  I also believe she's fighting for attention in this crazy household.  I think she'll take any kind of attention she can get at this point, even if it means a fight with her mommy.

But I'm ready for this fight.  I want her to know that I'm not going to give up on her and let her have her way.  I'm not going to stop helping her understand all the whys of what she's feeling and what she's going through.  Sometimes she feels like I don't understand and I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to walk her through these precious years myself and that I have this precious time to spend with her that will all too quickly be gone forever.  I can't imagine trying to teach her and guide her through these years if I only had a few hours before dinner and the weekends to spend with her like I would if she were going to school elsewhere.

For me, being a mother is so much more than cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, grocery shopping, and driving people around.  It's about teaching them how to live and how to learn in every area of life.  It's about teaching.  I am so thankful that God has provided an opportunity for me to teach my children all day long, every single day.

I believe my children are receiving the absolute best education possible.  I always know every area they are struggling with, so I can help them through it.  And they never get left behind when they don't understand something.  I love the fact that we can focus on those things more, and breeze through the things they understand already with ease.  And who better to do that than their mother, the one who knows their strengths and weaknesses the very best?  There is no one on earth more equipped to teach my kids than me.  I believe God assigned my children to me for a special reason, and I am graced by Him to teach them the way they learn best.

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Homeschooling

I've been wanting to share my thoughts on homeschooling for a while now, and I still plan to, it's just that, at the moment, I can't put 2 thoughts together before I'm peeling Lena down off the dining room table or something.  So stay tuned... 


Until then, here is a great post by one of my favorite blogs!


Not Inadequate » Blog Archive » More Homeschool Q & A

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Just a Few Things

Concerning Lena:
Lena has kind of been along for the ride of homeschooling. Meaning, I had no idea what her schedule was until about a week ago when I decided to relax a little. Poor baby. She was not very happy a lot of the time and INTO EVERYTHING. She wasn't napping well AT ALL, and it seemed her naps were getting shorter and nighttime sleep was getting shorter too. Something just wasn't right. Then it dawned on me. She has no schedule. How did that happen? Doesn't matter. Needed fixing. ASAP.

Concerning our schedule:
Ok. Just because I've relaxed a little doesn't mean I completely threw our schedule out the window. We still have a tentative one that we may or may not stick to, but it really does help me to have some kind of time line to go by. Plus, it helps me keep Lena on track, which is really the most important thing for all of us at this point. When she's rested and happy, life is just better for everyone. So, just in case anyone's curious, here is our routine. I say routine, because everything pretty much happens in this order, but the times may change a little...on a normal day.

7:00-quiet time for Mommy (Yesss)
8:00-breakfast
8:30-morning devotion
9:00-playtime/exercise, shower
10:00-Daily chores (for the kids) Mwahahaha...
Just kidding:) I do help some
10:30-nap/school
12:30-lunch
1:00-finish up school/free time
2:30-nap/outside play
4:30-snack/ask a million questions about dinner until Daddy gets home
6:00-dinner
7:00-bath/showers
7:30-family prayer
8:00-bed

Concerning The Firm:
I rocked that Wave today!

All across the living room floor.

I think my balance is off a smidge. My butt and legs still hurt pretty bad, but I'm sure that's a good thing. Also, I definitely wore the wrong undergarments for lunging and squatting mixed with cardio. Yep, I think that pretty much covers it.

Concerning Eli Iron Man:
I'm pretty sure Eli is in there somewhere, but there's a small version of Iron Man living here at the moment. Eli has been wanting a transformer suit for the longest time and has been faithfully saving up his hard earned money for it. I decided this might be a good time to get it since there's a larger selection in the stores this month. Instead, we found Iron Man. He has muscles. And a mask. And he's totally awesome. He's so awesome that he joined us for breakfast. He only took a break for a birthday party we went to and as soon as we walked in the door, in goes Eli, out comes Iron Man. I think his bright redness might be pink by the end of the month.

Concerning fingernails:
I'm actually putting "fingernail and toenail clipping" on my calendar for next month. I don't know what it is about this task, but I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER to do it! I always end up catching it when we're on our way somewhere or after they're all asleep. I don't mean their fingernails and toenails are a little long. I mean they're CLAWS. With DIRT UNDER THEM. It's bad. I'm just waiting for someone to notice and call DHR on me.

That is all for today. I'm going to go cut some fingernails. And toenails.

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Back to Normal

First of all, I am finally getting to watch some tv again! I love watching tv and movies, but the past month has been so crazy for me. I've found myself MANY days just noticing at 1 or 2 o'clock that I haven't eaten or sat down since I got out of bed. Thankfully, this phase is over!

School is going really well, and we're all finally in a groove. It isn't nearly as stressful or time consuming as it was the first few weeks. It took me awhile to just relax a little and enjoy the benefits of being at home. Like NOT getting up at the crack of dawn. If I were carting them to school every morning, I know I would be wishing for more time to get up and moving, so why in the world would I get up at 6am everyday? Yep, I was doing that. Not anymore! We are going to start school when we start school. One of the best things about homeschooling is not being bound by time, so if we want to go outside and play first, or go to the park in the morning, that's what we'll do. This has been one of the hardest things for me to surrender to, but it has been so much better on all of us.

Exercising is back! All of the above was giving me no time for exercise. I love exercise. I crave it. I don't do it nearly enough, and I'm always wanting to. So now, I'll be able to exercise everyday. No more excuses, and I'm very excited about that!

Also, I'm very excited about October! We're taking a break from school all of next week, and I've already got lots of fun stuff on the calendar for us! It's going to be a very fun month!

I've started a bit of freezer cooking. I have to say, the first time I read about someone freezer cooking, I thought it was INSANE. I was just fine to plan about a week or two ahead, but that was as far as I was going. I'm not sure what happened, but the more I read about it, the more interested I was. Curiosity just got the best of me, so I tried it. I'm starting out slow. I'm sure at some point I will join the crazies that cook 60 meals in 2 days, but I'm not there yet. I do have about 15 meals in the freezer and about 4-6 more will be added to that this week, so I feel like a rockstar. It feels great knowing there's a month's worth of NOT COOKING in my freezer, and it was super easy!

That's almost everything bouncing around in my head at the moment.
Happy Fall!

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School Room!

I mentioned earlier that I was going all out and making the sitting room half of our dining room our new school room, so here are a few pictures. The lighting is terrible in these because I have no window treatments, so these are the best I can do for now. This has become my favorite room in the house! I don't know what I love so much about it, but I think I'm enjoying this room more than the kids!

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Photography School

Homeschooling is going great! Since we finish up around lunch, the kiddos have plenty of time for fun hobbies and extra curricular activities, like taking pictures with my camera. It's always fun to see what interests them enough to take pictures of. Nothing warms my heart more than when they take pictures of each other. It really is amazing to see what goes on in their world when I'm not around. Like the ones I found on my camera today...

Um...

Yeah...

Now it's time for Mommy's Night Out! I'm off to meet some friends for dinner! I'm so thankful for my sweet hubby who takes care of things when I'm out, like making sure the kids get plenty to eat.

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Tree Runnin'

Today has been such a busy day. We are just starting to get into the swing of things and it is very exciting! Since it's my first time homeschooling, it has taken me a while to get organized because I just didn't know what to expect without actually doing it, which has made it really hard to get in to. I have to say, after just a few days I am TOTALLY OVER THE TOP PUMPED about this! I honestly don't remember the last time I was so excited about anything! I spent half of my weekend just planning in my mind how I was going to set up our school room. Yep, I am going all out and making the "sitting room" half of our dining room our school room! I actually went to the teacher's store on Saturday and was totally bummed that they were closed for the holiday! It's sad, I know. But now that I've got a plan, I'm just working out the kinks in our routine.

J "decided" to sleep in this morning despite her little brother's consistent attempts to get her up, and then she freaked when she almost completely missed our morning devotion time because I didn't give her enough time to eat and sleep and blah blah blah etc etc etc. Yes, it was right after this that I posted on Facebook how I needed to start a coffee IV. It was truly amazing to see just how fast she could actually clean up her place at the table, make her bed, and do her 3 things (use the bathroom, wash hands, brush teeth...they are not allowed to socialize with the rest of us until these 3 things are done, because they suck their fingers and it literally stinks). Seriously, after all that frantic dashing around I don't think she'll be sleeping in anymore. I won't bore you with the details of what the rest of this day was like, but I do have one more little thing.

Hubby, aka Dad (or "Mama" as L, our 1yo, is currently calling him) is in charge of athletics, so when he got home, he took them outside. The first thing he told them to do was to go run around the trees a few times. Ok, so I know we're not a family of geniuses or anything, but J, our 7yo, takes off running all around the yard, lapping around the trees. Then E, our 5yo, runs to the first tree and begins to do laps.

Around that one tree.

Really?

I mean, I know J is fast and all, but I don't think she becomes INVISIBLE to the human eye when she takes off running. Surely he saw that she was running ALL AROUND THE YARD? But no, he runs around each tree individually. Around and around and around he ran. I have trouble interpreting vague instructions myself. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

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School's In!

So I got our school books and stuff on the Sunday night before the Wednesday we were scheduled to begin our homeschool year. Mind you, this is the VERY FIRST TIME for me at homeschooling with the exception of K-4 with E.

Total Panic.

I am a planner, so I spent the entire next day freaking out and staring blankly into all the books I was to have a 2 week lesson plan for by THE NEXT DAY. Seriously. Then my friend who I ordered books with (she got hers at the same time as me) posts on FB that day how "Today is our first day of school!" and junk. What? Apparently I lack serious fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-and-have-a-blast-doing-it skills. HOW IS SHE ALREADY STARTING SCHOOL WHEN I'M NOT EVEN SURE WHAT A POCKET CHART IS? (btw, I found out what a pocket chart is and I am totally in love with them and want like a bagillion of them. idk why but they look so exciting to me!)

So the next day I spent most of the day reading homeschooling blogs and desperately searching for something that could bring me a smidgen of peace about not having everything perfectly together and planned and organized and so on. I also gave my friend a call because I had a million couple of questions and she totally eased my flailing about by telling me that everything would be fine and that she didn't have any fancy shmancy pocket charts or a chalk/dry erase board and that she only ever needed the magna doodle a few times if any. Nothing to it.

Well, I guess I am just not as entertaining and creatively talented as to be able to teach my kids with no visuals, so I had to at least get a dry erase board. And pocket charts are definitely on the way.

After all of that, we made it through our first week of school! Successfully! Actually, it was better than I even expected, to God be the glory. It wasn't that I was worried about school not going well, it was the fact that I had only 2 days to prepare and because I am...well, the way that I am, I just didn't know what to expect.

Then the thought of my babies learning to read while they sit snuggled up in my arms brought tears to my eyes and filled me with more joy than I have ever had. I know this will be the best thing I have ever done.

EVER.

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