Planning

I assume I'm supposed to be preparing for the next homeschool year.  That seems to be what all the other homeschool moms are doing right now.  Truth be told though, I'm ready for a break.  We've gone through several curriculum this year and still haven't found a perfect fit.  KK will be ready for real schooling next year.  I'm just getting into the groove of being able to school, keep my house clean, and fit in a workout.  We want to school year round, but have no idea where to begin.  We barely touched our science or history books this year (the plan is to knock them out over the summer).  That's not to say we didn't do any at all...we learned about random things throughout the year, but it certainly didn't go along with the curriculum.  We finally found a math program that sort of works, but Bones isn't entirely thrilled with it.  I'm more confident, but sort of still feel like a fish out of water.  Just SO much stressing right now...all unnecessary I'm sure, but there nonetheless. 

This coming week, The Hubs is off work and we're taking our Spring Break.  It's also the homeschool convention and I'm excited to go.  We went last year and The hubs was exhausted from a TDY and we wound up spending more time sleeping/swimming at the hotel than we did actually at the convention--though we did get to meet Michelle Duggar, which I LOVED!  :) 

But this year I'm planning our trip carefully.  I'm hoping to con The Hubs bring the hubs into some of the workshops as well.  I think we'd both benefit.  Hopefully the kiddos will cooperate too.  :)

OH!  Remember I told y'all that The Hubs is finishing up his last class for his degree?  Well his class is Public Speech.  He has to give a couple persuasive speeches, and he's decided to do one on the benefits of homeschooling!  SUCH a far cry from his stance on the issue 3 years ago, haha!!!

Where are you on planning for next year?  Done?  Have everything bought?  Have everything planned?  Or are you playing like me?  I think I may just keep my head in the sand for a few weeks more.  :)

Life...

Well, look what I forgot about over here in the corner of the internet...

Life has just been trucking along here. :)  (I should have an excuse for no posting, but alas, I do not.)

I'm doing well.  Been having some health problems, but my (government run) healthcare providers can't seem to agree on what to do.  I've been in a ton of pain, and instead of actually taking my gallbladder out (I have lots of sludge and 2 small stones), their course of treatment is waiting for it to develop into something more and offering to send me to the mental health clinic.  Thanks but no thanks.  A good friend has been helping me figure out some homeopathic treatments for it.  With our trip to OK, all the pain (and a few miscellaneous injuries), I have completely fallen off the workout wagon.  Hoping to climb back on asap.  If you've seen my motivation, can you please send her home?

The Hubs is doing well.  Trying to figure out where he wants his military career to take him.  He's been toying around with the idea of cross-training into another field or taking another special duty.  he doesn't want to get stuck back in a regular laboratory.  We'll see how that pans out.  He just tested for Tech Sergeant last week, he'll get those results in June.  He studied hard this year, so hopefully he did well!  Right now he's finishing up his last credits for his degree.  Speech class...he seems to like it.

Bones is crushing school.  This week we're spending all out time on fractions it seems.  I was never very good at them, and I want to be sure he understands them with no problems.  We're also learning about clouds.  It's been fun to watch him try to figure out which clouds are in the sky.  He took a reading comprehension test a little awhile back and is reading on a 7th/8th grade level.  I'm super proud of him.  He's been choosing thick chapter books with no prompting from me now, and devouring them quickly.  Still can't get him to write a book report, but he tells me what they're about.  He's teaching himself to play the piano.  I've noticed he learns by ear.  He does really well.  He'll be playing baseball this summer and he is really excited about that!  :)

KK just turned 4 last weekend.  We had fun and made a surprise cake for her.  She wanted white with purple frosting.  We made it rainbow with purple frosting and she loved it!  She is finished with Kindergarten.  Phew.   I don't know how she did it, but she just would not let me take it slow.  (Which was our plan.  She was only 3 after all...but she just sponged up everything and wants to keep going.)  She's still definitely got 3/4 year old handwriting...but she can read with little help and totally understands addition.  Still have a little trouble with fine motor things (buttoning her own clothes, etc) , but hey-she's 4. ;)

So that's what is going on here.  I will do my best to keep posting...but if history is any teacher, I'll see y'all in a few months.  LOL

God bless y'all!!!  <3

...and she's back...

I'm baaaaaaack!  :)  I've missed my little corner of the internet here.  Almost 5 months with nary a word spoken...  Sorry about that!!!  Life has thrown me a few curve-balls these last few months, and I've not been in the greatest of moods.  Here's just a snippet of what's been going on...

The person I thought was my best friend and I had a huge falling out.  It was a lot of drama and caused me a lot of pain.  We're a few months later now and I still have no clue what I did wrong.  She won't even speak to me, so I know there's nothing I can do to fix whatever it is.  It just makes it ten times harder.  We had many mutual friends, and a lot of those friendships are very rocky now.  I'm being very cautious about who I trust/befriend and let my children grow close to now.  I can handle whatever life throws at me, but I refuse to let other people get to my kids.

My parents are getting divorced after 13 years of marriage.  They've been separated for over a year now.  I kept praying that maybe they'd be able to reconcile but it's not going to happen.  Things were pretty iffy even before I left home, and of course I have no idea what happened after I left.  Things just kept escalating I suppose and my dad just walked away one day.  He left my mom and my little brother in a really bad place...no money/food/car/bills paid.  I was really angry with him for a long time, and honestly I'm still mad at him for the way he left them.  Don't get me wrong, my mom was far from perfect...but she's disabled and really has no way to care for her and my brother.  It's really frustrating, and it seems like they both keep trying to put me in the middle and pit me against the other.  I refuse to do that though.  Kevin has been my dad since I was 9 years old, and I love him a TON.  I feel like whatever is going on between the two of them has nothing to do with me.  They're both still my parents and I still love them both.  Christmas should be really interesting this year though...

The Hubs and I were really hoping to get orders to PCS (Permanent Change of Station : move) away from Ohio next year (especially after all the drama that has ensued the last few months), but God has other plans.  We found out that we'll be here in Dayton for another 3 years at least.  Hubs has a lot more responsibility at work now.  He's been made the NCO (enlisted boss) of a huge and very important section of the reference lab he works in.  He goes in early and comes home late and works his tail off all day...but we're very thankful for the job security the military provides, especially since so many others are out of work.

Homeschooling is still going great.  :)  Bones is doing really well.  We switched from Saxon Math to Math Mammoth and it is working much better for him.  I'm leaning toward Teaching Textbooks for him next year, but we will see what happens.  He's memorizing Scripture, his handwriting has improved SO much, he's learning a lot about Astronomy and really enjoys History.
Kayla is such a fast learner.  She can read so many words now.  She loves her little BOB Books and will sit and try to read everything she can get her hands on.  She can write her name and spell several words.  She sounds things out if they get tough.  Her favorite is Phonics, we're using Before the Code (Explode the Code) with her.  She really enjoys her handwriting as well, and is grasping math concepts quickly.  I wasn't planning on going all in with her yet since shes only 3, but if she's ready for it and wanting to learn I'm not going to tell her no.  :)

Around here, life is life...it's still going, and changing lots.  I just have to keep trusting that God's plan is better than mine (though I have many days when I disagree with Him...).

Back to (Home) School 2011

Hey y'all!  :D  How's your summer so far?  Here in Ohio it took awhile, but we're finally in summer weather.  It is HOT, humid and fabulous.

Bones just turned a whole 7 years old on the second.  He had a pretty good birthday.  Can't believe my boy is getting so big!  Cupcake is doing well, my little bookworm.

I cannot believe it's already JULY!!!  Where has this year gone?!  With us homeschooling, I need to get my rear in gear and get to hashing out plans for our school year.  We're excited!  I'm going to be linking up with "Back to (Home) School" carnival over at Amber's blog.  I'll be posting something about our school year plans and such every Monday in July.

Today I'm going to be posting about my school and my students.

Bones will be doing mostly 3rd grade work this year.  We've done a sort of condensed 2nd over the summer so far to be sure there's nothing major he'll be missing out by skipping second grade.  He's learned a ton of totally random things and taught me a TON in the last couple months.  I can definitely see why normal school-teachers have trouble come autumn though.  We took about 3 weeks off and Bones had already forgotten a few things.  This situation led to a decision we made about our schooling practices.
Cupcake will be doing mostly PK4 work with some Kinder thrown in.  This summer she has learned to read and is VERY quickly picking up sign language and French.  She surprised me the other day by counting to 50.  Last week when we practiced together, she still got lost in the teens.

We've decided to be rather eclectic in our approach this year.  Our kids are oddball learners and have a billion little quirks in how they learn.  With Bones, I have to be pretty hands-off.  He needs me to teach the basics, but then he wants to figure the rest out on his own.  He comes to me if he needs help or gets lost...but for the most part, he's become very independent.  He has a bunch of little tricks to help him in math, and I don't even understand some, lol...but it works for him, so I don't complain.  Cupcake is only 3, so she still needs me right there for a lot of things, but she too works best on her own.
We're traditionally homeschooling this year rather than going through the virtual academy like we did last year.  However along with our workbooks there will be a lot of Montessori type things thrown in as well as a lot of unschooling principles.
We're also going to school year round.  We thought about doing 3 weeks on/one week off, but The Hubs did the math and that doesn't get us any more time IN school than public schoolers around here get.  He'd rather we do 6 on/1 off.  We'll experiment a bit and see what works best for our kiddos.

I hope we're able to do more field trips this next year.  The Hubs worked odd hours last year and we could never use the truck when we needed.  Hopefully at some point we'll get our van fixed and not have to worry about that anymore...but for now The Hubster is back on a normal shift. yay!



I pray that this year I'll be able to figure out how to school 2 at a time.  That I'll figure out how to keep a clean house and do all the things I need to do along with schooling.  I pray that I'm able to relax more with it and not feel so compelled to stick to societal standards (isn't that one reason we homeschool anyway???).  I pray that God provides a way for us to get both the munchkins into some sort of sport.  I pray that we're able to get a keyboard or piano so we can learn that as well.  I pray for patience.    I pray that I find a way to successfully instill Biblical principles into their hearts and show them the way they are to go.

Now go and tell me all about your plans and link up to the carnival!  :D

Anna Joy

Happy Homemaker Monday

The weather in my neck of the woods:
It was fabulous this weekend!  Supposed to get rainy again this week... :/  But oh well.  Should be good for seeds growing in the garden!!!


Things that make me happy:
Spending time with friends, finding my way along the path to God, good food and good friends!


Book I'm reading:
Oh gosh!  TOO many right now!
Tribulation Force
Power of a Praying Wife
How to Study the Bibl ein 28 days
Swiss Family Robinson(read-along with Bones)
Bible


What's on my TV today:
Nothing.  Got behind on my Army Wives, but not too worried about it.


On the menu for dinner:
Man Sandwiches.  :D  Yummy!  Will post the recipe soon.

On my To Do List:
Doctor's appointment
drop some stuff off to friends
clean my house
fold TOO much laundry
finish planting my seeds

New Recipe I tried or want to try soon:

Nothing.  My wrist is just now healed, and we ate out way too much.  Ready to get back in the kitchen this week!

In the craft basket:

Gotta fix Cupcake's dolly I made her for Christmas.  Bones has had a hand in her demise...  ;)


Looking forward to this week:
Packing up the supplies to send back to the virtual school.  We've purchased all our curriculum for next year and we're ready to go!  Will write a post on all of it soon! :)


Tips and Tricks:
I have nothing today... :/
 

My favorite blog post this week:
I just love Heather over at  Want What You Have.  She wrote a post this week about the Biggest Money Wasters.  Her entire blog is full of fabulous tips.  :)  I check it every day!


Blog Hopping (a new discovered blog you would like to share with the readers):
None.  :(  I haven't found any new blogs lately...



No words needed (favorite photo or picture, yours or others you want to share):
No photos here.

Lesson learned the past few days:
Patience.  :)  God is working on it, and I was shown that tonight.  He is GOOD, all the time.


On my mind:
SO much.  So so much.


Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses: 
Generosity is both a spiritual gift and a spiritual discipline. Generosity is important to God because it is the opposite of selfishness, one of the most destructive sins. Generosity promotes giving, trust, mercy and putting the needs of the others above your own-all traits that build relationships. Don’t forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God. Hebrews 13:16

I'm baaack!

I've been away for 18 days.  I could've been back a week ago, 10 days ago, yesterday...I just don't know what to say when I come back.  Don't know if anyone is even still here.  Don't know if anyone is even caring what I have to say in the first place. ha!  WRONG!  18 lovely people are following my blog, which means 18 people DO care about what I'm saying. :D  You know how special that makes me feel?  That's more than half my class in high school, and not even half of them cared about what I had to say or what I did.  Not until I got pregnant our Sophomore year anyway.  haha  I'm just a little unsure of how you 'make an entrance' when you've been gone for a while.  A little hey y'all should suffice, right?


Well, hey y'all!  I've missed blogging.  Things have been a bit crazy.  We've got the flu in our house right now.  Everyone had been the picture of health (aside from my migraines) since we pulled Bones out of the B&M school.  We've played off and on with other homeschoolers (since regular schoolers seem to think we have the plague or something now...) We went to a new church this past Sunday (which was a-MAZ-ing!!!) and the kiddos got to play with a bunch of other kiddos.  48 hour incubation period and BAM!  Bones is down for the count.  He's doing much better today, thanks to Tamiflu and lots of rest.  He's eating a bit, back to being mouthy and using totally crazy logic that somehow makes sense and I can't say no to,  and picking on KK.  He should be well in no time.  He told me he's not even mad at the kids at church for giving him the flu, he wants to go back.  ;)

Anyhoo, just wanted to stop in real quick and let y'all know that I am indeed alive.  I will be back later today to post about some homeschooling stuff.  Many friends asked me to write a post about how/why we chose to homeschool, and what curriculum we're planning to use next year when we're through with our online public school.  I also want to show you some new things I'm doing to make my day go much easier and some time saving stuff we've implemented in our homeschooling day.

For now I must bid y'all adieu.  I have an appointment and some errands to run in the morning, so I need to get some beauty sleep.

Blessings!

changes.

I have been away from here for two long months. Not a very good blogger, am I...

However, I do have a good excuse for being incommunicado for so long. There have been many, many small changes in our household in the last couple of months. There has also been one huge, life altering (for us as well as our children) change that has affected every aspect of our lives since mid-November.

Starting November 15th, we pulled Bones out of the Public School system. We are now homeschooling through an online school, Ohio Virtual Academy which uses the K12 curriculum. We looked into homeschooling before we even put Bones into Kindergarten back in San Antonio, but The Hubs talked me into letting him do one year of public school first so we could see how it worked for our boy. Well let me tell you, it was terrible! Once we got to Ohio this summer, we decided to enroll him in the school here, thinking maybe the problem was just the system in Texas. Again, we were wrong. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty behind our reasoning right now, but I feel (as do many, many others) that we are doing the right thing for our children.

Come spring we will be heading to the Homeschool Convention in Cincinnati to pick out our curriculum for the 2011/2012 school year. We've had Bones academically tested now that he's out of public school. The school system refuses to test students until 3rd grade now (same in TX as OH), but his teacher said it's not law, it's just that there is no funding. Anyway, we had him tested and in Language Arts and Math, he is on an upper 3rd grade level. In Reading/Phonics he's at a mid-upper 5th grade level. So proud of that kid! He LOVES Music and Art as well, and is really enjoying History. His absolute favorite though, is Science. The Hubs likes to help with that.

Kayla had her developmental assessment at 30 months. The lady that does them was blown away by her. I won't get into all the details, but cognitively/developmentally Kayla could go into Kindergarten now and be academically equal to the 5 and 6 year olds. So we've been working on some homeschool stuff with her as well. If at 2.5 she is ready for school, I cannot put her in Kindergarten in 3 years and expect things to go well! haha She just soaks up everything I teach her, and Bones really enjoys teaching her things too.

So homeschooling is definitely not for the faint of heart. We've not established a real clear and good routine yet, which makes it even more challenging. I have 2 weeks of laundry waiting on me right now, the floors desperately need cleaning, I've not had a chance to read anything other than teacher's manuals in awhile, the dust bunnies are invading...it is definitely chaotic. I asked friends on Facebook how they do the schooling and the cleaning, and one friend who also homeschools replied "we're supposed to do BOTH?!?". I'm beginning to wonder if my house will ever be clean, or if I'll ever wear anything but yoga pants ever again. Time will tell...

I hope to establish a good, working schedule in the next few weeks. Hopefully that means my house will get clean and I'll have a little time for reading and blogging!!!

God Bless you and yours!