Graduation

My oldest baby graduated from preschool a few weeks ago. I have always thought preschool graduation was silly, but it is cute and makes for a fun memory. They did a little program and then had a ceremony complete with cap and gown.

Baby Steps

Well, we are on our way to getting our plans in order for homeschool. Hannah is excited most days, other days she says she wants to go to school with her friends. That usually lasts a little while then she is back to being excited about homeschool. She does want a "real" school desk and I found one on craigslist for $15. I will post pictures when I get the chance.

I ordered her books yesterday. We landed on " Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons" for reading/spelling/handwriting. I ordered Saxon level 1 for math. They had a handy dandy test you could give them to determine which books to buy. I'm glad we did the test or I would have wasted my money on the Kindergarten books and she would have been board to death.
I also ordered a book to help with Bible stories. It comes with music, games, and craft ideas.
We also plan to start piano lessons with Mimi. I will do my best to help her practice. I should be fine at first, but I have no doubt she will surpass me quite quickly. As far as history and science go we will be doing some reading and hands on things as her interests stir her.

This will be a whole new ball game for me. I am not a planner! I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal. I am doing my best to get things lined up and in order. I will be enlisting the help of my wonderfully organized , planner of a mother :)

I plan to join a local christian homeschool group so I can have support and we can do field trips with other kids. They meet up in one way or another every week so that will be nice. You can do as much or as little with them as you wish. I am anxious to meet some other families with kids Hannah's age so she will have some playmates that know what she is up to everyday.

The adventure continues. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for the coming school year.

We chose....

We finally chose what we will be doing with Hannah next year. Clint and I talked a few days ago and we decided we will try homeschooling Hannah for kindergarten. We will see how it goes and play it year by year. I think my greatest challenge will be keeping on task and making sure Hannah gets out of the house enough. I am hoping to get a piano in the house to start lessons on a real piano instead of the keyboard we use now.
I am leaning toward Singapore Math, but not sure yet what to use to help teach reading and spelling.
Let the journey begin.

Easter

It is no secret that taking pictures of my children makes me crazy. I am not gifted with the camera and getting those wonderful shots so many of my friends seem to capture is not in the cards for me. I feel blessed if I get a hand full of printable shots, so this was a good day for me :) I got about 6 or 7 I would print and frame.

In other news, I feel like I am the only mom around that does not do the "Easter Bunny" thing. My parents did it when we were kids, and it was fun. I just have felt like we can make things fun with out adding a bunny in the mix. Clint and I have been trying really hard to keep Christ the focus on Easter and Christmas. It feels like it's an uphill battle these days. Try feeling like a good mother when the checkout lady at Target says " Are you ready to see what the Easter Bunny is going to bring?" and your child says " What's an Easter Bunny?" The looks from people are not very nice.

I feel like we had a good weekend even without "The Bunny". We went to the Saturday service at Watermark for Easter. Hannah's class made Resurrection eggs. I was glad they made some, because I was meaning to and just did not get it done. Sunday morning we drove to Durant to attend church with my parents. We then had a wonderful lunch with family and friends. We let the kids hunt eggs after lunch. Hannah even got to help me put candy in the eggs. She felt so big getting to help with that. It gave me the chance to explain why people hunt eggs on Easter. It is a fun thing to do, but not the focus of the day.
We had to change them into play clothes because it had been raining and the yard was quite muddy. The kids had fun looking for the eggs and chasing the chickens. Jackson did not know what was in the eggs at first and he was dancing around with them, and shaking them in the air. When one fell and the candy popped out it was on.... he would look for the next egg and then stop to eat what ever was in it. All in all it was a good weekend.

Hunting eggs

After Church in Durant
After church in Allen
I love his face, "What?"

Camping Part 2

Turns out I forgot a few things.
1. I did take a few more pictures with our other camera, but not many
2. I left out a " growing experience " God put at the beginning of the trip.

Let me back up a few days.....
Clint and I put the Yakima rack on top of the car to hold the chairs, tents, sleeping bags, etc. on Wednesday before our trip. We got that all loaded so we just had to load the back of the car with coolers, tables, and food on Friday.
Turns out Clint had to work and then go to Baylor Dental School for a few things, so I got to load the car. When Clint got home he changed clothes and we hit the road.

Thank the Lord for remote entry garages! We forgot to get the key to the Yakima rack and did not discover this until it was time to set up at the campsite. Clint was excited that we were the first ones there and could have stuff set up before dark and could then help others set up when they arrived.
We called one of our friends that was still at home and they were gracious enough to go out of their way to go by our house and retrieve the key. They then headed up for the camp out, but wound up having to go home, because their baby got sick that evening.
God was definitely teaching us patients and humility that day!

Here are a few more pictures from the trip :

Processing out loud

Journey with me if you will.... Several months ago my husband and I were driving to church and he casually said " Hey, have you ever thought about homeschooling Hannah?" My first reaction was, " Um no, do you know our daughter ?!!" Not such a nice answer I am now realizing. Most anyone that even looks at this page also knows that my now 5 yr old daughter is the "strong willed child " that people have made lots of money writing books about. Beleive me I have read pleanty on the subject and still fall short in parenting her everyday.
Back to the subject at hand.... No, I had never considered homeschooling Hannah. When I was pregnant with Jackson I loved the two days a week she was at preschool so I could run errands by my self.
A year later, I am in a bit of a different place. What a difference a year can make when you pursue Christ on purpose. After having some time to think about homeschooling and pray about what God would say about the matter, I can say the tides are turning. This frazzled mama has decided to not decide on my own about such a big decision. I can say that I think God is changing my tune to the whole idea. I only say this, becasue I am still unsure. Now my husband is leaning back towards public school and I feel it is not the choice we need to make for Hannah.
I am still processing with my husband and with God. I am looking for a clear answer and hope to find one soon.
To top it all off, when I tell many friends of my possible plans they tell me all the reasons I should not do it. I can count only two of my friends that think it is a good idea. I say this not to say the nay sayers will persuade me toward public school, but now I wonder how things will be if I do start to homeschool...
I am researching my options, but mostly I feel I need to dive into my Bible and God will make clear what we should do.
Any thoughts?

Camping with friends

We took the whole family camping this weekend with some of our community group from church. If you know me well, you know that camping is not high on my list of things I like to do. However, God has convicted me of my clinging too closely to the comforts of home. I decided to use the weekend to focus on spending time with my family away from the day to day distractions and enjoy the beauty that God created in nature. ( Including the MANY bugs we encountered). I was reminded that even the conditions we were camping in would be considered nice compared to how many people in this world live on a daily basis. We had flushing toilets and showers within walking distance to our campsite! That would be a luxury for the people still living in tent cities in Haiti. There were six to eight adults and seven to nine kids with us. The numbers varied as some parents and kids only stayed part of the time, not over night. We went to Lake Texoma, the weather was windy but nice. All in all I think the kids had a good time playing at the lake and cooking out. I asked several kids what their favorite part was, and they all said the same thing, " The best part was when we made s'mores ". Since not everyone in our community group wanted to go camping, I think we will at least have to get together this summer and make s'mores in someones backyard. I know my kids would love it. I am disappointed that I only took two pictures on the entire trip! I was too busy cooking or chasing kids to get out my camera. Oh well, I still have the memories.