Weekly Memory Verse - Week 5

Better late than never ha! Sorry guys, it was a crazy weekend! I hope everyone has a blessed week!

Weekly Memory Verse - week 4

Learning to crochet, child labor, and pulling your own teeth

It's been a kind of slow week around here. Drake is healing well, but we are still not really going out and about. He got the last of his stitches out on Wednesday, so the Dr. said he should be good to go in another week. Yay! I know he's ready to get some normalcy back and to move back into his own room.

I have to tell the truth. We are stir crazy. I have been so blah all week, because Mama needs out of this house! I hate the heat. I can't wait for cooler weather so that we can go outside and not have to worry about heatstroke!! Bring on Fall!!! Can I get an amen??? Fall always seems to bring a bit of coziness to the house mixed with a bit excitement. The colors, the smells, all of it just makes me so happy. For us Fall is like our Summer. Since, we school year round, we try to really take time in the fall to enjoy the cooler, more enjoyable weather. In Texas the fall just means you can go outside. It's not cold. It's comfortable.  The kids are ready to load up their schoolwork and a picnic lunch and head to the park, and I am so with them on that!

So while we've been kind of stuck at home we've had to try and find things to do, so that we aren't just sitting in front of the t.v. all day after school. I taught myself to crochet about a year ago (thanks Youtube), and it is one of the best things I could have done for myself. My grandmother, who I was extremely close too crocheted pretty much everyday. She tried many times to teach me, but with me being left handed and her being right handed, it was just too frustrating for me, and I never did pick it up.  Edyn decided over the weekend that she wanted to learn.

   
She's doing great, but gets frustrated because her hand starts cramping. I get it! It's terrible in the beginning. I just try to encourage her to push through and strengthen her hands. If you can get past that the first week or so, you will be good to go. She wants to make things and sell them to save up for her new camera.  I love my little future entrepreneur!

So, I have a schedule to clean my house. It's a daily thing I made to try and help keep me on task. If I don't do my daily chores, it becomes a disaster real quick. While cleaning on Tuesday, which is floor day, I had some help. Gavin said that there was no way he was going to sit there and watch me mop all of those floors with no help. Oh I love this little sweetheart!

I welcomed this help especially since all of our downstairs is tile! I know carpet is terrible, but I would honestly rather vacuum everyday over sweeping and mopping!

We have been continuing our state study this week. We are studying New Jersey, the third state to join the union.  My kids have decided after studying all of these northern states that it's time to move. Being from Texas, they have never really seen snow, and that's what they want more than anything!

While not studying about New Jersey, math, or reading, we apparently have a class in opening the door with our feet. Gav has proven to be a pro. Here's a little pic for you of him and his new found talent.

Also last but not least, someone pulled their own tooth. I am not the person you want around if you need a tooth pulled. It grosses me out. My husband is the tooth puller around here. Well guess what happens when your husband is at work and you have a kid that's almost in tears because the tooth needs to come out? You suck it up and help him pull it. I pulled and it was coming out, but he made me stop. He took the paper towel wrapped it around his tooth and yanked it out. He was so proud of himself!  Such a manly man at 10 years old!

That's about it for this week's fun. Hoping to have some more interesting weeks coming up in the near future with some field trips and just getting outside! Come on cooler weather, we are waiting for you!

Weekly Memory Verse....week 3

This week's verse is something I am working on in my daily life too! I hope everyone has a blessed week!

Surgery, a feather, and rotten watermelons

So, the past week or so has been crazy. I know I know, you will probably think every week around here is crazy, and it usually is even if we never leave the house! So we found out a couple of weeks ago that my oldest son needed to have surgery on his tailbone.  Yes it does sound terrible!  He had a cyst and it needed to be removed. They started him on antibiotics and we scheduled it for after he had finished them. They had initially scheduled it for Monday the 10th, but called last Tuesday, and said hey guess what...we can get him in tomorrow morning! Be there at 5a.m., surgery is at 7!! Well alrighty then. Time to get ourselves in gear!  He wouldn't be able to walk good much less climb stairs after surgery, so we were going to move him temporarily downstairs into the school room.  I was in the process of going through old curriculum in the school room. It was a real mess. Not just a little mess you could quickly clean up, it was a papers and books scattered all over the floor and most everything taken off the shelves kind of mess.  I thought I had all weekend, but then...life happened. Things changed and it was time to get it done. We had to move most of his stuff downstairs in just a few hours. We got him happily situated downstairs just in time to go to bed since he had to BE THERE at 5a.m., anddddd it was 30 minutes to the hospital. Side note, he in fact did not have to be there at 5a.m. considering that NO ONE was there until 5:45.

Here's a picture before surgery...he looks like he's having a great time.

So surgery went great and he is recovering well. They said about a 2 week recovery. He went yesterday and got half of his stitches out. He said it actually feels better.

With him recovering we have pretty much just stayed at home. He really needs someone here at all times because he can not bend or sit or even walk very well. I decided Saturday that I needed to go grocery shopping, and my husband was here to stay with Drake. We had nothing since I hadn't been in almost 2 weeks. I HAD to go!  When I go big grocery shopping, it involves going not only to H.E.B. our local grocery store, but also to Costco. I love Costco. I would live there if I could. The only problem I had was, first, I wasn't feeling great, I was battling a migraine, and second it was 350 degrees outside. We couldn't even breathe it was so hot. We had to roll the windows down for a few minutes to be able to drive down the road and let the A/C cool off.

We decided while we were out that we might as well get Panda Express for lunch. It's one of our favorite places to eat, and after all we WERE shopping! When we walked up to the restaurant there was a feather lying on the stairs. I said, "Oh look Edyn! There's a feather and it means God has us covered!" We smiled and didn't think about it again until we were leaving and saw it again. We hopped in the car and it wouldn't start. Lovely....It was now 400 degrees outside, and we were stuck in a parking spot with a car parked in front of us, and it would take A.J. 20 minutes at least to get there! A few minutes after we decided to go sit back in Panda Express, the car parked in front of us left. I told Edyn I am not above standing in that spot until your dad gets here! We decided that probably wasn't a good idea and that dad would just have to push my car out of the spot, in the heat, down the parking lot, to where he could jump it. We were in a busy parking lot too...on a SATURDAY!! Well, God had us covered. For at least 10 minutes no one parked in front of me. They parked all around me, but not one car pulled in that GOOD space in front of my car. He had it reserved for A.J.! God cares about the little things! #thankful!! I saw my knight in shining armor pull up on his white horse, or I guess his steel gray Dodge, and he got us started up again.

While we were at Costco, we bought a watermelon just like we always do. We couldn't wait to get it home and dive in!

Well, little did we know, we got a nasty, smelly, rotten watermelon. Seriously is this happening right now?  It may not look bad, but as soon as we cut into it, it smelled TERRIBLE. We were so disappointed. ;(  Don't worry we went back to Costco yesterday while we were out and they replaced it with a good one even though I didn't have my receipt. Again, God cares about the little things.

I know I told you that we started notebooking. I am still going to post about it and our experiences with it, after we have some more time doing it under our belt. We started with a little at a time, but the kids are enjoying it so much, we have gradually added to it. This week we started notebooking current events in addition to History, Science, and their nature journals. We absolutely love this app called News-o-matic. It's a news app designed for kids. It's perfect especially for Gavin.

 

Oh..little hands!! My favorite!! (Even at 10 yrs old lol)

They absolutely love to decorate and take notes on everything they are learning about. We are also loving our state study. We decided to do the states in the order that they became states. We have covered Delaware and Pennsylvania! We are still studying about Colonial times in history, and they are doing a study on sharks for Science. We are hoping to get in on some field trips soon too!

Well this week has been a little reminder that even when things aren't going as we think they should, God has us covered, and He will take us under His wings. I hope everyone has a blessed weekend.

P.S. Here's a cute grand doll pic just because she's precious!!!

Wordless Wednesday....feathers

Picture by Edyn Rae

For more Wordless Wednesday posts or to link up you own, click the link below!

Weekly Memory Verse - Week 2

This week's bible verse. Something I definitely need to think about this week also! I hope everyone has a blessed week!

Wordless Wednesday.....Memories

My Grandparent's house. My childhood. My memories. 

Click the button below to see other Wordless Wednesday posts and to link up your own!

The big question...Why do you homeschool? (Mom 2 Mom Monday link up)

  What made you decide to homeschool? That seems to be the million dollar question that I get asked all of the time.  It certainly wasn't something that I thought I would end up doing in a million years, and there's really not one simple answer. Everyone has a story, so here is ours.

  Rewind back to the end of 2008.  My oldest daughter, Baylie, was born with a cleft lip/palate and made fun of a lot in school. Kids can be very cruel to a child that may look a little different than them. I noticed her crying a lot and begging not to go to school. She was getting depressed and in 8th grade. If being in middle school isn't hard enough, she had added issues with the name calling and hardly any friends. It didn't matter that she was one of the sweetest girls you could ever meet. She had a scar, and to those kids she might as well have had 3 heads. I had a friend at the time that had years of homeschooling under her belt. She would talk to me and comfort me and try to encourage me. She never pushed homeschool on me, but she would say, there are other options. Well, I started asking questions, and it started to sound VERY good. 

The first thing I thought is, I am NOT a teacher! I can't do this. I didn't finish college. How am I supposed to EDUCATE my own child? I know that in my eyes, education is important! I wanted her to be able to go to college, and go down whatever career path she chose. I surely didn't want to mess up and not give her everything a PUBLIC brick and mortar school could give her. Although I had all of these concerns and questions, I also knew I had to get my increasingly depressed 8th grader out of that toxic environment she was in every day. Well against what I really wanted to do, I had to enroll her in a public school online. Her dad didn't want me to "homeschool" her anyway, but this was at least "real school" in his eyes. We weren't married, and it was a battle to even try school at home.  It was a quick problem solver. I told myself from the very beginning that if she wanted to go back to her old school that I would let her. The online public school was AWFUL. They wanted way too much from you in a short time frame. It was too hard to talk to a teacher and it was definitely too hard to understand the assignments. It was as stressful as putting up with the kids at school! She hated it, and after a couple of months she was ready to go back to her old school. I was devastated. I wanted this to work. I was enjoying every single minute with my daughter. I was a failure. At least that's what I thought. I didn't know at the time what "homeschool" was even like since she was doing online public school. Two totally different things.  I remember crying and crying the day she went back to school. I thought, my babies are growing up, and I literally get to spend nights and weekends with them. That's not what I wanted.

  After her 8th grade year we moved to a new city. I thought it would be good for her to start high school in a new town with new people. New beginnings. It was a good thing for her. Since her father didn't agree to homeschooling, I really didn't have a choice.

My oldest son, Drake, was extremely into sports, and I knew he would never want to be homeschooled because of that. My youngest daughter, Edyn, was a social butterfly and I knew THAT would deter her from wanting to be homeschooled. My only chance to homeschool was about to pass me by since my youngest, Gavin, was about to start
Kindergarten. I had continued talking to my friend every now and then and she would encourage me to just homeschool him. It was what I really WANTED to do, I just didn't have the confidence to do it.  I wasn't ready for my baby to be in school. I wasn't done cuddling him, and reading to him, and just spending time with him. The closer and closer it got to the first day of school, the more and more I thought, I really MISS my kids...all of my kids. Summers would fly by. I enjoyed our days together in the summer, and it just wasn't enough. Time was passing me by entirely too fast

  The night before his first day of  Kindergarten he crawled up in my lap with big tears. This sweet little 5 year old boy said, "Mom, I want to stay home with you. Please don't make me go." I was seriously fighting tears myself. This was actually a first for me. All of my other kids loved school from the beginning. Baylie even loved school until the bullying and name calling started. I sent them to school. Wasn't that what I was supposed to do?

  The first day of school came and went and I continued to miss my kids. I soon after even went back to work as a Pre-K teacher. Gavin HATED school. It was a total nightmare to get him out of the car in the mornings because he was so distraught. Everyday, I could hear myself say, "there are other options Tasha." Why are you traumatizing him? They are still so sweet and innocent at 5 years old. He was also being bullied at school. On top of not having the confidence to teach him, I could NEVER talk my husband into it. He would think that I had lost my mind.

  Most days in Kindergarten and first grade were filled with crying and anxiety from Gavin. He had started second grade and I had really felt God laying it on my heart that I needed to seriously research homeschooling again. I sat down night after night online for hours and hours until I had all of my ducks in a row. I was actually thinking of talking to my husband about it, and I wanted to be armed with plenty of facts and answers to his questions. I had just quit my job to be back home full time, so I was ready. I had the confidence that I COULD teach my son.

I sat my husband down and told him everything. After I had educated him on homeschooling, he gave me the best response a husband could give. "I trust you." Wow. He believes in me enough to trust me with our child's education. At this point, we decided to let him finish out second grade, and start him in 3rd. Christmas break was right around the corner and we were having so much fun on Christmas break, I asked myself, "Why are we waiting??" Why don't we just not go back. So that's what we did. I called the school, informed them of our decision and that was how we started homeschooling. Gavin was ecstatic!! Two weeks went by with just having Gavin home and deschooling. We read books, worked on math, and just lived life. Two weeks into it, I was having trouble with Edyn. She was on ADD medicine, which I HATED, and now she was having a lot of issues at school with boys. She was in 5th grade. The things she was having to deal with and the boy issues were getting out of hand. You would have thought she was having middle school or high school drama. The medicine she was on made her deathly thin, and MOODY. The drama at school was getting worse and worse, and I honestly didn't want her in the middle of it. I talked to my husband again, and I said, I think I want to homeschool Edyn too. He was totally on board. When we confronted her, and told her our decision, she was upset at first. After she really thought about it, she said that it honestly had lifted a lot of stress off of her. I withdrew her the next day, and even the principal said that it was a great decision. I had several teachers even tell me that they would homeschool if they could! We started homeschooling the youngest 2 while the oldest 2 were still in public high school. It was going great.

  About a year or so later, my oldest son was in 10th grade, and really struggling. He has always been a straight A and honor student. This was out of character for him. He had brought it to my attention that he might want to be homeschooled. I told him to think about why he would want that and get back with me. We had recently found out that my husband was being transferred, and we would be moving 300 miles away. Drake really liked how free we were in homeschooling. When we found out we were moving, that pretty much sealed the deal for him. I was so excited to be homeschooling three of my 4 babies now!  Baylie graduated public school that year, and I couldn't have been more proud of her.

  The only thing I regret in all of this is that I wish I had started when they were younger. I love getting to spend everyday with my kids.  They are TOTALLY different kids now. They are themselves. There are little bits and pieces of their personalities that I had never known about or seen. They are able to learn and focus on things that interest them. They actually love to learn now. Are there sacrifices in homeschool? Absolutely. None of those matter to me. I can honestly say that it is the best decision I have ever made for my kids. They can be creative all day long. Not just in the short time after school and on weekends. They are free.

 I am so thankful that I heard God and obeyed him. I believe that He was getting me ready to homeschool all the years before that.  If you are thinking about homeschooling, I would like to encourage you, especially when you feel that you aren't fit to teach your child. You are. You are their BEST teacher. You CAN do this.  Don't doubt yourself, even when other people doubt you. Trust the Lord, and trust in yourself. Everything else will just fall into place.

If you would like to read other inspiring posts that include all things Mom, or link up your own blog then click the link below! 

Scripture Memory Verse - Week 1

Since we are learning memory verses, I wanted to start posting them here. We haven't done memory verses before, and I thought it was time we start. We learn a new verse every Monday, and work on it throughout the week. They made memory verse books that I will show you on a later post. They are having fun with it! Feel free to use these in your school! I hope everyone has a blessed week!