Homeschool Success

As a homeschool mom, I often hear, "I don't know how you do it." or "You are supermom". I assure you, I am not. There are a lot of things that get thrown to the side to accomplish the bare minimum. What I do accomplish, I can only do because of God's grace and the fact that He called me to this. As the mom's often talk about in my homeschool co-op, there are certainly many days where I have, what we call, "Yellow Bus Envy". It is hard. I am not going to tell you that it isn't.

But today is one of those days that I am reminded of a few of the reasons that I love this "job". Libby was able to read 4 sentences as part of her school work (she's in Kindergarten). I got to experience this with her. God used ME to teach her that.

When she finished reading, she looked at me with watery eyes and said, "It almost made me cry because I am so happy I can read." For a five year old to be able to say that and feel that is amazing to me.

They are all such different personalities, these kids of mine. While Keira fights me to do the bare minimum of schoolwork because she wants to do something else, Libby asks for more work every day. In this picture she is squeezing as many numbers onto a line as she can rather than writing each number 5 times like she needed to. (She asked if she could write them more). Too funny!

My heart is full. I have experienced this before with Keira and she is a fantastic reader (though she doens't like it) but I am so fulfilled today knowing that my kids are learning. They are giggling together all day long. They are in their jammies still at 2pm. They have learned so much today and spent time playing dolls and legos and pretend and a few rounds of musical chairs.

I write this not to boast but so that I can look back and remember that there are good days amidst the hard ones. Even at 8 months pregnant with a fifth child, high blood pressure, swollen feet and more medical bills than we anticipated, I find joy in my child's success.

Tomorrow, when I feel like I should be sticking one or all of them on the bus, I will try to remember today and that there will be more days like today in my future.

Despite the days when we bicker and fight all day about what needs to get done, I wouldn't trade this for anything.

Share |

Feeling Settled

Today I woke up feeling settled.

This is strange considering we moved yesterday.

And even stranger considering what the house currently looks like....boxes everywhere...furniture in the wrong rooms...piles of random stuff....old curtains that are not ours hanging on the windows still. Seriously...here are some pictures:

But yet, I do feel settled in a way. Content.

This is the 8th home Tom and I have lived in together...and we celebrate our 8 year anniversary in just a few weeks.


But we bought this one.

Sidenote: How does anyone move with family and a church family around? Between the help we had moving heavy things...setting up beds, cleaning, watching our kids....and so much more...I am just not quite sure how anyone can possibly do these things alone! Thank you Jesus for the people in our lives!

We could live here forever. I am not crazy enough to say that we definitely will because you never know where God will lead us but still, just knowing that it is ours and we can stay makes it so different.

I can unpack one box at a time and PUT IT AWAY! I am not trying to think of how I can store things in a way that will be easy to move them next year. I can take my time trying to figure out where exactly I want things because there is no rush to make it feel like home....

....it is home and in many ways, I already feel settled....not organized...but settled.

There is NOTHING wrong with renting...especially in the area where we live in NY where the Taxes are ridiculously high. God had an amazing plan for us in renting for the last 8 years that allowed Tom to get his degree without us having to fix house problems or take care of a lawn and each step and job and place we have lived has led us to this point. We feel very clear on that and that this is the home that God has for us now.

So....I feel settled. Settled in God's grace. Settled in contentment. I pray that I can keep that feeling and knowing that God's plan is ALWAYS better than mine.

I heard this song on the radio this morning and the chorus describes how I feel....and the first verse really describes how I have been feeling without realizing how much I longed to feel settled. Today is Day One of the rest of my life....Day One of the BEST of my life.

Share |

To go or not to go....

This week has been a whirlwind. Sunday night, we got a phone call that a good friend (who we were meeting for the first part of our vacation) is really sick and unable to go so we were going to need to change our plans. Although we were really sad about noit seeing their family, we knew that our plans were fairly flexible and we could rearrange our visit.

However Monday morning, we took our van in to have what we thought would be 1 part replaced and it ended up costing a LOT more than we had planned....because of more problems. I guess that is life with an old vehicle. Sigh.

Then...we get the dreaded phone call that the house we are in the process of buying did not assess for enough to get the mortgage we needed. We wouldn't know for a week or so what would be happening with that and we were originally scheduled to close before July 15th.

Ok Lord...what are you trying to do to us?!?!? haha

I just kept on praying and asking the Lord to make it clear whether He was trying to stop us from leaving or if these were just stumbing blocks that were being placed in our way to keep us from a MUCH needed time away as a family.

The devotional that I read that morning from Proverbs 31 ministries was literally titled "What to do When Life becomes turbulent?"

These are the reflect and respond questions from that devotional:

1. Am I shrinking back in fear and discouragement or am I drawing closer to God’s presence? 
2. Do I really believe God is in control of this situation? 
3. Am I going to worry or trust God — believing He will get me through this? 
4. How can I look for God’s goodness and glory in the midst of my challenge? 

I guess it could not have been better timed because my normally anxious self was very calm throughout the day and I just kept on feeling like we were supposed to go on this vacation.
We hadn't been away from home as a family for over 2 years and just really felt like our kids needed that time away from the chaos with us.

Well....it worked out. We realize whether we are home or not, we cannot control the situation with the house. We need to let God be in control of whether we should be in that home or not.  Our vacation was not going to be expensive in the first place because we are staying with different poeple at their houses for all but 2 nights and I had already gotten great deals on hotel rooms that had been paid for months ago.

So...tomorrow mid morning, we shall head out, Lord willing!

Share |

Life Changers

I have been terrible about writing lately...I can't seem to find time to do it even though I blog in my head all of the time.

Oh Well.

Lately, we have had a lot of life changers going on so I will give you the quick run down.

First off, we are expecting our FIFTH child this November! That's right...we are going from a large, yet fairly normal, family to a "who on earth would have that many kids?" family. We love it and couldn't be happier. We are just praying that our baby to be is healthy and strong.

Because I am 35 (and unashamed of my age) I qualified for some free testing early on to find out the gender....the first test said boy...the second said girl....so I guess we will still have to wait and see with the ultrasound, though, my inkling is that it will be our 4th daughter. Poor Levi. haha.

Here IT is....

NEXT...

We are in the process of buying a house that we should close on in about a month. This is extrememely exciting to me because it has the space that I feel we really need and can live with for a long time to come....it will also put an end (hopefully) to our moving...at least for a while. This will be our 8th move in  8 years...but it will finally be ours!

But it's scary.

We thought we would wait another year before buying but it all seems to be working out now....so we are scraping our pennies and retuing cans and bottles to make it happen. haha.....ok...it's not quite that bad.

We are, however, praying that our van can make it though a few more months. It has a LOT of issues but we really cannot get a newer one until AFTER we settle into the house.

So, we will have faith that if this is truly what the Lord wants for us, it will happen without too many glitches!

So there it is!

We are going on a 10 day vacation next week and it is my goal to write almost every day about the memories we are making so .....here's hoping that happens :)

Share |