Sometimes things don't go as planned!

I had every intention of getting up this morning and getting a lot done. Little did I know I would wake up with a sinus headache. I was in so much pain that I thought I was going to lose my cookies!

This was my list for today that I had planned yesterday:

All my normal daily chores
A full day of school for Gamer along with games and fun crafts
Clean out litter boxes
Laundry
Clean turtle tank and fish tank
Start dinner
Wrap a couple presents

So far I have not got any of this done. It has took all morning just to get rid of my headache. And I just don't feel very good. It is 12pm here and I still don't even have my shower done! On the up side the animals are fed, Gamer has gotten Reading and music done ( and that is probably going to be all the school we do for today), Gamer is dressed and has his chores done. It is still early and that is one of the perks of homeschooling, you can have light days. Because on a normal day we do a lot of school work.

Here is my new revised plan for today:

Lunch
Shower
Litter boxes
Laundry
Dinner
And hopefully Turtles and fish


If I can accomplish this new list then great. If not then there is always tomorrow! Sometimes things just don't go as planned and that is ok. Just do what you can and don't beat yourself up over the rest.

 

Today I defiantly need his strength !!!!!

Our First Year with Rod and Staff (Grammar and Spelling)

This is our first year ever using Rod and Staff, and we are loving it.

Grammar- I like how it is set up. The lessons just seem to flow nicely. They are a bit much if you try to do a lesson a day so we break it up and do a lesson in two days. and this helps review what we are learning. I have heard a lot of people say Rod and Staff is to much or to hard, I think it is because they are trying to do too much at one time.
 We are also a little Charlotte Mason, meaning we like shorter lessons because we learn more from them. So we try to only work on grammar for around 30 minutes at a time.

This is us working on grammar together. The Teacher book is bigger and has the student book plus answers and lessons in it. I know exactly what we are doing for each lesson.

We like that it has us diagramming sentences. It really has helped us understand sentence structure.

 Spelling- We like that it has all kinds of activities to help with spelling. Gamer likes to do spelling, crazy kid! He is pretty good at spelling and enjoys it. Sometimes we have tests , and sometimes we don't.

Gamer is doing his written practice by himself.


The grammar has an oral portion which you do together, and then written practice for him to do himself. And sometimes it will have review and practice that he does by himself and sometimes we do it together. It also has writing lessons which have been wonderful for Gamer and has helped him greatly.


The spelling has three different parts A,B,C and then I also have him write his words in cursive and print in his spelling notebook.

That about sums it up we like it so far and I can see us using it for the rest of his school years.

You can get Rod and Staff curriculum at ( affiliate link)
http://www.milestonebooks.com/list/Rod_and_Staff_Curriculum/

Gearing up for Christmas

I love Christmas!!! It is truly a magical time of year. I love the lights smells and sounds of the season. But most importantly I love the spotlight being shined on our savoir Jesus. I love that people are thinking about Him. I love the feeling of giving and all the extra time spent with family. And yes I decorate my yard and house, yes I have The Nativity scene and Santa's , reindeer , and Frosty! I have lights everywhere. We make cookies, cakes and pies. We drive around to look at Christmas lights. We love to sing Christmas carols and watch all the Christmas movies as we can. We love to read about Jesus and his birth and other Christmas stories.

 

 

 

I have not gotten my shopping done yet and I am not sweating it! It will get done, before Christmas and it will be wrapped and under the tree in time. This year I am determined not to let people or things rob me of my joy for Christmas. Christ lives in my heart and that is where my joy for Christmas is also , in my HEART!

 

The joy of this season makes me happy, and in this dark world, I need the light of Jesus and seasons that just make me feel good. So here's to you. Wishing you a Merry Christmas I hope you can see the light of Jesus and fell the warmth of the season too!

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.


Can I get am Amen!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-sugar-cookies/ - Sugar Cookie recipe

Updates :) And Thankgiving !

Ok so I forgot my password and was to lazy to look for it or reset it so yes its been awhile since I have posted. Sorry. I totally have a vision for this blog its just taking me awhile to get it going! Enough with the excuses already, right! Get on with the post! :)

We are doing great, Gamers leg is healing well, I have been doing fine, Have not heard from Jag for while he has been really busy, Trucker got a new job, Yeah! And so did Sweetie, Yeah again! So life is continuing. Husband is wonderful as always (most of the time (wink, wink).

We are currently on Thanksgiving Break, and getting ready for dinner with the family. This year Jag will not be able to make it home for the holidays. This is killing me! I have always wanted my kids home on the Holidays. But I am proud that he is selflessly serving his country.

Our Thanksgiving Menu:

Turkey (of course)
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes and gravy
Greenbean Cassarole
Rolls
Corn
Deviled eggs
Sweet Potatoes
Mac& Cheese
Cheese Ball and Crackers
Peanut Butter Pie
Pumpkin Pie

And what ever everyone else brings :)

This is our normal Thanksgiving dinner, would love to hear what you all make.

My Boys about 6 Thanksgivings ago One of my Favorite pictures of them <3

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Yummy-Sweet-Potato-Casserole/



I made this last year and it was awesome!

Psalm 9:1 I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

We have had a couple of Storms Blow In!

God never promised that it would always be easy or that it would always be stormy. What he did promise is to always love you and be there with you.










As you may already know  my son Jag broke his hand while he was in Texas (Army Man) he had to have surgery and we could no go to him and make sure he was ok.(AHHHH). But he was fine made it through surgery and has almost full control of his hand again. On July 5th my youngest son Gamer broke his leg trying to rollerblade, and our summer was pretty much over! Poor guy! But again he is doing fine. The bone is healing wonderfully ( God is amazing!!!)  he is learning to walk on it again and trying to build up his leg muscles ( he didn't use them for 9 weeks). And in the middle of all this the people leasing our house stopped paying and we had to make them leave. But yet again God will provide away! My oldest son Trucker got in to a small ( thank you Jesus!) accident in his semi (nobody was hurt, again thank you Jesus!)  and lost his job. You know us Mama's never stop worrying about their babies no matter how big they get or how far away they go.


 In the middle of all of this I got really, really sick. Like I couldn't get out of bed sick. I could do nothing kind of sick! I am going to spare you all the gory details (trust me it is embarrassing for me and you really don't want to know). I ended up in the ER and was admitted for 5 long days. Thankfully though the hospital was what I needed to get better.



Isaiah 40:29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak


I thank the Lord that he pushed my husband to get me to the hospital. I had lost a lot of body fluids and was not doing so well. They replaced my fluids and I had lots of tests done. To find out I have an autoimmune disease called Ulcerative Colitis. For some reason my body is attacking my large intestine. There is no cure, you take medicine to try and go into remission so you can live a normal life. There is also surgery to take out the area under attack but that is really a last resort. There is very little known on this disease. Doctors have no clue as to why it happens and really just guess at the medicine they give you.


Right now I am on steroids (yuck!) but I feel a whole lot better, it has taken a long time to get to this point and I am happy to be here. UC is something that really you don't want to talk about, and not a lot of people know what it really is, it is debilitating your life revolves around your symptoms when you have a flare up. I am putting my trust in the Lord, because I know he has this. And I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason. I also believe that something good to glorify God will come of this. Do I know what that is ? No and I am ok with it.


    

Math

We use Alpha Omega's Lifepacs for math. We have used 2nd, 4th, Algebra 1, Algebra 2 (Trucker) and Geometry. We are currently using 5th this year. We used MPC for 3rd and Teaching Textbooks for Algebra 2(Jag).
We really like Lifepacs. Gamer really responds well to them. I did switch for 3rd and he did fine, but asked to comeback to Lifepacs. Now remember when I said that every child, family and situation is different, well this comes into play here. While this works great for my child it could very well for yours too, or it could not. I just want you to keep that in mind. (this post has affiliate links)












I am not getting paid by these publishers or have I been asked to review these for them. This is just one homeschooling mommas opinion about what we have used and what works for us. Lifepac is an independent learning curriculum. It is made for your child to be able to do with minimal help from parents. Now does that mean you hand it to your child and walk away? No not in the early grades. I would say Kn-3rd they need lots of interaction from parents, they have lots of questions and need lots of guidance.











 In 4th Gamer did a lot more on his own, but he still needed my help some. Now he is in 5th and is pretty much picking up his worktext and doing it. If he needs help or has questions of course I am there for him, but it is nice that it has trained him to get going by himself.

I am always amazed from one year to the next how much he learned and retained. So what do I like about Lifepac? I love the portability, the fact that he loves to pick it up and do it, the amount of information he retains.

How did I find it? I prayed about it and God lead me to it! Really ask and you shall receive!

Were can you find it? https://www.aophomeschooling.com/

Our Homeschool Curriculum for 2014-2015

I am going to share our picks for our 2014-2015 school year. Then in the next few days I will let you know why we choose them, what we like about them, how we found them and were you can find them. Every child is different, every family is different and every situation is different. What works for my family my not work for yours and you know what, that is perfectly fine! I just personally like to see what other people are using. I like to gleam ideals off other people, it has helped me in our journey and has been fun too.

So lets get on with it already right!

Bible - Alpha Omega Lifepacs 5th Grade
Math - Alpha Omega Lifepacs 5th Grade
Grammar - Rod & Staff Following The Plan 5th Grade
Spelling - Rod & Staff
Literature- We are reading classics together
Poetry- Reading Poetry and discussing it
Reading- I have picked out lots of good books for him to read
Science- Earth Science on the Easy Peasy website
History-  Reading On the Shores of the Great Sea
Geography- Reading A Book Of Discovery

For Extras we:
Music- Take guitar lessons once a week and practice 4 days a week
Art- Artpac 5 from Rod & Staff
Sign Language- I use flash cards I bought along time ago for my other boys
Computer- Easy Peasy website
Typing- Sense-Lang.org Found on Easy Peasy

And he also has free reading were he gets to pick what he wants to read

Wow after looking at this I think I will add our schedule so you can see how it all comes together.

David's 5th grade Schedule

9:00-9:45 Prayer, Pledge, Character, and then Lifepac Bible
9:45-10 Sign Language (Monday, Tuesday)
             Computer (Wednesday)
             Typing (Thursday, Friday)
10:00-10:30 Grammar (Mon-Thur)
                     Journal (Friday)
10:30-10:50 Spelling (Mon-Thur)
                     Art (Friday)
10:50-11:20 Literature (Mon-Wed)
                     Poetry (Thur-Fri)
11:20-12:00 Geography (Mon-Tue)
                       History ( Wed-Fri)
12:00-1:00 Lunch Break
1:00-1:30 Math
1:30-2:00 Science
2:00-2:30 Reading
2:30-2:50 Guitar

Free read is his choice he can read before or after school 


So there it is, so far this is working out great for us. Of course we are only a week into it, but it has a great flow to it for us. 




 

Observer Or Activie Paticipant?

In today's quiet time reading for me this was the verse I read,

Romans 3:20
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

That is when I realized that 1. God wants to be a part of my life (after all He did create me!) and 2 He wants me to be an active participant in His. Not an observer! There are to many people watching and waiting and not many actively participating. So we have to make up our minds; are we going to sit at the edge of the pool dipping our feet in the water, maybe thinking about how much fun all the other  people are having? Or are we going to jump in and actively join in? We don't have to be loud and obnoxious. I am a more quite person myself. So how do I join in? I teach Sunday School and volunteer to help, there never seems to be enough volunteers. Help out a neighbor and something you can do in your own home or anywhere really, PRAY!

Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Homeschool Books that have helped me along the way

My List of Homeschooling books

1. So You're Thinking About Homeschooling , By Lisa Whelchel
This book was great because it showed me how different families homeschool. It also showed me that there was lots of ways to homeschool.


2. The Homeschooling Handbook, By Mary Griffith
This was a good book for me, it showed different ways to homeschool, legal stuff, it answers questions you may have.

These two were great beginning Homeschool books.

3. The Spiritual Power of A Mother, By Michael P. Farris 
I loved this book. It really build up my confidence and reaffirmed that I am doing what is right for my children and how important my role in their life is.

4. A Biblical Home Education, By Ruth Beechick
This helped so much, especially this year. It showed me how important it is to implement the bible in our homeschool and how important it is to watch what we are teaching our children.

5.A Charlotte Mason Education , By Catherine Levison  
I love Charlotte Mason's Methods, we use some of them. This is a great overview of her methods and how the author uses them.

6.  101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum, Cathy Duffy
Gives you lots of information on lots of different curriculum. A good starter book on homeschool curriculum.

I also love the books the Duggar family has put out. I use them as inspiration, I figure if a mom of 19 can do this mom of 3 can :)

I am not getting paid by any of these authors or anyone associated with them. I simply found these books helpful and enjoyed reading them.

Today's tip: Reading and researching are important and helpful, but prayer is vital in your journey.

I will add to this list as I go, and if you have some suggestions please leave them in the comments. I am working on a list of websites I have found helpful so stay tuned! 

Just A Little Life Interruption

Ok I was trying to post pretty regular, but 2 thing have happened to take up my time and attention.

1. My middle son Jag, has came home on leave from the Army. We have been trying to spend time with him before he goes back.

 2. My little guy Gamer broke is leg this past weekend on July 5th trying to rollerblade, and this has taken up all of my time.

Right now I have him resting in his bed and am taking a little "rest" myself. He is doing well just trying to control his pain and keep him comfy at the same time making him do his physical therapy and being the mean mommy. I never realized how hard it is to do thing with something broken. This is our first experience with any kind of a broken bone. Yes I am the mom of three boys an this is our first real injury. Anyway seeing my poor guy in so much pain has been awful! Helping him do everything has been hard but of course I wouldn't have it any other way. This is after all my normal crazy life!

We will see the Ortho Doctor next week to get more X-rays and rewrap the cast. They had to make a slit in it because of the swelling. But so far everything has went well and he is doing good :) Thank You sweet Jesus!

My little guy in his full leg cast.

 

 

Tip for today: Breathe momma just breathe!

 

Today I am thankful that it was not worse then what it was, because it sure could have been! Today I thank the Lord for his sweet presence in all of this. And I want to thank Him because I know he will continue to be with us. 

 

Yes we are still homeschooling

In my last post I explained why we started homeschooling, now I will let you in on why we still homeschool and why we pulled our other two out of public school.

With Trucker we pulled him out the last half of his Senior year. What! You must be thinking. I don't know why, but Trucker decided to stop doing his schoolwork. And the school said he would have to go across town to take night classes. Well I was not having that, so we pulled him out and had him finish his schoolwork at home and he graduated in September of 2011.

With Gamer he was doing awesome in school on honor roll all year, he went to kn. and first in public school. He had great teachers. It was a good school. But I knew I could do more for him at home. I wanted him to learn and grow and enjoy doing it. Most of all I wanted him to grow through the Lord. At school he was learning everything but about the Lord. He would come home upset over stuff that his friends were putting in his head. And yes we were going to church and he was attending Sunday school, but 5 days a week his mind, heart and soul was getting feed by people I didn't even know!

I missed him and I knew I wanted to bring him home. So I went to the Lord and prayed. And so we started 2nd grade with Gamer. He loved it! So that year I was homeschooling Jag a Junior, Trucker a Senior and Gamer a 2nd grader. I wont lie to you it was rough, but I wouldn't trade it for the world!

That brings us to now I only have Gamer left. He is going into 5th grade this year and we are very excited.

Tip #4: You know your children, you know your family. Do what is right for your family.

2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

Jag our first homeschooler

Now that you know a little about us I thought I would tell you why we stated homeschooling.

Desperation really is how it all started. Jag (middle child) was my first child I pulled out of school to homeschool.

He was a sweet, smart, loving little guy. He did get distracted easily and would become bored quickly in school. So every year at parent teacher conferences we would hear "Jag is a very good boy, but he is easily distracted we think he may be ADHD and probably would do better on medication" every year we hear the same thing. Now his grades were great, he had all kinds of friends and generally behaved himself (he was a little boy). His grades were great like I said, but he would always have extra homework because he never finished his work at school. So all through elementary he went to school, came home and did homework until bedtime ( rinse and repeat) all through elementary. We took him to his doctor at the time and she said he my have it so lets put him on meds and see what happens (um, NO!!!). Then we switched doctors and they sent us to a office that was for ADHD kids they tested him and said no he did not have ADHD he had anxiety issues that were not bad and that he could learn to work through. No meds for Jag. The teachers didn't like it but if my child didn't need medicine, then I was not going to give it to him.

 Honestly I think he was bored. He was more of a hands on/ visual learner. Not a sit down shut up and listen kind of kid. Which was exactly what the teachers wanted. Fast forward to middle school and he totally lost his focus. Peer pressure was high. He wanted to make his friends laugh and wasn't worried about his work or classes and the bad thing about it was nobody let us know. Nobody called to say hey Jag is not turning in his homework (that he was spending all evening doing) or that he was goofing off and being sent to the principal's office. We had to find out through the online site that you can look at the grades on, that the teachers never updated. We didn't find out till almost the end of the year about his behavior and every time we called about his grades the guidance councilor would say the teachers would call us back and they never did. He ended up passing middle school with very poor grades. During his 9th grade year I started praying hard about what to do about Jag. We were failing him!

Prayer that is how we decided to homeschool. The lord laid it on my heart and of course I fought it at first. I was scared and didn't think I could do it. I keep praying and the lord keep putting on my heart. So I started researching it and reading about it and reading my bible. I talked to my husband about it and he thought it was a great idea! He was on board. So we took him out off school after his freshman year and started homeschooling him that summer to get him caught up (he had fail a lot of his 9th grade courses) and by that fall he was on track. Jag started 10th grade right on time.


That is how we started homeschooling out of desperation and through prayer with God's guidance.

Jag's first year of homeschool, he choose to work in my room.

Tip for today: Pray and read your bible, let God guide you.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All scripture is God- breathed and is useful for teaching,
 rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may
be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Our Fur Babies

I almost forgot to introduce our Fur Babies. We love our pets they are a part of our family. And we have six (YIKES)! They are also a big part of our homeschool, they join us everyday in our school room. Well not all of them, we have 3 water turtles that stay in their aquarium in Gamer's room.

This is Fred, Sam, and Bob last Christmas and yes they had their own tree to enjoy.

This is our dog Edward he is a Australian Shepard/Beagle mix. And the biggest sweetheart!

This is the Princess of the house Tabitha Better know as Tabbie. She rules the house.

And last but not least is our baby Mia, she is the newest member of our family. And is a pure joy.

All our fur babies are rescue animals Ed and Mia came from a shelter and Tabbie was found at my husbands warehouse. The Turtles were found in puddles and in our garage. Gamer has asked for more animals (a hamster, rabbit another puppy and of course every kitten we see) But I think we are quite full at the moment.  

Planning for next year

Its summer here and we have been enjoying our break. We school August-June with lots of breaks in-between. We have played with friends, went swimming , went to the movies, and went on vacation. And I have also been busy deciding what we will be doing next school year. So I have been reading and searching the net. These are some of the books I have been reading.

These were all great books and helped me out. The Spiritual Power of a Mother and the Duggar books were great for inspiration and reaffirming that I am doing great on my journey and how important it is. The other three helped me have a direction for our upcoming year. I am actually excited and confident in our schedule for next year. We will be having shorter lessons and also not trying to fit every subject in everyday. I will share my schedule in an upcoming blog.  

Tip for today: Take time for yourself, to read, drink a cup of coffee or tea and soak in God's word daily bible time is definitely a must for me.

There have been many times when I have skipped the bible because I didn't think I had enough time to fit it in. Well I found out that when I skipped it my days did not go so smoothly. But when I did have my bible time I always had that nugget of truth, Gods word to help me though hard times.

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Hi and welcome to my normal crazy life

Hi I am a Jesus loving, wife to Dad, Homeschooling mom to 3 boys. My oldest is Trucker he is 21 and married to Sweetie and is currently driving a semi all over the U.S.A. My middle child Jag is 20 and serving in the U.S. army, I have not seen this child in 6 months an miss him Terribly! But he is getting ready to come home for a two week visit, broken hand and all. He is not serving over seas but still managed to brake his hand in the field. Luckily he is fine and healing as I type. My youngest Gamer is 9 almost 10 and I bet you couldn't guess he loves video games. I Have homeschooled all my children (although not all their school years) and am still homeschooling Gamer who is going into 5th grade ( yes we keep track of grade level). With this blog I will share how we are doing, what we are doing, and any tips I can think of that might help you along your way.

My first tip: Relax and enjoy the journey, they are only little once

I wish I would have relaxed when mine where little instead of worrying about messing them up and serving them an injustice. I mean really enjoy them they grow up way to quick.