A little announcement...

No I am not pregnant. Geez! Can't a girl make an announcement without people jumping to baby conclusions? Anyhow, most of you know that we are not homeschooling this year. Now before everyone exchanges bet money, this may or may not be a permanent decision. We really still believe in homeschooling. We loved so many things about it. It just became apparent towards the end of the year that I was not thriving in the environment. And that means that our kiddos just weren't getting enough schooling (by my standards.) I was very worn out and wasn't motivated to teach anymore. We took a lot of "off" days.

Now, they did learn. Asher is a reader! Jolie made progress on her math. We did lots of neat stuff. I evaluated them based on our state standards and they both did great. I just had very high hopes for my role as teacher. I feel like I failed. It was a bad year for me to enter into this daunting journey. Schooling two kids, (one who had to learn to read) entertaining a 4-year-old, and caring for a baby made for some long days! I know it's possible. Lots of moms do it. I just decided to take a year off, let my baby grow a little and give my kids the desire of their hearts and let them go to school. (I give em a few weeks before they are begging for sleeping in and school in their jammies.)

So I am excited for the new year and have already bought school supplies! I love school supplies. I know that the public school schedule will wear on us all. I know we will miss being together. We will miss having freedom. We might even miss mom being the teacher. I am praying for a growing year. I am praying that God shows us, as a family, what He would have us do next year. We believe in having control over our babies learning and want to have as much time with these little guys as we can. So we will see what next year brings.

Total meltdown?

So I was away for the week and let me tell you, it was refreshing! Our church starts each year with a season of prayer and meditation. It is a time for trusting God's direction for our lives, our families and our communities in the coming year. We are asked to fast in an area of our lives that might just have too much control over us. My fast last year was coffee. (Seriously, coffee has the ability to control me!) This year it was the computer. I had no idea how much time and energy I wasted with that thing! It was a good wake-up for me. I got more done in my day and could really focus on the things God has called me to. So my fast is over and I am back on the computer with a renewed sense of how to use the darn thing. Anyhow, that is why I was off for the week. I would recommend it to anyone!

To continue to the next topic, I am a horrible mother. I do nothing but gripe at my children. I have no patience and might just sit in the middle of my kitchen floor and cry. Please tell me that you all have felt the same once or twice before.
We are having issues. Can you tell from the post above? Call it pre-spring fever, call it mama is tired, call it AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! Any of those would be accurate. Now is the time for me to remember why God called us to this decision to homeschool. (It was not because it was going to make my life easier and give me loads of free time.) Matt and I did a ton of research and talked to lots of people before narrowing our reasons down to these basic things...

1. We did not like the state being able to tell us what to do with our kids. We wanted to be able to take them where we wanted when we wanted. While we understood the point of attendance policies, we did not like being made to feel guilty for removing our kids from school for a few days.
2. We did not have time after school to teach the things we really valued like Bible and real-life learning. These things were the things we wanted our children to know above all other things.
3. My husbands schedule is crazy. He works different hours all of the time. We hated the weeks he didn't get to see the kids because they were in school when he was home and he was gone when they got home. It is nice to have the whole family at home at the same time.
4. We wanted our kids to be involved in extra-curricular activities but got so tired of school all day and activities all evening. My kids were so tired and we had very little family time. Now we are together all day so I don't have to be jealous of the time they spend away in the afternoons.
5. Our daughter, who is very intelligent, was becoming increasingly disenchanted with school. She was being left to do word-searches while the teacher helped the kids who struggled. My little girl who once loved learning was losing interest. We had to take control of her learning and give her more opportunity to be challenged.
6. My son is a very hands-on learner who loves building and is very active. We did not want that to be squelched by the classroom. We realized it was impossible for a teacher to allow boys to be boys in a classroom of 22 students. We can allow him that freedom at home!
7. We really believe that God has given us the responsibility of our kids learning. Some people feel comfortable giving that to the classroom. I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to be certain my children were learning what I wanted them to learn and really getting it! There are so many opportunities for extending learning.
8. Finally, we wanted to be able to give our children a firm base of confidence and ability before we sent them into the world. We hope that with a few good years at home, they will be well-equipped to go into the world to be what God created them to be and not be lured into what the world wants them to be. We still do a lot of praying!

It is so good to revisit those things. A lot of you have asked me why we chose to take this on. I hope that gives you a good idea of our reasoning. Knowing these things does not make it easy and we struggle everyday. But, we are getting better! I hope all of you had a great week. I missed my journaling/blogging/therapy time while I was fasting. I will be writing to you tomorrow! Be blessed.

So here is what I am thinking

I’m thinking I will begin each blog by telling you what we had for dinner. I am always interested in what other people eat for regular meals. So tonight I had a cranky baby. He is cutting teeth I think. Poor little guy just wants to be held. So I was holding a baby until about 5 o’clock. I had slipped some ground beef into the microwave to defrost earlier so I had to think of something to make with it. spaghetti is my ground beef default. My children would eat spaghetti every day of the week. My husband however, would boycott. So I scratched that idea. I looked in the pantry and saw a box of elbow noodles. So I settled on a homemade hamburger helper of sorts. Ground beef, tomatoes (canned fresh!), onion, celery, corn, noodles and cheese. It is easy and my family loves it. We had broccoli on the side. It was a hit. I think my hubby had 3rds! It never fails. I could cook classic french cuisine everyday and my family would want some kind of awful casserole. I am trying to expand their little taste horizons. But casseroles are comfort food I guess.

Today was kind of a blown day. I had big plans to do some reading and math activities with the kids, bake bread, and get my laundry done. I think the kids might have watched TV all day or played Wii. I was so busy with my fussy little guy that the big kids had to fend for themselves. I didn’t go anywhere near the bread. I just flaked. As for the laundry, I just now at 10:00pm put a load in the dryer that I had in the washer this morning. *sigh* Oh well. The children are fed, the dishes are done and the house is not all that bad. Maybe tomorrow will hold more productivity. We have friends coming over to play so the big kids will be entertained for the morning. I vow to make my bread! I miss my little yeasty and delicious friend. (and his best friend butter!)