Middle of March Update :)

So it is already the middle of March!!!  Yay!!!  I'm so ready for spring to arrive along with the warmer weather, spring breezes, open windows and all that goes along with that.  :)  Come spring!!!

This past week went by so quickly!  Since the girls had no school, I kept our homeschooling week very light.  My plan was to just do math, but one son got sick, so we did math on 2 or 3 days.  That is ok, next week we will begin in earnest and see if we can be done school for the summer by May.  :)

In other news, we have a goat/s!!  We have selected two does, and we brought one home about two weeks ago and she kidded last weekend.  She had a healthy boy and he is so adorable!!  Both are doing well.  :)  The other doeling is still with the buck and we will bring her home the beginning of April, so just a couple more weeks.  

We named the doe Morning Star and her baby is Moon.  :)  Moon is a frisky little fellow and when we sit in the pen, he loves to jump onto our laps, we like to imagine that he thinks he is mountain climbing.  LOL  K. just loves being with him and giggles when he is jumping all over her.  So cute to watch!  I'm hoping to milk the mama at some point.  Right now I'm letting the baby drink all he wants.  :)  So that has been a bit exciting!!  I was there for the birth....  Morning Star is such a docile doe, I'm hoping it works out well for us to milk her and we LIKE the milk.  :)  Growing up we had goats and I don't remember goat's milk tasting any different then cow's milk, but now I'm older and I'm not so sure.  LOL

In the sewing "room",  I was able to sew one skirt last week for R.  She really needs some new skirts.  I was hoping to get a couple more sewn, but the week just went by to quickly.  I sewed up another diaper last week!  Now I'm out of snaps....  So I need to order some more, I do enjoy using cloth diapers and think of the money I'm saving.  hee hee  :)

At church, we just started a monthly ladies Bible study,  we are going through "True Women 101 Divine Design" by Mary Kassian and Nancy Leigh DeMoss.  It's an eight week study, but we will be doing it once a month instead.  :)

"True womanhood is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of His Son in the ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood." John Piper

It was a good discussion.  Our purpose in life is to put God on display - to reflect His glory in ways we as women were uniquely created to do. I never quite thought of this before.  I'm so enjoying our church!  It's been so good.

So that is in a nutshell of what I've been up to lately.  :)  Life as a wife and mama can keep one very busy, but I'm happy and content in my calling here.  God is so good and I've been so blessed.  :)

A New Season in Our Home School World

I always thought I'd home school all the way, but not now. We've struggle with high school and my husband and I decided we would put our two oldest daughters into the local private Christian Reformed school. Our oldest will be redoing grade 9 (she was already ahead with her age, so doing this will fill in the missing gaps and also put her with others her age) and the next one is going into gr 7, we wanted to have both go, so one was not alone there. Our oldest really wanted to go to school, our other one was not so sure.  The first day of school she went through what first graders go through on the first day of school.  She was in tears...  My mama's heart broke for her.  Anyway, we went to school later in the morning and she was with the other girls in her class and all was well.  She came home beaming and she couldn't wait to go back the next day.

It took me a while to get use to this idea, I felt like I had failed as a homeschooling mom, but I've gotten over it(I think) and am happy for them. I will still be homeschooling, I'll have one in grade 4, one finishing up grade 1 and going into 2 and another in kindergarten, this has given me a lot more time to focus on the younger ones.

I was home schooled myself, but I don't have all my high school. During my high school years we were with friends, that did not put much importance on getting your high school education, I'm not blaming my parents in anyway, but that did affect the high school I was able to get. I don't want this for our children. If I just had the two girls, then I'd learn right alone with them, but I don't have enough hours in a day to do it all!   So for now this is what works, we will see how the Lord leads us in the future. 

So this is a beginning of a new season, school has been going for 3 weeks now.  So far so good!  I'm so glad I still have children here, I miss my girls and it did take us a while to adjust to our new routine, but everything is falling into place nicely. 

So now I'm in the mix group of home school and private school... not sure what to call it.

Just wanted to share, I've had a bit of fear of what others would think, but I remind myself we are raising our children for the Lord and not for others. The way we school our children is also not my identity.  The Lord has been clearly leading us and for that I'm very grateful. 


This is what we are doing this year

Grade 4
Math - finishing up some math from last year and
Word Building(Spelling) - ACE
Language Arts - A Beka
Apologia Science -  Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
Reading/Literature - Building Our Lives and Workbook (Pathway readers)
Social Studies - Into All The World (CLP)
Bible - (CLP)

Grade 1&2
Math - CLP  We have 4 more booklets and then we are start gr. 2
Phonic - Explode the Code
Apologia Science -  Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
Social Studies - Our Father's World (Rod and Staff)
We will be starting the First grade reader soon, He is now starting to read the sentences in his phonic book.  Teaching him to read has been a bit of a struggle, but he is doing well and I can see him taking off soon!  

Kindergarten is made up of the preschool books offered at Pathway and CLP
Also we are going through the first set of books before you start the Explode the code.   Our little girl loves to do school. :)

We sit at the kitchen table and we can usually get our school done by lunch time.  I'm really enjoying doing the Science with the boys.  We do it together and we are all having fun!   We love the Apologia Sciences and Journals that go with them.  :)

So that is what is happening here this school year.   God is good!