I have decided to transition our family to a year round schedule.  We have been busy with added responsibilities around here and do want to participate more actively in our local homeschooling group.  I went ahead and bought:

Apologia Elementary Science Zoology 1 and kit

Prairie Primer and related Laura Ingalls Wilder material

TruthQuest American History

an extra set of Ray's Arithmetic 2nd grade, and the textbook

I want to space out the rest of the Classical Curriculum to every other day, rotating the reading and writing workbooks.  I really want to make sure that my 6 yo has reading down pat...and my 7 yo is struggling with some of the math facts and the basic operations with regrouping...

I think it's really important that they grasp these early basic ideas rather than be in a rush to "get it all in."  We will then be done with 1st grade and 2nd grade in December....

About 2 weeks ago, I was reading aloud a chapter in "Little House on the Prairie", where Pa had made the wood floor for the new house. 

Little did we know that the Lord would use that book as the basis of an opportunity He gave to us.  Dh got word from a friend of his, that does house demolitions for a living, that he had 1100 square feet of oak flooring that we could have.  The boys' eyes widened when he told them that he was going to be working on a wood floor.  "Oh, like Pa in Little House?"  Dh spent all last week after work ripping the floor out and transporting it to our mobile home.  He did bring a trailer load of it home, in hopes of getting the nails out of it....the boys were out there with hammers ripping those nails out!  LEVERS!  SCIENCE!!  Dh did decided that he just simply did not have enough time to get the nails ripped out of all those boards before having to return the utility trailer so he just put the load out at the trailer....So now we will be spending time out there doing the floor.

I posted on my local homeschooling email loop, and in less than 12 hours, I had orders for 15 DOZEN yep you read that right, 15 DOZEN eggs!!

Panic mode set in....we went out and bought 13 more chickens.  I did this last Sunday, and we've had only a handful of eggs this week.  I guess the chickens went into shock or something. 

Now we're definitely chicken ranchers!  LOL

My 6 yo now wants to start a new business.  We have so many chicken eggs that I can't keep up.  So now we're selling our excess eggs and will use the money to buy more chickens and build a hen house.  Then he said that he wanted to sell goat milk.   We do have 2 goats but haven't bred them yet...so thinking about the possibility now!!

Yeah well we've still got the yuckies around here today.  J has been visiting the toilet a lot this morning, and my husband's grandmother is in bed, ill.  I was going to take the boys to homeschool p.e. at the fitness center, but that has to slide today.  B was pretty mad about it when I told him.  Tomorrow we were supposed to go to our co-op book club, but that isn't going to happen with a 45 minute drive and who knows who is going to be sick tomorrow...so we are not going.  The boys are not happy about that either.  They love gym and book club.  There's not really much I can do about it.  They'll have to get over it. Oh and my husband has to drive to New Orleans today, so I'll be by myself with the boys.  OY.

Today I turned 35 years old.  It is sobering to think that my grandmother became a grandmother when she was 40.  My father was a grandfather at 40 and my mother was 36.  My father had a massive heart attack and required a quadruple bypass at 40 years old.  I remember at 18 thinking that 30 was OLD.  Now it definitely isn't old...but somehow, 40 feels ancient to me.  I hope I don't start to have a midlife crisis already.  As if my kids will let me have time to have a midlife crisis....

The homeschool group we're in has Park Days a few times a month, so we went there today.  While we were there, J started vomiting over by the trees.  I thought it was only because he had been playing and then was eating too.  Well, that wasn't all he had in store.  After we left the park, we went to the library and he threw up there in the children's section...and all the way as I was rushing him to the bathroom, in the bathroom and then he had diarrhea too.  OY.  I had to stop at the post office and mail out the bills, and stop for some milk, eggs, and bread since I had NONE at home and didn't know how long we'd be out of commission....

My husband was pretty disappointed when he walked in the door and saw me in pj's already at 6pm.  He saw me holding the sick J, and I told him we'd have to make dinner out another day.  I was able to guess where he said he'd wanted to take me....wowie, it is a NICE place and we hadn't been there since March 8, 1999....and how I remember the day is because it was the night before our first baby was born.  We will probably go this week but we need to check and see if it's still Mardi Gras there this weekend....I don't want to go during Mardi Gras!

Tonight's dinner was leftovers.  Honey had fish; I had hamburger soup; B had hamburger soup and pizza; R had rice and a pork chop; J wasn't hungry...Poor baby!

Today I spent 7.02 on the stamps, and 21.78 for 3 half gallons of organic milk, 1 dozen organic eggs, 1 loaf of whole wheat bread, a 3 pack of organic strawberry milk for the boys to drink on the way home, which they decided they did NOT like so chocolate from now on!, and a big box of granola bars.

Yesterday morning my husband and oldest son went fishing...they caught 2 Crappie and 4 White Bass...Yum-O! Fish in the freezer!

Yesterday I got my first copy of The Old Schoolhouse magazine, which is a magazine for Christian, homeschooling families.  I was even more convicted and determined to NOT place my boys back in the public school dungeons, for the dragons to devour them up.  I know now, with all my heart and complete peace from the Lord, that keeping my boys home and homeschooling them, is God's Will for my family.  Nothing is ever going to change my mind.  I really enjoyed reading about the Founding Fathers, and I even learned about New Zealand...My I didn't even know where it was located before reading about it in this magazine!  My heart melted as I read about the missionary family located in Mexico, and I was laughing along with the mum in England as she described her feelings of making a rodent cake.  Would I?  I'm not sure..... 

I also spent some time working on the bills.  It was that time of the month.  I am working steadily on eliminating our debt, around 19,000.  I have been snowballing it since October.  Instead of taking the snowball and applying it to the smallest balance, I decided to put it toward the highest.  Seeing $206 in finance charges about gave me a heart attack!  So I was able to basically DOUBLE the minimum payment due....After a sobering look at the checkbook for the last month, I need to rein in the spending...I spent way too much that would not be compatible for our future goals.   The boys and I ate out too much last month, and I spent too much money on Starbucks.   Seems to be at odds with the natural and organic eating that I provide for my family at home....so am going to be more diligent about this.  If there is anyone out there who would like an accountability partner in this area, feel free to contact me!!

This morning the boys were involved in Science as they watched husband clean out the fish *ew*....They insisted on pancakes and bacon like Laura and Mary in "Little House on the Prairie".....

This afternoon brings about a boisterous game of Risk, which we bought on Friday night.  WHO KNEW that addition facts, geography, and logic could be so much fun?!  I've also got a hamburger soup cooking in the Crockpot...mmmm....I am going to make some biscuits to go along with it here in a little bit....

I've been typing around on here all afternoon, listening to the Risk game and watching my baby boy throwing Yahtzee dice...

Tonight I will call my dad as I do every night just about.  He had a brain aneurysm in October and I've been keeping tabs on him from afar....He is doing well now and life is back to normal for him.  I will also call my baby girl after she gets home from church.  Her Sundays are very busy. 

I decided to use a hodge podge of materials this year.  I feel REALLY limited and confined if I stick to one publisher or curriculum LOL.

My husband and I both love the 1836 Original McGuffey Readers, offered by Keepers of the Faith.  B (2nd) and R (1st) use the Reading and Writing workbooks that accompany the readers.

For Math, B uses his old public school workbook (Scott-Foresman) which I had used back in our first year of homeschooling with my daughter and hated it then too....he doesn't seem to mind it though.  R uses the Arithmetic Series that was written to go with the Ray's Arithmetic.

The rest of the subjects...Bible, History and Science, I combine the two (or three) boys together. 

Bible we use Christian Liberty Education Bible 1

History we enjoy BJUPress Heritage Studies 1 but only the teacher edition and textbook, no notebook, quizzes or tests.  We also study the various national holidays and reading through the "Little House on the Prairie" series.

Science we like ABeka Book's Discovering God's World 1...and read books from the library to learn more about a subject!

J, almost 3 and OH SO BIG!...is involved with the boys as much as he can.!  He listens to the Bible story on my lap, and scribbles along on a piece of paper as the boys work through their Bible workbook.  While the boys are at their seatwork, J colors in his Abeka Book 2 year old Preschool series as well as   Rod and Staff's preschool readiness books.  He loves to be read to, and we're reading books from the library about the colors, ABC, and counting.  He loves to listen as we read/do Science and History...

Hello!  My name is Jenn, and I am a Christian, homeschooling mother to 4 blessings.  My oldest, A, is 13 and is in 8th grade.  She resides with her father in another state at this time, and we are hopeful that in the future she will desire to reunite with us.  My other three children are boys...B is 7 and in second grade; R is 6 and in first grade;. and J is almost 3 and homeschooling preschool.  We reside on 7 acres in the GREAT Lone Star State (Yee-haw!), with Rosey Mae, Greta, King, Caeto, and Buckey (dogs), 7 chickens, and 2 goats.

Our homeschooling adventure began in 2000.  My oldest was attending first grade in the public school.  Every morning she shed tears as she got ready for school, exclaiming that she "already knows it all so why should I go?" and the fights we would encounter each evening as we tackled homework that she didn't think she should have to do since she "already knows it all...why should I do it?"  We had major behavioral problems at school that just about every day I received a phone call that she had been sent to the principal's office.  Oh boy....I was at a loss.  I didn't know WHAT we were going to do....until God had His plan ready for our family.  A family member started to homeschool THEIR children...and we were hooked.  

August 2000 we started on our homeschooling.  That first year, we used Sonlight Curriculum Introduction to World History One Year....the whole Language Arts, Science, Math, History, and Bible.  We DOVE into it.  Wow what a shock to a new homeschooling mama who also had an 18-month-old AND was 6 months pregnant at the time. 

We didn't have long enough to try to work out the kinks in our systems and figure out how things should flow....when I went into pre-term labor with water breaking at 29 weeks....Suddenly DAD had to take over, while MOMMA was in the hospital on strict bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy.  All schoolwork came to a screeching halt while we waited for our baby to come at a safe time.  He was born 6 1/2 weeks early, was 4 lbs. 10 ounces...and spent 8 days in the hospital baby nursery. 

The remainder of that school year was a complete blur...we had a 7yo, a toddler, and a new, premature baby.  When the baby cried, the toddler would cry...life was a blur of diapers, sleepless nights, and feedings. 

Things got easier with each succeeding year, as life brought on new challenges...first with a toddler and a newborn, then a preschooler and a toddler (THAT was interesting!), and then two preschoolers, which brought about toilet training two at once!...then a kindergartener to homeschool and a preschooler....

When I found out I was pregnant AGAIN!  Baby J was born without incident when he was supposed to be born LOL.  This time, I was determined to nurse baby J with 3 other children running around.  Sadly to say, I relied on my own strength this time around and not that of the LORD...and thought it was best to put the oldest into 6th grade and the oldest boy into kindergarten....and then the next year 7th grade, 1st grade, and kindergarten...while there were numerous personal problems on the forefront that needed immediate attention. 

It is absolutely AMAZING what the LORD God can do to one's life...when you come humbly before Him, seek His face, and His Will for you and your family!  I had INCREDIBLE peace as my husband and I strove toward reunification of our family.  It was a difficult time for us apart...and we relied on the LORD to get us through. 

We decided that we would take our boys back out of the public school system and homeschool once more.  My heart leaped at the thought of having them home with me again and to be their teacher as the LORD has instructed me to do, and to be a joyful mother of children.  We started homeschooling again on September 15, 2006.