Yesterday we went to Fall Festival at our church. We had a good time fellowshipping. At Wylie Bible Church many of the members homeschool. Last night Lupe was talking to a mother of three teenagers (ds19, dd18 & ds16). He was asking questions; why they homeschool, if she could do things differently what would they be, what are they doing for high school etc. It was a real blessing.

There is another mom of 8 who will be graduating her 4th child and again it's a blessing because Lupe, can see that it's possible to homeschool through high school. As many of you know my Sweets is still not sure about the upper years and originally he planned to have the children in school by now. Every year I ask him if I can homeschool the next year and so far I have been able to. I pray that I'll be able to homeschool through high school.

I'm thankful that Lupe is not closed to the idea of homeschooling through high school. I know he just wants what's best for our children. Through the years he has educated himself (with the help of me ) regarding homeschooling. We'll see.

The children had fun at the Fall Fest. we had lots of good chili. Yummy! Ethan had about three cupcakes, cotton candy and some candy from the Pinata. They all had plenty of sweets yesterday.

Lance was playing with some of the folding chairs that were in the chair rack and got squished. He squeaked like a mouse, looked up at us and began to cry. I have to say he looked so cute! He has this big Curious George mouth. I'm not all mean, I scooped him up and held him on my lap for a while. He was fine.

Today it's raining. As I'm typing I can hear the rain falling and in the kids room I can hear them listening to a Jonathan Park cd. My children love these cd's.

As for school; I mentioned a few weeks ago that Caleb & Brent do not care too much for The Phonics Road to Spelling & Reading. At the time I was having them watch the dvd's that are suppose to be for the teacher. The dvd's are like a teacher manual. Even though I would stand with the remote and stop the dvd, that was not they way Mrs. Beers intended the program to be used. The dvd's are very useful for the parent but for the child it can be boring because she is  talking to the parents. Her audience is a grown-up  not children.

Last weekend I made it a priority to remember to watch the dvd. I watched it and took notes in my teacher binder. Guess what! The children enjoyed it so much more. I did exactly what Mrs. Beers showed me on the dvd. If there was a song to sing I wrote that down in my binder. If I needed to stop and go over a Building Code than I noted that in my binder. It made a huge difference and things went much smoother. I was able to fit a lot into our 20 minutes of Phonics.

Our front pourch is halfway under water. It's not a big porch, maybe about three inches high. It rained pretty hard last night and  today it has been pretty steady. Our backyard is flooded in parts and the rest is all mud.

Since our porch is flooded we can't get to the washing machine unless you go barefoot. I really need some clothes washed so Joshua put on a homade raincoat and put a load of towels. If I can get at least one more load done we'll be okay. Actually it's not suppose to rain tomorrow so maybe it can wait.

Blessings,

Linda<><