So if I thought homeschooling with a new baby was hard, I suppose I couldn't have predicted what homeschooling while selling a home, buying a new one, and getting ready to move would be like!

No wonder blogging has fallen by the wayside!  Needless to say, we are carrying on, getting the core subjects done daily and trying to work in the "extras" as time allows. Moving is real life! School is real life! Here's to hoping they intersect in a meaningful way for my kids this Spring :-)

This is one of those blogs that only real die-hard friends of mine will be interested in.  What are we using for school? I know you have been lying awake at nights wondering that very thing. Well, rest well tonight: here is my list!

We are doing more Abeka than ever. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. We are very eclectic and I truly enjoy coming up with my own curriculum and being more flexible than Abeka typically allows. Still, it is comforting to know that we have the core subjects covered, and covered well. Also, with 7 kids I'm finding my creative time is lessening (at least if I still want time to feed my family) so it is nice for this year at least to not have as much to prepare outside of school time.

Our oldest two are using Abeka 4 math, Language A, Read and Think, and an old Science book handed down to us. I forget if it is Understand God's World?  I think that's the title. Anyhow, the best part about it is we are making a lapbook out of the State Birds. See, I can still be a bit creative!

For art, I am truly winging it since our Art Teacher and his wife decided to go and be  missionaries...the nerve.

Geography and History are my favourite. We have been working on a notebook of Canada for a year now. I do imagine we will finish it before Christmas. I don't mind a bit that it has taken this long. Canada is the kind of thing we ought to be studying and reviewing constantly, in my opinion. I have designed provincial and national fact sheets for the girls to fill out complete with their sketch of the province, colouring its location on the map of Canada, drawing their coat of arms if they are so able, and learning various stats and symbols of each province. In the process we get to talk about famous Canadians from various provinces and some of the history of Canada (eg. How did Victoria, BC get its name? How about Nova Scotia?).  When we are finished this notebook, I am thinking we will go on to either a notebook on the explorers or a lapbook of Canadian Prime Ministers. It would have been smart for me to be prepared with the lapbook on Elections I've been working on, but wouldn't you know the election was called earlier than I was ready!  So we'll wait on that for a bit.

I'm wanting to order AVKO's Sequential Spelling, but haven't yet. Also I am coveting Tell Me More's French. That may be my Christmas present.

For the little ones (grade 1 and under) we are doing Arithmetic 1 from Abeka, Pathway Readers, Bob Books, Teach Your Child to read in 100 easy Lessons, and various workbooks around the house.

I've also recently become fascinated with all the activities for all my children that we can do with 100's boards. I think we'll "play" with those some in our free time. Funny enough, my kids ASK me if we can PLEASE DO SOME FLASHCARDS!!!  Love it.

So that is it in a nutshell.  My schedule that I nicely planned out to the minute is not really working out so well, but we are having fun getting stuff done in and around 'real life'.    If you have used AVKO or Tell Me More I'd love for you to leave a comment telling me what you think of it before I go and drop a wad of cash on it. They both look fantastic, but I would like an opinion from someone whose used them if I can get one.

Thanks for reading!  Happy school day!

Be  sure to check my other blog where I have figured out how to add videos!  I don't know how to embed them here or else I would double post those posts.

See you at my new place!

Well, here I am wishing that I had some brilliant excuse for my lack of blogging. You know, I've been so busy playing in the yard with the kids, or learning to swim, or taking up the decathalon...something like that.

Alas, I have just been packing and unpacking boxes to make way for our (cue trumpet fanfare) NEW CARPET!!! Hurray for my dear hubby who has a job and works  hard at it so we can do things to our house.  My feet are appreciating the lack of painted concrete in our basement now.

But on other blog news:  I am starting up a new blog. Slowly but surely. My intention is to double post for awhile. Whatever I post here I will post there.  Check it out. It looks really pretty: Ta-Da.  I'm in no way totally done over here, and am not shutting off this blog. I just like playing with the formats over there. Anyhow, if you want to add that page to your favourites instead of this one  you will find me easily (I am on your favourites right?)

The real reason I want a blogspot blog is so that when Mike and Jess and Jer  and Joy and Kris leave comments I get to see their picture beside their words. That's it. :-) Love those Avatars!

So, I will try to be more blogworthy in the coming days.  My kids have said some funny things so I'll likely start there. Wait until you hear our conversation about marriage. Laurie, I think you'll approve.

And one more thing (don't you love all this linklove today?)  I just giggled with a feeling of "I'm included" whilst looking at the slideshow on this blog.  They like me. They really like me.

Now stop reading blogs and go outside and become a decathalete. That's what *I'm* going to do. 

I would like to expound today upon a little known scripture. I'm actually sure I've never heard a sermon preached on it, which is a shame, because I do feel it is a critical piece of theology.

Remember the passage when Christ is telling the disciples of His imminent Death and resurrection?  Right there is a part that many of us over look.  Here is the reference: (I will put the part I'm referring to in a different colour so you don't miss it okay?)

 John 14:26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  And the convictors, the children whom the Father will give you in my name, will regularly point out your sin nature and be the catalyst to you seeing your evil and selfish ways. 

What? you've never read that before? You mean it isn't even in your Bible?  Look again. I'm sure it is there somewhere.   Of course, maybe it is just in my translation. You know "The Moms who think they Suck Study Bible".

Sorry. Was that crass? How about "The Woefully Inadequate Womans' Daily Devotional".

ARRRGH but do I hate seeing my sin so blatantly.  A few times today I have been up to my ears in frustration and exasperation thinking "man these kids are driving me crazy" except then the Lord just opens the window of heaven so I can see what he sees: perfectly normal kids who are actually being great, and a mom who is too selfish to set aside what she wants in order to actually, how should I say this, be nice to her children?

What do I want today? I want a spotless house, a cup of tea, and 4 hours of 'do nothing time'.  Pretty sure that is in the bible too.  Listen: Prov. 31:27 She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Oh Wait, is that talking about me doing it?  Oh, I hoped it meant I looked on while my servant girl did the making the house spotless bit.

Right. Where is the chapter that applauds sitting and reading? Or napping? Or just staring blankly at the kitchen ceiling for a good long time?

And meanwhile the kids want to go for a walk.  Do a craft. Read a story. Send a birthday card to Auntie K.  Email their cousins. Make a picture for Great Grandma

ALL.WITH.ME. Ironically these are the things I "couldn't wait for my kids to get old enough to do with me".  Mind you that was when I was 12 years younger. And single.

Did I happen to mention that I'm an introvert and really like being alone?  I come by this honestly.  My dad once said that he was going to buy 100 acres of field and bush with a big rock in the middle of it and just sit on the rock with his shot gun to shoot at anyone who came to interrupt him. Once on a hard day I said to him "Yup, just you and me out on the rock hey Dad?" and he said "Who said you're invited?"

I love me some quiet alone time.  Don't get me wrong: I LOVE having people over too. Love BBQ's, Love coffee breaks, Love girly movie nights. yes yes yes.

I don't love having someone looking at me, scrutinizing me, emulating me, interrogating me 24 hours a day.  And do you know why?  Because then they are going to see that I am indeed a radically flawed person.  You grown ups know that already because you're one too. But my kids don't know that yet.  And the longer they spend time with me the harder it is to keep up the facade that I'm actually a nice person who for the most part loves to obey.  Little convicters, they are!  They catch me in my sarcasm. They catch me in my laziness. They catch me in my procrastination. They catch me in my hypocrisy.  And because, despite my saying otherwise, I'm really not THAT stupid, I see them mentally record the times that I say "Hard work is an important character trait that you need to develop" and then they see me with a "to do" with 8 items on it and only 2 checked off at bedtime.

And so how do I fix that?  Apparently I waste even more time blogging about it.  No, I actually apologize to them and explain to them that the way I am is exactly why we parent like we do: in order to train them in habits and lifestyles and principles now while they are young so that when they are grown ups too they won't still be struggling with these basic sins.

Once in Cell group we were speaking about integrity: being the same person whether you are with someone or alone.  A man in our group had a great example.  That week he had been eating a muffin in the staff lunch room.  He got crumbs all over the table.  When he was done eating he wiped all the crumbs onto the floor and stood to walk out the door.  Then he remembered our conversation at Cell and thought "if anyone were here with me, I'd not have done that."  And of course there is always someone watching us. So he stooped down and picked up the crumbs by hand and put them in the garbage as he ought to have in the first place. 

This is it with my kids.  Maybe the Lord gave me such a passel of younguns because he knew I needed lots of accountability.  There are always 14 little eyes watching my every move. There are always 14 little ears to hear my words and my tone. There are always 14 little hearts being shaped by my attitudes towards them.  Talk about conviction.

Thank you Father for sending these little convicters to me.  They are such an accurate mirror of who I am when no one else is watching.  May you give me the integrity to live in such a way as to not be ashamed in front of them.