We all know there is such a thing as "Good Busy" and "Bad Busy" and I must say that recently we have been a very good busy! It certainly shows in my lapse from blogging. I miss being on here more regularly, but life just keeps on moving along far too quickly. So much to do, and time keeps moving too fast.

For those who keep up, I did begin teaching in our 3s Sunday School class a month ago, I can hardly believe it has already been a month!! They are a fun little group and it helps me come up with new activities for my little guys at home as well, which is an added blessing. The little boys are doing well, staying busy with the usual toddler and preschooler activities that seem to spur them on to growing up far too quickly. Hearing them laughing together is such a joy, once I get past the "uh oh, what are they up to?" feeling! Oh, the things these two can giggle about, and yes, they are definitely boys. I even caught them one day spitting, yes spitting, lovely thing to have a 1 year old and 3 year old boy doing, part of the joy of having them in the same room together! Anyway, that was just one of their gross moments, usually I find them bouncing balls all over the place, rolling matchbox cars off of tables, or sitting beneath the piano lightly banging their heads in unison to hear the echo. If you haven't seen two little guys sitting side by side under a piano, it truly is something to see. I'll do my best to get 2G17 to click a picture for me to put on here, they are adorable.

School is going full force and quite well, we are enjoying the year and can hardly believe the holidays are creeping closer. We were in Lowe's the other day and they already had Christmas trees up!!! YES, Christmas trees, at the end of September! Commercialism, such a sad side of the holidays. BUT, on a good note, I made it into a Marketing course with The Old Schoolhouse, and am so excited about it. Perhaps I'll learn more so that I can understand the up-side of commercialism. This should help me write better press releases for our daughter. And I hope to learn about the marketing side of the business world, what works and what doesn't. 1G21 is done with the first round of editing for Book 2, so the coming months will bring much more editing and proofreading work as we near the publishing of her second book in the series. You can still check it out at www.jessicalynncampos.com. Perhaps you'll see some website improvements soon as I learn more about marketing!

If you are one of my marketing members, please drop a comment. I will be doing my best to add you all as friends if I know you have a homeschoolblogger account. I love to learn, it is one of my greatest joys in homeschooling. I've learned so much more while teaching my children than I ever did in public schools. Learning is definitely a lifetime joy, enjoy it!!

So what is your October bringing for your family? Will you Trick or Treat traditionally? Or attend a Fall Festival of some sort? Or do you choose to skip it altogether and focus on the wonderful season of Fall? Share, we'd love to hear it!

Blogging is becoming far too difficult, I keep hoping as the start of another year begins we will get back on track and I will be on here more regularly.

Things around here continue to move along at a feverish pace. 1G21 is preparing to return to her university, as she is busy writing book two in her series, it is now approximately 75,000 words, we will begin major editing over the coming months. Release for book two is scheduled right over the first anniversary of book one, May 2009. For now, she is busy writing, we juggle the usual annual preparation for returning her to school as we sort dorm supplies and gather necessities. I know she will appreciate the solitude of her dorm for writing, while also missing her siblings and the comforts of home. You can find her book here: www.jessicalynncampos.com, I know, it blows all sense of anonymity, but oh well.

2G16 safely returned from the UK mission trip a changed young woman! The experience was awesome and in today's world of technology she has made international friends she emails regularly. Her group was able to share the Word of God with many young people in Wales while expanding their own personalities as they stretched themselves in unfamiliar territory. It is amazing how the hand of God can work, simply because they were "Americans" they were quickly accepted and drew complete strangers to them, enabling them to share. What a blessing! God blessed her with His care, even as He allowed her camera to break--requiring her full attention to the task of missions rather than any photography.

Reading continues for 3B9, and what a challenge it is!! We juggle multiple reading curriculums in an effort to tackle this incredibly difficult skill for him, and it is a daily challenge. If anyone reading this has found a way to teach an autistic spectrum child to read, I would appreciate any help. There are days I am incredibly frustrated as he seems to completely grasp a concept one day and the next, it is gone. Other subject areas are going along well enough, I am thankful that he is incredibly bright and his memory is phenomenal. He is enjoying more science material and is becoming a wonderful help in teaching his younger brothers.

As for younger brothers? Well, 4B3 and 5B1 are becoming quite the clowning duo!! My morning wake-up has become their giggles as they go back and forth in their room entertaining one another, they will do almost anything to get a laugh out of each other. I have found 4B3 standing on his head with legs completely up in the air, as his brother is giggling wildly. And 5B1 misses no opportunity, as he has learned how to "bounce" anywhere possible: the crib, his bouncy chair, shopping carts, high chairs, even while sitting in the middle of the family room floor, he can bounce anywhere. And it is so adorable, a smile naturally comes to anyone who sees him happily bouncing everywhere he goes.

If you are wondering about our school plans, we have continued with various things throughout the summer, but I am in the midst of major planning now. And of course, before any official beginning to the next year's curriculum I want everything in the house in order. So I plan to paint the kitchen in the next couple of weeks. Always something!! I may very well have some family come and visit soon too, so the next month will be incredibly busy as we knock out more of life's tasks as the next year gets into full swing. I am so thankful for health, my hubby's job, my wonderful children, my reviewer job, friends, and family. As much as I complain about this old house of ours, I am thrilled to have a roof over my head and a kitchen that needs painting. And paint. We have been incredibly blessed, and I am so very thankful.

So what are you thankful for these days? Have you been busy with home improvements this summer? What about vacation, did you take one? Are you all set and ready for this school year? Talk to me!! Any encouragement to getting back into regular blog entries will be greatly appreciated. ;-)    HUGS!!!

This summer has certainly held many "firsts" for our family, and over the coming days it holds a tremendous amount of firsts for our 2G16 as she has embarked on her first mission trip!! In a mere twelve hours from when I write this, she will be flying out to the United Kingdom to serve full time missionaries on the field there in whatever capacity is necessary. This will be her FIRST airplane flight, and FIRST international airplane flight, FIRST trip on her own beyond her history of summer camps, FIRST mission trip, and FIRST trip with no other people she knows beforehand!! God has called her into quite a growth experience over these next two weeks. I appreciate your prayers on her behalf.

I am avoiding focusing on my motherly concerns for her right now, I'm doing my best to focus on God's calling in her life. I am so thrilled that she heard...and obeyed! What a blessing she is to our family. The last year has been filled with many confirmations that this trip is what God wanted to do in her life right now. I pray that she is a blessing to everyone she works with, and that the witness she and the entire group offer to those around them will bring others to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. I pray that she will be blessed by that true blessing: witnessing firsthand someone else finding salvation for the FIRST time!!

Suddenly, the FIRST book written by our daughter, FIRST exposure to publicity for our family in the book effort, and planning this FIRST mission trip pale in comparison to the firsts my 2G16 will experience. We have been very blessed and pray that this summer reveals many blessings for your family.

We have continued learning a bit about the United Kingdom, and are enjoying a clock up right now so we can follow 2G16's time while she is away.  Reading study continues in earnest for 3B9 and is finally coming along fairly well. Study of business practices and all things publicity continues to take some of our time as we push 1G21's first book. And I am busy with continued organization of the house and the last of the odd jobs around the boys' bedroom transfer that began more than a month ago. I don't even want to look back to see when I actually STARTED that job!! Things are moving along well enough overall, though.

Has your family decided on a particular curriculum for next school year? I'd love to hear about it!

While I finally have a moment, I thought I should probably put a quick update on this blog. We are still very busy with all of the excitement from the book release, it is hitting the local paper again this week! Several people have congratulated us on a homeschool job well done, so I thought I'd better clarify some information, just in case you wonder, and so that no one gets the wrong idea.

Our oldest, who has just published her first book at the age of 20, wasn't technically homeschooled-we didn't wise up until her junior year in high school- but I can only imagine where she would be if we HAD!!! She is the one who strongly encouraged my now sixteen year old to take us up on the offer of homeschooling. Quick rundown: God led us to homeschool because our then 5 year old was special needs/IEP/school nightmare on the autistic spectrum, we asked the girls (then 6th & 11th) if they wanted to come home as well, our oldest was completing a full load of AP courses and chose to finish out her public school career, but strongly encouraged our 6th grader to come home. So she did.

Soon after that we found God had mandated that we homeschool regardless, so we wouldn't give the same choice today, let's just say we've grown.  God has walked us through quite an education. But I firmly believe, had we homeschooled, she would have completed this book three years ago!  And we did what many people on this blog system and within the homeschool community have done while involved in the public school system: I actually volunteered at her elementary school running a small publishing center helping all of the kids get their ideas into mini-book form, we taught her how to read long before school began-she was reading at the age of four, and she had gained plenty of confidence while being the in-house child-teacher of our family child care home for many, many years. She was always an honor student while within the public school system, but in so many ways they actually held her back. It is only now that she has the freedom to run with her ideas, and we plan to facilitate her and support her in any way we can. As we all do with all of our children.

We hope to have some sort of teaching supplement for use with the book created soon, and will offer it through her website for free. Her book is fantasy, and is being fairly well received, you can check out her website if you have not done so already at www.jessicalynncampos.com. I will update on here as well whenever we finally get a teaching supplement available on her site. It will most likely include some word games, vocabulary work, and possibly some character questions for the reader to fill in. If you have any ideas for something you would like to see, please share because we are truly new at this whole thing! And if you want to be sure to receive whatever we create when we reach that point, drop her a quick note through the site at the "contact Jessica" link so we have a record of you. This will place you on the email list when we get it all set up.

Wishing you every day enjoyment with your children, I hope this finds you peacefully at home with each of yours! HUGS!!

I cannot get over the amount of STUFF this family has accumulated over 20 years. It amazes me! And depresses me. I am so glad I am getting through some of it, Goodwill must really be liking us right about now. And amidst it all, our oldest, 1G20, is moving back home this week, so now I have to find places for her stuff again! And most of her stuff just stays packed up until the next school year, so it is kind of annoying. Right now, it looks like I am just going to stack the boxes in the corner of the photo album room. At least she will be home again, which I am looking forward to.

In other news, school is trudging along. We will continue through Mystery of History next year, this year became so crazy with 2G16 working, we didn't keep up as planned, so I ended up letting up on us a bit and we have completed one semester of work stretched through the whole year, rather than completing all of book 2. Book three is not quite out yet, so I figured that would work well. Depending on when MOH III comes out, we'll either do the same thing next year and spread one semester out all year, or we'll just finish a semester early and start book three midyear. I enjoy MOH as much as my daughter does, which I really like. Balancing the Sword is going along fairly well too, but we will obviously never do both books from BtS, it is just far too much information. Really makes me think about how meaty the word of God really is, there is so much there it fills an entire education just trying to really get into it well.

I have some great reviews we are working on as well, outside of the existing curriculum we were already utilizing, all of the next two school years is about completely supplied through my review work now. I sure do appreciate that job, I hope other homeschooling families appreciate it as well. It can be really hard trying to check out different items, especially full curriculum. If it is good, you really fight wanting to just drop everything and start something new. If it's bad, it sort of sours you sometimes for school at all, and you have to focus on the good things you use to learn. And my kids, at times, hate it. I feel like Christmas every time a new list or box arrives, but my kids don't always appreciate that mom has "work" to do now and then when it comes time to really write up the actual review itself. Everyone appreciates the financial savings, and it sure is cool to see new things before the rest of the world, but it is also work. The best kind of work I can imagine, but still work. If you have a business, or know of one, that creates items good for homeschooling, contact the magazine about submitting items for review. I am quite sure it makes a difference in sales when other potential buyers can read the opinion of someone who has held the item in their hands. I know I check out our reviews as often as possible before a purchase. You can hit the review page by scrolling down on the left of my blog to the TOS magazine link that says I review products, it will take you right to reviews.

Our puppy is settling in. Potty training is a bit of a challenge, and I've had days of wondering why on earth I thought a puppy was a good idea, but oh well. The kids love her, and she is adorable and really a lot of fun. The work with her is shared, which is good. I hope to teach her all sorts of tricks soon.

Two birthdays this week. 4B2 has moved up to 4B3!! And 5B11months has moved up to the big 5B1!! They really are growing up far too quickly. We are enjoying them. My hubby was just staring at the youngest today and saying he is growing up so much. He doesn't want him to stop being the baby, he's so cute. (The baby and my hubby :-P) He is quickly becoming the toddler in the family, although he isn't officially "toddling" as he doesn't have any interest in walking, but he sure does get around anyway.

I hope to post pictures soon of all of the new room arrangements. You will be frightened at the amount of toys in this house, it's so crazy. For those of you old friends who are reading this, you'll be reminded of the many years of child care in our home, it is still all the same toys!! I am glad we have raised all of our kids, and quite a few kids who weren't ours, to take good care of the toys. We have certainly gained more than 20 years use out of some things. Amazing! I am most excited about access to all of the puppets again, the boys are beginning to make up their own great little stories with them. In no time at all we will be seated around a make shift puppet theater for shows!!

So what is your family gathering around to accomplish these days? Plays in the back yard? Puppet shows on a warm afternoon? Back yard tents?

Blogging is becoming more difficult as more and more beautiful weather is upon us! I am anxious to wrap up this school year and complete necessary projects and books. I am still in the midst of the grand reorganization of our entire second floor and it is coming along quite beautifully! Our master bedroom is now a tiny little bedroom that fits our bed, just barely, and one dresser, but I love it. It feels so much more homey and comfortable than the huge space we had previously. Our second master bedroom space has additional dressers and my honey's ceramic football player collection neatly organized and displayed, which I am also appreciating much more. I am still sorting through the old master bedroom closet, moving clothing, bagging for goodwill, and in the midst of it all we also decided to box up winter clothes and start seasonally rotating, so I am doing that as well. The boys are thrilled!!

Their new room is huge for them, they have room to play and toys were brought down from the attic that our soon to be three year old has never seen before! That was just sad. I hope to complete the closet space soon and will be bringing down an unbelievable amount of storage from our years running our child care home, so that they will have access to even more learning toys. I plan to utilize a pictured system to rotate toys into the room from the walk in closet, this should help them not become overwhelmed, while still allowing them the opportunity to learn and play with everything. I was even crazy enough to mix some sorting of our library in the middle of all of this effort, so I am boxing some of the books I don't see us using any time soon--Nancy Drew series won't quite be appreciated by my houseful of upcoming boys, and neither will the many Star Trek books that my older girls so enjoyed for their sci fi moments, at least not for a few more years! Needless to say, the entire house is now a mess as I work to get things in better order.

Why is it that it seems you have to make a huge mess to actually become more organized?? If you could share one organizational tip, what would it be? PLEASE SHARE!!

I have decided to rearrange my house once again! We are definitely not living to our fullest potential around here. We have items stored that could be used well every day, if we only had better space to actually enjoy them. Our home is almost 100 years old, and generally the bedrooms are very small, but in recent years former owners made attempts to improve things-- that simply did not work out well.

Our master bedroom was turned into a suite of sorts, but the bathroom is so poorly designed that it has become a mass of wasted space. Add to that the jetted tub I use only once or twice a year because it takes so much to fill it and I just really don't find the time to soak in a major bath more often, and the bathroom is not being used very well. We also have a fairly decent walk in closet, but don't actually have so many clothes to justify it. Our suite has two big bedrooms that walk out to a beautiful sunroom, we also rarely use, although it could be fairly readily used approximately eight months out of the year. For now, it is a semi child's space with duplo table and such, and the boys LOVE going out to play, but have to go through our room to get there. SOOO, I have decided to actually put all three of my boys in the master bedroom and make a nice cozy bedroom for our master, along with an additional bedroom for a sitting room and clothing for us. I've always wanted a nice simple "bed" room, and this will give me the opportunity. The little bedroom we have chosen for that use also connects to the bathroom, so it will still serve well as a master bedroom.

The boys will have so much fun!! Now, we will have a regular night-time ritual with ALL of them, rather than having my youngest stay up later until I go to bed because he is still nursing. He is due to join his older brothers in their routine now anyway. We will be able to set up more play space and I can even set up some therapy type options for 3B9 so we can improve more of his social skills. I am so excited about this. It is going to be a HUGE undertaking as in total I will be shifting six closet spaces, three bedrooms, and switching over storage from the attic and such, but I think it will be well worth it.

For a bit of schooling, the kids are drawing floor plans and listing furniture items to assist in this major household design project. And we will be deciding about some of our items that we may soon attempt to sell, either by ebay or a garage sale, depending on what I decide in that regard. I hope that by the time I am completely finished with an entire overhaul of our second floor, we will be better organized, I will have all clothing storage available in an "all boys closet", and much of our day care toy storage currently in the attic will be available for daily play in an organized, presentable play space.

AH, for the changes Spring brings!!!!!!!!! I hope your family is enjoying positive changes, even when they bring work.

I've been meaning to write on some quiverfull thoughts for quite some time now, thought today is as good a time as any. I belong to the quiverfull group and our family holds to the idea that God should be in control of the womb and we are leaving it in God's hands whether or not we have any more children. We have not always held true to this conviction, as over the years we have often listened to well meaning friends and family and society, rather than God Himself. In recent years, through a series of attention getters on God's part for our family, we finally realized that we truly should return to God what was His all along. Anyway, that is where our last two children came from, and they are our closest ones in age, as everyone else was at least four years apart. I am so comfortable these days knowing that it is up to God whether or not we have any more children, there is comfort in knowing it is in His hands. Even our 2G16 has shared that she is very happy about this decision on our part, that she knows if she has any more siblings, it is God's doing.

And I wanted to share a very important point about miscarriages that had recently been shared through the Quiverfull group, although I don't recall who shared, so forgive me for not giving credit where credit is due or for remembering exactly how it was shared. My version of thoughts on the matter of miscarriage is this: God makes every single little child, from the very moment of conception, and if we trust Him in that decision, then we must understand that a miscarriage is truly the loss of a child, and as such, that child has a purpose in God's plan for our lives as well. The realization that we have lost children to miscarriage and will one day see them again in heaven, is comforting. For those who have lost children, particularly many children(and there is a long lost individual I am praying is reading this entry and hears me when I write this--and knows that she is in my prayers) stop and think about the value of that little life. One person in the quiverfull group had commented that she realized she could never have had all the children in this world that she had miscarried if she had carried to full term. Think about that??? So when children are a blessing, even those we painfully lose to miscarriage, they are still a blessing before God and still held meaning for our lives. Imagine having one child, miscarrying another, becoming pregnant within four months of the miscarried child, and carrying the third child to term. In God's plan, and some day in heaven, you will have three children, rather than the two you are blessed to watch grow in this world. And it would have been physically impossible for you to even be blessed with number three. I know that does not reduce the loss of number two, but follow me here. Still, in eternity, if you are blessed to have earthly children who follow the Lord in faith, you will have three children in heaven rather than the only two you had on earth. What a blessing!!! God is so good. And for those who have had multiple miscarriages? Wow, what a blessing to see them again some day in heaven. I am heartbroken over our three miscarried children, and I don't even want to think about how many more we lost and did not even know about because of our use of the birth control pill, but God holds them now. They are very much in His hands, take comfort in that if you have lost a child. I do.

So those are my thoughts on miscarriage and being Quiverfull. Conception is a blessing, so is pregnancy, so is birth. Any level of any of the three is a blessing from God, great if we are able to receive all three aspects in one blessing, but if we are only given part, it is still very much a blessing. And God is so good. He blesses us beyond measure.

As for schooling? We are busy with many, many things in our home these days. I recently decided to do some tiling in our kitchen, so my 2G16 received a crash course in tiling and it went quite well. I hope to share pictures on here soon, I just have to have my photo crazed expert to take the pictures and shrink them so I can put them on here. We are also implementing more games in our school day, scrabble is a favorite for 2G16 and I, but Poppo is cool for 3B8, as is Boggle. I've been making games a "break" of sorts between subjects and table work, it is going quite well. The lightspan adventures educational playstation games continue to help 3B8, and we are still trudging along with reading and writing. He is doing fairly well with children's choir, it has greatly stretched his capacity for dealing with loud sounds and a group of crazy children. A year ago he would have spent the 40 minutes with his hands over his ears or utilizing his ear plugs, it blesses me to see him in the big group singing right along and trying very hard to keep up with the hand motions and such. God is good, and my little guy is such a blessing every single day. There are so many things that are incredibly difficult for him...makes me appreciate how easily things have come for our other children. My 4B2 will be joining us in school next year, he will simply not allow us to leave him out of "official schooling" for much longer. Boy, that kid loves to learn, almost drives me crazy, but he is a lot of fun. His interests will also help keep 3B8 moving along and learning whether he likes it or not, which is certainly an unexpected blessing. And I have a butterfly tent on the way, so we will enjoy using that this year.

So what sort of new thing have you implemented in your school day recently? Have you been going stir crazy in the winter weather? Ready for Spring??