Hi everyone! I'm Tammy and I live in Houston, Texas!  It's HOT and HUMID here 360 days of the year!  I'm married to my highschool sweetheart Xavier (23 years and going strong) and we have 5 blessings-here let me introduce you! (I'm new at this blogging stuff so please bear with me!)

Kyra is our oldest at almost 20 years and is our only daughter.  She is currently serving in the U.S. Navy as a Hospital Corpsman/Dental Technician.  She is stationed too far away-Atsugi, Japan!  We really miss her!  She is awesome!  She loves music, dance and all things food!

God then saw fit to show his infinite sense of humor and give us 4 boys (I come from a family of 4 girls).  They are:

Zachary-18 years of age-just graduated from HS.  He will be leaving soon to spend a year serving God as part of the N.E.T. Team-National Evangelization Team-putting on retreats at churches all over the U.S. After that year he hopes to join the Navy as well, specializing in IT/Computers.  He was the smallest at birth-born at 27 weeks weighing 3 pounds but our largest boy so far at almost 6 feet in height, 200 pounds of boy who wears a size 14 mens shoe.  This big guy is happiest at a computer or reading books!

Alex-15 years of age-our ball of energy! He is going to a private Catholic High School this year as a sophmore.  He loves all sports but focuses on baseball and football.  He loves music and plays the drums and is teaching himself guitar.He has taken up skateboarding and has the scrapes to prove it!  He is an awesome child and keeps us moving!  His love of life is contagious!

Cameron-8 year old is our first home schoolee.....he went to public school for K-1 and we started at home with 2nd grade last year.  He is very innocent and sweet, smart and compassionate.  He loves animals and learning different languages.  His voice is downright angelic!  In a home full of very active "big" people-some of whom are moving out of his life-he is struggling to find and keep stability.  He misses his sister dearly while counting the minutes till big brothers leave!  His faith life is unbelieveable and leaves most adults behind!  He has the biggest brown eyes I've ever seen and the Light of Christ sparkles like stardust in them!

Isaac-our 2 year old engergizer bunny 2 on steroids-while this blessing came to us later in life than most he has kept us young at heart!  He is a complete miniature of Alex!  At 18 months he has been on my roof!  He is now teaching himself to skateboard and loves to drum-so much so that he will be getting his own small trap set at Christmas so that Alex and Dad don't have to share so much "stick" time!  He loves to learn, loves his green blankie, his cuppie/juice and music!  He sings and plays and makes everyone around him smile!  He is truly a Gift from God!  We'll be using the Letter of the Week curriculum with him this year!

Ah, right.....homeschooling......well here's a peek:

Curriculum:

Religion: Catholic Mosaic, Seton Readers, Faith and Life 3, Baltimore Catechism, Devotional Stories for Little Folks, Creative Communications Teacher Student Planner

Science: Apologia Zoology 1 with the Creation Sensation kit, also classes at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Health Museum and various Nature Centers in our area

Math: Saxon Math 3, lots of math games

English-language arts: Seton English 3, Seton Spelling 3, Seton 3 Handwriting, Seton 3 Reading for Comprehension, Catholic Heritage Curriculum's Creative Communications, LLATL-Yellow

History-Geography: Seton Catholic Faith Comes to the Americas,  Early American History for Primary Grades , Letterboxing (treasure hunt/geocaching without all the fancy gear!), the Complete Books of U.S. Maps and Geography, the Complete book of American Facts and Graphs

Extras

Music-beginner piano and recorder, church choir

Art-general arts and crafts (did Artistic Pursuits last year)

Languages-Latin (Prima Latina and Latina Angelica), Spanish-classes at the local YMCA, Sign Language-tutor

various worksheets from Enchanted Learning and Catholic Mom, Thinking Things, health, manners and ettiquette-various resources, and P.E. 3 days a week from our local YMCA

Our Day:

Up at 6am to get Alex off to school.  Listening to music or reading books in the car both ways.

Home to prayers, pledge of allegience, chores and breakfast

Schoolwork-I usually set out all the "work" ahead of time-Cameron gets to choose what order to do it in-as long as it all gets done!

We are usually done by noon.  We schedule a 4 day week with Fridays being a make up, catchup and game/field trip day.  The only exception is LLATL-which is scheduled for 5 days.