We recently moved to Colorado from California. I'm married to the greatest guy ever and I'm homeschooling 1st Grade for my 6 YO DD and Kindergarten for her 4 1/2 YO sister. I also have an 2 year old son and a 17 month old daughter. Come enjoy the madness with me, won't you? http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:23:00 -0600 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:23:00 -0600 Well, we're pretty sure God has shut the door on the daycare idea. We got too many roadblocks all at once and we were both very comfortable letting it go. We also started taking a Financial Peace University class at a church close to our home and that is making a huge difference. It also means that we now have a budget and we have to stick to it. I'm doing Christmas on as little as possible this year. I got some great clothes for Rebekah at the thrift store, but I still need to find a few things. I'm at a loss for what to get for Megan. I went through the aisles at Wal Mart and we either can't afford it, or we already have it. I'll come up with something though. I really seem to be struggling lately and Im not exactly sure why. On one hand, I'm really getting some things done and organized, on the other hand, I'm totally not in the Christmas spirit and I feel like I'm spending all of my energies either putting out fires, doing special projects or just reacting to what's going on around me. I adjusted my school schedule for the rest of the year because we'd gotten almost 2 weeks behind. I don't have any more wiggle room now if I want to finish up everything on schedule. I'm not very good at this and I wonder if I should be homeschooling at all sometimes. The funny thing is that I was the one who initially had to talk my husband into this and now he is totally sold out to it. My school space is a challenge and with a 2 1/2 and 17 month old running around coupled with my organizational challenges, well I'm sometimes amazed we get anything done! I don't ever have time to do the fun stuff like field trips or really even crafts or cooking because our book work is always behind, I'm just really stressed out about the whole thing. I keep telling myself that it will get easier when they learn to read, but I'm not sure that's true. I keep looking for that magic bullet that will make school go the way I envision it in my head, but I know it doesn't exist. I just need to keep working at it. I so miss my California homeschool support group. I'm trying really hard to network with other homeschoolers here, but my time and personality seem to work against me. Maybe next year I need to consider an all in one curriculum. I really don't mean for this to sound as negative as it does. I'm sure I'll get over my funk http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/751068/ Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:23:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/751068/ I had my first interview for day care yesterday. It would be for an 8 month old girl (and she's a cutie!) Monday, Tuesday and every-other Wednesday from 6am to 3:30. I had really wanted to start with a real full time child and the hours kind of suck, but it's a beginning. If nothing else, the interview was educational for me, and I have a few more things put together because of it. At least the house was clean! Her husband is coming over on Friday and they will make a decision after that. I'm expecting our inspection to happen within the next 2 weeks and I realized just yesterday that there is a very good chance that the inspector will come unannounced! We still have to get a gate installed on the main floor stairs and a ladder installed under the basement window for emergency exit. One more class and few other things to buy but money is tight, so prayers are appreciated! I'm helping lead AWANA Cubbies this year and the Lord has brought us 12 kids when we expected 4! There is a large Bible Study in the neighborhood near our church and everyone in the Bible Study is bringing their kids to AWANA. it's awesome! Almost everyone in this group homeschools as well, so Rebekah has 3 other homeschooled kids in her Sparks class and Haley has 6 or 7 in Cubbies with her. I've managed to get involved in a homeschool group as a result of these families, All in all, a huge answer to prayer! School is actually going pretty well, although finishing up anything is like pulling teeth for me for some reason! We're on lesson #92 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and I just have to force myself to sit and go through reading lessons. I need to get it done with though because I start all over with it in February for DD#2. Galloping the Globe is a wonderful study and we are having a great time studying countries. It's a good thing I like it because it's a 2 year program and I figure I'll be doing it for 6 years straight. We're struggling with Math and I'm starting to question our math curriculum choice. We use Singapore and I think it's just going a bit too quickly for my 6 year old. She gets the number concepts, but is really struggling with word type problems. I suppose we'll give a bit more time, but it's frustrating. My son has asked to do schoolwork with the girls, so today I had him work on some letter D coloring and we made a DLTK letter D buddy. My Kindergartner is making an alphabet book this year, and we work on a letter each week. We aren't going in order and I'm hoping that will help my "stalling at the end" habit! The ABC book is actually awesome and I'm really enjoying it so far. We've made an S out of sand, C out of cornmeal, bean B and we painted T with tea. We're going to make our D with dots this week and I'm hoping I can find something like that for each letter. I found the idea for it on Jamin's blog and the link is: http://www.homeschoolshare.com/alphabet_notebook.php Leaving on a good note... no money, so I don't have to do finances, house is still clean from yesterday (and really, just has to stay clean now with the daycare starting), but I should probably go up and clean a couple of bathrooms and do some laundry. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/735847/ Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:15:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/735847/ I just typed a whole entry and then hit the wrong button and it disappeared. In short... re-landscaping the front yard, homeschooling, taking care of the house, trying to get the daycare up and running, church activities, no money... we're stressed. ~sigh~ http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/728551/ Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:06:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/728551/ Well, I have my first 25 first grade lessons planned! I went out and got a big workbook for my Pre-school/kindergardener and I just need to buy the books in my Amazon cart that I need for Galloping the Globe and I will be completely ready to begin!! In other news, the money situation has forced some fairly significant changes in our long term plans. namely, I am in the process of opening up my own in-home daycare. I'm doing it with my Mother-in-law who qualifies to hold a higher license than I do. I'm so thankful that the Lord is opening this door up for us, because the alternative was a full time job with at least 2 kids in full time daycare and a public school bound first grader. The thought was devastating! I'm just praying that the daycare things works out for us. I know it will be alot of work, but I get to keep my kids at home where they belong, I can show God's love to some other little ones and we can hopefully get out of debt and move forward with our original long term plans! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/714677/ Wed, 5 Aug 2009 18:09:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/714677/ Oh, I'm so not sure that I'm going to get through 100 Easy Lessons for reading this summer!! I really need to get my curriculum for next year together and re arrange the basement to give me a real classroom area. Money is really really tight right now and I'm not sure when when this will all happen. On another note, my mom is in town for a few weeks. It was Megan's first birthday on June 25th and it will be Rebekah's 6th birthday on July 14th. No big parties for either of them. Have I mentioned the money situation? We're having a pretty good day today though... got the girls bedroom totally cleaned up including closets, dressers and under beds. Laundry is getting done (thanks to the grams) and the girls and I made some monkey bread (it's baking right now!). I got a haircut yesterday (thanks mom!) and at least a couple of my eBay items sold. Here's hoping this is a better eBay week. Boring entry... this is why I don't blog more. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/705909/ Tue, 7 Jul 2009 14:36:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/705909/ You know, I really want to write. Everyday I think of something to write about, but I don't actually do it. Today I'm going to write... even if breakfast is a bit late as a result. I'm in a funk and I feel like I'm struggling with everything. The Lord is pruning me, We're way behind in school, the house is usually messy, money is tighter than it's ever been, and I'm not having any fun. I feel like everything is toil right now, and I don't know how to snap myself out of it. I've been reading a book called Holy Habits and in the course of the study I've read Psalm 90 each day for the past week. I know that I need to give my entire everything over to the Lord, but I've never figured out how to give Him the daily tasks and the little things... right now I'm not even giving Him the big ones. I've been praying 2 things... How Long? Not necessarily how long will I be struggling, because the struggle isn't important, my concern is that I'm not handling the struggle correctly and I know this, yet I still don't seem to be able to get in the right place to hand it over, and I'm not that person usually I don't hold on to "stuff", but I haven't figured out how to surrender right now. My other prayer is "Establish the work of my hands" I need to school my kids, keep my house up, Interact with my family in a fun way and try to save and make some money all on a daily basis. I need the Lord to establish the work of my hands because it's too much for me to do on my own. This post is a bit of a downer, but time is up. Happier next time! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/700555/ Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:00:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/700555/ I'm not very good at blogging! I've moved to www.6powers.org and hopefully will do better there! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/656772/ Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:01:00 -0600 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/656772/ Luke ate dirt… again I got a high five from Rebekah when I handed her a clean stack of panties to put away… clearly she was concerned. Rebekah spotted the new Swiffer I bought yesterday and told me that she knew what it was. She was very excited to get one… ”You’ll never go back to your old mop, Mom!” Seriously, too much TV! Got my curriculum package from CBD… must finish housework before I can spend countless time going through it. My niece introduced my kids to World of Warcraft and they are still talking about it. Haley sorted blocks today by shape color and put them in order by size. Then she named the two biggest blocks mommy and daddy and found 4 baby blocks for them. She also picked Jello over chocolate pudding with lunch today… I don’t understand that Rebekah wrote the words blue, red, green, yellow, orange and purple today Megan has nursed and slept. I have blogged http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/592004/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:45:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/592004/ Once D accepted his new job, we quietly started making plans. We let our landlord know that we would be moving and began packing some. On Thursday, June 12th, we had planned on taking the kids to the Livermore Rodeo. D got home from work and was in quite a bit of discomfort. He wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong, but he thought he was having back spasms. We attributed it to stress and I rubbed his back for a bit while he tried to relax. Eventually the pain subsided enough for us to take the kids to the rodeo as we planned and we had a fun evening out. D was still uncomfortable all night. He was OK on Friday but Saturday he wasn’t feeling well and was nauseous all day. We went to church on Sunday and as soon as we came back he had another attack, this one much more painful than the Thursday night episode. Fortunately, we’d invited his sister and brother-in-law over for lunch so they watched the kids for us while I took him to the urgent care center. He was pacing and stretching and bending constantly, I told him he looked like a meth addict. We both thought it acted like a gall bladder attack, however D had his removed in 2003. Urgent care diagnosed kidney stones and sent us home with some big time pain medication. On Monday, we tried to get in to see our primary care doctor, but had to settle for another doctor in his office. This guy decided that it wasn’t kidney stones at all because D didn’t have all of the symptoms. Dr. Smug decided that D had indigestion. We were both a bit incredulous at that and pushed hard enough that we at least got him to order some blood work. On Tuesday the pain came back. We didn’t mess around and went straight to the ER this time. After many tests, they still didn’t know what was going on and we heard everything from kidney stones again to appendicitis. He was admitted overnight and on Wednesday (June 18th) our primary care doctor came to see him and he immediately said that it was gall stones. Even though D had his gall bladder removed, it’s still possible for him to get gall stones. Who knew? The plan of action was for D to have an endoscopy to remove the stones. So, on Wednesday, D was in the hospital waiting for the endoscopy and I was scheduled to go into the hospital to be induced. His surgeon scheduled his procedure on Wednesday at 7:30 pm so that he could be recovered before I went into labor. They were even going to wheel his bed into my maternity room. it would have been great except… I left for the hospital at about 8:30 Wednesday night and when I got there to check in, labor and delivery was booked, there was no room. I tried to be to be all mad about it, but really, what can you do? D’s procedure went smoothly, they removed an 8mm stone. Since he was in recovery, I went home and hung out with him the next day, calling L&D every few hours to see if they were going to fit me in… no luck. I talked to my doctor finally and we discussed options. The problem was that she was leaving for a week on Sunday and didn’t see any way that I was going to get in for an induction before then. I opted to have her partner deliver me, but her partner wanted to have an appointment with me first, so we set that up for Monday. the appointment went fine and I was once again set up to be induced. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/591963/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 15:24:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/591963/ Sometime in mid to late March, we decided to seriously look at relocating outside of California. Although D’s job was relatively secure, his employer was announcing mass layoffs and we really weren’t interested in waiting to see if he would keep his job or not. After much research, we narrowed things down to Denver, Dallas or Seattle and D activated his resume on a few recruiting sites. He was quickly contacted by quite a few employers and interviewed with a company in Dallas, one local in Silicon Valley and one just north of Denver… I guess Seattle wasn’t interested. The Dallas interview went nowhere. After a number of phone interviews with the Silicon Valley company, that one fizzled as well. The Denver job, however, was quite promising. D had a number of phone interviews and at the end of May he was flown out for a few in-person interviews. He was quite confident that he would be offered a position, we just weren’t certain that the offer would work for his career and our financial needs. A week later the offer came in and it was very clear to us that this was a great opportunity for D’s career and for our family’s future. What a quick answer to prayer! At this same time, I was also expecting our 4th child. She was scheduled to arrive on June 19th. D arranged for July 7th to be his starting date for the new job, but was expecting to commute to LA for training for the first few weeks. The employer that D was leaving was a very large employer and many people that we knew socially and from church worked there, and since he couldn’t turn in his notice until June 23rd, we had to keep our plans to ourselves. We only told our families. Thus began June of 2008… The most stressful month of our lives… well, maybe only second to July of 2008 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/573319/ Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:33:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/rheallity/573319/