This Sunday, November 30 is the first Sunday of Advent.  Last year I purchased this Nativity Advent Wreath.  It's really beautiful.  We used it as the centerpiece for our kitchen table, and we'll use it in the same manner again this year.

We'll also be begin reading the book Jotham's Journey by Arnold Ytreeide, on Advent Sunday.  Jotham's Journey is the first in a trilogy of Advent books, that includes Bartholomew's Passage and Tabitha's Travels. 

"Over and over Jotham screamed for his family, but there was no one to hear him. They had vanished. Hewas alone. Where had they gone? How long ago had they left? Through quick, stabbing sobs Jotham told himself, "I must look for my family, I must search until I find them." And so his journey begins. In this widely popular, exciting story for the Advent season, readers follow ten-year-old Jotham across Israel as he searches for his family. Though he faces thieves, robbers, and kidnappers, Jotham also encounters the wise men, shepherds, and innkeepers until at last he finds his way to the Savior born in Bethlehem."

I absolutely love the Season of Advent.  For me, it's a time to focus on the true meaning of Christmas, during a time when we're all stressed about gifts, menus, and holiday parties.  It's especially important to me to take time each day to help focus Ben away from Santa and onto Christ.  He loves lighting the candles and listening to the story.

Speaking of the candles, I thought I'd take a quick moment to review the meaning of each Advent candle.  Last year, when we first decided to spend some time with Advent activities, I had to research this for myself.  So for any of you, who like me, were not raised observing Advent, here's a quick explanation.

The candles of the Advent Wreath include:

The Hope (or Prophecy) Candle:  This candle represents not only the Biblical prophecies about Christ's birth, but the very feeling of anticipation which God's people experienced over hundreds of years as they awaited His coming. Advent is a time when we can, in our own way, join the generations of God's children in awaiting our Messiah. Of course, Advent encompasses both the arrival of the Christ child and His second glorious coming which is yet to occur!

The Peace (or Bethlehem) Candle:  This candle represents the preparations made for the coming Christ child. Bethlehem is an appropriate place to signify preparation because, even though no room was available for Mary and Joseph when they came, God had orchestrated events so that Caesar Augustus called for a census to be taken. Joseph and Mary had to leave Nazareth so that they could register in Bethlehem and the Scriptures below were fulfilled!

The Joy (or Shepherds') Candle:  The shepherds represent the message of great joy that is brought to the world about Jesus' birth!

The Love (or Angel) Candle:  This candle represents the love which God shared with the world when He sent His Son, Jesus! Another theme for this week is sharing--the angels announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds and they shared it with others. The magi also left the baby Jesus and probably shared the wonderful news of the Savior with everyone they met! So this week, as we read through the story of Jesus' birth from Luke 1 and 2 and light all four Advent candles, remember that the light of Christ can only shine brighter as it does on your Advent wreath if we SHARE the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world!

The Christ Candle:  This white candle represents Christ! Our Messiah, Jesus, Light of the World is finally here!

From our home, to yours.

It's that time of year.  Time to pack those shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child.  If you are not familiar with OCC, let me take this opportunity to tell you about it.  OCC is a gift ministry of Samaritan's Purse.  You  pack a shoebox with small toys and toiletries to be delivered to children around the world, in desperate situations.  We've been involved with OCC for several years and it has become a tradition that Ben looks forward to every year.  This is collection week( Nov. 17-24), so you'll want to hurry and get your shoeboxes ready to drop off.  To find a collection center near you, click here.

Ben and I put together our shoebox today and will drop it off at a local church tomorrow.  Here's a picture of all the little treasures Ben chose for our shoebox this year.

It's hard to imagine that we would be able to fit everything into that shoebox, but we did!  We had to trim a few of the packages, and even take some things out of the package, but we got everything snugly fitted.

To go along with filling our shoebox, we always read the book, Boxes for Katje by Candace  Fleming.  This delightful book is set in post WWII Holland.  Katje is a little girl whose city has been devastated by the war.  Deprived of food and clothing, one day Katje receives a box and a letter from a little girl, Rosie, from Indiana.  This begins a steady flow of bigger and bigger boxes delivered to Katje, as Rosie's town becomes aware of Katje's great need, and that of her community.  This book is a perfect go-along for the Operation Christmas Child Ministry.  And if you'd like to do a unit study around the book, you'll find one at Homeschool Share.  As, always, the unit studies at HSS are FREE!  There are even FREE lapbooking components to go along.

Today I am thankful for....

a warm house

a precious child, playing Star Wars in the other room

a loving hubby who will be flying home tonight

a pot of beans cooking on the stove

friends who listen to me whine

no pain in my incision (unless I cough!)

These are just a few things I'm thankful for today.  What are you thankful for?

We're studying this week about Native Americans.  We were able to go on a field trip to a local Nature Preserve to learn about the Native Americans in our area of the country.  When learning about foods they ate, we were reminded of the "3 Sisters,"  corn, beans, and squash.  

Yesterday we shucked some corn to start our corn husk wreath, after reading the book Corn is Maize.  We're getting ready to eat the corn for dinner tonight.  Then last night we baked a pumpkin pie.  All of this got me thinking that it would be fun to make a "3 Sisters" dinner this weekend, sort of a prelude to Thanksgiving dinner.  Yes, I know most people include corn, beans, and squash into Thanksgiving dinner in some form or fashion, but I wanted to highlight  these 3 items in a special dinner.  So dinner Friday  Thursday night will consist of the following:

White Chili (beans)

Cornbread (corn)

Pumpkin pie (squash)

Friday, we'll read the story about the 3 Sisters from our Native American History Pockets, and do the craft to go along.  Should be a great day of learning about the importance of these foods in the lives of Native Americans.

I have a wonderful recipe for White Chili.  It's from a local restaurant and is so yummy.  So I'm going to share that recipe with you all!

Timothy's Famous White Chili

1 pound large white beans
6 cups chicken broth
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium onions, chopped
1 tablespoon oil
2 4-ounce cans of mild green chilies, chopped
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 cups diced cooked chicken breast
3 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
Sour cream
Salsa

Combine beans, broth, garlic and half the onions in a large soup pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until beans are soft, three hours or more, adding more broth if necessary.

In a skillet, sauté remaining onions in oil until tender. Add chilies and seasonings and mix thoroughly. Add to the bean mixture. Add chicken, and simmer one hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve topped with grated cheese, salsa and sour cream.

Serves 8 to 10.

Enjoy!

(oh, and the directions for the corn husk wreath are in the book!)

ETA:  here are a couple of  pictures of the corn husk wreath thus far.  It still needs to dry and be embellished, but at least you can get an idea of what it looks like and how it's made.

shucking the corn

corn's all shucked and a wire hanger formed into a circle

looping the husks around the hanger

the wreath so far

We shreaded all the husks after we were finished.  As it's drying the ends are curling up, making the wreath look "bushier."  We'll probably embellish it with small nuts and cranberries.  I'll be sure to post a final picture in a few days, when we're finished with it.

My sweet friend, Shanna, over at Learning at His Feet, is having a contest on her blog to win a copy of this book.  Head on over there and leave her a comment so you can be entered in her drawing too!  Hope you win! (if I don't, that is!)

I finally found a few moments to upload some pictures and put together a slideshow of our trip to Miami.  Enjoy!

I just spent about 2 hours organizing our plans for our Thanksgiving Unit.  I thought I would share what books, videos, websites, and lapbooking ideas we'll be using this year.  Our primary focus will be on the history of Thanksgiving, Pilgrims and Native Americans, with other fun thrown in (what's Thanksgiving without a turkey craft, right?).  We'll be spending almost 2 weeks on this unit, so as not to feel rushed.   I think it's going to be a blast!

Living Books:  all of our studies begin with Living books.  Here's our book list for this study:

The Story of the Pilgrims by H.L. Ross

The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh

The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George 

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry Devlin

If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern 

A Thanksgiving Wish by Michael Rosen

Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims by Clyde Robert Bulla (this will be our read aloud)

Videos: Ben loves videos, so they often really bring home the ideas in a fun way for him.  Here are 3 videos we were able to find at our library:

Colonial Life for Children: Plimouth Plantation

American History for Children: Early Settlers  

American History for Children: Native American Life

Lapbooking/Notebooking:  we are using mostly lapbooking components this year to create notebooks.  So it's sort of a combination of lapbooking and notebooking.  There are several resources here that we'll pick and choose from to add to our notebook:

Thanksgiving Lapbook from Knowledge Box Central

Thanksgiving Lapbook from Live and Learn Press (you can receive this lapbook for FREE by joining their yahoo group)

Thanksgiving Interactive Notebook from Lilliput Station (another FREE lapbook, just a few things, but very cute!)

Cranberry Thanksgiving Lapbook from Homeschool Share (everything is always FREE at HSS!)

History Pockets: Life in Plymouth Colony by Evan Moor 

History Pockets: Colonial America by Evan Moor 

Colonial America by Scholastic

Crafts and Cooking:  Handprint turkeys, Pilgrim Hat cookies, and Fishbowl Pumpkin luminary, not to mention yummy Cranberry Bread!

Thanksgiving Crafts Video from Expert Village--this is a wonderful resource with video instructions for making a Thanksgiving placemat, pinecone turkey, Pilgrim place holder, and table centerpiece!

All New Crafts for Thanksgiving by Kathy Ross 

Paper Handprint Turkey from Kaboose

Fishbowl Pumpkin Luminary  I think this will be a cute centerpiece for our Thanksgiving table.  We'll do a design that doesn't look so much like Halloween though.

Cranberry Bread (from the book, Cranberry Thanksgiving) we read this book and make this bread every Thanksgiving.

Pilgrim Hat Cookies these are soooo cute and sound really yummy!

I almost forgot to mention, we'll be starting our unit with a field trip to a local nature preserve.  There we will be learning about Native Americans, including language, culture, music, dance, games, hunting and tracking.  Doesn't that sound incredible?!!?

For those of you who aren't aware, I underwent a total abdominal hysterectomy, including ovaries, along with an appendectomy on Oct. 23.  Gratefully, all of the pathology was benign.  I had a rather large mass on my ovary and there was worry for awhile that I might have ovarian cancer.  The surprise was that apparently I was living with chronic appendicitis.  It had even caused inflammation of a portion of my colon. Getting that thing out of there has to feel better!  There is also now curiosity about whether or not that appendix could be the cause of some symptoms I've had for the past year.  Symptoms that have lead to a work-up for auto-immune diseases and an upcoming appointment with a rheumatologist.  I suppose only time will tell.

Having had 2 prior major abdominal surgeries, I really thought after 2 weeks I'd be feeling great and able to enjoy the other 4 weeks off work.  Well, I guess I didn't take into consideration that a vertical incision would be trickier to recover from.  So here I am, 2 1/2 weeks out and I must admit I am exhausted and I'm still having quite a bit of pain.   This has really interrupted life for us.

So in case you were wondering why no blogging, there you have it.  I will tell you, we are still working on our Elections Unit.  This week we will be working on the Presidents part.  Hopefully next week, we can do things related to Veteran's Day and then we'll be moving into our Thanksgiving study.

Basically, until after Christmas, we're coasting along.  I'm hopeful we can get back into the full swing of things after the first of the year.

We are continuing to use Time4Learning, mostly for supplementing math and language arts, but Ben has enjoyed the other studies as well, usually just doing them on his own, for fun.  When you register for a grade, you have access to the grade below and the grade above, so it's nice if your child is working at different levels for different subjects, like Ben.  IIt's fun and interactive, Ben really really enjoys it.  There is the added bonus of a lot of games that can be played once the work is done.  Great incentive for those kids who need that.  It's been a Godsend for us during the time of surgery, hospitalization and recovery, and I think we'll continue using it to supplement even after we pick up with the math and language arts curricula we were using prior to all of this happening.

Your prayers for my continued recovery are greatly appreciated.

I'm not one to forward emails and such, but my aunt sent this to me today and I thought there were some really good little advice tidbits in there.  So I thought I'd share.

1. Pray

2. Go to bed on time.

3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.

4. Say No to projects that won't fit into your time schedule or that will compromise your mental health.

5. Delegate tasks to capable others.

6. Simplify and unclutter your life.

7. Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.)

8. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.

9. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump the hard things all together.

10. Take one day at a time.

11. Separate worries from concerns . If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety . If you can't do anything about a situation, forget it.

12. Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases.

13. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc.

14. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.   

15. Do something for the Kid in You everyday.

16. Carry a Bible with you to read while waiting in line.

17. Get enough rest.

18. Eat right.

19 Get organized so everything has its place.

20. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life.

21. Write down thoughts and inspirations.

22. Every day, find time to be alone.

23. Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don't wait until it's time to go to bed to try and pray.

24. Make friends with Godly people.

25. Keep a folder of favorite scriptures on hand.

26. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good 'Thank you Jesus .'

27. Laugh.

28. Laugh some more!

29. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.

30. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).

31. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most).

32. Sit on your ego.

33 Talk less; listen more.

34. Slow down.

35. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.

36.Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never been grateful for before. GOD HAS A WAY OF TURNING THINGS AROUND FOR YOU.

Using Amanda Bennett's unit study on Elections, we have begun to learn the process of how our President is elected.  We're also reading about a handful of Presidents along the way.

 I wanted share with you all a list of resources to help you learn more about our presidential history and elections.  Even if you aren't doing Amanda's unit, you'll enjoy these books, videos, lapbooks and websites with your kids.

Book List

A Picture Book of George Washington

George Washington's Breakfast

If You Grew Up with George Washington

A Picture Book of Thomas Jefferson

A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln

If You Grew Up with Abraham Lincoln

A Picture Book of John F. Kennedy

Bully for you Teddy Roosevelt

Scholastic Encyclopedia of the Presidents and Their Times

So You Want To Be President

America Votes: How Our President Is Elected

Presidential Elections and Other Cool Facts

If I Ran for President

Duck for President

Vote!

A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution

We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States

Videos

Schlessinger media has a series of videos you'll want to look for in your library.  Our library has most of them.  The series is entitled American Government for Children and titles include:

The History of American Government

A History of the Presidency

What Is Government?

The Three Branches of Government

Fereral, State, and Local Government

American Citizenship

There are Teacher's Guides available for all of these videos as well.  You can find them here.

Schlessinger also has videos about Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln as a part of their Great Americans for Children series.  Our library carries all of these videos as well.

Websites

There are lots of websites out there, but a few kid-friendly sites that will give you and your students a good overview of our government and elections include:

Ben's Guide to US Government for Kids

White House Kids

Electing a President

Time for Kids Election Connection

Finally, if you're looking for a FREE or cheap Unit Study or Lapbook on Elections, here are a few to choose from:

Amanda Bennett's Elections Unit Study (notebooking pages available)

Presidents and Elections Unit from Oklahoma Homeschool

Elections Lapbook FREE from Homeschool Share

Presidential Elections Lapbook FREE from Notebook Learning

Presidential Elections Process Lapbook from Knowledge Box Central (50% off, use code CONST50

Presidential Election 2008 Lapbook from Hands of a Child (currently on sale $3 off)

I've written before about some health issues I've been dealing with this year.  Well, add another to the list.  While we were in Miami I began having abdominal pain and nausea.  As soon as we returned home, I saw my Dr.  A few days later, an u/s revealed a large mass in my pelvis, presumably on my left ovary.  A visit to a gyn oncologist later, and I am scheduled to have that removed along with a total abdominal hysterectomy.  I'll be admitted to the hospital for sugery this Thursday.

Which brings me to our homeschool.  Between the health issues, and a stop along the way for studies on the Olympics, the Everglades, and now the Election, we have fallen way behind with My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures.  Weeks and weeks behind.  Which makes me crazy!  I love ECC, I love having a schedule to follow, if nothing happens to interfere with the following of the schedule.  Obviously, that's not been the case for us.  And now having surgery and the resulting recovery period will make it even more difficult to keep up.

So, some adjustments need to be made.  Isn't that the beauty of homeschooling?  When our plans backfire for whatever reason, we are able to readjust to a schedule or curriculum that will work best for us.  So I'm simplifying things greatly for the rest of the year.  I need things to be easy, easy for me, easy for Ben to work independently more, and easy for my Mom who will be helping a lot.

Change #1 obviously is that we'll be shelving ECC for now.  My first love has always been unit studies, so we'll be going back to using those.  Once we finish Amanda Bennett's Elections Unit, we'll move on to literature-based units from Homeschool Share and Five in a Row, volume 4.

Change #2 is that we've added Time4Learning to our day.  If you are not familiar with Time4Learning, you'll want to check out their website.  It is a web-based curriculum for Pre-K to 8th grade.  We'll be using it mostly for Math and Language Arts, but they also have Science and Social Studies.  We started using it last week and Ben absolutely loves it!  There are many benefits to it.  I can set timers for each subject, they have lesson plans and printable worksheets for added practice, it keeps a record of what Ben has completed and his quiz scores, and the most fun part for Ben is the Playground.  The Playground has tons of fun games to play.  You can even set up a schedule of schoolwork followed by Playground time.  Ben's scheduled is set so that he does 30 minutes of math lessons, then 15 minutes of Playground time, 30 minutes of Language Arts, followed by 15 minutes of Playground time.  It's a great incentive to complete the schoolwork, knowing he'll have some play time as a reward.

We'll continue our Singapore math as well, a couple of times a week.  We'll also continue our animal studies and notebooking with our friends once a week, along with copywork using our Manners book.  And certainly our unit studies will cover science and social studies well.  But for now, this will be it.  I think it's plenty for the next couple of months, and will make it easy for Nana or Dad to step in to help out.

So we'll finish up Elections, and move on to Pirates (per Ben's request).  I'm hoping to talk him into a Thanksgiving unit first, but if not, oh well.  I think some time of child-directed learning may be just what the Dr. orders.

And I mean that literally.  We are in south FL for 12 days.  Before leaving I put together a unit study, complete with lapbook/notebook components.  So once again we are taking a deter from MFW for a quick unit study.  I need a bumper sticker that reads, "I break for unit studies!"

Once we get back and I can get everything in a more organized form, the unit will go up at Homeschool Share for anyone who would want to use this unit study.  In the meantime, I'll share some of the resources I'm using (and pictures should it ever stop raining so we can take our Everglades tour!!).

Picture books we are using include:

Welcome to the River of Grass by Jane Yolen

Everglades by Jean Craighead George

Everglades Forever: Restoring America's Great Wetland by Trish Marx

Welcome to Everglades National Park by Nadia Higgins

Our read alouds are:

The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo by Jean Craighead George                                                                          

The Wonderful Sky Boat: And Other Native American Tales from the Southeast by Jane Louise Curry

The Moon of the Alligators by Jean Craighead George

Some helpful websites include:

Everglades National Park

The Journey to Restore America's Everglades Educator Resources

I never knew how wonderful and fascinating The Everglades were until I started planning this unit.  It's just an alligator-filled swamp, right?  Wrong!  There are 5 different habitats with hundreds of different animals and plants living there.  Mammals, reptiles, birds, insects, amphibians, fish, amazing trees and flowers.  And there is no place like it in the entire world!  We are learning so much!

If you've read much of my blog, you've seen many references to Homeschool Share.  It's an awesome website full of FREE resources for unit studies and lapbooking/notebooking.  Ami, Celia, and Wende have made HSS a wonderful home for many of us who enjoy making living books, Charlotte Mason-ish, literature-rich, unit study learning and lapbooking/notebooking a part of our homeschools. 

But now they've made things even better by adding a forum with several message boards.  My sweet friends Candace and Jimmie, and I  have joined the staff at HSS to help moderate the forums.  We are all very excited about this new venture.

So if you're looking for a home on the web, love literature-base learning and/or lapbooks, come on over and join us at the Homeschool Share Forums.  We'd love to see you there!

No, seriously....it did.  On Sunday, for several hours, we experienced howling winds, up to 75mph.  Most of the city lost power, including us.  Over 250,000 homes are still without power.  Fortunately for us, we live about 1/2 mile from Valhalla, where the Ryder Cup is being held this week.  I think that may have put us on the priority list, because our power was restored after only 24 hours.  They're saying 10-14 days for most.  Talk about priorities.

Driving around the city, seeing all the downed power lines, fallen limbs, uprooted trees makes me sad for those in Texas who really got smacked by Ike.  At least we only had wind, no rain.  I can't imagine the devastation there.  It seems that area of the country was just finally getting back to some semblance of normalcy after Katrina, now Ike has hit.

It troubles me.  It makes me want to do something.  I pray.  I give monetarily.  But it doesn't seem to be enough.  Tomorrow, my life will continue as usual, the status quo, you know.  Minus a few pounds of meat, a few bags of frozen veggies, a gallon of milk. But it will go on mostly as though nothing has happened.  Something doesn't seem right about that.  But how should it be different?  What else do I do?

On a happy note, my camera has been found!  So now I can upload some pictures of what we've been doing in school for the past several weeks.  I'm recovering from some minor surgery at present, but as soon as I'm back to my normal self, I have a lot of catching up to do (and yes, I'm aware that's not the first time I've said that!).

I have fibromyalgia.  In fact, I'm in the midst of a flair right now and have barely been out of bed for 2 days.  I don't tell you that for sympathy or pity (though I do cherish your prayers), I tell you that because somewhere out there is another homeschooling mom with a chronic illness or pain wondering if she can homeschool.  And my answer to that is an unequivocal, YES!

So now that you know it can be done, the question becomes, how?  I wanted to share  a few tips I've learned along the way, tips that work for me.  Bare in mind that I am homeschooling only one child.  I'm sure the modifications would be a bit different for a larger family.

#1  Buy one of those breakfast tables with legs.  Ben has spent quite a bit of time in bed with me for the past couple of days.  He can do all of his seatwork on the  breakfast table, and I'm right there to offer instruction or answer questions.

#2  Keep a library basket full of books and videos pertaining to the subject you're learning about.  We're currently studying about Mexico and the desert habitat.  We've been able to learn so much just from a few videos I had picked up from the library last week.  And Ben has been reading to me, which kills 2 birds with one stone....he's reading aloud, and learning!

#3  Don't forget to take advantage educational programming as well.  Reading Rainbow has been a Godsend for us on more than one occasion.  There are also computer games that can fill in. 

#4  Don't overextend yourself. Now I'll be honest and say that this is the toughest one for me.  I like to stay busy and so does Ben.  It will work out fine as long as you always have a back-up plan, someone to fill in for you if you can't keep a commitment.  Letting people know that this could happen is also a good idea.  I plan field trips for local homeschoolers and there has been a time or two that I was not able to attend.  Bringing on a co-coordinator was the best thing I've ever done.  We missed a playdate today too.  I didn't tell Ben about it ahead of time, thankfully, so he's not disappointed, though I am.

#5 Make room in your schedule for days that you simply can't do anything.  We begin our school year in July and end in May.  That way we have plenty of wiggle room.

#6 Ask for help when you need it.  I'm blessed that this week my hubby happens to be home on vacation.  Most weeks he's traveling.  If I'm having a day or 2 when I just cannot function on any level, I'm sure to call on someone, mostly my mom, sometimes a friend.  I can always count on my mom to come pick up Ben and take him to spend the night with her, and to bring me whatever I may need.  None of us wish to be an imposition on anyone, but sometimes you just have to buck up and ask for help. 

#7  Take advantage of current events.  This year we have both the Olympics and Presidential Election to learn about.  Add a few books or videos to your basket about subjects such as these.  Magazines like God's World News may give you some topics to discuss as well.

#8 Know that sending them to school is not the best option.  You want to homeschool your children, you feel called to do that.  Trust me, whatever time they have at home with you is better quality than they'll get there.  I honestly couldn't imagine the last couple of day, getting up at the crack of dawn and getting Ben ready for and off to school.  That would have been a much more difficult chore than keeping him home.

I'm not saying it's easy.  It's not.  Many things in life aren't easy.  But they're worth the challenges, sacrifices and hard work it takes to make them work.  Homeschooling is like that for all of us, isn't it? Challenging, sacrificial, hard work.  Having a chronic illness may make it a bit more difficult, but the rewards are great.

Mexican food is no stranger to our home.  We all love spicy Mexican (even Tex-Mex) food.  Ben especially.  I would say at least once a week, we have something that we would consider Mexican food....tacos, nachos, burritos.

I've already  mentioned that we're in the midst of our study of Mexico.  So it came as no surprise to me that Ben would ask (repeatedly) for Mexican food at mealtime.  But I was a little shocked the other day when he wanted a Mexican breakfast!

So, I asked him what he would like to have for his desayuno mexicano.  And this was his recipe:

2 scrambled eggs and grated mozerella cheese, wrapped in a flour tortilla, topped with a generous helping of salsa.

Not exactly Huevos Rancheros, but a pretty good attempt for a 7-year-old, I'd say.  He cooked most of it himself too!  And he gobbled it up.  Every, single bite!