Back to the Basics....

Good Friday morning all! It has been a while.

Since my aunt passed away things have been quite crazy around here. We had TONS of family in from California and my house was sort of a base for people to shower and sleep. I ended up not being able to make it to the service Monday night because Jacob came down with strep throat. He was SO sick! By the time we got back from the doctor and I got back with his medicine it was 4:30 and the service started at 5:00 about an hour and 15 minutes away. We did enjoy seeing all of our family though. Some of them I haven't seen since 1994. And some of them had never met my children, so it was nice to see them all.

So all of this brings me to needing to get back to the basics. My home has been in such chaos that I have had no schedule at all! Amber was begging to do school yesterday because it has been so long since I have done any with her. So Monday is the day to get back on track! New week, new schedule, new way of thinking!

On a better note, Jacob has kept up with his school and not gotten behind. I got his school stuff and Amber's kindergarten stuff ordered for the Fall. We got our income tax and I always do that first thing. That way I have it in the Fall and we are ready to go! This next year will be different though with Amber doing school every day. I am going to have to stay on top of things better than I have in the past. And she is ready! She is so excited about starting school. And I am so glad that she is! LOL It makes it easier on me.

I also paid off my stove that I had to get a few months ago. That was nice. And I got a new microwave that goes over my stove. My old one was VERY old and started getting mold in it. So it had to go! Now this weekend we are planning on going van shopping! Please pray that we make the right choice and get the right one. We want God's will on this one.

Well, I guess I am gonna go for now. Here are some before and after pictures of my microwave. Just keep in mind that I have flat paint until my hubby repaints, so there are lots of grease spots on my wall, it looks so gross! Sorry.

Have a great weekend!!!

I was so proud of my hubby, he had to do electrical work and everything!!!

There used to be a vent hood in the empty space right under the cabinet, I didn't think of my camera until we already had it down.

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Before

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My new microwave!(on the table)

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My hubby with his finished product! How handsome is he!

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After! I LOVE it!!!!

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Updating

Hello all! I haven't posted in FOREVER!!! It has been busy around here.

Terri commented and asked me how the babysitting is going. So I thought I would post an update and let all of you know how it is going. It is great!

The kids are 13 and 7. They come 2-4 days a week and the 7 year old gets his school done pretty quickly. The 13 year old takes a little longer of course because she has more work. They are great kids. And it makes things easy for me because any new concepts they learn from mom and dad. And I don't have to check the work. They get that done at home. They use the same curriculum that we do so if they have any questions it is easy for me to help them. But they really just do it all themselves and I just make sure they stay focused and get it done. They get along really well with my kids. And we all go to church together so the kids already knew each other. The best part about it is that they don't get here until around 9 am!!! SO I don't have to get up really early to get them.

It is working really well for everyone I think.

I am having an interesting time preschooling Amber. She is SO independent. It will be different than teaching Jacob and I hope that I can handle it! LOL

And Nathan LOVES anything to do with ABCD's(as he calls it). I think it will be really fun when Nathan is starting school and I have all 3 of them doing stuff.

So things are going smooth here. We are getting lots of school done. Today we are going to hang out with another home school family for a little while. The kids need a fun day. So we are working to get school done early.

Hope you all have a great Tuesday!

First day back....

Today we got back to school and I began a new job! I am keeping 2 home schooled kids a few days a week and I think it is gonna be great! It helped me to stay on schedule better with my own children.

Jacob started back on his PACES after a long break and I think that he was even ready again. Amber started a new pre-school book I got her and she is very happy with it. Nathan hasn't felt well, I think he is cutting some of his last molars. He had a fever until today and he still has a cough.

Well, I wanted to share how well our first day back went. Hope you all have a great week!

Crafty Winter Day....

This morning when we woke up it was snowing!

My kids were so excited, so I decided to do a craft with them and decorate our own snowmen. It was so much fun!

I am LOVING my new digital camera! I took pictures and decided to share them with you. Hope you enjoy our snowmen!

The 3 kiddos doing our craft

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Nate with his snowman

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Nate's snowman up close(I helped him a little)

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Amber with her snowman

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Amber's snowman up close

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Jacob and his snowman

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Jacob's snowman up close

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Me and my snowman

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My snowman up close

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All 4 snowmen

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Busy times....

Hello all! Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We have had a lot going on. We have moved my mom in with us until she can get on her feet. I have started babysitting again. It is two sisters. One is 6 and in school most of the day and her sister is 2 and she and Nathan have a great time. Amber really gets along well with them too. It is more work than normal but I have been able to handle it so far. And having my mom here has been a good help.

I am doing good with my medicine. I have had one panic attack since being on the medicine and it was not that bad. I was able to talk myself through it and after about 30 minutes it went away.
I have had some surges of anxiety come on me and I have just had to breathe and deal with it. I know I am going to make it.

Homeschooling is going good. Jacob is learning new stuff and we are keeping on track. Amber is learning SO FAST! She is writing her name all by herself now after only having help one time. She has mastered the letters A, B, M, E, R, T. And most of that was on her own. She loves doing her workbooks everyday. And that makes it lots easier. Nathan also loves to do school. His coloring is getting more on the paper and less on my table! LOL

I am learning to soak in the little moments like hugging my hubby in the quiet of the night right before we go to sleep. That is when I feel the most normal. I also soak in the moments that I get to rock Nathan to sleep and after he is asleep. I love looking in his sweet face and kissing those baby cheeks. So I am ok and I am getting better. Though I still need your prayers. Each day is a struggle and I can only focus on one day at a time.

Well, that is my update for now. OH I almost forgot! Since I have quit posting on my weight loss blog I decided to update here. I have lost a few more pounds since being on my medicine, it makes me not have such a good appetite. So since January I have lost a total of 14 pounds. My goal for the year was 50 pounds but I am not sure I will make that. Slow and steady seems to be working for me. And I am keeping it off. In the past I have yo-yo dieted and that has finally come to a stop. I feel healthier now than I have in a long time. Physically that is, not so much mentally! LOL (it is either laugh or cry about it, I choose to laugh!)

Thank you for all your encouragement.

Until next time!

FULL school day!

WOW! What a day! We have had the fullest school day we have probably EVER had! George was off today so dad got to spend this fun day with us.

*It all started this morning when we got up at 7 AM and headed out to a Nature Park.
*We walked about 2 miles total while there through the woods and enjoyed the quiet.
*Then we had a pic-nic lunch.
*And to end a perfect morning we played a little soccer and frisbee.
*Then we spent time watching the raccoons rummage through the garbage getting our leftovers, the kids got the biggest kick out of this! LOL
*After that we loaded up and came home where dad took a nap, Jacob got his bookwork done and I did school with Nathan and Amber.
*When dad was done with his nap and we were all finished with school, we had fun with 2 science projects.
*By this time we were all ready for dinner so we ate, cleaned up and got our shoes back on and out the door to Jacob's soccer practice.
*Now we are all home again, the kiddos have all had baths/showers and it is a little after 8 PM.

I am T-I-R-E-D!!!!

Yes it has been a full day but it has been a good day. We enjoyed the family time and I needed the quiet! Now tomorrow I get to catch up on all my housework. Fun, fun!

Well, until next time...........

End of my week! YAY!!

Well, today is Thursday and it was my last day of work. It is wonderful to see Zoe's little face but I have to say having a little 2 month around again has added some extra work to my day!

School has gone really good. Jacob has been challenged already and is glad to be doing school again. Amber has been BEGGING to do school! She LOVES it! And even little Nathan is doing a little stuff and has his own school folder. He also loves it! I haven't gottne Zoe coloring yet but give me a few weeks. LOL

Nathan is going tomorrow to get his 2 year old check up and shots. :0(
I guess tomorrow afternoon will be filled with cuddling and hugs. He does pretty good but he usually runs a fever. And with him being older now it will be a little harder for me. It is tough to see the look in his little eyes when he gets shots.

I just wanted to give a little update while I had a minute.

Hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!!

Our family(school) name........

We finally have come up with a name for our family. I would say our school but our whole lives are a ministry so I thought it fitting to call us.......

HEART FOCUSED MINISTRY

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The scripture to go along with this is:

Proverbs 9:10

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

Jacob helped me choose and we really like it. Hope you all do too!

Have a great night!

Balance!!!!!!

1 Peter 5:8

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

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Good Tuesday morning all! As you can see, God has been speaking to me a little about self-control. So I thought it only fair to share it with you too! LOL

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Seriously, we are coming up on the start of our school year and I am having trouble doing the little things I know that I am supposed to do. Like getting up early, cleaning up my pantry(school area), DUSTING!!! It shouldn't be that hard! BUT.....I have spent the summer being...... well .....LAZY!!!!

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I have this list of things that have got to get done before we start school and I have started on it but there is no motivation! Then I pick up my devotion book from Joyce Meyer and yesterday's entry was talking about making time with God a priority.

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To quote my friend Joyce-"If the devil can't convince you to be idle and passive, he will drive you to do too much. As soon as you are out of balance he can devour you.(see 1 Peter 5:8 above) The word disciple comes from the word discipline. To be a disciple of Jesus, you must discipline yourself to follow his ways."

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I never realized that the word "balance" was in the word of God! Interesting......

I will have to study more on that!

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I don't think the devil is trying to get me to be too idle or give me too much to do. I think that I allowed myself to get out of balance and that is my current problem! I may be the only Jesus that someone else may ever see and I do NOT want them to see an unbalanced, frustrated, tired, unfocused Jesus. Well, that would be impossible because those traits do not flow when you talk about Jesus. He is the opposite of those things!

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So now I know my mistake and I am in the beginning stages of fixing it. Or allowing God to fix it! Because without Him I can't do a thing to fix it!!!!

Please be praying for me.

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Have a great Tuesday! God is GOOD!

A little bit of everything.......

Today I will be posting about a few different things.

First I want to talk about the FREE Chicken biscuit from McDonald's that I just had. Today only you can order a medium or large drink and get a free chicken biscuit until 10:30 and then from 10:30-7 tonight you can order a medium or large drink and get a free chicken sandwich. Well, I ordered a medium iced vanilla coffee and I must say that it was good but it was no Java Chiller from Sonic. Now the chicken biscuit-they are trying to make it like the one from Chick-Fil-A and it is NOT anything like it!! It was good, but Chick-Fil-A has them beat hands down!!!!!

Next we will talk about the fact that we are officially done with school for this year!!!! YAY! It has been a pretty good year, Jacob has done very well in 3rd grade. He got all A's. He has mastered multiplying and cursive writing. (I was really scared of these two things so I am glad he did so well with them.) He read 2 chapter books in Literature this year and wrote little reports on them as he went along. He doesn't feel very creative usually so this was a big deal. He has touched on division and understands it very well. He has learned about punctuation and nouns and verbs. He is so smart and picks up on all of this so quickly! We ordered next years books when we got our stimulus payment and we have already gotten them in. He was so excited! I know that he will do really well in 4th grade also.
Now to Amber and her school stuff. We began the year learning letters and numbers but in September when their paw-paw Kenny died things in this house went a little down hill. We couldn't get back into a good schedule. This has been one of those school years that we couldn't wait for it to end. In the mix of all of this Amber has still done really well. She learned to recognize a few letters, she can count better, her coloring pages look really good instead of looking like scribble, and we have worked a lot on her speech. She is talking a lot clearer now. And her imagination is out of this world!!! We have even dealt with the imaginary friend thing! Jacob never had one of those. She has learned to play on the computer this year too. She LOVES that! She is my book worm. She really loves to look at books. Amber will still only be 4 at the start of our school in the fall so we will be doing a whole year of pre-school.
Now my little Nathan. He will be 2 in July and he is really wanting to color a lot and do craft stuff. He is very hands on. He likes to pretend a lot. He has graduated from eating paper thankfully. So now we can work more on letting him look at books and not worry about him eating a snack while he reads!! LOL
I am glad the summer is here for us. I have hopes for next school year to be full of fun and lots of hands on stuff. I will spend part of the summer planning for next year and I am DETERMINED to stay on a better schedule next year!

Now to sleep. And by that I mean that the last few weeks Nathan has been trying to take my pillow at night. We put him to bed in Amber's bed and usually in the middle of the night he comes to my bed and stays until morning. Well, last night I decided to give him a pillow when I put him in Amber's bed and he slept in her bed ALL NIGHT!!!! I was trilled and a little confused this morning when I woke up! I kept thinking that George was Nathan all night! LOL
So I hope that this is the beginning of something beautiful for me. All of my children sleeping all night in their own spaces that do not include my bed!!!!!

So now that I have taken up so much of your time I will bring this to an end. As your school year comes to an end(or maybe not to those who school year round) and summer approaches, evaluate your year and make a plan of what you may want to do different next year. Make this summer a great one for your children. Plan lots of fun stuff for the summer.

So my words of wisdom for today are:
Have a plan for next year and have lots of fun this summer!!!

Homeschool Trip #4 (last one!)

OK, once again if you are just now looking at this scroll down to the post titled Homeschool Trip and read your way up!



These are just a few random pictures.


This is my beautiful friend Aprille and her two kids Jordan & Noelle. Thanks Aprille for this GREAT idea of a trip. You really are like my sister and I love ya! I love your smile. ;^)





This is my pastor's wife Misty and her kids Destinee, Christian and the little one is Libbey. Misty you really are my family, thanks for all you do for me. I love ya!





This is me and my 3 wonderful kids! You already know us.





Nathan & Libbey, maybe a future here?!?!





And last but not least this is all of us. What a great end to an AWESOME day! Thanks Aprille & Misty for such a great field trip!!!! You both ROCK!!!!

Homeschool Trip #3

Here are pictures from the train station.

Once again if you are just looking at this, begin at the post titled Homeschool Trip and read your way up!

Lunch on the train car.




All the big kids on the train car.




Everyone at the train crossing pole.




They really did learn A LOT this day among all the fun!




Just me and Nate, being silly in the old time office.

Homeschool Trip #2

This is post #2 of our homeschool trip, start with the one titled Homeschool Trip and read your way up.



Here are pictures of the birds at the nature park.

Look at that beauty!




These birds were HUGE!!




Jordan looking at the bird.




They have such attitude! LOL

Homeschool Trip

Hey everyone! I wanted to share with you all our homeschool trip that we took on Thursday the 13th. My friends Aprille & Misty came along with all of their kids. So in all it was 3 adults and 8 kids! We went to Cypress Grove Nature Park and the Railroad Museum.

It was such a blast!! At the nature park we got to see several kinds of birds and walked a lot. At the muesum we got to eat our lunch on a train car and learn all about trains. The kids really enjoyed it.

Here are a few pictures from our day at the nature park.

The 3 moms.



Me and Misty pushing Nathan and Libbey.



All the big kids being so cool!



The big boys, forever friends!



The big girls, beauty queens!

Homeschooling Stuff

Good Wednesday morning everyone!

The other day I was thinking about by blog and wondering if I had ever posted anything at all about homeschooling. You know this is a blog about the real life of a home school mom. And I realized that there isn't much on here about actually homeschooling!
So I thought I would share a little about that today.

Jacob is in the 3rd grade and we use ACE-School of Tomorrow. We LOVE this curriculum! I need something that is laid out for me and I have no guess work with it. I know that if Jacob is learning the material and passing his tests that he is learning what he needs to. That is better for me so that I am not continually second guessing myself. And it is christian based so I like the behaviour stuff he is learning also. It touches on how to treat others and he has to learn scripture.

Amber will be turning 4 next week so we will not be doing any "real" school for her until the 2009-2010 school year. And when I say "real" I mean curriculum. Because we are teaching our children everyday. We could be teaching them to count to 10 or to love each other or we could be teaching them to talk bad about other people! We are watched each and every day by our children. When we are responding right to things or when we are not responding right to things. (that is a hard one for me!) So take advantage of those teachable moments. We don't have to have a pencil and paper in hand to be teaching our children. It could be on a nature walk to teach Science. Or a fishing trip or a trip to the zoo. We are required to do 180 days of "school" in Tennessee, when in reality we school all year round. Our children should learn something new each and every day!

I like the fact that I have an older child now because I think it will be easier to teach Amber and Nathan. It was a real struggle teaching Jacob in the beginning. I was new to it and he didn't have an older sibling to help teach him things. But with the 2 younger ones it is different. Jacob reads to Amber and teaches her stuff all the time just in playing! I guess with him being closer to her level he has more of an understanding of how to explain things to where she will get it. And I will be more laid back when "real" school time comes around for Amber and Nate so I am sure it will flow easier.

There is a run down of our home school life. Hope you enjoyed!

So my words of wisdom for today are:
If there is a moment that you know you have done something wrong and your children have seen or heard it, tell them that you were wrong. Apologize to them and let it be a moment that you teach them that it is OK to admit you were wrong. There will be moments in their lives that they will have to admit that and if we teach them this now it won't be so hard to do when they are adults.