Thankful Heart

I have everything I need.  Our family, our health, our wealth my not be perfect.  But we are here, happy, loving and together as a family.  My heart is full of gratitude for all the blessings we have. 

My wish of 2013 for my family is to continue to explore, learn, and have amazing new adventures together. I am looking forward to our remaining first homeschool year. 

Which brings me to this:  Our New Years plan as a family.  This morning, over our breakfast as a family we took a moment to reflect on 2012, the things we are thankful for, what we would like 2013 to look like, our resolutions, our goals, and how we can make a difference in our community.  It was funny to see what we had in common and what we wanted that was different.

I am blessed, and thankful for this full heart today!

Winter Wonderland

Yesterday was our 11th anniversary!  I am married to my bestfriend.  Of course, we have had ups and downs, as all relationships do.  But my husband is an AMAZING father.  There is nothing more attractive then a man who is doing fun things with children to make memories that will last a lifetime.  And that is exactly what Wayne did with the kids today.  He and Brodie made an adorable snowman.  And he and Katie made an Igloo!  Wayne took the physical load because of Katie's back, and Katie was the director and architect.  They had fun, and Wayne is exhausted!  Just a few more days until Christmas, and another few days until the twins 9th birthday.  I can hardly beleive it has gone by so fast.  It makes my heart ache to realize how incredibly excellerated time seemed to fly by the last 9 years.  With all the craziness going on in the world right now, take time this Christmas to rejoice in your blessings and remember what Christmas is really all about.

♥April

Gingerbread Houses

We love Christmas traditions and we had such a fun time making these guys!  We were buzzing for hours on a sugar high! Wishing you all a blessed Christmas!

Grammar book

Today we made a grammar book!  Flip the cover and have the definition of,  examples of words and sentences.  The kids will keep these little books handy with them to look up information as needed and add information as we go!  Love! 

American Pride

We started a project last week.  I purchased a bunch of regular white binders (which by the way, if you are bored and need a laugh check out the reviews on Amazon's 3 pack of white binders!).  I decided that in my efforts to teach the kids about geography we would dive a little deeper and learn about each state.  I printed out a blank map of the U.S. and then thought of a bunch of generic questions the kids would be required to answer about each state along with a blank rectangle for them to draw each states flag themselves.  We will go alphabetically and as they get a state done, we will color and label the state on our U.S. map!  We are learning so many things, not just memorizing where each state is!  We are learning history, population, state abbreviations, birds, flowers, economy, etc.And the crazy fun thing is that I am learning right along with them! 

Can you think of what the first state is alphabetically?  I'll help you out, it's Alabama.  Here's how it went.  We went to the library, picked up a book about Alabama.  I read the book to the kids, took pause upon important information all while they took notes of things they thought would be important.  Then they went to the work sheet I had prepared for them.  Some of the information they had written in their notes, some of the information was not given in the book.   Then they had to use their research skills to go to the computer to find accurate information, draw the flag and then neatly color in Alabama on the U.S. map when done!

So now the twins know that Alabama was the first state to join The Confederacy.  And from that they learned about slavery, and that we had a civil war, that Alabama made the first rocket that went to the moon, and that Alabama had to diversify their farming after the Boll Weevil attacked the cotton farms.  And then we listened to the old Boll Weevil song and it made us happy.  And it made me happy to know that my kids knew something I didn't know up until the point we learned about it together!

Who knew that home schooling would be so fun!?

Congrats! You're a Daddy!

Words that I never expected to say to my 8 year old son.  Yet, seemed so incredibly fitting after finding 5 zillion baby fish in his fish tank!  We bought these fish when we decided to home school.  My son came to us with a very lawyer like arguement.  He would have much more time to care for a fish now that he wasn't at school all day, it would be good for him to be responsible, I will love and care for them.  You know, the usual arguement given since the beginning of time.  It worked!  I'm a sucker for those big brown eyes.

It started with a fish from Walmart.  It ended promptly after 5 minutes.  Wally was found floating wrong side up in his fancy new fishy abode.  Tears were shed.  He was the best fish in the whole world, and he was gone after a mere 5 incredible minutes. 

The next day we moved onward and upward to Petco.  Surely the place where the pets go would have better quality fish.  Those same big brown eyes that suckered me in found his perfect little fish.  After finally finding a fish attendant, she announced that these fish do better when they are in a group of 3 or more fish.  I argued that surely it would be just fine by itself?  No, no she pointed.  It's on the sign.  Sure enough we were in the section of "better in a group of it's own species tanks".  Who am I to argue with a sign and fish happiness?  Out we tromped with 3 fish.  Thank you Petco fish attendant.

Brodie named them "Robber, Policeman, and Store Manager."  I'm not sure which is the hussy, but there are a gazillion tiny orange, black, yellow, and white fish having a great time playing in the tank.  What does one do with a bunch of baby fish?  We don't want them.  We don't have an appropriate sized tank for the sister wives of fish.  I can't morally flush them, and see tears from those big browns again. 

Free to good home...

Once upon a time...

There was a married woman who decided her life wasn't busy enough, so she decided to start homeschooling her 8 year old twins.  Yep, that's me!  My name is April, I am married to the most amazing man EVER.  Unfortunately, however, he works out of state.   So with virtually no free time, and now adding homeschool to the mix I may truly be crazy in no time!

There are several reasons we decided to make this change in our life.  The one main reason was because our daughter has some medical issues making it painful for her to sit for an extended period of time.  Also, my husband started working out of town and we realized we would be able to come and go easier.  Throw in some school board drama, kids with terrible manners and it really became an easy decision.

It's been three weeks.  An amazing, confusing, rewarding, hair pulling three weeks.  I plan on giving you an honest view of how home schooling is going for us, our adventures (I plan to have lots!), school projects, their ups, my downs.  Basically, the good, the bad, and the ugly.   I'm also kind of crafty, and love to cook; so you may get some of those things too!

One thing I didn't expect to feel was so incredibly fullfilled and at peace with home schooling.  I was overwhelmingly scared at first.  Scared I was going to mess them up.  Scared they wouldn't be socialized enough. Scared I wouldn't have enough patience.  Sometimes I don't.  But mostly we are exploring the great big world, a world that doesn't look as small as it used to.  I feel like I truly know my kids, and I am cherishing every moment of their childhood.  For this, I am blessed and will be forever grateful for this time.

More later...