Thursday's Three Rs

Well, the kids around here have started school and for 2 days Moriah has watched the school bus go by our house and I can tell she's rather jealous and wishes she could ride it. She's having a hard time with all her friends being away to school all day and she's not. Originally we were thinking the "unschooling" approach until she's a little older but now that she really really wants to "go" to school I'm wondering if maybe I need to find a small little curriculum to do with her during Isaac's nap-time. The hard thing for me is that even if we weren't going to homeschool her we can't afford pre-school so she wouldn't have gone to school anyways this year. So now the search begins for something fun and quick to do with Moriah that will satisfy this desire to "go" to school so badly. I think what it also means is that I really need to get the family room open and get a little "school" area set up down there and really make her feel like she's "going" to school and trust and believe me when I say that "Mama is your teacher". I'm actually a little excited about this because it's really giving me the motivation to get the family room open and in working order.

Anyways, if anyone has any pre-school curriculum they like let me know. I'm kind of a fan of Montessori so I may start looking there.

Thursday's Three Rs - TWBA

Here is a list of Moriah's current 5 favorite kid's books.

Thursday's Three Rs

Just a little update on the whole homeschooling thing... We are all registered for the ICHE (Illinois Christian Home Educators) convention coming up in June and I'm really excited and anxious at the same time. I'm not so worried about me teaching the kids but for some reason I'm afraid I'm going to shelter my kiddos... I'm not sure why since I haven't in the past, so why would I do it now? I don't know. Anyways, I'm super super excited and hope that this will help get us started. My parents are going to come watch the kids while we're at the convention and I already know I'm going to miss them like crazy. I know it'll be good and I'm doing it FOR them... I'm just going to miss them to pieces. Thankfully, it's close by so if one of us needs to come home to help out with the kids we'll be able to come quickly. I'm worried about Isaac mostly, he won't go to sleep w/o me nursing him first and he lets you know how mad he is... so that would be my one prayer request that he'll take his nap(s) w/o me. We'll be missing the fun stuff at the end of the days but we wanted to be sure we were home to put them to bed. I can't tell you how excited I am though for this convention, since it's all a bit overwhelming and hopefully I'll be able to narrow things down and learn about all the technical stuff. It'll be good to start while she's still in preschool so I have a couple years before we decide if we're doing the right thing. We just really felt called to home school, and I want to be sure it's not my huge desire to be with my kids and that it really is a calling from God. Anyways, thanks for listening to me babble and I'm sure for the next few week's I'll be babbling about how excited I am, lol. Hopefully, it will be more interesting after we've actually gone. It's hard to believe that in 4 weeks we'll be flooded with all this stuff! I just hope my tiny little brain can take it all in.

Speaking of Isaac, can you believe he's 18 months old already. He's totally into everything and is definitely "ALL BOY", but with a sweet teddy bear side. One of my favorite things about being his mama is the gigantic bear hugs he gives... and he gives them all the time and totally randomly. I love this little dude! It was after a whole lot of heartache and trials to finally meet him and I'm so happy that God gave him to us to love and teach.

Flowers Just Bloom

Today's Thursday's Three Rs is going to be a lesson for me that I want to share with you instead of a lesson for my kids.

One of my online girlfriends shared with me a blog post that really resonated with me. I've been really struggling with self-deprecating lately, especially when it comes to photography and my most recent assignments for church and reading this was like a lightbulb flashed. I'm so incredibly honored that people were moved by my photos for the assignment and I need to stop with the self-deprecation.

Anyways, if anyone else feels like they aren't worthy and needs a little lift me up and smack in the face... read this blog post. Flowers Just Bloom by Kelsey Toney.

Earth Day

How do you like my new post header? I decided to spice things up here a little bit and Zoe gave me permission to use her kit which I bought when I bought the blogware from her, Bloom & Grow which matches her Bloom & Grow Blog In A Box which is what I use for everything else. I love the font so much that I used that I'm going to probably change my header and my labels to match. Anyways, today is earth day and we don't normally do anything different than what we normally do but I had bought some herb seeds and decided it would be the perfect day to do some planting with Moriah. Since our yard is a mess and I'm not sure when we'll be able to do some landscaping I'm not going to be able to have my garden this year but my goal is to definitely have a garden next year. So, we'll spend one more year buying our produce from our farmer's market... although we're looking into coops. Moriah had such a blast and she already knows so much about planting seeds thanks to PBS. I really enjoyed her telling me how to do it. Gosh, I love my little smartie pants! Here's a couple pictures from our adventure.

Three Rs Thursday

I'm just amazed how much kids learn when they are young. I'm watching Isaac go from just a floppy newborn to sitting up to crawling and now standing and climbing up stairs. So, amazing to me the natural instinct to learn and explore.

Yesterday, we were driving home from Target and Moriah starts counting, I haven't really worked with her on counting but we hear her counting in her twenties. I hadn't heard her do that before. "...twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve..." so cute how her mind thinks. I was amazed that she even figured that out on her own... I mean, it totally makes sense to me although she got stuck at twenty nineteen. ADORABLE!

Today we went to our new library. It's not a new library but it's out new library since we moved to a new town. I was so excited to find out they still had some room for her age group storytime, so we signed her up. She's so excited, she LOVES reading. She would read all day if she could. She's really into dancing and especially ballet so she wanted to bring home all the Angelina Ballerina books. I just love how excited she is about reading and about going to the library. I'm looking forward to watching her grow into learning how to read for herself.

Three Rs Thursday

I'm in the midst of moving in 2 days and I've got soooo much packing to do before then. This will be short and sweet.

One of the things I like most about homeschooling is reading to my kids. We love the library, if we weren't so busy moving we'd probably go every day. We're looking forward to figuring out our new library and where everything is at. Every time we go to the library I have Moriah pick a theme and I go and find several books on that theme. She loves to dance so most of the time the books are about dancing and ballet. Our most recent trip to the library I asked her if she wanted to read about moving since we'll be moving soon and these have been some of her favorite books. I love when we get up in the morning and I go into her room and she's "reading" her books out loud. Lastly, my favorite is to hear her daddy reading her Bible stories before bed. We have a little devotional for her that was given to her when we had her dedicated to the Lord at our church and she gets to choose 3 stories every night. Why 3?... because she's 3 years old, lol. Mark tells her when she's 4 years old she can have 4 stories read to her. I love it!

Three Rs Thursday - my journey to homeschooling

Well, if you had asked me several years ago if I would ever be homeschooling I would have said "NO WAY". We had Moriah and everything changed. I fell in love like I've never been in love before. She was my miracle child after being told it would be a miracle if we got pregnant. The month before getting pregnant with her I was on a women's retreat with my church and Linda Dillow was our speaker. The last day on Sunday morning we had an amazing worship service. Her message was on Genesis 22, the story of Abraham and Isaac going up to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice Isaac. It was then that I realized that I wasn't trusting God the way that I was supposed to. I'm an artist and see things very vividly. I had realized that I needed to put my womb on the altar and give it back to God. I literally closed my eyes and pictured myself giving him everything. I even pictured, as I was hesitating to let go, having a tug-a-war with my fallopian tube. Yes, that vivid... Linda had a little altar up front and she asked us to right down what it was that we needed to give completely to God. My girlfriend turned to me and said not to right down "babies"... she said I needed to write their names on the paper. I looked back down at my Bible through tear blurred eyes and wrote down Moriah and Isaac on my piece of paper and put it on the altar. From that moment I had complete peace like I've never had before. I knew that God was going to give me those children and I was going to hand them right back to Him.

The summer after having Moriah we were on our way to Michigan to vacation at my parents house. The only station that would come in was a Christian station that was having a "message" about homeschooling. It was then that I felt an overwhelming feeling that this was God's calling us to homeschool our children. We had given Moriah back to God and He was showing us how to raise her. Every scripture passage read just confirmed it more and more. By the end of the message we couldn't get the radio station anymore, coincidence? Maybe it was, but I couldn't get it out of my head that it was God's calling.

One month later Rob Rienow, family pastor at WBC had a message that once again spoke to us personally that we were to homeschool our children. But, then we got a little side tracked, really it was fear that pushed it all aside. I was scared to teach my child... how could I, someone who only has a high school diploma, teach my child everything she needs to know? Then I remember her name and what it means. Moriah means God is my teacher. Ooooooh, now I get it... I'm not her teacher, God is. I'm just the one who gets to share in the joy of seeing her learn. It's God working through me to teach her.

Umm...OK, so where do I begin? I quickly get a bunch of books from the library... WOW, I had no idea all the different styles of homeschooling from curriculum based to "unschooling". Then looking at curriculum, WOW, there is just sooooo much out there. I finally figured out that Moriah learns best by experience. We're already unschooling her by reading to her and telling her about everything around her. She's so smart already. All we do is answer her questions and share in her interests. OK, so fear sets in again... how do I know she'll learn everything if I don't use a curriculum? I found another book at the library, "Christian Unschooling: Growing Your Children in the Freedom of Christ". WOW, that was a real eye-opener. It really truly is all about putting your faith in Christ to teach your children. I may still use curriculum for certain things and may eventually use curriculum for everything but this is where my journey is getting started and can't wait to see what God has in store for me and my family.

I am really enjoying this journey now and letting the fears drift away, obeying God like Abraham did and putting my children on the altar trusting far greater than I've ever trusted in anyone or anything before.


btw, I have my Isaac too after another rough road of suffering and then putting all my trust in God to let me meet that Isaac I had laid on the altar years before.