31 Days to Live Like it's Your Last: Day 9

I spent my day looking up educational songs for my children

to do some memory work.  

I did their school work with them and then began the search until

my husband got home.  

Yes it was a long search

I began to ache and yet there were so many things to look at!

 Good thing the kids were sleeping!  

I cooked dinner and we ran out to football practice were

I left Hubby and Mr. A to be picked up by my brother and

I dropped the other two off with my mother.  

Then I headed out for our homeschool mom's support night.  

We had a great speaker

She is actually the owner of Apologia along

with her husband.

I'd tell you more about that but honestly I'm just to tired. 

Her message was about joy I will tell you that much 

and that I really enjoyed it!

I

just 

lived 

today

as

it came

that's the truth of the day

I hope you were about to live out some things on your list. 

I suppose going to the mom's support night is on 

my list because making some good friends is 

on that list and 

I'm really hoping to cultivate some real friendships from this group.

Joy

is what I leave you with

Where is it that you find your joy?  

Love,

Mommaraff

Homework and the Yard

Mr. A did so well with his school work today he actually had time to go play outside twice woot.  Somedays are more of a drag and he takes forever to do any of his work but today I think he finally realized that he would get to play outside if he got it done fast.  We did some work and then I sent him and Monkey outside to play.  They were down in the horse arena playing in the sand until lunch time when  I called them up for toasted PB&J's.  Pumpkin ate two of them and then wanted more I couldn't believe it!  Is he growing or what?  After lunch I sent the little ones down for a nap and they went so easy.  Mr. A got back to work and then was done for the day so when his brothers got up we all went outside in the backyard.  I got out our new gardening gloves and we pulled the grass and weeds out of the yard...you might be wondering at that I know it might sound weird but part of our yard is covered in rocks I'm not sure why but I think it's because of the rattlers and other pest we have out here.  It makes it easier to see them anyways.  We didn't get to far though because the children kept getting distracted and then I began cutting the rose bushes we have out there.  I got one stuck in my arm where the thorns were each spread out so I had to stretch my skin to get it out and that hurt Pumpkin came to my rescue and yelled at the thorns saying "bad choice, no, don't hurt my momma!!"  It was very cute and then he asked me if I was ok I love that kid.  Soon after that we went inside and Hubby made us a turkey meatloaf.  It was very different and good. 

Thats most of our day in a nutshell.

P.S. Yesterday after Mr. A's choir class we stopped by a natural store and got some pineapple-strawberry dried fruit (it looks like red pineapple I don't know how they do it unless they soak the pineapple in strawberry juice) they are so good I am getting addicted!  I can't wait to get some more.

P.S.S. I found some really good ideas at another homeschool blog and I can't wait to get to a store and buy a poster board I'll show you what I mean as soon as I make it it's going to be a great addition to our school days :) and I'll provide the link to her blog!

Change is on the Horizon

I was thinking that I really ought to stop posting on my blog so late!  After an entire day with the children, animals, homeschool, and the myriad of everything else and everyone else I deal with/do I really seem unable to type./spell!  I have been reading over some of my posts (after someone comments I try to read my posts to see what they saw and what they are referring to specifically) and I need to type earlier my brain shuts down a lot sooner then I post.  Spell check can only do so much.  Another thing that I have been thinking about is changing up my blog.  I have just been updating everyone on our life over here but I'd like to do more (maybe it's my writers heart or maybe my short attention span...anyways..).  I'd like to really let you guys in on my struggles as a parent, homeschooler, mother, and some of the many other hats I wear.  This might be where I lose some of you readers as whats in my heart is God and I'm going to try to relate and create my life more around him.  I really need to work on that.  I need to see my life more from God's perspective!  I've been a christian for well all of my life except I have not lived as one all the time.  There was high school when my baby sister died and I went of the deep end with depression and some aggression (we'll not mention the Harley shirts and baggy jeans!).  I blamed God and tried to run away from him while he with his patience just kept gently tugging me back.  It's so true no matter what he never lets go.  There have been other times...times I am to embarrassed to even mention.  No matter what we are human and we can get ugly no one is immune to the power and temptation of ugly!  Ugly is what we call the actions our children make that we cringe at like the typical child's "harrumph" at the thought of not getting their way and we say "that was a really ugly sound you need to change that and use your words"  Ugly is what I think sometimes when I am not getting my way and ugly is what I sometimes say in the heat of a moment.  I have been ugly.  I hope to grow and to become stronger so that I can resist the temptation of ugly.  I am so glad that he never lets me go!  

 So welcome to my crazy life and my soon to be revamped blog!  I am going to try to change the top and some buttons to make it more visually appealing also.  I can't wait!  As a side note for those who do just want to read what has been going on in my life as I have been doing, I will still be adding in an extra post to do just that.  How I will do it is the question.  Whether it will be weekly or daily still I am unsure so stay tuned.

Have a great night and I will be seeing you shortly!

Working at it

Recent things have not been very exciting whats new right lol.  So the camper we are living in is apparently leaking up by our bed oh joy some things got ruined but at least we realized it quickly and not when we were covered up to our eyeballs in mold.  The little bit of mold that we did find we kills with a steam cleaner, lysol and bleach. 

I have been going for walks almost everyday since the 31st of December.  I have missed only three days and decided that Saturdays and Sundays are going to be my days off.  They say that you need to take some off so that your muscles have time to repair themselves so I now have an excuse lol.  I began wearing a pedometer this week.  My first day I logged a little over 5000 steps, second day was 4897 steps, and now today I have no clue...why?  Because my pedometer reset itself twice.  I know that it was almost 5000 steps then it reset then I had another 500 something steps and it reset then I walked another 25 steps realized it and took the darn thing off.  So Tomorrow I will retry it and hopefully it will be in a better spot so that it will not reset or I will be throwing the thing across the room.  If it goes back to working I will be recording the steps I take everyday in order to see how much moving I am actually doing.  Did you know that you are suppose to walk 10000 steps a day?  I am a little behind even though I have been going for my walk.  I am begining to think that I would need a job outside of the home to gain that many steps seeing as how normal household stuff and parenting are not getting me enough steps.  Or there is the other possibily that I still need to do more around the house and maybe go outside with the kids once in awhile...yes I do not like to go outside...it's cold and dirty lol. 

Today I did go out and feed the horses some peppermint horse treats which they loved the goats did not like them so more for the horses lol.  Big Al is a little mad at us right now we haven't had him long at all so he is still building trust with us.  The reason he is mad is because he had a sore from his blanket rubbing on his backbone where the horn of a saddle would sit and so Jolene put some iodine on it.  He did not like it at all.  Its going to be a while before anyone gets to ride him so he can let that heal and gain some more trust with us.  As for the blanket it won't be going back on him for a while.  It's interesting how he does not have a winter coat where as Bailee has a huge coat and looks really shaggy and warm.  We are hoping that with out the blanket he will develop a coat but I'm not sure if it's the type of horse he is or the fact of where he was living and having a blanket on all the time while there.  Either way we will see.

Brian is going to school he is begining his second week and just received one of his programs from the school today so hopefully tomorrow he can play around with it a bit.  I am happy for him he is working toward his dream job.  The schooling is stressful so far and with him being ill so I hope he can keep it up.

As a last note we all have a cold here in some state of entry or recovery so we have been going through tissues like mad I wonder if we should do a study of where all that mucous comes from Aidan might find it interesting as I gag yuck.  Homeschooling is going well we are not good about doing math as we are really bored with our Saxon curriculum but have been encouraged to keep at it because it gets better...the year however is half over and we are barely into the book because it is so boring.  I know that it works for some families but for us it's not moving fast enough and has a lot of extras that we don't need so I have to read through the teachers book subtracts a lot of dialogue since it is scripted and then finally we can begin and then we are only using a little bit of the lesson.  So I will not be using it next year if anyone has any ideas of what would be a good math subtitute for first grade or knows of some great curriculum let me know please!
I am also looking for a new Character building lesson book.  I really want to build good character into my sons so that they can be men of real worth.  He is reading now woot!  woot!  It's about time.  He still has a long way to go but I am so pleased with the progress we tried reading last year at it was like pulling teeth.  We are liking the new books we have.

Thats about it for now :)

Hope you are having a great week!!

Homeschool Choices

I always say I'll keep up on this but then life comes and I'm back to doing nothing so no promises from now on I'm just going to write when I can.  I still love homeschooling but I'm feeling a bit lost there are so many things I wanted to do and now I'm just not sure when to do them.  I was thinking that something was to old for him but turned out now he's behind in it.  We joined a charter school and they want him to start persuasive writing assignments in the first grade he can't read yet.  So I'm wondering where does the we are going to wait for that and it's time to do this now come in?  Do I just say hey we aren't going to be doing that this early in the year while she possibly gives me a dirty look or do I just try to fit it in somewhere?  It's easier and yet harder to be in a charter.  It's no longer about what we want to do and I somehow have to fit in my own school ideas and their homework they would like us to do.  The easier part is it takes the guess work out of where he should be and gives me free resources and materials.  I'm going to have to think about what I want to do for next year go it alone and do as we please or keep going with this.