Spring Time Update

I haven't taken a picture in over a month.  Not even for Luke's 11 month "birthday", which was yesterday.  My camera isn't lost (but it does need to be recharged); life has just been busy here lately. 
My little baby is growing BIG!  He is eating all kinds of real foods now, including waffles and toast, cooked veggies off my plate, pretty much anything I can chop small enough.  He isn't walking yet, but gets around plenty fast.  I cannot believe that it has been near to a year since God blessed us with Baby Luke. 

 

We are trying to finish up school.  We have the 180 days in, Rachael took her mandatory state test, and now we are just wrapping up some odds and ends.  I think the teacher is as eager to finish up as the students.  The weather has been gloomy so that has been a help.  It is hard to be motivated to keep working in the books when the sunshine is beckoning out the window. 

 

Joel and I had a good time at our state home school convention last weekend.  I really like going.  With soon to be five students, I am sometimes unsure of which book to use, which program to buy, and it is so helpful for me to see and touch them before making the decisions.  Joel is a huge help here.  I greatly appreciate his input.  Plus I enjoy time away with him.  We had a great dinner with our friends and neighbors one evening and spent the other eating Chinese food and looking at scopes and sequences.  How romantic. 

 

One thing I love about homeschooling is the ability to tailor the child's education to him, and the family.  One of our children had a very hard time learning to read, so I was able to easily keep him back a level on the language end of things, while allowing him to move ahead with math and other subjects.  My soon to be Kindergartner isn't quite ready for reading (some of these programs for K are really advanced) so we were able to find a K-4 program that teaches basic phonics, writing and other things that I remember being Kindergarten work when I was in school.   We were also able to buy some great reading books for the summer.  How wonderful that our crew was so excited to see the books that we bought for them.  Homeschooling is hard work.  It takes most of my time, and occupies a good chunk of my already challenged mom brain.  But I see the many blessings, see the children learn, see them develop into God-loving, church-loving Christians and I am glad we chose this route.  I KNOW that there are great families in the public schools.  There are good teachers there too (thanks Joel for working so hard for us), but we are so glad to be able to have our children home with us. 

 

Coming up this month:

• Finishing school for everyone, including Joel.
• Memorial day parade (Benny and Joel will be in it)
• Strawberry picking
• Some field trips
• Making three portfolios
• Visiting family
• Picnic with friends-all these families have large numbers of children, so it is usually a very crowded, very fun event that our children love.  There are enough boys to put together a whole league of baseball teams. 
• some deep cleaning that keeps getting put off.  But must get done
• Enjoying my new washer machine (once I figure out how to work it).  Our old one died after 10 years of hard, hard work for this growing family.  I told the salesman that I wanted "Big and able to handle 15-20 loads a week). 
• Praying hard for our nephew, Kevin.  He was diagnosed last week with Leukemia and is in the hosptial.  It is very hard when something like this is so close to home.  It has been a hard year here with lots of sudden sickness and tradgedy.  It causes me to fall on my knees in prayer, and to be thankful for the time I have with my little ones.   Kevin is doing well right now, and we are praying for a full recovery.  He is nine and Benny's favorite cousin.