In a couple weeks I will start a new chapter in my life, teacher. But here's the thing, as parents we are always teachers, I'm just becoming one more officially as I start homeschooling my oldest daughter Mia.
I will start with my disclaimer, I'm not anti-school, anti-teachers, this is just a decision we have made for our family for our reasons.
Homeschooling is something we had always thought about but my decision was confirmed when I decided to not work full time anymore after Melody was born. I still do my radio show but the rest of my time is with my girls. I wanted to pour into their lives 100%. Deut. 6:5-7 says "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and wen you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up." How can I do this when they are gone 80% of the day. Then they come home burnt out and your
opportunities with them are less and less.
It's so easy to get caught up in the business of life. Kids have after school activities, hours of homework piling up on them. Homeschooling is my opportunity to really spend time with them. No laundry, cooking or dishes getting in the way. It's just us one on one. I don't want to look back on their lives and have any regrets that we didn't spend enough time together. These few years have already gone so fast I feel like it's only going to go faster. We can pick up and travel without worrying about taking them out of school, we can take school with us. We can set our own schedule. Do school through the summer if we want and take Friday's off through the year to do this. We don't have to be up at 6am to get everyone ready to rush out and be on time for school. We can do what we want and that's awesome!
One question I do get asked about in regards to homeschooling is "socializing". I don't really know what people mean exactly when they ask this but I'm assuming it's about them having a social life and friendships. We are committed to making sure our girls are involved in enough organized activities outside our home like swimming, dance, or whatever they want to get involved in but not too much that family is no longer the priority. I do think it's important that they spend time with friends. They will have their friends at church as well as the wonderful homeschooling community that we are involved with. That's the great thing about how far homeschooling has come. We have a group that we will meet with each week where the girls can make friends. So there will be lots of "socializing". Some other homeschool moms told me they had to pull back on all their activities because there is so much to get involved with.
What are we hoping for our kids from this? We want them to learn to trust in the Word of God, to have it hidden in their heart. We want to train them in the way they should go, so it may go well with them. We want them to be healthy, confident, and to know they are beautifully and wonderfully made. We want them to keep their childlike faith, and we want them to be a light in this world. We want them to be confident, to have good manners, to be compassionate, to be respectful, and to be humble in spirit.
It's an exciting journey can't wait to start!
Thursday, August 20, 2015
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Melody has grown....but have I?
Last year at this time I wrote about Melody's first birthday party and the fact that I went over the top on my spending regarding the decor and theme.....and no one noticed! Pinterest will literally make you crazy when you see all these pictures of kids birthday parties and all the work that moms put into it, but do the kids notice all the little things...NO...we do it for the adults, mainly the other moms so they will think we are awesome.
Over the weekend we celebrated Melody's second birthday. As a mom you can't help but spend the time reflecting on the day they were born and how much your life has changed because of them and how fast they are growing up. So Melody has obviously grown, but have I grown since last year and my party obsession.
I would say yes and no....it's all about baby steps. First of all the guest list was much smaller, just a couple friends and family so I would say that's growth. I picked the Disney Cars theme. She LOVES that movie and we have a special tie to it after staying at the CARS hotel in Disney this year.
I'm not crafty so last year I overspent because I ordered all my owl decorations from other crafty moms on Etsy. Thankfully CARS theme party supplies are available at several different dollar stores so I saved money there Now with that said it did look like the CARS movie threw up in my house with all the decorations but they were cheap...so again a little progress.
Because of the smaller guest list I didn't have to obsess over the food and trying to come up with cute ideas. It was much simpler and less of a headache. I wanted to attempt to make the cake for Melody. Again i'm not crafty so this could be a disaster but I wanted to at least try. I had to get over what everyone was going to think....I made it with love, the kids thought it was cute and really just wanted to eat it so who cares what it looks like.
I wanted to make Melody a cute birthday shirt with the CARS logo. Thankfully a friend with photo shop was able to make the logo for me. I rarely use my color printer so the iron on transfer didn't print as bright as I wanted and then it faded more once I ironed it on the shirt. This is where I need more growth. I obsessed over this silly shirt. Did I have time to go get another ink cartridge? I had another shirt they came in a pack of 2. But I don't ever print in color so this shirt was going to end up costing me a lot more money than I had planned. I took me awhile to bring myself back to planet earth and remind myself that she is only 2. It has Lightening Mcqueen on it that's all she cares about, so I didn't go get the extra ink and she loved her shirt.....baby steps. By the way she only wore for about an hour until she opened a birthday gift with new clothes from her Nana and she had to put on the new stuff.
All in all it was a really fun day. We celebrated our sweet girl who brings so much light and noise to our lives :) Mia loves a party so she had a blast even if it wasn't her birthday. Phil, as a dad to 2 girls, will probably be around a lot of pink girly birthday parties in the future. So I think he enjoyed having the cars theme too :)
2 years ago I learned that just when you think you have this parenting thing under control you have your second child, who is the total opposite of your first, and you throw out everything you thought you knew and start over again. Melody is incredibly strong willed with a side of stubborn. She has a set of lungs that will make your ears ring and quite mischievous. She is loving with her hugs and snuggles, funny, smart and super cute. 90% of the time she adores her big sister the other 10% she is exercising her lungs with her. Watching their relationship grow has been pure joy. They are the first people they both ask about each morning. She has brought so much light and joy into our lives I couldn't imagine a day without her.
Over the weekend we celebrated Melody's second birthday. As a mom you can't help but spend the time reflecting on the day they were born and how much your life has changed because of them and how fast they are growing up. So Melody has obviously grown, but have I grown since last year and my party obsession.
I would say yes and no....it's all about baby steps. First of all the guest list was much smaller, just a couple friends and family so I would say that's growth. I picked the Disney Cars theme. She LOVES that movie and we have a special tie to it after staying at the CARS hotel in Disney this year.
I'm not crafty so last year I overspent because I ordered all my owl decorations from other crafty moms on Etsy. Thankfully CARS theme party supplies are available at several different dollar stores so I saved money there Now with that said it did look like the CARS movie threw up in my house with all the decorations but they were cheap...so again a little progress.
Because of the smaller guest list I didn't have to obsess over the food and trying to come up with cute ideas. It was much simpler and less of a headache. I wanted to attempt to make the cake for Melody. Again i'm not crafty so this could be a disaster but I wanted to at least try. I had to get over what everyone was going to think....I made it with love, the kids thought it was cute and really just wanted to eat it so who cares what it looks like.
I wanted to make Melody a cute birthday shirt with the CARS logo. Thankfully a friend with photo shop was able to make the logo for me. I rarely use my color printer so the iron on transfer didn't print as bright as I wanted and then it faded more once I ironed it on the shirt. This is where I need more growth. I obsessed over this silly shirt. Did I have time to go get another ink cartridge? I had another shirt they came in a pack of 2. But I don't ever print in color so this shirt was going to end up costing me a lot more money than I had planned. I took me awhile to bring myself back to planet earth and remind myself that she is only 2. It has Lightening Mcqueen on it that's all she cares about, so I didn't go get the extra ink and she loved her shirt.....baby steps. By the way she only wore for about an hour until she opened a birthday gift with new clothes from her Nana and she had to put on the new stuff.
All in all it was a really fun day. We celebrated our sweet girl who brings so much light and noise to our lives :) Mia loves a party so she had a blast even if it wasn't her birthday. Phil, as a dad to 2 girls, will probably be around a lot of pink girly birthday parties in the future. So I think he enjoyed having the cars theme too :)
2 years ago I learned that just when you think you have this parenting thing under control you have your second child, who is the total opposite of your first, and you throw out everything you thought you knew and start over again. Melody is incredibly strong willed with a side of stubborn. She has a set of lungs that will make your ears ring and quite mischievous. She is loving with her hugs and snuggles, funny, smart and super cute. 90% of the time she adores her big sister the other 10% she is exercising her lungs with her. Watching their relationship grow has been pure joy. They are the first people they both ask about each morning. She has brought so much light and joy into our lives I couldn't imagine a day without her.
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