Starting School and Toads in the Bookshelves

As you can see by the following photos we have begun our homeschooling. Believe it or not they were begging to start, I think we were all ready for some sort of normal schedule since the move and this has given us a chance to do that and also spend some great time together doing read alouds and all the other fun stuff we can pack into our day.

It has been an interesting week as we prepared for school some of the highlights were: twice I found toads in our schoolroom bookshelf (lovely I know, apparently they would like to be educated too, sorry...not gonna happen!), chased down a very fast large spider in my bathroom (seriously, the dude has eight legs, is it too much to ask that he trips so I can stomp him to death?!), spotted a three foot long Monitor Lizard in my backyard (always exciting, he must have been just passing through, didn't even stay long enough for me to get a pic!) and found a cockroach and a cecak in my cupboards! Yikes! That alone is enough to send me to the loony bin, here's a great idea...let's start homeschooling! I do love homeschooling though, not to say that we don't have our days when I desire the long yellow bus or the short one for that matter to come and take the children away :), but most days it's fun and I enjoy watching them grow and learn with me guiding them.

This year we have taken on a task that I tried to do two years ago but we had so much going on in our life it was just impossible to focus on, and that is to memorize the book of James. That's right, all 108 verses! I started not to tell you because the little voice in my head (I said voice, not voices!) said, "What if you tell and then you don't do it?", "What if you tell and you find out it's too hard and people ask you about it, what will you say?" stupid pride! But then I thought that telling you all might help keep me accountable, novel idea, I know! :) So anyway, then I thought it might be fun if some of you joined us and we could keep each other accountable. I think it sounds fun! So far we have all successfully memorized 1:1-5 in the first three days of school. We do it first thing in the morning then ask them to say it at lunch and then again at dinner or bedtime. Haddon was sure she couldn't do it but she has been the most surprising in that she is really enjoying it and has kept pace with her older siblings. If you want to join us leave a comment and let me know!

Well, I need to get to bed because we are starting school at 7am so we can beat the heat but I wanted to ask that you continue in your conversations to the CEO about us. We have a team retreat next week (one week of school and then a week off...can't beat that! :)) and we will be vision casting for this next phase. We need to hear clearly from the CEO and don't want to miss out on what he has for us!

Hope all of you are well, we really enjoy hearing from you all so please post comments and let us know what is going on with you! You also can message me on FB or email us for the new address if you would like to have it. Thanks and love you guys!

How did he get to be in 8th grade? He has a very rigorous curriculum this year, can't wait to see how the CEO will use it to shape him!

In a couple of months Hudson will be 12 years old!! The fact that he is in 6th grade is crazy!!

And don't even get me started on Campbell, in the 3rd grade and almost 9 years old, where did my little chubby cheeked baby go?

And then there is Haddon. Little Miss 2nd grade and 7 years old! She definitely keeps school interesting, especially when she quotes he verses in her "detective" voice! I'll have to catch that on video!


These are just for fun. When we took our friends to that airport we all got a good laugh out of these English bloopers.

I know...the boys need a haircut! I think they are both ready to go shorter...stay tuned, you never know what they'll end up with at one of these barbers!! LOL