G R A D U A T I O N ! ! !

We did it!  We successfully got one whole child through homeschooling.  This is a monumental achievement for a homeschool mom.  We wonder all along if this day will ever come.  We hope and pray that we aren’t wrecking the kids by doing this ourselves.  And that right there is the key…. I never felt like I was doing this by myself.  It was me, and my terribly supportive husband, my co-op mamas, our support group, the state organization (Arizona Families for Home Education) and mostly God, who called us to this way of life and education 12 long years ago.

I have no regrets for choosing homeschooling.  All the sacrifices and tears have been worth it…. every little bit.  I do have a few regrets involving course choices and follow through, which we all encounter our first time.  I have learned from my mistakes and have already made corrections for guinea pig #2 who just finished his first year of high school.

I liken the homeschool journey similarly to childbirth.  The painful memories diminish as the joys grow each day.  Truly my happy homeschool experiences outweigh the horrible ones 100 to 1, for which I am stupendously thankful.  Our family is close and we love each other.  We love being together.  We love playing games together and they don’t end in yelling matches or wrestling fights.  We even love vacationing together.  Secretly, the kids even love learning together, but they try to keep this under raps.

The great news is that I am still looking forward to planning next year!  I still love homeschooling.  I love being with my kids.  I love learning and teaching.  However, it is with great relief in my ever-loving-heart that I have exactly 81 days of NOT homeschooling ahead of me.  They will be busy days of summer movies, packing and planning for college for our graduate, swim parties, a 9-year-old birthday celebration, a marriage retreat, a relaxing vacation to the beach and then Tahoe, the homeschool convention and a visit to friends in Kansas and Colorado.  I have waited for THIS DAY…. June 4, 2012 for a Loooooooong time.  It arrived.  I am beyond elated.  :o)

American History Ends!

Yes, the Mayans were right!  2012!!  THE END!  American History was the topic this past year for my homeschool class of high schoolers… and it ends day after tomorrow.  We started in 1440 (Go ahead and guess why we started there!) and ended in the 1970s.  I told the kids if they want to find out what has happened in the last 42 years, they are on their own!  The Vietnam War ended and we were done.  Kaput.  Finis. 

We did add a bit of culture and art to the study to keep it interesting (for me!) and we debunked several idols from these youngsters’ minds.  “Like what?”  you ask.  Well, it seems of few of them were drawn to the hippies…. the Jesus people… the Kennedy’s… the Beatles… all for glamorous reasons.  Then we studied some of their lifestyles, choices, outcomes and habits.  Not too glamorous after all.  Perfect!  That is why we homeschool!  To look at REAL history.

Another homeschool mom (who might just be crazier than me!) and I sat together today and did some planning for next school year… which we decided will start two weeks after all the public schools here in Arizona.  Because we can!  Yet another reason to homeschool!  We were at an Abeka display/sale in a nearby hotel.  If you don’t know anything about Abeka, it is a Christian based curriculum that is EXTREMELY thorough… so thorough that it actually contains TOO much school work for the average kid to endure.  It is great, in my humble opinion, as a “pick one topic each year” curriculum.  So we used it for American History and I loved it.  Next year we are using it for spelling and vocabulary.

Anyway, back to the two of us rockin’ cool moms sitting at the table amongst sold-out Abeka moms. We had another curriculum opened that teaches Godly character… and we were talking through a list of national parks that we hope to visit this coming school year.  We were discussing weather and what time of year would be best for us to go to each one.  She was explaining, and I was listening, all the science teaching that can be coordinated with the findings at each park.  We were planning our weeks of study at home… and our week at each park.  Eventually we noticed that the workbook moms sitting around us were all staring lustfully at our plans.  One finally blurted out, “I want to school with you two!”  hahahaha…. why do you think we do this?  We don’t want to be bored!  We don’t want to use ONLY books!  We don’t want to wear out the kitchen table!  We want to live learning!  I wanted to scream “Abeka is boring!  Look out the window at what God made for you to enjoy!”  But I didn’t.  The salesman was quite an impressive figure and I wasn’t sure I could take him, if need be.  The looks in their eyes solidified WHY we do what we do!  My friend whispered to me, “I think they just do school at home,” implying that they aren’t truly “homeschooling.”

We want our kids to love learning, to see creation as an organized and amazingly ordered system that WORKS, to appreciate great men and women who have endured and suffered and succeeded and lost and lived out their beliefs. But most importantly, we want them to know God.  To love God.  To serve others.  To use their individual talents for the kingdom.  THAT is why we do what we do!

Beachcombers R Us

We spent last week at Monterey, California and God blessed us with unbelievable weather for April on the coast!  Sunny and gorgeous!  My friend, Connie, got our whole family hooked on searching for sea glass…. I’m not quite sure why it is so addicting.  Possibly because it is FREE and the colors of glass are so amazing.  We found this little cove, after much climbing and crawling over large rocks, where the waves were bringing new pieces of glass with each crash and roll.  After my entire tennis shoe went under the water, in pursuit of a huge green treasure, even I joined the freezing barefoot ranks and took the plunge.  Usually I prefer to view the water, not feel the water.

The majority of our discoveries were green and brown….. 7-Up and beer bottles in past lives.  But we did find some rare gems in PINK!, red, yellow, white and royal blue.  My 15-year-old son saw a shining royal blue bottle in a thrift store and asked if we could buy it and throw it in the ocean…. for our next visit in three months!  GREAT idea!

What do we do with the sea litter, you ask?  There are mini jars at the beach house that have sorted-by-color sea glass…. so I added my finds to that happy color display.  For homeschooling we count this as math…. sorting.  :o)  It could also be categorized as history, science and social studies.  Whatever we call it, it was the BEST kind of schooling, in my humble opinion.  The rest of the family brought home their glass pieces …. I’m not sure why.  Possibly because they were FREE and the colors of glass are so amazing!

And no, we didn’t color coordinate our clothes with the ocean… it simply worked out that way.  It was a matchy-matchy sort of day all the way around.

Keep Your Small Children Off the Streets!

It’s that time of my life again…. I’m getting old fast.  My little blond haired son who stuttered and yelled every word while he ran instead of walking anywhere…. just got his driver’s permit.  He was three-years-old about six months ago.  How does this keep happening to me?  In the past few years, every time he would comment on my driving (like suggesting that I could have made it through the light I stopped at) I would tell him to add two more months past his 16th birthday for a possible driving date.  Funny how he stopped commenting about six or eight months ago…. hoping I would forget all the months that were added. I have not.  What do you think I am?  Old?

Before my 15 1/2-year-old got his permit, I mentioned to my husband that I’m not real comfortable riding with my eldest son behind the wheel.  The last time he drove the van was in 1999 and HE WAS THREE!  He hit a fire hydrant and the van got a hole bashed in the rear bumper. Yes, he went in reverse AND drive!  It’s all still so clear in my motherly-horror-of-horrors-memory.  Back to my comment to my husband.  He responded as a more-than-confident father, “He’s a great driver. He’s a guy. He’ll do fine.  He’s my son.”  I rolled my proverbial eyeballs. Our 18-year-old daughter did an involuntary sputter/choke/laugh.  She then questioned, “What does Dad know that the insurance companies don’t know?”  GREAT question.

Thankfully, my eldest son actually IS a confident and safe driver so far.  We have not ventured onto the highway yet, but his success in parking lots and side streets is quite good.  I’m actually feeling more confident now than when my very nervous and cautious daughter started this process three years ago. 

Two student drivers down.  Two to go.  God help us!

My Son Wears a Unitard…..

…. but thankfully, he’s not dancing with ribbons at the same time!  He is riding for a foundation called Team Winded that raises awareness of asthma.  We are THRILLED that he has this opportunity and gets to associate with top-notch individuals who are making Team Winded function!

That’s him on the right with the Night Rider glasses on.  I love the team’s orange booties because it makes the riders so easily identifiable on the track! Today was Austin’s first category four race.  Cycling begins at category five and they work their way up to one… and professional.  We’ve been told that it usually takes about ten years of riding to hit your prime… that will be age 24 for Austin.  It’s a long term goal, but he is passionate, determined and sturdy!

Here is an informative article about The Winded Foundation:  http://www.freedomwaymagazine.com/winded-foundation-works-raise-asthma-awareness

God has brought many amazing opportunities into this young man’s life…. this is by far one of the coolest!!!  Thank you, Team Winded (Jay and Tisha!) for sponsoring Austin and having the vision to grow riders! These guys range in age from 15 to 18 and Austin is one of the youngest on the team.

(Austin is third from the right above and in the middle below.)

Preparing for U.S. History

This is one of my favorite activities, even though it consumes my Mondays and Tuesdays every week.  That is also why there are usually no posts on here Mondays and Tuesdays… but a few occurences are worth mentioning today… as I step away from the Civil War for ten minutes.

1.  My 15-year-old son has been growing out his hair for a long time.  Yesterday he asked me a question I NEVER thought I’d hear… “Mom, do you know how to cut my hair in a mullet?”  What in the world?  It’s been 25 years since I’ve done a mullet, but I believe I remember how.  And then it happened… I was transported back to college in 1985… mullets everywhere.  The mullet went down a little rustier than planned (in fact I need to do some repair work tonight) but it made us all laugh until we cried.

 

2.  My 15-year-old son got some running TOE shoes.  What in the world?  They are red with black rubber on the bottom…. with a little strap just like Mary Jane’s to hold them on his hairy feet.  He’s been wearing them around the house all day “breaking them in”… for what, I’m not sure.  Maybe running.  But he’s a cyclist.

3.  Ringo the wiener dog is brain-dead when it comes to house/potty training.  Seriously… brain DEAD.  This will take a LOT of diligent work.  He also tried to chew the back of the Ethan Allen rocking chair.  Not good.  We initiated the use of the spray bottle today.  All I have to add is he’s lucky he’s so cute.

4.  Buying SparkNotes from Barnes & Noble online is cheaper and quicker than running down to the store to buy them.  Don’t tell my American History students, please.  A few clicks…. 44 printed pages… and BAM… I’m smarter than a 5th grader.

That is all for now.  Peace out!

Homeschool Mom High School Freak Out!

This is all past tense freaking out we’re talking about… five months ago was when it occurred.  My daughter was beginning her senior year in high school and she needed a transcript for some such activity or club or other stress-producing avenue for this homeschool mother.  Lots of moms have high school homeschool anxiety… how will I teach chemistry, or trigonometry, or a foreign language when all I know is pig latin from Zoom??? 

I’m a planner by nature, so making the high school plan was right up my alley.  The lovely state we reside in has the high school requirements right there online for us to copy and paste.  I simply spread out the course requirements over four years and BAM… it was done.  Fast forward to the request for the transcript.  WHAT?  You want grades from the last three years?  Of course I kept diligent track of all of them… including electives and P.E. and driver’s education…. somewhere.  Being somewhat organized, I had thrown them all into a file folder AND I knew where it was.  Whew!

Through the first three years of high school teaching, I had also been collecting transcript templates.  They were thrown in a file folder that I knew the location of!  See?  Why was I freaking out?  I guess I had heard of other moms losing it at this point, so I jumped on the band wagon.

Truly, it was no big deal.  One balmy August afternoon when it was WAY too hot to go outdoors in Phoenix, AZ, I sat down at the computer and made my own template for an OFFICIAL HIGH SCHOOL TRANSCRIPT.  Yes, I wrote that right at the top in bold letters.  Looks really official.  I resurrected the high school plan for my daughter… the one with two cute pictures on the top… (one from 1994 when she had a waterfall hairdo and was sitting in her high chair.. and one glamor shot taken by her talented cousin, Whitney) and I filled in the classes as they actually happened.  Bam!

Why do homeschool moms freak out about this??  I’m not sure.  The Lord fills in the gaps for us EVERY time.  The credits added up to more than enough.  The required classes were accomplished.  He supplied teachers for the subjects where I know nothing.  Homeschooling is really about leaving the details up to the Lord.  We wake up every day and pray for wisdom… and then march down the stairs, feeling as unqualified as ever, and rely on the Lord to aid this sometimes weary soul.  I wouldn’t trade one day of our homeschooling adventure…. (I can think of about 10 days I would trade!) … but each day with its trials, joys and triumphs was worth every ounce of my ever-loving-sold-out devotion to God and our kids.

Tonight I copied and pasted Official High School Transcript #1 and filled in the blanks for #2.  And it’s only half way through his freshman year!  Sweet Jesus, I’m on top of this thang now!

HELLO! and come in for some hot cocoa!

Many disturbances in the force have contributed to my blogging absence… including, but not limited to, Christmas, my sister and her family visiting from Washington, Christmas Eve service, an Elvis Dinner Theater double date, Jesus’ Birthday party, cookie decorating, shopping, wrapping, Chelsea (Larisa’s friend) visiting for a week, and an Amazon gift wrapping experience that made me appreciate my life. (That warranted a blog all by itself!) Oh, and I almost forgot the most important reason I have not been on MSJ…. my laptop got a virus and wouldn’t let me get online.  It’s all better now, thanks to Howard.

Many Christmas blessings transpired which I have been eager to share.  #1 (and most important) I got a text from my friend Jill on Dec. 22nd near midnight that read “A friend has two free baby wiener dogs. Did you get Larisa a gift yet?”  That was it.  I was ruined.  Have you seen dachshund puppies?  They are irresistible… even if you have sworn by the Virgin Mother and the baby Jesus child that you will never go through puppy-raising a second time in your entire life.  My 18-year-old daughter has wanted a wiener dog for years.  She has a dog.  But she wanted a wiener dog.  I’ve said NO for years.  She has taped pictures of wiener dogs on my bedroom door.  She has posted wiener dog pictures on my facebook page.  She even doggy-sits wiener dogs… and brings them over to show me how adorable they are.  I finally broke down and told her I would buy a wiener dog for her as a wedding gift.  (She doesn’t even have a love interest at the moment… and as I said previously, she’s only 18.)  I thought it was a great compromise.  Then came the text.  I didn’t say anything, I simply showed the text to my husband.  We both raised our eyebrows and shook our heads.  We were thinking the same thing….. FREE…. and our little Colombian princess would love to have a puppy to play with.  It could be a doggy for both of our girls to share.  Then when Larisa goes to college, Nora is still here to clean up the back yard of doggy doodoo.  Perfect.

I called another friend who received a baby wiener dog for Christmas last year…. and didn’t keep it.  I wanted to know why.  Her answer didn’t help me.  She didn’t have time to train him.  Well, I’m home all the time… with nothing to do.  Perfect.  I started to list off all the things we would need to purchase for the puppy…. doggy door, crate, gate, etc.  She piped in with a FREE doggy door and crate.  Perfect.

Christmas Eve at approximately 11:59 and 1/2 Rick gave his blessing for the acquisition of the baby wiener dog.  Oh, were our girls going to be thrilled.  A few glitches have occurred.  It took us so long to decide, the puppy missed ride #1 from California to Phoenix.  Ride #2 is on Jan. 3rd.  At least that gives us a week before we start school again!  Here are the girls when they heard the new puppy news:

Shocked and amazed.  It was priceless.  We only have a few blurry pictures from which to choose a new family pet… and they are from a cell phone.  We don’t have a name chosen yet, and Larisa is leaning toward the bigger brown puppy not the smaller black puppy.  I’ll keep you posted and hopefully get some blog-worthy photos.

I’ll save #2 and #3 Christmas blessings for other blogs.  Needless to say… not much else could beat a Christmas puppy… and it isn’t even home yet.  (I’m seeing this as my ticket to new carpet… in a year!)

Family Pictures….. ugh.

This pretty well sums up our family picture attempt.  We laughed.  We cried. It moved us, Bob.  (sorry… Veggietales does it to me every time.)  The sun was too bright.  The shadows were too dark.  We squinted too much. And on and on.

It started at 10 a.m. when I realized that it was the only day in the following six that we had a chance to take a family picture when the sun was still up in the sky.  I picked light blue for everyone to wear… but this did not go down without major whining from the chillins.  Good grief. Calm Down.  We did have to borrow a shirt for Larisa from her cousin… and jeans for Keeve from his cousin.  I’m very thankful our cousins live across the street and are relatively the same sizes as most of my kids!  Also, my sister-in-law, Julie took the photos for us. 

After the clothing issue was settled (at least in my mind) and the fronts of all the shirts were ironed…. we moved on to hair.  Two haircuts were had by the shaggiest members of the clan. And showers were had by most.  By then it was noon.  Off to the park… where the sun was shining so brightly we could barely open our eyes.  It was awesome!  Not really.

That was as good as that pose got after 17 tries…. good grief. Calm down.  The shadows were just too harsh and we moved to the shade, much to my husband’s chagrin as he loves sending pictures of green grass in December to his friends and family in the frozen north.  We moved to the back of the community center cement sign… so it looks like we’re in the hood.

Finally, at least most of us are smiling half-normally.  And a family photo shoot would not be complete without some planking……

2:00.  Bam!  Family pictures done for another 12 months.  Only took four hours.

My Salt & Pepper Boys

Sometimes life comes at you too fast.  Vividly I remember the days of two boys in diapers.  I remember my husband deciding that he was done paying for diapers and he pronounced that it was underwear time for the little man still sporting Huggies.  We went through a looooonnnng week of him wearing every pair of big-boy undies that he owned….. every day…. and the laundry going every night…. all week long.  Then I pronounced that we were paying for diapers for a while longer.  It simply doesn’t seem that long ago.  I remember yelling out the back door, “If you have to go potty, COME INSIDE! We’re not cavemen!”  I miss the stuttering and the lisp… long since missing from the family dinner table.  I STILL stand outside their bedroom door and listen to them talk to each other at night… just like I did 11 years ago when we first moved them together in the “boy’s room.”

Alas, this Friday, my little salt and pepper boys will be THIRTEEN and fifteen.  Teenagers.  Both of them.  How can that be since I’m still 27????  hahahaha. This great awakening caused me to take a jaunty trip down memory lane in the photo box.  Enjoy… my boys when they were little and cute and I dressed them the same.  Now they are big and cute and I rarely have a say in their clothing.  I AM happy that they aren’t “watering” my flowers any more….. at least that I am aware of.

 

And here they are NOW……