Eek. It's been so long since I updated my blog. I came on to mess around with it and the first thing that greeted me was an add with a sleezy anime looking lady in her underwear. What the heck?! Apparently, you can control these sort of things. Which I now know! Sorry about that. No one has complained to me about it, because I never post...so you probably never saw it!
Anyways! Now that I can move on from all of that..I have been wanting to post more often for months now and I just never seem to get around to it. I really miss being able to document life on here so that I can look back and read it, but with Iphones, Facebook, Instagram, Vine....it seems like I already instantly post what we're up to and it would be redundant to post it again on here. I decided that since it's a brand new year and anything goes, I will revive this old blog. I'm going to just post less on Facebook so that you have to come here to see what we're up to!
So for my first post back, I have the perfect post to rope you all back in.
This February, we are making a HUGE change for our family. We have decided...to homeschool! Randy and I have gone back and forth many times trying to decide what we wanted to do for our children's education. When Ella started Kindergarten, we decided to go with public school and we have had a wonderful experience there! Ella has had two of the most amazing teachers and Noah as well. We absolutely LOVE our little school here in town so that makes this decision one we didn't take lightly. It has been very hard to decide and I (as the natural over analyzer and worrier of the family) have had many restless nights trying to decide if this was right for us. After tons of research, lots of prayer, words of encouragement from other homeschool moms, and talking with each other and Ella...it is official. We have made the decision to begin homeschooling Ella starting on February 1st of this year. I know some of you are wondering what in the world I'm thinking making this big of a switch in the middle of the school year. I have wondered this myself quite a few times while I try and make sense of curriculum and lesson plans. We originally made the decision that we would begin homeschooling in the Fall with Ella in Second Grade and Noah in Kindergarten, but Ella and I both started getting excited to start. We decided there was no real reason why we couldn't so I went online and ordered curriculum and that was that! We set the start date for February 1st so that I can go through all of the books that have arrived and make lesson plans so that we have a plan of what needs to be done each day. The organizer in me needs to have a plan in place. This also gives Ella a chance to have some closure with her teacher and classmates. Thankfully, she will see most of her friends on a regular basis between dance and church, but she really loves her teacher and I though this would make it a little easier. Ella is really excited. She told me multiple times over Winter Break that she wished we could just start homeschooling now, but she is enjoying her time at school while I get things in order. Noah is going to finish out his year at preschool before joining us. He really didn't want to stop going yet so we told him he could wait until Kindergarten to homeschool. He's excited about that and very excited that Ella will be home more. So that's one of the things that has been keeping us super busy right now!
Because I know you're thinking "if you love the school so much, then why are you going to homeschool?!" Here are a couple of the reasons we have decided to homeschool:
1) Ella is six years old and it feels like just yesterday she was born. I consider every minute with her such joy and I especially love watching her play and interact with her brothers! One of the main reasons I have chosen to homeschool is simply the fact that I want to treasure every day with my children because I know it will be over in a blink. I want to be the one teaching them about this world, playing games with them, and helping them navigate all of their decisions and emotions.
2) Randy and I want to be our children's primary influence. Things aren't as simple as they used to be when I was growing up. We want to be able to instill some of the values that are important to our family into our children without feeling like we are competing with what the world says. They will obviously still have many times where they encounter views that don't match up to ours. Or friends who are allowed to dress differently than them or have things we don't allow them to have. This will happen. We just hope that by homeschooling our kids we will have the opportunity to invest in them more each day so that they can be deeply rooted in who they are and what they believe.
There are so many factors and things that helped us with our decision. But I have lots more on my "to do" list today and this post is turning out longer than I intended!! So I will just leave you with that for now! We would appreciate prayers from our friends as we transition. We are so excited, but nervous, too. And finishing up at school will be bittersweet. Thanks for all of you who have been helping me to get started. I treasure your friendship and love very much! So grateful to have you all in my life!
