Our Homeschool Journey

For some odd reason I'm homeschooling.

It doesn't feel quite so odd anymore, but when I think of me two and a half years ago with an almost three year old moving to Mississippi, I know she would not have homeschooled. She was eager and anxious to find a preschool upon stepping foot in Mississippi because it seemed like that is what everyone else was doing. She was longing for "me" time so that she could do whatever she wanted to do without any interruptions.

But that didn't last long. My heart slowly began to change. I decided to put off preschool until the fall and I enrolled Alyssa in a two day a week school. Fall came and I had AGONIZED for 6 months about whether it was right to put Alyssa in preschool. If I didn't, would she socialize? How would she ever learn to share? What was she missing out on and what would I miss out on?

A week before school started in 2014 I withdrew Alyssa from the class.

That year together was important. Alyssa made important changes at that stage of her life. It is the point where your toddler becomes a little kid and can talk and play and become independent. We had some really hard, frustrating days, but we also had fun.

She went to preschool when she was four. I was pregnant and I felt she would enjoy that time to do something for her. It would give her a school experience and after the baby was born, she would have some place to go that was familiar and all her own.

By mid-year of that preschool year, I knew I was going to homeschool and I became confident in responding that such was our plan when people asked about kindergarten.

Mid summer Alyssa said she wanted to start school, so I jumped on it. We had purchased a math workbook that she enjoyed and I had bequeathed upon me mounds of other people's homeschool stuff, so I thought we were ready to go.

The first few weeks went ok. It was novel and we had fun, but then I started to get a little caught up on the rigidity of routine and the excitement of progress and I met resistance. Oh resistance. It can be such a scary thing. I want my child to succeed, but I don't want to push her until she breaks. I want to enjoy learning and I don't want tears.

But I am learning resistance doesn't need to be scary. It is a sign that humility is needed. It requires reevaluation of goals and priorities. It is a reality check. How old is my child? And I'm expecting what?!

Already in the last 3 months school has morphed to new things. We have really long centers - you know, like you had in kindergarten. Instead of the Lego center lasting 20 minutes, it lasts a week at our house. Math and reading happen, but not to the extent of hating it. And we read out loud often. Books are our friends. We go on adventures, meet new people and experience new feelings.

Sometimes we trap ourselves into cages that society has built with bars of expectations. But when we let ourselves get out of the cages, we find there is so much beauty to enjoy. We are no longer crowded in by judgments, but we find we have wings to fly! (cliche me!)

Maybe when all is said and done I will tell you what my homeschool philosophy is. Maybe I will understand it all better, but I hope now to enjoy each day together with my children and I hope they will have memories to cherish. I hope they will learn and grow and with little stress they will find that the world is theirs to have! I hope that I will not look back and wish I had done things too differently, but that I will know I did my best and that we did it at a pace that is sustainable and enjoyable.

I am excited for our journey of learning that we are embarking upon and I hope we will reach the end together, sane and happy!

Hotter Than Hell

These studs took it upon themselves to flirt with the temperatures of hell! They participated in the Hotter than Hell bike race in Wichita Falls, TX this past weekend! They rode 50-100 miles and proved to themselves that they have what it takes to go to hell and back.

We had a fun weekend in Texas with the Archibalds! Erik and I went to the temple, we celebrated Maria's birthday and spent Saturday in the sun...even though we thought we were sitting in the shade, our sunburns prove otherwise! It was a nice break from everyday life and we had a good time.

My favorite thing about visiting family of any kind is how they play with Alyssa and Taft. Alyssa was orchestrating quite the doctors office with Doug and they also played Legos. She helped Maria feed her rats and there was swimming with everyone! I am grateful Alyssa has strong relationships with all of her aunts and uncles. She loves to be with them and I love watching them play with her!

Days Go By

When Alyssa lived her first year of life, I think I lived 10 years. It felt so long! I had no idea how long and taxing it was until we had Taft and now he is already 8 months old! Today was a day with wings. Somehow it was already lunch time and yet it felt like we had just had breakfast!

Sometimes time goes slow though...like when you are sitting at the Norrell exit waiting for American Airlines to pull their act together.

And we all miss this guy.

Photo Cred: Me @ Joseph while Alyssa and Ben make farting noises and pull their seats up between their legs over and over again.

My Hungry Baby

Taft has a little chair that attaches to the counter top. He often sits there while I make dinner, playing with random items from the kitchen and eating crackers. The other day he was sitting in his seat and I was making burritos. I had the burritos all wrapped up in the pan and was preparing a sauce to put on top. I turned from the sauce back to the pan and noticed a burrito was missing! Guess who had it...

Taft was hungry and he wasn't going to wait around all afternoon for the burritos to finish cooking!

The Lake House Birthday Party

We had a fun weekend going to East Texas to the Young Lake House on Lake Callender to celebrate JL's birthday! It was a super fast trip so we packed it with as much fun as possible! We watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics, played a switch seats game, ate cake, fished, rode on a jet ski, rode on a tube pulled by a jet ski, swam, and laughed! Alyssa led Doug in a rigorous Fitness Blender routine while wearing her new exercise clothes and Erik and JL got their own workout in with a bike ride or two!

The only picture I got was this one...Taft's face after Nana said hello!

By the end of the day on Saturday Taft was fine sitting with Nana and no longer was surprised by her exclamations!

Erik's favorite part of our weekend trip was riding on the jet ski with me driving. Alyssa's favorite part was swimming in the lake. My favorite part was being away from real life - if only for 24 hours and enjoying time together when time was not of the essence...until it was time to go home.