fun on a sat. night!!

This Saturday is kinda boring. We spent the day at the park but apparently my 2yo Pearce caught a bug there so we decided to watch the fireworks tomorrow and keep the little ones in tonight. Dad is out having a guys night with Parker and I found myself with a quiet house and thought i would do something productive.

I have been a bit anxious since moving here. Even though school seems like it just got out, Ive been so worried about gathering all my curriculum and getting my plan ready. This will be my first year homeschooling three and Im determined to be prepared! so i spent a portion of this evening going through the boxes in the garage labeled books. Weeding out the ones we cant reuse and going through all the hand me down stuff to figure out what we need to purchase for the year.

I was thrilled to realize that through the grace of God i will need to purchase NOTHING as far as books and curriculum. So many homeschool families have passed on homeschool items they werent going to use that we have everything we need and more! Total confirmation that God supports our homeschooling, since some of our stuff is brand new, and many items i have no clue where they came from??? cant wait to pass on the blessings!

I started homeschooling Parker halfway through second grade. with the help of one of the best homeschool moms ever and www.rainbowresource.com I spent just a couple hundred dollars to get everything we needed. Ive never spent more than that because the Lord has always provided and ironically, the year im homeschooling three will be our cheapest yet! yay God!

but sorting through the books got me reminiscing. At first I thought of all the time we've spent together bonding throughout our homeschooling years. I recall fondly teaching my kids to cook and watching Parker show Paxton how to add. Spending all day working on a project instead of a little at a time and turning it in weeks later. There have been so many great times spent together as a family, so many impromptu science projects and nature hunts that I almost forgot about that first year.......

My husband was deployed and had been gone over a year with no date set for return. I had 3 great inspirational friends, 2 who were veterans in the homeschool world and one who was beginning her journey. Many more were in the background serving as unknowing examples but these 3 ladies took me under their wing. I saw the fruits of homeschooling within their families and children and I was inspired. Many people say that they don't need to homeschool because their kids are in "good schools". Well I can assure you Parker was in a fabulous school with an award winning teacher, one of the best in the country! but it wasn't all about that. there is just soo much more, however my husband wasnt falling in love with these families. He hadn't even met them and the only homeschool families he knew were weirdos he recalled from childhood. He thought if you have a good school option, why waste it?

I did something that probably wasn't the best option. I made the decision without him, i ordered the books, i prayed, and i waited. Shortly after I placed the order (also mentally confirming my choice) Beau came home almost sixteen months after he left. The kids had grown, I had begun to walk closer with Christ, our home had been redecorated, everything in his world was different and on top of that I wanted to homeschool. We went back and forth on it for a bit finally settling on the ever popular "whatever you want but don't complain to me etc etc". So I set forth building a plaster volcano and instructing parker through a mock publishing of his first book "Yellow eyes" which scared his sweet friend alison to death, I'm certain she is in therapy over it still lol

Many moms have come to me asking about homeschooling and something I always advocate is family support. It doesnt work well when everyone isn't on board. but somehow I forgot that I homeschooled and persevered for over a year, merely supported by tolerance. I never vented, never complained, just proudly displayed every project and presented the Preamble to the Constitution via memorization with pride. Slowly I would win over my skeptic. I attempted to show him the kind, faithful, well behaved children from other homeschool families, with little results. It wasn't until my husband also began digging into his faith and seeing those results within our own children, that he truly understood my motives. He began to appreciate the freedom to teach religion in our home, making it a part of everyday beyond just dinner time prayers. He loved that we could come and go and school could go with us, we could catch up on saturday, that a failed test didn't mean we move on to the next chapter, but a re taught lesson that would press on until our son completely understood .

If your family has decided to homeschool and everyone is thrilled, consider yourself lucky!! be oh so thankful! but if you are like me and are the sole advocate in your home, don't fret, persevere, we are a success story. Work hard and those traits unique to homeschoolers will inevitably shine. It wasn't a quick or painless ending, I walked on eggshells for longer than I could stand but today Beau is a proud homeschool dad, and proud of me for my perseverance and for taking the narrow road alone when i had to.

Tommorrow is Juy 4th and as a homeschooler I'm so proud of the freedoms we take part in. Thank you to all the men and women who serve so American may remain the land of the free!!