A new season of life.

For some reason I have a song in my head while writing this post, and I don’t want to be alone in that so ……   “Somewhere over the rainbow way up high…. is a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.”

There now that I got that out of my system. 

My husband was diagnosed with pneumonia.  SAD.  I know.  He is well and on the mend now. 

If ever there is a perfect time for this to happen.  It was now.

The time has come in my life for me to make a few un-wanted (haha) but necessary changes.  I have had to get a job.  I have been working part time as a checker at a grocery store.  I have 3 kids that will need braces and with my husband being in the oilfield industry, which is a feast and famine type of lifestyle.  I have had to find a way to bring some income in.

So while I was in training, he was able to be home (on the mend) with the kids. 

Now my schedule is more flexible and I have so far been able to maintain working, and homeschooling, as well as being a parent and somewhat of a wife.  LOL. 

I am not planning on this for the long term.  I am looking at this as just a season in my life.  That is helping me get through this. 

I am just now beginning to find balance, and that. is. a. good. thing.

I still feel like I should be home with my family.  I worry about falling behind on my never ending to do list.  But my family has so far been more than helpful in this situation.

I am very fearful that I won’t be able to hold up all the plates I am balancing.  I was doing fine and totally in my comfort zone, which has now been blasted to pieces. 

I asked around and was very surprised to find out how many homeschooling mothers actually hold a job, or volunteer outside of their home.  If they are all making it work, so can I!!!

I want you to know that I really appreciate blogging.  I appreciate being able to journal about my life.  I really appreciate you reading it.  I really appreciate when I read other’s blogs, that I don’t feel alone.   I am hoping some out there can relate to me. 

A week of firsts and lasts.

 

Well last week has been full of a bunch of first and a bunch of lasts. 

To keep in interesting let’s start with the lasts. 

Tommy completed his last lesson in Christian Kids Explore Physics.  He did great clear throughout this program, even toward the end when he had two sciences going on. 

Katey completed her last lesson in Math Made Easy Addition. 

Some Firsts:

Katey began Math U See Beta.  She has actually loved the first few lessons so much that each day she asked, YES, ACTUALLY ASKED to do extra worksheets every day. 

Our biggest first this week is that we cut down our own Christmas tree.  This has a story in and of itself, that I am going to try and blog about later.

Emily and I made our very first batch of completely homemade cinnamon rolls.  We used The Pioneer Woman’s Recipe.  To die for!!  We even Jingled some of our neighbor’s. 

 

Other Happenings

After last weeks calculator dissection, Katey was very jealous.  So I took her to the thrift store and bought her some things to take apart and discover how they work. 

She loved this.

Friday we had our own game night. We played Jenga , we also played knock over the Jenga blocks.  We played our own family version of Rook, which we call Oh’ Heck. 

 

 

We got out our old Labyrinth board out. This is from when I was a child.  We all had a lot of fun with it.

November Happenings

November has been quite a busy month for us. 

It stared off with our new yearly tradition of taking our pumpkins out to the shooting range.  

 

That’s right I carry people.  LoL. 

 

Leaving there we saw the most fantastic sunset.  B-U-tiful!!!

Another thing that has kept me so busy is that I have been taking a very amateur photography course through my local library.

Please don’t start expecting more of me in terms of photography.  I still only own my little point and shoot digital camera. 

My family is insanely sick of me practicing on them. 

Except for Emily.  LOL.  She went to one of the classes with me and kept practicing on herself. 

And me.

She even let the class practice on taking action shots of her flipping her hair.  This is the best I could get with my camera.

 

This really has been a month of science for us.

Katey has been loving science this month. We have been using The Magic School Bus kit on our solar system.  If Katey had it her way, we would have done all the experiments from this the day it arrived.  I have been making her pace them out.  This has really been giving her an in depth understanding of our solar system.  We have been paring the kit up with some books we own along with some library books, including The Magic School Bus books on our solar system. 

Katey has also been working through Autumn Treasures.  This has been perfect for her and I plan on having her start Winter Wonders.

These are week long unit studies.  However we have been doing it much slower.  Autumn Treasures will take us about three weeks. 

Emily had to do a water purification experiment from Prairie Primer and she caught me looking at the water through our Discovery Scope.

I was finally able to purchase Apologia Exploring Creation through General Science.  I have both the older kids working through it using a free schedule download from DonnaYoung.  They do the reading and questions on their own and we do the experiments together.

Here are just a few we have done so far.

The famous density experiment.

This next one was a neat way to see molecules moving slower in cold water and faster in warm water.

We also blew up a balloon using boiled cabbage and baking soda.

We also did some traveling for the Thanksgiving Holiday.

 

 

When we got to Grandma’s house we let off our long awaited Diet Coke/ Mentos Bomb.  It didn’t go off super high because I couldn’t get all the Mentos in before it went off.  It was still super neat.  This was from Science Experiments in a Bag Book 3.

We took our kids to the park and of course turned that into a competition of jumping.

We were going for distance.

Tommy spent some time cooking while on his iPod.  I can’t even remember what he was making here.

The kids were all given Geodes and were able to break them apart.  It was really neat!!  I’m talkin’ REALLY NEAT!!

Our town has a celebration after Thanksgiving and the girls danced in it and were in the Parade of Lights.

We even saw Santa on a horse.  That’s how we do it out here in the country!

Along with our regular schooling, one day during our lunch break Tommy and Emily dissected some non working calculators that my mom had saved for them.

Tyler has fallen in love with the show Doc McStuffins.  I was grateful to find some Doc McStuffin printables at 1+1+1=1.  

I wasn’t sure if he would quite understand this graphing activity.  Once I showed him how, he got it right away and loved every minute of it.

 

On a day to be thankful,

I am thankful for many things in my life.  One of those things happen to be you, my fans, my readers, my support, you! 

I am grateful for the friends and opportunities blogging has provided my family.  I am grateful for the ideas I come across reading your blogs.

I am grateful for the opportunity to show others a glimpse into our life and show you that it doesn’t have to be perfect to have a happy family. 

We have a whole bunch of fun in store for this next year.   I hope you will continue to follow along with us on our bumpy ride.

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