A little history....

Okay, so everyone seems to be blogging these days and i can see why! It seems to be some amazing way to send your thoughts - however crazy they might seem to you - out into the 'universe' called the internet. And I have been having a lot of thoughts lately :) Why are you all surprised! So, for those of you who have regular blogs, consider this my highest form of flattery...I am coping you ;)

As the title of my blog says ... we are a homeschooling family. Are we doing it with joy? well ... we are trying :) There have been times of great joy and some times of frustration and wondering 'Lord, is this really what you are leading us to do?' But then I look at my girls and it is like the Lord is speaking directly to me as my girls say 'mom, are we homeschooling today?' They love it, and I love that!!

We began this homeschool journey in October when we realized that the conviction the Lord had given us for homeschooling ... and the conviction we pushed aside (I know ...tsk...tsk!) was there for a reason! The Lord has blessed us with 2 precious girls who love to learn, and who love to learn through hands-on activities .... in teachers college we called it 'kinesthetic learning.' They prefer delving into a topic/theme, and learning as much about it as they can ... and having our language, math, art, etc. go along with that theme. And it works!!!

Now ... we hit a bit of a .... well, bump in the road at the end of October when my dad was suddenly called home to heaven. It was very unexpected and literally drove me to my knees! The only pain I have ever known as great as that was the homecall of our little Matthew at 7 weeks old. I was cut to the very core of my being! My dad was not only my dad, he was a best friend, a spiritual leader, someone who gave great, godly advice...but was not offended if you chose not to take it! ;) I was stopped dead in my tracks! And...homeschooling took a backseat. I am sorry to say, so did my girls for a little while. I was dealing with my own grief, while trying to help them deal with theirs! The Lord helped me, (is still helping me!) and we got going again in the new year.

So, here we are getting ready to wrap up our first year of homeschooling, and Hannah's kindergarten year! Are there things that we still need to work on? Oh yah ... but I am so thankful that homeschooling allowed us the flexibility we needed when we needed it! Does that make sense?!
Anyways, all this rambling is really just to tell you that I love homeschooling, and I think that there will be more to come in this blog of mine :)