As the only homeschooling family in both of our extended families and among our close friends at times I feel a little alone. While we do have some wonderful supporters and a great cheering squad (who have honestly told me they would NEVER take this route but applaud us doing it) there are a large number of people in our lives who simply do not understand or only see the examples of homeschooling that are extreme and negative.

One thing I wish people would realize is that this is NOT the easy way out… in fact, sending the boys to school would be WAY easier. Instead I look at it this way – Ken and myself have decided to take on the responsibility of teaching out children. This is a great honour for us and as much as it can be frustrating or upsetting from time to time I LOVE it. We work VERY hard to ensure we get in as much learning, both practical and book in a day as we can and do it year round. We feel that this is beneficial for our WHOLE family and not just the ones we are teaching. In fact, the kids in turn teach us!

The other thing is that we DO socialize our kids. Homeschooling is NOT an excuse for us to isolate our family. We do group field trips, Sunday School, playdates, VBS, and even just going out to a park and letting them play. While the kids are not surrounded by others constantly as they are in a school setting I do not do this so they can never meet other kids OR so that they ONLY associate with other homeschooled kids. The unsocialized homeschoolers you see on tv etc are NOT the norm, HONESTLY!

I am coming to the end of our first officially registered year and I DO feel we have accomplished A LOT! The boys are well on their way to LOVING learning which is one of my first priorities. If I can get them to WANT to do their schoolwork then the rest of the education comes along all the easier. It is now time for me to start working out our goals for NEXT year… with another year behind me and a facilitator’s support I am starting to feel out a good rhythm for our kids and their learning styles. I am confident that with a new support group here I will proceed with even more confidence than before!

I realized that when I posted after Canada Day I did NOT include the instructions for the bacon covered peroghies… well you can find the ones we went with here. Again a definite hit with pretty much everyone there.

Today we jumped into our schooling with both feet… Emanuel spent a large chunk of his morning working on letters in his Pre-K book. We are hoping to finish that book this month and start him on some more difficult Kindergarten level stuff. His focus is improving at a great rate lately!

Hard at work

The boys finished off their Canada sheets and put them into a folder for saving. They also worked on both Math AND their Sight Word books. I have two different books – one for each so that they are not working together or on top of each other. I figure this way I can better gauge how each of them is doing individually.

The two new books (top is Gavin's)

Perler beads are back in full force in this house once again and along with that a desperate need to continually check the floor for dropped ones. With Echo more than a little mobile and basically having run of the upstairs I am working with the boys to make them understand how SAFE things really need to be!

BEADS

We not only worked on our newest chapter in our novel BUT found the missing chapter pages! YAY! So we continue on, now Louis is working at a nightclub…

Finished chapters

Karyn brought Victoria over for a brief visit and baby cuddle before heading out to drive her home. (She lives a short drive out of the city) Both are leaving for trips imminently – Victoria to Ontario and Manitoba and Karyn to Alaska! While Karyn is gone I plan on finishing up my crafting area so I can have space for her to help me sort out anything we can add to the stash for the scrapbooking table at the August wedding.

Speaking of weddings… I finished up Echo’s headband for her wedding outfit. I tried to make it a little more fancy while still keeping it smaller and contained.

Hopefully it works

Tonight I hope to make some more button flowers, tidy and hopefully get in some relaxing anime watching time… But there is no guarantee!

SMILE

I am trying to wrap my mind around the fact that we are into our last week in April. Which means we are staring down at our last month here in the city. Where has the time gone? Do I honestly have enough time to get everything packed AND continue with life as usual? Thankfully the boys keep coming up with new ways to further their schooling like Gavin’s book… Zander’s massive push to work through a new and more difficult phonics book… and now the large container or beads. We are finding fun in our every day activities – making cupcakes together, singing silly songs, learning a poem here and there and teaching Trinity and Emanuel what they themselves have learned.

Now I have not been to the letter with the plan we came up with the beginning of this schooling year but I am finding that every deviation has brought us to find out something new about ourselves and our learning style. Flexibility has been a needed skill and allowing the boys to go on THEIR speed not mine. It amazes me how they learn things out of no where. While Gavin was gone Zander realized that two 10’s is 20, and that he CAN count by 2’s when he has our blocks out… and 3’s up to 9!

I find I am realizing my own skills and knowledge are more than I thought as well. I accomplish things on my own and with the boys that I never thought I would. They are teaching me things too – confidence, patience, joy in the little things. Looking through their eyes at things I already know has been amazing and will continue to be amazing. I am so proud of us and our choice to homeschool… to have this larger family and to live here in Alberta with Ken working on his dream.

Today marks the day 3 years ago the Trinity was born if you can believe it! Where did the time go? I have to make some time and space to do up her yearly photo. This year I am torn between her Easter dress and a Tinkerbell costume she got as a gift a year or two ago.

BirthDATE cupcake

We dressed all 5 of the kids back up in their Easter finery and did some photos of all of them together. I need to pick a nice and quiet afternoon to get the close up pictures of Echo in her dress… having all 4 of the other kids running around and involved gets her rather cranky pretty quickly.

Miss T

Pretty in pink

The whole group in need of cropping

We have gotten into a nice pattern now that the weather has changed. After breakfast the whole bunch of them headed outside to play in the backyard, burn off energy. Even Trinity can be coerced out now that there are nice areas of dry ground.

Out in the morning

Then the kids took advantage of the new beads they got from Uncle Wayne and some cord I had in our bead bucket and made some patterns into bracelets and necklaces. Good pattern practice for the boys… a new pretty for Trinity.

Busy beaders

Completed bracelets

Gavin wrote another page in his story. We are nearing the end now! Though I was informed it will not be FINISHED until we LAMINATE.

Newest page

The boys had a SECOND run about outside… this time I had them come in and illustrate their adventure. Soccer is a new favourite here. I cannot wait until we are settled in the new city. Maybe even in time to join a group, but if nothing else find some new parks to kick ball around!

Gavin's soccer team

Zander playing soccer

It has been a rather good day… for the most part. No call back yet on our genetic testing appointment, Ken is calling Thursday morning first thing if we do not hear from our office OR the offices we need the appointments from. We gave them Friday as it was Good Friday and many places were closed and then Monday as for some it was holiday Monday but we need these appointments made and written down for our own sanity. I just want to progress with this and get a satisfactory answer to the whole issue. Did you know that our local Public Health hasn’t been recording drop in weights in our official file? We didn’t… which of course became an issue. Thankfully we have our little book that they fill out all of the weights in with their date stamp and distinctive handwritten short hand. From now on I am going to DEMAND everything is imputed in front of me, best for everyone in case a history is needed!

Playing soccer with Daddy before bed

Now to get back to a little down time, last night I packed up our winter gear and sorted through Trinity’s closet. Tonight I need to see if I can downsize some more of the random clutter… Ken may have 2 places for friends to go check out for us as soon as this week!!!! Exciting!

Miss Echo sitting solo with her puffed wheat

So I seem to have hit a spree of NOT writing blog entries this past week. I promise much better behaviour for the rest of the month!! But this weekend was a busy one – we finally found the time to hold Ken’s Birthday LAN. Which is basically all of his gaming friends, their computers and alcohol parked in our basement overnight to game and hang out. This time round Fydo was able to bring her wife Kristen which meant I had company amongst all the testosterone.

We also had some boardgame time…

Arkham Horror

and with Kristen here I was able to do some baking while she held Echo who didn’t complain TOO hard after a while about being held by someone other than me.

Miss Echo and Kristen

The kids were just excited because she was willing to read them stories!! Best way to win the love of our kids after all!

Story time (Gavin red)

The guys were parked in the basement in the twins’ room so the twins had to sleep in Emanuel’s room on the floor and Trinity slept in the playpen in our room. Not the best situation but their room is the largest and the easiest to clear. And of course reassemble.

The previous few weekdays have had us working on our reading, doing crafts and get well soon cards for Nathan. The kids all started work on Perler bead ornaments to go with the presents we plan to give this year for Christmas. Emanuel managed to get three or four done before he lost interest! Which was a bit surprising.

Beading

We are starting our time on the human body in earnest this week upcoming. We are still rather limited as the van is to be done this week but not on a specific day. With all the snow mom REALLY needs her car back. After all it is a little cold and snowy to be out in the convertible even with the top up. We are really hoping to get down to visit my mom – Mike gave her her Christmas present early this year – a new dog! Her name is Phoebe and she is 6 yrs old and a Kerry Blue Terrior. She was at the vet having been dropped off by the previous owners who couldn’t take her. Apparently she has been de-barked (something we would NEVER do) and had her tail docked but is a gentle and shy dog. Apparently she and mom are already enjoying their walks and time together. It will be interesting to see how she does with the kids!

Mom and Phoebe

The boys did attempt some time in the snow this week but it was bitingly cold so it was brief but fun!

Zander and Gavin

With the completion of Quinn’s stocking I have begun the toe on my nephew’s. Hopefully I can get it done before next weekend and then move onto focusing on gifts for our friend’s party which is tentatively set for December 18th.

Beginning

Zander surprised us this week – Ken was helping him brush his teeth and was looking at the bottom ones to find… an extra tooth!! One of his bottom front had already cut through, and sure enough, the one in front of it is loose!! Something that Zander has spent the weekend driving us nuts about. First he was scared about it and now he is obsessed with making it wiggle either with tongue or fingers. So it is only a matter of time before that pesky tooth comes out… I am thinking maybe our Tooth Faerie is going to use matchbox cars as her tooth reward??

Sadly the boys missed Sunday School today – mom’s car was too cold even plugged in to start. We moved it into the garage tonight after Sean helped get it started. I miss our van… So instead they spent their time working on Perler bead creations and watching cartoons. Not my original plan but they were happy.

One of the bonuses to having a friend over AND all the guys was that Kristen and I were able to leave Echo here (it was too cold to easily truck her around) and head over to Michaels to do a bit of shopping and then stop at SecondCup where she treated me to a candy cane hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles!!! It was great to not only have company but a way OUT of the house… for some reason this past week has been more wearing than the past few. Maybe it is because the end of being van-less is in sight? (better be!)

I just feel like if we can get back our vehicle and be MOBILE again life will become immensely more simple. Being housebound at least in so far as ALL going out just us is very frustrating for me… you have to pick which kids go where or get friends to come along and I just want to be our family of 7 out enjoying each other. That and my follow up with my OBGYN is next Monday and I cannot reschedule. The logistics of getting me (and Echo since who knows how long we wait in the office) is mind boggling on a weekday. So please keep a positive thought for us.

Oh another first for me – Ken had us sit and watch Scott Pilgrim vs the World… it was… a movie. I was not overly impressed though Ken and the guys thought is was terrific. Apparently it is based on a graphic novel and done in that style. At times I found it a little hard to follow.

The kids rounded out their evening (tonight) by making sugar cookies with Daddy – using the letter cutters my mom picked up for them months ago! Talk about fun!

Baking with Daddy (Zander front)

Ready to bake

So though I have been feeling a little down in the dumps this weekend has been a breath of fresh air. I think all my frustration and doubts will melt away if I could just get us ALL outside!

Nom noms