September 2014

Charity got her learner's permit! YIKES!!! She is actually quite a good driver!!  Here is she is in her brother's car...I am sure he won't mind since he can't drive it for another year and a half! :)

This little boy started sucking his thumb again...so cute!

Why did I post this pic...I couldn't resist he is such a ham and so adorable!

A little homeschooling in the yard with a snake! YUCK!

Joshua is starting to smile lots and lots!

Tyler loves his mommy!

Noel is a mommy's helper that is for sure!

I had surgery on my small toe that I broke several months ago...bed rest for 5 days meant my hubby did a lot of baby holding...he seriously is the bomb!

And of course there has been a lot of schooling going on around here!

Where I have been and what I have been up to..

I so badly would love to keep my blog updated but, have had a seriously hard time doing this.  The past several months have been a complete whirlwind.  I am hoping that life will settle into a new normal now and maybe I will even be able to finally revive this blog.

Two weeks ago we dropped our oldest off at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. What a bittersweet moment that was! We miss him lots but, are extremely proud of him for what he is doing!

My hubby underwent surgery on his neck last Thursday for a severely herniated disc that did not respond to any of the other methods he had tried to get it fixed.  The recovery has been a bit bumpy and to be completely honest I am exhausted and worn out.  I have been very well taken care of by family and the ladies at church though!

So with all of this behind us all I need to do now is to concentrate on homeschooling my kiddos and continuing to grow this sweet little baby boy who will join our family around the end of May!

Here is a link to my son's blog with his first letter from the MTC!
http://elderlynn.blogspot.com/2014/03/mtc-week-1-feb-26-march-6.html

Homeschooling

Every year I have to evaluate how the past year went. What worked? What didn't work? Why didn't it work? Then, I have to figure out what I want to do for the next year. We just finished up our school year and will be starting our next year at the beginning of June. This will help me in case I have a colicky baby or I just want a break in August after the baby comes. :) So, I have selected our curriculum and ordered it yesterday and am actually excited to start. Here's the lineup:

My Father's World for all the kiddos (getting the kindergarten and 1st grade specific curriculums and I already own the Geography, which is year 1 in a 5 year rotation)
Math U See
Writing Strands 3 & 4
Happy Phonics
Hooked on Phonics
Letter of the week (confessions of a homeschooler's version)
Apologia Science
Total language Plus I let my 2 older kids pick out the books they would like to read and they will use the study packets from TLP which take about 8 weeks. I loooove this program. It is a total language program spelling, grammar, vocab., even some handwriting, writing...I probably missed something, but it really covers it all nice and neat!
We use Aleks online for math reinforcement for my oldest 2
Handwriting without tears
It tends to cost a bit when I am having to order everything at the same time, but fortunately I have a lot of these things already and am able to hand them down to younger children.