Friday, September 2, 2011

I'm BA-ACK!!

It has been entirely too long since I last blogged. I bet you thought this sad little blog was over. But you will be pleased to know that I still have many quite uninteresting things to post. Get excited. :) ha!

Anyway, things have been kinda busy around here this past summer. Anna moved into a new house, and we have been busy with several projects. I have done a complete overhaul on my house. And I have also been wasting an inordinate amount of time on Pinterest. I'm sure everyone has heard of it, but I was kinda late jumping on that bandwagon. I am now, however, completely addicted. It's bad. And good. And so, so bad....

My latest venture, though, just started this past Monday. For those of you who don't know, I decided to homeschool the girls. I need to start out by saying that if you were to have asked me five years ago if this would be a part of my future, I would have laughed.in.your.face. But God has a way of bringing things to pass that we least expect. I had never even considered homeschooling. I just assumed that I would walk Lily into Kindergarten one day and spend the whole rest of the day in bed crying like most normal moms. It was so a "non-thought" for me that I never (up until three or so years ago) even prayed about it. However, God led us to a different church and new friends, and a little seed was planted in my heart. We began to pray about it. I think most of my first prayers started out like "I sorta kinda feel like MAYBE this is something I should consider, but PLEASE, GOD, tell me no." I wanted to have a complete peace about sending Lily and Evie to school. However, the more I prayed, the less peace I felt. Ugh.... My prayer genuinely began to evolve at this point. When I started praying "Thy will be done", I started to truly grasp the verse "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." My delight was going to be in doing HIS will, not mine. And you know what? He completely and utterly gave my heart a new desire. I WANTED to homeschool. Did I feel completely ill-equipped? Yep. Do I still? Um...yes. I'm a college graduate, and I've always felt like I was "smart enough." But teaching a five year old? Yeah, that terrifies me. I mean, I am responsible for her learning to read, write, do math (major eek!), and a million other little things. It's probably a good thing that I feel this way. It keeps me constantly in prayer and constantly leaning on the Lord to show me the way. And let's face it: I would royally mess my children up if I had to go it alone. **I need to put a disclaimer: This is a decision that God was calling my family to do. We are taking it year by year. I..in NO way.. think that public school is bad. His leading for your family can and will look differently than it does for mine. So please hear no condemnation whatsoever. Also...please join me in praying that He will not want me to continue homeschooling through high school. Algebra and I do NOT get along. haha!**

All of that huge explanation to say that we "officially" started this week! Yay! It's been a great and fun week (for the most part). We started out by having a "Lily starts Kindergarten" party. I decorated the dining room, and Patrick went to get balloons. She woke up to a table full of books and school supplies, a terribly ugly poster with glitter (I'm sooo not artsy), and sprinkle pancakes. As you can see below, Evie thought she was starting Kindergarten too. By the way, the pictures are kinda out of order. Sorry.
We made postcards to go on the balloons. We wrote a bible
verse and our address. Hopefully, someone far away found them
and will send us a postcard back telling us where it landed.
My sweet five year old Lily. She was so excited.
Getting ready to release our balloons.
We looked at a map and made a hypothesis on where the balloons
would land. We had different variables to consider. Before you
go thinking my children are brilliant and have the best teacher
because they understand what a hypothesis is, you should
know they got it from watching entirely too much Dinosaur Train.
I seriously considered letting PBS teach them this year. Highly
educational programming, y'all!
I guessed Louisiana. Evie pointed to Texas. Lily
guessed Disney World. Imagine that.
What's the first day of Kindergarten without a little finger paint?
Naturally, the finger paint led to playing in the water hose. Hey, I
homeschool. It's allowed.
Making cookies....so cute.
Decorating cookies...
Okay, I know what everyone is probably thinking. Did they actually learn anything?? Yes. In between the pictures we did bible, phonics, writing, reading, and math. It was a great day. I love the creativity of each day that homeschooling allows. We took a popsicle break mid-morning just because we could. The day wasn't all wonderful, though. I started out by praying over our morning, and I specifically prayed that Evie would have a cooperative spirit. If you know Evie, then you know she is my strong-willed, passionate child. I pray this prayer for her a lot. Anyway, I guess God thought I needed a laugh. Because the first thing she did when she woke up was murder a baby bird. We had a found an abandoned bird's nest at my parents and brought it home for observation. There was a little, tiny egg in there, and we had high hopes of seeing it hatch. Well, Evie escaped out of the house while Patrick was taking the trash out. She walked right over to the nest, picked the egg up, and squished it between her fingers. It pretty much exploded all over her. Her hair, her clothes, her skin.....and it was THE.MOST.HORRIBLE.SMELL.EVER. Pretty sure it was never going to actually hatch. It had to be rotten. She went straight to the bath where I spent the better part of the morning washing and rewashing her hair. FYI- dead baby bird yolk is a hard smell to get out.

So there you have it....our first official homeschooling day. Not all glamorous. But I laid my head on my pillow that night knowing I was EXACTLY where God intended me to be. I am fully aware that it will not all be fun and not every day will be great. This week has already proven that. In fact, I am sick today with a nasty summer cold. It's all I can do keep my head up. Fortunately, homeschooling allows for a flexible schedule. Praise the Lord. I'll keep you somewhat posted on how things are going. And if you see us out in public, don't be shocked if we are wearing bonnets and blue jean jumpers..... haha.....jk. Homeschooling has a come a loooonnngggg way.

4 comments:

  1. LOVED this post, Corrie! I'm so glad you made the decision to homeschool! I think it was a wise decision (although I know it wasn't an easy one). I've said it once- and I'll say it again, I'm just glad you have to go through it first! :)

    And the baby bird story... so, so, so funny and so, so, so Evie. Nathan called that one! haha

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  2. Great post, Corrie! Though I'll be honest, I'm definitely making the decision to ignore God if He also chooses to tell me to homeschool! Haha, just kidding. Sort of.
    I'm sure you'll do a great job! What a huge responsibility but what a wonderful one for you to take on! I know God will bless you and your family for heeding to His will for you! :) Keep us all posted on your adventures!
    ps. I have some banana clips you guys can all wear if you want them, one of them may even have that silky scrunchie stuff on it for when you dress up some... :)

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  3. Oh and I didn't get to tell you the other night how cute your homeschool room is!!! I'm sure Pinterest will be heavily influencing several fun additions as you go along! Can't wait! :)

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  4. About time, I check it every day. Call me if you get stuck on grammer stuff.

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