I have been blogging for 8 years! Wowee!!!
Here is a picture of my son Chaz (who is now 13) six months after I started blogging. Soooo little! Haha.
My days have been so filled with homeschool, chores, laundry, dishes, cooking, and playing that I can scarcely think to even sit down and blog. However, after a few days pass I get this longing to write again. It's strong! I've always journaled my life since I was in elementary school. Always privately in a book but writing is writing. To me I write this blog just because I love to write. I don't write for an audience. I have to say though that in the process of blogging for 8 years I have met some amazing bloggers!!! I never would of thought I would blog so infrequently just because I have seven kids. I think the difference is my priorities have changed extremely. I just have an order to my day that I don't mess with and change for no one. Well, most of the time. Lately, I have been having to fight for our school time. I guarantee you, and I bet a lot of stay at home moms get this, the whole world seems to think I have all this free time because I'm at home. People think I have it so easy and I can always take on all this extra stuff for every one. Lately I have been fighting for my kids and family. School at home absolutely comes first no matter what. Unless someone is in desperate need and it's a true emergency.
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| My first Christmas blogging and this is Kyle at 3 years old (2006). We lived in a tiny two bedroom apartment with three kids while our house was getting built. |
As of right now I only have three kids that will be done with their homeschool by May. The other two will not be done on time. My rule is that you do not move forward in the lesson unless you completely understand it. I have to say though that the other reason is I've taken off so many days to help other people. I just can't do it anymore. My kids' schooling can't suffer in the process. I use my summers free of homeschooling to do some extreme couponing and organization with my extra time. Not happening this summer. We will be schooling completely through the summer with the last two. I'm gonna give it some serious thought to put my two older boys through Connections Academy online this upcoming school year. They would have a teacher and online meetings with them. I need my boys to step it up in the Junior High grades and I think maybe we'll try it out. We absolutely HATED K12 and their domineering ways so we are a bit gun shy about trying another version. A few years ago when we were trying out K12, they were encouraging me to drop my kids off at a local YMCA for 4-6 hours to learn with a teacher. I asked, "You call that homeschool? You're kidding me, right?" They talked down to me like I was the idiot. I can't believe how many homeschool moms were falling for it. To me it was basically another public school. I was astonished that they also wanted school to start at 6am. Yeeeeah right! Hopefully they changed that.
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| An old photo of our house (2006) getting built in first year of blogging |
I'm starting to learn what night owls all my family is and we are adjusting our schedules. We used to put our kids to bed at 7:30pm every night. I have to admit it was heavenly. It works good when your kids sleep almost 12 hours straight through. Well, my older ones don't now. The only ones that do that now are Ashley (6), Caleb (4), and Juliet (almost 2). They actually put themselves to sleep at that time. They all just climb right into their beds and pass out. Gee, I wish it was that easy with my first four kids. Kids have to be in their rooms by 9pm but I don't expect them to fall asleep. As long as they are quiet and stay in their rooms. We all like to wake up around 8:30am. Late mornings at 9am. Yay! Charles says he wishes he could do the same! Ha. Poor Charles. :D He's always been a night owl as well.
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| Little Ivy 2006. I was newly pregnant with Ashley here. Needing bigger house! |
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| My silly three boys with diapers on their head December 2006 |
