Cake decorating

This is post is not about homeschooling but it is part of what keeps me "calm".  My hobby is cake decorating.  I started it seven years ago for Nate's first birthday.  I bought a simple cake decorating kit and taught myself how to do it with the help of the internet (mostly  www.cakecentral.com).  I've come a long way and made my first wedding cake last month for my cousin's wedding (see pic below). I still have a lot to learn because I've mostly done it for the kids birthdays and occasionally for a baby shower or something.  I've had people pay for them a couple of times but I never charge enough.  I would love to some day do it as a part time business so I am starting to try and get my skills up to par.  This weekend was the Baking and Sweets show in Toronto and I got to go!!!  I attended a demo class from Michelle Bommarito.  She is a celebrity chef from the food network. She was great!  I learned a lot from her about fondant and I'm looking forward to trying out some of the techniques she suggested.  I also scored a bunch of  bakeware and decorating supplies for super cheap!!!

I'm hoping that maybe in the near future I can take some hands on classes somewhere and also start selling my cakes on a more regular basis to help supplement our income.

Disappointed yet encouraged

So we went to a ladies bible study this morning in Uxbridge that we were invited to and were told that it would be OK to bring all three kids since there are other families there that homeschool and their kids would be there.  I'm a little bit upset and disappointed by the experience.  Nate came in to me halfway through crying because he had been pushed down by some other kids and "tied up with a rope" and stepped on.  I realize that Nate was mostly likely exaggerating and not innocent in the situation and they were not prepared for the large number of kids that were there this morning, but I don't see how it got that out of control.  I managed to get him calmed down and settled back in with the other kids and then went back to the study.  When I went to pick them up, the lady who organizes the kids program asked if we would be coming on a consistent basis because she needs to plan for it.  I realize that she was just taking care of it all but it came across in a very negative way.  I am probably being overly sensitive, but I am really struggling with trying to fit the homeschool life with the rest of the world's way of life.  I realize that we aren't doing the mainstream thing and so it is bound to happen, but I really don't like feeling "abnormal" or being an inconvenience. 

On the other hand I was really encouraged by the talks that were given this morning.  It was an open session and there were a handful of ladies who got up and spoke about goal setting and journaling.  The lady who spoke on goals mentioned that goals need to be : Meaningful, Attainable, Measurable and Accountable.  All very good points. I've decided that I need to sit down and make some goals about various things and determine how I'm going to measure them and who is going to keep me accountable.  The two main areas I am considering setting goals in are weight loss/getting healthy and getting my house organized.

There were four ladies who spoke about journaling.  I was struck with how it doesn't have to be just sitting down with a piece of paper and a pen and writing about your day.  There are many ways to journal.  One lady explained that her son journals through artwork.  She brought a few examples of his work and they were BEAUTIFUL!  Another lady said that her picture scrapbooks are a way of journaling as well since she is capturing life's moments and displaying them.  There was a lady who was given her mother's journals after she passed and has been so blessed by reading them.  It has been an encouragement to her to do the same to leave behind a piece of her heart for her children.  The one that was the neatest to me was an 80+ year old woman who has been "scrapbooking" for over 60 years.  She cuts out newspaper articles that have to do with family and friends or situations that they encounter. She keeps all wedding invitations, programs, funeral programs, birth announcements, thank you cards, and either hole punches them or glues them on paper and puts them in binders.  She has bags full of these binders and they are SO NEAT.  They essentially are personal history books for her family.  It really showed to me how much she treasures life and the blessings that God has given her.

I also got the opportunity to chat with a few women.  I met a woman who grew up in Cottam and went to the University of Windsor for engineering.  I can't remember what year Tim graduated, but she graduated in 2002 so they might have been in some mutual classes.  What a small world.  She gave me her phone number and invited us to come over to her house anytime.  I'm looking forward to connecting with her.  She has two kids that are preschool age.  She mentioned that she and her husband and talking about possibly homeschooling their kids in the future.  Hooray!

The bible study I signed up for is based on the book "Resolution for women".  It is a book that came from the movie "Courageous".  It has 13 different resolutions to make. I  think it is very fitting.  Tim and I have been talking a lot lately about how we need to make choices to start doing things better and then just do them.  Which is totally the impression that I get from this book.

So I guess we go back next week and see how it goes with the kids.  If it's not working, then I guess we just move on.

So proud

Nate completed his first research project/notebook today. I started him off by asking him to choose a topic that relates to Canada. He chose the Canada Goose since we've been seeing them all over the place this time of year. We went to the library and picked out some books on the topic, we did google searches and even watched a movie (Fly Away Home). With everything we read, we jotted down key points. Then we divided them into groups and completed the notebook pages. He was very reluctant to do so much writing so I helped him with that. Although he narrated most of it. We found pictures on the internet that we printed and he cut and pasted. I'm so proud of it and looking forward to the next project!!

Bad day

OK...so today was my first major hiccup in this homeschooling journey.  I woke up feeling just plain crappy today.  My head has been pounding all day (borderline migrainey-should-be-in-bed kind of headache), my stomach hurts and Caitlin keeps saying "what's that smell?" LOL!  So my patience is very low today and of course the kids are in bad moods too.  I handed out so many time outs today and only got minimal school work done with them.  ARGH!  And then to top it off, the GO train before Tim's hit a bicycle and he was stuck on his train for over 2 hours.  When he got home, he ate supper and was out the door again for bible study.  ARGH!

I have to figure out how to deal with days that I'm not feeling well.  A regular teacher would call in sick, but I don't have that option...so what do I do????

Fly away home

We are watching "Fly away home" as a supplemental to our Canada Geese research project. The boys are LOVING it and keep spotting all of the things about the geese that they have already learned.

A little bit of phys ed

It has been a couple of days since my last post and they were pretty eventful.  On Friday we went to Newmarket for a drop in homeschool gym session. Unfortunately there were no other families that showed up. But we still had a blast! We played basketball, dodgeball, "What time is it Mr.Wolf" and had races. It was well worth the drive and $9. This coming Friday there are 6 families that have said they are going.  We are really looking forward to that.  Here are a few really bad pics from my stupid iPhone 3G.  It is dying very quickly and doesn't have a flash.  I've preordered my iPhone 5 and will hopefully get it this week...SOOOO excited!!!!

This is a "trophy picture".  Whoever won whatever game we were playing got their picture taken as a trophy. (Caleb's idea)

Caleb's "trophy pic"

Hahaha...so hard to coordinate a pic with all three

Saturday and Sunday were HOCKEY DAYS!!  The boys had their first ice times of the year.  They were evaluation sessions.  They both did fairly well.  We are still trying to figure out how to motivate them to do their best throughout the whole practice.  They don't skate their hardest and sometimes don't pay attention to what they are supposed to be doing for their drills. It's very frustrating to watch.  They could be doing so much better if they just tried. 

Tim getting Caleb dressed for his 1st ice time

We also spent the weekend doing some rearranging of the house.  The garage used to be the boys playroom but Nate's birthday present this year was a homemade lego table (two ikea coffee tables attached together with lego baseplates on top).  They wanted the table in their room.  So this weekend we also brought the rest of their toys into their room and transformed the garage into our schoolroom!!!  It is not perfect but I'm really proud of it.  We used it this morning for the first time and it went really well....except that Caitlin kept getting into everything.  I still have to figure out how to keep her out of trouble while I'm working with the boys.

Desks and bookshelf

Circle time area

"Working" on Math.  Nate was very distracted by the world map in front of him.  Tim and I had talked about how that would happen.  He's going to memorize it before the week is over with his memory for details.

Our bible craft for today and Caitlin's art work as well.  One of the advantages of being in the garage is being able to paint on the floor and then just wipe it up when we are done!!!!

After one week of committing to homeschooling, I am really starting to love it more and more each day.  It's still a struggle getting them to sit and do work, but it is getting less and less.  I read someone that it takes 6 weeks to get into the swing of things with homeschooling.  Hoping that is true.

Bible crafts

The boys are loving the crafts that we are doing with our Bible lessons.  We found an online bible overview called Bible Roadtrip that we have been following and adapting.  This week has been learning about God's Word, what it is and why it is important.  Our main verse has been 2 Timothy 3:16 but we have also looked at the parable of the sower, the wise and foolish builders and the armour of God.

Here are a few pictures of their crafts from yesterday and today:

The houses on the rock and sand paintings.  Caleb's is only half finished because he got frustrated with not being able to paint as well as Nate and sat in the corner and sulked for a while :(

 Nate working on decorating his "Sword of the Spirit"

Their masterpieces!!!

I can do all things

We had a bit of a late start this morning.  Nate has been coughing a fair bit and I wanted to give him a chance to chill for a bit before we started our day.  So while the kids lay on the couch watching TV, I checked Facebook.  There is a devotional that I have just started subscribing to that had a post on my newsfeed.  I opened the link and once again was blown away by how God meets me where I am and puts things in my path that I need to see or hear.  The devotional was titled "stop trashing yourself" and was all about how we tend to throw ideas or ventures away because we don't have enough confidence in ourselves that we can do it.  Hmmm...sound familiar?  It was an affirmation to me that homeschooling is what God wants us to be doing right now.  That I can find my strength and ability in Him.  Here is a quote from it:

•When self-doubt whispers, "I can't do that. I'm going to fail and look foolish." Trash that lie and hold onto this truth: "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:6)

• When self-doubt whispers, "I'll never change." Trash that lie and hold onto this truth: "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in [me] will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)

• When self-doubt whispers, "This is too hard for me. I don't have what it takes to..." Trash that lie and hold onto this truth: "No, in all these things [I am] more than a [conqueror] through him who loved [me]." (Romans 8:37)

Those are three things that I have been telling myself over and over again about  homescholing...that I can't do it, that I'm a mess and I'll never change, that it is too hard and I don't have what it takes.  On Sunday the message at church was about the temptations of Jesus and how He combated the devil with Scripture.  So here it is...I'm claiming Hebrews 13:6, Philippians 1:6 and Romans 8:37 against the lies of Satan!  And adding Philippians 4:13: I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME!!!

P.S.  Here is the link to the devotional if you are interested in reading the whole thing: How To Stop Trashing Yourself

New to this

I'm not even sure why I am writing this blog.  I don't expect anyone to really read it.  But I guess I'm looking for a way to journal and document my experiences as our family embarks on the new journey of homeschooling.

To start, I want to say that I am a very reluctant homeschooler.  I grew up loving school and think that I had a very good education for the most part.  I didn't hear much about homeschooling as a child/teenager, I don't really think I knew it existed.  My mom was a stay at home mom and gave us three girls tons of love and a good solid biblical grounding. 

I met my husband, Tim, when I was in Grade 12.  We fell hard and fast for each other and knew fairly early on that we would be together forever.  We regularly talked about our future and our kids and our hopes and dreams for being missionaries or in some type of full time ministry.  Tim was not raised in a Christian home and only came to know the Lord within the year before we began dating.  He very often expressed to me that he did not want to raise his kids the same way that he was raised.  He wanted our home to be a home that was completely centered on Christ. He brought up the subject of homeschooling and at the time I didn't know much about it or even what it involved.  I am a fairly passive person and tend to latch on to the ideas of others quite easily.  It seemed like a great option and so I agreed, at the time, that it was my desire as well.  Fast forward many years later and we were married in 2001 and our first son, Nate, was born in 2004.  At that time I was working as a Lab Tech in Michigan and the maternity leave was only 6 weeks long.  After much discussion, we decided that I would only return to work on a casual basis and only when my husband or a family member was available to watch our son, so that he would not be raised by someone else.  I remained a stay at home mom until a few months after we moved to Yellowknife, NT in December 2007.  By this time our second son, Caleb, had come along and was just shy of his first birthday.  The day to day grind of being home with two small boys and in a new city where I didn't know anyone, and the financial hardships of living in Yellowknife on one income, was really getting to me. I applied for a job at the hospital and was hired pretty much on the spot.  Our boys went to daycare for the first time ever.  Nate went to a Montessori preschool (he was 3 years old) and Caleb was cared for by our pastor's wife in their "dayhome".  I've always enjoyed my job and got into the swing of things and really loved it once again.  And then our pastor's wife decided to close her dayhome.  We went through a series of bad experiences with other dayhomes and finally were a little bit at ease when Caleb was put in a daycare operated by the Pentecostal church in town.  When Nate started Montessori kindergarden, we put Caleb in the Montessorri preschool program.  It went fairly well but when our daughter Caitlin was born in January 2010, we pulled Caleb out of preschool to be home with me during my mat leave, while the Nate stayed at Montessori kindergarden.  Then Nate started acting out at school. At this point, my husband reminded me of all of the discussions we had about homeschooling our kids.  Unfortunately, when I took my maternity leave, I signed a document saying that I had to return to work for 1 year after my maternity leave was up or else I would have to pay back the "top up" mat leave salary I was paid.  I had no choice but to go back to work since the money was long since spent and gone.  Tim was unhappy in his job as an engineer (always has and always will be) and begged of me to let him come home and be the homeschool parent/teacher.  We agreed and starting looking at curriculum. I went back to work early and Tim took the rest of the parental leave from the government and quit his job.  I have to admit that once again, I really didn't feel like it was the right thing to do, but he was so passionate about it that I decided to give it a try.

Well that year (our eldest son's grade one year) did not go at all as I had expected. Tim really struggled with being at home and keeping up with the day to day busy-ness of the kids and combined with a spiritual low point in his life, he did not acheive the success in homeschooling that he desired.  Finances were tight and after one year of complete unhappiness on everyone's part, the kids were re-enrolled in school for the next year (grade 2, pre-kindergarden and a dayhome).   Later that year we decided that it was time to move back to Ontario to be closer to family.  My dad had been in and out of the hospital the whole time we were in Yellowknife with cancer and a genetic liver disease.  We decided that we'd rather be closer to "home" to make the most of the time we have left with our parents, however long that may be.  Tim found a job in Toronto and we planned the move back.  The move happened at the beginning of April 2012.  After many long discussions, we decided that instead of enrolling the kids in a new school, at almost the end of the school year, we would give homeschooling another chance, this time with me as the homeschool parent/teacher.  And I have been struggling with it every day since.  Although I agree completely with all of the reasons that homeschool is far superior to public school, I still feel like the public system is adequate and that I am inadequate.  I am surrounded by fear.  Fear of failing, fear of not being what the kids need me to be.  This past week, since public school has started up again and its dawned on me that I could be sending the kids to school now, my husband and I have had many discussions about whether or not to continue with homeschooling.  I am frustrated after almost six months of push back from the boys not wanting to do any work and feel like I am at my limit.  My husband is still firm in his belief that homeschooling is the best plan for our family. So I'm giving it another go. This time I am putting all in.  Until now it has not been a full 100% effort.  I've always had in my mind that I don't want to do this and harbored resentment towards my husband for "making" me do it (which in reality isn't true...I have always had the option to say no).  I haven't put the work into it that is required and as a result have not seen the rewards that come along with it.  I've finally decided that I need to give this a fair shot.  I need to put myself and my fears of inadequacy behind me and push forward. With God's help and my husband's, I know that we can do this and that it will be a huge blessing.  I know that if I am faithful at this, God will be faithful to guide us in the right direction with curriculum and activities, and all of those other things that I'm scared about. 

So we are on day two of "ALL IN".  And it has been a struggle still, which I expected.  I'm just hoping that has time goes by, it will become more of a routine, and less struggle and more just enjoying being with one other and learning together.  I have to admit that I'm already seeing small glimpses of that.  For example, we were working on a Bible craft today and Nate exclaimed "this is FUN! I mean really FUN!", with a huge smile on his face.  I love seeing him enjoy being crafty and learning about God at the same time.  I wouldn't have that opportunity if he were in school.

So I am hoping for some calm in the midst of crazy, as I've titled this blog.  I'm optimistic that our family of energetic, crazy little monkeys will learn to love to learn and that my grounding will be in my God and that He will be faithful to keep me calm in the midst of it all...


Here are some pics (ignore the pathetic cell phone quality) of our successes from "Day two":

 Our pile of library books, including a bee book that Caleb chose and sat down right in the middle of the aisle of library and began to look through.  He didn't want to wait to get home to read it.  LOVE IT!!!

 One page from Caleb's  "Parable of the Sower" mini book craft that the boys had so much fun creating!