A couple of very important life lessons:

 

Look how little they were exactly one year ago on moving day! 

A few days ago we celebrated ONE YEAR of being in our house!! WHAAAAAT!?!?! Thanks Timehop for letting me know! Honestly, things were SO crazy a year ago with renovations and packing and being pregnant that I hadn't kept the exact day in my memory banks- its hard enough to remember THREE KIDS birthdays. Whew! Tough stuff. 

So thanks to my time hop app I learned that we'd been doing life in our house for a whole 366 days. Of course, come to find out, the house itself clearly remembered that it had been exactly a year because it chose that day exactly to give us the typical first anniversary gift, and allow the HVAC to go the way of the ghost and start leaking water into our garage. We then learned several things: 

1. Our warranty company had lied to us the year before when we'd questioned them about the A/C-saying that we thought it might need replacing. They'd said "ooooh noooo, its totally fine!"  Ok. Just kidding. Maybe "lie" is a strong word. Maybe when they look at something that's totally rusted out they think that actually means "could probably survive another year."- poTAto/PoTAAAto. 

2. When the house was inspected only one year before they'd failed to mention that the A/C was not up to code- and had RANDOM venting and piping going into crazy-and unhealthy places. Like, say, our guest bathroom ( venting) and the garage ( piping). Cool. Very cool. Sorry Bro-in-law who lived in our guest suite for about 7 months, hope you don't have any long lasting effects of the weird venting business. EEEEKKK! 

3.Apparently our savings account was about to be depleted. like whoa. HVACs are Not. Cheap. 

So, so much learning. So much growing as a person. Honestly, could it GET any better when it comes to being all grown up!?!! I submit not! When you're playing house when you're 7 years old THESE were the moments I tried to replicate: vetting a/c repair companies and trying to decide just how much money you can afford to give over up front and how much you're going to have to be forced to pay over time. YAY! That's exactly how I played house as a kid. *sigh* 

As I joked with Brett, I'm SO glad that we decided to go away to the beach last weekend because its clearly the last VACAY we're having for a long while.

 ( side note: I hate debt. The first debt we'd had since we were very first married was buying our house last year, I kept telling myself that having a house note is NOT THE SAME THING, but in my mind it is and I won't be fully happy again until we don't have any debt at all, that said, sometimes your A/C dies and you live in a city where you need an A/C 10 months out of the year and those apparently cost a fortune and you have to go into debt for that...and apparently a lot of people think debt is no big deal, but it will seriously eat away at me until this is paid off...so sorry, that's just me making a mountain out of a mole hill. Promise I will now stop complaining about my little bitty problems. Sigh. )

Speaking of, have you ever taken a "quick weekend vacation" with three kids under the age of 6?! Its cool. real cool. But seriously. I've learned a couple of things that will make that vacation a success and here they are: 

1. Don't get a hotel room! You can find a beach house for the same price, sometimes cheaper! Airbnb, Vrbo, they all make it SUPER easy to find something that'll fit your needs. 

2. Make sure said beach house has a LAUNDRY ROOM. I did 4 loads of laundry in two days. Basically every time we went to the beach I did a load of laundry. It reduced the sand and grossness of the beach aspect by 1 trillion points. Also, kids, they seriously make a lot of laundry! This made returning home a few days later a breeze because laundry was already done. boom. 

3. Take basic groceries and a million billion snacks along.  Taking groceries, even going to a legit grocery store ( not just a corner store where the cost of milk is the cost of a small midsize sedan) while on vacation can really cut costs. And my kids are just always better behaved when they have eaten their weight in Pirates Booty. ( Do you not know about Pirates Booty?!? Its basically the #1 mom approved junk food of toddlers everywhere, go buy yourself a bag as big as your body at costco and thank me later). 

4. Don't forget the pack n' play. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but this happened and we had to drive 30 minutes to the nearest Wal-Mart to buy a new one. Oooops. But at least it was much more fun going to Wal-Mart on vacation then on just a normal day, right?!?! ( I also bought donuts and muffins and Tabitha complimented me on my shopping skills, she's clearly been judging my bad grocery shopping silently from the cart for 3 years, apparently I've been "over buying" when it comes to all those fruits and veggies and good proteins I've been insisting on purchasing all these years. ha!) 

5. Get a house that has a giant TV so that your kids will wake up extra early because they are SO EXCITED about watching cartoons on the giant TV. Sigh. 

6. Thanks to having a beach house 2 minutes from the beach we would put swim suits on the kids before we left the house and just pack a pair of underwear for the end of the day, we'd then just pull off swimsuits next to the van ( discretely hiding under towels etc) and they'd ride home in undies to take a serious shower. Yup. Our kids stripped down in our van and rode around in their undies. We are AWESOME. 

7. Get a fully detailed car clean when you get home. Seriously, it will be needed, even though we did the whole "ride home in your undies" thing there was still plenty of sand and crushed gold fish in our van....also, I hear that salt water is bad for your car?!?! So drop a chunk o' change and get that sweet ride detailed. But also, it took 2 and a half hours!!!! WHAAAAAT!?!?!? Clearly they had never seen a car so dirty....

So there you go!! Hopefully you gleaned a few little life lesson nuggets from this post- or at the very least got a laugh or two at our expense. If you enjoyed this, feel free to send me a check for a million dollars. Kidding, kidding....but really. For the first time EVER I'm considering selling my soul to the Mommy Blogger wagon....  But don't worry, I will resist and you'll continue to read my blog for unsolicited and unsponsored opinions because that's just the kind of lazy/nice I am. 

We did it!! Homeschooling year in review!

Tonight I threw a little "end of school party" for the kids and some of our homeschool friends! It mostly started because I bought some of those amazing water balloons that fill up like 50 of them in a minute flat ( man, I'm a SUCKER for those things! They are as much fun to me as they are to the kids! haha!) and it quickly morphed into a full on water party in our back yard. It ended up being SO much fun with ten kids running around making our back yard into a lake. And I'm so glad we did it because homeschool kids need an end of the year party too!!

Plus, I feel like celebrating! I honestly cannot believe we were able to accomplish so much this year considering we also had a BABY in the smack middle of the year! WHEW! But accomplish we did, Ransom can now read about 50+ sight words and has a strong understanding of sounding words out. He has mastered the Level 1 readers in the Learn-to-Read section of the library ( best way to describe it) and has really learned to love reading by way of being read TO ( which in my opinion is the biggest accomplishment!). Together we've read about 10 chapter books this year. He's also learned to add and subtract numbers from 1-10, tell basic time ( mostly just the hours and the quarter and half hours...still struggling with the minutes a bit), basic graphing and number line work. He can count to 100 and understands and can work with 10s and ones.
We've learned about half a dozen different countries and their culture and geography. He's learned about maps and flags and some basic knowledge of the United States as well as our home state of Texas.

As far as "Knowledge" goes I feel like we did a pretty good job of mastering kindergarten. And yet....

There are some things that we're struggling with. Things that in the end have helped us to make the decision to send Ransom to Kindergarten again. This time it'll be at the local elementary school right down the street. While I still second guess our decision I am ultimately excited to see what next year will bring. For one thing, I know that only GOD truly knows why this was the right call for Ransom for next year, and I'm interested to see how that reveals itself. For instance, this past year, if you'll remember-I wondered WHY God made it clear that homeschooling was the way to go especially since I was going to have a baby! Well, that became all to clear when we spent a week in the hospital with Justice and Ransom and Tabitha were able to not worry about missing any school! God is so faithful!

In the end what really helped me make up my mind regarding our decision to send Ransom to public school next year was when I finally sat down and made a list of the goals I had for him to accomplish. Of my goals for him for next year only ONE of them was academic ( read  fluently)- the rest were things like: Learn to be OK when the schedule changes and is different from what he expects. Learn to get along with a larger verity of people. Learn to be OK being alone in a room for any length of time. Learn to play by himself. Have greater understanding of people from different backgrounds.

Now, I'm not saying that these goals for Ransom will be accomplished at public school, and I also reserve the right to call it a big fat failure and take him out of school after a month! But the bottom-line is that with a few of those goals I HAVE tried a lot of things to help Ransom and we've gone backwards instead of forwards ( for instance the not wanting to be alone in a room has only gotten worse as the year has progressed!) and so I am curious, as the door to public school stands open to us, if it will benefit Ransom in these areas of struggle and growth. Also, since Ransom will only be turning 6 a week before school starts, it seemed like a good idea to give him the "head start" of having to not necessarily worry about any of the academic stuff this next year while he deals with a lot of the more emotional elements of being in school. In that regard I feel very good about having this next year be his "official" kindergarten year!

So there it is! I do hope that homeschooling is something that we do again the future, and even though, I'm not gonna lie, the idea of having a bit more "freedom" in my own day sounds kinda amazing and having hopefully a little more emotional capital to give to my kids by the end of the day sounds pretty incredible too ( homeschooling has been an EMOTIONAL roller coaster! whew!), I know that this is something we will return to again as an option by the end of next year! ( This whole each year, each child method might get a bit tiring for you readers so maybe I'll spare you the emotional will they/won't they upheaval next year!)

And incase you're curious: Next year Tabitha will be doing a two days a week/3 hour preschool at the Doseum . THIS I am SO excited about! I know she is going to absolutely loooooove having her very own 'activity' to do and a place to spend with new friends. She's definitely my little social butterfly and I can't wait to watch her spread her wings a bit more this next year!

But don't forget, by August when all this supposed schooling starts I'll have an active and mobile 10 month old to keep me busy at home. Wouldn't want me to good bored or anything ;-)

Disclaimer: 
Dear Family and Friends, I love being able to share our plans with you as well as some of the reasons why we choose what we choose for our children. Do keep in mind that I don't always share ALL our reasoning, however. And I know that you'll trust Brett and I to make the best decisions for our family. However sharing at least in part here on my blog is something I do because I also love to hear your thoughts and challenges and stories too! I was so pleased with the support I received last year when we decided to homeschool-from parents who did the same and also from parents who chose to send their kids to school, it was refreshing to remember that we each have different kids, different lives and different situations, but we ALL have loving our kids and wanting the best for them in common! I hope to see the same support from you all this year as well! And as always, thank you for loving and cheering us on! We feel it!

How to ( not) write a book: 25 easy steps

Step 1. Your wonderful husband is working the late shift today, meaning you got to sleep in a little bit and he helped out with the kids all morning. SCORE!

Step 2. Now, its 12:30pm and you aren't emotionally exhausted and drained of all life force and yet its almost nap time. Things are looking good!

Step 3. Put baby down for nap.

Step 4. Take toddler to potty.

Step 5. See pile of towels half way put away on the counter and remember you have laundry in the washer.

Step 6. Run and switch out the laundry

Step 7. Read stories to toddler and 5 year old.

Step 8. Put toddler down for rest time.

Step 9. Run around house finding her blanket and stuffed animal for her.

Step 10. Tell 5 year old that his "quiet time is starting"

Step 11. Tell him to stop following you around the house. QUIET TIME HAS STARTED.

Step 12. Realize you're incredibly thirsty. Probably because you haven't had anything to drink since your morning coffee at 8am. Oops

Step 13. Get yourself glass of water, realize lunch things are still all over the counter. BUT NO! You are focused! You WILL work on your book edits today!!

Step 14. FORCE SELF TO LEAVE KITCHEN.

Step 15. Tell 5 year old to STOP FOLLOWING YOU AROUND! GO TO YOUR QUIET LEGO CORNER NOW!!!!

Step 16. Realize your computer is dead.

Step 17. Track down cord for computer.

Step 18. Settle into chair with computer and cord.

Step 19. Realize you left glass of water and baby monitor in room with 5 year old. Go retrieve it. Field questions about afternoon plans.

Step 20. Settle into chair with computer, cord, baby monitor and glass of water. YOU. ARE. SO. READY.

Step 21. Baby monitor starts beeping. Battery is dying. Go retrieve cord for baby monitor.

Step 22. Settle into chair with computer, cord, baby monitor and its cord, glass of water...You are SO READY to work! Then you realize that baby has now woken up.

Step 23. Just give up already.

Step 24. Write this post.

Step 25. Try again later?!?! !