Midweek Randoms

I am writing this from my tablet, so I apologize up front for any mistakes.

• It is amazing how fast a house can get dirty! I had my living room pretty clean and was on a routine of keeping it clean, but it all changed in the matter of a day! Two Sundays ago Maddy got sick. She was complaining of her tummy hurting and that nught spiked a fever. I knew it was strep but had to wait until Monday to go to the doctor. It was barely a positive, but the doctor said she had a really bad sore throat. This is the sickest she has been thank goodness, but it broke my heart to hear her be in pain. After the doctor she camped out in the living room. God worked it out because my system at work crashed so I was able to give her all my attention. I kept her home Tuesday as well and that's when the living room got trashed lol.
• Tonight was the first real night back in awanas. I am so amazed at how much difference a year can make! Last year Maddy struggled, but this year it's been so much easier. She is picking up her memory verses a lot easier :-)
• I have a little bit of her homeschool stuff set up. We have our calender, days of the week, and weather put up. I have a few supplies my mom gave me too. I am still contemplating pulling her out of daycare now, but she will go through January at least (unless they make me mad) because I went ahead and signed her up for Razaroos, which is kind of like a gymnastics program.
• she started her new class at school last Thursday. She is happy to be with her friends again (she is the last few to transition) but she is not too sure about the teachers yet. The atmosphere in the room is not the same as her last room and I myself am not sure if I like it yet either.
• I just started watching Lost on Netflix...it's rather strange, but I love it!
• I just finished Pretty Little Liars on Netflix and I love it, but it's SCARY!

That is all my random thoughts for now. Sorry this is so boring and without pictures. All mypictures are on my phone :(

Curriculum

I'm surprised to be as far along as I am in this homeschool journey. I was able to talk to someone who is already homeschooling and she gave me a whole bunch of information. What was encouraging to me is most of what she had given me I had already looked into in my own research. She uses the curriculum I was more drawn to and loves it. I kept Maddy home on Friday for a couple of reasons. One, I forgot to give her the rest of her medicine Thursday night and was scared she might pick up strep again. I know that isn't likely, but hearing her in that kind of pain just broke my heart. The second reason is I had way too much work to make up that it was best if she just stay home. It got me to thinking that there is really no real reason for her to be in daycare anymore if I am going to homeschool. Why not go ahead and homeschool her in preschool to get used to a schedule, instead of waiting for her kindergarten year. It made total sense and in that moment I was dead set on pulling her out. After sleeping on it I was more confused. My gut tells me to go ahead and pull her out, but my nerves are saying to wait lol. I have to turn in a two week notice thing at her school and since she is in dance as well I would be turning in a two week notice there too. Even though I would still be paying for those two weeks, I highly doubt I would send her. The amount of melt downs we have where school is concerned is just not worth it. I asked her if she would like to go to school with her friends and she said yes. Then I asked if she wanted to go to school with all her friends or stay home and have mommy for a teacher. She said she wants to have mommy for a teacher at school. I explained that if I were her teacher she would no longer go to her school with her friends anymore. She decided she wanted to stay home and let mommy be her teacher. That is still not fully decided. I will not get to try out the curriculum if I do keep her home now, so I've been thinking about which curriculum I would start out with. I am leaning towards sonlight for preschool and then switching over to My Father's World for Kindergarten. I got my Sonlight catalog today and I think it would be good to use for preschool. My Father's World did not really have a good reading readiness program in their preschool curriculum. I have so many decisions to make that it feels a bit overwhelming at times and scary because this is her future...I don't want to mess it up. I know homeschool is what is best for her, but choosing which way to do homeschool will be the challenging part. I have found which group I will belong to as well as what school I will umbrella under. I have a feeling as she grows we will be experimenting with different curriculum's and interchanging them. I am so very excited to start this process, but there is nothing I can do now until I either dis-enroll her from her daycare now or wait until next summer for the curriculum fair. I did make my first purchase, which is a huge calender for the days of the week as well as what the weather is like today.

 Luckily I have worked in a school before and worked closely with kindergarten, so I am hoping her kindergarten year will be a breeze. I have worked with all elementary grade levels, but I spent two years in kindergarten so I feel more comfortable with it.

Apart from choosing the best curriculum for Maddy my only other concern is if I will be able to get her to listen to me as a teacher. She is so spirited that I am afraid we will spend more time learning to listen than we will actually learn about the lesson lol. I know God has put this on my heart so it WILL work out, but I think it will be very challenging in the beginning. This is where we are for now. I won't write about homeschool again until she is officially staying home all the time or until next summer when I turn in her "intent to homeschool" forms.

Homeschool

I am so incredibly excited to say I am 99.9% sure I am homeschooling Maddy. It's amazing what one encouraging talk can do to show you that yes, you CAN do what you wanted to do all along. I feel so very overwhelmed at the moment and very anxious and like I have no time to figure anything out, but that's just who I am. Maddy does not start school until next year, I have one year to figure this out. The biggest concern is choosing the best curriculum for her. I know it will be a christian based curriculum, but there are just so many. I've narrowed it down to a few from what I have found online so far. I am finding it is definitely more expensive than just sending her to a public school, but knowing WHAT she is being taught and HOW is worth it to me. I started looking into what is her "zoned" school in our school system. I specifically prayed to live in an area that our house is zoned for because it had the best ratings. In looking at the website I was not really THAT impressed with what it had to offer. I'm sure the school itself is great and I am NOT knocking public schools, but I just know it isn't best for Maddy. I feel schools have too much of a say as to things that are taught and not taught and allowed and not allowed and then of coarse attendance. In our state if your child has 5 or more unexcused absences, and they do not have to be consecutive, it is required they call a social worker and some other organization to have me investigated. So if I can't work a vacation into the allotted days off school than we would just be tough out of luck...I don't like that. I don't like that prayer is not allowed in school. I don't like the science curriculum in public schools as I do not believe in evolution. I do not like the required reading list books. If I'm being real honest, I don't like the peer pressure either but that is something that she needs to learn to handle as there can be peer pressure anywhere. I want to equip her with the tools and resources I feel are best to create a godly/biblical foundation.

Right now I am feeling so very excited to prepare for this journey, but I'm sure I will feel nervous about things along the way. I'm a little nervous as to what the laws are in my state, but I have found a little bit of information to help. I'm also trying to figure out which homeschool group would be best to join as there are also quite a few of those. I have one that I am leaning towards, but again I just don't know. Right now I am not making any concrete decisions...just brainstorming. I do plan on working still as I have to have an income to support us. I have read that she only has to attend 4 hours of school a day for 180 days. I think that is something that can be worked with as far as my work is concerned. I have definitely felt like my life would be changing in a big way next year, but not once did this cross my mind. I wanted to homeschool, just felt it was out of the question, but it's really not. If you homeschool please share any tips or information you have as I am a fish out of water where this is concerned lol. Some of the curriculum I'm looking into is Sonlight, A Beck A, Alpha and Omega Publications, My Father's World, and ABC Jesus Loves Me. Next summer I will attend a curriculum fair that will have several vendors there and I can actually look through the curriculum and then decide which is best. I am also going to be praying for God to direct us and show us which path we should take. It's nerve racking because this is her future. I want the absolute best for her and will do whatever I need to do to give that to her. I am documenting several things at the moment, some I will publish right away and others I am saving for when the time is right. My blog is going to be all over the place, but luckily my blog is just a place I come to write about our life and this is something major going on in our lives. I plan on documenting every step of this journey from brainstorming to actual steps I take. For now these are all the ideas I have come up with so far, so it's time to end ;p

Happy Tears

I have done nothing but cry this week, but they have been happy tears. I feel so silly crying when I don't know these people, but my emotions run pretty high. I have still been so Disney focused lately that I decided to watch Disney vacations on youtube. I have watched all the movies I could on Netflix. I started out watching Adam Rucker, but then found other people's vacations that turned into surprise Disney vacations. That is when the tears started. It's amazing to see these small kids light up, ask their parents if they're serious, then burst into tears because they are so happy. This one in particular had me all emotional because not only was the kid so extremely excited and in tears, but the mom was also crying watching her daughter be so ecstatic. A lot of the kids asked how they could afford to take them because it cost so much money. I thought that was so sweet of them to think of the parents. I don't remember what my favorites are or were, but I will post one or two here.

The only one of these I have seen is the last one. It makes you happy and sad all at the same time. One of the play lists had a Disney proposal, so as I was laying in bed I decided to look up Disney proposals and of coarse I cried even more lol. I will share a few here...

The last video was not actually in Disney World, but I thought it was just SO sweet...I was bawling like a baby lol. If you are a Disney fan like me definitely go check out YouTube to fill the void, but be prepared to cry if you run across these types of videos lol. I will end with a Christmas Disney video that just melts my heart :)

I can't wait to get to Disney...obviously :)