Weekend Randoms

I'm actually procrastinating cleaning right now. I don't know why I've been putting cleaning off all day. After I write this I must get that cleaning done!

I've been sick lately, so I have been trying my best to take it easy lately. I am past exhaustion, which is the reason why I am getting sick. How do I know this? Let me give you example A. We took a weekend trip to Pigeon Forge, TN the weekend of September 27. We came back that Sunday...no...make that early Monday morning. Me and Maddy did not crawl into bed until 1:30 a.m. Monday morning. I didn't bother unpacking and just threw everything into the living room. I will write a separate post about our trip later. I forgot my alarm was set to 6:00 am and so I snoozed for a while and decided Maddy would just have to stay home. She would have only gotten 5.5 hours of sleep and considering she is used to getting 10-12 hours a night I knew that wouldn't be good for her. Monday at work was a huge struggle. I sit in a chair for 8 hours a day and it felt like torture. I was sluggish all week. I realized Tuesday after I got a good night's rest that the way I felt was not just tired, but sick tired. Friday morning I woke up feeling nauseous and was running a fever. My body hurt so bad. Needless to say that weekend I laid in bed all day. I started feeling better Sunday and was so thankful. I woke up Monday morning just fine. On my lunch break I decided to start cleaning up my room. Once I logged back into work I started feeling really bad again and the fever came back. I really think had I not cleaned I would have been just fine. I ran a fever through Tuesday and then it went away. I decided the rest of the week I would lay. I can still tell if I were to clean a whole lot or exert a lot of energy I would end up sick. That's probably the reason I am not wanting to clean.

I've been working on Maddy's curriculum. I decided since we are starting in the middle of the school year that I would not purchase any curriculum. I really want to see, touch, and feel the different curriculum's that are out there. I decided to kind of write my own curriculum. At the beginning of the year, or when she first switched into her new class...I was given a booklet about the classroom. They gave a schedule of the different units and when they would be learning about that unit. I am going to be teaching Maddy the same theme she would be learning if she were still in daycare. To help me come up with activities I am using this website. I am also using this site to help teach her about Jesus. I love that they are free. Obviously there will be some trial and error with how we do school once she is home, but I hope everything goes as smoothly as possible. I went ahead and ordered me a lesson planner for preschool. I love that they have a page for center ideas. My house is quite small so I won't be able to have a dedicated center area so to speak, but I have some pretty fun ideas to try.

This is what my planner looks like. I clearly couldn't wait to start filling it out. The first homeschool theme we will do is called "What is hibernation?" I wrote a post about what our schedule would look like that will publish in December. Can you tell I'm just a wee bit excited about this homeschool thing?

This isn't anything exciting to you guys and you may wonder why it's exciting to me, but if you had 7 bags of garbage piled up in your house plus 2 outside you would understand my excitement a little more. I finally bit the bullet and got garbage service. I'm hoping they will deliver my can Monday so I can get this stinky garbage out of the house! My garbage day will be Wednesday and I think they are probably the most decent priced corporation that will still pick up Christmas trees. I will be the odd ball of my neighborhood as most of my neighbors don't use a corporation, but a local service. I went with what my gut told me and so far I'm pleased. I knew to stay away from Allied Waste. People have actually left reviews on them online and they are all 1 star. My mom hated using them when she had garbage and I believe her bill was close to $80 a quarter. The company I chose I 4 stars, but only two people had left reviews. The local company my neighbors use will not pick up your Christmas tree...that is fine for my neighbors because they either don't have trees or use artificial trees...I get a live tree. I'm sure at some point I will start taking my garbage service for granted, but it will be a long time before that happens :)

I am going to attempt to start doing daily vlogs on youtube. I started filming today, but I'm not sure if I got enough footage. I also am not sure I can keep it up during the week because we tend to do the same thing every week and it would get boring and I tend to forget to pick up the camera. I still want to try.

A month into my weight loss journey and I have lossed 2.7 pounds. The first week I only lost .5 of a pound. I quite weighing myself after that and must have maintained my weight because I'm pretty sure I lost 2.2 pounds this past week. I'm finally seeing my stomach shrink and I have hope that I really will get close to my pre-pregnancy tummy. I will never get back to my weight because I was roughly 20 pounds underweight.

I will wrap up my long post now. Now that I have empty memory cards I hope to do better at getting some pictures. At some point I will have to decide if I want to blog or vlog because both is a full time job in itself. I'm hoping to take Maddy to the pumpkin patch next weekend and that is definitely a good blogging time :)

The Best Day

Yes, I am totally Taylor Swifting it on my blog today lol. I'm pretty sure I just had the ideal work day today and it was totally unexpected. Last night Maddy was trying and trying to go to bed. I was feeling horrible and was on my way to bed after work when Maddy calls my name. She asked if she got a boo boo and she called my name would I pick her up and carry her to my bed. If she wakes up in the middle of the night and I'm in bed I comfort her and then tell her she can sleep with me. She had been begging to sleep with me because she had all weekend. I told her she could sleep with me one more night and then she'd have to sleep in her bed. We got to my room and she was just so hyper. I think she was actually shocked and excited that she actually got to sleep in my room again before Friday. She finally fell asleep close to midnight. Once I got her to sleep I had a bit of a rough time going to sleep myself.I dozed off eventually and next thing I know it's morning. I hate how quickly morning comes. I snoozed a little bit too long and woke up late. I have a new goal of getting up at 7:30 am to get Maddy up, instead of sleeping till the very last minute and then having to rush out the door. I told myself I wouldn't panic and it would all be ok. I told Maddy to go to the bathroom while I got her clothes. On her way she asked what day it was. I told her it was school day. She got these huge tears and just let them out saying, "But I thought you said I could stay home today!!!" Oh man, I felt SO bad for her. I know how that feels and I contemplated going ahead and letting her stay home. She tends to go to daycare 4 days a week these days and I know her teachers are frustrated with me because she has such a hard time letting go. I decided to go ahead and keep our normal schedule and take her to school. For the record, no, I didn't really tell her she could stay home...I think she just had it in her head that she got to stay home because she slept in my room. She got over it very well and we were only 5 minutes late getting out the door. I then remembered I needed gas, which would push us back by 10 minutes. We get into traffic and then I realized lol. It was backed up all the way to my road. I thought it was a wreck so I decided to keep on keeping on. When the clock hit 9:00 and we were not even a mile from my house I knew I had to turn us around and go back home. I told Maddy she did get to stay home today and she was beside herself. She kept telling me I wasn't going the right way to get home. I had trouble getting into the other lane of traffic to turn around. It turns out it was road construction and it went for miles it looked like. We got home at 9:30 a.m. which is the same time I get home from taking Maddy to school. I must admit I was a little nervous because usually when these types of things happen I end up having a horrible day at work. Maddy watched tv while I worked. My work day wasn't horrible like I was expecting. I definitely feel that God wanted me to keep Maddy home today for some reason. I really feel a huge push to go ahead and take her out of daycare for good, but I really need to keep her in until November at least so I can get my Christmas shopping done. I started work at 9:40 a.m. and actually finished by 7:33 p.m. That's with an hour lunch and few times of logging out for Maddy. She spent half the day watching tv. I fed her lunch and then at 1:00 p.m. she had her nap. She slept until 4 p.m. When she woke up we went and played outside during my break, and then I logged out of work and we finished playing outside till 5 p.m. After playing outside we had dinner and I went back to work. She got a bath and then we got time to play with each other inside. We mostly put puzzles together, but we drew our family, played some computer, and then finished up by playing with some of her polly pocket toys she got for Christmas. When the timer went off she wanted to pitch a fit, but she didn't and she smiled and said, "Yay!! Bedtime!!" Several times throughout the day she told that it was the most excellent day or you're my best friend or it's the best day ever. What she didn't know is I felt like it was the best day every because she was home with me. I began to wonder if that feeling would change once she's home all the time. I hope I always feel like this when I homeschool her and not get used to her being here. My love for her is unreal and I am beyond blessed to have her in my life. I wish I was great with words and could make you all feel like I felt today. I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, but it was huge!! I was at work without feeling like I was at work. Whenever I needed a hug...she was there. She would come "check" on me several times to make sure I wasn't alone...those are her words. It felt great going outside and having our talks. Actually one thing she has started doing with me outside is praying. Sunday we prayed for a new car. Today she wanted to pray for Christmas. I prayed that we would remember that Christmas wasn't about santa or presents, but that it was about Jesus and His birth. When Maddy prayed she prayed like I did. She thanked God for the beautiful day and talked about how Christmas isn't about santa or presents but it's ALLLLL about You Jesus. Talk about having an emotional moment there lol. I pray that I will never get used to having her home with me when we do homeschool and every day will be like today. Granted I know there will still be stressful times ;)

2014

This year has really seemed to fly by. It definitely was not a year of blogging for me, but I know 2014 will be a completely different story. It's unheard of for me to still have my Easter design up in October. I am actually fixing to change it over to Christmas and let it stay that way through the end of the year. As the end of the year draws closer and closer I find myself getting so excited. I have big plans for 2014 and I am ready to get going with those plans. I am still in a hurry and wait phase. I want to do this and that, but I can't because we just aren't there yet. One thing that is going to happen is I will be un-enrolling Maddy from daycare at the end of the year. I am actually ready to do it now to save the money, but I need her to go through the first week of November at least so I can get my Christmas shopping done if you know what I mean ;) It's actually harder on me to take her to school than it will be for her to stay home. I will get two hours back of my time, so in the end I might actually get to play with her on some days. I will also be responsible for her learning, but that's the whole point of homeschool. We will have a couple of weeks or so before I get her preschool curriculum ordered, but I am so excited to begin this process. Maddy is beyond excited to begin this process. If it were up to her she would have been staying home a long time ago. I still struggle a little bit with the decision. I worry about her happiness and whether she will be really be ok spending all her time at home with mommy, instead of with her friends. She really enjoys her friends, but she just doesn't like the teachers and honestly I can't say that I blame her. She's involved in church thank goodness, but it's such a struggle to get her to go. I really don't know how to get past this stage. She would be fine if I could stay with her, but if I stay with her she would not interact with the kids and I just don't think that would be a good decision. Once I leave she is completely fine. I always wanted to be a teacher and now I get that chance. I found a great website that is free that will be good for preschool and pinterest always has creative things to do with kids. I will have a hard time not spending ALL my time doing fun things with her. I've always dreamed of being a SAHM and this will feel like my dream come true, except I still have to work lol. I know I have rambled on and on about this homeschool thing, but in case you couldn't tell I'm a wee bit excited. Again, I know there will be challenges with this and it's definitely going to be hard work, but it will be so worth it.

Provided nothing major changes in my life, I have an exciting vacation planned for 2014. I can't share any details yet, but I have some posts scheduled that will publish on certain dates. Apparently 2013 is a secretive year for me lol. No, unfortunately it's just privacy issues I have had to deal with that I decided to put a stop to.

I thought Maddy would be starting Kindergarten in August of 2014, but right before I went to daycare to tell them how it is, my gut told me I better check kindergarten start dates one more time before I made a fool of myself. Boy was I glad I listened lol. In my state the new cut off date is August 15 for the 2014 school year. This year it was August 31. Talk about a mad mom. Maddy would be beyond ready for Kindergarten next year. She is extremely smart and learns fast. She will basically be 6 years old before starting school and will probably be graduating at 19...that doesn't seem right to me. I wish they would have left the dates alone and let it be up to the parents to decide whether or not their child is ready for school. That's the main reason for pulling her out of daycare. I am financially strapped right now and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel lol. Maddy still has one more class to go. She will be in her current class for a year and then will transition to the very last class. That's why I was fixing to go have words with her daycare. In my mind I was thinking maybe they would transition her to the last class after 6 months of this class, but that just didn't make sense because 6 months is not a lot of time to learn to read and write. I planned our vacation around not having daycare expenses and when I realized she would actually be in daycare another 2 years really, I decided I would go ahead and pull her and get us a routine down so when she does start kindergarten we will be a pro at our schedule. Plus I did NOT want to cancel our vacation plans lol. I just reread what I wrote...I really am terrible with words lol. I don't want to make it seem like this is about money because it's not. I've made daycare work the last 3 years and I would do it more if I felt that is what needed to be done. I have spent a lot of time in prayer over this homeschool situation because I want to be in God's will. It became so evident to me that I needed to go ahead and pull her out of daycare now. I actually felt I needed to pull her out the minute I decided we were for sure homeschooling. I have been scared to. I'm still scared maybe I'm doing what I want and not what God wants. I'm scared because I had visions of walking out of her daycare doors for the very last time as a prekindergarten graduate. I'm scared because I had dreams of getting to see her prekindergarten pictures they take with cap and gown and of coarse the prekindergarten graduation. I've waited 3 years for this lol. Luckily my uncle is a photographer and I can order a diploma and fill it in myself and we can recreate a graduation, but it's just not quite the same to me. Notice how most of my fears are selfish ones? That's what let me know that the devil is trying to distract me and get me off the path the Lord showed me. It has been amazing to see God work in our lives. I look back on life a year ago from now and just stand in amazement at all the Lord has done for us. He provides our every need even though sometimes it feels like He almost didn't make it in time lol. Nothing we have has been accomplished on our own...it has ALL been accomplished because of God. God has even worked in Manny's life. I was so upset when Manny was so sick. The vet really didn't expect a good turnout with him, but I felt like he was willing to try because I stood there bawling my eyes out. I spent my time in prayer and begged God to put his healing hands on Manny. Manny has made a miraculous turn around. The last time we went to the vets I really felt like he was shocked with how much better his numbers were once he came home. He is probably not at those same numbers anymore because he looks a little more sickly, but I continually pray over him and ask God to please let him live as long as possible. This December will be the first year down since we got the kidney failure diagnosis. According to the vet he has a maximum of two more years. I don't know how much time he has left, but I know with God NOTHING is impossible!

As I've said in many posts before as I can I will write specifics to some of these so called secrets and I will continue to update our home school process. I will probably turn our two week notice in at daycare the second week of December, so definitely look for an update around then :)

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 :)