Spring Busy-ness

Hmm, so where I have I been?

Well, here, just not here.  Life seems to have picked up speed rapidly since the end of February and frankly I've been tired. While we are busy with our children's baseball teams, ballet classes, church, homeschooling and many other things, there is another reason I've been, well, not here.

It is my desire to be as me as possible, as real as I can be, because that's just the way I am. But I am well aware of how words appear on the screen, and how those words without facial expressions and tone of voice can convey a completely different message than what is intended. Many times I've offended people that are my good friends without intending to, and so a lot of the time it's just easier to not say anything, so I don't.

But then I can't bring myself to talk about fluffier things if something deep is rolling around on the inside of me, so the blog sits silent and dusty :) And honestly, I haven't had a lot of motivation to keep things up more here. I've grown and changed since I first started blogging years ago, and some of the things I was devoted to then, I'm not now, and I'm now pursuing other things that I wasn't then.

I am still trying to gauge how much I want to reveal here anyways. Some things that are deep may not be suitable for the internet- you know, don't cast your pearls before swine? Not that any of you are swine, but sometimes a random oinker will come along.

On an interesting note, today when I was buying groceries the sacker asked if my girls were homeschooled. They said yes and he said he was homeschooled until his senior year. He was nice, smiley and very polite. He knew how to talk with me, and we laughed over the state of my car, with him assuring me that as the oldest of seven, he totally understood what can happen to a car with many children. It was encouraging to meet a homeschool graduate and see how well they turned out, and how much he valued his mom and her educating him.

We are currently continuing to study American history. I bought a downloadable notebooking page set here
However, I was under the impression that it came with the actual history lessons, but it does not. So then I had to look for help on that. The internet has lots of free stuff too!

We started reading a book that was on Alexa's reading list according to Ambleside Online for geography called Pagoo. It's about marine life in a tide pool, specifically a hermit crab or pagurus, called Pagoo- written in a very child friendly way. I chose to go ahead and do this book now for all of them because next week we are heading to Florida for vacation. It's been many years since we did anything like that, and I'm sure we'll see a hermit crab somewhere! I found free notebooking pages here to go with it.

We have stalled out a bit on reading books, mainly because of being busier and we need another library trip. Other than that the girls continue with math and copywork/handwriting. Oh, and we started a study on the Fruit of the Spirit. We are making a lapbook, which, just search for the word 'lapbook' if unfamiliar and you'll find LOADS of stuff! There are little activities (simple ones) that they do that also involve copying scripture and I also find other verses to read aloud to them.

They are having a harder time doing school now that it's getting closer to summer. It seems to take longer to get them up and about and to focus during school time, which can be frustrating, but I understand. I try to keep it short and allow them plenty of time for playing outside. Spring has been cool here but so nice compared to what is coming in the next month or so!