2015

I did so good at blogging last summer! I even did moderately well at keeping everyone updated as to what was spinning through my brain the first month or so of school... But, as tends to be the trend, life got in the way of all my plans. I say this with a smile on my face because while I enjoy writing and blogging, it is just a blog, and life is, well, life.

But I have had a bit of downtime during the last few weeks and as we wrap up a great holiday season I thought I would give everyone an update on what has been going on in our neck of the woods and give you a few 2015 sneak peeks.

Let's start in the fall.

School is always busy. I have been tempted to switch to a more student driven, written work focused, type of homeschool curriculum just for the sake of my time. But the truth is that isn't how my boys learn. We have a parent led, hands on. history based curriculum. And we love it. But it is time consuming.

My husband started a new job in September. We are currently in a season where is working, quite a bit. But God is using him in new ways and he is getting to put to use all those amazing talents God put in him. But, as excited as we are for him, more hours of work for him means more work for me. Not sure if I have mentioned this on here before or not but my husband is a cleaner. I was miraculously blessed with a husband who has done a fair share of housework. Actually, he mentioned early on in our relationship that he liked to vacuum. Of course to this I replied, oh good, then I don't ever have to do it. I didn't vacuum for like 9 years. And even now, it is usually him that does it. But right now, he is working six days a week, and then spending 12-18 hours on his day off doing all of his coursework to finish up his ministry degree. These leaves a vast majority of the housework on my plate. (And of all my many wonderful talents, cleaning isn't really one of them.)

To add to that we have had a change in our family's homeschool structure. Early in the fall (late September maybe) my sister made the hour long trek up to my neck of the woods to have lunch with me. Since I didn't get to see her all that often, I was excited... Then she started asking me homeschool. In all honestly, my first thought was, this isn't going to be good. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge homeschooling advocate. But she has four precious (and energetic!) children. They have always been a public school type of family. When I asked her if she was thinking about homeschool next year, or even next semester... she replied that she pulled them out of public school that morning and would be starting homeschool on Monday.

Long story short, she has been bringing her three oldest children (my youngest nephew isn't school age yet so he gets to hang out with his Dad) over one or two days a week to homeschool together and really get a feel for what homeschooling is.

I had serious apprehensions about this. But, I will say that this has been going so great. It has been a stretch to go from TWO to FIVE homeschooling children but having my sister around has been a tremendous blessing.

It sometimes takes me a while to get into the swing of things, and now, with almost a full semester behind us, I feel like we are going into our spring semester with a great plan of action.

We had a very hectic December. We had tile issue in November. Since we don't own our house we don't get to make decisions about what gets fixed or when but we have a terrific landlord who is always on the ball. He wanted to get our tile fixed right away, but the first available time slot available was the second week in December. It honestly was terrible six days worth of work. Tile work is terrible and I spent the entire month of December cleaning up for it, and then cleaning up after it. We have quite a bit of tile in our house and it all had to be replaced.

Plus, on December 5th, we had two cute little (temporary) additions to the family. We have a male yorkie and a female yorkie... I am sure you can see where I am going with this. Anyone want a puppy?

But all that craziness aside, we had a great Christmas and New Years. Actually we spent the first week of the new year doing practically nothing which was a great change of pace.

But, as calm and relaxing as the first week of 2015 has been we have an exciting year in store for our family. We have a few REALLY BIG changes coming up... I will fill you in on those later and in the fall we are going to Disney World. Other than camping and weekend getaways we haven't been on a family vacation since 2009. My boys were five and two at the time. This year they will be 11 and 8 and couldn't be more excited. Got any great tips for me? I haven't been since I was a kid and this is the boys' and the husband's first time.

Personally, my goals for the year to really focusing on the work that the Lord has put on my heart and spending time investing in my family. I spend way too much time playing on Pinterest and reading frivolous status updates. This year I want to more intentional with my time. So, while I am no abandoning social media, I am going to be a little more intentional about my time. Five minutes here and there can really add up.

I would also love to say that I am going to update this little blog more often, but who knows, I guess we will just have to wait and see what life throws our way.

Here's to a great 2015!