The Ambitious Life

Grace is wrapping up first grade.  Seriously.  We will be posting our end of the year picture soon.  It seems like it went really fast!  She has done a great job and I'm predicting will be my easiest to school, however I'm hoping I get a couple more easy ones!  She is at the point now where she needs a little direction but since she reads so well can work pretty independently.  It is a beautiful thing.  Depending on the lessons I do science and history with her, but not always.  She is big.  I would say this year in homeschooling has cost less than $100.  We purchased a reading book through her schooling program so that she was not reading online all the time.  We also purchased a math curriculum that was right around $60 for first through third grade.  Since we'll finish about halfway through that (smarty pants) that's about $30 for this year's program.  Our other "big" expense was printing her math and spelling/gramme...

Isaac, Kiddo I love you.  You are a happy, sweet kiddo and I am so thankful we have you.  You are quick with a smile and a delight.  You like to wrestle your brothers and be loved on by your sisters.  You and Levi are best buds - he still likes to "hold" you even though you are almost as big as he is.  You like to play with cars, steal things from your brothers and try to walk.  You also like to nose dive off my lap because you think flipping over is hilarious. I'm so thankful that we have you - seriously, most families don't get a fifth kid and I can't imagine not having your grin in my life.  Thank you for being a sweet little man. Love, Mommy For your birthday dinner we had: Brisket that daddy cooked for 24 hours!  (Ok, not quite but almost) Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandma, Aunt Becki, Maddie, Miss Aleni and Aunt Janet all came over (and your daddy, me and your brothers and sisters) For your birthday cake you had: A gumball machine! ...

Ya'll - homeschooling has taught me two things.  1. How brilliant my kid is.  2. How undisciplined I am without a plan.  It is so easy to just skip school on days when we have other stuff going on.  I need to get over that! Fortunately she loves doing her school work so it isn't too hard to stay on track.  So since we are about mid-year, I figured it would be a good time to update what we are doing, what works and what hasn't. We are still doing the assignments written out in the spiral notebook.  The core of our classes come from Allinonehomeschool.com (Level 1 and Year 2 Level L).  We do their History, Science, Reading (although we bought the book to do that off the computer), PE, Art, English/Writing.  We are supplementing with free McGraw-Hill workbooks I found online for Grammer, Spelling and Practice.  We are also using Mammoth Math instead of their math program.  It is working well. At the beginning of every week I set up fiv...

I used to make resolutions - but now I just set goals.  It works better for my life.  I also try to keep them minimal.  It's become popular the last few years to pick a word for the year, so I did that too.  Here goes... My Word:  BOLD (Brave, Fearless, Confident) I feel like this is one of those God things where in conversations with Him I have clearly heard that I am too timid in many cases.  I am confident of the ministry and calling on my life and I don't have to apologize for that.  So I will bodly do the work He has given me to do and not live in fear of what ifs or what could have beens. Goals... To read a minimum of one book a month.  I have a few picked out - Beth Moore's new book, Jen Hatmaker's For the Love and a few others.  I need recommendations for the others.  But I want to read books that will challenge how I think, how I act or how I feel.  Easy readers and fiction are good too, but my goal is for 12 b...

I've been meaning to sit and write this for awhile - mostly because starting in the last couple weeks I've been asked multiple times, randomly, if I was pregnant.  I'm not (at least not that I know of right now).  It makes me laugh though because this is the time of year we usually make our announcements - except for Isaac, little rebel.  One week I missed church because I was sick.  Only one person asked me if I was pregnant...apparently a bunch asked Aaron.  Frankly, this makes me think people are excited about our babies or wanting to giggle at us when we walk away - but I'm going to assume the former. Here is why I write this, and I think I've addressed this before...some answers to common questions we get about our family... ...YES, we know how it happens. ...NO, we are not trying to beat my mother in law or anybody else. ...NO, we are not trying to have a bunch of kids. ...NO, I do not have insane patience...just ask my kids. ...NO, we ABSOLUTELY...

At the end of 2013 my family accepted a ministry position that moved us from our fairly small home into a house at least twice the size of what we were in.  We also gained two live in teenagers and have had at various times anywhere between 1-4 extra people living in our home for months to years at a time.  (See: Harvest House ) I was not a great house cleaner when we lived in a small house and now that we are here I've had to REALLY step up my game to make sure our house is clean.  We like to be 15-20 minutes away from "company ready" at any given time so I try really hard to stay on top of things to meet that goal.  The reason for that goal of course is because we want our house to be comfortable for the people in it, but because we also want to be available for hospitality.  We also never know when someone new will move in so it's nice to be prepared. The trick?  Checklists.  :)  Right, you were expecting something amazing.  I used to ...

It's been awhile but I miss writing Thankful Thursdays.  So here goes! 1. I'm thankful for homeschooling and the flexibility it gives me to be involved in the kids lives. 2. I'm thankful for some recent conversations with friends giving me permission to "ignore" the kids and let them be creative and explore and play without me. 3. I'm thankful for my husband who listens to my heart and helps me to figure out what is really going on in my head. 4. I am SO thankful for date nights.  I'm glad that this is a priority in our lives.  Last month we didn't have as many due to a lot of things going on, but we still spent time together intentionally and I so appreciate that we have set that as a priority. 5. I am thankful for answered prayer.  I'm always praying that God would be so real in peoples' lives that they can't deny Him and I'm always so thankful when He shows Himself that way in mine. 6. I am thankful seven hours of unrushe...