Monthly Archives: January 2016

Snow day!

We had our first, and possibly only, snowed in weekend of the winter.  It started “snowing” on Thursday night and continued into part of Friday.  School was cancelled on Friday and I was very thankful to have an unexpected day at home.  The kids were outside in the snow/ice by 8:00am on Friday. They were so exited. They yelled, “it’s snowing!”.  I tried to tell them that it wasnt really snow but they didn’t believe me.  It was the loudest snow I have ever heard. :). 

We threw snowballs, went sledding, and made snow angels…all of the snow activities that we could. I think that the kids got dressed and undressed in their snow gear at least four times through out the day…it was exhausting. 

It turns out that we have a great sledding hill in our neighborhood. Many families from across the main road came over to our neighborhood to sled.  Amazingly, we met one family this past summer in our Bible study and they live across the street and homeschool. Fortuitous. Here is a picture of all the kids and families hanging out in the street together at the sledding hill….

  Tom pulling Miller, Faith and Aaron (although I did pull them the second half)…  
Cute Miller….

  I didn’t start getting cabin fever until Sunday afternoon.  At that point I took my book and headed over to Panera to get some quiet time.  I had to get away from my house, my kids, and the endless amount of chores that could be done. A few hours away helped to bring me back down to earth and find my sanity again. The fun didn’t stop until Monday morning. The kids had a delayed start to school and my preschool was cancelled due to ice. We don’t get many snow days each year, but when we do, they always last longer than expected.  They could last longer in my opinion. It is nice to have life slow down for a few days and not be able to do anything but lay around and spend time at home. 

Playing Hookie

Today I woke up at 6:30, as usual, got dressed, made lunches, hurried the kids along, and got out the door in time for me to still make it to my work out class after I dropped the kids off at school.  I even had the car nice and warmed up, due to the fact that it was only 20 degrees outside.  We all got buckled into the car and as soon as I started to put the car into reverse to back out of the driveway the car shook and sputtered and ….ran out of gas!  Lol. I couldn’t believe it! I haven’t run out of gas in over twelve years. I guess I was due. We all piled out of the car and back into the warm house.  I wasn’t mad, I was just in disbelief.  In the end, I called my dad who drove over to the house with a large gas can full of gas.

While we were waiting for my dad to arrive with the gas, the kids excitedly asked me, “Can we practice home schooling?”

“Of course!”, I replied and I found some of the new educational games that I had just purchased two days prior.  We played Sight Word Bingo until my dad made it over with the gas.  After the car was ready to go, the kids didn’t want to go to school and I really didn’t want to take them.  I called Tom and he agreed that we could all play hookie for the day.  Yipee!!  I know it sounds crazy, but I love having my kids at home with me.  I miss them during the day while they are at school and I was very excited to have the whole day to relax and play.  We did agree to practice homeschooling throughout the day.  We worked on telling time, listened to “the timeline song”, read books, worked on some literacy skills, and made muffins.  It wasn’t a perfect homeschool day, but to my defense, I was making stuff up on the fly and was not prepared at all.  Still, I really enjoyed being at home with the kids and we were able to get a little bit of schooling done.

As you may be asking….Yes, we have decided to homeschool the kids next year.  There are many reasons why people home school.  For me, I am not doing it because I don’t like the kid’s school, dislike the kids in their class, nor am I doing it for religious reasons.  I am doing it because I only have a few precious years with my kids while they are still young and I don’t want to miss seven hours of everyday with them because they are at school.  I am doing it because I want to know my kids better and because I enjoy spending time with them.  I am doing it to increase the quality of life that we are living and to decrease the go-go-go that seems to consume us.  All year Faith has come home from school and told me that she missed me during the day.  My children seem to be begging for my attention and are having a hard time getting it. I have wanted to home school for years and now everyone is on board – even Tom and Faith.  I am excited for this next phase of life.  I don’t think I have been this excited about anything in a long time.   Don’t worry, the kids will have plenty of friends and extra-curricular activities.  Now we will actually have time for those activities without running ourselves so thin that we are all exhausted and almost strangers.  We still have many months before this plan is a reality, but it is definitely our plan, God willing.

Trip to Cordele, GA

Doug and I made a brave and daring trip on the day after Christmas – we drove 6.5 hours down to Cordele, GA (with my three kids), visited our grandparents, and then drove back 24 hours later. :)  It was a quick trip with lots of time in the car, but it was worth all of the effort.  Doug hadn’t seen Grandpa and Marylene in a few years and they were no longer able to drive up to see us in Charlotte.  I also knew that they would really enjoy seeing the kids, and they did.

Here we are in the first hour of the trip.  Amazingly we all looked about the same when we got there.  Relatively little amounts of fighting or complaining… 

We had a great visit.  We ate well and socialized.  The kids painted with Marylene (Muv) and tried on her jewelry.  We took a drive out to the river on Sunday morning to see where some of our family used to live, saw the peanut mill, and showed the kids a Cork tree.   The kids played on the hammock for hours and rode their bikes outside (yes, I brought a bike and a scooter down with us…a great Mommy idea!)  One new thing that Doug and I did was to write down all of the stories that Grandpa told us.  Grandpa is our bonafide family historian.  He knows almost every relative going back five generations on three sides of the family.  Because he grew up in Cordele and lived here most of his life, he can remember all of these names, dates and stories.  His knowledge is truly amazing.  We usually just listen to the stories, but this time I wrote down the stories while Doug filled in a family tree on his computer.  Doug input over 160 names into the family tree.  Doug was so inspired that he came home and did more research on our great-grandfather from the 1800s.  It was fun hearing all of Grandpa’s stories and the family history.  I feel like I now have a better grasp on some of my family’s history.

  

All in all, it was a great trip.  The weather was warm so we were able to be outside a good bit… as you can tell because none of the kids are fully dressed, as usual.  I have been blessed with an abundance of wonderful and loving grandparents.  Grandpa and Marylene were so excited to have us visit and I could tell that they truly loved having us there.  They spoiled the kids with sweets and hugs, and didn’t mind too much when they were loud or a bit too excited.  Doug and I had fun in the car, debated some topics (of course), and sang songs.  An exciting and fun-filled 36 hours.