Ah, Spring break approaches!

 We just finished our last day of school before Spring Break. The boys and I are so excited. We need the break. Then we only have five weeks of school left and we're done! I plan to do a good Spring cleaning and maybe paint our office. It should be a fun week!

The past few weeks we've been trying to work out our plans for the next school year. We've decided to put the boys in a co-op. We're praying they can get in. As far as curriculum we're going to stick with what we did this year. Sonlight for History and Language Arts. Jacob will continue using Saxon for Math, Elijah will use Teaching Textbooks again. We're holding out on deciding about Science until we find out if we get into the co op as the science there will supplement what I would do here. I'm looking forward to another year of homeschooling. Overall it has been great. The boys have loved it, and so have I. I am thankful the Lord has made it possible for me to be home with them and teach them.

100 Days

Today marks our 100th day of school. Wow! I can't believe how fast this school year has gone by. The first half of our school year was awesome. The boys have grown so much and learned a ton. The best part is how close this has brought our family to each other and to the Lord. I never imagined that choosing to homeschool would bring us this close. I continue to see daily that the decision to take the boys out of public school was one of the best decisions we've ever made.

I'm looking forward to what the next half of the school year brings. =)

Christmas Parade

The boys go to Awana Club and sing in a kids choir at Justin's grandma's church, so they were able to be in the Greenville Christmas Parade. Their float which was a little train broke down shortly after they started, so they were able to watch most of the parade while the guy who owns it got it back running. They were really happy about that.

One awesome float that we all loved was for the 501st Legion. They are a group of people that do Star Wars appearances. It was awesome. We've seen these guys at Free Comic Book days. So fun. We had a video of them, but I sadly deleted it by accident.

Halloween

We love Halloween around here! I've slightly become obsessed with making the boys costumes. I'm not a huge fan of spending a ton of money on a costume they will only wear one night. Plus I like that they won't be wearing the same thing other kids will be. This year the boys chose to be Charlie Brown and Linus from "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". One of my favorite things ever! We had a great time assembling these simple costumes.

9 Weeks Down

Aren't they getting so big!?

We wrapped up our first 9 weeks of homeschooling on Friday. Whew! It has gone by so fast. So far we have loved it. We've had a few bumps as I'm still learning the boys learning styles, and we've had to tweak some things here and there. But overall it's been wonderful. I can't imagine not having these boys home with me this year. They are growing by leaps and bounds. I'm excited that I get to be here one on one with them teaching and molding them. They are such smart boys and already I can tell their confidence levels have skyrocketed. They are so excited to start school each day and learn some new things. They tell me often how happy they are we made this decision and how they feel they are learning so much better than the previous year. This of course fills my heart with joy and reminds me often that we made a great choice in choosing to homeschool!

Here are a few pictures. My batteries went out in my camera so I don't have as many as I wish. New batteries are in place so hopefully more pictures will be coming soon.

This is Jacob sitting at our "school" table doing some work.

Elijah loves to sit on the porch to do a lot of his work.

We went to Carowinds for BMW Family Day. We were able to turn it into a school lesson, by talking about roller coasters and how they work. We also came home an researched their history. Such a fun day!

Elijah got glasses a few weeks ago. So cute!

We're doing an Apologia science curriculum this year and right now we're studying Astronomy. This was our first project.  A balloon solar system.

Jacob update

It seems that Jacob may have done a little more damage to his jaw than just the busted chin. We noticed the next morning that he just wasn't talking the same, and the left side of his face looked swollen. We also saw that his bottom two teeth weren't as close together as they were. I took him to the dentist yesterday. According to his dental x-rays his teeth are okay. She said that since the ones there are his only permanent teeth, and they are still growing in there really isn't much to worry about. She did think it best for him to see an oral surgeon to check out his jaw. They can do better x-rays or even a ct scan for the jaw. So we go on  Monday to check and see what if anything is going on. I really don't think it's going to be anything major since he's not having any trouble with eating or talking. I'm hoping he's just bruised a little or he's having a bit of TMJ that will go away once the swelling goes down. Thankfully he's not in any pain anymore. Just dealing with the itchiness of the stitches healing.

Please be in prayer for him. I will update on Monday how he's doing. =)

Stitches

Jacob got his first stitches yesterday. He took a big fall off his bike. He and Elijah were racing, Jacob looked back at Elijah and lost control. I saw the whole thing happen. It was quite terrible. I don't think I've ever ran so fast in my life. When I got to him all I saw was blood pouring from his chin and his mouth. We quickly loaded into the car and rushed to the ER. Jacob was very brave, and only kinda cried once when they put the numbing medicine on it. After some xrays to make sure there was no other damage he was stitched up and we were back home.
He's doing well today, just a little sore. He's having a hard time eating since his teeth got knocked around a little and are sore. In a few days I'm sure he'll be back to normal. We go next Wednesday to get his stitches out and he will then head over to the dentist for us to check on his teeth.
After seeing that fall I'm tempted to invest in a lifetime supply of bubble wrap. Especially for this kid. I'm pretty sure with his track record he'll have many more! Haha!