Transition...

I am trying to decide if I should keep this blog. I have been a stay at home mom for a year now and my life has taken a different turn and now has a different vision than it did a year ago. I wanted to be the mom that was a parent helper in class, doing all these neat outdoor activities with my boys, having play dates with moms. I wanted other SAHMs to feel encouraged if they came to this site. And even though these have happened, the biggest thing that has taken place is my desire to homeschool. So I am taking a break for this blog. Now that Nathan is just about done with preschool, I decided to go another direction. I am now blogging from another site call The Homeschool Cottage. Since my life will now be more focused on that, I will blog more about that. I needed an outlet and I think this new phase in our life will help me use my vocal outlet to share how God is moving in our lives. I will also be posting almost daily onto facebook, so if you can click here and like that page, you will see what is going on daily in our homeschool life. My normal facebook page is really to stay connected with friends and family and not really to post about one single thing. So thank you for sticking with me and seeing our family change and grow in these last 6 years.  Enjoy the new site!

Its been a year, and its done

One year. One whole, expensive year. That's how long it took for us to finally complete our living room. A year ago this month we emptied our living room. I mean we stripped it down to the cement foundation and started there and worked our way up. After paying off some major debt (yay!), Joel said I could finally get new floors. The carpet was about 9 years old and after two kids and child care and youth ministry and never having them steam cleaned it was time. And after the floors finally came the whole what is my decorating style? How do I picture a house to look on the inside? I have boys will they handle this new girly touch? You know what I did? Once our floors were done and the walls painted, I picked a wall and started there. Once that wall was done, I picked the next wall, until each wall was decorated just the way I wanted it.

So here is to the one year anniversary of the most expensive thing Joel and I (besides buying a car) have ever (and possibly ever again) spent money on. Our living room remodel is done. I am sure I will switch out a lamp shade here, or a pillow there but the style and color and theme is done. Thank you for taking this journey with me. Enjoy! Each picture is the before (in all its messy glory) and the after taken from the same spot. I love our living room now and all the little details in it.

  

 

 

A little update on our life.

I know I have been remiss in writing and updating about our life, but who knew staying home full time would make life busier?

So what's new? Hmmm, well we bought a couch. This is a big deal because we have never had a "new" couch in our 9 years of marriage. When I left California for Arizona I took my sister's old couches and then we gave those to some one else when we bought an Ikea couch (SO don't recommend). After that couch, Joel's parents gave us their old couches (all 3 of them). Finally, after saving and researching what I wanted with our new living room set up I found one that WE ALL LOVE! They style, color, size and comfort was exactly what I wanted. Don't worry with two boys I paid the extra money for their 10 year warranty. :)

The other big thing in our life is prepping to homeschool Nathan next year for kinder and start Zachary on some basic preschool stuff. We were going to put Zachary in the same preschool Nathan was in but we have no guarantee that he will be potty trained by then and I didn't want to pay the money and realize he wasn't ready. So if he needs to go to preschool the following year, we will send him. I have taken our playroom/guest room and have painted it, sold all the furniture that was in it and have slowly started buying what I want to make this into a classroom/play room/guest room/office. I will do a big reveal probably in July right before we start our first year in there. I am on a budget and I can only buy a couple of things a month. Plus, we have spent a lot of money on our backyard repairing our fence. In June when Nathan is done with preschool, that will become our homeschool budget each month. That is going to help out a lot.

I still need to figure out what to do with these toys and clean out the closet. That is my latest project. I will get there but its all the big toys that don't fit into bins. So they may end up in the boys' room.  The closet just has a lot of junk piled in there. So I have been sorting and throwing away a lot of stuff. Its so freeing to do that. I am not a pack rat but Joel is.

My goal before August is to have the whole year planned out and all the worksheets and activities printed out and ready to go. So I have been working on my lesson plans. I have already decided to do 6 weeks of school and 1 week off. That way we can find time to refresh and not get burned out. It also allows for vacations at times when public schools are not on vacation. We will take 2 weeks off at Christmas as well. I know things will need to be tweaked and added and changed but the basic things can be done and ready to go.

 

Nathan is so excited to start and I have already made some activity books for him. We have been practicing sight words and writing. He is my little learner. May he never out grow it. Zachary will have some things to do as well since I know he will not want to be left out. Its an exciting time for this tiny household.

Until next time...