And apparently I spoke too soon....

This is a post I would really, really rather not write, because just thinking about it makes my stomach unhappy.  But as blogs can't be entirely happy news, here goes:

I posted earlier this month that we had a contract on our house. (again!). On the 6th of this month we had our home inspection.  The inspector was very very thorough,  spending about three hours going over our house, appliances, water heater, roof, attic, basement, etc...It made me a little nervous!  Thankfully, he only found a few minor issues, for instance one loose shingle. 

The next day, Kenneth was literally on his way to our realtors office with a signed, accepted offer on a house we liked in Erwin.  It was an older home and needed some updates, but had a huge fenced yard, great location, and -better yet- a great mortgage!

Before Kenneth could even get to the realtors office, she called him to let us know that (once again!!!) our buyer was backing out.  Yes, for the second time, a buyer backed out on us.  We were dumbfounded.  The buyer's realtor said the decision had nothing to do with the home inspection (duh!) but that the buyer was "financially unable to purchase".  Which doesnt make a lot of sense since she had a preapproval letter from her bank...

So, once again, I was devastated.  It didn't help that our realtor told us she'd never had this happen to anyone twice.  Great.  Aren't we the lucky ones.  And I was really angry at the buyer, because she had listed several things she wanted done to the home before closing, such as the porch painted, the t.v. wall mount taken down (and holes filled and painted!), front porch stained, etc.  So my husband has been coming home fron 12 hour shifts and working really hard to get all this done. 

This is one of those things I do not understand, a seemingly answered prayer that is suddenly taken away. And while I am still very frustrated and disappointed, I am trying to remember that all things work together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.  So somewhere, someday, I believe I will understand why this happened!

So, the house is still on the market.  I am trying to look at the bright side:  the porch is freshly stained and painted, the deck is freshly stained, the home is obviously sound as it as been inspected (twice!) in the last six months.

But it does tick me off every time I walk by the flat screen tv sitting on my sofa table, where I usually sit my fall decorations.

A good start

I'm happy to report that Bella's Kindergarten year is off to a good start!  We began school on Aug 3, and completed 21 school days for the month.  She is doing excellent with all her subjects thus far...my biggest difficulty has been getting her to make her bed without grumbling and complaining!

Since pretty much all of the material we've covered so far has been a review, she is zipping through her curriculum.  I've been doing 2 lessons a day in math and phonics on most days. Which gives us some wiggle room if we need to slow down once we get into harder material.  We are already about 14 days ahead, and when you take into account that our curriculum has only 170 days in it, while the state requires 180....well we've got lots of time for field trips and supplemental activities!

Our kindergarten year has definately been more of an adjustment for me than for Bella... The workbooks and materials we used last year required virtually no preparation.  This year I spend part of almost every day pulling the appropriate flashcards, gathering worksheets, cutting out game pieces, getting out art supplies, preparing the dry erase board, etc.  It takes a lot of time....but I really enjoy it!

Here are some pictures from our first month of Kindergarten!

The dry erase board, ready for the next mornings' phonics / handwriting
lessons!

Abby participates in art time, making egg carton caterpillars!

Sand art!

The girls inspect our "Closer Look" board, an idea I got from pinterest:
Petri dishes attached to a wooden board- fill with small objects
and give the kids magnifiying glasses!

My sweet Kindergartener!

Making Butt Caterpillars during art time!

SOLD!

After many, many months of being on the market, we finally got a contract on our house this past week! We are thrilled, but I have to admit it hasn't fully sunk in yet, and I don't think it will until I actually begin packing...which will need to be soon, as the movers will be here in approximately 19 days.
   I am tired just thinking about it.  But it will be a great opportunity to get rid of lots of things we don't need / use.  And Lord knows I won't miss the short-notice home showings so often bestowed upon us by the realtors- the last one was exactly 53 minutes. And yes, my husband and I can have our house swept, mopped, swiffered, vacuumed, dusted, de-cluttered, and Cloroxed from one end to the other in that time frame!  We are professionals at this point.
  Our closing is on the 28th of this month, so now we have to get through appraisals, inspections, etc. Then, Lord willing, we will  be homeless -temporarily- and on the lookout for our next home!

Beginnings!

This morning I was awakened at 7:20 a.m. by an excited whisper.  "Mama! Get up!  I already made my bed!  I'm ready for my first day of kindergarten!" Thats right, today is D-Day, the day we

launch our attack on education.  And while I appreciated Bella's enthusiasm, I have to admit I cajoled her into climbing into bed with me for 20 more minutes of sleep!

So we finally got up at 7:40, at breakfast, brushed teeth, got dressed, and took this picture of my

very excited kindergartener:

Then we got down to business!  It really wasn't too foreign, as we did our "practice year" last year,
so she already got the concept of sitting down for lessons.  We did add a few things this year, though, and will continue to do so throughout the year.

We began our morning with prayer.  Bella prayed for her Nana, Abby mentioned a few names, and I asked God to help us be good teachers and learners! Then we said the Pledge of Allegiance.  I don't even know if they still do that every day in public schools, especially since it contains -gasp- the "G" word. (God!) But I want Bella to learn it. 

Then we sat down for Phonics.  Most of which was (and for a while will continue to be) a review.  We went over the letter "I" (and i!) and did a couple of workbook pages.  We reviewed all her letters with flashcards, etc.

Next was an art activity that came with her curriculum, then Math.  We actually did two math lessons today as they were only a review of colors and numbers 1-10.  As with Phonics, math will be a review for a while.  But I did not feel comfortable trying to skip her to 1st grade so we will just cruise for a while and enjoy it!

We ended our day with Bible. We did a song, then started our first memory verse, Genesis 1:1~ Which, in a fabulous coincidence, begins with "I"!  We talked about creation- beginnings!- and named several things God created, etc.  We ended by praying and thanking God for his creation.

Since we finished all this in much less time than I anticipiated, I let the girls gather up a big pile of books, we got cozy on the couch, and read aloud for half an hour!

Mostly, our first day was a resounding success! I already see some improvements that need to be made, firstly in my organization, as I was not as prepared and I thought I was last night!  And secondly in keeping Abbigail happily occupied!   I got her a new toy to play with during lessons and it did keep her occupied for a while.  But once she got tired of it she tended to be distracting.  And while I do not expect her to sit quietly at the table the entire time, I do expect her to play or color without being a disruption.  We are most definately a work in progress! But I feel very blessed and thankful to have the means, opportunity, and desire to homeschool.

Mission: Kindergarten!

Several weeks ago I asked my husbad (casually!) "Do you have any plans for July 20th?...Cause if you don't...."  He knew where this was going and there were several seconds of frantic mind-racking on his part....surely someone had asked him to to something on that day.... Okay, just kidding.  I am doing my husband a huge disservice.  He is actually great about watching our girls for a whole afternoon, which is exactly what I asked him to do this past Friday.

Because Friday, Mommy (thats me!) had to make....drumroll please...."THE PLAN!"

Otherwise know as my "First Annual Homeschool Planning Day!" 

So after breakfast, Hubby loaded up the subjects of our experiment in parenting and took them to Hands On Museum for the morning.

As soon as the garage door closed, I started cleaning out the two large closet shelves I have allotted for craft things and school books.  We had accumulated quite a lot of junk...dried up acrylic paints, markers with no lids, lids with no markers, and crayons crayons crayons crayons.... 

Let me dwell on the Crayola phenomenon for a moment!  What happened to the 8 basic colors?  Or even the jumbo box (remember, it used to have a sharpener in the back?!) Now they make Glitter crayons. Neon crayons. Skin Tone crayons and no I am not joking.

Anyway, I cleaned out the junk, segragated dry erase markers, regular markers, colored pencils, and crayons into separate (but equal!) pencil boxes.  I culled through the coloring books and pitched the ones in which someone had scribbled on every page.  I separated the coloring books from the preschool workbooks that Abby can use later....I put things in stacks and baskets and piles...you get the picture.  It was extremely cathartic.

Then I moved on to the homeschool cart (pictured below!) and went through the same process.  Flash cards went back into envelopes, math manipulatives put back into baskets, old phonics workbooks thrown out, etc.  I love this cart because I can fit a lot into it, and since it has wheels I just roll the whole thing into the kitchen when its time for lessons!

So once all that was done, I could get down to planning the plan.  I spread Bella's curriculum out all around me on the floor and stared at it for a long time, resisting the urge to frantically call the registrars office at ETSU and beg them to enroll me in some primary education classes. Then I rolled up my sleeves, poured more coffee, and dug in. 

As I've stated in previous posts, I have chosen A Beka for Bella's curriculum this year.  Her Kindergarten kiy provides Math and Phonics (which also encompasses handwriting).  I have started familiarizing myself with the layout of the teachers manuals.  They looked a bit daunting at first glance, but I think by paring down what I really want with a highlighter they will work really well, especially as I get more familiar with them.  I also purchased A Beka's Art Projects book, although we will supplement this a LOT with our own crafts.  Hey, its Kindergarten!

For our Bible lessons, I purchased the Kindergarten curriculum from Positive Action Bible Curriculum.  I really like this! It is set up to be used 3, 4, or 5 days a week as you choose.  There are songs and memory verses that correspond to the lossons, and the child's workbook has coloring, drawing, matching activites with each lesson to keep them engaged.

As far as things like Science and History, for now we will cover these things sporadically or as we are interested in them by checking out books at the library.  One of my big goals for kindergarten is read, read read! 

After looking through curriculum for a while, I set out for the really fun part of the day: shopping! I purchased several craft supplies at Michaels, then got 2 large dry erase boards- one for here and one to keep at my moms for the days she does lessons with Bella.  I also picked up some pretty sparkly pencils to give Bella on her first day of school

After Planning Day was completed, I can say with confidence that I fell almost, barely, hopefully ready to begin teaching Bella kindergarten!

Hallelujah Shoes

This post was inspired by my friend, Julie, and her post about grocery shoppping with four young children, and how the Lord provided help from an unlikely source just when she needed it.  It brought to mind an incident that happened to me a few years ago, and I wanted to share it.



                                                  These are my Hallelujah Shoes.

Okay, I know you are thinking, "There's absolutely nothing special about these shoes!"  Thats right.  The shoes themselves aren't anything to write home about.  But the purchase, well, it was special to me.
So here's the story of the Hallelujah Shoes.

A few years back, my husband and I were having a child-free day in Pigeon Forge.  (We only had Bella at the time) We were browsing the outlet stores and I decided to go into one of the shoe stores.  I had a pair of brown clogs (exactly identical to the ones pictured above) that I really liked.  I had worn them for two winters, and they were coming apart.  Literally.  The insole was coming out, the stitching was coming loose, the soles were worn away.  They were shot.  But I liked them so much I wanted to find another pair just like them.

The problem was, I didn't want to pay a lot for them.  I'm pretty thrifty when it comes to buying clothes and shoes for myself.  I admit I don't shop at Goodwill or the thrift stores ~ even though I have absolutely nothing against wearing used clothes, I just usually dont have the time or patience to go hunt for what I need.  But I very rarely buy clothes or shoes for me or my girls that isn't on sale, and I never shop at the more expensive stores.  I don't buy things for myself until it becomes a need. 

Anyway, I went into the shoe store, which of course was having their monthly "Huge Clearance!" and "Lowest Prices of the Season!" sale. I asked God, "Please let my shoes be on sale!..I walked around until, sure enough, I found THE shoes. I tried on the new pair and boy, did they look and feel. good.  And surprise! they were on sale!  I picked up the box and headed to the cash register.

In the fifteen seconds it took me to walk to the line at the front of the store, I was already trying to talk myself out of those shoes.  Yes, they were on sale, but it was still a little more than I wanted to spend...I could use that money for other things....did I really need them?  Wouldn't my old shoes last one more winter?

As I stood in line, argueing with myself, clutching that shoebox to my chest, an amazing thing happened.  I remembered thinking one  simple thought," Lord, please let them ring up even cheaper!"

One heartbeat later, the woman in front of me, a stranger, suddenly turned to me.

"I have this coupon for an extra %15 off that I can't use...would you like it?"

Would I?! Yes, ma'am!

So I bought the shoes, and I have always called them my Hallelujah shoes, 'cause that's what I felt like hollering when I left that shoe store.  They always remind me that God hears and considers our smallest request.

You can read my friend Julie's blog posts at www.cherokeechix.com .

How does your garden grow?

As many of you know, we have decided to homeschool Bella, and later, Abby.  I used this past school year as a "practice year" for kindergarten, as homeschooling is a completely new journey both for me as a teacher and for Bella as a student.  She has done extremely well.  She is now a beginning reader, and just as importantly, she loves to be read to.  She frequently asks me to read to her while she is eating lunch and I am happy to oblige!  We finished a kindergarten math book (Saxon Math K) and she really enjoyed it, especially the manipulatives.  We have also almost completed Book 1 of Explode the Code.

I decided that a unit study would be a good, fun way to end our year.  Since planting season is upon us, I picked a Garden unit study.  I purchased and downloaded a unit study by Amanda Bennett to use as a guide, and off we went!

We have had such a good time with this! I have been able to incorporate reading, writing, art, science, and Bible all into this unit.  We learned about Claude Monet and looked at several examples of his artwork.  In the picture below, we are attempting to paint like Monet...we had fun, but I'm not sure it turned out quite as good as the original!

 We also learned some new vocabulary words, such as: row, dig, stem, etc.  I had Bella copy these into her Garden Journal, then I wrote the definition she gave me for each one!  We also made a garden collage out of magazine clippings, talked about the differences between fruit and vegetables, and made a flower out of pattern blocks.  For a Bible lesson, we read the parable about "A sower went forth to sow" out of the book of Matthew, and we talked about having "good ground" for the seed of God to grow!

                And of course, at the end of all this, we planted some seeds!  Bella chose tomoatoes, squash, broccoli, beans , and carrots.

                                     Abby helped plant the seeds!

 
                              Just a few short days later, we were excited to see our seeds sprout!

                             My sweet Daddy plowed us a real garden!

                   But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who has ears to hear, let him hear."  Matthew 13:8-9