Go Oils!

I can't believe we are almost three months into the school year already.  It has been quite a journey for us already.  Most days go smoothly, but some days are tough.  The days when the kids are tired and cranky or whiny about school work or struggling with a subject...those are the days that I have to remind myself that it is okay to take breaks and just sit down and snuggle with them.  Or stop schooling and play a game to bring laughter back in the house.  Or let the kids play outside in the snow (yes!....we had our first snowfall yesterday).  At 7 am the kids were begging to go outside and make snow angels.  It was fun to have the flexibility to allow them to do that.  Then they came inside and had hot chocolate and did their school work.  I do enjoy making my own schedule each day....depending on how we are all feeling.  Classical Conversations is fun and rewarding.  The kids love to go there each week.  They are learning so much memory work and I am learning things that I completely forgot about from grade school.  Sometimes I come home from class on Monday feeling a little sad that I didn't retain a lot of academic information from my younger years.  I know nothing about geography and now I am having to locate all the continents, mountains, rivers, oceans, and major cities.  I will tell you what....those home schooling moms that have been doing this for a while are very smart.  They have challenged me to really study the information that I am teaching my kids.

Some days I can really see how homeschooling is benefitting us and other days I struggle to see all the good things.  But a lot of that is correlated with my emotions that day.  Depending on how successful the kids are with their work and how productive I feel.  So I try pretty hard to keep a good perspective on how things are going and not let my feelings dictate how I process the job I am doing.  Overall, I certainly can see how much my kids are benefitting from home education.  And no matter how many years I might do this, I will always be grateful for the time that I am given at home with them. It truly is a blessing!  And the things that I have learned from my children are priceless.  Just the other day we were studying a history timeline card and I was explaining to them about persecution.  I told the girls that even today, in other countries, people die because they believe in God.  Mya looked at me with such seriousness and said, "Mommy, I would still believe in God even if it meant I would have to be killed." What an awesome moment for a mom!

Here is my little Classical Conversation class (four kids) and I am so lucky to have parents assisting me throughout the morning.

This is our weekly memory work board.  We cover seven subjects each week full of memory work.

 We had the honor of doing a family presentation to all the CC families.  The girls really wanted to teach them how to make green smoothies so that is exactly what we did.

A few weeks ago Dan was flown to Oklahoma to look at a new job opportunity.  He came back on a Friday night and by Monday morning we had an official job offer. I am beyond excited for him.  I feel like I can clearly see how God has laid a path for him over the years with the jobs he has done to get him to this point.  He will step into administration and I can already tell that this will be a job that will grow him personally and professionally.  I couldn't be more proud.  He starts December 2nd and will work out of our home to begin with.  As his business grows then he will eventually have a home office somewhere close by.  He will do travelling during the day but will be home in the evenings.  This is a great Christmas present for us all. 

I am still in love with my oils.  Just the other day I discovered that a drop of peppermint in water takes away hiccups immediately.  That was fun to discover.  All five of us have had the start of a cold this Fall and I "kicked" all of the colds with my oils.  The most anyone had cold symptoms was two days maximum.  It never went into a full cold.  Sweet!  The best part about the business is helping other people heal their families and work on conditions and see results.  My brother in law sent me a picture the other day of my niece.  He did a before and after picture.  When she was at my house she fell off Mya's bike and banged her face up.  My brother in law and sister in law applied oils for a week to her face and within a week it was all cleared up.  The before and after picture is stunning.  Go oils!