A Stable Beginning: January 2018

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Monday, January 15, 2018

The way we learn ~ 2018 Virtual Homeschool Fair

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Saturday Summary

This weeks Saturday Summary will happen on Sunday 🤣😉😴

Friday, January 12, 2018

Snapshots of Us {001 - 012/365}

These are the Snapshots of our everyday life for 2018. Some of the pictures will be duplicates if you follow us on Instagram, but most will not be. I hope to post our pictures weekly on Friday evenings, stay tuned...

001 ~ My new sign from @kdmaedesigns is the perfect addition to our #classroom ! We hit the ground running today with only a few first day back hiccups. Nothing that a little #grace can’t handle.

002 ~ The snow has begun.

003 ~ TEN inches of snow for these cuties!

004 ~ My #littlegymnast , @mckenzieflipstoo qualified for her Level 4 STATE meet today 🎉 she had a great meet with only a minor hiccup on vault. She’s ready for the next meet already! Bars ~ 9.250 (5th T), Beam ~ 9.200 (4th), Floor ~ 9.050 (8th T) , Vault ~6.500 (13th), 34.00 All-Around (8th).

Meanwhile, @mikaylaflips is doing her thing in San Antonio! Last night she qualified for the Fiesta Jam Finals for #vault She competes in the finals tonight. She placed 1st on vault with a 9.45, Bars ~ 8.00 (6th), Beam ~ *scratched* , and Floor ~ 9.100 (3rd), 26.55 All-Around (9th)

005 ~ Birthday wishes

006 ~ Snow has blanketed our town for nearly a week now and that means a total shut down of the city and public/private schools because the neighborhood roads do not get plowed. In turn, gymnastics training gets switched around to accommodate being in the gym while the roads are not as frozen.

Normally Mikayla takes her @spanishacademy lessons in the early afternoon on Tuesdays before leaving for evening training, but last night I made the switch-er-roo so she could get her lessons done before leaving for morning training. While we didn’t get lessons with her beloved Nora, her teacher this morning, Mayra, was just as fabulous!

Switching classes was super easy too! I just logged onto the website under her account and rescheduled her current time for one that better worked for us this morning. She only missed the first 30 minutes of morning training but she got her lessons in because #schoolcomesfirst !

007 ~ A little reading aloud before practice. I used to love to read Frog and Toad and now five of my six kids have too 😁

008 ~ Rainbow colors makes diagramming sentences more fun!

009 ~ 45K in 17 months! Guess I drive a lot 🚗🚦😁

010 ~ Algebra 1, Grammar 5, and a little Reading Eggs for edutainment for the preschooler. Micah loves to sing along with the videos.

011 ~ Talking with his Daddy.

012 ~ Woohoo, Micah is learning to write his name and his “M’s” are looking good!

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Monday, January 8, 2018

Our “Homeschool” Why ~ 2018 Virtual Homeschool Fair

Good morning friends!
I am excited to be participating in the 2018 Virtual Homeschool Fair hosted by Susan form Homeschooling Hearts & Minds. This week is all about the "why" for homeschooling so let me share with you my why by taking a look back at the last 9 years.

Way back in June 2009 I wrote our declaration on this blog that we were going to start homeschooling when we moved to our current destination. It was a huge jump for us because we were moving across country and setting up in a new city, Mike was deployed, and I was 7 months pregnant with Miss McKenzie. Little did we know that she would be making her early debut just 5 short weeks later.

Sept. 2009

7th, 3rd, 1st, PreK, & newborn freshly home from the hospital

August 2010

8th, 4th, 2nd, PreK4, 1

August 2011

9th, 5th, 3rd, JrK, Tot School

August 2012

10th, 6th, 4th, K, PK3

August 2013

11th, 7th, 5th, 1st, PK4

August 2014

12th, 8th, 6th, 2nd, JrK, 3 months

August 2015

9th, 7th, 3rd, K, 1 year-old

August 2016

10th, 8th, 4th, 1st, Tot School

August 2017

11th, 9th, 5th, 2nd, PK3

Every day I strive to enrich my children's lives and keep God at the center. Homeschooling might seem difficult at times, but so are a lot of things in life, but in the end it will be a lifetime reward. I am positive that the girls will excel with this new one-on-one learning, why else would the Lord lead us to it? It all comes down to having faith.

Homeschooling has afforded our family many opportunities. Opportunities to grow and learn as a family. We didn't start out from the beginning being homeschoolers but I am so glad that God led us on this journey. This year marks our 9th year homeschooling and next year we will have our second high school graduate, Madison, and our first college graduate, Marie! While it hasn't always been rainbows and butterflies we are making it work for our families needs and goals. Enjoy your journey and time with your child, as it passes so quickly.

Now, let's see what my fellow homeschool bloggers have to say about The Reasons We Homeschool.

Note: all posts will be live after 8 am EST.
5 Reasons to Homeschool High School by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds
Weird Homeschoolers by Kim R. @ Good Sweet Love
How We Make Homeschooling a Lifestyle by Jeniffer @ Thou Shall Not Whine
Our Ever Evolving Homeschool Story by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool
5 Reasons You Will Want to Homeschool by Michele@ Family, Faith and Fridays
How Our Homeschool Came To Be (and why we continue) by Sabrina @ Kids, Crunch, and Christ
Home Education - 10 Reasons we keep going...even when it's hard by Lizzy @ Peaches@Home
So... Tell Me Again Why You Homeschool? by Leah @ As We Walk Along the Road
Virtual Homeschool Fair 2018 - Week 1 - Why do I Homeschool by Joelle@Homeschooling For His Glory
Homeschool Reasons: Bullies, Faith and More by Annette @ A Net In Time
In Pursuit of Purpose by Laura @ Four Little Penguins
A Long Time Ago . . . Why We Decided To Homeschool by Kym @ Homeschool Coffee Break
The Why Behind Hopkins Homeschool by Amanda @ Hopkins Homeschool
5 Reasons We Love Homeschooling by Brittney @ Mom's Heart
Why We Homeschool - It's What We Do by Kristen H @ Sunrise to Sunset
Why we Home Educate and Extra Benefits by Sarah@Delivering Grace
Homeschooling: The Big WHY? by Lisa @ True North Homeschool Academy at Golden Grasses
Regaining Your Homeschool Focus by Jen @ A Helping Hand Homeschool
Why do we homeschool? by Dana @ Life Led Homeschool
Our ìHomeschoolî Why by Jacquelin @ A Stable Beginning
It's Worth it! Why We Homeschool, Even After All These Years by Hillary @ Walking Fruitfully
Because Life is Precious by Lori H @ At Home: where life happens
1998 vs. 2018: Why We Homeschool by Debra @ Footprints in the Butter

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Saturday, January 6, 2018

Summary Saturday, week ONE

A few years ago a friend hosted a Random 5 on Friday on her blog. I had a lot of fun participating in that so I want to start compiling a random wrap up of our weeks again. However, I am changing my Weekly Wrap Up's to Summary Saturday and share six points because I like even numbers :-) Some weeks may be in-depth, others not so much. It honestly just depends on what we have going on.

Let's get started!

1~ First day back to school for the 2017-2018 year happened on Tuesday, January 2nd. Some of us were ready and some of us were not. I choose to go slow this first week back because the original plan had Mikayla was leaving early Thursday morning for her gymnastics meet in TX so this week Mikayla, Montana, and McKenzie only did three subjects each day. Madison started back full throttle.

2 ~ Then things got bumped up because of the Winter Storm Grayson was going to start dumping snow on Wednesday night and she needed to leave for the airport Wednesday early evening. Things were evolving smoothly until she realized that she couldn't find her meet sack pack! So she ended up taking McKenzie's...however, McKenzie has her first meet today, so she is taking one of our gym friend who is not competing this week. The storm ended up dropping 10 inches on us. The kids loved it!

3 ~Can I brag on Madison for a second?! We received her first quarter grade reports for her online AP classes, Honors Physics, and Spanish 3 and I am super proud of her! She has put in the work and earned an "A" in AP Language & Composition and Spanish 3, and a "B" in AP Government and Honors Physics. Her AP Language teacher had this to say about her...

I love the way your active and critical mind comes through these notes. You seem determined to learn from them, and I’m glad you literally taped useful rules up above your text. That’s the kind of initiative that will make you likely to succeed in this class. I also enjoyed the way your own sense of humor comes through these notes, as when you composed tongue-in-cheek advertisements for some sections of Elements of Style!

She still has her eyes set on the Air Force Academy in 2019 and I found this sweatshirt

online for her. 4 ~ McKenzie got her new competition Leo on Wednesday, Mikayla's has not come in yet so she is wearing last years Leo for her meet this weekend. It may be a little tight in her shoulders though...she will have to pull the sleeves up on her arms to raise her arms above her head, but overall it fits. I hope! She competed at 7:30PM last night and I was glued to my phone watching her scores come in while getting Montana and McKenzie prepped for their meets. I am praying she can pull it together and make the event finals for Saturday night, but the main goal is 4 clean events. It's so hard not being at her meet because she is getting down to the wire...however, on the other hand McKenzie is just starting her gymnastics career. It's a balancing act and we are making it happen!

5 ~ Montana has her last cheerleading competition this morning. Don't you just love it when you need to be in several different places at once! Thank goodness the hubby is still home on leave or it would have made for an eventful weekend getting everyone here and there. She and her team are competing against two other teams. I pray they all hit their marks so they have a great showing. Her cheerleading venue is 20 minutes away from McKenzie's gymnastics venue so I am hoping to make it in time to see her compete. 6 ~ Next week I start sharing more reviews for The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine Homeschool Review Crew. I am excited to start reviewing and using products! I have a special project I am working on with them that I am excited about too, but I'll share more about that in February. There are a lot of new curriculum items that look amazing on the review list so stay tuned! Next week I also plan to to start sharing our menu plan for each week. I am getting back to a KETOGENIC Way of Eating (WOE) on January 9th and the kiddos are going to do a Whole 30 starting on the 9th too. I figure it may be helpful to others and keep us accountable if I post our menu plan. I will warn you, I am a creature of habit so don't expect too much variety in my KETO meals though.

And that's our first Saturday Summary, see you next week!

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Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Wordless Wednesday

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Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year ~ My Word 2018

image credit

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

I pray that 2018 is a prosperous year filled with love, joy, and happiness! I have some goals I want to accomplish in 2018 but I am not quite ready to share them just yet... but don't worry I will very soon. I am, however, ready to tell you what My Word is for 2018.

I didn't focus on a word last year so I am excited to get back into practice this year.

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

~ Mathhew 6:33-34

I hope you stick around, 2018 is going to be amazing!

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