This blog is my attempt to document our busy but BLESSED lives raising and educating our children for His glory. A child of God, wife to one, and mom to 6 fabulous kids. We are in our 16th year of homeschooling using a Classical ~ Literature based approach.

Come along for the good, the bad & the ugly.



Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Wordless Wednesday




© 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Word(full) Wednesday




 © 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Wordless Wednesday





 © 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

#MyPhotoEye ~ Week 2

This week in the #MyPhotoEye challenge we are showcasing our favorite meal. If you know me, you know that I love salad! In fact, I eat salad almost daily with lots of my favorite Ranch dressing. Buttermilk Ranch to be exact. 


What's your favorite meal? 








#MyPhotoEye

#Week2
#52WeekPhotoChallenge
​#FavoriteMeal





 © 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

The Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership from SchoolhouseTeachers.com ~ a TOS review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.


Welcome back friends! I hope you enjoyed your Christmas break and you have successfully transitioned back into your daily rhythm/routine of homeschooling your sweet babies. If you are like me, you have tweaked a few subjects here and there. This year while I was figuring out what needed to be adjusted for each of my children, we received a renewed subscription for the Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership from SchoolhouseTeachers.com.


If you are new to homeschooling, let me tell you that The Old Schoolhouse Company began almost 20 years ago when founder, Genz Suarez, started to sell used curriculum. It evolved quickly and now The Old Schoolhouse sells a best-selling magazine all about encouragaine you along your homeschooling journey. If you haven’t read one, be sure to get a copy of the next issue!


Let me tell you we hit the jackpot with this curriculum! For the low price of $99/year or $12/mo (use code: ONLY99 or ONLY12) your whole family can partake in all the curriculum SchoolhouseTearchers.com offers. There are hundreds of courses and resources available on the site so you’ll be sure to find one that fits the bill for you. Not only does SchoolhouseTeacher.com offer all these great classes you also get access to:

 ~ Curriculum written from a Christian Worldview 
~ Complete Scope & Sequences for PreK-12th grade 
~ Customer schedule builder 
~ A fully customizable yearly planner 
~ Videos, eBooks, and printables plus a special parent eBook library 
~ Literacy center 
~ Printable certificates for your records 
~ Grade reports, report cards, portfolios, transcripts and more!


There are so many courses covered within this site so I am sure there is one that you can use. For our family, I focused on spelling and history with my 4th grader, McKenzie. Spelling has been pretty rough for us these last few years as we try to find the right program for her. I was pleasantly pleased with the Schoolhouse Spelling curriculum. I choose to use the Upper Elementary Phonics-based Spelling with McKenzie and we started with lesson 13, which just so happened to be the review.


It worked great! I love how the spelling is broke up over 5 days with different activies including puzzles and games. The word lists from the phonics-based program provides 25 weeks of words that focus on phonics rules. She has since completed 4 weeks of spelling lessons and is feeling more confident in her spelling studies.


Next week, we are going to try the Charlotte Mason Spelling for a few weeks as we try to get back to our Classical education roots. The word list for the Charlotte Mason Spelling program are drawn from Scripture, classical literature, and famous speeches and focuses on building vocabulary.



Quite by accident I discovered the next feature curriculum that we used. It is the Drive Thru History series. My younger three children are studying American History so this was a fun way to supplement their learning with a video. I figured out how to load the SchoolhouseTeachers.com onto my TV web browser so that the kids could watch the videos straight from the TV. We all love Drive Thru History so I had no complaints whatsoever!


Lastly, I have to tell you that I am looking forward to next school year when my then 8th grader will enroll in the Classical Greek Mythology course! It digs into the Percy Jackson books and it looks amazing! Plus it is worth .5 cr so I can count it on her High School transcript.


We are super pleased with everything that this membership site has to offer our family! I love the flexibility it gives us. We are just about to gear up for our gymnastics season and I plan on letting my little man, Micah, utilize the extensive video library.
As I start thinking of next year’s course loads for my “Final 4” students, SchoolhouseTeachers.com will be the first place I search for courses. Since the courses offered are full curriculum I can rest assured that the children are getting quality coursework for the year. But don’t just take my word for it! The entire group from The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew is sharing their thoughts. Click on the banner below to see what they think of the Ultimate PreK-12 Annual Membership. I know you’ll be glad you did!

Online Homeschooling For the Whole Family {SchoolhouseTeachers.com Reviews}


 Format ~ online classes

Price ~ $99/year or $12 month

 Ages ~ PreK - 12th grade
Social Media Links: 




 © 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Wordless Wednesday ~ Happy 17th birthday




© 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

#MyPhotoEye ~ Week 1


Morning friends! This year in an effort to use my big camera more I’m joining my friend Kalynn and participating in her 2020 Weekly Photo Challenge, #MyPhotoEye. Week 1 is all about the selfie. I’m not usually in front of the camera, but I’m happy with the way my snapshot came out. 


#MyPhotoEye #Week1 #52WeekPhotoChallenge #Selfie


#beautycaptured #snapshotsofus




© 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Wordless Wednesday






© 2008 - 2020 A Stable Beginning. All rights reserved. All photographs, text, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author.