Home sweet home!

Day 16: Home

Home is not only where my heart is it is also where my ministry is.  How many people joke that they live at work, well it is no joke on my part I do live at work.  This was the hardest adjustment my family had to make.  We live at my job with all my co-workers and customers.  I literally bring my work home and there are days when I work from sun up to sun way down!!  This is what started us on our homeschooling journey.  Since starting God has shown us other convictions to homeschooling as well.

Our home is a very unique situation.  We live in a beautiful home where we are blessed with enough rooms so no one has to share (yet) and we have enough bathrooms that we are no longer banging and yelling for someone else to hurry up!!!  This home is attached to a cottage that houses 4 single parent families.  I help these families in advising them spiritually, financially, parenting, and cleanliness.  It has been such a blessing in doing this!  I have always wanted a to be a Mommy, not only am I a Mommy but I get to counsel and love on other women as they strive to get back to being just that or are just learning how to be a Mommy.  This ministry helps families stay together but equipping women with the right tools to be a mommy, disciplinarian, cook, budgeter, juggler of chores and daily living, and giving them the opportunity to go back to school and learn a trade or earn a degree!!!

This is our home and we love it!!

Happy day!

Day 15: Happy!

I love waking up and getting to see my sweet kid's faces every morning, even if they are both grouchy faces!  I have been given an opportunity to work at home and have the freedom to take my kids with me to work things!  This is my happy!  My husband has a job that is perfect for him and helps us FINALLY get on track with our financial goals that seemed so far out of reach.  This is his happy!  G man gets to play and have fun daily with his family and friends.  This is his happy!  Little miss gets to rule the roost and she loves the attention she gets!  This is her happy.  Together we have each other and we have the blessings of feeling safe, feeling loved, laughing, and being silly!  This is our happy!

Broken

Day 14: Broken

This toy isn't actually broken but it is as close as I can get.  This toy has detachable parts so that you can turn him into a car, boat, or plane.  He is missing one of his 4 wheels and now he can't be a car anymore. :(  

I have tried to talk to G man about taking care of the things that he has so that they last.  In his 4 year old mind there are so many other things to think about besides what I have told him over and over again!  We did get to have a neat talk today about what broken means.  This toy isn't broken it has a missing part.  We talked about how we could use one of the other parts to make him something else.  This led to a discussion on how God can use us even though we are broken by sin.  God chooses to use the most unlikely people to complete His will.  My favorite example of this is the women at the well, (John 4:1-42) she was riddled with sin that made her an outcast.  Christ used her so that many Samaritans would believe.   

All girl??

Day 13: All girl

This is so funny to me!  I dress Little miss in giant bows and fru fru clothes everyday!  She loves playing with her dolls and carrying her purse.  She also loves playing with her brother which includes hotwheels and transformers.

Today she wants to feed herself and she used brother's plate.  She got as messy as possible!!

At the park today I dressed her up in the cutest ruffle shorts and big bow and what does she find??  A stick!!  She played and played with this stick over and over!!

Then she found a dirt "slide" and slid down it on her pretty ruffle shorts!!!!!!!!!!  It was adorable to watch her though! So I guess I should call this the Not so all girl post!!  Got to love it!

All boy

Day 12:  All Boy

G man is definitely all boy!  His favorite thing to do is dress up like a super hero and fight EVERYONE!!!!  His favorite place to be is outside.  His new favorite thing is Transformers.  He loves playing with them and transforming them back and forth.  He even has an imaginary friend that is a transformer and he goes everywhere with us but luckily he doesn't have to ride in the car with us because he can transform and drive on the road!  Playskool has to coolest Transformer toys.  They are fun for G man because he can transform them by himself and they are great for us because there are some transformer toys that we can't operate!

Binky girl!

Day 11: Obsession

Little miss is obsessed with her binky!  In this picture she has one in her mouth, one in each hand, and one in her purse!!

When G man was a baby he loved his too.  We would cut a sliver off of it each morning before waking him up. I would tell him that he dropped it while he was sleeping and our dog Dizzy had eaten a piece of it.  Soon it was down to a little bitty bit and he clenched it in his teeth and finally gave it up and trashed it!

I cut Little miss' the 2 days ago in hopes that she would be easier and would decide that she wouldn't want it once it was cut.  No such luck.  She has been sucking away on it unaware that something about it has changed.  I have heard a lot of stories of interesting ways to say bye bye to the binky and would love some advise.  Thanks!!

Read Read Read!!

Day 10: Reading!

We are big on reading in our house!  I am a strong proponent of book therapy where we can use children's books to help explain problems or changes in life.  We read Everyone Poops and some other books to help with potty training.  I'm a Big Brother helped us prepare for Little Miss' arrival!  Of course, we love Hoppin' Snake and it is a wonderful tool to explain what family is.  Even when families don't look the same it shows that looks don't change the love of a family.

During our homeschool week we had a Mommy and me book club.  Where we read G man's favorite book each day and all of our work centered on its theme.  Goodnight Moon has been our favorite for a long time.  G man knows the book by memory and says it with me as I read it to him.  We had fun using it in our school day and G man loved learning about pairs and singles.  He did think he would trick me and brought me a pair of shoes and a single sock and then asked me which was the pair and which was the single!!  Love that boy!!

My husband's favorite books from his childhood are the Hank the Cowdog books.  Cory and G man have been reading it together at night now and they are both enjoying it.  I love that G man at age 4 can listen to a chapter book and he doesn't need the pictures to spike his imagination.  Cory loves that he gets to share this book with him!