The heart of a Child

There is many different learning styles.No one is the same only because that would make my job to easy. The one thing all my kids do have in common is that they hate text books. They hate a planned out text book that will take them a whole month to read through the one chapter that the said text book has planned. Why spend a whole month on ONE chapter. It doesn't make sense to us. Every year I go to the Homeschool expo. Every year I find amazing books. Every night when I get back from homeschool expo, I look at the books more and say to myself" Why on earth did I buy this." Last year I did really good and went with what I knew the kids would love. I didn't buy a set curriculum so to say. At least at the expo. I did how ever buy My Fathers World for 1st and CtG. We love My Fathers World because it teaches the kids about the biblical feast which a huge in our house. Ill continue to by MFW for this reason. We do not use it the way the planner is writing. We just read the books and do the awesome worksheets because the kids want to. What I'm trying to get at here is that I don't make my kids use texts books for learning just because that's how the world says to learn. I think not. We learn more by experiencing the world than sitting and sitting and not doing what our minds want to do. My daughter wants to be writer. So she works on English and studies many different author's to understand their writings. Why would I waste her time with geometry when that's not something she will need? My oldest son wants to be a farmer. Well why would I make him waste his time on English Lit if that doesn't help out in the field. He is 12 and can run a farm like a 45 year old man. He is pretty amazing. My job is to give these kids everything they need to succeed to what ever they want to do. My little Indians play in mud until it crusts on their butts and they want to come in. That is their learning. Yes, they do sit at the sat table and work on bible work because that's important to us. We READ ALOT aloud. Man the stuff they learn from us reading to them while they play on the floor is absolutely amazing! Ethan I'm pretty is going to be our preacher. He is pretty neato. All y kids did inherit my sensory issues. I love all gooey goodness. I think that's why I love mud so much. If theres a mud fight outside you can bet I'm in the middle of it. No learning has to be the same. Enjoy the style you kids have and go with it.
 Chases birthday is on the 18th of this month.He will be 6!!! Oh my 6! He has been counting down the day for almost 2 weeks now. He is learning to count backwards from that ;) He is wanting a

teddy bear hamster. Im praying Petco has some otherwise he might be a sad kid. If they don't have one then he said a genie pig will work :) He is wanting a Cardinal bird on his cake also. Im not crafty with cake so Ill be calling that one in.
 Well I must go. I was wanting to look online for some Montessori things for the littles. Wish me luck ;)

Oh I do blog.....

Man time slips by so fast as I get older. Having half a dozen kids will do that I guess.I sure miss blogging. I miss writing our memories down and looking back. We will see if I can do better this year, maybe.....
 This new year has started with my eyes wide open to many things. One thing I have found is that over the years I have stressed over stuff in my house and kids that I never had before. Things changed when the husband took work out of state and it left me home not only pregnant on my own but with a huge amount of kids I had to raise on my own. Not to mention a house we just built and I had to care for the house by myself. It was hard. everyday I fell apart a little more. I felt alone and the stress was just so over whelming. I hide from that pain for about a year and half and then it slowly started coming out. As anger. To everyone. I hated being a wife, a mother, a friend, a daughter, a sister. I hated every thing that meant something to me.Why? Because I didn't have my other half here. The husband and I are polar opposites. EXTREM opposites. That's what makes us work. When we got together I was a free feeling do what I want go every where kind of mom and person. Up until he left for work. Then I was craving more of what people had and how they ran their house. I tried to be how they were so that maybe my stress would go away. That only made it worse.Blah blah blah move up to this past year since husband has been home. My anxiety got the better of me and it scared the living tar out of. I will never forget sitting in the ER bed with my mom next to my side. I was crying and wanting nothing more than to nurse my baby and see my kids play. I was so scared for my life and not knowing what was coming next. It took me a few months after that to really seek the Lord and ask questions. As I still struggle a lot of stress over crap that is of this world, I know I have to let it go. My job as a parent is to make sure my kids have a pure love for Jesus and treat people like they would Him. Yes I'm a homeschooler who loves my house and love taking care of it. BUT I refuse to that suck up my time with my kids and family. I refuse to let my living room floor cause me to yell at kids. I can always pick up a room, do laundry or dishes. I cant how ever take back my yelling at my OWN kids over something so stupid.My husband tells me I bark at every body all the time. I tells me I'm a mean woman. I can see that. I need to relax. As I write this and I know I will have many comments in my inbox, this doesn't mean my kids don't have chores. Yes they have chores and they are expected to do when told. They wear chore packs so I don't have to remind every minute. Im just saying I don't have to yell or flip out on them when things aren't done.
 School is another thing. As my other homeschooling friends know, no day ever looks the same. Im cool with that. If it did that would be boring and no learning would happen. I have a right to teach to my kids ANY WAY I want. No one or government will take right from me. We can go months with out touching a school book. If you aren't a homeschooler don't try to understand how we work because more than likely you will get mad or confused. we don't have to explain anything on how we roll around here. Theres times I feel like im not doing enough "school" and try to "get caught up" what ever that means. But the only thing im doing there is letting that outside world come into mine. Again with saying that NO that doesn't mean my kids get to have all this timeto go where ever someone wants them. It means we live life like a big book. We learn by life. We do outings to many different places. We grab life and run. As long as my kids are living life to shine for Jesus and witness to people, Im one happy momma! I know for not only homeschoolers but for a lot of people they crave what everybody else is up to. Thanks to facebook :) Sometimes I feel like I have to hide from people to feel ok with how I do things. Not really anymore. I know I have always been weird, which is cool because normal is weird to mean. As I continue to ramble, you might roll yours eyes, but that's ok I do that a lot too.  I don't like being labeled and it seems no matter what group of friends I have in life or online they want to label everybody and everything that moves. Im like mixed race. I embrace my freespirit side, my godly house wife side, my soft sweet momma side, my turbo bitch side. I like it all. Really I do. Im a nice neat package that has been abused my the FedX people during shipping.
 Now onto my kids. My kids are great. They run naked most of the day, which is why they have runny noses. They are growing each day and everyday I get a new gray hair. They are full of wild Indian that its a shame we have neighbors because im pretty dang sure they would be outside naked in the snow skinning a deer just to show us they could do it! They all our in 4h now. Really loven that. We are getting goats in the spring for milking and playing with. My chickens and ducks are finally laying. The kids gather them everyday and manage to break 2 every time. The boys are all in basketball. They are doing wonderful in it. Hannah and Chase will start piano again whenever basketball is over because I can not see myself running around those to schedules. The little girls are into UFC fighting with each other. Im JOKING! They can take the boys down so don't cross them. No the littles are busy playing dolls and being naked ALL THE TIME. Spring, are you close by?
 I better go take a shower while the crew is glued to the TV watching Magic School Bus.....and eating marshmallows.....naked.....