How and What We're Doing: Homeschooling Year 7

   

     This past summer I read the book Teaching from Rest by Sarah Mackenzie and had several light bulb moments. If you are a homeschooling mom reading this and you have yet to read Sarah's book, stop reading my blog and go get your hands on it STAT. Seriously, I was so encouraged by it and it helped me to narrow my focus as a homeschooling mama. Sarah gives practical ideas and speaks to the heart of the reader, and she does it all succinctly because she knows we all have a million plates we're trying to keep spinning. But since this post was not intended to be a book review I will move on...kind of. One of the biggest take aways for me from Teaching from Rest was thinking through what I want my kids to get or remember from our time homeschooling together. The other, which is closely tied to the first, is that I need to teach in a way that works with my strengths and not the way I've seen other moms teach, otherwise I will end up spinning my wheels and feeling exhausted. In thinking about those two things, how did I want to/need to change what we were doing to make sure that I am spending time on the things that I value the most in a method that works with my personality and strengths. Pretty much figuring out how to work smarter, not harder as a homeschooling mom.

The kids with Miss Elisabeth, a homeschool graduate, now Liberty University student, who used to be my mother's helper.
     All of this came together at just the right time as our family's babysitter extraordinaire, Miss Elisabeth, just left for college and is not coming to help with the little ones while I do school with the older two this year. I was freaking out about how I could possibly handle schooling a sixth grader, a fourth grader, and a kindergartner, with a three year old tagging along. But I'm probably giving more details than you need. The short version is I decided to change up our schedule and do more together. More together meant rearranging our school room. At the same time that I was thinking through all of this, my amazing husband has been growing in his woodworking skills and offered to make me new bookshelves and a school table. 😍 I'll post pictures of the table, please let me know if you have any questions about how Pete built it. I'd be glad to share. (Here's a link to the original plans I found. We did use this Ikea table top x2 instead of making the top)

Our brand new school table! I'm so excited and the kids are loving it, too!
Here's our general* schedule for this year**:

9:00-9:30
~Older two boys (4th and 6th grade) work on their CC Notebooks doing basic copywork of this weeks memory work, trace maps and prepare or practice their presentations
~I get my breakfast shake and my coffee and orally review the memory work with Will (5)
~Maggie (3) usually eats breakfast during this time, she's my late riser
9:30-10:00
~Older two boys do their history class. It's an online self-paced class from Veritas Press. They really enjoy it and it gives me about 30 minutes to work with Will one on one.
~Will and I work through Saxon 1, 2 pages of Handwriting Without Tears, and 2 pages of Explode the Code. Then we read one leveled reader together.
~Maggie usually colors or plays with stickers while we do these things. Sometimes she watches the history lesson with the boys or watches a show on tv.
10:00-10:20/30
~All together we have "Morning Time"
Morning Time starts with singing the Doxology, then learning a hymn together adding one verse at a time until we can sing it without looking at the words. We just finished learning Holy, Holy, Holy. After that we share prayer requests and I write them down in a prayer journal. Then one of us prays. After that we do one or two of a few things: -read a few fun poems; learn about an artist or piece of art; learn about a missionary; read about a Bible verse and how it can help us in our day to day lives; or read a seasonal picture book(s)
This is a piece that we just began adding and it has quickly become a favorite for all of us. The kids are loving the poetry-which I was nervous about adding-and the older kids truly love reading the picture books even though they are older. They have caught on to the hymns and remind me of prayer requests. Really this part of our day has blessed me more than I imagined and I'm so thankful!

10:30-11:00 Read Aloud

Reading Ember Falls together 
~We start this time all together, and if the younger two get bored they are allowed to leave and go play quietly. Initially I had hoped this would be a together time, but coming on the heals of sitting and listening for Morning Time, I have decided to roll with this and make this time more for reading books the older two can enjoy. That said, I still need to work in a more consistent time to read other books with the younger two.
11:00-11:30
~The older two take turns doing math (Saxon) with me for about 15 minutes, then work on their own.
~Will plays Wii U or iPad for 30 minutes
~Maggie either plays with Play-Doh or paints with water or something like that
11:30-11:50
~Will and Maggie play together
~Jon and Sam read non-fiction books that I've gathered from library that coincide with the science and history that we're learning about with Classical Conversations.

Sam and Jon reading in one of the two book nooks they've made recently
11:50-12:00
~Older two do Duolingo to learn a little Spanish for our upcoming trip to Peru!
Noon-1:30
~Lunch

~Break/Recess

On a rainy day, playing keep the balloon off of the floor works for recess!
1:30-1:50
Older two report back to work on Essentials
~Chart copying and sentences
Younger two play together or separately. Maggie often goes to play with her neighbor buddy! :)


My 4th and 6th graders copying charts for Essentials 

1:50-2:20
~Day 1 Write a Key Word Outline
~Day 2 Write a rough draft
~Day 3 Add dress ups and stylistic techniques
~Day 4 Finish final draft
~Day 5 Go to class and read paper and learn about the new chapter
2:30-3:30 Quiet time for ALL

*One of the biggest lessons I'm learning is holding my plans and my schedule loosely. We've had two rounds of viruses run through our family and my plans have had to go right out the window. I just keep coming back to God's plans are better than mine. He knows what these kiddos need and what I need and loves us even better than I could even begin to imagine. More important than covering all the lessons in the math book is being present with my kids and pouring His truths into their precious hearts and souls. I have a feeling that this lesson is going to take a while to get through...like maybe the rest of my life. ❤️
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the LORD God is an everlasting rock. Isaiah 26:3-4

** This is our schedule Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Tuesdays we go to our homeschool community group, Classical Conversations. It's definitely a highlight of our week!

There is a Target right next door to our Classical Conversations location, so we often stop there on the way home. The kids love to pose in the circle. 

All You Need Is Love...

Since summer and all it's fun is now officially over. (Boo!) I keep meaning to blog about my incredibly awesome and perfect homeschool plan for this year, but then I realize that I am so far from having it figured out--STILL, after 5 years of homeschooling. So instead, you are going to get a little bit of information about our curricula and "my plan" for the year, but a lot more about what I'm hoping to accomplish personally and as a mom.

This summer, I kept thinking, "I need to get things organized for our school year." And then I would sit down and do a few things and feel like I hit a wall, like I couldn't go on. I could not get into a rhythm or figure out the best way to do things. Don't misunderstand, the teacher in me ordered all of our curricula last spring. It wasn't that I didn't know what we were going to be doing, it was the how. The flow, the methods, the schedules, they just weren't coming together. And to be honest, it's still a work in progress.

This school year brings us a fifth grader (yikes!! I used to teach fifth graders, how do I have one?!?!) a third grader, a pre-Kindergartner, and an almost 3 year old. I could juggle 30 sixth graders, or 24 fifth graders, but each year that my own kids get older, I feel even less confident of my ability to juggle teaching them all well.

However, God is always faithful. Every year I have had something that has caused me to be fearful about homeschooling. Whether its been pregnancy, or a toddler giving up their morning nap, adding a commitment outside of the home, etc...I have been nervous of trying to find the new balance every single year. This year is really no different. And just like previous years, we are slowly finding our rhythms and working things out. It's still not quite as smooth as I would like, and the house is certainly not as clean as Pete would like--hee, hee! But we are making some great progress.

My Hobby Lobby find that now hangs front and center in our school room   

The biggest game changer has been my focus and attitude. The educator in me gets so caught up in the academics and routines, that sometimes I forget why we do this. It's so much more than the books we study, it the heart, the character not only of my kids, but my own heart. I kept coming back to LOVE. I need to model love to my kids. I need to help them figure out how to love each other better. I need to point them back to the best example of love--Jesus Christ. It's really all about love. Remembering that has really helped me to breath more freely.

A few other things that are making the year go smoother than I had anticipated:
~Jon is getting more independent in many areas of his work. This is huge!
~Sam continues to be one of the easiest kids I've ever taught--he is such a people pleaser, which is something that concerns me from time to time, but when it comes to school, it is a huge, I mean HUGE, blessing!
~Will is absolutely LOVING "doing school." He changes the calendar in our school room without me each day and often starts his workbook pages without me, too! It's been a lot more fun and a lot less fighting with him than I had been expecting!
~Miss Elisabeth. What or who is that? Our family's favorite babysitter/mom's helper! Elisabeth started babysitting for us once a week three years ago. Last year she started coming three times a week for just between 2-3 hours each time. She plays with Maggie and Will while I get some solid teaching time in with the older two boys. It is priceless. And thankfully, my tutoring at CC on Tuesdays pays me almost exactly what I pay her. How's that for perfect? She is going off to college next fall, so I am already beginning to mourn. She will be sorely missed.

If you made it this far, that's impressive. So what are we actually doing here?
Well, here's a quick run down for each kiddo:

Jon, Fifth Grade

Math: Saxon
Reading: literature based, novels that coincide with our history and/or science studies.
Spelling: Spelling Workout
Geography: Memoria Press Level 1
History: Classical Conversations (CC) and Veritas Press-Ancient World--Old Testament, Egypt, Greek and Roman History
Science: CC earth science and astronomy
English Grammar: Classical Conversations Essentials of English Language
Writing: Institute for Excellence in Writing
and more

Sam, Third Grade

Math: Saxon
Reading: literature based, novels that coincide with our history and/or science studies.
Spelling: Spelling Workout
Geography: Memoria Press Level 1
History: CC and Veritas Press-Ancient World (see above)
Science: CC earth science and astronomy
English Grammar: Shurley English
Phonics: Explode the Code
and more


Will, Pre-K

Math: Pre-K workbook
Letters: Handwriting Without Tears, Get Ready for School
Phonics: Get Ready for the Code A
Will also attends Classical Conversations (CC) with us this year and is learning about ancient history, earth science and astronomy, and much more. He LOVES it.

New Year, Old Goals, New Resolve

I keep seeing posts about new resolutions and goals, and while they are great, I feel like speaking up because my goals aren't new. The year is new. My resolve is new. My goals are the same. Maybe that sounds better, same goals rather than old.

I love marking the passing of time and reflecting on where we were last year at this time or 5 years ago or a decade ago. However, the start of a new year did not change my goals. It did not change my hopes or dreams. It just makes me realize that time is continuing to pass. I can either get more serious about accomplishing those goals, or I should probably change them. I'm not changing mine, but I am reminding myself of some ways to help accomplish them.

So while the goals remain the same: Love God, Love Family, Love Others (there's a mouthful), there are a few things that I want to try to remember this year.

Be gentle, with others and with myself. Frustrations come, and it's easy to get angry and harsh. That harshness never accomplishes good.

Be kind, with others and with myself. This quote says it all, "Be kind, everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

Be gracious, with others and with myself. I once heard grace defined as kindness undeserved. Others may not deserve my kindness, and sometimes I might not deserve it, but grace...oh, grace. I'm so thankful for it. Even when I have done nothing to deserve kindness or mercy, grace.

Forgive, others and myself. As one who has been forgiven, I can say it is a powerful thing. Sometimes we are slowest to forgive ourselves. If you're holding onto something and beating yourself up over it, maybe it's time to let it go. Ultimate forgiveness comes from God and brings freedom, joy and peace. If that's something you want to know more about, please ask me. But even those of us who know the forgiveness that Jesus brings are still guilty from time to time of holding onto hurt, anger and bitterness. Whether it is something petty, like a child giving attitude or something larger and deeper, anger is a poison and brings only death. Forgiveness brings life.

These are words I need to remember this year.

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and if one has complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." Colossians 3:12-14

Merry Messy

Does anyone else find places like this scattered around their house during the holiday season?

I stick things on top of the dryer to get them out of the way until we need them. 

Some of the containers that I keep the Christmas presents in are still out until I can finish getting everything where I want it.

Presents are stashed up on top of a bookshelf to keep out of reach of little hands. This one is a first for me. I usually just throw things in my closet, but with my daughter, who is known to get into everything all.the.time, I figured I should keep gifts out of her reach.

Things that need mailed or delivered or put away piled on the counter.

This time of year is so busy that I could really use some magical elves to clean up around here or do the mundane tasks--laundry, dishes, cooking--so that I could just enjoy the fun projects and crafts with the kiddos. However, since the elves are busy working up at the North Pole, I guess I'll just keep looking past the piles! ;)

How do you keep things organized during this time if year? Or do you have messy stashes, too?

Summer, Summer, Summertime

We finished up our school year last week with shouts of joy! I was just getting over a nasty sinus infection, so I was just as glad as the kids to be done with the normal routines and tasks. Here's a glimpse at what we're planning  to spend our summer days doing:

~Splashing at our neighborhood pool, both for fun and swim lessons for all three boys

~Going on a Faith Expedition with our church's Vacation Bible School

~Enjoying thrills and fun at Kings Island

~Participating in our local library's summer reading program

~Cheering on our favorite swimmer and his team, the Windwood Warriors

~Church Camp will be a first for our oldest, and his dad is going along to be a counselor

~Learning about US History with Veritas Press' self-paced online class (this wasn't my initial plan, but the kids love it and wanted to get started. Now they are eager to do each days lesson right after breakfast. Who am I to argue?)

~Watching Pete's cousin and his beautiful fiance get hitched in Indiana (Sam will be the ring bearer)

~Switching rooms around. Jon switched with Will. The school room is moving from the basement to the formal living room.

~Cheering on two baseball players on a Y league team for June and July

Somewhere in there, we'll be doing read alouds, playing board games, having water balloon fights, some math workbooks, and finish building a tree house, etc. We're going to enjoy all of those things listed above and soak up some less structured time together.

Our Plan for Implementing CC Review at Home

This fall, we will be starting our fifth year of homeschooling. My oldest is going to be starting fourth grade, my second will be in second grade, and my little ones will be turning 4 and 2 in November. We've had some rocky times along the way, but all in all, homeschooling has been such a joyful experience for our family. Last year, my oldest wanted to be a memory master (you can read more about what that is here) which meant being intentional about how we would review our CC information each week. This coming year, I know he wants to achieve that goal again. Here's a bit of how we will be going about doing Classical Conversations review here at home. Please note, this is just our plan...every family has it's own dynamics that come into play and it's own rhythm to take into account.

Our Classical Conversations community meets on Tuesdays, therefore our reviewing starts on Wednesday and goes through Monday.

Wednesday is a day that we do the most "work" in our review. My kids seem to retain information better if they have had to write it out, so I LOVE the Classical Conversations Connected (C3) at home sharing center. I print off copywork in History, Science, English Grammar, and sometimes Latin, and put the copy work in a notebook for each child. (I will share the names of what I have chosen to print below, should you want to look them up on C3) On Wednesdays, the kids do this copywork in the place of their handwriting, and to make it more fun, I let them use colored pencils or pens just on this day. After they complete their copywork, we go through the memory work together orally at least 3 times, usually 7. We usually spend at least 45 minutes reviewing on the first day.
Thursdays are a busy day for us, so we typically make Thursday a lighter review day. Sometimes I pick one of the boys and he gets to "teach" the information to his brother. Other times, I have the information on our dry erase board and I erase words and see if they can say it to me without words, erasing each word until they're all gone. We usually spend about 20 minutes reviewing on Thursdays.
Fridays we usually play a review game-one that they've done in their class at CC. But I often have them tell me each of the facts before I will let them play, just to see how they are retaining, or finish up any of the notebook pages they didn't complete on Wednesday. If they are weak in a subject, we might all write it out together or sing it together before we play the review game. We usually spend about 30 minutes reviewing on Friday.
Mondays I often give them a blank sheet of paper and have them fold it in half and then in half again. They I ask them to write the key words for each subject. If they are struggling at all with figuring that out, I write them on the board while discussing what makes them key words. After that, we quickly review orally each subject and see if there are any areas of weakness. And depending on the day, we might play another review game. Mondays, we typically spend about 15-25 minutes reviewing.

Mixed into our week, we listen to the CD in the car often and listen to the timeline song every night while they load the dishwasher. Often the kids will tell their dad each of the new facts during dinner. We read lots of books from the library that go a long with what we are learning through CC, and we do fun games, puzzles, and DVDs that help reinforce things as well.

Listed below are the resources that I have printed that I downloaded from C3. You have to have a subscription to download them, but this should help anyone searching for copywork.
Subject/person who submitted the file/title of the file
Geography/Wenderbell/Geography Copywork with Maps all weeks pdf
English Grammar/Wenderbell/English Grammar Copywork all weeks pdf
Science/Wenderbell/Science Copywork All weeks pdf
             Tara504/Cut, Paste and Label all weeks
Latin/suzannemosley/Shares Latin.cycle.3 copywork pdf
          Knox Family/C3 wk01-24 bookmarks
          brandyfarrell/John 1 copywork print Latin pdf
History/kamoore1/C3Week1History.pdf, etc
Bible/brandyfarrell/John 1 copywork print pdf
Bibke/suzannemosely/Biblememorywork
Math: I couldn't find the sheets that we really like using, but I had saved them to my computer, so I uploaded them and you can find them under Math/heatherg/skip counting daily practice
 Another helpful C3 resource that won't be for copywork, but for reviewing possibly: knox family/Math mini office pdf
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you found this helpful, you might enjoy reading Getting Started with Classical Conversations, Why We Choose to Homeschool or a post about our schedule, What This Homeschooling Thing Looks Like for our Family. Also, I created match-ups for Apologia Anatomy and CC Cycle 3 Science weeks 1-12 and posted them here.

What this homeschooling thing looks like for our family

So what exactly do you do? I have been asked this on more than one occasion and there's not a simple answer. Just like each family has their own rhythm and routine, their own unique spin on crazy, each homeschooling family is unique. I remember being told once that homeschooled kids are only as bizarre as their parents. To that, I can only say, I'm sorry, kids!

Sam reviewing his memory work for Classical Conversations

I have always loved teaching. My mom will tell you, I used to teach my stuffed animals and dolls. I have a degree in Elementary Education. I taught sixth, then second, and then, my personal favorite, fifth grade before having kids and staying home. Teaching in the classroom gave me some great insights that are no doubt a huge asset to my teaching at home. On the flip side, sometimes I think that our homeschooling needs to look like my time in the traditional classroom. That is actually quite silly. In the classroom, I had between 22-30 children to teach at one time. At home I have two at different levels, plus a toddler and a preschooler. Clearly, it should look quite different. Probably the most helpful thing that I have taken away from my time in the classroom has been that I can learn along with the kids. As long as I have resources to turn to, which are abundant in this day and age, I don't have to know all about every single thing that I am teaching the kids. Which is good, because I have learned through our homeschooling experience that I don't know a lot of the things that I want my kids to learn, and I've had a blast learning with them!

I have mentioned Classical Conversations (henceforth referred to as CC--on my blog it is not short for Common Core) before in several posts, but in case you missed it, you can learn about it in a clip here. Briefly, CC gives us a skeleton of sorts for our curricula. We base our history, literature, science and even some of our handwriting on what we are memorizing at CC. Classical Conversations has three cycles that get repeated, one per year. This is our fourth year in CC, so Jon is memorizing information that he was introduced to three years ago. Obviously, at age 8, he is able to comprehend more of what he is memorizing than he did at 5. Because of that, we are actually applying much of the memory work in our math, English grammar, science, and more. Each week the kids are introduced to seven new facts (science, history, math, Latin, English grammar, geography, and timeline) that we review and expand on at home. I explain this just so that you have a better idea what I'm talking about later.

In case you're visiting, we have four kids. Jon is eight and doing third grade work. Sam is 6 and doing first grade. Will is three and is a whirlwind of activity. Maggie is one and is recently trying to give up her morning nap, much to my chagrin because we usually do most of our schooling while she naps in the morning!

 piano practice often involves a younger sibling "helping"

A typical week here is anything but typical. As I sit here with a sick three year old, I can safely say that rarely does one week actually look like the next, but...in a perfect world the following would be our norm:
Monday/Wednesday and Friday are very similar and begin with piano practice around 9am. While one boy practices, the other begins his handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears or CC Prescripts) for the day. Then they switch. After handwriting, they each do two pages of phonics(Explode the Code). This gives me time to finish up breakfast with the little ones and get my morning cup of coffee. No one wants the teacher to start teaching before she gets her coffee! Once they've finished phonics, we typically review CC together for 20-30 minutes (we review in many ways, I will write about that later). Next Sam begins his math (Saxon 2), while Jon does his spelling (Spelling Workout-Mondays: Pretest/Wednesdays: workbook pages/Friday: test). Next, I teach Jon his math lesson (Saxon 5/4) and do the first 10-15 problems with him. Often Sam finishes his math and spelling during this time and goes to play with Will (3) for a bit. Once Jon gets to problem 15 in his math, we switch to science (AIG) or reading. After completing science or reading, they'll often take a break for a snack or to play with their brother. Then I call Sam back for Shurley English, teach him his lesson and get him started on his work, and call Jon to do the same with him at his grade level. After they finish, they listen to a chapter Story of the World CD that correlates with what we are learning at CC, while I go make lunch. Sam is typically able to finish all of his work by lunch time. Jon usually finishes his math during quiet time, which is from 2-4 pm at our house, but occasionally has other work to finish up on as well.

Sam playing Mouse Trap with Will during a break from school

Tuesdays we meet with our CC community. My mom graciously comes and stays at our house with my little two, who are one and three. That gives me more freedom to help out in Jon and Sam's classes at CC. Classical Conversations for their age group, Foundations, is from 9:15-12:00. We stay for lunch to fellowship with the other families there. The kids love playing with their friends, and I love the encouragement I get from the other moms. If you are considering CC, and aren't sure if you'll stay for lunch, I would encourage you to try in for a couple weeks. I think you'll find that it is worth the effort of packing lunches to spend that time with other moms who are going through similar experiences. Next year, we'll stay for the afternoon for Essentials, Classical Conversations class for 4-6th graders, but for now, we head home around 1pm.
Thursdays we host a Bible study group for ladies from our church. It's such a blessing that they come to our house. I don't have to load up all four munchkins, and Maggie can take a nap here in her own bed. The boys get to hang out with friends in our basement with the sitter, while I enjoy fellowship and refreshment from God's Word and the ladies who come each week. It does make for a little bit of chaos with school. We don't start until after lunch, but I plan for Thursdays to be light. We do a shortened CC review, math, handwriting, and reading is often assigned as silent reading on their own during their little siblings' naps. That's the beauty of homeschooling, I can make Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays a little more saturated with work and Thursdays lighter, or we could do school longer into the summer, or...well, the possibilities are endless.

this boy is so messy-and the mess doesn't phase him a bit!

I love routine. It's for this reason that we don't take many random "days off" during the school year now. If we get out of our routines, it is like pulling teeth to get them back into those routines. And again I say, I love routine. We do take a week off in the fall to go to Alabama to visit family and have a vacation of sorts. Also, we usually take a week for Thanksgiving and Christmas to spend time with family. Besides that, we'll take a day here or there for field trips.

To sum all of this up, I am sharing this not because we've got the perfect routine or method here, but because I'm often asked and frankly, I like reading about what works for others. I'd love to hear from other homeschool moms about what works best for you. Or if you don't homeschool, but have ideas that you think my be helpful, please share!   I am often making little changes to make things run more smoothly. I love asking seasoned moms for their tips and tricks in all aspects of mommyhood. There is so much we can learn from each other along the way!

**It should be noted that I am completely overwhelmed at the thought of trying to do school with two preschoolers next year. Maggie won't be napping, and Will will just be turning four, so there will be some serious juggling going on over here. We've actually been talking to our super-wonderful-babysitter about being my mother's helper a couple mornings a week so that the younger two get some fun activities and attention while the older two can get some quality teaching from a mama who's attention is not quite so torn!**

Head Above the Water

We all have limits. As we are all different, the limits we have are unique to each of us. It's good to know what they are. For instance, Sam, my six year old, can't swim yet. He knows that he can't swim, so he doesn't go into the part of the pool that is above his head. I'm fairly certain that is the long and short of the phrase "head above the water." We need oxygen and can't get it when our head isn't above the water, therefore, we need to have our heads above the water.

Last year I had moments of bobbing up and down, barely able to catch my breath. I've blogged about the difficulties of my pregnancy, Maggie's early arrival (in our timing, obviously she came just when God ordained!), my thyroid problems, and just the general craziness of life with four small children, so I won't go into all those details again. I bring those things up just to say that I finally feel like I am starting to be able to keep up with the spinning plates. Every now and then one falls, but thankfully we replaced the ceramic plates with Correlle, so they are much more durable! Besides thyroid medicine, my children growing slightly more independent, and huge dose of the grace of God, I want to share a few of the things that have helped me get my feet back on the ground.

1. Asking for help/communicating my needs/accepting help. Amazingly, my friends and my husband are not mind readers. Just explaining when I could use help has made such a huge difference. Whether it's my husband pitching in more than usual with helping around the house, or a friend offering to drive both ways for a play date so that I don't have to wake sleeping kiddos, every little bit helps. This season is full and it's okay to ask for help. In fact, it's probably necessary.

2. Saying no. I am such a people pleaser. If someone needs help, I want to offer. If they are looking for volunteers at church, I want to jump in and help. Sometimes that is good, but I need to wait and pray before I agree to anything extra these days. If I want to do the jobs that are already on my plate well, I need to say no much more often than yes to any new tasks. I keep reminding myself that this is a season, and in another season, I can volunteer and help others then. Right now, my family is my first priority.

3. Lowering my standards.  That sounds horrible, but I think we all have unrealistic standards at times. For me, when it comes to homeschooling, I often have very high expectations for what we will accomplish. In the kitchen, I have lofty goals of trying new recipes. Around the house, I dream of organization and cleanliness. Perhaps simplifying is better than lowering standards. I just need to remind myself that the kids don't need to do every educational craft and file folder game and science experiment. One new recipe a week is more than enough with four young kids at home. And as for the house, well, let's just shoot for somewhat tidy and not a crazy mess! ;)

These are simple truths, but they are things that I need to constantly remind myself of, so I thought perhaps someone else out there needed to be reminded as well. If not, well, kudos to you for being more together than I am! I'll close with one more truth that I hold dear:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9