A Wonderful Christmas!

Christmas was boatloads of fun. We got new family pics made by a wonderful neighbor and friend- a budding photographer, sent out our Christmas cards, purchased a few gifts (limit 3 per child), and enjoyed a cozy Christmas Eve with new friends and Christmas morning caroling service.
Then back at home we passed out presents, drank hot cocoa with marshmallows and peppermint sticks, and lit our first ever fireplace in our first ever California home.
It was beautiful.  Cozy.  Warm.



Later in the evening we called my parents back home in Alabama and Skyped with them for a while.  It was so very cool to see them on the living room flat screen- it felt like they were really a part of our home and we were a part of theirs.  The grandkids got to show their presents and see grandma and grandpa.
I had intended to cook a huge Christmas meal like I did for Thanksgiving, but hubby told me to take a break.  We did the unusual for a Christmas night- ate at IHop.  That was fun, and different to say the least.

Where are pictures when I need them?  I'll get them off my other camera soon and show our Christmas pics.

<--*Update-January 4, 2012-- here is one of the pics our friend and neighbor took for us this Christmas.

A second wind to continue...

Okay, okay, okay.  Maybe I jumped the gun a bit too fast in a recent post about not doing as much homeschool blogging any longer.
Yeah...homeschooling does feel a bit private- cuz it is!!  It's my family.

But thinking about it all, I realize that the reason I began blogging about this stuff to begin with is because I wanted to be transparent in the first place, and open up my home to you guys- invite you in my living room, school room, kitchen...my home...and see what our homeschool looks like.
It's easy to become discouraged and think "well, nobody's reading my blog anyhow and who am I really helping?"
Sometimes as we rediscover ourselves in a different ways (i.e.- find new interests), we like to ditch the old.
But I think that may be one of my old self-sabotaging habits that I need to learn to kick.
I also feel that I need to realize that no matter who responds (or not) to my blog, that somehow in some way I am helping some one.  The only way I can really feel good about continuing something is to know that at least one person is being encouraged or helped in some way by what I've written.  I want to be an encouragement, a support system, a buddy along the journey and homeschooling path.  Though I'm no expert, perhaps someone out there can take from my experiences and feel helped.

So I've decided that I'm going to hang in there for the longer haul and keep posting here at this blog as well as my newest blog about health.  And that means...(drum roll)....

My  homeschool YouTube channel has been resurrected!  I can't believe I'm finally  back up and fully functional on this web 2.0 stuff again :-)  You have no idea how excited I feel about this.  It has been so long since I've given myself permission to do the videos, or to create info sites and blog about everything under the sun that I love.
Holding myself back is part of a really bad habit I've adopted over the months (years even)...and it's probably a topic I might like to address at my health blog. 
Just thought I'd share about my second wind of energy and fresh ammunition to continue.

And yes...I do realize that I have some major missing pics and images throughout this side.  Many of my pictures were uploaded to an old server that is down now.  *sad*  But it's ok.  More work for me to get the pics back up to a new server and replace all the broken links, but little by little I will fix this issue.

So I'll be kinda busy at both blogs and YouTube channels (I have a health channel too, which I'll post a little later).
This is a season of my life of  experimenting, trying new things and learning to find my comfort zone.  Hope you'll join me on this journey in some way or fashion.

Fun and Fieldtrips wrapup- Fall 2011

A wrap up of some of our fun this school year:

Z does art.  She loves finger painting.

Homeschool fieldtrip to the Apple Store.

 Lunchbreaks with my darling hubby and kids at the beach. Chilly, but beautiful.

 Trips to the Aquarium

Z's 4th birthday!

Donating our home-made turkey sandwiches to the food pantry over Thanksgiving.

Catching awesome sunsets on Thanksgiving

 Preparing our family presentation on Africa- the Congo- for Classical Conversations.

Another trip to the Aquarium

Z enjoys "Joyful Noise"- a sweet program for preschoolers at our local church.  I love to see her worshipping!

More fun at the beach.

 (Ny draws Fetch from "Fetch with Ruff Ruffman)

A trip to the Natural History Museum, Pacific Grove

Me- enjoying downtown Monterey before church service.

A trip to the My Museum. The girls are enjoying the "Imagination Station"

 (Enjoying theatrical productions.  Fun!)

 (my sweet little giraffe)

Wow, I can't believe Christmas is right around the corner.  We've had a full semester of field trips and outings.  It's been a blast.  

Can't wait to see what else is in store... :-)

Newest blog

I just started a new health blog that I hope you'll come check out:

Healthy Mom, Happy Family

I am going to be in a for a ride.

One: I've never disclosed my health status to the whole wide world before, and two: I'm putting myself on the spot (which is a good thing, actually) by almost tricking myself into getting healthier (after all, the whole world is watching). Or at least I like to think so.

Remember that post about being transparent?
Well, here goes.

To my health!

Tis the Season

Right now-- it's a brisk and chilly Saturday morning in Monterey and I'm at Starbucks sipping a tall Caffe Mocha...wondering about my journey for the upcoming year.
My first full year in California with my hubby and kids (remember, I lived here for 3 years with my parents when I was younger) will reach its full anniversary this upcoming February.  And now that we've overcome the initial culture shock, climate shock, sticker shock (house-hunting), and the kids are no longer out of sync with their surroundings and making new friends...I can finally say that we feel at home here.  For now.
And I can also say this: no matter where we  move and live, we will always learn to adapt and be "at home".  Although my husband is military (a navy reservist), we have never had to move in our full 10 years of marriage.  So this cross-country excursion gives me a true perspective of honor and respect for active duty military families who receive their post orders every 2-3 years or so.  And they're not just adapting to a new state even. Many are shifting their lives clear on the other side of the world- in Spain, Guam, Germany, England, Japan, and the likes.
I'm just sayin'...it makes me all the more grateful.
Moving to California I guess was not that big of a deal.  Yeah, things are definitely different around here out on the west coast, but after a bit of adjustment, you just begin to realize that people are people everywhere you go...and for the most part, basic issues are the same.
I am definitely learning a lot about the world, about people, about nature, about myself, about my family, about God.
Which leads me to the idea that I mentioned in another post, about finding my true niche in life.
This is the season.  I remind myself constantly that yet another has flown by and I haven't begun writing that book, or writing those songs, yada yada yada.  But it's not a guilty feeling I have.  Instead, it's more of a wistful wish-I-hadn't-procrastinated  feeling.  And now more than ever I feel the necessity of tapping into those interests I once enjoyed more often (yeah, before the kids).  But who says I can't keep loving my life just because I have kids?
So this year I am planning to redirect my focus a bit.  Not away from my kids, of course!  But maybe away from this blog.  The whole idea of "natural homeschooling" didn't quite take shape the way I'd envisioned.  Actually, the reason I started this blog was to chronicle my days as a homeschooling mom and my ideas about natural parenting.  Um...you tell me how many blog posts you can find here about the latter.
This blog is kind of a culmination of my homeschooling journey since 2007.
It's been fun.
And it has served as a creative outlet for me during the move to Cali.
But...tis the season for change.
What kind of change?
Hmmm...not really sure.  I have a few other blog ideas up my sleeve (as always!), and I hate to abandon this one.  Except, I'm just not sure if I want to journal so much about our homeschool (believe me, our thoughts about what homeschooling is and how it works for our family have changed dramatically since we've relocated).  Now, what our homeschool looks and feels like seems more of a personal family choice that I don't wish to blog so much about (with the exception of pics to our fun field trips).
There's really no easy way to explain that except that homeschooling for us has just become a really personal and natural extension of our family these past few months...and I'm becoming hesitant to share it all.  It feels so sacred, so "family-ish".  :-)  I know that's not a word.

Anyhoo.  Just thought I'd give you guys a heads-up.
I'll try to remember to post some pics of our first California Thanksgiving, and a community project the kids and I worked on.  Oh yeah, and some of our most recent fieldtrips out and about town.
I'm sure there'll be at least a few more posts before I shift my focus...so until next time!

The spirit of thankfulness

We are finally getting settled in. The kids have been enjoying their weekly Classical Conversations, we've found a few homeschool groups to plug into and we've made some real connections and friendships.  We found out that one of our homeschool family buddies lives only a block away from us, so we've been able to visit with them quite often!
Well...I'm glad we've gotten through October.  It was a month of decisions and I got off the rail a time or two.  Just a few weeks ago we were still struggling with the newbie syndrome, not knowing anybody in our new city and feeling completely unplugged.  The kids were complaining about being bored and I was seriously considering taking them to school.  That is until I visited a few schools during the season of "La Dia De Los Muertos" and realized the heavy influence Halloween would play on a given school day in October, given the Mexican cultural influence in our town. Maybe we're a little peculiar, but in our family we don't like to observe the occasion at all, and in fact, my kids find it offensive.  Even a simple trip to Walmart when all the Halloween decorations are out in the open bothers my 9 year old-- she'll run to the other side of the cart just to avoid having to pass the decoration.  Sounds extreme, but you never realize how spiritually sensitive younger (and even some older) children are until you expose them when they haven't been exposed.  I prayed for peace about continuing to homeschool, and what can I say.  I have all the peace and the strength I need to keep going in that direction for now...and the kids are back to a new norm.

Needless to say, November brought a breath of fresh air to our entire family...only four days in and I sense a beautiful seasonal change happening both in the natural weather and in the "spirit".  It's a great time of the year to focus on being thankful.
I looked at my daughter's Christmas list the other day and realized how extravagantly LONG it was (and how expensive most of the items were).  And my ears have been more attuned to the sound of complaining from the kids about what they don't have...and it makes my skin crawl.  It's to the point that I will not let it slide again.  So we're doing something about it.
After a talk about thankfulness I realized that my kids probably have never truly been exposed to those in need (besides our distant relationship with a Compassion International child Ny supports).
 It also came as a shock to my own system to walk out of the bagel store a few days ago with bagels for me and my kids...and walk right past a homeless guy in downtown Monterey who was digging through the garbage can to find a MYO yogurt someone had just finished off and tossed in.  He took it out and finished off the rest.  I kept walking to my car. I looked back.  I kept walking.  Then I looked in my own hands, realizing fully that I had just purchased three toasted bagels topped with yummy cream cheese.  Yeah, I was hungry and my stomach growled. I had to get my daughter to a doc appointment and needed a bite before we settled in a for a long wait and the bagel was my plan .  It was MINE.  And God said, "No.  You give to those in need and I will provide for yours."  So we did.  We backtracked our steps, gave him the bagel...and I will never forget the look in his eyes.  He said "thank you". Simple transaction, but powerful, because as I walked back to my car I kept thinking how good it felt to do the right thing.  And I also couldn't help but to wonder how in the world any society could solve a problem as complicated as homelessness.
From that moment forward, I have been thinking of ways our family can help our cities on the Peninsula...just contributing however we can.
We have a homeless shelter/soup kitchen nearby and I'm hoping to carve out a plan for our family to get plugged in with that soon.
Meanwhile, we have Thanksgiving coming up soon-- and I can't help but to wonder what this year will be like- not being with my parents and brother back home in Alabama - celebrating the holidays for the first time ever without them.  It will be different for sure, but trusting God that it won't be a lonely one.  He's sent us some great friends in the past 6 months who have really reached out to us in so many ways.

So I'm grateful for so much this season- new friends and old friends, family nearby and family far away, and the fact that God has blessed us with so much to be thankful for- like a new home and neighborhood, new educational opportunities for the kids (Classical Conversations), and mainly just the stability of family life together and the love we share with one another.
We've had some tough times these past 8 months or so, just trying to figure out our new identity in two new cities (and in a different region of the U.S. at that!)...but it's finally beginning to feel a bit like home.  Not the old home, but a new one.  The dust is settling, the hardest part of the transition is over, and we can finally breathe.  The kids are starting to feel more at home, and things are getting better.  And I am thankful.

We MOVED!

Okay, so we finally moved ...AGAIN.  And the mere fact that I am just now getting around to updating this blog should give you a clue as to how super busy and crazy it's been around here.
But things are settling down a bit now.
I'm done with most of my painting.

Oh, and here is a pic of our new California home (it's a bit hard to see the entire home from the angle I snapped the photo)...but it's a typical, modest California-style home in a pretty decent neighborhood about 25 minutes out from the ocean (which means it's warmer!!! Yippee!!)

(uh....ok...pic coming soon)

The girls are super happy about the climate change.  There are quite a few neighborhood and community parks, so that's always nice...not to mention I'm only a short 4 minutes away from Target, Walmart, Kohls, and the mall.
The local schools, on the other hand, are questionable (I'm sure the teachers are working really hard to get the delayed English learners up to par), but there is only so much a school can do within one academic year.
Private schools are decently priced compared to Alabama (can you believe it???), but we have chosen to homeschool yet another year.  Mainly because our constant moving is interrupting, and also because Ny has requested to continue homeschooling.
We found a Classical Conversations group in Monterey and quite happily paid the fee (one time fee of about $400, plus materials)...with the the idea that it was cheaper than paying that same amount monthly for private school.  We meet with the group once a week and Ny gets several classes (art, science, history, Latin, math) rolled into a period of about 3 1/2 hours with a specially trained CC tutor who is paid to teach the class.  We parents have to be present in the class to observe the methods and repeat them at home, and we participate by assisting the tutors in any way they need help.  I like it a lot and it is Ny and Z's one time during the week where they connect with friends for a few hours.
On Fridays we have a local play group too...I just haven't attended the one closer to our new town yet...so we'll check that out and see how it goes.

At this point, our biggest needs are meeting up with friends on a more consistent basis (Ny is at the age where forming and keeping relationships is really important...and it's tough when you keep moving...so that's one of her main needs right now), and getting some form of a consistent home + school routine together in our new house.  You know the drill- new environment, new rules, new routines to learn.  It's like starting all over again- leaving your former comfort zone of what to expect and creating and learning new ones.  So that's what we're working on - even simple things, like getting our kids back onto consistent bed time routines, and...ditching curriculum that doesn't work!
Yep.
We found that the Steck Vaughn spelling wasn't going so well.  Ny was giving the output, understood the concepts, but it bored her to tears.  She has finally asked me to not make her do it anymore.  After reviewing the book one last time, I agree.  So we're trying something new with that (we got these spelling bee flashcards and are just learning around 20 a week- definitions, roots, and spelling).  So far that is all I've got planned for spelling.  But that's another topic for another blog post.
How did Z take the move?
You know what?  All of the withdrawal she's been through this summer turned out to be one of those phases  where she perceived another major change was upon the family- and she was, of course, upset and didn't know how to express her feelings.  Well, thankfully, her silence has been broken, she's not as moody (in fact she's gotten pretty happy since she moved here and enjoyed all those days of sunshine and NO FOG!)  But now we're working on the 3 year old tantrum issues...but getting through that too.
I was talking to a friend this weekend who reminded how much children need consistency and how to tap into their best mode of learning (so for me, it's visual, and perhaps so for my kids too).  Meaning, if I have visual learners they are far more likely to respond to chore charts with visual cues than to my constant derailing and nagging about what they need to do next or haven't already done.  So I'm working on that bit.
Yeah.  Being a mom is a process.
I'll, of course, have more updates soon...
I've been thinking about plucking out a new blog that comes from a different angle other than home schooling.I haven't been able to quite give that much thought yet, though, considering how tied up I am mentally right now with just sorting through life.
For now, though, school is in full swing and I've got my hands full enough already,
Till later...