Week 1

Okay so here is the start of my 52 week Blog challenge..  Week 1 five weeks later! My bad people my bad! So here goes catch up!!

Meet my best Friend (s)

So I can not pick just one because right now there are three!! Three women who have been there for me in the past present and all of who I hope are there in the future. The one I have known the longest so I will start with her first is my brother's wife. We may not have been the best of friends in the beginning but now she is my best friend. I was in big sister mode when she first started dating my brother and I always felt like NO ONE was good enough for him.. boy was I wrong. She is perfect for him and has been a perfect addition to our family. She has blessed me with a handsome nephew and a gorgeous niece! I love love love her so much!!!

My next bestist is my sister from another mother. Jessica and I go way back... She was dating a mutual friend of the families and we became good friends. We lost touch for a while and then hooked back up and it was all history after that. It was like we have been best friends all of our lives! What made it even better was our husbands became best friends as well!! We had some many great times together. She has 2 precious handsome little boys and another on the way! 

My last but not least best friend Brittaney I met after I moved to Florida. I was an independent consultant selling my product at a Bridal Show and her and her fiance (now husband) walked in and I literally thought at a side glance he was my husband. We all started chatting. We decided that whether our husbands liked each other or not we would be friends and here we are. a year and a half later all best friends!!! We see each other once a week and its so great! They have been a great addition to our family. 

I am beyond blessed to have such amazing people in my life!! I can not imagine my life without them!!! Thank you all so much for being a very precious part of our lives!! Our family is complete with you all included in it!!! 

52 Week Blog Challenge!!!

Since I am so horrible at blogging on a daily basis heres a WEEKLY blog challenge for me!! YAY!!! I will try to include photos as well!!! YAY! Aren't you excited!??!?! Which one are you the MOST excited about!?

Why I Chose to Homeschool...

And continue to do so. My husband and I sat down a few years ago and discussed me homeschooling. When I was pregnant with my son I was unable to work due to some health issues so I stayed home with him. I sent my oldest to regular school up until First grade. She was struggling in many ways. Mostly it was due to a potty issue. She would not completely wet her pants but just enough to give an odor and kids would make fun of her. And at least twice a week I was getting phone calls to bring her clothes (Which I always kept a spare in her bag) or pick her up. Which I am happy to say she has gotten over. Her First Grade year  my husband came home from Afghanistan for his R&R and I have to say it was like pulling teeth to get her out of school for the two weeks he was home. My Father in law had a heart attack and had to have heart surgery while on the road in Florida and I had to pull her out again. She could only get pre-approved for 3 days until I came back with a doctors note stating that it was necessary for us to be with him. Okay maybe I can see that and understand that but as soon as I returned home there was a letter in the mail from DHS saying if she had one more absence (excused or unexcused) The local Sheriff's department would be at my house. SERIOUSLY!!! Every absence my child has she had a doctors note or she had my husbands orders (because yes they needed proof of that too). But even with all of that I still got the letter. My husband also was limited on his vacation days because of where he worked and his seniority there. The only days he had available were the first two weeks of school. Of course I could not pull my daughter out of school the first two weeks of school. My husband looked at me and said "well if we home schooled we wouldn't have this problem". And thus the decision was made. Call me selfish, call me whatever you want but having the freedom of going on vacation whenever we are able to and changing our "weekend" to daddy's days off.  I also like having the option as a parent to control what my children are being taught and HOW they are being taught. Even more now so since they have started implementing Common Core.. what a joke. Little things that we took advantage of growing up they are taking out of school. You want to know why generations growing up today are Godless, schools have taken the Bible and prayer out of school for fear of offend someone else. You want to know why generations these days have less patriotism these days, They are trying to take the pledge, and our flags out of schools again for fear they would offend someone. I have chosen a Christian based curriculum and tomorrow I will explain why I chose this particular curriculum and what I have tweaked to make it work for our family. Please do not get me wrong. Some parents are not lead or have the desire to home school and that does not make you less of a parent than me. These are choices we have made for our family just as many other makes choices for their family that I would not do for mine. But I do not judge. You are their parent! YOU know what is best for your family and YOUR child. God has lead my family to this road and we are enjoying this time in our lives! Some days are a struggle but most days its a breeze! I hope all of you have a blessed day and THANK YOU for being a part of my journey! =)

Disorderly Organized

It does not make sense does it? I feel like the more I get myself organized the more unorganized I feel like I am. I have certain things that go in certain places but I have more that just gets dumped into random places whenever I feel like it. LoL! Yeah I know.. I can not be the only one I know who does this... I have a planner for EVERYTHING but I don't ever stick with it. Yeah that includes my kids school work. Some days we do a couple days worth of work (especially if the kids get it) and some days we are lucky we get through one lesson on one subject. I have 6 weeks at a time planned out with the school work already separated and printed out. So that is one thing I do not have to worry about. With that being said I have to share a website that I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting most of my home organizing calendars from. She has such cute monthly calendars and I get my meal planners from her site and now shes got a weekly  planner!!! OH I just LOVE them ALL! Follow her on Facebook here at HelloCuteness there should be a link on her facebook that will send you to her site for all her freebies and to purchase her products!! So far 2015 has been good to us. I am extremely blessed however a weight is heavy on my heart for this planet. I do fear that our world is walking right into its demise. The Bible says it will happen one day, I guess deep down I was hoping it would not be during my generation but it has started. I fear for my children as they grow up in this world. Tragedy everywhere. I do not want to shun them away from all the bad in this world but I do want them to see that there is GOOD and BAD in this world and they have a choice which path they want to go down. I am optimistic as any parent, though I have my days where I doubt my parenting, that I am raising them to do the right thing and follow their heart and pray that whatever path they choose and they go down I have the strength to support them in all they do. But enough of the deep deep. I love my precious family and friends and have been extremely blessed. <3 a="" blessed="" day="" everyone="" friends="" has="" hope="" i="" my="" nbsp="" next="" p="" time="" until="" wonderfully="">

I'm a Bad Housewife!

But lucky for me my sweet husband understands that sometimes its ok to do nothing and focus on spending time with each other. These past three weeks have been so crazy. Between traveling and visiting and the holidays. You all know how it goes I am sure. Christmas we went back to our hometown to see our families. My dad, step mom, littlest brother and littlest sister came down to visit before they went on vacation. Its been great.. however I have been letting my wifely duties slip through the drain. As I am typing this the washer, dryer, diswasher and kiddos are working on their chores. There is a mountain of clothes on the couch waiting for me to get off my tush and get started on them. The kitchen floor needs mopping, I need to vacuum. AHHH!!! On top of all of that daily duties need to be done. Meals and school work. So today is the day I play catch up. that way hopefully on my hubbys days off he does not have to do anything. Not that he has too but he likes to be busy and do things and if I do not do it before he does, well he does it. He has been workin so hard I would like to get it all done and force him to take the day and do nothing. =) I missed church today. He had to work a double so I urged him to take the truck so he would not have to work a 16 hour day on 4 hours of sleep and be on the motorcycle. We will try and hopefully make it next week. Still struggling to find a church home but that is an entire separate blog post in its self. But today I will hopefully catching up on housework, doing some organizing, and I have blogged so I already have one thing checked off! YAY! I hope you all have a blessed day!!

I Can't Think!

I sit here and stare at my monitor and wonder what in the world to blog about. I have a blog planner.... I don't ever use it.. typical. I write things down in it I would like to blog about and I get to my desk to finally blog and it just does not seem as urgent as when I wrote it down. Its near Christmas and I am seriously having issues with getting into the "spirit" of the holiday. Last time I was this out of spirit was when my husband was deployed. Yeah that is a whole nother blog in itself. So you're sitting here wondering what in the world a mother of 3 who homeschools and stays home with her kids could possibly blog about don't worry I am wondering the same thing to. Then I remember that every mom has struggles and the best way for us to deal with them is to realize that we are not the only ones struggling. We are not "Susie Homemaker". I am far from it. Its been a while since its happened but I am pretty sure the load (or two maybe three) have been sitting on my couch for about 2 days now (Maybe more). I would be lying if I said I just could not wait to fold clothes and put them away. Let me tell ya. Folding clothes is my least favorite part of my job description alongside cleaning up vomit. Yeah that is how much I despise it. Maybe I will bargain with the kids and do some of their chores so they will do some of mine.. is that wrong?!?! Probably. Homeschooling is going good... Got a planner put together that I just love love love!!! Though it has its downfalls like hearing that GASP when one of your kids spilled sweet tea all over said planner that you love so much... >.< Yeah... I just chant to myself.. "It will dry" "It will dry" "It will dry" Guess what??!? Its smudged and not as neat as it looked before but, its dry! Voila. No use crying over spilled tea. Anyway this is about all you will get outta me today. Definitely gonna try and keep up. Yeah I know I been saying that for the last 4 years. Maybe I will start using my blog planner!!! Meh... who knows! Hope everyone has a great day!

Its the Little Things!!

Have I mentioned I love Wednesdays and Thursdays. Those are the days my hubby is off. The days we do not do school work. (Unless for some reason there is make up work to do). I am sitting here at my computer sipping on my coffee reflecting on the past few weeks since I blogged last. Selfishly I have to say I am glad football is coming to an end... but I am more sad. It has been great for me and for my son. Shoot its been good for my girls too. My son really enjoys the sport. And he loves so big so I have unexpectedly adopted 17 other little boys who are now brothers to my son. There are a few he is particularly closer to than others but loves them all none the less. My girls have made some new great friends as well. They got to see a little of the cheers they may be doing next year. I am still on the fence about putting them into cheer here due to some drama issues I have heard from other parents who have daughters on the cheer team. How has it been great for me? Well I have made some new wonderful friends I get to see and socialize with a few days a week. Not to mention now that all of our sons are brothers we have become a family in the 10 weeks or more that we have been together. So yes it has been way more of a blessing than it has a burden. Some days I am like UGH football practice but once I get there and I am surrounded by great folks I enjoy it and think man I am glad I did no stay home. How has school been going? GREAT! My kiddos just breeze right along. My littlest who is not "technically" kindergarten age (she misses the cut off by 3 weeks) is rolling right along in her kindergarten school work. Not sure how that will work when I enroll her with the county buuuut we will see. One of those things were we weren't sure if she was ready for kindergarten so we would try it and if not we would back down but shes done great. I am a proud mama. My son, he can practically do all of his work on his own. Hes a great reader. He HATES writing though. When we answer questions he whines "Mama can you write it for me my hand hurts". Sorry son... Such is life. But he thoroughly enjoys having the freedom after we knock out all of his school work in less than 2 hours. My oldest... Ahhh 4th grade... Shes doing great but her favorite part is the experiments. We have jumped into the experiments this year and I am glad. We involve the younger children as well so its fun for all. We are learning about electricity and how its produced and different kinds of energy. So far the journey has been fantastic. This year they are not getting a "winter" break but a fall break. Hubby cant get Christmas time off so we are giving them a break to spend some time with their grandparents. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family and grandparents for my children who are so involved! Anyway... The holidays are coming up.. All things Christmas and pumpkin smelling. Let me state for the record that anything pumpkin flavored, tasting, or smelling is gross... I'm just saying.. You can hold that against me if you would like but just know if you come to my home it will smell like tropical flowers all year round except Christmas time when there will be a hint of Christmas Tree smell (From my REAL Christmas tree). Well that is all. Just wanted to take some time to update everyone! Hope you all have a blessed day!!! <3 p="">