NEW BLOG!!!

I'm excited to share that Brian has been working and still is in the process of working on a NEW BLOG for our family.  This will be more helpful for me in posting and being able to manage it.

  So please SUBSCRIBE to our new blog!

http://www.kraftygang.com

I really hope to get back in to writing a little bit here and there and I'm hopeful to just put it there on the blog.

Please also let me know if the SUBSCRIBE doesn't work for you. We are still working on getting it all set up.  Thanks :)

18 years

Seems as though its been FOREVER since I've had a chance to post on our blog.  I miss writing and just sharing my thoughts.  It always helps me "clear" my head so to speak.

As I sit here in this extreamly QUIET hotel room, I hardly know what to think. I'm not used to this. No interuptions.  No noise. Relaxing with my husband of 18 years.  Its so awesome to be able to reflect over the past year and get to think about our future together.

When one gets married and decide to have a family, they don't realize how much they need to sacrifice.  The time alone is huge.  As parents of 6 kids all varied in ages we are pulled in so many directions.  We are constantly finding ways to just "do family" and stay connected and grow together in the Lord.  We must be intentional about "US" time and I'm thankful that we make "US" a priority.  Marriage can be challenging.  I'm thankful I have a great guy to do marriage with! We have grown so much over the years.

Vacation

Over the Summer we had a wonderful vacation full of lots of memories! 12 States and lots of hours in the car!We made a youtube slide show of some of the pictures.  We have lots of video too!

Love these times in the evening!

Homeschool Organizing Overview

I've been working hard getting everything organized for the new school year!  I made a vision so on those TOUGH days I can look at and see why I'm doing what I'm doing! HA

We hope to be done by noon daily (maybe everything but quiet alone reading). We shall see.  Also, hopeful that Friday's can be super LOW KEY and that we can do things together & field trips! I still have some things to finish up and hoping and praying for an AWESOME year.   Our first week will be intro. of everything and go over expectations.

We are doing spelling. I talked to the author of the book we are using to get her tips.  I'm still pretesting Adam and Luke to see where and what list I will start them on.  Its called Spelling Plus.  Will be nice to use the same book for each of them!  These are notes from an email I got from the author as to how to go about spelling with them.

My Planner and how its organized
This will be so helpful!! Just having everything I need in one spot! I love that I can easily add things to it.  Sorry its upside down!

We will be incorporating this in our HISTORY /Lit and our Science.  Love Charolette Masson ways!

This just helps me know at a glance what I'd hope they would complete each week in our American History.  Three lessons a week isn't much actually! Its mostly reading and answering a few questions, narrating to me what they read or heard me read. 

Our Crate System 

For a big family this is just going to take so much stress off of me.  Planning now and getting our folders are filled and ready!




Our Bookcase

Our Morning Time

A few Books we may continue to use off and on during morning time.

the Virtue Cards we Use

Kinder Stuff


We hope to do neat journals like this with our FIVE IN A ROW stories too

Here is a list of the books we picked.  Sorry for "chicken scratch".  We made copies of the little pages  in the FIVE IN A ROW book (borrowed that from a friend).  We picked up a few of the books and the ones we can't find cheap enough we will grab at the library hopefully.  We have the activities for each book planned out and crated!

So excited for Science.  Will be fun going through this with Adam and Luke (the others will get to chime in too).  Fun stuff planned for this and we bought the science experiment pack so we have lots of fun projects we get to do too!

History & Literature for Adam and Gregory

I love that we are doing the SAME for both.  They only have a few different books that are more geared toward their reading age. 

Long time.....

Wow, I haven't posted in so long it seems.  Time just gets away from me I guess!

We had a wonderful 12 day ROAD TRIP! We visited (some just drove through) 12 states.
AZ, Nevada, Utah, WY, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, MO, Kansas, OK, Texas, and New Mexico.

We spent 2 days in the Black hills of SD visiting Mount Rushmore, Bear Country, Hiking Silven Lake and seeing Buffalo.  Then down to Avon SD to hang with the Walters (Spring's sister Faith and family).  Then on to Belton MO. to visit the Myer Family (Spring's sister Lacey & family).

We had a really great time.

Some of the CAR rides were tough when kids would be overtired.  However, most of the CAR times were actually really good.  We did a lot of planning.  Some of our BEST things in the CAR were: Playdough, painting (with water filled paint pens), magnetic blocks, snacks (we made a huge BARRAL of trail mix & inside mini cups so we could easily scoop up), journals, iPad games, & a few cartoons on the dvd player.  Spring really tried to limit screen games though.

Packing 8 for a road trip.  No easy, but also not terribly hard once I figured it all out.
A Tote: In the tote were Brian, Spring, Adam, Luke, Gideon, Titus, and Annie Mae clothes.  I got 3-4 outfits prepared for each kid.  Each in a ziplock (labeled with a COLOR sticker for each kid).  This made it handy to just grab for hotel nights instead of lugging in a bunch of luggage.  Gregory had his own bag for himself.  We washed clothes at Faith's house.

I'm always grateful that Brian unloads the car when we get home :)

Will share a slideshow on here soon.

Pop Died this day in 2015

This day will forever be etched in my mind.

Tears flow as I think back to this day in 2015.

Just after 10 pm, we got to be with my dad as he breathed his last here on earth, and stepped foot in heaven.  Just to think about that for a minute makes me be in AWE of our God.  He let us be there with Him.  The wonderment of thinking of him as he stepped foot into heaven.  What a glorious day that was for POP! Not for us.  But Pop is in glory! Oh my goodness, just thinking of this!


As I think of this, I realize, not many people get to just be there when death happens!  I feel pretty privileged to have been next to him as he died.   I think Pop wanted us there.  We got Faith and Lacey on the phone and he heard us all in the room with him.  He wanted that.  He needed that. He didn't want us to leave until he died.

He could HARDLY wait to get there.  Those last days for him were tough.  He was ready and wanted to see Jesus.

While this day is hard for those left behind, because our hearts ache and we miss him dearly, I can so REJOICE that he's in a much better place and I can't wait to get to see Pop again!

It was never GOODBYE.  It was just "I'm gonna miss you Pop, and we will see you again".

a few odds and ends

We got a spa.  Its been fun! 

This girl LOVES her babies and books

AWANA is over for the year. Luke passed an entire book and Gideon and Titus did a Cubbie book (memorized 24 verses).

This guy is pretty attached to our 3 cats.  They really love him too.

Annie Mae Marion

with Granma (Marion) Holladay

Love my girl! She's one BUSY BEE but she's darn cute!

This kid right here has one more behind the wheel training and then the driver test?!?!?!?!?!

GOD

BEST DESCRIPTION ever on God.

ONE BEING

THREE PERSONS (a person is anything that can say "I")

On our minds

Seems like its been forever since I've blogged.

I just don't get the time.  I want to though.  Still hopeful to get these all printed one day.  So bummed that MY PUBLISHER is going out of business so I won't get to make my photo books with them anymore.  Always loved the quality and price with them.  Maybe I'll just go to old school and just print photos! Ha! I just hate the whole waiting for them all to upload and then having to try to get them all in order when they come in the mail.

Planning our trip this Summer! Going to head off to South Dakota and planning some "history" stops along the way and the way home.  We will see Mount Rushmore, Laura Inhales Museum, two of my sisters and are we crazy or what?! 8 of us in the van.  Long road trip! We have some of our hotels already booked and planned.  We just need to look up a few more stops to see if we can fit it in! 

Gideon and Titus will do swim lessons again the beginning of June.  Looks like we will miss out on some of the VBS's this year because our trip lands right in the middle.  

We are going to the cabin for a couple of days in a couple weeks.  Looking forward to that. 

I'm going to a Bible study and its by Francis Chan.  Its FORGOTTEN GOD. Its really good actually.  Its on the Holy Spirit and its really interesting how God brings to light certain things! I really feel like I'm wrestling with God about this whole home school thing.  I think He wants me to homeschool my kiddo's.  He's working on my heart ... that's for sure :) I'm excited, nervous, and hopeful all at the same time !

Computer business is going great.  Brian is growing it and enjoying it.

Reading a lot more these days with the kids.  We always have but now we are doing more chapter books which has been fun! They seem to really enjoy it. 

We started American History.  Vikings.  Then we skipped ahead to Lewis and Clark since we will be passing through some of the places they went.  Kinda fun to be able to do that with school :)   If I do homeschool them all.  For Luke and Adam... I will try to streamline science and history so we can discuss and do together.  That will be fun!

Schooling

 We got the book 100 easy lessons to read (highly recommended by many I know and through many blogs).  So far these two little boys have done 12 lessons of the 100 and are very excited to pass lessons and are learning to read!

We've pulled Luke out of school a couple days in order to see how it would be (sort of) to have them all here for a homeschooling morning.

We are actually thinking of homeschooling them all.

We had Gideon's IEP meeting yesterday and he's doing AWESOME.  However he still will need some speech therapy.  Our district doesn't particularly set it up so we can get therapy for him directly. However, the speech therapist said she would try to work it out.  

I think we will contact her and get things worked out in order for him to get that therapy still.  Other than that, Gideon is pretty much REALLY ready for kindergarten.  He will be 6 Sept. 1st. 

Storytime at the library on Wed. Mornings

Garden

 We planted Squash, Kale, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, carrots, tomato, and sunflowers in our garden this year. My littlest guys love helping tend to the garden!

Zoo Trip

So we had this grand idea since our electricity was out (on a VERY HOT DAY) for the entire day, to go to the zoo.  We had an updated box put in.

NEVER DO THIS and MISS NAPS for ANNIE MAE (doesn't work).

She was over tired.  She cried most of the time (despite all our great intentions of trying to make her happy).  It was really hot too!   

Good thing we got passes as gifts for Christmas!

The little boys (Luke, Gideon and Titus) loved the Zoo! Luke could have been there all day! HA.  Gregory is a great big brother and carried Annie Mae a lot of the time! 

She was out before we got out of the parking Lot

Toppers for dinner.  Who cares about pizza when you have a yummy salad like this! :) Gideon LOVES salad like Mommy!