Homeschooling (Part 1)

The idea of homeschooling is something that has been in the back of my mind ever since I started having kids. Kirby has several extended family members who have homeschooled and are currently homeschooling, I had friends in college who were homeschooled, and more and more Christian families seem to be choosing to homeschool their kids rather than send them to public or even Christian school.

Until the 09-10 school year the elementary school that my kids would be attending was right here in Stockport. At that point I was content to make the passive decision to send them to school and if for some reason things weren't going well I would think about pulling them out and homeschooling them.

Then, last year the school board made a decision to create a seperate middle school here in Stockport and move the elementary school to Douds (about 20 miles from here). This was a big dissapointment to us at the time and really changed our thinking about our children's education. For one thing they would have to ride the bus for 1 HOUR, EACH WAY. That is two hours a day on a bus with kids as old as 5th grade. Ummm...no thank you. So, this was something that was constantly on my mind. How is this going to work? I'm not putting my kids on that bus. I'll have to drive them. That will take up at lot of my time. Especially if we happen to have another baby by then. And on and on. All this time in my mind I'm justifying sending them to public school and trying to figure out how it is even going to be feasable, at the same time knowing homeschooling is what God really wants me to do.

Then I watched a DVD message that shed some light on a lot of issues for me. Kirby's cousin Jeff and his wife Naomi homeschool their children. Naomi has known that I've been on the fence about homeschooling so she gave us a dvd to watch called "The Children of Caesar" by Voddie Bauchman. He talks about the spiritual benefits of homeschooling, the spiritual dangers of public school and the refutes several of the common oppositions to homeschooling. I'll get into more detail in later posts. But basically he put everything that I knew in my spirit into words. After watching it all of my logical justifications were no longer vaild and it became clear to me that homeschooling was going to be the best choice for my family.

After watching the dvd together, Kirby finally admitted to me that he has always wanted me to homeschool but he wasn't going to push it on me because I'm the one who has to be the one to actually do it. Not that he won't play a big role in the educating of our kids, but the everyday teaching would have to be done by me.

We have three years to make our decision and we're still praying about it, but as of right now we are leaning very strongly toward homeschooling. I know some people kind of cringe when they hear the word homeschool. I'm still learning about it myself but I am very open to any questions anyone has for me about why we think this is going to be the best choice for our family. There will be many more posts to follow about the why's and eventually the how's of homeschooling.

Pigtails

We can now put Lydia's hair in pigtails! She looks like such a big girl with them in, not a baby anymore.

Walk in the Word

I have recently discovered the radio program "Walk in the Word" with Pastor James McDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel near Chicago. Dr. McDonald gives AMAZING messages. No frills, no fluff, straight from the Word of God, very interesting and captivating to listen to. I listen to him at 2:00 every weekday on KAYP 89.9 for those of you who live in this area. Otherwise you can go to the website and find out when he is on in your area, or download the messages, or buy the cds. I have a link to the website under our links. I highly recommend checking it out.

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" Isaiah 30:21

Helpers

We burn wood as our main source of heat during the winter. We're trying to get our stock built up before it starts getting cold. We were working on it last weekend with LOTS of help from our two little hard workers.

Breaking Free

Our women's small group has just started doing the Bible study "Breaking Free" by Beth Moore. I am SO excited about this. I did this study NINE years ago as a 22 year old senior in college. I can't believe nine years have passed since that time in my life, it seems like yesterday. It has been so interesting to reflect on how much things have changed since then, not only in my life circumstances, but in my heart. I have learned so much since that time and am so excited to see what God does in my life through doing this study again. It's a 10 week study and has just been updated for it's 10 year anniversary. All of the study material is the same, it's just the dvd series that has been changed. If you're looking for a study to do with a group of women this is a great one.

http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Free-Journey-Beth-Moore/dp/1415868026/ref=sr_1_2?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1284927267&sr=8-2

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners," Isaiah 61:1

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

Garage Sale

My friend Katie and I had a garage sale at her house today. After my last garage sale I was never going to have another one again, but I thought maybe having one in Keosauqua might be more successful than having one in Stockport, so I gave it another shot.

We had several people show up in the morning, then it started raining, then our signs got destroyed by the rain, so people stopped coming. Then is stopped raining, my dad fixed our signs and people started coming again.

We both got rid of a lot, but had quite a bit left too. The worst part of having a garage sale is trying to figure out what to do with the items that DIDN'T sell. Throw away? donate? consignment shop? or continue hoarding?

All in all the day was a success. I cleared some stuff out of my basement, made a little money and had a fun day hanging out with a friend.

New Name

The last time we changed the name of our blog we were expecting another baby...this time we are not. But Kirby and I were talking about the title and didn't think it was really fitting anymore, so this is what we came up with. Psalm 37:4 has been one of my favorite verses ever since we were trying to get pregnant with Clae, and has been a verse I come back to often to keep things in my life in perspecive. I'm always striving to keep MY desires in line with GOD'S desires. To do this I need to be DELIGHTED by Him daily.

Updates

It has been brought to my attention that people are tired of seeing the pictures of the log home everytime they check our blog. I apologize that I have not kept up with posting very well the past few months. It is my goal to do a better job of keeping my posts current.

So an update of our summer (in reverse order)...

Labor Day weekend we had our annual BBQ Days here is Stockport. Clae and Kirby drove the fire department's Gator in the parade. This was the highlight of Clae's weekend since he is in love with ALL machinary.

We had our Brown family reunion, with around 115 people in attendance, all direct descendants of Kirby's Grandma and Grandpa Brown. Grandma Ruth, the matriarch of the family, is 89 years old.

It was a busy, fun weekend spending time with family.

In August:

We spent a weekend at Kirby's parents cabins. It was an enjoyable weekend and the only "vacation" we took all summer. I'm finally realizing that we are just going to have to be a winter vacation family. Summer vacations are just not possible with my husband in the line of work he is in.

In July:

We had Vacation Bible School at our church. There was a class for Clae's age so he and I went every night and had a great time. The memory verse for the week was 1 Timothy 4:12 "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity." Clae memorized the WHOLE thing. I was so proud of him. I actually didn't think he was getting it at all. Then one night at dinner he said "in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in FURITY" just out of the blue. So we started working on it with him some and realized that he knew the whole thing and the reference.

I babysat for two kids from our church for a week. After having four, two sure seems a lot easier

In June...
Lydia started walking, and walking, and walking....I think walking is her favorite activity. It's pretty much what she does for entertainment all day long. She is so much fun, she has an independent side that her brother does not have and she is FEARLESS. She will climb on, in, around anything she can find. We are fortunate we haven't had any major injuries with all the things she has tried.

And I think that pretty much takes us back to my last post. Kirby has had a very busy summer with work and the kids and I have just enjoyed the summer, spending as much time outside as Possible.

I don't have a lot of pictures to post. I've been taking a lot more video than still pictures mainly because the kids NEVER sit still anymore so it's much easier just to take video and get all the action. So, this is about the only way I can get a picture of them sitting still...







And this is the most recent picture I have of them together...