Good morning!

Believe it or not it is 4 am and I am totally awake!  This is my new wake up time as we are starting school.  No my husband doesn't wake up for another 2 hours, my children may be up in 2.5-3 hours, but I am up now.
Why? Because I am excited to start the school year out right.  Over the summer my husband had several occasions at work that gave him extra time, and required him to wake up at 4 am,  I always get up to prepare him a breakfast and lunch and then do my bible study, and I found that on the days he woke up at 4am, I was much more prepared for the children when they woke up.  My day flowed so much smother and I got a lot more done as well as spent quality time with my family, all good things!
Today is Caeden's first day of 2nd grade, and Sapphira's first day of preschool.  I am seriously excited to be starting this year out!
Caeden was apprehensive about school last year and I worried he would struggle against me when we started again,  but he is excited too!  Sapphira loves school and is excited to do anything related to it as well.  We even bought Micah a set of large crayons and a notebook to color in, last year toward the end he was adamant that he had school work to do with us so he got to color and was happy to join us!
I am hoping to post more each day as we travel through the school year, but we shall see. .. I have so far, not been a reliable blogger. 
As we begin school we are going to be focusing on attentiveness and frontiersman.  Caeden is especially excited to learn about tracking animals and we will be going on a family nature hike this weekend, Caeden will have the opportunity to earn his meal by collecting animal "furs" (pictures of animals). 
Let's get started! Not a moment to lose!

Toning down the schedule

Alright you ready for a schedule workout?  My schedule has become fat and because of it I am left breathless most days.
Here is a typical day.
5:30am wake up with Patrick to make and pack his breakfast and lunch for work.
5:45 am if I had a good night's sleep I will stay up and do my bible study I'm averaging 2 or 3 out of every 5 week days on this currently.
6:45 am check email and attempt to blog if the children allow such time.
7:30am if I have not already done so, get up (all other items are done in bed after I make Patrick's lunch)
8am breakfast for anyone who hasn't had any yet and we begin wrangling clothing on all my little ones and diaper changes.
9 am (yes it takes that long to get everyone dressed) wash dishes
9:30am begin school with Caeden
11 am put micah down for a nap while the older two watch a movie and practice their penmanship
12 PM lunch
1 PM nap time for Caeden and Fia and depending on how the 11 am nap went for Micah possibly for him.  Begin preparing dinner. And if Caeden has not finished school help him to finish.
1-3:30pm alternate between attempting to clean, make necessary phone calls (which have to be done outside), and correct bad behavior from children who should be resting.
2pm put micah down for his nap if I didn't at 1pm
3:20 PM Patrick gets home and we spend a quick 10 minutes catching up on the details of our day
3:30pm let the children up so they can spend time with daddy while I pack our gym bags or prepare for grocery shopping (we only have one day a week where neither of these things are necessary)
4pm out the door for either the gym or shopping.
6:30pm after returning from our outing Patrick turns on the TV and watches with the kids while I prepare and serve dinner. Caeden and Fia clear the table.
7 pm eat dinner
7:30pm get the kids ready for bed nurse Micah, read bedtime stories
8pm cuddle with Micah while we wait for the other two to fall asleep.
9 pm go to bed and attempt to talk to Patrick until he falls asleep and lay awake for another hour.
10:30 - 11 PM fall asleep
11pm-5:30am sleep until interrupted by a crying baby
Rinse and repeat.

So how do I find time to clean?  Lately I don't and that is one reason why my fat schedule needs to tone down.
What will I do? To be honest I don't have much of a plan except that I'm going to slow down on the activities for school. Caeden won't like that but he will get more play time so hopefully that will make up for it. We will continue working on spelling (which is really penmanship and sight word memorization), math and reading. And that is the plan for at least this week but possibly the whole rest of the month. 
The funny thing about this is that this month we are focusing on the character trait of 'orderliness' so it kinda fits well. I'm so glad I prayed over our schedule and asked God to show me what sections to put where because this is coming at such a perfect time.  After Halloween we are taking a whole month off while the children and I go to Oklahoma for the birth of a new cousin.
And then we should be totally ready to jump fully back into school and do all subjects with vigor and excitement.
I'm looking forward to seeing my house come back together and my schedule slimming down though! I seriously doubt one week will be enough time to achieve it but one day at a time has always been my goal for the home and children so we shall see how it goes.
How are things going in your home? Do you have time for God? Do you feel like your schedule needs a workout or diet to?

I am learning

Talking to a newly homeschooling mama friend I hadn't spoken to in months reminded me of some things I said to and about myself a few years ago and made me realize just how great my God is.
When Caeden was a baby, maybe even before he was born Patrick and I started talking about how we would educate our children, home school was an option we would consider but were unsure of.  I was home schooled a few years and while I thought it could have been great, it wasn't. I was not socialized during that time and wasn't kept accountable for my school work much of the time.
Then when Caeden turned two I met a woman who was homeschooling her three children, and part of a co-op, and thought "yes I think I could do that but ONLY with a co-op". So home school became a reality to me. Something that could be done but only with support.
We moved back to Michigan for awhile and I prepared a curriculum for Caeden's preschool when he was 3.
And then Patrick got a job where I couldn't even locate a co-op.  So I learned that in deed I could homeschool without a Co-op. But that was just pre-school, surely pre-school didn't count.
Then kindergarten time came and not only did we not have a co-op but we also moved 4 times from October to the end of May.  Which is almost the whole school year and somehow we made it through.  We are done with kindergarten!
So my friend asks me "did you find a co-op? " and my answer.  "Yeah there are some out here but we aren't joining any."  HAHA!  What happened to the girl I was a few years ago?  Unsure of my abilities as a mother and teacher, unsure of what God had been leading us to all along.  Here I am, not the best mother, not the best teacher, but absolutely the best for my children, absolutely qualified for the work God has anointed me to do!  Sure is going to be rough, but I have a mighty father to lean on and he is reliable, strong, a great leader, and I know he can teach me what I need to know to give my children the life they need and grow them into God fearing,  strong caring citizens of this country who take care of themselves and others as they are able.
I am growing so much and God is leading me through this journey.  Is it about me?  Nope, but while in this life I'm determined to do my best at it.

School is getting fun.

Caeden is such a mover that getting him to sit still long enough to learn things that require attentiveness is often very difficult.  He wants to ask a million questions,  change the subject at least once usually to tell me about dragons, and fidget with things around him. I usually have to clear the table before we can get down to business. ..I don't mean of dishes or toys I mean of everything, including homeschool items that are not needed at this exact moment.
BUT he has mastered reading "The Ear Book" this week,  learned to count by twos and started exploring odd numbers (we have been doing evens mostly) and can now copy a whole sentence in the lines, writing the words in the order they are written. .. The accomplishments are incredible and since he has done so well we actually moved up a few weeks instead of just one in a couple different subjects.
Seeing the fruit of this labor is so encouraging!  I'm loving it now more than ever.  Maybe I can handle this even better than I thought. 
I had no doubts about being able to do it but teaching reading and number recognition is the most difficult thing I've done in my life.  I know that it gets easier once those two things are mastered,  but how easy it has gotten over the course of this week is very encouraging. I can't wait to continue to bigger things and more books and field trips to historic places.
The next year in our 5th wheel is going to be such a great experience!

Back to life.

I can't believe after all the craziness we have been through that I'm able to say this but I'm so glad I can.
Caeden is resuming school tomorrow.  It will be our first day doing school in the 5th wheel.  I'm excited and maybe a little under prepared but it is one step in a long journey that proves that we are getting normal back.
What will we do for school?  We will start our day with breakfast and then after I get the breakfast dishes done caeden will work on number recognition and counting by playing sorry.  Yup.  Fun stuff.  Then fia will get some minor counting and color recognition by playing candy land.
After math we will work on recognizing the abc's.  Both caeden and fia need this.
After that will be reading.  Caeden is almost able to read 'The Ear Book' on his own so we will start with that one and then read The poem twinkle twinkle little star.  If he does well and is game then I will have him start reading Ten Apples Up On Top, if not we will do that one tomorrow.  Then we will do a science lesson from the book we have been working with.  We are pretty far behind in that so we will probably do science every day instead of twice in the week.  Fia will color while caeden and I work on science.
Micah will hopefully be entertained with toys and Graham crackers during all of this learning. 
We won't work on history tomorrow but I will need to figure out what our history lesson is on for Tuesday since we also have gotten behind in history.
Honestly even though we are behind I'm just glad to say that tomorrow we can start working again.