First Day of School!

Today marked our 1st day of school, the start of our 4th year homeschooling, my first year teaching all 3 of my kids.  [I lost my sanity a loooooong time ago, friends.]  Minnesota public schools don't start until after Labor Day, but that's too late, in my opinion.  We're starting now so that we can be done with school in early May.

Super C is in 7th grade.

My junior higher says he has no clue what he wants to be when he's older.

Super E is in 3rd grade.

He still wants to be a veterinarian when he grows up.

Quiet Tiger is in Kindergarten.

She either wants to be a teacher
or she'll take over daddy's business
and become a financial advisor.

Our school room isn't done yet, as we haven't yet bought a table and chairs (other large expenses like a fence and a new washing machine came first).  But we are looking good with curriculum on the bottom shelves.  Other supplies like pens, pencils, rulers, colored pencils, highlighters, are stored in the laundry room.  For now, we'll just do school at the dining room table.  But I'm anxious to have my official school table and I'm hoping for a bargain at a resale shop or garage sale.

School room.
Curtains will be lengthened.
Table and chairs will be purchased.
It all takes time.
And money.

Supplies hanging in the laundry room.

In Minnesota, I had to send in a form to the local schools, per state law, to announce my homeschooling decision for my kids.  I had to send in vaccination records for all my kids as well.  At the end of the year I will have to test my children, per state law, but no one will receive those results, interpret those results or store those results, we just have to be able to prove that standardized tests were administered if need be.  Dumb, but what can you do?

This year we are sticking with Sonlight curriculum again for 7th grade and Kindergarten.  I found 7th grade pretty cheap on a used curriculum website at the end of the school year last year.  Kindergarten curriculum is being borrowed from my friend Amy again.  Somehow, something got mixed up a little with Super E's curriculum.  Not sure how it happened, but had we stuck with Sonlight this year, he would have been in a core that Super C started in 4th grade.  I knew Super E wouldn't be ready for it in 3rd grade.  For him, we are taking a Sonlight break and trying My Father's World, another good curriculum that I found used on eBay.  Some of the books we have already done last year, but it will be okay to skip those few books this year.  My friend Hilary will be lending us some science curriculum from Abeka.  I'm also trying something new for Language Arts this year, Writing Strands, that is on loan to me from a sweet, sweet adoption friend whom I have never met in person, but is a sister to me.  Thank you, Jeanine!

It was a hard decision for me to choose the appropriate schooling this year for Quiet Tiger.  You may recall what happened when we tried public school for her last year.  Utter disaster, despite all my best intentions.  I was glad to pull her out.  I'm not sure what the best thing for her will be this year.  I'm not.  All in all, my biggest hope is that this year of homeschooling will bring us closer as mother and daughter.  We butt heads a lot and I've always said she has "mommy issues" not wanting to trust or listen to or give control to an adult woman (think of all the nannies she had in China).  She thrives on fighting me daily and manipulates grandmas constantly when they visit.  Should homeschooling not be the right decision for Quiet Tiger, we will enroll her in public school or a charter school immediately.  For now, we'll give homeschooling a try.  Fingers crossed!  She'll be using Sonlight curriculum but I'm waiting for the teacher's guide to arrive, so in the meantime, she's doing workbooks at home.

Being close to my dear friend Hilary will bring added school fun this year.  Surely, we will figure out how to share teaching and we will plan field trips and sports.  Our kids are already enrolled in Homeschool Softball this year and my boys are excited!  We didn't sign Quiet Tiger up for softball due to the fact that she didn't listen to her tennis coaches very well in Texas, so we thought we'd take a break from sports for her this year.  I sure do miss my Texas tennis Wednesdays though, when the kids got to learn from some great coaches and I got some adult-time with my good friend Nicole!

Here's to a fun and successful year ahead.  

All prayers appreciated for teacher and students alike!

After Nearly 10 Years

I just saw my dad for the first time in nearly 10 years.

When Jay and I were getting married 14 years ago, my parents were divorcing.  It was totally not the right time to bring a man home to mom and dad, and I didn't want to be dating at all at that time, but God had other plans.  As we approached our wedding date, our marriage counselors and our pastor all agreed (based on family stories and personality testing, etc.) that Jay and I establish some boundaries with my dad.

We did not cut my dad from our lives, but we just agreed that any time we were with my dad, Jay and I would be together, never alone, and always somewhere out in public.  We did this for our emotional health only and we never feared contact with my dad for physical reasons.  Never!  My dad met my oldest son when he was born in Illinois and he got to watch him grow up for those first 2 1/2 years of his life.

Then we moved away to Nebraska for 5 1/2 years.  Our second son was born there.  My dad never came out to visit us.  He sent gifts for birthdays and Christmas and we spoke by phone.  When we'd head home to Chicagoland on our annual trip home every August, we'd attempt to see my dad, but it never worked. He never met my second son.

Then we moved to California for that 1 dreaded, hellish year.  No one came to visit us there.

And then it was Texas for 3 years.  When we first moved there, I learned that my dad had a heart attack that was more serious than anyone led to believe.  My oldest brother had strong boundaries with our dad also, so he wasn't calling regularly for updates.  My second brother always kept a decent relationship with our dad, but that brother was overseas for work at the time of the heart attack.  I was the only one getting regular updates, and keeping the rest of the family apprised of news.  My husband was new in his commissioned line of work, so the thought of flying home to be with my dad, frightened me as I didn't know where the money for flights would come from.  The dread of heading home for a possible funeral was awful.  I hadn't seen my dad in years and the thought of him leaving this earth without seeing him at least one final time ate at me.

Forgiveness is one thing.  Long ago, I had been able to forgive the hurts of the past and I had moved on.  The boundaries were necessary and neither Jay nor I regret setting those boundaries.  They were a healthy thing for a newly married couple.  More presently, it was the simple factor of miles that was keeping us apart.

We invited my dad and his wife to come down to Texas when he was recovered and able to travel.  They never took us up on our offer.  Texas was just too far away and flights too expensive and the drive too long for most people to come see us.

Now that we're back in the Midwest, my dad called and said he'd be up our way to visit his twin brother who isn't doing very well, health-wise.  I was so excited to see my dad again.  He's my dad.  And with forgiveness, I was able to find and feel the love for him again.

He got in at nearly 1 in the morning and only stayed with us for that 1 night before heading up to the Duluth area in the morning, but it was such a good visit.

He got reacquainted with my oldest son.  He got to meet my second born son.  He got to meet my adopted daughter.  I got to feel a hug from my dad again.

I wished we had more time together.  I wanted to go with him to see his side of the family, people I hadn't seen since my wedding almost 14 years ago.  But we had our own family plans that weekend that were quite huge and couldn't be missed or rescheduled.  We both headed out the driveway and went our own directions.

I'll see my dad again.  He'll come see us.  We'll go to Chicago to see him.  My kids will know their Grandpa for as long as God keeps him here on this earth.  And I hope it's a good, long while.

Thanks for stopping by, dad!

Girl's Room Makeover

During the month of August, I started my first house project.

We have sort of completed (you'll see why I say "sort of" at the end) our first room renovation in the new house.  We chose to do Quiet Tiger's bedroom first simply because she has less furniture to move around.

Here's a very early BEFORE picture because this was taken before we even closed on the house.  I just realized that I never took photos of the house before our furniture arrived due to the timing of our botched closing.  Also, I would be remiss if I didn't add that at first, the boys were using this room.  This room has a much bigger closet and with 2 boys sharing a room, I thought they deserved the bigger closet for twice the clothes and twice the toys.  But their bunk bed did not fit well in this room.  We did a little room swapping in July on a temporary basis before we painted and decorated to see if we truly liked the switch.

BEFORE
Interestingly enough, in my TX contact, I had to fight to take all my curtains with us to MN.
I had to leave the curtain rods in TX.
I guess here in MN, they took all their curtains and rods with no regard to the contract.
Oh well.  I didn't like their curtains or rods anyway.

I brightened up the ceilings by painting them Ultra Pure White Ceiling Flat from Behr Premium Plus Ultra (that's a mouthful!).  In Minnesota, builders love their popcorn ceilings.  Not my favorite, but definitely livable with a fresh, brighter coat of paint.  I watched numerous YouTube videos on how to properly paint this type of ceiling and all it needed was 1 coat.  The new brightness was noticeable immediately!

I took a little fine sandpaper and sanded down those black stripes near the baseboards.  I filled the zillions of nail and hook holes and sanded them down.  I also sanded down numerous paint drips the previous owners left running down the walls.

I painted the walls in Stone Harbor.  It's a Benjamin Moore paint color, but using Behr paint from Home Depot and having them color match.  I love Behr paint, especially their paint and primer in one!  One coat and the walls were covered beautifully.  Oh, and I happily chose an eggshell finish for the paint so that we can wipe it down lightly if need be.  My old house in TX had flat paint which I hated with a passion.

I painted 1 wall with some fun accent polkadots using just a basic white eggshell finish from Behr with no tint added.  Sure, I could have done the decal circles, but with a very destructive daughter.... well, need I say more?  No.  No, I don't.

She desperately needed blackout curtains so she could sleep during the long light hours of summer (it's bright well after her 8pm bedtime, here people).  My mom and I hung the curtain rod and hung the red curtains from my master bedroom in Texas.  We may or may not keep the red in there permanently.

I repurposed the hooks I removed from our master bedroom walls and created a little dress-up area.  I'm tempted to spray these hooks black or silver, but for now, they are the original brass color, of which I'm really not a fan.

The makeover isn't really done, it's only 2/3 done.  But for now, this is all the updating we have and we consider her room done.  Here are your AFTER pictures.

From the doorway.
My mom will lengthen the hem on these curtains should we decide to keep them.
A big girl bed will one day go where her crib mattress lies.

"Pokey Dot" accent wall.

An area for playing dress-up.
I repurposed the hooks we had on the wall in our master bedroom for her costumes.
I have a second set of hooks that I could add, should her dress-up wardrobe increase.
I have a few more accents to hang here, but that might wait a while.

Future improvements to this room include:

>>>  A big girl bed.  Right now, Jay and I are sleeping on a mattress on the floor too, so I think we get the priority for who gets a new bed first.  If I happen to find a nice bed or headboard at a resale shop though, I'll certainly grab it and we'll put a twin bed on the angle where her crib mattress currently lies.  Then we'll get some fun bedding to complete the room.

>>>  A ceiling fan with lights.  This room faces west and gets all the afternoon sun.  It's a very hot room and we desperately need some air movement up there!

>>>  Blinds for added control of the sunlight.

>>>  Removing carpet and installing laminate and laying a big fluffy throw rug.

>>>  Painting the closet to clean and brighten it up.

There you have it.  One "Pokey Dot" room for my "Pokey Dot" loving girl.

PS... It will be a very sad day when she stops saying "Pokey Dot."