Fall

This fall has been a busy one. We have been to the beach, took the kids apple picking, and are still trying to settle into a routine. Brian finished his treatments up and I am so glad to have that stress behind us for a little while. We are taking the financial peace university class at the church. We have been working the baby steps for a while, but are hoping to get a break from medical expenses long enough to get somewhere on baby step two. I've worked some extra shifts this month, and signed up to work Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not popular decisions, but "live like no one else and later you can LIVE like noone else". Right? We've been talking to our kids about money alot and have even busted out the financial peace jr. Before Brian got sick, we were working the commission system pretty well, so now we just need to get back on it. I also have turned control of the checkbook over to Brian. He is very accountable to me about his spending, but I need to be more accountable to him. Plus, he has no idea what's in there. He's also done some grocery shopping lately with our food envelope. He really had no idea about the cost of things.

I'm re-reading "A Well Trained Child." No, I am not a homeschool mom, but this book has such wonderful information in it. Truthfully, every parent who is involved in their childs education is a homeschool parent to some extent. I really need to sit down and reprioritize what I want the kids to be learning. We start alot of things and don't finish them. Now, sometimes we come back to them sometimes not. Its been a rough year for Tony in particular. I won't dredge through the details, but school was not going well, and we were seriously considering pulling him out. We were just working through the details and trying to make him understand that it wasn't his fault. Well, his teacher is no longer there, and as of Thursday he has a new one. I've heard several versions of why his teacher left, but I don't know which one is the truth. But, I do know, that for the first time this year, he came home from school excited about it. He couldn't stop talking about his teacher and all the things he learned that day. He said that he was amazed that she even made math fun! Brian met her on the class field trip on Friday, I will probably meet her this week, but she has already scored major points with me. My kids love to learn, and I don't want that to ever be taken away from them.

I started volunteering at the school again. I really debated and prayed about this, because I felt like I let them down last year. Yes, they were understanding, and yes I had a good excuse with Brian's stem cell transplant, but I still don't like committing to things and then not following through. Plus, it takes time away from my own children still at home, Aiden and Emi. Well, I ended up signing up anyway. There seems to be ALOT more volunteers this year. Last year there were 4 of us, and I think there are at least triple that. So, instead of volunteering a whole morning, I'm volunteering an hour and a half in the afternoon. Most moms are volunteering in their kids class. Makes sense right? Well, I'm in the second grade class. Its a small class, 14 kids, and I listen to them read. I really feel that I'm supposed to be there. I listen to kids read and then I help them log onto their new AR system to test on the books. The books that they read to me, they passed. The books they read to themselves or at home, not so much. You can tell the kids that don't have someone at home helping them with reading.

Speaking of reading, and a well trained child, I have their homeschool reading curriculum as well. I loved their history books, the story of the world, and thought I'd give it a try. Well, I don't like it at all. I thought that I would because its phonics based, but I do not. So its back to the drawing board. I've really been trying to devote more time to teaching Zachy how to read. He's sounding things out, and learning site words. He reads simple books to me and then I read a library book to him.

Angie had her first voice recital this Saturday. It was really nice. The kids each performed a song, and then they had refreshments and then they had a class. Angie seemed to really enjoy her class. They studied the orchestra and even got to get their hands on some instruments. She did pretty well for her first performance, but she was so nervous, that I had butterflies in my stomach. Afterward, Zachary tells me "mom do you know how old that boy was playing the piano?" I say no, he says well I heard his mom say that he's 5. That means I'm old enough to take lessons and I think I should start next week. Haha. He wants to take voice. Tony says he wants to learn how to play the violin. Sometime I really need to write about his interest in Celtic music, but, if I have three kids in music lessons, as Dave would say, I need to stay gazelle intense.

Nerd alert....My next post will probably be about UIL :)