Our Christmas Season

I truly love the Christmas season. I love planning a variety of things for our boys to do. I love making sweet memories with them. I love teaching them about the real reason for Christmas and why its worth celebrating. Our Christmas season starts on December 1.  We give them new pajamas and their new ornament for the tree. Our boys really don't like matching Christmas pajamas so this year I gave up and just gave them their favorite things! They were thrilled! Here's what they got:

Abram- Star Wars pajamas and smores ornament 

Luke- Toucan pajamas and ornament

Jack- Monkey pajamas and ornament

With their favorite things!

I've been listening to a new podcast about reading aloud to your kids. One episode was about planning your read aloud Christmas books around seasonal advents. I loved that idea! We read a book about Christmas cookies the same day we decorated cookies, we read a book about Christmas trees when we decorated our tree. So... one day I planned a gingerbread day when we read Jan Brett's "Gingerbread Baby." We went to visit a beautiful display of gingerbread houses, Abram put together a gingerbread house (not a real one, but he loved it anyway), we made ice cream cones with icing and m&m's,  and Jack and Luke loved working on the gingerbread puzzle. It was such a fun day. I'm already so excited about planning more book/event days next year! 

These gingerbread houses were amazing!

He did such a great job!

Our ice cream cone Christmas trees

Such fun books that we love to read every season!

This year we did something new and we loved it, too! When we went camping to Jekyll Island this summer, our neighbor camper mentioned going to Suwannee at Christmas time. When we got home, we immediately looked into it and booked our weekend. Not only was Suwannee a wonderful campground, but they even gave us a golf cart and drove through their amazing light display. We all loved it so much! We are hoping we are still here next year so we can go again!

Getting ready to go see the lights!

Luke loves to laugh at his big ears in this silly picture!

Riding around looking at the lights

Our sweet boys

Our most favorite Christmas tradition in our area is Luminaria. It's when our entire neighborhood is lined with white sacks with candles in them. Everyone gets out and walks around. It is absolutely amazing and such a sight to see! 

In front of our favorite shop at Christmas. They have an amazing display of Nutcrackers. 

Our boys in front of our house. 

The streets lined with candles. Amazing! 

And, for the third year in a row, we are so very blessed to have our family come stay with us for Christmas. They all make the 13 hour drive from Louisiana and it means so very much to us. We have the best time! This year we went to the beach to see "Deck the Chairs," we went to Christmas Eve service at our new church, had our annual Candy Cane Hunt and of course our favorite... decorating Christmas cookies.  We all had an amazing Christmas and it is so good to be together. Here's a few of our favorite pictures...

All the candy canes that were found in the park!

Such a fun place to go see Christmas lights!

Christmas Eve service with family. 

Our finished cookies... yum!

Luke's favorite. He was so proud!

Cousins and Cookies... there is nothing better!

Such sweet memories!

Yum. I think Abram ate more than he decorated!

Jack's favorite flower cookie that he made just for his Aunt Julie.

All the grands. They are all getting so very big. 

Abram found and wrapped gifts for everyone and put them under the tree. So special. 

Seeing the lights in St. Augustine. 

Every time they come down, we try to do something special... this time we went swimming with the manatees! We all drove down to Crystal River the day after Christmas, suited up in our wet suits and snorkel masks and jumped in the freezing cold water. It was cold, but pretty amazing!

Heading out on the boat

Jack and the tour guide 

Jack and Mama

Abram with the manatee

Our dive group all swimming around the manatee

Excited cousins!

Luke and Uncle Jamie watching the manatee 

They were so excited to try out their new snorkel masks!

Warming up in the boat after the dive. 

We had such a wonderful Christmas season celebrating our Savior's birth.  We had a wonderful season making memories with our family.  We are so very grateful and blessed.

Our New Season of Homeschooling

A few friends have asked me why we have decided to homeschool. They have asked me why now. They have asked me what changed my mind. So I am writing a blog post explaining our family’s reasons. After teaching public school for 11 years, this thought was a super surprise to me when God started putting it on my heart. 

Contrary to what some people might think- Abram does amazingly well in school, both in grades and behavior. His teachers love him and he has good friends. So, why have we made this decision? Why now? Well, I have come up with four reasons why we feel like this is what is best for our family right now:

1. Calling:  When I told Abram we were going to pull him out of school and homeschool, he of course asked, “why?” I told him that I have felt twice in my life God specifically telling me to do something. The first time was to adopt, the second time was to homeschool. I felt it heavy on my heart one afternoon. I just kept hearing the words over and over: “homeschool him.” Chris and I strongly feel that this is what God is calling us to do right now. 
2. Attachment:  As some of you may know, we have been struggling lately with Abram in the area of attachment. He just isn’t attached to us completely. It is painful to see and it hurts our hearts. I have always felt like we should be doing more and as soon as I heard God call us to homeschool, I felt in my heart this is the "more."  Our prayer is that spending one on one time with him learning, reading, playing, and talking will only help him. 
3. Transitions:  Since we move so much and sometimes we never know how long we will be in one place, this will hopefully help in making the transitions better. We will have an established routine wherever we go. 
4. Dissatisfaction:  I’ll keep this part short (because my intentions are not to offend or hurt feelings). Chris and I are dissatisfied with what the public schools are teaching and what they aren’t teaching. We feel there are things Abram should know and also there are things that he shouldn’t be learning at school.

Okay, so that’s why we feel like this is best for our family--hopefully that answers some questions! 

Now, to answer the question: "How will you teach Abram?" We have chosen to join the Classical Conversations community. It is a Christian community group that meets on Tuesdays and is based on the Classical model of education.  At Classical Conversations they work on Science, History, Bible Memory, Latin and Geography.  At home we will be using Math U See for our Math Curriculum and our plan is to start using the Language Arts curriculum from the Institute of Excellence in Writing (IEW) in the fall. Right now, we will be starting in Fix-It Grammar and First Language Lessons. We have also been slowly building our read aloud library and I have been following Sarah Mackenzie with the Read Aloud Revival. Reading aloud will be a huge part of our day. 

I have all these plans, I have the curriculum, I have a rough outline of our day- but I am still very nervous and overwhelmed. I want to pour into Abram (and soon Jack and Luke, too). I want to build a strong relationship with him and get to know him. I want to teach him well and I want to point him to Jesus.  Those are my goals, but I can't do any of this without daily (hourly) relying on Him. Yes, I taught school and I have a degree in Elementary Education- but this is so much more and I want to do it well. I am trusting God will work in Abram's heart, that He will guide our days, curriculum and plans. 

This is the verse I am clinging to right now, "He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it." (I Thes. 5:24)

Abram's First Day!

Our curriculum for this semester- can't wait to dive into it!

His weekly memorization work for Classical.