I just wanted to share with you guys my second video!! So excited for you all to go check it out, me, the kids (except for Ethan who was snacking in the background), and daddy got in on this one, I would love for you all to go take a look at our channel on youtube, just click “how our family does pizza night” below to check it out!!
How our family does pizza night!!
You read that right, mama’s gone crazy!! I have started vlogging!! Woo hoo, I just uploaded my first ever vlog just a few minutes ago so be sure to catch me on youtube! I will post my video below!
You guys have no idea how excited I am that I have finally done this, I have been wanting to start vlogging for quite some time now and have just not had the time to do it and now I have some extra time on my hands…. never thought that would happen!! But, anyway I do now and so I decided to go for it!
I am so excited to do even more videos and to get even better at videoing and editing my videos as well, surprisingly this video only had 3 interruptions that needed to be edited out hehe! I may just show some outtakes in some of mine so you can see some of the craziness we have going on!
So, now that I’ve told you about it go watch the video for yourself on my new youtube channel 6inthemix!!!
Comment below and let me know what videos you would enjoy watching most!!
Today is my oldest son’s 7th birthday! Crazy, crazy, crazy, my child is SEVEN how did that even happen? At every single birthday I always think that I always think how in the world did time pass by that fast? How did another year move away so quickly and then I get sad. I get upset at myself for all my parenting failures, and all the things I could have done different and all the things I wished I would have made time for. Don’t we all?
Then, I think about all the incredible fabulous memories I have had with him and each of my children and I wouldn’t trade them for the world. It’s at that time I realize no one is perfect, God never promised us that we would be perfect or that we would get everything right the first time or that the amazing children He gave us would come with complete instructions. But, we are called to love and even though I haven’t been the perfect mom I have loved. I have tried my hardest to be a great mom and to give each of my children the love they need.
We got 3 out of 4 to stay still that’s an accomplishment!!
So, if you are in the struggles of feeling like a failure as a parent or that your time with them is slipping by and you have to get it perfect now, just know that you don’t and will never be so, if you’re striving for perfection you will be disappointed but strive for love. Let them know that you unconditionally love them each and every day, that’s what they will remember!
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So, we’ve been working at this whole “homeschool” thing going on three years now, so I think it’s safe to say I’ve got it all figured out!!
YUP, you read that right I’m now the homeschool expert…………………….. Okay, who am I kidding let’s take a step back into reality now.
I’m just like you, I’m still figuring it all out as I go along. Now, I will say that through trial and error and from wisdom from great friends and of course first and foremost through prayer I have learned A LOT!! In all honesty I think that homeschool, just like parenting, is something that we will all always be learning to do. “Perfecting” our techniques, learning to lighten up, realizing what the important things are.
But I just want to share with you what our homeschool really looks like and what I’ve learned in these couple of years. In all honesty, it’s always different. Seriously though, no two days are the same. Some days are super hard… I mean, really, really hard. The kids didn’t sleep well, nor did I, the meal I fixed for breakfast isn’t what anyone wanted, every one has a bad attitude and don’t forget the “mommy, she took my chair” argument we often hear. But, in the midst of the chaos we do manage to have a wonderful productive day most of the time and school does get completed it may not have been done as planned, but, it’s done. Snuggles in the bed before nap time make up for sleepy attitudes, that breakfast that no one wanted is forgotten and the love between sisters is nothing a taken chair can change, and a big brother reading the story to everyone makes everything all right in the world for a while.
Then, you have those days no matter how few and far between they do happen and everything does pretty much go to plan. The one thing I have learned is to relax, they will learn the things we need to teach them. They will get it, they really will. I have learned that if they want to use a crayon instead of a pencil who cares… and yes, I really did insist the first year that every worksheet be done in pencil (no fun!!) but thankfully I got over that. I also learned that it really doesn’t matter where school is done, if they want to go outside instead of learning at the dining room table then go outside, enjoy the beautiful sunshine God gave to you and sit outside and do school.
There are days when we follow the curriculum to a tee and then there are other days where we forget the curriculum and just learn what the kids are interested in. Often times you can learn so much more when you allow for a little wiggle room, when a child is interested they will retain that information, and if you’re concerned that they are missing out on math while hunting for bugs have them count the legs on the bugs and figure out how many bugs they would have to collect to get to 100 legs or something fun like that, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
There are times when catching and learning about tiny frogs is just a bit more important than sitting at a table doing worksheets! resourcefulhomeschoolmom.wordpress.com
There are days where we all sit and do school together and then there are times when someone wants some space and time to themselves and on those days I give them that space, I give them work they can do independently and let them enjoy some peace and quiet.
Some days school may mean going outside and learning how to take care of the garden and using teamwork to water all the fruit trees and discuss how they grow and even measuring to see how much they have grown since you got them.
It may mean daddy teaching you how to light a campfire and make a meal together over the fire and learning fire safety, and then, there are days where field trips to go check out some pretty cool looking animals and learn about where they live and what foods they eat is just an absolute must!!
Homeschool can look like so many different things to so many people so, in your own homeschool journey just remember to love on your kids, teach them what’s truly important and most of all make it FUN!!
What is your homeschool like? I would love to hear about your fun homeschool adventures, comment and let me know about all the fun you have!
I wanted to chime in today with a little update about the laundry soap recipe I tried!!! To say that we LOVE this stuff is a complete understatement, not only has it lasted forever I have been using it for almost a whole month now (remember we’re a family of 6 so we have a TON of laundry) and you can hardly tell it’s even been used, I still have a huge 5 gallon bucket almost completely full of it!! But, it also smells so amazing matter of fact, I had some **clean** laundry that stayed in the basket all week (Don’t judge you know you’ve done that before too) but my hubby grabbed a shirt of his from the basket and it still smelled like it had just come out of the wash, it kept that incredible smell he said he couldn’t quit smelling it :-D!! All of it was like that, there is nothing quite like wearing clothes that smell like that aaahhhhh so refreshing!!
But, now to answer the question I’m sure you’re wondering…… Does it get the clothes clean? Well, I’ll just say this yesterday Justin put on some of his shorts these shorts are some he has had for a couple years, they are the one’s he wears when he’s doing the “dirty work” they have gotten muddy and greasy and any other messy that you can think of, and looked really stained and dingy no matter how many times I washed them. Well, yesterday he said, look at what the detergent did to these shorts, they look so good. These shorts had no stains and didn’t look dingy anymore, I think I’d say that’s a win!! We also have tons of red clay in our yard which is horrible to get out of clothes but this laundry soap gets them out.
Can you tell how excited I am!!! Welcome to adulthood I’m so excited about clean laundry haha!! So, I definitely encourage you to try this out!!
Do any of you make new year’s resolutions? Do you ever actually keep any of them? Well, we usually set goals that we want to accomplish throughout the year and check them off as we go.
This year I know for Justin and I we want to get the extra weight we have off, we’ve been working on this for a while, but for me I couldn’t focus on weight loss like I wanted to since I was pregnant but I did workout all throughout my pregnancy to stay healthy but now that we’ve had our sweet boy I can fully focus on the weight loss and we will continue to do that together.
As a family, I want to get our routine a bit more structured and to spend more time playing together and letting the kids be hands on with us as much as we can for example, they do cook with me some but they love to do it all the time, so I would like to take the extra time to let them cook 2 meals a day with me. Also, to do an art and craft every day together instead of just a couple every week, and more time together outside playing.
Our final goal (or at least for now) is to eat as healthy as we can, I’ve really slacked off from the completely healthy eating in the past month of pregnancy till now, I’ve been buying more boxed meals and things like that, and I don’t want to do that anymore, we felt so much better and had so much more energy when we ate better before so we want to go back to eating that way, not to say we won’t have days where we will still eat some of that but not often at all.
What are your goals or resolutions for this year? Are you going to have any if you haven’t already? Comment below and let me know.
I never thought that having a family with 3 children or 4 children was really considered a large family, well apparently I’m the minority in that, because even before with our 3 children and especially now that we are expecting number 4 we get the question of “how many children do you have?” or the “are they all yours?” Then, more often than not when we answer the response is “oooohhhhh, ok” with the look, and if you have this many children I’m sure by now you know what the look is the oh my goodness these people are crazy look, and our age doesn’t do us any justice either thankfully most people don’t ask us our age but when they do and we tell them we’re 23 and 24 it’s usually just silence with a smile. I don’t mind though, I really don’t not only because I’m used to it by now but also because I really just don’t care, God has given us these precious babies to take care of and I love every second of it. Even the crazy oh my goodness I’m going to scream (along with the kids), did a toy store just explode in the living room right after I cleaned, or the if I have to vacuum one more time I’m going to go insane moments. I love them all and wouldn’t trade them for the world.
I’m sure if you asked each one of the kids although the only response you’re going to get from Isabelle would be a little babbling and maybe a “hey” or “dada” but I can guarantee you if they had the choice to be an only child or have each other they would leave it exactly as it is to them the more the merrier. In fact if Jeremiah or Caidence have a sleepover with someone the one left at home just doesn’t know what to do with themselves, it’s a little easier now that Isabelle is here too, but they get really lonely and start to miss one another very, very quickly. But, Jeremiah recently spent the night with his nina (my mom) and for the first time ever the girls finally had a very long time of bonding and playing with one another without me there, usually Isabelle may sit and watch Caidence for a minute or two and then go off and do her own thing but that Saturday morning they were playing babies together. They had the little carriers with blankets and each one had a baby they were sitting together giggling and just having fun together and I thought if we would have stuck with the world’s standards of what is “enough” children my daughter would have never been able to have this wonderful bonding moment with her sister, and Jeremiah wouldn’t be able to experience those bonding moments with his brother once he gets here. If your choice is to stick with one or two or even no children that’s your choice, maybe God has something different in life for you or whatever the case may be I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad for their choices, this is just what’s right for us God chose us to have all of these blessings all 4 of them and I’m very glad He did.
“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
You know those days when all your children are getting along so well, sharing, being patient, kind, and loving to one another, being obedient to you, well we aren’t going to talk about those most wonderful times today. No, we’re going to talk about the times when you feel like pulling your hair out, when no one wants to share, you’ve been asked “why” a thousand times, you’ve been told “no, I don’t want to” the children aren’t sharing and continue to argue over and over again, and they won’t do a thing you ask them, and you are just plain fed up. That’s the time we’re going to talk about.
During those times it is so easy to forget that we are children of a wonderful loving God and we forget what he tells us. It is so easy to just go off on our children and yell at them these precious young children whom when everything is going great seem like the best children in the world. They don’t deserve that they are just children, but we do we raise our voices and even yell at them. I didn’t realize how that affected my children until yesterday, we had a bad day, a really bad day. I yelled and I even blamed my children for the attitudes they had and told them that they needed to fix their attitude if they wanted mine to be fixed. Yes, totally embarrassing on my part I can’t believe I told them that, how absolutely stupid of me. But, it wasn’t until my son had a big outburst of anger that I have never seen him have ever before, ever that I realized just how much my yelling had bothered him. But, while he was having those few minutes of showing anger to me, I still didn’t link it with myself and take the blame, after I took a few minutes to sit down with him and play to get him to calm down, he started crying and said “I’m so sorry” and God just said to me, see what you’ve done and why I want you to be gentle, loving, and kind to others. At that moment it just clicked and I took him into my arms and told him that it was my fault not his at all he had done nothing wrong, and we had a wonderful rest of the day. No, everyone didn’t mind the whole time and everything wasn’t perfect, but I changed the only person who had the real problem.
As you may know from previous posts our house is a “no yelling house” and, as you have figured out from this post we are nowhere near perfect at all, we slip up and make mistakes and we sometimes yell. But, I can tell you that after God showed me what I was doing yesterday this will be a no yelling house ALWAYS, I will never again make my child feel that way again. There will be nothing but love, kindness, patience, and gentleness in this house any more, even during those days that seem to be really bad. I will do my part.
Why did I choose to post this? Well, it’s really hard to do, I have questioned if I was actually going to publish it the whole time I’ve been typing but, yes, I am going to because I know I’m not the only one who has had a bad day and lost their temper. Even if no one wants to admit it you have had those bad days too. And, if it takes a moment of me humbling myself to show my faults to change an entire household into having a true no yelling, gentle speaking, kind, patient household then a little bit of my discomfort will be nothing.
Focus on these verses if you feel that it’s one of those bad days and you don’t know how much longer you can take it, just take a few minutes to reflect on these, and talk to God, he will listen and will give you instruction.
“The wise in heart are called discerning, and pleasant words promote instruction.” Proverbs 16:21 -Think before you speak
“Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4
“Fathers do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” Colossians 3:21
A wonderful tip that I found from another blogger is that instead of just keeping verses highlighted in your bible, or just putting them in a notebook, write them where you will see them all throughout the day, if you have a homemaking binder, write some encouraging verses on every page, put note cards throughout your house, whatever it takes for you to get the word of God everyday all day. Hope I helped someone with this post today, and just remember, don’t feel like because you did this you are an awful person, although I did feel like that for a good while after but just remember we have a wonderful loving Heavenly Father who forgives us and not only that but He forgets that sin as well. Don’t hang onto that just let it go and love on your children.
Resourceful Homeschooling Family 