Hope is the thing with feathers...

     

Hope is the thing with feathers 

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune--without the words, 

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 

And sore must be the storm 

That could abash the little bird 

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land, 

And on the strangest sea; 

Yet, never, in extremity, 

It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

We are pressing onward. In the midst of chronic illness and other related trials, I am gifted with hope for the future and hope that we will see the end of this particular run of challenges soon. I keep thinking to myself, that the only way through is forward. Surely on the other side of this week, this month, this year, there will be a lessening of pressing stresses and life can return to a more "normal" pace.

Whit has started weekly injections, weekly blood work, more daily medications, and is still getting his infusions and supplements. He feels good today. It is hard to predict what each day will be like. We are living with the constant up and down of good days followed by bad days followed by awful days followed by a great day. This is the kind of schedule that really teaches you to enjoy the small things in life - quiet moments of cuddling on the couch, reading books out loud together, laughter, beauty, love...

People are so kind. Lots of people ask about Whit. The neighborhood where we live has nice places to walk. The shop owners ask about him when they see me out and about. My wonderful, encouraging co-workers are always checking in with me to see how the week is going. My family is incredibly helpful and supportive. I have friends that are always checking up on me. I am grateful.

I have hesitated to write much about Whit's health issues. There is his privacy to consider. I also feel unsure about how much to share of my personal feelings about his illness for many reasons. But, recently, I began to search for blogs and information about children with severe ulcerative colitis and related auto immune disease issues. I did not find much. What I did find was incredibly encouraging to me. It was so affirming to read about other's experiences with their children and how they have coped. This made me feel that maybe it would help someone else to put myself out there. Whit's combination of diseases does not get that much press. He has celiac disease, severe food allergies, ulcerative colitis, and asthma. Right now, it is the ulcerative colitis that is causing him so many problems. His colon is ulcerated and will bleed out if he is not treated. The struggle since his disease went active again in September, has been to control his bleeding, pain, and other symptoms. He has to be on steroids that cause swelling, weight gain, emotional swings, and sleeplessness. His medications can affect his liver and he has to have weekly blood work to check his liver numbers. They also destroy his immune system.

Maybe I will take this post down at some point, but for now, I feel it is okay to post about our family and our struggle with ulcerative colitis. Whit is running out of time to be on the steroids. You cannot take them long term. He is stepping down now. Over the next few weeks, he will be tapered off of them completely and the infusions and injections will need to sustain his progress. If not, we will be facing some big decisions about how to continue his treatment. We are hoping for the best. As I listened to the birds singing outside my window, as spring creeps in, I was reminded that hope is the thing with feathers. I do hope this spring brings a new season of health to my Whit.

That Moment Before You Reach the Top of the Hill on a Roller Coaster...

I have always loved the "back-to-school" season. I love the school supplies. I love the end of summer when your thoughts begin to turn to picking apples and buying new pencils with fresh erasers. I usually feel energized and excited. So, it is with a sense of bewilderment that I write this entry. Our co-op starts back this Friday and the overwhelming feeling I have is that of being on a roller coaster that is about to crest the hill and begin the free fall. Is it really true that the older you get, the faster time flies? I am beginning to wonder. Can it really be August already?
I am not depressed that school is starting back, but I am not my usual excited self about it either. I am seeking some source of inspiration to help me get my mojo back.
Maybe the weather still feels too hot and muggy. Maybe I need some more down time. Maybe I just need to increase my coffee consumption.
Sometimes when I read blogs and facebook updates, everyone else's life sounds so lovely and uncomplicated. Glossy photos of special moments, well-written descriptions of crafts and special projects - I know that I also post these moments. Most of us do not post the pics of our family in disarray, the dirty dishes, the scattered unopened mail, the laundry pile up. I will admit that I like to stay positive online. Reading depressing commentary is not what I like to take in when I have free time to spend on the computer. However, maybe it is alright to mention that our lives aren't always an endless parade of Kodak moments and creativity. Sometimes we are tired. We are uninspired. We have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Sometimes life is like that. So, I am taking this opportunity to claim my feelings - to own up to feeling not quite ready for the coming school year. I wish I had a month to organize my home. I wish I had some vacation time to take off of work. I wish I had some more funds in the larder to create possibilities. I wish all of these things, but I know that, somehow, things will work out, even without wish fulfillment. Even in the writing of this, I feel better. Sometimes the fear you feel before the drop on the other side of the hill is worth the exhilaration of the free fall on the other side. So, here it is, August 5, 2013. Who knows what is to come this school year? Sometimes it is in the letting go of the ideal that we find out what we really need and what we can get by without, and this is not a bad thing. So, I wait for the free fall and hope for inspiration.

Rain Clouds and Sunbursts

This week has been a bit of a storm. We have weathered health concerns, financial woes, the car turned off on me... in the middle of traffic, all in the same week.
I felt like I was going to cry this afternoon, like everything was coming down on me at once.
Thankfully, I was able to pull myself together, rally, and get on with the program.
I thought this was something that I do on the inside and that no one notices, so I was so touched when we got home from a birthday party tonight and my daughter hugged me and said, "Thank you for taking the time to take us, Mom. I know you were tired and had a hard week. It means a lot to me that you always press on and stay strong and take us to be with friends."
Wow. My fourteen year old daughter is such a sweetheart.
Later, I was tucking everyone in for the night and it hit me how precious that time is - just the few moments before bed when everyone takes the time to hug, to cuddle, to have a few minutes to connect.
I started reading, Charlotte's Web to my nine year old son tonight. I sat in his room and read him a few chapters. He smiled and I smiled and we enjoyed Fern taking care of Wilbur and enjoyed the simple pleasure of a book and a moment to be together and the power of a great story.
After leaving his room, I went to my daughter's. She had a few things to chat about - growing up and the changing friendships with some of her friends as they get to be teenagers. I sat on her bed and braided her long, beautiful hair into two braids - one on each side. I thought about how mother's have been doing this forever into the past - the moments before bed that we take to connect. I thought about the difficult week and that here, on Friday night, my family is safe and together. We had food to eat, we had each other. Maybe the troubles of the week aren't so insurmountable. I thought about the beauty of the lake tonight. The birthday party was out by Lake Murray. The sun was beginning to dip down and the colors of sunset were spreading across the sky as we were packing up. The sun rays were distinct and lovely. I came home to see that another party attendee had photographed the sky and posted it. I thought about our shared experience - that without any words - someone else had seen the sky with the same appreciation of that moment.
I thought about all of this and I felt content. I hope my children remember that the sun comes out again - even if it rains a long time.

The Good Ole' Summertime

Here is the children's seasonal corner for summer. We have done some cleaning out and organizing and now we are putting things in order for the new school year. Some lessons have resumed to keep skills fresh, but "school proper" is set to officially start in August. Today Addie and I went over all of her classes and planned out her course of study. We both love school supplies and organizing. Things are moving quickly to a new school year, but some summer fun still remains. We celebrate Whit's birthday this month! Plans are coming together for a day of fun and frolic summer style. We are going to the summer movies tomorrow with friends. The theater has movies for a dollar on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the summer. Whit still has camp to look forward to at the end of the month. Plenty of summer remains, but we take time to get things ready for a great new year of homeschool.

The Rhythm of Planning Your Homeschool Year

There is an old saying that says if you aim at nothing, you will certainly hit it. I used to think that sounded boring, that if you always planned out what you would do and what you were aiming for, you might miss some essence of becoming that comes from being able to live in the moment and take a new path at any given time.

Now, I recognize that aiming for something means you can amble towards a destination, but still stop and smell the flowers (or even take a new path) on the way. One of the big obstacles to living life intentionally is thinking that things will just fall into place and that you will have the energy and inertia to make your intentions into a reality. I have found, that for me, too much of daily life comes at me and before you know it, I am living in a hurried state and have wandered into the busy-ness of things and have left my true intentions behind me.

Thus the need for planning. I am living a rhythm of planning right now. I marked off the last two weeks of June and the entire month of July as my planning season. This doesn't mean that I sit around planning all day, instead it means that I have slowed the calendar down for my family. We are not accepting as many play dates and activities right now. The children are still down for summer camp for a week in July, but we are careful to keep our interactions down to one or two things a week for the rest of the time.

I use this time to read and to think and to make notes. For the last several weeks, I have read ebooks on Waldorf education, listened to audio files and videos of lectures and conferences, and have surfed the internet for inspirational blogs and photos of the main lessons, daily rhythm, and age and stages that this year holds for me. I have also been doing some reading on the temperaments and how they relate to adult/child interactions. I haven't crammed the information, but have bitten off bite size pieces. I read and then make a few notes. Then I sleep on it. The next day, I may read my notes again and think about how to incorporate this into my life this year.
After a couple of weeks of mulching like this, I took out my calendar and wrote in all of the solid dates for the fall. I wrote in appointments, meetings, festivals and celebrations, etc.

Next, I have started looking up the main lesson topics in my library catalog and making a list of resources for each topic. I have also taken note of resources I already own and purchased a few things. 

Now I am ready to move to the next stage. I plan to spend the next couple of weeks planning out my main lessons and putting it all into my planner. I will still allow myself room to roam a bit, but I have found that in order to make my house and school run smoothly and keep the intentionality to our days, we need some planning and we need rhythm.

Will Work for Peace

Tis the night before Thanksgiving and I am contemplating the deep thankfulness I feel for my children and the lessons they teach me along the journey together. I thought I would teach them, I didn't realize how much I would be learning FROM them. Peace starts at home. When I began the path to gentle, non-violent parenting, I had no idea how the seed of that ideal would take root and grow in our family. My socially conscience children are always surprising me with the ways they incorporate peace in our daily lives. They struggle with the hard work of it, just like I do, but they bring such an openness to the table. My twelve year old recently was sharing with me how she found it difficult to remember to be peaceful on the playground when her brother was being bullied. Her instinct was telling her to strike out and pay back insult for insult. I appreciate her protective instincts for her brother, but imagine my delight when she told me that she immediately thought of why the aggressor might be acting that way and what was going on with him to cause his behaviour. Over a period of several weeks, both of my children had many conversations about this child both together and with me and my husband. We put a lot of time into talking over scenarios and solutions that could be a win-win for both parties. The verbal bullying continued for a couple of weeks, but after my children went out of their way to make positive remarks, model good communication, and practiced some peace making strategies, things began to improve. Now the child in question is counted a friend. They play together and have a lot of fun. I am not trying to over-simplify the massive bullying problem we have these days, only feeling proud of a small inroad made by my two sweeties. Peace really does begin at home. When we model appropriate responses to injustice and problems in the world, the children will follow. They may even lead the way.

Antique Bowls and Baby Birds

There is an antique store near our home. It is a junky looking place surrounded by a fence and situated on the corner of a busy intersection. We pass it almost daily. There is a large fountain out by the road that sports a classical statue of a scantily clad Roman girl. My children think it is quite funny. There is an assortment of old bathtubs, yard gnomes playing cards, rusty chairs, and many more eccentricities. We generally have to sit at the light for a few minutes and the view is really better than an "I Spy" book.

The other day a new addition had arrived... and by new, I mean, well, quite old....

An antique carriage was sitting there, just inside the gate. Exclamations of approval and fascination came from the back seat. My son, with his little face pressed against the glass begged, "Can we go?"

The antique store had really just been part of the scenery - something to ponder while sitting in traffic, but now, with this question, it had the potential to be a destination. Since we were on the way somewhere and pushed for time, a visit wasn't possible, but... the idea had taken hold.

The next few days were marked by the persistence of my son and his drive to see the carriage first hand. He was also intrigued by the two large brick buildings on site. If the outside held such wonders, what would the inside hold?

We finally made a family trip to the antique store. The children both enjoyed the array of oddities in the yard. A closer inspection than the car had afforded yielded a vast wonderland of strange and wonderful objects. It was a living history lesson. The buildings were full of treasures from yesteryear, a typewriter that fascinated my daughter, a statue of a stag, very old toys like the circus train from the early 1900's, (we had seen one very similar at a toy exhibit at a museum in Virginia), and much, much more. As we picked our way through the precariously piled history, we reached the back of the warehouse.

A strange sound met our ears, and for a moment, I feared we were about to meet a creature of the rodent variety, but upon venturing forth, we discovered the most cunning little family of baby birds. They were so tiny, perfect, and adorable - really, really adorable. They were hopping about and practicing flying. They couldn't get off the ground much, but were using the antique china serving bowls as little jumping off points. They would jump and flutter their wings out and come to rest nearby, only to try and hop back up for another go. The children, and I must say, my husband and myself, were enchanted.

They were so close to us, we could have touched them, though we refrained (barely!). And then, to up the cute factor even more, the Mother arrived in the window high up on the back wall. She was carrying a little wormy thing in her mouth. She made a big show of flapping about and scolding, so we backed off around the corner of an old hutch and she approached one of her offspring that was perched on an antique fire fighter's helmet. The little bird took the worm from her in a lightning fast bite and then she was off again.

Here we were enjoying a nature and history adventure... all because we kept our eyes open to the world around us... or at least my children did. I probably would have just kept driving by that place... forever.

The Art of Educational Balance

We have officially completed sixth grade and first grade this year (2010-2011) for my children. If you have read any of my other posts, you will know that we have unschooled, Waldorf homeschooled, sampled classical homeschool, dabbled at Montessori, and taken a helping of Charlotte Mason. We have led a nature-esque co-op for a year (last school year), that met at a local park on the river, we have tried a classical class once a week (last Fall), and we have been in Excalibur for this past year (the co-op hailed in my last post). Purist, we are not. One thing has remained steady throughout our eclectic curricula, and that is the element of choice. I have tried to keep my children on a path of their choosing. This has had its moments of faltering and its moments of triumph, but it is an educational value I still cling to.

This past year has been a season of balance for me. Balancing the needs and preferences of two children who are at very different places in their educational journeys. One is anxious to tackle the rigors of increased academic challenge and has a love for languages that astounds. She has completed a course in Spanish and in Latin this past year. She is attending the "Let's Speak Spanish" programs at the local library to "keep her Spanish up" before co-op classes start again in August. She has challenged herself to pick up the sign language her brother is learning and is making plans to add another foreign language in the next two years (she is thinking of French, Italian, or... Mandarin - go figure:). She is also working on the next level of latin over the summer. When the Summer Reading Challenge at the local library asked the students to read 25 hours over the summer, she quickly adjusted her personal challenge to 50 hours and told me that as a bonus, the reading had to be done in more than one language. I see a future as a translator or a teacher (in almost any country). Of course, she could suprise us and move on to other pursuits. I always like to leave the door open for change. I don't like to label the kids too early (or at all, actually:).

My other child has come to reading in his own way. After discovering this past winter, that he really does think way outside the box and has some challenges in the way he sees print and interprets it, we made changes in our approach. He has such a desire to be able to read, but has struggled to understand decoding and being able to see and hear differences in words. For him, personal choice has evolved into much more structure. He wants to be able to read well and this recquires a new way of learning for him. Enter the Orton Gillingham, multi-sensory approach. With the structured lessons of the PAF program, he has made more progress in three months than he had in the past three years towards learning to read. Does he love sitting down every day for "book work" and painstakingly printing out letters? No. I will be honest, it is hard work for him and for me. When he balks, I remind him of his goal (to read whatever he wants, including chapter books, informational books on wildlife, etc.), and he presses on with a good will. This has really taught me the place for workbooks and lesson plans. Still, it all comes down to choice. He wants to learn to read well. (He has been harping on it for years - when will I be able to read... (fill in the blank) . He has a very strong personal drive to get there.) So, this past semester has included more structured lesson plans. We follow a very regimented, scientific approach to his reading, and, it is working. He is delighted with his progress, which is huge, because it spurs him on when the work is hard and slow. I have also developed an appreciation for reading later rather than earlier. His observation skills are amazing. Most of us can read and so we rely on reading for the majority of our information input. We rely on signs that tell us where things are in public places, we read the headlines while waiting in line for coffee, we read brochures and instructions. When you can't rely on these things for information, you notice all the little details that clue you in on what is happening and how to respond. He is always the first to notice the details and has a crazy knack for remembering information. For instance, we pull up to the Chick-fil-A drive thru. As I scan the menu for our order, he says, "I wonder what is broken here at the Chick-fil-A?" "What do you mean?" I ask, looking around to see what is broken. "The repair man is here," he says and then adds, "Oh, it must the air conditioner." (I am still looking around for something broken, and now, the repair man. "Why do you say that?", I ask him. "Because there is a repair truck here that is not in a regular parking space and the lock on the ladder at the side of the building is off and open. So, someone must be on the roof, it is probably the repair man. The air conditioner is on the roof, I see part of it, so I bet it is the air conditioner that is broken." When we pulled forward for my order, it was confirmed by the girl in the window. The air conditioner was indeed broken and the repair man was on the roof.

From our unschooling roots to structured Orton Gillingham reading instruction, our homeschool path has led us on a scenic route. We find our balance as we go, adding and subtracting formal instruction and interest driven projects on the way. Homeschooling has been an exercise in trust; Trust that the children can live a life of meaning and substance now and not just when they are "grown up". I can see the fruits of our method. At first, it was our shot in the dark, but the light has dawned even brighter than I could have hoped and I couldn't be happier with the results. The varied interests, the determination to challenge yourself, the rich home life and relationships, and the ability to cater your education to your own ideas of success. The benefits we have experienced go on and on. As we plot our next phase of the journey, my daughter transitions into 7th grade and my son into 2nd. He has a present interest in antiques and wildlife. She is enjoying bohemian fashion and wants to try kayaking. I am reading up on homesteading and intentional communites and planning a sewing day soon. My husband is reading a memoir of 18 months of living in an Amish/Mennonite community and reading new books out loud to the children at night. Ahhhh... life is good.

In Which I Return to My Homeschool Roots

When we first started homeschooling, seven years ago, I was convinced that my children would learn naturally. I read John Holt and John Taylor Gatto, we joined an unschooling support group and we were off. Those were the days...

Six years ago, my husband started having health problems, our son was diagnosed with celiac disease, food allergies, and colitis, and life as we knew it started to unravel. Looking back, I realize that we went into crisis mode out of necessity. I had to take a full time job and I continued to homeschool. My husband, home often from work with illness, took the daytime routine with the children. Our lives changed drastically. As time went on and time and money were tight, our days took on more stucture. We used more "curriculum" options and assigned more work to make sure the children were exposed to a wide range of things. We read books in Doctor's office waiting rooms, we did Math in workbooks, and we SCHOOLED. The children were learning things. We were surviving.

Fast forward to today - alot of things have changed for us in the past two years. My husband is doing much better health-wise. My son has had his best year yet, and life is better for all of us. I was able to go part time at work with the return of my husband's health. More time for homeschooling, more time for everything...and then, the middle school panic set in.

I think this must be a well traveled trail in the homeschool world. As the 6th grade year starts, parents panic and the "what-if's" set in. What if I haven't done enough? What if they can't get into the college they want to? What if...? This year, the middle school panic caused me to do some pretty crazy things, like sign my children up for two homeschool co-ops/class days. We have always been relaxed homeschoolers with plenty of time at home for reading, crafts, and hanging out together. Since we have never really done the class thing, I thought this would be a good year to try it out. It all sounded so reasonable and organized when I did it. The children could try out the class thing and I would have a guideline to follow for the year.

In reality, things have turned out differently than I expected. We have learned so much - just not what I thought we would learn. For one thing, all the classes, co-ops and clubs got out of hand quickly. Suddenly we were running around too much, too much hurrying, too much gas in the car, too much of too much! When we had a ripple in our home life (a few rough weeks with various things breaking down and causing repairs to cars and home), things really got out of hand. My stress level was high, the children weren't getting enough sleep, and our cozy homeschool world was seriously out of balance. The children talked about the "things we used to do", like take morning walks together and light the "morning circle candle" before singing together at breakfast. Now we didn't have time for these things, we were packing in cereal before running to the car. We were too busy chanting latin verbs to sing and too busy getting ready for weekly presentations to take walks.

Somewhere in all of this madness, the thought came to me that the children had never even asked for a class or co-op. They were quite happy with our old homeschooling ways. It is certainly true that they were being exposed to new things and learning things that we hadn't covered yet at home, but I had to wonder if the trade off was worth it.

In the end, I came to my senses and did what I should have done from the start. I actually asked my children what they thought. I asked them what was working for them and what they liked or enjoyed about their new schedule and what they didn't. I also decided to re-read the books that I had enjoyed and that had originally shaped my homeschooling philosophy. I decided to return to my homeschool roots. Instead of cramming facts into my children, I gave them a few weeks off and tried homeschooling myself instead. I also decided to let them decide for themselves what they wanted to keep, change, or do away with.

I started by reading one of my favorite John Holt books, "What Do I Do Monday?". I was struck again by the wisdom and common sense of listening and trusting the children. Radical trust used to be the name of the game at our house, how had things gotten off track? I followed this book up with David Albert's, "Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery: A Journey of Original Seeking". Both of these books are beautiful, insightful and lovely to read and ponder.

Returning to my roots infused our homeschool with a freshness and vitality that put us back on the right track. Now the children are, once again, in charge of their own educational journey. After several weeks of pondering and decision making, we dropped a few clubs and support group activities, had one child who dropped one morning of classes but kept the other, and one child who, for the moment, chooses to keep attending both days of classes and co-ops. So, our experiment this year with co-ops and classes was educational for all of us. While we may have learned new facts in history and science, Latin and Spanish, the most important lesson was to trust the children and to do what is right for your family as well as for each child. Now we light the "morning circle candle" once again, and we have taken back up those family walks as well.

Of Lizards and a Wish for Spring

My children went outside today to enjoy the sunshine. It has been unseasonably cold for S.C. this winter. The sunshine on the balcony was bright and warm, even though they are calling for sleet tomorrow.
As I was in the kitchen tidying up from lunch, I heard my youngest start to shout, "Mom! The first one! Quick Mom, it's the first one!" I hurried to the back door to see what first one we were referring to. There was my six year old son pointing to two little lizards on the brick wall. "The first lizards of spring, Mom, they are here!"
The excitement of both of children was infectious. Indeed, the first lizards of spring are here! Dare I hope they brought warmer weather?
So, with no offense meant to the groundhog, I think the lizards have beat them to it!

5th Grade and Kindergarten

It is time to start a new school year. Addie is in fifth grade now and Whit is in kindergarten. We had a "summer school" session this year, so we are starting the school year with a six week term already behind us. It is a relaxing feeling to know we will not have to rush. Addie will go to summer camp for the first week of August and then we will dive in.
The children don't like long breaks from homeschool. I have decided the breaks are more for me than for them. We took the month of July off and within a couple of weeks, they were asking when school was going to start. I guess we can all appreciate the rhythm of routine. The school supplies are out in stores, and although I recognize the shameless commercialism, I dearly love school supplies. New erasers, new notebooks, markers that actually work and crayons with the point still sharp. August is a very nice time of year.

Shaque D'Amour

I am one of those terrible parents that lets my children stand and peer over my shoulder as I watch youtube. Where else can you get those great music videos from the songs I grew up with?
In this way, the children came to see the music video for one of my old favorites, "The Love Shack". (You gotta love the B-52's!)
"You see a painted sign at the side of the road that says, 15 miles to the love..........shack!"
At one point in the video, you get a glimpse of the sign in front of said shack. The letters spell out "Shaque D'Amour". I don't know if this is really "the love shack" in french (I didn't pay that much attention in French class.), but whatever the origin, "Shaque D'Amour" became a buzz word at our house. When we finally moved to our artsy downtown apartment, it was instantly dubbed the "Shaque D'Amour". And a great little shack of love it is, too! The Rivendell homeschool has officially relocated. The children have never lived anywhere except in our "little house in the suburbs", so the shaque d'amour was a whole new world. We can now walk short distances to all sorts of delights. Parks with great playgrounds, groovy shops and coffee houses, the corner drugstore, and more are only a brief walk away. The street is lined with lovely old trees. Gluten free and organic groceries can be purchased from two different natural grocery stores mere blocks from the shaque. The fall has brought new things for all of us and we are meeting the new challenges with love. I can't think of any better name for our new home. The circumstances of the past year have been very trying, but I am hugely blessed with my loving husband and children. The shaque d'amour is living up to its name and life is good.

In the middle of chaos...

The last year has been a crazy time of trying to get the house on the market. And then, after much work and anticipation, the house went on the market and ...
nothing.
So, here we sit waiting with the house staged and everything perfect for showing. It makes for a pristine home and is very trying when you like cozy clutter and homeschool.
So, we are back to the books, even though I had packed them up and hoped we'd be moved out by now.
I think I should write a book about homeschooling in chaos. Suprisingly, the children are doing very well. They take it all in stride and keep learning - even when my idea of organized is challenged by selling a house.
Whit is starting his kindergarten year and is all excited about learning to read. He has memorized, The Spooky Old Tree, and reads it to us. I really need to get that on camera. It is adorable.
Addie is in 4th grade this year and has taken off with a bang. She is reading books so quickly, still writing a lot, working on her piano skills, and loving the math.
While I can't wait to be more settled - I am trying to enjoy the moments as they come and go.
It is still a great journey, even with the curves and hills!