I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

So we are, believe it or not, wrapping up the end of our FOURTH year homeschooling. Seems like just yesterday we were dipping our toes in the shallow end of the homeschool waters, trying to figure out if we could do this or not. I won't say it has always been super fun and super easy--if you know me, you know we have good days and bad days, just like any parent. All I know is as we reflect on this official school year ending, I am nothing if not grateful for the opportunity. Some days are perfectly routine; everything goes as planned and "normal" for us.  Other days are what I call "fly by the seat of my pants days". Some weeks we get everything planned accomplished with recess time to spare. Most days though, we have to go with the flow. Someone (or everyone) gets sick. Our spur of the moment plans take precedence sometimes. Sometimes it's our extra-curriculars, or errand running that cause us to mix it up and shuffle things around. Sometimes I even had to extend our school year dates or move planned breaks around because I didn't want the kids having makeup work from days (or a week) of sickness ON top of school work. Yes, that's a real life skill that needs to be learned. But while they are very young, I understand that there's only so much work they can actually complete in one day, and if they are doing school work from 6 am until 7pm which few breaks, they have no time to be just kids. On the other hand, if they choose to waste their time or not to focus on the task at hand, they end up eliminating free play time.

Happy Easter! He is risen!

Check out Under the Radar's Easter episode. Click the link for some great indie music.


Hope everyone had a great Easter holiday, and I hope today you don't go back to normal and loving complacency. How's that for putting it bluntly!? Because He's risen, we have this hope so that we shouldn't to live like He's still dead. We don't have to live like we're dead! I really believe, based on all that's happening today in the world, that He's coming back soon. If you have chosen, at any point in your life, to become a Christ follower and accept His forgiveness of your sins, He took care of that for all time. There's so much freedom in that, knowing He came just for you, and you alone were worth it. He knew every wrong thing you'd ever do and thought you worth saving anyways, so why do we hang on to our past like we are still in bondage to it?

Spring has spring part 2: We have chickens!!

 It's official! We finally have chicks! We have been wanting to get them for a couple years, and knew this would be a great learning experience for the kids. When we went to pick them out, we each ended up picking out a completely different breed, which is kinda neat! When we looked at buying slightly smaller chicks at Tractor Supply, we were going to have to get at least six chicks all at once, and if we wanted a female chick that was a good layer, we'd have to buy 6 of the same kind that they had that week. This way ended up being much better, and especially much more fun after months of research and getting ready for them, we got to get all the ones we had decided we liked over the last few months!

So without further ado, here are the girls.