Where in the world has that little sheep been?!

After taking a "blog-atical" for the beginning of Gideon's first real homeschool year, I'm back.  Things have been busy here...we have finally gotten a routine down with homeschooling, housework, family, etc.

So what have we been up to on our "blog-atical"?

We started our school year in August this year - Gideon is in first grade and we are doing preschool lessons with Elijah (colors, shapes, facial features, etc).  We began Gideon's school year trying "unschooling", which is a way of schooling that teaches the basics by no individual curriculum just learn as you go while learning what you are interested in method.  This did NOT work for Gideon.  He (and I) are too easily distracted for this method.  We would be talking about one subject and Gideon would ask a question and it would lead us into something totally different.  Not too bad, except we wouldn't finish the thing we started on!  Don't judge me for being honest.....After Scott and I had a parent-teacher conference (which consists of Scott and I discussing our schooling issues and options over dinner), we decided that curriculum was the way to go for us.  We ordered the Abeka curriculum for Gideon and it has made a tremendous difference in our schooling.  We are not as strict as the Abeka curriculum would like, but it works for us.

We bought our house about a month ago and amazingly we are finding all those little things that we always wanted to do to the house are getting done - painting the bathroom, painting the living room, pricing tile for the spare bathroom floor and the kitchen, etc.  Also unpacking.  When we moved back to Florida, we knew we wanted to buy a home we just weren't sure where.  Therefore, we never really unpacked anything we didn't need immediately.  We figured it would save us time when we moved into the house we would buy.  It just so happened to end up that we bought the house we have been renting!  No moving involved, just a LOT of unpacking and re-organizing.

We always promised our boys that we would get them a dog when we bought our own house, so that's what we did!  My parents brought us Quincy (a 8wk old black labrador) over Thanksgiving.  Quincy was from a litter of puppies born to an ill mother.  Quincy's mother's owner took her to the vet to be put down and they discovered that she was pregnant.  The owner decided to let her have the litter and was giving the litter away.  We graciously accepted the free puppy and the boys - especially Elijah - are enjoying her.

I'm pretty sure that sums up the past couple months....so Merry Christmas and here's to the New Year!