Sometimes better/ sometimes harder

So I am not someone who does all that well with a timetable so when we started to prepare for the homeschooling I thought that I would have strict work to be done by lunch time and then we could do the fun stuff after lunch like visiting and crafts and baking. Well there are no too many days that this plan has gone to schedule. For example after just forty minutes of work the girls want a break, can you imagine they can't sit there and concentrate for a few measly hours straight ha ha. Really I realised this before we started but it would seem that a 5 minute break is not quite sufficient, especially when they have only just started playing the best game ever lol. One thing I am loving besides having all my girls with me is the work. I really love Princess' Language Arts and teaching her the phonetics. It wasn't how I was taught and it's so eye opening to me (as a secondary English teacher) that this makes so much more sense to me. I was ok at spelling but it was necessary for me to learn words by sight. Yes phonetics can be difficult but when you start looking at the different rules it makes such sense to me. Princess already has a greater understanding I feel as she didn't enjoy English last year and now I think when she is asked a question it may take her awhile but she 'gets' it and is able to really enjoy learning. I also love the ideas about science. I must admit I loathed science at school. I had a lovely but monotone teacher in year 8 and so I didn't pursue any of the sciences. We are not doing anything too in-depth but now I look forward to it as it just reminds me of what an awesome creator we have. Just to think about all the complexities of the animal kingdom, the body, plants, space, molecules and physics. So you will have to excuse if I don't post on here as often as I hoped I would. I'm just too busy trying to work out exactly how to enjoy the Sometimes Better and work out how to improve the Sometimes Harder. I do however have in mind 2 quick posts in the near future as I already have the photos to use. Thanks if you're reading this as I know checking back all the time and mostly seeing nothing new is annoying so thank-you for reading.

Graham Girls School has opened

Yes our first week of schooling is complete and it's only lunchtime on Friday. Nice how we can do that:) We started same time as many schools although on Monday I had my doubts as we had no electricity until early Tuesday morning but we decided it was a good day to begin. These are the girls excursion uniforms. I thought it was a good idea to be able to see them in a crowd:)

So Tuesday morning after photos we started our day with our Bible Unit. This was Princess' unit but it is easy enough to adapt for all and it keeps even our littlest occupied. Next comes Language Arts for Princess while Sweetness just works from one book the whole time as Princess moves on to Maths, or Math as our curriculum is from the US.

The girls then had the afternoon with their grammy, most times they are going to do some crafts with Grammy so that is great as it will be one less thing for me to do, not to mention less mess to clean up afterwards. Speaking of mess since the girls now have more time on their hands we are slowly adding more jobs for them to do. Simple things such as each girl does a mealtime table wipe. They are also going to be responsible for their own clothes. They have a day where they need to put their clothes into the washing machine, checking for toys etc (except little one), by afternoon I should have them washed and dried and then the girls fold and put away. Time consuming but good to teach them to look after their things now rather than later. After Grammy took the girls I ran off to Ikea to get some things for the girls work spaces and it was lucky I did as the car park at Ikea was flooded by that evening. The last floods in 2011 didn't affect us at all but this time I actually got to witness the water rising through Logan, like Golf Courses underwater near the Logan River. So this was a bit closer to home. The rest of our week has been good. Princess sometimes gets a bit of an attitude and doesn't enjoy certain work but I think it's to do with the fact she's a bit of a perfectionist and that until she realises exactly how it's done she won't even attempt it. Pity she doesn't have the same perfectionism though with her handwriting lol. We have meet with a few other families this week who also homeschool so it was nice for the girls to see life outside their special school. It's fun to see how much they still enjoy playing with eachother even though they have been together non stop since early December. Lord Willing this will really cement the relationship for all of them for life. I just love seeing them love on and care for eachother.

One last time

at least for 2012. This year has been an interesting year to say the least. We've been in some difficult situations and I believe extremely blessed through them. Of course at the time it is difficult in the moment to see the blessings but I am so very grateful to God for giving me a husband that I can admire for his strength and attitude in ugly situations. I also give thanks for my children who are such a joy to me. I see our three little girls and am struck by their innocence and purity which makes me realise why it is so important to be like children. Our girls so happily and readily believe that God will look after them and the doubts and lack of faith that comes to adults does not yet burden them. We are also VERY blessed that they are such happy girls and that they enjoy sisterhood and love each other so much. The New Year holds many adventures for us as a family. *starting the new year with GH working from home *bringing Princess home and homeschooling her *Sweetness starting school (homeschooling) *freedom to visit and spend time with loved ones *my taking up the role officially as educator to our children *my desire to further my education of sewing and making clothes for our family *making our lives simplified *adding responsibilities to our lives e.g chickens:) and especially our spiritual journeys and our desire to grow in our faith, wisdom, knowledge and love. Lord willing I will try to 'keep up' more with my blog next year and not become so filled with doubts and woes as to not share the amazing blessings that we are given.

So it's November

So it's November, it's not Christmas and so I think I haven't done too badly, remember I said I haven't got a working camera, well I was right in thinking I would do less posting but I didn't think I would be this bad. I suppose the addition of an ipad to the house means that the computer hasn't had the same work out as it had previously. So this is a catch up without too much details.

Back in August GH broke his collar bone, it could have been worst and as he works from home now he didn't miss too much work which has been such a blessing.

Our lovely Princess had her 7th Birthday, we decided last minute to let her have a party and ended up having 17 little girls at our house for a butterfly party.

Our Sweetness had her birthday in October.

Our big girl is enjoying her last days at regular school. My exciting news from last post which I couldn't yet share as we hadn't told the school that we were leaving yet was that next year Princess and Sweetness will be homeschooled. Princess knowing her cousins were at home felt like she was missing out being with her own family. She didn't not like school but she just missed being with her sisters and parents more. Since GH has started working from home we thought there wouldn't be a better time than now to give it a go. I'm sure I will write more about it but I won't go into anymore detail tonight as I feel I have accomplished enough just by having posted at all. Lord willing I will get another post in before Christmas:)

The goings on

Well life has certainly got away from me and I haven't posted in some time as I have hardly gotten onto my computer, I guess it's too easy to curl up in bed with the ipad. I wanted to update my blog though as I do want to keep account of our going ons. Who knows maybe all this will still be available for me in 50 years time and I'm going through the early stages of dementia I will be able to look back at this and remember this amazing, wonderful and sometimes difficult stage of our lives. With that ramble not a lot has been going on, although now GH works from home which has brought about some new decisions our family has made, but I am going to be cheeky and not say what they are just yet as we need to let others know first before the info goes public as such. But no I'm not pregnant just so no one thinks that is our news:) We have all gone through a nasty flu over the last few weeks, our little Sweetness started it off and one by one we fell. I was the last to get it which was such a blessing as I knew I needed to be strong to nurse them all through the earlier stages which was bad fevers. Our little Happy Girl probably faired the best, she seems to be one tough cookie but her eaten still hasn't returned to what it was so now I'm not sure if it's just typical two year old fussiness. Which will be a shame as she was an excellent eater.

Princess had a especially hard time of it as the afternoon before she had it she fell down the slide, whilst trying to ride her hopper ball down it and she smacked her nose, which bleed. It wasn't at all funny, except if I was a mean mummy I might look back and laugh at her dramatic reaction to seeing her blood. She just looked down at her hand which had been holding the nose and she just screamed and looked at me with such horror and this could happen to her. She was fine of course but she must have ingested some of the blood which meant it wasn't pretty that night when the fevers hit her.

The last goings on for me personally is that I have started a diet. The diet is only special to us as it is the company that GH is trying to help establish and so I am testing out or being a guinea pig haha. I will put my journey on the blog roll under my skinnyup if anyone is interested in what it is like, it's not too interesting but we thought I should record it for GH's company.

I'll add a few photos from the camera of random photos from the last few weeks. The girls went to a fairy/Princess party, as you can see they were only just over their illness. Sweetness is so pale still.

This is just what the future holds for one little Princess:)

Eating

Sweetness has been introduced to crumpets and

she loves them

Happy girl was given blue sherbet

and this was the resulting sugar crash. Some of the photos look like she is 'feeding' her baby. She does love her babies though.

Winter jammies

Even in Brisbane it gets cold. But we can't actually wear these through the night, Sweetness has already started the "umm its a bit hot maybe asking and pleading to wear these to be like my sisters was a bad idea" re: the open zip (lol). Super cute though.