First Day!

Well, there have been many firsts in my life that I have enjoyed.  Over the past 8 years I got married for the first time, had a baby for the first time and then enjoyed the unique experiences with my other three after that for the first time each!  There are many more very enjoyable "firsts" in my life but I won't write a book right now....maybe later.
Yesterday was another big first for our family.  I started formal homeschooling for the first time ever!  Hopefully I have been a good teacher to my kids over the years without it being necessarily a formal thing, but yesterday was official!  I am not sure whether we would have made it happen or not this soon except for the fact that we are moving overseas and circumstances require us to do so, but I am very thankful for this opportunity and VERY excited for the things that we are going to learn TOGETHER!  I say together, because I feel like I could use school all over again.  I remember my dad trying to explain math and history things to me when I would ask him questions after coming home from school - things I should have understood well - and I think he would be surprised sometimes at what I didn't know - I was too!  So, I look forward to hopefully re-learning some of these things that maybe I really never learned in the first place!
God is gracious to me, because my kids really enjoyed yesterday and are excited about today! I was tired out after yesterday and it didn't take very long to realize how much work teaching is (something that Jessie, Deborah and Christopher all know well - the three teachers in our family!) - really nonstop until you are done for the day! We still have much 'tweaking' that we will probably be doing for the next couple of months, but it will be a fun journey to experience together as a family. Here are a few pictures of our day and there may be a few more to come......

Random Things

Since our crates got shipped off over a week ago now, we have gotten accustomed to eating with random cutlery of many kinds from children's Ikea plastic to fast food wrapped disposable forks and knives to old tarnished odds and ends.  Many things are emptying out of our house these days, which is a very wierd thing to experience.  I wasn't expecting to get emotional when I was vacuuming out our recliner because the new owner was on her way to pick it up.....life is wierd sometimes....so glad that we have a hope that doesn't change, no matter what our circumstances.  The kids have done very well through this transition so far and I am guessing that they will continue to do so as we soon land in a much, much different place from what we are used to!