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When we made the leap of faith to move to the mountains. It was a craving of everything being so loud, I wanted silence. We left the mountains behind to head back to a faster pace of life only to realize everything we had learned on that mountain stayed behind. So going back home for a few days reminded me of cravings of my soul. A peaceful, intentional motherhood and homeschooling journey. Now to bring those back into our daily lives while still living a fast paced life in the city.

Habits. Good habits. Something I’ve always struggled to cultivate in myself, so how do I do that in my children? How do I impart the one thing that I, myself am still struggling to learn?

I just do it. Right? So simple. So easy. Wake up. Make your bed. Make your coffee, work out, read your Bible and eat a good breakfast. It all seems so easy to do, to a typical person. But to someone who can wake up feeling the tone of the day before her feet can even touch the floor. To someone who can feel the shift in the air of okay todays an anxiety day. I sense it. I feel it, deep in my bones. A day that will take all the energy I have to be mom and to be homeschool mom. There are soo many insta-fluencer moms out there today, so many giving their take on everything from motherhood, to cleaning products, curriculums to how to cultivate good habits.

There’s that word again, good habits. So does that mean because I roll out of bed, sleep still lumbering from my eyes as I make coffee, wondering why am I making coffee? I didn’t even like coffee four years ago, I wonder if I even like coffee now, but it’s what I do now. So we go with it right? But then I sit on the couch and I make the mistake of glancing at my phone. I respond to a text or two. I scroll through Instagram for a few. Oh look, my morning fitness group is up and at ‘em. I don’t have the energy today. More like the youngest crawled into bed with us again and I don’t want to get my clothes for fear of waking him when I know he needs all the sleep he can get. I’ll get to it later, I think. My mental to do list is draining but yet I’m sitting here scrolling. I remember, why am I wasting my time? Oh, hello Jesus, it’s your old friend, me. The anxiety is back and I know I have to ride the waves until life is peachy again right? But really, I just want to sit right here, cuddle with my babies and not let the world know I don’t really have it all together. So I pray father God, please be with me extra today. Please be with my children and help guide our hearts today. Amen.

Feeling better, I get up and think okay let’s get this day started but somehow the mornings gotten away from me and my brain that has been glued to my phone since 7am realizes this is the trap I fall into. Am I the only mom that struggles with this? Why does Becky have it all together? The picture perfect stories! Wait, why am I sharing all of these stories about my morning? I am barely functioning and keeping it together. Mom look, look, mom. In a minute honey. The minute has passed and what I was supposed to look at is gone. Oh hey, look mom fail again. No. No. I know I’m a good mom, I’m constantly correcting myself. Always pushing myself to be the better version. But those days, the days where the anxiety creeps in, depression. For whatever reason it does, there is no guidebook, no insta-fluencer putting on a shiny filter making it seem like it all makes sense in the end. Nope. There is just you, God and the tiny disciples you are raising. But by the Grace of God, we make it through the day and the house looks like a minefield went off. So you think do I cultivate those good habits and clean before I go to bed? No. You shut off the light and pray tomorrow is a better day.

Maybe it’s time for a mom-revolution. Not the one where we are all fighting to keep God in our kids lives. No the one where I, myself, there’s no need to include yourself in this if you don’t want to. Where I go back to a flip phone and don’t have a platform to share my thoughts on. The double edged sword that will be battled till the end of time.

The days are long but the years are short.

It often feels like the days pass by so slowly, and you are at your wits end with all of the glitter, blocks, dinosaurs, laundry, dirty dishes. You just want to sit at the table in silence for one second, while sitting there you gaze at your children playing peacefully in the middle of the room. Your youngest is talking up a storm using words that he did not know yesterday. It dawns on you that these are the fleeting moments, the little moments that we have so little of even though it seems like the day just drags on. Your heart feels a bit sucker-punched and you just want to cry as panic fills you, how many more moments like this do I have left? Am I giving them all the tools they need to be a successful adults? Am I giving them the Christ like love as a mother that will make them one to seek their safe haven when they are adults?

My hope is to provide a space of encouragement and or course, fun! Homeschooling can be hard but always the most rewarding Job and fun we could ever know as Mothers.

• Our faith filled homeschool journey, is ours. I spent a lot of time researching, reading and praying with the Lord before we made the final decision. It did help that God showed me the error of my ways by not listening to his call when we decided to go ahead and send our daughter to year 5 (a Minnesotan term) and our experience was awful.

My only hope to be able to share our journey and provide encouragement to other homeschooling mommas. To be able to connect and keep it real about the struggles and the victories!

Looking forward to connecting and sharing our journey with you all.

I know a lot of people like to name their homeschooling approach, but I really don’t have a name for mine. I am a little bit of traditional, little bit of eclectic, a little bit of Charlotte Mason and a lot of Wild and Free. My main goal is to provide our kids with a Christ Centered, well rounded education before sending them off into the world.

Give our children the chance to remain innocent and live in wonder for as long as we can.

Blessings to you all,

XOXO- M

Every Child can learn. Just not in the same way.

We began our second year of homeschooling with Abeka, My Father’s World, The Good and The Beautiful and Saxon Math. I had done a lot of research, thinking these were the best program for my daughter. I quickly became overwhelmed at the amount of work that was expected of her each day, as well as the videos that were included. She quickly lost interest and she became so against wanting to do school. Which was a complete difference from the little girl who so loved homeschool last year. In which we used, Bob Jones University for kindergarten. I would go online to youtube add in songs about phonics and word families. To help with the learning and memorization of learning to read.

So naturally, I thought maybe she needed a more computer based program that had videos. Within the first two weeks, I had realized the error of my ways. So, I began incorporating more outside work that I had found to help make school more exciting for her. I was exhausted. I was crying A LOT. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Nobody could hear my pleas, but I realized I didn’t need to be listening to other voices. I needed to listen to my own. My mommy gut, that has never failed me. After a homeschool moms connect meeting, I felt the weight lifted a little.

I read, “Read aloud Revival” by Sarah Mackenzie, I read, “Teaching from Rest” by Sarah Mackenzie and lastly, I read “The call of the Wild and Free” by Ainsley Arment. After the tears and the joy of realizing I was going about this the wrong way. I was more focused on what would make my life easier as a mother of 3, married to a traveling husband while homeschooling. I forgot all about what I really wanted our homeschool journey to look like, I had forgotten that what worked for my husband and his mother, did not work for us. And that was okay. So I rented my final book from the library and I stayed up all night, I kid you not. I wanted this done. I wanted answers. I rented “102 top picks for homeschool curriculum” by Cathy Duffy. I did the tests for myself, and for each one of my children I quickly discovered the curriculums I had chosen were so opposite from the way I taught and the way my children learned.

Suddenly renewed with a new enthusiasm, and a heartfelt talk with my husband. I ordered our new curriculums, took out Abeka completely. Suddenly: OUR HOMESCHOOL CLICKED! So after a much long winded post on how we got to the curriculums we are using:

Classical Conversations: it works for all of my children, all age categories. It truly is a God send.

All about Reading Level 1 and Pre-K: A tried and true method that just focuses on reading and comes with apps that help with songs and added extra fun. Including games: I no longer had to search for hours to find outside help to get the reading games. All about Reading included it for me!

Saxon Math: a lot of moms are going with Horizon Math but I stuck with Saxon because it really is a great program and has a lot of hands on learning fun.

The Good and the Beautiful: pre-k: I am using this for my preschooler and I copied the book pages to be able to let my son begin working in school as well.

My Father’s World: we do use the language arts program still because it really helps with the spelling aspect of learning and grammar! We use bible, science and history with My Father’s world as well. Because Classical Conversations does an amazing job but so does My FATHER’s World.

I guess you could say, I pick and choose. I follow this book: “What your first grader needs to know” as well as “What your preschooler needs to know” by E.D Hirsch, Jr and Linda Bevilacqua. I also have printed out the state’s common core guidelines from the CHEWV’s website. That way I can make sure she knows what she needs to know for her yearly assessments but I can still teach her the way she needs to be taught. And include the things I feel are important for a well-rounded education.

I hope that helped some mommas! Remember: listen to your mommy gut! It will never steer you wrong!

XOXO- M

Blessings to you all!