Six months gone, and here we are

I know, it's been forever since I posted, but I had very good reason. My husband was deployed for 6 months, and I just did not feel comfortable advertising all our happenings while he was away. It was a very busy 6 months, and we are just this week getting back to a normal.

Just before he left, we decided to rearrange our house. We took the huge 'office space' that contained Jon's desk, all my craft supplies, and junk, and converted it in to a much larger classroom. The old classroom we turned in to a 'library' with several book shelves and our prayer altar we had always wanted. Schooling in this larger room has been such a great experience this year. We began school right after my husband left, using a new program- St. Thomas Aquinas Academy. I really liked that they planned everything for me and told me what to use, etc. especially given that I wanted to spend all the time I could as a family, and not planning school, right before my husband left. However, we won't be using them the coming year. They were great, really they were. But I just didnt have a need for the guidance to make it worth all the money we spent, so we won't be using them at this time. This coming year, we're going to start using RC History. This is a Catholic Unit study. I have always wanted a unit study curricumulm, which is part of the reason I went with STAA, as they advertised they were. However, there was no unit study while using them, other than combining a few subjects for Zach and Hannah, which I already did. So we'll be using RC History and a hod podge of other things I've used and has worked great for us. I'm sure i'll do another post on that later down the road.

During the time Jon was gone, his sister Emma came and stayed with us for 3 months. During that time, we did tons of traveling. We went to Paris for 4 days, Koln, Luxembourg and Bastogne, Domremy, France, Bingen, Trier, and several Christmas markets. I will post a few travel posts in a few days about some of our travels. I was so greatful for all her help and company for those 3 months. It was also wonderful getting to know one of Jon's sisters so closely.

Aside from this, to keep my mind busy, I discovered chalk paint, and redecorated a lot of our house while Jon was gone. We had 3 mismatched bookshelves in our library, which I painted a dark brown with teal on the inside. Then I made letter plates that hung on the side saying "Read", "play", and "Sing". I also moved our game shelf in to the library and moved the prayer altar in to the den. They both fit there so much better. I also rearranged our den some, and with the help of my awesome neighbor, arranged my books in a much more lovely way to show off our book collection and make them stand out a bit more.

With all this said, my husband returned a few weeks ago, and started back to work this week. We took the time off school while he was home, so we're getting back in the routine of school as well. My 1 year old is busy terrorizing everyone doing their school work, trying to take their paper, pencils, and turning lights on and off. She's very busy and makes school a challenge, but it's a well-worth it challenge. This girl brings us such joy. We just forgot what it was like to have a 1yo. My 6yo daughter is in a play, which keeps us very busy with practice twice a week. Hopefully in the near future, my son will be starting karate as well. And my 4yo is beyond happy to have daddy back, as she's such a daddy's girl.

Anyway, that's about the briefest update I can give for 8 months of not posting. Here's to hoping I start posting more, but as we all know, i'm not that great at it.