School and other thoughts rambling through my head

So I have a confession! Jackson can't read. Nope, he's 5, we've been schooling since what September and he can't read. He's still struggling with his letters and guess what, I'm not overly concerned. Why? Because it's not worth stressing over. He will learn and I have a wonderful friend who's a certified teacher and reading was what she taught, so she's going to help me. You see Jacob already knew his letters he knew all of his letters by recognition from us working at home and then he went to preschool and started basic reading skills. Jacob's a very easy learner. The way I teach, is how he learns. Now Jackson is well opposite. He's had NO desire to learn, none until the last couple of months. So seeing that his interest is finally getting where it needs to be to truly learn is so exciting, the bad part is...he wants to know NOW and gets very frustrated with himself. I try as hard as I can to be gentle with him, although I will admit there are days I get so absolutely aggravated with him I just want to shake the stinker. He's not one to sit still for long periods of time, you know...he's a BOY! He moves, a lot. I don't mind for the most part. I let him get up and down as he needs to while doing his hand writing and math. He's pretty good about cuddling up with me on the couch as we go over letters and sight words, but still he gets frustrated if he doesn't know or remember them immediately. Thankfully my friend Jen is going to help us out. She just recently started homeschooling her children. She's nervous, but I know she's going to do great. God has led her to this journey so he will not allow her to fail! She has 6 kids all together, 2 are school age. She's AMAZING, oh and her husband is deployed too! So all you Mom's out there (myself included!!!) who complain about a hubby being gone for a night, a week, a month, etc....think of my sweet friend Jen. This woman is all about being a mother and wife. To me she's about as close to the Proverbs 31 woman as I've met! Seriously her home is immaculate, her children are truly joyful, when her hubby is home, you see the deep love he has for her, and she does it with a smile. Now don't get me wrong she has her down days, but she's AMAZING! We've been here for 3 1/2 yrs and she's been here for 6 and we're just now really, really getting to know each other and she's quickly becoming one of my dearest friends! God has just blessed me with friends. I'm truly so undeserving, but oh so grateful!

Anyways, I'm excited! I'm excited for Jackson most of all, because he desires to read. He wants this so much and I've felt like a failure in this endeavor. I do have a new book on its way and hope that it'll help as well with him learning and well honestly I have a great many books here already to help him. Jen has already given me some great idea's so while Chad's home I'm going to get busy on doing it. One of the things which of course is a common sense sort of thing, but it's labeling items in your house. "TV" "Cabinet" "Refrigerator""Stove"...sight words for him! I am going to buy some plain index cards (with no lines) and buy some more tape (used it all at Christmas! LOL) and start labeling everything to help him. I know as he starts to recognize the words, memorize them, and know them...it'll be a great boost for him.

Will you pray for us with this. I know I do not write a lot about our homeschooling adventures here, don't ask me why. Well I guess because by the end of the day I'm "done" with school in a sense and although I love it, just don't write about it as much as I really should. Maybe after we start school back up after Chad leaves I'll start blogging about it more.
While I'm confessing I should say I've sucked this year with crafts. I wish we had more stores like Hobby Lobby, The Dollar Store, Michaels, JoAnn's, WalMart, etc so I could get them more craft items. There are stores here, just more expensive since I have to pay in euro. I need to just suck it up though and go buy them things and look online for deals. Jacob and Jack both LOVE crafts. You know what, that's it...after R&R we're going to do one craft a week. Hey if I'm really motivated I'll take a pictures while we're doing our crafts and blog about it! I'm hoping while Chad is home he'll do the volcano experiment with the boys that they've been dying to do. Science is NOT my favorite subject, it is one of Chad's...so I've been trying to hold the boys off until Daddy was home to do this activity, as I am sure he'll really enjoy doing it with them! I'm hoping they can do a few other science projects together. One thing the kids and I are going to do this year is plant an herb garden in cups and grow up here (yes...fresh herbs to cook with!) and also a very small veggie garden. I'm thinking one or two tomato plants and a cucumber plant. We'll do our normal flower planting too, but the boys will get more out of watching the cucumber plant grow. Oh and I should plant a pumpkin plant. We have a small little garden on one side of the steps that the pumpkin would probably do better in, so it doesn't choke out the other plants that is!! :) It'd be great if we can actually get some decent size pumpkins and hey look at the money we'll save come Halloween time not having to buy them! AND Dad will be home to carve!!

So there's a plan for us, once we get back to school after their 18 days off while Dad is home (It'll be more if you add in the weekends!) but that will be their "spring break" you could say, plus we'll go to school into the summer, since we didn't start until September. I'm planning on spending the majority of our days this summer outside...walking, biking, going swimming, doing other activities, etc. I have not decided yet, but I'm seriously considering taking the kids to Italy to the beach this summer. We were supposed to do it last summer, but couldn't get a room to stay in, so I'm going to call earlier and book us a room! I would love to have someone go with us to hang out with another adult, so I need to see who'd be interested.

Well enough school talk and all this future stuff! :) It's good for me to do this from time to time, because I find myself taking for granted sometimes the gift our family has, in which God led us to homeschooling. Oh and don't leave a comment saying how you don't have the patience...trust me home schooling has NOTHING to do with patience! It's all about Jesus and being obedient to his calling for our family.