Okay, I need an idea from someone. My girls love to draw and draw and draw, which is great. But, we always seem to have tons of paper laying around EVERYWHERE!! So I need a great idea, instead of throwing away all this paper what else could I do with it? And, by the way, I'm not throwing away everything they draw. Some of the stuff is just to cute and really good. Would love to have some input.

Kari

 I have to tell you that God has totally changed our household. I wanted to share this scripture because right now this is my cry, the cry of Moses to the Lord.  Verse 18: .....I beseech thee, show me thy glory." I want to see God and His glory and I am so extremely thankful that I can homeschool not just for the academics, or the other benefeits there are; but, so I may also lay a solid foundation for my kids to stand on in the future. The main things I want them to understand is that GOD LOVES THEM! And they not only need to love God in return but ,  they need to fall in love with Him. I pray that my kids are radically sold out to Jesus. I pray that they have an awesome love relationship with Him and vow and commit their hearts to serve Him all the days of their life. I can plant that seed so much easier because we homeschool. I firmly believe that.

Kari

I just had to write and say how awesome God is. He has been doing some pretty awesome things. My 2 middle children have been saved and bapitized. In just the past 2 weeks my youngest and oldest have given their life to the Lord, here at home. God is so Good!!!

Kari 

We've had a good homeschool day today. I have a touch of the flu but feel much better this afternoon. The kids have done their work with no complaints.

I have to share some info. in regards to what we do for spelling. There is a link to the right for the Spelling Ladder and I have to say that I love it!!!! What I've done is to take the words from the Spelling Power book, test the kids from it, and implement it into the Spelling Ladder. The Spelling Ladder was developed by a man here in Missouri that works at a vision therapy clinic. I took 2 of the kids to see him and he was so great. A very nice and intelligent man. He came up with the Spelling Ladder and it is being used nation wide!!!! He said it works very well with autistic kids and Weston is doing very good with it. He would rather do this than write and spell words since he has sensory problems where handwriting is concerned. I forgot to mention it is a computer based program. So there it is. Just wanted to share that. Hope some of you look it up and check it out. It is worth it.

God Bless and Good day, Kari

Hi, everyone!! We've been home about 4 days. I had a lot of unpacking to do and lots and lots of laundry. I have tried and tried to upload  some of our vaction pics. and am having no luck. As you can see from the blank spot below this blog writing that I have no idea what I am doing. Help, Please!!!! I also cannot figure out how to put things along the sides either. My sister and I spent hours and hours and she is trying to convert me to My Space but I don't want to leave this blogging site. So Help, Again!!!!

Ok, so now to our wonderful vacation that we did not want to come back from. We had a glorious time and God was so good. Everything that had weighed us down and kept us down from this past year just lifted off of us. God refreshed and restored us physically and spiritually and all we have been able to do is praise Him for it. The ocean was beautiful as were the palm trees. I'd say what we fell in love with the  most were the people. We went across the border twice. The first time to visit two pastors and their wives. What a tremendous blessing they were to us. My aunt and uncle can speak Spanish. WE CAN'T!! But, as they fellowshiped with those pastors and their families you could feel the sweet presence of God in the room and we just soaked it up like a dry sponge. It was awesome. We just absolutely fell in love and hope the Lord will send us back someday to help them in any area they may need. We also shopped in Progresso, Mexico and it was fun. Other than that we relaxed on the beach in God's glorious creation. And we brought home pounds of seashells. The kids learned a lot about Texas, ocean life, and other customs and peoples way of life, so we did still homeschool. Well, maybe soon I can get pics. on so you can see some of our vacation. I'll go for now; almost church time.

Love and God Bless,        Kari      

 Well, as of noon tomorrow we will be on the road for VACATION!!!!! We are packed, the van is loaded, and after my daughter's basketball game we will be gone. I've packed some pretty fun educational things for the kids to do on the way so we still get homeschool in. I've printed worksheets and info. about the state of Texas. We have extra road maps to so that they can look at them and chart where we are at. Bought Weston some fidget toys today. This ought to be farely interesting since "Road Trips", as he calls them, can be rather difficult for him.   In all, though, the kids are all very excited and can't wait to get going. We plan to do a lot of sight seeing. We want to see the Alamo, River Walk, the dolphins, maybe go to a lighthouse, and maybe go to the Creation Museum. We are just going with the flow. So God Bless! See you all when I get back and I'll have pics. and hopefully interesting things to tell.  

In Christ , Kari  

Well, we leave this weekend for the ocean!! I can't believe we are really going!! I know it may not seem like a big deal to some but after my husband's near death experience and the year we've had it's big for us. It will be so nice to go and be refreshed. I'm nervous about finances but God will take care of us as He has before. We will go through Oklahoma first and spend time with my dad and sister and then take our time and go on into South Texas and stay with my aunt and uncle. What a wonderful homeschool oppurtunity this will be. We have never done anything like this before. Oh, we've been to Six Flags and Branson but not ever this far with the kids. My aunt and uncle are missionaries to Mexico so we will go across the border and I've asked to go to an orphanage. I would love to adopt a baby but we are not on the same page with that!!HA!HA! So needless to say I am excited and overjoyed and nervous all at the same time. Would love some prayers from others!!!!!! I think this will really help my husband heal emotionally with this past years experience. I'll be back on to say good bye and when I get back I will figure out how to post pics of our vacation. 

God Bless, Kari    

We had such a good day today in homeschool! I keep hearing that song in my head, "Good day sunshine! Good day sunshine!" Yesterday, which was Sunday, we were going stir crazy so we took off for a drive. This is something we don't normally do but, we could not sit in this house for one more minute. We drove to Table Rock Lake. It was so pretty! There was still a little snow left around the lake shore. Then we drove on into Arkansas and just drove around sight seeing. It was a nice day.

Today is even prettier. It's about 70 degrees here, which is not normal for this time of year. I opened the windows of the house this morning to let the breeze in and thought how of how close we are to Spring. I can't wait!!!

I had been shopping for a good spelling curriculum for the last year and a half and today finally tested the kids in the Spelling Power book and placed them where they need to be. We spent half the day doing that. I know you are suppose to spread it out over a few days but I wanted to get it done. I also, had purchased "The Spelling Ladder" from an eye therapist that I took Josie and Weston to see a few weeks ago and will be using the words from Spelling Power with The Spelling Ladder. So far, I love the Spelling Ladder. Weston has high functioning autism and Josie has some traits of autism but not enough to be diagnosed. The eye therapist felt this program would help them with their spelling and reading so we are giving it a shot. So far, so good.I know it's a little late in the year to get started on something like spelling but we have slowly been getting our lives back in order since my husbands illenss. So better late than never!!! Right???

In between doing spelling today we went outside to nature journal while I read some short story classics to the kids from the porch swing that hangs in a tree in our back yard.

Then we played, played, and played!!!!!! What a wonderful, refreshing day. Thank you oh, Lord, for this beautiful day that this family really needed. 

                        God Bless,

                          Kari    

 As I shared in my first blog, our first year of homeschooling was interesting! My husband came home on my birthday in Dec. 2006, started vomiting and couldn't stop. He was also having SEVERE abdominal and back pain. What had happened was he had a gall stone  (which we did not know he had gall stones) that came out of the gall bladder and became lodged in his bile duct. So all the bile was backed up in his body and he developed SEVERE pancreatitis and infection from this. To make a long story short, if I can, he came very close to death. Once he was over this a few months later he developed a cyst the size of his pancreas that was on his pancreas and again had to have surgery. He was down for 2 months and very ill when once again we went in and he had by-pass surgery on his stomach because his intestine had developed scar tissue from the pancreatitis and caused a blockage in the intestine. So fast forward to now. After our VERY TRYING YEAR we have decided we need a vacation. We are going to try to go to South Texas and take our kids to see the ocean. I have family that recently moved there so we won't be out to much motel expense. Although, we really can't afford it we decided to take some of our income tax money and just go. I've been really praying that we'll be able to go. I think it will be a good time of refreshing and togetherness for our family. Besides, my kids have never seen the ocean and what an oppurtunity for homeshool. Right?!? I'll keep you posted on any updates and I plan on taking lots of pictures so I can share them.

                                      Love in Christ,

                                            Kari

I just had a moment to get on and was looking through some of the other blogs. Some of you have really cute templates and I was wondering where I could find them.

I was wondering to, if anyone knew where I could find classical books on tape where the child could read along. My son ,who has high functioning autism, loves to read, but only Dr. Seuss. It seems difficult for him to read a longer book or a chapter book. He becomes very frustrated. I thought maybe books on tape or cd where he could read along might be helpful. Would love some fresh ideas.If you've tried something different than this approach I would also welcome hearing your idea. Thanks!!!!!

                                               Kari

This is my first time to ever blog and I'm pretty excited about it. A little about myself and family. This is our 2nd year of homeschooling and we love it. Our first year was pretty rough. My husband became deathly ill not even half way through the year and had several surgeries this past year (2007). Although, it was difficult going through that and homeschooling 4 kids, God really came through for us. I learned to not stress and to do only what I could do. My kids got a little behind academically but learned a lot of valuable lessons through this. We have finally reached a point of really settling in and relaxing. It's so neat when you finally figure out what works for each child and what their intrests truly are. One thing I have already figured out that I truly love about homeschooling is that I have been given a wonderful oppurtunity to really get to know my kids. Our only son has autism and I never really, knew him the way I know him now until we homeschooled. The same with my girls. I could just go on and on with what I love about homeschooling but I'm sure you've heard it all before. Well, so much for my first blog. I hope I didn't rattle on to much. I am looking forward to becoming a part of this blogging community.