Chasing Me Down

I've had a few "Jonah moments" in my life - you know, the times when you are running from something God wants you to do. Well, He recently chased me down with the idea of homeschooling. I've always said that I will never homeschool (First mistake! When am I going to learn to never say never!). I've never even been remotely open to the idea of homeschooling. I had a lot of reasons, but what I realized is that my reasons for not wanting to homeschool were the wrong reasons to have. They were blinding me to the reasons of why I should consider homeschooling.

For us, given our situation and circumstances right now, homeschooling for the coming year is what Andy and I both believe is God's best for our family. I don't think that it is permanent, we have plans to send both girls to a private school next year, but I realize that God might again change my plans.

Right now, the important thing is that I can honestly say I'm very excited about spending an extra year of full days with my precious ones, and I'm looking forward to all the fun we are going to have learning a ton of stuff this year!
 
P.S. I'm getting pretty close to having my game plan down, but any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, tips, etc. are welcome!!

Blast from the Past

Theme: Got to Wear Shades

Life doesn't get much better than this!

My Grown Up Girl

We let Emma Lee get her ears pierced while we were on vacation. She's been asking for quite a while to have them done, and our answer has been that she could get them done right before she started kindergarten. Well, it was close enough and she wanted to show them off to the whole family, so off we went! She was SO excited and SO big and brave about it. My little baby is growing up!

Choosing which earrings she wanted

 

Checking to make sure they're going to be even

Before

After

Here's the video! She said that the tears at the end were her happy tears. Let's just say that she wasn't the only one crying.

Big Girl Emma Lee! from Michaella Johnson on Vimeo.

To add to her grown up look, she lost her fourth baby tooth yesterday! Check out this smile!

Family Vacation 2010

We decided to go with something different this year and headed up to the mountains of North Carolina instead of the coast. I took a ton of pictures but narrowed it down to about 135 or so (and that's missing out on a whole day of tubing down the river where I opted not to take my precious camera!).

Things We Liked About the Mountains:

The Scenery

The Creatures (okay, so this one is really just for Kerri)

 The Family Time

Blowing Rock

Tweetsie Railroad

Hiking

Just to name a few!

To see the rest of the pictures click here!

A Mini Me

My favorite way to spend the hours of a trip in a car is buried in a book. Andy and the girls laugh at me because I completely tune out everything that is going on around me. It normally takes a few attempts on their part before I realize when they are asking me something. I'm proud to report that Emma Lee is following in my footsteps! She spent much of the car ride during our vacation buried in a book of her own! Now, if we can just get Kerri reading we might actually have calm, quiet car rides. Hey, I can dream, can't I??!!

A Little Sample

We went on vacation with my whole family (minus Jeremy who's in Iraq - we missed you!!) to the mountains of NC in Banner Elk. We stayed in a big house at the top of a mountain, but it wasn't exactly what we were expecting.  Let's just say that it was that was probably really nice  . . . about 30 years ago! I think that the dishwasher was one of the first ones ever made and the couches were older than me, but we still managed to have a lot of fun! We spent the week hanging out, playing games, going shopping, hiking, tubing down the river, visiting Blowing Rock and Tweetsie Railroad, and doing lots and lots of eating! I have a ton of pictures that I have to sort through, but for now here is a little sample of a typical moment with all of us! Warning, it's pretty loud and chaotic . . . but that's pretty normal when we all get together! In addition to all of us "grown-ups," there were 7 little grandchildren all 5 and under! There's always someone crying, someone hyping up the kids, and someone just trying to sleep through all the noise.


Family Vacation 2010 from Michaella Johnson on Vimeo.

Finally!

Emma Lee is minus one more tooth! It "accidentally" came out at the dentist last week.

She has one more super loose one. We'll see if it hangs on as long as the last one!