Complete Rainbow

Beginning

We saw the most amazing, complete rainbow this morning!  (The brief sunrise was gorgeous, too)A camera will never do it justice but I just had to try!  Thankfully the twins were up early (no idea why since there is no school today!) so we all went out and rainbow-gazed for awhile.  Some of you may remember the blog post from Singapore when Kaitlyn and I saw the only other complete rainbow I've seen in my adult life.  We were running around in the rain in a field trying to capture it while the Singaporeans were thinking we were crazy!  

End

Middle

 

 

 

A Slow Week For Once!!

Yay!  I have a slower week for the first time in a long time...maybe now the piles and piles of laundry will finally get caught up:)  It's been busy around here with school, piano, activities, babysitting Tayden, preschool, getting spring bulbs planted and fall clean up done...and we FINALLY finished cleaning/organizing the basement (you may remember a post from a LONG time ago that I was working on this project!)  I also got our bedroom painted, the guest room painted, and the loft.  I still have a little touch up work to do so I'm hoping that I'll finally have time for that this week!


The twins have school Monday and Tuesday this week and then are off for the rest of the week due to teacher conferences.  They are worried that they will have to do a lot of work for those 5 days off but I've promised them some free time:)

Changes (Again!)

I have to admit that I'm not a big one for change.  I like my comfortable little section of the world.  So much so that EVERY SINGLE TIME in my life that I have been 100% content with the way things are or where we are at God says, "Time to make another change, Becky!"  You would think that by this point in our lives I would have figured out that nothing stays the same and that life is continually changing!

Our newest (and perhaps most challenging) change is that we have decided to take on homeschooling the twins.  This has been something that we have prayed hard about and have done much research on before making the final decision.  It has come with many hours of talking to other homeschool families, looking at curriculum, making pros and cons lists, and of course PRAYING!

It is something that has been on my heart since before the twins started Kindergarten.  It's something that I thought about again when we were making our move to Singapore and than again when we made the move back to the US.  It recently was laid on my heart again when I spent a few hours alone in the car on a trip so I began to pray about it again.  During that ride a few things occurred to me.  I realized that there were a few doors that needed to "open" before this would even be an option.

1.  I had to have a complete peace about it
2.  Ryan had to be 100% on board  and
3.  the twins needed to be willing. 

That evening when Ryan called to check in (he was out of town) I brought it up to him again.  I talked though all the reasons I had for the "why?" and the "how?" and the "What in the WORLD am I THINKING???"  He listened for awhile before saying that it was something we could start considering.  In the past his reasons for "why" and "how" were different than mine and for the first time we were finally on the same page about it.  So began the HOURS of praying and researching and talking.  I also asked the twins casually what they thought about being home schooled.  Although they were both excited about the possibility it wasn't entirely for the right reasons!  So we talked about what it would be like and what would be required.  They were still interested so now I was down to the peace part...the most important part!

Through the many discussions that I had with Ryan about the pros and cons I realized that God had been going before us paving the way for this moment.  When we first moved back to the US it was really hard for me because I went from having a very active social life to spending more and more time at home.  It was a hard transition but at some point during the past 6 months it went from becoming something that was hard to a new lifestyle that I had accepted.  I was at a point for the first time in my adult life where it wouldn't be such a huge transition from an active social life during the day to staying home with the kids and teaching them.  All the times I had questioned God with "Why haven't I found friends like I had before?" He was preparing me for what was ahead!   And with that knowledge came peace...the final door to be opened!

I realize that the coming days will not be without challenge but I am ready to take on the challenge of teaching the kids at home and I'm excited to get to see their learning and growing first hand!  (I'm also very nervous so ask for any prayers you are willing to send up for me!)  It will be interesting to see how it all goes and I'm sure there will be days that I have to rely on the fact that I KNOW that this is what God wants in our lives at this time:)

Melissa - this is for you!

If any of you received a message from my yahoo account today PLEASE DELETE IT!!!!  My account was hacked and I did not send those messages out.  I haven't used that account in awhile so I'm guessing that it why someone was able to get into it.  DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT AS IT'S PROBABLY A VIRUS!!!

Sickness and SNOW???

It's been a lo-o-ong week.  Kenton came home from school on Monday with a 102 fever and has been home sick ever since.  We went to the doctor on Wed and got started on an antibiotic but he woke up this morning with a fever again.  :(  He was fine yesterday so I am suspecting that he's moved on to a sinus infection but we'll see what the doctor says...

I am loving this weather!  We've been spending time outside every day and yesterday I opened up some windows upstairs to air the bedrooms out and while it was a little chilly it felt GREAT!  Yesterday afternoon we headed to help the Moser's rake up some late-falling leaves...well, technically the kids didn't help rake but they pretty much played outside from 4:00 until 8:30 with a short break for supper.  Kaitlyn and Ethan crashed on the way home and Ethan slept the whole night...IN HIS OWN BED!!  I think I'm shipping him outside every day if it gets him to crash so hard that he doesn't wake up and crawl in with us:)

BAD NEWS FOR TOMORROW...The National Weather Service is saying 90% chance of SNOW with ACCUMULATION:(  :(  :(  with the temps dropping to the low 40's for next week :( :( :(  Hmmm - not too excited about that prospect but glad that at least at this time of year the snow won't stick around for long...

GOOD NEWS on the potty training front...Ethan is potty training himself this week!  He's stayed dry for the past few days (except while playing outside yesterday for four hours) and is TAKING HIMSELF to the bathroom!  He woke up Wednesday and went on his own and surprised me at the doctor's office by announcing that he needed to go potty.  I looked so surprised that I had to explain to the receptionist that I didn't know we were potty training...Ethan's my second child to prove that it's a control thing for them and the minute I give up forcing them to potty train they do it on their own.  (Kaitlyn was the first)  I'll take what I can get and I'm chalking the past few days up to a good start on being fully trained:)

The retaining wall that used to surround our house that was both falling in and creating a moat effect every time it rained is now officially gone!!  Yea!  Ricky and Amanda came over on Wednesday and hauled it away for their own landscaping purposes so now I'm working on getting it all cleaned up and ready to re-landscape.  It will look so much nicer to have mulch down instead of the falling-in-wall!

C-c-cold in Florida

I will try to get around next week to finally posting some pictures on here again:) 

Ryan and I have been in Florida these past few days enjoying the warm....oh wait, I'm sorry...COLD weather!  They have actually had freezing advisories this past week and we've been in our winter clothes and coats all week.  There have been a few vacationers who have braved the weather to lay by the pool but NOT US:)  We are headed to Epcot this morning and than head home tomorrow.  It's been so nice to have this little getaway with Ryan but I miss the kids.  I'm glad I can say that as I've gone on many a little getaway without them where I didn't miss them at all and than felt guilting for not missing them:)

More Next Week!

Happy March - FINALLY!