A Christmas Tree, Some Books, and a Challenge

In my life this week…

The Christmas season is in full swing. We've got the lights and the tree up, my oldest spent some time at Amma's house making Christmas goodies. 

The baby is very excited about the tree, he even wanted the tree to hold him! He loves to have other people hold him and he reaches out his arms as his way of saying "hold me!" and he has done that with the Christmas tree. He loves the lights, he loves the ornaments, he loves the branches. It's all fun and exciting, he was so excited the first few times that he started laughing hysterically when he saw it. I suppose that if I didn't know better I would probably find a decorated tree inside our house pretty funny too!

In our homeschool this week…

I shared in other posts this week about the learning that we are doing. My oldest is excited about learning to read and spell. We are using several different methods, I shared some of those in a post.

We have been taking it pretty easy with the holidays but since he is so excited about learning we have been spending time on stuff that he wants to learn about.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…

When they show an excitement about learning something - go with it! Foster that love of learning!

My favorite thing this week was…

Watching my boys play together! They adore each other and I couldn't ask for more!

Things I’m working on…

Getting my entrepreneurial endeavors to the point that I can work those alone and be able to focus more time and energy on homeschooling. I really want to be able to 'retire' from my home preschool within two years. I want to be active in homeschool groups and other daytime activities.

I’m reading…

The Secret Code of Success

The Applause of Heaven

A Simple Amish Christmas

Crazy Love

The Maxwell Daily Reader

A link or quote to share…

On my other blog I am preparing for a Habit Building Challenge that will be in the month of January! I would love to have you join the challenge if you have a habit that you would like to build! It will help you get your new year started off right! The habit can be anything, click the image below for more info:

“You will never change your life
until you change something you do daily.
The secret of your success
is found in your daily routine.”

–John C. Maxwell

Computer Issues

I keep saying that I'm going to start getting this blog active and different things keep arising to make that difficult!

My computer died about a month ago and I've had limited computer access since. I've been able to get it working for short periods of time here and there (I was able to get most everything off of it since I didn't have a backup!) but mostly I am relying on other people's computers.

Which can prove difficult when I am running two blogs and a home business or two. I've been focusing on the home businesses and letting the kids just enjoy the summertime. We've done some minimal learning as my older son does love to learn and he has more and more interest in learning to read! I'm pretty sure that by the time he gets to the K level he will be reading basic words.

We're finally getting nice weather, it's been rainy 90% of the time in June and July. We may not end up starting curriculum until October because of the late summer.

But truly I will attempt to make this blog a great place! :)

Back in Business!

My baby is now 6 months and we have slowly been incorporating more and more homeschooling for big brother. Even though the Summer is upon us we are beginning our school year.

The good news is that big brother hasn't lost much of what he learned before our long break. I had him watching educational videos as much as possible when he wanted TV and I played educational games with him a much as I could.

I've brought back "circle" time: stories, songs, flash cards, etc. He doesn't enjoy it as much as he did before, he is really excited about his "workbook" that I picked up at the dollar store! I'm glad he likes it so much because we are having serious printer issues so I can't print off anything.

Also I will be back to blogging more. I look forward to catching up with all of my homeschool friends. Who are probably all getting ready for your breaks!! :)

Mommy Wars

I personally find it really sad that moms so often pit themselves against one another. We really should be working together to motivate and encourage one another. We have a difficult and sometimes thankless job and the support can really go a long way!

It is such a waste of time and energy to get involved with these mommy wars. What good really comes from engaging in these battles? Inevitably someone's feelings are going to get hurt, and truly how often does someone change their position as a result? 

I began to discover this when I first got married and became a stepmom. There was the instant division between "real" moms and stepmoms ("fake" moms?) and there is a lot of animosity there for some people.

There are a lot of stereotypes of stepmoms, some of them stemming way back hundreds of years ago when tales such as Cinderella and Hensel and Gretel were changed to say "stepmother" instead of "mother" as was in the original stories.

There are stereotypes based on misunderstands and underlying fears. Many stepmoms attend school events of their stepchildren and are stunned to find themselves shunned from the "mommy club".

It appears that many moms are insecure about stepmoms so they are instantly fearful when one appears on the scene. Are they afraid that they will be replaced by a stepmom? Are they afraid the children's natural mother will snub them if they are nice to the stepmom? I really don't know because though I am a mom I am not threatened by stepmoms that I meet.


It wasn't until I had my son that I discovered the REAL mommy wars going on. It's no wonder some moms are so threatened by stepmoms when they are so threatened by other moms.

The battles engaged in on the mommy war battle front seem to be never ending and they start so early too.

I've heard some moms claim that you're not "really" a parent until you have more than one child. What exactly does that make a "parent" of one child? A fake parent? Right up there with stepparents. Those imposters with only one child, they only think they are parents.

I have no doubts that adding children to the scene changes the dynamic of the entire family as well as the parent/child relationships. (I will find this out very soon for myself.) But even though it may be more complicated, it may be more difficult, it may well be far more wonderful - I would never dare to say that someone who has a child is not REALLY a parent.

Then there are many other battle fronts, all you have to do is go to a mommy forum site and you will find these battles raging.

- Natural birth vs drugs vs cesarean
- Formula vs breastfeeding
- Binky vs thumb vs nothing
- Working moms vs stay at home moms vs work at home moms
- Co sleeping vs crib sleeping
- Vaccinating vs non vaccinating vs selective vaccinating
- Discipline methods
- Organic foods vs non organic
- Daycare vs no daycare
- Preschool vs play
- TV vs no tv vs limited tv vs educational tv vs preschool programming
- Public school vs private school vs home school
- Many, many more...

Who are the real winners? Who are the real losers? Who is the best mom? Who is the worst mom? Who is right? Who is wrong?

Or a better question...who cares???

None of these battles are life or death issues. They are issues of opinion and each mom is given the right to look at all sides and choose what is best for her children and family.

We would all be a lot better off if we could simply support one another, agree to disagree on certain issues, and help one another out.

Just think what our kids could learn if they had that kind of example to look up to!

Being insecure and fighting to the death an opinion doesn't teach the values to our kids that we really want to impart to them. (Maybe those are values that some want to give to their kids. I find that sad personally.)


What do you think?

Busy, busy, busy!

iscI haven't posted in over a week because I have been very busy with a lot of things!

• Organizing and Decluttering the House - making progress, I don't know if this will ever be something that I "check off" as done and complete!
• Preparing the Curriculum and Schedule for the School Year
• Updating my Website for my Home Preschool (I had some kids "graduate" so I need to fill those spots!)
• Attempting to Organize my Entire Life! I have so much to do, so many goals, so many things that I am excited about that it can be hard to prioritize and make enough time for everything. Not a bad thing, a good challenge to have!
• Making small efforts to prepare for this baby that will be here in a couple of short months! I don't feel like there is a lot to be done, but there are definitely things that need to be done, with more coming up all the time. Such as needing that 3 hour glucose test and possibly a change in thyroid levels.

Button!

I have created a button for my blog! :)

If you'd like to link to my blog here is the code for the button:
<a href="homeschooladventureland.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b307/blossomcupbell/img-2-1.jpg"></a>