YouTube roundup:
This week’s video!! Life as a SAHM - we hosted game night at our house twice, made progress on some home projects, got out of a reading slump, Kaiser started football, Barnes & Noble haul, tried some new recipes, and had an in depth chat about how I gained weight/my postpartum weight gain habits.
Last week’s video!! I did a full home declutter/organization, unboxed our homeschool curriculum, talked about weight loss and health goals leading up to my birthday, updated my reading journal, and much more!
Today’s video!! A full week of homeschooling for the first time 🤓🍎
weekly r.e.p.o.r.t.
reading: I am in the middle of so many books currently! I’ll list them below.
The Magician’s Nephew - Current read aloud I’m doing with the boys!
The Compound - I’m about 45 pages in and SAT!!! They say it’s a mix between Love Island and Big Brother - wow I did not know how badly I needed a book set in a dating show.
Breaking Dawn - Listening to this through Libby (an app that gives you access to your library’s catalog)
No More Boring Bible Study - My sweet friend Faith Womack wrote a book!! It’s not out yet, but you can preorder now. I know this book will change how people interact with the Bible and subsequently change their life.
eating: pizzas on the grill. thats all.
playing: so much Catan. Fun fact about me I am painfully competitive and will actually get pissed over this game 🥰 (I’m working on my self control don’t worry)
obsessed with: Amazon released a Kindle Colorsoft Kids TODAY!!! My kids love theirs so much and it comes with a year of Amazon Kids+ which gives them access to so many books.
recommending: Remembering you can change your mind at any time. It doesn’t matter if yesterday you said you would never do X,Y,Z and today you want to do X,Y,Z. There’s no need to artificially box yourself in. You can change your mind at any time.
treating myself: New house shoes! My little sister was roasting me last time we were together - she literally could not believe my house shoes looked the way they did!!!
I can’t believe summer break is sooo close to being over!! I will say I’m already loving our decision to homeschool because I don’t have the back to school scarries!
I’m always being asked what went into our decision to homeschool and I believeeee I chatted a bit about this in a vlog but I totally don’t mind chatting about it again and a bit more in depth.
For the longest time I always said I would never be a homeschooling mom. I feared giving up my career in order to be a stay at home parent - essentially giving up my life, and truthfully it was never a lifestyle I felt drawn to. When Karter was in preschool we had a disagreement with his school and I remember wanting to sweep it under the rug because I didn’t want to be “stuck” at home. After getting through the pandemic with a newborn and a 2 year old I was ready for a break! Regardless, my idolization of comfort was shocking to me. I’d say this was the first incident that made me start to reevaluate my role as a mother and the sacrifices that are necessary. We soon moved both of our boys from this daycare to a Christian private school.
After a few years at said private school we were in a great groove! We got closer with our community, I absolutely adored their teachers, and the boys loved the consistency of being at a proper school. We just couldn’t shake the fact that the boys were away from us for about seven hours a day and when they started sports we felt stretched thin with all of our commitments. In 2024 as fall break was coming to an end our entire family felt we weren’t ready to return to the 7am school grind. If you have school aged kids you know how hectic the mornings can get with school lunches, uniforms, class assignments, etc. We just loved the slower pace we were able to nestle into while school was on break.
The decision to homeschool came pretty quickly after that. I had been praying that God would soften my heart to this idea and help me not hold my comfort above all. I asked Him to give me the posture of a willing mind and open hands. I would even visualize my mind opening and my fists unclenching. Sometimes just the willingness to something mades decision making a little bit easier! Kaelin was also a safe place I could take all of my very real fears. He always let me air my grievances and met me with encouragement and understanding. I am a very all in or all out person - once I felt peace about homeschooling there was no going back.
I went back and forth on if I wanted to include the boys in this decision and ultimately decided to bring it up nonchalantly and they both loved the idea! If you’re wanting an idea on how to broach the subject with your kids here’s what I asked my kids! “On a scale how much do you like school? A lot, a medium amount, or a little bit” I won’t share their answers but I will say their response was shocking and gave me that extra push to lock in on homeschool.
There were other deciding factors such as how long the school day is and what they are actually doing in that time. We wondered, was there a way their time could be better spent? We are big believers in time being one of our greatest assets! This sort of spiraled into other conversations revolving around socialization, bullying, societal pressures, popularity, hobbies, comparison, our own experiences in a public school setting. We were quickly unnerved and felt everything we knew about the school system was just that - a system. We actively fight against being cogs in a machine or just another bot in the matrix.
Hopefully this answered any lingering questions you had around why we decided to homeschool. Of course, this is only my perspective and doesn’t include the many things Kaelin added to the conversation. I’m thankful for a partner that will flip our life upside down to do best by our family and our children. I don’t take it for granted ❤️.
Thank you for reading, if there are any topics you’d like me to discuss please leave them below.
Love you all! Chat soon!
Appreciate your transparency and vulnerability in sharing this! You’ll be such a great homeschooling mom and your kids will be so grateful you made this decision! So happy and excited for you!! Cheers to welcoming in the new. God bless. 🤍
This is exactly where I am regarding my son's school, We've had disagreements that didn't sit right with me ,I've been toying with the idea of homeschooling so many times and I'm glad alot of parents are putting the child's need first ,We know our children better then anyone .