Rain, Rain Go Away / YEA! Gracie

I'm feeling like a duck. I swear I'm growing webbed feet. I know we need the rain. My flowers and lawn are beautiful because of all the wetness falling from the sky, but we are so sick of cloudy, wet, gloomy days. I guess I should be thankful for global warming---otherwise we'd really be cold and wet. Tee-Hee-Hee. :o)

Anyway, we've been feeling cooped up and so doing school is hard. Not to mention we are now at the end of the year and the kids (and me too) are jittery. So it's easy for us to get on each other's nerves. So Mom to the rescue!! Kaleb and Gracie and I (Sami was going too, except we were REALLY on her nerves, so she opted out) went bowling. Aaahh, don't look to any of us going pro! We did have fun though. It broke up the cold, rainy, blah day. We laughed a lot and admired each other's technique. I won't say what our scores were---but---ummmm---- I WON!!! :O) Tee-Hee

I have to share what I think is good news. Gracie is the first kiddo that we've homeschooled from the beginning. Sami and Kaleb started to homechool at middle school age. So I was really nervous. I was going to send Gracie to Kindergarten, but she missed the cut off date. She was so, so ready. So off I went and bought curriculum not having a clue if I was "really" doing it right. I said my prayers and really relied on the Lord to help me not screw it up. :o) She has done so well. I'm very proud of her. I won't lie--we had some tough days, but overall we both learned a lot. Well, I went to the State Board of Ed. web-site and printed off all the kindergarten standards and began to pour through ALL those pages. UGH! I am very pleased to anounce that Little Miss Gracie not only met, but exceeded in every standard in every subject -- in April. That would be 6 weeks early. I was tickled!! She needs to know, and be able to use at least 25 site words. As of yesterday she now knows 45. Little smarty! I can't tell you how relieved I was. I really did fear homeschooling her. Being responsible for teaching her her letters, numbers, adding and reading was a daunting task, until we really got started. It was fun. It brought new depth to our already close relationship, and I can't tell you how rewarding it is to see her doing double digit math and reading. The Lord got us both through it. What's even better is that we incorporate her devotions into her lessons and then we end our school time praying for each other. How could you not LOVE that?! I would have missed so much if she was able to have gone to school. I am so, so thankful!!! I think we will do a little Kindergarten graduation party with some friends and family to celebrate her accomplishments. That should be fun. I'll be sure to post it!