Back to School

Today was our official last day of summer vacation although everyone in our house hold will be sleeping in tomorrow but Kain and I. Kain is ready for 5th grade and looking forward to returning to his teacher he loves and his friends he missed seeing over the summer. He is social like his mother and school fills that outlet for him as well as the fact he simply loves the setting of it all. As much as I would love for him to stay home with us like the other kids I am excited he has not only the opportunity to go to a school he loves and that serves him but that he is able to make that choice. It is amazing to see the difference in the child that has control over their education. Never does he wake in the morning not wanting to attend school so with that he doesn't have the heaviness upon his heart of returning to the "daily grind" so many of us do with what is expected of us. Not to say my children never have to do things they don't want to do because they will be the first to tell you they enjoy eating but not the grocery shopping that allows them this privilege but the choices now about their education have become not only a means in which to be taught more but a lesson in and of itself. They have at a tender age been given the gift of empowering themselves with what makes them most happy.

Which is what I remind myself of daily when I wonder how it came to be that I am now doing the one thing I always said I never wanted to do - have half in school and half at home. But different strokes for different folks and I believe I am doing right by them, or at the very least the best I can do for them with what I have to work with. Gage had mixed feelings about whether or not to return to school this fall. When he would think about his friends he misses he would ask to return but when he was reminded of how most of his day would be spent he opted ultimately to stay home. We have noticed great improvements not only with his over all attitude in general but his self esteem as well which is far more important to us than any "education." The ironic thing about that is I feel his self esteem has opened him up to receive a better education because of it. He is anxious to get books for this fall and trips to the library again which is a HUGE improvement even from when we pulled him out earlier this year!

Aubriel is going into 1st grade and has asked very little about returning to school. She did inquire once about not going back... she thought she would go back again for a bit and then stop half way through the year. She showed a slight disappointment when we explained she was just going to continue staying home but that didn't even seem to last 30 seconds and she was onto planning out her year with Gage. She has not skipped a beat with his learning over the summer as she continued to do her workbook for fun and has been relentless with the boys and I "playing" math problems. This has to be my single motivation to keeping my children home for school now. Although Kain choose to go to school and will not complain even once he would never go so far as to refer to math (or any other subject for that matter) a "game" as Aubriel does. I have watched my two oldest get sucked into the school trap... it is considered fun and "grown up" almost even for the first few years and then they either shut down completely or just find ways to get the stuff done that is expected of them simply because it is... well expected of them but rarely is it ever for their own personal enjoyment of learning something new. Aubriel has shown that she truly has a lust for learning... I remember Kain and Gage did too at that age and more than anything I want her to hold onto that since I feel THAT is what will truly help her succeed in life. She loves to learn new stuff from Gage as does Brody from her and Gage loves to teach her new things as does she in turn loves to do so with Brody. It is so much fun to watch them play like children are meant to all the while sitting back and watching the learning that is taking place within all of them in a way that can not be "taught" but needs to be experienced... priceless! I am looking forward to our first full year of Unschooling, Home Schooling and Public Schooling as the needs arise!

Football Time Again!!!

Kain had his first official football game of the season today! It felt like football season as well since it was a cool rainy 60 degrees this AUGUST morn! I am not sure what happened to our summer but it was definitely football weather. Kain got a new number this year but same position plus some added new ones. I had a hard enough time just keeping track of him but it really threw me when I had just seen him on the field playing offence and then found him out their again after the turn over... I even had to ask if our defense had come out because I wasn't expecting to see him on the field all day.Warming up...But of course he loved it and wouldn't want it any other way. The more he can be out there playing the better in his book. Due to the wind and rain they didn't throw the ball much but he did have one catch which I missed since we were late this morning. But it is just the first game and no more early morning ones so hopefully there will be many more catches to witness.I do love to watch him play and am looking forward to the kids and I camping out on a blanket, taking pictures and cheering his team on as our fall settles in on us (although today it felt like it was already here)! It will only get better when mid Sept. hits and we will get to take in two games every Sat. with Gage playing too!

Our Garbage Picker

That is what we have! I discovered the other day that Ozzye decided to help himself to some garbage chicken bones... Luckily they were already cooked or I would not have any pictures of him eating them but it was too cute to not grab a camera.And him crying on the floor after I took it away...

Finding the Positives

This has to be my favorite part about where we are living... we are so close to the trail that runs from Greenleaf to Green Bay.The first one is usually the best... to bad my lighting was off...And again...I love this one (probably because I didn't even tell Gage to hug his sister he just did!) but where is Ozzye...I have no idea what is even going on here... Where's the love now?There Is Ozzye... kind of...

and Kain deciding to be a lover and not a fighter (at least for now)

Best of the bunch...Not for long... I love how Kain and Aubriel are consoling Brody and Gage...

I am sure they had visions of it taking even longer at that point. I am such a mean mom, taking their picture!

Prayers of a Broken Heart

I know I haven't written for a while but quite honestly I have not only been over whelmed but far too heartbroken to even form the words to express all it is that I am feeling. I have read that spilling one's heart onto paper can help to heal it though so I thought I would finally muster up enough strength to try.

A little over a year ago we discovered we would be losing our house. It was something we choose to do after a battle that was not our choice. Although we probably could have fought to keep it we felt like the amount of money it would take did not out weigh the peace it would bring us since it was a home that had clearly run it's course for us and was no longer fitting our large family. Little did we know at the time that letting go of our house would mean far more than simply that.

After all what started this was us simply trying to save some money in a falling economy. We were told 5 years ago when we purchased our house that we were required to carry flood insurance which we did. We were also informed that new FEMA maps would be coming out and if we no longer fell in the flood plain we would then be able to drop it. We checked yearly for the new maps and finally they were released so without hesitation we dropped our insurance since even according to the "old" maps only the front and back corner of our waterproof foundation home was actually IN the flood plain.

On our next statement we discovered that due to the lack of flood insurance we would have it added on to our mortgage. We disputed and was requested numerous times to provide proof of no longer being in the flood plain which was fax and mailed by not only ourselves but our insurance agent as well. This continued for over half a year as they continually told us some excuse be it they didn't receive it or the certificate was "old". All the while they had been returning our mortgage payments since we were not paying the "full" amount and tacking on late fees as well.

By the time all this was discovered we were so far backwards on everything and emotionally beaten down we just wanted a fresh start. We filed bankruptcy and allowed them to foreclose on our home. Within months we would discover to no surprise that our mortgage company was bought out and in 6 months we would be moving.

It is amazing to me that most people in this country with "good" credit owe a lot of money but yet are treated as if they HAVE a lot of money but once we finally were no longer in debt and had some money we were treated like criminals. The hardest part about all of this by far has been the loss of our home. Not our house so much as our home. Our house we were at peace with letting go of and as I said before even welcomed the fresh start that would come along with it. We prepared ourselves for months over the move... we watched stuff break in our home and intentionally not fix it in hopes that when the time came it would be easier to walk out of a broken house than one that we shared so much of our lives and held so many of our memories. Perhaps that may have been the case had we been able to move into a place where we could pick up again where we left off but sadly that has not happened.

After spending months looking for a place to live we found two places that would have fit our needs. One was not only everything I could have asked for in a place to live but close to everything I have wanted in a home my whole life... the other... a very nice duplex with plenty of space and new carpet. For reasons I still can not wrap my mind around the whys we are living in the latter. My heart aches for the 5 acres of land that would have come with the large single family house but what I think has my heart even more broken over is the feeling that I no longer have a home for my family.

It seems so trivial and I remind myself almost daily that it is just a place to live. Why am I so emotional about all of this? I miss things about our last house... I miss my bathtub, my privacy fence, my sweet neighbors (without dogs that bark early in the morning) but as a whole it is not the house that I long for. It is a quiet stillness in my heart, that safe feeling of being HOME. I have my family and all my belongings but it is a feeling of not being able to put my feet up or let my hair down. To know this is just temporary but not knowing for how long. I am a massage therapist by trade but first and foremost I am mom and I guess with being a "home" maker I feel lost without a home to make for my children... it is almost like losing a part of my soul.

It is funny to think of how my heart has changed with my children (of course in several ways). I use to love moving and exploring new things. I never wanted to get too comfortable in my surroundings, always wanted to see what was waiting over the next hill, the next adventure. Now the only thing I do want is to not feel like a squatter. I just want a place I can dig into, roll around and get comfortable in and nurture my children for the remaining years I have them home with me.

I have been around heart ache enough to know that some of my greatest joys and blessings have come out of my darkest hours so I am trying to not let this break me but it is proving to be much more challenging than even I expected. Which I suppose tells me that is my real lesson from all of this...

"Only the prayers of a broken heart can open the gates to heaven"