I AM, it's just that simple.

I'm back!
I know, you didn't know I was gone, or maybe you did.
I was.
It was time for the 2012 HEAV Convention.

No, that is not some sick and twisted joke that has to do with the past several weeks of my life.
Although I did get a good CHUCKle out of it.

ok.
I'll stop.
But, now you have a taste (hopefully not) of where my thoughts can literally not get away from!
I smell puke at the weirdest times, I will never be able to eat cauliflower soup again (I pinned it, it was so good, but the poor soup had no chance being introduced on a week like that and being the color that it was...poor thing...I had to plug my nose and close my eyes just to pour it down the drain) and I dream about cleaning up MORE puke. (or have nightmares, whatever)

Wow.
what was I talking about?

Oh.
right.
HEAV. (Home Educators Association of Virginia).
When they said 'Association' they had no idea who they were talkin' to, did they!?

If you are following this, you get a prize.

I will do a complete and separate post on all my curriculum finds and choices for the year.
(if you have emailed me lately about curriculum questions and I have not answered you, I AM SO SORRY!  having support when you are trying to decide and getting lots of opinions is great and I have failed you...I'll work on that!)

BUT, the gist of it is, I went looking for three specific things/answers/ideas and I found them.
WOO HOOO!!!
And some of them are hilarious God stories...I will share. Promise.

One of the main things I was hunting for was Bible. I knew I was dropping the ball on some good Bible.

Yes, that's the book for me.


One of the main reasons we chose homeschooling is that it affords obvious opportunities to disciple our kids in the knowledge that "life is about God"...not, "life is about them and if God can be one of the subjects you learn, great but if not...oh well..."
No.
Life is about God and let's figure out how to be about His business.

Great thoughts, great ideas.....er....useless unless implemented.

Lydia is spiritually more thirsty than I could have imagined any of my children being.
I figured they'd all want their own walks with Jesus, but this is wild.

The sister writes her own Psalms, daily.
I literally have to ask her if she copied them from a Psalm or if she wrote it herself.
I can not tell the difference.
She reads her Bible in bed.
She full of questions that consistently make me feel inferior.
Love that girl.

All the girls are curious, thirst for more answers than I can give them and show great intrigue.

And we had pretty much nothin' goin'.... (score -1 for Holly)
Some stuff but not even worth an honorable mention.

Sad.

On top of that?

I had HIGH STANDARDS for curriculum for Bible, even at their ages.
(is that 'high standards' or 'double standards'?)

I detest me some dumbed down, unoffensive Jesus.  I don't even know who that Jesus is....He's not the God I wanted my kids to get to know.

I wanted them to know the God who is Jealous over them, Righteously Angry at sin, Sacrificial for their very soul and Passionate about their created purpose.
That one.
The one that is in both the OLD Testament and the NEW Testament.

(not the one god that is in the old and the other god that is in the new...ya know?)

And I was getting super duper annoyed with puffy sheep cartoons, WHITE skinned Jesus pictures and pictures of Noah's Ark that made it seem like a Caribbean/Busch Garden cruise.

But that was all I was finding.

Or, if I found something great, it was WAY above their reading level or wouldn't be good for all of the girls, just one or two of them, or it was topics based rather than 'moving through books of the Bible' based or....yada yada yada...

ALL that whining to say this:

I think I've found it.

Apparently I'm not alone.  Go figure, huh!?

Drum roll please......

Lamp and Quill International

The simple/quick breakdown is this:
Genesis to Revelation in a six year program.
Everyone gets their own workbook that is paced at their level of reading and interests.
Little simple cut and paste crafts, if you want them, simple tunes, if you want them, word searches, fill in the blanks, that sort of stuff...
EVERYONE IS IN THE SAME SCRIPTURE EACH DAY.

Even me.

SAY WHAT!? (I'm still miffed that I don't get word searches though!)

Max, 10 min's a day....like, if we got behind and had to cram a few days together.
(that happens to us occasionally...you?)

Uh.
Hello?
And it's not super pretty, but that leaves us to concentrate on how amazing scripture is, right?
It's not ugly but any stretch...it's just not full of my printer's entire ink cartridges of ink, that's all.

I was pretty much sold when I bought it.
($45 for a CD that is one year's worth of curriculum for every single age range. Preschool to Adult.  You can buy the workbooks separate but I opted for the CD - too many boring reasons why, I just did. In the end, it will be worth it for me to print out 2-3 weeks at a time.)


However.
Day ONE is what really really really really sold me.

It starts off with two weeks of "Who Is God?" before they dive into Genesis 1 and move through Genesis and Job in a year.
Reading #1 was Job 38.
I was crying 1/2 way through reading it aloud to my girls.

stop.
go right now.
read it aloud.
(or just do it right after this post.....aloud.)

The girls did their little activity pages, we answered the 3 discussion questions and all of 10 min's had passed.

We were done.

Lydia wasn't done.
That was SO not enough for her.

It's ok.
They thought of 'her' and put extra story and activity pages in there to fill her up.

She wanted to read the extra story page aloud to me.
We snuggled up and she began reading.
It's an entire printed page so I'll just share with you the part that SOLD me....

(like I needed selling after Job 38?)

(Lydia reading)
Who is God?  When Moses asked that question in Exodus 3:13, God replied by saying, "I AM THAT I AM."  (Lydia stopping for a moment to pause.....then she says, "Huh. That is a really good answer!" giggles and continues reading.  Mommy crying.) He made us, and He wants us to come to Him. He is far more than we can understand.

"far more than we can understand"....agreed.
But can I confess something?

I have always breezed by the "I AM" statements God makes.
Maybe not always truly a 'breeze' but it has never been allowed to stop my reading and I have never paused.

Not until my seven year old daughter literally STOPPED IN HER TRACKS at that answer, thought it giggle and paused worthy, had I ever stopped to consider the grand simplicity of "I AM" and what an ingenious answer it really was.

(note: I am often made to feel like a complete idiot in their schooling.  It's starting to feel normal.  All of our children are geniuses.  I'm just sayin'....)

We could have totally gotten this moment from God together from almost any other curriculum out there.
I firmly believe that.

The scripture is what stopped her in her tracks.
God's words are what penetrated her heart and caused her joy to overflow in the form of a giggle and a pause.

But, knowing that I was looking for some solid tools to take us through scripture in our home, knowing that I was fairly certain I wouldn't find it for their age groups, knowing it would probably frustrate me for years.....or thinking I knew all that anyway.....what an incredible GIFT that moment was to my heart.

"He made us and He wants us to come to Him.
He is far more than we can understand."

And that is just what I got from LYDIA'S page.
My page had four questions on them in reference to Job 38 and Genesis 1.
I got stuck on the verse associated with question four (...Eve was 'convinced'....) and journaled three pages on her being 'convinced' that she KNEW she didn't have all wisdom.

Funny what we convince ourselves of, huh?
Funny how we really only think of ourselves a lot of the time that kind of convincing is going on, huh?
And I've got three more pages where that came from.

Day TWO has knocked me OVER.

Somehow it worked out that we didn't all do the lesson together.
(yes, yes...now, I know it wasn't someHow but someWho...)

I was at the table alone with Samantha this morning and although the lesson itself wasn't spectacular in nature the verses were naturally spectacular and prompted me to marvel at the creation that Samantha was and I prayed aloud over her and was brought to tears over the thankfulness in my heart FOR HER.

Moments like that with Samantha mean something deep in my soul.

Moments like that mean something deep in my soul with all my girls but
after the postpartum depression/colic/deployment combo that made up her first year in this world, I have a lot of crap that I am in constant conflict over.
I wonder if the crap in my life that year and my not attaching to her 'normally' will effect the relationship we have and the relationship she has with God as she grows, all the time.

I pray often that my parenting and loving her doesn't come from a place of fear and I am prompted often by the Spirit to remind myself that she is God's little girl infinitely more than she was and will ever be my little girl...He's got 'this', I screw up, I screwed up, but He's 'got it'.

Having moments where she hears my deepest heart poured out to God over who she is.....
Healing.
Humbling.

I'm tellin' ya...Day TWO is a doozy.

I'm almost scared for Day THREE.

To reiterate, none of these moments came from the curriculum.
Every single one came from the scripture and The Holy Spirit interpreting back and forth from heaven for us.

Having the curriculum has been a blessing though...He is proving that to me.

I knew there was a hole....

I just didn't know it was this gaping, ridiculously large.
Oh how excited I am to see just how large though because I know Someone lined up to fill it!

Ok.
Now.
The two of you who are still reading....
(thanks for sharing these moments with me!)

Go read Job 38...OUT LOUD.

Then come back and check out that curriculum for you and yours.

Homeschool or not....
Absolutely nothing exclusively homeschool about this puppy!!!