the simple life

Wow, It's been a long time!! We had a little bit of a rough summer with Illness and injuries, hospital stays, anxiety attacks and John being out of work.. BUT we also had alot of good things Happen this Summer... we celebrated lots of Birthday's... Christina was 14, Jenna 5, Lydia turned 2 and Hanna 1.... WOW :) We also decided shortly after school started that we wanted the kids home schooled and we withdrew them from public school. The big kids are doing the Pennsylvania Leadership Cyber Charter School and I am doing a preK -Kindergarten program with Jenna ( we decided over the summer to also hold Jenna back a year since she only made our districts age cut off by 2 weeks). All the kids are doing great and I LOVE having them home all day. Jonathan's Anxiety is so much better w/o the daily pressures of timed classes and whatnot and Christina is not involved in any girl drama and daily fights. I know many people believe that the high school years are the best years of a child life, and I do believe some of that to be true but at the same time, the girls here in our district take drama to an all new level and they don't care who they hurt and how badly they hurt someone. It is very sad and we didn't want that for our daughter another year. We are happy with our decision and that is all that matters :)
In the beginning of July, Christina went to Mississippi with our Church's Youth Missions Team to help repair houses still in need from Hurricane Katrina. She missed home and we missed her so much, but it was such a great experience for her and we are so thankful she had the opportunity to go.
As always, I am longing for a more simple less stressful life and whenever I think we have finally figured it out something comes up and shakes us up... Almost as if we aren't ment to have simple and stress free.. BUT now that life is settling down yet again, I am attempting the simple life again. So far so good.. alot of decluttering, cleaning and re-evaluating what is important in our lives. I am blessed to have a wonderful Husband and fabulous kids and at the end of the day, if they are all healthy and happy then we have done our job!!