Home School Graduation - Planning Is Over and Party Begins!!!

Continuing on with our last post about our home school graduation.....

We decided to hold our graduation outside due to the fact that we have wayyyy more space outside than inside!!  We set up the ceremony space on the west side of our home, facing east. This allowed the sun to be behind our sweet guests and not bother their eyes.

We set 75 chairs up divided into two with an aisle down the middle.  You will also see in the picture above the tv screen that we brought out to play the slide show on.  It was soooo windy that we ended up having to strap it down!!

So the ceremony began and my baby came down the aisle dressed in her graduation cap and gown. 

I can't even begin to express the love that exuded from all of her family and friends at that moment.  It really was almost tangible.  Her home schooling journey would not have been nearly as fulfilling had she not had the love and support of everyone around her.

After a couple of speeches from some old foggies (her Daddy and I :)), we opened the floor up to give our guests an opportunity to share.

Then BAM!!  Before we knew it, it was over and she was a high school graduate!!!  Woohoo  girly!!

In my opinion, one of the most special parts of the ceremony was when everyone came up and prayed over her and the journey that she is embarking on.

Inside the house, we had set up a photo line with various photos from her life as well as a graduate table where she displayed and shared some of her life with everyone.

After all of that was done, we partied down!!  We ate fajitas, ate tons of desserts and had a great time visiting!!  Because of the wind we were unable to light the bonfire and cook s'mores, but that's okay!  It just left more time to visit.

Having never planned or attended an individual home school graduation, we did not really know what to expect.  But this celebration of my daughter and her leaving this one journey and heading onto a new one was, for us, the perfect way to close this adventure!

Home School Graduation

Howdy blogger friends!!  Sorry for the silence last week, but we were recovering from our oldest daughter's graduation and then we went head first into fence building!!

I know that many of you have never been to a home school graduation before, so let me start by giving you a bit of background info.  There are as many different types of home school graduations as there are home schools, so no two are the same!  The biggest decision that my daughter had to make was whether or not she wanted to graduate with a group or as an individual.  She decided that she wanted a more intimate graduation with her family and friends.

 

This is one of her senior pictures

So then the work began....how in the world do you plan a home school graduation??  What is it supposed to look like? 

We began with the basis of a party!  She knew that she wanted a large celebration involving the many people that have played a part in her schooling be it through church, co-op, life skills, etc.  After deciding on a celebration involving dinner, we moved to the guest list. 

Our plan was to have approximately 100 people celebrate with us on this day.  Well....with that many people our food options were limited.  We either cater it out (which was wayyyy too expensive!), or we find a food that can be mostly prepped beforehand.  My stepmother suggested fajitas and we thought that was a brilliant idea so we went with it!!

Then we moved on to the actual schedule.  We live about an hour from most of our family and friends, so we decided to begin with about an hour set aside for fellowship and hors d'oeuvres.  This would allow extra travel time for those who might underestimate the drive time as well as allow extra time for traffic.

After that we went into the actual graduation ceremony.  I allowed about 45 minutes for the ceremony and in the end, that seemed to be a good estimate.  The ceremony was followed by dinner and an hour after dinner we opened up the dessert bar!!  To end it all, we planned on lighting a bonfire once the sun went down and bringing out the S'mores material!!

Schedule complete!  Now on to planning the ceremony.  I found several ideas online, but this is what we ended up going with:

Prelude:  One Thing Remains by Passion - we asked her to choose a song that summed up her mindset as she goes forward in her life
Welcome and Prayer:  Farmer Willie - this was a time to thank everyone for coming to celebrate with us as well as open us in prayer
Processional:  Pomp and Circumstance
Our Homeschooling Journey:  Me :) - here I gave a little background info regarding our homeschooling experience as well as a few lessons that I have learned along the way
Shared Words From Family and Friends - during this time we asked if any of her family or friends in the audience would like to share anything with her or about her
A Pictorial Transcript:  Created by her sister!! - this was outstanding!  Her sister took photos from birth up to her graduation pictures and make a beautiful slide show set to music.  I still tear up when I watch it!!
Charge to the Graduate:  Farmer Willie - for this, her Daddy took time to share a few words of advice and to express our confidence in the fact that she is well prepared to go and do what the Lord has called her to do!
Reflections from the Valedictorian:  The graduate herself!! - mostly she thanked people for the part they have played in her life and expressed their importance to her
Presentation of the Diploma:  Farmer Willie and I - we  found a beautiful diploma template online so we made the necessary changes and printed it on beautiful paper for her
Closing Prayer and Blessing:  All attendees led by Farmer Willie - to close it up, we asked everyone to come and lay hands on her as her Daddy led everyone in a prayer of blessing

We printed the schedule for the afternoon/evening as well as the ceremony on some cardstock and DD#2 cute-i-fied them!!

With the scheduling and planning now complete, we moved on to carrying out the logistics!!  We sent out invitations, ordered chairs from a local party company, borrowed several tables, went shopping at a local Sam's Club, got the house all picked up and were ready to go.

We had the invites printed at Walgreens.  Obviously I blurred out her name and our address :)  It was not like that on the actual invites!!!

Oops!!  Then I realized that I forgot to order her cap and gown!!!  In the end, finding a gown was easy, but we were down to the wire on the cap!!  We finally found one about an hour away and Farmer Willie walked in to pick it up 15 minutes before they closed!!  Whew!!

Getting ready to graduate!!

My fabulous sis-in-law and her sweet family came a day early to help get everything ready as well as volunteer her services for making an outstanding graduation cake!!

 I will give you more pictures and details tomorrow!!

A Day of Practicality!!

Okay, those of you who know me know that practicality is not my strong suit!!  But...I occasionally come up with a good idea that is also practical!!

We are on the cusp of a graduation ceremony and party for our oldest daughter and my lack of practicality is coming back to bite me in the tushy!!

Big plans....but no way to carry them out.  Yuppers, story of my life!

Anyway to remind myself that I do come up with an idea that is capable of being carried out, I will share some of them with you!!  (Okay, some of these might not be TOTALLY my ideas, but I have no idea where I got them from!!)

*  Let your children work out their issues with their siblings without your involvement.  Now, before you go thinking we just let the girls duke it out in the boxing ring, we do have certain parameters that if crossed, we will intervene.  But for the most part, we stay out of it.

*  Mom is not a short order cook!  I will not cook-to-order our meals.  We have a daughter that is a vegetarian.  When we have hotdogs, raw veggies and baked beans, she has invented the bean dog! 

She will take a bun, fill it with beans, add a little mustard and Wahlah!!  She has a bean dog!!  Put that with some of the raw veggies and she has a meal.  Not one single child has distributed signs of starvation and in fact, they now will try almost anything and enjoy a wide variety of foods!!

*  Chores!!  Don't shy away from sharing chores with your children.  When they were young, I explained that they were learning how to be wives and mommies by my teaching them how to run a household.  As they got older, chores were a tangible way to show them that they were needed in our home and that we all had to work together to make things run.

*  Colors.  What??!  Colors!!  When the girls were young we assigned them each a color in order to keep toothbrushes, hairbrushes, towels, etc. separate.  I must give credit for this one to a sweet lady that I went to church with who had 12 children!

*  Teaching them how to choose appropriate things to watch and listen to.  Now this is a whole other blog post that I am working on for next week. The gist of it is that we teach our children when they are young how to guard their hearts and why they should, so that when they are teenagers, they can regulate themselves.

*  A time to sleep and a time to rise and most of the time, the time to rise is earlier than they might like!!  The girls have always had a bedtime and wake up time that we try very hard to adhere to.  My oldest has told me that this is one of the skills learned that she is most thankful for.

*  Travel as much as you can.  We can't hop across the ocean and tour Europe (though we certainly would love to!), but we have found other ways to travel and see the world.  For us, this has been camping in state parks, flying to NYC, taking a family trip to Alaska, going to Oklahoma City, and so forth.  Just go!!  Traveling pulls your children out of their comfort zone and it allows them to see that a world exists outside of what they see every day. 

 
*  If you don't want to share it, don't keep it out!  This was our rule when the girls were young and struggled with sharing their toys.  We did not make them share everything as most of us have items that are special to us.  But if they did not want to share it, they had to put it up when friends came over.  If it was out, it had to be shared!!

Well, I feel better now and more able to go and conquer the world of high school graduation celebrations!! 
 
I probably am not going to blog anything else this week so that I can concentrate on getting ready for our get-together, but I will let you know how it all goes next week!!
 
See y'all then!!

Farming Update

Can you believe that we have been here on the farm for almost 6 months??!!  I sure can't!

Each day has been an adventure :)  This spring it has been so neat to see all of the trees, flowers and grass come to life!!

As you know, we are down to just three chickens.  We did their yearly deworming, so we have been eggless for a couple of weeks.  I think after this week we will start to eat the eggs again.  They say you only need to wait two weeks, but we are waiting three just to be safe.

We are looking at adding a slew of broiler chickens and increasing our egg layers over the next couple of weeks, as well as adding the two goats I told you about.  Fencing has been a major issue around here and has been causing lots of grief for us!!

With our daughter's graduation, prepping to head out on a mission trip, debate tournaments, etc., we are having trouble fitting everything in and that is frustrating.  But a sweet friend has been encouraging me to just take it one day and step at a time and rest in the fact that the Lord will carry us through!!

So, have you ever tried to take it one day at a time??!!  CRAZY hard isn't it??  It certainly does not sound like it would be difficult.  In fact, you would think that it would be easy...but no!  Hard it is!!

So many scriptures tell us to embrace the concept of one day at a time, such as:


"So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matt. 6:34).

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow . . ." (Matt. 5:33).

"Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things" (Matt. 5:31-32).


Why in the world is this so hard? 

I guess it is because I like how it sounds but...

I want a plan. 
I want control. 
I want security. 
I want to know that what I do today will benefit in some way my tomorrow.

Ummmm.....see a theme here?  How about "I"...."I"..."I"...??  Instead of Him...Him...Him.

So I am learning that plans and security are great, but I need to make sure that they are His plans and that I am finding my security in Him, not in what I can or cannot do.

I will find what work I can that needs to be done and I will do it.  I will make plans for tomorrow, but only after consulting Him.  And if those plans don't turn out the way that I think they should, I will rest in the security of knowing that His plans are better than mine!!

So today I will work on organizing the laundry room and setting family and personal goals for the summer.


But I don't start with a pen and paper to make my list. 
No, I start with a prayer. 

And I won't finish when I run across the finish line. 
No, I will finish when He carries me across!

(As you can see, it definitely needs organized!!)

One Month - Roll With It!!

Mornin'!!!!

I can't believe that it has been one month since I started this blog!!  And I can't believe that in that month we went from deciding to start looking at property to buy to packing up to move in less than two weeks!!  It has been a crazy whirlwind!

We are still waiting for the VA to come and decide to do the appraisal, but as soon as that is done, we are closing and wrapping it up!

In the meantime we are packing.  Ummmmm, not so fun!!

For the first couple of days, we were smitten with packing.  The big boxes all around, the noise of ripping the packing tape off of the roll.  Yes, we were on a moving high.  Now....not so much!!

Remember how awesomely organized I had our back room?  It was full of beautifully labeled boxes.  There were some Christmas boxes pushed to the side, but all in all it looked like we were packing pros!!

Now it looks like this...

I kid you not, about half of the boxes have now been UNPACKED!!!!  We will remember something that we need and oops!  I already packed it!  Then we go dig through the boxes :)

The nice stack of empty boxes waiting to be used has now become the things that forts are made of!!

Yes, packing is fun for a day or two, but then life resumes and it becomes a bit of a pain!!

We have had a nice month though and I have already learned some lessons!

1. Be careful that you don't pack things you need :)  Whatever made me think I could get through our last two weeks of school without our schoolbooks??!!
2. When you are moving, you must be okay with a messy house!!  The first week I tried to keep everything neat, but it eventually started to drive me CRAZY!!  So...now if you come over, you might find a box set aside in the bathroom that is only half packed because life interrupted me!
3. Casual entertaining!!!  This is a biggie!  We love to have people over and did not want to give that up just because we are moving.  So, we had a caroling party last night.  It was very informal, but soooo fun!!  My house was a mess and I asked everyone to bring their own words to the carols and a snack to share.  It was a great time of fellowship and no one went away mad because my house was not up to par!!

     4.  Did I mention don't pack things you need??  :)
     5.  Patience!!  NOTHING seems to happen on schedule when buying a house.  Or should I
          say NOTHING seems to happen on my schedule when buying a house, but I rest in the fact
          that it does happen on God's schedule and His is perfect!!
     6.  Learn to live life around the uncertainties and incompletes.  I usually don't function well when
          dealing with uncertainties, but I had to learn! Otherwise I would have a month of uselessness!!
     7.  DON"T PACK THINGS YOU NEED!!!  Oops, did I mention that already??!!

Along with these lessons have been some sweet moments...

• DD #3 has been trying to wake up before me (which is pretty hard because I tend to get up early!) and pack boxes.  At first this was frustrating because she was not doing it "my way."  But I had to stop and look at the blessing that she was bestowing upon me.  And I can figure out what is in the boxes when I unpack them at the new house (or possibly here if I keep packing things I need!).
• We are converting our garage room back to a garage so we are knocking down a temporary wall that we put up.  This has allowed us to engage in the art of graffiti!!  Sooo fun!!

• The town we are moving to has a legend of an alien ship crashing nearby.  To commemorate or move, my hubby bought us this ornament

These are just a few of the sweet moments that have occurred in the chaos that we are now calling life!!

So, my overall lesson for the month is to roll with it!!!  When you know God is in control, the best thing to do is to just hand Him the wheel and sit back to visit with him!!

Beginning to Let Go

***Farm Hunting Update:  We had the home inspection on Friday and that went really well.  As Dreamer (DD #1) says, it is a real quality house.  The inspector told us that we would be hard pressed to find a better maintained 50 year old home.  The only issue that came up was with the a/c unit in the newer part of the house, but we are asking the present owners to fix the problem. 

 

We are still waiting on the septic inspection. ***

Beginning to Let Go

 

Having lived in our current home for over 13 years, we have a lot of memories here.  Two of my sweet girls were born while we lived in this house and each of the four girls have experienced most, if not all, of their childhood here. 

AcCOWntant Willie and I have spent a majority of our 19 year marriage together here.  We have great friends that live 2 doors down and my brother lives next door (see picture below).  We have had a good life in this home.



Happy birthday welcome in front of my neighbor (Bro!) house

 

When we bought this house we had looked at many, MANY homes.  AcCOWntant walked in the door here and said "this is it!"  I was not thrilled as it was smaller than most of the other ones we had looked at and there was no "Wow" factor here.  But he was certain that this was it, and poof, we were moving in!  In fact, we bought it without even having it inspected!!!

 This has been a great home for us.  In 13 years we have had no major issues with the house.  The a/c has, at times, acted up, but that is it.  And space wise, it has provided for all of our needs.  We love our home.

This past week we went through the storage shed, attic, closets and rooms to try and weed out anything that we do not need to bring with us.  I am pretty good about not hanging on to things we don't need or use, so this was probably a bit easier for us than most, but it was still difficult.



Why does organizing always look so messy??!!

 

What was difficult was not the sorting, organizing, etc.  It was the letting go.  We let go of so much stuff this week through garage sale, donation, trash.  We gave away the first couch that William and I bought (trust me, it was time!!).  We sold part of the first bedroom set we bought together.  I had to say goodbye to baby clothes, baby toys, and Barney movies.  Yes, it was hard, but we knew that it needed to be done.



Moving Sale!



Now we begin the process of letting go of our home.  No, we are not selling it, so we will maintain some part of it, but we won't be living here.  We won't wake up each morning to look out the back window and see the place where many Jedi battles were fought and fairy lands visited.

Baby (DD #4) the Jedi Princess

Bubble (DD #3) the Jedi!

 














We won't see the crack in the wall that has been there since the day we bought the house.  We won't see the playhouse that has been such an integral part of our children's lives. 



Many years ago, some of the girls and our neighbors painting the playhouse!

The spots where we have buried our pets will just become another part of the yard.  Our grapevines will become someone else's harvest.  Our neighbors will become someone else's neighbors.  And our home will become someone else's home. 

As we went through the inspection report on Friday, one of the current owners asked if she could stay and hear the report.  Of course we said that was fine, but the inspector warned her that it could be hard for her to hear someone point out everything that was wrong with the house.  She thought she would be okay with it, so she stayed. 

Each time he pointed out a flaw, she had a story for it!  She shared so much about the home we hope to move into!  Many stories and memories to go along with a broken piece of tile, a stain on the hard-wood floor, even a missing pipe on the hot water heater!!  I realized that they were beginning to let go too and for them, it must be an even harder process since they know that he has a terminal illness and this has been their family home for over 30 years. 

Letting go of things is hard.  But it is necessary.  Letting go of people is harder.  But sometimes we have no choice.  Letting go of life is hardest.  But something we must all face at one time or another. 

But don't fret, because there is an upside! 

Though we let go of some of the things, most of us are blessed to have what we need.  Though we have to let go of people, we don't have to let go of the memories.  And though we must all, at one point or another, let go of this life, we are given the choice of eternal life with God.

Sometimes we have to let go of what we have now, to free our hands up to accept what we have coming.



 

Getting ready to head out.....


 

....on a new....







LIFE ADVENTURE!!!!!

Clothes Vomit!

**Farm Hunting Update:  Well, we have begun the insane paperwork process for the mortgage company!  Stacks upon stacks of paperwork need to be done and of course we have a question about almost every single page.  We are trying to go through all of our belongings and get rid of a lot of stuff.  Tomorrow is garage sale day!!**

Clothes Vomit

Okay, I guess I did not have to use such a gross title, but honestly, that is what we have at our house!!  Clothes everywhere!  I know we have six people in our family and we all need to stay dressed, but REALLY!!  Do my two oldest girls need 26 sweaters?  Ummm.....I think NOT!

Much to some of my children's dismay, we are cleaning up the puke and scrubbing the floors in regards to clothes.  I searched and thought, and thought and searched for a list of clothing that the average child, teen and adult need.  Looking at all I found and thinking about our individual family's needs I came up with the following list:

Clothing List

• 7 pairs of white socks
• 1 pair each of black, brown and navy socks
• 1 pair of play shoes
• 1 pair of tennis shoes
• 1 pair each of dress shoes - black, brown, white and navy
• 1 pair of waterproof slip on shoes (we camp a lot and need these for the showers)
• 1 pair of boots
• 3 pairs of jeans
• 5 pairs of shorts
• 2 casual outfits of choice
• 2 nice outfits for church, meetings, etc.
• 2 pull overs
• 2 sweatshirts
• 7 long sleeve shirts
• 7 short sleeve shirts
• 4 play outfits (2 for warm weather and 2 for cold weather)
• 1 winter coat
• 1 dress coat
• 1 light jacket
• 4 pairs of pj's (2 for warm weather and 2 for cold weather)
• **now we also need undergarments, but my girls would probably take me out and beat me with a wet noodle if I discussed that number with you guys!!! :)**
• Debate Suit (this is for my older girls that compete in debate)
• 2 swimsuits
• 1 cover up

Now we had this great list (well, I thought it was great!!) and we gathered together to go through everything.  Boy howdy did I get a range of reactions.

Daughter #1 is my more practical child and she thought that my list was too long and we really could get by with less.  As she is explaining why, daughter #2 is looking like she is going to pass out at the mere thought of having to part with some of the gazillion outfits she owns!

Daughter #3 could really care less as I have to practically force her to even change clothes!  If it were up to her she would sleep in the clothes that she plays in.  And my baby girl, daughter #4 began to cry at the fact that she would have to try clothes on!!

Oh what great fun we had!!  :) 

So, we now have a list, four miserable daughters, trash bags, and donate and sale boxes.  I told the girls that anything they kept must be in good condition (stain free, no rips, etc.) and must fit well.  No use in wasting space on clothes that make you feel uncomfortable!!  And so we began!

It took stinking HOURS to go through everything!  Oh and to hear them think aloud through their choice process.  I was highly entertained just by sitting back listening to the self-discussions, crying, moaning and so on!  (If you have kids, you will totally get where I am coming from!!)

Finally they are done.  The stack of clothes that are keepers is much smaller than the stacks of non-keepers.  Not one of the children were harmed in this experiment (no matter what #2 says!) and I even took them for ice cream cones when we were done. 

 The final rule is that the clothing number stays the same. So if you get new clothes, you must get rid of old clothes. #4 received a beautiful shirt and sweater yesterday, so she had to choose a shirt and sweater, that she already had, to get rid of. She was happy to do so due to her excitement over her new clothes.  Perfecto!!

What I am left with now are clean dresser drawers and closets, yet heaping piles of clothes in my living room just waiting to either be sold in our garage sale on Saturday or donated to our church clothes closet on Sunday!!  And I, my dear friends, am looking forward to the best benefit of this clothing purge.....LESS LAUNDRY!!!!

Of course, if they stay and play as messy as they are now, we may need some of those extra clothes back!!!  :)