M.I.A.

As you can clearly see, I have been missing in action for quite some time now. I was hit with a recent overload of crazy busyness and just have not been able to keep up with all of my communications. Our photography business has been blessed with an incredibly busy fall season, and it has been all that I can do to not become completely buried under the load! Then, on top of that, we recently discovered that our family is about to expand again - yep, that's right, baby #4 is due May 20, 2009! The exhaustion and the nausea have nearly completely wiped me out, and I am so ready for the first trimester to be over!

Homeschooling has been an up and down affair recently. We recently decided that our language arts and reading program were just not working for Elijah, and so we have taken a leave of absence from those subjects until I can order the right program. What happened is that I originally ordered the Sonlight Readers and Language Arts program for second graders because Eli is a fairly strong reader. Well, the Readers were at his level perfectly, but the Language Arts jumped way ahead of where he was at. We did our best to try to make it work, but in the end we are going to have to step back down to the first grade Readers and LA program. The Readers may be too easy, but hopefully we'll be on the right level for LA, and perhaps he'll be empowered by the ease of the books to read.

Also, because we have been so overwhelmed with Photography recently, we actually took a week off of school completely just so that I could make deadlines. It wasn't on our calendar and it may be a struggle to finish up the year before the new baby arrives, but I just felt for all of our sanity, that the break was absolutely necessary. I guess that's what homeschooling is all about - flexibility when you need it, right? :) We are now back to work and I am actually so thankful for it! During the break I decided that we NEED the structure to our day that homeschooling gives. The boys were bored frequently and this made them irritable and ornery. It seemed that the sibling rivalry was at it's worst that week! It was a frustrating time, but we were able to squeak out our deadlines and no one killed the other - an accomplishment for sure! :)

Well, I hope to stay on the ball a bit more now that the biggest few hurdles have been scaled. There is still a lot of demand from the photography end of things, but I am glad to have a least a little bit more calm and order to our days. I hope, too, that I am nearing the end of the yucky part of pregnancy so that I have more energy and a desire to eat again. . . here's hoping! :)