Homeschool Happenings

I decided to write a little update on how things are going with the homeschool because I've been getting asked about that a lot lately. In fact both my hubby and I have been receiving quite a few emails from friends seeking advice on getting started in homeschooling. I might look to do a whole separate post on that later, but for now I'll just update you on how it's going for us now that we're a family of 6.

The short answer is great! Don't get me wrong we have our days just like anyone else, but for the most part things are going really well. We just wrapped up our fall semester at our co-op. We did have to miss several weeks due to having Hannah in the middle of the semester, but the kids were able to jump right back in and made it in time for family night where J got to show off all he had been learning. One of his classes also performed a song about Noah's ark on stage. J has really been flourishing in homeschool. Being able to work with him one and one and being able to make sure he really understands all the concepts of what he needs to know is a major benefit of homeschooling.



F has been blowing me away with her preschool progress. She has obviously known her letters for some time now, but we've mostly been working on them individually. My big surprise was when she came to me a little while back and had started writing her name all on her own! I love how much of a sponge she is. There is so much she knows and has learned that I wish I could take credit for, but honestly she has learned a lot all on her own. Just absorbing everything she hears J and I talking about when we're doing his schooling.



S has been right along side her taking it all in as well. At the beginning of this school year I had no intention of doing any specific activities with S, but once she saw her brother and sister doing theirs she had to have some of her own. So in a pinch I made her several busy bags full of different learning activities. Honestly, I wish I could get her to sit in the floor and do them, but she insists on sitting at the table with the big kids :-)



We seem to be settling in with a routine with H (knock on wood) and she's been napping in the morning either in her swing or right next to us in her bouncy seat while we're doing school. She's not really interested in her crib, but as long as she's napping and we can get school done I'm happy! I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a day or two in there where I was actually holding her in my arms while teaching to keep her asleep. It could be that we're just boring her... I'm not real sure, haha.



The key to all of it though is prayer. I pray a lot, lol. I love when people say to me "I could never do that I don't have that much patience". HA!!!! If you really know me then you know I have little to no patience. God has patience though and that's where I get it from. It doesn't come from me, but through his amazing grace he gives me the patience I would never have without him.

I also have several tricks that help us along. I usually turn on classical music to play in the background, but this time of year it's been Christmas music. I also light a candle. The smell and the glow of the candle just transform the whole atmosphere of the schoolroom. I also learned a little trick from Courtney over at Women Living Well ministry to say a prayer of peace for the family every time the candle catches my eye. It really does help me and the kids love having a candle lit.

It's not likely that I'll get to write another blog post in the next week so I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I hope you get the chance to slow down, enjoy time with your family, and remember the real meaning of this holiday.

Little H And Life With 4

I realized the other day that I hadn't updated the blog with the arrival of H. I realized this around the same time I realized she's almost 1 month old! How is that possible? Since she's our 4th we're no strangers to the thought of how quickly they grow, but time is definitely flying by already with this one. The first month has been definitely been challenging. Sleep is few and far between, and it's been a big adjustment for everyone, especially for S as she's used to being the baby. We're not leaving the house very much right now so it has been challenging having the 5 of us in this small house all the time. I'm grateful that Josh worked so hard to get a ton of home projects finished over the summer. It's definitely paying off now!

The past month has also come with many blessings. The children have shown so much love to their little sister. They love taking turns holding her and singing to her. They help me with her while I'm making meals and cleaning the house. J is really helpful in keeping the house picked up for me so I don't trip on their toys while walking around with H. The girls are both little mommies. They make sure H always has her blanket and pacifier. They also like to make sure mommy is wearing her slippers and will put them on me if I'm not wearing them.

Of course Josh has been all hands on deck as to be expected. He holds H at night when he gets home from work so I can get rest and maybe the occasional shower ;-) He is great with all 4 children in fact. You can definitely see his character and priorities through his children. Family is always his top priority and it shows.

We are back in the swing of homeschool as well. I am so grateful for the blessing of flexibility! Some days school has taken place in the morning, some days it's spread out here and there during the day, and yesterday school happened to take place before bed! H's schedule obviously varies day to day so flexibility has been the name of the game when it comes to homeschool... and everything else for that matter!

I have to say, I love fall babies. The weather is beautiful, the holidays are upon us, and there's no better time of year to slow down and appreciate family. We are so excited about the future and are loving today!

J's room

I wanted to brag on hubby a little bit more because he has really outdone himself this summer with building various projects, and making lots of changes to the house. I'm really blessed to have a handy hubby to bring all my ideas to life.

J's room was certainly no exception! The room he was moving into used to be the nursery. Not to sound like a broken record, but like all the other spaces we've redone, it's small! The one thing it has going for it though are vaulted ceilings. I'm telling you, anything's possible with vaulted ceilings :-)

A regular twin bed certainly would've fit in the room, but left very little room to move around once you took into account the dresser that he had to have. So back to the internet I went in search of inspiration. A loft bed was the obvious first thing to come to mind, but it wasn't going to be quite right and didn't take advantage of the height we had in that room.

Finally we found some examples of and idea we had been tossing around and so began... the floating bed. It took a good bit of planning, a lot of lag bolts, and some heavy duty power tools (that I'm sure hubby was so glad he already owned). We had previously planned to have a slide coming off the bed, but room size just didn't allow for that. J was a smidge disappointed, but loved the room so much when it was done that he quickly forgot about that detail :-) Here it is...


The best part of the bed is that I can walk under it without having to bend over or hit my head! I highly recommend that bed, but only if you have a hubby that really knows what he's doing ;-)

J actually planned most of it out himself. He let us know the wall colors, soccer player, and a few other things that he wanted in the room. Sigh, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in that child! Here are some more pictures around the room.

Our big (tiny) nursery reveal!

When we found out we were going to become a family of six our immediate reaction was to put our small house on the market and buy something with more square footage. We went to showings, had our realtor over to discuss changes for our home, and came SO close to listing. We prayed about it a lot and decided that selling was not the direction we should go for now.

So now what? The current nursery is out because J is moving into that for his big boy room, and S is moving out and into the new "girls room" with F. So she could stay in our room with us until we either decide it's time to move or until she's big enough to move into the girls room. That idea didn't seem like a good fit though because we constantly have kids in and out of our bedroom either during the night or first thing in the morning and we really didn't want to have to stress out over the kids waking the baby for who knows how long. So that's when my crazy idea came about...

A closet nursery. Seriously. These are not uncommon in small homes or condos in big cities and with a little planning and a lot of vision I knew we could make this happen. Why not? A baby really doesn't take up that much space, there's a big window in there, it's temperature controlled, and my handy hubby is perfectly capable of renovations and building anything I ask! So before I knew it our master closet became the 4th bedroom in our home. As far as our clothes are concerned that really wasn't a big deal at all. We bought an amazing used armoire that hubby converted to a wardrobe for all our stuff. We did have to pare down our clothes and shoes but you know they say, you only wear about 10% of what you own or something like that. Plus we've always had a dresser so we used that in combination with under bed storage and we are set.

Just like with the Homeschool Room Reveal post, here's your warning about how hard it is to take pictures of a small room. This room is TINY so it was even more difficult! I am no photographer so hopefully the pictures came out good enough :-)

First of all here's the before (I think S was not so sure about all this!)...


Then the construction began. What a mess!


And now the big reveal... TA-DA!!


I definitely wanted a changing table in the nursery but there was just no way that was going to work without it swallowing up the whole room. Finally I found a tutorial on pinterest for a hanging changing table from DIY network. Hubby did an amazing job helping me create that plan I had in my head. Don't worry it's extremely secure, mounted into studs plus with the addition of the added chain I could change my soon to be two year old without a second thought. I love my shelf above for the diapers and wipes, etc. The little storage bin shelf on the floor was a completely lucky find. It will house all the extra diapers, wipes, burp cloths, and so on.


The next thing I had to figure out was the crib. Once again, a full size wouldn't work but a bassinet wouldn't last long enough. After some research I discovered something I had no idea existed. A mini crib! A little smaller than a regular crib and should last until 18-24 months depending on how big your child is. We currently have no intention of having her in here for longer than that anyway so it's perfect. Plus, I read so many reviews of people with almost 2 year olds that said they were still fitting perfectly. We went with a Davinci crib because you could raise and lower the mattress height. We're very pleased with it.


This is going to be H's "closet". The 3 bins will hold tops, bottoms, and pajamas. The bottom is for her hanging clothes and shoes. I might update the blog later with pictures of the inside once I actually get her clothes in there. It's empty for now, as I still need to go through her clothes.


Here are a couple things I made. Once again a couple pinterest inspirations that I put my own spin on. The mobile had no instructions so I really had to get creative with that one. The pictures weren't as big of an undertaking as the mobile. I just fell in love with some prints on Etsy but there was no way I was paying what they wanted. No offense to those sellers, it just wasn't in the budget with everything else we needed. So I printed a few images, created a document or two on Word, used frames I already had and some scrapbook paper, and it was nearly a free project :-)


And finally the cherry on the sundae... the light fixture. We found this little gem at... wait for it... Home Depot! I couldn't believe it either, but we fell in love the minute we saw it.


So there you have it! Hope you enjoyed our cozy little nursery. I know we're thrilled about it and can't wait for little H to let us know what she thinks :-) Now time to get J's room and the girls room started!

A New Baby Means A New Name

With a new little one on the way My Three Little Birds and Me was clearly no longer going to apply! So I have been mulling over this for a while now and finally settled into a new name. After much prayer and contemplation I decided to rename our blog "Our Faith Filled Life".

It's truly fitting. Every aspect of our life has been just that, filled with faith. Through the ups and downs of the recession, through the trials we went through with our son J, and through the various diagnosis that F received all at the same time, to our sudden decision to homeschool. Truly you can't live this life without having a spirit that is filled with faith. Now I find myself back to that same familiar place of having faith that God will get me through this pregnancy and through my 4th C-section. In case you're wondering we're having another sweet little girl. We couldn't be more excited. My mom had one boy and three girls and so will I!!

I promise I will make an attempt to not have posts so few and far between as we navigate this crazy road ahead. It's my goal to keep family updated on all the wonderful times ahead for the family. I'm also going to link up with some other great moms I've met through homeschooling and share what's going on in our homeschool life. I'm also going to try and give you a look into life with a large family (ok, well I don't really consider it large, but where we live our family is considered large). We have some great (kinda unconventional) projects going on in the house right now to get ready for having 4 children in our smallish house. I can't wait to show you all that we're working on when it gets finished!

Finally, I want to give a special shout out to all the people who are going above and beyond to help me with the kids as I'm dealing with this challenging pregnancy. We couldn't do this without the support of our family, friends, and most importantly our God who gives us all the strength we need on a daily basis. We love you all!

My Three Little Birds and Me :-)


The blog changer :-)


And just for fun...

Easter 2014-better late than never!

I have to say, Easter is one of my favorite times of the year. There's new life to nature around us. Everything feels fresh and full of possibilities. What a perfect time to reflect on all that Jesus did for us when he died on the cross and paid the price for our sins. The true reason we celebrate Easter after all.

Of course I love all the other fun things that come along with the holiday as well. Who doesn't?? I love new Easter clothes, a big lunch with family, egg hunts, and of course the anticipation of Easter baskets first thing in the morning when the kids wake us up at the crack of dawn. Tradition. In all this excitement over the newness in the world around us, it's wonderful to be grounded by tradition. There's so much to be said about counting on time honored traditions that we can all look forward to every year. I hope you find as much joy and peace in your heart as we do over this wonderful holiday. Here's a little peak into our Easter this year...