I’m back! It has been over two years since I last posted here and I’m going to attempt to delve into all of the new updates to our lives. Hopefully, I can get myself back into posting because I miss it and I really feel like we have a lot of great experience to share.
Homeschooling
Homeschooling five children was its own full-time job. I wouldn’t change it for the world but I think that easily tripled how busy my life was! We participated in co-ops, field trips, online programs, social groups, and extracurricular activities, all on top of our educational curriculum.
My children were always in extracurricular activities while in public school but with the change in socialization, I felt the need to step it up. It also required me to socialize a lot more. Now, I’m only homeschooling three because we graduated one and another goes back to public school tomorrow! I plan to talk more soon about what curricula we’ve tried, what worked and what didn’t, as well as a new homeschooling project that my husband has in the works.
Fostering
Years ago after a sermon at our church in New Jersey, I told my husband that I felt called to be a foster parent someday. Several years later, he felt that call too. We prayed and pondered about when that time would be meant to come. While attending the Teach Them Diligently homeschool conference, my husband did what he loves to do and participated in a game. That scavenger hunt led us directly to a fostering agency. By that very Monday, we were enrolled in our first class and became certified foster parents within two months.
We’ve been fostering for over two years now and I can honestly say that we love it. We’ve had sixteen children come through our doors. Some children were only here for respite, which is essentially babysitting that lasts a week or less and is intended to help out other foster parents. Others were here for months. We adopted the first two children wh9 were placed in our home, who are biological siblings, in February of this year. We are such a happy family and we adore sharing our love and silliness with children who need it!
Moved Again
After taking our now-adopted children, our agency called to ask us to take more kids. We knew that we could physically handle it but we were at our home’s capacity. So, the decision was made to move once more. If you’re counting, that makes it our third home in Tennessee, but each home has served a different purpose. We had our introductory home, our homesteading/homeschooling home, and now our family forever home. This one is the one. It’s big enough for family movie and game nights, many bedrooms, and acres to run and raise animals. Everyone is so happy here!
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Homesteading
Despite having more acres at our new home, the homestead has taken a backseat. We still have chickens, turkeys, and the most adorable donkey named Waffles. The garden is growing in raised beds because unfortunately, this soil has been more finicky! I’m determined to keep working at it and growing the garden, though. Someday, we imagine doing more with pigs and maybe goats and cows, but we’ll see how things go.
DIY Home Projects
My favorite things to do right now are the little projects around the house, like painting old furniture, accent walls, and wainscoting. I got my own saw and everything! We have a lot of big ideas for finishing out our huge basement and that will be quite the project but I’m actually looking forward to it.
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College
After calling around to find local play therapists for my five year old foster son, I realized how much the rural areas are lacking for mental health care. I want to be able to continue to help foster children through therapy and we decided that I should try to go back to college. I start this month with online courses and I’m a mixture of nervous and excited.
Life is going beautifully and I feel so very blessed to have this big, loving family that loves to glorify God, laugh, have fun, and help others. I look forward to sharing more about the things we’re up to and you can always follow along on Instagram!