Good Days and Bad Days

Spring fever has officially hit the Sutton Ponderosa!  ELO is over, kids want to sleep late, lessons are being rushed through, tempers are short and the days are long.  We are ready for summer! We only have four weeks left until we are done with our curriculum for this year!  So hard to believe.  Over the last few weeks we have been super busy with school, gardening and planning end of year activities and all the while trying to keep our sanity during our hard school days :)  Not sure I have kept up that end of the bargain...

Today was one of the hardest days thus far!  Can I just say LONG DIVISION?! OH MY GOODNESS!!  Never thought that would be so difficult to teach but it was!  After 3 1/2 hours, more then 20 problems, 3 different "teachers", tears, and even a little blood (JUST KIDDING)...HE FINALLY GOT IT!  Sheesh.  I admit it.  I lost my temper, pulled out some hair, slammed a door and cried like a baby, LOL!  But he got it and that's all that matters.  Didn't say I was perfect, just a real mom trying to teach long division to a hard headed little boy and that is a recipe for a very difficult day.

So after I came out of my room from pouting... he showed me the circled problem he worked CORRECTLY without any help!!!  I gave the the biggest and longest hug ever and then we had some lunch.  We feel so much better now.  I hate having bad days.  All the good days don't even come to mind when you are having a bad day.  All the victories, successes and great moments seem to be forgotten and stored away in never never land.  In the midst of turmoil, it is so hard to see the whole picture and remember the reason we are doing this in the first place.  So taking my husband's advice, I took a deep breath, went for a walk and remembered all the good days.  I wanted to share some of those with all of you:

This is Bubba at ELO playing dodgeball during PE.  He looks so little but the guy behind him is a giant!  It makes me smile every time I see it :)

 Here is another great day at ELO in Critical Thinking class.  They are trying to do something with an egg :)

One of our great park days after ELO.  Loved seeing the "older" kids still enjoying the swings!

My crazy, sweet friend got hold of my phone during our Presidents' class and had a little fun!  This picture always makes me happy when I am having a bad day :)

We learned about butterflies in Science this year and found this beautiful butterfly in our green house.  It could not escape, so Bubba rescued it.  Pretty cool!

This is not a recent picture but it always reminds me that even when Little Man has a bad day, he is still a little boy and deserves his mother's forgiving heart!

I am so glad that God decided to forgive me, even after all the miserable, stupid and ignorant things I have done.  Man, He must have been really angry at me at times and even today when my patience ran thin.  But He still loves me and I most definitely still love my Little Man.

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. Matthew 6:14

Our Schedule

I get asked all the time what our schedule is like during the day.  So, I thought I would post a little bit about what our day looks like at the Sutton Ponderosa.  However, this can change on any given day at any given moment, depending on what is going on.  I have the authority to do that since I have the privilege of running this shindig :)  So here we go...

6:30 Mom rise and shine
6:45 Mom workout
7:45 Bible time for Mom
8:00 Boys up/Breakfast
9:00 Bible with boys
9:30 History with boys
10:30 Break
10:45 Little man Math on the computer
          Brother has Science
11:15 Little man Science with me
         Brother has Math on computer
11:45 Violin/Handwriting
12:00 Lunch/play time
1:00 Little man English with me
        Brother has English on computer
1:30 PE
2:00 Brother has Spanish on computer
2:30 (Tuesday's) Violin lessons

We follow this schedule Monday-Thursday with no school on Friday, unless they didn't finish something during the week.  Now on three Wednesday's a month, we have ELO (our Co-op).  The boys meet with their own grade from 8:30-12:30 and they have Science, PE, Art, Presidents, Geography, and Critical Thinking.  We also have field trips on some Fridays or various days during the month and we adjust our schedule accordingly.  However, this schedule looks great on paper but is not always followed to the "T"!  Some days we are done by lunch and somedays we may go until 3 or so.  Some days Mom may have various "discipline" on various children and may cause unnecessary delays in various assignments :) But all in all this pretty much wraps it up.

So there you have it!  A breakdown of our day.  Pretty simple.  I use the Well Planned Day planner to schedule out all assignments for the week and LOVE IT.  Watch for a follow up post to see which curriculum we use for each child and subject.

The Sawmill

It's here!  We thought it would never arrive!  We were so excited the day they called and said it would be out the next morning between 8 and 10 AM.  They finally got here a little before noon and low and behold, they only brought us part of the mill!!!  What a bummer!  Sexy Man had to drive 30 miles to pick up the rest and bring it home.  He happily did it though :)  He could not wait to start putting it together.  It took him approximately 7-8 hours to put it together and by that time it was 9 pm.  So you know what he HAD to do....CUT WOOD!

At 10:30, I finally had to stop him.  I told him the neighbors were going to call the cops on us!  It is VERY LOUD!  He was having a blast though!

That is one happy man, if I ever saw one!  Love the new look, honey :)

 Of course, his dad had to come along and help.  We are always little kids to our parents :)  Had to make sure he wouldn't get hurt...

 Look at all the logs still to go and more waiting in the woods!!!  Think he will be busy on his days off for a while.

 Ten years ago, we found this company call Logosol...

Today, one of our dreams became reality!

It is the coolest thing to be able to make your own lumber from trees off of your own property that your dad bought back in the 50's!  This is just a start after one log of pine and one maple. We are officially on our way to that log home we have been dreaming of!  God is so good!

Psalm 37:4

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Great Way to Shop

I have found a new app for my phone that I LOVE!  It is called Shopkick.  You open up the app and walk into stores like Target, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and the list goes on.  They give you "kicks" or points for walking in and you use those points to go toward gift cards for those stores!  How awesome is that?!  They also give you points for scanning certain items while you are in the stores.  You can also link your card and earn points for items you purchase.  I have had this app for a couple of weeks and have already earned enough points to get a Target gift card.  You can download it here and get started today!

I will get "kicks" each time one of you signs up and starts using the app.  You can then do the same and invite your friends.  I am really excited about this app and know it is going to come in quite handy :)  The boys love to help me in the store now and find the items we need to scan.  It keeps them busy as I shop!  Pretty cool if you ask me.  It is a free app.  Try it out!

Homeschool Book Fair

Well, I can't believe it is that time again.  The Homeschool Book Fair in Arlington registration is now open!  It is scheduled for May 10 and 11.  This is a GREAT place to get more information about homeschooling if you are throwing around the idea for your family or if you are a veteran homeschooler.

A great friend invited me to this two years ago when I was thinking about homeschooling and I decided to check it out.  I decided that I only needed to go one day instead of two and got up at 5 am on that Saturday and drove to Arlington and stayed until it closed!  Definitely not enough time to see everything!  It was overwhelming, but WONDERFUL!  They have TONS of booths setup with different curriculum to look at for all ages.  Even some of the people that wrote the curriculum are there for you to visit with and ask questions and see if their curriculum might be a fit for your child.  They also have brief seminars going on all day, both days, from  anything about thinking about homeschooling to how to teach your kids how to write!  I knew that day that the next time I would definitely go BOTH days!  Should have listened to my friend :)

I highly recommend this book fair!  When I left last year, I was already looking forward to going back this year.  We are even taking the boys this year so they will have some input on what they will be learning and how.  They are SUPER excited about it.

Although I did a TON of research before we started homeschooling, including but not limited to, books and various websites, the Book Fair was by far the most informative.  It definitely helped me make up my mind to homeschool.  It was very helpful seeing the 100's, if not more, people there that were homeschooling.  I found out I would not be in this alone and that all homeschoolers are not WEIRD :)

Please let me know if you are considering homeschooling your children.  I would LOVE to talk to you about it and give you some general direction.  Start with checking out the Homeschool Book Fair and giving it lots of PRAYER!  Homeschooling has drastically changed our lives and I am so thankful that we jumped in and listened to His calling for our family.  A true blessing in so many ways!

 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Log Surfing

Okay, so Texas may not have beautiful beaches filled with white sand or endless blue ocean to surf the waves but we do have lots of beautiful and exciting things here.  Sometimes it just takes a little imagination but the possibilities are endless!

We had a big storm here last week and it took out a LOT of trees on our place.  So what is a man to do with all that timber just laying around on the ground to rot?!  Well, the only LOGICAL thing in HIS mind, buy a sawmill!  Yep!  It will be arriving here next week!  So you know what that means...a lot of sawing, moving logs, using tractors and last but not least, LOTS OF MANLY MUSCLE!

I went along with it because I knew I would get to see a LOT of this and how much better can it get for us ladies than that?!  I could watch him work ALL DAY :)

In the midst of all of this work, Sexy Man (yep, that's what I call him, LOL), thinks of a GREAT way to have fun:  LOG SURFING!

What a great way to have some fun in the midst of all the work that is yet to be done.  Just hop right on as Grandaddy pulls you back to the house to unload the wood!  So, my oldest thought this was an awesome idea and decided he would be next to try it.

And he's going....

Going...

GONE! HA!

What a blast!

And even Grandaddy had fun!  His job was pulling everyone on the logs and watching them laugh and have a ball.  Hard to believe he is 81 and still working hard!  He LOVES his tractor.  I think he his ready for another storm :)

So, now that we have most of the trees to the house, the cutting will begin soon.  I wonder what kind of games we can make out of that??  Maybe, uuummm, try to keep all 10 fingers and toes??!!  That should be fun, LOL!!  What a great afternoon, beautiful weather, and some awesome LOG SURFING!

Only at the Sutton Ponderosa!!!

Boys and Their Toys

For those of you that don't know about Old Red, it was my Paw Paw's tractor.  He bought it brand new and gardened with it for years.  He drove it under his shed one winter and never used it again...  My Uncle decided to give it to Jason a few years ago.  Jason worked long and hard restoring it and got it running. It was music to my ears!  Seeing the love of my life up on the tractor that my Paw Paw used for years to plow up the dirt and feed his family.  Wow!  Best present in the world to this "little girl" or so my Paw Paw called me!  Love him and miss him every single day of my life!

I mentioned in my last blog how gardening is great for homeschool!  Well, we found ourselves caught up with school on Thursday afternoon and next thing I know, I hear Old Red running again!  After an hour of it's low hum, it stopped.  I got up and peered out my window and this is what I saw....

Talk about making a mama's heart melt!  Two of my men chillin' on the trampoline.  That little guy sure does LOVE his daddy!  And wants to be just like him when he grows up.  They are laying and dreaming about the garden and all the work they have done in the dirt.  Give a man some dirt and a tractor and the dreams he can dream are endless...

My little guy disc up the whole garden by himself on his great grandfather's tractor!  Oh, how I wish he could have been here to see it.  He would be grinning from ear to ear and I would be sitting in his lap, hugging his neck like there's no tomorrow!  

Who says the tractor has to be green?  This girl will take a ride on this little red tractor any day!

Starting Back

Well, I did not get to post very much in the last month or so.  We were SUPER busy with field trips, ELO, Scentsy sales and Christmas.  But it was WONDERFUL to relax, visit with family and plan for the new year!  Last week I started working on the boys' schedules for the rest of the semester and realized we only have 18 weeks of our school left!

Yep, that's right.  May 16th should be our last day of school, if all goes well :)  So excited that we will have some extra time off before it gets too terribly hot and the garden starts coming in.  Another reason we LOVE homeschooling!  The first day back this semester, after the boys finished their school work, it was outside to start tilling up the garden spot.  Jamison drove and tilled and Edison added up how many seeds would be needed per row and how much of each veggie we would plant and what the total price would be.  Gardens are GREAT for school!

On another note... I am reading this wonderful book that I just picked up by chance!  I got it at church the other day with a lot of other books that someone was giving away for free(I think I could literally start my own library, sheesh!).  I love it so far.  It basically tells you how anyone can stay home and homeschool if that is what God is calling your family to do.  It tells about their hardships and different ideas and tactics of how it is possible for anyone that is willing.  Definitely recommend it!

Last but not least, I am teaching Jamison how to write a personal narrative this week with his BJU English curriculum.  Lot harder than it sounds!! Trust me!  He chose to write about Christmas Break and some of the funs things that we did.  This is how he summed it up:

Wow!  This really touched my heart.  Maybe my kids are learning something after all.  Academics are great but isn't this what homeschooling is really all about?!  I think I am doing a lot of learning here myself...

Turn my eyes away from worthless things; renew my life according to your word. Psalm 119:37