Family Photo's !

Hello !

I am SO excited to share our family photo's. Dabbling in photography, you would expect us to have a lot of family photo's, but like most people, my family gets pushed on the back burner. I have tons of photo's of my kids, but ones with Shawn and I, are few and far between.

What's best for our family ?

Ok,

First let me apologize for any grammatical errors etc. I hope you can see past any you come across and make since of my sometimes rambling way of explaining things !

  So when I first considered home schooling, I had a conversation with my best friend Jennifer.
She said "  Whatever works best for your family " ...at first I kinda thought of it as a generic answer you would give just because you don't really have any advice.  However after home schooling for a short time now, I realize what a jewel of information that really is. When I really think about it, I can see that for right now, at this stage in our lives and the circumstances we are in, it just makes since. Also other people who don't understand home schooling, also may not be able to wrap their minds around the idea because it either wouldn't fit into their family or they just can't see how it could. And that's ok ! It is NOT for everyone and the last thing both sides of the fence want is children slipping through the cracks uneducated.

  So for our family, the decision was left up to me alone. My husband is pro home school, being home schooled himself, and very anti public school. That's more based on decisions made by the government directly effecting the schools then it is poor teaching etc. In our case, we have a church run Christian school available to us, and for a year we enjoyed it to it's fullest. But like I said, circumstances change, and for us, financial circumstances changed. We had other factors that lead us to question if home schooling might be a smart move for the time being. At first I was thrilled. No more getting up at 7:00 am, getting 2 sleepy, grouchy, whiny girls ready for school. No more waking the baby up right in the middle of his naps to pick up the girls, no more waiting in line at school, and then the kids running outside as soon as we got him without so much as a hug. No more confusing homework assignments with no instructions other then the girls saying " I don't know what we are supposed to do ".

   At first I thought this was awesome, then I found out how hard it is. Teaching a child to read is like wanting to pull each eyelash out one by one lol. Can we tell I have to WORK at patience ?? So we struggled through the end of a year and I was never more thankful to see Summer in my life !

   Then in no time, it's time for school again. I chose an all inclusive home school program complete with video's, and while it's not perfect, it's a lot more my style. But that's the thing. You get to make so many more choices. You get to choose what truly works best for you, your children, your husband and your lifestyle in general.

  In our case, my husband works from home on Monday and Fridays. He has an at home office, and while I love it because he's home, he's also working way more than 8 hours a day. He really sleeps 8 ( sometimes ) is with us 2 hours a day, and the rest of the time is working. He owns a business and much like running a house, he's constantly interrupted,  and needed anytime day or night. It has its benefits and drawbacks. But that is our life right now, and for us, home schooling has been a blessing. It allows us to flex our daily schedule more around Shawn's, allowing us more daddy time. It also makes it easier on us. No more early mornings getting everyone off to school late when the toddler decided to have a teething fit at 4 am.

  In my opinion, it lets us break away from the daily set schedule and allows us to live more in the time we have. My girls sit down and do a good solid 4-5 hours of actual school work each day ( MOST DAYS ) and we are usually done everyday by 2 and that's not even getting started till 9 or sometimes 10 am.

  Today, I am having a super thankful for home schooling day. I have had MORE days where I am questioning everything. But the most important thing to me and Shawn is what is overall best for our children, the most nurturing environment with the freedom to grow into independent thinkers, and children who are problem solvers.

   So these are just some things on my mind today. For us, home schooling is just a piece of the puzzle of life we are on right now. We are not hard core one way or the other. Both sides have pros/cons and right now we feel our greatest benefit would be from schooling our children at home. However that may change ! So stay tuned !

  I pray you all have a Happy and Safe CHRISTmas and a wonderful beginning to a New Year !

Christmas Cousin's Photo's

So this year for the first time, we got all the cousin's together for Christmas Jammie photo's. This is a concept I saw on Pintrest last year and we didn't have time to pull it off.

This year we decided to give it a try and I am pretty pleased with the result.

Had you seen all the craziness, you would be shocked we even got a decent photo

For one, it was kinda wet and muddy, all the little's were in PJ's and the younger ones had on footie jammies. Then there was the twin sized bed to haul out into the woods. Then we have 4 mothers ( us ) 3 different camera's going and multiple limbs to trip over lol. Looking back, I can't believe we did this without getting frustrated ! Sometimes it helps to NOT think things all the way through. Ok, so here are a few of my personal fav from the session.

This one is by far my FAV of the ENTIRE session of my kids. Matthew was so rowdy jumping all over the bed, jumping OFF the bed, rolling off the bed, etc. BUT for this one glorious shot, he nailed it ! The girls as usual are adorable, and do what they are told and stay where they are asked, but with a wild card like my little man, it's still never easy. 

 This is my niece Leila. She is 1 and during this session, she was a busy little bee : ) I did manage to grab a couple shots of her looking at me ! Not easy or sometimes even possible with a mobile 1 year old !

This was Chelsey's idea I believe. And it's one of my fav's ! Brooke has just now gotten into a habit of wanting to read Matthew a bedtime story at night. She loves her siblings more then I have EVER seen anyone. I realize how very blessed I am and I am so THANKFUL to the Lord for each and every one of my little's. 

I LOVE the way Leila is holding onto Brooke's arm, Matthew is slumping down lol And just the entire photo in general.

 This was the ONLY shot I got of all the grandkids looking my direction ! I love it ! LOVE it.

NOW for an outtake lol 

What the heck is Matthew doing ???? LETS take a CLOSER look

YUP, I have NO idea what face this is, but it was NOT the only one that day lol 

I hope you enjoyed this photo's as much as we enjoy them ! Merry Christmas from the Bryan family and Happy New Year ! 

Abeka Video Streaming Curriculum

     As I mentioned before, we are new to homeschooling. Part of last year we took the girls out of their private school and started sing, spell, read and write with them. They liked it, but we didn't have the money to spend on anything complete and I supplemented with workbooks from walmart, Iphone apps, and a couple of websites.

I by no means felt like it was sufficient, but we also  went through a move right after we took the girls out of school and it seemed like it was no time before it was summer.

I had intended to HS through the summer, but it didn't work out that way.


     So I was on the hunt for a complete home school package. I am not yet one of those mom's who can pick and choose the best thing for each subject for each kid. I just don't have the capacity for it yet. I also don't know my children's learning styles well enough to choose. So I decided to go with Abeka. It is expensive for sure, but there was something about it being a complete curriculum that put my very  troubled doubtful mind at ease. So to me, it's worth it. Also the great thing about the option we chose is that it's the video program. The video's are a recorded teacher in a classroom teaching the lessons. I love that idea. I am no longer responsible to explain things to my kids. ESPECIALLY phonics. For whatever reason I have a hard time explaining that to my kids. I feel like I'm confusing them.  

I am basically there to get their materials ready, supervise their workbooks and have them read to me.

I will also be adding in my own arts and crafts things I find on pintrest to break up the subjects and make it a little more fun. Especially with girls !


I plan to also start Matthew with sensory type activities during out school time. With him being 2 I feel like most of the tot school things are too big for him, but their are ton's of idea's on pintrest for tot busy activities to keep them entertained and quite while the girls work. I do plan to have him watch the video's with them too. The video's seem very interactive. They have a lot of speaking out loud with the class, and answering the teacher back etc. I look forward to seeing how Matthew reacts to it. It reminds me a lot of how Dora the explorer is. The girls would scream out the answers when they were tot's ! lol

So this Tuesday marks out first day of school. We had a financial snag ( joys of being self employed ) and then had an issue with our debit card not going through due to a daily limit, which caused half of our shipment to be late. So even though we don't have Katie's books in, we are going to go ahead and start this Tuesday and I hope it's in that evening. We will be doing school Tuesdays through Fridays with our HS Co Op on Mondays.

Back to School Photo's

So after searching Pintrest for some inspiration, I found it ! I had to borrow a few props ( Desk, Globe, etc ) But after all the hard work ( from the girls and my Mom who let me use her yard and held my shade  ) I LOVE the way they turned out.

 I STILL by no means have it down perfectly, and we had a ton of photo's that just didn't turn out right. But that's one of the great things about photography. You can always take another shot ! 

Ok, enough with the corny puns : ) On with the Photo's !

And thanks to PicMonkey - I made these super cute collages 

Homeschooling in a Small Space

Homeschooling in a Small Space

                                                 A little less then a year ago we moved ... AGAIN. We found a super cute rental home that is 3 bedroom/ 2 bath. The house is great, but it's small. When we started our home school journey we were in a 4 bedroom 2 story house was a den we used as our school room. 

So I had to figure out how to incorporate what we need for home school into our very tiny dining area on a very tight budget. 

Chalk Board from Hobby Lobby

So first I decided to off center out table from the light. This gave us much more room inside the dining area and enabled me to get to the chalkboard. 

Then I made a trip to Wal - Mart where after several laps around our sad options for fabric, I FINALLY spotted this. I grabbed a matching bottle of craft paint, a little hot glue refill and this super cute little slate. The cross had actually fallen off of a sign I had and was in a drawer. SO I glued it on, measured and glued the fabric on a couple of magnet boards I also got from Wal - Mart for under 5 dollars and painted a picture frame I already had. 

I also had an old Lamp that was just stuck in a corner. I revamped the shade with left over fabric. 

again with the fabric lol I only bought a yard, but I had a lot left over. The frame was on a had that didn't match anything and the fabric flowers were left over fabric from another project. The grey flower is actually an earring that broke and I had kept the pieces in case I ever needed them for something. The girls love this because I have already started leaving them little messages in the mornings. 

15 dollar Wal - Mart bookcase. We bought this bookcase just to fill a blank space in our other house. It didn't get much use at all. When we moved, we just put it in the laundry room as a holder for junk. So I pulled it out and placed it in front of the window. It fits really well in the space. Also I had these wicker baskets from a different project, but the work so well for holding the kids books and supplies. 

In the right hand corner you can see a bag. It was my craft bag for scrap booking. I have since kinda gotten out of scrap booking and decided to turn it into a supply caddy. It's PERFECT ! I purchased it at Michael's years ago, but have seen them at Wal - Mart and Hobby Lobby. It has SO many little pouches for scissors, glue, colors, pencils, sharpers, glitter, paint and brushes, etc etc. Everything fits in it and it will be perfect when we get the urge to do a little home school outside !  

Our dry erase calendar fit perfectly on the side of our pantry. 

 And I EVEN had a little left over for a no sew valance in our kitchen. It dressed the sink area up so much ! All I did was iron down the side and hot glue them ! Took me 5 mins ! I already had a tension rod that fit perfect just sitting in our garage. It's crazy what you have laying around the house and when you get a little pintrest inspiration, what you can do ! 

So It's hard to tell from this angle, but I think this will work for us. Since I posted this picture I added some green seat cushions and I painted the dining table black with chalk board paint ! It's works perfect ! 

Shawn left us messages :) he's so sweet !!! And funny lol his message to Matthew was E-malk ? This is how Matthew asks for milk

I also cleaned out the bottom of our pantry. It was just a catch all and had the girls easy bake ovens in it. I had this plastic storage tub in the laundry room for just junk. It fit perfectly in the pantry and even had space on the side for my co op bag and a place in the front for all the cookie cutters I scored at a garage sale !