Dear Children,

The other day in the midst of another chaotic, crazy lunch hour, that only homeschool mom's know about, I yelled, "I love my life" or something to that effect. Even though it was crazy and wild and loud, I am just thrilled because I get to be your Mom. I get to 'do life' with you each and every day.

We have one more history lesson to do, then school is over for this year. Every year has its own unique challenges. This year, wow! Teaching Annika to read, making sure Brooklyn was properly occupied, explaining fractions to Logan, and helping Jamison learn to spell were just some of the challenges we faced together.

We had some really good days. We had some really funny moments, like the time I said (by mistake) that whale babies are born teeth first.:) We also had some really tough stuff to muck through, bad attitudes, disrespect, carelessness, arguments and frustration. I think we all grew in our ways of solving problems. I hope we all learned that problems solved on our own don't work out like problems taken to God.

I loved the nature hike we did last October. I remember how hard it was for me to lay aside school and just go, now it's one of my best memories from this school year. I also remember all the good talks we had in history class, especially talking about the North and the South rivalry in the Civil War and how it must have felt to be on either side.

I remember the classes Annika and I had every morning. You learned to read unbelievably easy and sometimes I still ask myself if you learned on your own or if I taught you. Reading your very first story that you wrote by yourself was so special. You love to write and you buy another notebook every chance you get.

And Brooke- oh my! You have added so much spice to our school days. Sometimes you 'hide' under the table and pretend to be a dog, or you sit right next to Annika and she explains subtraction to you. You love to listen to Narnia in your bedroom or look at books. You learned all your sounds from listening to Annika and recognize a whole bunch of words. One of my favorite memories is the way you 'read' chapter books page by page and use a bookmark to mark where you're at.

And I can't forget all those fun break times, playing Whistle, Wink or Wave, Kick the Can, Hide and Seek, Blow Ball, or Jump Rope. I think of the times we did exercises and ran up and down the stairs until we couldn't go any more.

Morning devotions was such a special time. Finishing up the Uncle Arthur Bible Stories, memorizing Scriptures, praying and singing together and reading the Little House books to you aloud. Sometimes we had deep discussions, other times we were a split second away from total chaos.

I met someone the other day who asked what it would take for us to send our kids to school. I said simply, "God". He called us to homeschool and He would have to call us away from it as well. I sure hope I could hear Him because I really, really love teaching you guys.

I'm as excited as you are about summer vacation. But when August rolls around, I'll be so grateful that I get to be your teacher once again.

Love,
Mom