2013 School Pictures

Introducing the Gracious Heart Homeschool 2013 Student Body. 

Cub- 13, rising 8th grader

Flower- 10, rising 6th grader.

I haven't homeschooled in a house with only 2 kids---well, ever. When we first started homeschooling, Dr.Dh and I were both in grad school and after a year of paying $400+ a month in child care costs, I quit my decent job and ran an in-home day-care; 7:30 -5:30 a.m. 5 days a week. We had 5 kids, 10 hours a day, plus our 2 for 3 years. Decent money, especially since we weren't giving most of it away for childcare and gas, but I earned every penny. I hauled 2 infants, 4 toddlers and a K-er to every park day and field trip all across southern California in our Ford LTD, read out loud for hours to the lot of them and spent hours and hours in parks and swimming pools and play grounds with them, did art projects and prepared and cleaned up mass quantities of food each week. Looking back on it I'm not sure when I studied, but I did earn a grad degree in the midst of it all.

Then we moved and had our 3rd child, so we were homeschooling with a 2nd grader, pre-K and infant. It would have been a great year homeschooling but my baby boy just couldn't get the hang of breathing and we spent an inordinate amount of time at the doctors, E.R. and hospital.  Then we moved and were homeschooling a 3rd grader, a k-er and an infant who was still struggling with the breathing thang and because he couldn't breathe laying down, he didn't sleep much, which meant I didn't sleep much because I was rocking and patting and praying over my distraught little guy and so it was a tiring year or two.

And then, by the grace of God, we added the two yahoos in the pictures above. Of course, we could have just stopped having kids, which I was told was the sensible/ responsible thing, and I could have gone back to work and we would be in much better shape in some ways. But these 2 kids have brought us joy unspeakable, brought healing to our hearts in a year of the deepest heart-ache, sing constantly, make crazy jokes, are awed by life and remind us that God is good and loves us so much, all of the time. They are living proof of His love for us.

It's going to be a good year. A bit quiet maybe, but a good year.

Check the Hop for tons more great pics! 

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