As a mom, my days are often saturated in whines and moans – and that’s just me.  Bring the kids into the equation and some days can sound like one long continuous complaint.  As a Christian – someone who owes her life, literally, to the saving grace of Jesus Christ dying on the cross for my sins – this is hardly gratitude.  God gives us so much that we should be thankful for.  His grace is abundant – from the daily breath we all get to breath to the most awesome of gifts: eternal life with Him; our debts wiped clean.

And yet, too often, we ignore what we take for granted; whine about what is missing and attribute credit to ourselves.  We believe that we got that job; did that task; looked that good; were that kind, because of our own strength… completely forgetting the designer and creator: the one who gave us everything and made us who we are. 

When we are thinking in the spirit of gratitude, it’s usually in reaction to a pleasing circumstance.  It is wonderful to thank God for the multitude of blessings he bestows upon us.  It is good to remember them.  Thanking God reminds us that it is He who deserves the credit; He who is the Lord of all. 

But, what about when times are tough?  When finances are tight? When spouses disappoint?  When loved ones are lost?  When tragedy strikes?  What then?

The Bible reminds us that we are to give thanks in ALL circumstances.  We are to thank God in times of wealth… and in times of poverty.  We are to thank God in times of health … and in times of sickness.  We are to thank God in times of happiness… and in times of great sadness.  And yet, in these times, what do we thank God for? 

We thank Him for the greatest, most perfect gift: His Son Jesus and salvation through Him.  We thank Him that His MASSIVE sacrifice – sending His son to die so that others may life – means that we can live life on this earth knowing, knowing, that our future is certain and our gain is all.  Our lives on this earth are but a speck.  ‘Leaving a legacy’ is laughable, when we consider that most great grandchildren won’t even know what our names were.  It is all meaningless with Him.  The wonderful moments and the tragic ones too – all meaningless without Him. 

Yet, if we know Him and love Him as our Saviour and Lord, tragedy may strike; poverty may prevail; relationships may disappoint – but we will always be able to thank God, because He overcomes all tragedy and all disappointments in the person, Jesus Christ.

There is no better reason to thank God.  And we do so by praying continually – and being joyful.

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

 ¹⁶Be joyful always; ¹⁷pray continually; ¹⁸give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Today, I want to remember, with great gratitude, what God has done for me – from the little daily blessings, to the most awesome gift ever.  And every Thursday, I hope to remember to take some time out of the busyness of life to stop and reflect and THANK God for some of these things specifically – in the good times and the bad.

So today, I want to thank God for…

1. cuddling with the kids during read aloud time
2. a blessed time in our first home group meeting for the year
3. my sweet husband’s reflections of late
4. the sunshine that broke through the clouds this afternoon
5. the moments of God-given patience in a not-so-patient-and-emotional day
6. Johanna
7. a new life – a new cousin – a healthy baby girl
8. a moving working body
9. delightful stories
10. soft baby hair

and His Awesome Story…

I read the following article the other day…

US teen pregnancy rate up after a decade

By JoAnne Allen

Washington - The US teen pregnancy rate rose in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade, reversing a long slide, a US think tank reported.
The overall teen pregnancy rate was up three percent in 2006, with a four percent rise in the rate of births and a one percent rise in the rate of abortions, according to the report by the Guttmacher Institute.
The United States has higher rates of teen pregnancy, birth and abortion than in other Western industrialised countries.
There were 71 pregnancies per 1 000 US girls aged 15-19. In 2006, seven percent of all teenage girls got pregnant, according to the report.
Fewer black teenage girls got pregnant, closing a gap with Hispanic teens. But rates among both groups were still significantly higher than for white teens, the report said, and rates went up for all ethnic groups.
"We’re not quite sure yet whether this is just a blip or whether it’s the beginning of a longer upward trend," Larry Finer, Guttmacher’s director for domestic research, said.
"It’s interesting to note that this flattening out of the rate and the increase in the rate is happening at the same time that we’ve seen substantial increases in funding for abstinence-only programs," Finer said.
"We do know that when we saw the big decline in the ’90s, that a lot of that decline was due to improved contraceptive use among teens."
The abstinence-only programs, backed by many social conservatives who oppose the teaching of contraception methods to teenagers in US schools, received about $1,3-billion in federal funds since the late 1990s.
The Obama administration’s 2010 budget eliminated spending for abstinence-only, shifting funds to pregnancy prevention education that include abstinence along with "medically accurate and age-appropriate" information.
New Mexico led the states with the highest teenage pregnancy rate with nine percent, followed by Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Mississippi.
New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Minnesota and North Dakota had the lowest rates of teen pregnancies. - Reuters

The pro-abstinence believer in me groans at an article like this: so full of obvious journalist tactics to sway the audience.  The English teacher in me delights at an article like this: so full of obvious journalist tactics to point out to my students.  Note the use of authoritative statistics?  The naming of authoritative people and groups?  Said authorities quoted?   The glaring omission of alternate explanations?

How about – the Western World is saturated in sexual messages in all shapes and forms.  And increasingly so in the last decade.  Virtually all mainstream sitcoms, drama series etc feature non-married adults hopping in and out of bed.  Movies, games and internet social media all perpetuate the image that sex is a normal, expected part of any dating relationship – and in some cases, any relationship.  You’re strange if you don’t – according to Hollywood and glossy America.  Perhaps the $1.3 billion in federal funds doesn’t quite match up to the multiple billions of dollars worth of sex education that the movie and media industries churn out….  Perhaps?

Craig’s company has a box at Newlands rugby ground.  They usually take clients, but sometimes, if the games aren’t big games, he can take staff or whoever, really (uncatered of course!) – and this Friday, he took us

Craig promised the girls he would take them one day.  The main reason they wanted to go was to sing the national anthem with the crowds!  Unfortunately, they only sing the anthem at the international games – which happen to be the Big Client games.  But, once they got over that disappointment, they got really excited about the prospect of cheering at a real life game (rather than watching daddy yell at gaa’s TV screen!)  Craig invited my family this time.  Next time we’ll take the Hayes side without the kiddies.  After Sun City, I think they deserve a more adult family night out! 

To get into the whole spirit of things, the kids made flags that afternoon and we dressed up in the blue, red and white of the Stormers.  Ready to beat the Sharks!

The kids were super amped.  Kiera was particularly fun to watch.  She was shouting with great gusto whilst punching the air, “Go Stormers, Go!  Go Storm those Sharks!”

Even Micah got into the spirit of things with his Stormers T-shirt – but he didn’t stay for the game; we found him a spot in the box to sleep in his tent.  He did very well to sleep with the noisy crowds.  Can you see them behind us?  Even Kirsty got herself a supporters cap and looked fantastic, as usual.

It was pretty awesome watching rugby live.  Everything is a hundred times bigger and more exciting in the flesh.  And I don’t even like rugby.  Sadly, I only find the running tries exciting.  You can keep your line outs, rucks and scrums.  I just like that moment the team I’m rooting for grabs the ball and makes a break and run for it.  We got to see that a couple times.  The stormers won 29-14!

Go Stormers!

This past week was our first full-steam-ahead week of school.  And what fun it was!  I’ve made some changes in our morning routine so that our time in the morning is productive.  As productive as it can be with 1 toddler and 1 preschooler demanding attention from time to time.  It’s amazing the difference just a little bit of decisive action can make in our mornings.  The two biggest distractions in our mornings have been a) the computer and b) the phone.  So, now I close down the computer (except on Thursdays when Kiera does her spelling test on the laptop) and ignore the phone.  No more “10 minutes here” or “half an hour there” disappearing while mom is distracted by the phone, emails et cetera.  (Now if only I could ignore the doorbell, too!)

So, while I apologise to those who’ve tried calling in the morning this past week (and in weeks to come!), I am delighted with the difference it has made in our mornings.  We’ve been able to read more; take things a little slower and I am infinitely more patient when I’m not pressed for time.  The kids aren’t running off as soon as the phone rings or getting frustrated that mom isn’t able to help them because she’s “quickly answering an important email”.   Hopefully I will be disciplined enough to keep this up!  Because, while the things we set out to do can be completed in an hour or two, taking the whole morning and including playtime with the boys and lots of great read alouds, has made our school mornings infinitely more relaxed and much more fun. 

My next experiment is to squish our 5 day programme into 4 days, leaving Fridays open (or some Tuesdays for a Coffee Morning break for me) for us to fill any gaps and do fun stuff like interesting experiments, drama shows, crafty activities.  Let’s hope it works!

This past week we put into practise some of my great intentions for the year, including doing Science experiments more regularly and making Kirstenbosch a regular visit.

Here the kids are figuring out how magnets work – what they attract and what they don’t.  The kid in me had loads of fun trailing after them trying to “stick” the magnet to all sorts of surfaces and things.  We then chose a few items and documented our hypothesis (whether we thought the item would attract the magnet or not) and the actual event.  Our Sonlight package includes a box full of Science non-consumable items, such as these magnets themselves.  Another big plus for Sonlight!  Making moms’ life easier seems to be their forte! 

I bought a family pass to Kirstenbosch (and other SA Botanical Gardens) this last year.  Besides being atrociously dealt with by their office and being cheated out of 1 month of our annual pass, we are looking forward to using it to spend more time in the beautiful gardens.  My plan is to head to Kirstenbosch or some other natural location on Wednesday afternoons for our Nature study and Science components of school work. 

This week, despite the rainy weather, we headed off and had a wonderful afternoon under the Magic Tree – reading stories, chomping biscuits and finding plants (the aim is to pick up flowers and leaves fallen on the ground), discussing them, drawing them and writing about them in our Nature Journals.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed the entire outing, including running around in the huge open spaces our tiny garden doesn’t allow.  And, due to the rather cloudy, drizzly weather, there was hardly anyone there.  Aside from the odd tourist group, we had the gardens to ourselves! 

Some kiddies hard at work…

Our nature journaling… (Kiera’s)

(Katie’s)

(Sam’s)

It was a lovely week, ending with gymnastics on Friday.  The girls have joined Brawn’s Gymnastics with Ashley and Natalie Hobbs and are LOVING it!  Katie has suffered from a fear of dropping (my friend Sally, who’s an OT, says it’s called “gravitational insecurity”) since she was a baby.  We’d throw her up in the air and catch her like we did with Kiera when she was a baby.  Instead of the loud chortles we’d expect, Katie would get a look of abject horror on her face,flail her little hands and arms and then wail in terror!  She’s been quite wary of any tumbling type of thing, but is getting better with more time spent on the jungle gym and now that she is swimming a lot and doing forward rolls, she is getting better.  Gymnastics should sort the rest of her issues out (I hope!) 

So, school has started in earnest.  We’re ironing out the creases, although, life is such that the creases will always reappear, and probably in different places.  Some days I will just have to start again with a different piece of cloth or just wing it with the wrinkled one!  And that’s ok.  As my sweet big sis said – there is no point aiming too high, as life predicts that we will fail.  So, we do what we can and try not to fret and know that our kids are soaking in so much more than we could possibly imagine or control.  So, perhaps I will remember on those particular “creased” days that being along for the ride is blessing enough!

DD-0

The Very Last Day…

Craig and Kerry dropped the kids off for the morning and lunch time.  The weather was grey and rainy – mirroring our moods exactly.  Strange that just the day before it was boiling hot and we were swimming.…  Strange to smell wet grass and need a jersey in the height of summer….

But, it did mean that the kids got to enjoy their last hot choc mugs together at our kitchen counter… and make chocolate icing Marie biscuits. 

How many photos like these do we have of these 5 already?  How old will they be when a picture like this is taken again?  Will we ever take another?

The kids wiled away their afternoon playing together – dressing up (or down – ah hem, Sam, where are your clothes?!); building castles; telling adventures stories.  Sam and Jesse have just begun connecting as little boys.  Sam is finally old enough for great interactive play and Jesse is such a great Big Cousin to teach him and play alongside him.  Will they pick up where they left off the next time we see them? 

After lunch, Becky even managed to have a nap in Katie’s bed – another last.  (Such a funny girl – she matter-of-factly stated to me that “when I wake up, Aunty Taryn, I am going to wake up sweaty”  Sure enough, she did!)

All too soon, it was 2pm and time to take them back to KP for our last goodbyes and their trip to the airport.  Jesse was jumping out of his skin with excitement.  The buzz was contagious and all our kids were flying about, laughing and shrieking and having fun… and catching those last few moments on the swing and playing catch.

Granny had some fun too – yes, that’s Emma-Kate packed up in there!

My heart lurched when I read their packing label on their suitcases – my brother’s name with a home address that ends in “Perth, Australia”.  Is this for real?  The empty hollow of the night before erupted into a rush of terrible sadness – the ebb and flow of deep, deep sorrow remains with me.  But in that moment and in the moments to follow, my throat, eyes and heart felt crushed in the overbearing weight of waves of loss. 

Smiles in this last photo of us with Makhulu – their wonderful caring weekly housekeeper, Veronica… 

…heart-breaking tears when we hugged for the last time.  Just the memory of those last hugs hurt.  I know we have Heaven.  I know that we even have the potential to see each other again on this earth – so many lose loved ones, not to another country, but to death and forever.  I know I should feel a sense of gratitude for these things that I do still have.  And I do, cerebrally.  But emotionally, now, it feels like a loss too heavy to dwell on, without the sometimes-gentle-sometimes-fierce waves of sadness coming crashing down and enveloping me in the sea of self-pity.  Funny how times like these really highlight our sinfulness and selfishness…

Taking photos of these last moments was just about all I could do to keep myself from crumbling to the floor in gut-wrenching tears.  Having something practical to do helped ward off the worst…

The kids seemed oblivious to the emotions of the adults.  Instead they clambered in the car, one last time, visiting with their cousins and dishing out the “see you tomorrow” variety of hugs.  Kiera noticed my reddened face at one time and in that moment felt the importance of it all and tried to muster up her own tears.  But, the weight of the goodbye only seemed to sink in when she hugged Craig goodbye.  That hug was more of the “don’t ever leave me” variety.

Craig and Kerry didn’t want huge crowds at the airport wishing them goodbye – too difficult; too sad; too frustrating and too .. arb!  So, we waved them goodbye as mom and dad chauffeured them to CT International.  The grey Combi carrying away my precious family with the grey sky behind them … how more like a Hollywood movie could this setting be?   I have a dozen pictures of the car.  A stupid car.  A dozen of stupid pictures to keep the dozen stupid tears from spilling over once again.

And then, they were gone.  We were staring at a closed gate and the moving traffic beyond it.  There was nothing left for us to do.  No last words.  No “Oh I forgot…” phone calls.  No “see you later”s.  Just an empty driveway and nothing else to do.

Except, get into our own grey vehicle and head home on wet, grey roads, almost blinded by tears, as they headed to the airport. 

Mom and Dad took these last photos – the loading up, the checking in and … the last waves goodbye.  Apparently they managed this parting without the expected onslaught of emotion – a small grace. 

How have we fared since then?  It’s been tough.  I know hundreds, no MILLIONS, of people experience this daily.  But, I’ve never had to say a goodbye like this to my brother and my best friend in one go.  So, it’s been hard.  And I suspect that while the moments will grow further apart, they will return from time to time.  Despite the fact that my beloved big sis has lived overseas for almost half her life, the distance between us frustrates me and saddens me deeply at times – even after all these years.  I can’t imagine it will be any different for our now Aussie family….

And how have they fared since then?  The sadness has been deep for them too – so many conflicting emotions.  They look forward to so many new adventures; reuniting with Rog and Les, Kerry’s wonderful parents, and serving Christ in Perth.  Yet, leaving their friends, their church family, their family, their mountain, city and country behind dulls excitement and weighs heavily on their hearts too. 

Pray for them, please.  They write about some of their experiences so far on their blog: www.craigandkerry.wordpress.com  - it’s a new world!

Family supper at KP….  Another last of the 5 grandkids gathered around a plastic garden table eating (or in Sam and Becky’s case, not eating) their supper.  And some more wild dashing about, exploring and creating adventures.

Another last of the adult family gathered around the same table for relaxed chatter and gentle teasing (no Kirsty, you may NOT have more icecream!) 

Our parting gift was this magnetic fridge write-and-wipe memo board.  One day, the inscription won’t be as hard to bear.  I hope that day is soon. 

How horribly sad to see my husband tear up as he said goodbye to Craig and Kerry for the last time.  Monday night was indeed a very sad night.  I went to bed that night feeling hollow, like all emotion had been swept away in the flood of shed and unshed tears, leaving me bereft.  Melodramatic?  Probably.  But none-the-less, very real. 

Saturday – 4 days ‘til DD.

The last Saturday before Craig and Kerry leave our shores.  And we spent it – enjoying friends at our market in a loose excuse to have a get-to-gether (it was my birthday a while back).

Stuffing faces seemed to be the order of the day…

And that evening had our last dinner out with Craig and Kerry at a really fantastic restaurant at the Waterfront called Krugmann’s Grill.  I know, appalling name.  But, AWESOME food at very reasonable prices.  They have delicious sushi and a ton of other yummy meals.  I love the setting too – we had a private room to ourselves.  Lovely!  We all (ok, not Kerry!) had sushi to share for starters and then dived into their various meals – amazing Camembert sweet chilli burger; sole; steak; curry.  Mmmm.

Of course, we had to have lots of fun pics to commemorate our last time together.  Bittersweet once again. 

Kerry insists on these, I promise you … (but, truth be told, we enjoy acting a little teenaged from time to time!)

Thanks guys for a lovely evening.  C&K, these posts are difficult to write, I miss you so!

On Wednesday 13th January, schools in the Western Cape began their 2010 year.  So while our kids didn’t get to enjoy the excitement that comes with donning a crisp new school uniform and heading off to a new grade or even a new school, they did get to enjoy a back-to-school party with their Lunch Bunch Co-op (Co-operative group of homeschooling families). 

This year two new families join us to boost our second generation numbers.  Sam and Caleb are old enough now to join in, but not quite old enough to cope with the level aimed at our First Generation LBers (1st GLBers).  So, this year the T family and the P family join us, making our 2nd GLBers a group of four kids: 3 boys and 1 girl. 

Sue opened her home, organised the moms and executed the games – THANKS SUE!  She began with a fun game of musical statues, which Micah even joined in for.

The biggies loved the event, but the littlies joined in like they’re official LBers since Day Dot.  Meet our 3rd GLBers… Ethan, Micah and Carys…

The 1G and 2G LBers split for the next game.  Sue had some ingenious Q&A game involving socks, letters and much guessing for the big kids.  They each came away with a small prize for their efforts.

While the little kids got to do a memory game – objects on a tray.  I haven’t done this game with little littlies in a while – so dear Taryn completely overwhelmed our 4 and 3 year olds with 10 items on the tray from the start.  We soon whittled that down to 4 completely different items with much better success!

A quick change into swim gear and water games outside was our next move.  And considering that the temperature on Wednesday hovered around 38 degrees C (100 F) these games were most welcome!  First – water balloon tossing…

Second – water relay.  The kids had to get a leaky packet of water across the heads of their team mates and into the bucket of water.  The team with the most water in their bucket won.  The most fun had involved much spraying of much water.

Howz this for some fun loving kiddies?

Finally, some yummy food was consumed (and funny faces pulled) – before SWIM time.  Yes, the rest of the time was spent in the pool.  And I have no photos cos I was IN the pool too.  With 50% of my kids being non-swimmers, I needed to ensure that no one drowned.  This was one of those moments when I was actually glad that I was required in the pool for the temperatures were HOT HOT HOT.  Micah, however, thinks he doesn’t need any help whatsoever and powers around the pool in just his armbands – his little legs churning the water beneath him to get him going.  Very cute

Home time by 12pm – what a great first day of our school year! 

… we love Sonlight is …

they really really REALLY give great service.

How many companies do you know of that deliver what they promise every time?  And ON time?

Navigating the Sonlight website has been super duper easy.  They make the whole buying process dead easy.  They explain every detail and go to great pains to make sure that the customer is well looked after.  And they’re so transparent – customers are allowed to critique the books they have on offer with unedited reviews.  Plus, I really love their customer forums where I can get answers to just about any question.

But, today, I found another great reason to love Sonlight.

It began when I discovered that my Science 1 instructor’s guide had been mispunched.

I wrote them a brief email yesterday explaining that because the guide had been mispunched, it wouldn’t fit into my Sonlight binder, because the bottom hole wasn’t aligned correctly.  It’s a minor thing.  I could just repunch holes into the guide.  But, it would be nice not to have to do that.  So, I thought I’d write to them and just make them aware of this minor error.

I received an answer in a matter of hours – how is this for an email one would love to receive from all companies…

Dear TARYN HAYES,

In the next business day, my team will ship your Sonlight order.

I’m sorry for the error in your original order. When this corrected shipment arrives, please let me know
if there is anything more I can do to make it right. As confirmation (and for your records), you’ll find
all your order details at the end of this email. I’ve also included your order number for quick, easy
reference.

Just a couple details you’ll want to notice:

Your packing slip says "No Charge." Since we are processing this order to correct an error or problem with
a previous shipment, this one is marked as a "No Charge" order. That means you’ve already paid for the
items, and you owe nothing more. Also…

NEW order number! Because we’ve actually put together a new shipment for you, Sonlight’s computer system
has given the package a new order number. If you have further questions or feedback about THIS shipment,
you can get all the help you need simply by giving us order XXXXXXX  when you call or email.

Again, this corrected "No Charge" order will leave the Sonlight warehouse within one business day. My
Customer Fulfillment Team usually ships your orders within 3-10 business days, but this one gets special
attention. When we need to correct an error, we handle your package as a priority–ahead of new orders.
Thank you again for letting us correct your order. Please, always let me know how Sonlight can continue
to serve you and your family. You can email me any time, or call direct (Monday-Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm
Mountain time):

    Email:  main@sonlight.com
    Phone:  303-730-6292 (Monday-Friday, 9:30am-4:30pm Mountain time).

And thank you for choosing Sonlight Curriculum.

Sincerely,
Tim Heil
Customer Relations Manager
Sonlight Curriculum, Ltd.

To top it off, I got another, more personal email from Karla …

Thank you, Taryn, for your order and your email. My name is Karla and I am happy to help you today.

Thank you for your mental picture of box day - especially about the FedEx man. I love stories like that.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the disappointment you experienced with the holes in your Science 1 guide. Thankfully, you can still use the guide until your new one arrives and then dispose of it.

The paperwork has been completed to get your new, better punched Science 1 guide out to you right away. It should leave here no later than Friday so that you receive it within the next few weeks at the latest.

It has been a pleasure serving you today. Please let me know if I can assist you further.

Blessings!

Karla at Sonlight

Customer Fulfillment

Sonlight Curriculum Ltd.

"The way you wish you’d been taught. Guaranteed!"

There are a hundred different curriculum companies out there offering all sorts of great programmes for homeschoolers.  But, with service like this, who would ever want to swap?  I am so glad we found Sonlight right off the bat and I plan to stick with Sonlight for as long as we homeschool!

_______________________________

Sonlight offers First Time Customers a great opportunity to get $5 off their first order of $50 or more.  Click the link below and we both score – I get some points for introducing you and you get as much as 10% off your first order!

It’s been two years since we last had a Sonlight Box Day.  Two years is enough time to warrant much excitement and anticipation here in the Hayes home.  And thanks to FedEx, Sonlight’s preferred courier, we could track our box across the world.  Which is exactly what we did…

Kiera and I kept a close watch on the FedEx tracking service website to see where in the world our parcels were.  Kiera cut out and stuck little FedEx notes on our world map as the website was updated with our parcels’ latest stop off point.  We connected the notes with Kiera’s wool and created our own visual tracking record.  Starting in Littleton, CO – home to Sonlight, our box travelled to Memphis, TN – then to Paris, France – then to Johannesburg, South Africa – and finally to the FedEx Depot, Cape Town….

Then, early on Thursday morning (5 working days since the order!) our doorbell rang.  Before breakfast; before chores; before kids were even out of pjs….  Mom Taryn said “It’s FedEx!” and the kids made a mad dash out the door.  Mikey was in the lead until Katie gave him a hand off (in her defence, she was saying he needed to be careful of the gate in the picture below)

And there he was!  Mr FedEx Delivery Guy!  This guy looked extremely bemused the entire time he was in our company.  He hardly said a word, beyond “sign here”, but, boy, did he stare at us like we all had 5 heads and 6 feet.  Asking him if I could take a picture of him holding our books really took the cake. 

Tell me that’s not a face of much bemusement?!

Kiera dragged Mr FedEx off to our map to show him how we’ve been “tracking you!” (she said)

We eventually let Mr FedEx go.  And then Mean Mommy put the box opening brakes on.  Nooooooooo box opening until breakfast has been eaten, dishwasher unpacked, beds made, rooms tidy, kids dressed, hair and teeth brush … and any other chore type task I could squeeze in there.  Who would’ve thought the morning chores would speed by so quickly?!

Finally, we dragged our boxes outside for some sunshine fun and better photo opps! 

And so the box opening began…

One little guy refused to be left out of the fun and came to have a look see…

Soon it will be your turn Mikey!

Then, mom got in on the fun. 

By the time the boxes were completely unpacked, the morning sun was heating up – so we brought everything back inside.  But Sonlight was still weaving its magic – Sam had a ball inside the box…

and the girls picked up where they left off.  Ah!  Nothing like seeing one’s kids engrossed in great books with piles more waiting to be enjoyed!

After that came the big sort out – the girls helped me check off each book on the list to make sure we had everything.  Sorting the books went a lot quicker with their help.  Now the mammoth task lies ahead of me – covering books in protective plastic (they have to last 4 kids afterall); sorting out my instructor’s guides; planning the year etc.

_____________________________

Sonlight has a great offer for first time buyers – if you order through them using THIS LINK, you will get $5 off your first order of $50 or more.  And I get some rewards points for introducing you.  Go ahead, use it!