About to start week 5!

We have completed 4 weeks of homeschool! It has really gone smoothly, which I thank the Lord for! Owen is really enjoying (most of the time) the work and activities we are doing. Baxter loves to "do homeschool" on the days he is at home. Lucy is still being a super third child and napping for 1.5-2 hours each morning while we are doing school. I am thankful for the planning I did this summer that has allowed the fall to be low stress. I feel a little better about him not being in a classroom with another adult and other children - thankful for the opportunity to see his friendships with Baxter and Lucy grow, thankful for a chance to know him and spend time with him, thankful that when we have seen friends and other adults this week he has interacted very well and with joy.

One sweet thing is that Owen does a journal time every morning we do school. He has to draw a picture and then write one sentence about it. He can either do something that he thinks up on his own or get an idea from the "journal ideas" envelope. This hasn't been a favorite time of his - too vague I think. One day he was super cranky. I had him draw a picture of how he was feeling. He drew a sad face on one page and a happy face on the other. One said "I am sad" and the other said "I am happy." I know that feeling well - happy sad! Since that day, I have not asked him to draw how he is feeling, but he often will do it on his own. He'll do his one journal page from his mind or the envelope and then do a 2nd page with a smiley face that says "I am happy." I am thankful for that!

We're not sure what the future holds, but we are thankful for where we are today! This weekend Matt led a young adults beach retreat through church in Corolla, NC. We left as a family Friday morning - spent time at the beach house, climbing the light house and playing at the beach Friday (pictures will come soon). Saturday morning while Matt was teaching and Lucy was napping the boys and I did our schoolwork that we skipped on Friday. I appreciated the flexibility it allows - we could all go with Matt this weekend and school flexed around that. Pretty neat!

Here are two pics from this past week. One is Owen creating a big D and little d with lincoln logs (he also made a "Hebrew D" after Matt had shown him some Hebrew that he was working on at work). The other is Owen playing with Lucy - it's neat that he is around to know her as she grows this year!