Nine is fine and so am I!

Well, it's been a long long time since my last post!

I've come by occasionally to blog again but then it's been so long I haven't known where to start!

Since my last post, my beautiful daughter has turned 9! We made up a catch phrase when she had her birthday "Nine is fine" and it certainly has been!
She is blossoming into a lovely little lady!
Some cutesy little girl things have made way for more 'lady like' things, interest in fashion, make up etc are on the rise!
I'm really enjoying this season of my daughter's life, besides, it's great having some one to give me fashion and make up tips :)
Every age has it's own charm and beauty doesn't it!
She has become very interested in cooking and learning to sew and we've had some fun cooking times together and with her friends on 'cooking' play dates!

On the home school front, we started Living Books Curriculum when we finished our last school year some months ago. We are thoroughly enjoying it once again!
I love that I can just pick up the teacher's manual and go every day (aside from some minor tweaking to add Aussie history, art, poetry etc).
The books are engaging. Rebekah's favourite book is 'The Children's Homer'! She is yet to realise that her mummy didn't grow up with these books and that I am learning so much while home schooling her!

I've had a terribly busy year with work (I do some part time work from home), with my involvement in the local home school community, our church, and to top it off, we've had to travel interstate a few times this year due to family reasons.
I've missed my blog friends, I know some of you on Facebook and that has been great! However, I've missed the rest of you and have visited your blogs as time has permitted, which hasn't been that much!

I am not sure how much time I can devote to blogging and keeping up with blogs but I will certainly try to come by and visit from time to time. My health is improving slowly which has been great! Thanks to all of you that prayed for me! I know it has helped!

Here are some pictures from the past few months:

Rebekah doing some baking:






A bracelet she 'sewed':



Ron, Rebekah and one of our guinea pigs 'Peekface':



and this last one was just a couple of weeks ago, when Ron got to sit in for the first time on her end of term 'exams'. Here is Rebekah proudly showing off a 'certificate' I gave her for completing her term well!

I'm still here but things are changing!

I've been a bit absent from blog land for the past couple of months, just visiting from time to time as my time and moods allow:)

I've been through some serious 'curriculum' searching for Rebekah for her next academic year (year 4) which for us starts in April (as we don't follow the traditional school year).

I've had some health issues (ongoing and still working on getting answers) and so I've had to make life easier in terms of our homeschool curriculum.
I've loved the Ambleside Online curriculum but I've been finding it a little challenging in terms of my time and energy.
I find I need to research a lot before making changes to books as I don't want to short change Rebekah. I had already modified it a little to suit us but as I was looking ahead to their year 3, I found I just didn't like some of the books and would have had to swap out a few, changing/ adapting involving more effort and time on my part. I think I was starting to tire of all the "older" books too somewhat. Also, at this stage in my life I was looking for someone to 'tell me what to do' without having to research, research etc. So.....I'm going back to Living Books Curriculum!

I researched quite a few different curriculums and prayed a lot and I just couldn't get past LBC. We did enjoy the two years we did with them for Rebekah when we first started out. As I looked through their booklists and teachers manual samples, it brought back memories of some of the fun books we read and all the 'extra activities' they suggest, I realised that a few things were falling through the cracks for us including map work for geography, and a lot of the other hands on activities to add to our learning that don't come naturally to me! I'm sure I'll be changing some and adapting it to suit us but atleast I have a general guide for the year ahead that I pick up each week and know what to do! LBC is also rich in good books and utilises a lot of the classics like Ambleside Online but they also utilise a lot of newer books. I like exposing Rebekah to more modern well written books and being not a literary brain myself I have to search and trawl through book lists and blogs to expose her to these. LBC saves me a lot of time and effort with this!

I've continued to moderate our local homeschool group and also am very involved on a weekly basis with some families that have started recently homeschooling from our church, running the science class in this group. So it's a co-op style group and we're doing Apologia's Astrononomy book this year. I must say we're enjoying and appreciating the dynamics that comes with learning in a group for Rebekah (being an only child).

So, I've been busy and continued to stay productive with life in general (despite my health challenges and this is purely due to the grace of God and an amazing and supportive husband) but just not in blog land! :) I'm really really sorry to all my faithful blog friends out there, I've tried to visit as much as I've been able to but I have not been as active as I have in the past. I'm not sure how and when this will change but this is where we are at for now:) I'll continue to blog and visit you all as and when I can as I've missed my peeks into your lives and the interaction, sharing and friendship that come along with that:)

p.s. if you'd like to be friends on Facebook, please email me from my profile page and I'd love to keep in touch with you through FB :)

Happy New Year!

Happy New year!

I'm still here but have sadly neglected my blog!

What can I say, I think my excuse has been lack of time and this lack of time has caused me to stray over to Facebook where it's quicker to keep in touch!
I no longer refer to it as Fakebook as I referred to it in this post as I've actually found a way to make it work for me:) It has helped deepen some of my real life friendships and it has made a way to connect more intimately with some of my blog-gy friends too.

We had a wonderfully blessed Christmas day with my family in Sydney. We alternate our Christmases between Ron's and my family to be fair (as his family are in Victoria - another State in Australia). It was surprisingly cool for Christmas in Sydney which we enjoyed!
We had a multicultural feast of Indian, Italian and Aussie food, warm times spent with the family and my parents even invited their neighbours, so there were 25 of us at lunch!

Rebekah got a Furby for Christmas. I had'nt heard of a Furby until a couple of months ago, apparently they were around in the nineties and have made a comeback with apps to boot!
Here she is with her little friend:

Ron had a couple of weeks off work and we had a lovely 'staycation' in Sydney. It was really nice to be on holidays at home as we got to rest a lot. We also spent a lot of time at the shops (malls) as we had some terribly hot days and we sought refuge there to give our airconditioning a break! Time was also spent at the local pool and the beach.
Ron even started some cooking! He is not a cook by any means but with some encouragement from Rebekah, they together decided to cook dinner one night and it turned out pretty good too I must say! An asian chicken dish:)

Rebekah has been enjoying lots of play dates with her friends that are on school holidays. However, she did get back into 'school' work last week. We don't follow the school terms as it gives us the freedom to go on holidays when we like. It works really well for us as you get cheaper accommodation and a lot less crowds at your holiday destination!
Homeschoolers are a spoilt bunch:)

She is still finishing off her year 3 work and I'll post about our year 4 when we get there!
She has also graduated from a bath to 'showers'! I know, I'm a bit slow:) I've talked about that in the past here so I won't go there again:) She's enjoying the graduation to a shower and feels very grown up!

Last year was a pretty tough year for me but we managed by God's grace; (this also impacted on my blogging as I didn't have the head space to blog). I'm looking forward to good things this year!

Hope all my bloggy friends are well, I've tried keeping in touch via your blogs. I'll head over again soon and catch up on your posts. I wish you all the best for 2013!