Let's try this again...

Hello there,

Wow! It's been a while since I've posted....Well, I think I'm going to try this blogging thing one more time. I have a new post below this one. It's the simple woman's daybook and it's an easy way for me to keep my blog updated. I might try to do that once a week and see if that keeps me posting! I know some of you in Michigan are not on facebook and like to keep up with us through this blog. I'll be posting some pictures soon.
Have a great day!
Marilena

The Simple Woman's Daybook

Outside my window:

Clear blue and sunny skies. I think the high is going to be in the 60's.

I am thinking:

I can't believe my baby is 4...no more babies in the house...

I am thankful for:

being able to stay home with my children.

I am wearing:

Pink polka dot pj bottoms with Julio's sweatshirt and fluffy pink slippers.

I am remembering:

That the Lord's grace is sufficient.

I am creating:

more hair flowers to sell.

http://www.floragrace.etsy.com/

I'm going:

to a friend's house this afternoon to learn some tips on vegetable gardening.

I am reading:

The Bible

The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

Lots of children's books about kings and queens

The Jesus Storybook Bible

The new edition of This Old Schoolhouse magazine

I am hoping:

That Julio will find full time work soon or that he will start making some money with his LED business.

On my mind:

Grandpa Calibeo in Michigan and his failing health...

What we're studying:

beginning our kings and queens unit today.

I am hearing:

The kids playing so nicely together while I post this. They're playing a new game that Michaela got for her birthday yesterday.

From the kitchen:

dirty dishes waiting to be washed...

Around the house:

kids in pj's playing a game.

chores waiting to be done.

One of my favorite things:

The smell of coffee brewing in the morning.

A few plans for the week:

Gardening lesson today.

Renaissance festival, choir, and bible study all on Thursday!

Date night on Friday.

A picture thought for today:

My baby is not a baby anymore.....oh how I wish I could have another....



Join http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Not Back to School Blog Hop: Curriculum Week

Darcy at my 3 boybarians is hosting a blog hop this week. Hop on over there to see what other homeschool mom's have planned for this year.

Here are my plans for the 2009/2010 school year. I really love Charlotte Mason's approach to education. You can read about her here. I have attached a link to all of the books.

For Family Time: History, Science, Literature, Bible, and Character Training we will be using Konos Volume 1 Unit Studies and going to a co op every Tuesday with about 10 other families.
The Units we will be doing this year are:

For the orderliness character trait we will be studying: Counting/Measuring/Calendars/Seasons/Planets/Moons
Classifying
Animal Classification
Rock Classification
Plant Classification

For the Obedience character trait we will be studying:
Horses
Authority/Light/Bible
Kings and Queens

For attentiveness and Patience we will be studying:
Birds

For Stewardship we will be studying:
Nutrition
Exercise
rest/fun

We will be using a lot of library books and doing a ton of hands on activities with each unit and we also have a field trip planned for each unit. I'm really excited to get the co op started! It will be a lot of work but I think it will be so much fun for all of us!

For P.E. we will be going to Athlete's In Training which is a homeschool P.E. class every Friday morning.

Hymn Study: "Hymns for a kids Heart" working on each hymn for a few weeks.

Composer/Artist study: Learning about a new composer and Artist every 6 weeks using the library as a resource.

Italian: possibly Rosetta Stone, not sure yet.

Shakespeare: Reading "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" and "Twelfth Knight" by "Shakespeare Can Be Fun!"

Art: Artistic Pursuits

Nature walks and nature journaling.

In the evenings Daddy is reading through the "Youth with a Mission" series "Christian Heroes:Then and Now" out loud to us. We are reading "Gladys Aylward" right now.


Now for each child's curriculum for the year.

Michaela age 3/4

lots of reading time on Mommy's lap.

learning letters and numbers.

Beginning to print.

Lots of painting, play doh, and messy crafts.

And I'm sure she'll be getting into plenty of mischief while I'm working with her brother and sister...

Marina age 5/6 1st grade:

Language Lessons for Little Ones Volume 3 and Copy work for Little Girls

Explode the Code 2,3,4 Online

Math U See Alpha

A Reason For Handwriting B

Bible: Scripture memory and reading out of her children's bible.

Girls swimming and art club once a week

Julio age 8/9 3rd grade:

Language Lessons for the Very Young Volume 2 and Copywork for Little Boys

Learning Spelling through Copywork A

Pictures in Cursive A

Math U See Gamma and moving to Delta mid year

Bible: "Discover 4 Yourself" inductive bible study for kids and scripture memory.

Boys Lego club once a week and, Lord willing, piano lessons.

WOW! That seems like a lot when it's all written out like that! I won't be doing every subject every day so my schedule really isn't that crazy. Some things are only once a week and some subjects only take 10-15 minutes. You'd be surprised how much a child can learn in just 10 minutes a day if it's done consistently and one on one!

I hope you enjoyed reading what our plans are for this year. I'm looking forward to a blessed year with my blessings!

In Christ,

Marilena

A new place to call home....well, for a little while.

We've had a lot going on around here for the past few months. At the beginning of May we found out that we had to be out of our house by the end of the month. Julio was still not working full time and we had no $ to put down on a rental so we were a little bit nervous...But the Lord moved His mighty hand and we are all settled in a very nice 3 bedroom house in Scottsdale! A dear friend of ours from church is visiting her sick mother in Canada for a couple of months so we are staying in her rental house while she is away. It has worked out perfectly and we are very grateful! God's provision has been amazing over the last couple of months!! I am just awestruck by the generosity of our brothers and sisters in Christ. We have been able to keep up with our bills and feed our family and we've even been gifted a couple of date nights!

Julio has been working with our old next door neighbors and our very best friends here in AZ. They own a pool business and Julio has been trying to get them some commercial accounts and he has also been doing pool maintenance for them. They just landed a big job here in Scottsdale which will keep us afloat for a couple of months.

We are still not sure what the Lord has in store for us in the near future but it seems like work is starting to pick up for Julio and we might be able to stay. We are very torn about staying here or returning to Michigan. We really miss our family(especially now that my sister had a beautiful baby girl yesterday!!!! Her name is Natalia and I am dying to squeeze her) But we really feel like there is more opportunity here than in Michigan.

Please continue to pray for our situation. We are really asking for God's clear guidance on where we are to go.

Here are some pictures for you. I have a ton from the past few months but I don't have time to post them all.

My parents and my Aunt and Uncle from Italy came to visit us in April. We took a road trip and here we are in Sedona.

My Aunt and my mom at the Grand Canyon.

The kids looking at dolphins at the Secret Garden Zoo in Las Vegas.

Our fishing trip....

Julio and I took the kids to Southwest Bible Camp for the woman's conference in New Mexico. This is us in the Catwalk.

We went to White Sands in New Mexico and it was Awesome!!

Love you all,

Mar

No news yet... just some pictures for you.

Hello Everyone,

No news yet on the job front except for some contract work up in Flagstaff. Julio has a 6 week contract and he is 3 weeks into it. He is there about 3 times a week and we are very grateful for the money coming in. He hasn't gotten any calls for interviews and he has his resume out all over the country. Please continue to pray that he will get some interviews soon!

We have been doing a lot of fun stuff lately! I have a bunch of pictures that I want to share with you but no time to upload them all so I'll just start you off with a few from the Phoenix children's museum. Enjoy!

Here' s Michaela after she got done painting the play house in the arts and crafts room...I love the guilty look on her face.

and here's Marina AFTER I washed her hands!!


This was the best part of the museum, the noodle forest!! The kids just ran around in there like crazy people and I even took a turn running through it.

Making "play" pizza's in the brick oven.

playing in the kitchen.

grocery shopping.

Playing on the front lawn of the museum.

Lunch!

washing windows with squeegie's. I gotta get me some of those for the kids to play with. They loved it!

The trees out front were filled with these bird houses and I thought it was adorable! I wish I had a tree in my yard....

sitting on the front steps. Marina was already inside running around with her little friends.

This thing was really cool. The kids would put a scarf in one of the holes at the bottom and it would be sucked through the tubes and come flying out of the top. Loved it! (That's our little friend Hannah in the picture.)

I have a lot more pictures to share but I'm going to have to post them later. I know I haven't been a very good blogger lately and I will try to post more frequently...

Thanks for all of your prayers!

Love you,

Mar

Pray for us!

Wow! It's been awhile since I've posted! Sorry.... I've been putting all of my pictures on facebook and I haven't had time to keep up my blog. Well... a lot has been going on around our house. We had a wonderful, quiet, peaceful Christmas and then we got to take a nice vacation to Michigan to have Christmas all over again with our extended families. Unfortunately, when we got back to Phoenix, Julio got laid off.... he is searching for a new job right now and Lord willing he will find something soon! And to top things off, our landlord wants to put the house that we're living in up for sale so we have about 3 months to find a new home. Needless to say, we are under a little bit of stress....but surprisingly we both feel really at peace knowing that the Lord will take care of us and He knew our situation even before it happened and He has a plan for us.... it's just hard to wait....We've been through this before and we really saw the hand of God lead us to Arizona, we don't know if these new circumstances are going to lead us out of Arizona but wherever He leads we will follow. I feel like I'm just getting used to things around here and I really love all of my new friends. I would love to move closer to family but I would have liked a little more time here..... Julio asked me the other night if I would like to stay here or move closer to Michigan and I said I would really like the Lord to choose for me... so that's what my prayer has been, that the Lord will choose whatever job and location is best for our family at this point in our lives.

Please pray for us.... I'll be posting a ton of pictures very soon.

With love,
Marilena

Yee haw!!

We had a great weekend! We went to a Christmas party for little Julio's boy's club "Contenders for the faith" and they had a square dance caller there. It was so fun!! It was at our friend's pastor's home. They have a great backyard and it was a beautiful sunny day.

Marina wouldn't dance with anyone besides her daddy. She wouldn't switch partners when it was time and she was making it a little bit difficult for us. So she sat out for most of it...

here she is clinging to daddy's arm...

That's Julio and I at the end of the line.

Julio didn't like the partner dancing, but he got down during the line dancing!

he was concentrating on the steps so hard. See his little tongue sticking out.

That's me and the girls doing the boot scootin boogy!

Mr. Green getting his groove on!

Julio is pretending like he has his hands on his belt buckle.

Michaela just looking cute!

The kids love the great climbing trees!!

and chickens.

At the end all of the boys got certificates for completing the fall semester of Contenders.

Afterwards we had 2 families over for a barbecue. Fun, food, and fellowship, that's what weekends are all about!

hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Love you,

marilena