Six years ago today

Six years ago today, I woke up as Heather Miller for the last time.

Six years ago today, my Dad walked me down the aisle and I went from being Daddy's Little Girl to being your wife.

Six years ago today, I held back tears as you recited your vows to me.

Six years ago today, I didn't know how to love unselfishly.

Six years ago today, I married you the father of my beautiful daughter.

Six years ago today, we didn't know another little girl was on the way.

Six years ago today, we crashed in the hotel room after the wedding utterly exhausted, completely unaware of the sleepless nights to come.

Six years ago today, we stood before our family and friends smiling happily not knowing the difficult days ahead.

Six years ago today, I thought I could never be happier.

Six years ago today, I thought I loved you.
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Today, I look at you and I KNOW what love is.

Today, I realize the happiest days of my life are each day I spend with you and our children.

Today, I find myself thankful for the difficulties we've faced because it's made us stronger as a couple.

Today, I can say that a sleepless night with you is better than a night of perfect sleep without you.

Today, I'm eternally grateful for the children you've given me.

Today, I see all our marriage has taught me. How to love strongly, unselfishly and completely.

Today, I hold back tears as I write this and find myself consumed with my love for you.

Today, I know that I married the second best man in the world (next to my Dad).

Today, I am proud to be your wife.

To my sweet husband: I hope you know how much you mean to me. Each day that I wake up beside you is a great day. Words can't express how much your love means to me. The past six years have been eventful, both good and bad. We've endured more as a couple in six short years than most do in a lifetime. But in the end we still come out together, stronger than ever. You are absolutely the best husband I could ask for. You're my soul mate, the man of my dreams and my best friend. I know I don't say it nearly enough, but thank you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for putting up with me. Thank you for the good days. Thank you for the hugs on the bad days. Thank you for our children. Thank you for the laughs. Thank you for being you. I love you and I'm proud of you.

Six years ago today I said "I do"..and today I say I would do it all over again.

Religion is one topic that my husband and I do not see eye to eye on. I am very much a Christian and he loves all faiths (including mine). He respects my decision to follow one particular faith and I respect his decision to be a spiritual nomad of sorts.

One thing we do agree on however is the fact that religious intolerance is something that must end. There is far too much hating and fighting going on in the world in the name of religion. In my faith, Jesus preached showing love to ALL, not just those who think like you.

It's a fact that most people fear things they don't understand. Most people in the world know very little about faiths other than their own, therefore they fear those faiths and the people who practice those faiths. Every single day people in this country are discriminated against based on their religion. One of the premises this country was based on was religious freedom and yet we try to deny US citizens this right each day.

In an attempt to increase the knowledge of different faiths, my husband has started Project Conversion. Learn more about it here. To summarize, beginning Jan. 1, 2011 he will be converting to a different religion each month and will practice that religion for 30 days before moving on to the next. He will be practicing as a new convert and will be broadcasting his journey along the way.

He has developed a KickStarter page for Project Conversion. You can view the page here Please help in his effort to make this a success.

Please share this with you friends. You can follow on Facebook here.

No matter which faith you belong to (or if you don't belong to one at all), come along for the journey! You just might learn something yourself

Update

I definitely think the weekend getaway (a 3-day Cruise to the Bahamas) did just the trick! I came back refreshed and ready to go! Schooling last week and this week has been awesome. My patience has been restored and the girls are just soaking up the information. Here is a quick recap of what we've been doing.

Math- Subtraction. The girls have done incredible. The curriculum we are using is basically just a work book from The Critical Thinking company. I have to do all the teaching and the worksheets just reinforce the information. We've used manipulative blocks, candy and our fingers and have mastered one digit subtraction. I'm so proud of them!! They both really enjoy Math and I'm glad. Math was always my favorite subject in school..my husband however despises it. We will be finishing up our one digit subtraction unit next week and will be moving on to graphs and fractions.

Reading/Phonics/Writing- Wow. That's all I can say about the progress we've made since July. I officially have two little readers in the house! They are just so proud of themselves. The A Beka reading/phonics curriculum is awesome! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is trying to teach their children to read. The girls have also been enjoying www.starfall.com. If you aren't familiar with it, it's an awesome website for beginning readers. Check it out!

Science- Last week we completed our Healthy Eating unit. We finished all 10 Lessons in Little D's Nutrition Expedition and the girls absolutely loooooved it! :) Little D the Five Food Group Dragon is actually still hanging on our living room wall. They don't to take him down. These lessons were great. The girls definitely have a better understanding of the five food groups and why they are important. I've heard the girls discussing healthy food choices too..so maybe just maybe we can get them to start eating better. Since we've finished a science unit, we are moving on to a Social Studies unit. We will be covering a unit on Thanksgiving during the month of November and I'm still getting it all worked out. More details to come...

I bought a book from Barnes and Noble a few months ago titled "What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know" and I really love this book. It breaks down each subject into what Kindergartners should know before going to first grade. I use it quite a bit. The past few weeks we've been reading stories from the Literature section. Some of the stories the girls were familiar with, but many of them were new. (Some of them were new to me). The girls seemed to enjoy hearing the stories, well all of them except for The Ugly Duckling which they BOTH fell asleep during..LOL

We've continued our Bible studies and the girls are still hearing devotions/stories about character development. They are also starting a children's missions group at church and we will be attending our first class tonight! Super excited about that!! :)

Shaylie's soccer season just ended and we've already signed her up for Spring soccer. She really liked it. Nevaeh will also be old enough to play in the spring. She is very happy about this. She wanted to play in the fall, but wasn't old enough.

Things are just moving right along. I'm sooo glad we've made the choice to homeschool. I thoroughly enjoy the girls being home with me. I love watching them learn.

As if it isn't obvious enough...now I have even more proof that my babies are growing up. Shaylie had her very first visit from the Tooth Fairy (AKA Twinkle- in our house) last night. I can NOT even begin to fathom that she is old enough to be losing teeth already. I mean seriously wasn't it just like last month when cut her first tooth?! Just another reminder that I need to CHERISH. EVERY. MOMENT.


Still absolutely gorgeous!


Showing off her Tooth Fairy box!



Time- please please slow down. No, really I'm begging you. Let them stay little just a little while longer! <3

In need of.....a BREAK!

Yes, I need a break. And, I'm getting one. My husband and I are leaving tomorrow for a long weekend getaway. We do this every year...and this year it's much needed and deserved! Where we are going is a secret, so I will give details when we return :)

Work has just been crazy busy lately, home life and homeschooling have been busy. The girls have not been listening the greatest. I haven't been very patient. I find myself doing the very thing that homeschooling parents should NOT do, telling my children that they can't help me with whatever I'm doing just so that I can get it done faster. I find us doing our school lessons sitting at a desk with little to no fun. It's like we are just going through the motions with no real meaning. We have reached a point of being burnt out. So I think a break for Mommy and Daddy and a long weekend with Nana for the girls is just what we need. We'll come back more in love, refreshed, recharged and better parents to our beautiful sweet little girls!

Rainy Day Blues..

I don't know if it was the rain or what but today was not a good day for us! The girls could either not sit still or were being lazy. There was no in between. I had no patience. So after attempting to have school for about an hour I decided it was time for us to take a break! I was to the point of tears. I thought maybe working out, taking a shower and getting some lunch and then trying to start fresh might help us out. And it did..for a few minutes. So, we finished what we were working on at that time, packed up and called it a day. I haven't been feeling the best and neither have they, so maybe we all just needed a sick day. And you know what I've realized now 5 hours later? That's ok. There is no point in all of ending up in tears over something that we can just do tomorrow or the next day when everyone is feeling better. I was really doubting myself there for a while today. But then I remembered how well last week went..and how few bad days we've had since we've begun homeschooling and I felt better. Kids are human too..kids feel the Monday blues too and that's perfectly fine. Tomorrow will be better. The sun always shines after the rain.

I came across this today..and it just fit so well. It's from the following website: http://homeschoolblogger.com/afternooncoffeebreak/691969/ and this is what it says.

"Sometimes you gotta laugh or you’ll cry.

Sometimes crying is a good outlet.

Sometimes it helps to just take a deep breath & smile.

Leave the room for just a moment. When you return, look at each child’s face & remember how you felt the moment you met that child for the very first time – upon his or her birth or adoption.

Smile. Thank God for this awesome opportunity he has placed in your hands.

Give them each a hug & take a recess for the day."

Fall is here!

Update: Week of 9/20-9/24

We had a busy but very fun week last week! Since Thursday was the first official day of Fall we celebrated all week long! In addition to our normal school day (math, phonics, Bible, science) we also baked homemade sugar cookies with homemade buttercream frosting. We decorated the cookies to look like leaves, pumpkins and apples. We sang fall songs and told fall jokes! We made a homemade fall wreath to go on our front door. I have planned to take a field trip this Friday to a local pumpkin patch. We just simply had a GREAT week!









The girls had their first math "test" on Friday! It consisted of 20 addition problems and it took them less than 10 minutes to complete. I'm happy to report that Nevaeh got every single problem right on the first try and Shaylie missed one problem, but when she took a second look at it got it right immediately! I must say I was one very proud Mama that day! :)

The Science unit we've been working on; Little D's Nutrition Expedition, is still going well. The girls still really enjoy it and are always asking if we can "feed Little D to make him grow". There are 10 lessons in the unit and each lesson has a story with it. The stories are really fun and have portions that the girls can act out. So far we've covered the dairy food group and the meat food group and they've really learned a lot! They enjoy the characters in the stories and the activities that go along with the stories. Part of the unit involves making a dragon on the wall. It started with just his head and you add a portion of the body for each food group that you study. In the end he will end up being about 5 feet long! Yes, this is stretching across a wall in our living room, but hey it's fun and educational!! Right now he just has a head and two segments of his body, but he's growing each day! Pics will be posted at the end of the unit!