HM Assignment 1

Today's assignment from Homeschool Memoirs is to write about ourselves and our decision to home school. I'm so much better about writing about our days and interesting things that go on in a family of all boys...this will be a little change. So here goes:

I'm W and I live with The Man(I think I should change his name to Mr. Incredible) in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with our 3 boys: Fearless Flyer (4, almost 5), The Librarian (6) and The Computer (8, almost 9). FF is a rather physical child and keeps us on our toes. He's one of those who will think about whether it was a good idea only after it's done. The Librarian has earned his nickname because his nose is always in a book. He kept wanting me to teach him to read and I kept putting it off. I know, bad mommy. So, he decided to teach himself. Ok, check reading off his list. The Computer has an absolutely amazing brain. He excels at math and other logic related things. He's got The Man's phenomenal memory also though so we are really careful what we tell him because he'll never forget.

And oh yeah, you can't forget our dogs, Urlacher and Sinatra and the cats, Onyx and Joe-Jo. They all make life complete in the most creative ways.

Although I was born in Minnesota, I did most of my growing up years in Alaska so that's kind of where I consider I'm from. I graduated high school just outside of Seattle though and then headed off to college, first Portland and then Chicago. (where I met The Man - he rocks, by the way) I got my degree in music education and taught various music and theater classes for 5 years. Then, The Computer was born.

A little piece of trivia - The Man and I celebrated our 11th anniversary last month by visiting one of the B & Bs we stayed at on our honeymoon. How romantic is that?

I'm honestly not really sure how we ended up homeschooling. Years ago, I was completely against homeschooling and honestly thought that homeschoolers were just plain weird. Little did I know, we would find ourselves loving that very thing. I think it kind of happened because we weren't in a decent school district and there was no way we could afford private school. So, I started researching options. Other than one year of preschool for The Computer, we've been homeschooling the rest of the time. I'd say we're a kind of eclectic mix of styles but gravitate towards a Charlotte Mason/Classical education. Another piece of trivia - I'm a curriculum research junkie. I need to find a hobby.

Other than being busy homeschooling, I teach piano and flute lessons, perform as a part of a duet (or soloist, if needed) and play/sing on the worship team at church about once a month. I love to bake, sew, cross stitch, and other crafty stuff although I seem to run out of time to finish most things. It's busy, but fun.

I'm looking forward to spending a quiet moment getting to know a bit more about everyone!