Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to Everyone! We started off our day with some yummy homemade crepes, strawberries and cream. Delicious. I am pretty sure we are going to have to continue that tradition...

Also, in our journey to be good parents, Tom & I have been praying through whether or not to homeschool our children. There are a lot of good reasons for either option but lately we have really been feeling like homeschooling would be the better option for our family! It is kind of a scary thought but fun too. Here are some of our reasons behind it so far:
1) We think we could do a better job at building a unique education that fits the needs of each of our children
2) We want our kids to learn wisdom and not just knowledge each day and we feel like homeschooling helps to really cultivate an atmosphere for that. Let's face it, teachers really don't have a lot of freedom these days to shape character in kids unless they are really acting bad
3) I like the idea of our kids learning constantly. There would be no big break for summers (for us) and the world can be our teacher
4) You can do a lot of unique things with homeschooling like swim classes or skiing instead of the 'mandatory PE'

Happy Boys...

5) Schools have cut out a lot of the Christian perspectives that we want our kids to learn from the beginning. We don't want to be competing with other authority figures in teaching our kids truth.
6) I love the flexibility of it! We could take a vacation anytime we want! We could spend a whole year traveling the world and still be homeschooling our kids...
7) We want to teach our kids some good hands on practical things for life. How to cook, balance checkbooks, how to set up a tent, go fishing...I would love to incorporate that into school
8) We could also explore Classical Education and not spend a ton on a private school in the process.
9) We want to shepherd the hearts of our children with the precious time that we are given with them. Time goes by fast! I want to build solid relationships with them.

Andrew fighting Luke off

10) There are also a bunch of reasons why I don't like public schools. I think overall it makes kids grow up too fast. Especially, in todays society. There is so much peer pressure, bullying, violence, sexual influences that squash children so quickly. We don't want to shelter them completely. We just want to be the ones to expose them to the harshness of the world after they have a more solid worldview.

I am sure that we will have many other reasons to add and edit on the list but we are pretty excited! I have heard over and over again that homeschooling is a journey. You really have to take it one day at a time, and you can change it at any point you want. I really have a peace about it now but who knows? Maybe in a few years, God will be leading us down a whole different path. :)

I have also been experimenting more in the kitchen. 

I have turned this...

Into this... (chicken stock)

As well as cutting up and cooking lots of other pieces of chicken! Wow! Quite the process. I definitely was dramatic at first when I was popping bones out of place :( I got used to it though. 

It will be a lot healthier for our family too to be using chicken stock rather than just bouillon. Also, we are now able to switch over to organic chicken this way because it helps a lot more with the cost to buy a whole chicken!

On a side note, Luke now has sunglasses!! :)