Good vs Best

For a while now I have been contemplating homeschooling my children. I home schooled Zechariah when he was in Kindergarten and it went pretty well. I researched the heck out of it, set my toy room up into centers, had a great schedule and found good curriculum too. I felt accomplished after that 1st year and happy with both his and my progress. I was pleased that when we moved to MD and he went to public school, he was WAY above his peers in reading and math. Our elementary school is great. It has wonderful teachers and I really like their curriculum choices. Zech recently got assessed and picked up for TAG and Gabriel is on a 2nd grade reading level already and his teachers call him a wiz at math. I can toot my own horn about Zech's success b/c I taught him how to read and his basics with math but I can't do that with Gabriel. His teachers and school are truly wonderful. So, I vacillated. Why take them out? It's a good school. They are doing so well! I'm about to have another baby!!! Which means I'd have 3 at home, why not 2 more? I'm so tired of not seeing my boys.

When pondering about decisions like this, I typically feel strongly one way or another. My feelings on this issue (to home school or not) was that they were both "good" choices. In May, I even went to the LDS homeschool conference with my SIL. I had still not made my decision but was interested in finding inspiration. I didn't. There wasn't that lightening bolt I was looking for or the "YES!" declaration in my mind and heart. I became frustrated at not receiving a prompting one way or another and not being able to say a definitive "YES! I will homeschool" or "YES! they will go to their elementary school next year". After praying for inspiration for a few days, I woke up one morning hurting-I'm kinda big at this point in my pregnancy :) I decided to take a hot bath. I typically like to read whenever I do this so I picked up the Oct conference ensign and flipped through the talks. I rested on one by Dieter F. Uchtdorf entitled, Of Things That Matter Most. It was a good read and I was enjoying his thoughts on simplifying our lives and such when I read this quote that hit me like a ton of bricks:

Elder Dallin H. Oaks, in a recent general conference, taught, “We have to forego some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families.” ² 

Well, my friends there you have it. After reading that I knew that homeschooling was "best" for my children and my family. I took it to prayer and He agreed. Wish me luck b/c we have begun a very important journey.

Elijah turns 2!

 My sweet baby boy turned 2 May 28th. Since he loves all sports that deal with balls, I decided to have a sports party for him. There has been so much going on that I didn't even know if I could pull it off but b/w my 4 boys, our 4 cousins next door, and Jordyn-who is here visiting from Utah, we had quite the turn out by ourselves! Being my 4th son, there was little I thought he needed and we didn't have. I have always wanted to get a little tykes basketball hoop and set out to find one. I went to Goodwill first and found a perfect one for $5! SCORE! I set up 3 stations: Soccer, Basketball, and T-ball. The kids were divided into groups of 3 and rotated through the stations. Afterwards we had cupcakes and presents!

 Baby boy Batter Up!

It was really hot so Gary decided to cool them off with a little spray from the water hose.