i have always wanted to homeschool but my sweet husband wasn’t quite ready for it when it came time for ella to begin kindergarten. he was on the fence but not quite ready to make that jump so i submitted to my husband and we enrolled ella in public school. after kindergarten my husband and i were on the same page and ready to leap into the big scary world of homeschooling. i picked out and ordered our curriculum and was extremely excited to start. one week prior to the start of the 2012-2013 school year we received a call for a sibling group in need of a foster home. we said yes and welcomed into our home a 2 year old little boy (one month older than our current foster son) and a 6 year old little girl entering the 1st grade just like ella. since we are not allowed to homeschool foster kiddos, we decided to enroll both ella and our new foster daughter into the public school ella attended her kindergarten year. we just didn’t feel like it would be fair to the girls to have them do different things. we wanted our new foster daughter to feel like she was just as much a part of our family as anyone else. our new foster kiddos were supposed to be with us for at least one year. they were with us for 2 week (that’s the nature of foster care…it’s terribly unpredictable).

we had to make a decision to either keep ella in public school another year, go ahead and take her out after only two weeks, or reevaluate things at the end of the first semester. we kept her there through the semester. come december…we were ready to start our homeschool journey.

then i got knocked up. haha! less than a month into homeschooling, i found out i was pregnant. what?!? and i immediately had “morning” sickness.

every. second. of. every. day.

headaches. migraines. nausea. vomiting. and other super fun pregnancy things.

every. second. of. every. day.

we didn’t do school for a week. then two weeks. then one month…

we have done a day of school here, a day there, but have failed to get in a solid week since january. i have agonized over this…trying to find good apps and/or games that ella can do on the computer and ipad in place of our lessons, having her at the very least read every day, crying, asking my sweet husband what we should do, knowing that ella will be continuing first grade through the summer…and even into the next school year if i don’t figure something out soon.

then i decided something. i decided that i would not feel guilty. i fully believe that God wants us to homeschool ella. and i know that He knew we would be getting pregnant. God paved the way for us to homeschool. and it was God who gave us this little miracle after trying to conceive for 6+ years.

the moment i let go. the moment i decided that i would not feel guilty. everything fell into place. i realized that our homeschooling doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. i don’t have to follow the curriculum to the “t” and feel like i have failed if we skip a lesson or subject for that day. if our school year doesn’t follow the same calendar as the public school year, our neighbor’s school year, or my niece and nephews school year…it’s ok. if i use a trip to target to get in the days math lesson on counting money…it’s ok. if we don’t delve into our curriculum today because ella wants to learn about van gogh and try her hand at painting starry night…it’s ok. if the only science and history we get in for the rest of our school year is going to the zoo and museum…it’s ok.

i am new at this and i am learning. if i’ve learned one thing in the last 4 months it is this…my daughter learns more and has a lot more fun when mommy doesn’t stress. so i will not compare myself to other homeschool or non homeschool moms/families. i will take this one day at a time. i will chill out and turn to God for my help. no more homeschool guilt for this mom!

yes it’s true. my sweet husband and i finally received the little miracle we have been praying for (and sometimes agonizing over) for the last several years. we were shocked to say the least. and i would say i’m just over the moon excited; however, i’ve been so sick i haven’t really been able to enjoy this just yet. thank the LORD my morning sickness is starting to diminish little by little. hopefully it will fully subside by the time my first 2013 wedding hits on april 6th. i sure am grateful things worked out the way they did with my weddings not beginning until april. i don’t know how i would have been able to shoot any over these past several weeks. GOD certainly is good and it’s true what they say…HIS timing is perfect.

hopefully, i will now feel up to blogging more. for those of you who pray for my family and our many life journeys (fostering, homeschooling, etc), you all hold such a special place in my heart and i am more grateful than you know for your prayers. thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I tell people quite often that I believe choosing your wedding photographer is the most important planning decision you will make. When it’s all said and done, when you’re home from your honeymoon, what do you have left? The photos. When you can’t remember certain aspects of your day because you were nervous or just blinded by sheer excitement and happiness, what do you have to remind you? The photos. So having a wonderful, professional, experienced photographer is a MUST.

Well, after photographing hundreds (yes hundreds) of weddings over the years let me just say that a GOOD wedding planner is high on the list of MUST HAVES, as well. You don’t want to look back at your photos and remember chaos, stress, how overwhelmed you were, disorganization, etc.

I have worked with Krystal Burns before and I can say with absolute certainty that she is the BEST! Krystal is so wonderful to work with as another vendor but I’ve also heard nothing but wonderful things from the couples she has worked with. Give her a call, hire her…you will not regret it!

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The following was written by Ben Ste in and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejewelled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a nativity scene, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it…. no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what a bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein