Getting back to the dance

The past couple of months have been a bit "off" at our house. I can't really put my finger on what the difference has been, but we just haven't been ourselves lately. I'd like to blame it on the busyness of the holiday season but I don't think that's all of it. Mostly, we've just been in a funk. We've been going through the motions and getting through each day but that's about it. And so, I haven't really felt I had much to share here.

But yesterday, I decided I've had enough of this funk. We are going to get back to enjoying each and enjoying life. Here are some of the steps we are going to take to get back in our "groove."

#1-get back to eating together. 99% of the time, our family eats dinner together. But breakfast and lunch have become a different story. At breakfast, each person's been eating whenever they get ready and whatever they can find. This just doesn't get our day started off right. So I am determined that on weekdays we are going to eat breakfast together. I may or may not make something everyday but even cereal is better together. The same goes for lunch. Even on sandwich day, we will be eating together.

#2-get back into a school routine. Last year, I had a boxed curriculum that told me what to do and when. The first curriculum I bought this year required so much extra planning and tweaking from me to make it work for us that it really affected our routine. I found myself spending so much time on planning and researching that I didn't have much time left for actually doing the work. Last month, I bought some new materials and I think they are really going to help us get back into the swing of things.

#3-eat dinner earlier. The past 6 months or so, it seems our dinner time has gotten later and later. There are a couple of reasons for this-Daniel's work schedule and the kids' Tae Kwon Do classes. It's always been important to our family that we eat dinner together, so we try to wait for Daniel to come home before we eat in the evening. With his work schedule right now, he doesn't get home until around 8:00 most nights. That itself wouldn't be too bad if I was able to have dinner ready to eat when he came home, but I can't do that. The kids TKD classes most evenings are over around 8:00 as well and then it's a half-hour drive home. This puts me starting dinner around 8:30 and us eating sometime after 9:00. This is not good for us in a lot of ways. So, as much as I hate to do it, the kids and I are going to have to start eating before we leave the house in the evening. Not only will it be better for us, physically, to eat earlier, it will also mean we have some down time in the evening before the kids go to bed.

Okay, I feel better already. We're also going to be cutting back the amount of time we spend online, so I should be getting up from here and getting something done. It's just about time to start our schoolwork.

Before I go, here are a few pictures from the last couple of months.

We went to visit the replicas of the Nina and the Pinta when they sailed near Muskogee. Very cool!

We went to a Thanksgiving party with our homeschool group.

We made a Thankful tree to put on our front window.
We learned about birds.
And I almost burned down the house.
And that about covers November.

December pictures to come later.

It's good to be back!