Early in our marriage, when hubby and I were still deciding how many children we wanted to have, hubby said that he only wanted 2 while I was set on having 4. Hubby came from a family of seven brothers and sisters and did not have an easy life growing up. This is the reason why he’s bent on having just two children. I, on the other hand, had three sisters and a brother (now deceased) and we also pretty much had problems of our own. This did not deter me from wanting to be a mommy to four children.

However, being the Christian that I am and in obedience to God, I know that I have to submit to my husband in this case. So after the second child, Artsy Princess, was born and he said stop, I obeyed.

Early in 2004, my father-in-law, who lived in the USA, died. My husband’s family decided that since most of the children are still here in the Philippines, they would bring him home and bury him here. It was such a busy time for me taking care of my grieving husband and his family that I totally forgot to take my birth control pills. So came our third – Sunshine Girl.

Sometime in 2006 I got sick that I had to stop taking my pills. My period also totally stopped so I thought I was experiencing early menopause (the same thing happened to my older sister). One day, I started feeling extremely nauseous and this went on for weeks on end. I thought there was something wrong with me until it finally dawned on me that I may just be … pregnant. Well, as it turns out, Flash Boy was born in 2007. The blessing here also is that I got healed of that earlier sickness after the pregnancy.

So, God works in ways that are very surprising. Now that we have four children, hubby is determined that this is it for us. As for me, I still submit to my husband’s will. The Bible did say in Psalm 37:4 (NIV)

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

So now I am good with our four children. But now, the funny thing is, the children are asking us to have another baby! Just the other day, Artsy Princess, Guitar Babe and I had this conversation:

Artsy Princess: Mom, please, can you get pregnant again? Can you have another baby?

Guitar Babe: Don’t talk to mom about that, you should talk to Dad. Because he’s the one who says four is enough for them.

AP: Yeah, but I wonder how they’re going to do it because we’re always around them.

Me thinking: (What are they talking about?)

GB: Yeah, mom, how did you ever get pregnant with Sunshine Girl? We used to sleep in your room.

Me still thinking: (Hmm, how did they know that?)

GB: And mom, how did you do it, get pregnant with Flash Boy with Sunshine Girl in your room? You didn’t do it in front of her, did you?

AP: Yeah mom, how did you do it?

Me thinking hard: (Okay, I have to give them some kind of an answer. Ooh, imaginary light bulb pops!)

Me finally talking: Okay, when you yourselves get married and have children, you’ll know how we did it! So you better stop asking that question and wait until you’re married. (Hehehe)

Time for another Blog Walk through my TOS Crewmates’ blogs. Here are this week’s treasury of blogs, visit them and look around, you may just find inspiration from one of them.

1. King Alfred Academy
2. Confessions of An Organized Homeschool Mom
3. Curriculum Reviews from Oak Creek Farmhouse
4. I Can’t Decide
5. My Life on A Taffy Pull
6. Losing My Tale
7. Made in His Image
8. Serenades and Solace
9. Our Village is a Little Different
10. SisterTipster’s Tell’n It!

In our TOS Homeschool Crew forums, one of the members asked us our reasons for homeschooling. There are 250 of us in the TOS Homeschool Crew and there are as many reasons for each family. Here’s our family’s core reason for homeschooling our children:

“After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.

The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshiping the gods of the people around them. And they angered the Lord.”

                                              Judges 2:10-13, NLT

When we were prayerfully considering homeschooling our eldest child, God gave me a vision for our children. The vision is that each one of our children will become leaders when they grow up, and they will be strong leaders for the body of Christ.

I grew up in a non-Christian family with values that changed every time the wind changed directions. My husband, on the other hand, grew up with Christian parents who brought him and his siblings to church every Sunday. Still, the family values he grew up with was still askew. He remembers that they were not taught how to live the Christian life. He thinks that maybe it’s because his parents thought that taking them to church every Sunday was enough.

We started homeschooling with the desire to teach our children about God, how He loves us so much that He sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins. We wanted to teach them how to live a righteous life in God’s eyes. We desired for them to grow up seeking the will of God and obeying it in their lives.

In that vision, we saw how our present decisions will affect not only the lives of our children, but also the lives of the generations that will come after them – our grandchildren and great grandchildren and so on,

No, we don’t want any in our next generations to grow up with no knowledge of God and how great and mighty He is. We don’t want them to forget God’s faithfulness to our families. By God’s grace, every generation that will come after us will know and love God, their lives becoming a testimony for others that will bring praises and honor to God.

It is this vision that pushes us to keep on doing what we are doing despite all the odds against us. I pray that this vision will carry us through the years to come.

Speaking of our TOS Homeschool Crew, here are ten more of my crewmates’ blogs for your reading pleasure.

1. Second Star to the Right and Straight On Till Morning
2. Surviving The Testosterone
3. Family Style School
4. School Around The Bible
5. 1628 The Story of The Goebels 5
6. Morris Family Madness
7. Homeschool Musings
8. Homeschooling (and then some!)
9. Heartfelt Homeschooling
10. following Him home

She’s the one in yellow, my kids are very close to her.

When summer came along last April, we had to say goodbye to our house help so that she can go home and study for a college degree. This was not a surprise to us because it was one of the first things she told me when she first came to work for me – that after a year and a half of working for us, she will go home so that she can finish her studies.

It was quite an adjustment for me and the children because she was one of my most ideal helpers. She’s young – only 19 years old when she arrived – but she worked hard, got to know us and pretty soon was doing almost everything in our home for us. So we all became pretty dependent on her.

Now that she’s gone, we’ve had to adjust to having just a part-time house help, with all of us contributing with different household chores. I am thankful for this period in our lives because it’s a time for us to learn more about home management.

It’ll be such a challenge for me, though, because we’re starting school next week. In the past, we’d start school in the mornings, but now I can’t do that because I have to cook breakfast and lunch in the mornings, give the kids their baths, feed them and a lot of other things.

Add to that the fact that I’m on the TOS Homeschool Crew again, I’ll have to get more organized!

So here’s a list of 10 of my Crewmates on The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew. You may want to give their blogs a visit, you never know, you might just learn something new in one of them! Happy blogwalking!

1. Reaping a Harvest
2. Pink & Orange Coffee
3. Live, Laugh, Learn!
4. Mrs. Mandy’s Musings
5. The Fantastic Five
6. Refined Metals Academy
7. Just A Moment in Time
8. Providence Farm
9. My Journey
10. Petra School

As I was reading through my reviewing friends’ blogs about two weeks ago, I began to see a certain product that most of them were writing reviews about: Sodastream. At first, I just skimmed through most of the blogs because I thought that it was an appliance that was sold only in the USA, thus, reducing the possibility of my ever receiving this product for review.

Imagine my delight when I found out that Sodastream was actually being sold here in Manila. My delight was doubled when I became the recipient of the Sodastream itself to test and review at home.

I received the Stream Drink Maker with the CO2 pump, two hermetically-sealed bottles, two bottles of syrup and 3 single-use syrups. Upon watching the demo and tasting all the other flavors, hubby and I bought two other flavors as well.

Sodastream is indeed your home soda factory. This wonderful appliance can turn ordinary tap water, or in our case, mineral water into soda in less than five minutes! It is so easy to use and doesn’t need batteries or electricity to run it. After watching me work the Sodastream once, and they are now able to make their own sodas. It’s that easy to use.

These are the bottles of syrup that we have at home. The flavors are Orange, Lemon Lime, Honeydew Melon, Pineapple Grapefruit. So far, my personal favorite is orange, next is the Honeydew Melon. One of the benefits of making your own softdrinks at home is that you can control the flavor and the carbonation of your soda. Although we were taught to pump the CO2 three times, we felt that this made it too strong for our tastes, so we only pumped it twice. As for the syrups, we were instructed to use a capful, but we also felt that was too sweet for so we only put it about 3/4 of the cap. This made our soda taste just right.

Using the Sodastream at home not only benefits your family, it benefits the environment as well. With these hermetically-sealed, reusable bottles, waste pollution is lessened considerably. Did you know that throwing away the plastic softdrink bottles we use will pollute our earth for 150 years? With Sodastream, we simply clean and reuse these bottles every time we want softdrinks. At night, I would refill the bottles with water, pop them in our refrigerator, ready for the next day’s use.

We’ve been enjoying our own Sodastream for about a week now, making our softdrinks daily. Next week, I’ll be updating you more about how else we’ve been using Sodastream.

Sodastream is available at all SM Snack Exchange, Gourdo’s, Hobbes and Landes, Automatic Center, Robinson’s Dept. Store Sta. Lucia, Metro Gaisano Ayala Cebu.  For other inquiries, please check out their website here.

Hubby and I have been married for 15 years. In fact, we just recently celebrated our 15th year anniversary. We praise God for His faithfulness to us. Recently however, I have become unhappy and discontent over the state of our relationship. For months, we’ve argued back and forth with me voicing my complaints. I told him that I felt neglected because of the long hours he kept at work. The constant neglect and rejection is getting to me and the stress of caring for children almost on my own was becoming too much.

Last month, I received a message on Facebook from one of our church pastors inviting us to join a four-part series of classes on marriage aptly entitled, Marriage Boosters. Hubby and I thought that this was the perfect opportunity for us to work on our relationship. Despite his long hours, he committed to attending the four series with me.

Every class we always arrived about 30 minutes late. He gets off at 6PM, then picks me up so we can go to the class together. There’s not a class that we attended that I did not shed tears. I cried a lot in class because the topics discussed touched my heart. It was as if the pastor and his wife knew what we were going through. In fact, they did not know us very well. During class, they would give us time to discuss with each other. It opened us up for our much-needed communication.

Last night was our last class and the last topic was on forgiveness. I can’t help but feel my hardened heart towards my husband. I realized that I had so much anger dwelling inside me for him. At one point, they told us to face each other and say “I’m sorry”. Just those two words with no embellishments. We both had tears in our eyes just doing this very simple activity.

Last week, they assigned us to write love letters to each other and we were to read those letters to each other last night. I told him that I don’t have a letter for him as I can’t feel myself being very loving towards him. He did not have a letter for me also but he recalled his wedding vow to me 15 years ago. He was crying uncontrollably when he said “I can’t live without you.” Well, of course, I was crying, too.

Today, I pondered on the things he said last night. I was praying to God to help me, to change my heart, to help me forgive him. I knew that the only way for our relationship to heal was to forgive. But there was so much battle in my mind. I didn’t want to let go of my anger towards him. And in my prayer I said, “God, I know you want me to forgive him. But what about all the pain he caused me?” Right then and there I received an answer, it was as if God was talking to me when I heard this “All the hurt he caused you, I already suffered for it on the cross.”

Suddenly it dawned on me – I thought that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross was only for the sins that we committed against Him. The truth is that it was also for every sin of another person that was done to us. I have no right not to forgive. I have no right to carry that anger inside me for a long time. Jesus Christ already bore the sins of my husband against me when he suffered on the cross.

This time, instead of my complaining to my husband about how hurt I feel. I was the one who said “I’m very sorry for all the wrong I have done you. I’m sorry for the words I said that hurt you. Please forgive me.”

1 John 1:9 (New American Standard Bible)

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It’s almost the middle of March and we are finishing up our school year. The kids and I are looking forward to summer vacation – no school work, no schedules, yippee! But first, we have to finish all the scheduled activities that Kid’s World/Kreative Kids, Moms and Dads have scheduled for us. I’m also looking at ending our school year definitely by March 19. Since I’m not really following a school year schedule, whatever we finish by then is where we will stop, to be continued in the next school year.

Some of the parents in our homeschool group are letting their kids take the CEM exam to assess their learnings for the school year. I’m hesitant to do it not because I have doubts on what my children learned, but I’m fearful if I have taught them enough. I learned from other moms that this issue is mostly about the insecurity that teaching parents feel. The children are fine with what they have learned, it’s the expectations that we set for ourselves and for them that we fear. The fear of failure is high on our part, the children are not even thinking much about it. I spoke to another mom who lets his son take the exam every year. She is a single mom who works and homeschools at the same time. She said that it’s enough for her that her son passes all the required subjects for the school year, she isn’t requiring much because the character of her son growing up is more important. Hmm, a good lesson learned here. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. I like everything to be just right and feel that if there’s even one thing that’s not in place, it’s not going to turn out right. Well, time to set that aside and place the priority on my children’s education. I’ll blog about the exams when my kids have done it.

Thinking about the past year though, I remember an instance that really stood out. One day, I had both Guitar Babe and Artsy Princess doing their copywork. As I checked Guitar Babe’s work, I said that I can see the effort she puts in to really improve on her handwriting. With Artsy Princess, it was different. I told her that she has to redo her copywork for the day because it was unsatisfactory. She asked me “What about the effort I made?” I told her that I feel as if the work she submitted did not really show much of an effort. To make this short, she was so mad at me that our schooling was delayed for quite a bit that day. She refused to accept instruction from me until we finally talked it out. After the talk, Guitar Babe remarked, “Well, are you both okay now? Now can we study?”

The reason this stood out for me is that it demonstrates the truth that homeschooling is not only about academics. It is mainly about the relationships that are built with your children through time. Both Artsy Princess and I learned different lessons that day. For her, it was to put in the best effort that she can in any of her work. For me, it was that I can’t just expect to keep on teaching if our hearts are not right with each other. My daughter has steadfastly refused any of my instructions that day until I was able to hear her out. She wanted me to listen but I was bent on finishing the lessons for the day. Until I listened to her, though, I really could not finish any lesson with her or with her other siblings. This is a good lesson learned for me.

Artsy Princess with Guitar Babe at the back

(Photo Courtesy of Loe Ricardo)

It’s a Sunday, and I’m home and sick of tonsilitis. It’s strange because I can’t really tell how this came about. I just woke up last Wednesday with a very slightly itchy throat but as the day went by, I slowly felt my body becoming weak. At the same time, my left eye became infected because of the contact lenses that I was using. After 2 days of enduring the pain in my throat, hubby and I finally went to the doctor for a check up. Surprisingly, the doctor said that my tonsils are already swelled up so large and pus is already present. Now I understand why the pain in my throat was too much.

So now I’m just lying around at home, resting, watching TV. Artsy Princess came to bed with me last night and said, “Mom, even if you’re here, I miss you since you got sick, it’s like you’re not really here.” I asked her why. She then proceeded to do an imitation of how I am when I’m not sick – a very lively mommy that she’s missing. She made me laugh so much last night. Thank God for kids!

In the meanwhile, I have been asking hubby what we can do for our coming wedding anniversary on March 18. By God’s grace, we are celebrating 15 years of a wonderful and blessed marriage. He hasn’t said much but since I’m really the planner between the two of us, I’m wondering how we can make this more special. Any suggestions?

As I have been viewing many blogs everyday while I’m dropping EC, I’ve noticed that there are so many people posting their New Year’s Resolutions for 2010. Despite having been so busy myself last December ‘09, I still had time to think about my own resolutions. Basically, New Year’s resolutions are the changes that we want to make for the year. In the past years, every year I would write down what changes I want to make in my life. As we all have the tendency to do, because of old habits, we slowly but surely forget those resolutions. I know I do. So last year, as I have been praying and meditating on what changes I want to make for the year 2010, I decided to make just one change. It is only one but on it hinges all the other changes that I am praying to see in my life. Here it is:

* Read the Bible everyday

and pray consistently. *

It may sound very simple but I confess that I am a very inconsistent Bible reader. And though I like to pray and have seen many answers to my prayers, I also do it inconsistently. I believe that with just this one major change that I make in my life, all the rest will just fall into place. As Matthew 6:30-33 says:

“And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

(New Living Translation)

My plan for this is to follow the devotions set forth by my Mosaic Bible. I have reviewed this Bible in the previous post. The first part of this Bible are the readings following the church calendar year. I have started reading through it since I received the Bible for review and I am immensely enjoying it.

However, for those of you who are also challenged or moved by the Holy Spirit to read through the Bible this year, I found a website that is challenging people worldwide to read through their Bibles in 90 days. This website encourages people to buy The Bible in 90 Days. Since this is not easily available to us here in the Philippines, I found another blogger, Robin Sampson from Heart of Wisdom, who has a Bible Reading guide that you can print and follow along. You can also register yourself in the Bible in 90 days website and receive daily messages in your email. For my fellow bloggers out there, you can also join Mom’s Toolbox. She is hosting Blogging through the Bible in 90 days in conjunction with Bible in 90 Days.

Read the Bible – it will change your life!

Some readers have been asking me why we have decided to homeschool our children seven years ago. Here is a blog that I wrote some time ago in as our initial reason why we decided to go this route.

As time went by, we found ourselves with so many challenges. Of course, I am not just a homeschool teacher, I also wear so many hats in life – just like everybody else. It always worried me that I was making my children late in their studies (what was I thinking? I’m still measuring them by the regular schools’ standards). In the seven years that we’ve homeshooled, there were 2 deaths in the family, I gave birth twice, countless numbers of hospitalizations and my hubby left us to work abroad for two years. During the first few years we homeschooled, I was also filled with so much self-doubt. Was I doing the right thing for my children? Shouldn’t I just go to work and help my husband earn money? Am I being a bad and lazy wife for deciding to stay at home with our children? So many, many doubts. With so many things happening to our family coupled with all of my self-doubts, it would have been easy to just give up altogether!

So here are some of the reasons why we’ve continued to homeschool:

1. You just can’t beat the family togetherness.

We’re together 24/7 and though there are days when it can just drive me crazy, the opportunity to guide each of our children is always there. I’ve always received comments and questions about how I can get all my children to obey me. This used to surprise me a lot because obedience is a given in our family. After receiving those comments, I started observing others and I can see that there are really some parents who find it hard to make their children obey them.

When their dad came home after two years of working abroad, I was able to decide that we will not be doing any school for about 3 or 4 months. Our family needed time to reconnect, to work again on strengthening our bonds. Since Dad was not able to work immediately, we had the opportunity to just enjoy each other at home and work on getting to know each other again.

2. There are plenty of options to take for the education of your children.

In regular schools, a child is forced to follow the system even if that particular system is not suited to their personality. That is why a child who happens to be kinesthetic and can’t stay put for long periods of time will not do well in a school setting where everyone is required to sit still for 45 minutes to an hour. The child who is so intelligent and who is working fast will be bored with a class’ slow pace. In the same way, a child who needs more time to work on a particular subject will be left behind. All these have resulted in the child being labeled as slow, stupid, dumb, problem child, etc.

With homeschooling, you are able to know your child well and work on her abilities. All of my children are different and this is how God made them to be. Over the years, I have slowly gotten to know them and their learning styles. In understanding their learning styles, I’m able to make curriculum choices that is suitable for them. Oh the joy of being able to throw out a curriculum that doesn’t work for my child and not forcing her to mold herself into the curriculum!

The reasons to homeschool are many and are mostly personal. I will end this part here and will write again soon!

I’d love to hear from you as well why you decided to homeschool your own children. You can post your comments here.