A Beautiful Vue: Growing Boy

Wow! Look at this kid...where did our baby go? I took this picture after his last night of soccer camp. He had a blast and he's played hard, can you tell? I looked at this picture later on and thought to myself when did he get so tall and that I can see a glimpse of the boy face giving way to a man face. It's crazy to think how fast time has passed since he was born. I could go on and on but I wont! Tru you are one awesome kid who never ceases to amaze us and we are so grateful God blessed us with you. Man I love this growing boy!

Review: Time4Learning Online Curriculum

This past spring Tru and I hit a wall with his school. He was getting bored with the traditional book work curriculum and we were butting heads a bit when it was time sit down and get his work finished. So I did a little research and came across Time4Learning. It looked like it would be a good supplement to what we were already using. I also thought a we both would appreciate a change. So we signed him up and we've been using it about 2 1/2 months now and it has become our main curriculum that we use along with our more traditional workbook lessons.

Basically, Time4Learning offers 4 different subjects Language Arts, Math, Science, and Language Arts Extensions (which is like social studies) all in one online package. Once your signed up, your child can log in to their account, and get started. You can pick which subjects you want your child to work on and even build a lesson plan. We focus on the language arts and the math, but sometimes he will use the other subjects. When it comes to science and history I pull a lot from our local library. Both the language arts and math lessons do a great job of getting the material across to him while keeping it engaging and fun! The math lessons have pages you can print out to go with the lessons, too.

Within the first month his reading had improved and he was much more confident about reading on his own. I think he actually enjoys reading a little more now. Tru is in the first grade level, but Time4Learning gives us the option to go a level below or ahead anytime we want. Also, we can retake any lesson if he needs to. I can log in to my parent account and track his progress. It helps me see where he might need to review a lesson, how long he spent on each lesson, and records everything he's done. I can also set up how long his sessions are and use a variety of parent resources like spelling word lists, science supply lists, and reading lists. You can also put together your lesson plans which I found helpful. When it comes to price I think it's pretty reasonable for our family living on one income. It's 19.95 a month for one child and then 14.95 for each additional child after that. There isn't any kind of contract either, so we can cancel at any time if we need to.

Now when Tru is working on his lessons it doesn't give him the option to pause a lesson. So if he's in the middle of it and needs to use the restroom or gets distracted (it happens) he might miss something and can't go back over it with out retaking the whole lesson. It would be nice to have a way to pause the lessons or come back to one particular place in the lesson. It hasn't posed any major problems, but he's not always as enthusiastic about a lesson the second time around. It is not a Christian based curriculum so you wont find any bible lessons or anything like that. I'm with Tru while he's working on his lessons and we've never had any problems with the curriculum conflicting with our beliefs or anything like that. I think Time4Learning would work well with everyone's approach to schooling their children.

All in all as a homeschooling family we have had a great experience with Time4Learning and will continue to use it as Tru finishes first grade this summer. I hope this has been helpful to anyone who is thinking about using Time4Learning and I would be happy to answer any questions. I enjoy teaching my boys at home and using this curriculum with our first grader has helped make it a little more enjoyable for all of us!


***As a member of Time4Learning, I have been given the opportunity to review their program and share my experiences. While I was compensated, this review was not written or edited by Time4Learning and my opinion is entirely my own. For more information, check out their standards-based curriculum or learn how to write your own curriculum review.

Father's Day Photo Shoot

I'm a tad late on the Father's Day post. We just had so much fun last Sunday and I didn't get a chance until today to get on the laptop. And anytime I have a chance to dote on my guy, I want to take it!
I could not ask for better Daddy for our boys than J. He loves them so much. When he walks through the front door at the end of the day the boys are always there to greet him with squeals and smiles. He is the type of dad who gets down on the floor and plays with them. He holds and hugs them and patiently teaches and guides them. He works hard for his family and we are so blessed to have him leading us!
For Father's Day this year I got the boys together for pictures. The idea was for the boys to hold signs that would line up to read "Happy Father's Day!" and "We love Papa" and "Papaw". I had seen a few different versions on Pinterest and thought it would be a great gift.


Well I was right about it being a great gift, everyone loved them, especially J! It was a simple idea, but even the simplest idea can turn complicated when 1 year old twins are involved. They weren't interested in holding signs imagine that, right. With Levi I couldn't catch him looking at the camera. And Liam, well, he wouldn't sit still for more than a few seconds. Signs were thrown to the ground, stomped on, and sat on. Tru was a huge help with distracting and yes even tossing a few crackers in laps just so I could get a still shot. There was only one melt down. In the end I had a lot of pictures and only a few that I thought would work.









I guess when your 1 you really have no desire to pose for pictures. It makes me laugh after looking at our out-take photos. Tru was more than willing to pose and have his photo taken. He has always enjoyed that, one might say he's a little bit of a ham. It all turned out great in the end and I think J had the best Father's Day yet!

A Beautiful Vue: Liam

He loves to swing!

A Beautiful Vue: Our Song

Today or maybe yesterday depending on how fast I get this post out, J & I had our ninth wedding anniversary! We're going to celebrate this weekend, but he did do something really special for me. He had one of our best friends, who is a very talented artist, paint the lyrics of our wedding song. Check it out...

Our friend, Jessica, painted these pieces and did a great job. Some of the words have flecks of gold shimmer to them and the colors are exactly what I would've picked out. I just love these pieces! She is so talented. I am always amazed at what she can do. She has a really great blog, TechnaChroma, where she writes about all the projects she is working on, the different artists who inspire her and pictures of it all from murals she's painted to individual pieces you can even purchase. Check her out here!

The lyrics are from the song, The One, by Skillet. We listened to a lot of Skillet through our dating years...I don't think in J's mind we were ever dating though. He says he knew from early on that I was the right person, so I guess he was just biding his time waiting on me to catch up. It took me a little longer to know. So anyway this song was the song I walked down the aisle to at our wedding. We knew from the first time we heard it that it would be our wedding song...it didn't take me long with that decision. Anyway, I think he did great job with this one. I know he put a lot of thought into it and it means something to him,too. Whenever we look at these paintings it will remind us of our beginnings and the story of US. But best of all that our story has got many many years to add to it...I'm thinking at least 50 or 60 more! Thank you Jody. I love you & Happy Anniversary!