Published!

I'm very excited! My article got published in a magazine called The Homeschool Handbook. You can see it by clicking on this link. Once you get there, click the arrow to page 8 and you will see my article, it's titled "Homeschooling: Plan B". I can't wait to get the hard copy in the mail. This is pretty exciting!

Merry Christmas from me!

radomness

The only negative to keeping busy with KandidsbyKorri this time of year is I don't feel like picking my camera up when I'm at home. There have been so many things I've wanted to take pictures of and blog about so tonight was the night, so here we go. This is all very random by the way.

This is a our advent Jesse tree, it's silver and very pretty. I'll expand on it more in another post so this is just a teaser.

 Our first ornament we hung today about the root of Jesse.

 Our big tree is decorated and this is my favorite ornament.

 And these wrapped goodies are part of a tradition we started last year. We have collected an assortment of Christmas books over the years and so we wrap them up, 24 of them and starting on December 1st we open one book per night and read it by our Christmas tree. And on night 24, Christmas eve, we open up a new book. The kids love it and so do mom and dad.

 I told you this would be random. Michael and I climbed into bed the other night and saw this sign that Anna had made. It was a great reminder of where we live.

 You can see the sign in this picture but you can also see that the kids built a fort. Why, oh why do they always choose our room? I have no idea. Maybe it's their sneaky way of forgetting about the clean up part and mom and dad are forced to do the clean up when we go to bed at night.

 This is by far one of my favorite Christmas decorations. I grew up with this in my home and my mom gave it to me a while back. It plays music when you wind it up, it brings me great memories of Christmases growing up. We've never been big on Santa but there is just something very sweet about this Mr. and Mrs. Clause.

 Michael did a great job putting lights on the house, I love the big ones in the car port.

 I have found a new friend, Dunkin Decaf is delicious especially with vanilla creamer. I have had a cup every morning since Thanksgiving, my coffee pot only makes an appearance on Thanksgiving and Christmas but maybe it will become a more permanent fixture in the kitchen. It puts a smile on my face when I wake up, it really doesn't take much to please me.

 What is there to say, I love chocolate especially the peppermint kind.

This cracks me up. This is Anna's blanket. She has three stuffed animals that she calls her BFF's and usually they are not bundled up in her blanket. When I went to say goodnight to her a few nights ago she told me her BFF's were hybernating. They have been like this every since. Anna still sleeps with them, just in this form.

 And last, this reminds me of my grandma Dehn. The smell brings back a flood of memories from her kitchen where we spent a lot of time when growing up. The smell actually makes me want to wash my dishes by hand. I LOVE it!

busy

If your wondering why I haven't been posting much on this blog it's because I have been busy doing this. The goal I set for my photography business for the month of November/early December was 12 photo shoots. With only working on Saturdays and Sundays, this seemed like a fair goal and would allow me to make the amount of money I needed for Christmas shopping without interrupting my family responsibilities too much. I ended up exceeding my goal and booked 15 photo shoots. Even though life has been busy, I have loved every minute of it. I have met some great families, been able to spend time with families I already know and love, and bless people with family pictures. To peak at my work click on the link above and you can see what's been keeping me so busy.

Happy 12th Birthday Jadon!!!!!

At 3:06 a.m. this morning, Jadon turned 12 years old! I can't believe our oldest is already 12, but at least we have one more year before he becomes a teenager! YIKES! I need this year to prepare and pray for that! Jadon's birthday wish started shortly after his 11th birthday when he started asking for a water dragon. He had researched all there is to know about this reptile and felt like it would be a great pet for him to raise. He saved enough money to buy it last spring but mom and dad were not prepared to allow another pet in our home so we said no and of course "ruined his life".  Sometimes timing is everything and it just wasn't the right time. So the subject came up again in August and we told Jadon that we would let him get a chinese water dragon for his birthday in November but he would have to put some expense into it and also a lot of work to help dad build a cage. Michael and Jadon spent hours working on this cage and it was completed last night and moved into Jadon's room. Kevin joined our family about a week previous and is enjoying his new hotel. He was in a temporary enclosure that doesn't even compare to this set up! So we are now known as a petting zoo at our house because we have:

1 dog named Pepper

8 chickens who I won't take the time to name but they all have names. 

2 leopard geckos, Sam and Belle

1 uromastic named Spike

1 chinese water dragon named Kevin

and just for the record, WE ARE DONE! 

NO MORE PETS, we will spend countless hours taking care of the ones we have so we are done. 

We are very proud of Jadon's responsibilty and maturity he has shown to take care of his reptiles so Kevin has been well earned on his part. 

Happy Birthday Jadon, mom and dad love you so much!

Thanksgiving show

I am so thankful that our kids get to be homeschooled and also go to school one day a week. We love Eagle Ridge Enrichment Program offered by Mesa Public Schools for homeschooled children. We have found it to a be a great addition to our homeschool plan. Anna LOVES Fridays and loves her Kindergarten teacher. Parents were invited to a Thanksgiving Feast where we got to watch our students sing, be part of a play and show us what they have learned about the history of Thanksgiving. 

The Kindergarten class all wore Turkey's on their heads, here is Annagrace sitting down for the feast. 

 This is part of her class singing a Thanksgiving song, there are only 10 students in her class.

 Anna was also Star of the week so she got to bring something special from home to share with the class. She chose to bring her butterfly lapbook that she has worked on in homeschool. Here she is sharing it with the class.

 It was really fun to see her animated and talkative with her classmates. It takes her a while to come out of her shell and settle in, but I would say it looks like that has happened. :)

Service project

Our family belongs to a homeschool field trip group called SWAP (Schooling with a purpose). This year our group decided to do a service project and send care packages to a marine troop in Afghanistan. All the children filled out "about me" forms so the Marines can read about the children who sent them their care packages. 

This is what the form looks like. There is a line that says: I love Jesus because: and Jadon's response was because He is cool. Anna said she loves Jesus because He let me be her mom. Talk about melting my heart, oh my goodness I was holding back the tears on this one. And then Camden decided to say the same thing because he saw how special that was to me. :)

Each child included a picture of themselves. 

We had an army man come talk to the kids about the military. It was a great talk the kids all learned a lot. 

 There were a lot of donations!

And I thought I would include this picture because Jadon made it. He had to build an egyptian house for his Thursday afternoon Biblical History class. He did a great job!