What a blessing! Now that that's settled, God has been leading me to evaluate other areas of our lives.I've read some books recently that have challenged my thinking about how we're using our hours that are not specifically used for academics. We've fallen into the trap of overdoing extracurriculars...soccer twice a week (just ended), ballet twice a week, piano lessons, music/singing class twice a week (different children on different days), friday morning history/science co-op. My kids have been asking to stay home more, I'm more tired and edgy than I'd like to be, and Dad is wondering why we're eating out too much these days.
I know that "life" looks very different for every family, and we need to be careful to evaluate these things prayerfully and not expect that what works for someone else is God's plan for us. Mostly, I'd love to hear if anyone else has evaluated priorities in a similar way, what resources were helpful, and what overarching goals you have for your family. I feel like we've put hospitality and ministry-in-the-course-of-everyday-life (like conversations with neighbors in the front yard) on hold because of being too busy.
Right now I'm reading the book, "Educating the Wholehearted Child", and loving many of the ideas in the book and on their website. I would love to attend one of their mom conferences, but the closest one is a 16 hour drive. Resource ideas?
It seems so easy to fall into the default mode of doing things the worlds way, especially in an area like ours (New England) where homeschooling is so rare and regarded as "wierd". I have felt at times like we need to be involved in plenty of other things to justify the decision to homeschool.
And if we stay home in the afternoons more often, what are some ideas for things to do, especially now that the weather is a bit more "challenging" for the next 6 months?
). We try to have at least one other family over for a meal every month. It is challenging sometimes with the busy schedules of big city families. We have also been known to skip a church outreach activity to stay home and reach out to others on our street. We believe it is important to teach our kids how to be engaged in the community and be aware of others in the course of day to day life and not just know the ones in our church family. 
We really love our homeschool group, but I have to choose carefully what we participate in. It's a great group and they have a lot of events scheduled. At first we were going to everything (Mom's meetings, park days, field trips, parties, etc.). But, we had gotten so busy with all of those events we weren't getting school done in the time that I wanted to. Some days we would start at 9:00, some days at 11:00, some days it would be 3:00 before we started, and a couple of days we missed altogether. 
I think that you get the idea. 
Anyway, last month I really started evaluating all of this. I have decided that we will only be participating in the events that are just for fun (like park days), and no more than one event with them per week. I feel like HOD is definitely filling the academic needs that we have. So, between her ballet class, one homeschool event per week, and church activities, we are still busier than I would like to be. 