Fast forward to now....I feel so great! I am so glad that we stuck with HOD. I am also glad we ended up only doing half days at co-op last year. We chose to take a step back from some things so that God could show me who I was and what was important to me as the homeschool parent. One reason we wanted to do only half days at co-op was because I wanted to do more field trips. Well.....we didn't go on one extra field trip last year
. Okay...God showed me I am not the field trip homeschool mom. We also took some days off because I was sooooo busy with working. God showed me I needed the extra time in my schedule for work and my work grew enough that I hired my boss recently this past June. I am so glad God led this man to my business and next year I will only be working around 15 hours a week 
. God also showed me that my kids like the volume of work with HOD and they love to read to learn/ It really reinforced that this literature/CM curriculum work best for us. And in deciding to stick with co-op, I converted yet another 2 families this year to using HOD and several of the classes offered at my co-op this year are using some of the HOD products. So this year as I was setting my kids stuff up and filing things away from prior years, I was so humbled and thankful to God for every year that he has been with me on my homeschool journey. For the first three years of my homeschooling journey - I started classical but moved to eclectic. In year 4, I decided I didn't like classical and neither did my kids so we tried MFW. It was a great year. But then I found that by year 5, I really needed a curriculum that was geared toward each child and where they were educationally. That is what lead me to HOD. As I was putting my kids stuff away and looking back at what my kids did for the past 3 years with HOD, it renewed me so much and has re-ignited my fire for why I love this curriculum so much. My oldest strugged with dyslexia and it created a passion in her to read. She did Preparing for her first year with HOD and I am in awe of how much she changed in her attitude toward school. I was so surprised by how much she was able to accomplish a day and how independent she was with her work. Her reading skills exploded as did her desire to work hard. I started my younger two kids in Beyond that first year and was reminded of how much fun they had. I have so many pictures of that activities they did, the games they played, and the crafts they made. The next year my oldest did CTC and I decided to split up my younger two kids that year. That year was also awesome too. I was looking back through my oldest notebook and just reminiscing on what she wrote and how God spoke to her that year. I was also so thankful that God did had me split my younger two kids up that year. My son completed Bigger that and God really needed me to spend some time focusing on my sons Auditory Processing Disorder. I needed to give him that extra one on one time. I also am so glad I had the orportunity to do Little Hearts with my youngest that year. I loved having that time to cuddle with her and read so many of the joyful books with her. But last year was my tough year. I started my year with R2R, Preparing and Bigger. My oldest did enjoy reading but I was stressed about how quickly she would be able to read (she was still kind of slow at it). She also didn't necessarily have a super strong attention span. Well.....last year went great for her! She read SO fast. And I know she read it because I would quiz her some days and she could tell me everything I asked. She was amazing last year. I was looking back through her binder and I just loved seeing her written narrations, drawings, and many other activities she completed. With my younger two - God taught me it was time to combine them again. I started my year with Preparing for my son and Bigger for my younger child. By week 10, I was overwhelmed with work and while I wasn't happy about it at the time, I decided to have my son repeat much of Bigger again. He stayed in the same grammar book, stuck with Preparing science, and I added most of the extensions. In addition, we were using different story time books. The year didn't feel like a complete repeat but about 1/2 of it was a repeat. It was such a cool year! I was comparing his binder from this year with some of the stuff he did last year. I noticed that this past year, he barely needed help. The year before he needed much more help and his work wasn't nearly as nice when it was completed. Wow! My youngest never ceases to amaze me though. She is always so steadfast and studious. She loves school and she loves doing things with her brother. As I looked through her binder, I loved seeing how hard she worked too.
As I was tidying up the shelves with my kiddos binders, it was such a good reminder of God provision on my homeschooling journey and just how thankful I am to God for leading me to the HOD company. Ironicially......and I have said this before.....I only ordered a catalog because I heard through the grapevine that HOD has nice books. Well....I got that catalog and it changed my life! They had so much more to offer than just nice books and I knew God lead me here on purpose. It was beginning of October and I had already started my school year with something else first but I just knew that I needed to just make the switch in full. My wonderful husband gave me his shed money so that I could buy all new curriculum and start over with HOD. He also thinks it was the wisest investment he has made. My husband never cared about school much until I started using HOD. He firmly feels we should never leave it either LOL.
Below is a picture of my kids shelves with their binders. It is such a sweet reminder to me of why I homeschool and holds treasure upon treasure to remind me of things my kids learned about. Every year is an adventure. I often get excited thinking about future binders they will create that will showcase even more learning that is to come. Thank you HOD for these wonderful memories you have helped my kids to create. Thank you for your wonderful program that is so full and rich in the Lord along with being fun, has great books, and is so top notch educational.
