Welcome Miss Sara!
It's so nice to hear that you have always homeschooled your children. My husband and I have 3. We have also always homeschooled, but our Babies are only 6,7,and 8! We love them so much! What big Blessings they are!

I have heard many good things about "My Father's World". There is another Mom in our group here that uses that curriculum as well.

I also share your love for cooking from scratch! I love to bake, especially bread! I have found pitas are the best option lately! It's been great to make better eating habits for ourselves and our families. I have prayed that the LORD give me a mindset to loose weight, get fit and healthy. And He has given grace and more grace! He is so good to us. Our children are also enjoying the exercise videos, times outside jogging and even all these attempts we've made to make "low fat, low calorie" cookie recipes!

Again, welcome Miss Sara, feel free to add me as a friend,
Katie

Hi,

I just joined your board! I am 49 (50 next week) and have three children. Two I have graduated (ages 20 and almost 22) and I have one 14 year-old left at home. I have homeschooled since 1996. I have been married to my childhood sweetheart for 3 years and I am a full-time student at university.
I always maintained my weight until I went back to school! Now, i have about 60 pounds I want to lose...maybe more!

I look forward to being on this board!

Lisa

Hello, all! I'm Jill - married to Joe for 13 years, and I'll be 35 this summer. I have two kids - Jacob is 9 and we will be starting My Father's World (Exploring Countries and Cultures) on July 9. I'm super-excited, as this will be a new curriculum and pretty much a new approach for us. I've always been more rigid - "Here's your science book. He're's your history book." etc. - so this unit study approach sort of intrigues me. And I think it will be good for Jake - he struggles with attention span and sitting still. Math takes hours to finish just one worksheet. I'm hoping with MFW being so literature heavy with lots of projects sprinkled in, he might be able tolerate it better (he likes to rock in his Nintendo chair while I read out loud to him). He is doing math and reading daily during the "off-season" from a full academic schedule. We have homeschooled on and off, depending on what was best for Jake at the time. Most recently, he's been home since January after spending four semesters at a tiny Christian school.

I said I have two kids, and I do, but my oldest lives with Jesus now. Alyssa was 10 last fall when Jesus rescued her from a six-year battle with leukemia. She was such an amazing kid - everyone always called her an old soul. She never complained, she prayed more fervently than I've ever seen anyone do. She knew that she had a cross to bear and she bore it well - she took her meds with a smile, she teased the doctors and told them about Jesus. She went through many painful therapies to deal with the side-effects of all of her treatment. And when the cancer returned for a third time last summer, she picked herself up by her bootstraps and marched in the the hospital. Two weeks later, (and three days before she passed), she told her father and I that she was tired of fighting, tired of feeling poorly. Knowing her the way we do, we told her that we would take that into consideration before making the next decisions we needed to make about her treatment. Our doc had already told us that our only option this time would be to try to increase the quantity of time we had with her, with no guarantees as to the quality. So when Alyssa told us that she was done (and she hadn't known the seriousness of her illness at this time), it confirmed to us that we wanted to focus on quality over quantity. However, unknown to us, God had already made the decision. That evening, Alyssa suffered a perforated bowel (the chemo ate all the cancer out of her intestines, but left big gaping holes in her gut) and we were Life-Flighted to our hospital (2 hours away). There, with our doctor (an awesome Christian man), we made the decision not to do anything other than provide comfort measures. When Alyssa woke up from the little nap we induced for her own sake, she asked if she could have surgery to fix her tummy. We told her that surgery wasn't going to fix this, and she knew... She cried for a minute and then asked her Daddy to "pray and tell Jesus that I don't want to die, but even more, I want His will to be done." Then she told us to call her grandparents and aunts and uncles and ask them to come see her one last itme. Everyone made it except one aunt - some even drove straight to the nearest airport and flew in! The next day, the hospital let us take her home where she saw her Guardian Angels come to minister to her. At this point, she unconscious most of the time because of the pain med she was on, but when we pulled up to our house, she awoke and said, "Home. Tell Dad this is it, Mom." We got her inside, laid her on our bed, and laid next to her for the next 10 hours before she passed. Her passing was actually beautiful - she took her last breath, opened her eyes and smiled (at Jesus, I'm sure). We scooped her up into our arms then, as for the previous couple of days she was in so much pain she couldn't bear to be touched or held.

Whoo....Didn't mean to get that far into things. Sorry! Needless to say, I love my girl so much, and I miss her incredibly! I look forward to being with her again one day more than anything in the world! It's so strange to me to think that she doesn't miss me, doesn't hurt for my presence. But I can't say I blame her - not with the awesomeness of Heaven and Jesus keeping her attention. I am so glad that she doesn't hurt anymore.

Anyway - I was never overweight until I had my son. Then my metabolism started to change, I developed hypothyroid issues, and we started spending a lot of time near a hospital cafeteria. I started here on MFP on March 21, 2012 at a weight of 180 (I'm 5'5"), and I'm currently down to 169. Shooting for at least 150, but would love to see 130 again. Calorie goal is 1330 per day, and I alternate Jillian Michaels DVDs with running 3-4 miles every other day, taking Sundays off.

Thanks for letting me spill my guts! (Now I won't have to go to therapy...)

Hi,
I'm new to mfp forum. Been homeschooling my 13yo DD since halfway through Kindergarten. If I can just lose 1/2 lb per week I think I'll be happy. That's gonna be a lot of weeks! lol

Hi! My name is Gwen and we will be starting our 7th year of homeschooling in the fall. I have 4 boys ages 12, 10, 8, and 2. I have many pounds to lose, and am excited to get healthier. I would love to have some more MFP friends, so feel free to add me!

Hi Everyone!

My name is Valerie, I just turned 50 last month and 5 days before that I joined MFP, I have 100 lbs to lose, give or take a few, but in 30 days I have already dropped 18.5 lbs and I'm feeling very positive about MFP. I have been overweight for many years and while away on a short vacation this summer came to the realization that if I didn't get it together my 3 youngest would be in for a boring childhood or perhaps one without a mom at all. Over the past few years we have adopted 3 children who are currently 8(b), 5(b) and 4(g), as well we are foster parents to 3 others, 2 teens who have been with us for over 10 years and a 2yo who is only here short term. The way I see it I will be about 63 when the youngest is 18 and I want to be fit and healthy from now on so that I can be there for them when they start their lives out in the big, wide world.

I started homeschooling last fall when all the adoptions had finally been completed and I was able to take our 8yo out of the system (the teens attend public school). This year I am working with him and the 5yo, GR3 and SK respectively and our 4yo "plays" at school with workbooks, etc We use Saxon Math, Growing with Grammar and a few other packages for various subjects and have a "schedule (very flexible as I do some part time home business work)" for the basics and the rest is more relaxed. The two boys also attend KUMON twice a week, I like to use this as a barometer for math and reading, just to make sure we stay on track. Both the kids and I enjoy homeschooling very, very much.

I have yet to incorporate much exercise in to my weight loss program but I have tried to stay on my feet more during the day, etc Last year (2011 Jan to June) I was successful at losing around 30lbs and was doing some regular walking and body weight work but it fell by the wayside and I always had trouble with the food tracking part. Then I read an article in Woman's World about this site and I find it so easy. I have not given up any specific food, but once I started tracking the food I saw how I could make better choices throughout the day so that I could still enjoy the occasional treats, etc That has been my saving grace so far and although I think the first big drop had a lot to do with water loss, the shock of seeing just how much I used to put in my mouth each day has me determined to keep this up. I will focus on one step at a time. I also want to get off my bp meds in the next year, I hate taking pills!

Looking forward to interacting with all of you. This is my first grou

Hello Ladies,

I'm Sara. I homeschool three of our four girls right now. They are grades 8, 6, and 3. My fourth is five months old. She is our bonus gift. I am looking forward to sharing support with you!

We are an eclectic style of homeschooling with some traditional but also a leaning towards Charlotte Mason style. My older daughter is using Sonlight and I admit, I find it a struggle to keep up with that. We are also using Write Shop and for Math are using Teaching Textbooks. The other two are enjoying Jeanne Fulbright's Swimming Creatures, MUS, and several other publishers.

I am so excited to be back on the journey to being healthy. My oldest daughter naturally chooses healthier food. My middle choose carbs, like mom. My next middle is a mix between the two. I seem to be addicted to sugar and am working on that. I love chocolate.

I managed to gain weight after the baby was born, almost 10 pounds!! Putting on an item of clothing that fit with room to wiggle right after she was born and then last week wouldn't close over my stomach was a major wake up call to me. Nursing or not it's time to get serious about eating well. She needs it and so do I!

Anyway, the baby is sleeping and there are a few more things to do yet today. Nice to *meet* you!

Hi! I am a homeschooling mom of four children ages 3 to 10. We are using BJ this year and I love it! I love homeschooling,most days!

I love sugar! I have had success in the past with the Atkins diet and am starting tomorrow!

Hi I'm Ashlee.

I'm a homeschooling Mom to 4, ages 10, 7, 3 and 8 mos. My husband is a church planting pastor. We live in Wisconsin. In most respects, my weight is the one thing in my life I never seem to get into check. I've had enough of that!