Our First Blog- Holidays and Homeschooling

So here it is...my first post. Andy was a little unsure about this whole blogging thing, but I was sure that, being an Air Force family, this would be a great way to share our lives with family and friends. I was also inspired by all my Beale buddies' beautiful blogs out there. You can see them in My Favorite Blogs below.
Just to let you know what's going on with us...Andy is finishing up instructing in another 6-month Weapons School class. We haven't gotten to see him much over the past two weeks, so we're really looking forward to having lots of family time on our Christmas vacation. We'll be travelling to see my family in Texas and his family in PA during that time, which we're all excited about (except for the plane rides of course). If any of you have ideas on how to keep 3 young children happy (and quiet) on airplanes, please do share.
The kids have been doing great. They love to play at the park and visit with friends in our playgroups and church. I've started homeschooling Joshua for Kindergarten this year, which is a real learning experience for the both of us. It's mostly taught me that I need to be self-disciplined to set aside some time each day for "school." I'm using a great book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann. He's been doing really well and he's already completed 50 lessons. We also do Calendar math every day and some other fun activities on our white board. I'm not doing as much as I'd like to, but I just kind of add things as I find them. A great place to find the Typical Course of Study for each grade level is http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum. You can just check it off as you go when you know the child has mastered it. I'll post more tips as I learn them for those who are interested. I'm going to try to do some "school" with Joshua over our vacation, but we'll see how that goes.