Our family has been using Sonlight Curriculum for the past eight years. We LOVE the literature and history emphasis! Sonlight is celebrating their 25th anniversary by hosting a blog party on the 25th of each month throughout the year.You don’t have to use Sonlight to join in on the party! I decided to participate to show a bit more about our family’s homeschooling journey as well as to kickstart reporting on our homeschool again, both here by me and also on our old homeschool/family blog by my children (more on that soon). January’s blog party topic is “introduce us to your family. Are you just getting started homeschooling? Or do you have graduates? Or somewhere in between?” 

Our homeschool is called Beehive Academy. Named that years ago when my three oldest were 5,4 and 2. They choose the name because we were learning about bees and how hard-working and industrious they are. Each bee has a job to do but they work together for the good of the hive. Because of that I collect beehives to adorn our home and remind us all to work hard together. Little did I know then that our hive would grow to include ten children!

Both my husband and I were homeschooled for high school. We just knew that because of our experiences we would also homeschool our children. It has been a wonderful journey!

Joseph works hard on the farm with his brothers. We farm alfalfa hay for dairy farmers in California and also run over 100 cattle. You can a synopsis of a year’s work here. Joseph is also the bishop of our church congregation which keeps him busy, especially on Sundays. He has a 1950 Chevy truck he hopes to fix up sometime when he has spare time. Right now his spare time has been spent building a new addition to our house which includes a new school room!

I’m Montserrat. I try to keep everyone on task but also allow them some freedom to pursue their own interests. It can be a challenge with so many but I love challenges! I enjoy photography, gourmet chocolate, reading biographies, and sloppy goodnight kisses from my children. I also teach early morning seminary to the youth in our church. My other interests include blogging, playing the piano, sewing, and encouraging other moms. I was very fortunate to represent the mothers in my state as Nevada Young Mother of the Year in 2013 for American Mothers.

Our two oldest, Eve (19) and Marie (18), have graduated and are now attending college at BYU-Idaho. Both are minoring in nutrition. While one is majoring in Early Childhood Development the other is thinking about majoring in Journalism or Creative Writing.`I love that they are pursuing their interests. They know what they are good at, what they want to improve, and are taking classes to help them do that.

Sara (16) is a junior in high school. She is very artistic constantly doodling on her paper and creating masterpieces for our home. Her other interests include ballet, anything by Jane Austen, playing the piano, and running. Algebra 2 is her nemesis right now.

Abigail (14) is a freshman. She enjoys reading books (The Brotherband Chronicles is currently her favorite series), leatherwork, calligraphy, and loves animals of all sorts.

Debra (12) is in 7th grade. She is good at math much to some of her siblings chagrin. She enjoys playing the piano, writing stories and books, and keeping her room clean. She takes walks or goes on bike rides almost everyday and loves nature, especially flowers.

Laura (10) is in 5th grade. Her interests include playing the piano and guitar and singing. She enjoys playing with Debbie and Julie and their American Girl dolls. They set up elaborate houses and rooms, have parties, and just enjoy being sweet, innocent girls. Laura also is learning to use different computer programs and designed the family calendar for this year.

Ira (8) is our first boy. Having six older sister can be tough! He is Joseph’s right hand man and takes off to help him on the farm as soon as his school work is done. Ira, too, is good at math, is learning to play the guitar, loves knights and dragons, and is all farm boy.

Julia (5) is a good combination of both sweet and sassy. She can sit down at the piano and play songs by ear. Recently Abigail was trying to figure out a song that we couldn’t find sheet music for so she had Julie listen to it and then play it for her. Ha! It worked.  🙂 Julie begs for art every day and is usually the first to start working on her school work.

Gideon (3) is a typical boy who would rather go play with his tractors or swords rather than sit and learn his colors and letters. He also shows an interest in electricity which keeps us all on our toes. Yikes! Gideon enjoys the outdoors, rain or shine, cold or hot, he spends the majority of his time outside. He is also a mama’s boy through and through.

Jason (1) tries to keep up with Gideon. He is very musical and loves to ‘conduct’ when his sisters play the piano. He also hums quite often or will break out in dance when we listen to music. He can sit for hours and look at books. He is also a jokester and knows just how to tease others.

That’s us in a nutshell! We’ll be sharing a whole lot more this year. We invite you to come back and visit!