Journal Entry

We finished up the 7 habits and we have been doing this big life journal I found online. Each week is a different theme and there is an activity to complete each day. This past week we talked about self love. Becks has to write down things he loved about himself, things he was proud of. He also had to write down 3 affirmations to say to himself and 1 to say to his brother. I can’t tell you how sweet it was to hear him tell Amari that he was loved during the day. This is something mike and I make a point of doing every day—filling their minds with as much positive statements so they will grow up loving themselves 10x more than we ever did and grow up believing in who they are.

There are glimpses when I get to see the fruits of these efforts. Today for example Beckahm told me he got up and sang the “Moses was a prophet” part all by himself in front of the primary. I told him I was so proud of him. “Why?” He shrugged? “Because most kids your age would be terrified of doing that. If you can master that life skill at your age you’ll be so far ahead of the game when your older” I told him. He beamed with confidence. “I also got up and said a prayer all by myself on the microphone and I said “please bless all of the wonderful mothers in the world” 😍😍.

The thing I love most about mother hood is the teaching moments I get to have with my children–when “whys are asked, or things come up in conversations—giving me the opportunity to teach them a far greater principle. On the way home from church Becks pointed out that there is a kid in his class that never talks, “I don’t even think he talks at home,” he said. Instead of saying “well that’s strange”, I had the opportunity to teach him that everyone is different and that’s what makes the world a beautiful place. I told him that maybe he was a thinker, maybe he was an exceptional listener. He thought it was kind of cool to see it from that perspective.

Speaking of perspective, it’s do interesting to see yourself in someone else’s eyes. This girl at church said to me how amazed she was with the life I love—how she’s always wondering how I do this or that all of the time. “How do you have so much energy and are always going on these adventures? How did you throw your son that incredible birthday?” She told me she’s always writing down the things I do for becks school, because she’s so impressed with what he’s learning.”

I just laughed because inside I know I’m a crazy person 😁😁.

There is the sweetest older lady—Miss Shelly— at the gym who just loves the boys so incredibly much. She always comments on my Facebook posts, and she always tells me whenever I drop the boys off how impressed she is with how I’m raising my family. “I am in awe of you Amanda. All you are teaching these boys is just incredible! You need to write a book on how to be a mother—more mother’s need to learn from you. Your boys are just the sweetest, kindest boys, and they are so smart. I am amazed at all of the service you are doing with them, all you are teaching them, it is so inspiring.” She literally tells me this every day. I just love her!


Amari is getting so good at learning more and more concepts and at building higher sentences, it’s do fun to listen to him talk. He is obsessed with his new bike. All he wants to do is go on bike rides all day. It’s funny because he hated riding his old bike and refused to ride anything but a scooter but now he’s loving his bike.

Speech therapy has been going good. Only one more class and then it’s summer break. We officially enrolled him in Hunter Street Baptist Church for K. After touring the facility we feel like it will be a better environment for him (it’s more colorful and fun, it’s really hands on, there are less kids, he only goes from 9-1, and he gets to spend a lot of time outside). I’m excited to see how he blossoms in a school setting.

He really has not enjoyed Tball very much, he has been really grumpy and disobedient pretty much the whole season (other than when he gets to bat and wear a helmet) but I’m glad we put him in it just so he could see that he can do hard things plus he’s learned so much just from playing the game: team comradely, direction, and coordination. He is really such a good hitter and he’s really good at going after the ball in the outfield, it’s just not his thing and that’s okay. His second to last game was his best one. At this point he’d made-friends on the team and his fun little goofy self was starting to surface. It was fun to see him making new friends. Usually he’s the one playing in the dirt but This game he walked up two different times to two different teammates, tapped them on the shoulders and said “umm the rule is that you are not supposed to play int the dirt, k”. I squeezed him tight and told him how proud I was of him for being a great leader and example to his friends. He beamed from ear to ear.

Becks loves Baseball. I think we may have found his sport. He is naturally good at it. The first time the coach practiced coach pitch at a game he knocked it out of the park. He has the best throw and he runs so incredibly fast. He loves the sport! He said he’ll be sad when it ends.

He is growing into such an incredible person. I love his love for learning. I love listening to him give all of his reports and to see his personality shine through. I love his love for our planet and his respect for Mother Earth. I love how much he loves his brother now and how much he’s willing to help him. When he sees him fall he runs to help him up. He helps him when he can’t figure out the iPad, he helps him with baseball, and he loves playing with him.

Homeschooling has officially come to an end. I had the most sacred, beautiful experience as I finished the last day with Beckahm. Right after I gave him a big hug and told him congratulations and how proud I was of him, how honored I was I have been his teacher, I felt the strongest, most incredible feeling wash over me telling me how proud God was of me for trusting in his will, listening to the spirit and giving it my all in educating Beckahm this year. Tears filled my eyes and so much gratitude filled my heart! I got on my knees and thanked God for inspiring me on this journey and for qualifying me to do something I never thought I could do. I asked him to please keep my heart open to always receive inspiration regarding everything but especially the path I needed to take to raise my children. I know that I failed so many times during this homeschooling journey, I know I may have been impatient at moments, frustrated, felt feelings of guilt but I know I’m my heart that I gave it my all, I know I focused on the things that matter most (character building things) and I know that he learned so much this year. It truly was the most incredible experience! I just hope and pray that this new journey of him being put back in the public school system will be the right decision.

For his end of the year project he drew all the things he had learned about on a pillowcase, it turned out so cute and I’m so proud of him for his hard work in doing it. I also put together a little luau breakfast to welcome the summer and printed off their graduation certificates and gave them each their summer adventure back packs which they loved. I also put together a slide show of all the wonderful moments we had together the past year. I got so emotional telling him about how honored I was to be his teacher, what a growing experience it was for me, and the sacred moment I had (the feelings I felt when we finished). He had never seen me cry before and as he watched me get emotional his eyes filled up with tears and he said “don’t cry mama, you’re going to start making me cry!” Oh how I love him!

Later that night he said to me “I want to tell you something mom! I’m so proud of you for homeschooling me! You were the best teacher!” He reaped his arms around me and gave me a big hug! Totally melted my heart!

This past week has been one of the most stressful weeks—trying to get homeschool wrapped up, trying to look for a home (spending 3 unplanned days to find something) and getting ready to go camping. Saturday came, I finished school, packed the car for our 1st ever camp trip and I cleaned my house super good because our realtor was coming over to check out the house to see what we could list it for. All the while taking care of Blue and Ni (the got fleas and a stray cat got in our house one night and attacked them both and hurt Nis leg pretty bad. Later today I noticed Blues leg is also injured some how 🙄🙄. So much stress!

Saturday mike came to look at the houses I had picked and we both fell in love with this gorgeous house. To make a long story short after spending so much time looking for homes, it was so nice to actually like one and feel like it was yours! I kept praying that we’d find financing that could help us afford it (it was 309).

The next morning—the day we were gong to go camping—I noticed it was pending. I basically broke down after that. I started down the negative train and it was hard to get them out of my head. I saw our vision board and realizing the year is already 1/2 way over and we haven’t done much on that board. It depresses me and it sent me for a spiral. I broke down. I vocalized to mike how frustrated I was, how angry I was at myself for not being able to let this disappointment, and trusting in God that it wasn’t the right move surface...I just could master it for some reason.

It was hard to let it all go but once we got to the farm I felt an immediate sense of release.


The boys are changing so much! Just watching Becks learn how to really ride a skateboard and seeing him ride around the neighborhood made me realize how quickly time is passing. Amari is obsessed with riding his bike everyday, he is getting so good at it. Amaris prayers are getting so cute too—it’s fun to see what they think about and care about and see that translate into how they talk to God.

I have to say I’m so grateful the boys now share a room, it has helped their relationship tremendously. It’s fun (and can be annoying) to hear them stay up late at night playing, quarreling, wrestling, talking. Nothing matters more to me than raising them to have a good relationship and closeness (something I never had with my siblings).

I haven’t written much about our debate with homeschool. I’ve prayed about it now that we’ve finished a year and need to think about next year. Amari finished speech at Mcadory and we went through the whole spill about him enrolling there in the fall and I just felt sick to my stomach, he’s not ready to be at school for 8 hrs and I’m a public school at that. So we toured s Christian school that they do all their sports through and we decided to enroll him there at Hunter Street Baptist. It’s only from 9-1 and it’s a smaller K class. We felt really good about it so we’ll see how it goes.

We toured a Montessori school for Beckahm that’s 30 min from us. And we fell in love with it. We were so close to enrolling Becks but we pulled out last minute because of the cost. We are just unsure if we will be able to pay $1000 a month and our goal this year is to get out of debt and travel more. I just don’t feel it’s the right thing to do until we know that our salary is going to increase.

So as of now we are trying to find a house in a better school district. We’ve looked at probably 50 + homes and as I’ve written about above, It’s been super stressful to say the least. The homes are either not in our budget, need massive renovations which would take a lot of extra money as well, or they have absolutely not back yard and are packed in like sardines. I hope and pray that we find something we like ASAP. And I hope and pray that we made the best decision to put Becks back in public school even though I don’t agree with the school system whatsoever. I just felt in regards to homeschool that he needed something more. We’ll see, if it’s not a good experience I’ll just pull him out and homeschool him.


Becks summer camp: Camp Fletcher

And just like that he’s all grown up and going off to his first week of summer camp ⛺️. Such a cutie! He was a little bit nervous walking into the dining hall for breakfast but he aced the day like the champ he is!

He told me he didn’t know where to go when he got in there so he just got some breakfast and sat down at a table. He started to cry 😢. It broke my heart hearing this! I hate seeing my boys go through hard things even though I know it’s good for them. He said a camp counselor finally found him and told him what group he was in.

He loved everything after that!


He had to partner with a buddy—they stayed with each other all day, his name was Andrew. They even made them go to the bathroom together, “I was okay with that,” he said.

They raised the flag, sang camp songs (which he proceeded to sing till he went to bed 😂), swam in the pool, learned how to get out from under a 🛶 and how to row; played field games, learned how to play Jacks (now his favorite game), ate lunch (he had chicken nuggets, lettuce with ranch, beans, and a cookie. He said he loved the salad and the cookie ☺️; he got to shop at the snack shack (he chose a bracelet—of course— an airhead and a juice).

He’s pumped about going back for two more days and then another week in July. 

Amari on the other hand was so sad being without his sidekick all day—it’s the first time they have been apart for a whole year. He did not want to go in the gym today by himself. All day he kept saying, “where’s Becks? Where’s Becks.” That broke my heart too, but it also made me so happy just seeing how much he loves and misses his brother. I had a talk with him about standing on his own and how he was incredible at making his own friends but he wouldn’t have it. He said “I don’t want to make friends, friends are mean!I want Beckahm!” 😢😢 He loves his big brother Beckahm ❤️❤️ It will be interesting to see how this next year goes with them being in school apart from each other all year. #summatime #campfletcher #summercamp