OUR STORY
How did we get here?
That is a good question and one I quite often ask myself! This space didn’t start out as a blog and I never planned to homeschool, but through the Lord’s hands, here we are.
My name is Cassie and my husband and I have four children. We live in Utah. In the fall of 2019, my twin girls had just started first grade when we had an experience at our local public school that didn’t sit well with us. My normally brightly shining 6 year old girls were not happy and I felt like their lights were going out. I went in and met with their teacher and the principal and we started looking at all our options. Homeschooling wasn’t even on my radar until I mentioned what was going on to a neighbor and she was like…or you could just homeschool. And with a silent eye roll I responded just like everyone else does: Yeah, I could never do that.
Nor did I want to.
As we sorted through the options that little thought of homeschooling kept coming back to me and it began increasingly difficult to sort through what we felt was best versus what everyone else was telling us.
One late night I sat down with my husband and made a pro and con list about homeschooling. To be honest, as I made the list, I was a little disappointed as I saw how many pros were stacking up. But, as we were prayerful about it, we knew with all our hearts, it’s what the Lord wanted us to do. The prompting to homeschool became so strong, we just couldn’t deny it. So, after only three weeks of even considering it, we took a complete walk in faith, pulled our kids from school, and dove in! Within just a few weeks my sweet little girls were shining bright again and, turns out, we actually all really loved it - even me!
Four months later on March 12, 2020, I’ll never ever forget watching our local news, seeing our school close, and knowing that God had already prepared us for what was happening. We were overwhelmingly comforted with His peace and love during this time and knew we were right where we needed to be.
As the pandemic threw so many families into crisis-schooling, I found myself talking and posting more and more about our homeschool life too. And, it just felt so right. The passion I have for home, family, faith, and education runs real deep and is all divinely woven together. I am so grateful that the Lord knew me better than I knew myself because now, with a little bit of hindsight, I think this is part of who I am and who I have always been. It’s just taken me these last few years to see it more clearly.
Before I had kids, I graduated from Utah State University as a Family Life Educator. I also have my associate’s degree in early childhood education. My passion has always been working with families and with children in the early years. I worked in lots of schools and homes and even served as child’s advocate. But, when I became pregnant with my girls, we made the easy decision for me to be a stay-at-home mom. In hindsight we can see how the homeschool lifestyle fits in really well with our values and what we had always envisioned for our family.
What is the real vision you have for your family and home life? Are you living that? How can you create it? I like to ask all this because it looks so differently for everyone and that is something I have come to love about the sacredness of learning at-home versus anywhere else. I think for a long time I thought my vision was one way, but once I was able to quiet the outside world and really think about what I wanted for our family, I found myself here. It is my hope that as you explore this space you’ll find some inspiration, feel supported, and maybe even find an answer to your prayers.