WEBVTT 00:02.377 --> 00:03.596 [SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting. 00:06.865 --> 00:11.289 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to another best of little by little homeschool podcast episode. 00:11.749 --> 00:14.372 [SPEAKER_00]: If you listen to Monday's episode, I gave a little bit of announcement. 00:14.432 --> 00:17.815 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to recap it real quick, just in case you didn't listen to it. 00:18.235 --> 00:20.597 [SPEAKER_00]: But I was basically saying I need to add a little bit of margin. 00:20.978 --> 00:27.684 [SPEAKER_00]: So when you're taking a little bit of time off, I'm not quite sure how much time at least a couple of weeks is the first time I've done this in over four years. 00:28.224 --> 00:31.807 [SPEAKER_00]: So there won't be new episodes, but I'm going to play some we'll call. 00:32.128 --> 00:36.872 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll call them reruns and I just hope that today's episode is exactly 00:36.852 --> 00:51.247 [SPEAKER_00]: what you need to hear right now in this day in this season as you maybe close up the books for this home school year and you now shift gears and start looking at the summer but also thinking and planning ahead for next home school year. 00:52.068 --> 01:00.096 [SPEAKER_00]: Once again if there are any resources that I can help you with always go over to littlebylittlehomeschool.com and there is just a variety of different things. 01:00.136 --> 01:05.121 [SPEAKER_00]: So hopefully we'll meet you where you're at and I pray that this episode is a blessing to you today. 01:08.408 --> 01:14.858 [SPEAKER_00]: Whether you have kiddos that are approaching a graduation or not, you might have younger kiddos. 01:14.979 --> 01:16.942 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to listen for these ideas. 01:17.723 --> 01:20.087 [SPEAKER_00]: Either way, get out your paper and depend. 01:20.548 --> 01:22.451 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to write down these ideas. 01:23.112 --> 01:24.915 [SPEAKER_00]: And then you can simply forget about them for a little while. 01:24.955 --> 01:29.001 [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to tuck this piece of paper into your home school ideas folder. 01:29.202 --> 01:30.444 [SPEAKER_00]: I know you have one of those. 01:30.504 --> 01:31.265 [SPEAKER_00]: You have it somewhere. 01:31.726 --> 01:33.108 [SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe you have notes on your phone. 01:33.128 --> 01:35.091 [SPEAKER_00]: You can do that there as well, wherever. 01:35.071 --> 01:50.532 [SPEAKER_00]: Take it aside because I can guarantee you you're going to be thinking about it and you're going to say what what was that she was talking about and I'm going to tell you exactly what we did we created just I loved our homeschool graduation that we had for our daughter. 01:50.512 --> 01:55.237 [SPEAKER_00]: I've got two more graduations ahead and I'm just excited about that. 01:55.297 --> 02:05.409 [SPEAKER_00]: The really neat thing is that we can create a graduation celebration that is for each individual child. 02:05.469 --> 02:06.751 [SPEAKER_00]: Now some of the things I did. 02:06.791 --> 02:08.933 [SPEAKER_00]: So today I'm going to share with you the standard. 02:09.293 --> 02:19.405 [SPEAKER_00]: What exactly I will do for my next two and they graduate as well, but for them I'll probably 02:19.385 --> 02:24.350 [SPEAKER_00]: We probably won't do the same type of colors of like mauve and pink. 02:24.370 --> 02:26.172 [SPEAKER_00]: We'll go with what they want. 02:26.553 --> 02:46.675 [SPEAKER_00]: But today I'm going to share with you the framework in order to create a homeschool graduation celebration that honors the entire family, honors the graduate, but also pulls people in to the homeschool lifestyle and gives them a glimpse of it and helps those that are maybe we'll say outsiders. 02:46.655 --> 02:52.024 [SPEAKER_00]: Get to experience home school and hopefully possibly fall in love with it as well. 02:52.564 --> 02:57.813 [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get started, I want to read a review from the podcast here. 02:57.853 --> 03:01.859 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is from Lead Creative and very sweet. 03:02.260 --> 03:05.024 [SPEAKER_00]: She said, I think this is a great podcast for any mama. 03:05.205 --> 03:09.071 [SPEAKER_00]: It is warm and personal and encourages moms to slow down and take a breath. 03:09.692 --> 03:14.299 [SPEAKER_00]: It really prioritizes what's important life, your kids, and enjoying them now. 03:14.279 --> 03:17.823 [SPEAKER_00]: I have been curious about homeschooling and I'm keeping it open as an option. 03:18.343 --> 03:21.487 [SPEAKER_00]: If we ever go that route, I know Lee would be a great resource. 03:22.067 --> 03:26.352 [SPEAKER_00]: Mama, girl, let's go, let's homeschool, send me an email. 03:26.692 --> 03:28.434 [SPEAKER_00]: But thank you, that's very, very sweet. 03:29.235 --> 03:32.939 [SPEAKER_00]: If you can leave me a review, I would absolutely so appreciate it. 03:33.359 --> 03:41.788 [SPEAKER_00]: Simply by leaving every view, it helps the podcast to be shared to other moms who are thinking about homeschooling or who are homeschooling. 03:41.988 --> 03:44.292 [SPEAKER_00]: And it also provides me some feedback. 03:44.312 --> 03:45.273 [SPEAKER_00]: So I really appreciate it. 03:45.293 --> 03:49.319 [SPEAKER_00]: You can go ahead and scroll to the bottom of, you'd have to do it on Apple. 03:49.860 --> 03:58.273 [SPEAKER_00]: You can go into iTunes if you're on a laptop or something, but scroll to the bottom on your iTunes app and go ahead and just leave every view. 03:58.413 --> 04:00.817 [SPEAKER_00]: It's really super simple to do and I appreciate it. 04:00.837 --> 04:02.680 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you very much. 04:02.660 --> 04:04.323 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so let's go back. 04:04.604 --> 04:07.710 [SPEAKER_00]: I started thinking about a graduation celebration. 04:08.271 --> 04:13.400 [SPEAKER_00]: Probably about middle of high school at the latest, I think, in the back of my mind, I always thought about it. 04:14.242 --> 04:20.213 [SPEAKER_00]: I came from a tenting a public high school, and so to me, very standard high school graduation. 04:20.193 --> 04:25.840 [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody walks across the stage, you have your cap and gown, there's certain traditions, there's things that you do. 04:26.301 --> 04:33.451 [SPEAKER_00]: And even though I graduated from a semi-small, you're about a hundred of us or so, there was still, you know, a lot of pomp and circumstance. 04:33.511 --> 04:35.673 [SPEAKER_00]: And to me, that was what graduation had to be. 04:36.154 --> 04:44.826 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I do want to say I do have friends and I know people who participate in homeschool graduation ceremonies that are very much like that. 04:45.306 --> 04:45.947 [SPEAKER_00]: And they love it. 04:45.967 --> 04:47.449 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what they want for their family. 04:47.429 --> 04:48.510 [SPEAKER_00]: That's fantastic. 04:48.610 --> 04:51.113 [SPEAKER_00]: If that's what you want for your family, go for it. 04:51.473 --> 04:56.298 [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're like, hmm, maybe I don't know if I do or not, or that's not what I want for my family. 04:56.679 --> 04:59.101 [SPEAKER_00]: I want to share with you what we did instead. 04:59.482 --> 05:04.006 [SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't mean that doing a traditional ceremony, there's anything wrong with that. 05:04.307 --> 05:07.970 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, with the homeschool lifestyle, you get to create what it's going to be. 05:08.010 --> 05:12.475 [SPEAKER_00]: And so for us, this is what we created and just loved it. 05:12.455 --> 05:20.746 [SPEAKER_00]: So I started doing some research, probably beginning of her 12th grade year, reading blog posts and reading just different things. 05:21.126 --> 05:28.195 [SPEAKER_00]: And all of them were very much still focused on a traditional high school graduation. 05:28.255 --> 05:33.642 [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I was able to kind of pull some things, but most of them I was just like, that's not what we want. 05:33.942 --> 05:35.144 [SPEAKER_00]: We're graduating from home school. 05:35.164 --> 05:40.791 [SPEAKER_00]: This has been a complete 05:40.771 --> 05:42.693 [SPEAKER_00]: represent that well, let's say. 05:42.733 --> 05:48.960 [SPEAKER_00]: So did lots of research and I was like, eh, I don't really like not really liking any of that stuff. 05:49.420 --> 05:52.604 [SPEAKER_00]: And I really, again, I wanted to honor our home school lifestyle. 05:53.285 --> 05:57.630 [SPEAKER_00]: And many people were saying beforehand, I'm really excited to attend this. 05:57.710 --> 06:01.434 [SPEAKER_00]: I've never attended a home school graduation before. 06:01.534 --> 06:05.378 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, yeah, I've never put one on before. 06:06.455 --> 06:09.300 [SPEAKER_00]: So they were really excited because they're curious about it. 06:09.320 --> 06:11.204 [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, okay, the pressure's on here now. 06:11.845 --> 06:14.951 [SPEAKER_00]: We had an absolutely amazing day. 06:15.432 --> 06:28.497 [SPEAKER_00]: It was one that honored my daughter and people still mention it's been nine, 10 months or so so almost a year later and people will still mention something about her graduation ceremony. 06:28.477 --> 06:34.745 [SPEAKER_00]: So, I think that it really did make an impression upon other people and it really honored her and it honored our family. 06:35.647 --> 06:41.154 [SPEAKER_00]: It turned out to be, I think, the hottest day of the year, but we didn't melt. 06:41.254 --> 06:50.146 [SPEAKER_00]: So, let's jump into 10 ideas, 10 tips, we'll say, for creating a homeschool graduation ceremony celebration. 06:50.206 --> 06:51.628 [SPEAKER_00]: We called it more of a celebration. 06:52.088 --> 06:55.513 [SPEAKER_00]: So, you're going to get out to your paper and your pen right now and you're going to write these down. 06:55.628 --> 06:58.111 [SPEAKER_00]: First one, use your home if you want to. 06:58.592 --> 07:00.274 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the basis of your home school. 07:00.814 --> 07:03.978 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you want to rent somewhere else out, you absolutely can. 07:04.539 --> 07:07.302 [SPEAKER_00]: For us, we were doing it on a small budget. 07:07.603 --> 07:09.585 [SPEAKER_00]: And also, we enjoy our home. 07:09.605 --> 07:11.047 [SPEAKER_00]: We enjoy our home and our property. 07:11.207 --> 07:12.048 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a huge home. 07:12.188 --> 07:14.391 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a very big property at all. 07:14.812 --> 07:20.339 [SPEAKER_00]: But we wanted to, for me, was also just easiest to do everything here instead of carding everything somewhere else. 07:20.859 --> 07:21.780 [SPEAKER_00]: We just wanted to do it. 07:21.820 --> 07:22.521 [SPEAKER_00]: We just wanted to be here. 07:22.621 --> 07:25.585 [SPEAKER_00]: And our daughter really enjoys being home. 07:25.565 --> 07:27.108 [SPEAKER_00]: we wanted to honor that as well. 07:27.589 --> 07:32.098 [SPEAKER_00]: So home is the basis of your home school and so it's a perfect place to do it. 07:32.599 --> 07:34.663 [SPEAKER_00]: Now you don't need to do anything fancy. 07:34.683 --> 07:36.267 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to build a new deck. 07:36.647 --> 07:38.671 [SPEAKER_00]: You don't need to put in a swimming pool for this. 07:38.912 --> 07:43.481 [SPEAKER_00]: I have seen some really crazy things people getting ready for a graduations. 07:43.762 --> 07:46.948 [SPEAKER_00]: I give you full permission to not 07:46.928 --> 07:49.371 [SPEAKER_00]: put in some cabana or something. 07:49.451 --> 07:53.635 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to do anything extreme or big. 07:54.016 --> 07:58.400 [SPEAKER_00]: Just use your home as it is, but also get it ready. 07:58.901 --> 08:02.785 [SPEAKER_00]: We decided to use outdoors our backyard. 08:02.845 --> 08:06.409 [SPEAKER_00]: And we had the indoors available if anybody wanted to come in. 08:06.489 --> 08:07.831 [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, it was a really hot day. 08:07.871 --> 08:12.936 [SPEAKER_00]: We had the air conditioning blasting inside and obviously people needed to come in to use the bathrooms. 08:12.916 --> 08:17.522 [SPEAKER_00]: We got the inside of the house cleaned up and straightened up, but we used the outside. 08:17.562 --> 08:19.826 [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't do extravagant yard work. 08:19.866 --> 08:22.529 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't go and plant a whole new tree line or anything. 08:23.030 --> 08:24.111 [SPEAKER_00]: Cleaned up what we had. 08:24.352 --> 08:26.515 [SPEAKER_00]: Moved the lawn and just kind of spruce things up. 08:26.935 --> 08:32.203 [SPEAKER_00]: I had some fresh potted flowers on the porch steps and just different things around. 08:32.543 --> 08:35.447 [SPEAKER_00]: That would just add just a little bit of color to things. 08:51.374 --> 08:53.197 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember quite. 08:53.277 --> 08:57.903 [SPEAKER_00]: It was probably the summer between 75 and 100 who actually came over. 08:57.943 --> 09:08.678 [SPEAKER_00]: So it wasn't something, especially during the ceremony, we didn't necessarily want to do it inside, but we could if our rain day ended up raining on that day as well, we would have just moved inside, we wouldn't have picked a third day. 09:09.078 --> 09:17.951 [SPEAKER_00]: We decided, so also think about where you live and what would be the best months for us, may June are beautiful and perfect, especially the end of May. 09:18.451 --> 09:21.195 [SPEAKER_00]: So we chose that timeframe to do it. 09:21.175 --> 09:25.370 [SPEAKER_00]: So, work with the state or the country wherever you live with, work with your climate. 09:26.193 --> 09:31.050 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't go and do it on something and where it's going to be way too hot or it's going to be too cold. 09:31.165 --> 09:35.311 [SPEAKER_00]: The second thing is, do an open house type style. 09:35.532 --> 09:38.416 [SPEAKER_00]: You'll be able to get more people that will be available to come. 09:38.636 --> 09:43.043 [SPEAKER_00]: Some people might be able to come at one o'clock in the afternoon, but they can certainly step by at five o'clock. 09:43.764 --> 09:45.747 [SPEAKER_00]: So we started with open house. 09:45.767 --> 09:48.431 [SPEAKER_00]: We said a certain time we're gonna start and a certain time we're gonna end. 09:48.671 --> 09:54.540 [SPEAKER_00]: Keep the costs down, send out e-vites, just a free e-vite to everybody, and explain to them. 09:54.520 --> 09:56.042 [SPEAKER_00]: that it's an open house style. 09:56.622 --> 10:02.349 [SPEAKER_00]: But if they wanted to attend the home school celebration, that would be at a certain time. 10:02.770 --> 10:04.432 [SPEAKER_00]: So it gave people the option. 10:04.812 --> 10:09.177 [SPEAKER_00]: Those who wanted to participate and wanted to watch that, they could, they could come and do that. 10:09.878 --> 10:11.600 [SPEAKER_00]: Some people were just not available to do it. 10:12.020 --> 10:15.865 [SPEAKER_00]: Or maybe some just weren't interested in that part, but had time to stop by for the open house. 10:15.905 --> 10:17.727 [SPEAKER_00]: That's absolutely fine. 10:17.707 --> 10:19.289 [SPEAKER_00]: We invited family. 10:19.329 --> 10:24.214 [SPEAKER_00]: I was just even inviting family that you know probably cannot come because of distance. 10:24.354 --> 10:24.935 [SPEAKER_00]: That's okay. 10:25.015 --> 10:27.978 [SPEAKER_00]: It's really nice to be able to be included in such a thing. 10:28.579 --> 10:29.600 [SPEAKER_00]: So invite family. 10:30.581 --> 10:34.184 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's your kiddo invite their friends, which is really easy when you have an evite. 10:34.365 --> 10:37.989 [SPEAKER_00]: I just forwarded her the evite and she sent it on to her friends. 10:38.349 --> 10:43.174 [SPEAKER_00]: We even invited the families of her friends because we've gotten to know them. 10:43.154 --> 10:51.887 [SPEAKER_00]: Then we also just invited family friends, people from church and just those that had been watching her grow up and just be a part of who she was. 10:51.927 --> 11:01.281 [SPEAKER_00]: We also invited family friends that were lived at a distance, knowing that they most likely couldn't come, but again, it's nice to be included and invited to such a thing. 11:01.261 --> 11:12.338 [SPEAKER_00]: Number three is to set like a schedule and it doesn't have to be solid in stone but if you say you're going to start at one o'clock, be ready to receive people at one o'clock. 11:12.979 --> 11:23.195 [SPEAKER_00]: If you say then you're going to have the ceremony at one thirty, started around one thirty because people have maybe come, they want to come for that and they can only stay a little bit on our people's time. 11:23.936 --> 11:29.445 [SPEAKER_00]: So start say at one o'clock, have the ceremony at one 11:29.425 --> 11:39.047 [SPEAKER_00]: go straight into some type of meal time and then you can end five six o'clock if you're looking at a four to five hour time frame for the open house. 11:39.280 --> 11:43.946 [SPEAKER_00]: Number four is to prep your food before or you can have it catered. 11:44.487 --> 11:48.553 [SPEAKER_00]: We decided just to make our own stuff, picked out just a couple of base things. 11:48.753 --> 11:53.760 [SPEAKER_00]: We did a cookout because it was May, June, kind of the beginning of cookout season for us where we live. 11:54.320 --> 11:59.027 [SPEAKER_00]: And so that was easy that way my husband could cook the hamburgers and the hot dogs on the grill. 11:59.487 --> 12:02.892 [SPEAKER_00]: And all of the sides, I just pick like three main sides and 12:02.872 --> 12:09.179 [SPEAKER_00]: made double triple, actually probably quadruple of each of those and stored what I could in refrigerator. 12:09.259 --> 12:10.180 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it was so hot out. 12:10.220 --> 12:12.322 [SPEAKER_00]: It could only bring things out kind of last minute. 12:12.843 --> 12:22.173 [SPEAKER_00]: But then I outsource the cake, just had the grocery store, just had them make it, just figured one big huge sheet cake, that would make it easy, have lots of different drinks. 12:22.273 --> 12:32.524 [SPEAKER_00]: We had obviously lots of water bottles, if you have kids coming, they love to have juice boxes, you can have sodas, sparkling drinks, whatever it is that, 12:32.504 --> 12:34.326 [SPEAKER_00]: using people might like to have. 12:34.607 --> 12:39.393 [SPEAKER_00]: Have ice, have those in buckets of ice, so things are nice and cooled down, especially with the hot day. 12:39.473 --> 12:42.416 [SPEAKER_00]: They can drink a nice cold bottle of water. 12:42.456 --> 12:43.257 [SPEAKER_00]: They would enjoy that. 12:43.698 --> 12:46.121 [SPEAKER_00]: So prep all your food beforehand. 12:46.582 --> 12:50.607 [SPEAKER_00]: Think about how many days you need to be working on that beforehand. 12:50.647 --> 12:51.768 [SPEAKER_00]: You're making potato salad. 12:52.249 --> 12:54.131 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I need to put hard-boiled eggs in that. 12:54.151 --> 12:56.554 [SPEAKER_00]: Would be easy for me to make the hard-boiled eggs like 12:56.534 --> 13:04.867 [SPEAKER_00]: three days in advance but then not have and get all of that ready get the different parts ready and then not actually mix it all together until that until that day. 13:05.648 --> 13:08.752 [SPEAKER_00]: So number five would be to set up the space. 13:09.253 --> 13:11.957 [SPEAKER_00]: We decided to use our garage. 13:11.977 --> 13:13.439 [SPEAKER_00]: We have a detached garage. 13:13.540 --> 13:24.516 [SPEAKER_00]: Our home is really old and the garage is probably built in the early-ish 1900s and so it's pretty cool inside. 13:24.496 --> 13:27.221 [SPEAKER_00]: it's something that she enjoys the character of that. 13:27.262 --> 13:29.145 [SPEAKER_00]: So we decided to utilize that space. 13:29.646 --> 13:37.723 [SPEAKER_00]: So we would have a covered area to be able to put all of the food in, set up the tables, put the food on, have all the paper products, have all the drinks. 13:38.224 --> 13:45.458 [SPEAKER_00]: We had an area set up in there where people could leave notes for her in a notebook, leave gifts and envelopes. 13:45.438 --> 13:49.023 [SPEAKER_00]: And then also we had, I think, yes, it was inside there. 13:49.083 --> 13:50.165 [SPEAKER_00]: James had a TV set up. 13:50.185 --> 13:53.930 [SPEAKER_00]: We put together a slideshow of pictures of her throughout the years. 13:54.411 --> 14:00.038 [SPEAKER_00]: So just put that into a TV that he just mounted on the wall and there with a thumb drive and it just went through the slideshow. 14:00.058 --> 14:04.485 [SPEAKER_00]: So it was kind of neat because we moved here when my daughter was just turning 13. 14:04.945 --> 14:07.869 [SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of people hadn't seen a lot of things from her when she was younger. 14:07.929 --> 14:09.071 [SPEAKER_00]: So that was, that was nice. 14:09.632 --> 14:14.078 [SPEAKER_00]: So set up the space. 14:14.058 --> 14:19.164 [SPEAKER_00]: in our backyard, which is right behind our garage, so everything was right in the same area. 14:19.764 --> 14:21.947 [SPEAKER_00]: Barrow chairs kind of put out like an SOS. 14:21.967 --> 14:23.869 [SPEAKER_00]: Does anybody have any chairs we can borrow? 14:24.350 --> 14:30.076 [SPEAKER_00]: And then in the E-vite, I just asked people if they could bring lawn chairs, disfolding chairs. 14:30.637 --> 14:33.159 [SPEAKER_00]: No one complained if somebody asked me to bring that to like sure. 14:33.219 --> 14:36.663 [SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't expect somebody to have enough seats for 75 to 100 people. 14:37.144 --> 14:39.947 [SPEAKER_00]: So I just had people bring seats and had them kind of lined up. 14:39.927 --> 14:45.775 [SPEAKER_00]: in an area in the back, we then before the ceremony and then you could kind of move around as you wanted to. 14:46.075 --> 14:54.847 [SPEAKER_00]: Number six, this idea was brilliant and I don't know they want to take 100% credit, but like I'm not patting myself in the back. 14:54.867 --> 14:57.791 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying it was I'm so glad that we did this. 14:58.432 --> 15:04.160 [SPEAKER_00]: We hired a photographer, which sounds extreme, but it's just somebody that I knew or had met through. 15:04.180 --> 15:09.006 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know her too crazy well, but I knew her well enough to reach out and say, hey, 15:08.986 --> 15:22.894 [SPEAKER_00]: Could you come for, I think she came for an hour, hour and a half so pay for her traveling to us that hour and a half and then for her to travel back home and then within I think a few days or a week she sent me the pictures. 15:23.262 --> 15:24.003 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness. 15:24.183 --> 15:32.312 [SPEAKER_00]: I am so glad we did this because I can tell you right now I wouldn't have gotten any pictures and these pictures that she took were phenomenal. 15:32.773 --> 15:34.515 [SPEAKER_00]: They're just beautiful pictures. 15:34.535 --> 15:41.043 [SPEAKER_00]: She had an actual real camera instead of me with my iPhone trying to take pictures which would have been fine and nice. 15:41.523 --> 15:49.152 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think I maybe took a couple of pictures that entire day because again, I was in a dress so there was nowhere to put a phone and I was too busy. 15:49.132 --> 16:08.862 [SPEAKER_00]: by hiring a photographer to just capture moments of during our ceremony and to capture casual times when people were there really took the stress off and we could enjoy the time and we can look back now and see these amazing amazing pictures and everything that she took so I would highly recommend putting aside a little bit of the budget. 16:08.842 --> 16:32.166 [SPEAKER_00]: So that you can hire somebody to come in from the outside this person didn't necessarily know my daughter or us super well, which actually made it a little bit nice because she was just there on business and wasn't distracted people didn't distract from other things we did that everybody know that if they would like to get a picture with my daughter while a photographer was there because we would love to have those pictures. 16:32.146 --> 16:38.676 [SPEAKER_00]: to make sure they did that we said she'd be leaving at the certain time so be sure you grab her and she just kind of mingle around and took pictures. 16:38.756 --> 16:42.782 [SPEAKER_00]: So number six, higher photographer, non-negotiable. 16:43.143 --> 16:43.243 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. 16:43.924 --> 16:47.910 [SPEAKER_00]: So number seven here is to actually do some type of ceremony. 16:48.450 --> 16:49.853 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell you how ours went. 16:49.993 --> 16:51.455 [SPEAKER_00]: It was about 30 minutes long. 16:51.495 --> 16:56.803 [SPEAKER_00]: We just kind of figured out the layout and then just kind of went with it and it turned out to be 16:56.783 --> 16:59.006 [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of fun and really beautiful as well. 16:59.387 --> 17:05.657 [SPEAKER_00]: We started off with James welcoming everybody there, and then I spoke for a little while. 17:05.697 --> 17:09.182 [SPEAKER_00]: I had put together something I think I just had some notes. 17:09.683 --> 17:19.618 [SPEAKER_00]: There were some specific points and things that I wanted to share and it was me speaking to the group, but also me as well speaking to her at the same time. 17:19.598 --> 17:35.599 [SPEAKER_00]: after I spoke then James came up and he kind of gave his thoughts and of her at this junction it is a different season changing of seasons in life and then we had lined up someone special in her life to speak as well. 17:35.579 --> 17:52.875 [SPEAKER_00]: This would be somebody that is older, doesn't have to be super old, but just somebody in the life that your graduate respects and really enjoys and somebody who has been pouring into them and who at that time can pour even more into them. 17:53.235 --> 18:05.046 [SPEAKER_00]: And just ask that person to share whatever it is that God has laid upon their heart to share about your graduate, but also just about this next season 18:05.363 --> 18:08.711 [SPEAKER_00]: After that, then allowed the graduate time to speak. 18:09.312 --> 18:10.716 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell them this, though, okay? 18:10.756 --> 18:15.227 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a month or two in advance, they can think about what it is that they want to share. 18:15.287 --> 18:22.444 [SPEAKER_00]: We told our daughter that we didn't care what she shared if she wanted to, I mean, obviously, let's stick away from the embarrassing things. 18:22.424 --> 18:31.118 [SPEAKER_00]: because she wanted to share about homeschool or she wanted to give a devotional, whatever it is, whatever her heart wanted to share, she could do so. 18:31.699 --> 18:32.200 [SPEAKER_00]: And she did that. 18:32.220 --> 18:36.668 [SPEAKER_00]: There was only one prerequisite of something that we wanted her to make sure she mentioned. 18:36.728 --> 18:39.372 [SPEAKER_00]: And we wanted her to talk about what her future plans were. 18:39.753 --> 18:40.474 [SPEAKER_00]: And why is that? 18:40.915 --> 18:43.940 [SPEAKER_00]: It's because everybody will ask the graduate, what are you doing next? 18:44.040 --> 18:44.681 [SPEAKER_00]: What are you doing next? 18:44.701 --> 18:48.347 [SPEAKER_00]: We figured if at that moment, I think we had about 40 to 50 people here. 18:48.327 --> 18:55.414 [SPEAKER_00]: 40 to 50 people could hear what her plans are for the next, the next thing she's going to do in her, some of her ideas. 18:55.835 --> 19:17.878 [SPEAKER_00]: Then they could come up and just talk to her about that instead of her having to answer 40 to 50 times, plus the people who came, after the ceremony who didn't hear that, over and over again, what are your plans and having to weave through that, especially if your graduate is taking a more non-judicial approach than ex-season and not going straight off to college. 19:17.858 --> 19:24.711 [SPEAKER_00]: to absorb that information and process it before they come and talk to them and if they don't know what to say then they just don't bring that up. 19:25.051 --> 19:35.291 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested in the high school graduate college type of thing, I did an Episodescast episode a couple of back, talking about that, so it was kind of fun. 19:35.311 --> 19:36.593 [SPEAKER_00]: If you wanna hear about that. 19:36.573 --> 19:37.955 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so back to this ceremony. 19:37.975 --> 19:39.398 [SPEAKER_00]: So first, James did a welcome. 19:39.898 --> 19:49.574 [SPEAKER_00]: I spoke, and then James spoke again, and we asked someone special in her life to speak, then have the graduate speak, and make sure they share their future plans. 19:50.416 --> 19:52.920 [SPEAKER_00]: After that, then we sang her favorite him. 19:52.980 --> 19:55.003 [SPEAKER_00]: It could be a favorite him or a favorite song. 19:55.404 --> 19:58.429 [SPEAKER_00]: We printed out the words and James had worked 19:58.409 --> 20:02.875 [SPEAKER_00]: at having the tech at least up for us to be able to do the song. 20:02.895 --> 20:08.843 [SPEAKER_00]: You could do it, Akapela as well, but just really wanted to include something that meant something to her. 20:08.903 --> 20:16.973 [SPEAKER_00]: So she picked her favorite him and then we all gathered together, we got everybody up and whoever was close by kind of laid a hand upon her. 20:17.233 --> 20:19.917 [SPEAKER_00]: So we lay a hand upon the graduate and you just do a prayer of blessing. 20:20.458 --> 20:24.703 [SPEAKER_00]: Ask somebody beforehand to lead that prayer of blessing. 20:24.683 --> 20:27.788 [SPEAKER_00]: you could do some type of popcorn sort of prayer. 20:27.908 --> 20:34.639 [SPEAKER_00]: If you guys are from really with that where just different piece of money will open and then people can kind of pray here and there if they want to or at the end. 20:35.160 --> 20:45.055 [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it's really important to have a time where the entire group you feel like you've had a moment with everybody and your graduate feels like, yes, this is it. 20:45.075 --> 20:48.801 [SPEAKER_00]: You kind of feel like you're lifting them up and just launch them to the next next season. 20:48.781 --> 20:50.243 [SPEAKER_00]: Number eight, eat. 20:50.684 --> 20:51.265 [SPEAKER_00]: Have food. 20:51.706 --> 20:53.248 [SPEAKER_00]: Have lots of food for people. 20:53.429 --> 20:59.719 [SPEAKER_00]: Have more food than you think you're going to need, but maybe not too much because I think I had way too much it ended up being really hot. 21:00.120 --> 21:02.724 [SPEAKER_00]: And when it's really hot, people don't want to eat a lot. 21:02.744 --> 21:03.225 [SPEAKER_00]: But eat. 21:03.405 --> 21:06.250 [SPEAKER_00]: Move into the eating time. 21:06.230 --> 21:11.097 [SPEAKER_00]: We still had to cook hamburgers and hot dogs, so we let people know this beforehand in the evite. 21:11.118 --> 21:16.005 [SPEAKER_00]: Second moment when a clock, ceremony at 130, and we'll be eating around 233 o'clock. 21:16.025 --> 21:25.740 [SPEAKER_00]: So that gave us a little bit of time, while the burgers and the dogs cooked, I was able to get everything else out, replenish drinks, and all those kinds of things. 21:25.720 --> 21:47.627 [SPEAKER_00]: Recruit help have other people to be able to move things from one place to another if you need it then after that number nine is mingle go ahead and enjoy yourself mama you have you've earned this you've Whether you just started homeschooling your kiddo in 10th or 11th grade or you've been doing it since they were in kindergarten it doesn't matter 21:47.607 --> 21:49.470 [SPEAKER_00]: You have done an amazing job. 21:49.510 --> 21:52.656 [SPEAKER_00]: You have graduated them from their high school education. 21:52.676 --> 21:58.146 [SPEAKER_00]: They've completed those years and they're ready to launch on into the next season in life. 21:58.226 --> 21:59.208 [SPEAKER_00]: So enjoy that. 21:59.729 --> 22:02.774 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have kids that are coming to this, try to have some games. 22:02.834 --> 22:04.217 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, we have a small property. 22:04.237 --> 22:06.521 [SPEAKER_00]: So in the front lawn, I kind of had some kids games. 22:06.561 --> 22:07.843 [SPEAKER_00]: We just didn't have 22:07.823 --> 22:08.564 [SPEAKER_00]: a ton of room. 22:09.085 --> 22:12.090 [SPEAKER_00]: I had chalk out and just some kind of games. 22:12.450 --> 22:14.253 [SPEAKER_00]: They might have even gotten the sprinkle route. 22:14.554 --> 22:16.697 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't recall, but the kids even had a really great time. 22:16.717 --> 22:20.503 [SPEAKER_00]: I understand you're trying to cater something to a large age group. 22:20.644 --> 22:24.550 [SPEAKER_00]: So number 10 here in this is to over all. 22:24.530 --> 22:30.858 [SPEAKER_00]: create an atmosphere that reflects your family, and reflects your graduate as well. 22:31.319 --> 22:44.315 [SPEAKER_00]: Like I mentioned, we had Floral Bocaes, which my daughter made on her own, flowers that we grew, she asked neighbors for flowers, it was P&E seasons, so she had P&E's, and just she created, this is something she enjoys doing. 22:44.736 --> 22:53.507 [SPEAKER_00]: And so we created an atmosphere that would reflect her and her kind of whimsical, boho kind of feel. 22:53.487 --> 23:02.422 [SPEAKER_00]: for my boys that's not what they're going to want and so I want to really encourage you to look here child what is going to reflect them what is something that's going to bring them joy. 23:02.482 --> 23:08.652 [SPEAKER_00]: We have little lights hanging up and it was just it would create just an atmosphere that would reflect her. 23:09.193 --> 23:13.841 [SPEAKER_00]: So for my boys I don't know we're going to have like trucks and motorcycles here possibly. 23:13.861 --> 23:15.023 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know. 23:15.003 --> 23:18.267 [SPEAKER_00]: But we'll wait and see, but so those are my 10 tips. 23:18.908 --> 23:21.391 [SPEAKER_00]: Write them down, tuck them aside. 23:21.471 --> 23:25.737 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you have a graduate coming up right now, because it's just about that time of the year. 23:25.797 --> 23:29.061 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not too late to pull this together for that. 23:29.562 --> 23:34.348 [SPEAKER_00]: But if you have a graduate next year or in 10 years to come, we are going to recreate this. 23:34.508 --> 23:40.656 [SPEAKER_00]: I have two more times, and I am excited to be able to recreate this just for each of my boys. 23:40.636 --> 23:43.579 [SPEAKER_00]: Because really, it was a time that we could celebrate. 23:43.919 --> 23:48.463 [SPEAKER_00]: We could celebrate pushing through those math lessons in third grade that made her cry. 23:48.964 --> 23:54.068 [SPEAKER_00]: We could push through her wanting to write a research paper in seventh grade. 23:55.089 --> 24:02.216 [SPEAKER_00]: We could just think back to all that time we lived as a family, not even the education part, but just how is entire lifestyle. 24:02.656 --> 24:08.061 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm excited about you to graduate a homeschool student someday, so excited. 24:08.041 --> 24:09.847 [SPEAKER_00]: And again, maybe you're graduating one soon here. 24:10.128 --> 24:16.772 [SPEAKER_00]: Go ahead, back, listen through again, if you need to, write down those 10 tips and create a celebration that honors your family. 24:17.193 --> 24:19.722 [SPEAKER_00]: Your homeschool lifestyle and your graduate.