Abeka----Gasp, Curriculum?

My kids have never been pushed to do workbooks and typically never had much interest. For Christmas though, a well meaning relative who knows we home school, bought a gazillion workbooks of every kind for my kids. There are grammar, math, states, fun facts, ABC dot to dot and reading and writing type books. My kids were have been bored a lot since Maddy was born and pulled them out. They have been plowing through them and have been so proud to show me when they finish an entire workbook. They come to me for help with these books often as they are pretty tough books and my kids have never had formal grammar lessons so lets be honest, they are foreign concepts. I asked the kids about this coming school year and whether they want to continue unschooling or if they wanted me to get them curriculum and if so, what kind. CRAZY as it is, they WANTed curriculum. I couldn't believe my ears. They begged me to get them something with lots of fun and interesting WORKBOOKS.....yes I am laughing too. What child asks for curriculum and workbooks at that? They talked about why they wanted it and what types they thought would be fun. I searched the Internet and workbook oriented curriculum's and found Abeka seemed to be almost all workbook type stuff so I ordered them each their own stuff. We spent 650 for the older three kids and Tanner is only 4, but he begged for his own work books too so he will be doing K math and K writing. We will see how we like this curriculum. I have always been super flexible with school, but Nate thrives on structure and I always did as a child, just not as an adult. I am realizing though that the older my kids are getting, the more they create their own structure and I think they enjoy the accomplishment of getting some sort of tangible "school" work done each day. Unschooling has afforded them opportunities to explore and learn through osmosis, but oddly I think they are moving past that and wanting to SEE what they have done and know they are learning. They are still very much in charge of their learning as I am following their leads, their interests and their desires for workbooks. We picked everything out together. It was a long afternoon. I do appreciate the fact that Abeka is all Christian based as well and has neat character building workbooks and things. I think the kids are really going to enjoy it. They already keep asking when it will get here because their current workbooks are almost done. It should be an interesting and fun year, but also a big shift from our unschooling. We have done a little here and there with curriculum's over the past 4 years, but I would say 90% unschooled. This will be a 100% school at home type of situation if they complete all this curriculum we bought. I have no expectations though, just excitement for the kids to get their new stuff.