This and That

I have spent much of this month really trying to get my home in order. Thats why I have not been around much lately.
We are struggling with some issues with our oldest girl again, but God has given us peace that we will get through this. We know that we battle not against flesh and blood...so that helps a lot. We spend time each night praying scriptures over our children. We use the book from Doorposts called Instruction for Rightousness. We pick out a specific behavior problem in each child and go through the verses listed praying over them. There are also stories from the Bible that touch on that particular behavior. We rotate through those for each child. Its kind of complicated sounding but we love it.
I finally found some time to dig out my Nourishing Traditions book again. I'm trying some whole wheat sour dough bread. I have the starter sitting right now I think probably Monday I will be ready to make my first loaf. I'm not sure about it though because we are not sour dough people. I wanted to try it though. I'm going to pick out some more recipes to try. I was looking at the recipes on cookingtf.com but she moved them all to subscription. I cant get a subscription right now, so I am back to winging it. *Sigh* I wish I could find someone locally who practices NT I would love to have a mentor. Hmm.. maybe I will add that to my prayer list. The more I read and research the more I want to at least use NT as a baseline for how we eat.
I want to finish an apron I started working on in December this month so I better get on the ball. I cleared away some clutter in my room so I can now resume that project.
I took a knitting class in December and the lady that taught it said that she teaches private lessons for 3 skeins of yarn an hour. I'm thinking about calling her up and checking on that. I need some more instruction.
I'm working my way through my Square Foot Gardening book and getting more and more excited. I got some organic seed catalogs and I have already picked out a few things I want to try.
All in all I should have a lot of blog fodder in the coming months. I just hope I have time to use it.

Be Blessed

Why I read blogs.

I have been fighting a cold the past few days. Last week was hectic and I found myself running around in circles trying to get everything done. Today as I caught up on some blog reading I smiled as I realized why I enjoy others blogs so much.
First they keep me grounded. Reading about someone else yelling at their kids or watching helplessly as the toilet over flowed just makes me sigh. I guess my every day life is not so different from others.
Second, I cherish the advice. Growing up my mother had to work to support us. She did not have the skills of a homemaker to pass on to me nor would I have listened. When she did try to teach me anything I usually had something better to do. I was never disciplined to learn how to take care of a home. Two days before my wedding I ran to my mom asking her how to sew on a button. I was in a panic, because what kind of wife cant sew on a button. Yeah that was the most important thing to learn. (Sarcasm) Blogs are great places to learn new things.
Third, it motivates me. I can read certain blogs and as soon as I get about one post in I have to jump up and do something. I get excited about keeping my home nice. I get excited about saving money.
Fourth, I love being around women who understand why my kids sit with us in big church. Why I am homeschooling. Why I dont let my kids laze around all day and make them help out. Its nice to be reaffirmed every now and then instead of constantly torn down. Next to my husband I have about a handful of friends who understand and support what we are doing.

I try not to compare myself to others. I try not to make my life fit someone elses. I am learning as I go.
I enjoy reading blogs and Im glad I have time in my day to spend a few minutes chatting over the fence with some of my cyber neighbors.

Be Blessed!

Home Learning Week 1 Part 2

Alright, so after circle time the older girls start school.
Here is what Karly is doing:

Monday:
Spelling: we are using something a little different called How To Teach Any Child To Spell. Basically we use her writing to pick out words misspelled and put them in a spelling notebook under the rule that was not used.
Math: She is still using her Saxon 3 because she did not do well when she went through it. I have her doing all the assessments and she is taking timed 100 multiplication and division quizzes. By looking over her assessments I can figure out where she needs more work. On Monday she Had Math Assessment 40. She got a 73% on it.
Copywork: We are using Copywork lessons for girls from Queens Homeschool. She is working on lesson 2.
The Classics At Home: This is something new I got in a box of books from Ebay. I really like it. Right now she is studying the works of Beatrice Potter. She had to look up vocabulary words and write definitions for them. She also had to locate London, England on a map.
Cooking: We got Marmee's Kitchen Primer. Today she had to read about kitchen safety.
Handwriting: A Reason For Handwriting lesson 5 worksheet.

Tuesday: We take off for errands and Bible study

Wednesday: We have homeschool co-op so we only do one math lesson and handwriting.
Math: Go over Assessment 40, timed multiplication worksheet.
Handwriting: Practice verse from lesson 5, copy onto final sheet and color.

Thursday:
Spelling: Go over writing and copy words into spelling notebook.
Math: Assessment 45
Copywork: Lesson 2
Handwriting: Lesson 6 worksheet
Classics At Home: Answer questions about author and learn about pressing leaves and flowers. Try it yourself.
Cooking: Copy first five rules of kitchen safety.

Friday:
Spelling: Go over writing and copy words in spelling notebook. Drill with words from previous days.
Math: Go over Assessment 45, timed division worksheet.
Handwriting: Lesson 6 practice verse, copy final draft and color.
Classics at Home: Begin keeping a journal. Begin studying plants, animals, bugs, flowers, and trees. Think about the special features God has given each. Draw each specimen you observe. Try to label each and show its special features. (Actually I just write the page number and what she is supposed to do and then she looks it up and follows the directions. LOL)
Cooking: Finish copying the rules of kitchen safety.

For Kelsie:
Math: Saxon 2 lesson 78
Copywork: (same book as Karly) Lesson 1
Handwriting: A Reason For Handwriting Cursive book lesson 24 worksheet.

Tuesday:
Off

Wednesday:
Math: Lesson 80
Handwriting: Lesson 24 practice verse, final draft, color.

Thursday:
Math 81
Copywork: Lesson 1
Handwriting: Lesson 25 Worksheet

Friday:
Math: 82
Handwriting: 25, practice verse, final draft, color.

While the older children do their work I sit down with Tamara and Adrian for kindergarten.

Monday:
Math Saxon K Lesson 1
Reading: Ordinary Parents Guide To Reading Lesson 1
Bible: Leading Little Ones To God: Story, review memory verse from previous week, read new verse

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Homeschool Co-op

Thursday:
Math: 2
Reading: Continue Lesson 1
Bible: Review Story, verse, do Bible reading

Friday:
Math 3
Reading: Lesson 1
Bible: Review Verse, Bible project

After Kindergarten we have lunch.
After Lunch we read the chapter in Proverbs that goes with the day. Then the three younger go to bed and I do Bible with Karly and Kelsie.
Bible: We are using Veritas Press: Genesis through Joshua
Monday:
Creation Card, Bible Reading, Worksheet

Tuesday:
Off

Wednesday:
Off

Thursday:
Creation card, Bible reading project, review Worksheet

Friday:
Bible project, Test

Then we all take a rest.

Right before I make dinner I go over Slow and Steady Get Me Ready with Jonathan. We also sing songs and read a book. That's all for him right now.

Well this was our first week of the new schedule. I like how things went. I see areas we need to work on a little more, but overall I think this might work for us.

Be Blessed!

Home Learning Week 1 Part 1

Well we are finishing up our first week back. I think I like the new way we are doing things much better. I get to touch base with each child and we are reading and memorizing more.
Here was our learning plan this week:

After breakfast and chores we will have circle time.
Monday was
Bible: Matthew 4:12-17. Jesus begins His ministry. The children illustrated this.
They also each received two verses from For Instruction In Righteousness to memorize. I will talk more about that in another post.
We are also working on learning the books of the Old Testament
Reading: We read "Good and Bad Children" and "Please" from The Book Of Virtues. We are working on memorizing "Good and Bad Children". Then the children illustrated "Please".

Tuesday and Wednesday we take off because of other obligations.

Thursday, which we did today because Jonathan's birthday was yesterday and we took a trip to the zoo, is:
Bible: Matthew 4:18-22. Jesus Chooses four fisherman. We read and illustrate the story.
Continue memorizing verses and the Old Testament books
Reading: "Good and Bad Children" and "My Own Self" from The Book of Virtues. We will continue memorizing "Good and Bad Children" and we will illustrate "My Own Self".

Friday, which we will do tomorrow because Daddy has a lot to get done and this will help us stay out of his way and because we had Thursday off, will be:
Bible: Matthew 4:23-25. Jesus preaches, teaches and heals. Read and illustrate.
Recite our verses. The older two will copy them for their notebooks. And continue memorizing the OT books.
Reading: "Good and Bad Children" and the "King and His Hawk" from the Book of Virtues. Continue memorizing "Good and Bad Children" and illustrate the "King and His Hawk".

After circle time I set the younger three up with something and begin schoolwork with the older two. This week I was not prepared enough but next week they will watch Signing Time and have another activity. This week they just played independently which did not work out so well for the two year old. LOL.

I will put part 2 in another post this one is getting long.

One More Thing

Is there anything more bittersweet than packing up your baby clothes from 0m to 12m and passing them onto a mother who really, really needs them?

Just wondering.

Taking off my mom hat....

for just a few minutes and putting on my football fan hat...

Im so offended for him! I cried, "What!" when I first heard he was excluded... now I had the same initial reaction he did..."maybe the pro bowl does not deserve Fred Taylor.." Of course I am glad he is going. I'm glad my favorite team is going to be represented period. I think the pro bowl should just be glad they did not end up with egg on their face. Can you imagine not having one player from the *winning superbowl team in the pro bowl? *Harumph*

Congratulations Fred Taylor! I knew you deserved the pro bowl even when the "experts" did not!

* Disclaimer: Any mention of The Jaguars winning the superbowl is purely the (educated) opinion (and hope!) of the person running this blog. It is not meant to be a professional prediction of how the coming weeks will play out.

PS Even if The Jaguars don't beat New England this weekend....they are still my number one team!! GO JAGS!!

*Puts football fan hat off to the side until Saturday at 8pm and puts mom hat back on*

A Note

New Hampshire....

I am very disappointed in you!

That is all.

The best laid plans.

Well Im almost done planning out our year for school. Good thing since we start in about an hour.
My plan for this morning was to get up early, have my quiet time, nice shower and then get the kids up. Then we would have breakfast, clean up, read the Bible together, play a game or something and start school.
Instead my morning went more like this:
I overslept two hours. Hubby says he tried to wake me, but Im not sure. LOL.
I had my Bible time after checking on the kids.
Quick shower.
I then put breakfast on to cook only to find out a behavior problem we have been having with our oldest is resurfacing in a big way.
I went to talk with her about it and that ended badly.
An hour later the oatmeal was burned and it was looking like it was closer to lunch time than breakfast.
We found something to eat and continued on.

Ok, here is how the rest of the day went. I just put my three younger ones down for a nap.
My older two are finishing up some school work and waiting for grandma to take them to piano practice. We finished everything in our lesson plans. *Phew* never thought that was going to happen. LOL.
I will post a little later what they are doing this year.
Right now I want to go exercise and rest for a few minutes.

Be Blessed

Essentials

OK well, maybe not essentials, but these are definatly some of my favorite Christmas/Birthday presents.

First you have the biggest essential. A bookshelf. This looks nothing like the one I got for Christmas. I could not find that one online for anything. The bookshelf was really needed. I have tons of books stored in plastic containers. Im a book junkie. I admit it. Of course I wanted more books for Christmas and more books I got....
This book was tops on my Christmas list. See this month starts our two year plan for real. We are moving full force ahead. This book was a must for learning some of the essentials for our new lifestyle. The first chapter had me enthralled. It talked about buying land and setting up your homestead. Lots of great ideas. This city girl needs all the help she can get. We also have planned to learn as much as we can here and now. Which leads me to my next gift..

I have read two chapters in this book and Im so excited. I can do this. This was one of my birthday presents. My sweet guy listens when I talk. He found it at Target and was so excited.
Growing up my mom worked a lot. She also had hayfever really bad so we never worked in the yard. This is a whole new experience for me.

On our way to a more self sufficient lifestyle I have to start at square one. God started us off on a need to eat healthier. He pointed me towards a natural whole foods lifestyle. While Im still struggling with it, I do see some improvement.
We went the whole month of December eating whatever was put in front of us. We have paid dearly for it as our whole family has spent the whole month of December being sick and tired. Now the burden on my heart is budgeting and saving money. Its a part of my prayer every morning. We are about $2000 dollars in debt right now. Its all little stuff that should not be a problem, but the little stuff adds up. We have paid off our car and once we get these other things cleared up we will be debt free except our mortgage. We have a plan for that as well. While I dont think we will pay off our mortgage in the next two years we will be able to put a dent in it.
This month will be lean trying to keep up with our regular bills but by the first of Feb. we should be able to pay off most of our remaining debt. Thats an exciting prospect.
I will have more to write on that later.
Well, I guess I better get going. Lots to do today. Im not sure why this post took me two days to write. LOL

Be Blessed

Family Driven Faith

I bought the book Family Driven Faith by Voddie Baucham Jr.(click on the book to purchase from amazon.com) for my husband for Christmas. I read it in about three days. The whole time all I could do was exclaim over and over to my husband what a great book it was. This is a book about raising our sons and daughters in a way that other Christians scoff at. Recently on the way home from a retreat with some ladies from church I was nearly driven to tears. They shot down every thing I said about raising my children. When I said that our children would not participate in youth group you would have thought I said lets go drop our kids off the bridge. It was that explosive. This book said what I was trying to say in that car. If youth groups are such a great idea why are so many of our churched youth leaving the faith by the second year of college? I was in two separate youth groups growing up and I can almost count on one hand the number of kids still active from both of those groups. I can also tell you some wild stories about youth group and youth camp. Stories that should be shown on the late night pay per view channels. Of course if I shelter my children from "youth group" they will go wild when they are grown. Let me quote the good Mr. Baucham here, on page 18 of his book he is talking about getting the same reaction from people when they hear about his child rearing philosophy.
"Interestingly, though, none of the "wild ones" I remember from my college days were rookies. None of the went off the deep end into immorality after leading chaste lives at home. Most of them simply walked farther into the debauchery with which they were allowed to experiment early on. There is a larger issue at stake here. The question is not whether or not our children sin later in life. The question is, do we have a biblical obligation to train them before they leave home? Is there any biblical validity to the idea that Christian parents should allow their children to experiment with ungodliness?"
Read the last line again. "Is there any biblical validity to the idea that Christian parents should allow their children to experiment with ungodliness?"
That line almost knocked me over. What a great line. I could have so used it in the car a few weeks ago.
Hubby and I are now reading through the book together. We are still in the first chapter but tonight he looked at me and said,"Its almost like this guy has been in our room the last few weeks listening to us talk about this and ask these questions." YES, YES YES!!!
We have struggled so much with raising our children lately. I'm someone who looks at patterns. I look into other peoples lives to see what they are doing right and wrong. The one thing missing from some of my older lady friends lives as they reared their children was personal responsibility. They all thought that taking their children to church and being there every time the doors opened would protect them and give them the life sustaining faith that is needed. Most of these women only have about 50 to 25 percent of their children in church. (That averages out to about one or two depending on how many kids they had) They are also the ones who pat me on the hand and say, "Do your best now, but once they leave the nest they are gone." I have not been able to accept that. Yes, I know adult children make their own decisions. I know that its a war out there with satan. But I'm not going to just do my best. I'm going to fight with all I have. I tell my children that too. I tell them that satan wants them to listen to him and do what he wants instead of what God and mommy and daddy want. I also tell them that we are fighting for them. That we will not let satan just come in and take over. Mr. Bauchman has given us yet another tool.
He will be speaking with Doug Phillips in Branson in July. I am doing everything I can to get to that conference. If I get anywhere near the man I will shake his hand til the arm comes out of the socket.
Ya wanna know my favorite thing...he is a Southern Baptist. Yep! Someone from my denomination who actually preaches about multigenerational faithfulness and family integrated worship. It makes me want to weep! You see I can hand this book over to people in my church without any disclaimers. We know what the man's core belief system is. I know that should not be such a big deal, but in this Purpose Driven, Youth group oriented, entertain the children at all cost culture I am living in within my denomination it means a whole lot!
This book has given me encouragement as a parent. Yes, I will still have difficult questions to answer and skeptical people watching me raise my children. If one of them goes astray you can bet your bippy that I will hear about it. But what matters is eternity. If I don't do everything I can to usher them into the Lord's presence as mighty warriors I have failed. Of course 99 percent of that fight is face down on the floor crying out to Jesus. I know that. I understand that. But some of it comes from just day to day training of my children.
Mr. Bauchman, thank you for writing a book that spoke so deeply to where my husband and I are. We are swimming up stream, but every stroke is worth it. One day when we shoot our arrows from the nest fully equipped to face the spiritual battles before them we will bow our heads and thank God for his mercy and grace and for sending us encouragement through your words.
I wish I had time and space to really dwell on some insights from the book, but this will have to do ya. If you have the opportunity to check this book out or even add it to your library I would strongly suggest it.

Be Blessed!

Happy New Year

Well I guess Im a little behind.
I'm looking forward to this year. We are going to become more family centered. Lots of new ideas. I'm working this week on getting some rooms organized. Getting our Christmas stuff put up. And getting our learning schedule ready. I'm starting back on Monday. I learned a lot this past month. One of the main things is I really need to learn how my children learn. Once again this will go a long way in making home learning fun.
I don't have a lot of time right now, but I did want to check in and say Happy New Year.
Later today I will post a review of a book I just finished reading.
Tomorrow I will talk about a couple of my Christmas presents and why I was so glad to get them.
Friday I will share some of the things we are planning to do as a family in January.
I am back and ready to blog!

Be Blessed!