2010 (Not) Back to School Blog Hop

Now this sounds like fun and I thought since we are gearing up to start ECC next week it was great timing. If you homeschool check it out!

Blog Hop

Food for Thought

Boy, did Mrs. McDonald nail this one. It is something that I have been studying on for several months.

Your Sacred Calling: Smoking Keyboards and Razor-mouthed Christians: "Why is it that so many Christians (many whose writings I usually appreciate) seem to think it's cool to ignore 1 Corinthians 13:1 while 'pr..."

Click the link above to continue reading.

I Love this Man

And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! 

Romans 10:15

He works so hard.
He is always smiling.
He is always encouraging.
He is witty.
He is handsome. :) *kids groaning* (the think we are gross and mushy)
He believes in me.
He loves me and I know it.
He is an optimist.
He never complains.
Oh, how he loves the Lord.
He's my favorite preacher.
He's my best friend.
We are still so smitten with each other. (since 1987!)
He's the best father I have ever known.

God smiled on me and showed me great favor the day he sent Greg into my life.

In the picture above he was out on the porch trying to read. I knew that sleep would over take him as soon as he sat down. He was preaching a revival at night while working in this extreme southern heat all day. I knew he was so tired. I am inspired by him and I want to do all I can to make his life easier and to allow him to rest more because he does all of that for me. He even feeds my need for gadgets and books. I am so blessed.

A Cool Gadget

You may notice the Amazon links that are appearing in my post. They are the neatest things! Now, when I want to tell about a book or something helpful around the house all I have to do is use the Amazon Blogger application and I can easily link it up, right from the blogger site. No more copy, paste and link. So, please don't think I am trying to make money off of my few homeschool mom readers, it is more about me liking technology and Amazon than trying to make money from Amazon on clicks. :) Although I should own stock in that site!

So now you can just roll the mouse over the image of whatever I'm blogging and see the details instantly! Cool!!


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Happy Birthday Jenna!! (a little late)

Ever since I have had a blog I have blogged the birthdays. This last 2 weeks have been so busy that until I looked through my pictures I did not realize that I missed blogging Jenna's 5th birthday.

We spent it at the lake. That morning she jumped up and ran to the mirror and exclaimed, "I don't look different!" then she asked "How do I get my babies?" so cute! She wants babies so bad. She tells me all the time she wants to be a mom just like me....I know she will be a better mom than I am and I pray the Lord will bless her with lots of precious souls!

This baby will have to do for now.

We spent the rest of the week riding in the boat and riding the wave runner

Then we went to Little River Canyon. Janie loved it. 

  

Yes, that is my daredevil  daughter jumping off of that rock.

Here is my Cowboy.

 

I love this shot. God's creation, so beautiful.

Yes, I was hot and red faced! We hiked a long way to get to that rock!

Then we came home and went to the Fabulous Fox Theater and were delighted to see the Phantom of the Opera. My Jessie LOVES the Phantom. This was her second time seeing it. It was a very nice evening.

Got Juice?

We do!

I have had this very nice juicer for a few years that I have used sporadically. After watching the documentary Food Inc. it sent me off on a tangent. I wont say new tangent because the film told me nothing that I already did not know, with the exception of the information on genetically modified food. So I decided that I have been very lax in how we buy and prepare food. Planning, buying and preparing healthy food takes time and lots of thought and here lately the truth is my mind has been completely on school planning. Well, if you need a jump start just watch Food, Inc. or The Beautiful Truth. (You can see them instantly on Netflix) So then I checked out a few books at the library. I went in to get Juicing, Fasting and Detoxing for Life then the librarian suggested Animal, Vegetable Miracle so I got it also and have been reading both, but mainly trying to get through the juicing book. Another two books that I have on my shelf and refer to often are What the Bible Says about Healthy Living and Greater Health God's Way. I am trying to be level headed with this and not get so wrapped up in changing our world overnight. I have been back to baking bread for some time, however getting veggies in our life is just hard. For one, our taste buds are very jaded by the typical American diet.

So this week we went to the grocery store and found most of what we wanted in organic. I got some apples, carrots, ginger root and cucumber. The ideal thing would be to continue this and to grow what I could. That's another project. We made the following juice:

8 carrots

1 large cucumber

1 inch slice of ginger

1 apple.

The kiddos were eagerly awaiting the fresh juice. I warned them that it would not taste like a smoothie. :) 

As you can tell by the picture Janie loved it! She took the cup from Josh and bottoms up! Jessie was not so fast to guzzle it, but I give her credit for drinking it up. (You can see Josh sorting our fresh blueberries....ummm...what to do with those?)

It's a slow start, but at least I can say we had raw, fresh vegetables and fruit on this day. I really hope it helps jump start my weight loss efforts, I have 70 more pounds to go to get to my goal and I want to make it happen!

MFW K - Our First Week

After anticipating the start of little Jenna's formal school time for several weeks the morning finally came. She was so excited! The first day was so sweet. It had me thinking of the very first time I started out teaching my oldest kindergarten. With that thought came so many feelings but the greatest one was a feeling of gratitude for what I have learned about homeschooling in the last ten years. You see, my first experience with Jessie was NOTHING like the one with Jenna. To start with I had the program that everyone would mention to me when I was just thinking of homeschooling. It was Abeka and it was HORRIBLE!! I'm sorry, I am sure there are some of you that love it and I will say this Jenna could easily do it. I was just starting out and  THOUGHT that Jessie should just do it. What was wrong? Lots, here are some of my thoughts on that. One, Jessie had not been raised in a homeschool environment. I had not planned on homeschooling from the start. I did not do things on a daily basis that would prepare her to learn....I was leaving that for the professionals. :) Two, I did not know how to gauge her readiness....she was not ready for cursive writing at four years of age, but thinking like this: "If others can do it she can too" caused me and her much tears. We dumped Abeka and went to Sonlight. I learned all about models of education that were totally different from anything I had ever done. Educating the Wholehearted Child became my constant companion. Charlotte Mason became intriguing to me. Books became a passion. Mindless cartoons were replaced with Leap Frog dvd's. Then we got rid of the TV all together. (Now we do Netflix) I would not go back. I treasure what I have learned through the grace of God. I have always loved homeschooling, now it is a way of life. The hearts of my little ones are my first concern. Our relationship with each other, not worksheets, is priority.

So saying all of that MFW K has been the sweetest blessing. Here is a little about what we did this week. As I said, Jenna could do the rigorous stuff so this week's work was completed quickly. I must confess that we finished all 10 days in the Creation Unit in 4. She was just that eager and I did not want to hold her back. I am looking forward to getting to the meat of the program with her, so we moved quickly. She loves reading her creation book to everyone. She tries to teach Janie what she has learned. She demands more school so she has been doing more coloring, cutting and pasting to keep her feeling as busy as the others. This child will not let mom be slack when it comes to doing school. :) (The Lord knows just what we need! I have been praying to get more done during the day) We also spent some time at the library picking up books for ECC and she got her very own library card!

What a fun week.

What has made the biggest difference for me? MFW and that wonderful set of lesson plans!

Now, I cant wait to start ECC!!!

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

OKRA!!

That I grew! I'm so excited! It was a joke around here...."Honey, I'm gonna plant a garden.", followed by laughter.

Well, it may not be much and I may not even have cut it at the right time but it is okra all the same and I DID IT! :)

Thanks Cowboy (he helped me set out the plants) and thanks honey for your help weeding, even though you said you wouldn't help. ;)

I'm dreaming about a much bigger spot next time.

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Happy Independence Day

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