Timbo's Beautiful

One Million Tears

2011-09-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like that is exactly how many tears I have shed in the last 13 years. Today, I will shed a few more. Thankful today that God has kept a record of my sorrow. "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." (Psalm 56:8) Thankful that He doesn't leave us in our sorrow. He picks us up and carries us through it.

49 Years and counting

2011-08-31T06:36:00.000-07:00

Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

Day 8 and this was probably the biggest day in this project. We have a front room that could be used as an office but we set it up as our school room this past year. It didn't take us long to figure out that this wasn't a great idea for us. I don't like being in the room tucked away and the boys don't want to work in there if I am not in there. They spent a lot of time doing school on the floor in whatever room I was working in. Usually we ended up in Tim's office. That was not a good solution since there are times when we all need a little space. I ended up moving my chair into the living room and setting up a corner area of our living for us to do school. This will allow the boys to have plenty of room to stretch out and I can be in a more central location.

We decided that the school room would make a good room for the boys computer and also a TV with the Wii. At first I thought I would move some of their desks out to the garage and store them. When I actually got in the room and begin arranging things I realized that I could put all the desks on one wall. We were then able to put their computer, one laptop, the TV, and the printer on the desks. By moving all the desks to the same wall it opens up the room and really makes it seem larger. I moved three smaller bookcases along the opposite wall and those will hold our books and the boys bins they use for their daily school work.

In the closet I moved in a cube unit and it holds all our misc homeschool items, magnetic letters, HWT wooden pieces, word cubes, MUS blocks, musical instruments, art supplies, math manipulative's, and all our extra science stuff. I put some things on the top shelf in the closet and these are things that I don't generally want down and accessible to the younger ones with out supervision. This shelf holds our rocket set, snap circuits, Physic Quest materials and also a microscope. The boxes on the top shelf hold the boys school work from the previous year.

I am keeping some supplies we use regularly on top of the bookcases. I found these picnic bins at Target. Last year I got the red one which is a little larger and is divided into 6 compartments. This year I got the blue and white ones. They are divided in half and one half has three sections. I like that they are easy for us to transport to a different area if we need too.

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Day 7 was spent running around in 100+ degree heat! I dropped off the items I had purged for friends who were having a yard sale. I also took Eli to pick up his new guitar. He has wanted to take lessons and we have someone in our church that is going to teach him. I asked on our homeschool group if anyone had an inexpensive guitar to sale. One mom told me her teen son had one and she would find out how much he wanted for it. The young man told me that he would like to give it to Eli! I am amazed at how God blesses us. We went today and picked it up and Eli is so excited to start lessons! AFter that we came home and I managed to clean out our freezer (which was appropriate) and I put off the school room for one more day!

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-10T05:45:00.000-07:00

Day 6 I did some odd areas today. I cleaned the boys room and their boxes under their beds. These boxes are where they keep any special things they collect. I also straightened and organized their bookshelf. I also cleaned out our linens. I have a couple of sets for full size beds and we don't own a full size bed so those are going to a new home.

I rearranged the coat closet. I took all our suitcases and stored them in the largest one. The closet we use for coats is just outside the master bedroom and it is very roomy. I also put a laundry basket in there that holds gloves, hats, and scarfs. In the top of the closet is a basket which holds the boys backpacks. I really wish I understood how a homeschool family ends up with over 12 backpacks for 4 boys. The boys picked the ones they wanted to keep and I kept a couple of extra for backups. The rest are going somewhere else.

I only had a couple of areas in the kitchen that needed work so I tackled those today. I moved some things off the top of the fridge because it really isn't a storage area! I put my supplies for cook outs together with tablecloths ~~that I only use when we have guests over~~.

I thought I was finished for the day but after dinner I cleaned out my bathroom. I went through all the medicine and vitamins and tossed everything that was expired. Please tell me that I am not the only one with old stuff in my cabinet. I also cleaned out my makeup and lotions. I had a couple of products that didn't work for me and I finally (after a year) decided that I could get rid of them. I rearranged the drawers and cabinet so that things were in a better location. I also cleaned out my jewelry box of items that I don't wear.

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

Day 5 was quick work putting our files in binders. I finished our personal files and still have to work on Tim's professional files. Quick day because we invited several friends over to spend the day playing.

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-06T06:24:00.000-07:00

Combining Day 3 and 4

On Day 3 I cleaned up the mess I made from day one and two. Listed the clothes to find a new home and made list of storage containers that we could use.

Day 4 I started in Tim's office. I moved a bookcase in from the school room. This really helped give me more storage space. Also it allowed me to have a place to use this Binder Filing System. I love having our files at my fingertips. I also love being able to get rid of our file cabinet.

In the process of day 4 I finished up Tim's closet. Moved a shelf in their for his shoe storage. I refolded the sheets and blankets so that they sit neatly on the shelf and picked out a few things of his that we can donate.

I also used this time to add some more books to Library Thing.

Interrupting my Mission Organization posts to say...

2011-08-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Anniversary!

Twenty one years ago I had no idea how much I would grow to love you. I had no idea what being a partner in marriage would mean. I had no idea that you would become more than my husband that you would become my best friend. I had no idea that we would dream big dreams and then learn to watch as God moved in ways that were even bigger than our dreams.

Twenty one years ago I had no idea that my heart would still flutter when you called me Beautiful. I love you and am looking forward to the next 21 years.

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-03T06:02:00.000-07:00

Day 2 in this challenge began in the boys closet. First, I went through their clothes and really thinned them out. They had way too many things and since they only wear some of them I pulled out the extras. I kept probably about 10 outfits per child (give or take). I pulled their storage bins out from the garage and also sorted through those. I ended up with 2 laundry baskets full of clothes to give away.

I am listing some on Thred Up and the rest are going to a friend whose daughters are having a garage sale.

I also moved extra blankets out of this closet into the top of Tim's closet. I already had our sheets stored there so this made more sense. I put their bins of next season clothes in the closet. I also used the freed up space to store sports equipment like cleats, soccer shorts, baseball pants, socks and shin guards. At the end of summer I will get one more bin to store swimming gear.

On the side I hung a coat rack we had and bought new laundry bags for each boy. My goal this fall is to teach the oldest two to do their own laundry.

Mission Organization in Review

2011-08-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

I used the month of July to organize and clean our house. We are on summer break from school and I wanted to use the time to reorganize things so that we would be set to start back in the fall.

Day one - my closet

I went through my closet and using ideas on my Pinterest style board I begin to clean things out. I only kept things that I loved and that fit. I ended up with an overflowing laundry basket of clothes. I also cleaned out my shoes and purses bags.

I rearranged my shoes and added my smaller purses and wallets into my shoe storage system. A friend gave me these nifty shoe boxes that come in two sizes and fit together in a honeycomb pattern. When you pull out one box the others stay in place. Handy Dandy Shoe Storage. I love these.

I still need to find a storage solution for my larger purses and bags. That is the last thing I need to finish up my closet.

Holiness

2011-07-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. 1 Thessalonians 4:7

Holy, an adjective, meaning consecrated; dedicated or devoted to the service of GOD.

For the longest time in my life I never really thought out holiness and how it affected my life. The only time I thought about holiness was in relation to God. I totally understood the concept that God is holy; therefore, He is "set apart" from us.

A few years ago a good friend spoke at our church and he used this scripture as his reference. He spoke about how God has called us to live holy lives. This was something that I had never considered before. I had bought into the bumper sticker theology that said "I'm not perfect, I'm forgiven." While this is true, it isn't the whole truth. I am more than "just" forgiven. My forgiveness cost Jesus EVERYTHING.

The idea that well we all mess up and then God dishes out forgiveness from His big bag of goodies leaves a huge question unanswered. What about personal holiness? What is my personal response to God's forgiveness?

For many years I lived a life that bought into this theology. I would go along and be "OK" for a while and then sin would creep into my life. Oh and sometimes it didn't creep, I ran out the door down the side walk looking for it and inviting it in. After that I would feel guilt and shame. Guilt is a healthy response to sin. It is what drives us to make things right with God and with others. Shame on the other hand is what drives us to bury our sin and hide from others. Guilt calls us to make restitution and to repent. Shame drives us to shove everything in a closet and lock the door. As Beth Moore says "Shame is the Devil's calling card." I would then spend time praying and begging God to forgive me. Missing an important element...He already has. Christ's death on the cross covered all my sins. Forgiveness was readily available, I needed to accept it. The problem with systematic sin is that forgiveness doesn't seem to stretch to cover it because we haven't really turned away from it.

It is really hard to pray "Oh God, forgive my sin of gluttony." while rummaging through the cabinets in search of more food. It is hard to pray "Oh God, forgive my unfaithfulness." while chatting with someone on the Internet. It is hard to pray "Oh God, forgive my lying." while...well I think you get the idea. Even when we try to live a "double" life our heart will find us out. It will whisper to us that it isn't true.

The good news of this story is this that when we truly repent; when we turn our face, heart, mind and body away from that sin...forgiveness washes over our soul. Personal holiness is possible. It isn't easy. Daily it is a struggle to lay down my life. Daily it is a struggle to fight the temptation to believe the lies Satan whispers. Daily it is making the choice to turn away from any thing that draws me away from God. Daily it is making the CHOICE to live a holy life.

Strawberry Birthday Cake

2011-07-28T19:22:00.000-07:00

For most of the birthdays in Tim's family they all get a Banana Cake. The Banana Cake is not what most people expect. The Fowler family recipe is actually a yellow layer cake. In between the layers are butter cream and bananas and the entire cake is covered with cool whip. It is very yummy.

For my birthday it has become a tradition that I have a strawberry birthday cake. I think it started the year we got married and has pretty much happened every year since then. I love strawberry cake. I had a strawberry wedding cake in the days before flavored wedding cakes were in vogue. Back in the day, you had a choice of a white wedding cake and the groom (who made this rule?) had a chocolate grooms cake. Well one thing I didn't want was a white wedding cake. I don't like white cake and since Tim got the chocolate I went with my next favorite strawberry. It was yummy and beautiful.

Back to the birthday cake, this year I had the brilliant idea of taking our Banana Cake recipe and substituting it with strawberries. It turned out very delicious. Here is my recipe.

One strawberry cake mix plus eggs, oil and water
One tub of Brummel & Brown Strawberry Creamy Fruit Spread
One cup of powdered sugar
milk
pint of strawberries
large container of cool whip topping.

Follow the directions to make the cake and bake it in three round layers. While the cake is baking mix the fruit spread (or butter if you want the original) and powdered sugar. Use the milk to get this to a consistency that you can spread between the layers. Slice the strawberries. When the cake is finished let it cool completely. After it has cooled place it one your cake pan or dish you will serve it on. Put a layer of cake and top with 1/3 of the fruit spread/sugar mixture and then add strawberries. Do this will all three layers. Then cover the entire cake with cool whip.

YUMMY goodness. This cake needs to be refrigerated if you aren't going to eat it right away. I will post the original banana cake recipe when Tim's birthday rolls around and maybe with his I can get a picture of the cake when it is cut and you can see the layers.

Our Calendar Noteook

2011-07-26T15:22:00.000-07:00

This past year, I decided to try a new method for teaching calendar ideas. I saw this Calendar Notebook and really liked the way it looked. I also liked that it wouldn't take up space on the wall like many calendar centers do.

I looked around and decided that I would use the following inserts for our notebooks. I used the blank calendars, blank 100 grids and Tally marks chart from Mrs. Meacham. I downloaded Written Date Page, Make the Date with Money, Hundred, Tens and Ones, and Weather Graphs from Mama Jenn.

Carissa and Jolanthe both have great print outs and links for calendar boards supplies and ideas. Carissa has some downloads to do color of the week, thermostat temperature tracker, what day is it? Lots of really good ideas. I like the idea on Carissa's site of using real coins in the make the date and I plan to incorporate that into our notebooks this year as well.

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

2011-07-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

I posted on facebook that I was trying a recipe for homemade dish washing detergent. I had a few people say they would be interested to know if it worked.

I used this recipe. I actually had pretty high hopes. Ultimately, it was a huge failure. I even clicked around to some different tips and tried changing out the lemonade mix for lemon shine. Neither recipe worked well. We create a lot of dishes around here. So I want my dishwasher to work well. I don't want to have to pre wash my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. A little rinsing is fine but anything more than that is a waste since I could just wash them by hand and be finished.

When I used this I had a few problems. The biggest was it didn't get things clean. Since I usually only lightly rinse my dishes I did the same thing with detergent. If there was any food on the dishes it did not come clean. The second issue was it left a white residue on everything. I tried adjusting the amount I used both more and less and still had the white film. I even tried doing an extra rinse cycle which helped somewhat but felt wasteful. The third issue is that the washing soda has a fairly strong soapy scent. The vinegar rinse helped with this but I just didn't like using that on my dishes.

Overall this experiment gets a big thumbs down. I only made a small batch of this but I am not sure what I will do with what is left. If you have any ideas please share.

Meal Plan Monday

2011-07-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

We had a few meals "left over" from last week.

Breakfasts

cereal
pancakes
grits
eggs

Lunch

sandwiches
tacos
hot dogs
chicken nuggets
quesidillas
potato bar

Dinner

burgers
spaghetti
ziti
chili
pizza

I am also planning on restocking my pantry with a few easy meals with week.

Pantry meals

mac n cheese
chicken noodle soup

Meal Plan in Review

2011-07-16T22:36:00.000-07:00

I thought I would post how our meals actually turned out.

Monday

cereal
Chick fil a
Pizza

Tuesday

pancakes

We had friends over and so lunch was a spread and some of this was snacks also.

pbj sandwiches, pb crackers, carrots, broccoli, apples, cuties, cheese sticks, chex mix, last of the chips, pretzels and choclate cupcakes

Moms had Cuban Chicken Salad.

Leftover pizza for dinner

Wednesday

cereal

Lunch was snack food for the boys, yogurt, popcorn, tortilla chips, cheese sticks, granola bars and pb crackers. I had leftover Cuban Chicken Salad.

Dinner burgers, rotel dip and tortilla chips. Dessert was ice cream with carmel sauce.

Thursday

cereal

sloppy joes

chicken noodle soup and french bread

Friday

chipotle

pizza

Saturday

leftover pizza and McDonalds

chicken, broccoli and rice

Sunday

granola bars

chili dogs

leftovers

We did pretty well the first part of the week. Friday and Saturday we had some things come up that meant we ate out of the house more than I wanted to. I plan to make sure that next week we have more sandwich options on hand.

3 John 4

2011-07-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

On the morning of July 6th, I decided to take the boys to a summer movie. J didn't want to go and as I look back on that I am thankful that this time I didn't push the issue. He decided to stay home with Tim. They watched a video and talked about baptism and Jesus. He has been asking questions recently and we have been praying that God would continue to draw his heart. I walked in from the movie and say Tim and Josh sitting on the couch reading and praying. Amazing to see my husband lead his child in a prayer of faith. I went to our bedroom and cried.

As a parent there is nothing that I want more than to see my children follow Jesus. I know that they will still have trouble and trials. I know that life will not always be easy. I know they will face heart break and disappointment. I also know that all of those things are bearable when you walk in faith. I can't explain it but I know what "peace that passes all understanding" feels like. I want that for my children. I want to know that in the tough times and the times in which there doesn't seem to be a way out, that they will know that there is One who will see them through that day.

On Sunday we baptized this child "Church Plant in Texas" style, in a horse trough in a movie theater lobby.

Meal Plan Monday

2011-07-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

Breakfast ~ cereal with soy milk
pancakes with syrup

Lunch ~ Cuban chicken salad
sandwiches
quesadillas
sloppy joes
chili dogs
tacos

Dinner ~ pizza
spaghetti
chili
baked ziti
burgers
grilled chicken

I will link to recipes later. I have found several recipes via Pinterest that I have on my too try list.

BTW this is my first post using my iPad and new bluetooth keyboard...so excuse any errors and blames them on the auto correct this time. :-)

Two new favorite websites.

2011-07-04T14:35:00.001-07:00

I have two new sites that I LOVE.

The first is Pinterest. I love it. I now have a virtual bulletin board of things that I like, recipes, crafts to try, homeschool ideas, just about anything I find on the web that I want to remember. You "pin" a photo from the website and you have a board of all your ideas.

The second is Library Thing. A few weeks ago I ordered some books from Amazon. When they arrived I realized that one of them was a free book that I already had on my iPad. I hate having to return things! With Library Thing I can catalog all our books. Plus, there is a category for books read but not owned! I signed up for the lifetime membership which costs $25 but you can try it out for free and list up to 200 books. I also bought the CueCat when I signed up. This little magic machine is great.

You simply swipe the "cat" across the bar code and your book is entered into your Library Thing library.

Do you have any can't live without organizational websites?

Resources for Year 1 Classical Education

2011-07-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

My goal has always been to follow a Clasical Model of education. During the past six years of homeschooling I have gotten off the path but this year decided it was time to go back to the basics and how I believe I should school my children.

In classical education you study using a chronological view of history so year one is the time period from Creation to A.D. 400 or the time period of the Ancients.

In putting together resources to use this year I stumbled across this site with a wonderful list of resources (some free). Ancient History Lessons. She even has a few free ebooks that aren't already in my library!

Be sure and check out the link for "Historical Hats and Headgear" What child (boys especially) wouldn't like to make a Roman Praetorian Guard hat?

PK's

2011-06-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

I know that there are horror stories out there about growing up in a pastor's home. This week I was reminded of one of the best parts of growing up "in the ministry". I have a childhood friend who was also the maid of honor in my wedding. In the last 10 years we lost contact. It would hit me from time to time how much I missed her and I would talk to her sister on fb but didn't reconnect. Then she signed up for facebook...which I love btw! We reconnected and she said she had a photo to send me.

I opened my email to find this.

This is her dad and I. We think it was taken the summer before my senior year in high school. This would be the summer that we moved from my "hometown". That would be the "hometown" that my dad had pastored in for 14 years. The same "hometown" that I had gone to school since kindy.

That summer we went to youth camp with our our previous church. I got to spend some quality time with lifelong friends.

This picture reminds me of the best part of being in ministry...the people. They are the family you create when you don't live next door to your family. Pops (as all his girls called him) was a second father to me for years. He probably thought I lived with him when I was in high school. When I went to college I was actually closer to Pops and Mom Marilyn's house than my own parents. Mom Marilyn did more of my laundry in college than my mom did and they always had an open door for me (and usually gas money).

This picture is bittersweet. Pops passed away in 1998 just a couple of months after we lost Josiah. I left my childhood home from his funeral to bury my first son's ashes. The comfort came in knowing that because of his faith my son and Pops were together. Eternity will be so sweet.

So while ministry is hard...I so want that for my children. I want them to share the joys of creating a ~~church community~~ family that will carry them through the darkest times in their lives.

I am ashamed.

2011-06-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

I love my kids. I seem to talk about them on here a lot but since it is my blog I guess that is ok. I have to tell you that something has happened in the past few months that has made me ashamed.

In the spring two of the boys wanted to play soccer and so we signed them up. I have a love/hate relationship with our local parks and rec program so we did this with mixed feelings. We requested a certain coach and we didn't end up on his team. I wasn't thrilled with the situation. We liked our new coach but we *I* was tired of having a new coach and new team every single season. So we played the season we some mixed emotions and the one great thing about it was we met some new people and the kids made some great friends.

In particular there was one little girl on the team that one of our boys liked. He is a pretty outgoing kid so this doesn't really surprise me. But I am still a mom and he is still my baby and well he isn't really old enough to like,like a girl...I am told that denial is a great place to live.

So this sweet girl and my not so little boy would talk. Being our child I guess it should not surprise me that one of the things he would talk about was our church. Remember the invite card post? At the end of the season we moms were talking and she said "We are coming to your church tomorrow. Girly wants to see what it is like to go to church in a movie theater. G says it is neat."

This sweet family starts coming to church and one Sunday Tim talked about salvation and baptism. Mom talks to Tim and shares that little girl is ready to be baptized. Today we "borrowed" a pool and stood around with family and friends and watched as this sweet child demonstrated her love of Jesus.

Once again I cried. I have cried at my two oldest boy's baptism. I have cried at every child's baptism since we started this church. I don't know if I am getting older and more emotional. I don't know if I am finally realizing what a sweet aroma this step is to our Lord. I do know that today as the tears came they weren't simply tears of joy. The tears today were an offering to Jesus. They came because I was ashamed that my child did something that I didn't do myself. They invited this family to church and encouraged them to come.

You see the boys didn't just mention church one time. The mentioned it weekly. I will talk to people about church but if they don't show an interest, I move on to more comfortable topics. I will invite strangers to church but those acquaintances not so much. What if they don't like it? What if they don't like me? What if? I realized today that Satan had been using my pride to keep me from doing what I should be doing.

A while back I was chatting with CPQ and she said "I, too, am truly convinced that God gives you what you need in your kids to show you what you are truly made of..." I am finding this to be so true. Jesus is using my boys to show me that when we truly love Him we can't stop sharing about him. It just overflows out of our lives.

Free Books part 2

2011-06-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

This is the first year we have ereaders in the house. As I was searching for books for Kindle, I began to find some of the books we wanted to use with our curriculum for free. It actually felt kind of random until I started doing some more searching and realized that there is a way to increase the likelihood of finding free books.

The best known site for free public domain children's books is The Baldwin Project. You can use this site to read the books on your computer or print them out. You can search by title, author, or genre.

The other two sites I use for free books is Google books and Amazon Kindle. I have both of these apps loaded on my iPad. You can download their apps for different devices (android, iPod, iPad, and computer). For both of these sites it is pretty important that you use a generic search. Also just because a book isn't available on one site doesn't mean it won't be available on the other.

If you search for Famous Men of the Middle Ages you will find it on Kindle for either $2.99 or $.99 but if you search on Google books it is available for free.

On Amazon Kindle I have had the most luck not putting the word "free" in my search. In google it doesn't seem to affect your search and usually if you use the word free at the end of the keyword search (Famous Men of the Middle Ages free) the first book that comes up (if it is available) will be the free version. So when you use Kindle don't use free, but use free when you search on Google books.

Here is a link to Amazon's Free eBook List.

I have not searched for books for the Nook but one tip I read said to type in the subject you are searching for plus 0.00...i.e. King Arthur 0.00.

Here is one last link for free ebooks Happy Hearts Homeschooling Library. This is a new blog that I found from a link on WTM. So far I love what I am finding. She has a diverse list of books and has a great category system linked. On her side bar she has a list of places you can find free ebooks and also tips for printing and searching her site.

One thing to remember is that many of these books are not revised editions. Some of the things in them will not be politically correct and will reflect the cultures and mores from the time they were written. So be aware of this and be prepared to address any of these issues that arise from the reading.

Most of the classics will be available in some form for free (Charlotte Bronte, Stevenson, Dickens, etc). Also some "classic" textbooks will be available. I have a long list of language arts curriculum available on Google books.

The authors John Henry Haaran, G.A Henty, Samual B. Harding, and H.E. Guerber (all historians) have numerous books available and I feel like you could create a solid base for your historical studies using these authors. I don't believe that you could use these books alone. You need some more modern works. These books are not full of color photographs so they may not be as "entertaining". My plan is to use these along side other more current works so that the program is more well rounded. I love the Usborne books for their photos and the way they bring history to life. I also love the narratives in Story of the World for younger children. I believe that adding these books in gives you a depth that isn't found in current spine/core/textbooks.

Free books

2011-06-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am going to write a couple of posts on free books. This time of year there are lots of homeschooling moms looking for curriculum and books for the next year. If you are like us and a house of big readers saving money on books is a very good thing.

One of my favorite ways to get free books is to use Paperbackswap.

I have been a member there since 2007. In that time I have received 102 books. If I average the cost of those books to about $5 each, then I have saved over $510 using PBS. The reality is probably more than that since many of the books I have received sell for more than $5 each. Out of the last five books that we have received, one of them is out of print, one is a field guide that sales for over $13 on Amazon and the other three both cost over $8 each.

That is my long way of saying PBS is worth using. So if you don't have an account, go sign up for one now. When you sign up for an account you have a couple of different ways you can earn credits. You can list books to swap (easiest way) and you earn credits for each book that you send out. You can go to their forums and there will be people willing to sell credits for $2.50-$3.00 each. Or you can buy credits directly from PBS for $3.85. I usually try to send out books so that I always have a few credits in my account. There have been a few times that I have bought credits from both other users and PBS directly.

When you send out a book you do have to pay the postage on the book. When you request a book you do not have to pay postage and instead trade in a credit for each book.

Once you sign up for an account and you have listed books. The next step is to set up a wishlist of books that you are interested in. Currently I have 174 books on my list since I am collecting books for next year. You can have as many books on your list as you choose. When you start searching for books there are some tips that will help you find as many books as possible.

The first thing I do is use the keyword search for the specific title and see if the book is available. If it is available I will click on the title and add it to my wishlist. On your wishlist, if the book is available in more than one version, then you can click on the link (expand wishlist) and it will add other copies to your wishlist. This helps if someone lists the same book in a different version (hardback vs paperback).

If you type in a book and click on the link you can see some helpful information about the book. You can see if they have any other versions available. You can also see how many members are waiting on the book. If you are waiting on a book that has a long waitlist (one of mine I am 347 in line for) then you can also refine the way you search for a book and you might find a different version available.

This information comes for Cindy on TOG year 2 yahoo group. When you are searching be sure and search for generic information in the keyword search box. I was looking for the Usborne Internet Link of the Medieval World by Jane Bingham. When I searched for Medieval World in the keyword search it brought up a version of the book I was looking for with a different ISBN but the same author. I am fairly certain this is the book I want so I ordered it. Also be aware that sometimes when inputting a book there may be misspellings in the name so a generic keyword search may bring up the book that you are looking for.

Invite Cards

2011-06-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

We have these little invite cards at our church. We provide them for people to share with their neighbors or to leave in restaurants with a tip. They are business card size and have our church info on them. I always try to have a few in my purse and we leave them any time we eat out of if we are chatting with someone and they ask about the church. They are very handy (pun intended) to have.

The problem is that I keep running out of them. I will go to leave a tip and find that I am out. Tim will ask for one and I don't have any more. The main issue is that I am not the one that is handing them out. Nope, not me. Actually, it isn't Tim either. Don't get me wrong, we do use them. Embarrassingly enough the reason I can't keep them in my purse is because our not quite 12 year old son is always saying, "Mom, there is a someone that is looking for a church and I told them about ours. Do you have a card?"

Why do we do this?

2011-06-08T06:55:00.000-07:00

I wrote this back in February and never posted...

I don't know the number of times we have been asked why we plant churches. There are a number of pat answers that I have given over time. This past week it was brought home to me why we are drawn to this adventure.

A friend of mine who I have never met in real life, lost her daughter this week in a tragic car accident. This friend is suffering. This friend is also a believer. She is a mom that I connected with on the internet on a message board. Over six years ago we started a discussion about who Jesus is. We begin an email discussion of who God is and how does the role of religion play into our relationship with Jesus. At the time she had been on a varied role with many religions and hadn't found the answer. At the time I was a little short on "defending" my faith. In particular I was "over it". I actually stated that I was "done arguing with people (unbelievers) about whether Jesus was who he said he was". I figured that all the arguing did was frustrate me and not draw anyone closer to a belief in Christ. This sweet mom asked if she could email me some questions. I said of course but really wondered how I would have any answers for her. You see I had come to a place in my life were I couldn't explain my faith, but I knew that Jesus was who he said he was because of my experience in my life.

Through a series of email conversations and through her seeking, this mom developed a relationship with the man Jesus. As she developed her relationship, her family saw a difference and they also developed a relationship with Jesus. This week her daughter died and through tears of mourning this mom emailed Tim and shared her thanks for our prayers and for pointing her to Christ because she knows her daughter had a relationship with Jesus.

This morning my devotional was on the demon possessed man. In Luke 8:39 Jesus tell the man to go back to his family and tell them what God had done for him. So the long answer of why we plant churches because God has done something in our life and we have to share it. People who are scared and scarred by religion still need to know Jesus. Maybe they are the ones desperate to know him.

So today I am reminded why we do this, Jesus has made me a better wife, mom, daughter, sister, friend. How could I not share that with someone?

K 4 plans

2011-06-06T04:51:00.000-07:00

We have a little guy that wants to "do" school so bad that I am planning a K4 year for him this year.

I have found some amazing resources for this age group and even a little older.

For Bible I think we are going to do this study as a family...Young Peacemakers. We will also be reviewing our lessons from Little Contenders of the Faith. Both J and W participated this past year and they memorized Ephesians 6:10-18. We will review that and use these printables for practice and review. Armor of God

For math we will use Math U See Primer.

I will also use some of the worksheets from Confessions of Homeschooler and especially the You Can Read program from Carissa's blog. If you are interested in this she is offering an ad free zone for $5 until she completes the program and has all the printable loaded on her blog. This is a great deal! You can download the printables for free but it is worth it to have the ad free zone. Let's be honest don't most of us spend more than $5 a week on soft drinks and coffee?! Carissa uses her blog to sport their mission work so this goes to a great cause.

There are tons of Alphabet resources here and I know we are going to use the playdough mats along with the do a dot/magnet pages.

Because the older boys are studying astronomy I printed out Astronaut Pack and also Solar System Pack to use with Will. All of the boys have enjoyed the printables and games from these sites so I know they will love these also.

The boys will be studying Medieval history this year so I am adding this Knight pack.

Plans for next school year

2011-06-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

I am trying to make plans for next school year. For the older boys I am pretty set on what we are going to be using.

TOG is our main source for history, geography, timeline work, literature, worldview, arts and activities. This is our second year using TOG and while there are some challenges overall we enjoy this program. This year we will doing year 2 and studying the middle ages. I have been choosing our books and collecting them from various resources like PBS, google books (love free ebooks) and then buying some from Rainbow Resource and Amazon.

I am editing this because we will not be using TOG this year. History is going to be an eceletic mix of things with Story of the World as our spine. I am planning to use the map work and cool histories from Biblioplan to go along with SOTW.

This year we are going to be studying Astronomy with Exploring Creation with Astronomy. We are going to use their notebooking products. I am going to supplement G's work by using Paige's books from Great Scientist

For math we are still using Math U See. I am thinking about adding in Life of Fred for Graham and Sir Cumference for E and J.

Peace Hill Press is still one of my favorite resources for language arts. Both E and J will continue with First Language Lessons. All three older boys will be using Writing with Ease. In the fall we are expecting the release of their middle school materials and I want to use Advanced Language Lessons and Writing with Skill with Graham once they are released. We are also using Phonetic Zoo for the first time this year.

In addition to all of this the boys would like to play soccer again and we will do that depending on when the season starts. I also am looking at starting G and E in guitar lessons. We have some amazing musicians in our church and one of them has taught lesson in the past.

Stuff

2011-06-03T09:01:00.000-07:00

I have been absent for a while and am still debating keeping up with my blog. I love some parts of it but am not sure that I am a "blogger". I have been working on school plans for next year and will probably post them on here later this week. Just not sure where I want to go from here.

Thoughts on Suffering

2011-01-09T17:06:00.000-08:00

I don't claim to be an expert on suffering. As a matter of fact when I look at my life I feel extremely blessed by God. I don't really know why He has given me so much but I do know that it is difficult for me to look at very many instances in my life as true suffering.

If you have read my blog then you know it really started as a place for me to process my thoughts on miscarriage and grief and all that entails and that has been my primary experience with suffering. There have been other trials or difficulties but nothing that I would put in the same class as what many people have to face. So over all I feel blessed.

The only problem is that if you are in ministry long enough (and I do think that I qualify for that now) that you will watch and struggle with people who are truly facing things that make them suffer. So even though I don't feel like I have directly faced suffering, I do believe that I have seen it occur and walked with others through it often enough (can you even really qualify that?) to make some observations.

As we have watched people around us deal with difficult issues I have asked "Why?". Not that I always expected God to give me an answer but you know it never hurts to ask. Sometimes suffering is obviously a result of poor choices, but some times it seems to be just because. The reasoning can be explained because we live in a fallen world that is decaying around us. While that is true and I don't place all suffering in the category of spiritual I find that the entire thought that the reason we suffer is "just 'cuz" falls a little flat. I guess I have a hard time reconciling a loving, good, gracious, merciful Father saying "just 'cuz". I believe the reality is that our God doesn't do that. We won't always have answers but I think God is much more involved in our suffering that than. I honestly think that God is intimately acquainted with our suffering and cares very deeply about it.

None of this reasoning actually answers the question of why people suffer. I know there are some awesome books written on the topic. These are just some of my observations of how and maybe why God has used suffering in the lives around us.

First I think God allows suffering because it teaches us interdependence on the Body of Christ. In America especially we are very self reliant and suffering totally undercuts our ability to do it all on our own. When we suffer and the church turns and puts its arms around us and lifts us up, we are the Body of Christ and we present that to a hurting world that needs to know Christ.

I think we face suffering to draw us closer to the heart of the Father. My children run to me or Tim when they are hurt. It isn't a question of what they should do. They run full force into our arms. They expect us to evaluate the situation and do what needs to be done. They trust us to care for them when they can't fix the problem. I think that is exactly what God wants his children to do. We should run to him and bury our head in his side while we wait for Him to do His work.

Suffering does remind us that we live in a fallen world and this is not our home. I am continually pulled between this world and heaven because a part of my suffering placed our son in eternity with the Father. I am continually reminded that even though in this life Josiah would have had trials and troubles, in the other world he is perfect, whole and complete. I long to share that perfection with him. I long to hold him and know him in the light of the Father.

Suffering also causes us to come face to face with our own sinfulness. I know it may not be popular but in my life I know it is true that many of the difficulties I have faced have been because I blew through God's warning signs. Suffering can be a result of the consequences God allows in our lives. I wish that I had chosen the route of wisdom rather than consequence in learning life lessons. Too many times I didn't and faced the harsh reality of consequences that didn't have to occur.

Suffering can be used to remind us that God is God and He alone is holy. How many instances in the Old Testament did God show Israel that He was holy. There are numerous stories of God's people taking His laws and words lightly and results were always disastrous. Again how many instances in our lives do we suffer because we don't recognize and respect God's holiness and His commands?

There is a reason behind our suffering and God has an outcome in mind. Some of our suffering does happen "just 'cuz" but we are told that other part of the story "all things work together for GOOD to those who are called according to His purpose". I believe that no matter the cause of our suffering, God takes that suffering and turns it into something that reflects His glory. Actually, I believe very strongly that this is the business God is about on a daily basis.

The Reason for the Season

2010-12-21T05:26:00.000-08:00

I do realize that the title has been way over used. My use of it is to convey a different message. I do believe that Jesus is truly the reason we celebrate this holiday season. I do realize that Jesus wasn't born during December. I also realize that the holiday Christmas is modeled from a pagan holiday.

The real reason I use the title is to convey a different meaning. I believe at Christmas we get caught up in thinking about Jesus as a baby. We spend the entire season of Advent talking about how Jesus came into the world and miss the important question of why Jesus came into the world.

One of the reasons Jesus came is given in Matthew 5:17 "I have not come to abolish them (the Law and the Prophets) but to fulfill them."

God knows the heart of man. He knows that even when we obey the rules, our hearts often aren't in it. He knows that we will obey to keep from getting in troble or because we want others to like us or afor any number of reasons that aren't tied to "righteousness".

When Jesus came it wasn't just to live a good life, it was to live a perfect life. He didn't just obey all the rules, He kept the Spirit behind the rules. Jesus did not come to tell us to forget the Law, He came to do what we could not. He came to be a law fulfiller. Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness not for His sake but for ours.

That is the "reason for the season". The baby Jesus is the only hope we have to fulfill God's law. There is nothing within us that can achieve what Christ does through us.

"O come, O come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel." We are Israel and the babe born in a manger came to do more than live a good life, He came to free us to live an eternal life. He knew that we could never do it own our own.

Twelve Years Ago...

2010-09-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

I became a mother. I have blogged about Josiah James each year. This year Timbo shared his heart and mine.

100 things I love

2010-09-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

1. dark chocolate

2. little tan boys

3. cuddly babies

4. giggling boys

5. these chocolate pretzel snacks

6. catching up with friends on the internet

7. pilot gel pens in fun colors

8. circa binders

9. being called Beautiful

10. hearing my boys pray "for more people to come to Jesus."

11. Curves

12. Chipotle

13. my mil's nature photos

14. hearing my hubby's heart about adoption

15. knowing my boys want a baby sister

16. seeing my boys eyes light up when they learn to read

17. good friends that God brought into my life through the Internet

18. cute cloth diapers

19. milk chocolate

20. Polish pottery

21. Auburn football

22. Eric Carle boardbooks

23. webkinz

24. my mama and my grandmother's quilts

25. IKEA furniture

26. women's Bible studies

27. knowing my mom and dad pray for my family every.single.day

28. moving to new places

29. Disneyworld

30. Callaway Gardens

31. laughing with dh

32. watching my boys sleep all piled together in the floor

33. scrapbooking

34. new school supplies

35. new notebook planners

36. facebook

37. gmail, igoogle, google reader and google docs

38. MercyMe

39. Casting Crowns

40. The Blind Side

41. CPQ post on Jesus and Chickfila

42. Chickfila

43. Timbo's nicknames for the boys

44. Pork and Black Bean Chili

45. cilantro lime rice

46. homeschooling

47. my boys drawings

48. smores

49. teaching the boys to read

50. our firepit

51. watching the boys learn to ride bikes

52. seeing how much one boy LOVES animals

53. watching God draw my children to Him

54. wondering how some crisis is going to work out and then watching God do a miracle

55. church planting

56. Kidmo and Lil K

57. church at the movies

58. Four Winds Tribe

59. dreaming about our baby girl

60. the smell of popcorn as we set up for church on Sundays

61. Writing Aids from Tapestry of Grace

62. Awestar Ministry

63. blogging

64. my mama's carrot cake

65. old family cookbooks

66. working on family history

67. close to my heart scrapbook kits

68. well trained mind forums

69. amitymama forums

70. scentsy warmers and scents

71. living on a cul de sac

72. my girlfriends blogs

73. trying to love twitter

74. Timbo's baseball hats

75. blue jeans

76. danskin workout clothes

77. yoga pants

78. pampered chef stones

79. easy recipes

80. Math U See math

81. Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading

82. Yellow Box flip flops

83. uggs

84. photos of my boys together

85. caprese salad

86. going to professional baseball games with Timbo and the boys

87. Tim Tebow

88. laptop computer

89. New Living Translation of the Bible

90. my Granny's sewing machine

91. our Train cabinet

92. good friends online

93. good friends in real life

94. YWAM Ethiopia

95. listening to my boys sing

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

Cute and Easy Gift

2010-08-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

I found this link for a Tiered Serving Platter and fell in love with it. I have several friends who love to entertain and this will be the perfect gift for them.

Now Jamie's pictures and much better than mine. Excuse the painting/crafting stuff in the background, the kids were creating... Oh and the weird angles of my photos, apparently I need a little more practice.

I hope you get an idea of how cute and easy these are. The total cost for both of these was less than $10. I found some really cute red and blue plates that I am making another set out of for a local friend that decorates with lots of Americana.

Twenty Years

2010-08-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

Our Curriculum choices for the Year

2010-08-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

Found this fun blog hop and thought I would join in. I have done a couple of posts about curriculum that I love and thought I would show what our choices are for the upcoming year.

Tapestry of Grace

This year TOG will be our spine for history, literature, geography and writing. I am excited to use this program and am almost ready to get started with it. We will be studying Year 1 which covers the time from Creation to the fall of Rome. This has various readers and writing assignments based on their age and level so even though they will all be studying the same time period they will have reading and writing assignments that are appropriate for their ages.

First Language Lessons and Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading

Grammar study for the year. We will be using three different levels of FLL this year. Also two of the boys will continue to work through OPG which is a great phonics program.

Math U See

All of the boys will be using different levels of MUS this year. Graham is switching back after almost of a year of a different math program.

Classic Science Life

This is our first year trying this science program but I think it will be a good intro to the scientific method for the boys.

Italic Handwriting

Great handwriting program that all the boys will be using this year. I really like how legible their handwriting is with this program.

They will also do art and typing.

For extracurricular I am hoping to get them in some type of music lessons and they play soccer and baseball.

FREE curriculum choices

2010-07-27T06:46:00.000-07:00

I really do think great curriculum is worth paying for BUT there are times when budgets are tight and you need something to teach a specific subject or even to give extra practice on a subject.

This list is posted and updated by a fellow homeschooling mom and it is a great resource. I love that it is broken down by categories and even if you don't homeschool your kids there are great resources for after school learing or projects.

Free Curriculum

Resources and Curriculum

2010-07-25T05:39:00.000-07:00

When you begin to look for homeschool materials it can be overwhelming. There are lots of choices. One of the best resource books is Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks for Homeschooling. She really breaks down learning and teaching styles and then pairs the best resources for each style.

For more info on the Charlotte Mason philosophy, as well as curriculum and book lists Simply Charlotte Mason is a great resource. For a free Charlotte Mason Curriculum check out Ambleside Online. Both of these sites have great reading lists for all ages/grades that are free to access.

We have used several different curriculum choices since we started homeschooling in 2005. They all have different strengths but are all great choices for different reasons. We started with Sonlight which may be one of the best known Christian curriculum choices. We also used Winterpromise and loved their Animal Worlds program. We actually still read some of the books from this program. This past year we read some of the books from their Children Around the World program as we studied world cultures. As I blogged at the first of the year we used My Father's World Exploring Country and Cultures this year for a year of world geography, missions and world cultures. It has been a fun year and it has been great to learn more about the cultures many of our families and friends are serving. This year brings us some more changes. As I started researching different curriculum I knew I wanted to do something that would start a four year rotation of history based on The Well Trained Mind. We already use many of the resources from Peace Hill Press and love them. As I researched I knew that Winterpromise wasn't the way I wanted to go. I really like their choices but haven't been pleased with their Instructor Guides. I Like My Father's World and love their focus on the Bible but wanted something a little different. I began to read and research Tapestry of Grace. I like their Biblical focus. I liked the four year history rotation. I like that the boys are studying the same thing but on their own level. I really like that it incorporates writing into the year. I also like the independence it promotes in older students. Then a friend offered to let me borrow her year one and that cinched the deal for me. I am in the planning stages and am looking forward to seeing how this works for us this year.

147 millions reasons to say yes to God

2010-07-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

Do you know how many orphans there are in the world? There are an estimated 147 million . Do you know how many Christian families it would take from your church to solve the orphan problem in America? The statistics state that if one family in every four churches would adopt in America it would solve the orphan issue in America.

"Saying Yes to God" is the subtitle on Kay Warren's blog/website. Kay Warren and her comments are the catalyst for the journey we are on. In this article, Kay says "Not everyone should adopt, but more should than do. Every family should at least ask the question, 'God, do you want our family to foster or adopt a child?' How do you know the answer unless you’ve asked the question?" OUCH!

When Tim read this it impacted him greatly. We had discussed adoption early in our relationship but put it away once we had children. God has blessed our lives richly with our boys. We began to pray. We contacted YWAM about adopting through their program in Ethiopia. We got an email back explaining that they weren't accepting applications at the time. I breathed a small sigh of relief as I knew this would give me a little more time to process this decision. But as the days went by and I began to read more and more, God began to do a work in my life. I couldn't help but see that this was more than just a decision it was a question of obedience.

A couple of weeks ago we got an email from Becky at YWAM Ethiopia that they were accepting applications. Last week on the day before my 40th birthday I called and started the application process with YWAM Ethiopia. Timbo announced on facebook that we were beginning this process. The response we have gotten has been as varied as our friendships. Most have been supportive but a few have been downright hostile.

I am not going to try to convince anyone that our decision is the correct one. All I can say is that this is what God has asked us to do. I can't answer the question for anyone else but I know that when we asked the question the answer was loud and clear. God has broken our hearts over the plight of orphans. God has specifically put in our heart the desire and love for a child that we haven't met. If someone disagrees with us I hope they will take it to God and let him work it out. ;-)

We have found that we have 147 million reason to say yes to God. Hopefully soon that will be 147 million minus one.

10 reasons I love 40

2010-07-20T07:57:00.000-07:00

Wow! I am 40 years old today and I am loving it!

1. I am more content.

2. I have four wonderful boys.

3. Being 40 means I have been married for almost 20 years to the awesome Timbo.

4. I am learning to accept the gray hair I have.

5. I am still younger than my brother. :-)

6. If our future follows our past then we will live in another 10 states in the next 20 years. I like moving.

7. I have an awesome accountability partner.

8. I can actually appreciate being more mature than I was at 20, 30 or even 39.

9. I actually remember when Al Gore created the Internet and I appreciate him doing so.

10. God has been gracious to me and I realize that more and more every day.

Preschool Fun

2010-07-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

We have had a lot of fun this year using resources from Tot School. I posted here with photos of our favorite tot book. I haven't actually made any more books because they were ~~too much work for me~~ not easy for W to use. But there are some other ideas we have used. Here are how we used some of the games from Making Learning Fun to use with the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. W also loves to play with his aquadoodle, blocks from Math U See and the wooden letter pieces from Handwriting Without Tears.

All of these things plus lots of books have made for a fun preschool year. I am hoping to incorporate Letter of the Week this next year. I have all the lessons laid out in lesson plans for the year and I think it will be a fun year and will give us lots of ideas of things for W to do while the boys are doing school.

First Grade, Part 2 in my Curriculum Choice Series

2010-07-17T05:06:00.000-07:00

This post is pretty easy to write since we will be starting first grade with J in the fall.

Here is my list of what I plan to use.

Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading

Explode the Code

First Language Lessons

Italic Handwriting

Story of the World

Writing Aids

Classic Life Science

Math U See

We have used some of this before OPG and ETC are both old favorites. We have used MUS from the beginning for math and love the program. This is our first year using Classic Life Science. I chose it for the other boys and because it is free it will be nice to see how this program works for all of them. We will use Writing Aids and SOTW along with Tapestry of Grace. This is our first year using TOG and I have a feeling there will be a learning curve but I am excited about it.

Again there are lots of different options for homeschooling. We lean toward a classic/Charlotte Mason model and my choices reflect that direction.

Next time I will post some of the things we use for preschool aka keeping W entertained.

Homeschooling Kindergarten and First Grade, part 1

2010-07-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

For anyone who reads my blog you know that it is a mishmash of things that are going on in my life some things on church planting, personal devotionals and revelations, some home making and some homeschooling.

In the past year, I have had several people ask me about homeschooling from the general of "How do you start?" to the more specific with curriculum recommendations.

I really am passionate about homeschooling. I feel strongly that it is what God has called our family to at this season of our life. I realize that it may not always be this way and reserve the right to change our focus if we feel like God asks us to but right now we love it. In the fall we will start our 6th year of homeschooling. I have done kindergarten three times and have come to love the simplicity of the age and their thirst for knowledge. This year several friends/acquaintances have asked specifically about kindergarten and 1st grade curriculum choices.

First, there are a literal ton of resources on the web and in print for homeschoolers. I realize that my choices are not necessarily the best choices for everyone but I feel confident recommending these to anyone who wants to homeschool kindergarten, I think the best thing you can do is read, read and read some more. I firmly believe that a child that learns to read and enjoy books will be able to accomplish anything they want to do.

For reading I highly recommend The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. It is a wonderful stand alone phonics/reading program. We have used this program with three boys and they are all wonderful readers at their own level. For more reinforcement we use Explode the Code workbooks. There is a new online version that I am tempted by but so far we have stuck with the workbooks. These are inexpensive workbooks. They don't line up exactly with OPG but we haven't had any problem using them.

I have started all the boys using Handwriting without Tears which is a very good program but I don't love the way their handwriting looks. So I have been switching over to Italic and J will switch to Italic in first grade. I will start W in Italic and skip HWT. HWT is a great program if you have a reluctant writer or one that struggles with correct penmanship. My problem with it was purely cosmetic. I will have to say that after almost two years of Italic with G that his handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds.

Math U See is a home run for elementary math especially if you ~~struggle to explain first grade math concepts to your six year old~~ are not confident teaching math. We use the DVDs as teaching time. The boys watch their lesson (usually anywhere from 5-10 minutes) then I go over their worksheets and explain any instructions and they do their work. If there is something they don't understand I pull out the manipulative's (wonderful Lego like blocks) and we work through the problem together. Great program developed by a homeschool dad who is also a math teacher.

For science/geography in kindergarten I used a lot of resources recommend by Winterpromise in their Animal World series. We loved the DK Animal Encyclopedia and also all the books in the One Small Square series which teaches geography and also science. Again I feel like the ability to be relaxed and read a lot at this age is such a benefit.

I know some people want a box set of curriculum and there are several out there.

One that is free on the net and which I have pulled lots of resources from is Letter of the Week. Katrina Lybbert has put together a wonderful set of curriculum for teaching preschoolers and early elementary children. She is developing a science and country curriculum that looks just as fabulous as her original work and the best thing is that she shares her work freely. Most of the books she recommends can be found in the library or you can easily find substitutes.

to be continued on another day...

Homesick

2010-07-12T10:06:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was little during the summer I spent a lot of time at camps and visiting my grandparents. I enjoyed the care free life during the summer and since I am an extrovert my heart was mostly content to be out and about around people. Every summer it seemed at some point I would reach a point where I would get homesick. I was having fun but I missed home. I missed being around my mom and dad. I was homesick.

As I became a teenager I didn't suffer from homesickness as much. I realized that the time during summer was short and tried to enjoy every day of it.

Now as an adult I am struggling with homesickness again. I don't long for my parents home even though I miss seeing them and love them dearly. I don't even long for the lazy days of summer as a child. I am homesick for my heavenly home.

Funny how you can long for something you have never experienced. I long for the days in heaven when there will be no more tears and no more sadness.

This wave of homesickness hasn't come out of the blue. As we have watched close friends struggle with the loss of a parent. I long for them to be reunited with those loved ones.

We have friends who are struggling with family issues. I long for them to be home and at rest.

We have friends who are dealing with difficult marriage issues. I long for them to be at home and peace.

We have friends that are just struggling and my heart aches for them. I long for home so that these struggles and trials will be over.

I am homesick for myself. I want to hold my baby. I want to see my family. I want to worship the holiness of God with no sin to mar the experience. I want to be made whole and complete. I long for Him to finish the work that he has started in my soul.

Oh, I long for home. I long for the peace and rest for my friends, my family and myself. I long for home...

Filing system

2010-07-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Over at Well Trained Mind Forums there was discussion about the use of a weekly filing system for all your school work. I was intrigued by the idea and I love any reason to organize anything so I read and read some more and then I decided that this was something that would help me us stay on track this next year. I already had a box and tons of file folders so I grabbed some markers and all our school work and went to work.

This next year we are going to be using Tapestry of Grace for our history/literature/geography/writing and TOG is broken down into four units of nine weeks each. There are roughly nine weeks of summer until we start our fall session, so I put together a summer session and then four sessions for TOG starting in the fall.

I also used colored folders for each of the boys individual work. So they each have a set of ten folders. One is a general folder with their names, then other nine are numbered and used each week. Right now I am pulling out one weekly master folder which holds any work that we do together and then each boys weekly folder and keeping it in the basket by my chair.

This is my file box. I chose not to use hanging files because I figured that I wouldn't need them at this point. You can see the master weekly files at the front and the boys files (colored numbers) sticking up in the back.

Here is my weekly box. I am pulling the files and keep them in this box with any books I want to use with the boys and it also is currently home to my master home management binder which will be finished ~~one day in the distant future~~ soon.

I did decide to take all our manuals apart. I thought ~~all of two seconds about it~~ long and hard about it. My decision was based on the fact that some of our books were ~~tattered and torn~~ in need of a little more care. I decided to take those books apart and put the pages in page protectors. I hole punched everything and made spine labels and placed everything in ~~the excess binders I somehow accumulated~~ recycled binders.

I went through all of our plans for next year that I had (grammar, math, phonics and handwriting) and divided out the number of lessons by the number of weeks and then put that number of lesson in each week. For our summer session, I had some plans of some different fun things we would work on so I planned those weeks out accordingly and placed the resources in the appropriate week.

I am a little bit of geek about organization so this system was a lot of fun to set up. We are finishing up our second week using it and I am finding that having the work divided out in manageable chunks has made it much easier for me to get through the material we need to in a week.

Also I have been able to look at plans for next week and actually print out some extra worksheets to go along with certain lessons. This system seems to work well for me because I am a visual learner and this helps keep my perfectionist/ocd tendencies in check.

Thrifty School Room Decor

2010-07-10T13:45:00.000-07:00

We redid our schoolroom this week here. I wanted something on the walls but wanted something ~~cheap~~ unique. So I took our world map from last year and cut it into continents. I then took some black frames that were in storage and framed the maps. Viola! Unique artwork in our school room.

Then I wanted the boys to have a place to display all their treasures so I found this blog about making Thrifty Dollar Store Art. I loved the idea of a cork board. I headed to our local Dollar Store. I only visited one of the four that we have in our town. You know because you need four dollar stores before you have a Target. They didn't have the cork boards in stock. But I found white display board that I thought would work. They also had large letters for wall art. I spent $5. I cut the display board down to fit in more recycled frames. I added letters to spell their names.

For other decorations, I found these cute glasses on sale at Target. The boys each have one on their desks to keep pencils, pens, highlighters and flags in.

Then Ikea to the rescue with these pop up bins. They were $4 for 3 bins and we keep chalk/boards, science experiement supplies and aqua wonder supplies organized.

School Room Redesign

2010-07-08T20:04:00.000-07:00

Last year I posted photos of our school room. We loved it for a while but discovered that it was problematic since W loved to explore. When we were tucked away in the schoolroom aka spare bedroom, he was exploring the rest of the house and leaving a mess in his wake. So we moved school to the living area and rearranged bedrooms to give the boys a playroom and Tim an office.

Fast forward a year and we are at the point of needing a school room again. Since we had moved the boys into the master bedroom, we converted their playroom into our new school room.

We still have a few things to do/adjust but I really think this is going to work well for us.

Here are some pictures of our redesign.

The older two boys have a desk with a bookshelf in between them. They have their boxes and most of their books on the bookshelf along with some different activity oriented boxes.

Then J has a desk on the other wall. Right now we have two more bookcases but our plan is to buy one more desk and a taller bookcase. (I love Ikea.) and W will have a place to play and work with the others.

The larger desk with drawers (why is one of them open?) is mine. I spend most of my time in the black chair and the closet has been converted to my resource closet. It holds text books/binders, extra supplies, extra books we aren't using currently, our globe, some games and my printer.

So far (two weeks in) this has been a great new set up for us.

Orphans and my mouth??

2010-05-03T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot about what the Bible says about orphans lately. I have also been reading a lot of adoption related blogs but this post is about something else.

This morning I decided to read the verse in James that is actually often times referenced as a turning point for those who decide to adopt.

James 1:27
Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

I usually try to read a verse in context so I decided to read the previous verse since in my Bible it seems that verse 26 and 27 are a paragraph together.

James 1:26
If you claim to be religious but don't control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.

OUCH! and OUCH again! Verse 27 convicted me of one thing and then verse 26 something else. I can't address the issue of orphans immediately in a direct way but I can do something about my tongue.

This week I read an article written by Kay Warren where she says "Not everyone should adopt, but more should than do. Every family should at least ask the question, “God, do you want our family to foster or adopt a child?” How do you know the answer unless you’ve asked the question?"

Have I honestly asked that question of my family? Have I honestly asked God this question or am I scared of the answer? Let me assure you that we have asked that question and we feel like we are getting a pretty clear answer from God...but I will post more about that journey later.

After I read this then I read verse 26 I am shocked. My tongue is a barometer to my religion. Is my faith geniune, how am I speaking to my children, my husband and my friends? Am catty and cutting in my responses? Are my words soft and tender or harsh?

We have been teaching our children about "soft words" the last few weeks. We have been focusing on this verse from Proverbs 15:1

A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare.

How often in my life do I make the choice to use harsh words with no care of the result? When if I would chose gentle/soft words then the result would be calm and not anger?

Daniel week 3 Trials

2010-02-03T10:07:00.000-08:00

I don't like trials. There I said it. I hate suffering and I especially hate watching those around me suffer. It is hard but I realize that those trials are a necessary part of life.

1 Peter 1:7 (New Living Translation) says "These trials will show that your faith is genuine." Ok, so trials show that my faith is genuine. Genuine means authenic, real, not counterfit. I like the first part of the definition authenic and real sound good. Not counterfit kind of stings. If trials show that my faith is genuine then does my lack of faith during a trial show it as counterfit. Again it seems that God (with Amber's help) has striped away my comfort zone with this Bible study.

God used Josiah to show that even when things happen outside of my control that he will redeem the tragedy. One of the unexpected benefits of our experience happened during the memorial service for Josiah. We had a friend who attended our church. We had shared with her But one of the issues she struggled with was guilt from an abortion. She had made the decision years before she was married and had children. This decision shadowed her life and as she began to experience who Jesus was it was the one thing that continued to haunt her. God had given me the priviledge of sharing with her before we were even pregnant with Josiah. I shared how God loves us and that his forgiveness covers all our sins. At our memorial service we shared our grief but also our hope. One of the priveledges of being a Christian is that our hope doesn't end on this earth. As this friend left the service she shared how she had used the time to accept God's forgiveness for her abortion and as a memorial for her baby. It was poignant as she asked us if it was "ok" with us. OK? We rejoiced in the acceptance of God's grace and forgiveness. It was precious to us to see how God was already using our experience to draw others to him.

Even though I am honest about not liking trials, I know that they cause me to draw closer to God. When I suffer through trials then I draw closer to God because he is my help. When I watch my friends go through trials I draw closer to God as I pray and intercede for their situation. It is amazing to see how God answers those prayers and uses that to strengthen my faith.

Safari through Daniel

2010-01-25T05:32:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that when I suggested to my friend Jen that we do this Bible study together I really didn't think it would be so up close and personal in my life. I figured that since most of Daniel is prophecy it would be an interesting study but on a more intellectual level rather than personal introspective level.

How utterly foolish of me to forget God's promise that His Word is a "two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit." This study has already began "exposing my innermost thoughts and desires."

I have been a Christian for over 30 years. The truth of that statement is humbling because I know that at this point in my Christian life I should be showing more maturity than I do. The reality is that God has used the last year to show me how I have been half hearted in my relationship with Him. How I have laid claim to the name of Christ without taking on the full responsibility of the name. I have talked about who God is (irl and on my blog) but my personal relationship was stale at best.

This past year as I began examining my life I realized that it had been a long time since I had been consistently in God's word. I would pick up my Bible and read here and there but had no consistency in my spiritual life. I was dissatisfied with my personal life on many levels and God began to strip away a lot of excess. He began to reveal sins and confronted me with the truth that if I wanted to have a full, deep, meaningful relationship with Him then I would to live a holy life.

I decided that if I wanted my life to be different then I needed to start doing different things. God has promised us that we can live an abundant life in Him. I realized that for that to take place I needed to do three things. I needed to be honest about sin. I needed to find some accountability. And I needed to get close to God.

For me it was easy to gloss over sin and even fall back on the thought that "we are all sinners." That attitude doesn't line up with what God says. First Thessalonians 4:7-8 says "God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you." God has called me to live a holy life.

I began to deal with sins that were common downfalls for me. The ones that Satan used to continually trip me up. I asked that God reveal the root of those sins and then I began to "weed them out".

When we were first married, we served a church in Tulsa, OK. Many of our members were already at retirement age. One day we were talking with one of the members about yard work. I was moaning about the dandelions in my yard. This beautiful older lady told me that she had a small shovel she used to dig out each dandelion in her yard. I will admit that my first thought was "you have too much time on your hands". God has used that lesson in yard work to show me what I have to do with sin in my life.

Sin is like a dandelion. It takes root and makes a small flower. Eventually this flower goes to seed and then either the wind (or a child) comes along and blows the seed and it spreads. If this cycle continues eventually dandelions will take over an entire area. I found that sin was the same way, once it took root then it would continue to grow and spread. So I began to deal with sin the same way. I sought out the root and dug it out the same way you would with a persistent weed in your yard.

The Bible tells us that if we confess our sins to one another then we will be healed. I know that this verse is often used when dealing with physical sickness but I believe that it can also be seen in light of spiritual sickness. I knew that I was spiritually sick and I needed someone to remind me to take the medicine. I talked to a friend and I confessed the sins I was continually dealing with and then I asked her to pray for me and also to hold me accountable.

It is impossible for me to spend quality and quantity time with God and spend time with sin. Carl Sandburg said "There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, but there is also a hippo in me that wants to wallow in the mud." I found that I needed to spend time every day with God's word. I need to know what He is saying to me today. I need to do it multiple times a day. I began to put some things into place to ensure that this was happening. I began to start and end my day with my Bible. I also put scripture in my phone and refer to it throughout the day. I find that I must be proactive about God or the distractions around me cause me to lose focus.

Daniel was sure about who God was and what God was able to do. I know that if I want that assurance in my life then I must spend time with God and lots of it.

Updated workbox system

2010-01-24T17:03:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last week revamping my lesson plans for the rest of the year and also my workbox system. We were only using parts of this system from Sue Patrick. This past week I decided that we needed some more structure in our day and that we are going to give this system another try.

Here are some pictures of our boxes. We do school in our living room and this bookcase holds all our school books and supplies we use daily.

This is a close up of W's box and the contents for this week. I am using file folders to divide their activities/school work up (instead of plastic shoe box containers). There is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and a game for W and J to play together, HWT wooden pieces and the letter F for W to build, Brown Bear, Brown Bear and activities, also included but not pictured is a sheet of stickers, color wonder sheet with markers and a Zootle magazine I will read with W and J.

This is J's box and activities for the week. The first thing in J's box is his schedule card. I labeled his file folders with numbers which match those on his schedule. His schedule card also has some extras scheduled. To save space I am only putting actual work in the folders and then extras get put on the card for him to work on. The next item is his clipboard which he uses to do work since we don't usually sit at a desk or table and on it is his morning routine list. These are things that need to be done before we start school. Then you see a file folder with the number on the outside and his Explode the Code book, a folder with his 100 chart and finally a folder with a reading game. He has a total of about 6 folders with 6 additional items on his schedule. Some of his extras include riding his bike, playing a game with his brothers (Hi Ho Cherry O), reading (which isn't in a folder because I use the same phonics book with E and J right now, and playing a game with W (Chicka Chicka Boom Boom). I expect that he will also participate in some of the things I do with W.

I didn't take pictures of G and E's boxes but they are similar in contents. I have used the schedule cards to add in computer typing games, math drill and art to their daily schedule. So I am hopeful that this will help us complete more work and have fun at the same time.

I am going to post some more photos later this week of our reading area and centers that are also in our living room to give an idea of how we do school and live in the same space.

God has all authority.

2009-12-07T09:27:00.000-08:00

When we were in Arkansas for the Global Impact Conference one of the speakers was Walker Moore with Awe Star Ministries.

Here is the podcast of his message and it was exactly what I needed to hear. God Has All Authority.

When we got to Jonesboro we realized that we had a problem with the power cord on our laptop. I called Dell tech support and they said they would send us a new power cord, too Texas in about a week. That really didn't help us while we were at the conference. We were planning to run powerpoint from our computer for our display. We had been talking about getting a second laptop for the church and decided that this would be a good time to do. Tim went to BestBuy and bought us another laptop and we were able to use the power supply with both computers. While in BestBuy Tim talked with the manager and found out his brother lived in our area of Texas. Isn't that interesting.

When we got back to Texas we had a new family at church that had several children. Last night they came to our Open Door with the pastor event at the house. Super neat family, they homeschool, have great kids (seven of them) and they are from Arkansas. His brother is the manager of BestBuy in Jonesboro, Ar.

Isn't it neat that God has all authority over even computer equipment.

Want to read another episode of Jesus sightings? Check out CPQ's blog post jesus-loves-me and while you are there hang out a little while and browse her other posts, she has some great ones.

Jesse Tree Advent ornaments

2009-11-12T06:22:00.000-08:00

This is a sneak peek at a few of the ornaments in the Jesse Tree Swap I just completed.

Fiery Furnance

Nativity

Light "Jesus is the Light of the world"

Wheat "Ruth and Boaz"

Dove and Crown "Prince of Peace"

Jesse Tree Advent Ornaments

2009-11-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas and we like to start the celebrating, decorating early in the Fowler household.

One of my favorite traditions with the boys is a the Jesse Tree. Now I had never heard of this until about 5 years ago. It was mentioned on a parenting forum I am on and it has become a favorite around here.

A Jesse Tree represents the family tree of Jesus and tells the story of salvation from Creation in Genesis through the Old Testament until the coming of the baby Jesus. It is a beautiful way for us to focus during the holiday season on the true meaning of Christmas.

We use this book of devotionals The Advent Jesse Tree . I like it because they are written for both adults and children, there are hymn options and scripture readings. It has 25 devotions so we do one every day during December.

After we read the devotional the boys take turns adding an ornament that represents the scripture to the tree. When we first started this someone on the parenting board suggested that we do a swap for the ornaments. We each agreed to do a certain ornament (or two) and then we made 25 of the same ornament. We sent them to one person and they sorted them and then we got back a box of 25 different ornaments. It was lovely to see the different ornaments that everyone made and how creative they were. It makes a lovely addition to our tree every year and there are a few favorites.

So what are your favorite holiday traditions. What do your kids look forward too? Do you do a Jesse Tree or some similar Advent tradition? I am hoping to share some other neat traditions in the days to come.

This week I will upload photos of our Jesse Tree ornaments for a new swap I am hosting. Come back and take a look.

We have a bouncing baby CHURCH!

2009-11-02T05:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we grand opened Church @ Skyline Valley. I will be posting photos in a few days, when I get some from the missions team that was here. (I will admit I was going crazy and did not even remember to get my camera out.)

We have an unofficial count of 125 in attendance. We had a missions team from Central Baptist Church and In His Steps Church in Arkansas helping this weekend. They passed out flyers on Saturday and then helped us host a block party. Sunday morning they were on the front lines, helping with set up/tear down, greeting, and working with the children. We could not have pulled this off with out this mission team. They were such a blessing. We had 23 in our children's programs yesterday so I have a feeling we are going to be busting at the seams ~~soon~~ next week.

I am amazed that over three years ago we were in Copperas Cove meeting with a group of pastors that had a heart to start a church here. I don't understand God's plan. I am humbled that God allows me to be a part of that plan. I can't wait to see what happens in the days ahead.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, M&Ms and Science?

2009-10-21T14:09:00.001-07:00

I enjoy homeschooling. Then there are days when it is just so much fun that I can't imagine doing anything else. We had a small break while family was visiting (and I need to post those pictures too) so this week we really had to get back to "real" schoolwork.

But several months ago I found this fun activity to do using the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle. Since Will loves that book I printed out and laminated the sheets for the activity but we never got around to doing it. This week I bought the M&Ms and gave the boys the sheets and they loved it (chocolate, what's not to love?).

They had one sheet that they laid the M&Ms on by color. Then the older boys had another sheet that they used to tally the number of M&Ms by color. Then the best part...they got to eat them. I think I won a cool mom teacher award to for this little science classification project.

Josiah James

2009-09-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

Grief comes in many stages and long after you think you are done grieving you will fill the tears rush to your eyes and the hand constrict your heart as you remember.

I have posted previously about what I gained and lost when we gave birth to Josiah. This week I was reminded that even 11 years after the fact that my soul still grieves.

In the days, weeks and months that passed after we lost Josiah, grief literally flooded my soul much like a tidal wave. It would wash over me until there was nothing left. Even though my faith in God remained there was little to my spiritual life. I had no emotional energy it was like the grief had washed all the excess out to sea and it left me very raw and even barren.

As time passed the grief would still come but it seemed a little less in a way. Then last year as I dealt with some issues in my life it felt like the tidal wave was back again. It left me raw and emotionally barren. This year I have noticed that the grief still comes but it is a little softer. There is less rawness and more longing. Maybe that isn’t exactly right, I am still raw. I still deal with emotions that ride underneath the surface of my life. It seems I am more sensitive to certain things and more callous to others. But the under current isn’t rawness it is longing.

I long for the day when my family will be complete. I long for the day when I will finally after all these years get to hold and rock my baby. I long to see his face and know him. I long to see him perfected and whole not to erase the memories of his imperfection but to know he is finally complete.

Yearly photos

2009-09-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

Since we homeschool and don't have school photos taken every year and I found that I couldn't get the boys to a photo place regularly, I started have my mil take pictures of the boys. (She does a professional job and works for cute smiles!)

W, don't let the smile fool you, he is a stinker.

J starting K this year.

E is doing 2nd grade work this year.

G in 4th grade. This will be his fifth year homeschooling.

Grocery Spending Challenge

2009-09-03T07:50:00.000-07:00

I found this challenge listed on another blog and decided that this would be a good challenge for me to do. I am planning to keep the amount at $75 a week for everything we would normally buy with cash. This doesn't include gas because we use a refillable gift card for that. But I am including anything else we do groceries, toiletries, eating out, Sonic runs, all the rest.

This week was interesting. I went to Walmart on Monday and bought groceries. I decided to use this month to eat out of our pantry and freezer so my spending is a lot less than normal.

Tuesday Tim needed something from Sam's so we all went and we fed the boys lunch there. On the way he stopped at the Christian bookstore and found a book that he needed for church so that was an extra expense. On the way home we stopped at another Christian bookstore to pick up some things for the church and he also bought the boys a new dvd.

Thursday I had to return some things to Hobby Lobby and I ended up finding a Christmas present for family on sale so I picked it up but it was less than my return.

I sent Tim to Sonic one day for diet dr. pepper and he took the boys so that was an added expense and he also had a meeting one day at Burger King so he bought drinks that day also

Here is the breakdown for the week...

Walmart $26.71
Sam's $15.96
Hobby Lobby $14.51
Lifeway $15.43
Walmart $ 8.56
Family $17.30
Sonic $ 5.00
Burger King $ 2.00

total spent was 105.47 but the return to Hobby Lobby brings it down to 90.33. We were over by 15.33

If we hadn't taken t.he boys with us on the trip to Sam's then we would have been easily under the $75.

At the end of the week, I am out of coffee creamer, we are out of milk for cereal and all snack foods. I still have quite a bit of food in the freezer we can use and our pantry isn't in terrible shape. We still have apples and oranges but I imagine those will be gone by tomorrow. So we have pretty much gone through all the fresh stuff that I bought this week.

I am trying to decide if I can wait until Tuesday to go to the grocery store. I hate to go on a holiday because it will be crowded.

Our first week of school...

2009-08-28T15:56:00.001-07:00

completed! We finished our first week of school and it was a good week.

We learned about maps and globes this week. We are using a combination of MFW Kindergarten and Exploring Countries and Cultures and just for fun we are throwing in books from Winterpromise Children Around the World and Animal Worlds.

This was J's first week of school and he was a champ. We spent this week doing assessments and reviewing different skills. The first two weeks of My Father's World K studies the story of Creation so that is what we focused on in our Bible time. We learned what God made on the first four days of Creation.

For language arts, J started using Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. I have used this with both G and E and love the systematic approach to reading and phonics. J learned the first four lines in the "The Five Vowels" this week

A is the first vowel we will say.
/a/ is the short-vowel sound of a.
E is the next vowel, don't you see?
/e/ is the short-vowel sound of e.
I is the third vowel that goes by.
/i/ is the short-vowel sound of i.
O is the fourth vowel that I know.
/o/ is the short-vowel sound of o.

For ECC we all read There's a Map in My Lap, People, Maps and Mapping, Geography A to Z and Maps and Globes. G and E both made vocabulary cards using the map and geography books and they copied different writing styles from the book People. These will go in a lapbook that we are going to make next week about our intro to geography.

Today we did a fun experiment with an orange to see why it is hard to make a flat map of the earth.

Drawing the continents on an orange.

Trying to make the orange peel a "flat" map.

Snack time.

A car wash to end the week.

Our first day of school with school pictures.

2009-08-24T19:03:00.001-07:00

We started school today. Here is J hard at work on drawing his Creation picture and writing his name.

E working on phonics/spelling.

G and W playing with the tot book games I made for Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see?

This is something new I am trying this year. I have found two sites that have lots of fun activities that work with different children's books. W loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear Tot Books has lots of cute ideas on making "tot books" which are a spin off of lapbooks. I modified this so that I made the individual parts of the "tot book" but decided to just keep them stored in library pockets for now. I may change my mind in the future and actually make a "tot book" but it worked better today for me to be able to give W an individual activity rather than all of them at once.

These are the individual games that I made for the books. As you can see, W wasn't the only one that enjoyed these activities.

J was playing with the "head and tail matching game" and came up with making funny animals, like a "cat fish" and a "flying fish". He has a vivid imagination!

Another site I love is Making Learning Fun I downloaded the M&M Sorting mat and also made the "I Spy" bottle for Brown Bear, Brown Bear. W wasn't as impressed with the "I Spy" bottle and we haven't used the M&M mat because I forgot to pick up M&M's at the store.

Overall we had a good first day of school. The boys did great and I figured out I have to do a better job of planning when they will do certain things since I had several incidents of all of them needing my help at the same time. I spent some time this afternoon working on a schedule so hopefully they will be able to rotate working with me and working independently. We will see how that works out tomorrow.

I am hoping to post there "school" pictures Grammy took later this week and also to post pictures of my Craigslist couch score that I am giving a makeover. Lots of fun things going on at our house right now.

A Makeover

2009-08-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

We scored a couch and love seat off Craigslist. We needed extra seating in our living area so when I saw these for the right price, we grabbed them.

I didn't care for the pattern on the pillows and starting looking online for covers for them. The cheapest ones I could find were $25/each. I just couldn't see spending more on the covers than I did on the set. As I searched the web for a solution I came across this site.

A Soft Place to Land

I really like the idea of "no sew" since my machine hasn't seen the light of day in over 10 years (except when my parents come and my dad does routine maintenance on it). I stopped at Hobby Lobby and bought material and got it home and realized that I miscalculated the yardage. I didn't have enough to do the pillow with the "fringe". Then I decided OK how hard can it be to sew a square? I finished the first one and worst part was finishing the last seam.

I bought more fabric and then I found this site

Cottage Magpie

I thought this would be a little easier and I like that the cover will be removable. (You never no when or why you will have to wash something around here.)

So I made my second pillow, It actually looks a lot better than the first (which I am not redoing). I also found this dragonfly print and decided to cover the accent pillows with it.

Before photo of the love seat...

And after...

I love the way it looks and I am enjoying the extra seating in our living room now. I have five more cushions to cover and digging through my sewing supplies unearth fabric for a quilt that I bought years ago. I am putting the pieces together for it also. It will look great in our school room on our reading chair in there.

A Barnabas Experience - A Wife's Perspective

2009-08-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

Ministry can be a lonely experience. There are days, weeks and even months that can fly by when you feel like no one understands (or dare I even say, cares) what you are living through.

This weekend Ron and Teddi Sylvia, Church @ the Springs and their staff proved that we don’t stand alone during this journey. In June, Tim received an email invite to a Barnabas Experience Weekend. We discussed it and decided pretty quickly that this was something we wanted to be involved in.

We arrived in Ocala, Florida on Friday night and were met by our host family and unpacked for the beginning of this weekend. On the trip down we discussed what we thought would happen during this weekend experience. Even though I am a natural extrovert, I told Tim that I didn’t want to have to share/discuss much this weekend. This past year has been difficult and there are lots of emotions that ride close to the surface and sharing those emotions, fears and doubts are hard.

We met together Friday night at Ron and Teddi’s house with twelve couples and staff from Church @ the Springs. We ate and visited with other couples and began to unpack what this weekend would look like and what we would experience.

Saturday morning we got up and met together. Ron started that day by sharing his vision and purpose behind hosting this event. It became clear that he has poured his heart into this event. He shared that there were over 160 applicants for this weekend experience from around the world. As we sat around the table with 11 other couples, my first thought was “Why us?” My second thought was how honored we were to be invited to this weekend. As we went around the table and shared it was apparent that while our stories were all different, the one thing that each couple brought to this weekend was the need for encouragement. We were all in different aspects of ministry. Our churches were at different growth levels. We had been in ministry for different lengths of time and we represented different age demographics. Everyone sitting at the table had faced some type of struggle; personal, ministerial, or spiritual (and some of us had faced all three).

We sat that morning and began to see Ron’s heart and we began to share our hearts. There were hearts that were broken and bruised and tears began to flow as God began to minister in our lives. As our stories came out it was apparent that we had shared stories in many ways. We had all struggled with issues that whether they were related to our ministries or not affected our ministries. As you looked around and the room it was filled with broken people who had a heart for God and the work that He is doing.

As we continued through the weekend it wasn’t about what we were learning (although we did learn a lot), it was about realizing that we don’t stand alone in our lives or our ministry. There are people who care about what we are doing and maybe most importantly “how” we are doing. I heard people speak into our life in a way that will continue to positively impact our ministry for years to come. I walked away knowing that God is moving and that we are privileged to be apart of that movement.

If you want to see a small part of what we got to experience this weekend check out www.thesprings.org, if you are a church planter and on twitter follow Ron Sylvia, if you are given the opportunity to attend a Barnabas Experience, book your flight, get a baby sitter, make all the necessary arrangements because it will change you. I know that we will never be the same. We will never again be alone on this journey.

He Still Calls Me Beautiful

2009-08-04T07:40:00.001-07:00

A couple of years ago we were at the church and I was working on something and Tim called across the room “Beautiful, I have the boy’s coats.” I turned and answered him and it was later when I realized that I didn’t question who was calling or that he was talking to me. I realized that he calls me Beautiful a lot.

Tim and I have been married nineteen years today. In the past nineteen years we have lived in ten states. We have helped start three churches. We have four boys here and two in heaven. We have been through a lot together. We have both grown and changed. I am different than I was nineteen years ago.

But through all of this the man I love and chose to commit my life to nineteen years ago STILL calls me Beautiful. I am blessed. I can’t wait to see what the next nineteen years hold. I love you, Tibs.

New School Room

2009-08-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

This year G and E will be studying My Father's World Exploring Countries and Cultures. We are all excited about this great program and the year we will have learning about different countries,cultures and missionaries.

J will be doing My Father's World Kindy and we are both excited about this. This is the first time I am using a formal K program. In the past I have put together my own K program and I must say that this looks to be a very fun year.

One of the things that I love about My Father's World is the way they integrate the Bible into every core program they offer. Another thing we love is the mission emphasis. This company truly has a heart for missions. A portion of every direct sale goes to support Bible translation. It is hard to imagine not having a Bible in my own language. I mean really how many Bibles do you have in your house? We have Bibles in several different translations. What would it be like to not have a Bible you could read in your own native language? My Father's World supports God's Word for the nations and you can even directly support certain translation projects. Bible Translation

So you can see we are really excited about our year. I finally decided to convert our guest room into a school room. I have been cleaning and organizing it so that we will be able to start school at the end of August. Here is where we will be doing most of our work.

We moved a table in and we added our world map. I have a couple of things for J that will go up behind the door (calendar, letter chart and number chart).

On the other side of the room, we have our TV and Wii. One bookcase holds DVDs and videos and the other one holds school books for this year.

The closet is our storage area. I am working on having more "centers" available for different things. On the left is a multi drawer cart where I am keeping supplies. In the basket on top of the cart is a writing center. I have mini chalk boards, chalk, aqua doodle, dry erase boards and markers. All of this is mainly for J and W to practice handwriting. I am hoping we can use this during times when I need to be working one on one with the older boys. On the top shelf I am keeping all our markers, colored pencils, color wonder makers and crayons. The next shelf has a box for each boy to keep any of their private stuff in. There are two boxes with various types of card games and then there is our box of construction/colored paper.

The next shelf has math centers. One is our box of MUS blocks. The other box has our clock, flash cards and coin counting books. There is also a file box with different file folder games for all the boys.

The bottom shelf has a science box which is pretty sad right now (has our supplies for planting in it). I want to put together a couple of individual boxes one with magnifying glasses and things to look at. Then a second with measuring tools and things to measure. The red box has our Leap Frog fridge phonics set. The rest is our phonics/handwriting manipulative's. We have textured letters in a little chalkboard box, Handwriting Without Tears wooden pieces, alphabet bingo, flashcards, letter blocks, and a box of games that go with Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching
Reading.

Beside this is my file box which has each a folder for each of the themes for both K and ECC. This is where I am putting everything that we will be using during the year. I also have a resource box that I hope to be able to use with all of them for fun extra things to do. I especially tried to put together things for J and W to do while I was working with the older boys individually. I have been printing and putting together different file folder games and I think this will make it an especially fun year.

This is quickly becoming my favorite room in the house. I am on the hunt for a comfy chair because I know we are going to do lots of fun reading this year. This was already our international room. We have things from all over the world in it. The batik behind the TV is from West Africa, baskets from Africa and Peru, knights from Poland, boomerang from Australia, turtle from Morocco, and water bottle from Israel. So I am anticipating a fun year exploring the world and learning more about God and His mission as well as missionaries on the journey.

Organized Chaos

2009-07-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

I have an online friend Heather is calling her homeschool "School of Order and Chaos" and today I spent the day trying to bring order to some of our homeschool chaos.

We are planning to use My Father's World for both Kindy (J) and Exploring Countries and Cultures (E and G). So today I spent the day organizing my files for MFW K. I have a file for each week and in it I am putting all the things that have to do with that week. I still have some work to do on these but they are coming along nicely. I have gone through most of my files and school resources to find things that fit with the themes for the week. I was amazed at how much we have and at how much fun I think it will be.

I have been looking at the idea of workboxes but I am not so sure that idea is going to work for us. I am still reading and trying to wrap my mind around it. One thing the idea has inspired me to do is actually relocate all our misc homeschooling material into one area. My reasoning is that if it is in one area then I will be able to get to it and it will make planning easier. So I spent a part of today pulling out the various manipulative's that I have for each subject and grouping them together and then trying to figure out the best area to store to them. I am still working on that. We are contemplating turning our guest bedroom (with no bed) into a school room. I am just not sure how that is going to work. So I am still thinking.

I will try to post some photos once I get it all settled in place.

10 on the 10th

2009-07-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

10 of my favorite things in my house...

This is the chair in my living room, I love the chair but I really love the quilt which my Grandmother made when we got married. The pillow is from a dear friend in Alabama. I love them both.

This is beside my front door. It is my Granny's sewing machine. It is an old singer and still works great. My Granny was a great seamstress and I still remember her sewing everytime I was around her. On top is a Polish runner with a piece of Polish pottery my sil gave me.

Another heirloom from my Granny, this little rocker was in her house as long as I remember. I loved it when I was a child. It is the perfect size for a ten year old girl to sit and rock. My mom got it for me when my grandparents passed away because she knew how much I loved it. I really need to have it recovered but I am terrified to hand it over to anyone to do the repair work on it.

This is the wall in our breakfast area. The piece in the middle is a mirror we bought in Israel. The little side shelf holds two antique plates members of our church in Washington gave us when we left. There are also two bluebirds of happiness. The smaller one was given to me by a close family friend and I had it in my bouquet when we got married.

The window over my sink holds more Polish pottery. I love looking at it first thing in the morning and it helps me to remember to pray for my family as they are serving in Poland.

This little red rocker was mine when I was a little girl and it is the perfect size to hold my bunnies. The one in the long dress Tim's aunt made. I saw it and fell in love and she gave it too me. The other bunny was given to us as a house warming present while we were in south Florida.

This little dish was handpainted by a lady in our church in Tulsa. I keep my everyday jewlry in it.

Amish Quilt Tim bought me for my birthday one year. I use it during fall and winter on our bed. I love the log cabin and our bedroom is filled with bears so this fits right in.

Another childhood treasure, the dresser not the adorable little boy that is. The dresser was mine when I was little but it was a plain white dresser. When we were expecting G I asked a friend of our if she would paint it for me as a shower gift. I gave her the quilt we were going to use in G's room and she did a marvelous job. (It is a given that the adorable little boy in my treasure. He loves to have his picture made, you can tell he is his mama's.)

The quilt that inspired the dresser and room decour in the little's room. While we were in Washington state my home church made this quilt for us during VBS and sent it to us. It was such a special gift and now my little boys love it.

New blog that is a great read.

2009-07-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

First I encouraged Tim to get on facebook and then he decided he needed to go one step further and he began to twitter. Well he finally decided to start his own blog and true to form his first post is both thought provoking and heart felt.

So if you haven't visited Tim's blog, you really should.

Timbo.

Happy 70th Birthday, Daddy!

2009-06-29T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today is my Dad’s 70th birthday and I want to send him a very special birthday greeting. I looked for cards last week but I couldn’t find one that said exactly what I wanted it to so I decided to send him this virtual birthday greeting.

There are so many things I could tell you about my Dad , in 70 years you have a lot of things that might define who you are. I could tell you that he is a great man and while that would be true, I know that he would humbly disagree with me. I know that he would shake his head and say “I have made mistakes in my life.”

I could tell you about my Dad and how he has stood by me during the most defining moments in my life. I could tell you how he prayed with me to give my life to Jesus, how he baptized me and how he walked me down the aisle and then helped perform my wedding ceremony. Perhaps the most poignant time was when he stayed in the hospital with me when we delivered Josiah our first son who was stillborn.

I could also tell you how he disciplined me as a child, with both authority and tenderness. I remember in high school that I did something pretty serious. I lied about something and that lie grew into something pretty big. It was ugly. I remember when he found out. The defining moment that stands out most about that situation was my Dad standing in the door to my bedroom with a look of disappointment on his face. I know what the face of the Father looks like because of my Daddy. I also know the forgiveness of the Father because in the 20+ years since that incident my Dad has never brought it up again. He has lived out the word picture in Psalms of “as far as the east is from the west“.

I could tell you that he is a faithful husband. In the age where unfaithfulness in marriage seems the norm my Dad has been faithful for almost 47 years to my Mom. In an age of disposable marriage, I have been able to look to my parents as an example of how to make marriage work.

I could tell you how he has faithfully served the local church for over 45 years as a pastor. He has been on countless youth trips and mission trips. Dad has led more VBS programs than I am sure even he remembers. He has taken every church he has served as full time pastor through at least one building program. The number of weddings, funerals, baptisms, and baby dedications he has overseen are too numerous to even imagine. It would be impossible to count the number of hours he has spent at the hospital visiting with people, or the number of hours he has prayed and counseled people in various life situations. There is no way to measure those things here on earth.

That is the thing , my Dad will not be defined by what has happened in the past 70 years of his life on this earth. Dad will be defined by eternity and the impact he has had there.. I would hesitate to even guess how many people he has influenced for eternity.

You see while I might tell you that my Dad is a great man, he would point you to the greatest man, and say that Jesus makes all the difference. My Dad’s relationship isn’t defined by what he has done or hasn’t done, it is defined by his relationship with God the Father, through Jesus Christ.

Daddy, on this day that you celebrate your 70th birthday, my prayer for you is that as you live out the remaining years of your life you are blessed by happiness, peace, joy and most of all love. I love you, Daddy!

Preview Service Week

2009-06-27T12:21:00.001-07:00

We have our first service for the Church @ Skyline Valley on Sunday, so this week has been spent getting ready for it. In a church plant the week before your first service is stressful. You have the ordinary stress of trying to prepare for a worship service and then you have added stress if you are in a portable situation. There is also the emotional stress of wondering if anyone will show up. Of course things have not gone exactly as smoothly as we would have hoped.

Last weekend as I walked through the hall I stepped on wet soggy carpet. I then proceeded to fuss about someone spilling water on the carpet as I cleaned it up. About an hour later I stepped in water again. Because I have a college education I determined that maybe the water was coming from somewhere other than the children. It was very close to our air conditioning unit so I checked and the air conditioner was leaking. The rental company had someone come out Monday and it was a maintenance issue, of course they have to get owner approval before they fix it.

Monday the guy that is going to lead the worship calls and he has had something come up so he can't come on Sunday. OK! Fortunately, we have some great sponsor churches. One of them is a church in Jarrell, TX where Tim's church planting coach is the pastor. Within a few hours we had a new worship leader and a band set up for Sunday.

At the beginning of the week we started having some issues with our van, specifically the traction control/stability system. This would be the same traction control/stability system that we replaced in February. We called the dealer that did the work and they had no real advice since we weren't local for them to look at the problem.

We knew that we needed new tires on the van and made plans to purchase two new tires. Wednesday Tim ran over a screw. Fortunately, the tires were in and we were able to replace them/fix the flat all at one time.

J has impetigo which is very a)contagious and b)hard to get rid of. So this week I have been washing more laundry than usual with extra towels and sheets/bedding.

W has had a little tummy bug which has brought on very nasty diaper changes which also led to more laundry.

Can you guess what happened on Thursday? If you guessed that my washer of 10 years (which I adored) stopped working you would be correct. Of course it stopped working mid-load of clothes without draining the water out of the clothes. Tim and I spent quite a bit of time dipping water out of the washer, then ringing out a load of wet/nasty towels. I researched on the Internet possible problems. We checked all the lines and the pump/filter. Nothing was clogged and the lid latch works so that means the pump died. The good news is that we have a Sam's Club membership. They have a nice washer within my new washer budget (that we just created) and they deliver. The bad news is they will not deliver it until next Thursday. Do you want to guess how much laundry I will have to do in one week?

Moving on to me personally, Tuesday I wasn't feeling very well. I went to a scrapbook workshop which I enjoyed but just felt off. I came home and realized that I was really, really sick. You see I don't EVER run a fever. I suffered through every childhood illness with no fever. I can't tell you the number of times I have heard a doctor say to me or my mom, "Well she doesn't have a fever." Tuesday I started running a fever and then I got chills. I took some medicine and went to bed at 9:00. I really wondered how Tim would take me to the doctor/hospital if I didn't better. What would we do with the children? By the next morning I felt somewhat better. I began using some natural remedies and they kicked in and by Thursday I was doing much better.

Friday rolls around and we plan to go to the mall with the little boys while the big boys finish up VBS. We stopped to get the keys to the Civic Center where we will be having church on Sunday. We ran a couple of errands and went to the mall. We picked the boys up from VBS and Tim finished up the last of his pre service Friday tasks. I worked on cleaning up the house. Tim came home from baseball practice and we did a few things around the house, then he took the boys outside and set the sprinkler up so they could jump on the trampoline and get sprayed. We put the boys to bed and begin to wind down when Tim says "I can't find my keys." No real big deal we still have mine so I wasn't worried. He continues to look for them when I realize he put the keys to the Civic Center on his key chain. We HAVE to find those keys. We look every where (there is now no change or pens or chapstick down in my couch). We look in every box and bag and under every piece of furniture. All the time I am praying "God you know we have to find these keys. PLEASE help us." We look out in the car. We checked the attic (Tim had moved some boxes up there for me). We checked in the garage. Finally Tim goes back outside and he retraces his steps of moving the sprinkler to the back yard and he finds his keys...in the grass.

So today is Saturday and I am posting this before anything else happens. Now don't you all want to go out and plant a church? If not then the next time you meet a church planter be sure to hug them hard and tell them you will pray for them (and do it).

Digital Scrapbooking

2009-06-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

I have really wanted to get into digital scrapbooking. Not because I need another hobby to pursue but because I have been too economical to print out all the digital photos that I have. Now I have all these photos sitting on my computer and I need to get creative with them.

I was scanning a scrapbook magazine and I found an ad for www.scrapblog.com. I decided to take a peak and when I did, I found they were offering free Mother's Day cards, you have to pay the shipping. So I decided to check it out and I created 2 cards one for my mom and one for Tim's mom. It was super easy to figure out and I enjoyed playing around with the cards and personalizing them for each mom.

Plus as you can see below it was easy to upload to my blog and also to my facebook account.

So if you have been wanting to try digital scrapbooking but don't want to fork over alot of money check out www.scrapblog.com. Be sure and look around, some of the "themes" are free and some aren't so check it out. Let me know what you think.

Here is the Mother's Day card I made for my mother in law.

I actuallly had it printed and sent to her and here is the one for my mom.

Here is one of the scrapbook pages I made.

fun little map site

2009-06-18T17:06:00.001-07:00

I think this site would be especially fun to do with kids.

Here are my maps.

Countries I have visited.

visited 5 states (2.22%)
Create your own visited map of The World

I made this one of states I have lived in.

visited 10 states (20%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

And finally states I have visited.

visited 30 states (60%)

Bambi came to visit us.

2009-06-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Friday Recipe Goodness

2009-05-22T10:59:00.001-07:00

I decided to share a recipe blog that I found this morning that looks wonderful.

Here is the site Real Mom Kitchen.

If you need a brunch or dessert recipe that is easy but so delicious everyone will want the recipe then try this one Sopapilla Cheesecake.

Happy eating!

And the winner is...

2009-05-13T06:24:00.000-07:00

OH SUSAN!!! Drop me your addy and I have a little something to mail to you.

Because I know everyone is so curious I will let you know where all these things were in the house.

The knights helmet was in the boys bathroom, because you never know when there is going to be a dragon in the tub you need to slay.

The rubber band, mini helmet and granola bar wrapper were all in the laundry. Yes, I forget to check pockets before I wash clothes. Last week I found a package of gum I had washed. (I hope that my Mom isn't reading this today.)

This odd assortment of toys were all in my bedroom, with some of them in my bed along with the pj top that boy #4 refuses to wear.

So what is the strangest location/object you have found in your house?

House Photos

2009-05-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

I told some friends that I would post pics of our new house. Well since it has been several weeks since I said that I thought I better get busy.

Living Room

Formal Dining Area

We just rearranged this today. We are still looking for a small table to go in here. This is where we do the majority of our school work (so a table would be nice). The boys do work on the dining room table but lately I have been sitting in the living room and they just spread out on the floor. One of the bookcases holds all our school books for the year and supplies.

Family Room

Breakfast Area

Master Bedroom

Littles Bedroom

Guest Bedroom aka Wii room/Tim's Office

I didn't get pictures of the kitchen or the my older children's bedrooms. Apparently, when I told them to clean their room this morning I didn't communicate clearly that I wanted the beds actually made and all the stuff picked up off the floor. I am not sure what they thought I wanted them to do? I will let you imagine why I didn't take pictures of my kitchen...

My First 10 on the 10th

2009-05-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is my first post with Meredith's 10 on the 10th and I struggled all week trying to figure out what I would post about. Well it came to me at church this morning. My post is about Moms.

So here is a list of 10 women who have impacted my life as a mom.

1. Rudene. God definitely knew what he was doing when he moved us to Alabama. Rudene and Charlie are members of the church we served in AL. They never had children of their own. I have figured out over the years that it isn't the number of children you birth or raise that makes you a mother. You become a mother when you chose to love and nurture any child in your life. Rudene is a mother many times over. God blessed me by putting this special friend in my life. As a believer it is so important to have people supporting you that you can be honest with but as a pastor's wife sometimes those people are hard to find. Rudene is that person to me. I know I can be honest with her and I know that she will encourage or chastise which ever is needed.

2. Liz is another one of God's gifts from Alabama. Liz has raised two sets of twin boys. She is a teacher in a tough all boys military school. Liz loves boys. She is the one that I could go to when I thought I was losing my mind and she would say it will be alright. She assured me that they will grow up one day. We have watched as Dick and Liz released their children to do God's work. There youngest twins were serving a missionaries in Kazakhstan when we moved to Alabama. They returned home after 3 years and Matt got married. Matt and Johnna then got pregnant and prepared to go back to Kazakhstan. You know it is hard to let your children go, but even harder to send your grandchildren overseas. What a blessing to watch as Liz struggled but even in that struggle said "I want them to be where God is calling." How awesome to watch her bless her children with that gift. Now Will the other twin is returning to Kazakhstan. Do you see those names Matt and Will? Our William Matthew has some great namesakes in his life because of Liz.

3. Angela. One fall day a red suburban pulled into our yard at our new house in Alabama and our life became so much richer for it. Angela walked into our lives and has been a blessing since. Angela and Greg lived about 3 miles from us. They didn't attend our church so we hadn't met them. Angela "dropped" in and we met her and her 5 children (now there are 6). It was nice to find out that another family was homeschooling in our neighborhood. Over the course of three years God richly blessed me with this friendship. It was nice to have a friend that I could stop by in the afternoon, our kids could play and we could chat. It was nice to have a friend who I could call at the drop of the hat to watch the boys. It is also nice to know I have a friend I can call and ask to pray and she is faithful to do it.

4. Renee J. When we moved to south Florida we had the pleasure of serving on staff at a church where Renee's husband was the pastor. Over the course of our three years at TC3 Renee deeply impacted my life. She was a great Bible teacher. But for me she encouraged me to be true to myself as a mother. She stayed at the hospital with me when we lost Josiah, but she was also at the birth of Graham. Renee was a nurse practitioner and she walked with us through the medical side of still birth and birth.

5. Anne Z. was in our church in St. Louis. I dearly love Mr. Louis and Mrs. Anne. They were wonderful examples of missionaries. Anne and Louis had served in Israel as missionaries until they retired. When they retired and moved back to the states they settled in St. Louis. There they eventually became a part of our church plant. I know they didn't always enjoy the music and the setting was probably not their cup of tea, but they didn't complain and moan. They pitched in to help set up and take down. They volunteered to greet and serve in the children's ministry. They have a heartfelt desire to see people come to meet Jesus. I pray that I will be like that for the rest of my life.

6. Dannielle is someone that I knew online long before I met her. We are both members of a natural parenting boardAmity Mama. Dannielle is a tremendous artist. Here is a link to her blog Princess Nimble Fingers and her Esty Shop. You can see some of the wonderful toys that she makes. She also homeschools and for many years she did both of these things while dealing with debilitating pain. Over a couple of years, Dannielle has embarked on a new way of life that includes losing weight and beginning to exercise. She has totally changed her life. I was so blessed to meet her and visit in her home and she is one of the people that I have missed since we left St. Louis. She is inspiring in so many ways.

7. Grace and Don were in our church in Florida and they were active in our ministry to young adults. Grace and Don became some of our closest friends. I was privileged to work for Don and Grace and they have blessed us in many ways but they were the beginning of our goal to become financial free. In 2004 Don and Grace began the process of adopting twin girls from China. Grace asked me at the time if I thought they were crazy for adopting twins at their age. I responded in all honesty that I thought they would be the best parents I knew. Grace's little girls are blessed to be raised by a mom who loves them and loves the Lord. If you want to read Don and Grace's story of adoption check out the twins link on their website Treasure Coast Financial.

8. Jan is my sister in law but I feel blessed to call her my friend. Now before I offend any of my other sil's out there. Let me say that the reason I list Jan here is because we lived with Jan and Perry for almost 6 months. So we have walked together in a unique and sometimes stressful situation. I know all the good about her and she knows the rest about me. Jan is incredible. Jan never yells at her children and I mean never. She doesn't yell at them to come in or to come from another room in the house or yell if she is mad. Another thing about her is that she rarely loses her cool about anything. She is calm and patient and I need to be more like her. She also has a heart for Jesus and she instills that heart in her family. I feel blessed that she and I married into the same family.

9. Stacy. I don't know Stacy IRL, I know her from Amity's. also. Over the years I have come to the place where when Stacy posts something about parenting I stop and take notice. She is wise. I know that we have different backgrounds and beliefs on some things, but Stacy has a wisdom about parenting that astounds me at times. If there is someone in my life that I believe truly parents in a manner consist with the teachings of Jesus (You know "suffer the little children" and "blessed are...") than I believe it is Stacy. Stacy's has encouraged me to "respond with love" to my children.

10. Ruth. No list would be complete without my mom. She is an incredible woman. She has been a pastor's wife for 46 years. She was also a pastor's daughter. She is a lady of tremendous and deep faith. I have watched her selflessness in numerous situations. I have watched her care for her parents and loved ones. I have seen her hold babies at church and I have seen her sit with elderly. When we were growing up she always had dessert ready in case people were invited over to our house after church. She worked full time when I was a child but she still had time to come to my school programs. She had plenty of time to cook dinner every Sunday. She had plenty of time to raise a garden and can mountains of food every summer. But the one memory that will be forever etched in my mind is the one of my mother who was awake at 5:30 every day. She would be sitting in the living room with a cup of coffee and her Bible. Since the year I was born she has tried to read the Bible through EVERY year. In case you were wondering she has read the Bible through about 38 times. She had plenty of time for everything in her life because she took time for the most important thing. She always took time with the Lord.

I know why the writer of the Hebrews "chapter of faith" said "and that doesn't include..." because there are so many other women out there that are incredible Mom's. My list doesn't include Karrie, Meeshi, Jeni, Jennifer, Heather, Gayla, Gina, Kristy, Deborah, Renee S., Marilyn, Shannon, Meredith, Susan, Amy, Lori, Nieta, Ann, Lydia, Brenda or the women in your life. I could go on for days. I just want to say to every woman out there whether you are a mother by birth, by adoption or by choice thank you and I hope you have a blessed day.

In Search of THE Perfect Purse

2009-05-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

It seems like every year about this time (Mother's Day) I begin a quest to find THE perfect purse. Once again I am on the quest. It is really quite a joke between Tim and I. So much so that the other day when I mentioned it he told me that when I found THE purse to be sure and buy one in every color. (Thanks hun!)

Anyway so here are a few that I am looking at today...

I like the "idea" of this one. I mean it is "upcycled" and all that but I don't think I am cool enough to carry it off. Plus it is a little on the big side for me. But maybe with this one I wouldn't need a bag for Will, a church bag for Josh and a purse. I don't know.

I was really excited about the possibilty of this one, but then I read on and found out it was just the shell, I would need the purse for it to go over.

And if I am purse shopping I have to look around Vera Bradley. I found this one on sale even, but I don't care for the color although I love the style.

I love this pattern but don't know if it is big enough for me. Unfortunately there isn't a local store that carries Vera here.

These three are all from Cotton Candy Boutique. I really like the style of the third one but I am not sure I love the colors. I love the colors on number one and number two (minus the burlap). She says she can do a purse in the fabric you like so maybe the red flowered fabric with black in the bottom style.

So many choices...so if you have found THE perfect purse tell me about it.

Some of these things don't belong here...

2009-05-05T18:51:00.003-07:00

Everyone sing with me...

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
If you guessed this one is not like the others,
Then you're absolutely...right!

So as I was cleaning up today, I kept finding items in different rooms of the house that obviously didn't belong. So I thought I would host a little contest. Here are four sets of pictures that are of items that I found in various rooms in our house. Let me have your best guess of which rooms I found them in and this weekend I will choose the winner and send you a little suprise (I don't know what but it will be cute, fun or useful).

This is a hot spot in my house, so here is the before photo...

and after...

Mother's Day Present

2009-05-04T18:27:00.001-07:00

I have to show off this little Mother's Day Present I made for my mother-in-law.

Isn't that the cutest little thing. I went ahead and filled in all our family birthdays and I have to admit it may have been one of my favorite projects I have worked on recently.

This is what I worked on at the crop I went to Friday night. We had the crop at a friends house and she is a Close To My Heart Consultant. She has lots of great toys and had these little books and all the stamps also. It was a pretty quick project. I made three of these on Friday night in a few hours. I think they will make great little gifts for some friends of mine.

Gladitude Monday

2009-05-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

1. Glad that we had a good school day today.

2. Glad the boys love the new history book we got. Currently we are reading A Child's History of America and a Bald Eagle's View of American History

3. Glad that our new Dave Ramsey curriculum came in for the boys.

4. Glad I get to go to a scrapbook workshop tomorrow night.

5. Glad strawberries were on sale at the store today.

6. Glad for the pack of P&G coupons I got in the mail today.

7. Glad the boys are loving their new trampoline.

8. Glad we get to visit our friends in Alabama and family in Georgia this month.

9. Glad the boys have gotten along all day with out fighting.

10. Glad that this is my first week of Weight Watchers and I hope I have lost some weight.

Week of new beginnings.

2009-05-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

So this is a week of new beginnings for me. I joined Weight Watchers and I started a new Bible study this week. I have struggled with my weight for a while. I still need to lose the baby weight from G plus what I added with the next 3. So this week I joined weight watchers. I will let you know how it goes next week when I have my first weigh in.

Over a year ago I posted some reasons I had for wanting to lose weight. I am posting the revised version today.

I want to head off type 2 diabetes.

I want to be healthier at 40 than I was at 30 (2010).

I don't want to have to take lots of medication as I age to solve weight related problems.

I want my children to see healthy activity as fun.

I want my children to have healthy attitudes about food.

I want to love myself enough to be good to myself.

I don't want to be addicted to food or anything else.

I want to enjoy taking the boys on walks and nature hikes and not dread it.

I want to be the woman dh says I am.

My first goal is to lose 10 lbs. I'll let you know when that happens.

The new Bible study is really good, Me, Myself and Lies by Jennifer Rothschild. It is a great study about the things we say to ourself and how our thoughts are like clothing we wear.

Hunting Easter Eggs

2009-04-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

It's a God thing

2009-04-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

When we lived in south Florida, we used this expression at church a lot. It really is about looking at the circumstances in your life and realizing that they probably aren't really chance but God at work in even the smallest details.

It's been a while since I have thought or used the phrase but yesterday something happened that I truly believe was a "God thing".

I went shopping by myself yesterday (that's not it). This happens every couple of weeks or so. I didn't really need much yesterday but Tim knew he would be gone all day today and so he encouraged me to go by myself and I did. My plan was to go Dillards and then possibly stop by Walmart and Target. I missed my exit for Dillards and ended up at Walmart first. I actually managed to spend quite a bit of time wondering around until I finally figured it was time to leave with my purchase of milk and coke. As I left I missed my turn and had to drive a bit to be able to head back home. On the way I saw an educational store. I've noticed it in the past but always when I was with Tim and the boys. I was on the phone with Tim and told him I was going to run in and explore.

So here I am in this store when in walks a lady with her daughter. She seems slightly frazzled and I overheard her (yes I eavesdrop) mention homeschooling to one of the clerks. Well now I am curious and so I wonder closer and decide to be bold and go up the counter and wait for an opportunity to speak with her. Turns out she is homeschooling her high school son because of problems with the local school where we live. I start chatting with her and giving her some ideas for resources. We continue to chat and wouldn't you know it she lives in the town we do. (We were actually in a community about 20 minutes away.) She is military (which wasn't a surprise). At the end we were talking and I asked if she lived in a certain community and come to find out she does. This community is one of our top three target areas.

We continue to chat and I drop the big bomb. I mention that we moved here to start a church. This is the point where you can really tell a lot about people. If they are interested or turned off it is at this moment that you can totally read them. Well she wasn't turned off at all, she was very interested. She is struggling with her son and doesn't know where to turn. I was able to give her my phone number and email address and encouraged her to contact me.

So I got out to the car and called Tim to tell him about this "God thing" because it is neat to see all the things that happened yesterday to put me in this store at this moment to be able to share with this person and to make a connection with someone in our target area.

A Lazy Sunday

2009-04-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well I am playing around with my blog, trying out new colors and styles. I am a change my purse every day or so gal so I have a feeling that if I am going to be blogging on a regular basis I may be a change my layout every week or so. We will see.

Today was a good day. Since we have been in ministry oh say all our lives, we rarely have a lazy Sunday. Usually it is the busiest day of the week for us. That is hard for one of our boys. He is not a move very fast, get up very early kind of guy. So literally Sundays can be a battle field with me being the drill Sargent and that doesn't promote the idea of peace and harmony in our home.

But today was glorious I tell you. First of all since we aren't having services yet, we are currently church hopping. You know the best thing about church hopping is that some churches actually have an early service AND a late service. Let me tell you that not having to be at church before 11:00 am is complete bliss for me.

This morning all the boys got up on their own. I didn't have to wake one of them up with gentle back rubs accompanied by let's get dressed and I have juice ready for you ONCE you get to the car. Yes that is the way some of our Sunday mornings go.

They got up and had a leisurely breakfast. Since we have been in Texas I have been trying to make Sunday morning a little more special with a hot breakfast. This morning they had cereal and yogurt and hard boiled eggs. So it was our "usual" but it was still good.

Then I actually let them watch TV. Usually TV and any other electronic devices (think handheld games) are a no no on Sunday morning because they are just an invitation for a fight of some type. This morning we had plenty of time and so the boys got to watch TV (still no games).

Then about 10 am we got up and actually left for church at 10:30. We arrived (just in time) to put the boys in their class and slip into the back of the service during the first song.

We were actually visiting a church to hear their worship leader. I don't know if he will work for our context or not. The service was good. I left thoughtfully considering what the pastor said and trying to determine my view. I also left with a renewed sense of purpose. We know we have been called here (to this area of Texas) specifically for the purpose of starting a church different from the norm.

The church we visited in this morning was fine, nothing wrong with their service or theology but they were geared toward those with some understanding of church and religion. Our target is those who aren't wired that way. So once again I feel confirmed that God placed us here for a reason.

On another note, we had our first community event yesterday. We hosted a neighborhood Easter Egg hunt and we had 33 people show up. We met lots of great people and hopefully had the first of many great events to introduce us and our church to the community.

We also connected with a couple who just moved here from Alabama. The same area we lived in. Plus the husband is originally from a town 20 minutes from where I grew up. How cool is that. Oh and the best part they looking for a church home and seem interested in our plant. WOW! We are hoping to connect with them again this week and then set up dinner in two weeks. The husband will be deploying but the wife and her sister are here with the kids. So this is a great family that we can minister to and they may be a part of our launch team. I think it is so cool how God works.

My bloggy friends

2009-03-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

I am trying to make a commitment to blog on a more regular basis and I mean like a couple of times a week rather than every couple of months. Since I signed up for Facebook, I have reconnected with some wonderful college friends (I dare not say old because we aren't). Three of them have very active blogs and I love reading and learning from them. So I thought I would add them to my links and also tell you about them.

Meredith and I were on the same hall our freshman year at college. She is/was classy. We lost touch after we both got married and our husbands moved us in different directions. I have so enjoyed connecting with her on Facebook. I love seeing her lovely family and reading her blog. She has inspired (or is it convicted me) to actually meal plan and eat at home. She has a wonderful blog and her recipe blog is a great resource. She also has some great crafty ideas and posts.

Amy was one of my idols in college. We were in the same social club (that would be sorority for those not at our private university) and she was the chaplain. I admired her depth and insight (and I still do). Her stories keep me in tears with laughter.

Susan was another one that I admired from afar. We were also in the same social club, but I think my first meeting with Susan was because she helped grade for my Intro to Political Science class. In a random chance Susan met my parents several years ago and we reconnected for a time (when we were both pregnant with our oldest. I so enjoyed reading her pregnancy emails (she had triplets). She still has a wonderful way with words and since she has all boys (did I mention triplets) there are so many things I can relate to when she blogs.

The other totally awesome thing about these gals is that they have links to numerous blogs that are just as well written and informative, but most of all they are fun to read.

Photo contest

2009-03-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

I just entered a photo contest and need you to go vote for my photo.

Here is the link

Photography contest

Mine is photo 13 of Will coming down a slide.

Thanks for the vote.

Need to update

2009-03-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't been very good at blogging. Things were crazy in the fall with our plan for a move to Arizona and then we ended up in Texas. So many things have happened that it is hard to catch up.

we planned to move to Arizona to plant a church, as we were making those plans there were some things that happened with the sponsor church that made us reconsider the move. They weren't bad necessarily but it just seemed that they were not at the place of being prepared to sponsor a new church. After much prayer we began to consider other options. Our church in Alabama was very supportive of us. We really felt like it was time for us to move but we weren't sure what direction to take.

As we continued to pray and seek God's plan, we talked about Texas again. We first interviewed with Texas in 2006 (before Will was born). We continued to pray and on a weekend we decided that we wouldn't actively pursue Texas (in other words Tim wouldn't call them) but if they contacted us we would be open to it. On Monday we got a call from Texas. The church planting director told us that they still needed a church planter in Copperas Cove (where we had interviewed). We started the process of talking with this group again and planned for a visit. Things progressed and it became clear that this was the place God was directing us.

We stayed in Alabama through Christmas which was nice for us and moved to Texas in February. We have been in Texas for over a month and we are settling in. We have the boxes unpacked and are trying to find our way around and meet our neighbors.

Dusting off memories of Josiah

2008-09-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago my future was changed forever. Tim and I had been married for eight years and we were excited to be expecting our first child. The pregnancy brought lots of emotional events. It seemed though that after I entered my second trimester things settled down. We heard the baby’s heartbeat and I began to feel peaceful about the pregnancy.

That all changed suddenly. Just a few drops of blood and my life began to shift in ways I never imagined. I called our midwife and they decided to do a “routine” ultrasound. We scheduled it for the next day and I made arrangements to take off work.

Wednesday afternoon we walked in for the ultrasound. We were excited. We weren’t planning on having an ultrasound or finding out the sex of the baby but decided to find out that day. The first few minutes were normal. Then it went on and on. The ultrasound tech was deathly quiet and we knew something was wrong. Finally after about a half hour she left and called the doctor. I remember clinging to Tim’s hand. She returned and told us that our midwife wanted to see us in her office and we were to go over there.

We drove the few blocks in silence. Wondering… The mind is an incredible thing, without enough information it will create the worst scenarios in the place of information. Ok, there was something wrong with the baby, we would deal with it. Maybe it would involve surgery. We were blessed to have many friends who were in the medical community where we lived so we knew that we could handle medical problems.

Once we reached the midwife’s office, one of the midwives met us at the door and took us into a private office. Julie sat at the desk and said “You know I don’t have good news for you…” Those few little words began the quake that shook our lives. Our baby had died. We would have to go through labor and delivery. We were scheduled to the hospital the next morning. In all our wondering we never imagined that they would tell us that the baby died.

I shared last year that grief books say when you lose your parents you lose your past but when you lose a child you lose your future. You lose the chance for the unknown. Maybe that is why the grief a child seems more poignant. You aren’t grieving the known, the memories you have. You are grieving the memories you could have had, all the things your child could have done and been.

With the loss of a child you don’t dust off memories you can laugh and cry over. You don’t have those memories to dust off. They simply aren’t there. Instead when certain milestones come you remember the loss and mourn the unknown. Our baby would have been born today; this is the first Christmas, first birthday, over and over. You mourn all the unknowns that you can never share with your baby.

Ten years ago I gave birth to Josiah James. He weighed 8 ounces and was 10 inches long. Those are the memories that I have. I remember what he looked like wrapped in a miniature blanket with a tiny hat. Those are the memories that I dust off today. I never rocked him, or feed him or changed a diaper. I never got to whisper in his ear. I got to hold him for a few short minutes. Today I remember those minutes. I mourn the loss of so much more.

When we drove to the hospital ten years ago it was raining. We commented that God was weeping with us. Today I know that I am not alone in my grief. I know that God lovingly cares for me. Today I trust that my heavenly Father has a plan for this in my life that I can’t see or understand. I trust that He didn’t forsake me ten years ago and he will not leave me today.

Dusting off my memories…

It has been an emotional week.

2008-09-14T16:30:00.000-07:00

I am realizing that I am more emotional now than normal. I have had to take a step back and evaluate some things.

I realize that 10 years is a long time but today my mind feels like it was just yesterday. Ten years ago this week I was happily pregnant. Tim and I had just attended my 10 year class reunion. So I had been able to visit with my parents and reconnect with my high school friends. We were excited to share about our first pregnancy.

We had no idea that in one week our lives would be forever changed. As I remember what we experienced the flood of emotions is so fresh it seems like yesterday. I can't believe that it has been 10 years. I can still remember the ultrasound tech and how deathly quiet the room was as she scanned. I can still see my midwife's face and hear her say "You know I don't have good news...". I remember holding Tim's hand and thinking what is going on, surely it isn't that bad.

I remember driving home and laying in bed with my hand on my stomach praying for the least movement, for anything. I remember laying in bed with Tim that night and crying all night. I remember the rain as we drove to the hospital. Tim saying that even God was weeping with us.

I read an article this week written by a Christian that chose to abort her twins because they weren't developed properly and one was dying in utero. As I read the article I felt such pain and remorse. I would have given anything to have held my baby while he was alive. I would have cherished even a single minute. I am trying hard not to judge this fellow believers decisions but it is hard. When my grief is still so real, it is hard not to ask why?

This week I think this hits me especially hard. In a hurtful way, I have been called ignorant and stupid for voting for a candidate based on their stance on abortion. I have been told that really because that is an issue that is important (the most important) to me that I don't deserve the right to vote.

It has been said that really if you are pro life then you should do something about it. The inference that those of us that are pro life don't. How utterly arrogant. People have no idea what I have or haven't done to support mom's struggling with unwanted pregnancy's.

All of this comes so close the anniversary of the most traumatic event in my life. So right now my emotions are raw. I feel like I am being attacked and am not sure how to defend myself.

So I have taken a self imposed sabbatical from my favorite message board. I am separating myself from women that I consider friends. I know that I will deal with this but tonight it is hard. I feel very alone. I know that I am not but sometimes when you are dealing with the grief of losing a child you feel that way. Which is so sad to me. I know lots of other women that have suffered this loss. I know I am not the only one. But we don't talk about it much in society and so there is a self imposed restraint. When you face the anniversary of your loss you do it alone. I know that I have been guilty of not remembering the loss my friends have suffered.

I realize that ten years is a long time and that one year is a long time. We move on. But mamas don't forget. These are the days that we hold in our minds. I don't think we dwell on them but when certain dates come up we remember. We take out the memories that we have and we dust them off. We may cry, we may even laugh but we definitely mourn. We mourn the loss of the unknown.

In the midst of this my boys are playing around me on the floor. They have an elaborate train set up and block set up going. They know I am upset but they also realize that things will be ok. They can sense my sadness but they know it will pass. So even in the midst of this grief there is a celebration of life happening at my feet.

I will post later this week more about Josiah James. Ten years really doesn't seem that long at all.

Life is a Journey

2008-08-18T08:42:00.000-07:00

We are moving. Posting this is bittersweet. I started this blog after we moved to Alabama and in some ways it tells the story of our journey here. Now the journey is changing. Tim and I are called to missions. Several times in our ministry we have explored the opportunity to go into international missions, but we have always felt compelled to plant churches in America.

Now we have the opportunity and the privilege to plant another church. We will be moving in October to Phoenix, AZ to plant a church with the Evangelical Free Church. We love Arizona and have long wanted to move there. We are looking forward to this opportunity in so many ways.

Yet this time is truly bittersweet. We love our church in Alabama. They are so much like family to us. This has been a wonderful place for us to spend three years. There are many tears over this but what a wonderful blessing for us. Our church has given us their full support and blessing to move forward with this and they truly show us a picture of God's grace and blessing.

We will be moving to the area of Buckeye, Arizona which is a suburb of Phoenix. It is one of the fastest growing suburbs in America. We will be working with the EFCA West and with Compass Church to launch this new church next year. This year we are working on fund raising, getting prepared to move and the actual move. We will also be working on church logistics like setting up a website. Once we are in AZ we will be making contacts and developing a launch team.

Please keep us in your prayers and thoughts in the next couple of months. Things are hectic and we are hoping to make this a smooth transition for our family.

Here are some photos to show you how much things have changed since we moved here.

This is Josh at a Auburn game in 2005.

This is Josh at Callaway Gardens in July of this year.

Fun Retro Apron Site and Give Away

2008-08-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Check out this site for a fun retro apron give away. All you have to do is leave a comment with your favorite apron from www.rickrackattack.com.

Here is one of my favorites:

Vintage Apron

Here us a link to the give away:

Apron Give Away

Bald and Golden Eagles

2008-07-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

We went to a local forest ecology preserve to see a presentation on eagles this morning. The presentation was from Auburn University's Raptor Center. They did a presentation this summer at our local library and the boys loved it. It is great fun to see "War Eagle" in person after seeing him fly at the games. Today a friend took some wonderful photos.

This is Spirt and he is being trained to fly at the Auburn games in the fall. It is hard to tell in this photo but he was injured as a young bird and his beak is not curved like it should be. He would not survive in the wild so he was rehabilitated and is used in educational programs.

This is Nova (War Eagle #7). I can't tell you what a beautiful bird he is. We have seen him fly at the games and it is really incredible but even more so to see him upclose.

Here is the link for the Auburn Raptor Center. They have some awesome kids stuff on their website.

http://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/index.pl/for_kids

Cool project for boys

2008-07-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

I was surfing the web today looking for ideas for homemade Christmas presents. I found this super cool bull whip (think Indiana Jones) made out of duct tape. I think the boys would love this so it may be a project for next week.

Here is the link to the blog.

http://skiptomylou.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/how-to-make-a-duck-tape-bullwhip/

Children's Book Review

2008-07-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

I found these neat books at our public library. They are published by Pebble Books. Their website is www.capstone-press.com. The series we are reading is Insects and the some of the titles are Ants, Beetles, Bumble Bees, Cicadas, Crickets, Dragonflies and Fireflies.

These are nice, short books for younger children. They have a photo on one page and then a sentence describing the photo on the next page. At the end of the book there is a vocabulary list and also a list of related internet sites and more books. These books are at the K-1st reading level. Graham enjoyed reading these to Josh and Will. They were short enough to keep Will's interest and Josh loved the pictures (lots of great detail).

Our library has the insect series and we are currently reading through them. They also publish an animals and science series.

Here is a link to the page with these books.

http://www.capstonepress.com/aspx/pDetail.aspx?EntityGUID=880d855f-41ff-497f-b4f1-b0999f4ee6ae

The boys

2008-06-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

We are so fortunate to live very close to Callaway Gardens (www.callawaygardens.com). We went on a day trip with Tim's parents while they were visiting.

While we were there Grammy made some photos of the boys. I love this one in front of a log cabin.

Here is one of Graham.

Eli in the butterfly house.

Joshua

Will

I can't believe how quickly they are growing up. Graham will be 9 this fall and is going into the 3rd grade. Eli will be 7 in January and will be starting 1st grade in the fall. Josh is going to be 5 in November. Baby Will (who isn't really a baby) will be 2 in September.

They are all doing well. We are finishing up some light school work this summer. Mainly we are reading tons and working on math. We are spending lots of time playing outside in the evening when it gets cooler.

Cowboy Will

2008-05-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

This is last halloween. I love this photo of Will because I think it totally captures his personality in his smile.

Eli's birthday cake

2008-05-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

Well it is a little late but I wanted to post photos from Eli's birthday this year.

Eli wanted an army cake so that is what we made. He is wearing his prized Dallas Cowboy jersey from his Aunt Jamie. She had his name put on the back of it and he loves it.

My thoughts on t-ball.

2008-04-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

One of our friends suggested/encouraged that we sign up Eli up for t-ball. Well he also volunteered Tim to coach the team with him. So this has been interesting. First of all we are in the unique position of being in a community that doesn't think very highly of our church. When we came here 3 years ago this church had been in conflict for the past 60 years. We took the church into a mediation process and encouraged them to begin dealing with issues in a Biblical manner. In the end several families left. What began as a honeymoon where Tim was the greatest, ended quickly. As we look back over that time, it all cumulated at a point when Tim began preaching about the need for repentence and self inspection as a prerequiste for revival. Things were really pretty good when he preached about God's goodness and love. They went down hill quickly as he preached about our need for repentence. In particular the Sunday when he read from Charles Finney's book "Lectures on Revival" it was a noticable shift in the air.

So what in the world does this have to do with t-ball? I know you are wondering but I will get there. After all that has happened at this church, Tim and I are not likely to be voted "most popular pastor and family" in our town. So Tim goes down to sign Eli up for t-ball and finds out he will be a coach. Then he notices the other 3 coaches talking and worrying about getting "their players". Tim told them, you chose the players you want and I will take Eli and the rest.

Well just so you know at their third game of the season, everyone of our players got a hit from a coach pitched ball. You see they give the players 3 swings to hit a pitch and then they put the ball on the t. Our players (those that basically none of the other teams wanted) all hit the ball tonight. And my proud mama moment was when Eli hit the ball through the in field all the way to fence.

I am so proud of Tim. You see I know that this isn't the highlight of his life. These past three years have been hard. He has struggled to lead a 170 year old church into a new era. Tim has been called lots of names and has been accused of "taking over the church". He has been called a dictator, a liar and a hot head. Through all of this he has managed to maintain his calm and integrity.

Our team has continued to progress and tonight they played their last game of the season. We have had a wonderful time (albeit tiring at times)and have come to love the little boys who have played with Eli. The coaches of this team has taken a group of boys and modeled for them good sportsmanship and respect.

New Photos

2008-04-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

Several friends have reminded me (gently) that I need to update my blog. I finally got some photos developed so I am going to upload some of halloween and birthdays. I will try to update with an actual post this week.

Joshua's birthday was in November and he wanted a Diego cake. He loves Diego (hence the outfit).