20 below

It is 20 below today. A good day to stay in and we did.

 I decided that for Christmas I would give my husband the gift of me getting healthier. I have not told him yet but I decided none the less. I have been struggling with no energy since Thanksgiving. I have stretched myself and I can feel it. So, I decided to eat healthier, I have very little appetite lately, so I eat breakfast and more vegetables. Plus, I have decided to get outside every day unless it is colder than 20 below. I just came in from my outside time for today. I walked for a few minutes and promptly came in, but I have made it two days now. I also try to go out during the daylight hours for the sun.

May the Lord find us faithful.

school, already?

Well, not really, we had a game day today. We will practice music today and do some reading. Also, we did not give the kids toys this year, so it was either outdoor items, crafts or games, so we will be doing lots of crafting and playing games the rest of the winter.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Goings on

We have just been slow and easy here. All the shopping is completed (minus one gift) and I just need to start cooking for Christmas dinner!  Merry Christmas to you all,

                                                  

May the Lord find us faithful.

Let the candy making begin!!

We began our Christmas candy making tonight. We made the peanut butter part of the peanut butter balls and our first batch of orange fudge.  Yes, I said orange fudge.  I will post the recipe here, this one is a must taste. One note though, if you follow the directions yours will not be this orange as I did not have the dropper food colorings so I had to guess, but hey this will work for those of you who are Tennessee fans!

Orange fudge

Place 3/4 cup butter

 3 cups sugar and

3/4 cup heavy cream in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil 4 minutes.

Remove from heat and add:

1 bag white chips

1 small jar marshmallow creme

Remove 1 cup of this mixture and set aside.

To the pan mixture add:

12 drops yellow food coloring

5 drops red food coloring

3 tsp. orange extract

Mix until orange and pour into a 9x13 inch pan that is well greased.

Pour white mixture in glops on top of orange and swirl with a knife. Let set.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Climb Aboard!!

Here are our gingerbread creations! This is a first for me, we usually buy the kit, but this year we saw the train and had to give it a whirl. It was not that difficult. I made the gingerbread one day and we assembled the next day. As you can see blessing #1 really got into it, only he kept leaving to check the score of the football game tonight, which was helpful as each step needed to set up before the next one was added. May the Lord find us faithful.

                            

                                  

                     

 

winter fun

 

The blessings got a snowmachine for Christmas from their grandparents. I think they will enjoy this one for quite some time. We are going to aim for getting out there today and giving it go. (If I can start the thing!!)

May the Lord find us faithful.

Tomorrow's to do list

Of course we will get our formal schooling accomplished, but my goals are to attack the laundry and make the gingerbread for our gingerbread train. We still need to candy shop so we can at least make the pieces, that will definitely be enough for one day. May the Lord find us faithful.

Away for the weekend

I will be away for the rest of the weekend with some busy preperation things for a big event here this weekend.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Finally home

We are home for the first day this week. This whole week will busy but we were home today and should be tomorrow!! I love being home. We will also begin our Christmas cookie and candy making next Monday!! Yum, Yum! I will add pictures as we go.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Here we are

Here are the blessings at the inauguration:

 

 

 

What a treat to get to see this today.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Inauguration

I had to look the proper spelling of this word up the dictionary;-|  Oh well, at least I admit it. Now back to the subject, we are going to the inauguration for our new governor today. Our state capital is Juneau which is far away from Fairbanks, but the inauguration is here this year so we are loading up and going to check it all out tomorrow.

I had better get to bed and get my rest for the big day, plus music lessons!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Learning to add photos

Here goes:

 Wow, I am super surprised, thanks to Sunny for the much needed information to do this!!  Here are my blessings with their cookies they decorated on Thanksgiving Day!!

 

                                         

 

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

 

Today's accomplishments

Not everything was finished but I have a clean kitchen and dining room! The tree is up and I just need to shop for a few finishing touches, I love to add to the Christmas decor every year. It is difficult to get all this "stuff" up and keep ourselves focused on Christ. So, here we go with that balance thing!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

The stockings were hung by the wood stove with care

The past weekend has been one big blur, not because I was hit over the head, but because I have been so busy outside my home. Whew! I am glad that is all over. I really enjoy doing things for others but I almost over did it this past weekend. I like life simple and at home and I was gone more than home. I actually was relieved when one of our blessings was a little under the weather on Sunday. I needed to be home to catch up and rest. I also canceled music lessons this Monday as three out of four of us has a head cold, and we just neede to be home and not rushed around. I have been home all day today and I am almost finished with all the Christmas decorating. I plan on finishing tonight before I go to bed with the inside. Tomorrow we will head out to put up the outside lights and wreaths. Then I will clean up the house and begin the cookie and candy making.(The fun part.) The blessings are looking forward to this as I am also. We are continuing to keep up with our school work and I am not sure we will take a long break, probably just a few days here and there. I have a big event that I am working on for next weekend so we will probably take a few days off before that as I am sure things will be busy running here and there for the final prep. And somewhere in there I must remember why we even celebrate Christmas.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Thanksgiving

I know I have not been a faithful blogger lately but I am not going to be blogging over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Pizza and a movie night

We hosted play group this morning and ran one quick errand (I needed  a new broom) came home and we have homemade pizza baking in the oven. Here is my crust recipe, I make this in my Kitchen Aide

Pizza Crust

1 1/4 cup warm H2O

3 tsp. yeast

3-4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or bread flour

1 1/2 tsp. dry milk

1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. kosher salt

 

I knead this in the kitchen aide with the dough hook, throw in a little olive oil and cover to rise. Spread out and top as desired, yummy in our tummies. Bake at 400 degrees until done!!

Away from the blog

I have been very sporatic with my writing.

We had a typical school day yesterday, this morning will be a short day as I have a DR. appointment this morning. I usually try to not schedule this type of thing in the morning but I took the first available this time. (I must really need to see the doc) So, I got up with my sweetheart to ensure an early start to everyone's day. I also had some business to take care of on the phone and living in Alaska the earlier I am up the better as we are 3-4 hours behind comnpanies, so my business is taken care of and I have had my time with the Lord this morning. I will be falling asleep by 10:30 but that will be okay.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Whew!!! That was a busy week

Wow, I am thankful to be a SAHM!!! We had missions conference last week and we were out every night but one. I was exhausted, we had a light school week due to all the activity. So, I am thankful that we can get back to business tomorrow!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Mercury Transit Wednesday November 8

The mercury tranist is viewable on Wednesday November 8, so safely check it out!!

here and optical projector instructions are available here.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Routine

My girls worked in their math books on their own today, as I said yesterday it is Missions Conference at church this week. I fell on the ice yesterday and took a very hard hit to the ground. I am fine, but feel rather stiff and beaten up today, then on top of that I needed to get to the grocery store today as I did only a light shopping two weeks ago. So, we headed out this morning to get it over with. I have decided that staying home tonight will be the best choice. So, here I sit before I do a few things before bath time. But back to the math, I called a no school day due to the busy week and shopping need. After all the groceries we put away my girls decided to work on math. That was encouraging to me. They even cleaned up when they were finished!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Mondays

We are having Missions Conference week at our church this week. These weeks are always a love/hate thing. I love the conference but it is always a hectic week. We have had missionary from Belgium and one from Kenya and an Alaska aviation missionary which are good friends of ours so I almost forgot to add them to the list. This week always makes me think.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Fun Friday

Dad made it home late last night so we had a fun Friday with Dad! We did a lot of nothing, just being together. Dad did take the blessings out on the snow machine for a ride, they have been waiting for that since he left (it snowed the day before he left for the first time). We are getting ready for a lasagna dinner with some friends of ours, quite an enjoyable normal day here at our house.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Glad things are working well again

I have had two days of being unable to use my internet explorer. I have no idea what has been going on but things are fine today, go figure!!

School is going well, we seem to have finally gotten into a good routine with getting everything accomplished and reading aloud is going well. Okay, my mouth is dry but I am getting it all accomplished!!!!

We actually got started early today, due in part to the fact that I got up early. It is about 10:45am here and we are almost finishest with the school day!!

My sweetheart has been out of town and will come home tonight, so we have special things to get ready for Daddy!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

nothing to blog

I really have nothing to blog but I will say hello and all is well here, no violin today as our teacher is sick so just off to piano.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Seeing fruit

Sometimes I feel like we are not learning anything, and with one reluctant reader and a second who transposes letters, and writes backwards sometimes and struggles to sound out words, I wonder if we are ever getting through this all. BUT, I know we will, but it is always tough when one is muddling through! One more BUT, blessing #2 have began to love to write. She has really done well with copywork this year and copies everything. Tonight she is sitting at the table writing sentences with the words she knows. Some of them make no sense but she is writing and spelling correctly!!!! I really needed this tonight.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Our snow is finally here

Greetings from the now snowy Alaska!!! We have had fun out in the snow the past two days. I think they were our there for two hours after school today, now two are watching Monday night football and one is with me drawing with markers(she does not like football as much as the others, or she really likes me) and we are all warming up with some hot cocoa.

School resumed as normal this morning. All are doing well and moving forward as they should be.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Thinking

I was thinking about this last night before I fell asleep. We live in a small neighborhood and there are three other young children in our neighbor that are close to the ages of our children. They came over last night. Now, they all attend school and both parents work so they are all gone all day. Quite often some of these children will be at our house for 3-5 hours on a Saturday. These children were over last night for a short visit, and all I could think is that they had been in school all day, away from the parents and they were out around the neighborhood all evening. What kind of life is that? I am SOOOOOOO thankful to be home and that my children are home. Do you know, my children never ask to go to the neighbors? Which is fine with me. Then this lead to another thought, even though we homeschool our family is busy, not too busy but busy. I remember as a child going to a friend's grandmothers house and spending the whole day in the mountains playing we were not in a hurry, our Mom's were stay at home moms and even though we went to school we were home all summer and they took time to visit and life was not as rushed.

May the Lord find us faithful.

An unconnected day

We had a totally unconnected day. There was a line cut somewhere and we had no long distance or internet yesterday. That was different! It was not too bad except I needed to pay bills and I do that online!!! But we are up a going this morning again. We had a good day yesterday despite the fact that Mom is still having a challenge getting used to piano and violin. It is not stressful, I will have to get used to the length of it all and I am sooooo thankful that they are on the same day and back to back. Only one trip for lessons. So, I will adjust soon enough.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Busy Week

We have had a very busy week and I am glad tomorrow is Saturday. I do have two blessings who will be home with me tomorrow and they are looking forward to some cooking/baking time. One of the blessings had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and she purchased some cooking utensils to add to the girls growing collection of cook/bake/utensil ware. So, we will do some baking tomorrow while the males in our family are out enjoying the great outdoors.

School is falling into a fairly steady routine. I still am having a battle with feeling as though I have enough time at home. I try to do errands on Monday and Friday and stay home the other 3 days. We are schooling 5 days a week this year with Friday being a Bible/Math/Reading day only. So far it has worked out well and we have taken a few Fridays.

I have also decided to do only Science or History. So, I think a few weeks of Science, then a few weeks of history, etc.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Back on line

We still have dial up and I was unable to log on last night or today, but my husband found the small thing I missed and we are back up and going. So, this will be a quick blog tonight. We are all doing well, today was a catch up day from missing Monday, I feel really frazzled but tomorrow is another day and all will be well.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Columbus Day

My husband had today off so he and blessing #1 had a guy day and the girls and I had a girl day.  My husband is very wonderful at making time to do the Father/Son thing. Blessing #1 and Dad went grouse hunting. #1 bought a new gun last week so he had to get out and use it today. He got his first grouse, so we had grouse with our dinner. The girls and I did a Sam's Club run and the girls had their first piano lesson, the off to violin.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Reading aloud

I have had a tough time all summer reading aloud. It just seems we have never had enough time. Well, we two read alouds going now. One for the younger and one for the elder. But, they all come running when it is read aloud time no matter what the book. So, I am thoroughly loving getting back to reading aloud consistently. The librarians see us weekly now!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

School days

It has been a great desire of mine to have a family that watches very little to no television. Now, we are football fans and I do like to watch the occasional hgtv show or food network show. BUT, we are very careful with what we watch and I watch with remote in hand to block out the commercials. All that said to say this, last school year we used to settle in at 4:00 to watch a certain program. The school work was finished, dinner was cooking, and I was tired. I was determined not to do that this year. I am so glad I have stuck to it. My blessings are all sitting around the dining room table while dinner is cooking and coloring or drawing. It is a peaceful, quite time in our home. Aaahhhh!! I love it. The conversation is pleasant and all is well, I am calm, this is one of those things I have waited a long time for.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Monday morning

As I sit here having my guacamole for lunch, I have to say it has been a good morning so far. We do not get going earlier enough for me, but as it gets colder we seem to get up earlier, because we go to bed earlier. All snug in our warm beds with a fire blazing in the wood stove!!! I am looking forward to that! I know some of you think it is crazy. But winter slows us down. I really think about where we go and when. Why go out three days a week to run errands when it is cold outside. I steamline errands to our music lessons day and Fridays, when my husband is off from work and he can drive me around and we tag team shop, etc. It is not necessary but nice.

Now for our day. Blessing #3, my slow starter only has two subjects left before we are off to violin. And they should go quickly.I have an errand to run before so we will when all is finished. I have a chicken roasting in the oven and I will peel some potatoes and get them boiling before I leave. I am not used to later music lessons we have always had early afternoon lessons.

May the Lord find us faithful.

First Snow of the season!!!

We had our first snow fall of the season. It was a very wet snow which we do not have here very often. It is also blessing #3's birthday today. She got to go out and play in the snow after her cake and ice cream tonight!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Need to get out

Now ususally I am content to be home, and I have been out twice this week already. But, I have errands to run that need to be taken care of alone and our van needs a new part. I guess it is the alternator, my sweetie is out there putting a new one on. He is such a hard worker, and always has something to do. So, hopefully, he will get it finished or I will call a friend to come get me.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Violin

We started back to violin lessons today. We were supposed to begin piano but the teacher has sick children. So, lessons went well, we were a little rusty as I have a difficult time practicing with the lessons to keep me accountable. School work is progressing well with each child moving at a good pace. The piano tuner came this morning so we only had time to get Bible finished before he came, so when he left we had to get to it to get finished before violin. Then, we grocery shopped. Yuck!! But I feel better now that we have food in the house.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Ending the week

We had a wonderful week this week. We accomplished our goals and got some things settled for as to where to end review and move forward. I got back into our reading curriculum with blessing #1 and I will probably move that way with number #2 next week. I feel as though she needs a little more review but she is doing well with her reading.  We are really liking Mystery of History, #1 is looking forward to tomorrow: The Ice Age!!! I still let #3 come as go as she gets the urge. Some days she will do 5-6 pages in math then the next she will do only 2 and be finished (she is still preschool age). We will buckle down with reading soon though, probably after the snow falls and we have more time indoors. Right now we are still enjoying unusually warm temps for our area, so we have been taking walks and bike rides daily. We found a great place to cross country ski this winter! I am really excited about that. I do not mind the treadmill but I really enjoy exercising out of doors. BTW, I have lost five pounds!!! I have really been trying to exercise about 4 times a week for the past few weeks. I have been walking a mile when I walk on the treadmill, I am not sure how far I am walking when I walk outside.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Schedule, what's that?

I feel like we have no schedule, BUT we do, it just isn't the one I think we should have.

 Number 1 - I do not get up early enough. I set the alarm and then just snooze and snooze, I think I should get a new alarm clock.

 Number 2 - The weather is still soooooo nice here which is rare that we are staying out in the evenings later, thus getting in to bed later. I do have the reassurance that this will end within a month as we usually have snow on the ground by the 20th of October(usually some time in the teens of the month of October). This does not keep us inside all winter but we go out less as there is the gear to be doned before going out.

 Number 3- we have not started music lessons yet, this starts next week, therefore we have not practiced in a while. I have a difficult time practicing without the lessons for accountability!

Number 4- We have not been doing afternoons as I would like. I have planned afternoons for music practice, read alouds and art/handiwork projects. We have had art once!!!

Number 5- I feel as though I still have home projects to take care of and I need to make time for them.

Number 6- All the outside "things" that need to be accomplished.

May the Lord find us faithful.

van trouble

As we were pulling into the driveway last night after church my husband said did you feel that? The van would not turn left!! We were so thankful that we were home and not out on the road. He got up into the drive way and troubleshot the problem. He surprised us by coming home at lunch time. He had taken the rest of the day off. He got the part and fixed the van!!! Yeah, it actually was in the budget, not by much but we will squeak by.

It was good to get back into the weekday routine. We are making progress and I am feeling as though the blessings are learning more.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Girl day

My husband and blessing #1 went hunting today so it has been a girl day. The girls have played a couple of games, played outside and played in their rooms. All is girl time is good for them as the oldest two blessings usually play together and the youngest either tags along or doesn't want to play what they are playing. So, I have had a quiet day. Slowly going about my tasks. We did not do any school work since #1 was not here today. They have enjoyed some fun time together and so have I. We have church tonight as we have a guest speaker in town, so I have prepped all the clothing for that and switched my closet from summer to winter clothing. That needed to be done desperately. Now I have to attack my husbands side in the next few weeks.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

family time

My husband came home tonight, when he is hunting I am never sure when he will come home.  Fortunately for him, I had dinner ready and in the crock pot keeping it warm in case he came home as  I had received a scratchy phone call from him this afternoon.

School work is going well, all of the blessing are progressing nicely and I am convinced that we should school year around with breaks here and there. So, I will be planning and working on that.

I have not accomplished everything on my plans but we are doing 95% so we will march on.

I made it on the treadmill yesterday but not today. I still have not gotten my morning routine where it should be but I am getting there. Once hunting season is over I will be more on a routine as my husband will be back to work and our daily  routine will be more routine. I just love routine. 

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Wednesday night prayer service

Tonight's message was very eye opening. It follows right along with what I wrote in my previous blog today. The pastor spoke about David and how he sinned when he had no more worlds to conquer, he had taken a time of rest, he stayed home from battle and had idle time on his hands, he took his eyes off of God. So, I am glad that I have a full plate. It is a blessing to have so much on my plate. But not too much that I do not have time for what is important. A relationship with God and teaching my children. I have purposed to keep our outside activities to a minimum to keep us from being frazzled. I think we have maintained a balance that keeps our family balanced.

May the Lord find us faithful.

The work of a homeschooling Mother

Have you ever thought about all the work you do on any given day? Have you ever thought if anyone else notices the work you do on any given day? We do  a job that often makes others think that since  we are not working, we just sit around and watch TV. I would like for some one who things my job as wife, mother, house cleaner, etc., is a job filled with slacking to come in a spend a day doing my job, as I do my job. Not just keeping things going and entertaining the blessings. But to cook the meals, clean the house, clean the blessings, do the laundry, walk the dog, teach the blessings. Whew!!! They would be tired. Now, not to even mention training and teaching our children to be useful, selfless servants of God! This is just what is going on in my mind today. No wonder I have not found time to get on the treadmill lately. I plan to get on there in about an hour and read my Bible while I walk. Maybe some little task will go undone today but that will be okay as my body needs the walk!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

First day with all subjects

Schooling last week was very basic as some curriculums were not here yet. Today was our first day with all subjects. It went quite well as we do alot of work orally. Hope all is well in other corners of the world.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Saturday

My husband left for moose hunting this morning so I am taking a very slow approach to the day. I have done a little work outside and washed some laundry. But other than that I think that today will be a day of only making meals and cleaning up after them until I have to get the prep for Sunday out of the way.

May the Lord  find  us faithful.

Family Friday

The first week of school went well, even with Dad home. I am used to it being just the blessings and myself at home during the day and Dad is on vacation for hunting season. So, next week we will be alone again as Dad will be out moose hunting. I know have all the curriculum as some filtered in at the end of the week. So, next week will be more to the grind stone. I still have such time with music practice and read alouds, but Dad has been home also, next week will be more "normal" if there is any such thing.

We did a lot of assessing this week to see where we need to dive in for the year. I must be off to make some hunting food and goodies. I am make breakfast burritos, cookies and zucchini bread for husband's trip.

May the Lord  find us faithful.

Two days

We have been back to formal school for two days. Dad has been home both days. So, we have accomplished the basics. I love him being home but I enjoy our "normal" days. I am still waiting for a couple of items to arrive for school that are in route. There is so much that I want to do and then there is the need to do list and then the dreaded have to do list. So, I must find a happy medium there some where. Well, blessing # 3 and I are off to the post office while the others take in a little duck hunting before church tonight!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Labor Day

Greetings from the north land!

The fall colors are abounding here in Alaska. Our family takes a day in September and drives north into the mountains and enjoy the spectacular mountain views. The colors are not as plentiful as in other areas of the country but there is that beautiful Alaska scenery that can be found no where else! Our dog has retrieved her first two ducks out of the water, this is a major thing as she failed to retrieve the first duck that fell before her on Saturday night. My sweetheart spent Sunday afternoon between church services working on that with her. His efforts were not in vain.

Tomorrow is our first day of formal school. I feel they are always being schooled regardless of sitting in front of school "work" or in the school of life and exploration. The girls are ready, my son is not. He is going duck hunting in the morning but that is early in the morning, so he will be back  in time to get to work.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Plan and Prep

School starts on Tuesday!! Most of the first week ready and I am ready. I have my plan book going together. I make my own and I am still tweeking a few things and working on what needs to be in there and what doesn't. I am off to bed, it has been a long day.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Blah day but at the right time

I had a very blah day, spent most of it on the couch.  But it occurred at the right time. I have accomplished much in the past few weeks and most of what needed to be finished before school starts is finished. So, the day did not leave us in chaos. A little extra work today will ensure a good day tomorrow. I am off to do a little observation at our church's school. I have a degree in education/ special education so they call on me when they have questions about a student. Then I am off to paint the trim at a friend's house that I should have done a month ago. But we have both been busy.

Dh and blessing # 1 are off hunting for a moose today!!! Blessing #1 is excited!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Another finished project

I do not have a picture yet but, with the help and encouragement of my friend Lynn, I finished a wall decoration for my family room wall. Yes, Patti, I have something on that wall in my family room!!! Yahoo!!  I will try to post a picture here when I take one if not I will just email one.
Now, I am notorious for putting a room together, then there is that one project that I do not have something for, either for lack of funds or lack of finding what I have pictured in my mind. So, it just goes unfinished. I am slowly moving toward having some rooms finished. I was going to add the finishing touch to blessing #1's room but dh wants to help me with that so it will have to wait until after moose season and until he gets a little duck hunting out of his system.

My son is going on his first mini-moose hunt this weekend. Getting a moose is of utmost importance as it is our primary meat source. It is so nice not to have to buy meat at the grocery store.

I only have two unfinished projects outside of the home and I plan on getting those taken care of  tomorrow!

May the Lord find us faithful.

No bumps or bruises yet

We have had an accident free day so far, well, nothing worth mentioning here. The kids are always banging into something or falling.

Nature study occurred naturally today. We made bagel bird feeders and hung them around the yard. Then the blessings journaled about them in their nature journals. We will keep watch and journal on the outcome of the bagels! This has been a challenge to me and I am trying to overcome the nature study and history challenges that I have. Tomorrow I think we will investigate those huge mushrooms out there. We have had tons of rain in the past few weeks and those shrooms are huge!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Ending an unusual day

Well, I had a better ending than beginning of my day. I know that I need to exercise to see any weight loss (and I need to lose weight!) So, in my working toward a fall school schedule I have planned time in that schedule for exercise once school begins next week. But, there is no time like the present. Tonight was beautiful and sunny so the blessings were outside playing then when I came out to sit and practice knitting they all jumped on their bikes as they can ride farther when I am outside. (By the way Angela, I bought shorter, bamboo needles and I sat tonight until I finally think I got it!!!!) So, once I got it, I thought what would be better exercise than riding my bicycle with them. We all got going and rode and rode. I had the dog running beside me to wear her out so I can get a good evening of more knitting practice instead of having to let her out every 20 minutes. She will crash when the house gets quiet.

 

I am going to use this blog to work on my exercise goal. I need accountability, so today I rode bikes with the kids for about 30-45 minutes.

Also, my Sunday School teacher gave us a scripture passage (Proverbs 2:1-11)to memorize this week, so I will also be working on that!

May the Lord find us faithful.

what a morning

I had a morning like no other. First, as I was loading the dishwasher blessing #3 who is 4 and a girl was spinning in the kitchen while I had my back to her and fell and hit her head on the dishwasher open door! No blood just a raised long place, whew! no trip to the dr. just ice and watch her. Then not 15 minutes later blessing # 1(boy) came out of his room and hit his head on the little metal plate in the door trim. This time blood, but  not too deep but I do not have any of those butterfly bandages!!! We were trying to get out the door any way so we fixed him up and went straight to Wal-Mart and got the butterfly thingies and he is all fixed up. Blessing # 2 was quite happy that she did not have any falls or cuts! (So was I)

So, we spent the whole day shoe and clothes shopping then on to grocery shopping. The clothes are horrible for girls so I think the sewing machine will have to come out often. There are almost no dresses out there.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Comforter

I have a mental list of things I would like to have finished before we begin school. One big thing was to prepare the comforter for my bed. I really liked this comforter the first time I saw it and it finally went on clearance with an extra 50% off and I bought it. Then our dog came and this spring she ripped a 12" rip in the top of the comforter. I almost threw it away and counted it a loss, but my Mom gave me a repair idea. Today I repaired the comforter and it will be back on my bed after a washing!!! Not the same but the pillows should cover the added 14" strip of fabric at the top and it almost looks as though it should be there.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Accomplished week

Besides being out of commission most of Wednesday, I accomplished my goals for the week. The curriculum is on the shelf and the clutter has been culled. The house has been cleaned and I have enjoyed the morning. I have sorted through my mounds of papers I have printed  from the internet research. So, when that is all put back together I will be finished. I am having a nice lunch with two of my blessings, one is with Dad. We played a couple of games of Hi-Ho Cherry-O before lunch.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Waking up feeling better

I felt miserable yesterday evening but my herbal remedy must have been effective. I am going to keep on taking it today to assure I do not regress. I felt a miserable cold coming on and I had to lay down all evening. But, thankfully today I feel better and can resume my activities.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Eight again

I got another 8 hours actually 8 1/2 hours. This may not seem like an accomplishment to many but when my husband travels I tend to stay up very late and sleep until the blessings wake up and then have a rotten start to the day with having to fit a shower in after breakfast and it just makes for a yucky start of the day for me.  So, I have had a good two days. I did accomplish a lot yesterday. I also decided to sell my rubber stamps as I rarely use them and will not use them for quite some time. So, they must go.

It has also been great to stay home for two days!! Thus, much get accomplished in those two days. We do have a school meeting today so we will go out for a while this afternoon and meet and run errands. So, we are all filling up on a good bowl of oatmeal this morning before our outing.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Eight hours of sleep

I had eight hours of sleep last night!!! This is amazing for  me my as my husband is sheep hunting and I usually stay up extrememely late on his first night away. But I was in bed at 11:30 (early for me) and I was asleep by 12:00. I woke up at 8:00. I have let the dog out, taken a shower, paid a couple of bills online, and now two blessings are up and eating breakfast as I blog. (one of my blessings sleeps like me, up late and in late) She will have the toughest time adjusting from summer schedule to fall schedule. I do not keep an early bedtime in the summer as we have all that sunlight and Dad does not get home until 5:00, why put them to bed at 8:00? So they stay up until later and we all pretty much go to bed at the same time. But now we are all adjusting to earlier bed times, even me!!

Alaska weather update: It is 43 degrees and it is still overcast with rain on and off!  The leaves on the trees are beginning to turn yellow in places and other plants are getting their fall color, the fireweed leaves are a nice red now. I need to get out and clean up the yard for fall but I do not want to go out there. I only go out to fetch with Emmy and run out her energy, which worked very well last night.

I have placed about 90% of the school stuff, which means I am well on my way and there are no piles left on the floor. Everything is neatly put away or in bins to be stored.

So, maybe next week will be a fun filled week!! I sure hope so!

May the Lord find us faithful.

My to do list today

If I put my whole to do list here I would not have any time to actually work on the list. But, I have figured out that I have all of the school stuff out on the shelves. I need to put what we will not need this year away. Out of sight but not out of reach. So, I pulled up a few unused storage bins from our crawl space. I learned from Flylady.net a few years ago not to hold on to unneeded, unloved items, thus the empty bins!! So, I will store the needed eventually but not now items and have some space. (Hopefully) So, I am off to clear the clutter and get these things together for school. School starts for us in two weeks.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Back to routine

Tomorrow we will get back to some sense of order and routine. I have a house that needs a lot of care but we will get it done this week and have next week to do a little easing into the school days. Once I get the school stuff organized!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Saturday

Today is Saturday and it is not raining. It is overcast but it is not raining. We have had a lot of rain lately. This week has been busy. The kitchen at church is painted, there are other small jobs to do but the paint is on the walls and cabinets and the room has definitely been cleaned.( Now I must clean my house this afternoon)

We have had a family day so far.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Thursday

Progress has been made on the church kitchen!!!! I am going back to do more work in  a while. The end is in sight. On the down side our boiler will not work properly, so hubby is working on that. It is always something.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Home all day

We will be home all day!!! Yeah!!!!! We have been out of the house more lately than in the house. We will be home all day except for church tonight.  So, my entry will be short today. May the Lord find us faithful.

Rainy Tuesday

We have had lots of rain and when it is not raining it is overcast. I am tired and I need to get lots done, so I am going to go have some quiet time  and get busy!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Sunday traditions

I have never written of our Sundays. To begin, my wonderful husband gets up first, showers and then gets me up:-) Then, he heads off to the kitchen and makes breakfast, french toast and sausage. He has been doing this for about 5 years now. I do not remember exactly when this started but it is our every Sunday breakfast. At that time we had a three year old, 1 year old and a new born. So, I guess that is why. The reason I share this today is that when he is out of town we have our own alternate tradition; we have cereal for breakfast and then french toast for lunch. This allows me to get up at my normal time and still get everyone to Church on time!! May the Lord find us faithful.

Still learning after all these years

I am still learning......Oil-based paint has given me fits the past two days. We cleaned the wall with pine-sol before we painted and now the paint will not stay on the wall. So..... we will wait and see then if it does not stay we will have to move on to plan B. I am ready to start school and stay home after this work at the church. But, we will get it finished soon, I think!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Not enough to do at my house

I have been painting the kitchen at our church. (Like I do not have enough to do at home!!!) But, I am working this week and next there and then I am going to focus on home. (We are not starting school until after Labor Day). So, I have been there all afternoon and evening! The blessings had a good day and were obedient for the most part. So, I am off to get the blessings in bed and off to a long soak in the tub, we had to use oil based paint and I am a mess!!  Blessing number 3 is doing much better as the bites are healing!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Piano causes major moving around

That piano has caused major moving around. I hope I have not been premature in my moving. I should have waited to see what the piano tuner/repair man says about the best placement, oh well, I will just move it all back if I have too. I needed to go through all this stuff any way to get ready for school. Today will be short as I have much work to do tonight. But, blessing no. 3 has bug bites all over her waist and head and is very miserable. This has been an interesting day.

May the Lord find us faithful.

We found a piano!!!!

I have wanted the girls to begin piano lessons but we did not have a piano(small problem there). I have always said that when it was time for the girls to begin lessons that the Lord would send us the piano. Well, I started looking at the paper last Sunday. I did not call on any because we were having a very busy week. I did however pray that we would find a good piano at a good price. Well, a lady at church had a piano that she wanted to sell.  (Only two people knew that we were looking and one just happened to be talking to this lady. )We went to look at it today and my husband is going to go get it tomorrow!!! I am so excited, I did not expect to find one this soon, but then I prayed for it a long time ago and now was the time!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Swimming

   My husband wants the blessings to swim regularly to add to the skills they learned in swimming lessons. So, I took them swimming yesterday. We had a friend of mine and her son join us. I had the kids practice their swimming and we played alot. I was able to swim since my friend was there to keep an eye on the blessings. I had not been swimming in a long while in a large swimming pool.

The blessings and I also made raspberry jelly yesterday morning before we went swimming. We made 12 four ounce jars of jelly. We shared with the neighborhood kids who helped us pick the raspberries. (It took me a while to find all of my jelly making supplies as it has been seven years since I have made jelly!!!)
May the Lord find us faithful.

Loyalty

We started Character Sketches a couple of weeks ago, we are not using it every day, just when we can. The first character lessons are on loyalty. One definition of loyalty is changing my schedule to meet the needs of others. I had to do that today.

I spent the last three days working in the kitchen at church to feed visitors for a conference. I had planned not to leave my house today, nor to do much at all but enjoy a day at home. Well, my husband had a change in his plans which meant a change in my plans. I had to go grocery shopping!!! Well, I did it with out complaining and I was okay. I did almost complain right before he left for his trip but I refrained and what a blessing it was for me not to complain for once. I am not saying this because my life is idealistic, my life is real and for one day I chose to be loyal to my husband. It was our only day home together this week. So, he is gone fishing and I am taking tomorrow off to have fun with my blessings. I think we might go swimming!!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Busy days

  I have spent the day away from my husband and blessings today. I enjoy an occasional time away from them but only a couple of hours and I am so ready to see them. I stopped by our church where they were with my husband to drop off some things. It was so refreshing to see them.
May the Lord find us faithful.

Morning

This is our second cloudy, breezy day. It did not rain one drop yesterday which is odd. We will see what today will hold.

We had one of the missionaries we support in our church last night. He gave an update of the work and he preached. He shared with us from Romans 15:30-32. He spoke on how our praying here at home greatly impacted the work on the field. It gave me a renewed thought process on that. It is something I know but had filed in the back of my mind. Maybe all this is coming together since I have started a Bible study on prayer. But I know I will pray more specifically for our missionaries. Praying for our missionaries will be a part of our homeschool schedule this year, specific prayer for each missionary.
May the Lord find us faithful.

Learning

If any one would have told me 20 years ago what I would be doing now I would have laughed and thought they were crazy. I only knew one person who was homeschooled and they were very strange, and the reason they homeschooled was mysterious.

I am learning so much from homeschooling the blessings. I am researching everyday, reading about education "genres" and seeking what works for us and how and what to teach the blessings, how to be Biblibally balanced, teach the word of God to our children so they have a firm foundation on which to serve God. I am not looking to raise "good" kids, our goal is to raise useful servants of God. We do not seek to raise kids like everyone else, the goal is to go beyond the status quo. Not for our glory but for God's glory, they are his not ours.

On another subject, I am trying very diligently to get back into some kind of routine. I miss our daily schedule where chores and violin practice fall into place without much thought. We are taking baby steps to get there, inch by inch.

May the Lord find us faithful.

School prep

Good morning to you,

No jelly making to day, I have a sick child, we had to cancel violin and we will not be going into town. No pectin, no jelly.

We are gearing up for school to start. I am going to run down what we use.

I am planning for my Kindergartener and 1st grader to follow the amblesideonline.org booklist and schedule for year 1. I am not quite so sure about my 3rd grader yet. (I am classically and Charlotte Mason minded, alot of overlap with both and I am trying to figure out where I stand on the differences! I love the concept of the gentle art of learning!!!!) So,

Bible:

The Bible

Character Sketches

 

Phonics:

I have used Scardey Cat Reading system last year and will continue on.....

I might use Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons with my younger 2

 

Grammar:

Maybe Rod and Staff? 3rd grader

 

Math:

All- Math-U-See

 

Science:

Apologia- Exploring Creation with Astronomy

 

History:

Mystery of History vol. 1 Chronological Study

 

Foreign Language:

Hey Andrew, Teach me some Greek

 

Penmanship:

We have StartWrite

 

Writing:

Writing Strands

 

Along with nature study, artist and composer study, narrations

 

We are making notebooks little by little. Last year I focused on Science with our oldest blessing. (We also worked on a timeline notebook a little, more on that this year)

May the Lord find us faithful.

Blessing in frustration

Well, I learned a lesson today. Our dog has a habit of exploring outside her boundaries. We are working on teaching her the boundaries but she wanders on occassion, and today was one of those days. We were driving trying to find her and I spotted tons of raspberry canes that I have never seen before. So, once the dog was safely in the house the blessings and I and the neighbor kids set off to pick raspberries and tomorrow we are going to make jam!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Life as we know it

Life as most Americans lives it, is full of fast paced, overcommited, busy, fast-food eating junk. Our Sunday School lesson for day included the statement, "Overcommited lives and underdeveloped spiritual lives." That statement stuck out to me like a sore thumb. I have always work diligently to keep our lives in check and not overcommit, especially when it comes to our children. They are too young to be overcommited. They need time to be children, to play in the sand and dirt, ride their bikes and all the other things they do. Swimming was an eye opener to me, lessons lasted for forty five minutes but there was the prep, drive(short as it may be), it effected our whole day! The blessings learned a lot and we will do lessons again in the winter, BUT we will not be on the sign up for this and that lesson bandwagon. We will be working on developing their spiritual lives this school year!

May the Lord find us faithful.

school supplies

We walked through the school supply aisle at Wal-Mart today. I realized that we really did not need much this year. Maybe a few pencils and a couple of new things to get the blessings geared up for school. I do have a few more things to order curriculum wise but we will get to that soon enough. We did go to Barnes and Noble today and I could have spent a small fortune there but decided to go when the blessing were with Dad so I can take my time and get what  we need and forgo unnecessary purchases. The kids did have their own money to spend and they made a few purchases at Barnes and Noble.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Rhubarb

    We harvested our first rhubarb today. I made a rhubarb crisp to take for dessert at a friends for dinner. It was yummy!!!
May the Lord find us faithful.

Many blessings

The days are slowing down here a bit. Swimming will be over on Friday, I am glad. The blessings have enjoyed the classes but two weeks is long enough for Mom. I need to sit down and plan out my orders for school. I normally do a lot of odering in the spring to avoid the fall purchase rush, but not this year. I need to place an order with Bright Minds and couple of other companies. I am ready to plunge into this classical education thing with both feet and make a big splash. I do not want to belly flop!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Birthday

One of the blessings had a birthday today. I used to do the whole birthday thing and then I decided not to do the whole birthday party thing with all the stuff that went along with it. Now, the birthday person gets to choose meals for the day and what kind of cake they want and we usually do some thing special that they want to go do. So, today we went for target practice as a family. Generally, this is a Dad and blessings event but I went along for the birthday special event. ( I do enjoy target practice but rarely take the time to go with)

A good day was had by all.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Summer

I really enjoy summer, the warm weather, walking outside without a coat, the green trees and grass, flowers, being outside riding bikes, the list could go on and on. BUT, I enjoy the slower pace of winter. I am frazzled by the time September rolls around and then in September there is the moose to put in the freezer and school is in full force. We usually follow the school districts and start in August, but I think this year we will gradually fall back into school starting with just a couple of subjects a week. We have already started back with  Character Sketches and regular violin practice.

Swimming is going well, Levi jumped off of the diving board which is a major accomplishment. He is not swimming well yet but he is working on it and hanging in there. Elisabeth is a fish and Judith is doing well in her preschool class.

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

Looking forward

"School" starts soon. Many mothers around the country are counting down until the children are out of the house, that is if the mothers are even in the house! I enjoy my blessings, sure there are the days when I want to scream and run away, but those are few and far in between. Most of us want the "idealist","perfect" home, family and marriage. But, reality is we are all horrible, wretched, sinful, unperfect human beings. It is good to have goals and high ones but we should not lose hope and give up and do nothing just because we cannot reach our goal, which often times is unattainable in the first place. I once heard an evangelist say that if people are not reaching your expectations, then lower your expectations! That statement has had an effect on my life. Instead of getting frustrated at my husband or the blessings, I have to look at what they do well and what they have learned,etc. Also, do I add up to all that I expect others to be?  Not at all.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Now, get me to the school supply aisle, I love school supplies!!!!

Swimming

I finally got the blessings into swimming lessons, I know this is a bit overdue and the oldest will be 8 next week, but life kept happening and I did not make swimming lessons a priority. They all love it though, even the one who is struggling with the whole thing and is the least experienced and least willing to swim, stills loves lessons. I guess he does not realize he is the only one not doing some things. Maybe that is because he has been allowed to move forward at his own pace and not been in constant competition his whole life. I think competition to a degree is good but I remember hating competing as a child. Maybe I allow his to keep on being this way because I remember how I felt in those situations and I had no choice but to be there and endure. Any way, we are in lessons now and he will learn something from it even if it is only to go under the water for a few seconds.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Hospitality

It seems that some times I have blinders on. I often forget the needs of others or think that some one else is taking care of them. One goal for this school year is to work on being hospitable. We should be alert to the needs of others and taking action to help meet those needs. I do not want my blessings to go through life with blinders on or looking in a mirror and not outward at all. What can I do to meet the needs of some one else today........ when does the maid come, my floors need swept, of yeah, that's my job today! May the Lord find us faithful.

Sunday

We have had a full day. Church this morning, then we had a family come out for lunch. Then back to church and home to celebrate a birthday for a dear friend of mine. I made her an Italian Cream Cake, yummy!! I have not made this cake since her birthday two years ago.

We are visiting this evening and enjoying time with good friends.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Thunder and lightening

When we have a thunderstorm in Alaska, it is a doozy!!! Last night we had some LOUD thunder and a good dose of rain. Today has been around 70 degrees and sunny all day, but the black clouds and thunder are rolling in. I am not sure how long this one will last or if we will get any significant rain as I see blue sky and white fluffy clouds also.

I think the blessings are ready to get back into some school work. We should be pretty settled for the remainder of the summer. We have signed up for swimming lessons for the next two weeks, that will be fun. Well, the thunder sounds closer, so I am going to sign off and shut down.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Home, Home, Home

It is so nice to be home.Although I feel as though this is a Monday, it is good to be home. I have taken a slow approach to the day. Catching up will come today. It is a beautiful day. Sunny and very warm, the blessings are out in the back yard playing in the sand box and swinging. I think they are glad to be home and in their own element! I plan on getting my house back to order today and tomorrow, that will be wonderful. Enjoy the day where ever you are. May the Lord find us faithful.

Independence Day

  We are having a lazy day with friends, grilling burgers, brats and dogs. Just the fun stuff! We are thankful for our independence and the freedom to gather with friends.
May the Lord find us faithful!!

Real life

We are getting back into real life as it is for our family. We have had an abundant blessing of visitors to our home this summer. The last batch left last night. It was good to sleep in my own bed(we have been traveling with grandparents). We will begin our Monday morning, although my husband has tomorrow off from work so it will not be a typical Monday, at home and with our usual chores and routine to take care of. Yeah!!!

I have a mountain of laundry to take care of tomorrow but the blessing is that I can take care of it all. I am home and I have the physical ablity to do laundry. So, I am finding joy in the mundane things of life.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Whirlwind vacation

I feel as though it has been a long time  since I have  written. The blessings and I have been traveling with the grandparents. The grandparents were supposed to arrive last Saturday night at our house. Their flights were completely changed due to a computer glich. So, they were not coming to our airport but to another city. Well, in Alaska that means an 8 hour drive, but we were going to that town any way so the blessings and I loaded up and headed out a day early and without the grandparents!! We checked into the hotel and collasped into bed. The grandparents arrived around 2:30 am without luggage.
Sunday am, breakfast and trip to get a few things to get them through until the luggage arrives. I made it to church to visit some friends there. Swimming for the kids. We did the downtown sunday market. Dinner and a drive.
Monday, we did the chuck e cheese thing, and some shopping.

Tuesday, we went on a flightseeing trip. Wednesday, Talkeetna River rafting.
Thursday, Denali Park
Friday, Home
The grandparents leave Saturday night. It has been fast but tons of fun.
May the Lord find us faithful.

Hold on with both hands

I read a quote once that said some thing to the effect that when you find a true friend you hold on with both hands. Well, my friend came to visit from the lower 48 and when I took her to the airport today it was so difficult to let her go. We did not grow us together as young children but we have know each other for 22 years and been bossom friends for 20 years. That does not happen very often these days. We have a friendship that has stood the test of time. There were the teen arguments and growing pains but we over came all that and came through on the other side closer to each other, stronger and closer to our God. We can talk about anything, we both think so practically. We both desire to teach and train our children to serve and honor the Lord. We are not dependent on each other and we do not envy the accomplishments and other friends the other has. If we do not talk for a week or so, we know that we will not have to baby the other and be apologetic. We have our lives with our own families. That is the first priority. We think the silly things we say are hilarious. We laugh, we cry, we have had babies, endmetriosis, a hysterectomy, other surgery, good days, bad days, blah days, cold days, hot days, beach days, school days, birthdays, etc. I am thankful to have a friendship that has stood the test of time and continues to endure. May the Lord find us faithful.

A day of work

I love the feeling of accomplishment after a day of work. I painted a little more, mulched a flower bed and spent some time visiting with our friends before they were off to the airport. We had a few things to pick up in town and then off to a last minute invitation in the evening. All and all a busy but not rushed day! Just my speed. Now, back to the feeling word. I normally do not go on feelings but hard work seems to do a person good!

Now to get things ready for Sunday morning!

May the Lord find us faithful.

What worked and did not work

We keep a fairly flexible schedule and try to keep all the academic work in the morning. I DO NOT like early morning but I am trying to make myself. I like to get up and get the day started off with a shower, dressed and quiet time with the Lord before the blessings begin to filter in. BUT, that does not always happen.

We generally  practice violin after breakfast, if we do not do this now it does not get done at all, and chores. Then head into Bible as a group. 1B7 works independently first as I work with 1G5, 2G4 wants to be doing school and has to have something to do so I have to keep her busy and quiet while I work with 1g5. Then when they are finished, I work with 1b7 one on one.

 After lunch we usually have quiet reading time in beds. Then we read aloud and free play, some times outside sometimes not, depending on the temp.

This year I want to work more on hand work, crafts, etc. in the afternoon as naps will not be as necessary for 1g4.

Back into the music mode

We went to our first summer violin lesson today. We will take a while to get back into the swing of things but I like the routine of getting back after a few weeks break.

We had a busy day out but not too eventful.

May the Lord find us faithful.

What we use

We are a blend of Charlotte Mason method, the principle approach and classical education. So, we do a little of everything.

We use Scardey Cat Reading System for reading and grammar and spelling.

Math- U-See, love that and so does the Blessings.

Apologia science and backyard scientist for fun!

We have used and will continue to use FIAR, we started with BFIAR

History, we have just used FIAR, but I am looking at Mystery of History, any ideas?comments welcome.

We have a computer program, Start Write for handwriting.

I try to notebook as much as possible and add copy work about every day.

This summer, I will use Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons for the youngest blessings as a head start.

And the oldest started Hey Andrew Teach me some Greek the other day.

I also plan to do some Nature Study this summer. Lots of snow here in the winter!

May the Lord find us faithful.

 

summer activities

Well, I  have to get the blessings into swimming lessons this summer. I am going to try for the July lessons as we have two more sets of summer company ahead for June. We generally take a week in July for family vacation but I believe we will just have to let that slide this year and not spend that money this year. We need to sign up for the summer reading program at the local library. But Barnes and Noble also has a summer reading program for kids also. So, my reader needs to get reading!

The cold snap seems to be over and I did loose a few plants but they will be easy to replace.

May the Lord find us faithful

Halibut

We did one of our favorite things tonight. We have a couple of families over and had a halibut fry. If you have never had halibut, you are really missing out.

It was a fast passing day with much of it spent getting ready for company. It was not warm today but it was sunny and warm enough for the blessings to get to play outside all day.

I have been reading Philippians for my devotions, I am just going to park there for a while until I have a good grasp on that book.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Sunday Evening

Usually by this time on Sunday night I am exhausted and very down and out. By the time we are in and out for the am and pm services at church the house is a mess and I am tired and grumpy. But today is not like that. Yes, the house is in need of a quick run through in the morning but we had a very busy but enjoyable day. First of all we have attended a marriage seminar at church with Dr. and Mrs. Bob Jones III, which has been very thought provoking and eye opening. I always forget in between their visits to our church how much I enjoy hearing both Dr. Bob and Beneth speak. Especially Beneth. She is so down to earth and has such a love of the Lord. Then on top of it all our precious friends are in town vacationing and I was able to spend time this afternoon and evening with my friend in whom I only see about every two years or so! So, I feel very renewed and calm tonight.

The most interesting thing it that we have had record low temperatures here for this time of the year. It is supposed to be below freezing tonight. We pulled all the potted plants inside of the garage and I covered all the perinnials in the ground. So, hopefully we will be back to our warm sunny weather soon!! Where is that midnight sun?

May the Lord find us faithful.

Stop the train, I want to get off!!!

I have been so busy the past two days. I had to bake some thing, so I am up late getting a blog fix while I wait for things to cool enough to cover and go to bed. Then it is up early and out the door again tomorrow. But, I will be finished with my little expedition tomorrow afternoon. Monday, I will be back to regular schedule! Whew and yahoo!!!

On a different note, my husband is the greatest! I have never been loved so unconditionally. He loves the first thing in the morning me, the grumpy me, the happy me, the everything me. He also loves the Lord and serves Him with much vigor. He loves our children and wants to spend time with them. He has much discernment and uses it wisely. He is our protector, our compass, our guide. I will have much to do to prepare for Father's Day this year. He has always been this way but I am just realizing the extent of this man that I have the pleasure of sharing my life with.

May the Lord find us faithful.

A completed job

We finished 1.B.7's room today. I finished the painting last night  and today was spent dusting baseboards, vacuuming the corners and giving everything a move around. We found some items that had been hidden during clean up.  Object lesson here: we can hid our sin for a while but eventually our sin will be brought out in the open. And, sin hidden will grow until it cannot be hidden any more.

We discussed that tonight. The room looks fresh and clean, next week another room. We have a marriage enrichement seminar this weekend and I am helping with the luncheon so the next few days will be spent working on that.

We started Greek today, Level 1 of Hey Andrew teach me some Greek, at 1.B7's request. Lots of ambition for that Blessing today! So, I am off to get the Blessings in bed and give the house a quick go over before I head into a busy weekend.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Spring work

I have put off painting the trim in 1.B.7's room for two years. I have a problem with project completion. But, now the painting in that room is finished. I will give it good cleaning and organizing sessions, then put it all back together. Then on to two other rooms and a little touch up painting in other various rooms. This step has catapulted me into finishing mode. One step at a time!

We are taking this month off from formal schooling, we have several groups of company coming at various times this month. We will have to start up with our daily Bible again tomorrow. We have family Bible time at night but during the day we work on character qualities and memorization. We have not done this in a week or so, we need to get it going again. It really helps me as much as it does the Blessings.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Memorial Day

We had an at home day today, well most of the day. I went out for a little shopping this afternoon while O worked on his truck. But other than that we just played and grilled out. I got O good with the hose this evening when I was watering the flowers, of course he got me back worse than I got him! The blessings played with our friends who are visiting from the lower 48. We are very thankful to have good friends who are concerned with raising children for God's glory and not just raising kids who stay out of trouble and seem to be good kids.

I realized today how much I enjoy being O's wife and a mother to our children. Yes, the job oftern gets to be the same old same old, but it will bear fruit some day that will be worth it all.

May the Lord find us faithful!

Work ahead

I find it difficult to do the extra things. I am usually fine at the daily agenda, but the daily agenda falls apart when I attempt a project. Today I am painting a piece of furniture and baskets for a bedroom. I will see how it all goes together at the end of the day. Will my house look normal or be a shambles? Only time will tell. The good news is that the blessings have a friend over and they are out on the bikes all afternoon so that should help with some of the indoor confusion!

I must remember to remember Memorial Day. The traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall is in our area, maybe we should go see that tomorrow after church.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Learning every day

I am amazed at how much I learn every day! I just want to be the best Christian, wife and mother I can be. So often I come so short! But I am always loved and forgiven and given another chance to try again. How amazing!

Slow down

We are enjoying spring time. In Alaska the summer is short. The trees have small buds one day and the next week everything is green. If one is not careful, summer can be a busy time of year. I have taken this summer to remember to slow down. We planted flowers and refreshed the flower beds. I created a nice sitting area for my dh and myself. We can enjoy a glass of tea and watch the Blessings ride their bicycles and play in the front yard. We have many groups of company coming this summer but in between we will enjoy all that summer has to enjoy.
May the Lord find us faithful!

The Journey

I love planning for my own homeschool and sharing what I have learned in my own journey. I think I want others to know that school is more the paper and books. It is the praying, training, and nurturing of our Blessings that take much time see the fruit of our labor. But we must have trust in God that it will all come to fruition and that our dependence in Him will carry over to their dependence in Him.

Rainy Days

My mom is here visiting from Kentucky. The kids are getting their annual Nana fix as Nana is getting the grandchildren fix! It's funny how much grandparents do for their grandchildren. It is also amazing how helpless they become when Nana is here. But we are all having fun and enjoying each others company. Tomorrow though, Nana and I are spending some time away from the kids!

Mother's Day

I hear my blessings outside playing. It is a wonderful sound. Today is a beautiful, warm, sunny day, the first really warm day this spring. Hooray!

What a blessing to be able to see, hear, touch, smell and taste all that there is take in! May I always remember the joy of being a Mother.

another beautiful day

Wow, what a beautiful day. We did most of our school work outside today and even practiced violin outside! Best of all I hung the first wash out to dry on the line for the season. It is strange the things that a Mom will find enjoying. What a wonderful day to have by blessings working on school work at the picnic table while I hung the wash. These are the days that I truly enjoy. We had a busy afternoon or I would have  read aloud outside today, maybe tomorrow!! 

Introduction

This is a whole new thing for me, so I guess I should give some background information.

I have a degree in elementary education and started out working in the public schools, but by the grace of God, I am home. My heart is committed to teaching my little blessings at home. When we had our first child I stayed home and have never looked back. It is so strange that I do not even remember homeschooling being an agonized over decision. We just seemed to naturally flow into it. Living in an area where homeschool is common did not hurt either.

I have spent many hours reading and researching education "philosophies"  and like so much about so many things about each one I learn about.  That is why I had to choose the eclectic catagory. I like the Charlotte Mason method, classical education and principle approach. So, I do not know which one we are working our way toward but we will know when we get there and we will have an enjoyable journey. My main concern is training our children to God's glory. We are working on Biblical character training and Bible memory.

We live in North Pole Alaska which is located in interior Alaska just outside of Fairbanks. We have lived here our entire married life and could not imagine living anywhere else. This is a wonderful place to raise a family. My husband and I are both from the south originally but this is home for our family. (I do miss sittin on the front porch swing with my Dad and sisters, and dark summer nights and lightening bugs!) But now I dwell in the land of the midnight sun and swat mosquitoes!!

May the Lord find us faithful!

 

Spring Fever

We planted flower seeds today. We have been spending many hours outside. It is still chilly at times but we have about 18 hours of sunlight a day. Soon we will be planting our vegetable garden!!