Our family song

During our family devotions, we have started singing our 'family' song Complete in Thee.
As the title states, it is a song that talks about the Christian's completeness in Christ. Hope you enjoy!!

Chorus words:

Yea, justified, oh blessed thought!

And sanctified salvation wrought!

Thy blood hath pardon bought for me,

and glorified I, too, shall be.

If you would like the sheet music for this song....click the link below!

http://www.spea.org/images/stories/hymn_complete_in_thee.pdf

Paint!

Painter is coming in the morning. Hopefully by the end of the week, we will have a brand new looking house :) Off to spend some time with family so we don't have to smell the paint fumes!!!

Also had such a wonderful visit with our 2 sets of neighbors tonight. We are sure going to miss both of them!

Short update

I have little to update. We are still moving stuff to storage, which is almost at full capacity now :) This weekend, we are getting as much moved out as possible for the painter to come. He will hopefully have our house looking brand new by the end of next week!! Then onto the market! With 5 weeks to go before our start date....we still have much to do!

We're growing feathers!

Our family just doubled in size *big smile*

Let me introduce you to the newest members of our family. They are named after famous women in history. Can you guess their last name?

1. All black sexlink - Betsy

2. Black sexlink/white tip - Louisa

3. Black sexlink/brown head - Pocahontas

4. Rhode Island Red/stripe back - Amelia

5. Rhode Island Red - Martha

6. Rhode Island Red - Laura

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Sonbeam Recommendation

This year we are memorizing 26 scripture verses, one for each letter of the alphabet. I want to recommend this resouce put out by Sonbeams. She has done a fantastic job of putting KJV verses to music so it is easy for children to memorize God's Word. If you visit this link, there are 4 sample songs to listen to. When we drove to Canada last week for grandma's funeral, the kids listened to this CD all the way there and back. By the time we got home, they had memorized several verses and loved singing along. Sonbeams also puts out a teachers guide to go with the CD for parents to teach a lesson with each verse. Here's the kid's singing the verse for letter A and B.

Stress

So we are on day 8 of a high fever. When I say high, she starts her mornings with a normal temp (from having medicine before bed) and by noon she is above 103 again, usually hitting 104 by evening, which follows with another dose of medicine before bed.......
*sigh*
Then I get the added bonus today of a 3 year old giving himself a corneal abrasion and a trip to the eye doctor, with antibiotic drops ($88!!!!!!!!).
*sigh*
But on a happy note, hubby finally has a little work coming in. We praise God for the income!!

Stewardship Street

I was asked if we paid our kids for chores and the answer is....no and yes. Our kids have daily chores that are teaching them responsibility because they are apart of the family. These chores and not paid for. Examples are making bed, brushing teeth, cleaning up toys, vacuuming, setting/clearing off table, sweeping, folding laundry and putting away.....These are things that need to be done because you live in this house and we work together as a family unit.

Then we come to our Stewardship Street, which is from Doorposts, that is teaching our kids financial responsibility. We have finally completed it and are ready to get started!!
We have set aside some chores like cleaning/vacuuming the van, yard work, cleaning windows etc....that are 'chores' done to earn money. With the money earned, we have a chart that divides the kids earnings into percentages.
On Stewardship Street, we have a church, a missions house, a toy store, a bank, our home, and a store(for gifts). There are 2 rows ...one for our 7 year old and one for our 5 yr old. When they earn their money we divide up the earnings between all of these buildings on Stewardship Street.

We teach that it is important to give the first part of your earnings back to God....tithe.
Then it is important to give to missions....We have a specific family we will be supporting.
Our toy store is for buying whatever the kids desire.
The bank is for savings that will not be touched until they are much older.
Our home is where they will buy some living expenses...ex. if they need new crayons, pencils, doodling paper.
Then lastly we have a store to save up for birthday gifts, Christmas gifts,...gifts in general that they want to get for others.

I just love this idea and look forward to the kids getting a good grasp on the importance of being responsible with their money!

Sewing

She is now learning how to sew! We are starting with something simple....a pillow. She wants her first pillow to be for her brother "because he was just so nice to me today!" We went to the store and let brother pick out his fabric of choice....of course it was dinosaurs! She measured her material, marked and cut, marked the edges as a guide to hand sew, threaded her needle, and I showed her the first few stitches and off she went.....
So far she says it's lots of fun! There have been some tangles and redo's along the way but I'm glad she is having fun with it and learning! She can't wait to use the sewing machine, but I told her she needed to learn to hand sew first. Today she says "I'm learning what Mommy's do!" I'm glad I can teach you my babe :)

All on her own

Today I had our daughter bake cupcakes all on her own (no help at all!). I stood back and watched (and only piped in when it got to putting the batter into the paper cups....she was a little too free with the arms and spreading batter everywhere!)

reading her instructions and gathering ingredients

measuring out water and oil

adding the eggs

ooppss...forgot the dry mix!

mixing it up

rechecking the directions

pouring it into cups

into the oven

she was so excited when she was done and hugged and thanked me. I realized I have not been getting her involved enough in the aspects of home. I'm enjoying the new blog about Raising Godly Homemakers and that is one thing I pray our daughters grow up to be!!

Crib!

Baby has finally been moved to her crib after 4 1/2 months in the bassinet beside our bed. It's always hard moving them into their 'big' bed but fortunately with this baby, the crib is in our room :) Do I sense we need a bigger house...haha.

Here are some pics of the girls in their pink today. Other than that there is not alot going on. Just trying to catch up around the house now after a week of everyone sick and the house turning into a tornado zone!! And there are some recent pics of baby girl in blue talking to herself in the mirror :)

Stomach flu

The stomach flu has hit our home...uuggg. It's hit 2 out of 6 so far and we're just waiting for the next victim. Please pray baby won't get it!!

Organization

Ok...all I can say is CRAZY!!! It is sure taking me longer to get adjusted to a new way of scheduling these days. I'm just trying to work out a good school schedule that is 'baby' and 'toddler' friendly allowing me to be flexible when I need to....and without pulling my hair out!! This year I think is extra hard with adding another child full time for homeschooling and a baby. A friend today directed to a great website which I think is going to save my sanity *grin* I've ordered a few of their books - "Managers of their Homes"and "Managers of their schools" ... 2 that I'm really eager to read. I think that is my biggest problem right now .... organization!! If I can get a good schedule down where the kids know what is expected of them and when it is expected, and I know what is required of me that day.....that will cut down on much of the stress. I think it is very true that the more kids you have the more organzied you get.....you need to be organized in order to function properly!! I am often amazed at these big families who seem to have it together for the most part....organization being a key factor. Maybe that will even give me more time to blog...haha!

Woe is me

Am I complaining alot??? It sure feels like I am. We are a pitiful household at the moment. So here's the breakdown.....our daughter is on day 5 of a fever. It must be bacterial. I am very suspicious of pneumonia and am making her an appointment early Monday morning. Our 4 year old is now heading into the worst stage the cough. Not sure if another fever will strike him or not. Our little one has been sick for a week now and not improving. His cough is very deep in the chest....making an appointment for him Monday morning. Hubby is still all clogged up in the ears and can't hear, bad cough, sweating all the time, he is still on steroids from his surgery and is at a high risk for pneumonia. He is making an appointment Monday. Me....the cold has now hit. Deep in the chest and it hurts! Praying, praying, and praying I won't get a fever!!!!!
Needless to say we didn't go to church today. Tomorrow will be a busy day for us.
Like I said....pitiful huh?!?!!

Dishwasher mishap

So....hubby was in charge of putting the dishwasher on. Not a problem...he's done it before! Unfortunately this time we were out of dishwasher soap so he thought take the next best thing! Dishsoap. Well, as you can see below, dishsoap is not intended for the dishwasher :) We are scooping and rinsing, scooping and rinsing.....get the picture? What a mess....guess it's one of those 'learn from your mistakes' lessons.

Busy weekend!

I'm so excited about the weekend! My family from Canada are coming to visit.....my parents and my sister and her family.
I've also been working on another creation which I don't know if I'll get done tonight with company coming over. We're having a pizza party tonight with 7 kids :) The kids are looking forward to spending the evening with their friends from church.
So...it will be a short post tonight. Still more cleaning and organizing........

Crunch time

Well....it's happening. First of all I want to start off with a praise. Hubby had a company meeting today and he is not one to be laid off. We praise the Lord for this!
Next...a prayer request. Please pray with us that over the next couple months work will pick up for him. This is not the end of lay offs. Today he had his salary cut back and benefits taken away. Crunch time begins! My human nature wants to worry and stress....but I know that God has promised to take care of us and provide for us. We have especially seen this over the past 3 years. We have had incredible medical bills because of hubby's condition and with every single bill that arrives, the Lord provides a way to pay for it. Our God is good!
Hubby loves where he works. They have been so very good to him. They are wonderful Christian believers and it is a great work environment. It would be very sad if he ever had to leave. Please remember us in prayer especially with the uncertainty that lies ahead.
Oh....and they loved the cake :)

Decorating ideas

Here is a quick, easy, and cheap way to decorate a room. I found these frames for under $2.00 and the glass just pops right out and snaps back into place. Then all you need is a calendar of a favorite character or fun scenes you want to decorate with. Cut out the pictures from the calendar and slide them into the frames.....voila! Enjoy until you're ready for a new look. So far we've gone through Winnie the Pooh, Princesses and now we are on to Tinkerbell.

Can we say 'DISGUSTING!'

We have a wonderful central vacuum system which worked great for about a year and a half until something went wrong...we can't figure it out. We thought we would just go ahead and use our regular vacuum that we were given when we got married. Well...after 10 1/2 years it has gone kaput as well. I wasn't able to find a repairman for our central vac and we have company coming tomorrow so we decided that we would go ahead and use some money the Lord recently provided us and buy a new vacuum! Let me just say....we have a clean house now!!!! I knew our old vacuum wasn't picking up like it should, but with the suction it did have, I was able to at least keep the carpet looking clean. I say looking clean because....behold....look what came from just one room.....disgusting! Can I say I love my new vacuum!!!

Apologies in advance for the picture below...but you wouldn't believe me unless I showed you! This is from emptying the canister after just one room.

Ode to moms

How many of these phrases have you said in one day :)

It arrived..

Here is the picture I won from DoorpostVerses . It looks beautiful on the wall! Thank you again for the contest! Check out their store to see the beautiful collection they have :)