A little encouragement for you....

Your Grace Still Amazes Me

Addition

I've added a new blog to my blog list along the left hand side. I've been reading through Like A Warm Cup of Coffee and it has some great reading! Hope you enjoy it too.

Today

Here's a pic before heading off to church. This gives me so much to be thankful for!

Back for more

We went back to the book sale today to see if they had anything new and to go through what was left. It looked a whole lot sparcer this time through! But I did manage to pick up another 18 pounds worth of books for $1.80 :)

Our boys went for their yearly check up with the pediatrician yesterday. I passed on the booster shots for our 5 yr old but needed to catch up on our 3 yr old's vaccinations. By the time the evening rolled around, both his legs were swollen and he had a lot of trouble walking. My poor boy. Today is much better but still some swelling.

Potty training is still going well. He is now letting me know when he has to go. We've been giving him gummy worms as a reward and he's almost done his second package!! Our potty trips end with "I'm a good boy??" "I get gummy worms?"

We are also looking into starting a new subject for school...as a family. We've been looking at "Hey Andrew! Teach me some Greek" which teaches Bible greek for young children to adult. If anyone has any experience with it, I'd love to hear about it!

Great sale!

My sister in law called me up to let me know about a homeschooling sale. I got all giddy :) Two of my favorite things wrapped in one....homeschooling....and sales!! It was more like a giveaway actually. One pound of books = 10 cents. How can you beat that? We walked out with over 45 pounds of books for $4.60. I have a smile just typing it....haha. God is good!

Random pics

We had a good weekend. We went down to see hubby's grandparents and did some shooting. I can still say I'm not fond of guns!! Those suckers were powerful and intimidating. I enjoy shooting the rifle, but the handguns are not my thing! We also celebrated Granddad's birthday which was nice. Happy Birthday Granddad!

My grandparents also just celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary yesterday. Happy Anniversary to you both. We miss you and love you!

Our daughter has started taking typing lessons. Grandpa L found her a great typing program and also gave her her very own real computer! Needless to say she is very excited and has been doing well with her lessons.

Here are a few random pics over the last several days. Our boy is enjoying his birthday present from Aunt/Uncle & cousins in the tub. The little foam pieces stick to the side of the tub when wet. He didn't want to get out!

3rd birthday party

Today we had a party! A dinosaur party! Our boy was very happy with his cake and we had a good time with family tonight. He's looking so grown up!!!

Lovin' my day

It's been pretty quiet this morning. Kids doing their schoolwork, little ones playing..... Here is some stuff our big boy has been working on. He is learning proper sentence structure, dictation/spelling, putting numbers in order....
Our little guy is spending his first day in 'big boy' underwear! He has been good with staying dry all day (as long as I continually remind him).
Today I'll be making his cake for the party tomorrow. I hope I can get my thoughts together and have it turn out nice :) We've got dinosaurs, volcano and lava, rocks....ooohhh here goes!

these sentences were dictated to him

Birthday Boy

Our boy turns 3 today! What a joy he has brought to our family. Although his party is not until Friday, we celebrated with him today as a family. He was excited to finally get HIS OWN coon-skin cap and gun, so now he doesn't have to ask for big brother's anymore. Sister bought him a coloring book and brother bought him some G.I. Joe type men. He was one happy boy. Thank you to family who sent him cards. He loved opening them! We finished the afternoon with Thomas cupcakes that Daddy got for him. Happy Birthday my big boy.

Cake order

Today a lady from church is coming to pick up a cake for her office staff meeting tomorrow. She wanted just a simple 'school' theme to it. I'm pleased with the overall look....hope she is pleased. Friday we will be having our boy's party....dinosaur theme. Should be fun!

Looking ahead

I've got a busy week ahead of me! I have 2 cakes this week (one is an order!) and the other for our boy who will be 3!!!! We are also potty training....he stays dry for the most part (mostly because I remind him it's time to go) but there have been occassions he has told me it's time.

Our baby girl just turned 9 months. She now has 5 teeth, is clapping her hands, pulling herself up, usually quite happy, but bedtime.......goodness! She feeds 2-3 times through the night and it is wearing me out. I have tried to let her cry it out at night but because the crib is in our room, we don't get any sleep that way. I just nurse her and she falls back to sleep again. I think it's a comfort thing right now.

Time to put the little one's down for a nap....I think I could use one too!

Sun

In science we have been studying the sun for the past week. It has been very interesting! I didn't know about this website,SpaceWeather.com, but they show updated pictures of the sun and if you scroll down to the video in the middle of the page, you can see a sun flare shooting off the sun. How cool! Here is the sun as of Sept 9.


Watch a solar flare

Another giveaway

Here's another giveaway from Raising Homemakers. It's something I've been wanting for a couple years. We have all the novels in the series for Little House on the Prairie and this would be a great help to turn it into a unit study! Here's hoping :)

Documentary

This should be interesting when it comes out :)

IndoctriNation Trailer from IndoctriNation on Vimeo.

Enter the giveaway

Another giveaway from Raising Homemakers!! Enter for the great book bundle for Mother and Daughter.

My week

So what has gone on with me and the family this week.....

Last Saturday we took the family to a really cool tunnel.
"It is 1,617 foot long. Started in 1852 to connect Charleston to Knoxville and eventually on to Cincinnati, the Civil War—and lack of funds—brought construction to a halt. While there were various efforts by the Blue Ridge Railroad to revive the tunnel, none of them came to pass and it stands today as a monument to the efforts of pre-Civil War engineering."
We didn't have a strong enough flashlight so we didn't make it very far before we were in total darkness and had to turn around. We will know for next time!!

Hubby has been wanting to learn to play the guitar. He is not very musically inclined but he has had an interest in the guitar, so we bought one for him and I am very surprised at how determined he has been to sit down every night and practice! He is doing well at learning his notes and finger positions. I, too, have been practicing it and love the strumming aspect. I just need to get my fingers moving faster. We are both enjoying it, but our fingertips are raw :)

I went and got my hair cut....short! I had grown in quite long (hubby's request) but the ends were just so damaged. The kids are still getting used to it :)

We went to a birthday party today. Our son's friend at church is turning 5 and invited her friends (and their families) over for a slip 'n slide, cookout and cake afternoon. The kids had fun being pulled along the slide while Daddy and another man got very out of breath pulling them! I had been wanting to try some royal icing/cookies and thought this was the perfect chance. Along with a fun make-up set for her, I made some special cookies. They were soooo tasty....but alot of work!!

Astronomy song

Today we were learning about 2 important people involved in astronomy. I am the type of person that always tries to think of ways to help myself remember certain things. Example: for the Great Lakes I spell 'HOMES' (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior)......things like that. Sometimes I get really creative and come up with a song...like today. We learned about Nicolas Copernicus who thought that the earth revolved around the sun, while everyone else thought the sun revolved around the earth. Then Galileo came along and proved it further by inventing the telescope. I wanted the kids to remember this so I sat and came up with this little song....the kids loved it :)
Nicolas Copernicus
a smart man we have found
He thought the sun stayed in one spot
while earth did go around.
Galileo, he believed
and sought to prove him right
He built a telescope to see
the sky above at night.

12 years

Twelve years ago today I married an amazing man and friend. These past 12 years have been truly wonderful. Every year I appreciate more and more what God has done for me in giving me such a special partner in life. I tear up just thinking about how blessed I have been to share my life with someone who loves me the way my husband does. No, he is not a perfect man, but he strives to please God and in doing so he desires to love me with an unconditional, tender, compassionate love. We share something so very special and I thank God for loving me so much to give me someone like my husband. Happy Anniversary Babe! I love you with all my heart.

Sand

Again....love posting unique and interesting things. What amazing talent!!

Solar System

Today we looked at our solar system. We wanted to get as close to scale as we could. Our sun still could have been bigger but we ran out of construction paper. It could have used at least one more row of paper!! We learned all the names of the planets in order and looked at their size compared to the sun. We also set up the planets as they would look orbiting the sun. The kids had a lot of fun. Here are some pics and videos. The last video is one we watched to show just how small we are in the universe. How awesome our God is!!!
planets in order

set up as they would rotate around the sun
(you can't see the circles drawn on the board)

Giveaway

Another great giveaway from Simply Vintage Girl.....go check it out and enter for your chance to win!

Denim skirt

Last night around 10:45pm I had a wee bit of inspiration :) I've been looking for a nice but inexpensive denim skirt for our daughter. She loves wearing dresses/skirts and denim just looks so nice. Alas, I haven't been able to find one. I remember she had asked me what to do with a pair of capris that had 2 big holes in the knees......I told her just to put them back in her drawer for now. Lightbulb!!! Can I transform it into a skirt???
So as always, I hop on youtube and search out how-to videos and voila. "How to turn a pair of jeans into a skirt".......yay!
I absolutely love the results (just not the fact the my sewing machine is now broken. It's been going on the fritz for a little while and I think it finally died )
Here's some pics and we had one happy girl this morning!!
cut above the holes

take apart stitching along seam of inside legs

use the extra pieces of pant leg that were cut off to fill in the gap in the front and on the back


sew


a skirt!!
....and Olivia was born yesterday just after 4pm! Welcome to the family (my 4th niece)

Constellations

I've been suffering with laryngitis since Saturday. School has been pretty much seat work so I can save my voice. I did manage to get a small portion of science in yesterday. We were talking about the stars and constellations and we thought it would be fun to make our own constellation on the kids ceiling. We picked up some glow-in-the-dark stars and the kids took turns on Daddy's shoulders trying to make a picture. The photos don't really show it well (and I couldn't get a shot of them with the lights off) but it did look really neat!

Also, remember my sister in prayer. She will be having their 3rd child maybe today/tomorrow. We pray for the safe arrival of Olivia :)

School memory albums

Just a suggestion for mom's with school aged kids. Do you have a school memory album? My mom had one for me and my siblings. It has a place to put all your kids info like height, weight, etc, a place for their picture, their signature, likes and dislikes, friends, a pocket to keep special reports and work/coloring pages from the year. What a great way to hold onto these years that just seem to fly by!!!
I don't have a specific album to recommend. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the one I got for our oldest, but it unfortunately is out of print. I bought a different one for our son, but am not totally thrilled with it. I will be getting a different one for our next child..... Here are a few suggestions though.
(I like the albums that go from K-12, some albums only go up to grade 8)

School album from Lillian Vernon

School album2 from Lillian Vernon

School album3

Musical couple

I love sharing videos that make you smile :) Here is a couple, married for 62 years, that walk into a Mayo clinic and spot a piano. He will be 90 this year.

Teaching creation

We have started our science for the year out of Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy. Our daughter LOVES science, and astronomy is one of her favorites! Day one in science of course covered the six days of creation. Here is an interesting, easy way to teach these six days to your kids.
Divide your paper into 3 different sections.
Section 1 - we draw light/darkness (Day 1).
Section 2 we draw the waters divided, sky/sea (Day 2)
Section 3 we draw dry land/vegetation (Day 3).

Now with red, we go back and add to our pictures.
Section 1 - we draw the stars, sun, moon (Day 4)
Section 2 - we draw the flying and sea creatures (Day 5)
Section 3 - we draw the land animals and Adam/Eve (Day 6)

This makes it easy to keep the days in order!!

Some good reads

I just realized today that if my children were in public school, I would have had 2 less children in the house today! Hard to believe my boy would have been heading off to kindergarten. Makes me so very thankful that I have the opportunity and privilege to teach them :)

I've been doing a lot of reading lately. I'm working through Passionate Housewives Desperate for God - excellent read so far (you can find it much cheaper on ebay or amazon)! I also finished Already Gone which was a definite eye-opener!!! Whoa! Hubby is now working his way through it. Ladies, if you want a truly great read, go get Intimate Issues. I bought mine for 25 cents (plus shipping) off of amazon after I heard a lady talking about it on her blog. Every Christian wife should read it. Wonderfully written!!!

Hubby and I will be celebrating our 12th anniversary the end of the month. The Lord has wonderfully blessed me with such an amazing mate and friend....but I'll save all that gushy stuff for the end of the month *grin*.

On the move

She's officially a crawler now :) It's hard to believe our oldest was walking at this age!! She is also attempting to pull herself up. She will crawl over to the couch and reach her hand up to try and grab the cushion. She also has her 2 front teeth! (that's 4 altogether now). Oh she's a growin'.........