Happy New Year

I wanted to quickly wish everyone a




I will post more tomorrow about my theme for 2007 and our family goals.
p.s. Oh, and I haven't forgotten about Micah's activity boxes. I already took the pictures. Sorry.

Sewing Without A Pattern

I hope everyone is having a great weekend thusfar. I am here still enjoying the time I have with my beloved. He will be gone all next weekend. Someone from our church asked him to help out with a retreat for young men(teenagers) It turns out that he will be hosting the entire thing. ;0) The good thing is that he only has to go into the office two times this week.
I just wanted to ....hmmm..I can't say "take my hat off," because I don't wear a hat. Okay, I take my apron off to those of you who can sew without a pattern. I sewed this skirt up for Kayla yesterday for church today. I don't know why, but it took me so long to figure out the width to length dimensions. At the end, it still came out a little big.

I normally don't like the way a dark top with a light bottom looks, but it was the only fabric that matched without me having to dig through my entire stash. (it has little brown flowers on it)
(Butch is yawning, not being mean. lol)
I just realized I still have three more rooms from my list there to declutter before the new year. I guess I will be doing that tomorrow. I would like to take a couple of hours and go to some thrift shops. I have never been to a thrift store before, and I know you all have mentioned how wonderful they are. To my surprise a lot of them are open on Sundays. YAY!! I used this link National Thrift Store Directory to find a few in my area.
Sorry, I know this post isn't very exciting. I just wanted to quickly stop in and say hi. I will be back to regular posting on Monday. See ya tomorrow.

Prayer Request

It seems like I am constantly asking for prayer these days. ;0)
I ask that you please pray for the Lord's will to be done. I have a cousin who is currently 20 years old with a 3 1/2 year old daughter. Even though she is 20 years old, she is very immature. She is dating a 16 year boy, just to give you an idea. Without speaking ill of anyone, I will not go into details. The little 3 year old is being very, very neglected. I would dare to say as neglected as you can get without calling it abuse in the state's eyes. (although in my eyes, any neglect is abuse) When I shared with my beloved everything I was told by my mother and aunt, he just quickly said, "let's bring her here." (have I recently mentioned how much I love him? It's probably been a couple of posts, huh? lol ;0) ) Anyway, after thinking it over a bit, my beloved's one concern is my emotional health and safety. He is scared that we will bring the little girl over, get her potty trained, obedient, helpful, get her on a normal sleeping schedule of sleeping at night, awake during the day etc., and that her mother will see her in a year or so and then decide she wants her back. Obviously, the best situation is for mother and child to be together, but he is nervous that I won't be able to handle just handing her back over. My cousin doesn't have a cell phone, so it's a hit or miss situation with trying to get ahold of her at home. I have called both in the morning and evening, and I get no answer.
We just want the Lord to clearly show us if this is what He wants us to do. My aunt had the little girl for a while, but can't any more because of her failing health. We know this won't be easy, as the little girl is very street smart. Yes, I said street smart at the tender age of 3. So we would have to have a very watchful eye on her with our own children. So if you can, please pray for direct guidance from the Lord on what to do.

Update On Two Posts

I wanted to update on the post about our identity theft. Everything is squared away with our bank. Thankfully we had fraud protection on our account. Everything is being credited to us as I type. My beloved asked them where did he go wrong, how he is very careful with receipts, etc. She said he did absolutely nothing wrong, that he probably couldn't have prevented it. She said what these people do is put a sensor on an ATM or at a debit machine wherever, Walgreens, etc., and it pulls all the data from that ATM or debit machine for the last 3 to 6 months. They then make a duplicate of your card, with their own name or a name to match their fake ID. That would explain why the lady that my beloved spoke to at Walgreens said that his card was literally swiped through the machine. We found that so hard to believe, because my beloved had his card in his wallet. We found out that they purchased a few cartons of cigarettes, and some loose packs as well. A dear sister in Christ, over at Harvest Homestead posted on what to do when you are a victim of identity theft.
The second thing I wanted to mention was on our grocery bill. I should that we too cook everything from scratch. I'm sure that where we live probably takes into account the amount we spend. Remember I am the one who pays over 2500 a month on mortgage. Yes, it went up again. URGH!! So the prices at my local supermarket, health food store or BJ's might be higher than wherever you live. I still think I can bring that $800 food bill down. Maybe I can start working on that for the new year. How low can I go while still feeding my family a healthy vegan diet? Some of you responded about your grocery bills. Milehimama left a very nice detailed comment about her grocery bill. You can view them all here .
I should be back to posting about normal things, whatever normal is, next week. My beloved is still working from home, and we're just having too much fun enjoying him, so my posting lately has been pretty loopy. ;0)
I'm almost done with the quilt, I will post pictures later on today.

A Micah..ism

Micah has recently learned the meaning of recycle...well sort of.....

MICAH: Mom, can we recycle Butch? He's old.

Tagged By Debbie

Debbie over at Seasons of the heart tagged me for this a while ago. Sorry it took me so long. It's a three answer meme. Sorry, it's not very exciting. I really stink at these. ;0)

*Scare me: death, sin, illness
*I love: My Heavenly Father, my beloved, my children
*I don't undestand: Why I crave sweets, ?, ?
*I hate: Satan, death, sin
*Things on my desk: Our homemade song books, cardstock in many colors, my camera recharging
*I'm doing right now: Filling out this meme, about to finish a quilt that I started long ago, helping Elijah change his boxers that he accidentally spilled water on
*I want to do before I die: give my children a complete understanding of what Jesus did for them, play the piano, go to a foreign country with my family.
*I can do: sew, crochet, quilt
*I can't do: sing, win at any game or bet against my beloved, public speaking(aside from Sabbath School, which is all the Lord, lol)
*I think you should listen to: The Holy Spirit, your beloved, your children
*You should NEVER listen to: Satan, gossip, lies
*I'd like to learn: to play the piano, knit, sew really well
*Favorite foods: pancakes, tortellini w/ pesto sauce, mashed potatoes
*I drink regularly: orange juice, water, orange juice ;0)
*Shows I watched as a kid:Brady Bunch, Little Rascals, Electric Company

Whoever wants to do it, feel free.

Our Food Bill

QUESTION: Can you possibly post prices for your grain supply/groceries? It's a bit daunting price-wise and also, we just want to incorporate some vegan dishes (we are a meat and potatoes family!!). Thanks
ANSWER: Okay, this might sound like a lot. I think it is, and we are in the process of trying to lower this amount. We spend $800 a month on groceries. That includes the regular supermarket, the health food store(Whole Foods), and a warehouse type store (BJ's). We would like to bring that amount down. I would say the break down of that $800 is about $450 at the supermarket, $100 Whole Foods, and $250 BJ's. I stink when it comes to using coupons, etc. I know there are so many people that are able to save about 40 to 50%, or even more on their grocery bill by using coupons. Crystal, over at Biblical Womanhood recently did a wonderful series called Supermarket Savings. The links to all nine parts are below.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
I would encourage you to take a peek at it. She isn't vegan, but she said they don't eat meat every day. I'm sure it would be lower if I could find a farmer's market nearby to buy all of our fruits and vegetables. Also the grain that I buy to make our bread, I have to have it shipped. I can't find it in bulk where I live. URGH!! So it might sound like a lot, but to tell you the truth, I think I can work on it more to bring that amount down. Don't forget, we are also a family of 6. My children have very, very hearty appetites. ;0)
Does anyone else want to share how much their grocery bill is? If you do decide to share, please state whether you are meat and potatoes, vegetarian, or vegan, and also how many family members you shop for.

Merry Christmas

I wanted to quickly wish everyone a


I pray that you all have been able to stay focused on the Reason for the season. ;0) I will say that it was incredible to have Micah walk into our bedroom this morning at 6:00 and with a half question/statement say, "Mommy is today Christmas?!?" I said, "yep,"(I will admit I had one eye opened and one eye closed. I went to sleep after 1:30 finishing their prayers mats.) He was so excited. He said, "mommy, are we going to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus?" I said, " yes." Then I realized the reason he was so excited. I opened my eyes wide. It hit me that my little boy was excited because it was Jesus' birthday, not because he was getting gifts, or because he wanted to open presents. I really do not regret separating gift exchanging from Christmas. My beloved and I were discussing what day to choose to exchange gifts. We want to do it on a nonbirthday month, so we will probably do it in March. My beloved is out in the back fishing with the boys, and then we are off to start making some birthday invitations for our Guest of Honor. After we sing happy birthday, we will give the children their prayer mats. Our family gift to Jesus this year will be prayer. We will focus on our prayer life a little more. Hopefully later on I can share how we plan on doing that.


We had a yummy breakfast of banana pancakes with pecans, etc. As far as our Christmas meal, we will probably make the same thing we had on Thanksgiving, candied yams, mashed potatoes, etc. and birthday cake. We didn't get a chance to make some cookies, yesterday, so I'm not sure if we will do them today. It sort of sounds like a lot with the cake as well. We'll see.






I hope everyone is having a great day in Him..

Theft Update

I know you all are sitting on the edges of your seat, and you can't continue on with your Christmas festivities until you find out more of my theft story, ;0) My beloved and I did some investigating on our own. It turns out Gate 1212 is a gas station in Jacksonville, which my beloved has traveled to a lot lately. Guess what, we mapped it, and there is a Walgreens right next to the gas station. My beloved just called the Walgreens, to let them know that they possibly have an employee in on the entire thing. How else could you purchase 146.01 worth of stuff without any sort of debit/credit card? They were so very nice. The manager asked for the amount, and she's looking it up for us, to let us know what they purchased. Are we being nosey? curious? I don't know. She said they do have cameras on certain registers. So now, they couldn't have purchased 174.00 worth of gas. My beloved will be calling there next. Hmm....rivoting....I know. Have a great evening. I still haven't done any sewing. YIKES!!

Early Christmas Present

I just wanted to share a wonderful early Christmas present I got yesterday. ;0) Britney's EEG came back normal. Amen. Thank you so much to all of you that prayed with me. It felt so good to hear those words on the other end of the telephone. So on February 1st she will make 7 years seizure free. YAY!! If you don't know the story, you can read it here .
On a stinky note, I was sending an email to a mother from my Sabbath school class, and I noticed an email from my bank saying something about suspicious activity. Sure enough I checked, and we had some unauthorized activity on our account. There were 3 debits, and one credit. Whatever they purchased got put back and then taken back out. Total they spent about 300 and something. *sigh* It was done on my beloved's debit/credit card number. They said that no pin was used, so it was done as a credit, but obviously, without showing ID. They had to have known someone at the store. One credit was at Walgreens for 147.00, and the other two said Gate 1212. An airport maybe? So now his card has been shut down. It's kind of scary. I know my beloved has told me numerous stories about how people who make crystal meth are known for identity theft, and then they go to drug stores to buy the ingredients to make the meth. It did make us rethink about using our credit/debit card everywhere. Makes me want to use cash from now on. ;0)
Well, I hope everyone is having a great time with family and friends during the next few days. I'm off to go finish sewing the prayer mats.

Quick Update

I know it's 10:00, ;0) but my beloved is getting the bikes ready so we can go for a bike ride, so I have a few minutes. My beloved will be working from home until the 1st of the year, so I will try to blog whenever he takes the boys out. I don't want to leave it for the evening, because then it will take away our alone evening time together.
As you can see on my left side bar, I was able to declutter alot of the rooms in our home. A lot of those rooms were pretty empty as it was, so there wasn't much to do. I was able to take out alot of the girls clothes that no longer fit, and some games that they no longer play with, etc. Kayla does a great job of not letting that room get cluttered up, so it was very quick to do. I did both bathrooms. I threw out a few things in each bathroom as well. Sorry, I didn't take before and after pictures. I was on a roll, and didn't think of it.
I know I haven't updated lately on the compact challenge. As you can see, I have continued to declutter. I will say that we did spend money on the tree to decorate for the Jesse Tree devotionals. Aside from that, we haven't really spent any money. We helped two people out financially, so I am not sure if that counts. Oh, and I also bought the little brown lunch bags that we used when we went to the nursing home. On a good note, our electricity bill went down by.....drum roll please.......$50.00. I found that very exciting. So I guess it evened out, the money spent on the tree and the lunch bags. lol ;0)
Sorry if the background is hurting your eyes. ;0) It will be back to normal sometime next week. That was the first Christmasy background I found. ;0)
I know a lot of people are taking blogging breaks for the Christmas season, so I wanted to quickly wish everyone a wonderful Christmas day. I will be checking in here and there. It will just be us six celebrating quietly at home. We are getting ready for Jesus' birthday; cake, invitations, our birthday present to Him, etc. Anyone else getting ready for a birthday party for Jesus?
Well, the bikes are ready. Talk to you soon.

Prayer Mats

I am still working on the prayer mats for the children. I have only done one so far. I will say that they work up quickly. I did Kayla's in one evening. For Kayla's I did a little pocket so that she can write out any prayer request that she may have, and stick it in the pocket. Or maybe put all of her request inside the pocket, and as they get answered she can take them out. I guess I will leave that up to her to decide. I'm taking the easy way out as far as the pocket goes. I wanted to embroider a verse on there, but since I don't have a lot of time, my beloved said he would write it out for me. I have fabric markers. I guess it will be a small keepsake, knowing that her dad wrote it out for her, and like that he has a part in making the gift. Can you tell I am trying to console myself for not starting sooner, and having more time to embroider it. lol ;0)

Here is the back of it. I used the same fabric on the back as well.

I used the same fabric for the inside of the pocket.

I used some decorative stitches on the bottom. You can click to enlarge if you want.


I will also do a pocket for the boys. Since they are not writing yet to write prayer requests, I wanted to attach, with a ribbon, a little set of hands in a prayer position, stuffed with batting. When they finish praying, they can stick the hands in the pocket, like that they know it's done. I will take a picture of the boys' mats once it is done.

New Year

Hey there. I hope everyone had a great day in the Lord today. The one thing I am finding is that when I get on to blog in the evening, I pretty much have nothing left to give. lol ;0) I am wiped out!! Last night when all the children were down for the night, I picked up the house a little, I looked at the computer, I looked at the bed, I looked at the computer, and I hopped in the bed.....I was in bed by 9:00. ;0) I will say it was a little harder today to fight the urge to not get on the computer, knowing that I didn't post anything this morning. It's as if I thought the blogosphere king was going to banish me from the blogging kingdom forever!! ;0)
Is anyone doing anything to prepare for the new year? I know everyone is still getting ready for Christmas, but I started thinking about the new year. I would like to have my house completely decluttered by January 1st. I always like the beginning of a new week, new month, new year. I'd like to start the year with a house that runs smoothly and simple. I want to cut down on my laundry, cleaning, etc. I know B from Purity Seekers recently cut down on the amount of clothes the children use, and she says keeping up with laundry is a lot easier. I have also heard a few audio tapes from Empowered Living, I believe it's Keeper Of The Home, not sure which tape from that set, and she said they cut down to a handful of underwear, clothes etc. for the boys. She only had two sons, so it was a family of four, and she still washed every day. I know I have mentioned before that I have a hard time matching socks, and I was thinking about safety pinning them together. I have noticed that if I wash a load of laundry a day, there are only a handful of socks to match. ;~0 Who knew it would have been so easy!! Look at that, I have been a homemaker for 13 1/2 years, and I'm still learning things. YIKES!!
I know I have to come up with some sort of a plan in order to get the house decluttered by then. We don't have any family or anyone coming over for Christmas, it will just be us. I don't have any big preparations looming over my head. Maybe I will list the rooms in my house on my sidebar as I completely declutter them. The worst room was the boys', and that's done.
So I have the:
living room
dining room
breakfast nook
kitchen
master bedroom
master bathroom
family room
laundry closet
girls' room
guest bathroom
boys room

The Ark of the Covenant

The boys were playing outside, and I was about 2 feet away. I saw them, but they didn't see me. I couldn't help but take a picture of them. I absolutely love to see them playing out stories that they have enjoyed and understood from the Bible. Here they are playing out the ark of the covenant.

No Computer, Update

As you can see from the pictures, the decision I made to not get on the computer during the day, was definitely the right one. ;0) I just have to figure out the laundry part of it. Between painting, park, etc. Micah went through 3 outfits today. lol

I guess he didn't think it had enough color. After having his picture up on the fridge for 5 minutes, Elijah came back to add a little bit more color. I love the hand behind the back. lol

Micah is left handed, even though my beloved and I are both rightys. It bugs me the way he holds the crayon, but he's still getting a feel for everything. He switches between his left and right, even though he's predominately a lefty. Once he figures out which hand he will use, I will correct his hold.

Even though these boys love each other to no end, they are so different. Look at how neat Elijah is painting.

And Micah is in there with both hands. lol
I felt such a peace today. Not hopping on the computer while the children were awake was great. It felt like the first time I cut TV out of my life. There really does seem to be a sense of calmness. The computer was on during the day, as my beloved worked from home, but it felt so good not to "check" things here and there. lol So if anyone is contemplating it, I say go for it.
My schedule is to write my post in the evening. In the morning I turn the computer on and quickly hit publish. Either way I have to turn it on, because if my beloved is working from home, he will need it on. If he's not working from home, he sends me messages through IM when he's at work. ;0) In the evening, after the children are in bed, I respond to messages and then write my post for the following day. YAY!! A wonderful side not is that the boys did not cry NOT ONCE yesterday, at all.

Tackle It Tuesday/Boys Room

Before you look at the picture below, I will say that I pick up this room every day, and every evening, it would look like this.


I mentioned in my previous post that I was working in the boys room. I guess I dropped some stitches when it came to teaching them how to put one toy before taking out another. I mean, I know I have told them before that this is what they should do, but I wasn't consistent with that rule. It was just too overwhelming for them to even try and pick it up. I told them it was time to clean their room, or I was going to have to take all their toys out, because they weren't properly taking care of them. They said, "no please. We'll pick it up." They had a very cheerful spirit. After about 5 mintues, Micah came out the room and said, "mommy, you can get rid of the toys." lol He really didn't know where to start. I then saw it was just too much for them. (the picture above was taken during the week, the ones below was taken right before I started the decluttering process)

I started cleaning in there, and both Micah and Elijah started helping me immediately. They just needed some encouragement and help. Micah said, mommy, I want a new room. What he was trying to say was that he wanted a clean room. He was so excited to see it getting picked up. Don't get me wrong, we would "pick up" the room every evening before bed. I think what they were getting tired of was the amount of toys in the room.

Here are the afters. I threw out one garbage bag 1/2 full of "stuff", two grocery bags full of things to freecycle, and one grocery bag of things to take to church. Now it's not perfect, but everything is now in the closet. All the Lincoln Logs are in one bin, the legos in another, etc. The only thing in their bedroom now is two beds and the fish tank. ALL of their toys are in the closet. They were SO happy. They each told me thank you and I got a big kiss and a hug. The girls mentioned how nice it looked, and my beloved was so very impressed with the job as well. YAY!! The boys saw the difference, between the way the room was, and how it is now, and they have learned the lesson of putting away a toy before taking out another. I was able to organize the books a little. I put all the coloring books on the bottom shelf. I didn't get a chance to put the top two shelves in the bookcase in size order. They did wonderfully with keeping everything neat and orderly yesterday.


The Lord impressed me that the only thing I should leave out of the closet were the boys' Bibles. They have about 9 childrens' Bibles. I know it seems like a lot, but some of them used to belong to the girls. And they are in such good condition, I couldn't throw them out. It is so wonderful when we follow the Lord's commands. Not even 20 minutes after the room was done, this is what I found. It is so wonderful when we listen to the Lord.
For more Tackle It Tuesdays, go visit 5 Minutes For Mom p.s. Sorry, I know this post is sort of all over the place. ;0) I will visit you tacklers later on this evening.

Computer Time

I am making some changes, once again, lol, to my daily schedule. I normally would try to post to this blog during my 5 minute breaks here or there during Britney's therapy. However, I have been touched lately to try and not get onto the computer during the waking hours of my childrens' day. So if I want to post, I have to do it before 6:00 a.m. in the morning, or after 6:30 in the evening. The boys bedtime is at 6:30, and the girls bedtime is 7:30. However, the girls are in their rooms by 6:30 and they just have quiet time for an hour. This thought of not getting on the computer throughout the day had been floating around in my head for a couple of weeks, but then while I was cleaning and decluttering in the boys room, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I found so many wonderful things that I used to use to play with the girls when they were younger. Well, more Kayla than Britney. Britney had her own thing going on when she was younger. ;0) But I found little painting smocks, lots of felts, stencils, picture Bingo, Bible matching cards, puzzles, etc. I realized that I always say to myself, oh, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. Don't get me wrong, Britney's therapy takes up a lot of my time; but you know what, I have those 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there that I find time to hop on the computer. So why not use it to spend some extra time with the boys? I feel like I am constantly saying how "busy" or "active" the boys are. I'm sure if I played with them some more, it might help a little. They do play good together throughout the day, but I'm sure some extra mommy time would be fun.
I just realized I never did that post on more information on Micah's activitiy boxes. Sorry, I will try and do that this week. I will also respond to some comments later on this evening.
So for now I am not going anywhere, but I just wanted to share what I've been impressed to change in my day to day doings.
How does everyone else fit computer time into their busy schedules? Do you have a set time to get on?

Flowers For Me!!

Yesterday I was doing a complete overhaul of the boys' room. I'll talk about that in another post. My, oh so ever, helpful beloved made breakfast, homemade waffles, so that I could go straight into their room first thing in the morning. After breakfast he then took the children out to the park, so that I could try and finish up in the room.
When they got back home, Micah came straight into his room, where I was, and told me to close my eyes. At his promting, I opened them. There he was, holding out some flowers for me. I said, "Wow, how beautfiul. Thank you so much." I gave him a kiss and a hug, and that was pretty much it. He always picks flowers for me when they go out. We were both happy, and continued what we were doing. I put the flowers in a little pretend toy pot that was next to me.

About 1/2 an hour later my beloved proceeded to tell me the story behind the flowers. He told me that Micah spent about 25 minutes picking those flowers for me. The catch was, there were no flowers in the park. Huh? He told me he picked each and every flower through the fence. When he would see a flower, he would bend down, stick his little hand through the fence, and pick the flower. He went around the entire perimeter of the park, until there were no more flowers. He left not one flower behind. My beloved said at one point he stuck his arm through the fence to reach for the flower, but it was kind of far. My precious son wanted to reach it so badly that he layed down flat on the floor, stretching his arm out as much as he could, to grab it. ;0) When I heard that, my heart was just so touched. I quickly went to find him, and gave him another hug and a kiss, and asked for all the details to my flowers, and how he was able to pick them for me. I got this little cup, filled it up with water, and quickly put it on the center of the table.

Obeying My Beloved

I guess I'm a little slow to catch on to things sometimes. I know the Bible says women are to obey their husbands, etc., but for some reason, I always pictured it for things that we sometimes don't want to do. Like if my beloved wanted me to do something, and self came out, and I didn't want to do it, then I should obey, submit, and do it. Obviously, if he were to follow 1 Peter 3:7, and he loved me, then he wouldn't ask me to do something that was detrimental to my emotional, spiritual, or physical well being. So it wouldn't hurt me to obey. ;0) But for some reason, I completely blocked out obeying even in the nice things. For example, the evening before Britney's appointment, my beloved and I had a conversation that went something like this.
BELOVED: Hey, do you want me to take Britney for her appointment?
ME: No, it's a really long appointment, eight hours. It's okay, I will take her.
BELOVED: What if we split it up. You stay with her for half and I stay with her for half.
ME: I thought about that, but we always say that I can calm her down faster.
BELOVED: Yes, so why don't you go for the first half, while they hook her up for the EEG, and we will switch at lunch time. I will make her her favorite lunch, and when I take it to her, we switch.
ME: Well, I will let you know once we are there, depending on how everything goes with her.
(1/2 an hour later)
ME: Na, don't worry about it, I will stay with her. It's a lot for you to be with the children all morning, attempt to make her her favorite lunch, and then be cooped up in a room for four hours.
BELOVED: That's what I'm here for, to share and help in the hard things like this. I love you.
ME: I love you more. But that's okay, I'll be fine.
The following day, after being in the room with Britney for about 5 hours, I started getting a headache, I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic, all I could think about was my beloved, and his offer to split half of the time with me. ;0) I then realized I need to obey my beloved ALL the time.
I started thinking how obeying my beloved goes into other areas as well. For example, if when looking for a place to sit in church, my beloved says, "come, let's sit here", and I say, "no, let's sit over here" those are little ways of disobeying. I know that if I told my child, sit here, and they told me, no over here, I would consider that disobedience. Or if we're driving somewhere, and my beloved goes a different route than normal, and I question him. Why should I question him? As long as we get there, who cares what route he took. Does any of this make sense? (I don't do these specifically, just using an example; but I am sure there are plenty of other ways that I don't obey.)
So my goal is to start paying better attention to obeying my beloved even in the little things. You would think it wouldn't be that hard for me, as my beloved has never really told me, do X, when I didn't want to. So for me, it's the little things that are barely noticed, that I need to work on. Is anyone else working on this? I put the verses below, that mention obeying our beloved's and our beloved's loving us. ;0)
1 Peter 3
1Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;
2While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.
3Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
5For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
6Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
7Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.
8Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:
9Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

A Merry Heart.. Brain?!?

Okay, cuddle time is over. It's so nice to cuddle under a quilt when it's dark and rainy outside, even when I have to shove(gently lol) children over to get a good spot next to my beloved.

Here is what normal brain waves look like.



(sorry for the blurry picture) Here you can see normal brain waves, and then you see where it gets all spikey and dark, on the right side of the picture, that is where Britney was laughing. When she was on the phone with my beloved, he was making her laugh, and they both were laughing and saying "woa Nellie" ;0) and when I looked, the brain waves were all over the place.


I think of the verse that says, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones." Proverbs 17:22 It's amazing how when she was laughing, it really did affect her brain. We serve an amazing God.

Prayer Request Update

Thank you so much to everyone who prayed for Britney's appointment yesterday. When we were leaving to the appointment, she was very excited and happy. I think it's because she saw me packing so many of her favorite things; coloring books, beads, etc. As soon as I walked into the room, the smell of that glue hit me, and my stomach started turning. She layed down and had a pretty nervous look on her face. Thankfully the technician was very patient and kind. He explained everything to her before even touching her head. As soon as he started putting the glue on her head, she attempted to get up. I put my uppper body on top of hers and just start talking to her about different things, which calmed her down instantly. Our faces were literally about 2 inches from each other. lol The technician needed to dry the glue with a little tube that blows out air. She wasn't too thrilled with that either (sensory issues) But she did so good. She didn't fuss etc. When he started attaching the wires near her temple, I could see two little tears coming down her face, very quietly. But we talked through them, and she was fine. The very kind technician put the two on her forehead with tape, instead of glue, being that he saw how the smell of the glue was affecting her.

Here she is once everthing was attached.


Here you can see how the brainwaves were being recorded. Since it was a video EEG, it was also recording her. Everytime I moved her to a different position, I had to move the camera over. The hanging cord was for me to press when I saw her eyes moving around.

Once we were settled, and the technician left, we started some therapy activities. Here she is doing some modular math.


Daddy called to check on her while she was eating some lunch. We had a cheesey little lunch of peanut butter sandwiches. I didn't want to order in and be charged an arm and a leg.



Here she is doing a butterfly with the perler beads. That little hat kept falling off.
I have more to write, but it's raining really hard, and my beloved is calling me to cuddle for 5 mintues before he leaves to work. ;0)

Prayer Request

Prayer request please. I am 99% sure that the EEG that is being done today isn't the kind that they slap the little sticky pads on her head and call it a day. It's the kind that they glue a whole bunch of wires to her head. The smell of the glue is really strong. The glue is very strong and it will take days to get it out of her hair. It only comes out with nail polish remover. It's a form of ether. I think that smell will haunt me my entire life. It just brings back a lot of memories from when she was 8 months old, as that is when her first EEG was done. So if you can, please pray for complete peace for both me and her, and that if she is having some seizures, that she have them during those 8 hours, so that they come up on the EEG. I'm not sure how she will react to having everything put on her head, as she has had some sensory issues with her head, like ponytails, etc. If you are wondering why we are going through this, you can read the reason here .
I hope you all have a wonderful day in the Lord. Talk to you all later.

Cleaning, Anyone?

Anyone else cleaning today? I mean major cleaning. I woke up in the mood to clean, but deep clean. Britney has an appointment tomorrow for a video EEG. She seems to have a weakness in her eye where she gets sort of cross eyed. She's been doing this for the last year. Her neurodevelopmentalist wants to rule out seizures. We don't think she's still having them, but she wants to completely rule them out, so she asked me to try and get an EEG done. I noticed she gets cross eyed mostly when we are at the table eating. Since she's a pretty picky eater, we're not sure if she's bored, and she's "playing" with her eyes. URGH!! I will be there with her for EIGHT hours. :~0 I will be able to do most of her therapy there with her, and the other 4 hours I can use to just spend good time with her; reading, playing games, etc. So since I will be doing such a complete job of her therapy tomorrow, I'm only doing half today. Corny excuse, I know, but I really want to clean. I already took the grill(?) looking thing out from under the fridge and vacuumed up some dust and wiped everything down. But now I decided to start at the front door and work my way through the house.



I am currently doing the blinds in the living room.


I also got a load in the washer.



Does anyone else want to join me? lol ;0) If you do, just let me know what you are working on. You can email privately if you'd like, with a list. I like to have a list, and just cross off as I go.

Slow To Speak

I was debating whether or not to write this, as I didn't want you all to see the way my mind works when it is in "self." ;0)
"James 1:19 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:"
Yesterday morning my beloved mentioned the dog show, and wanted to know if I wanted to go. Honestly, my house looked like a hurricane blew through. I just wanted to stay home and clean, clean, clean. My beloved really likes dogs, learning about the breed, what makes them show dogs, etc. (even at the dog show, he picked the winner every time before the judge announced it, not only the winner, but the order in which they would place, one through 4.) I was just about to say "no, the house is a mess," when I felt the impression(the Lord) to just stay quiet. Then he proceeded to say, "well, why don't you just stay home and have some quiet time, and I will take the children with me. You can do whatever you want; go to sleep, go out, whatever, it's your time. "What a man," I thought. "How could I not want to be with him every minute of the day." So I closed my eyes to the dirty dishes in the sink, the dirty floors, the toys, the laundry, oh, the laundry, and I got everyone ready. I am so happy we all went. We had such a nice time. The children thanked us numerous times. When we got home from the dog show we ate lunch.
Then my beloved said, "why don't we start at the door and work our way through the house." Oh the guilt. I instantly thought about how the Lord impressed me to not say no. Only the Lord knew that my beloved was going to help me clean later on. I felt so bad that I was going to tell him no earlier. Slow to speak(James 1:19), saved me. ;0) My beloved wanted to clean this way so that we can at least be together in the same room chatting while we cleaned. We made our way through the living room, dining room, breakfast nook, kitchen and family room. The kitchen was a doozy.
While we were in the kitchen my beloved's friend (the one he's giving Bible studies to, remember, lasagna lips) called to see if my beloved wanted to go fishing with him. My beloved did the fishing motion and a shrug to me while on the phone. I said, "yes." Don't get me wrong, my beloved doesn't have to ask me to do anything, but we always clear things with each other. That's just the way we've always done it. For the record, I don't think I have ever told him no. I always figure if he didn't want to go, he would just tell them no. If he is asking me, it's because he most likely wants to go ;0) Once I said yes, I looked at the time, self started to rise. "Oh, he's going to miss family time and family worship(our Jesse Tree studies and ornaments. The children are going to realize he's gone and think he's putting fishing in front of them," blah, blah, blah, self, self, and more self. It was 4:30, and we normally start at 5:30. The Lord once again told me to stay quiet. It's not written in blood that we had to start at 5:30, why not just do it quickly before he left. So I put the cleaning on hold(once again, lol) and we took out the paper, scissors, glue, etc. My beloved lead out on the studies, and then we colored. His friend called just as we were finishing up to say he was getting to the fishing spot, which is a few minutes from our home. Slow to speak(James 1:19), saved me once again. Not only that, on his way home from fishing, I got a very loving call from my beloved saying what a wonderful woman I am, that he loves me so much, how I am perfect for him, thanks for moving our worship/family time up so that he could be a part of it, what a wonderful day he had, etc., etc. I won't bore you with the rest. ;0) I am not saying this to be prideful, I'm saying this because I want to show the importance of following the Lord's prompting. He probably wouldn't have been singing that tune if I had spoken everytime I wanted to. If I had answered in self those two times, things probably would have turned out very different. When we listen to that still small voice, or follow that impression we get, things go so much nicer. "Isaiah 31:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."
So there, now you know what an evil woman I am. ;0(

Mini Poll

I put up a mini poll on the left column here, so feel free to vote. I really do appreciate all of your comments, but I don't always get a chance to respond to all of your comments. ;0( Sorry. I always feel so bad about that, because you took time out of your day to comment on what I wrote, and I feel very rude if I don't respond back. So today I was able to respond to some comments, but I wasn't sure if it was in vain. I figured after a while, you wouldn't check back to see if I responded to your comment. So out of curiosity, I made up a poll. This will help me to see how much time I have to respond before I know you gave up on me. ;0)

Dog Show

We had a really nice time at the dog show. There were a lot of impressive dogs. Some were just plain ole funny looking. lol ;0) Sorry for the position of the pictures, I thought I centered them.




Here is a Chinese Crested. They are not shaved this way, they are literally pretty hairless, except for the little tufts by the feet, tail, and head. ;0)


I'm assuming this was a toy or pocket chihuahua because it was so tiny.

The Great Danes are always nice to look at.




Here is a Cocker Spaniel, which we have one, but her coat is no where near like this ones. ;0) I feel bad. We're going to try and brush her more.





Here is a boxer, which we have two of. He's cute, but I think Percy is cuter. ;0)










Micah liked this poodle. The haircut was funny.
This great dane was so impressive. His name was phantom, because of the split in colors on his face, for Phantom of the Opera. lol

I never realized Saint Bernards were so big. I felt bad for the one on the right. Notice his own personal little fan.

There were lots of other nice dogs, but the batteries on the camera ran out. Aren't you lucky. lol ;0)

Our Nursing Home Visit

I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far. Our visit to the nursing home yesterday was a success, sobering, eye opening, etc.

Here are all the bags with snacks inside. We made cake with frosting, cake without frosting, cookies with frosting, and cookies without frosting. Then I just purchased some sugar free cookies for those with diabetes.

I will say that when we got there, the lady that worked there started to introduce us to some of the residents. The girls and I were standing there, sort of awkard, not knowing what to say. Suddenly, I realized my beloved was no longer standing behind me. I turn to my right, and see my beloved sitting down admist a whole bunch of ladies, who were all laughing. I later spoke to him about it, and asked him how did that happen. The girls and I were so unsure how to approach them, and here he was laughing it up. He said, oh, I just went over to them, pulled out a chair and said, "hey ladies, is this where all the action is at?" lol Have I ever said how much I love my beloved?

This lady surprised us all. She was 97 1/2. She came over and kissed all the children, hugged them and just didn't want to let go of them. She had no children. So she's talking to them, etc., and then she just says, "I'm going to play the piano." To be frank, my beloved and I both thought, she's going to go over and hit one key, wait a bit, hit another key, etc. She was so fragile, and she had her little walker caddy. We were in shock when she sat down and started playing that piano like a professional. It's like her entire body was that of a 97 year old, but her hands were moving like that of a young girl.


It really felt like she was playing for us. She was so cute.


Apparently she is a lot stronger than we thought. She kept sitting Britney on her lap. And Britney is heavy. No matter what she weighs, she is one of those children who just feels very heavy. This was a huge step for Britney as well. Britney has always had lots of sensory issues. She normally doesn't like anyone touching her, or she won't really hug anyone, etc. It took a lot even for my beloved to win her over. So to see her here sitting with a complete stranger, was huge for us. Not only that, Britney said she liked the nursing home and wants to go back.

Here are some of the other ladies enjoying their snacks.

My beloved and I had a small chuckle later on in the day. They really did keep repeating everything over and over. We had a few of the ladies tell us how many children they have. One of them told me she had 5 children, and the first time, I said, "wow, what a blessing, etc." Everytime she would say it, I would repeat my comment with the same enthusiam I said it the first 5 times. It was kind of hard. I saw Kayla looking at me from the corner of her eye, not understanding why we kept repeating the same phrases over and over. She would give it a 2 minute break and then say it again. They really were very cute; chin hairs, missing teeth and all.

Here is my beloved speaking to a lady that lived in Manhattan, NYC. She really did look like she was from there. ;0) Very sharp, and told us she was the youngest of 8 children many times as well. ;0) Too cute!!
I have more to write, but we are off to a dog show. My beloved loves going to them, so we're all going to learn a little more about dogs today. I hope everyone is enjoying their family today.

Freecycle Find!!

I know I am supposed to be ducluttering, but someone on my local freecycle group posted an offer for a box of patterns. I put in for it, and she said I could have them. I didn't expect the box to be this big.

It was full to the brim with patterns.

There were a lot of old patterns, which have been wonderful to look through. There are a few, that if I can learn to alter the length, I can use them. I haven't had a chance to go through all of them, but I am really looking forward to it. It's so nice getting free things.

Baking Away

I'm here, baking away. Tomorrow we make our visit to the nursing home. I called to see how many residents they had, and she said 93. YIKES!! So the girls and I are making some cookies, cakes, and I bought some sugar free cookies; just in case I couldn't find a recipe for some. I know I have lots of recipes that we use here at home, but they have honey in them. I just bought those little brown lunch bags. We're hoping to be able to decorate them or just put a little sticker on it or something. I'll be back later with some pictures of our hard work. ;0) What is everyone else up to. I know I have fallen behind on responding to some of your comments. Sorry. I will try to catch up tomorrow evening with that.

Our Curriculum

The website for the homeschooling curriculum I use for Kayla is Sonlight Education Ministry . One of the absolutely wonderful things I love about this curriculum is that it can be taught to a few different grades at once. At the end of the sections, it has different activities for the appropriate age groups. Let's say for the study of water, for the younger children it has them help mom and dad wash their car or the dishes, but for the older children, it has more complex water activities. I do have some pity parties every once in a while that I cannot use it for Kayla and Britney together, being that I do therapy with Britney, instead of regular "school." I am hoping to be able to use it together with the boys. I will say that it is written by the denomination I belong to, so they do mention the Sabbath, etc. Please don't let this stop you. If you believe something differently, that's okay, just substitute your beliefs for those sections. They use the Bible as the textbook for every subject. It is beautiful the way everything is tied in together. Every lesson is tied together for each subject.
For example, Lesson 11 in the Bible section is "He Was Baptized" There is a rolling theme through lesson 11 in all of the subjects, which are Bible, Health, Mathematics, Music, Nature, History/Geography/Prophecy, Language, and Speech. Since it is about John the Baptist, the nature lesson is on water. The purpose of pure water is to sustain life. This lesson teaches about the hydrolic cycle. How the water is purified through God's natural system. The spiritual life can only be sustained by being cleansed from sin which, as John taught, the law points out. He then baptized those who were receptive and repentant in water, to fix in their minds a symbol to remind them forever of this cleansing process. John wanted all to be prepared to meet the "Living Water " (John 4).
When watering the garden, washing floors, washing windows, washing food, washing dishes, watering house plants, watering pets, washing the car, washing clothes, think how the law points out our need for cleansing. How we respond to that information will divide us into one of the two classes; receptive or unreceptive. The spiritual purpose of this lesson is to teach the child how Christ came to reveal or mirror the principles of God's law. John's message was to prepare receptive people for that revelation. It goes into how John the Baptist needed to be receptive to the Holy Spirit.
For Music, Receptive...John was raised to prepare a people for the Lord's first coming. The world had lost its rhythm and John was to instruct them by giving them the key (time signature) to salvation. "For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways...to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Luke 1:76-79). How many would be receptive?
Receptive, it will go into the math lesson, which is on division. Division teaches choice. It can remind the child to be receptive to the principles of the Law and divide himself from the corruptness of the world. John divided himself and preached repentance and reformation. Some people were receptive to the message but many were not.
For Language, it's on Building houses, and words can remind us that we are daily building characters for eternity. John was constructing his character in the wilderness. As suffixes and prefixes are added to develop new words, so John daily influenced the people to develop new characters by his words. Adding to God's kingdom and dividing from Satan's
I hope that makes some sort of sense. I can't find the sample lesson that I have. I was hoping to scan it to share it with you, but I can't find it. ;0( I think it's packed in the garage. If I find it, I will scan it. I believe you can request a free catalog through their website. Kayla is really enjoying herself with it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
I found a sample daily schedule that they have listed on their website.
GRADES 2-8
A Daily Schedule( Adapt to your family needs.)
5:00 a.m. Arise-Personal Worship
6:00 a.m. Family Worship and Bible Class-With Father
7:00 a.m. Breakfast
8:00 a.m. Practical Arts*-Domestic Activities, Agriculture Industrial Arts
10:00 a.m. School Lessons (Take a break for some physical exercise during this time slot.)
12:00 p.m. Dinner Preparations (Health class could be included at this time or a continued story.)
1:00 p.m. Dinner
2:00 p.m. Practical Arts* or Fine Arts (Music and Crafts)
5:00 p.m. Supper
6:00 p.m. Family Worship-Father (Could do history class)
7:00 p.m. Personal time with God-Bed Preparation
8:00 p.m. Bed
*Daily nature walk can be in morning or afternoon.

Sorry this post got so long.

Pictures of Alligator

QUESTION: Can you post the one with the alligator too?

I think I might have posted this once before, for a Wordless Wed., so sorry for the repeat. This was also in our backyard. The third picture was taken about 15 to 20 feet from where that fake duck was at. That is an anhinga on that stump, but the wings are closed. You can see the alligator to the lower right of the bird and the stump. I'm not sure if you can click to enlarge, being that it's a scanned picture. This was before we had a digital camera. ;0)


This was at a park, 5 mintues from our house. This alligator was so still, we thought it was fake or dead. After staring at it for about 5 mintues, it finally moved. And so did we. ;0)

Anhingas

Since we live pretty close to the Everglades, we get all sorts of interesting birds. This picture was taken in the water in our backyard. I saw this Anhinga drying out its wings, and it made me chuckle, because she is on top of a fake duck.










They city puts fake ducks in the water so that they know where certain pipes are under the water. Anhingas swim in the water, so that you only see their heads, to catch fish. When they are done fishing, they find a place to perch and dry their wings. God is amazing. His creation is incredible. I felt bad for this one, as it was very cloudy. It will probably be there a while drying those wings. We also have pictures of alligators swimming very near them while they are drying their wings. ;0(

My son!! Male chauvinist?

This was a little part of my day. Elijah was running down the hallway to get a book from his bedroom, when he banged himself into the laundry closet door and opened up a gashnext to his eye. I wiped it up a little, put some ice, and then realized that it looked kind of deep. I dressed everyone up, and off to the doctor we went. Thankfully, they all behaved wonderfully. The nurse fell in love with him. He didn't let out not even a wimper. He answered all of her questions without a problem. She actually thought Elijah and Micah were twins. lol Believe it or not, we get that question at least once or twice a month. They are only 3 pounds apart, so I guess Elijah is kind of big for his age. Thankfully, he didn't need stitches. She put some "glue", the kind they use for boxers, and it should heal okay. I can't let it get wet for a couple of weeks.

Here are the boys telling daddy all about how it happened.














My beloved asked Elijah if the doctor helped clean out his eye, and Elijah said, "no the lady did." My beloved said, "did the doctor put some medicine on your eye?" Elijah said, "no, the lady did." I had the same exact conversation with Elijah a few hours before. We then realized that Elijah thinks that only men are doctors. To him the doctor was just "the lady." My beloved, joking around whispered to me that he is a chauvinist, and as he's telling me this, Elijah comes out of his room and tells Britney, "my room is a mess, you have to go clean it up." HUH?? How did this happen? ;0) I have some work to do on that boy. He is going to help me clean up that room tomorrow.
This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. I need to save it for when the boys get older. My beloved has been doing this for years. He puts his nose next to the boys' bellies, and starts saying, okay, "let me see if I can tell what you ate today. Hmm.. it smells like you had some waffles this morning. Hmm. ..I think I feel some beans, some...." (I normally whisper to my beloved the different things that they ate while they are giggling, and they don't hear me.) They always giggle so much, and are amazed that daddy can smell or feel everything they ate. If he misses something, they are quick to say, check over here on this part of my stomach, there is some juice here. ;0)

Hmmm...there is no story behind this picture. I just love him, and wanted to see his gorgeous face. ;0)

Early Education

I don't think I have ever mentioned what homeschooling materials I use for Kayla. It's called Sonlight, but it's not the common Sonlight curriculum that many use, this Sonlight is different. It uses the Bible as the textbook for every subject. I will write more about it in a different post, if anyone is interested. It really is a BEAUTIFUL curriculum. Anyway, I ordered a huge binder called Ten Principles of True Education, and it goes into everything under the sun. lol It cost me $110, but it was worth every penny. It goes into music, and how different beats affect the way our body functions, etc. As I was doing my studies from this binder one day, I came across this chapter called The Underteacher: Teacher, Student, and the Mind" In this chapter I read the following paragraphs.

"The two frontal loabes of the brain extend from the forehead back to the eas and from the eyes up to the top of the head. This part of the brains contains more than 40% of the whole brain. It is connected by nerve fibers to all the other major parts of the brain.
While the two halves operate independently they also complement one another. It is important that there is symmetrical development of both hemispheres especially in the yonger years. A child who naturally has talents developed along one line shoul dnot have those talents overly developed. There should be balanced, harmonious development.
Boys are different from girls in the storage of information in the hemispheres.
Boys develop at a slower rate than girls until a certain age. During these early years the right brain functions are developed. If one goes into early academics the left hemisphere is then developed. Many of the important processes of the boy's right brain are then left undeveloped forever. Satan does not want a boy's spiritual functions to develop. He wants to destroy the priest of a future family during his devleopmental years. Early academics is Satan's plan to make men less spiritual than God designed. Too early an introduction of academics for boys is likely the reason why there are so few men in church today compared to woman."
So I read that, and I thought that was very interesting. At the time, I only had the girls, they were 6 and 4, and I was pregnant with Micah. I belong to a yahoo group for Britney's therapy. It is a private group only for the parents who are doing this specific therapy with their children. The nuerodevelopmentalists(ND) that evaluate the children are also a part of that group. About 6 or 7 months after I read that chapter, I was reading some emails from the ND group, and a dear mother wrote in asking for help. She needed help with her son who was on program(therapy) and he was having some really bad tantrums that lasted a long time, and it was very draining on her. One of the ND's answered, it actually was Britney's ND from GA, and she said, "oh, that's simple, just have him recite some math facts." As soon as I read that, my mind instantly brought back that chapter that I had read. Having that child, in the middle of a tantrum, recite some math facts, had a direct affect on the emotional side of his brain. I don't know about you, but I found that incredible. The mother wrote back and said that it worked incredibly, etc. Having two completely different sources, from two different perspectives, convinced me that there is no need to push my children to write their name by the time they are 3, or to have them reading by the age of 5. And even with the girls, I realized when I gave birth to Micah and then Elijah, and I took a short break from schooling, after the break, they seemed to pick up everything so much better. It's as if not pushing them to learn this or learn that quickly, they learned it faster on their own. ;0) So don't feel pressured to start "school" by a certain age just because everyone else is doing it. You'd be surprised how much they pick up just in the day to day things. I have mentioned before how I teach SS in church. I have children ages newborn to 4. There are many children in there who are already writing their names on their coloring papers, etc. Even though I had the knowledge I had with early schooling, I will admit that I quickly thought, uh-oh, should I be teaching Micah how to write his name. The Lord reminded me, he doesn't know how to write his name yet, but he knows the difference between a blue finned Maco, a great white, or a black tipped reef shark. He knows what a three toed sloth looks like, and that they move so slow that algae grows on them. The fact that he corrected me last week when I told him, that's a nice picture of an alligator, and he chuckled and said, "that's a spectacled caiman, mom" reminds me that the Lord is directing me in the right way of educating His children. By the way, I checked the book, and sure enough he was right. So enjoy these young years with your children, they will be gone all too fast.
p.s. I will do a separate post in a few minutes on the different things that each side of the brain controls.

Menu Planning

Hey there!!. Mrs. Jessica, whom I have dubbed my shoutbox queen has asked me about my menu. What she wanted to know was more along the lines of how I do mine, etc. Since she doesn't have a blog, I figured I would post her question here, so feel free to share with her how you do your menu and shopping. I only do my menu on a weekly basis. I printed up a few of these and every week I wrote up our menu. It was a little hard in the beginning. I sat down and asked my beloved what he was in the mood for,etc. Once I had a few of the menu planners filled out, I just rotated them every few weeks, which made it a lot easier. As far as shopping goes, I go shopping every week. Since the menu planner is already made up, I made up a permanent shopping list from that specific menu planner. Does that make sense? So I have a few permanent shopping lists made up from my several menu planners.
I know, Mrs. Jessica mentioned, if I am not mistaken that she goes shopping every two weeks. Does anyone else do this? I actually don't like taking the children food shopping with me because of all the icky magazines at the check out counter. I know someone once complained at my local supermarket, and they put up these white plastic covers on them, so you can't read them, but that only lasted a short while. So I would actually love to go shopping only once every two weeks. If you go shopping every two weeks, do your veggies and fruit last the two weeks? I have a food vacuum sealer machine that I guess I can seal them in. Does anyone else do this? It sounds pretty interesting to me. The less time I spend out at the supermarket, the better ;0)

Visiting A Nursing Home

Lindsey, over at Enjoy The Journey recently wrote a post called The Forgotten Among Us It was about her experience visiting a nursing home with her homeschooling group. We have been wanting to visit a nursing home, but to tell you the truth, I just felt like we didn't have anything to share with them. I know people go to sing, etc., but that's just not us. I have trouble standing up and teaching my Sabbath school class, and that's in front of a bunch of newborns to 4 year olds. ;0) Reading Lindsey's post really did inspire me to call a few places and see what would happen. She said the nursing home she visited had a list of things that some of the residents wanted, who didn't have family. All they asked for were little things, like shampoo, new underwear, etc.
So yesterday I spoke to my beloved as soon as I read Lindsey's post. He told me to go for it. So this morning I called a few places. The first three numbers I tried, I got no answer. Then the fourth place told me they closed down 3 months ago, and that a lot of other places closed down because they weren't making any money. I started getting a little discouraged, but the next place I called was very helpful. YAY!! They transferred me to the activities director. She told me they would LOVE to have us visit. I asked her what could we take. She told me that they love little bottles of lotion, perfume, snacks, etc. She said they love homemade cookies, or anything homemade. She said some of them are diabetic, so if I could bring some sugar free cookies, that would be great. She asked the ages of our children, and she said Kayla and Britney could bring some books to read to them if they wanted, and that the boys could bring a ball that they can roll back and forth with some of the residents. I am so ecstatic. I would like for this to develop into something that we do on a regular basis, not just for the Christmas season. She said they would really like that if we brought a camera, we could take pictures of them with the children, develop the pictures and then give them the pictures as a gift.
Anyway, I just wanted to encourage anyone who might have been thinking about doing something similar, to give it a try.
We will be going this Sabbath, around 3:00. She took down my name, telephone number, and the time we would be going, and even told me to spread the word at our church, if we wanted. I figured it would give us enough time to get home from church, eat lunch, and then head out.
I hope everyone is having a great day. I know that call really made mine. I'll be back later to post, I just have to get caught up with Britney's therapy now. YIKES!!

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Why is it that we have four children, four chairs, but two of them are empty? It's a mystery!!
This was after we finished our Jesse Tree ornaments yesterday. (that's why the table is still a mess. ;0) )

DEBORAH COMMENTED: "*I have to laugh when I see you and your family with barefeet and short sleeves. "Brrr! They must be cold!" I think. I forget it is warm where you are.* Today we are -5 degrees C.

Deborah, I had to laugh at your comment. It went up to 87 degree here yesterday. The first few years we lived here, it felt very weird during the Christmas season. I was used to cold and snow as well (originally from NY) I'm still not too used to it being so warm during this time of year. On the Sabbath we went for a nature walk to work up our appetite before lunch, and we passed by the pool in our subdivision, and there were people in the pool. I see everyone else's blog, and they are getting out there snowmen mugs and hot cocoa recipes, and to be 100 % honest with you, the children and I had some pina coladas after we picked up that messy table yesterday. lol ;0)
I'll post some more later on. My beloved worked from home today, which meant I had some extra cuddle time and no computer time, which was perfectly fine with me!! ;0) Jessica, Olivia and Erna, I haven't forgotten about those post. ;0)

We Finally Started!!

YAY!! We officially started our Jesse Tree studies. Here are some pictures of us after we read our Bible verses for today. We got right to work on our Jesse Tree ornaments. I printed up the ornaments and we colored them, glued them onto some construction paper, punched a hole on the top and strung some yarn through. Aside from the thankful paper chains we did, these are the only other things we will be putting on our Family Tree. Since we will each do one for the next 22 days, that's 132 ornaments to fill up the tree. YIKES!!







We all had fun finding a spot to put our ornaments.

Kayla took my picture, can you tell. lol ;0)

This "stump" was by Micah. You can all see Elijah hanging his up.

This one was Britney's.

I tried downloading all of ours, but Blogger wouldn't let me. Mine had yellow construction paper surrounding the stump picture, which I had completely cut out of the white paper. I kept peeking over at my beloved's trying to see how nice his was, and trying to get some ideas. He's a lot better when it comes to these things.

I hope you all have a great time learning more about Jesus' birth during these next few weeks leading up to CHRISTmas.

Compromising? Not Sure Yet!!

To tell you the truth, we have never put up a Christmas tree in our home. We have always celebrated Christmas, made birthday cakes for Jesus, had the children sing Happy Birthday to Him, etc., but we never put up a tree. We just never saw the connection between a tree with lights, ornaments, etc. and the birth of Jesus. A couple of years ago we started the Jesse Tree devotionals and colored some of the pictures. We made a stump out of brown postal paper up on a wall, with yarn, and just used that during Christmas. However, now with all six of us being able to color or make up our own pictures that go with the Jesse Tree readings, I was wondering how to display all of them during the weeks leading up to Christmas. I'm not crafty enough to get a stump and figure out how to get a branch on, etc. Then I figured we would just get a tree and put the Jesse ornaments on and call it a Jesse Tree, but in reality, it's not a tree. The Bible says, "Isaiah 11:1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots" Hmm... I was really stuck with this. I wasn't sure if I was compromising what we originally believed. After much prayer and thinking about it back and forth, for the first time ever, we bought a tree yesterday. We're just calling it a family tree, Jesus' Family Tree(His earthly ancestors), being that we will be studying his "roots" and the generations before Him, and our family tree, as we will be writing down the different things we are thankful for, any prayer requests, etc. Am I playing semantics? Is it still just a Christmas Tree, and I'm calling it something else? I'm still not too sure what to think about it. I know I am on the compact, and I will deal with that in my next compact update post later on today, being that we spent money on a tree. On a good note, there will be no store bought regular ornaments on it,since we want to keep this Christ centered. We had a lot of fun yesterday making paper chains and writing on each link what we are thankful for. We only filled out some, and we have a lot more to go. I'm sure we'll be able to fill it up in no time.









While we cut and glued, my beloved was the one writing down what we were all thankful for. I heard Micah at one point say he was thankful for, "going fishing with daddy."


The tree came with white lights already on it, but we added some colored ones.


Once the children were done putting up the paper chains, I was looking through all the links to see what everyone was thankful for, and look what I found!! I was all giddy when I saw my name on the yellow one, and then when I saw the red one to the right of my name, I instantly knew my beloved had picked those two "thankfuls". ;0) lol He's too much.








The children were excited to see the lights, but at the end of everything, it warmed my heart to see that the most exciting part for them was looking and touching all the Nativity pieces.



We will be starting our readings and coloring, etc. this evening, until Christmas Day. We will be combining our evening family worship and family time, which is normally 1/2 an hour each. The family worship part will be reading the selected passages from the Bible, and the family time part will be the decorating our own craft that goes with the reading. I think one hour should be more than enough if we are properly prepared. It sure does make for some quiet family time for a change. ;0)

My Lips!!!

A conversation between my beloved and I this morning. He was telling me how his Bible study went last night.

MY BELOVED: I told him, the Bible has a little bit of everything, adventure, love, advice, etc. I told him, "me as a married man, it has advice about if I were to even think about adultery. I showed him the verse how it mentions her(the mistress) lips are like honey, but how it ends up. So it tells you how her lips are incredible, something like you've never tasted before, but in the end..."
ME: So wait, my lips aren't like honey to you? incredible?
MY BELOVED: I knew you would say that. *laughing* So I started explaining to him...
ME: But wait, my lips don't taste like honey to....
MY BELOVED: No. Your lips taste like lasagna.
ME: *throwing something at him*
MY BELOVED: I don't like sweets. Yours taste like lasagna.

By the way, this is the verse, Proverbs 5:2-4
3 For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil;
4 but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword.

*On a serious note, please pray for these Bible studies that my beloved is having with this friend of ours. I have known him since he was about 12, and my beloved since he was even younger. He recently moved to Florida, and stayed with us for the first few months until he got his feet off the ground. What makes it a little more difficut is that his mother belongs to a denomination that doesn't believe in Jesus Christ as our Saviour. ;0( So on top of the studies, my beloved has some tough questions to answer from him, that pretty much puts his mother's belief's down.

By the way, my beloved surprised me and made that lasagna last night while I was layed out asleep. So today's lunch is already made. YAY!!

I'm taking my lasagna tasting lips out of here to go to church. I'll be back in a bit. Have a great day in the Lord.

Ear Update

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and concerns. I got home from the doctor yesterday and just crawled directly into bed, clothes and all until this morning. My headache is still pretty bad, but I just wanted to take a few minutes to thank you.
Unfortunately, it wasn't a quick problem, like the tube had fallen out. He said the tube looked great. It had a little bit of wax around it, but since my blood pressure dropped so much when they put the tube in, he said he didn't want to mess around with trying to peel that little bit of wax off, especially since that's not the cause of the pain. When I told him that the pain was radiating down my neck to my throat, he mentioned my TMJ, which is the most used joint in our body. We use it to talk, eat, etc. It's used every 3 minutes. Anyway, he mentioned clenching or grinding of teeth etc., I clearly remembered telling my beloved last week that I thought I must have clenched my teeth as soon as I woke up, because my teeth hurt. So according to the doctor, since my ear and ear drum is so sensitive, just clenching my teeth that one might could have thrown everything out of alignment. He told me to stay stress free. Hee, hee. What a silly, silly man!! Apparently when you are stressed, you somtimes clench or grind your teeth.
His remedy, which I am pretty sure I am not doing, is to take Tylenol or Motrin for one ENTIRE week around the clock, and then to take something for my stomach, because he didn't want me to get an ulcer from the Tylenol or Motrin, and warm compresses on my neck, to help with the inflammation. The warm compresses I will do.
Of course, after all the concern and hugs and kisses from my beloved, I got the jokes on how when the doctor took a q-tip out to clean my ear, I flatlined. ;0)
Well, I better get moving over here, I have a lot to do, aside from picking up the house, etc., I am supposed to go decorate my SS class, it's a new lesson, since it's a new month. I need to do some sort of a manger. My beloved offered to cook for today and tomorrow, which will be a huge help.
I know I have a few posts requested by Olivia with the activity boxes, Erna with the early schooling, and Mrs. Jessica with the menus, I haven't forgotten. It's actually a nice help, being that I never know what to post about. ;0)
I'll be back later. I hope everyone has a very productive day. My prayer for us all today is to stay close to the Lord. My day goes so much better when I do. :0)