Growth and change...

I saw this posted by a friend the other day and it couldn't have come at a better time...

Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown ~


Through faith, all things are possible.

Relationships, friendships, fellowships…

I’ve been doing some bible studies lately that have had me really thinking about relationships. My relationship with God, my relationship with my husband, my relationship with my children, my relationship with my family, and my relationship with friends.
  
“When we consider the blessings of God—the gifts that add beauty and joy to our lives, that enable us to keep going through stretches of boredom and even suffering ~ friendship is very near the top."   —Donald W. McCullough, Mastering Personal Growth

In trying to deepen the relationship that I have with my holy father, I have been having to take a look and reassess things in all other aspects of my life. Am I truly being obedient to him? Am I truly doing what he has called me to do? And am I truly being the person he has called me to be?

There are so many things about myself that I know needs work ~ am I doing all that I need to do and all that he is asking me to? One thing that I keep coming to is “FRIENDSHIP”.. Am I being the kind of friend that others deserve? Am I fulfilling the duty of a friend and being the support that others need?

A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need ~
Proverbs 17:17

I try and follow the motto of “to have a friend, you have to be a friend”. Sometimes this is easier said than done. I hope that I have learned the true value of friendship, and have every intention of being a good friend to others and show genuine love and concern. But I can’t be a friend to someone who does not want to be a friend with me.

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. ~  Proverbs 18:24

A lot of  relationships that I have once thought of as “friendships” have been and are in reality only “acquaintances ”.  And to nourish a relationship with God, a  true “friendship” with like minded Christian friends must also be found and maintained.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ~ John 15:12-15

Christian fellowship, (being with and interacting with other Christians), is often confused with deeper friendship. We all need  deeper friends to share our problems and desires with. but “Fellowship”, is often not enough. Churches need to breed an atmosphere that encourages and allows deeper friendship. As a church seeks to be truly unified in attitude and purpose, the church social activities can bring the opportunity for those needing friends. Such activities can also bring more unity within the fellowship of the church which makes praying for others and sharing with others easier because of a genuine care, concern, and love for others that only comes from sincere friendship.

“True friendship”, the type that encourages Christian spiritual growth and human fulfilment,  and allows all people concerned to be “free” to “be themselves”. With true friends, the confidence to be “accepted as we are”, is always there. To me this doesn’t mean that we will share every deep personal concern or problem, but to have a trust that you have some special friends ~ that you know well enough ~ that you can share everything with them, is truly an ordination and gift from God. I have learned that in some areas of life and opinions, I am different  from others in my outlook and I have learned that it is better to keep silent on certain subjects. Nevertheless, I hope to be recognized and respected by that person as the valuable individual that God has made me to be. And I hope to continue to grow and mature in my relationship with God and to nourish and treasure my friendships here on earth…

God Bless ~

The Digestive Track ~ Week 1

  We are loving using Jeanne Fulbright’s Exploring Creations with Human Anatomy and Physiology

This was our first week learning about digestion and what happens to the food we put in our bodies…
   Working on labeling the alimentary tract…
   Libby’s journal
   Tommy’s journal


We spent quite a bit of time talking about out teeth and how to care for them.
        A cool board game that we played about taking care of your teeth.


The next step was discussing saliva and we did a neat cracker and cheese experiment that was in our books and learned how amylase breaks down carbohydrates. The kids had fun using a mirror and finding their glands and touching their hard and soft palates.
Then we were on to the tongue, where we discussed briefly the job of taste buds and where they were found ~ we’ll be going more in depth with those later.
We also spent some time talking about teeth in other animals and the similarities or differences in their diets compared to ours and their need for different teeth.

We have used a few different books as go-alongs like:
“George Washington’s Teeth”  
and here’s a great pic of what one set of his false teeth actually looked like ~ I can’t imagine how uncomfortable they must have been with the spring loaded action. OUCH!! 













“Teeth and Tusks”  (from the “Look At” series)  

and “Take Care of Your Teeth”   

And made a neat digestion poster using printables from this book.       
Some links that I used this week were:
SurfNet Kids
Kids Health
Inner Body
Enchanted Learning  where I found some great printables to use this week.

And as a finisher to our beginning of digestion we watched a couple of videos
An episode of “Sid the Science Kid” ~ Feeling Good Inside and Out

and these great videos on YouTube:

and this one

Check back in to see where else digestion takes us as we explore where our food goes…
Happy Learning!!

Dragons : Legends and Lore of Dinosaurs

I have long been fascinated with dragons and fantasy ~ magical things and places of mythical lore. As a child, I would read about them and imagine what they were like. I was thrilled when I got the opportunity to use and review this book “Dragons: Legends and Lore of Dinosaurs” with my children. I wanted to share the mystery and fantasy of these creatures with my kids, but from a biblical perspective. This book does just that by making a person stop and think about God’s creation. There is so much more to God’s creation than we can imagine.
I’ve been very pleased with this book. It’s a collection of facts revolving around the evidence that dragons were very real, and very similar to what we call dinosaurs, biblical proof of dragon’s existence from real-life witness accounts and scriptural references. It’s filled with fun flaps, pull-out pages, mini-booklets, envelopes to open, and pockets of hidden facts. The vocabulary used in this book is for the 4th-6th grade level, but my 3rd grade daughter enjoyed it just as much as my 5th grader with me reading it to them.
A lot of questions regarding creation cannot be answered with material evidence; but if looking at the history of our world, we find answers, such as the fact that dragons and dinosaurs are recorded in stories as drawings on cave walls and ancient art  from around the world, in every culture. They are found not only in world history, but in the bible with the Leviathan in Job. And if in fact there wasn’t some existence of these animals, then why are they such an important part of so many cultures history around the world? 
Learning about other lands that had similiar creatures and sea monsters really added to the curiosity that I already had. I never knew that "Nessie" might have had relatives in other areas of the world, such as Canada and Australia.
I really enjoyed how dragons were brought out in a “creationist” perspective. We learned that the original biblical Hebrew text included the word "tannin" (land or seas monsters or serpents) and in Greek, "drakon" was used. The reader gets an accurate account of God’s creations through comparisons made from legend and mythical lore to history. And who would have thought there would have been so many different names for "Dragon"  ~ in 21 different languages.
Last, but not least, was the beautiful art work. My kids were so fascinated with the incredible pictures of these fantastic creatures that we spent several days drawing our own and trying to imitate the ones they had seen in the book.
I certainly would recommend it to any Christian or homeschool family who is looking for a way to explain the “fantasy and lore” of dragons and dinosaurs from a biblical and God created perspective. My children have asked to read it over again.

*I was provided this book for use and review by Master Books/New Leaf Publishing*

Free G.A. Henty books now available…

A friend of mine posted about this last night on Facebook.
  Just click on the book for a listing of books and you can find reviews listed there.
Amazon has G.A. Henty Historical novels now available for FREE download for the Kindle and I was able to get the first 4 that we were planning to use this fall. I was doing the happy dance ~ since one of them was going to cost me an extravagant amount of money.  I had decided that I wasn’t going to be able to get it, since that was way out of our budget.
~ but don’t worry ~ if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the FREE Kindle for PC app for your computer and still get the wonderful benefit of these great books for your homeschool. 
And here’s a list of G.A. Henty books in chronological order. It will make planning your year using good historical literature easier… 

What’s Cooking at Our House ~ Menu

This week is mostly an “EAT AT HOME” kind of week. We have nothing special going on other than our usual activities, so it makes planning our meals so much simpler…

Here goes our week:
Breakfast List : Blueberry Muffins, pancakes (I make up at least 2 batches and freeze one for another morning), scrambled eggs w/ bacon and toast, french toast, oatmeal  (I usually rotate through the list)
Lunches are sorta up in the air. We either have leftovers from the night before, make a quick sandwich w/ fruit, or snack on muffins or homemade granola bars
Monday: Take out ~ my night to have dinner with my friends while the kids are in sign language class, so it’s Mexican for me, Chinese for hubby, and Lil’ Caesars for the kidlets…
Tuesday: Dinner at my sister’s house ~ My nephew’s 1st birthday!!
Wednesday: Lasagna (w/ Italian sausage), garlic bread, and salad
Thursday: Tacos, (with toppings ~ salsa, green peppers, onion, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese), refried beans and rice
Friday: Pinto beans, bacon, hushpuppies
Saturday: ribeyes, baked potatoes, salad (hubby is cooking ~ I have to work)
Sunday: Grilled hotdogs (hubby is cooking ~ work again), homemade french fries

Frugal Finds ~ My shopping trip to CVS

This week CVS had some great deals… They had their “buy $15 get $5 ECB” deal going on household items… Things I really needed for spring cleaning like Clorox bleach and Clorox wipes… and then again the few things I didn’t need like the 3 ~ 12pks. of diet coke… (don’t tell on me)

My grand total for all the items I bought was $98.31 and after ECB’s I spent
$24.52 OOP and still have $7 in ECB’s for next week… The key for me this week was I had time to do my purchases as 3 separate purchases and was able to roll over earned ECB’s… I was lucky that I picked a slow time to go to CVS and there was no one in line other than myself…

Here’s a look at what I came home with:

3 ~ 12pks of Diet Coke

6 ~ canisters of Clorox Clean-Up wipes

1 ~ Dawn Diswashing Detergent w/ Oil of Olay

1 ~ Clorox Bleach

2 ~ boxes of Triscuit

1 ~ container of Cottonelle Wipes

2  ~ refills of Cottonelle Wipes

1 ~ box of Allegra Allergy (a must have for me this time of year)

1 ~ Cobroxin Homeopathic spray (definitely going in the donate box)

Wasn’t really impressed with the sales at Walgreens this week, so I think I will have to wait and see what they have to offer next week…

Seriously… I don’t think so…

One of the fun things the kids did was to dress up and try and imitate a picture from the late 18oo’s ~ complete with the oh-so-serious and non-smiling faces…

  the picture we tried to imitate…

   the kid’s version…

and let the goofiness of being a kid ensue…

Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge…

This past week the Children’s Museum of Oak Ridge and the American Museum of Science and Energy had FREE admission…We have been several times to both places, but they are lots of fun and when they are FREE, even better!!

So after out testing on Friday, we and some friends who were also testing loaded up and took off.

 The greeter as you enter the “Children’s Museum”…

The Asia exhibit ~

     

The kids practicing with chopsticks…

The Mexico exhibit  ~

The African exhibit ~

  

Playing Pioneer dress-up

   Trying out a rope bed…

   Thirsty?

More laundry???

Learning in a one-room school ~

  Putting on a puppet show…

My little dancing queen…

Last week was observation week at Libby’s Ballet class…
I love getting to watch her in her class. Ballet is one of her favorite activities and she dances (and makes up her own moves) all the time at home.
I love seeing the joy and the pleasure in her face.
            
        

Amon’s Adventure

 

Jotham’s Journey is a wonderful book about Advent and we have read it and the following books over the last several years during the Christmas holidays. The latest installment in the series is called “Amon’s Adventure”. Our family loves reading them… I was so excited to see that this was being released, I couldn’t wait to order it. My kids were really looking forward to starting it.

The latest in the series takes you on a trip through the season of Lent,  culminating on Easter Sunday. It involves “Jotham” (the character from the 1st book) as he is accused of a terrible crime. His 13-year-old son (with Tabitha from “Tabitha’s Travels”) is Amon, who tries to save him. Along the way Amon joins the crowds on Palm Sunday, hears the Messiah speak, outwits Roman soldiers who plan to kill his father and Jesus, witnesses Judas Iscariot’s betrayal, and beholds Christ's crucifixion. 

We love these books as they are set in fact and biblically based. The characters are of a similar age to my own kids which makes it easy for them to become “involved” in the story. The series’ also have end-of-chapter devotions and the website has all kinds of great info and questions that can be used with the book…

 

Reading Amon’s Adventure with my kidlets…

In case you want to look at this series ~ Christian Book has them for $7.99 – $9.99 …

Jotham’s Journey

Tabitha’s Travels

Bartholomew’s Passage

Amon’s Adventure

Super Moon

Yep ~ tonight was the “SUPER MOON”…

A full Moon of rare size and beauty that rose in the east at sunset and called a "Super Perigee Moon" ~ the biggest in almost 20 years. It was truly a thing of beauty. A moon so big it looked as if you could actually reach out ad touch it.

We patiently waited for it to get dark enough to try ad get some good pictures… 

     

 

Coming of Spring…

After our testing today, we went on a field trip with some friends. On the way home, we passed some beautiful daffodils growing on the side of the road, so we stopped for an impromptu romp in the flowers…

   Tommy exploring the field of flowers…

Taking some pictures together…

  Libby picking the flowers…

  Enjoying our friends…

It was such a beautiful day and a reminder that spring is just around the corner…

The Heart of a Child…

Oh, how I wish I had the heart of a child ~ a soft heart of freedom…able to freely love, freely give and freely forgive.
The ability to be unselfish with what they have and the desire to please.
To be resilient in the face of adversity and to not hold on to the bitterness of pain.
To have a unfailing faith in the unknown that is pure and strong.
A child has the freedom to smile, cry, laugh, and dance when the desire arises.
Oh, how I wish I had the heart of a child….

Our Week of Testing…

This week was our week of standarized testing that is required by our umbrella program every year. It normally is a hectic month of stress for me as I buy test prep books to help prepare the kids for the test. I usually worry about how they will do and it’s so stressful  ~ but this year I prayed a lot about it and had a sense of peace. And other than reviewing some math concepts a couple of days prior to testing, we did ABSOLUTELY NO REVIEW!!

I actually had a peace about how things were going to be. I’m simply amazed at how calm and worry-free the month and the week prior to testing were.

  Getting ready to leave for testing…

   Playing “Brain Quest” on the way…

  Libby napping on the hour drive…

Then at the end of the first day ~ my little girl handed me a note that she had written.

    Testing is so fun. That’s becus I love snacks. I love testing. Thank you Mommy.

Getting a note like this makes it all worth it… I love my sweet girl!!!