I have realized that through it all, man will let you down, friends will let you down, & you will let yourself down more times than you can ever count. God will never let us down. BY THE GRACE OF GOD, I AM WHAT I AM!
Showing posts with label Keepers of the Faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keepers of the Faith. Show all posts
I had the privilege to review the ebook God's Word in My Heart recently. Yeah, what fun!
Jennifer Thorson from The Purposeful Mom wrote this little treasure in the hopes of making scripture memory easier for everyone. It includes lots of fun ideas to help your children (& you) learn God's word.
Deuteronomy 11:18-20 says "Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates:"
We, as parents, have a responsibility to our children, ourselves, & God to obey His commandments & share His word.
Most Christian parents that I know already incorporate scripture memory into their lives, but I'm sure we could all use some fresh ideas & a little encouragement.
God's Word in My Heart shares some of those new ideas. I LOVE how Jenn listed ABC verses. How fun would this be while teaching your little ones their letters?!
We have actually been using one of her ideas in our Keepers of the Faith group. The kids are memorizing a few verses while adding motions to it.
My family actually uses a scripture memory box that I found out about from The Homeschool Classroom.
As you can see, we are still a work in progress, but it has helped tremendiously with my memorization skills as well as a constant reminder that we need to say our verses. I am the world's worst person to forget this part of my day!
If you are looking for a little extra encouragement in walking closer with God, check out Jenn's blog or her page on Facebook & give her book a try!
Hmmm....well now, THAT ^^^ is an interesting title for our week.
First, I am VERY thankful to say that Logan is feeling better! He was still a little fussy at the start of the week, but he is back to his usual mischievous self now.
I "allowed" my kids to be pimped out for child labor on Tuesday. We were down to the last of our wood pile & winter is not over yet, so they gladly volunteered to be woodchucks for the day.
We had Keepers & Contenders on Thursday. The girls had a tasty time making candy while the boys discussed exchanging letters with pen pals. The girls dipped teddy grahams in chocolate & worked on peanut butter balls. Of course the best part is always eating the finished product. YUM YUM!
During 4H, the older kids worked on their presentations. This was a first for Austin so he chose something he can do with his eyes closed (not really). Austin taught everyone about proper dirt bike safety & modeled all of his gear.
I came across a website this week that you REALLY need to check out. Kids of Integrity offers FREE lesson plans to help develop better character in families. We really need to improve our obedience & respect in this house.
We had our quarterly support group meeting Friday night. I enjoy these meetings because we get a chance to "just be". There's not any pressure, no time lines, no demands. We get to fellowship with like minded people who understand & only want to encourage each other.
Oh & my personal favorite, I got to go to Gullions Friday! YEAH!
This week has been F R I G I D. Not only has the temperature been cold, but the wind has been brutal, & the end of the week brought snow, sleet, & freezing rain.
When its so cold, why not talk about something hot?
Did you know that Venus is over 800 degrees all the time? Well, now you do.
Venus is covered in volcanoes, rock, and swirling sulfuric acid clouds. We experimented with how lava runs and hardens. We also took a look at how radar works.
In history, World War I has erupted and ended. We discovered when permanent waves and hair dye was made available to the general public. We started a book of modern inventions.
*side note* I really need a good time line (not on the wall). Does anyone have any suggestions?
Austin has consistently scored over an 80 & even a 100 on math {happy dance}. Makenzie is learning ones, tens, time, & adding double digits.
Music class was an impromptu round of hilarity.
PE ranged from soccer, slalom skiing, obstacle courses, & hula hooping - all courtesy of the Wii.
We finally resumed some of our extra curricular activities. Our Keepers & Contenders learned the basics of CPR. My hubby was kind enough to teach our explorers club about first aid.
Reading history on a rainy afternoon makes me sleepy! Monday & Tuesday were both rainy - very rainy! So between the rain, the pent up energy, the sass, & that dreaded 1pm crash that I always seem to have - all I wanted was some peace & a nap. Did it happen? Yeah right! I sure tried, but everyone else had other ideas. Oh well.
The "Rock" Church
We went on the soil & water conservation field trip Wednesday. I was so thankful that it had finally stopped raining (we missed the last two years due to rain). The weather was perfect. The sun was out, a breeze was blowing, and fall was in the air. The kids got to see animal skins, learn about tree growth, & see the difference in soil layers. They even learned how to witch for water ;) & some secrets used "back in the day" for finding water. Oh, & we can't forget the corny ant jokes.....What's the largest insect? A Gi-Ant. Which is the best smelling insect? A Deoder-Ant.
Hey, did you know that the black bears we have on the coast of NC are some of the largest in North America? Me neither, um, so WHY do I want to move to the beach???
Keepers this week was very enlightening. We had missionaries from Africa speak to our group. Alan & Leah Fleming have been missionaries to Kenya for over 12 years. They shared their burdens, their stories, their pictures, & their hearts.
There's nothing that will remind you of how truly blessed you are than hearing about children only eating 3-5 times a week, playing in sewer water, & still being content with the life God has given them. Simple things we take for granted such as running water & chairs are things that they know nothing about.
fetching water
fast food
My absolute favorite moment was Leah talking about being tired from a long day & not wanting to go to another church. While she was busy complaining & being unhappy, the native people of Kenya were sitting on rocks having worship service. Even though they didn't have the comforts that we have, they were happy & praising God for how much He had blessed them! Is it really that hard for us to praise Him for our many blessings?!
Can you tell from the title of this post just how much we got accomplished this week?! Yeah, not much & I don't foresee any reason to change just for tomorrow.
Just like any other time, I started out with good intentions, but then life happens. Monday was Labor Day, so my plan was to do school but just not a full day. Well, after a few subjects, my hubby came home & we called it a day. Tuesday just as soon as we started school, a friend stopped by to talk. Of course the kids were far more interested in what we were doing than what they were supposed to be doing. Then my brother in law called needing me to watch my nephew since public school was still out. Yeah, sure. Wrap it up. The day is done.
Wednesday welcomed in a very sick baby. Logan kept a high fever all day long. He just laid around, slept, & whined. So off to the doctor we went. After checking his ears, a negative Flu test, a negative RSV test, & no other easy answer, blood was drawn & urine was taken. Let me just tell you that neither was easy! I hated having to put him through all that torture, but he was so miserable that we needed to find the root of the problem. And then he got a shot of antibiotics. UGH
I checked on him every 3 hours during the night, and thankfully, he stayed fever free. He seemed on the mend.
Today was the first meeting for Keepers of the Faith & for 4H so, I did a huge parenting "no-no" and we risked it. Logan did ok most of the day. He was still whiney, but no fever. The kids had fun. We started learning Away in a Manger in sign language for Keepers and played carnival games in 4H.
The past few days just haven't been hunky dory for me. Everything seems to keep going wrong & it just escalated today. Tear after tear has been shed today over circumstances, misunderstandings, wrong decisions, cross words, too many irons, & burdens shared.
I arrived on time (with 2 minutes to spare) for Keepers only to quickly realize that we were meeting somewhere else (A L L the way across town) so now I was 20 minutes late. We had planned to eat lunch with my dad, but that fell through due to time constraints & location, so I was scrambling at 1pm to figure out a new plan. Oh yeah, those free personal pan pizzas would be great until the employee almost dropped them. Whew, that was close, but I wasn't fast enough to stop the boxes from sliding across my seat & spilling into the floor. Ok, so at least my floor wasn't THAT dirty. So after not nearly enough time (according to the kids), we had to scramble out the door for Logan's doctor appointment.
10 minutes down the road, my "check gauges" light comes on & the thermostat is too high. Really? I don't have the time or the energy to deal with this today I pull over, call Justin & leave a message, call my father in law, & call the doctor's office to tell them I will never make it on time. After guessing that I can probably make it home, I start down the road again. I only get about another 5 minutes before I have to pull over again. This time, I wait for reinforcements. 20 minutes later, my father in law pulls up, followed shortly by my husband who was very surprised to see us considering he was also heading home from Wilkesboro and didn't know I had tried to call him.
After a few gallons of water, my Suburban was good as new.....nope, just kidding. But I did make it home & then back & forth to Logan's doctor. If you are new on the scene, you have missed to 3 months (A L L summer) that my Suburban was in the shop getting a brand new engine & costing us over $2300. Then after being home for 3 days, it needing a new water pump.....yeah, well, it obviously needs another new water pump. At least it was still under warranty.
Man does my head hurt!
In the midst of all this junk & my woe is me party, I saw a bunch of geese in the pond on my road & God reminded me how He takes care of the sparrows & that He knows my every need before I even ask for it.
Matthew 2:26 "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?"
Yet again, I didn't accomplish nearly as much as I had hoped for in structured learning. Sickness has dominated my house all week long - snotty noses, sore throats, barking coughs, yuck, yuck, yuck.
TRUST - having blind faith in something or someone
We are still studying trust so we have talked a lot about Daniel, Elijah, Noah, David, & Jesus this week. Its amazing how much my kids already knew about these men.
We have also finished up our study on airplanes, the Wright Brothers, & Bernoulli. I really wanted to take a field trip to an airport, but unfortunately, that didn't happen. Maybe some other time. But we did manage to conduct several cool experiments about air.
I helped Makenzie make a cherry pie for Keepers & Justin took the boys on a nature walk looking for animal signs in Contenders.
Ya know what? I didn't think we got much accomplished this week, but really, we did - it just wasn't "sit down, book work". Yes, I still always feel guilty when "school" doesn't quite look like school. I know my kids are learning, but after being in public school, its hard to break free from the mentality that they need to be sitting at a table with a pencil in their hand in order for learning to take place. If you have always homeschooled your child, then I'm sure this is a hard concept to understand, but if you made the decision to bring your child home, you know what I'm talking about.
A good friend of mine had the BRILLIANT idea to host a mother's encouragement tea Monday afternoon. I am so thankful that she did this. Yes, this took time away from "teaching", but my kids helped me bake the goodies to take over there & then they got to play with their friends while us moms got to enjoy stimulating adult conversation! Some lessons truly are learned & taught when we least expect it! I am so thankful that I am not the only mother struggling with my obedience to God, time management, motivation, & keeping house. Its nice to confess that its hard being super mom all of the time & I feel that I can truly be myself without having to worry about judgement & shortcomings with these ladies! Thank You again from the bottom of my heart!!!
We met on Tuesday for Keepers & Contenders. Our young men learned about leather working & some of the tools & techniques used with this skill. Our lovely ladies finished up their baskets. They turned out beautiful.
Our 4H meeting taught us how to NOT GET LOST!!! (hopefully) Some of the kids paid very close attention during the presentation & could probably navigate pretty well if they needed to, some of them (including Austin) looked a little bored. Yeah, well - its not all fun & games. He was a lot more excited once they got to explore an area at W Kerr Scott Lake with a compass.
We are still reading about Helen Keller & Annie Sullivan (shhhh - I've been a little busy) with our sound unit. This week, we focused on music. So, that being said we took a trip to .... da da da dum ... the NC Symphony! YEAH! Austin's exact words, "Its pretty cool music, but I couldn't listen to it all the time". Me neither, buddy. We listened to several pieces on YouTube (thank God for the internet). Makenzie didn't care about the music, she just wanted to see the pictures on the video. I had to close the laptop so she would stay focused.
And as an extra treat for Makenzie, we went to see The Little Red Hen. It was hilarious! All of my kids enjoyed it, even Logan, who kicked & gurgled at the performers - that is, until he lost interest & went to sleep.
