The kiddos and I have spent two days this week at the lake having a good time with friends and I just wanted to post some pictures for everybody! So here ya go..
The kids and their friends playing
Hannah showing me her boat
Isaiah looking silly in his goggles
Alyssa content in her stroller
My Justin riding on a log in the lake!
And last me and Hannah drying off and warming up!
In my last post A meek and quiet spirit I wrote about the struggle I have had lately with patience. The very next morning I got up to have some quiet time in the scriptures and this is the scripture I turned to…
isher 12:27 “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.”
Wow.What a powerful verse,especially for me right now. I think sometimes we become so bogged down with shame and guilt because we keep screwing up,because we should be “better”,that we forget that we are who God made us.I know I do! This scripture tells us that it is through our weaknesses that we learn to look to the Lord for strength and draw closer to Him.
I really needed that verse and I hope its helpful for any of you out there struggling with guilt over your own weaknesses.Remember that God made you who you are and He is waiting for you to come to Him with a humble heart so that He can make your weakness a strength.
The Lord has been speaking to me lately. It seems like I have been less and less patient and kind and loving to my kids as the stress in my life has built.Cross country moves,a husband finishing up a year deployment and a two year old (face it they can be pretty stressful!) have all been weighing heavily on me lately. The two scriptures that I have been turning to again and again that have really convicted me are-
Ephesians 6:4 “ And,ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
James 1:19-20 “..let every man be swift to hear,slow to speak,slow to wrath.For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.”
Over and over these scriptures have come up in my scripture study,in lessons at church and just popped into my head at random times! The Lord is definitely trying to tell me something! I have not lately been slow to speak or slow to wrath. I know that my impatience and irritated tones are NOT working righteousness and not showing the love of God to my children.
I’ve been praying a lot lately about this and asking the Lord to give me patience. Today I got a big answer to my prayers right from my bookshelf! I was looking for something to read and came across the book “Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit.” By Teri Maxwell. I vaguely remembered reading it and since we are starting homeschool again next month I thought it was a perfect read!
Well you could have titled this book “Christina here is your answer to Parenting with a Meek and Quiet Spirit!”Hahaha. I love this book. Mrs. Maxwell first helps you to understand that we ALL have those bad days and that none of us can be the parent we want to be on our own.We are nothing without Gods mercy daily. He can work in us and give us a meek and quiet spirit if we let Him.She also stresses the importance of daily time with the Lord.Time to read scripture and pray and feel Gods spirit. In truth that is one of the things most easily put off in my life. Around feeding babies,teaching kids,cleaning house,grocery shopping and all the many other things. But the thing that really was witnessed to me today reading this book is that although those are all important things none of them can give me the peace and the strength that I can get from focusing on my relationship with God.
Today I focused on using my pause button. See we all have one. In the split second between the toddler smearing red lipstick on your tan carpet and your reaction you can use that pause button.Just stop yourself right there and look at the situation and decide how you will handle it. We are not slaves to our emotions.We can CHOOSE how to react.Using that pause button really helps me with that!
I hope I am not the only one who struggles with this. I know at times we all feel discouraged.Its when we realize that we are nothing without Gods strength and love that we can really let go of the guilt and feelings of inadequacy and look to the Lord for strength.
We are currently still on summer break here. After I looked back over the day though I realized how much learning goes on without me doing any teaching :) While I fed the baby this morning my son Isaiah asked me to look at a few books with him. He brought over two Eyewitness books. One about castles and one about knights(history anyone?) Later in the day Justin pulled down the letter magnets on the fridge and asked me if I could spell “fart” (yep he is ALL boy). That started a game between he and I to give each other words to spell.Check spelling and reading off the list! We all sat down for a game of Uno next.Hannah(almost 3) kept telling us what color our cards were.Yippee for color recognition!The only thing I actually instigated was the math for Isaiah. I asked him to do a math worksheet with me to brush up for the start of school next month. He happily sat and did that and said he was glad he remembered how to do it all since we had taken the summer off for our move :)
I love days like this. It helps me realize that our children are natural learners.The things they can learn when we help them and don't hinder them are really limitless!
This really has been a nice week.Lots and lots of packages coming and lots of planning being done. Also lots of shopping and some baking too. Baking and cooking is something I really enjoy doing.Its also something I love to share with my kids. I thought now that I have found my camera I’d share some pictures with you all!
Here are some of our resources for the school year.Saxon K and Saxon 3. All about spelling(which I love) and a new resource First Language lessons.
There we have a picture of our Noeo science curricula.Physics level one came with the parent manual,several experiment kits(not pictured) and all of those wonderful books! :) I love it!
Here we have history.The center is Story of the World volume one and around it are all books I got from our homeschool convention.Books like “You wouldnt want to be a Greek Athlete” and “Eyewitness books Ancient Egypt”
This little book was a true gem I found. I actually found 3 of them. Ancient Egypt,Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome and below is pictures there amazing 12 page time line
awesome right?? Now on to the cookies :)
Hope your all having a great weekend!
I haven't done a weekly wrap up in a good while! I definitely want to get back to it now that we are (mostly) settled into our new home.The planning,packing and preparing for a cross country move is pretty overwhelming.Then once you get to your destination you have the unpacking,sorting,organizing and settling to do!
Its been a good week this week. The most fun part has been getting all our new curriculum in the mail!We have had a delivery every day for the last 4 days! Super exciting! Every day that a new one came in I would sit down and plan out the first two months worth of lessons for that subject.I am really making progress. Spelling,math and science are planned. I am currently working on History, artist study and composer study.We have tow boys homeschooling this year so in some subjects thats twice the lesson plans to prepare compared to last year.We do try to combine them as much as possible though and that helps! I am also trying to plan some preschool things for my daughter. I am honestly not usually big into “doing preschool”.I usually feel its best to just let them play BUT I know my Hannah and if I hope to get anything done with the boys I am going to need some planned games and activities that she can do while we are working on school! Nothing major really just games,puzzles,playdoh,sorting toys.Anything like that to keep her occupied and involved.
We have really enjoyed getting back into the army lifestyle this past few weeks having been MIA for the year.I tell you the military life and civilian life really are two totally different worlds! We had a bunch of friends over for lunch on Wednesday. We had four moms(all army wives) and nine kids ranging from eight down. By the end of the day all my kiddos were exhausted! There are three of us ladies whose husbands are coming home from there deployment in the next twelve days.The general excitement and planning has been so wonderful.
Other than that its been a fairly calm week here. I am finding my energy levels are just not normal right now. I’m not sure if that's due to some hormonal/chemical thing or if its simply the stress/excitement of the big move and my hubby coming home. I’ve started taking a daily multivitamin and am trying desperately to find the energy to exercise because I know it will help!Wish me luck with that!!
I hope everyone else is having a good week! Next week hopefully I’ll have some pictures to post too.I just need to find my camera!!Hahahaha!
I just received the versatile blogger award from the sweet blogger over at All American Family. Wanna see it?
Now I’m supposed to tell you all seven things about me when accepting this award. Hhhmm let me think.. ok
1. I LOVE mint chocolate chip ice cream
2.I refuse to clean my bathrooms and my hubby loves me enough to do it when he is home :)
3. I have been known to ignore my husband and children for a good book on occasion
4.my idea of a great Friday night is popcorn and disney movies with the Fam.
5.My favorite scripture is John 14:27 (read it its a good one!)
6. I have DOUBLE the number of children my parents had.
7. I have moved 8 times in the last 7 years!
There you are! Now you all know a little more about me!
Now I get to pass this award on to 13 blogs that I enjoy So here we go!
7.The blessings of modern domestication
10.Weird, unsocialized homeschoolers
11.Confessions of a homeschooler
:)
The UPS man has visited my house the last three days in a row! I LOVE this time of year :) As each new curricula has made its way to my door I have been sitting down with a new resource (well new to me anyhow). Homeschool tracker. Homeschool tracker is a computer program that helps you track attendance,progress,assignments and more for multiple students. The best part?Its FREE! That's right you read that correctly its FREE! If you go to their website HERE you can read all about it. There are two versions to look at. The “basic version” which is free as well as the “plus addition” that you can purchase. I don't know what they have added to the plus addition but I love the basic addition and don't see any need to pay for any more extras!
I received our science curricula yesterday Noeo science physics level 1. It was really fun to go through the books and experiment kits and just get excited for the coming years science! Then I sat down at my computer and put in the lesson number and assignment for the first two months of school onto homeschool tracker :) now each day (or week) all I have to do is hop on my computer,click on the day and it brings up all the kids assignments and lessons for the day! Again I must say I LOVE it!
I hope everyone's homeschool planning is going well and your homeschool year if you are already into it!!
I am such a happy momma today! I have ordered most of our homeschool “things” for this year and I received emails today from ALL of them telling me they have been shipped :) I LOVE this time of year!!
Its also super exciting because this year we are officially homeschooling TWO. Isaiah is 8 almost 9 and starting “3rd grade” and now Justin who is 5 almost 6 is starting “kindergarten”. Now to be honest we don't really follow the grade levels. We just work were ever the kids are at.
For history this year we are doing Ancient civilizations. I got several really cool books at the homeschool conference this year and ordered Susan Wise Bauer’s “Story of the World Volume 1 Ancient times”. If any of you aren't familiar with Charlotte Mason you may not be familiar with the term “book of centuries”.This is basically a notebook/binder/timeline you put together in chronological order with important dates/events/people of the different centuries.We will be making a Family book of centuries this year. One thing I am really excited about is fitting together in my own mind world history with biblical history. I honestly have NO concept whatsoever where this is concerned. You know when X,Y and Z where happening in the world what exactly was going on in the bible at the time. I am looking forward to learning about all of that.
Science is a big spending area this year for us. For the whole family we ordered Noeo Science physics level 1. It looks like a really fun program and is affordable in and of itself. So what's the big cost exactly? Well we are also buying a Lego WeDo robotics kit and software. This will be for Isaiah alone.He is SUPER into robotics and constantly tells me how he wants to make a “real working” robot. The cost is a bit of a stretch for our family BUT I just know that if I can get the right info into this guys brain that he will learn SO much and take it SO far.To me that's worth any amount of money!
Those are just a few of the new resources that are zooming across the country headed for my door as I type!! I tell you its almost as good as Christmas!!!
I am pretty exhausted! In the last month I have packed up my apartment,moved to my moms for a week, drove in the car for four and a half days and unpacked and set up a new house!All with my four kids in tow! Aaahhh the joys of Army life!! It truly has been a long but exciting and satisfying month though. The kiddos and I have moved back to Washington in preparation for my dear hubby to get home from his year long deployment!Super exciting!
I am lucky enough to have an amazing family. My sister and brother in law hauled and shipped seven huge boxes of stuff to my new house for me, my step dad let me and the four kiddos invade his house for the week proceeding the move and my mom Bless her heart drove from Ohio to Washington with me and helped me set my new house up when we got to Washington!
We are enjoying settling in now, we got to celebrate the fourth with some great Army friends here in Washington and today I got to order all our school stuff for next year!!! I’ll post more about that and our plans for school later on this week! I hope everyone else is having an exciting (but less stressed) month!
Our cross country move back to Fort Lewis is finally finished! We have been in Washington for about a week and are working on getting the house settled and situated before Dad gets home from his deployment at the end of the month(woohoo happy dance) and homeschool starts next month :)
I have several posts in the works and hope to get them up in the next several days!!!
The kids and I on the trip. Don’t ask me what state we were in I couldn't tell you!! LoL
