Mailbox

My 2 year old LOVES Blues Clues. Has this show been canceled? I have noticed that there is nothing in the stores for it anymore. We don't get cable so I wouldn't know. Anyway, he loves mailbox! I have made paper mailboxes before and we are constantly making letters for him. I saw a foam mailbox at Michaels and I bought it. Well, less than an hour home and it is torn. I guess I am going to have to come up with a fabric version. Stay tuned! I think I can't do it, I think I can...

Stevia

Does Stevia cause you headaches?? I believe they do me. I guess that's what I get for not doing the natural thing and using honey or agave nectar. I am not going to use the stevia and we will see if they go away. I rarely get a headache but I have had one for the last week on and off. On the brighter side, at least I will be saving money!

My Dad and my Mama Sue

Here is my Dad and my Mama Sue. Love them bunches!!!

Hope

I got to thinking about hope today. There are several people I know that are in situations that require some sort of hope just to make it through. "Hope that he gets a job", or "Hope that things change". Without hope, we get pretty depressed in tuff situations(I have been there many times). Even unbelievers have hope, of something. Then it dawned on me. How WONDERFUL it is that I have been given such a marvelous hope. The hope of eternal life with my Savior. The hope and knowledge that he is good, whatever he does is good and perfect, and the hope and assurance that he will continue the good work that he started in me. I then thought about all the people that don't have or that refuse to accept this hope. How soul wrenching it must be. To scramble about trying to grasp a rope of assurance but never succeeding because they choose worthless, worldly things. What peace they are missing! I praise God that he has given this to me because strangely enough, if left alone, I would have never chosen it.

My Early Riser

Today my early riser is Toby. Most days he is the one up before everyone else. Whoever gets up early goes and lays down on our big pillows.

Here we are again. It seems yet another sickness has made it's way into our homes. Jason and Kaitlyn have coughs again and Andrew had a runny nose all weekend. I think virus' get lonely and they want to come to our house because we have so much fun here. That's why we get sick! Aren't you jealous? LOL In all honesty, I am grateful that our sicknesses haven't been terrible. They have mostly been mild but long. We seem fine other than being extra tired. We just can't go to church or fellowship like we want. I hope we are all well by this Thursday though. We are supposed to have our keepers meeting. We will be teaching the kids crocheting and how to use a plastic canvas. I will be taking some pics of the kids today to upload for my weekly pics. Do you ever feel like what you have to say is, well, dumb? I don't post my thoughts on biblical things because I always feel dumb, you know? I don't want someone else tripping over my stupidity. I might start blogging some about what I read but I am still thinking about it :)

Snow!

I can't believe we got snow! This is nothing compared to some places but it was the first time Summer(3) and the rest of the littles had played in snow

How an eternal perspective affects time management

I have been thinking about this. If I have an eternal perspective throughout the day, how would that change the way I view things? We are bound by time but God is not! We try to order our lives according to the present and in anticipation of the future. I think of it like this. We are souls, bound by flesh. We are flesh, bound by time. Our souls are not bound by time(we are eternal beings) but because of our flesh we have to operate in time. I think one of the reasons we have such problems with time management is because our souls cry out "Stop the madness!" I am not suggesting that we should not keep schedules etc.. We have to. I am saying that our schedules should not rule our lives. What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. Not getting everything done at the end of the day. What if, while we were "getting things done" we decided to enjoy God and glorify him? It might take us a little longer to do things but at least we were honoring God in the process! Here are some examples:
-Teaching the kids(school)-"I've got to get this done before 3" vs. "God, be glorified in the teaching of my children! Help me to plant seeds of your word into their hearts, no matter how long it takes!"
-Laundry-"I hate doing laundry, I have 3 loads today and I don't have time to do it!" vs. "God, thank you for this opportunity to serve my family, may it prepare them to serve their families. Be glorified in this task you've given me. "
-Work-"I hate going to work! I can't wait to get home to spend time with my family" vs. "Thank you for giving me work, you say you have given man work to enjoy. Help me enjoy it. Thank you for giving me the gift of being able to serve my family and feel good after a successful day's work"
-Conversation with child-"I have got to get that kitchen cleaned and I can't if she keeps talking!" vs. "Thank you God that my child feels comfortable talking with me. Help me be attentive and not focus on things that pass away. Help me to hear her/him and respond in a God honoring way."

I know that it's hard to think this way but I know that God will be honored. We should pray that God would give us all the strength to look up instead of keeping our eyes on our own little world.

Emailing the girls

My two oldest have started emailing me! This has really been interesting. It gives them a chance to ask me questions without being interrupted and it gives me a chance to answer them with discernment(Something that's hard to do sometimes if put on the spot). It also gives us something to talk about later and it's almost like our little secret. Try it out with your older children. It has been a blessing to me!

I made some ponchos for the kids so that we could turn down the heat and save some money. Right now we are at 65(last year we were at 77 because Andrew was a newborn) so we have a long way to go but we are getting there! I also made Jason and I one. It takes less than 5 minutes to make one. If you get the cheaper fleece it is so cheap! The kids got these character ones but they had a 40% off sale so it wasn't as bad as it could have been but next time..no characters! It was more expensive than I had expected but I had already told them they could pick it out. Lesson learned. I could have bought all of ours for half the price if I had used solid prints. Oh well. We used the selvage as a belt. :)
Andrew's Poncho












Alex with his poncho and cloth sword(dagger) I made him












Toby and Summer's poncho












The girl's poncho

I found grain!

I am so excited. I found a lady that has a shop right down the road from me that sells grain, along with some other things. I can buy #25 or #50 pails/bags of it. Yay! I get to support locals. Her website is the Grain Lady She is such a nice lady and works hard to get these products out for others. I am so grateful.

Gift from Papa Mike and Mama Sue

The boys got a castle for Christmas from Papa Mike and Mama Sue. Everyone enjoys it! Thank you!!! The girls got a dollhouse but we haven't put it together just yet.

The Future of Food

We watched The Future of Food last night. Wow! I just went into the kitchen and went through everything. We already don't eat a lot of packaged goods but really, you have to make everything if you don't want junk in your body. This was made in 2004 and there have been some good developments taking place but I don't know if we will be able to stop the road that we are on. Check it out!

The weekend

We had a great weekend. We couldn't go to church because several of the kids still have a bad cough(we are not allowed to come to church if they are coughing or have runny noses-which I like but it seems like we will NEVER be able to go back-LOL) but other than that they are fine. I don't think it's right for half the family to go and the other half stays here. We had church with just our family Sunday and it was wonderful. We have started getting together with another family on Sunday nights and unfortunately they couldn't come because they were sick too. But we missed them! So, we were able to enjoy just our family. Jason spent alot of time outside with them. They really enjoyed helping Daddy! Jason and I got alot of time to talk. We just really had a rejuvenating weekend, praise God!

A day in our lives/Week 2 pics

I tried to include things here that happen EVERY day. This is a near perfect example of most days in our house. Enjoy! My morning starts with breakfast, quiet time, reading, or watching/listening to sermons(no the kids aren't awake)









Breakfast for the kids. This is fruit salad









Start a load of laundry









Get everyone something to drink









Time to light my candle. I do this almost every morning. I love candles!









Charlotte Mason memory verse system. I also use this to organize our hymns. We have started doing catechism at this time as well.









Vaccuum time!












Upstairs time. Baths and getting dressed happen now.












Playing after bathtime


















While they play I get started on a load of laundry. This is an average load that I fold everyday:)









Coming downstairs after we all get ready. Before I even leave the stairs Alex runs and gets the popcorn machine. He wanted popcorn for snack. LOL













The rest of them coming down.












At this point we have snack and I do read alouds. We go over memory verse and catechism again. Then I sit with Toby and do 100 EZ lessons









School time for the rest. Fridays are light(er) days. I don't have some things listed but everything that they must do by themselves is listed on the board so noone can say they didn't know.









At the table getting ready for Me to come and do their worksheets with them.









Kaitlyn snapped this of me teaching the littles.









Break time for the babies! Play time!


















11:00 is hymn time. They enjoy this MOST days.LOL









We then had lunch and cleaned up. They have free time as well. Jason comes home for lunch. I took a pic of him real quick;)









1:00- they have free time if they finished all their school work. They had to come in though because it was too cold!









We then got some magazines out and started cutting some pics out we liked.









After quiet time is time to just play. The little ones are bouncing off the walls and are usually running around. We eat dinner and then Jason comes home. After he eats he usually(most every day) plays tickle lion with the littles and shooter(with nerf guns) with the older ones. Sometimes he will play wii with them too. After we put the kids to bed Jason and I have a snack and play cards. While we were playing cards Charlotte came down and gave us these sock people as a gift for...VALENTINES! She couldn't wait to give them to us she said. We told her that it was sweet but that she needed to use her socks for her feet. We all had a good life talking about this and making funny comments about her stinky feet people. Life is full.

Week 2 pics

My diaper stash. I made all these except for the crazy looking ones :)

Vegetable Speghetti

Are you trying to cut back on white pasta? I have been using a wonderful product for a while now. Here it is:Benriner Cook Help Spiral Vegetable Slicer I love this thing! It spiralizes zucchini for pasta and it tastes so much like the real thing! I thought it was cheaper but when I looked it up it runs around $48. It is so worth it though.

Last of week 1 pics

Jason helping Kaitlyn down the big dip in the yard









Me and Andrew










Andy

Week 1 pics cont.

Charlotte and Andrew. HHe was happily playing pattycake until I said I was going to take a pic.









Alex waiting to take the pic so he could ask me something









Andrew can reach the oranges, he couldn't believe how big they were!

Week 1 pics cont. and amigurumi pics

Kaitlyn with her amigurumi that I crocheted
Summer with her amigurumi(the first one I ever made) and Alex









Summer and Toby. They both look drugged! It just so happens they were blinking at the same time.
Toby with his amigurumi I crocheted












Charlotte with her crocheted hat I made. Andrew toddling about:)

Week 1 pics

Here is the first pic of the year. It was late, the kitchen was a mess from drywall mud being sanded and this is the only thing I could think of to take a pic. I am going to try to take a pic everyday week this year.

Happy New Year!

We had a nice day relaxing and spending time with each other. Jason was off so we were able to enjoy the day and talk about what the new year might bring. It's exciting. It's neat to look back on my blog over the last several years to see where we were. Time passes so quickly. All the more reason to live today for the one you will live with for eternity.