Simple Pleasures . . .

I’ve been thinking about how much joy can come from the simple things in life. Things that pertain to family, nature, and just life in general. They usually aren’t expensive, but are worth so very, very much. I like to think of these as – and I solidly believe that they are – blessings from a loving Father, sent to delight us and, many times, to teach us about Himself.

Here are a few of the simple pleasures that I am enjoying in my life ~

~ Bedtime stories every night with my littles.

~ The changing of the seasons.

~ An afternoon on the front porch with a cool drink and my notebooks, drinking in the beauty of tall green trees, pretty flowers, and watching my little ones play.

~ Baking goodies for my family.

~ Conversations with my teenagers.

~ Beautiful pictures in magazines – cutting them out and decorating my journal with them.

~ Lighting a seasonal candle while I’m cooking or relaxing at night.

~ Hearing a sweet “I love you” from one of my kids.

~ Harvesting anything from the garden.

~ Stroking a kitty’s soft fur.

~ Sewing on a quilt and enjoying the beautiful fabrics.

~ Small town friendliness.

~ Fresh clean laundry.

~ Stopping by the Sno-cone stand on a hot summer day.

~ Seeing my husband pulling into the driveway.

~ A good book.

~ Popcorn with a late night movie.

~ Occasionally taking the slow, windey, country road rather than the highway.

~ Watching my children grow and learn.

~ Seeing the Lord working in my heart, growing me.

I begin to think that I could probably go on and on. Thank you, Lord, for all of your special gifts to us!

What simple pleasures are you enjoying?

Blessings,
Nancy

Sarah’s Cooking Night

Sarah decided last week that she wanted to cook one of the meals for dinner this week. She had seen a recipe for chicken fingers on a Bisquick box and this inspired her to want to cook a whole meal, something that she had never done before. She has made a number of desserts for the family over the past few years, but never anything as ambitious as a complete meal. So, on Tuesday, I made sure we had all of the ingredients she needed and joined her in the kitchen to supervise, teach a bit, and help her out. The menu she planned consisted of ~

Ultimate Chicken Fingers
Homemade Mashed Potatoes
Green Beans
Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies

Here are some pictures of her time in the kitchen ~

She started by making dessert – Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies. She has made these before, so she didn’t really need my help with this part. She gave the younger kids a spoonful of dough before she baked them.

Next she began work on her mashed potatoes. She used this recipe and learned how to wash, peel, cut and cook the potatoes. Her arms were a bit tired after scrubbing and peeling 5 lbs. of potatoes by herself!

While the potatoes cooked, she started her chicken fingers. As I mentioned before, this recipe was on the back of the Bisquick box. She had to triple the recipe for our family, so she got a little practical Math practice along the way. It was her first time to handle raw chicken, but she decided that it wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. I gave her lessons on why it’s important to wash it well, and then she trimmed it up and sliced it for fingers.

Her potatoes were ready to mash before she got her chicken breaded, so she put the chicken on hold and finished up the potatoes – I told her that timing was one of the hardest parts of cooking.

With the potatoes all mashed and covered to keep warm, she went back to the chicken, which she found to be messy job!

While the chicken cooked, Sarah heated up the green beans (canned) on the stove. Finally, everything was ready, and we sat down to a delicious meal!

This chicken was so wonderful – it had parmesan cheese and garlic salt in the coating, which gave it a scrumptious flavor. I will post the recipe as soon as possible (if you can’t wait, go out and buy a box of Bisquick – it should be right there on the back of the box) -

Homemade Mashed Potatoes - she did an excellent job on these – they were smooth and creamy -

A great dinner -

and a delicious dessert to finish it up -

See you again soon!

Blessings,
Nancy

My Little Ballerina

Anna has recently traded in her ice skates for ballet slippers. She actually has been wanting to take ballet lessons for awhile now, but it just hadn’t worked out to do so. When it came time to register for the new session of ice skating recently, we had heard of a great ballet school and decided that this was a good time to switch. We left the decision up to Anna, who decided that she wanted to try ballet. I took a few pictures of her before we went to the first class -

She has had two classes so far, and I am really pleased with it. Anna is enjoying herself and I get to sit and watch. It brings back many memories of my 7 years of ballet classes growing up. I took this picture of Anna at her first class – my sweet little ballerina . . .

Have a nice day!

Blessings,
Nancy

A few ice skating pictures ~

We started the new ice skating lesson session (try saying that three times fast!) this week. Tommy and Sarah are beginning their third session and continue to progress as they are starting to learn a few more difficult turns and skills. We usually arrive an hour or two early for free-skate each week so that they can warm up and practice the skills they are learning.

This session we have a new student added to the mix. Anna has now started taking lessons as well, and is so excited. Some friends handed her down a nice pair of skates, and she just loves to be on the ice.

It’s been fun watching them skate each week (when I’m not freezing to death). The instructors are really great and the kids are learning alot. Tommy and Sarah would like to go more often to get in more practice time – maybe this summer we’ll be able to add some extra practice time to our schedule.

Have a nice weekend!

Blessings,
Nancy

Our new Keepers of the Faith year has begun!

Keepers of the Faith is a club which meets at church once a month. The boys (and Dads) club is called Contenders of the Faith, and they meet separately from the girls (and Moms) club. Each monthly meeting the kids learn about one of many different topics – skills to learn, etc. During the rest of the month, they work at home on badges that they earn when they complete the requirements for the specific badges. The club runs from January to October each year, with a final Expo night held in November when the kids can share what they have learned, worked on, and the badges they have received during the year.

We held our first Keepers of the Faith meeting of the new year last week. The boys learned all about knife sharpening, while the girls wrapped candy bars in colorful papers and ribbons for gift giving.

Being the first meeting of the year, all of the children turned in a list of badges that they would be working on throughout the year. They can work on and finish other badges, too, but if they finish the ones on their list they earn a special “Finisher” badge. The badges are listed and explained in their handbooks, which are great resources for learning lots of new skills.

Here are the badges that my children chose to work on this year -

Tommy
Bible Reading – The Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy)
Bible Memory – The Lord’s Prayer
Skills – Lapbooking
Ice Cream Making
Diorama

Sarah
Bible Reading – The Pentateuch
Bible Memory – The Lord’s Prayer
Skills – Card Making
Singing
Album making

Michael
Bible Reading – The Gospels and Acts
Bible Memory – The Widow’s Offering (Mark 12:41-44)
Skills – Lapbooking
Trees
Diorama

Anna
Bible Memory – various Love verses
Skills – Ice Skating
Muffin Baking
Card Making
Snacks & Drinks (preparation)

I will share pictures throughout the year of their works in progress and the things they are learning in their club meetings. We have some fun meetings planned for this year – Volleyball, Honey Bees, Chess, Rip Circle Flower making, to name a few.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Keepers of the Faith program, you can go to their website – Keepers of the Faith - and check it out. The clubs can be run formally through your church or with other families, or you can simply work through the badges individually as a family. We were so happy to find this program already in place at our church when we started there 4 years ago.

Have a nice day!

Blessings,
Nancy

Our Homeschool ~ Charlotte Mason Style

Over my 14 years of homeschooling, I’ve tried a lot of different approaches and curriculums, but even from the start, I always had an idea in mind of what I wanted our schooling experience to be like. It would be Christ-centered, simple, nurturing, and would encourage a love for learning. My love for books – especially storybooks – fit in beautifully. As I read more over the years about different methods of homeschooling, I saw that I agreed with many of the ideas that Charlotte Mason wrote about in the late 1800′s. Some of these ideas included copywork for writing, reading of great ideas in living books, narration, short lessons, and nature study. I have been incorporating several of these into our homeschool for the past 5 years or so.

This year, the Lord has taken us a step further in our journey. I have added in some new studies on a regular basis that always seemed to fall through the cracks before. Some of these include artist and composer studies, Shakespeare, nature stories, and character studies. Another difference is that we are reading living books for science, history and geography that take us on wonderful journeys every week.

Here is our weekly schedule as it stands right now – I’ve been tweaking it since September 1st, but for now, this is working for us. Every day we do:

Bible & Scripture Memory
Read-aloud classic novel
History (M-Th)/Geography (F)
Copywork
Spelling
Reading (independent assigned)
Phonics (Anna)
Math

Some of these we do together, and others are done independently. Tommy and Sarah also add in a short daily grammar exercise.

In addition to the subjects we study daily, we have others that are only studied from 1-3 times a week -

Monday – Poetry
              Science (older kids)
Tuesday – Character studies
              Composer study
              Shakespeare
Wednesday - Missionary story
                  Nature Stories
                  Science (older kids)
 Thursday – Artist study
                 Drawing
Friday – Book of Centuries (Timeline)
            Map Drill
           Science (older kids)
           Nature Study (outdoors)

Along with these, I am doing the Bible/Science (fun) portion of My Father’s World Kindergarten curriculum with Anna and Michael – this includes many classic children’s stories and fun, easy crafts set up around the alphabet (A-Apple, B-Butterfly, C-Cow, etc.) four or five days a week.

Does that look like a lot? Well, it is, but remember – we do all of these in short lessons, many about 15 minutes each – some less, some more. We average around 3-4 hours for our school day, although that may not be all at once, depending on life – it may be spread throughout the day, and if we don’t get to something, I either make it up later in the week, or start there the next time we are scheduled to do that subject. Also, not all of the children do all of these studies – Anna does the least amount, being Kindergarten age this year. Michael joins us for most subjects, but isn’t doing formal grammar yet or Shakespeare. Laura (10th grade) does most of her work independently, except for a few of the family subjects. In fact, the 3-4 hour day usually refers to my time, as I work with each of the children individually and as a group.

I have really enjoyed this year so far, and feel like we are having the richest learning experience we’ve ever had. We have laughed over Shakespeare, enjoyed classical music, travelled down the river with “Paddle to the Sea”, gone into outer space as we study the planets, had fun with drawing exercises, marveled at Monet paintings, and spent a little time each day in the Big Woods with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I hope to share more about each of our studies, and how we do them, in future posts.

Blessings,
Nancy

Remember this? . . .

بدلة العريس

Remember last week when I posted this?

Well, I should have known to go straight to the technological expert in the house for my answer. When I showed it to him (Matthew) this morning, he immediately copied it, and headed off to Google for an answer. When he pasted in this – بدلة العريس – he was rewarded with a screen full of pictures of tuxedoes. That was our first clue. Then he went to Google translate and pasted it in. Here was the result -

Translation: Arabic (automatically detected) » English
بدلة العريس The groom’s suit

So, I guess that answers my question.

Google obviously sent someone to my blog as a result of this post. Go ahead and check it out, because I’m a mother and I just can’t help myself!

Another mystery solved.

Blessings,
Nancy

Apple Trees

Last month we planted apple trees over by the barn. I hadn’t set out to have apple trees, but when Jeff found the Dewberries at the nursery, he mentioned that they also had apple trees that were being cleared out. I love the idea of growing our own apples for cobblers, pies, and just plain ole eatin’!

So he brought one home – A Granny Smith -

No, it doesn’t look like much now, but just wait a few years! Well, in reading up on apple trees that night, we discovered that apple trees need a friend to help them pollinate, so we went back to the nursery and came home with two friends – a Red Delicious and a Jonathan.

Red Delicious -

Jonathan -

So far they have withstood several severe storms and winds and are doing fine. They are sprouting new leaves, as well. These are dwarf versions, so they won’t get as tall as a normal apple tree, and are supposed to fruit sooner – yippee! So, our adventure with apple trees has begun, and I hope that we can keep them going long enough to reap the harvest!

Blessings,
Nancy

From the Learning Room – “Stopping By Woods…”

Last week our study was on the poem/book “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost with illustrations by Susan Jeffers.

This is a lovely poem to study in January, especially in Texas where we don’t get to experience snow very often. I thought that this would be a wonderful poem for us to memorize. When I mentioned this to the children, they insisted that they could never do that! However, by the end of the week, without even trying, they had it down, just from reading it, studying it, and living with it all week. They had such fun reciting it over and over, and were pleased that they were able to do it after all. One of our activities for the week included cutting out snowflakes to tape on the dining room windows.

We discussed Robert Frost, which led us into a discussion of John F. Kennedy, as Frost recited poetry at JFK’s inauguration, and then died two years later, along with the President. We discussed taking a field trip to downtown Dallas to visit the museum there sometime.

We also discussed rhyme and rhyme scheme and were easily able to decipher the rhyme scheme of Frost’s poem (A-A-B-A, B-B-C-B . . .)

As Mom read about how snowflakes are formed and why snow is important to us (besides the fun!), the children created these snow pictures using pencil erasers dipped in paint and a snowflake punch.

We looked for the artist’s hidden animals throughout the book and discussed her use of black and white with only small touches of color. We also discussed hibernation of animals – why, when, how, where, and who.

The man in the poem left a gift of seeds and grasses for the wild animals to enjoy in the forest, which led to our final activity of the week – the making and hanging of birdseed pinecones.

The supplies – pinecones, peanut butter, birdseed, and ribbon -

I tied a length of ribbon on each pinecone and then the children spread peanut butter all over the pinecones -

Next, they rolled their pinecone in the bird seed, coating it well -

We hung these in the trees by the bird feeders, so that they birds would see them when they came to the feeders, and so that we could watch them through the kitchen window!

I think these went up just in time, as an ice storm is due today and now the birds will have an extra treat to ease the icy days.

Our Five In A Row meal for the week was one of comfort and warmth after coming in on a snowy evening – Tater Tot Casserole, with Peach Crisp for dessert -

It was a very nice week, and we did manage to fit in that trip to the ice rink for 3 of the children -

I’m hoping to write up a post about the skating and post more pictures soon.

I especially loved this book because of the emphasis on the enjoyment of nature and taking time out of our daily busyness to stop and marvel at the glorious creation of our Lord – a reminder that we all need from time to time.

Stay warm and enjoy a nice cup of hot cocoa – we’ll certainly be indulging a bit today!

Blessings,
Nancy

A Few Thoughts. . .

Last night we started our Ladies Bible Study back up at church. We finished studying Romans in November, and took off the month of December. Our new study is a topical study – we are going through the book “Overcoming Fear, Worry, and Anxiety” by Elyse Fitzpatrick. I am really looking forward to seeing what the Lord has for us in this study, as I, like most women, deal with many of these issues in my life.

We have only begun with the first chapter, but I wanted to share just a few of the things that have impressed me and encouraged me already. Some of these came from reading the book and some of them from our discussion last night, which is always a blessing as the Lord uses other believers to minister to me from their own experiences and by sharing what the Lord has taught them.

- One comment that was made was the fact that so many of our fears are based on “what if’s”, and we imagine having to go through so many things from our present point of view. What really hit me was when someone reminded us all that God gives us grace for those times at the time of need, not before – so it is needless to worry about “what if” something happens, when we really need to spend that energy trusting the Lord to give us that grace when it is needed. This has been such a comfort to me, as I tend to be one who thinks about these “what if’s” more than I should, and I am trying to remember this truth whenever I find myself worrying in this way.

- Another comment that was shared that really impacted me was in relation to parenting and perfectionism (eek!). Someone shared something she had read that stated that our focus in parenting is not to make perfect children, who make no mistakes, but to teach them to recognize their sin and lead them to the Savior with a repentant heart. I totally agree with this, but realized that – in practice – I probably lean more toward the former rather than the latter. I expect to be able to teach them the right thing to do, and then expect them to just do it, and then I get frustrated when they fail over and over again (as I do!). It was further pointed out that parenting this way actually drives them away from God, rather than towards Him – in realizing their need for Him – which was a huge wake-up call for me. There is a chapter later in the book on perfectionism, which I can’t wait to read (and may not wait to!)

-One final thought comes from the final paragraph in this chapter, and deals with the truth that trust in the Lord is the antidote for the harmful fears and worries that beset us – this will be greatly delved into throughout the course of the book, but these words really touched my heart -

“Look deeply also into the heart of the One who loved you so much that He walked into the jaws of death and His enemy’s grasp for your sake. Love like that just demands to be trusted. So whether your fears are real or imagined – whether you’re just beginning to understand them or you’re too familiar with them – you can throw yourself on the mercy of God, the one who loves you more than you could possibly know.”

I’ll try to share more insights as I work through the study over the next 6 months.

Have a wonderful day!

Blessings,
Nancy