Family Fun Night

Monty has not been getting a lot of hours at work which is a little concerning. He goes to work at 330pm and works until midnight. Actually-they normally do not get done until about 2am which gives him a few hours of overtime each week. Well this week has not been so good-hour wise. One night he got home at 930 and last night he showed up at 730. He had several days like that last month and it REALLY hurt come payday so my first thought was "YIKES!!! Don't they know Christmas is coming and the house payment has to be paid and the phone bill came today and and and GO BACK TO WORK!" But luckily for me, Monty has a different outlook and pulled out the....

Monty, Kenyon and I had a good game and it always improves my mood to BEAT THE PANTS OFF of someone else in ANYTHING. Final score-ME 191 Monty 155 Kenyon 96.

Keslee started out helping me and was doing really well at making words on our tile holder but then she ended up falling asleep in a kitchen chair. Kalysa had fun looking on and sounding out the words on the board. She was doing great until she came to...

She said-that letter is turned wrong. Flip it! so Kenyon flipped it. When it was still blank she said HEY! SOMEBODIES BEEN SWIPING OUR LETTERS! She is always good for a laugh!

Oh ME of little faith. I really need to stop murmuring and complaining when God is taking care of things and still sees fit to give us and unexpected night with daddy.

Cute Things Kids Say

My sister in law called with some exciting news. She was brushing my niece's(peyton-3 years old) hair and her stomache growled. Holding her tummy, she says

Peyton-I think there is a baby in there.
Kacy-Oh Yea?!
Peyton-Not a puppy! A real baby like Ashlynne(they own a kennel so she sees lots of puppys born. Ashlynne is my 1 year old niece)
Kacy-What do you think your baby's name will be?
Peyton-I'm thinking TINKERBELL!!

A SONG IN MY HEART!!

Today I have had parts of two songs in my head and have been singing away. I just realized the power of words of each piece of each song. I think this really says it all.

He LOVES me
He LOVES me
He LOVES me this I know
He GAVE himself to DIE FOR ME BECAUSE HE LOVES ME SO!!

MERCY there was GREAT and GRACE was FREE
PARDON there was MULTIPLIED TO ME
There my burdened soul found LIBERTY
AT CALVARY!!!

ENOUGH SAID!!

Blessings

So much to be thankful for.....

1.Keslee and Bryn singing a special at church.
2.Dad staying with us. Since his split from his wife in April, he stays with us when he is not on the road(he is too nice to kick the renters out of his house since truckdriving keeps him out so much anyway.) The kids really enjoy having papa around so often.
3.A good time spent with Monty's family on Thanksgiving.
4.God's protection-No one was hurt when we hit a deer yesterday on the way to church(except maybe the deer but he wasn't laying anywhere to be seen when we passed back by so maybe he is ok) My van did not even get more than a tiny dent.
5.Keslee and Kalysa packing a box with some shoes that don't fit and a few toys and marking it "Cuba Kids" then bringing it to me to mail to Cuba. Ever since we studied Cuba and how poor most of the families are there, the kids have prayed for the Cuba Kids everyday. I am so glad they are so caring!! I gotta find a way to mail this box somewhere!
6.That God is there and he will take over for us if we will just let him.
7.Being able to get a few good deals for the kids Christmas on Black Friday.
8.Snow flurries! I saw a few on the paper route this morning! They never really made it to the ground but I LOVE SNOW so it was exciting anyway.
9.Getting to see the space station fly by with the kids last week. They were so excited! Also seeing the 2 planets next to the moon. God's creation is soooo amazing and I love sharing it and experiencing it with the kids.
10.Big warm feather comforters!!! I Love snow but I also love to snuggle up in a warm blanket. I got a feather comforter at a garage sale for $3 this summer and it is about the best $3 I have spent ever! I lOVE IT!

Yall have a great week and don't let the stress of the world overcome the reason for this season. LOVE YA!! char

Alls Well that Ends Well

I hope you all had a joy filled, family filled, turkey filled, thankful thanksgiving. My holiday did not start off so great. I started to let life's problems(and there were lots of them) get in my way of what thanksgiving is really about....

It all started on Wednesday night. Monty had taken the day off but he did not go to church with us. He said since he would normally be at work anyway....so that did not help my holiday spirit. Everyone must have been in a festive mood-after church we all stood around talking, which is not unusual. I had to give a friend a ride home and it was then that we discovered that it was 5 minutes till 10. I did not realize we had stood around that long!! We got home about 10:30 and the kids were hungry and I still had to bake a cake to take to Nana's the next day. After the kids were settled and the cake was baking, Monty said he would watch it so I could get some sleep-I had to be up by 1:30 to deliver holiday papers-can't keep the people waiting on those sale adds. I went to bed exhausted but for some reason, unable to fall asleep. Around midnight I heard the oven timer beep...and beep....and beep...and beep...and beep. I got up to find Monty asleep on the couch and my cake done in the oven. I took it out and went back to bed to LAY THERE. About 1am I heard dad get up looking for Cash(his weenie dog). I let him know that I had put him outside then continued to lay there. I think I may have dozed a little then because when the alarm went off at 1:30, it startled me. I headed to the office to roll papers but did not let my car warm up so it ended up dying on me and would not start(I need a new battery and it was too cold for it). I had to push the van about 1/2 block to get it out of the road and walk 4 blocks the rest of the way. So after we rolled the papers and jump started the van, mom and I got the papers out despite my then very bad attitude and got back home around 6am. I fell into bed to LAY THERE AGAIN. I don't know why I could not go to sleep. I saw the clock at 8:45 before I started dozing off. Well shortly after that, the kids were up and wanting breakfast and ready to head to Nana's. Since Monty had a good nights sleep, he took over for a while. After just dozing for about an hour, I finally got up a little after 10 to shower and leave. Monty drove so I did at least get to rest my eyes on the hour long drive. I took that time to talk to the Lord and reflect on some things I was thankful for-believe me, it took me some work to think of anything after the night I had. I also asked for forgiveness and put the rest of day in the Lord's hands. That is what I should have done in the beginning!! We got to the family reunion and really had a great time. The weather was beautiful! The kids got to play with cousins they had never met on the little play ground behind the rented building. There was TONS of food. Monty got to catch up with some family he had not seen in a while. We really had a nice time visiting with everyone. After the dinner, we went back to Nana's house for the Cowboy game. Finally-on Nana's couch-I closed my eyes and fell into a deep, peaceful, rest filled sleep! HALLELUJAH!! I slept for about 2 hours while Monty watched the Cowboys WHOOP UP on the Sea hawks and the kids played with Nana. I woke up feeling rested and refreshed! All in all-It ended up being a Great day! Here are a few pictures of the day....

Nana with Kenyon Kalysa and Keslee

Aunt Beverly with husband Roy son Rashad

daughter in law Gabriel and son Chavez

Chavez with wife Gabriel and growing baby

Leilani Talia Mason

(future sooner fan coming in Feb.)

Monty and Chavez

Nana and the girls going through photos

THANK YOU LORD!!

Thank you Lord, for saving my soul
Thank you Lord, for making me whole
Thank you Lord, for giving to me
Thy great salvation so rich and free

IT IS THANKSGIVING ALREADY!!! better start planning for next year!

Well it is Thanksgiving already. Is it just me or did October and November only last about 3 days each?!? Where oh where does the time go? In school we have been plugging right along. I just took the time to look ahead at all of our lesson plans and it appears that we will be finished by the beginning of May(if not a tad sooner). I have started making plans for our next year. I have decided(for now-all decisions are subject to change without warning or reason at any time) that we are gonna add Apoligia science next year. I have been reading up on them and am really excited. I LOVE SCIENCE! I did not realize there were science classes available for the beginning grades and I can't wait to get started. The girls will start the Exploring creation with Astronomy. I am sure I will learn tons from this elementary class because I never had any type of astronomy class myself. I can name the big dipper but that is about it. I am sure Kenyon will be involved with most of their studies as well. That is really how it works here with any science-Everyone is involved in the figuring out how things work and experiments part. Kenyon will start on Zoology 1 Exploring Creation with Flying Creatures of the 5th day. I wish I would have discovered these courses earlier because we may have to skip the zoology covering creatures of the sea since Kenyon is so old. We will have to see. It is always possible to squeeze things in so we may be able to get to it somehow. Also for next year we will be adding Math-u-see-at least for Kenyon. Math is really his best and favorite subject but he really gets bored and frustrated when he has to just sit and do worksheets. Math was always the cause of meltdowns for him so for now we have thrown it out. I know some of you think-I must be crazy to throw math out for a while but we needed the break. He was always able to do each part. It was never an issue of him not understanding it-he just hates doing it. I think adding the manipulative's and making it more hands on will really work for him. He loves to DO stuff and worksheets just do not make him feel like he is doing anything. He does still do math related things-he helps lots in the kitchen and works with fractions in recipes, he has to keep track of our running totals in the grocery store, lots of things like that-just no worksheets for now. I am not worried at all about his math skills. I am not yet sure what route to take with the girls math-wise. As for right now we are planning on staying with My Fathers World for the rest. I really love it and the kids are doing great with it. It is a lot of fun. The decision I have to make is whether or not to run Kalysa through the 1st grade program that Keslee is doing this year or start them off together on the same unit. The system is set up to where all the kids in the family can work on the same unit and be learning the same things after they can read. Well both girls are starting to read now and Kalysa is actually reading a bit better than Keslee so I am afraid having her go through the 1st grade will be redundant because the main focus is getting them to read. Either way-we have time to figure that out later.
Well that is what I have been thinking about for our homeschool. Have you already started planning for next year? Maybe I am a little weird put I always like to have a plan in place. It feels good to have an idea about what we will be doing 9 months from now. Since we are out of school today for Thanksgiving break, I have had extra time to think about what we can do next.
Those are my thought for the day. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! We are off to Nana's house in the morning(Monty's mom).