Making a habit of desiring the sincere Milk

We are working on making new habits in our house. One area that we have been seriously lacking in is reading our Bibles daily. Now don't get me wrong, our days are filled with God and the Bible. We often have Godly music playing in the background and at anytime a passerby may hear us singing a hymn as we go about our daily chores. We read at least 1/2-1 chapter of the Bible together everyday in our school work. Every subject we study is focused on God and His plan(except maybe math). We memorize Bible verses in school and in church. We constantly are faced with decisions and we teach our children to search God's will and God's word in making them. We have standards that differ from the world and we often discuss them and the reasons we hold so strongly to them. We often search the Bible for clarification of a scripture during our talks. All of these things have become the norm in our household and I had gotten comfortable with that. I was overlooking the fact that our growth depends on really getting into the Word of God. Each of us individually! It can not just be part of our day or part of our family life. It has to be part of our own personal walk with the Lord. Each of us as individuals! I can't just take my children on a walk with Jesus-they have to walk with him. Not only should our family walk with the Lord-each person has to have their own personal walk. Thankfully we have an awesome preacher who loves us all very much. He is concerned about our individual growth in grace and knowledge. Each year he picks a theme for the year. This year just happens to be 1Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby. Following the leading of our preacher, we have adopted that verse as our own family theme. We are working on making it a habit for each person individually to spend time in the Word of God.

(not sure why this picture is sideways-it is not like that in my photos ???)

The first thing we needed was a reminder. It is easy to start a new habit but the busyness of our daily lives often cloud our minds and new habits are easily forgotten. I picked up 5 small poster boards with graph squares on them. I marked out squares for every day left in the year starting on April 1.

I also added our theme verse after each person's name. We have a family goal of 25,000 verses read by the end of the year. Each of us spend time alone reading God's word. Everyone is responsible for their own reading. It is done at different times depending on the person and we each record the number of verses we read on our chart. Everyone has started reading in different areas of the Bible. Monty decided to start in Genesis. He is really going for it and if he keeps going at the rate he did the first week, he very well could finish the entire Bible by the end of the year. Kenyon started in (and finished) the book of Proverbs. Keslee started in Matthew but has now jumped back to Genesis. Kalysa kinda jumps around and reads several verses from different books each day. I started in Genesis (mainly because I was preparing for a children's church lesson from there at the time) then decided to read Lamentations and am now reading through Acts.

The first week has been a success with almost 5000 verses read. Our goal may be way too low but we will just leave it at that for now. Even my 8 year olds are able to read, understand and learn from their daily reading. That kinda kills that excuse that so many grown ups use-"Oh the King James Bible is just so hard to understand so I read from a different perversionI mean version." We are all enjoying our personal time alone with the Lord and I know that growth is inevitable!

He really did it this time!!

Yep, he sure did. Even though I asked him not to. I begged him not to. I cried and pleaded for several days. Did he listen? NOPE! He just went and did it anyway. With absolutely no regard for my feelings! Can you believe that? I mean seriously...the nerve of some boys. No matter what I said, regardless of the tears I shed, with no consideration of the feelings of others, they do it anyway. They just wake up one morning and turn 13.

OH THE PAIN!

OH THE AGONY!

HOW COULD THIS EVER HAVE HAPPENED????

I promise it was just a moment ago that I had a sweet little boy that was getting into everything. How could it be that that moment was actually thirteen years long????

How can I be the mother of a teenager???

Seriously....I am just barely past my own teen years!☺

I was not ready for this day. I am still in a state of unbelief. I mean...A TEENAGER?!?! What am I suppose to do with a TEENAGER??

I know my only hope of survival is in this book!! So first thing we did was get him a new one. His first "good" Bible with leather cover and his name embossed on the front. It even came with several key verses already highlighted. Ok, so I did the highlighting but they were there before he ever got it.

We also got him this pretty little ring. The design is a reminder of the crown of thorns that Jesus endured for us during the Crucifixion and the inside has a sweet little reminder engraved just for him.

Monty and I took our not so little boy out to Braum's for lunch. After burgers, the 3 of us had a long, not so easy, talk over a banana split.

I promise you, that is about the hardest thing I have ever done and I was afraid my poor husband was on the verge of a coronary the entire time. My shy, modest teenager was none too happy about it either. I am not allowed to discuss any of the topics that we went over (per Kenyon's demand!) with anyone! That is just fine with me and he, in turn, agreed to only discuss such topics with his dad or me if questions arise later.

The only comfort I received from the day-my son assured me he had NEVER heard of such a thing and everything we discussed was completely new and foreign to him. At least I know the first he ever heard was from his parents and was the TRUTH.

Life saving homeschool

This year in science we have been learning about the human body. We use The Body Book and have made hands on 3-D models of several different body parts. They are really easy and explain alot. The kids have been having lots of fun.

We have made this model of the ear. The outer ear opens up to show the inner parts of the ear.


This tooth open up to show the pulp of the teeth, the roots and root canals and the gums and jaw bone.

The eyeball model has several layers including a piece of plastic wrap on the front for the lens.

This face has lips that open up to show the tongue. We learned all about the different areas of taste. Kalysa decided to make all her teeth either gold or silver, goofy girl:)

The skin has several layers and this model is the same. We learned the layers as well as about the nerve endings and pain receptors in the skin. Also the hair and hair follicles.

And then there is the skeleton. We have talked about the different bones and joints. We have used our own bodies to recognize the hinge joints and the ball joints; what they can do and what they can't. It has been alot of fun. I love these hands on projects. The kids have a visual of what it is we are talking about and can go back and look again when they have questions.

We are scheduled to do some astronomy this year as well with Apologia science. Kenyon is waiting and waiting on that. He has a telescope and loves to look at the moon and stars. He has gotten up in the middle of the night to watch an eclipse and meteor showers every single time we hear of them. He is just fascinated by space as most boys are. So one day while we were making one of our body part models Kenyon asked "When do we get to start astronomy? I really want to do that now instead." I explained that I had looked ahead in our book and it was still several weeks before we get to the astronomy lessons.

"We still have several more parts of the body to learn about" I say.

"Oh Good! I can't wait till we get to the penis!" uuuuhhh, yeah. That would be Keslee.

Wh...WHAA...WHAT? WHY? Why? yeah...that was me.

"I just don't understand them mom, I just don't understand."

I am sooooo thankful that we homeschool!!!

All kids are curious. They all come to a point when they just want to learn about themselves and the other ones. Just imagine if my sweet, innocent, beautiful almost 9 year old girl spent 8 hours a day surrounded by hundreds of other curious children. Lots of curious children. Lots of curious children that live lives that are often unsupervised, uncensored, and totally unBiblical. I will tell you what would happen...she would still be curious. She would have the same questions. She would look for answers and she would find them. Only she would not get those answers from her mother and they very likely would not be totally accurate. Curious young minds would teach each other things without any adults knowledge. The conscience that the Lord equipped them with would let them know they were entering territory that they were not supposed to be in and she would hide what she knew and what she wanted to know. She would no longer feel comfortable coming to her mother for such indiscreet information. And there it is...I WOULD HAVE LOST HER. Right then and there, with a simple curiosity that everyone has, I would have lost my sweet 8 year old daughter for good.

Oh, Thank You Lord for the opportunity to homeschool!!

Bow Holders and Door Hangers

• This year, around Christmas time, the money around here seemed to be a little tighter than normal. Our family has stopped exchanging presents between all of the adults but we still like to get all the kids something. That means, besides my own 3, I have 6 nieces, 2 nephew, 1 little sister and 1 little brother that I still needed to get presents for. Our neighbor had made the cutest hair bow holder for my girls a year or so ago so I thought I would give them a try.

We stopped in at Hobby Lobby and found these plain wood pieces for less than $3 a piece. They also had some already painted wooden decorations for .50-$1.00. I picked up a couple of rolls of ribbon for a few dollars and a few different colors of paint for about $1 a piece. I used a pencil to draw each kids name and then started painting. I used 2 or 3 colors on each board and by mixing and matching the colors made 5 different bow holders with combinations of just 4 colors.

After the painting was done and dry, I used a black sharpie to outline each name. I didn't think I would be able to outline as well with a paint brush and the marker worked just great!

I used hot glue to attach each decoration and the ribbons. For the boys I cut a belt loop off of an old pair of pants and glued each end to the back to make a hanger. A little bit of glitter glue and a few sprays with a can of clear coat later and each boy had a name plate to hang on their door.

I used some ribbon I already had to make several bows and found some silk flowers on the clearance isle to make some flower clips to for each girl. I used the same pink ribbon with green butterflies and the word princess on it for all of the bow holders and the hangers at the top.

Here is a closer view of each one individually...

Princess Peyton, my brother's only daughter and Hunter's sister. She is a girly girl with a pink room so I knew this would suit her just fine.

Sheyenne, my other brother's youngest daughter. She loves Tinkerbell so I thought the green and yellow would be a good fit for her.

Alyssa, my sister's oldest daughter. Alyssa is somewhat of a Tom boy who loves to play soccer. I thought the green was not too girly but the purple and glitter made it just feminin enough.

Aliyah, my sister's middle daughter. Aliyah is much more girly than Alyssa. I didn't want it to be just like Peyton's so I added yellow and reversed the pink and green.

And then there is Ashlynne, my sister's youngest daughter and Ashton's twin sister. Three year old Ashlynne can always be found wearing a pair of her plastic princess dress up shoes so I knew this little castle would be fitting.

My brother's oldest daughter and Sheyenne's older sister Brooksie is 13 years old and a little past the bow wearing stage so I made her a jewelry box. This plain wood box was also about $3. Instead of making a flower hair clip I just glued one of the flowers to the front of the box. I actually made one of these for Jacinta as well but obviously did not get a picture of it.

I was so happy with how well they all turned out and all the kids seemed pretty happy about them on Christmas day. I love giving homemade gifts. I also love the fact that I was able to give 9 people very special gifts for about $50 total!

Yep, He is full of it!

Last week, in our science studies about the lungs we conducted a little experiment to determine the amount of air the lungs could hold. We started out with a two liter bottle filled with water. We turned the bottle over in a sink full of water and then removed the lid keeping the bottle full. Then we inserted a tube in the bottle, took a DEEP breath and blew.
The air in your lungs replaces the water in the bottle. When each participant had blown all they could blow with only one breath I replaced the lid while the bottle was still under water keeping what was left in the bottle.

Keslee was almost able to empty the entire two liter!

Kalysa took her turn and amazed us all when she emptied well over 1/2 of the bottle. Her lung capacity was just a little less than Keslee's.

Remember this is the same girl that started out on this earth at only 2 pounds 4 ounces and spent the first 5 weeks of her life on a ventilator. That is a scenario that often means asthma or other lung problems for a life time but we have none of that here. Praise the Lord!!

When Kenyon took his turn and blew every bit of water out of the two liter bottle like it was nothing and still had air to spare, we moved to an empty gallon milk jug for his test. After one try with the gallon jug, what we had known all along was confirmed...

MY SON IS FULL OF HOT AIR!! ☺hehehe!! ☺ He almost emptied out the entire gallon! I am sure he would have if we would have kept trying (like he wanted to) but we had to move on. Knowing my son, this is something he will be working on in his spare time until he DOES empty the gallon jug and who knows what size bottle he will want to tackle after that.

Ya know-lung capacity is a big one in the bragging rights of young boys.

Much to do...

Well, this is gonna be one busy week. Tomorrow Monty's sister is flying in from Virginia so we will get to spend some time with her on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday we have a funeral-I am sure I will have more on that later. Friday Monty and I get to go to the couple's retreat with church-WOOHOO! I didn't think we were gonna get to go this year so when Monty said today that we WERE going I was/am SO excited. It is so good to have the chance to spend some time with other couples from our church, hear some awesome preaching that concentrates on marriage, and get to spend some time alone with my hubby in a fancy motel. It is definitely gonna be a full week. I doubt that we will be able to get much school done and I really hate that because we are already behind where I would like to be but I am so thankful that homeschooling allows us to include our kids in all the family activity without having to work around the governments schedule! Hope you all have a great week!

LOVE IT!

I just ♥ ♥ ♥ kids with toothless grins!! It is just the sweetest. The only thing that can even compare to the cuteness of a toothless grin...


is the new BIG tooth grin! ☺