Last Minute Prep

Tomorrow is our first day of school! I am really excited about getting the school year underway. We spent our last day of summer with a mini picnic at the park and a free red box movie. I did some prep work for tomorrow and I am tucking in soon! 

This year I decide I want to try a "binder" system with Kyla. Basically it will contain her daily agenda, to-do list, a section to move her completed assignments for me to check all at once, and our daily calendar time. Trying to instill a little independence. 

Of course she would pick a flowery binder :) 

 

I am our local Classical Conversation's Community Foundations & Essentials Program director and tomorrow is parent orientation. I had a little prep work to get ready for that! We have some wonderful families and great tutors in our community! I am looking forward to watching God work in our community this year!

 I mentioned previously I really struggled with what to do about Bible this year. I finally decided and placed my order at the end of last week. One book was suppose to arrive today and one tomorrow. I was stoked when I checked the tracking and they were BOTH out for delivery today! I am about to tuck myself under the covers with these two books and my bible and get a plan on paper for our Bible time.

 

All day today I have been overwhelmed with thankfulness that I get to stay at home with my babies and point them to Christ. Our best conversations about the Lord happen in the midst of the ordinary. 

I am reminded of Deuteronomy 6:6-9 

"And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."   

I wouldn't trade ordinary for anything! 

The opportunity to teach them how to read & write is icing on the cake!

linking up with: 

Priceless!

Daddy went to check and see if she was asleep last night and this is what we found. She doesn't know how to read yet but she often wants to take her Bible to bed with her to "read" before bed! Yes, it is upside down! No, that is not a big deal! :) I am praying God will give her a love for His Word that runs so deep in her soul she will feast on it always! 

Here is a great read: Homeschool Blindspots by Reb Bradley. It is really a great parental read regardless of your schooling preference. 

To whet your appetite, here is an excerpt from the conclusion. 

"I am convinced that the most contagious parenting is living a heartfelt faith before your children. Fruitful interaction is not about what you do to your young people, but who you are with them. It's about having a real faith in God, and expressing it in a real relationship with a real person--not about methods and self-working principles. God intends that the side-effect of loving Jesus and enjoying the grace of the gospel will be that all people--including our children--will be touched by the Savior in us."

If you are visiting, say hi so I can visit you! 

I would love to hear if you read the article and your thoughts :)

Happy Tuesday!

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Meal Planning Helps

I confess, cooking isn't something I love! There I said it! Meal planning is something I love even less. However, it must be done to keep everyone healthy and happy! 

One thing that helps me is when my menu is cute and laid out how I like it! I am not one to re-invent the wheel so after many internet searches I found one that is cute and perfect for us. I do not like to plan out breakfasts, lunches and snacks. A list of options to pick from is awesome for me and my family. When I came across this adorable weekly meal plan calendar it was perfect for me! I love the bottom, "save money, live generously." which is something my husband and I are really trying to implement. 

Now that my cute menu is in place I needed a practical grocery shopping list. My list often consists of a scratch piece of paper with my groceries written down by meal ingredient not section of store. OFTEN I would  get to the front of the store and look over my list and realize I forgot something at the back of the store (I know you have all been there!) and because dragging two kiddos to the back of the store to get the ONE thing I forgot is not fun, I check out only to return to the store again and end up buying stuff I do not need! After searching the internet I found a few I liked but eventually tweaked one for myself. It is nothing special but it is divided into sections like dairy, deli, cereal, pasta, frozen... Here it is as a pdf. 

Our grocery budget is not huge but I am attempting to buy two weeks worth of groceries at a time in an effort to save money. 

I am always looking for ideas, what are been some of your best meal planning tips? Any grocery shopping tips? How about recipes?!? 

Here's the plan | Preschool @ Home

I have had a little more time to think and plan and things are beginning to come together. We are not starting here until September and will probably go through November. Baby #2 is due in early December so we will take December and January off and maybe February. 

Here is my lesson plan book & a few of my resources:

The only "formal" curriculum I will be using will be Handwriting Without Tears PreK Book. After reading various reviews and speaking with people I felt like it would be a good fit for me and Kyla. I am looking for her to show a few more signs of readiness before we begin but I think she will really enjoy it once we get started. 

I am also going to be using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. It was given to me and I have heard great things about it too, we we are going to give it a shot!

Above and beyond that there will be weekly trips to the library for story time and to check out books and play on the computer. Puzzles will be put together and games will be played. You can see my post of manipulatives here. These will be things we will be using daily. Thrown in with small unit studies (i.e. milk comes from cows, let's go to a dairy and see cows being milked. She thinks milk comes from the grocery store :) ). I also have plenty of the cheap work books to work on counting, cutting, coloring, dot to dot... you get the picture. 

Since Kyla is still young my hope is that her and I can get into a schedule of sorts and begin to take steps toward more intentional school in the next 2-3 years. This is what my lesson plan book looks like, it has 8 squares to go with my toddler/preschool schedule.  I plan to schedule at least 3 days a week.

There are two things that will happen daily, Bible & Calendar time. I am still working on my calendar wall, it will include the day of the week and the weather. During that time daily we will review catechism questions from the A Catechism for Boys and Girls (you can download it free here or here) (here is another great resource, Truth & Grace Memory Books) and review scripture memory. We will also read for a story Bible (The Big Picture Bible, Read Aloud Bible Stories, My ABC Bible Verse, The Jesus Storybook Bible, or Leading Little Ones to God). 

In a nutshell, that is how preschool will look for us! Thanks for looking!

This is linked up to the Preschool Corner, for other WONDERFUL preschool/homeschool ideas click below!

Are you weary?

I don't know about you but I think being a parent is the hardest job in the world! I am sure you would agree, there is no responsibility like molding a child's heart. As a Christian parent I must continually and consistently correct, rebuke, reprove and train my child (and myself) in righteousness. Ya know what, that is TIRING! 

I find great comfort in Galatians 6:9

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

If you need some encouragement as you press on, check out this post on the Girltalk blog. 

For God's glory and my daughter's heart, I will not become weary!

Reading

As of late I have been enjoying reading again! The busyness of the summer and life has kept me from reading like I want to but nonetheless I am attempting to plod through a few books. I updated my currently reading and have read lists at the bottom. I mixed a few fiction books into the mix back in May. I finished Gospel Powered Parenting last week and it was one of the best reads on parenting I have read. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge to keep the gospel in the center of my parenting. It has caused me to think deeper and harder about the gospel and how it intersects with my life and Kyla's life at every moment. How does the cross speak to her unkindness, what does the gospel say to me about my laziness. One of my top parenting picks, hands down! One side-note: it is written and geared toward fathers as spiritual leaders but we moms have something to glean out of it as well. 

A friend loaned me The Joy of the Word Filled Family a few weeks ago and I have enjoyed reading a chapter or so a day (it is a pretty thick book and could be intimidating). It has encouraged and exhorted me to be Godly and Word filled so that my family too may be filled with God's word! I am also reading How People Change to become better equipped so that I can grow in godliness and point others toward that path also! I will keep you posted on how they both end up!

A few on my next up list are: 

Love that Lasts 

(we are going to be taking a few couples through pre-marital counseling with this book) 

When People are Big and God is Small

Disciplines of a Godly Woman

Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling

The Gospel for Real Life II

The Gospel for Real Life

The Pleasure of Obedience – Chapter Three
The pleasure of obedience seems a concept so far from our grasp because we know how radically sinful we are. But for Jesus, there was pleasure in His obedience. Not only was Jesus outwardly sinless by action, but also inwardly by thought. This is not so for us, many times we act very proper on the outside, but sin in our hearts. What is key about Jesus is that He not only obeyed the Law of God, He always desired to do so. Obedience that is not delighted in is not perfect obedience.

So what does that matter for us? We can no longer continue to only look at Jesus' death we must revel in His perfect life. Why is this, because Jesus not only died for us, He also LIVED for us. All that Christ did in life and death, He did in our place as our substitute. There are two ways Jesus' perfect obedience applies to us. The first is that He came to do what we, because of sin could not do. It is this perfect obedience to the moral will of God that is called His active obedience. He actively obeyed the Father's universal moral will, which we call the Law of God. The second way this applies to us is that Jesus suffered in our place, that is His passive obedience. Jesus obeyed the Father's specific will for Him by suffering under the penalty of sin. This wasn't just at the cross, this was also by laying aside His divine glory and assuming a human nature when He came to us as a baby. In a sense Jesus reaped what we have sown.

The difference that this should make in our lives is that Jesus assumed our obligation and liability, obeying and suffering in our place. Jesus was appointed by God the Father as our legal representative. It is only because He lived and died as our representative that His work becomes beneficial to us. We can accurately say that when Jesus lived a perfect life, we lived a perfect life. When He died on the cross to suffer the penalty of sin, we died on the cross. All that Jesus did, we did, because of our legal union with Him. All that Christ did was credited to us, by faith, because we are united with Him.

Justice Satisfied – Chapter Four


We often think of justice in human terms and it is often tainted by sin. We need to remember that God's justice is perfect. Justice may be defined as rending to everyone according to one's due. Two things to note about God's justice, it is certain and it is inflexible. It is certain in the idea that it is coming, it is inflexible meaning, we get exactly what we deserve – nothing more, nothing less. God does not exalt His mercy at the expense of His justice. In order to maintain his justice, all sin without exception must be punished. We often want God just to let us off, that cannot be so. People think that God will somehow relax His inflexible justice and pardon all of us by mere sovereign prerogative. What is important to know is that God by the perfection of His nature cannot do that. He cannot exalt one attribute (mercy) at the expense of another (justice). Justice must be satisfied.

So where is our hope? As we looked at in chapter three we know Jesus served as our legal representative in life and death. Just as Jesus fully obeyed God's Law in our place, He also suffered its full penalty in our place. Jesus bore the full brunt of God's justice and He received the full punishment that was due to us. Jesus fully and completely satisfied the justice of God on our behalf as our substitute.

As believers we must steadily keep in mind that Christ has satisfied the justice of God on our behalf. Never again should we fear the retributive justice of God. We must not allow the accusations of Satan or the condemning indictments of our conscious to bring us under a sense of God's unrequited justice. Instead, we should by faith lay hold of the wonderful truth that God's justice has been satisfied for us by our Lord Jesus Christ. (46)

The Gospel for Real Life

I have often said one of my favorite books is The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges. This book is life changing and I do not say that lightly. Jerry Bridges challenges believers to put the gospel where it rightly belongs, in our every day life! I reading through it for the second time as I am leading our summer ladies Bible Study. I am excited to see how the gospel will not only continually shape and alter my life, but the lives of the women involved in the study. My hope is to blog a brief summary of each chapter to encourage you to seek to interact with the gospel in your life every single day and in every aspect of your life.  All these comments are either direct quotes or summarized thoughts from the book. 

Unsearchable Riches – Chapter One

Unsearchable riches are found in the gospel, however we set the gospel aside at the moment of salvation and seek to be disciples. What we forget is without the gospel we cannot become true followers of Jesus Christ. Instead of living victorious lives many believers live defeated and in desperation.  Why is that, “One answer is that we have a truncated view of the gospel, tending to see it only as a door we walk through to become a Christian… we fail to see the gospel as the solution to our greatest problem – our guilt, condemnation and alienation from God. Beyond that we fail to see it as the basis of our day-to-day acceptance with Him. As a result many believers live in spiritual poverty.” (14-15)

The gospel is the good news that directly addresses the bad news in our lives. Because of the gospel “we can begin each day with the realization that I am accepted by God, not on the basis of my personal performance, but on the basis of the infinitely perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.” (18)

Why the Cross – Chapter Two

Before we can ultimately understand the good news we must begin to understand the desperate need that we have as a result of our sinful condition.  Between God and mankind there is a huge spiritual debt that must be paid, the payment is found in the cross.

When Adam & Eve were placed in the garden they were placed with one restriction, not to eat of the forbidden tree.  This involved no hardship, no inconvenience, just simple obedience.  We know the story that the failed to obey and as a result we have the “fall.” The will that was bent towards God is now bent towards evil. Adam serves as our legal representative (this is called federal headship) because of the fall we also have a sin nature and are guilty before God.

Not only do we bear original sin but we consciously and unconsciously, willfully and unintentionally sin every day.  We fail to keep the greatest commandment (Love the Lord your God) and often do not even consider the second great commandment (love your neighbor as yourself). We must understand that our sinful nature affects and pollutes everything we do. 

The importance of understanding our own sin is “not to be measured by our own sense of need, but by what God has done to meet that need… the cross is an expression of God’s wrath toward sin as well as his love to us… God’s holiness demands it (the cross) as punishment for our sins, and God’s love provided it to save us from our sins.” (29)

“It is only against the dark backdrop of our sinfulness that we can see the glory of the cross shining forth in all its brilliance and splendor. And, as we gaze upon the glory of the cross, we will also discover that Christ, in His great work for us, not only resolved our sin problem, but also secured for us those “unsearchable riches” (30) 

I welcome and would love to hear your comments and interactions with these thoughts! Stay tuned for chapter's 3 & 4 next week!

In my heart...

Lately I have been like Mary, "pondering these things in my heart." Thus, the lack of blog action. Not to mention some craziness in life that generally keeps me from the computer. However as I was baking cookies today I had some music Sovereign Grace Music playing and I was moved by the deepness and vastness of God's love for me and the deceitfulness of my own heart. There are very few songs that I just belt out singing when I hear them but this is one of those songs because so much of it is me, my heart, and God's great love!

Just for fun, my Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (found on allrecipes.com)

Happy Memorial Day!

Wanna See Someone Else's Lapbook

My Friend Michelle has made two lapbooks, one on trains and the other on the body/anatomy Check them out!

While you are there check out the File Folder Games! 

Muncha Muncha Muncha Lapbook

I finally got around to putting my Muncha, Muncha, Muncha Lapbook together. It goes with the book Muncha, Muncha, Muncha. Here is a video of the lapbook and below I will post resources I used and another link to add to what we are already doing. 

The Book!

Lapbook Resources

Resource From the Author

Blog Absent

Indeed times have been slow around the blog. However, I have logged on multiple times to say something, but it usually ended in me closing out the dashboard and walking away. Things are crazy, lots to say,  but not much time to articulate all my thoughts. 

So for today I want to share this blog I have enjoyed following Passionate Homemaking the post today by her guest blogger and this post on The Purpose of the Home are great encouraging reads! 

Be Blessed Friends!

30-Day Husband Encouragement Challenge

I love this man!

I do! I love him!

 I adore him, I am thankful for him, but yet I fail to always show that! 

A friend and I are taking the 30-Day Challenge, the Husband Encouragement Challenge

http://www.reviveourhearts.com/pdf/30DayChallenge.pdf

Will you seek to honor the head of your household, not for 30 days but for long as you both shall live? 

I do!

Pray for me, if you decide to join in, let me know so I can pray for you!

Toddler/Preschool Schedule

In my post on the Easter lapbook I mentioned the need of some structure. I finally finished our chart and I am really happy with it! Let's hope Kyla is too! A few things I like about this is Kyla will know what to expect once she learns what each of the pictures means and I will have some sort of routine to follow. I love the idea that it is flexible and not the law! The box next to the pictures I can either use a photo of Kyla and move it when we are onto the next subject or write in what we are doing that day! I did another video just because it was easier and quicker for me!!! 

I would love to hear what works for you!

God-Centered Holiness

Along with my daily Bible readings I am reading some sort of short, thought provoking meditation. In February I read Comforts From the Cross by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and I just started Holiness Day by Day by Jerry Bridges. 

My reading for today was titled God-Centered Holiness.  

Many believers want to be holy, strive to be holy but we don't experience it daily! We struggle with our sin and we constantly feel defeated! Bridges states, and I agree, our first problem is our attitude toward sin is self-centered not God-centered. We tend to focus on beating sin and claiming victory rather than the fact that our sin grieves God. We don't like sin because we fail... when in reality we should hate sin because it is offensive to God. 

Bridges reminds us that God wants us to walk in obedience not victory! Obedience orients us toward God and victory is oriented toward self. To walk in holiness we must pursue obedience, not victory! The good news is that victory is a by-product of obedience. 

Believer, let focus on honoring God by following him obediently and rejoice in the victory we are granted over sin! When our eyes are on the Savior, they are far from self!

Spring has Sprung

It could be the fact I had the windows open today, or that I wore flip flops, or the yellow jonquils but spring is in the air... and on the blog! In honor of spring I had to get a new header photo and change up the colors a tad. I painted Kyla's toes with Piggy Paint (check it out, it is an all natural nail polish!!) and she wore her new flip flops and I thought a new header was in order! 

Happy Spring! 

Easter Lapbook!

We are planning on homeschooling. At times I feel overwhelmed, not with the responsibility but with the choices of curriculum and such!! I have realize I get to take it slow and learn as we go. One thing we need is structure, well I say we... it is really me. So I have been working on a routine chart that I will fix for Kyla everyday and we will have a routine. (More about that when it is finished) 

Since I have been thinking about structure I have been thinking about school. (I feel somewhat silly posting this because I know MANY of you that read this are veteran homeschool moms, so forgive me :) ) One resource I ran across a few weeks ago was called Lapbooks. It takes unit studies on certain subjects and you combine it into a book! There are many ways you can do this, I choose to make my first one for Easter. I don't cover math or science but that is okay, the others I make will have it all. What I really like is when the lapbook is based off of a book. I have started one based off of Muncha, Muncha, Muncha by Candace Fleming. We will be learning about vegetables, gardening, rabbits and all subjects will be included. I will start that when we start our garden in a few weeks! 

Here is a short (poorly made) video of my lapbook. It was easier to video than take pictures and then mark what everything is! Sorry I sound sorta spacey :)
(I re-uploaded it, sorry for those of you that saw half of it!)

Here are some great links to get you started! 

This is a great place to start with Unit Studies (click on unit studies)

(also where I got most of the stuff for Muncha, Muncha, Muncha)

Homeschool Share

Basic Idea of a Lapbook 

Cindy Rushton PDF

These two go together, awesome, AWESOME ideas for "schooling toddlers/preschoolers"

1+1+1=1 Blog

Totally Tots Blog

Beware, it can be addicting!!

Musings Monday

First installment of Musings Monday! (not sure there will be a second but we shall see!)

~ Monday's around here are for slow moving! Mondays we recuperate from Sundays!

~ I like bird watching!! After seeing these beautiful bluebirds last week in our yard I decided we needed a bird feeder in our yard!

~ Apparently Kyla is the Bird Whisperer, because when buying our bird feeder today she informed me that "the birds are so EXCITED!"

~ To be honest, I am not sure who spent more time at the window today staring at the feeder, me or her! 

~ I was thrilled to see these dry erase crayons today for Kyla's white board! 

~ I just cooked dinner and I wish I had skillets with lids, I am pretty sure that will be on my Christmas list for 2010

~ Justin and I have been talking about ways to spend less and give more and I am excited to be more frugal in some areas. For example making things I know I can make, like hand soap, laundry detergent, using less paper goods, and eating at home more!! 

~ I think I enjoy Kyla's new "To Be Like Jesus" CD than she does! (currently $5.00 for the mp3 download!)

~ Has enjoyed thinking on "The Heaven declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the works of his hands!" Psalm 19:1 (which you can sing to the tune of here we go around the mulberry bush, I learned that lastnight be teaching our preschoolers :) ) and yes, if you are wondering, I have been walking around singing that today :) 

Hope you had a happy Monday!

...abiding...

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

John 15:9

I love the imagery Jesus uses throughout the Gospels! In particular I have been thinking of Jesus referring to Himself as the vine, and His people as the fruit. I have been contemplating how as fruit we do nothing, but bloom and blossom. We cannot become fruit of our own doing, we cannot choose to bloom, it is the Vine that produces fruit! 

Me and I can guess WE often focus on what we can do to abide and remain in Christ. We focus on our duty and actions, yet we fail to look to the vine. We fail to realize that remaining and abiding is a work of the vine. Once the fruit has ripened it falls off the vine, that is not the fruits doing but the vines! Be of good cheer, we are  not attached to a vine that is weak and dying, as believers we are trusting in an eternal hope that promises to bear fruit! 

Take heart in these promises,

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

Ephesians 2:10

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit 

John 15:2

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 

Philippians 1:6

thoughts are from my meditation on John 15 and day 20 of Comforts from the Cross by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

What God Say's He Will Do, He Will!

On Wednesday's I have started teaching the Kindergarten class for Team Kids (which is really an afterschool program of tutoring, dinner, play time, and Bible lesson). I have always been there for tutoring and dinner but the class has nearly doubled so I have stayed to teach the Bible lesson so we don't combine the K and 1st graders! 

We are using the awesome Children Desiring God curriculum for our mid-week programs. Our class is using the I Stand in Awe study. It is a study for children about the Bible. Week by week it  builds on each other seeking to teach young children about the characteristics of the Bible and the main story of redemption through it's pages.   The hope is that these lessons will impart an affection for the Word and to learn to love the Author. 

The first four weeks have been about 

1. The Bible is a message to us from God

2. The Bible is a most special Book

3. God Wrote the Bible

4. The Bible is True    

Today's lesson was God is watching over His Word

It was an awesome reminder to me that God is faithful and He will do what He says He will do. It sounds so simple but really if we (especially me) lived our life believing this one fact we would live differently.

We wouldn't feel/act condemned or defeated because...

 there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus Romans 8:1

We would grow in Godliness and Faith by believing that...

began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1:6

We wouldn't "do" out of duty but out of delight because... 

you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:22-23

Be encouraged, God does what He says He will do! 

... I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled. Jeremiah 1:12b