An Invitation

This week I was given a handwritten card on bright orange paper. It read...

"Dear Mom,
You're invited to my birthday party.
It will be on the 29.
It will begin at 7am.
Please help with the cake."

So glad I made the guest list!  Tomorrow at 7am the celebration of Benjy's 8th birthday begins!! He's made sure of it. ;-D

My Trip to the Spa

My children treated me to a trip to the Spa today.

They have a lovely front desk...

...and waiting room.

I decided to go all out and order the Full Treatment.

It was the best Spa I've ever been to. But, make sure you are ready to drop some Big Money!

I'm tellin' ya'. I have the Greatest Kids Ever!

12 Weeks...12 Things The Countdown Begins!

After two days of snowfall, we're buried and April feels VERY far away. But, when you take a look at the calendar, it really is true that this baby is due to arrive in only twelve weeks!! GASP!

Okay, don't panic. We're going to take this Baby Prep one week at a time. I've put together my 12 Weeks-12 Things list.  One project each week will leave us well-prepped for baby's arrival.  It also leaves me feeling a little less overwhelmed. ;-)  And, hey, I even get another cool list to check off. Oh, how I love my lists!

I'm posting my list on the side of our blog so I can see it and check it off. It's quite motivating to see things getting done!

Does the Lord have something coming up in your life that you need to be preparing for? I encourage you to prayerfully make a list of all that you can do to be ready for His blessings. :-)

Still Living Free!

At least as far as home education is concerned!

Today we joined hundreds at the statehouse for a rally asking legislators to vote ITL (inexpedient to legislate) a bill that would destroy the home education freedoms in our state. *If* this bill would have passed, our state would have had one of the most stringent home education laws in our nation. *If* this bill would have passed, it would set yet another precedent for taking away the rights of parents and citizens to choose what is best for their homes and families. *If* this bill would have passed, it would have been without any evidence that home education is failing students in any way. In fact, all the data concerning our state's home educated students shows quite the contrary! I am so grateful we serve a God who overpowers every *IF* in our path!

Hooray for all of the families that attended the many rallies, meetings and sessions that were made to try to sneak this bill through. Hooray for the hardworking individuals who daily watched and carefully followed this unneccessary bill so that we, as a people, could be informed and take action. Hooray that our prayers, words, actions and presence still make a difference in our state and nation. Thank you, Lord, for allowing us these freedoms yet!

Done.

Well, the baking all got done. I did a quad batch of muffins in place of the cookies, but we should be set for most of the week, aside from the yeast breads.

Didn't get all the casseroles done. One Cheeseburger Pie for a family from church to welcome their new baby. I also have a pot of chili in the crockpot cooking tonite to be ready for lunch tomorrow. Also prepped some oatmeal pancakes for breakfast in the morning. It was a successful day. I'm definitely feeling that. ;-)

Have I ever shared just how Very Capable I am in the kitchen?? Yeah, well...Very Capable of making a Huge Mess!!  I had bread overflowing the pans today and ended up with some lopsided loaves as well as an accidental new bread. Pumpkin-Gingerbread loaf!  See, the pumpkin bread oozed over the edge of it's pan and leaked down onto the gingerbread below it. Makes for a colorful loaf!  It's a good thing my family is more interested in the taste than the presentation.

My yeast breads turned out lovely, though. I was really happy about that. I haven't made bread since last summer. I was afraid I had forgotten how to do it.

Well, thanks to my little helpers and my loving husband, I even have a clean kitchen as I now sit with my feet up. What a great feeling to have a freezer full of goods and a day of rest ahead of me.

Kitchen Day Returns!

It's been awhile since I've been able to get back to my normal routine of Kitchen Day on Saturdays. It seems that once we settled in from our trip the holiday season started up and everything just kept changing.

So, while David is busy at a town budget meeting, I'll be busy in the kitchen!

Baking:
3 loaves yeast bread, one pan dinner rolls
4 loaves pumpkin bread
2 loaves gingerbread
Oatmeal cookies
2 loaves Leftover oatmeal-blueberry bread

Cooking:
Beans to soak
Hambuger casserole x2
Chicken casserole x2
Applesauce

Hopefully I'll still have some energy left to help the Girlies get their room in order before Big Sis returns from a visit with Grandma and Papa. We'd like the room to look pretty for her. :D

The rest of the day we'll be working on simple winter decorations. Well...after a nice nap!

We Three Kings

Tonight we celebrated the end of our Christmas season with our Three Kings party. The children chose to present the story of the wise men meeting the child, Jesus, with a puppet show. It was very sweet. We're so lucky to have such a great drama team right in our own home!

King Herod

Ruth modeling her stocking gift.

And a couple of Haddie being just plain cute. She sure is going to miss that tree!

We packed up all the Christmas decor tonite too. That made everyone pretty sad. It's hard to take down all of those pretty lights and put the house back to normal. We've decided we are going to put up some snowflakes and other winter decorations to keep the winter blues away.

Proverbs 31...Here I Come!

Me and my two best friends are having a young ladies challenge.At the end of the month the reward will be a Mother-Daughter fun day!!Also the girl with the highest points gets a surprise from the other girls!Our goal is 10,000 points. Keep an eye on my ticker and cheer me on!

~Bettsy (aka, Elizabeth)

WAYS TO EARN POINTS

Learning a new skill   100 points
Bible Reading   10 points each chapter
Bible Memory   25 points per verse
Cheerfully completing daily chores without being reminded   10 points per chore
Taking on a large household project   100 points each project
Service project   100 points
Spending time (20 minutes) with littles   10 points each time
Morning hygeine without being told (hair brushed and fixed....teeth brushed....dressed neatly etc.)   10 points
Cooking a complete meal for the family   50 points each meal
20 minutes work on sewing,embroider or any project   10 points
School done cheerfully and in a timely manner   10 points per lesson 
Exercise (Reps should be done correctly and not sped through.)
   Reps  50 reps= 5 points
   Walking...One mile=10 points

Our Family Prayer Journal

Last week we were Back to School...sort of. We had a lot of appts., a tea party and the holiday to fit in, so we stuck with our Core Studies. That's code around here for Get the Basics Done and Move On.  That makes this our "official" Back to Life week. This is when we add in our full MOTH (Managers of Their Homes) schedule. That includes all the cleaning, cooking, lessons, and choring that needs to be done each day. I'm so thankful to have found that tool. It's been a fantastic fit for our family. It truly is my "Brain", since I rarely can find mine on any given day.

I thought I'd share one of our most important Back to Life items that started up again this week. Our family Prayer Journal. It's just a simple notebook, but it helps us to focus our prayer time around the breakfast table each morning. We record the requests on one side and make a column to record the answers and praises on the other side. It's quite a gift to see the Lord working through our petitions. Here's how we have ours set up:

Sunday: Church family and ministries
Monday: Missionaries and Ministries
Tuesday: Our Country, State and local government and it's leaders
Wednesday: Family, friends and neighbors that do not yet know Jesus
Thursday: Family and extended family needs
Friday: Personal family needs
Saturday: Neighborhood and our Family Ministry

We still keep the "urgent" requests on our daily list.

I am confident the Lord has grand plans for us in the coming year. I am grateful to have a tool to record His work in our lives. This was fantastic way to get us Back to Life this morning!

I am also thankful for the privilege to come before Him in prayer. Please know we rejoice in praying for all of you, thank you for allowing us to do so!

Happy New Year!

We celebrated at home, as usual. Our First Round of the party was with the little girls. We played games while the littlest ones enjoyed a "new" box of toys we borrow from our local toy swap.  They stayed up until 9pm...that's late for the Girlies!

Once we got the littles tucked into bed, we hunkered down for Round Two of the party. It ended up being a pretty quiet as everyone settled into a craft instead of the games and movies we had been planning. It was nice to spend that time with the Bigs, but I got pretty tired with all that quiet!

Elizabeth loves to make Yarn Doll Families. Joshua made the grandpa and I had the job of making the baby. (of course! heehee!)

Oh, and did I happen to mention....????

We'll be welcoming a new baby in the new year! 14 more weeks until our newest little Blessing on Board arrives.  What a gift!

Elizabeth's Christmas Kitten

Isn't she so precious? This year Elizabeth received a kitten for Christmas. She's an adorable tiger-striped sweetie. Elizabeth has named her Hadassah Zoe.  Hadassah is a favorite name of Elizabeth's, being the Hebrew name for Esther from the bible. Zoe is the greek word meaning "life". In church recently, we learned about the use of this word and Elizabeth felt it was a perfect fit for her frisky little kitty.  We call her Haddie for short. She's in great heath and has already grown so much. All of the children love her to pieces. It just seems natural that little girls should have a kitten to snuggle!

Celebrating the Birth of Christ.

Our celebration of Jesus birth began with sharing a lovely time of bible study, singing and prayer with two special families in our community. We also enjoyed a delicious breakfast together.  This is a sweet moment with some of the little girls enjoying Christmas books together.

After our morning time of worship, we spent the afternoon with David's parents, sister and her family. We enjoyed a great lunch, opened gifts together and relaxed after a busy morning for everyone.

Christmas Morning

The children begged to spend the night Christmas Eve sleeping in the living room by the light of the Christmas tree. David and I woke up that morning to a fresh pot of coffee and David's bible waiting to read the Christmas story from the book of Luke. It was very sweet to see them take charge of their favorite traditions. Elizabeth even hid the Baby Jesus from the creche for everyone to find. (that's another one of our favorite traditions, derived from a real life hunt when she was 2 years old!)  Opening gifts was such a blessing, as I knew that each package was a direct provision from the Lord during this challenging time.  Thank you, Lord for showing your abundance in the midst of drought.