Let's Pretend For a Moment

This afternoon we headed out to enjoy the sunshine and the spring birds singing.

Considering we live in the Midwest Arctic, snow attire was still necessary.

It didn't take me long to realize that those spring birds were saying,"Why on earth did we fly north so early? It's still FREEZING up here!!!"

I think H is losing hope that spring will ever get here. Did I ever mention this child was NOT meant to live in the cold weather! She did set a new record for staying out in the snow. A much impressive 15 minutes!!! I was ready to come in after 12 so she beat me. It was nice to pretend for a moment that Spring was here.....sort of.

IAHE Homeschool Convention and Our Mini Getaway

So J and I got away this weekend and headed to the State Homeschool Convention. We had a great time. Now we love going to the convention but we also love the "getaway" part. After our first day at the convention we headed out to buy a new camera and then went out to eat at Don Pablo's.

Oh how I've missed you my queso. We have been craving this ever since the one in our area left. It was great to get a queso fix!

This years conference talked much about America's heritage and foundations of Bible truths like always. I love that part of it! It's always so encouraging to me to hear why I'm homeschooling and why I need to continue and for the Biblical basis of it to be taught before you. I know all of that but sometimes it's nice to be reminded.

This is my favorite part of the whole thing. The Vendor Hall!!! We found many great things. J and I finally took the plunge and bought Rosetta Stone. It is such a big investment but they were offering a discount so it was the best time to buy. J and I have decided that we will buy one language over the next couple of years to spread out the cost. J wants the kids to be at least trilingual by the time they enter the 6th grade. We'll see. We bought Spanish this year and Hebrew, Chinese, French, and Farsi are on the list of possibilities for next year. I love that we could get the Spain version of Spanish. My grandma is going to be so proud!!! Once the kids get older we'll let them choose a language too. We also came up with what we want to do for science. Unfortunately we didn't find a curriculum that was exactly what we were looking for so we've decided to make up our own for the kids. I'm using suggestions from curriculum's and piecing them together. A little more work for me but that's OK. I think it will be worth it.

It was a great time away. We quickly learned why the hotel we stay in was so crazy busy. There was an NFL recruiting event going on all weekend and the hotel was the headquarters. We also saw Charles Barkley one night while we were waiting for our car to be brought up. He was one I actually recognized. I'm sure we saw lots of people my dad would've loved to see but since we don't follow sports we had no clue! We also got to have dinner with my Grandpa and his wife which was nice. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for married couple's to take get aways on their own without kids. Of course, the Key's trip will be hard to out do but we still enjoy these mini get aways.

Pressing On

So one of my other goals for 2010 was to stay up with my blogging. I'm failing miserably. Instead I've been pouring all my energy into getting back in the Word, training up my kids, educating my kids, being a wife, and keeping a home. So I guess blogging should fall behind those things. That 90 day Bible Study I'm doing is teaching me a lot. Not because of my victories but because of my failures with it. OK so it will probably end up being more like a 6 month Bible study but I'm pressing on and I'm seeing some priorities that have to be put back in order. Well this last month has definitely not lacked fun times.

Here are the cupcakes that I made for Groundhogs day. They were a pain but the kids loved them so they were worth it. We had an indoor BBQ to help forget that winter was here for a little while longer.

Co-op is back in session and the kids and I are loving it as usual. Here is a picture of the first morning before we left. H was not quite sure as you can see but she has done amazing so far. It's amazing how much she changed in that two month break. She now looks forward to going to see friends.

We are all ready for spring. Winter naps are pretty good though.

So it's not much but it is a wee little pony tail. I think it's awfully cute!

So our family is not a winter family. We are a "lay on the beach every day, all day" kind of family. We've talked about taking up skiing so we could have a winter activity to look forward to. It sounds like fun......if it didn't involve cold and snow. The older kids are wanting to learn so I guess I'll have to suck it up one of these days. One Family Night we decided that we were going to shovel and do some sledding on our hill.

H was all set to go.

Exactly 10 minutes later she was back inside. I guess she didn't realize that shoveling and sledding involved cold and snow. She spent the rest of the evening watching out the front window with her snack. Did I mention it took me 15 minutes to get her all bundled up?

L wasn't completely sold on the idea either.

Some of us spent more time sledding than shoveling. In B's defense, he does shovel for me on his own quite often.

We made Valentine's for friends.

Who we spent an afternoon with. It was filled with laughter, playing, pizza, and sweet goodies.

Despite feeling so sick of winter I'm telling myself that this is the day the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it......and have a little fun at the same time.

Can't Comprehend

When I think about living in a slum.....I can't comprehend it.
When I try to imagine watching everything around me crumble.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about my child being hurt but there is no Dr. to take them to.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about hundreds of orphans sleeping outside in a field.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about the need to wear a mask to try to alleviate the stench of death.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think of a body of my loved one being dumped into a mass grave and never knowing what happened to them.....I can't comprehend it.
When I think about how desperate I would need to be to consider leaving two of my children behind to save one.....I can't comprehend it.
When my 9 year old can't comprehend how God would allow tens of thousands of people to die and all the above mentioned occur.....I can't explain it.

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.

The people of Haiti have constantly been on our minds and our hearts these past couple of days. Although I really felt a lack of words to answers B's questions a couple of days ago I'm so grateful I have God's Word to find those answers.

Here is a link of an outreach in Haiti that desperately needs funding so they can continue to help the people of Haiti in this time of great need.
heartlineministries.org
You can also purchase Help Haiti Shirts and the proceeds also go towards this outreach along with another one.
http://helphaitishirt.com

Counting Down

The kids and I are counting down the Fridays until Co-op starts again. The kids love co-op and they miss it extremely during our long break between semesters. B especially. He misses his friends and since we live a distance from them having them over takes a little more planning. The snow hasn't helped that. Here are some pictures from the fall program I never posted.

B showing off his signing skills. My kids love learning sign language. Our co-op was blessed with a college level sign language teacher and B really enjoyed it. He was the only boy in the elementary class. Maybe that's why he likes sign language so much?

Here is the full gang reciting their Bible verses. We memorized Psalm 103:1-11. It made my heart happy when I saw how many kids earned their $5 Culver's gift Certificate because they could recite with little help. I helped test the preschool age and I had three of them who earned it. That is 3 and 4 year olds!!! B and L both earned their awards and I was so proud of them.

So on this Friday we are counting down the weeks until we get to learn with our friends again.

Goals for 2010: Reading

So I have many goals for 2010 and will be posting on them throughout the week. My first goal is not only to do more Bible reading but also more recreational/learning reading as well. I did fairly well last year with 6 books. Now to you avid readers this is a rather pathetic number but for this VERY busy and tired mama I think it was a great accomplishment. I have a list of 14 books I would like to read in 2010. I figured one a month was an attainable goal if I really try. So 14 will be pushing me a little. Some of the books J and I will be reading together. Yes, we have been reading Family Driven Faith for about 8 months now but I'm determined to finish it by the end of this week. Finding time to read for me is hard but finding an extra couple of minutes to read with J seems nearly impossible. We'll be working on that. Here is my 2010 book list.



1. Ten P's in the Pod

2. Family Driven Faith(with J)

3. Practicing Hospitality: The Joy of Serving Others

4. The hidden Art of Homemaking

5. When You Rise Up: A covenantal approach to homeschooling

6. Permission Granted to do Church Different in the 21st Century(with J)

7. Mark of the Lion: A voice in the wind

8. Mark of the Lion: an echo in the darkness

9. Mark of the Lion: as sure as the dawn

10. The Mother at Home

11. The Family Integrated Church(with J)

12. Be Fruitful and Multiply(with J)

13. Beloved Bride: The letters of Stonewall Jackson to his wife.

14. Marriage to a Difficult Man: The uncommon union of Jonathan and Sarah Edwards



I have the book list in the sidebar of this blog so I can easily reference it and so it's there staring me in the face to remind me of my goal. Sometimes I need that.

Holiday Happenings a.k.a. Longest Post Ever

So like I said in the previous post, this past three weeks has been packed full. In the last three weeks we've had over 35 different guests and many of those have been here multiple time. It's been a fun holiday season. So because I don't want to take the next month to catch up on blogging I'm going to sum up our holiday season in one post.

We started with celebrating Hanukkah.

The kids had their choir concert.

It was fabulous as always.

Nerf wars were continuous.

As soon as there was enough snow on the ground all the O family were out on the sledding hill.

B enjoyed some snowboarding.

Just because you're not even one doesn't mean you stay inside and miss out on sledding.

There was much Christmas crafting going on.

There were many messes to clean up.

There were stockings stuffed.

Gum to be chewed.

Gifts to give.

And gifts to receive.

There were babies......

.....babies.....

.....and more babies.

There was napping going on and a little climbing too.

New video games to be played.

Oh and since we had a free day we headed to the AirZoo for a field trip.

H even went on a few of the rides.

The kids got to sit in a fighter jet.

B loved looking at all the war memorabilia.

We had a nice and relaxing New Years with appetizers, board games, Wii playing, movie watching, and gingerbread house making.

Now it's on to 2010!!!!!

All Is Quiet.....

So after a whirlwind week of guests, guests, and more guests I barely know what to do in quiet. It was so much fun to have people stay with us and I know the kids can't wait until they stay again! Now we are all resting, watching Full House episodes(my gift from the kids), and I think I'm going to order pizza for Shabbat tonight since you can only eat so many leftovers and until the leftovers are gone I can't make any big meals due to no fridge space. Pictures to come but for now......all is quiet.

Family Night: Fiesta!!!

Finding things to do for winter Family Nights is always harder. L had been asking to do a pinata for a long time so that gave me the idea for a Fiesta Night.

We still have quite a few sombreros from a VBS a while back so the kids had fun getting in costume. We had enchiladas, bean salsa, and chips for dinner.

The new furniture hadn't arrived yet so we had a big, open spot in the family room. The kids took turns from littlest to oldest with the bat.

Of course daddy liked to make the toucan jump much more when B's turn came around. B still had some good hits though. Thankfully the treats inside came out just a few at a time which gave all the kids a chance to be successful.

H was very concerned about her new pet toucan and kept trying to feed it the treats that had fallen out. She is still by far my biggest animal lover!