The currency of Grace is where my song begins...

2012-01-29T06:52:00.000-08:00

S is for SO Many Things!!

S week was so fun. I had so many things planned that we didn't get to a bunch of them.

For our Bible verse we memorized Matthew 6:33 "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." On Monday I had Titus (7yr old) read the verse in it's context. He read Matthew 6:25-34. This section of Scripture come from the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus and in this particular part Jesus is addressing worry. So we talked about the things Jesus chose to point out that people worried about more than seeking Him. I asked Titus to think of some things he tends to worry about instead of seeking Jesus and trusting Him. Titus is a worrier so this was not a hard question for him. We talked through the idea of "seeking the Kingdom of God" with him. It was a little abstract for him still but nonetheless I felt it was important to cover :)

For our "God is Faithful" board we did "God is Faithful, You can have Peace!" This was to draw the connection of the context of the memory verse together with the actual verse itself. We talked about God being so faithful that we can trust He will provide all that we need exactly where & when we need it. This knowledge will free us from worry and give us peace.

Early in the week we had a 'S' field trip. It was fun!! It was a great way to change things up from our normal routine but still accomplish some schooling. Titus did his class work before we headed out for the day. Justus and I glued some letters to a piece of paper and started for our search for S's.

Our First stop was:: Starbucks! (as if you had not already guessed)

(Justus & I are gluten free so we brought our own pastries, he really liked this stop but this is the only picture I got and it looks like he is unhappy but he wasn't)

Next stop:: The Science Center::

I forgot my camera on field trip day...so excuse the iPhone shots. The picture on the right, Justus is building a Stegosaurus on the computers in the dinosaur section of the Science Center.

Third (and last) field trip stop was The Stock Show::

We met up with some friends for the stock show. It was such a blast. The boys got to watch them milk some cows, feed some chickens and much more! Both boys LOVED it.

For Justus' letter project we did the nice and easy :: Snake. (We did this letter project on Monday, so on Tuesday at the Science Center He was so excited that hey had a snake out to touch!)

We did S is for Solar System and S is for Saturn. Oh man this was a huge hit!

We turned off the lights and put the star projector on it and did S is for Star then put it back to the Sun cover and did S is for Sun. Lots of S in one little lesson. :)

Then later that evening with Vernon was done with work and dinner was over we did some puzzles together...so I brought out the Solar System puzzle and we talked again about the Sun, Stars and Saturn. As you can tell, the boys love evenings with Dad. We usually read or play games or puzzles. This is one of the many times we are thankful for not having a TV. (to be clear we do have DVD player but no TV channels) It helps us just unwind together and talk about the day and get some good QT with Dad with out the temptation or distraction of watching shows.

We did S is for I SPY. I had lofty plans of making an I SPY board full of letters, shapes, color splotches, and stickers of random characters he knows but I never got around to it. So we used our ABC dry-erase folder...and it worked just fine :) I would say, "I Spy the letter J. Do you spy the letter J?" And he would use his "Spy glass" to help him find the letter I said.

As usual we did Play-doh one day and we did S is for Scissors.

A couple of days this week were very rainy so we had to do S is for Soccer and Skating indoors.

To reinforces his colors and incorporate the Letter S he painted a worksheet as he listened to my instructions. I would say, "make an S line with the color blue" He would have to pick out the color blue and make a line (as opposed to dots). Or I would say, "put a bunch of orange dots on the letter S." etc.

Each night this week he slept in Super Man PJ's but I only got this one blurry pic::

We had a lot of great S books this week as well. A few favorites this week were, There's No Place Like Space! (Cat and the Hat) and I Spy Treasure Hunt. But the most loved by both boys is a book I really wanted to recommend and it is The Squire and The Scroll:: A Tale of The Rewards of A Pure Heart by Jennie Bishop

Woah, that was a lot. I hope y'all can get some fun ideas from this post. School is well into the 3rd quarter so we are nearing the home stretch! I hope you are loving schooling your littles. We are having fun...or at least trying REALLY hard to anyway!

Have a great week! Happy Schooling!

2012-01-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

R is for Reading, Robots, Rainbows, Rabbits & Rockets

We had a great week! Turns out R is a very easy letter to incorporate into our daily lives. :)

This week was a short week because Monday, as you know, was Martin Luther King day. We got to watch the Hendrix boys since their schools were out. We had a BLAST! We met the Billups girls (and baby Kade) at the Irving Bible Tubes (an indoor play place) then came home and played the rest of our day in our back yard. We met up with Melissa at Red Robin (for R of course) so that we could eat and return the boys to her! What a fun way to start the week.

For our Bible time this week we worked on Romans 12:12, "Rejoice in Hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." This was a very similar verse to P week, "Pray constantly, Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus, " 1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 So we reviewed the concepts we talked about on P week and added being patient in tribulation. We talked about how sometimes we want to rush through trials with a just 'get through the hurt' attitude, while God asks us to be patient in these times. We talked about how sometimes its is in the moments of tribulation that we feel and sense God the closest. For our 'God is Faithful' board we did, "God is Faithful. You can have Hope!" We talked about God's faithfulness in our times of trials and how we can be patient in tribulation because God's faithfulness brings us hope.

Our boys LOVE to be read to. They also really enjoy reading themselves (obviously Justus just looks through the books but its his form of reading). We did an extra amount of reading this week for the letter R. R is for Reading but also because the boys REALLY loved the books we had picked out for R week. I bet we read the two Francis Chan books in the picture above 6+ times a piece. Not to mention the other three. Being the book nerds we are, Vernon and I loved every second of it. (by the way, I know I've talked about Francis Chan's children's books before but we HIGHLY recommend all of them)

For Justus' Pre-School we did a few projects. I had SO many I could have done for R that we didn't do like have a Race, make a Rain Stick, go to Rainforest Cafe, get Ring Pops, Race Racecars, build a cardboard box robot....and on and on. But here are some of the ones we did do ::

We made a Rectangle Robot. This was a great project that helped him with both shapes and fine motor skills. Plus he got to make one of his favorite things :: a robot!

I found this template here :: I used a black middle section but the rest we cut out from the template.

We made an 'R' Rainbow:: This help us work on color selection as well as learn about the colors that make up a rainbow. I pre-cut the strips and laid them out and had him pick the color I said was next. (we were out of any shade of purple paper so we ended up coloring the bottom section but its not shown here)

We played with Red play-doh and made red Rs with his new letter cutters he got for Christmas.

For our letter project he made a Rabbit out of the letter R::

We did lots of bouncing around the house as a rabbit and lots of counting down from 5 to blast off like a rocket. HE LOVED THIS!

For Christmas we got the boys cardboard Rockets to design themselves. They have been a big hit. We kept Justus' out and decorated it with Rs. Then he did his R work book page inside of it one day.

The last picture is of him "Blasting Off!"

We had a great week. I sure hope yall did as well!

Happy Schooling!

2012-01-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

Q is for Quail, Quilt and Quarter

This week seemed to fly by. I am not sure if it's because we are finally hitting a routine that hasn't been interrupted by travel or if the boys were just extra pleasant or both. Maybe one is the byproduct of the other :)

At first I thought Q would be such a hard letter. It ended up being fine. Not having a bunch of projects to want to work on with Justus seemed to open up some great time to work on his numbers and to let him play out side quite a bit (it has been in the 60s here! crazy).

For Bible this week we worked on James 1:19. This was particularly fun for me as I am currently personally studying James. James 1:19 says, "Let every person be Quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry." Our God is Faithful board said, "God is Faithful, You can be Kind." We talked a lot about storing up anger in your heart and how it is a breeding ground for sin. This is obviously something that comes up A LOT having two boys who love to play hard. I wouldn't say they fight constantly but we are definitely at the phase where both boys are having to give and take. (and by 'having' I mean we are making them, *ahem* , I mean trying to teach them to be kind to each other) So this was great verse to reiterate the things we are trying to teach them in relationship to each other and with others.

Books with Q titles were pretty sparse around our house but books were still read. We read about a Queen and about ducks that Quack. Sometimes you gotta stretch :)

For Justus' Pre-School we watched some YouTubes about Quails. Once he got over the fact that they are NOT turkeys, we were in business. We made our Letter project into a Quail.

We talked a little bit about money and introduced him to a Quarter. Then we did a Quarter toss. He loved it! (although he was kinda confused in these pictures. I didn't capture any when he finally got the hang of it and loved it)

With his Letter Color Pages my friend made (the ones we use every week), we made a Quilted Q. We talked about Quilts but I am not sure he understood the difference between a quilt and a blanket but he still enjoyed gluing the squares and later told Dad that he had made a quilt. So who knows :)

I mentioned before that we worked a lot on his numbers this week. We have these great Number Cards that are Thomas the Train. He really enjoys this activity everyday. I don't have a picture of them but here is a link to look at them :: Click HERE

And of course, the Fridge DJ never gets old for counting. 1, 2, 3 Leap frogs, 4, 5, 6 Leap Frogs....

Hope your schooling is going well! Have a great week!

Happy Schooling.

2012-01-08T20:02:00.000-08:00

P is for Painting, Play-doh, Pattington Bear & Penguins

We had a great first week back to school. The boys actually did so well with the transition back from two weeks off around the house! (maybe I just had low expectations! ha!) Everything went smoothly.

Our Bible Verse for the Letter P was 1 Thessalonians 5:17, " Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Our God is Faithful board said, "God is Faithful, you can have a relationship with Him." Titus and I had a couple great talks about what it means to have a relationship with God. It was a sweet week. In our morning Bible time we were reading out of The Gospel Story Bible in the section on Romans. This led to some great talks about sharing our faith with others and having boldness to do so because of God being faithful.

As for the pre-school activities I did with Justus, P was a very easy letter to find fun things to do. Of course we Painted::

Justus LOVES this little fishing pole we have so we used his Pole to fish out the Ps. This was a HUGE hit. In fact, I bet he did it for a total of 2 hours one of the days. He loved it.

For our letter project we made a Penguin::

I let Justus use real glue for the first time as opposed to a glue stick. He did great and felt like he was so grown up :)

Every time we are finished with a project Justus runs and shows Vernon. Then he wants to hang it up on the board all by himself::

We have a few books about Pattington the Bear and I knew it was a European cartoon so I searched and found a few episodes. Justus has his very own Pattington Bear (that is actually from Pattington Station!) so he held him as he watched.

For Christmas Justus got some new Play-doh cutters that are Letters. So here he was cutting out the letter P::

And as for me, P was for The Passion Conference. I stayed up way too late each night watching all the sessions. I am still amazed at all that God did in and through all who attended. AMEN!

I hope yall had a great first week back....or if this coming week is your first week:: enjoy it!

Happy Schooling!

2012-01-08T14:44:00.000-08:00

What We Are Doing for 2nd Grade and More

So many of y'all have asked the dreaded curriculum question. Many of you I have emailed or sent a super long text or send a ridiculously long facebook message. I thought that I was getting the question enough, that I might as well put it out there on a blog so I can send my friends a link in answer to their questions instead of a super long, overwhelming message. :)

While this blog post will only cover 2nd grade (as I am just making up the Pre-K stuff as I go) my hope is that the links provided will get you to the grade level you need and you will find some great things for your kiddos:: homeschooling or not!

We have to cover a variety of subject in 2nd Grade so I am going to break this post down by subject. This way if you only want information for one subject you don't have to wade through the entire thing. We have been through (and around) a variety of curriculum so PLEASE don't hesitate to ask me if you want advice starting a younger child in a curriculum. I would love to do my best to help you on your way and tell you pros and cons of whatever you are interested...if I know anything about it :)

Okay, here are the subject we are attempting to cover this school year:: Reading, Writing, Spelling & Grammar, Math, History, Science, Geography, Latin, Bible and Art. So here we go!

Here is a quick link list. Then below that is the explanations and more info about how/what we do::

Reading:: Veritas Press & Sonlight

Writing:: IWE

Grammar:: Shurley

Spelling:: IWE Phonics Zoo

Math:: Saxon

History:: Mystery of History & Story of The World

Science:: Apologia

Geography:: Veritas (last year)

Latin:: Song School Latin

To get started each year I check out what Veritas Press suggests we cover in that grade year, which curriculum they recommend (which is typically close to what we follow) and then I start searching around to see if anything better suits our boys for any particular subject. Then I wait for the sales :) (for sale finding I recommend:: CBD, Rainbow, Amazon, Barnes & Noble)

Reading::

We started the year with Veritas Press's More Favorites which included Mouse Soup, Danny the Dinosaur, Sarah Plain and Tall and My Father's Dragon. Between some of these I let him pick his own chapter books like The Magic Tree House. I am finding great comprehension guides for free online along with project ideas for The Magic Tree House books. (here) I haven't exactly mapped out what he will be finishing the year with, I am just making sure his reading is at grade level, comprehending well and that he is developing a love of reading. I will continue to follow Veritas Press's suggested reading or pull from Sonlight's suggested grade level readers to make sure he is on level. This will include all kinds of fun classics. He reads at minimum one chapter a day from a chapter book but often he will do 2-3.

Writing::

Titus has had a lot of hand writing issues because we transferred schools in Kindergarten and the school he moved to already did cursive. This has caused a bit of a set back in writing but he is doing great working on it. As for the subject of writing (as in NOT handwriting but actual composition) we use The Institute for Writing Excellence. (the DVDs that come with it were so good, old school, but good. They are for the parent or teacher and are very insightful) It is recommended by VP to begin in second grade while the actual IWE suggests more like 4th. So we are going very slowly and honestly he doesn't even know there is a curriculum. He just thinks I think of things for him to outline. When we are not doing IWE stuff, I let him "write " a story by him telling me it and we make correct sentences together. Then I write it out then he copies it. Again, trying to not make him hate writing while keeping him at grade level. I sometimes give him writing prompts that are silly and let him make "book" out of them. He really likes this as he can also illustrate it. We simply sit together and outline his story then he makes sentences that complete the story.

Handwriting::

Man, this subject has been quite a deal. Like I mentioned above, Titus transferred Kindergarten mid-semester when we moved to St. Louis. We put him in a school that used Abeka and his previous school did not. So he spent most of Kinder catching up on CURSIVE...I know, crazy, but they were already doing cursive. So being the perfectionist he is, he caught up quickly, but hated writing. :( So when we started homeschooling, I needed to go back and teach him print, as he did not fully learn it. We used A Reason for Handwriting. He really enjoyed it, surprisingly. I have recently been wooed by Handwriting without Tears and plan to start Justus on it this semester and Titus as well when we move into the cursive one next year.

Grammar & Spelling::

We use Shurley Grammar and have LOVED it. It is song driven. Shurley calls them "jingles." Each jingle teaches the child a part of speech or an english rule. He has a little book work each day, which Titus doesn't mind at all. My lovely sister-in-law got annoyed with having to write out the sentences they are to outline each day so she took some time to type them out and shared that document with us. It has made Grammar time go MUCH faster and a lot less "teacher heavy." I would suggest it for anyone to do and I will do it for next year as soon as I have the next book!

As for spelling, we do the Institute for Writing Excellence program called Phonics Zoo but are not very strict about it. We will start strong with it in 3rd grade but wanted to intro Titus to it this year. Titus did Abeka in Kindergarden and some of 1st grade so he has a bit of a bad taste in his mouth for spelling. So this year has been about rebuilding his confidence in writing and spelling.

Math::

We do Saxon. We have loved it. He is in Saxon 3 now. He is not good with timed things (by not good I mean he has total meltdowns) but we have learned our own way of using Saxon, completing the work and getting around all the timed sheets while still incorporating them when needed. He is doing well and way above level on Math. As his teacher I have really appreciated the way the Saxon teachers book is laid out:: easy and efficient. We don't do all the recommended daily activities but we always cover the lesson in one way or another :)

History::

We use Mystery of History. We really loved last year (Volume 1) but have found this year a bit harder. Its easier to get through, better laid out curriculum wise, but the material is heavier because of the nature of the dark ages. I really like MofH because it covers all of history including but not limited to the Christian movement. It is all over the globe not just middle eastern/western History. I have found this year that it is better for me to read the chapter first then teach it to Titus instead of how we did last year where he just listened to me read it. He really likes interacting with History lessons and MofH has great ideas after each lesson of thing to do. We usually do one a week. We have a timeline going and plan to make a binder but haven't got around to it yet :) As a supplement we use Story of the World. In retrospect I probably would have gone completely through Story of the World for the first 4-5 years of school then started Mystery of History but doing them together has worked. Titus LOVES listening to the Story of the World CDs. He has no idea it is school...no idea.

Science::

Curriculum wise we use Apologia. We have done the astronomy one and are now on an animal one. But Titus just loves science. He loves it so much that it often is what we skip because I am very confident that he is already learning this stuff. :) As he gets older we will crack down and follow stricter to the books but for now I love that he makes it up as we go. I sorta teach him some and let him come up with experiments to do.

Geography::

This year we are learning the United States and all of their capitals.

We don't use a curriculum. I have big flash cards (these) and small flash cards I got in the dollar bin at Target. As well as 2 workbooks we also found in the dollar bin of Target. We have a states puzzle that twice a week he has to take out all the ones I call out and then put them back in saying the capital. I bought some songs online to help him memorize the capitals and we have yet to listen to them because he is doing great with out them. Last year we did Veritas Press's Legends & Leagues Geography and WE LOVED IT. I highly recommend it to younger students K-2! We have also done some fun projects about where we live (like this one).

Latin::

We use Song School Latin. It is a very fun work book and a great intro to Latin. I also HIGHLY recommend it. It is song based and has a super fun, not time consuming, workbook.

Bible::

This year we haven't followed anything in particular for Bible. Since Justus (our 3yr old) is doing some preK now, we have been doing a verse a week that starts with the letter we are studying. For Titus the verse we cover is his weekly memory verse. We often use it for his handwriting. This year we are focusing on God being Faithful. We have a board in our home that says "God is Faithful. You can be/have _______" and each week we have a different character trait that we can have as believers because of God's faithfulness. We try to line this trait up with the message of the verse he is memorizing. For example, "God is Faithful, You can have Confidence" to go along with Romans 8:39

We hope to start a catechism next year or with both boys when Justus is a bit more attentive.

Art::

We don't have a "curriculum" per se but I try to at least have us "make" one thing a day. Draw a picture, paint, model clay, play-doh, build something that goes along with History, photograph, sing, etc. I really hope to do some Art History soon along with Titus doing corresponding art. I have some fun books ( Discovering Great Artists & Drawing With Children) I've bought along the way but just haven't done them yet.

**disclaimer:: after re-reading this post, I feel I should say that we had a good experience with Abeka's Homeschooling curriculum as it helped us start with something Titus was familiar with from his previous school. I think my post sounded like we totally did not like it and that is not the case. It is great curriculum! We have just, since then, decided to move on to others.**

If you have hung with me this long, I hope this has been resourceful! Feel free to pass it along to anyone. I remember the overwhelming feeling as we began the journey of homeschooling. There are so many options and so many opinions!

Happy Schooling!

2012-01-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

O is for Orange, Octopus, Obedience & school is OUT for Christmas Break!

Hey! We made it through our Christmas break! I hope y'all did as well and are refreshed and ready for a new semester. I am hesitant to start this semester because we have LOVED the relaxed feel of break but I know I will be SO glad come March that we started back up and are way ahead so the boys can have lots of little breaks to play during the amazing spring days.

We did the 'O' week the week between our returned from Missouri and the start of our break here at the house. Needless to say, after being off 2 weeks, I am pulling from the back of my brain as to what all we did. I remember thinking the week was going very fast and that we didn't get to do all that I wanted. But here is what I caught on camera (well on my iphone...sorry, again, for the poor quality!)

For the O week our bible verse was, "Children, Obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right." Ephesians 6:1 I knew our mind would be leaning toward break and want a verse that was VERY familiar to the boys. This one they know a bunch of songs that are this verse. So it was not hard to memorize because, well, Titus already had it memorizes. Our God is Faithful board stated :: God is Faithful, You can be Obedient! We talked about how through out your life God will ask you to be obedient to him. How, like when they are to obey us, it should be immediate and with a happy heart. We talked about how since God is Faithful, we can obey with happy hearts knowing He will never fail us.

O was a letter we did NOT have trouble finding things. Especially pre-school things. Orange, Oval, October, Octagon....the list goes on and on. We majored on the color Orange and the shape Oval. He already knows these but it was fun for him to color the O Orange and that it looks like and Oval. :)

O was for Octopus and this was soo fun for Justus. He loves animals so we looked up photos online of Octopuses and we looked at an Ocean book we have that has an Octopus in it, so it made since for us to do his letter project as an Octopus. He thought it was very fun.

That is all I have for O. I am excited to start the new semester. I am hopeful that you are as well! Thanks for following along and for all the encouragement. My hope is that you are encouraged to be yourself in your schooling and love those kiddos as best as you possibly can throughout the day as you both learn together.

Happy Schooling!

ps...I know a lot of you are asking if I will ever post what curriculum we use for Titus (2nd grade) and I do, I really do plan to do that soon. Thanks for hanging with me!

2011-12-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

N is for Noses, Nails and Narwhals

We took the last week off to travel north, so this blog is my attempt to document our schooling from two weeks ago. (we have been traveling for 2 days & just got home tonight so...no promises but I will try my best)

N week marked our last "official" week of the semester although we plan to school this following week, take one week off then continue right along through the end of December & early January with the hopes of a spring ending for school OR a much slower pace during the spring so there can be LOTS of outside play!

If you have been following all semester you know we have been doing a "God is Faithful" board to go along with our memory verse in hopes of adding a practical level to verse memory application. Our verse for N week was Romans 8:39, "No height, nor depth, nor any created thing will have the power to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" We talked about the profound comfort found in this verse. This verse opened a great conversation about Salvation as Titus asked about the end of the verse saying "in Christ our Lord." Our board said, "God is Faithful, You can have confidence." We talked about how knowing the depth of God's love for us and the power it has over all created things gives us confidence to be who God made us to be.

Here is our board and the books we had out for N::

In case I haven't mentioned this enough, I have very creative friends who help me when I get stumped with what to do for certain letters. Here is one example. I really wanted Justus to draw or pin noses on faces but had zero brain power to draw up people. So our friend Robin was over and drew these beauties::

We, as adults, thought this was way more fun than Justus did. I will definitely REdo this next year when he is old enough to think its funny or potentially funny. He liked it but it was more "to the point" rather than "funny" like I hoped. :)

For Justus' Letter project I was extremely stumped for N. The only thing I could think of was a Narwhal. It turned out hilarious!! It looks like a random Greek myth character. hahaha!!

Hilariously, he LOVED it. We looked at Narwhal pictures and talked about them a lot. Friday night, to celebrate the end of semester, we went to see the movie Arthur Christmas. (which we loved and recommend) One of the scenes has Narwhals jumping in and out of the icy water and Justus went crazy! He started screaming, "It's a Narwhal, Mom!!!"

Through out N week I kept saying, "N is for Nothing." We did a lot of nothing and that looked sort of like this::

By far Justus' favorite N activity was Nails & Nailing. This was a bit of a risk on my part, as I chose to teach my three year old how to use a hammer. :) I pressed nails into a box then showed him how to hammer the nails. I attempted to make the nails in the shape of an N. It didn't really end up looking like an N...but hey...he loved it!

I had lofty plans of doing N is for Nativity but sadly, we never really did that. We have been talking about advent and the Christmas story but haven't really used the word Nativity with him. Maybe next year :)

If you are doing the ABC's through the year and you are on N week :: CONGRATS! You are halfway done with the year! I hope you all are having such a great year. We are loving it but are for sure ready for a week off to regroup :) ... I am sure you understand.

Thanks for hanging in and for all the feed back!

Happy Schooling!

2011-11-27T13:10:00.000-08:00

M is for Muffins, Mountains and The Moon

Most of you, if you were wise (unlike myself), took this past week off of school to celebrate Thanksgiving. We did not because we took a week off a couple weeks ago during our trip to Baton Rouge and did the Thanksgiving unit and we will be taking a week off the 2nd week of December for, what Titus calls, "Early Christmas." when we head up north to celebrate with my family before everyone's schedules get too crazy around the holidays. All that said we did not do a lot of schooling for the letter M but Titus got through an entire week of curriculum work. So that was great!

I knew that we wouldn't have a lot of extra time this week so the M verse I chose is our family verse. It is very familiar to the boys as we reference all the time. I did not have Titus memorize it, although he probably has it memorized from reading it and hearing it so much. We also chose Hope for our "God is Faithful, You can have____" board, as it is a repeat as well. Being Thanksgiving we talked a lot about what we are thankful for. I talked to the boys about our verse and how we asked to be blessed, not mainly for our own reception of gifts (although it may very well include that) but mainly in order that God's name may be known. This was a great thing to talk about in leading into the season of Advent & Christmas.

Monday morning we had Muffins. This is Justus' favorite breakfast. I am not sure that he put it together that I made them on Monday for M week but he loved them all the same :)

We had a wonderful time having friends and family over for Thanksgiving. I did LOTS of cooking and baking. So for the letter M I let Justus learn how to use the Mixer. HE LOVED IT! Now he thinks its his job. I have a feeling it will be a while before I bake alone again. :) Sadly, I don't have a picture of him doing this.

For the pre-school letter project we did M is for Mountain. This was so fun in that Justus' is fascinated right now with terrain. If he sees lots of trees he yells,"Hey look, it's a forest!" or if he sees a big hill he yell, "hey look, it's a mountain!"

We just happened to have a good deal of books that could be for the letter M. That made schooling this week much easier as Justus LOVES to be read too, even if we don't make it through the entire book, which happens often.

We read (or at least started reading) :: If you take a Mouse to the Movies, Goodnight Moon, Away in a Manger, Mortimer's (the Mouse) Christmas, Morris the Moose, Maizy's Amazing Book of Words and Full Moon Rising.

Here I am reading one of our favorite children's books, Fool Moon Rising. I highly recommend it to you.

We played a good deal of playdoh and did a lot of this::

We are very thankful for dot paints. If you school at home or just like doing fun things with your kiddos with out a big mess, these are the paints for you! No clean up & no prep, just lots of fun.

I hope you had a great week off, if you took one off. We are going into our last week of the official semester! I am excited. But I plan to continue through the winter so as to get a head and take some fun breaks in the spring when it is wonderful weather!

Happy Schooling!

2011-11-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

L is for Lizards, Lions and Leaves

This week was a fun, laid back week. We got a late start, as we were traveling all day Monday returning from our week and a half on the road. Then Vernon went out of town after being home only a day. So the boys and I did all we could to get schooled and have fun while Dad was gone. I think we were successful :)

Our verse for L week was Mark 12:30, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." This was a great verse for this short week for so many reasons, one being that Titus already knew this verse so the memorization was easy to accomplish in 4 days. I think this is a great verse to come back to over and over for ones entire life. I talked to to Titus about ways we can "love the Lord our God" with the 4 things this verse tells us to love Him with: Heart, Soul, Mind, Strength. I had him list some ways for each. This was a great exercises for Titus and also for myself!

For our "God is Faithful, You can be_____" board we did, "God is faithful, You can be Grateful." This paired well with Thanksgiving and the "holidays" as they approach and the influx of catalogs and advertisements that begin to invade our home, enticing us to buy toys for Christmas. While we are not against gift giving, the catalogs coming and talking about being grateful were very timely :)

One of the ways we practiced being grateful was to be givers! Each year we participate in Operation Christmas Child and we have the boys go shopping to fill a box full of goodies for a boy their age from a different country. They have grown to love this. It is fun watching them grow through the process of giving. Here are some pictures of them making the list of what they were going to buy then packing the boxes.

For L week with Justus we read LOTS of books. We went to Starbucks to read and got Lemon Loaf. :) The Proud and Fearless Lion has been one of both of my boy's favorite books. It's a good one.

For the L letter project with Justus we made a Lizard. He LOVED this.

One day we went "Looking for Leaves." This was a hit. For some reason, making it sort of like a hunt made him so excited to look for them. Leaves are literally everywhere, but we were looking for very "special ones." He had a great time with it.

Once the leaves were gathered we took them inside and glued them in the shape of an L.

Today, as we were playing, Titus remembered our Lincoln Log set. We keep it put up so we don't loose all the pieces. Titus got so excited because it starts with L and he thought that it would be fun for Justus to learn. Justus liked destroying the things Titus built more than actually building things and I'll let you guess how long that lasted :) hehe.

I bought a wooden lizard in the dollar section at Micheal's and let Justus paint it. I didn't really get any good pictures of it but this is a good picture of him painting. We do this almost daily in some fashion. He loves painting way more than drawing, coloring or writing. So I just go with it. (if you look behind his arm you can see the lizard)

And lastly, we did a lot of playing outside. Trying to enjoy the last of the 80 degrees.

I sure hope your schooling is going well. We are plugging away and starting tomorrow we are 1/2 way through the alphabet! That means we are 1/2 way through school!! Thanks for all the feed back and encouragement from these blogs. It has been such a blessing knowing y'all are out their and schooling right along with us!

Happy Schooling!

2011-11-14T18:36:00.000-08:00

Our Thanksgiving Unit

Last week we were on the road again so I decided to take a break from our regular routine of curriculum and do a Thanksgiving Unit. Titus is very much a hands on type kid so I wanted everything to be interactive and fun. We actually had a great time schooling and since we were on the road, I had to be very choosy about things that made big messes...so all of the things you will find below take little effort to pull off and get cleaned up! (that's always a plus to me!)

Here is a snapshot of what we did last week. I tried to include links and photos so you could get ideas and do some fun things with your kiddos this week! Enjoy!

We started off the week by watching Scholastic's Voyage of the Mayflower::

I HIGHLY recommend this! It is fun and easy for the kids to understand. It has photos and lots of facts. After having watched the Voyage of the Mayflower, we did a Timeline. (I made the timeline out of construction paper and the free Pilgrim Story printable HERE)

After those activities Titus knew the over all story of Thanksgiving pretty well. Next we divided up the days:: one day we majored on the Wampanoag Tribe and their accounts of the events and the next day we did the same with The Pilgrims. With each we did a craft that went along with it. Here are some of the crafts::

We did hats from construction paper and they wore them while we listened to the stories and acted out some parts::

Made Tomahawks (from a Hobby Lobby kit)

We made The Mayflower (model from Michael's) and painted on this printable::

For the Pilgrim's day we read "The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving" by Ann McGovern and we made Pilgrim hats.

On the Wampanoag day we read "Squanto's Journey" and made the Tomahawk.

After reading the books to Titus I had him draw a picture of what he learned. This is an example of what he drew after "Squanto's Journey."

For more information through out the week, we referred to the

The Usborne Encyclopedia of History::

Titus worked on a Thanksgiving book the entire week. He did a couple pages a day. He found it fun and out of the ordinary of what we do. It is a little cheesy but he loved it. (It was free printable from here, just click on the Thanksgiving Lapbook word document)

We did an "I Am Thankful" book. I found this online and cut it out and made it a book.

(Find it Here)

I found some random worksheet for him to do as well. One was a diagram to compare and contrast two turkeys and another worksheet was the Pilgrim story told that you had to de-code then answer questions. He really liked both! (these came with the Pilgrim Story document from the timeline above but this is the link again:: here)

And he did some really great reading. He really loved this Magic Tree House since we were learning all about the people that the kids in the book end up meeting. It was perfect.

I did some things with Justus that were more geared toward Pre-School learning. Justus definitely did some of the above mentioned things, such as the Tomahawk and Mayflower but some of the things were not suitable for his age or attention span :)

With him I did a hand print turkey and we worked on colors and counting. HUGE hit! And I did a construction paper turkey where I laid out the feathers and said, "find a red feather and lets glue it on next to the yellow feather," then he would attempt to pick a red feather out of the bunch and we would talk about how to put it next to the yellow one. This was obviously to make sure he is still knowing his colors and work on fine motor skills as well.

We read these pre-school books:: The Littlest Pilgrim, One Little, Two Little Three Little Pilgrims, and Thanks for Thanksgiving::

I am sure we did some other things but this is all I have photographed. If you follow Vernon on twitter, then you were blessed to see Titus' Wampanoag Indian Chief dance. It was hilarious. He really got into the Wampanoag portion. It was very fun. Justus just took it all in. :)

I hope this helps some of y'all get pointed in the right direction this week as you school or as you have your kids home on Thanksgiving break.

Have a tremendous holiday.

I am thankful.

-A

2011-11-14T17:24:00.000-08:00

K is for King, Kite and Being Kind

We have been out of town for a week and a half so this post was about two full weeks ago schooling. That said, I am a little foggy about all that we did so I will just cover the basics ideas.

Our verse for K week was Ephesians 4:32, "Be Kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." This was a great verse to reinforce, for sure! Titus seemed to begin to understand a little of the severity of how deep we are called to forgive. He has heard me say a thousand times after picking on his brother or speaking harshly, "Titus, was that Kind or Rude?" his usual answer, "Rude" to which I respond, "Do you love your brother?" his answer "yes," my response, "honey, Love is kind not rude, lets think how we can be kind in this situation." (or something like that...obviously it is not always that scripted as we are not the Beaver's we are the Burger's) This verse sat on him for a day or two as we talked about how deeply Christ forgave us and that we are to forgive in the same way.

For our "God is Faithful. You can be ______" board we used the obvious word :: Kind. This was helpful on so many levels as we are entering the phase of not being kind to our siblings.

The Monday of K week was Reformation Day/ Halloween so we did some school at Starbucks in our costumes...it was fun.

Since we were packing and preparing for our trip and I was trying to get Titus to a good stopping point with his curriculum, Justus did a lot of this::

He loves it and keeps him busy and feeling like he is doing "school" and it takes little effort or prep on my part.

Justus' K Letter Project was a Kite::

One of the days I made this little crown out of construction paper and he was a King. He was so funny in it. One time I found him in the back room looking in the mirror. :)

I am sure we did some other things that I am forgetting but this is all I have :) If you are reading this and you are schooling:: I hope y'alls semester is going so well and the kiddos are having fun!! If you are reading this because you are looking for some fun ideas:: yay! I hope you find something here that inspires you to do something even more fun! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Schooling!

2011-11-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

New His Voice Global Informative Video

In the midst of planning and prepping for His Voice Global Weekend, I totally forgot to post our new video. I hope yall like it! We will have a fun one up for Christmas too!

2011-10-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Reformation Day!

Happy Reformation Day & Halloween to all our friends! This year Titus is dressing up as Dragonoid (he has no idea who this is, he just thought the costume looked amazing, HA!) and Justus is going as a T-Rex. He loves dinosaurs so this has been such a fun costume for him. He stomps around and growls, it's hilarious. Vernon and I are going as St. Louis Cardinal's fans but, in fear for our lives, we did not wear all our gear to Boo at The Zoo. I wore a Cards shirt and that was enough :) It was the day of Game 7 so it was risky. We will, however, be all dressed up tomorrow!

In honor of Reformation Day, last night Titus and I built a mock church of Wittenberg out of boxes and construction paper. We then dressed up in robes made of blankets and acted out Martin Luther nailing the 95 Theses to the church doors. Here is a funny picture I caught of Titus aka Martin Luther.

This week and weekend, leading up to today, Titus and I read this book about Martin Luther's life.

Martin Luther:: A Man Who Changed The World

It is pretty good....it has a lot of information about Martin Luther, which was great, but I am definiately on a search for a shorter version that is more kid oriented. This one was great for the purpose we needed it for. We used it last year as well...so he was familiar with it.

Along with the letters of the week, each week we use this book for some short fun church history...it's a hilarious book! I recommend it as much for adults :) We skipped to L for Luther last night to look at what it had to say::

The Church History ABC's

We did a VERY short lap book project that I hope to expand on and it turned out like this::

This is actually my first time to experiment with "lapbooking." It was fun and easy and now Titus has something to put in his binder to keep for the future for "research."

Hope all of you have a fun day today and enjoy this evening!

Happy Reformation Day and Halloween!!

2011-10-30T17:54:00.000-07:00

J is for Jack O' Lantern, Jellyfish and Jamba Juice

J week was a fun, easy going week. Justus was actually pretty sick the later part of the week resulting in a trip the the ER for breathing treatment but he is much better now...just a bit congested. We knew going into this week that we would be home all week...shocker, I know. So we really didn't get in a hurry about school. We just tried to keep with our normal little routine:: Bible (both boys) , Breakfast, Latin (Titus), Letter page (Justus) a speed worksheet in Math (Titus), go to the gym, come home, finish math, more letter fun (Justus), Grammar &/or Writing (Titus), Justus' nap, History, with reading and playing interspersed through out (both boys, obviously Titus will be reading and Justus will be read to).

That is a snapshot of our daily routine but sometimes we do this out side the home at fun places like:: Starbucks::

This is both delightful for them...and for me :) (note the Cardinal's gear, we had fun rooting on our team through the World Series!) (oh, and forgive my photo quality... I loaned my camera out and so this is another post totally from my iPhone pics)

This week our verse was, "Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness but with have the light of life." John 8:12 We talked about what is it like to walk around in the dark. Titus totally got this idea. Then we talked about the difference even when there is a little bit of light in a dark room. We chatted about what it means to have the light of life, again touching on the Holy Spirit and His roll within us and among us. We had a fantastic song by Seeds Family Worship that helped us memorize this verses. I know I say this a lot but I highly recommend their music for kids scripture memory.

Our "God is Faithful. You can be/have______" board was "God is Faithful. You can be Joyful!" I feel like I didn't do a very good job of really talking about Joy this week like I had hoped. But we did touch on it here and there. Hopefully I will be able to continue to come back to it. We keep all the words on a board so we can see a list of things we can be/have because God is faithful.

Monday morning we went to Jamba Juice for breakfast! It was a fun way to start the "J" week off. Titus and Justus LOVE Jamba Juice and we could literally spend a fortune if we went there every time they asked. So this was a fun treat for them.

Our J letter project was Jellyfish::

For the fall/Halloween season we read the book Pumpkin Jack (you can see it pictured in the picture below) which Titus loves because it is about decomposing (he loves all things science) of a pumpkin and the seeds from its decomposing actually make a pumpkin patch the following fall. Justus just liked the pictures and the seasons depicted in the pictures. We also have a board book called The Pumpkin Gospel that explains the Gospel in a cute rhyme about cleaning out a pumpkins. Both boys have loved this book over the years. Fittingly then, for the letter J we also made Jack o' lanterns::

Like I mentioned above, Justus had a cough starting Wednesday so we didn't get out much. It was also a bit chilly (for Texas), so we did a lot of this::

and our house looked a lot like this::

I am excited about this next week and all of November. We are going to be traveling A LOT so we will take one full week off in mid November, sort of a fall break if you will. :) I am going to attempt to do a Thanksgiving "unit" during that week to have something fun to do on the road. We shall see. Today we finished a book on Martin Luther and did some fun things to remember Reformation Day tomorrow....but I'll post that tomorrow!

Happy Schooling!

2011-10-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

I is for Igloo and Ice Cream

This week was extra fun and crazy because we were the lucky family who got to care for our friend's little baby girl Evangeline Shea :: isn't she precious?!?!

Her sweet parents are both on staff at The Village Church and they had Staff Retreat Monday - Thursday. We had such a fun time! They boys loved having her and so did we. Because of having sweet Evie, school did not get photographed much by my camera. I did get some pictures on my phone so that's what y'all are going to get this week.

We did a lot of this::

And a lot of this::

Titus loved strolling Evie around Barnes & Noble and that gave me some time with Justus as he played with the trains and we could read together. I love that in this picture Titus is reading Superman to Evie...so funny!

This week's verse was "I am the Lord your God. I am holding your right hand and I tell you, 'Dont be afraid, I will help you.' " Isaiah 41:13 One of our scripture memory CD's from when Titus was younger, Scripture Memory Songs with Hermie and Friends, had this verse on it. Titus still really likes these CD's although they are geared toward more 3-5 year olds. This helped getting this verse down easily. We talked about God being near to us even in our fear. This is a constant battle for Titus (and lately for me as well). He is typically anxious and sometimes fearful. So I hope this verse will continue with him all of his days.

For our 'God is Faithful. You can be/have ______ ' board we re-used Courageous. God is Faithful. You can be Courageous! This is something we pray for our boys. That they would be bold and courageous as they take the Gospel to their neighbors and the world.

I hoped to read all the books in the picture above...but we didn't read as much as usual because we were very distracted by having cute little Evie around. Also, the weather this week was spectacular so we did A LOT of outside playing!!

Justus LOVED 'I' being for Igloo. We cut up some squares from white paper and glued them on a blue sheet of paper into the shape of an igloo. This ended up being a great last minute idea. It helped him with cutting, shape identification and gluing....along with I being for Igloo.

Justus has started LOVING to hang up his work. Here he is, insisting it is on the board right in the middle of Titus' math! hehe!

For our letter project we made I into Ice Cream. I wanted to make it into an Iguana but 'I' being for Iguana was confusing him because he would say "I is for Lizard!" I decided not to fight that battle :) So we went with Ice Cream...and it turned out not so cute...but he loved it! :)

I had plan to have us make homemade Ice Cream but that didn't happen. We ended up going to the pumpkin patch one day and serving at a homeless shelter another day.

All in all it was a great week! If we keep on pace with T's work we will be at Semester with him in 20 school days.

If you are in the midst of schooling I pray endurance and strength for you as you make it through to the holidays. If you are reading just to store up ideas for the future I pray you would be blessed and the Lord would use your creativity to help school your littles.

Happy Schooling!

2011-10-16T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hair, Hopscotch & Harmonicas :: The Letter H week

We had a super fun week at school. Some weeks just seem to fly by and seem wonderful. (but those who homeschool know this is not always the case) I think it is because....brace yourselves...we didn't travel this week! It was easy to just spread out our things and get to learning. Titus flew through his work and was able to have lots of free time to work in his "lab" which is really just a table in our garage where he does experiments. Justus really seemed to like this week of school as well! I think it is a combination of things. Besides the fact that we had a very routine week, which he really thrives under, we also saw some major growth on his behalf. Those of you who know about some of the delays and needs Justus has had will love this post because you will see that he is really progressing in so many areas!! His speech, while still behind, is catching up and getting clearer and his ability to do both fine and gross motor skills are growing by leaps and bounds. Our chiropractor gave me some more exercises to do with him and in the short amount of time that we have been doing them, we have seen most all of the worrisome tendencies majorly decrease and some slowly leave!! (I know that is vague, as I have not really blogged about our journey with Justus. I haven't decided if or when I will do that)

In our Bible time this week we focused on the forgiveness of our sins. Our verse was Revelation 3:30, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me." We talked through this with Titus in quite a bit of detail. Because Titus is around a lot of Christian teaching as we travel he tends to pick up on little ideas here and there that aren't always clear to him. He is good about asking but I felt like this week he really asked some great questions about the soul & the location of the Spirit as he resides in us. This week I really let him talk it all out. He talked a lot, sorting through the imagery of Jesus standing at a door knocking, willing to come in. I love just letting him talk it out, sit with it and come to conclusions. It challenges me. Titus is very much a thinker. He will not be told, he must figure it out. So...this week he did the talking.

One of our family's favorite books is Halfway Herbert by Francis Chan. It starts with an H and the character starts with and H so I thought it would be a fun one to bring out this week. Titus read it this time. He enjoyed feeling "old enough" to read to us. This is a fantastic story of a boy who does everything "halfway" and sees that life is not intended to be done "halfway." If you don't already have this book and you have k-3rd graders I would highly recommend it.

For Pre-school with Justus we did a lot of fun activities for the letter H. His favorite toys right now are anything with wings or wheels, so the obvious H was HELICOPTERS!!! I found this one at Wal-mart for under $5 so I grabbed it for him. It made it even more fun that it was new!

Justus is just now getting into music. I, being a music lover, feel it necessary to act on this. So we did, H is for Harmonicas. At one point this week I thought I had lost my mind when both boys were playing their harmonicas loudly. Then I laughed and remembered that one day I will love that memory.

It was very nice weather this week, so the boys did A LOT of playing and exploring outside. I am so thankful for our backyard! I drew a hopscotch board on the back patio and they went to town having fun. This served as MANY helps for Justus. He has a hard time recognizing his numbers (although he can count and sort while counting he just cant recognize them as a symbol with great accuracy). So we yelled the numbers out loud as he jumped. We pointed at the numbers and rolled things to the numbers. It was great! I am not sure that he picked up that it was called Hopscotch and that that name starts with an H but ....who cares! :)

Our table projects (that we try to do when Titus is doing workbook type work) were about the words Hair and House. I just drew some people and had him color hair on them. The next day I drew a bigger person and had him glue tissue paper strips on for the hair. He thought it was funny!

And here is the letter project. We made H into a house. Justus really got into this. He thought it was fun because we talked about what all the house pieces were called, i.e. window, roof, chimney, curtains.

I think that is about it for H. Titus wanted me to take a picture of him doing work....so just in case you worried that Titus doesn't do much school since I never really blog about 2nd grade, here is proof:: (he was taking a grammar assessment)

Happy Schooling!

2011-10-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

G is for Go, Green & Guitars

This week of schooling was very unique. On Tuesday at 3:40 in the morning, one of my best friends called and said her water broke. They live in Midland and we had planned from the beginning of her pregnancy that we would not schedule anything in early October so that we could drive over to Midland when ever she called. So at 3:40 I jumped out of bed and got us packed up and we were on the road to Midland by 5am!

This is the pic that I sent my friend when we hit the road. It was a source of laughter for days! haha!

I ended up packing ALL of our school books (just in case) and I am so glad I did. We were able to school quite a bit in our short 2 day visit in Midland....for Titus that is. Justus was not interested in schooling AT ALL. He was having way to much fun...so I didn't interrupt it much. We did school at home, however, Monday, a little on Thursday when we got home, and Friday as usual.

(If you are new to the homeschooling section of my blog, you might be a little less confused if you read this post or these :) hope that helps!)

This weeks Bible verse and topic were by far my favorite to this point. It was a great reminder for us as parents as we chatted with the boys about it. Our verse for G week was "Go and Learn what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but the sinner." Matt 9:13.

Our "God is Faithful, You can be____" board was "God is Faithful, You can be Yourself" We talked a lot about why Jesus would say something as provocative as He did in Matthew 9:13. We told the boys about how it is our propensity to try to "work hard enough" "be good enough" "be clean/pure enough" to come to God or for God to like us...when Jesus shows us the opposite to be true. He came to save sinners!! That is us! This truth allows us to be ourselves. To rest and not to feel the false sense to "prove ourselves" to God. It was great reminder this week for us and I feel like it was great for the boys too!

As for pre-school with Justus, I had high hopes to read some fun classics & some fun books about God but he saw the Go! Diego! Go! books and we didn't really get much past those! ha!

He was pretty in to the fact the Green started with G so we went out and bought (I know you can gasp that we didn't already own it) this little gem::

I had lofty thoughts of making Green Eggs and such, but he didn't really like the book much once we were back around Diego.

For his Letter G project we made a Guitar::

At our friend Sarah's house last Sunday they made Green Play-doh Perfect for making Gs and other fun things::

And the biggest G hit was Titus' Green Guitar:: years ago when I taught guitar lessons, two of my students bought this guitar for Titus off Ebay...ha! We still have it and we had loads of fun with it this week::

A fun song for G is 'God is Good' by The Village:: Kids It spells out God and Good and has great, easy to sing lyrics. My boys LOVE this song!

If you are hoping to go through all of the alphabet with your kiddos this year and you are on G week, you are 1/4 done! Way to Go!!

Happy Schooling.

2011-10-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Fun with Fishing For F

After a week off of school being in Missouri for His Voice Global Weekend, I had very little gumption to do all that much this week in way of school but really wanted to press forward with the school year. I felt like this week went well considering it is usually a struggle around here if we take more than a few days off. The boys don't usually want to jump back into routine after breaks but they did great this week! I was the one with no energy :)

For our "God is Faithful, You can be/have ______" board this week we did, "God is Faithful. You can have Faith."

This seems like a given but sometimes I like to take time reiterate that, we, in and of ourselves, can not will ourselves to have 'enough' Faith. The reason we can have faith is God's faithfulness. He is the giver of faith and the one who was first faithful. So we talked about that. Our verse was Mark 1:17 "And Jesus said to them," Follow me and I will make you become Fishers of men." I loved that this verse with the faith concept. It shows that, yes, God calls us to "Follow" him but his faithfulness is why we can have faith to "drop our nets" and follow.

I had high hopes of doing lots of "following games" but that didn't happen. :)

For Justus' school we made a Flower out of F. I also had hopes of collecting some flowers...but we live in Texas. No rain + 100 degrees = no flowers.

He did some F worksheets where he just colored and stamped like usual.

We did "Fishing for F's" and HE LOVED IT. He has played it everyday on his own since Titus and I taught him how. It was a hit for sure! I just filled a bowl with a bunch of letter Fs.
Then I took some pipe cleaners and connected them together. Next I added a little masking tape to the end of the pipe cleaners and curved it in the shape of a fishing pole. And that was all! It took about 2 minutes prep and it was hours of educational entertainment :)

As you can see...he loved it. He shouted "its a F!! F says ffff!" every time he caught one. hehe. Then I mixed it up by adding some other letters to see if he could just fish out the Fs. That was so fun too!

I think that is all for F. I hope it helps some of you to get your brain rolling.

I know I keep saying I will post about what we do with Titus (2nd grade) other than just the Bible lessons, I am sorry that hasn't happened yet. It is in the que of posts, I am just trying to link all the books and such so it will be helpful for you and I haven't hand much time to give to it.

Happy Schooling!

2011-10-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

Letter E Week ( a week late)

Most of you know we had our first ever His Voice Global Weekend this last week. That meant we would be doing a large deal of traveling, schooling on the road and taking a week break from school. This is why I haven't posted the E week. It was a couple weeks ago so I am a little foggy on all that we did but here are some of the things.

For our Bible time we did God is Faithful, You can be Generous. We talked about what it meant to be generous on many levels in many different ways. Generous with not just your money and possessions but also with your time and actions. Our verse was James 1:17 "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." This was a fun verse in that we talked about our shadows, did shadow experiments and discussed how they, like us, are always changing but God is not. Titus really loved this idea.

For Justus' pre-school we made a "E"lephant. He LOVED this. He loves playing with his toy elephant so this was a big hit. He showed everyone who came over :)

By the time the week was ending and we were about to leave for Missouri because of packing and last minute details of the weekend, I felt like I didn't do much with Justus for the letter E besides a few drawing things. So we spent a morning at the zoo! We went with the mission of finding Elephants and Eagles.

We were successful. We love the zoo but going to purposely look for certain animals we had studied...made it EXTRA fun. Titus got into it which made Justus all the more excited.

That's honestly all I can think of that is "post" worthy. We read The Ear Book and some books about Elephants. Also, we read Everyone Everywhere by Noel Piper.

Hope this helps yall with the letter E!

2011-09-11T18:27:00.000-07:00

Ducks, Dinosaurs and Doing School On The Road

I guess that is a bit of a tricky title. Do not be misled, I am not writing much about how we do school on the road in this blog but we did, in fact, school part of the week on the road.

For the D Bible Verse we did Philippians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petitions, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus." This was a long verse that was very familiar to Titus. So we listened to this song and watch the below video to help with it. I dont think he got the entire verse this week, but he definitely understands the concept and where it is located in the Bible.

For our "God is Faithful, You can Be/Have" board we did, "God is Faithful, You can have Peace." This is a big concept for Titus that we pray goes down deep in his heart and mind. He is our worrier and so this is a concept we practices often around our home! This was good reinforcement for sure!

This week we did more "hands on" because I was packing us for our trip and needing him to be occupied with out my guidance. Also, it was just soooo nice out!! I hated making them stay in and school so we did a lot out side.

We left for Houston on Thursday morning so we schooled a bit on Thursday afternoon when we arrived and then again on Friday in the hotel. I brought alot to do with Justus but haven't quite got the hang of schooling two in hotels, this was my first go round, so we didnt actually do much at all with Justus. We did some of the activities I had planned to do in the hotel, tonight when we got home.

So here are some of the D things we did::

Here are some of the D books we read::

We made a Dinosaur out of the letter D.

Titus actually did most of this while Justus screamed "STEGOSAURAS!!" over and over. I guess we can do this again for the letter S.

Brother read him Dinosaurs Before Dark::

this picture is when he started. Titus took the book on the road with us and read it to him as we drove. Do not be fooled though, I am unsure that Justus listened at all except the day this picture was taken, but who knows.

We went and fed the Ducks::

This was, as always, a big hit. It was a very nice day so the ducks were a little full from all the other kids feeding them too.

We dug for dinosaurs::

I just buried some of his dinosaurs, big and small, in the sand box.

Dinosaurs hunting for Ds::

I had Titus hide the letter D all around the house. They put on Dinosaur masks and Justus "hunted" them with help of Titus, of course :)

That's it for D week...I think :) I am so tired, so I apologize if this makes zero sense! ha!

2011-09-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

Remember.

Today we remember. We remember those who were lost in the tragic events of 9/11/01. We all remember the moment we heard.

To those who have experienced great loss through these events, I am so sorry. We honor you and your families this day. Thank you to all who serve our country. You are not forgotten.

I kept seeing this video retweeted over on twitter and finally decided to watch it. I am so glad I did. Please take a moment to do so as well. You will be blessed.

2011-09-05T13:10:00.000-07:00

Gluten Free Granola

Hey Yall! I posted a pic via instagram of the granola that I had made and got lots of commenters asking for the recipe. I have posted a similar one HERE years ago but here is approximately what I do now. I never make it the same so feel free to mix and tweak whatever you want! Oh and by the way, any oats will do but most all oats are full of gluten so if you are hoping for these to be gluten free you will need to make sure you buy g-free oats. (Here is a link to ones we get if I cant get them at a local g-free store although this is a link to a 4 pack so don't worry its not that expensive!)

I have a method of doing this that keeps the cost down and keeps the majority of items fresh and local. I take a measuring cup with me to a store that sells bulk raw nuts (or farmers market if you have one close that actually sells nuts that are raw & local. local nuts are not easy to find in some cities so at least go for raw) and just measure out and buy exactly what I need.

Ingredients::

4 1/2 cups gluten free oats ::

we prefer quick cooking oats but rolled oats work well too

1/2 cup of 4 different seeds or nuts.

Example :: 1/2c pecans,1/2c cashew, 1/2 sliced almonds, 1/2 pumpkin seeds:: all nuts need to be broken up to edible pieces if not already. I some times use extra to make it less sweet...its up to you

1/4 cup flax seeds (optional)

3/4 cup PURE maple syrup ( i use a medium grade)

1/4 cup Local honey

1/4 cup Coconut Oil or Canola Oil whatever you use around your house (canola works best but it is not easy to find non GMO canola in the US)

1 teaspoon vanilla (if you are going for g-free be sure to make sure your vanilla is in fact g-free, not all are)

Cinnamon to taste

1 1/2 cups dried cranberries (or raisins or dried anything fruity)

Directions::

Pre-heat oven to 350.

In a large bowl mix all the oats, seeds & nuts. This step is very simple if you already measured out your nuts because all you do is pour them all in and stir!

In a separate small bowl, mix the syrup, honey, oil and vanilla. Once it is mixed well, pour this mixture over the oats/seeds/nuts. Stir until all dry ingredients are covered.

Grease a 10X 13 pan (the deepest one you have) and pour all ingredients into the pan. lightly dust with cinnamon and place in oven. Set the timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes pull it out and stir it carefully (the pan will be very full). Lightly dust with cinnamon again and place back in oven for 10 more minutes. Repeat this until it is a desired texture. I prefer it to be less crispy and sticky so I do it for 3 rounds. But many do it up to 5 rounds.

Pull final granola out of the oven and let it cool to room temp, stirring occasionally to avoid it clumping up. Then add cranberries and you have granola!

If you use G-free oats you will need to refrigerate your granola. We refrigerated it way before we were g-free because we liked it cold!

Enjoy!

2011-09-04T18:57:00.000-07:00

C is for Caterpillar, Cupcakes and Casting Your Cares

Here I am blogging week 3 and feeling a little insecure about the "homeshcooliness" of this blog recently. I am going to try my best to up the "cool" factor in the next few weeks by posting things other than the musings of my attempt to homeschool a 2nd grader while keeping a preschooler entertained. But lets be real, the day in and day outs of our lives are not "cool," and never have we claimed that to be true, so we will see what I can do in way of other subjects to cover :)

If you are new to this homeschooling series, you might want to check out the previous posts:: Intro, A & B

Our verse for the letter C was :: Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous fall. Psalm 55::22

This was very timely in that we had a loss in our family this week. In light of this we decided that for our "God is Faithful, You can be____" board we would do "God is Faithful, You can be Comforted & Comfort Others." This was great for our verse and for our letter although we generally don't stick with the letter for this activity. It was also great for what was going on in our family. We talked about times when they have been comforted by God and how He was faithful to hear them when they prayed. Then we had them think of some people who were going through something hard and send them a letter with the verse on it. Titus LOVED this. Justus was sorta clueless but had fun. :)

We love Seeds Family Worship and they happen to have a video out for Psalm 55:22 so we watched it multiple times a day this week. It really helped!

For Justus we did our normal letter pages::

We read lots of C books::

We pulled out the paint dabbers this week which were a huge hit! So I put a bunch of letters on a page and had him dob the C's. I was so excited at how well he did, I had very low of expectations. He mixed up a few Us but I thought it went great and he loved it!

We made a Caterpillar out of two C's. We read (and watched) The Hungry Caterpillar. I had hopes of making a Cow out of a C also but didn't get around to it.

We delivered one of the boy's "comfort letters" to a friend who just moved and she happens to work at Starbucks. SOO we did C is for Coffee. (of course!) We looked all around the store for Cs and J loved it. We found them all over, Cafe, Coffee, Cake, Cappuccino, etc. Justus (if you know him this wont surprise you) was a little too loud and excited about the Cs so our field trip didn't last that long! ha! He was screaming "C mama C!" and the people in the cafe were not as excited about this schooling experience as we were. hehe!

We had Chocolate Chip Cookies but I have no pics of it because I was indulging in them myself since I made them gluten free!

And last but not least:: CUP CAKES!

That's all I can recall for C. I hope this helps yall! I know I keep saying this but I plan to blog what all Titus is covering this year...I'm working on it. I hope to have linked all the curriculum and sites we use. Please pardon my slowness.

2011-08-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

B is for Brown Bear and other ramblings of B

Hey yall! I hope the last two posts have been helpful for some of you. I have heard from many of you (although not via comments on the blog) that these posts have gotten your wheels turning and I am so glad! I personally never imagined I would actually ENJOY teaching pre-k and elementary school! ha! Its awesome what the Lord does in your heart when He is asking you to do something.

Week one went MUCH smoother than week 2. Justus was very into the letter A, the new routine and special attention but when it lasted beyond a week he was over it. So, I had to step up my game :) At this point in his life, I really want him to learn through play so remember these things I post only take about 10-20 minutes max and as you can see we only do a handful of things each week. I do however try to pull to the front or reintroduce him to his toys & and books that go along with the weekly letter...at least that's what I've done so far seeings as though its only week 2! Ha!

Like I have mentioned in previous, posts our Bible/Theology lessons this semester are all about "God is Faithful; You can be/have____" This week our 'B' Bible Verse was "Behold, I am making all things new." Revelation 21:5 So our "God is Faithful" saying was "God is Faithful. You can have HOPE!"

We did a few art project based on God making all things new. We talked a lot about the New Earth and God redeeming all things. I must say, it was a fun week. We collected things out side that had died and painted them like we thought they might be on the new earth. I had Titus do his writing lesson on this making complete sent

ences about the things he painted. (A fun side note is :: without planning ahead, Titus' history curriculum covered the exile of John to the Island of Patmus during the persecution of the Jew by the Romans. It was so fun to see Titus know the story and understand when the verse he was learning was written! fun!)

Justus painted leaves and a rock::

We started Operation World this week. In the mornings when the boys wake and I am finishing up breakfast, they sit at the table and 'read' their Bibles. Justus just looks at the pictures in his and Titus reads his out loud to all of us. We do this with their Jesus Story Book Bibles. Then we go the computer and look up the country Operation World has highlighted for the day. We talk about the statistics of the country, find it on the map and pray for the people there. Titus likes this a lot...Justus...well, he is extremely non-verbal so its hard to say if he likes it or not...he just takes it all in.

I still haven't posted about the curriculum we use for Titus for all the other subjects, I really hope to get around to that soon.

So here are some of the things we did with Justus for the letter B::

We read lots of B books like Brown Bear & The B Book::

We made the letter B into a bear and into a butterfly:: these animal letters have turned out to be Justus' favorite thing so we are going to try to do a couple each letter. I let him cut on some of these as you can tell on the eyes and mouth of the butterfly :)

We did more of the homemade B worksheets. We colored in Blue and we glued Buttons on a different day. We also did more letter stamping with B.

And no day is complete to Justus with out a little playdough so we did Blue playdough::

On the first blog I realized I forgot to tell about a few things that get LOTS of use around here during the day. The Tag Junior Reader. We LOVE this thing. It reads books to Justus and he loves doing this by himself. It makes him feel like he is reading.

And lastly....$.50 stickers. These have come in so handy. Each day I put a sticker of the letter we are focusing on on each of his hands. He loves it. Then he wants to put some on mine, so if you see me this week and I have a letter sticker on my hand...you will know why :)

A friend of ours is doing preschool with her son while her kiddos go to Classical School two days a week and they homeschool the others. We got to meet them at Cabella's for a "field trip" to see the animals. Justus had a blast finding Brown Bears, Black Bears and Polar Bears. He found Bass, Beavers, Bucks and Bison. It was so fun. I highly recommend it if you have little ones and live near a Cabella's or a Bass Pro.

Well, that was longer than I meant it to be...sorry. But I hope it helped y'all! It was fun for me to journal it. Thanks for stopping by!

2011-08-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Big A, Little A, What Begins With A?

Week one we began with the Letter A.

(before you read this you might want to read the Intro post. Also please know while you read that our boys are normal boys. It is sometimes fun and dreamy to think of things you want to do w/ your kiddos but the reality is some things flop...but somethings totally turn out fantastic and totally worth the effort. You will never know what they love if you dont try! hope this helps someone get there wheels turning!)

Our Memory Verse was " A gentle answer turns away anger, but a harsh word stirs up wrath" Proverbs 15:1 (because we were having some issues with the boys tones towards each other and towards us we thought this was only fitting :) We were going to use "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23 but Titus already knew it and I was on this blog I found via Pinterest looking for 'A' activities and the mom was using this verse for 'A' and I thought it was great for our situation!

We are covering God's faithfulness (like I mentioned briefly in the Intro post) and with each week we are saying, "God is faithful. We can be ______" this things will not correspond with the letter of the week but will go along with stories we are reading / hope to read. We started this with "God is faithful. We can be courageous" We have a book of children's stories about virtue and one entire section is on courage and perseverance. So we read those to the boys this week. We talked about all kinds of ways God has been faithful to us and others we know. We read many Bible stories about men being courageous because they knew God was faithful.

For Titus' school he followed most all of his curriculum (which I plan to list out w/ links some day ) and it seems to be a good fit so far.

Here are some of the things we did with Justus::

I made shape flash cards. He loves them. We can hide them around the house. We can carry them around and match them with objects around the house, etc. Or just use them as flash cards. If they get torn...no biggy, I made them on a whim w/ a 3X5 card and a marker!

I mentioned in the Intro post that I had picked up some of these from the dollar bin at Target. They are fun and age appropriate. He is not as skilled w/ his pencil but he is catching on.
We did "A is for Apple" (found on this site) I just drew apples w/ a marker on a piece of printer paper and he glued tissue paper pieces on each one as I told him the color to use. This helped with motor skills (gluing/placing) and worked on his colors along with the obvious A sound.
This was another Pinterest find. (here is a fun link for letter projects) All the letters can become animals! A is for Alligator. This was a definite favorite for Justus!
A friend of mine made 5 sets of alphabet coloring sheets with just a maker and some printer paper. We paint them, marker them, color them, cut them...easy, quick and fun.
I found a super cheap set of wood stamps of all the letters at Jo-Ann Fabic on Teacher weekend. We have TONS of ink pads so this was another cheap activity that Justus LOVED. He seriously loved this. He did so many sheets just like this of A.
I found a set of the Letters that teachers use for their bulletin boards for a dollar or two and thought they would come in handy. They were a lot of fun. you can do all kinds of things with them!
I think that's about it for A. Hope this helps someone get their brain going for your home! Remember for the littles, they will only last about 10 mins on any given project so dont spend much time getting it ready just throw it together and they will love it!

2011-08-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

Welp, You Asked For It.

I am going to be honest and say that never in my wildest dreams did I ever (and let me stress EVER) think I would one day be blogging about how I homeschool my preschooler and 2nd grader. I'm telling you, I'm a little shocked that I even have a preschooler and a 2nd grader let a lone that I am their teacher...help me, Lord!

Our story of coming to homeschooling is for another entry all to itself. We are not set on it for life, in fact, we pray each school year about what the next year will hold for our children. While we love it, we are not tied to it.

I decided to make this entry (and potentially a years worth of entries) because of the amount of feed back I have gotten from a few instagram photos and tweets I have put out over the last few weeks. Many of you have asked if I am using a curriculum or just coming up with it as I go or how I am coming up with ideas. Some have even asked about balancing the two grades, being that they are so far a apart (3yr old pre-k and 2nd grade). So with MUCH hesitation I decided to try one round of posting. If it goes well and I feel it is useful for others and I enjoy chronicling it for my own records, then I will continue as the year passes.

Justus (our 3 year old) has a speech delay along with other delays so I was hesitant to start anything super ridged with him and besides...he's three and he's a second child boy. BUT I did need our schedule to become pretty school heavy for Titus' (our 2nd grader) sake. I didn't want Justus to get lost in the mix of me schooling Titus so I needed a system that would work for both of them. I decided to do a week by week letter schedule that would help Justus his letters/sounds and we could have Titus' Bible verses correspond with that letter. Justus would then be included on lots of things!

Vernon and I decided that the entire semester was going to be focused on God's faithfulness. So each week we are trying to tell stories of faithfulness from Scripture, from history and from the present. I think for the sake of time and space, I'll write a post about what we are covering in way of theology / Bible this year as we plan it out.

While Titus has specific subjects he has to cover each day and pre-determined lessons he has to accomplish, Justus does not and will not until he enters Kindergarten which is 2 maybe 3 years away depending on his development. This gives me lots of flexibility through out the day but I still have to be prepared with ideas to set up his little station with something that will help him and maintain his attention. So the system I have come up with is simple. (and cheap!) Over the last year I have grabbed a few letter books from the dollar section at Target along with letter stickers and stamps.

Those right there are three different activities he can do with or without me. I just have to have them out and available if I want him doing them.

Other than those I have a bin full of goodies like play dough, pipe cleaners and all sorts of random things that begin with whatever letter we are covering that week.

And that bin stays right in the bookshelf next to Titus' desk so that at any moment I can have something for Justus to do.

One of my friends came over the other night and while we were chatting she made 5 sets of the entire alphabet so I can have coloring sheets for each day with the letter we are studying.

If I feel a bit stumped on things to do per letter I, so far, have just looked on Pinterest and found TONS of ideas within seconds...then my creative side gets going and the week is full!!

It is also nice that we dont have a "school" room so I am not separated from the rest of the home. I can be doing things in the kitchen and they boys are right there doing their own school things.

Here is a pic of Justus' little area but I dont have a picture of Titus' desk on this computer but is is on the wall across from this one and next to the bookshelf posted above.

Okay now that I have bored you with the basics. I'll start with the Letter A/ Week 1.

2011-08-20T07:54:00.000-07:00

What's On My Play List

Since I am in a bit of a blogging rut, I thought I could answer a common question I get.

"What are you listening to?" or "You got any new music we should listen to?"

I'm an not sure why exactly I get this question so much but I have been getting it for years and years and, honestly, very few things bring me as much joy as sharing great music with people!

I make no claim to be the most savvy of music finders and I am not the "I only listen to the coolest, newest, most unique music" person either. I am sure some of you will see the below listed albums and roll your eyes as none of them are the "new, cool band," and well if that is you, theses suggestions are not for you :)

I value good music. Lyrics are often a big deal to me and when I find an album that is both lyrically and musically sound I love sharing them with friends. This spring/summer has been unique in that a slew of great worship albums were released all within months of eachother. So my playlist has been much bigger than normal. I am going to list out 3 of these albums, tell you why I have liked them and recommend a few songs from each album in case you are limited on funds and just cant purchase 3 albums right now.

#1 Be Lifted High :: Bethel Live

This album came out early spring of this year. It is a live worship album from Bethel Church from Redding, CA. It is the home church of Jesus Culture, in case you are familiar w/ their music. This album is enmeshed with full sound, Spirit lead, live worship. Some of my conservative cohorts and those skeptics of Spirit movement may be a little overwhelmed by the style of this album. It has live prayers and exhortations through out the songs, some songs more than others. I enjoy the richness of the lyrics paired with the loud, full sound of live music.

If I only had $5 to spend on music from this album I would pick::

Furious- a song about the Love of Christ, His wide, deep, sweet, fierce, furious love. The first time I heard this I thought it was a crazy mix of U2 sounds mixed w/ t
he unique sounds of Dave Matthews Band. I know those two dont really go together but that is why I loved the sound of this song. Very good.
One Thing Remains- another song about Christ's Love never running out on us. This song is basically 3 very catchy choruses made into a song.
Love Came Down- A great song about the Rescuing Love of Christ. Very easy to sing along with. ( and i heard recently, for those musicians reading, that this song rocks as an acoustic led song. apparently if you strip away the extra songs this song carries itself well...gotta love that!)
One Thirst- This was my first experience w/ Bethel Live...so its gonna be a long time fave of mine. It's a great Guy/Girl song. My favorite thing about this song is it is ALL Scripture. So powerful! note to worship leaders:: GREAT congregational song, amazing night/morning starter song.
God of The Redeemed- oh man, this song makes me want to jump out of my chair, hands raised, pleading others to join in...oh man I'm getting pumped just thinking of the song :) the bridge :: It's rising, It's rising the song of hope for those set free, It's rising, It's rising up! Hallelujah

#2 10,000 Reasons - Matt Redman

Y'all, this CD has been going in our home, our cars & through our earbuds consistently since its release. Just about the time I think I should move on, I find myself right back. There is something about Matt Redmen's music that has resonated with me since college. I love the humility and Truth in his songs. I also love the "British Pub Chant" feel of many of his songs and by that I mean easy to sing along with and some even make you want to swing your fist (elbow bent) back and forth across your body :) No seriously, these songs are full of bold, strong truth and worth singing along to!

If I only had a couple bucks to choose a few songs from this album, I'd choose

Never Once- This is a powerful song of hope and a proclamation of God's faithfulness. The chorus :: Scars and struggles on the way, but with joy our hearts can say, Never once did we ever walk alone, Never once did you leave us on our own, You are Faithful, God You are Faithful.
10,000 Reasons- This is the title track and rightly so. The first time I heard this song I had to sit down and take a deep breath. This is a beautiful song and somehow as soon as you hear it, it's as if you've heard it your entire life, as if it was written on your heart years before the album release. Thank you, Matt Redman, for writing this song.
Magnificent- A fantastic song about God's holiness. The pre-chorus goes:: You are higher than we ever could imagine and closer than our eyes could ever see! So great, y'all.

#2 God Is Able- Hillsong Live

Every year I get excited about the Hillsong Live albums because of the eclectic nature they bring to the ol' Hillsong playlist.

Hillsong's Live albums are different to the studio albums and to the United albums because they are a big mix of congregational songs led by all different band members. This album appeals to the entire church young and old. You will definitely find a song or two you like and a song or two your mom or friend would like but is not quite your favorite...does that make since? I love that about these Live Albums. God is Able is full of powerful lyrics and great instrumentation...as always. If you buy the Deluxe Version you will be blessed with getting the acoustic video set of a few of the songs and they are AMAZING!

If I only had a few dollars to spend on this album I would chose::

God Is Able- this is the title track. It is, just as the title suggests, about God being able. The chorus :: Lifted up You defeated the grave, raised to life our God is able. In His name, we over come for the Lord our God is able :: This is a great song for both personal and corporate worship. So good.
You Are More- this is a sweet song. it is a prophetic/preaching to your soul type song. It's a song from the heart of someone going through a rough season but wanting to hold to Truth.
The Lost are Found- a song with a ending anthem of hope for the Lost. It'll get you pumped, people.
My Heart Is Overwhelmed- this is also a sweet, precious song. It is intimate and powerful. It is beautifully written both lyrically and musically.

And lastly, no music list on this blog could be complete with out Switchfoot :)

Dark Horses - Switchfoot

This is the only song released from their upcoming album Vice Verses. I promise you, if you love rock n roll, you will LOVE this song. Well worth every penny of your $ .99. and please look for Vice Verses coming in September!

If you are looking for more eclectic instrumental/experimental music let me highly suggest Seryn or Balmorhea. Both of these bands are also highly listened to around our home.

I hope this was helpful to someone :) It was fun for me!

Enjoy!

2011-08-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

Titus & Ladan Turn 7

Late June we made the hike back up to St. Louis. We had a good deal of meetings for HVG and Vernon was scheduled to preach the last weekend of June in O'fallon, so we made a week of it. It just so happened that that particular week was Titus' birthday. If you have been around the blog long you know we do parties...and I mean DO parties. We love having people over and making a big fuss over whomever's special day it is. Sooo, since Titus would not get his big party here in TX we through a family party in Missouri! Vernon's sister, Phyills and her family came over from IL and stayed the entire week! It was our nephew Ladan's birthday week as well (phyllis's son) because the boys are only a bit over a week apart!

We had a ball. We did all kinds of things that week:: we played in the water, went to the science center, made stepping stones, the kids watch movies with Grandma, visited friends and much more. Vernon worked, went to meetings, worked some more and Phyllis & I and the kiddos, well, we just had fun!! It was awesome. Here are some fun pictures::

Phyllis and I attempted making Lego cakes.

making stepping stones

movies w/ Grandma

2011-08-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Steee-rugglin

yep. my blog is steee-rugglin' theses days and i would like to take a moment to excuse myself in hopes that finally writing something will spark ideas for future blog posts.

excuse #1 summer travel.

since mid may we have been home less that 30 days. vernon has been home even less than that. we love the summer travel season that working/running a non-profit brings but its not exactly blog-keep-up friendly.

excuse #2 summer travel.

ha. i know it was number one but i feel it deserves another paragraph. we have driven over 4000 miles this summer, 8 major cities, 6 states and still have one road trip to accomplish next week.

excuse #3 Instagram

i mean really, i love it. i really enjoy having twitter but Instagram just makes social media a little more appealing to me. This is one of my summer excuses because I have been able to post photos along the way of our travels from the convenience of my phone and feel as though i am contributing to the curiosity of those who would be satisfying said curiosity via this lovely blog. Also, I seem to get more comments from my social media friends than i do from this sweet blog so it spurs me on just a wee bit more to be consistent. :: not a shameless plug for more commenting...just fact.

excuse #4 brain fog

i remember very vividly the feeling of "baby brain" and it made me CRAZY. I hate not being able to keep my self and family organized and not being able to put my thoughts in an sort of sequential order. This is how I've felt since mid May. Coming off a big move back to Texas, getting the house unpacked and settled, establishing a routine just in time to hit the road for the summer has sent my head for a spin. I assure you it is NOT baby brain, although a few times this summer i have wondered solely based on my inability to have clear cognitive thought. since i have nothing to call this aformentioned "brain fog," then I will call it just that and hopefully the "fog" will lift soon. :)

so excuse me if you will, i do plan to be back in action soon.

thanks for sticking around all summer. hope yours has been great! ours has been fantastic!

2011-06-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

Unity Among Educational Camps

I have started and erased this blog so many times because of its subject. I cant seem to get a grip of exactly what I want to say. I have sent this video clip out to so many friends who were struggling with schooling decisions and just realized the other day I had never posted it on any social media. It speaks to the heart of what I would like to write.

We all make educational decisions for our sweet children. We love our kids. Education is important to us and we have personal, real reasons why we choose the education routes we choose. None, not even the one we choose, is perfect and right. Let us not defend them as if they are. Let us love one another with brotherly love and seek to show hospitality to all as we serve our families. Let us not put others on pedestals because they have chosen a specific route that the Lord has not set for your family to take. Let us be confident that, in Christ, the Lord has given you and your children all that they need for Life and Godliness, not placing our hope in any schooling system but in Christ alone. Let us strive to edify one another and be unified in our vision to love the Lord our God, love and serve our family and proclaim His goodness to the world.

Please watch this little clip and be encouraged::

2011-05-31T15:27:00.000-07:00

:: Little League ::

Titus is in the middle of his first season of baseball (it is coach pitch unless you miss the first 3 pitches then they let you hit off the tee). He is loving it! For his first practice, we didn't know what his team name was yet so he wanted to wear his Cardinals gear.

(insert smile from all MO readers)

The next few pictures are from Titus' first game. Rest assured I am not posting pictures from all his games, I just was a little camera happy celebrating his first game :)

The Pirates::

Justus has a lot of fun playing in the dirt during the games

Vernon has been able to be an assistant coach and that has been so fun for Titus (and for Vern!)

Titus is last batter so he always gets to run all the bases. Of course this includes a slide into home EVERY time. Hilarious.

The Pirates after their first big game::

And lastly, I feel I must include this final photo to let all of you know he is indeed my child:: he does a this little cheer everytime he makes a good play. He's just so excited. HAHA!!

2011-05-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

::A Little Help::

As a native Missourian, my heart breaks for our friends and family affected by the recent tornado. Over the last three days so many emotions have come over our home. I have almost packed the boys up and headed north about 10 times. We want to help so badly. We are so proud of our friends as we hear the stories of their bravery as they have been able to be first responders. We are overwhelmed for our friends who have lost their homes, work places and over all sense of normalcy. We are thankful for our friends who have been able to use their gifts of logistics to coordinate donations and teams, for our friends who have used their gift of creativity to think of ideas to bring in money for aid, for our friends who have been able to use their gifts of wise council to minister to those who are emotionally traumatized by this event. The picture of the Body of Christ coming together, with the whole of the gifts, to shower help upon those who are in need, is beauty in the midst of chaos.

Our friends at VIVE clothing company have designed a shirt that ALL the proceeds go to Joplin Relief.

You donate & they send you a shirt. This shirt is unique in that it actually has the logo from the Missouri flag on it. I know, I know, all my Texan readers are thinking, "What's weird about that?" but little do you know that not ALL states commonly produce state flag paraphernalia. I know, weird right? hehe! I hope that every time you wear your VIVE Joplin Relief shirt you remember Missouri and those effected by this tornado. It will be a long time coming for normalcy to resume, if it ever can but you can play a little part in the efforts.

Just click here::

Stop in and get a shirt and spread the word!

2011-05-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

A Dino-Mite Time

haha! That might be the cheesiest title you'll ever get out of me, but hey 3 year olds tend to do that to ya. This week, Justus turns 3 **sigh, deep breath** yep t.h.r.e.e. As in not a baby, not a toddler, a **another deep breath** preschooler. yep. thats what I said, a preschooler. crazy.

Justus doesn't actually turn 3 until this coming weekend but Vernon was going to be out of the country the next few weekends and not home for another weekend until mid June, so we decided to party this weekend! It was planned on a whim because we had previously planned to be in Austin but ended up having to cancel those plans at the last minute. SO I threw together a fun little party and friends were able to make it! Justus loves dinosaurs so it seemed fitting to have a Dinosaur theme. It was so fun. Dino-rific to keep the theme rolling :)

I loaned my camera to a friend that needed it to shoot a wedding, so I borrowed Lauren's and Keri's (moms who were at the party) then dumped them onto my computer before they left! Thanks girls for letting me use yalls!

We had a Dino Dig ::

we hid eggs filled with mini dinosaurs and cardboard cut out bones. The kids dug to find the dinosaur eggs and bones. It was a hit!

We had a Dinosaur Egg relay::

Pin the Tale On The Dinosaur::

And a Texas party is not complete with out::

A pinata ::

And a whole bunch of fun::

2011-05-18T17:19:00.000-07:00

Easter Weekend

We had a fantastic Easter weekend this year. We are showered with good friends who are now as dear to us as family. Living so far from our families is hard at times and holidays tend to make us remember this reality. Last year in MO was the first Easter of Titus life (that he is able to remember:: so since he was 2) that we did not spend the weekend in Irving celebrating with friends and serving South Irving. We were so fortunate to jump right back in to our "tradition" of spending Saturday morning with friends at FBCI and Sunday afternoon at The Durham's. Thanks to all our friends who have warmly welcomed us right back into your lives after being gone 1.5 years. We love y'all to the moon!!! (and our families appreciate your kindness towards us as we are so far from them!)

One of our "traditions" on Saturday morning of Easter weekend, is to attempt to get a decent picture of all the kiddos together. As you will see below, we've come a long way in the past few years :)

2009:: priceless::

2011::

I mean, can you handle this picture! I love it!

And since we are far from home I thought I would include some pictures of the boys in their Easter garb so that all the friends and family could enjoy their cuteness too!

Justus:: 2 years old

Titus:: 6 years old

Every Easter Sunday we go to The Durham's house for a fantastic meal. The Durham's have families and singles over for Easter Dinner who do not have family around DFW to celebrate with. Every year it is such a blast! Pastor John hides a bag of goodies for each person around the house and we all have to hunt...yes, even the adults. Here is a picture of Pastor John playing with Spy Gear w/ Titus after we opened all our goodie bags. He is one of the coolest Pastor's we've ever known. Around The Durham's you, no matter how old you are, always feel important and loved.

Well that's a wrap folks. Its a month late but better late than never.

2011-05-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

Chem 6A and The Musings of A Six Year Old Boy

We love to read. We read children's books, classics, new books, fiction, non-fiction, serious and not serious at all. We don't have TV (before you make any assertions, positive or negative, we get plenty of media via a dvd player & the Internet). This is something we love but at times creates hilarious situations. For example, the boys rarely see commercials, so when they do, the advertisement really works. Its like they think they HAVE to have whatever they saw advertised and can tell you EVERYTHING about it after seeing it once on a commercial. So, dear advertising/marketing people, you are still fooling my 6 year old. No matter how much we try to convince Titus that things are not, or may not be as they seem on said advertisement, he is vehement against such charges....I digress.

Sorry, back to reading a lot. When the Narnia films started to make their way into the theaters, we decided we wanted to read the series to Titus before we let him see the films. We did pretty good with Lion, Witch and The Wardrobe and then we read The Magicians Nephew, as we predicted wrong and they produced Prince Caspian next. So we got behind. And Titus had to wait to see Prince Caspian. This is where the hilarity comes in. We were out searching for a version of The Voyage of The Dawn Treader that had bigger pages and more pictures. (non film version pictures) and Titus said, "why are we reading them first anyway, there are so many things that the book got wrong anyway." I am sure I gasped loudly in the store and sternly put him in his rightful place. (joking.......kinda :) Since this moment he has not let up. Titus is convinced that the books are wrong and the movie is right. We have explained it every which way, even down to time lines but alas he will not give in. He even brought it up to a group of friends we went out to dinner with a couple nights ago, like he thought those adults would surely agree with him and speak some sense into us. Little did he know they all, of course, sided with us and that the book in fact DID come before the movie. He was astonished. He could not believe people would think so illogically. It is quite hilarious how worked up he gets about it and how good of arguments he has! This kid!

All of this reminds me, as always, of a song. My life is pretty much themed in songs...if you haven't already gathered that around my blog. That evening around the dinner table with our friends as Titus tried to convince them of their logical fallacies my good friend Stacie, who is my switchfoot-junky-partner-in-crime, leaned over and said, "this reminds me of a certain Switchfoot song," I smiled and nodded as I knew she was certainly talking about the first Switchfoot song I ever heard back in 1998:: Chem 6A. In it is the ever popular line, "I don't wanna read the book, I'll watch the movie." A line I will hear for years to come as we weed our way through the classics of literature. Lets just pray until then that he comes around on his logic skills. ha!

for now, enjoy this video of teenage switchfoot:: you're welcome :)

2011-05-02T17:44:00.000-07:00

Strength and Honor; Thanks Mom!

Mother’s Day has always been special to me. Even before I had children myself, I valued highly this day and wanted so badly to honor my mom. Well, lets just say I failed miserably each year knowing that the measly gift card and flowers did NO justice to all that my mom had given to us.

In May of 1986, just a week after Mother’s day, my mom tragically became a single mother of three. My father died of a heart attack at the very young age of 39 leaving my mom with the three children in a new city, states away from all the she had ever called home.

My mom had strength that only God can grant. With a loving family (both her family and my dad’s) by her side, she made the choice to move us back to Missouri to be close to her family and around some things that were, at least, familiar. In the following months she put her self through beauty school, working and going to school full time. During this time she met all our needs. We never went without. We always had breakfast hot when we got up and dinner together in the evenings. How she did it, I’ll never know.

My mother taught us through her actions to engage grief. She never made light of our pain, even on the day I cried because we got a new vacuum. I had memories of my dad vacuuming and was afraid that if everything that reminded me of him went away that I would never remember him. She came in bed with my sister (who was 11) and I (age 7) and we all cried together.

She always encouraged us to feel the grief but not to let it cripple us. She taught us, again through her actions, that God can sustain you even when you think it is impossible to stand. She never missed any of our baseball or basketball games and she was even my brothers Cub Scout leader! She is every woman.

My mom had two choices: 1) to make the most of out of the deep pain, provide for her children, and to give them a future or 2) remain in the deep recesses of grief and turn inward while solely caring for her self. My mom was strong. She made the right choice and did the best she possibly could, not ignoring the pain, but engaging it while going on with life and caring for us.

My mom had a choice, but thousands of moms around the world do not. They are forced by masters to provide for their children by selling themselves countless times a day, knowing this will be the heritage of their daughters. They have no choice to walk away. Slavery is real. It is real life to them and their children.

Knowing this reality, we now have a choice: to make a difference or ignore it all together. And this Mother’s Day I am making the choice to make a difference and in that, honor my mother, Debbie Simerly, and you too could join me.

As Our Own is a ministry that has rescued and cares for over 60 girls, many of them were being raised in brothels in India. This ministry is giving us and opportunity to honor our Mothers this Mother’s Day by donating to their “Thanks Mom!” campaign. This money will go towards the care of the sweet girls who have been rescued and now need care as they are raised to make a difference in their country.

So mom, in honor of your strength and courage in the face of pain, we are donating to our friends at As Our Own in your name. I love you!

If you would like to join me, here are the steps::

STEP 1 :: Give to our Thanks, Mom! campaign to honor your mom on Mother’s Day, May 8. (click HERE)

STEP 2 :: In the donation comments box, tell us what you appreciate most about your mom.

STEP 3 :: Download a certificate for your mom that explains the gift you’ve made in her name.

Honor your mom this Mother's Day and make a huge difference for a sweet girl in India!

2011-03-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

Never More Than 24

I wrote a song once. I'd say it was spring of 2002, actually. It was titled 67. My buddy, Steve Pullen, and I were attempting to write a song about the lack of time in a day to accomplish what we dream to accomplish and how this can drive us to not dream, to excuse our life away and never accomplishing a thing. Far better though, this lack of time can drive us into the One who created time, who gave us limits and had intentions of those limits drawing us to Himself. This song was written, like most in my college days, on a random napkin and then stuffed into a journal and sadly over time has disappeared and the only line I remember is so random, "like the 67 colors of blue & grey in the sky." Like I said, random.

But lucky for Steve and me (and likely many of you), just months after we wrote our little ditty, the best band ever...oh, pardon me... I mean, my favorite band, Switchfoot released their gem of an album, "The Beautiful Let Down," and on that album was a song that would forever mark my life, Twenty-Four. This song said everything and more than Steve and I set out to say in our amateur little tune. Lyrically and musically this song penetrated deep into my soul at a very crucial time in life. It challenged me to dream, to dream big, to live in who God had made me to be, to press in to Christ and believe that He is who is says He is and He can do what He says He can do.

Years later this song still spurs me on. Many of you know that this last year was not the easiest of years we Burger's have known. My flesh wanted to give way to laziness, thinking there was just not time in the day to accomplish what we dreamed to accomplish. The Lord kindly reminded me of this song & the time in my life in 2002-2003. A phrase that kept coming in my head was, "Amber, there is never more than 24. What are you going to do?" So in effort to avoid falling in the trap and giving up, I began to make a list of things I would like to accomplish but tended to just talk myself out of, because after all, "there's only 24 hours in a day."

Some of what was on this list was::

read.

read more to the boys.

learn another instrument.

re-learn greek.

run more.

love my neighbors well.

talk less.

memorize portions of scripture that ive always wanted.

That, of course, was just a short version of the "Short term" goal list I began. I remember reading, just months before making my lists, that CJ Mahaney was quoted as saying something like, "only One accomplishes His to do list everyday and that is God." I had read many books from the Mahaney women on motherhood/being a wife and all of them talk about forming "to-do" lists as being a sweet form of humility and honestly, boy is it! The reality is:: you will not accomplish them all and that is fine, infact, its very freeing! But if you never have goals, laziness creeps in and quite frankly God is doing such a great work in our world, why would we want laziness to steal us away from being a part of it!?

So 9 years later, I am here writing you, My sweet blog friends, to say,"Y'all, there is NEVER more than 24!" Live each 24 hours to its fullest. Enjoy the moments. Take advantage of the now. Dream. Learn. Love. It is so worth it. These things were "easy" as a young, carefree college student but as a work-at-home/stay-at-home/homeschool mom I gotta preach this to my soul! The Lord is up to great things in your life and the enemy wants to steal it from you. Don't be overwhelmed by your "to do's." Let them drive you to the feet of Christ and enjoy Him there while you accomplish much in this life. May many hear of Christ through you as you go and do and be.

with hope::

Amber

2011-03-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

The Aftermath

You may know that Hillsong United just released a new album entitled "Aftermath." This album has been more than fitting for us as we adjust to life back in Texas. We have the title song "Aftermath" on repeat in our house and our cars. "Lifted out of the wreckage I find hope in the aftermath" is the line my heart sings.

Our life in Missouri was great. The dearest of family and friends were just miles from our reach. We made amazing new friends that somehow now feel as close as family. The Lord gave us all we needed and more as we followed Him to Missouri. I look back at the last year and a half and the words that come to mind are:: refine, realign, refocus, brokeness, humility, redefine, rebuild. After the events of our move back to Texas, aftermath is a great word picture for us. Not that our life was destroyed in anyway physically but spiritually and emotionally our hearts were wrecked and redifined in a beautiful way over the last year.

I know the writers of the song Aftermath had the intentions of illustrating our lives apart from Christ and the wreck we make of ourselves as we seek our own life apart from He who gives life. They wanted, I am sure, to illustrate the hope of being pulled out, set apart for the cause of Christ and I would contend they did an amazing job of that both musically and lyrically.

After a long period of brokeness, humility, hardship, suffering or refining, do you ever feel like you are being pulled from the wreckage? The aftermath of what you just walked through is all around you, the sting of the wound, the stench of that which was peeled away? But in that aftermath, there is some how hope. Hope that you made it through alive and that it was worth it for some reason. Christ pulls you up, dusts you off and cleans your wounds so they can heal.

We are so elated to be back in Texas, a place we never thought we would live again. Its funny how the Lord excites your heart for things you never thought you would be excited about! We love it here more than EVER. We are adjusting to life in Fort Worth, our new Church and loving being close to our sweet friends.

I am a part of a women's Bible Study on Tuesday nights and I mentioned that I was thinking of not blogging anymore because I was pretty sure if I had readers they were not readers anymore because of my lack of posting. It came out that some of those ladies (whom I did not know until last month) actually read my blog! So they encouraged me not to stop. So here I am. In the aftermath. Stop by, I guess, and read as we wade through the beautiful wreckage.

with hope::

Amber

2011-01-08T08:47:00.000-08:00

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER

We are so excited. The Actions Speak Louder song just got made into a video. This video is powerful. It is full of images of our kiddos in Sudan and people who have served along side of us at His Voice Global.

Swoope "Actions Speak Louder" ft. Lecrae, Tedashii, and Jai from Collision Recs on Vimeo.

As you watch this video, please keep in mind there that tomorrow is the Referendum Vote in Sudan. This is such a big moment in Sudanese History. Please take time to click through and learn more about it HERE. Pray with us for Peace in Sudan and for the Gospel to spread through the country. HERE is a great blog post on how to pray during this time.

2010-12-23T18:26:00.001-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2010-11-27T18:41:00.000-08:00

One of The Many Reasons We Do What We Do::

This footage was captured at the His Voice/ EPC Orphanage in Lura, Sudan by a member of The Village Church's team, Jesse McKee. :: I love these kids :: Videos like these remind me that all the administration and networking done everyday on our side is worth every bit of our effort. Sometimes, since my heart is often in Sudan, being on this side seems like unnecessary busy work. But the Lord uses videos like these to open my eyes to the Truth. He has called us to serve and sometimes "service" doesn't mean going (although sometimes it does). Sometimes it means staying here and being voice for these kids. Sometimes it means staying up late or getting up early to return emails, calls or send mailouts. Sometimes it means printing and mailing and setting up booths. Sometimes it means brainstorming, creating videos and posting photos. Sometimes it means having less and giving more. Sometimes it means being home and raising boys who love the nations so the next generation will carry the Gospel to many.

I hope you enjoy their joy::

Sudan Orphanage from Jesse McKee on Vimeo.

2010-11-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

BUY A SONG :: BUILD AN ORPHANAGE

TODAY IS THE RELEASE OF
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER
CLICK THE ICON BELOW TO PURCHASE
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO BUILD THE FOURTH ORPHANAGE

2010-11-14T11:21:00.000-08:00

Forced Media Fast

Last week Vernon had the privilege of preaching a revival at a church in the middle of the beautiful country in southwest Missouri. It was a fantastic week. The boys and I were able to go and we all stayed in the Church (it has a room for families to stay in). We knew going into the trip that there would be no cell service and very limited Internet (it is actually easier to get a hold of us in Sudan than in this rural area of MO). We had been wanting to do a "media fast" for a while now so we thought this would be a perfect time.

Those of you who know me know that I am notorious for being bad at returning calls and have been labeled "hard to get a hold of." I was the last person I knew that was my age to get a cell phone (and only did because long distance was getting expensive talking to Vern). I hated the idea of always being available to all at all times. I go through this same aversion with each new "social media" as they comes out, blogging, facebook, twitter, etc. So the thought of not "being able to be gotten a hold of" was refreshing. A media fast? YES PLEASE!!

Really the honest depths of it is that I dont want the responsibility of responding to such a wide variety of needs/wants. I want control. I want to be in charge of who can and cannot get a hold of me so that I can have control of what comes my way. Now granted, part of this is a good thing. I DO think there is wisdom in protecting your self and not spreading your self thin and baring so many other needs/burdens that you cant care for your own. (or those of your close friends and family) I DO think there is wisdom in setting boundaries and not feeling an excessive amount of responsibility to respond each time you are beckoned. So dont hear me say that everyone should be openly available at all times. Be available :: just keep it balanced!

Since we don't have TV and rarely watch movies, our "media" is the Internet and our iPhones. (and most certainly books but we didn't count those :) On any given month I send/receive approx 1500 text, easy. Each day I check facebook and/or twitter continually through the day as if I really need to know what everyone is doing. I am subscribed to 50+ blogs, send/receive 20+ emails a day and feel compelled to posts random thoughts throughout the day for all to read. None of these things are BAD in and of themselves. They can be used for Godly purposes, "spurring one another on in Love and good deeds" but they MUST remain in check.

Putting them in check is exactly what we did this week and I am so thankful. It was beautiful week. No where to go, no texts, voicemails or emails to respond to, just our family and a fun church family to get to know. It was beautiful and refreshing.

A lot went on in my heart this week regarding media and its role in our life and I highly recommend a small "fast" to all of you. You dont have to be in rural SWMO to turn off your phone and shut your computer. Let the Lord show you where media has led you in to sin, or rather, revealed the sin in your heart. Also, let the Lord show you how you do and can use it for His Glory.

Here are some photos of what we did all day. We did ride four wheelers but I didnt get any pics of it::

2010-11-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

A Family Miracle

We have been out of town so I have been able to post that my sister had her sweet baby girl two weeks ago. She was not due until mid December. It was a scary few days but Timber Lynn Gail McCallon was born just shy of 34 weeks. Thank you to all our friends and family who prayed for little Timber and my sister. She is strong, healthy and at home! In fact my sister just told us Timber weighed 4lbs 6oz at her 2 week appointment! I haven't had a chance to meet little Timber yet but I love her SO much! I got some pictures from my sister's fb until I have a chance to take some of my own :)

2010-11-06T09:37:00.001-07:00

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER!

THIS IS AMAZING:: SPREAD THE WORD!

2010-11-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

A Little Late

I usually go all out for Reformation Day and make fun costumes for all (see here, here and here)...not this year. We've been traveling so much that I havent had a chance....sooo we pulled into town late on the 30th and ran to target...needless to say they didnt have much to choose from but the boys were thrilled to be super heros! (even if the costumes dont quite fit! J's was WAY too small and T's was too big) IT is funny that neither of them have ever seen Iron Man or Spider Man except in books at Barnes and Noble but they loved them all the same!

We went to an neighborhood outreach party with some friends in North County on the 31st and had a great time!! We got to hang out with the Kuntz's and the Reardon's! I got pics of everyone except Uriah...he was Woody and as cute as could be ;) Here are some photos::

2010-10-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Patch 2010

or rather

Pumpkin Patch 2010 Camera Fail

We got up early this morning to have our fun family Friday (its Vernon's day off) and had decided to go to the pumpkin patch. It was a lovely, brisk 48 degrees and we would be able to wear our sweaters and drink our coffee and have a magical time (see THIS post for background info). An added bonus to going early is that you pretty much have the place to yourselves and the sun is just at the right angle to get beautiful morning lit photos.

We got there just as it opened and we were sharing the place with just a few other people, who happened to have the same idea as us...GREAT morning lit photos. They had hired professional photographers to follow them around and capture their beautiful kiddos on film. I however was ready to follow my own kids around, decked out with my camera w/50mm on and a spare lense in case it didnt work out like I had hoped. I was so excited. They had on their cute sweaters and the pumkins were perfectly placed for great photos. They began to climb on them and I snapped two pics, trying out the lighting. AND THEN, my camera died...battery...DEAD. I usually have a spare battery for things like this, but not today. I was bummed....but very thankful for my iPhone.

So here are the two lone pics from my DSLR::

and a few that my iPhone captured::

oh well. We had a wonderful time and that is what matters folks :)

2010-10-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

He's Got Moves

Titus loves dancing. Most of the time he does it with out any music. He just makes the music up as he goes. Today I caught his dancing on video. Later today I put it to Lecrae's "God Is Enough" and couldn't help but post it. If you didnt know you would think he was actually dancing to the song. It must have been the song that was in his head. :)

2010-10-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

I Really Wanted To Say Something...but I'll Let the Pictures Talk.

These photos show a little into our lives the last few weeks but also say so much more. I had little "devo" type thoughts for each one but am afraid that time will pass and I'll never post them if I wait until I have enough mental energy to write about what they do in my heart...so I'll just share them and let you be ministered to by "Life:: the way I see it." I learn alot from these little boys of ours everything from perseverance to dependence. I hope you have a tremendous weekend and enjoy what is going on around you and those you are blessed to love.

2010-09-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

My New Nephew :: Baby James

My Brother and His wife, Diana, welcomed Baby James Neal Gaddis II (named after my dad) into the world September 29. He and mama are doing great and boy, my brother is going to be a good dad! The boys and I got word that she was in the hospital and we packed up and headed North. It is crazy awesome that we live close enough now that we got to see him THE DAY he was born...how awesome is that?!!!

Anyway, I had high hopes of getting some super great newborn shots, but the room was SO cold I was not about to take him out of his nice and cozy swaddle...and not to mention, Justus was not so sure about the hospital room so taking pictures was not on his agenda! ha!

Here are a few I snagged::

Love Love Love this little man!

2010-09-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

"Isn't That Just Like God"

Every time I think of all the details of life that God ordains to fall into place at just the right time, (never to early never to late) I hear my sweet friend/mentor, Mrs. Thomas, saying, "Now, Isn't that just like God!" That phrase keeps ringing in my head this week as I look back on all that has taken place.

Saturday we got a phone call from Sudan asking Vernon if he could be in country by the following Saturday. All for AMAZING, EXCITING reasons, which will be for another post. (or just check our His Voice Blog in the next couple days). We knew we would have a team from our partnering church, The Village Church, in Sudan at the that time and had already decided our Fall schedule was too packed for Vernon to join this team. Little did we know that he would end up being there to minister with them!!

All that said, Vernon is in Sudan. He will fly in on Friday to Minneapolis, where I will have already dropped the boys off with my Mom and driven to this beautiful northern city. I will pick him up, we will attend the Desiring God National Conference (we do this each year as a gift to each other instead of getting other stuff). We will drive to pick up the boys on Sunday following the conference, sleep at my moms, get up early and drive Vernon to the Ozarks for Staff Retreat. The boys and I will go home for the week, drive back and pick up Vernon from the Ozarks and head to Bolivar to do some ministry there. We will head back to STL, Vernon will be home for a day and then fly to Midland for some His Voice meetings. That said, the boys and I will be home 7 days between now and Oct 15 of which Vernon will be home 1.

Crazy.

But here is the cool part. As you may or may not know, we decided to homeschool Titus this year. It has been the biggest blessing EVER. Taking that step of obedience (for us, not that homeschooling is obeying in general,it just was for us in this time) has been SOO freeing to us! At the time of deciding this, I was a bit panicked. I also work for His Voice Global from home and I had no idea how I would be able to accomplish getting Titus schooled while being an effective staff member of HVG, not to mention a decent mom and keeping up with Bible study, prayer, outside reading, house work, cooking and ministering outside the home!
What I have found is that I am ALOT more disciplined with my time because I HAVE TO BE. I have found that not being strung out going here and there with school pick ups and events, we have so much more family time and time to get things done! So here is my, "Isnt that just like God" moment this week:: We are finished with 1st quarter in all Titus' subjects! History, Math, Geography, Science, Reading/Language Arts. (we even started a unit on Sign Language) Isn't that just like God to give us some time to pace our selves in the middle of our crazy season! This means, I can school Titus the days we are home and not have worry about getting behind while we are out ministering together as a family. How cool is that!

So that's my little, "Isn't that just like God" moment this week...Do you have one?!

2010-09-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

Just Take It (pt2)

So...as I mentioned in my last post, I was challenged to start bringing my camera along instead of always wishing I had it. Here are pics from Day 2 of taking my camera...just in case you needed a little extra encouragement to lug yours around. We went to the park to play and decided to explore. We found a great trail around a pond and lots of rocks to play on. Titus, just this week, learned to ride his bike with no training wheels...so the trail was a perfect spot for him to showcase his new talent!

Titus on the trail::

and take 2 of Justus fitting as we leave, poor little buddy loves outside::

2010-09-24T19:25:00.000-07:00

Just Take It

So yesterday I was reading the girltalk blog and was encouraged by one of my fav photographers/moms. She wrote about how much it helps just to ALWAYS have your camera. She talked about how instead of always saying "I wish I had my camera" actually HAVE IT.

As I have said in other recent posts, since I got my iphone, I pretty much STINK at taking my camera anywhere. The last 8 months are the least photographed months of my families life!

So I decided today would be a good day to start and I am so encouraged! As we played outside I got some quick fun shots, not even forcing them, just honest shots! So hopefully this will give me the encouragement I need to remember! I just love photography that is honest, real to life and unedited. So this time I packed my 50mm and let it do its magic. I had little to no editing to do!

Here are some I got at one of the parks we went to today::

The boys are at a fun age. Both are old enough to play alone but are finally able to play together!

Here are some of Titus (6) loving being outside in the fall!

Here is Justus (2) he is mr. crazy.

Titus is sooo into camping/hiking/survival gear. Today he got a monocular and he was trying it out at the park.

It was a fun evening that ended like most all fun evenings these days:: Justus saw that we were leaving and tried to let me know it was not time to leave yet.

I won. We left.

So dont be shy, pack your camera tomorrow and see what you get!! You will not regret it!

2010-08-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I know that is a popular line from a classic Christmas song but it has been ringing in my head since August began. I love August. Yes, it is my birthday month and it's our anniversary month and those are both fun reasons to celebrate but there is more to August that gets to my heart. You see, to this Missouri raised girl, August means the beginning of Fall. Cooler weather, light jackets, football practice and pre-season games, school spirit at its peek, hints of Fall decor creeping on to store shelves and into homes, jeans w/ t-shirts or even better, shorts with hoodies, oh man! the list gets me so giddy that I must stop! I can almost smell the pumpkin spice lattes and see the trees changing!

This year has been so special to me since we are now living back in Missouri. For the last 10 years August has come and gone and it only made me grumpy....clear until December. "Why?" you ask. Well, because in Texas there is no such thing as Fall. All the smells, the decorations and the sports come, sure, but not the weather. Its like a tease. Each year I would find myself avoiding college football (which is one of my favorite things) because in my mind, NO ONE should be forced to wear a tank top and shorts to watch football. I was seriously grumpy. Every year in October I would finally give in and come to grips that 90+ degrees is, in fact, fall in the south. So I would plan us a trip to a pumpkin patch, buy some straw bales to decorate the front porch and change our table center piece to something with beautiful fall colors. The only problem was that we would wear our jeans and long sleeve shirts to the pumpkin patch (because that is what you do in the fall) and FRY! It was never a memorable experience. Then we would bring our pumpkins home, place them on the porch for decoration only to have them rot from the heat within a week. I will say though, a good candle and some table decorations did bring a glimpse of fall to us and often I would turn the air conditioning down and watch a football game on our computer in the "cold."

We just got off of a long road trip to the south for His Voice Global. It was a great time, so refreshing to our hearts and just over all SUPER FUN. As we drove home on Thursday, you could sense the excitement as we got further and further north. When we left Louisiana our car thermometer read 96 degrees but as we pulled into St. Louis it read 76 degrees! I got so excited that it was fall and just couldn't help but make some celebration fall decor. So I grabbed some supplies and made this::

Doesn't it just say, "Come on over, it's FALL!!" So come on over, I'll bake something fall-like and then we can sit on the porch while the kiddos play and enjoy the weather...and dont forget your jacket or hoodie, it gets a bit chilly at night ;)

2010-08-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

::7 Years Today::

I've been sitting here contemplating what to write about the past 7 years, but honestly, how does one summarise 7 years. I could not be more thankful that the Lord saw fit to have me be Vernon's wife. He is an amazing man. I love him AND I really like him! Seven years, wow. Seven years of fun, laughter, highs, lows, long trips away, overseas flights, satellite phone calls, beautiful returns, ministry, tears, hurts, pains, grieving, Love, hope, restoration, Life...together. I love you Vern. You're the best.

2010-07-23T10:47:00.001-07:00

Is Anyone Else Loving This Song?

As one who loves to look for songs that are Great to lead, here is why, if I was currently in a worship leading role, (which i am not since we've moved to MO) I would choose this song to lead::

Truth- it is packed with Truth, Truth in the midst of all phases of life.
Singability- it is easy to sing with, predictable but not unoriginal and it sticks with you!
Congregational and Personal- this song is unique in that it is powerful both with a large group and when you are home alone with the Lord. I love giving songs like that to people!
Key- it is a great key for both men and women
The Bridge- My heart will sing no other name JESUS JESUS :: love ending with this!

Love this song. Love the Truth. Love the Proclamation. Love singing it at the top of my lungs!

Buy it HERE

2010-07-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

Exciting Times = Lack of Blogging!

Y'all, here I am again apologizing for my severe lack of blogging. I thought I would stop a second and fill you in!

If you don't follow our ministry blog/website, than this will be new news to you but if you do...well then bare with me! It is exciting times in the life of His Voice for Sudan as we are stepping into new territory! After much prayer by our employees (Vernon, Justin and I) and our fabulous Board Members, we feel like it is time to go GLOBAL. His Voice for Sudan will now be His Voice Global!! We have praying towards this for years and have watched as the Lord has moved for such a time as this!! We did a short video blog series on what the transition looks like and where we are heading as a ministry. Please stop by our viemo page and watch them! (they are only about 1 min a piece)

That being said, my job for His Voice Global has really stepped up in hours. As the transition neared I had lots of small projects to accomplish. My favorite projects was the new Logo. I got to sketching one day and I made this little HV sign I really liked...emailed it to my brilliant designer friend Michelle and this is what it became!!! Michelle is amazing. Didn't she do awesome! She has designed all our new material for us and WE LOVE IT!

Now, the lack of blogging is also a result of our final decision to homeschool Titus for 1st grade with hopes to make to Sudan as a family this school year. (he missed 18 days of school last semester of his Kindergarten year just from traveling with us as we ministered and that was w/ me and the boys staying back as Vernon went most of the time) SOO we went for it! Nothing like giving it a try! So we have gone a head and started his language arts curriculum, some history and math w/ hopes to have a good deal under our belt before our major travel season nears. HE is loving it, surprisingly. He constantly thanks me for choosing homeschooling! (which is funny since he is such a social kid)

At any rate, that is how I have been spending my normal blogging time. I am trying to find the balance of working from home for HVG, being a stay at home mom and a homeschool mom and would love it if you would join me in prayer as I start this new venture!

2010-06-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

::: Guess Who is 6 :::

Titus is 6 today, I can hardly believe it. It is such a joy. He is intense in every way. He loves intensely. He gives intensely. He play, learns and listens intensely. He feels all his emotions intensely. He is full of life. We love him to the moon!

2010-06-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

The New Schoon's

Our trip to Baton Rouge was spectacular. We had the best time. Our hearts were filled and refreshed. We met all of Allison's friends that we feel like we have known for years. We have anticipated this day for years and it was all that we ever hoped and more. Allison and Chad's group of friends are fabulous. They are servants. They encourage and edify each other openly and have fun doing it. Seriously y'all, it was such a wonderful experience to be around her community of friends.

Here are some Bridals I got the privilege of taking early Friday morning::

Allison was a beautiful bride. Chad was a humble and precious groom. Every part of the weekend was centered on Christ, full of thankfulness and worship. The Wedding was perfect. I was more than honored to be a bridesmaid.

2010-06-16T12:33:00.001-07:00

Callin Baton Rouge::

We are about to leave for our LONG awaited trip to Baton Rouge for one of my VERY MOST BESTIES wedding festivities! I am beside myself with excitement and anticipation. I am overwhelmed with all the Lord has done over the years through my sweet friend Allison L. Richmond's life and excited to see all He has in store for her as Allison (L. or R. hasn't been decided yet) Schoonmaker.

I have been a terrible blogger over the last months but those of you who have stuck around, do you want to do me a favor? I am making the official " Roadtrip To The Schoonmaker Wedding" CD, (we are traveling with out our kiddos) and am in need of some more suggestions. If you know me well, you know that CD making is my love language...so join in the spirit of Love and suggest some fun songs. We are going for a great mix of all music...so go on ahead and suggest away!!

ps. Callin Baton Rouge by Garth is the first song...its only fitting :)

2010-06-02T20:43:00.000-07:00

We Ran For Orphans!

We did it! Our team ran our first race via I Run For Orphans! We had a great time and so far have raised $1165.00 to go towards the building cost of the fourth His Voice orphanage in Southern Sudan. We are SO thankful to all who have supported our team. If you are still interested in giving to our team and ultimately to the kiddos in Sudan, our giving pages will be up for the next week. Click the below links for our giving pages. THANKS again.

Vernon's Giving Page
Justin's Giving Page
Allison's Giving Page
Amber's Giving Page

2010-05-29T18:07:00.000-07:00

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?
I see a 2 year old looking at me!

photos by allison kitchens

2010-05-22T04:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Justus!!

Today our sweet Justus turns two.

2010-05-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

My Love/Hate Relationship With Running

So most of you know that I was an athlete back in the day. But what most assume about athletes like myself, is that running comes easy and enjoyable to us. Let me take a moment to break this assumption. I, myself, loath running, I might even go as far as using the word hate. Well, not ALL running, I suppose, but the kind of running that consist of mileage. Give me a basketball and a court and I'll run till I drop, and LOVE every minute of the pain, but just put me out on the road, just me, my shoes and the pavement....cant stand it. In high school, during tack practice, if the coach said to run 2 miles I would beg him to let me sprint 32 100's instead. He would look at me like I was crazy and make me run the two miles but in my mind it was worth the ask! I told this same coach when I was a Sophomore in High School that I wanted to metal in EVERY event that our district offered for Track and Field by the time I graduated, I was a little competitive (and a little ADD I might add, I got bored practicing the same events). This goal came with one stipulation, every event UNDER 800 meters! I remember the first meet I ran the 1600 mt relay (4 girls all running 1/4 mile, once around the track). At this point I had never competed in anything longer than a 200mt sprint. I nervously looked at my coach on the bus ride and asked, "Coach, how do you run a 400? Whats the strategy? " thinking he would give me advice like sprint the straights, stride the curves and he looked at me with a grin and said, "Gaddis, you get the baton, run as fast as you can and take two left turns." Y'all I almost died. I am a competitor, I hate loosing and I didn't have the 1600mt relay metal. So thats what I did, ran as fast as I could and took two left turns....and you know what?? I made it, we metaled AND I didn't die! I learned a big lesson that day. A lesson I have to re learn two or three times a year it seems. My mental/emotional state severely affects my physical state and vice versa.

I know, I know, seems simple really, but when applied to life as a Follower of Christ, it gets a little more intense. After college, sports for me were a past time. No longer an identity or something someone forced on me, but more something I could choose to do. I soon found out my body functioned at an overall higher level, mentally and spiritually, when exercise was in its place.

As we are a very busy family and travel alot it didnt take me long to realize that running is really the only "exercise" that can go everywhere with you. You dont need a machine, you dont need weights or equipment, just some shoes and a path. GREAT. Here I was again, facing my hatred toward running. I began to ask the Lord why it was that I was a "sprinter" and not a "long distance runner" and why I was made how I was and why it was so hard for me to run for long periods of time. And you know what He revealed to me...I REALLY hated running because it revealed the state of my heart. It humiliated me. It humbles me by revealing my ugly pride. It reveals what I really think about and care about, that I am easily swayed by my flesh, I don't finish things well, I am self centered and self loathing, the list can go on. I found that as I run, my mind is my biggest enemy. As is in life.

This is why I now LOVE running. It reveals the true state of my heart. When I have to do something I dont what to do, what is my response? Thankfulness that I have legs and a working heart? or complaint that I cant just snap my fingers and be in shape. I really do LOVE running now. In a strange sorta way. It has a way of bring out sin I seem to be oblivious to otherwise. I generally like to cross train, I love to swim and bike. BUT about two or three times a year I set a goal to reach at distance running (my distance running and yours are probably way different, remember I though 1/4 mile was far!). I do this to check my heart. To see if there what evil ways are in me. To " beat my body to ready my speed," to "discipline the body in Godliness."

Something I love doing while I run is to use it as a time of prayer for others. This gets my thoughts off of myself and on to GOD and others. I like to make a playlist for my iPod that will point my heart and mind to GOD and at the same time bring to mind certain friends and family that I particularly want to pray for. About 4 years ago a friend of our started an organization call I Run For Orphans. Immediately this resonated with me. So while I train for my distance goals, I think of and pray for the Orphans in Sudan. I pray for them as I run, some by name, that the Lord would do great things in them and through them in their country.

This coming Memorial Day weekend, Vernon, Justin, Allison and I will be running in a 5K to raise money for the starting cost of the 4th His Voice Orphanage in Sudan. I am so excited about this run. I love the idea of raising support for the children! And as I have trained, the Lord has been gracious to me, to reveal yet again, the depths of my sin and refined my heart again.

If you would be interested in supporting our team HERE is my donation page, or you can click on the First Giving button in the side bar!

Happy Running!

2010-05-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

::A Big Week::

This little guy is GRADUATING FROM KINDERGARTEN

This little guy is TURNING TWO!

Where does the time go?

2010-04-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

A Timely Word:: The Myth of Being The Perfect Parent

This morning was rough. Let me preface with one thing:: V has been gone all week.

Titus woke as usual just after Justus around 6:30. We hung out, got dressed for school and I noticed Titus was acting out a bit here and there, but that's not all that abnormal in the rush of getting off to school. His acting out sorta turned to, what seemed to be a sadness. So as I helped him put his tennis shoes on I asked him if he was okay. He started to cry and say he missed V and so we got his shoes on and called Dad. He got to leave a voicemail and that helped. I asked him what else he thought would make this morning get better, and being a product of his mother's weakness, he replied, "Starbucks for breakfast!" So I agreed, telling him that was a great idea and we got in the car and left. All was well.

We pulled in the drive thru and I confirmed with Titus what he wanted. He said he didnt want chocolate milk today he wanted hot chocolate so I proceeded in line and ordered. When we received our ordered I handed it back to Titus and at that moment he realized he didnt want hot chocolate he wanted chocolate milk. Cue MELT DOWN. As he melted down I told him I would keep the Hot Chocolate until he could receive it gratefully. Cue BIGGER MELT DOWN, I am talking flailing and all. Then something different happened. Usually the meltdown will come, we talk a bit about self-control and grateful hearts and all is well in the world of Titus. But not the today. Today, the more I talked the more he got upset until finally he yelled at me. And I am talking YELLED. He told me I was so mean. (as I held a HIS starbucks drink in my hand mind you!) So taken aback, I started crying. Girls, I am not talking just a little tear, I am talking full on ugly, cant control yourself cry. I had a whilwind of emotions:: hurt, guilt from all the transition we have put him through, guilt from not knowing how to handle the situation, guilt from taking him to starbucks to make his morning better instead of pointing him to Christ who is the only one who can truly help, fear for his life, his salvation, fear of his depravity and back to hurt.

Y'all, I know that seems a little dramatic of a response to a 5 year old's yell, but it was so real to me. I went from being hurt that he would ever say I was purposely being mean to him to agonizing over the state of his soul. I generally can handle situations like this but not today folks, not today. My emotions won. The depth of responsibilty to present the Gospel to our children, the Good News of God's saving power out of sin and death and the idea that I HAVE NO CONTROL over God's leading and prodding and presuing my very son overwelmed me. As he yelled in the depths of his selfishness, I was hurt, but more importantly, I was reminded that he is depraved, as we all are apart from Christ. And began to beg God to forgive me for thinking I could be "a certain kind of mom" or do certain things that would win his little heart to Christ. I began to beg God to set Titus and Justus apart for HIS glory.

As we drove, we both stopped crying and forgave each other. After we prayed, I dropped him off at school a happy little man. While sitting in the car outside his school I checked twitter on my iPhone. On it there was a link to a friend of mine's blog entitled:: THE MYTH OF BEING THE PERFECT PARENT. I went straight for it and recieved such encouragement from it. She said, "The goal is not to be a perfect parent. The goal is to be a faithful parent. And as long as my focus is on my own success or failure, rather than faithfulness to and love for the kingdom of God, I have failed." And although my friend is in a different stage of parenting than I am, it was a timely word for me and I told you this entire story hoping that same blog would be a timely word for you.

PLEASE CLICK TROUGH and read it is so good. Thanks Kim!