Thoughts After Reading Jen Hatmaker's

7:: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

I wish I could think of some extremely clever way to begin this post but the honest truth is that if I don't write this review at this very moment, it will not get written. It is not that I do not want to write anything, in fact, quite the opposite is true. It is just that I have put off posting this for over a month. I have had so many thoughts reeling since I closed page 221 of Jen Hatmaker's 7. Writing this post would mean I would have to face the harsh reality that heart change is not satisfied until outward change shows its face. The Lord did so much in my heart as I loomed over the pages of 7 but speaking about said changes, well, writing them rather, makes it feel that much closer to actual, real, life change. I think the pop phrase for this is accountability :: if I say something out loud, people can hold me to it. Call it what you want, if change just stays in your heart or in your head, I would contend it is not actual change....I digress.

I read Jen's previous book, Interrupted, and quickly placed it in my top 10 books to recommend. I loved it. It was such an honest, raw, beautiful picture of the Lord doing something in a lady's heart and The Lord bring that something to fruition. It was superb. Knowing my love for Interrupted I got wonderfully excited when I heard the news that Jen would soon be releasing a new book. When the idea behind 7 began to circulate, I got even more excited. But friends, my excitement was not because I thought 7 would be a challenge to MY heart but rather, my excitement was for what I envisioned God doing in so many OTHER people's hearts. Ahem.

***if you have a lofty, angelic view of me that you would like to maintain, please excuse yourself here, its about to get ugly as I bare my prideful heart to the world***

You see, I heard that 7 was going to be about a 7 month experiment against excess. Excess of Clothes, Shopping, Waste, Food, Possessions, Media and lastly, Stress. I literally thought to myself, "I wear the same thing everyday (jeans and a v neck), I LOATH shopping, I am the only person I know in my city who recycles, we regularly eat organic/non-processed foods, we don't have enough money to have a lot of extra possessions, we have no TV and I am not easily stressed. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check and Check." I know, sickening, but welcome to my heart. I got excited about 7 knowing that Jen was hilarious and fun loving, yet still willing to tackle the hard issues. I mean, that IS the best type of book to recommend nicely to a friend...ahem (wink). Little did I know that it would be my heart's issue being addressed...not my friend's....ouch.

As I plunged into the pages of 7 I found a beautiful picture of heart change leading to outward, life altering change. Change that moves beyond personality and preference to God honoring worship.

For me, thinking of having only 7 items of clothes to wear for a month is somewhat of a relief. I am a simpleton. I hate clutter. I was raised to reuse and not waste. I sometimes have to remind myself that certain situations should arise a since of stress, because I am often way too laid back even in the times that stress would be appropriate. ALL of these things are just part of me, Amber Burger, my personality, my preference. What I learned from 7 was that, while these things might be considered "good, wholesome and healthy" ways to live, they have cost me nothing. It is normal to me to purge our home of excess clothes and clutter 2 to 3 times a year. Loading up our excess and hauling off to Goodwill is rather therapeutic to me. On the other hand, collecting our excess (and even harder:: things we are currently using), keeping them separated and nice while asking God where He wants them used in His Kingdom to spread His name...that is an entirely different song. The first is personal preference, the second is worship. 7 taught me that my personal leaning toward the simple life is not of great gain in the Kingdom of God with out personal sacrifice that leads to beautiful communion with Christ.

Throughout 7 Jen tells stories of God using the excess they relinquished to further His Kingdom and how she got to come face to face with the people God provided for. There is a big difference between 1) taking a trash bag full of extra house hold items & clothing to Salvation Army because they are annoying me and 2) walking around our house, perusing our closets asking the Lord what to give away and to whom to give it. The heart:: that is the difference. Communion with God:: that is the blessing.

With all of that said, I would like to highly recommend to you (not out of haughty, vein heart but out of an honest, changed heart) Jen Hatmaker's 7:: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. It is hilarious, honest, straight-forward, practical and full of insight. You will laugh and cry and you will come face to face with honest facts about what our excess is doing globally.

HERE is a link to check it out.

And if you would like to win a copy of 7 :: leave a comment and check back on Saturday to see if you won!

V is for Volcano, Vacuum, Valentine's Day and...a mini Vacation!!

We had another super fun week of school. I was excited when I realized, completely unplanned, that V would land on Valentine's Day. This made for some easy V projects!

For our V Bible Verse we did Proverbs 21:31b, "Victory belongs to the Lord." This was a fun and easy verse to remember, definitely one both boys could memorize. I had Titus (like usual) read it in context on Monday. This made for some good conversations about how they people from the time this Proverb was written depended on horses for battle and protection...etc. It made for an easy visual for Titus to understand about victory and the battle against sin.

For our "God is Faithful" board we did "God is faithful, You can be Victorious." We talked about how that might seem contradictory that 'the victory belongs to the Lord,' yet 'we can be victorious.' We talked about how Christ in us is the Hope of Glory and our victory over/against sin. It was a great little chat!

Titus plugged along on his curriculum. I think after next week we will take a week break to celebrate finishing 3rd quarter's work. I am not sure yet...but I think that is what we will do :)

For our Pre-School work for Justus (3yrs) we did lots of fun things. One thing that was fun about V was that most of the the thing we did Titus(7yrs) was able help/learn right along with us! I love it when they can do things together.

We did V is Volcano. I got a Volcano kit a year or so ago from Hobby Lobby (here is the link) for less than $10. It is a reusable mold so it was a great buy! It takes 3 days total to make the mold, paint it and let it dry. So I had Titus start it on Monday during Justus' nap and we brought it out on Wednesday ready to make it erupt. Justus was SOO excited.

Leading up to the big volcano, we read volcano books, watched volcano eruptions online with dad and we did a mini-volcano eruption kit we got at the science center for $3.

Watching Eruptions on National Geographic's website with Dad.

Justus watching his mini-volcano kit "erupt."

On Tuesday we went on a V 'field-trip' :: again this week, it was a bit of a stretch to have a V field trip but this is what I came up with.

We made Valentine cards and delivered them to our favorite Barista:: Robin.

Then we went to the Fort Worth Science Center (we are members that is why we are able to go so often) and we talked about velocity by making paper airplanes and launching them. Then we talked about Velociraptor and had the boys build one on the Dinosaur Station computers.

We did our usual "workbook" and working on writing and cutting. V was an easy letter to 'cut out' so after Justus painted the V I had him attempt it alone. He did great!

For our Letter of the Week Project we did V is for Vase. I pre-cut out the flowers and had him glue the water and flowers into the vase made out of a V.

I had Titus teach Justus how to Vacuum. It's never too early, right? :)

And last but not least, we made a last minute decision to go on a mini-vacation before Vernon left town for a few weeks. We took the boys to Great Wolf Lodge for one night and this let them play at the water park two days! Oh how I wish I had pictures. Their excitement will be etched on my memory for a long time. Vacation was one of the words on our V word list so I thought I could include it : )

I hope yall are having a great time with your kiddos. This time of year for home-schoolers seems to drag along. Curriculum gets tougher as 3rd quarter wraps up. But be encouraged...you are nearing the last stretch! Enjoy learning with and teaching your kids...I hear they will be 20 before we know it!!

Happy Schooling!

U is for Upside-down, Umbrella and The United States

We had a good week of school. It seemed to drag, unlike the previous three weeks that seemed to fly by. I kinda liked the drag. We seemed to slow down a bit and have a little extra free time. Maybe because the letter U is not full of exciting options or maybe because we are gearing up for Vernon to be out of town for a big chunk of spring. Either way, it was nice.

For U week we finished the verse we started last week for T week, Psalm 86:11. Last week we studied, "Teach me your way oh Lord, that I may walk in Your Truth." This week we started where that left off, "Unite my heart to fear Your name." Because it was the same verse (and the same context) we kept our "God is Faithful" board saying, "God is Faithful. You can have Wisdom."

We talked about the word "Unite" and all that it means. We talked about how in other translations they use the words, "give me an Undivided heart," and what undivided means. I had Titus think of reasons we would want our heart "United" with God's heart. This conversations looped us around to getting wisdom from having our heart's united with God's.

Titus worked hard this week. He got all his normal curriculum finished and we worked on memorizing more of his multiplication facts. He is doing great and pushing through 3rd quarter of 2nd grade.

As for Pre-School work with Justus, the letter U was not as hard as I thought it would be. We had fun and did several things for 'U.'

We started the week by doing our normal play-doh and worksheets:: we stamped, we painted with different types of paints and we colored.

On Tuesday we went on a "U Field Trip" to have breakfast "Under an Umbrella" and jump at Pump it "Up." It was a little stretch but it served the purpose of getting us out of the house not just to run errands but to have fun & learn. If we do a field trip day we make a little paper full of the letter we are studying and as we find things I write them on the list. Or if I know we will see something we talk about it and I write it on the paper.

For our Letter Project we made an Umbrella. Again we had to stretch it a bit...but it worked and Justus thought it was great!

All week we worked on Prepositions. This helped Titus as well. Obviously, Justus has NO clue what a preposition is but he can follow the commands of them. As I started thinking through U words, I realized a couple were prepositions so I thought it would be fun to play a game or two with them. This could also incorporate learning locational words that would help your pre-schooler follow two & three part commands.

I got out a letter U (I bought a pack of letters people use for bulletin boards at the beginning of the year for things like this, it was $1 and I have used the letters literally every week for something). Then I started telling Justus where to put the U. It would would go something like this. "Justus, put the U under the chair. Under starts with U, u-u-under." Then he would proudly go put the U under the chair and say, "Under the Chair!"

Under the Chair.

In the bag.

Up in the Air.

We also did this game with our coffee table and our couch:: (note the old blanket carefully placed making it a fort...boys!)

On the table.

Upside-down on the couch.

Under the table. In the fort.

Every morning Titus works on The United States capitals. He works on memorizing 2 a week then on Friday we use the puzzle and name all the ones he know to this point. Justus is ALWAYS very curious about the puzzle and wanting to be a part of it. This week I let him have his own shot at the puzzle.

We talked about the United States and about where we live within the United States. Then I got out our Picture Atlas and let him see the United States with in North America.

I also got some fun United States Animal flash cards in the dollar bin at Target. Justus LOVED these. We looked at them each day and a couple of the days we put them all over the ground.

I would say, "Find the Crocodile." and he would look through all the animals and pick the card I said up and hand it to me. He thought this was very fun.

So that is it for U. We had a great week and hope you did as well!

Happy Schooling!

T is for Trains, Tigers, Turkeys and Treasures

We had a great week of school. T was a very easy letter! We had lots of fun and learned a lot while we went about days.

For T week our Bible verse was Psalm 86:11. I love this verse. It has been a prayer of mine since college. "Teach me your way of Lord, that I may walk in your Truth." On Monday, as usual, I had Titus read the verse in context. It was neat teaching him how you can make the prayers in the Psalms your very own prayer. We talked about asking the Lord for wisdom and how important learning God's Word is.

For our "God is Faithful" board we did, "God is Faithful. You can have wisdom." We compared the difference of knowledge and wisdom. Then we talked about how God is faithful to give you wisdom if you ask with a humble heart.

Titus (2nd grd) had a great week of school. We are well into 3rd quarter with most of his curriculum and in some we actually entered 4th quarter this week...crazy. I plan to slow up soon and make sure he is getting all the information. (i.e. we took thursday and friday off of math lessons to practice his multiplication flash cards before we move onto the last few sets of multiplication)

For Justus with Pre-School, we had A LOT of options with the letter T! We weren't able to do all I wanted and we still had packed days of letter T activities :)

For our T Letter project we did a Turkey.

I used this as a color identification project too. I would say, "let's glue a yellow feather," and he would have to pick up the color that I said.

One day we did T is for Trains. Justus is already in love with trains, any shape/color/size he loves them. We have tracks in multiple rooms in our house and trains in excess :) For Train day we read his favorite book from last year Freight Train by Donald Crews. This is an excellent book for learning colors.

I had him find a matching color train for each on in the book from his basket of trains. This was super fun. Then we lined them up on his book to match them.

We went to Barnes & Noble to play with Thomas the Train.

For Christmas year ago, Titus go this GINORMOUS Thomas the Train Tent. We keep it put away for special occasions and rainy days but he got to come out on Train day.

Justus has lots of toys that start with T. His Tag Reader and his Tow Truck are two of his favorites. He played with those a lot this week.

I made a "Find The Letter T" worksheet and had him put a paint dot on each T he found.

As you can see he put more then one dot as he got excited to find each one.

We read the book Tooth Trouble and talked about brushing our teeth. Then I had him paint on his T worksheet using a tooth brush.

We built a Tower. Again we did it by color, having him find specific colors that I ask him to find.

Daddy was gone for 3 days this week, so when he got home he did a lot of reading from the T book selection :)

I had Justus go outside and find some "Treasures." I had him put them in his Toolbox. I came out to see what he found and here was his collection::

As always he did play-doh with his letter cutters.

We went on a T field trip to the zoo. We were on a hunt for Tigers, Turtles and The Train. We found Tigers and Turtles but the train was shut down.

This weekend Daddy set up a one man tent in the living room for the boys. My boys love Tents so this was a fun way to end T week.

I hope you had a great week schooling. I have a feeling that U week will not be as easy as week but we will press on :)

Thanks for sticking with us this year! I would love to hear how your school is going!

Happy Schooling!