Finished!!

Phew! We just finished school for the year this morning. It amazes me that The Lord carried us through pre-K, 1st grade and toddler-school and that we all learned and grew a lot while at the same time we moved TWO times! He is amazing! We had some amazing days and some terrible days and all mixed together they provided a year of growth mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually for all of us. 

We are already looking forward to what The Lord has in store for us this fall as we tackle preschool, Kindergarten and 2nd grade! Baxter said he wondered who his teacher would be, guess we hadn't told him we'd be homeschooling again next year. He was very pleased to hear that Mommy would be his K teacher. 

Happy summer!!

Motherhood

I'm beginning to think that it would help me if Mother's Day happened multiple times a year. There is something special about having a day set aside to celebrate this central calling of my life that has a way of rejuvenating energy for the many demands motherhood calls for and provides a fresh sense of enjoyment of the precious (though sinful and ornery a lot of the time) children God has given me to love and nurture and nourish and teach and discipline and shape and enjoy. 

Thankful today to be the mommy to Owen, Baxter and Lucy. Hopeful for Gods blessing on them through me (and Matt) in the years to come!

And I am also thankful for my own Mommy who continues to love and encourage and build me up as she has the past 33 years!!

I am also praying for those whom motherhood and Mother's Day stirs up feelings of sadness and hopelessness and regret and discouragement from personal experience as a mom or with their own mom or from a longing to be a mom that has of yet gone unfulfilled. I pray that God would be a refuge to them - and a very present help in trouble. 

Resurrection Eggs day 2

Following our reading and discussion about the 2nd Resurrection Egg, Baxter went straight to his journal (well, not exactly straight to it, he doesn't quite go in a straight line to much of anywhere!) and drew a picture of what we had just read. I don't know if he will do this for all twelve eggs, but it has been a real sweet way to deepen our understanding if the first two days.

The light pink egg contained three silver coins. These were to represent the thirty silver coins Judas accepted in trade for betraying Jesus and leading the enemies to Jesus.

As Baxter traced a coin thirty times (he may not go in a straight line but he is perseverant!) it struck me that no amount of money in the world should have satisfied Judas to turn over Jesus - the Son of God, Savior of the world - to His enemies. To betray the one who made Him and sustains Him and who was willing to come as a human to live and die to bring salvation.

It also strikes me that Jesus could have avoided being handed over, He was in fact The Son of God - both God and man. He could have bolted or resisted or defended himself. And yet He went willingly when His accusers came. He went because of the joy set before Him to ransom a people of His own possession.

Thankful for simple five year old drawings to help this momma stop and think about what Easter is really all about!

Matthew 26:14-16
14 Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests
15 and said, "What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?" And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.
16 And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

(Note - Judas is behind that red area. He has a sad and mad face because He is disobeying.)

Resurrection Eggs

We finally bought a resurrection egg set this year. Today was day 1. We read the following passage about Jesus's triumphal entry and Lucy opened a blue egg with a little donkey in it. Simple, sweet, Christ centered.

Matt. 21:3-8

3 "If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once."
4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
5 "Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'"
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.
7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road."

Then the boys started their school work. B wanted to journal so I said sure! A few minutes later he came back with a picture he had drawn of the scene we had just discussed. Love it! So glad to be part of what he is learning and how he is growing!! And so thankful for a simple reminder of Christ our King!

How our days pan out

Part way through today I realized that my day was NOT going as I had planned it. Laundry was going unfolded, chores undone, children more needy, things taking longer, etc. You get the picture and I'm sure you can relate. Though you may not have a son who had FOUR shots today (what do kids in Kindergarten face that they need this many shots before they can enter?! Poor kids!) I'm sure something has caused your day to go "off track".

Here is what I realized shortly (thankfully) after I started panicking that my day wasn't going as planned. My day was going just as God had planned it! Nothing was outside His plan and control. It may not have been as I had hoped, but it was exactly what He set forth for my good and His glory today.

Now to remember this tomorrow when things start to go "out of whack" again!

Great book!

I started into a new book at bagel time this morning. It is called "Loving the Little Years - Motherhood in the trenches" by Rachel Jankovic. Pick up a copy of this if you are a mom with young kids or will be someday! It is really great- simple, short chapters, funny but oh so biblical and true.

At one point she talks of how joyous and easy life as a Christian was as a teen with hours to spend in the Word in a quiet room. "Here, (life as a busy mom as opposed to life with Christ as a teen) it is not so easy to feel godly, because we spend our days crashing into each other and actually getting our problems addressed."

"As you deal with your children, deal with yourself always and first. This is what it looks like to walk with God as a mother."

"God treats us with great kindness as we fail daily. He takes the long view of our sin - knowing that every time we fail and repent, we grow in our walk with Him."

I appreciate her realness about just how crazy and trying life with many little people is. Not that life with big kids or no kids is not also trying, life with little ones is trying in a unique way just as life without little ones is trying in its own unique ways. She is simply addressing the trying and crazy I live in every day. I am thankful for her gospel application to my heart and then to my kids. I look forward to reading and learning from this.

Thankful God has created some with the gift of writing so the rest of us can benefit from reading and pondering it.

Thankful most of all that He is with me in the trenches of motherhood to walk beside me, to transform me and to transform my kids!

Great book for Lent

My brother and sister in law gave us a great book at Christmas that I started reading this morning. It is a book written and compiled by Nancy Guthrie that is aimed at helping to prepare your heart for Easter. She has gathered writings and sermons from historic and modern day writers and pastors (Martin Luther, John Piper, Joni Eareckson Tada, John Calvin, Tim Keller, etc) to talk about different aspects of the Easter story.

In the beginning of the book she talks of how she spends more time getting ready for Mother's Day than Easter. Easter - the day we celebrate the death and resurrection of our Savior - is a time that God gives us each year to reflect and remember what need we had in our sin and what a glorious salvation had been secured for us in what Christ has done. I am really looking forward to reading through this book and contemplating these things more than I have in the past. I wanted to pass it on to you in case you want to pick up a copy too!

"How we need to have our hearts broken again by our sin that put Jesus on the cross. How we need to have our confidence grounded by what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And how we need to have our hope anchored in the promise of resurrection." Nancy Guthrie, preface.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1433501813/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

One year

Oh, the difference a year makes!! (Not sure how this precious dress fit two Valentines in a row, but I'm thankful it did!)

Four types of Ocean floors

For our Classical Conversations science sentence this week, the kids are memorizing four types of ocean floors. The questions is "What are four types of ocean floors?" To which the children reply, "Four types of ocean floors are...continental shelf, abyssal plains, mountain ranges and ridges." To help with the memory work we created an ocean floors diagram of sorts. Most days I have every step of each part of school planned out to a T. It doesn't always go as planned, but at least the plan is there as a foundation. Today I knew I wanted to do some sort if diagram - either on paper or in a box more like a diorama but had NO idea how to accomplish it. We were going to wing it, something I don't prefer.

It came together perfectly, better than I could have imagined. It was such a sweet reminder to me that God is with us during our school days! He is at work in so many ways and on so many levels. He is at work in Baxter to teach him self control and how to sit still and how to play well with Lucy while Owen and I get work done. He is at work in Lucy teaching her to be ok when mommy has to pay attention to other things and that the world will not in fact come to an end when I take the iPad away! He is at work in Owen to teach him how to use his precious brain to learn and grow even when it involves writing three sentences in response to our history reading. He is at work in me as the teacher/mother/wife/homemaker/cook/pastors wife/Bible study leader/cleaner/etc/etc that He is Lord and that He is in fact holding all things together, not me, which is actually great news.

I am so encouraged when God gives me insight to see how He is with us and He is at work and He is real - even in something as simple as a diagram of the ocean floor in an empty diaper box!

Here is the finished product - a reminder of His goodness to me! And one of our sweet Lucy who had been taking all of the books off the bookshelf so she was strapped in for a snack :). Oh dear!

Do You Have a Hat?

One website that I have frequented for art ideas is Deep Space Sparkle. Today we did one of the projects based on a really sweet book called Do You Have a Hat? (http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2012/01/21/do-you-have-a-hat/). They chose a hat to make out of construction paper and then they glued it on the paper, decorated it and drew their body below it. We just used crayons today, wasn't feeling like getting the paint out but that would be fun too.

Here are the boys finished products (Baxter's is on the left and Owen's is on the right). I love seeing what they create.

Pronouns

Owen has been learning all about nouns, pronouns and verbs this year. Today we were talking about the great love which God has for us ("But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."). As we were talking Lucy started fussing about something. The boys started singing Jesus Loves Me to her. Then Owen substituted Lucy's name in the song and ended up having to substitute a lot of pronouns, it was great practice! I love when learning and reinforcement of what we are learning are just parts of everyday life! Helps to reinforce what we are doing in our school work each day! Makes me thankful for time and space together to learn and grow. I need to remember this on the hard days!!

Prayer for our kids

This morning during my "bagel time" I was reading my yearly Bible and I read Proverbs 6:20-23. It became my prayer for my kids as they "get older" and face a life of choices - will they walk with God or turn from Him, etc.

20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.
21 Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.
22 When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.

Oh how I want this for my boys (and Lucy when she gets older). I know they are still young, but I see them chose to not keep and to forsake our teaching each day and that is a small window into their hears. They need God to work in them so that as they get older they chose to walk with God so that they chose to keep our teaching because it is (hopefully) teaching them the ways of the Gospel. Of faith and repentance. Of holy living that stems from that faith and that is anchored in God and His love for them.

Lord work! We need you. They need you.

Hershey and friends

This weekend some of our friends from Richmond came to visit! One thing we did was go to Hershey Chocolate World. It is always fun to experience how chocolate is made and enjoy a little sample! The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing together after not seeing each otter for 10 weeks! Casey and I enjoyed catching up too. It was a blessing to spend time with them!

CC

One of the highlights of the last few weeks has been joining a homeschool group called Classical Conversations. It is held on Tuesday mornings from 9-12 and then we stay for lunch and "recess". Lucy is in the nursery and the boys are each in their own class. We all learn the same new content each week. There is a lot of memorizing to song and it has been amazing to see the boys pick it up.

One of the things for this week was learning what the tallest mountain on each continent is. We have been incorporating the CC material into our lesson plan for the week at home. Today each boy chose their favorite mountain and we "recreated" it and painted it. They were so into it! Owen wanted Mt. Everest of course. It is the tallest of all! Naturally Baxter chose the 2nd tallest - Anconagua in South America. (I found the idea for this here: http://solagratiamom.blogspot.com/?m=1)

While they were busy building and painting Lucy was busy playing with some dry pasta and bowls. This went well until she dumped it on the floor. That seems to be her favorite past time these days. I can't wait for her to outgrow that!!

Thankful to be learning with and alongside these precious boys. Even though they are each learning new ways to push my buttons and rebel. I am learning that the gospel is big enough to handle their issues and mine :) and we can walk through that with each other.

All that said ... Thankful the weekend is here!

Library!!

We finally got my drivers license today so we got to go to the LIBRARY!! Wow did we miss it. We were all like little kids in the candy store. It was especially fun for me to get some books for the boys that go perfectly with what we are learning about.

Good to see this little reader in his sea of books!

Day by day

We sang this song at our evening worship service on Sunday. It had a beautiful tune, but the content of the words is what really stood out to me. It speaks of the presence and action of God in and for us each day, each minute, each hour. As I start of another busy day I thought it would be important to revisit the lyrics and meditate on who God is for me and what He is at work doing in His world today.

"Every day The Lord himself is near me with a special mercy for each hour."

How I need His mercy each hour. Often in a different way each hour - patience with my kids as they wake up cranky or demanding, perseverance to walk with them and help them every part of the day, strength to work hard during their rest time to get chores done, faith to see God at work and God able to work in my heart and theirs even though we struggle with the same things every day...etc etc.

If you can click on the picture and zoom in, I think you too will b encouraged by what you find is true of God this day and every day! If you can't see it you can also google it and find it, the title is, "Day by Day and With Each Passing Moment."

PA Farm Show

Today we were introduced to the PA Farm Show. It was really great and overwhelming. Picture a HUGE convention center FULL of cows, pigs, horses, sheep, tractors, chicks hatching, ducks sliding on a slide, sheep being sheared and their wool being turned into yarn, a large butter sculpture etc.

It was a great field trip for us! We went with another family at church and had a blast. They loved petting a horse and rabbit.

Oh, and our kids rode on a bus for the first time. Oh, homeschooling :).

Here are a few pics.

Walking

We live very near the Army War College in our apartment. There is a neat trail as part of the Army Heritage Education Center. It is a 2 mile trail with all sorts of things to see and explore (bunkers, tanks, helicopters, etc!). It was 40 degrees the other day which is our new warm :) so we went. O had put on shorts earlier...should have had him change! It was real chilly after the sun went down!

Love to have a new place to go where the kids can just run and explore and have fun.

Our new home

God has really provided a smooth transition for us to our new church and town. The first few weeks were especially hard for our precious Baxter, but he, as well as Owen and Lucy, really seem settled and content. We are all really enjoying the church and people that God has called us to know and love and care for. They have been very welcoming and gracious. Matt is learning how to plan his weeks in order to prep for 2 sermons and also counseling/lunches/committees/etc. God is meeting him in that! We are getting back into our school routine which is also really helpful. We really enjoy the town and the area - it's a really beautiful part of God's world! The mountains are beautiful and the rolling hills are covered in snow. Every day the sunrise and sunsets are amazing...wow! It is rather COLD but we are trying to tough it out!

Don't get me wrong, we have days and moments that we miss our dear friends from Richmond, all of the fun things we loved there and the mild weather! It is still sinking in that we have actually moved. When I changed our address with the post office, it asked if this was a temporary change or permanent. I clicked permanent. There are often moments that remind us of that. Both the blessings and the sadness remind us of that. Thankful that our address change is not the only thing that is "permanent" but that God and His presence and care and loving faithfulness are also permanent!

One thing that is not permanent is our apartment. It has been a very good place to transition to. It is clean and safe and close to the church. It is however temporary. And small and narrow. Our new home is going to be started this coming week! Wednesday is the day they should break ground! We are so excited. We are also impatient. We are so ready to make this final transition and really make our home here and have people in our home and get to know our neighbors, etc.

Here is a pic of the "before". We will add more as we go. We are so thankful for it and can't wait to use it for His glory!

Good News of Great Joy!

Merry Christmas from snowy Pennsylvania!

"And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11

(Had to include the two out takes!!)