What it's supposed to be like!

Today they amaze me, they encourage me to press on, they listen and work excited for what's to come.

A couple weeks ago we decided to bring our little man back home to us. So scared and unsure of the decision I was but I trusted that God was speaking through him, the daddy of our home that is. Through constant prayer and laying before our Lord, my family, it's beginning to show the surrender, the willingness to do what is not our plan but HIS!

Today is amazing. We began with stories read by the princess of 11 and we listened to the rhymes, the cadence of the words, and smiled. Then without pressure we parted, readied ourselves for the day and meet with Him! Each on our own, even Mr. Independent himself. He sat in his quite time spot, a chair just like daddy's and visited with his God for a few minutes through books, music and innocent prayers. The princess did the same adding her scriptures to read chronologically through the Bible this year.

I LOVE THIS!

Then came the other stuff...Language Arts, Math and Reading.
We love this stuff too but not quite as much as time with HIM! Of course we enjoy learning the lessons needed to succeed, the fascinating stories of American History and exactly how to write each letter correctly. The bios of our founding fathers and classic Golden book stories like The Poky Little Puppy.

Everyday does not always look like this, sometime there are rabbit trails, behavior to encourage and hearts to train but as for today, this is it and I'll take it!

Now we are done for the day... off to the library to return things borrowed and find new treasures.

All's complete but laundry, dinner, dishes and the lessons we sneak in along the way.

Point your kids in the right direction

when they're old they won't be lost.

Proverbs 22:6
(The Message)

Kindergarden Rocks! Especially PE...

There he is to the far right of the pic, lookin' good for Patriot's Day at

Samsula Academy. What a handsome boy...I'm not partial or anything.

Well my fears are gone! Ty is having a blast in kindergarden...he loves PE the most. "It's awesome to do laps around the track, Mom! I think I'm the fastest in the whole school...well except for the 5th graders." He's had great first few weeks...Teacher say's he's one of the "good" boys, go figure! He is reading well and loves to learn...a kid after my own heart. I pray that he continues to want to please and strives to do the best he can in all he does. I hope to have him home in the future to love that learning with us!

Oh, and he got Terrific Kid this week, so cute!

Words on the Page

Today, she writes, final draft of weeks work...thoughts dreamed in the depths of herself.

"Mommy, when you write it's like a mystery! All you see is a blank page with all the thoughts in your mind. Then when the pencil connects with the page it seems like magic! You start to uncover the hidden text. As you write, the words you've dreamed come to life on that blank page and it is like magic!"

Oh, how I love to hear her heart...this moment of many...the reason we have hearts for schooling at home!

Our recipe for prayer

We read this morning in Matthew 6:9-13 the best way to pray, then we made our own recipe for prayer, literally.

Here's how we did it:
5 trail mix type ingredients (we just used what we had in the pantry and it worked out great)


Place a small hand full of each in a snack/sandwich bag and identify how each can remind you of the 5 ingredients in the Lord's Payer.

• Praise - honoring God (sm marshmallows-sinless/white, fluffy/happy praise)
• Purpose - wanting Gods will not our own (raisins-someone dried prunes for the purpose of creating raisins)
• Provision - trusting God to take care of us (graham cracker broken up like sm pieces of bread)
• Pardon - forgiveness from God and for others (plain chex cereal-jail cell bars ect)
• Protection - from temptation and evil (semi-sweet chocolate chips-tempting)

Our plan is to use them at snack time in our home and recall each ingredients meaning. We also want to make some for other family/friends and start kind of an "friendship bread" chain with Prayer Trail mixes!

Would you like to be one of the first to join our chain...?

Make enough trail mixes to give to all the members of the 2-3 families/friends of your choice...much like friendship bread.

Ex. We choose Sally Sue's family of 4, we will made 4 trail mixes for them and encourage them to read the passage in scripture, talk with their family about it and then keep the chain going by choosing a couple families to make the recipe for!

Include a post card size copy of this info in the baggies.

Write with sharpie on the outside of the baggie...

Matthew 6:9-13

"The Recipe for Prayer"

Have fun making and recalling Gods "Recipe for Prayer" this was an amazing teachable moment in our home!!! We will continue to make trail mix this way and encorage you to do it to.

FYI: The taste wasn't to shabby either!

This is How We Roll

My dear friend posted how they get back to school shopping done at their house.

http://thusfarwithgod.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-we-roll.html

Then asked how we do it. So, Here's the the Henry Herd low down.

2 kids, 1boy, 1 girl
Said boy will be attending our local charter school for Kindergarden
Said Girl is Homeschooling again for the 3rd year
All very exciting!

Said boy, happens to go by Ty. Ty is very particular about his clothing at times which can drive ME completely insane! The way things feel, the way they fit, the color etc. all issues for him pretty regularly. Said boy is wearing UNIFORMS So Ha! I say to you Ty, no more choices...However the price to be paid for sanity is high, 15$ per polo shirt, not to include the Khaki shorts (already had one pair and found 2 others thrifting for 1$ a piece) and solid color sneakers (found on Kmart special for 10$) Whew! Ty done!

Said Girl is becoming quite trendy... cutesy tops, skinny jeans, and gladiator sandals. Where did the little redneck go, heck I don't know. So due to home being school said girl, who goes by Faith gets to shop all year round. We simply pick things up as we see them on sale or in thrift stores. Not much else to say...

We have found it satisfying to remove things through the year that don't fit to our "give away" pile and then unload it all at our church's biannual free clothing event "No Strings Attached". Feels great to give it away with no strings attached, no tax right off or reward just pure giving, It's fun to see others be blessed!

That's it for us, nothin' fancy, no lengthy or expensive trips to the mall. Simplicity. Ahhh!

Gearing up for school

Well now that I'm a seasoned homeschooler I guess it's quite alright that I just ordered the last of my curriculum needs yesterday. We plan to begin on 8/24 just 9 short days away. Wow! I didn't realize it was that soon even now :o

Faith and I are super excited about the 1st half of American History.

We have most of our books and can't wait to dig in!

Priceless...

We will, for the most part follow the county school schedule this year as my little guy is headed for kindergarden at our local charter school

:) :( Happy and sad times.

So cute...

I hope they're ready for him...

I think I will miss him a bit...

This will be a great start and you will have fun learning how to be a big kid!

I Love You Ty, I will be praying daily that you learn lots

and can come home and learn even more with us!