A Welcome Sight

We recently started putting seeds in our feeders again after a long strike against the squirrels. Today there was alot of activity - cardinals, finches, chickadees, titmice, and one I get real excited about . . . can you see it?

Yes! A bluebird! Actually there was a whole family of them, 3 or 4.

There was one with a beautiful blue back, but I did not get a picture of that one. They stayed pretty much together, but I only got one at a time in my shots. They did not stay around long with me watching them from the window.

I hope I'll see them again. We do have bluebird houses in our yard.

A Quick Trip

This is really short as I was trying a different camera and most of my pictures came out fuzzy.

We had a nice two day trip to visit family over the Christmas holidays, though.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas Eve Service at CCMA

Thanks be to God, we are in our new building! Theron and many others worked for three days, moving and getting things set up so we could have our first service in the new facility tonight. And now the doors are open. Come and worship.

There is no other reason we come together, but to worship our King! None else is worthy of our praise.

The One and Only Son of God, who came into the world as a baby, suffered and died for our sins and reigns in heaven above. It is often hard to imagine the God who created all, coming as One created, offering Himself as one helpless in order to ULTIMATELY HELP (rescue, redeem, purchase) US!

We are weak, but He is strong! He accepts our feeble praise. He clothes us in His Righteousness.

Our spirits, still wrapped in imperfect flesh, yearn to draw near to Him. Our hearts rise with the sound of the stringed instruments.

Our voices too, rise in unison and we are closer to our Creator in worship than at any other time.

Things may not be perfect from our point of view, but I wonder. . . What does God see?

Does He see us complete in Him? Does He draw near to us as we draw near to Him? The answers are found in His Word.

Draw near today.

Exploring Norway

We completed our two weeks in Norway, the land of fjords. Do you know what those are? They are the fingers of the sea that cut into the land for miles all along the western and northern coast of Norway. They are surrounded by cliffs and are quite beautiful to look at.

Did you know that the tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff supposedly began here? There is also the Fjord horse. You've heard of that, I'm sure. And in the far north, live the reindeer herding Sami people. I love their colorful red hats. Sorry I don't have a picture of that for you. Only this picture of a blond-hair, blue eyed Norwegian girl.

We enjoyed this book based on a true story. It is a story of bravery and faith. Norwegians still celebrate this with a skiing race in which the participants wear a (10 lb.?) weight on their back to represent the baby prince that was saved.

Our Read Aloud did not take place in Norway, but in the Netherlands (not too far away). The children found it a bit boring with its lengthy retelling of history, but to me it was interesting, and mysterious. I got the audio version as I had a hard time pronouncing some of the words and wanted to hear how they were to be said properly. For instance, when one was excited, they said, "Huzzah!" The book held Hannah's attention during the exciting parts. It has a very happy ending and there is much mention of godly character in the book. There are parts in it that might be distubing to young children. When the father who has a head injury tries to burn the mother in the fire, not knowing what he is doing. And when the surgeon comes to operate on the father. There are no details given of the surgery, but the young girl, Gretel's, reaction to seeing the instruments and fearing that they will kill her father might be unsettling to some. Definitely for 8 and up. Luckily Josiah did not care to listen to it and chose to play in his room while Hannah and I listened.

Now we are off to France, where Hannah says her favorite city of Paris is located AND the Eiffel Tower!

1st Night of Hannukah and Hebrew lesson

Last night after returning from our Walk Through Bethlehem, we looked at the "scrolls" the kids had received from their stop at the "Hebrew School". They were so excited! It was the Hebrew alefbet (that's Hebrew for alphabet).

We lit our candles. There is always one more candle then the number of nights. This is called the shamus or helper candle. Some think it represents Christ. He is the servant who was raised up. The shamus usually is higher than the other candles. As we light the candles, we can think of miracles that God has done as he did long ago with the oil in the temple. We can also think of the Light of the World, who came to earth and suffered and died for our sins, who is now ABOVE ALL.

As the light burned, Hannah got pencil and paper and sat and copied every letter carefully from her "scroll".

Josiah decided to do the same. For some time, even before today, he has been telling me that when he writes a letter illegably, "It is in Hebrew."

A Journey through Time

"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord."
The Messiah!
The Anointed One!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

We went to this tonight at Simpsonwood Retreat Center.

If you want to go, it is from 7 PM-9PM (Saturday)

6PM-8PM (Sunday) this weekend only.
We really enjoyed it. Theron and I had not been since the children were born.

It was nice to go and share this experience with them.
There is no admission fee. They only ask that you bring a donation of nonperishable food.

Eggs-periment

A while back, we did this experiment to see how strong eggs are. First, I had to save some egg shells from making a quiche. Then put tape around the broken edge so it would not be compromised. Set the egg shells evenly apart in a rectangle shape and start to lay books on top.


It held quite alot of books, but this was the final straw that broke the egg.

Cccccccrrrrrrrraaaaaaaacccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkk!

How much did it hold? Can you guess?

It held twenty pounds of books before it collapsed!

Thanksgiving 2009

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

We took the week off from schoolwork and visited with family over the Thanksgiving holiday. The kids enjoy seeing their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We get to take a break from the norm and sit around working jigsaw puzzles or taking walks outside or just watching the kids play.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, too.

Exploring Brazil

For the last three weeks we have been learning about Brazil.


One night I tried to serve a semi-authentic Brazilian dish.



When in Brazil, eat what the Brazilians do.

We played GeoSafari to help us learn the Countries and Capitols of South America.

This was our read aloud. It is a biography of the pilot who flew with 4 others into Auca territory in Ecuador to try to reach them with the gospel. It was his sister Rachel who eventually, along with Elizabeth Elliot and her daughter Valerie, went and lived with the tribe and saw them accept the forgiveness of Jesus.

We made a replica of an MAF plane like the one Nate Saint flew to help Missionaries in the jungle.

All of us enjoyed learning about the animals of the Amazon Rain Forest. We continue to watch our ants. They are not the leaf-cutting ants of the Amazon. They are harvester ants, but they do stay very busy.

While we read books, they created more and more tunnels.

And dumped more and more dirt out of the hole.

See you next time in Norway!

"I" is for Insect

That is what Josiah's lessons will be on next week. I had ordered harvester ants and they arrived last night. Yah! We were all so excited. It's fascinating to watch them get busy and start moving the dirt to make their tunnels.
On this side of the ant farm is a fake "ant hill" that they climb up and into.

You can see the darker soil that they have already cleared out and put at the top of the hole.

This is the side where you can view the tunnels. Josiah was memorized.

No More Magic?

I tried several times to download my video and it just wasn't happening, so we will do something different today.
It is good to give thanks!
Today, I am thankful for . . .
the fact that a boy can have so much fun with a stick! . . .

that a few minutes of outside play can change our outlook. . .

that there are bright colors in our world. . .

little blessings of lettuce,

and peas. (Sorry it's fuzzy.) . . .

and new things to discover! What is that tiny bug?

The Inside Scoop

Some of you have asked about the beautiful loaf of bread I posted about. It was a Bread Becker recipe and yes I used a long loaf pan that they sell. The thing is, the first two slices came out really nice, but after that, . . . the inside crumbled and I couldn't get another whole slice. So what looked so good on the outside, did not hold up to expectations in the middle. It is hard to butter and make cinnamon toast when the bread doesn't stay together.
We ate it anyway, because it tasted good. I don't know how to remedy this problem. When my husband makes bread, it never falls apart in the middle. The only thing he said he does different is put a pyrex dish with water in the oven during proofing.

Exploring Canada

We have finished our two weeks in Canada (not literally, just studying it). I think we enjoyed most learning about the Inuit (they use to be called eskimos). I found a book at the library called THE THREE SNOW BEARS. It was similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but it takes place in the cold north and the bears are polar bears. It is a very cute story and the pictures are wonderful.

We learned how to make an igloo, and how the polar bears "migrate" during the different seasons. And I found it interesting that they basicly "hibernate" during the summer. They eat very little and their body slows down. They only eat in the winter. Just the opposite of bears here.

The kids enjoy getting their passport stamped each time we start on a new country. Hannah had in her possession a Canadian nickel. We don't know where it came from. I take that back. We know WHERE it came from, but we don't know how we ended up with it. Usually we have some Canadian pennies, but I could not find them.

We had pancakes and maple syrup during our "trip" and listened to a French language CD. Hannah liked the word Bonjour, and realized it was in a book that she has called Fancy Nancy's Fancy Words. Her reading has really improved this year and the Spelling Power is working great for her. She is doing more independent reading and writing, and is accepting correction better.

Josiah is on Lesson 9 in MFW Kindergarten. He has a pretty good grasp of the sound of most letters and is working on sounding out words. He likes to pick out books at the library and has me read them to him several times and then I see him sitting on his own "reading" from memory.

Hannah is doing Math drills with a Flashmaster that someone loaned us and she seems to enjoy it. Josiah has been using a die to practice math and now knows the numbers at a glance without counting the dots.

For science, the focus was rivers and lakes. I don't remember anything new or interesting about that. We read about different animals that live in the water, or spend part of their life in the water. We visited a lake and fed the geese and ducks.

Next up, Brazil!