Making time to be a blessing

Today was yet one more day that we put away the books and did some 'home ec'. This time, Kelsey and I gathered up some art projects, some reading books, and some cookie dough and headed over to the house of a young couple from our church. Right now this couple is taking care of two of their neices while their mom and dad are out of the country taking care of arrangements to adopt and bring home their new little brother. Due to some circumstances beyond everyone's control, the girls will be staying a little bit longer than anyone anticipated with aunt and uncle, who already have three young children of their own.

It is times like these that I am so thankful we have been homeschooling and I am working toward the other end of our homeschooling journey. Book work has its place, but when we can take time from that book work and bless a young family, it just warms my heart. The girls were all so excited when we arrived!

There are many things our kids can do to be a blessing in our communities: rake a neighbor's yard, help to prepare a meal for a new mom and her family, be a mommy's helper, help in the nursery at church, make cards for soldier's serving overseas, etc.

What types of service projects do you and your family do in your area?

Playing catch up

During the summer, I found a couple of challenges on Pinterest that I thought would be fun for me and Kelsey to work on together.

Source: blog.allisonlehman.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

Source: whitepeachblog.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

Since there are more than 30 days during summer, I figured we would have no problem finishing these up!

Well, today is the 4th of October and we just finished day 19 of the challenges. Summer ended up being busier than either one of us expected, but we are determined to get working on finishing up the challenges. Here is my picture from yesterday:

My shoes - it has been over 95 degrees here everyday since last Friday, summer just doesn't seem to want to leave.

This is not my doodle, this is my husband's doodle from a card he made for me. My drawings/doodles could and never will look this good!

This is my doodle, I was never really a doodler. My nose was always in a book. My kids are better doodlers than I am which means I probably don't even have a doodling gene in my body. I will stick to reading, baking, photography, sewing, etc.

What kind of challenges have you done with your kids?

Just a little 'Girl Talk'

Wednesday nights have been kind of special around here for me and Kelsey. Kev has been going to a Bible study down the street and Matthew goes to youth group. That leaves just us girls home for a couple of hours! We have been trying to do some special girl things together (pedicures, working on her quilt, etc.) and reading girl books together.

A few weeks ago we started reading this new book called 'Girl Talk' by Carolyn Mahaney and Nicole Whitacre. We have really enjoyed the chapters and discussions. Last week, the chapter talked about an afternoon out. Since Kelsey is more of a home type girl, we decided to plan an 'afternoon out' at home for the very next day while Matthew was away at school for the day.

 

 First, we stopped by the store and picked up a couple of fun magazines to browse through together.

 Then, we made up our homemade iced coffee.

 

 We pulled out a nice tray and cloth napkins. Oh, and there was homemade biscotti, too!

 

 Kelsey was trying to be a little camera shy... :o)

 

 Hey, look! I am in a picture! :o)

 

 This recipe looks amazing!

 

 A little less camera shy this time... :o)

 

This tray looks like it would be fun to make.

 

Overall, the point of the 'afternoon out' was a chance to be together, doing something that we both enjoy. During this semester, we have at least 2 days a week that it is just the two of us at home. As Kelsey begins to enter these teen years, I want us to continue to build on the good relationship we already have. Hopefully, we can continue to have many afternoons like this one!



Drawing and Photo Challenge

On a morning perusal of Pinterest this morning, I found a couple of pins that I thought would be fun to do with Kelsey. The first one was a 30 Day Photo Challenge. I love to take pictures and Kelsey has been having fun taking pictures with her iPod, so we got started right away this morning on the first assignment...Day 1 - Self Portrait:

This was hard for me to do because I am not the type of person who takes pictures of myself with my own camera, in fact, I don't think I have ever done this! :o)

Kelsey, trying to find the 'right lighting', where do these kids get these ideas? :o), decided to get on top of her playhouse to get 'just the right picture'... :o)

Kelsey really likes to draw, so another pin that I found is for a 30 day drawing challenge. Day 1 drawing is a drawing of yourself. An artist I am not, so here is my best attempt at drawing myself holding a camera and a book.

I thought it would be nice at the end of the thirty days to have something nice to keep all our photos and drawings in, kind of a way to remember this fun project in the future. So while we were at Hobby Lobby today, we found these sketch books. We will probably add doodles and other embellishments to the pages as we work through these 30 day challenges.

Want to join us for the challenges?

Summer Monday at Home

“There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” - Jane Austen

Monday is usually a home day for us. Not really sure why, but it has just always seemed to work out that way. After a busy weekend, Monday just has always been a day to get the laundry done and stay close to home.

Matthew started his orchard job today, so we won't be seeing him at home most of the day for the next few weeks. He drives a tractor during the apricot harvest. They start early in the morning (about 5:30am!) and are usually done around 2pm. He is usually pretty hot and tired by the time he gets home.

So today, Kelsey and I stayed home and were able to do a few fun things together...

Making and spending more money than we will ever see

Homemade Snickerdoodles...yum!



It is Monday, so there was laundry to be done



No sense of baking all the cookie dough, so we flash froze some to be baked later



Letter from Lina arrived!



We started taking all the pictures off of the project boards from Matthew's graduation...



...and started adding them to the album for him to keep

This letter was an extra surprise today! There was a letter addressed to Kevin from Compassion. There was nothing on the front of the letter indicating that it might be a letter from his correspondent child, Murimi, from Kenya. Back in November, we put some items together for Murimi and sent them to Kenya with our friends who are over there this year working with Agape Children's Ministry. They dropped the package off at the Compassion country office to be delivered to Murimi.

Along with a nice long letter, we received these 3 photographs of Murimi! The first picture shows Murimi holding the gallon size ziploc bag of items we sent over. The next picture shows Murimi wearing the t-shirt and shorts we bought for him and he is holding the 2 Hot Wheels cars that were in the package. The last picture at the bottom shows Murimi holding the snowman picture the my husband made for Murimi as well as the paper snowflakes on his head! What a special treat this was!

Did anything special happen on your Monday?



Beautiful Girlhood

"Far away there in sunshine are my highest aspirations,

I may not reach them,

but I can look up and see their beauty,

believe in them and try to follow where they lead."

-Louisa May Alcott

Kelsey and I have been able to share some girl time together on Wednesday nights while Kevin is at Bible study and Matthew is at youth group. I thought this would be a good time for us to read through a devotional together and build on our good relationship as she enters into these next few years of her life.

I purchased the Beautiful Girlhood book at a homeschool swap some time ago and picked up the companion guide to go with it. We have gone through a few lessons already and have really been enjoying this time that we have together. Her life is so different than mine was as a young girl. I know that I am not perfect, but I want to be able to share with her that with faith in Jesus, she can grow up to be a confident young lady who is not afraid to be different from the 'world's' standards.

We have also been going through my craft board on Pinterest, searching for projects to work on together. On one of the blogs that I like to read, I found this simple Easter project. Kelsey thought this would be a great one to work on. We started them both last week and finished them up yesterday.

I really like the way they turned out!

Last night, we found another project to start on. We cut out all the felt and will be working on finishing them up over the next week.

Stay tuned to see how this one turns out!