Snippets of My Day

Yesterday morning started off like one of THOSE days. Mommy felt "off" and the kiddos woke up with an extra large dose of energy. The two do not make a good combination, if you know what I mean. We made it through breakfast and getting dressed. I decided, after a few futile attempts at getting chores done, to throw it all to the wind! So we bundled up and went outside to enjoy the beautiful fall weather (rare around here these days). We took a walk and visited with neighbors. It was just what we all needed!




The kiddos were more content inside after our fresh air & exercise experience. When we came back in, I turned the computer OFF and felt freed. Sometimes you just gotta shift gears and step out of the norm, kwim?

Puppy Sarah got sick, but she had a good nurse to give her some cough medicine.


Emma went for a boat ride.


Elijah created some works of art.



Grace helped with evening chores. She does a great job!


As I read back over this post, it strikes me how a Mom has the power to change the mood of the entire day. We can choose to let things go downhill or we can take control of the wheel and get the ship back on course. What a great responsibility we hold in our hands!

I AM DANGEROUS!

Have you ever been to Above Rubies?

It's a very encouraging site for today's Mom. Well, for today's conservative, anti-cultural SAHM. If you're a liberal, feminist Mom you probably won't think very highly of it. Anyways, Nancy Campbell sends out a monthly e-newsletter and it's always so encouraging!

I got the latest one this morning and I just wanted to share it with you. I liked it! I know this will likely ruffle some feathers. In my humble opinion, the church has become so much like the world in regards to family size. And they don't even realize it. Families are so worried about driving the best vehicles and wearing the best clothes and eating at the best restaurants, etc. Anything more than "1.6" kids would cramp their style! OK, I'm gonna stop now and just let you read the article.

I AM DANGEROUS!

Exodus 1:12, "But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel."

The first chapter of Exodus tells us about the children of Israel living down in Egypt. Verse 7 says, "And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them." They were fulfilling the first commandment that God gave to man. Something powerful always happens when we obey God's commandments. They are not ordinary words to be discarded; they are life-giving decrees.

What happened in Egypt? The children of Israel became "more and mightier" than the Egyptians. (v. 9). They became a threat to them. And the Egyptians were grieved. The word grieved is the Hebrew word qutsand it means "disgusted, abhorred, horrified, afraid--actually vomiting is the primary understanding of the word."

This same Hebrew word is used in another passage where the children of Israel became a threat. In Numbers 22:3 it tells us, "Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many and Moab was distressed (quts) because of the children of Israel." Why was Moab so very afraid? Because the Israelites were multiplying! When a people multiply, they become scary. When they multiply, they take dominion.

Now here's the question. Are we, the people of God, a threat to the enemy in our nation today? Sadly, we have to answer no. For the last seven or eight decades, instead of multiplying, God's people have been diminishing. They have turned away from the infallible, immutable Word of God and followed their own desires. They have limited their number of children to the worldly 1.6 average. They have sacrificed bringing God's children into the world on the altar of careerism and modern culture-ism. And now the humanists and socialists are taking over.

There are thousands and millions of precious godly offspring who are not here! God has been deprived of His intentions. The world has been deprived of the godly offspring who fill the nation with His love, righteousness. truth, salvation, wisdom and justice. And of course, although many do not realize it, the parents themselves have been deprived.

But all is not lost. There are a growing number of families who are listening to the heartbeat of God. They are hearing His desire for family and for children. They are turning from their deceptions and opening their hearts to the children that He has destined for them to have, whether it is one or ten! As they obey God's first commandment something amazing is happening. The liberalists are starting to get scared! They are so horrified, they want to vomit!

Very recently a book was published by a radical feminist and published by Beacon Press, which promotes homosexuality and anti-Christian dogma. She wrote this book to expose Biblical patriarchy and fruitfulmotherhood. In this book she states that the parents who embrace children are "a movement we ignore at our peril." In a message to Barack Obama, she writes, "Fearless Leader--forget the fundamentalists in Iraq; these prolific Christians are the real bad guys!" In other words, fruitful mothers, embracing the children God wants them to have are dangerous! They are scaring the feminists!

The enemy, who hates life, who comes "to rob, kill and destroy" is scared of the godly seed! Mothers who are not deceived by the delusions of Satan, the robber of life, and who still believe in God's very first mandate to mankind are dangerous people! Isn't that exciting? You may think you are insignificant as you care for your children in your home each day, but mother, lift up your eyes! You are doing a powerful work. You are doing God's work. You are dangerous to the enemy. He is scared of you, because he is scared of the godly seed coming into this world who will hate evil and love righteousness, who will destroy the works of the devil and lift up the name of Jesus. And those who walk in deception and follow the devil's ways are scared of you too!

Don't you love being dangerous? Look out! Here we come--holding on to the Word of Life, walking in God's commandments, embracing the Godly seed and training them to be mighty warriors for God who will impact this world and fill it with His glory. Never forget--the more children a godly mother brings into this world...

The more scared the liberalists will become!

The more evil will be defeated in the land!

The more the kingdom of God will be advanced!

The more the gospel will be spread across the earth!

The more the image of God will be revealed in the earth!

The more the economy will boom in the land!

The more righteousness and morality will pervade the land!

The more righteous leaders will arise in the nation!

The more justice, honesty and truth will flood the land!

The more God will be glorified in the earth!

The more the nation will prosper and be blessed!

The more dangerous she will be!

And the more the statists will fear and tremble!



Keep being dangerous!



Love from NANCY CAMPBELL, ABOVE RUBIES

Tour De Home (Part I)

Yes, I know this is not the actual French translation, but you get the idea.

Four the last couple of weekends, DH has been heading to the woods on Friday & Saturday. He goes to his grandparent's home in the country, about 60 miles from here, and prepares for (hopeful) deer slaying season. Poor deer.

While I miss his presence around the house, my sorrow has been lessened somewhat by the fact that DH takes my two eldest children with him, giving me an entire evening on Friday and 1/2 day Saturday in a quiet, tidy home. Well, as tidy as it can be with a 1 year old Destruct-ress around :).

So, what better time to give you a tour of my home than when it's actually clean and tidy? In part I of this series I will show you my foyer, dining room, & kitchen.

Welcome!



The foyer area (front door) view from the dining room. As you can see, we have yet to repaint that patch on the wall that was sanded down when we sheetrocked the kitchen.



Ye Olde Kitchen



The Dining Room

Straight through the foyer you will find our dining room. This room and the kitchen are the hub of our home. Here we eat, homeschool, and create. The kids stay here at this table the majority of the day and color, draw, put puzzles together, play with play dough, and make messes! It's also where I make hairbows and put the sewing machine when I bring it out.








The curio cabinet you see to the right there was a gift to me from my Pawpaw on my 10th birthday, I believe. I used to collect porcelain dolls and he bought it for me to display them in. Notice there's only one shelf? It's actually a pretty interesting story, how the rest of the shelves got broke. But that's another post.

I think I would make a good real estate agent, because I LOVE houses! Thanks for letting me pretend to be an agent for you :). Stay tuned for Part II :).

Mondays Musings

Well, I don't know about you, but I had a WONDERFUL weekend! DH took my eldest two children to his Grandmother's for Friday night, giving Emma & I a quiet Friday evening and Saturday. We vegged--mostly curled up in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee and a good book. Saturday, Emma took a looong nap (9:00-1:00). When she finally woke up, we went to town to buy stuff for our Saturday night Pastor's Appreciation Bash. I made a mean crock pot of chili! Yumm-o! The pot was scraped clean. The kids had a blast roasting weanies and marshmallows around a real fire. We had a great time "appreciating" our pastor. Did you appreciate yours this weekend?

This is our pastor and his family with all the kids who were at church yesterday. There were about 8 kids from the bus route missing.



We started revival at our church last night. It's already been great beyond words. Sunday morning, we broke our attendance record--40 people! Our church was pioneered 6 years ago. By pioneered, I mean started from scratch, basically. Our pastor and his family opened the doors with zero members. Some Sundays, it was only the pastor and his family in service. God has worked many miracles for us, and we hope to be in our new church soon! We have a bus route, and bring in lots of kids from broken homes, whose parents do not know or care where they are most of the time. It is a precious thing to see them kneeling and praying at the altar, with tears pouring down their cheeks.

I teach the 2-5 year olds, and had 9 kids in my class yesterday! They are so much fun! I love my class! I wish we adults had as much enthusiasm for the Lord as they do.


This is what I am excited about today--what God is doing for us! He is establishing His church and His kingdom! Praise the Lord!

As Easy As ABC?

On the Homeschooling front: about two weeks ago I was very discouraged with my two preschoolers. I thought, if this is what it is going to be like teaching them their ABCs, what is it going to be like when the REAL stuff comes along? With 4-5 subjects a day? What am I going to do? We would spend 15 minutes going over the letter B, fill out the trace sheet and talk about it. The next morning, I would hold up the "B" sheet: "What letter is this?" Blank stares. OR "1"! 1?? That's not even a letter!?!

In a panic, I rang up my teacher-turned-homeschooler SIL, and voiced my concerns. She gave me some good advice, and generally helped me to calm down and realize I didn't need to sweat it. That's the beauty of homeschool. There's no set-in-stone yearly curriculum order that has to be met, and each kid can learn at their own pace. Whew! Breathe.

So. I took a week-long break. My Mom was visiting and our previous schedule just kind of drifted away. This week, I have been amazed. They are recalling at lightning speed! Elijah is learning to write his name very well.
Grace, well, I've not been serious about her, just letting her go along and do what Elijah is doing so she wouldn't feel left out. But you know what? She is learning faster than he is! She doesn't have Elijah's motor skills and her tracing is not as neat, but she is retaining things like a sponge.

I'm so glad I didn't give up!




On another completely unrelated note, I have been working on a Facebook page for my handmade wares: hairbows, hair clips, headbands, flower pins, and whatever else I throw in there. I thought about doing an Etsy store, but I figured once people started looking around they would want to buy OTHER folks' stuff instead of mine! :)
My evenings are being spent making fall and Christmas bows. It's slow going. I think I made a grand total of two bows last night. Eek. I'll let you know when I finally publish the page.

Have a blessed day!

Emma's Expressions

Yes, she IS a stinker!

The Skirt Made from Pants

Here is the skirt Mom and I made last week, from a pair of jeans. Mom actually did it, which means I still have not really hands-on made one myself. I watched her through the entire process, but really wanted to say, "STOP! I want to do it!" But I didn't, I just kept my mouth shut because, well, she's my Mom, ya know?



Just look at that face. Isn't she beautiful?

I'll be scouring yard sales for more jeans to practice on.

Oh, and the couch in the background is the new-to-us couch and loveseat given to us by J's family a couple of weeks ago. It needed a home and our den needed some seating, so it was the perfect blind date! :) Another blessing!

Happy Monday!

I've Been Busy!

This week, my Mom has been here helping to keep me from getting lonely while DH is away. I am so glad she has been here, for else the days would be terribly long and lonesome! There has been no watching the clock this week! I look up and say, "Wow! Is it lunch time already? Is it time for supper already?" We have been very busy, completing those all those little projects that I have started and got stuck on and had to stop, and also the ones I've had in the back of my head and never even started.

The first matter of importance on our list was to make a cover/cushion for this storage box/bench thingy in my dining room. The previous owners installed it and I've always thought it was kind of odd, but it is pretty handy for storage. Here is how it has looked for the 1 1/4 years (can you believe it has been that long?) that we have lived here:



And here it is after our little "makeover"! Better, eh? I got the fabric at Hobby Lobby, off of the remnant table for around $9.00. The cushion was not so cheap, and I was not so happy with the thin-ness of it, but it does the trick! I love it!



Project #2:
Mom got me this white lamp base at a yard sale when we first bought the house. I dunno how much she paid for it, but I'm sure it was a steal. Since my daughter's furniture is white, I thought it would need something to make it pop a little. I bought a pack of vinyl wall stickers at Target on the $1 rack.
I've seen other people blog about recovering lampshades and thought, "I can do that!" Have you ever thought that? You know what? You CAN! Just DO IT! It's liberating! And if you mess up, oh well! So I watched yard sales for a nice lamp shade, and finally found one for $3. I bought a yard of fabric at WM for $1.50. Grand total=$5.50. I was very pleased with how it turned out.



Project #4:
My girls' hairbows were taking over. Spilling out, over, and everywhere. And of course I keep making them and adding to the loot. So they needed a new place to call home. I found a canvas board at Goodwill one day for $1.99, and bought some fabric at WM, again on the $1.50 table. Ain't it cute? It looks even better with all the bows attached.



Project #5:
Kitchen curtains!! Yeah! And I sewed these on my own, with a little over the shoulder guidance from Mom. I'm so proud. I think they probably cost about $2 apiece. Pretty good when compared to the $15.00 valances I wanted at Target. These are to hold me over until I can get what I really want. But until then, I love these!


Project #6:
We made Grace a skirt out of a pair of jeans. It's so hard to find skirts long enough these days. Sorry but I don't care to have my 3 year old dressing like a hootchie :). FYI, I got these jeans at a yard sale for $2. No pic yet, but I will take one of her sassy little Highness wearing it soon and you can see.

We also cleaned out my den/computer room/storage room/study/computer repair shop. I have 8 garbage bags and 3 boxes of stuff sitting in my foyer waiting to be taken to Goodwill. The room now looks more like a den/computer room/study/computer repair shop. And a lot more tidy at that. No pics of that yet (tomorrow).

Can you see why I've had nooo problem falling asleep at night? The evenings after the kids go to bed have been spent in companionable silence, reading a book and eating popcorn. Don't we sound like two little ole ladies?? Even old ladies can have fun!

Oops

It's so true that the funniest things happen on accident. Those little tongue-twisters that sneak out of our mouth before we even know they've bubbled out of the deep recesses of our minds. Who knew THAT was in your head somewhere in the first place? Those ridiculously crazy type-os that seem to fly out of your fingers totally unbeknown, until you re-read the sentence and catch it (or the person reading your sentence), (or the 206 friends who read your facebook post). Perhaps most entertaining are the interesting Spoonerisms that pepper our conversations.

Spoonerism--error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis). It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844–1930), Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency.[1] It is also known as a marrowsky, after a Polish count who suffered from the same impediment.[2] While spoonerisms are commonly heard as slips of the tongue resulting from unintentionally getting one's words in a tangle, they can also be used intentionally as a play on words.

Here are a few examples, taken from the sermons/exhortations of the Rev. Spooner himself:
* "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" (dear old queen, referring to Queen Victoria)
* "Is it kisstomary to cuss the bride?" (customary to kiss)
* "The Lord is a shoving leopard." (a loving shepherd)
* "A blushing crow." (crushing blow)
* "A well-boiled icicle" (well-oiled bicycle)
* "You were fighting a liar in the quadrangle." (lighting a fire)
* "Is the bean dizzy?" (dean busy)
* "Someone is occupewing my pie. Please sew me to another sheet." (occupying my pew...show me to another seat)
* "You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted a whole worm. Please leave Oxford on the next town drain." (missed...history, wasted...term, down train)[7]


Wikipedia, you have my regards.

It's so good to know I'm not alone in my verbal and written blundering. I can sleep now.

G'night.

Messes!!

Messes, messes everywhere!!

My son is a mess! You never know what he might do next, or what he may put on next.


And this one, my goodness. Emptying drawers of clothes on the floor, digging in the trash can, tearing up the CD rom on our pretty much new computer, climbing, pooping in the tub...what a MESS! And a pretty cute one at that.



And the Mess Queen herself, is not actually in this picture, but her whole name is Grace MakeAMess Elizabeth Acklen. She likes to make them. Any chance she gets. It's FUN!! But she is also, one of the sweetest, most caring and considerate little girls I've ever met. Not to mention considerate. Look--she was worried that Snowbell might get cold during his nap. So she covered him up with a t-shirt. Aaww.


And yet another mess--the one I made while making my fall wreath Tuesday. Ain't it a grand one?


p.s. Do you think I may be running out of blog topics??