Home Education in Our House

Our local volcano

The little stickers are the girl's villages


Today, my husband and children gathered around their volcano to watch it erupt. They built the volcano last week, painted it yesterday and today was the day to watch the explosion. The eruption was quite small, but I was happy since this great event was happening on my kitchen table.

My husband has been teaching our girls about volcanoes in science and this was the culmination of lessons. I believe our girls will always remember these lessons.
When I was teaching our girls science, I would just read the lessons to them. My husband is quite the opposite, he does every experiment with them.
That is what makes learning fun for all of us.

What's for Dinner

On Sunday, I wrote a post about Ways to say I Love You to your husband. I used one of the ideas, I made one of my husband's favorite meals last night. We had a modified Greek dinner. We had chicken, salad and pitas (Tammy's Recipe). He asked, "What is the special occasion?" I told him it is just because I love him. He smiled and I realized all my work was worth it.



There is no better investment of my time than to show my family how special they are to me.

I am ME

Isn't the bloggy world great. You can learn how to do anything you want from the comfort of your couch. Here is my biggest pitfall. I want to do everything and I want it to be perfect, just like all the beautiful pictures. On any given day I will visit the following sites:

Money Saving Mom- She can save us all a lot of money. She runs a successful home business that helps her family financially.

Like Merchant Ships- She has an amazing sense of style and an eye for treasures at yard sales and thrift stores. She makes me want to redecorate (actually, just decorate) my home.

Tammy's Recipes- Her food looks amazing. I use many of her recipes each week.

Girl Talk- They inspire me to live and love my girls, not to just get through my day. Also, to read more books. As a bonus, Janelle is so creative with the camera.

Happy to be Called Mommy- She is a truly gifted artist. She even makes her children's drawings into stuffed animals.

As I look at any blog, I need to keep myself in check and remember I am not that person. I am ME. God made me for His purpose, to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. So I need to flourish with the gifts and talents God gave me, not the gifts He gave to someone else.
I am thankful that God has made us all different, this world would be bland if we all had the same gifts. Thank you Crystal, Meredith, Tammy, Carolyn, Nicole, Kristin, Janelle and Bethany for sharing your gifts with us on your blogs. You truly inspire us.
Thank you God for loving us so much to make us each different and unique.

I Praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
-Psalm 139:14

Ways to say I Love You

Here are some simple ways to let your husband know you love him:

• Say "I love you"

• Make his favorite meal for no other reason than your love for him.

• Clean up (shower, hair, face, teeth, etc.)

• Mail a love letter to his work, put it in his Bible or in the car.

• Make sure the house is clean and calm before he comes home.

• Watch a "boy" movie with him.

• Scratch his back or massage his feet.

• Don't spend more than he makes.

• Always listen when he wants to talk.

• Don't neglect his physical needs.

There are thousands of other ways to express your love to your husband. Find ways each day to let your husband know how much you care.

Why I wanted a camera

Last year I was blessed to be able to read Eyes of Wonder which was a blog by a beautiful woman named Jewels. She had an amazing way of writing that just put peace in your heart. Unfortunately, Jewels shut her blog down a couple of months after I found it. I used to look forward to going to her blog each day, reading her gracious words and looking at her amazing pictures. She had a way of taking pictures that told a whole story. Her pictures were so good, I wrote to her and asked her what kind of camera she used. She responded to my email not only with the kind of camera she used, but with encouraging words for me.
Jewels' blog was a pictorial journal of her days. Pictures of everyday events, lovely scenes from around her home and her children.
I wanted a camera so I could capture our life like Jewels did. I told my husband about the camera I wanted and figured it would be a long time before we could get it. But, this past Christmas my husband surprised me and bought me the camera. Now, I am trying to learn how to take good pictures.
But this week I used my camera to take pictures of life happening here.

Abby enjoying a quiet afternoon on the couch.

Hannah after school.

Thank you for letting me share part of our day with you.

Deals for the week

Tuesday was our day to set out in search of the deals. I used Money Saving Mom and Couponmom to direct me to the treasures.
After we finished school in the afternoon, we headed to the recycler first for a little cash to work with.

Our first stop was Home Depot armed with two coupons. One from Sears and one from Lowes.
We bought a plant and huge bag of soil for $6.43. Pretty good. I needed some green in my living room. That saved our family $15.00.

Next was CVS, this was not my best trip and I wasn't as prepared as I should have been. But I am still happy with the results. Here is what we got:

1 12 pack of Sierra Mist (to complete the Pepsi deal)
5 Deodorants
1 Fusion power razor
2 boxes of Honey bunches
1 Johnson and Johnson soap

Now on my list I had the CVS trash bags and two more cereals, they were out of stock of both. I had figured my total would be $56.88, so I printed the CVS 10/50 coupon. But without those items I did not have enough. I should have either purchased more or left and returned with another CVS coupon. But I did the best I could.

I paid $10.91 oop and received $35.95 in EB. Still ok. The receipt says I saved $36.51

Next stop Vons for three transactions.

The first transaction:

1 bottle of ketchup
8 cans of tomato sauce
Quaker Oats
Simple Harvest Cereal
2 Cinnamon Life
1 regular Life
Oat squares cereal
Cap-n-crunch
2 Quaker muffin bars
2 Special K cereal

oop $4.79, saved $56.58

2 transaction:

Quaker oats
2 Quaker instant oatmeal
Simple Harvest cereal
2 Quaker granola bars
2 Cinnamon Life
1 regular Life
Quaker Oat Squares cereal
Cap-n-Crunch
2 gallons milk (milk right now is 2 for $6.29)

oop $5.23, saved $53.86

3 transaction:

Simple Harvest cereal
2 boxes Quaker granola bars
Quaker Cinnamon Life
Regular Life
Quaker Oat Squares Cereal
Cap-N-Crunch
2 Quaker Muffin Bars
2 Special K cereal

oop $2.00, saved $51.45

So the grand total for the day was $29.36 oop and $213.40 saved with $35.95 still in EBs. What does all this stuff look like?




Head over to Crystal's Money Saving Mom blog to see all the great deals.

Be a cheerleader not a critic

What a wonderful opportunity we have to serve our husbands with our words and actions, to be his cheerleader and friend. Look at this quote from Barbara and Laura Bush.

When an interviewer once asked Barbara Bush what advice she gave to her daughter-in-law Laura Bush, her answer was simple: “Don’t criticize your husband.” The elder Mrs. Bush recalled a remark she made about one of George Bush Sr.’s speeches: “I think you’re tired, and you mumbled your words.” The effect of this seemingly innocent comment? “When I criticized George, he remembered it for months afterwards.”

“So I really took her advice to heart,” Laura Bush said. “I knew there were plenty of other critics [of my husband] without me being one of them. Until one night we were driving into our driveway and he said, ‘Tell me the truth, how was my speech?’ And I said, ‘Well, it wasn’t that good.’ And with that, he drove into the garage wall!”

Laura Bush points out something we must really think about, “I knew there were plenty of other critics [of my husband] without me being one of them." How often do we want to be the one to bring all the problems to our husband? He said this, he didn't say that, he wore that shirt out of the house and so on. Our husband has plenty of people around him correcting him. We should instead be his biggest cheerleader and encourager. I am not saying that we should be dishonest with him, I am saying we look for the good and compliment that.
Also, if we know our husband is under a lot of stress we should work hard to relieve that stress and not add more.

Lars Gren (Elisabeth Elliot's husband), presented this helpful challenge:

“A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.”

We are not perfect and our husbands aren't either. Just enjoy the husband of your youth.

Cheap music and books

Thanks to Tim at Challies.com for this information.

For the month of February Sovereign Grace Ministries will be having a great sale. All their CDs will be $6.00 each, their Pursuit of Godliness books will only be $5.00, piano scores for $1.00 and both volumes of their songbooks for only $40.00. They are also putting a cherry on top, FREE SHIPPING to the US.

My two favorite CDs are from Sovereign Grace.

I highly recommend both of them. They are great to listen to. And there is a clear message in each song.

Hurry over to Sovereign Grace music on February 1st, the sale is only while supplies last.

Show him RESPECT

This one seems too easy. We need to show our husbands the respect they are due. Not only because they are the love of our life, but because God has placed them as the head of our homes.
This is God's perfect plan for our family.
There may be days when our husband is not acting in way that deserves our respect, but that doesn't matter. We always show him respect because he is also a child of God and he is the leader of our family. If we are honest we don't always act like we should either.
Our children are always watching to see how we treat their Dad. They will model their behavior after ours many times. Our attitude toward our husband will have an amazing effect on our whole family.
Always show your husband respect.

Do Your Quiet Time

Hello,

I am sorry for the delay in this post. We have had several busy days around here. But now I am back.
I want to start on my series on being a Godly Wife.
Where else would we start but the Bible. The Bible is our treasure chest, filled with more riches than we can ever wish for. We all have this treasure right at our finger tips, yet we leave it closed and don't look at it many times.

Here are some of the common excuses:


1. The Bible is boring.

Is it really boring, or are we just used to being entertained by TV or movies?

2. The Bible is hard to understand.

It is NOT too hard to understand. We just need to make sure we are somewhere quiet where we can concentrate. Also, we need to have the right heart attitude, a heart ready to learn. We have learned to read patterns, recipes and even Html. The Bible is not that difficult. We just invest time in what we want to do.

3. I don't have time (My personal favorite excuse)
We have time, we just waste it many times. How we waste our time:

TV
Phone
Internet (Ouch!)
Reading (Not the Bible)
Etc.

You get the picture. We have the time, we just make bad decisions. Instead of reading our Bible and worshiping our Creator. We chose to watch the news, look at our blogs, read a new recipe or even go through our coupons. These things are not bad unless they keep us from God.

The Bible teaches us what God expects from us and how to live our lives. It is so valuable to us as mothers and wives. Our lives will be transformed if we devote ourselves to daily reading of God's Word. How might your life be changed you ask.

1. We are more patient with others as we realize we are all sinners.
Romans 3:23- For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

2.We realize that God loves us more than anybody else ever could.
John 3:16- “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever
believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

3. We realize God sent His one and only Son for us.
1 John 4:9- In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

4. We learn how to be a hard worker.
Proverbs 31: 10-31

5. We find God's promise if we are faithful to teach our children.
Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

All of these things we learn from reading our Bible. There are so many other things we can learn and be encouraged with everyday in the Bible.

Take time to put God first in your life. You will be a better mom and wife.

A good marriage starts when they are young

No, I am not saying I believe in young children getting married. What I am saying is our children's first view of marriage is what they see at home. As moms we have an amazing opportunity to help our children's marriages when they get older.
We need to model the qualities of a Godly wife to our children. They need to know that we love their Daddy very much. We will have problems, but they need to see us deal with those situations as well.
Over the next few days I will go through some of those qualities we need to show our children.

What am I passionate about?

On Monday, Crystal over at Money Saving Mom wrote a blog entry about choosing a niche for your blog. I have been thinking about this a lot. I started this blog as a way of documenting our life as we serve the Lord. Not really focusing on any particular area of our lives.
But as I have continued to consider what I am passionate for, it is for marriage. It is the subject that makes me come to life. I love to talk to people who are happy in their marriages as well as those who are struggling. Marriage is an amazing gift from God. I am so blessed to be married to my best friend. I hope to focus on marriage in the upcoming posts.
This is what God has given me passion for and I will use that passion to serve Him however He sees fit.

God has a plan for me

God seems to be working on me about using my time more efficiently for Him. Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed "I just try to get through today." But is that really living for Him? I would have to say no, I am not growing in endurance, I am not growing closer to God. I am just "living" for me, I don't like to suffer or constantly be tired, but this is what God has for me today. I need to not only smile on the outside, but on the inside as I serve my Lord and Savior.
I do not know God's plans for me, just like Job. But I do know God is good.
I need to get busy and use each opportunity for Him, whether I am making a meal for my beautiful family, teaching my girls in school, cleaning behind the toilet, or cleaning my floor, I need to do it for the glory of God.

Prepare My Heart

It is Saturday night, and we are preparing for another busy Sunday. The girls get their own clothes out and ready for Sunday morning. Everything needs to be ready or Sunday morning very quickly turns into chaos.
We have taught our girls to get all their clothes (including the shoes!) out and lay them on the table, get their Bibles ready and any homework they need to take back. This seems so simple on Saturday night, but push it to Sunday morning and we completely lose focus of peace in our home.
Now, I need to prepare my heart for church tomorrow. I need to pray that God would open my heart to His teaching, that He would show me those I need to serve, that God would give me wisdom to deal with touchy situations, but most of all I need to ask God to lead unsaved people to our church so they can hear about Him and accept Jesus as their Savior.
To God be the Glory.

We are part of a community

Tonight our family had the privilege of hosting our Family Life group, for dinner and Bible study. It was a wonderful time in God's Word and enjoying each other's company. It was a tight fit, we had 8 adults and 11 children here.
The thing that stuck out to me during our study was that we are part of a community. During good times and bad we are here to help each other. Two of the verses we looked at were Galatians 6:1-2:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

God, is so good. He not only sent His one and only Son for our salvation, gave us His Word, allows us come to Him at anytime in prayer, but He also gave us a community to help us flourish.
Thank You God!

Things I learned today

1. Good Christian bookstores are dangerous. (OK, I already knew this.)

2. I can tell my husband I love him a 100 times, but if I don't act that way even once, he will remember that more.

3. Socks on cold days are important.

4. God has blessed me in so many ways, I need to slow down and appreciate all that He has placed in my life.

5. Good friends bless me more than the most precious of stones.

Just a quick list to help me remember what I learned today. Because tomorrow will be another day to get ............... DONE!

How to Listen to Others

Right now in my quiet time I am going through the book of Job. It has been a great time in God's Word. Yesterday, I was reading chapter 8 of Job, where Bildad continues to tear Job apart. The most crushing part for me was realizing that this was his "friend". Along with my Bible I am also using Holman Old Testament Commentary by Steve Lawson. In the Life Application portion for chapter 8 he shared the following:

How to Listen to Others

1. Do not dominate the conversation.

2. Validate the feelings of the other person. "Yes, I see what you mean"

3. Do not interrupt the other person.

4. Do not immediately correct the other person. Make sure you have all the facts first.

5. Ask insightful questions.

Thinking through this list often will hopefully make me a better friend to those who are hurting.

Pray for Sylvia

I want to ask you to pray for one of the older ladies in our church. Sylvia, has congestive heart failure and internal bleeding. Pray for me as I go to visit her, that God would give me wisdom in what to say.

Happy 6th Birthday Rachel

Rachel 5 years old

Rachel 2 years old

Today is a wonderful day to celebrate God's goodness in sending us our beautiful Rachel.

Hello World

Thank you for stopping by.