Birthday Meal

As I mentioned in my last post, we have several birthdays in our family this month. My little boy has been asking for red beans and rice with sausage. Since his birthday was coming up I decided to make it for a special birthday lunch. He was so excited and gave me a special hug. Those are hard to come by since he has started saying he doesn't like hugs and kisses. It was a special moment for me. There are many things we Moms can do to make birthdays or other days special for our children without costing extra money. We all enjoyed our lunch, but my 6 year old probably enjoyed it the most because it was his special birthday lunch.

Busy, busy times

Where has the time gone? We moved 4 months ago and it seems like I'll never get caught up. Life is busy these days. December is a busy time for everyone, but ours is even busier when you put several birthdays in the mix. Since we've moved I've tried to change a few habits for the better. I think they say it takes 3 weeks to form a new habit. My first habit I'm trying to accomplish is getting up before my children wake me up. This is a hard one for me, mainly because I usually stay up too late. So I'm doing better and enjoying the extra time with the Lord and the quiet of our home. Another habit I'm working on is time management. We don't have internet yet so this helps a lot. I find that surfing the 'net eats up so much time. Therefore, I'm getting a lot more done since I have to go over to my parents' house to use it. Those are a few things I'm working on right now. We're still trying to settle in. We have so much to be thankful for. What a blessing to be a child of the King!

Busy, Busy!!

It's been busy, busy around here over the last few months. We're in the process of moving and that is very chaotic for our family of six. Hopefully we'll be settled in in the next few weeks and things will slow down a little. I am always on the lookout for ways to occupy/educate/keep busy my little ones. Yesterday while trying to teach math, I saw some Uno cards laying on the table. My 3 year old was wanting something to do so I said here sort these by color. I separated them into four piles- one for each color- blue, yellow, red and green. I only gave her a few at a time and it was a hit! She really enjoyed it. It works for me! Even my almost 2 year old wanted some to "sort". Yes, we'll be doing this again soon.

Psalm 96

"O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; shew forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people. For the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised: he is to be feared above all gods." Psalm 96:1-4

Update

Boy, we sure are busy around here. Last week, my oldest two participated in a theatre camp with our home school group. They had so much fun and enjoyed learning about plays. It was fun to watch them in their presentation on Friday night. It did make for a busy week! This mama was exhausted by the end of the week!

Despite all the fun, I'm glad for a "normal" week around here. Our 3rd week of school is already halfway over. We're playing a little catch up from last week since we didn't get everything done. We're studying cultures and countries this year and the curriculum suggested we make a cake and decorate it like a map or globe. We gave it a go and I was gonna let the kids do all the decorating, but apparently I didn't let it cool long enough before removing it from the pan. It split into. I was afraid it would fall all apart if I let them decorate it so I put a light layer of blue icing on first and then let them help me smooth it out. Then I used an icing pen (that I had leftover from some decorating last year) and tried to outline the continents. I didn't have enough of the icing pen to fill in the continents, but they were happy and that's all that matters. They enjoyed looking at it, but really all they wanted to do was eat it anyway! Of course, as their teacher, I made sure they could tell me the name of each continent and ocean before they could eat it :)

Week One - Review

We have completed week one of our homeschool lessons! The children were so ready to get busy. They always are at the beginning. I tried to take it slow to get them back into a routine, but they just wanted to do more. So of course we did! I had a lot of anticipation going into this year of schooling. I knew having two little ones underfoot was going to be quite the challenge. My youngest took her morning nap last year while we were working. I knew that this year would be quite different. I tried to plan things for my 3 year old to do: cutting, coloring, puzzles, sorting, lacing beads, playdough, etc. What I didn't think about was my 19 month old wanting to do everything big sis did. She ate the playdough and macaroni noodles for sorting (not enough to get worked up about, but...) These weren't cooked by the way! Needless to say, I've got to do a little more figuring and planning. I think the key is organization and patience!

Laundry

Don't you just love to fold a fresh load of laundry? I do! I know everyone doesn't find it as pleasant as I do, but I have my reasons. I've lived in two different countries and had to hang laundry. Having a dryer is a big blessing for me. In Africa, we hung our clothes on the roof and if you left them out for too long they were so stiff you'd have to wash them again! I've learned to appreciate the nice soft loads that come out of the dryer. Folding all those little clothes reminds me of the precious family God has given me. I don't always think of this while folding clothes, but I should. Now if I can only be reminded of being thankful as I'm washing dishes. Not my favorite job.