This has been a VERY busy week, but a good one, as well. Our church held a Family crusade, beginning this past Sunday morning with OUR version of balloon Sunday. It was the last day of this year’s International balloon Fiesta, and on that morning, we release helium balloons with our names, and the plan of salvation on an attached card. It was quite windy, and I could not get a photo before they were too far away, sadly, but it was fun! 🙂
From Sunday evening through Thursday evening, we had the wonderful Ed Dunlop as our speaker, and dare I say, entertainer? Everyone, children, teens and adults alike all just loved his ventriloquism with his little buddy Andy, and loved watching the kids participate in different Bible games.
I tried to get a video during the last evening, but looking at it on the computer, I can see that I really messed it up . . . it’s sideways! So instead, let me share a photo of Bro. Ed, Andy, my boys, and several of their friends who were also still at the church after everyone else had left . . . One of my boys, “The Batman”, specifically asked if Andy could come out and be in the picture with them, lol!
My boys tried so hard to get visitors to come with them, but they were not successful. This is the first time we have lived where there were other kids right next door that they play with (since moving to NM), and they asked them every day, with no results. They were disappointed, but we explained to them that they did their job by asking, and that God knows this.
I think this was a WONDERFUL alternative to the traditional summer VBS. I liked it a lot better. VBS has always tended (in my opinion) to get kids so very revved up and make it hard for them to be self-controlled, especially kids like mine, with special needs, yet, I hate to deny them VBS. Therefore, I was so very happy that our church chose to do this instead this year. We had a great time! 🙂
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So, this week was a LITTLE more productive . . . we managed to work on some educational review products nearly every day. I was also able to get “The Batman” and “The Artist” to get on their piano practice every day except for one.
Yesterday, I got up early and got a review completed (there will be a few more in upcoming weeks), worked on some review products with the boys, and prepared (mostly) supper. My husband came home and whipped up potatoes and corn, as I was very wiped out by then.
Today, I managed to get almost all of the laundry done, for the first time in weeks! 🙂
In preparation for our upcoming move, my husband and the boys did a bunch of yard work last Saturday, and will be doing more tomorrow, as we’re supposed to leave it looking good. While he and 2 of the boys do that, I’ll be taking the 2 older boys out shopping for clothing items they need for summer camp, which is fast approaching! I never thought the day would come when we would feel OK about them going, but I’ll tell you, they have such a wonderful youth pastor at our church, along with his wife. They are so great with all of the kids, and have really helped a lot with our boys, working to understand their limitations. His wife is also our piano teacher, and a very good one, too! We’ll be in our first recital since leaving MI this coming August. I’m hoping my husband will be able to record us so you all can see what we’re doing!
Well, that about wraps up our week!
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Beginning Sunday, our church had special conference entitled Solve Family Problems, featuring Dr. S.M. Davis. He spoke for the adults and teens during Sunday School, and again in morning service, then we also had him for Sunday evening service, Monday and Tuesday evening. Monday and Tuesday, as our church generally does, a supper was provided at 6:00 p.m. so that those who would need to come straight from work could still eat. And our church is, as our Pastor likes to say, “the eating-est church in town”, so you know the food was really great! Of course, it IS a Baptist church, and I’ve NEVER had a bad meal in a Baptist church, whether it be a pot-luck or a church provided meal! 🙂 The conference was really great, and we got a lot out of it.
Wednesday evening, I needed to hang around after church to practice with the choir, as we’re singing the special Sunday morning, then after that, I practiced with our piano teacher, who also plays when I sing a special. We WERE practicing for my scheduled special at the end of the month, when the music director asked if we could do it this coming Sunday evening instead. Well, we do feel comfortable with it now, so we told him yes. I’ll post that sometime this next week. Y’all are not getting tired of all my videos of either my kids or me singing specials, are you?
This morning we had homeschool co-op at church, where we had the kiddos split into 3 groups based on age/ability range, who then rotated between rotated the 3 moms who were there for things like string art, writing, younger kids writing, and my station, which was using different color paints to put their hand prints on the big banners for the upcoming co-op Creativity Fair. They also had root beer floats for snack.
Next, we went to McDonald’s (I know, I know, don’t judge me!) for a quick dollar menu lunch before heading over to piano lessons. We have an hour and a half block with our teacher, for me, “The Batman”, and “The Artist”. I got my recital piece last week, it’s really pretty. It’s called Appalachian Sunrise by Michael Schwabe. “The Artist” will be doing Solfeggietto by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and “The Batman” is going to be doing Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin. God thing we have until August to practice!
Well, I’ve been very tired lately, and dealing with some stressful stuff, so I believe I’m going to go lie down on the couch and try to rest for a while. I hope you’ve had a good week!
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We began on Sunday evening, when the Kids Sunshine Choir did the special during the evening service at our church. You can check them out in the video below. 🙂
During the remainder of the week, we went a little light on school, as I’ve been dealing with some health issues, and my doctor is currently trying to regulate some new medications for me. Meanwhile, it often affects my days, so we’ve mostly been just working on some review things that you’ll be reading about soon! 🙂
We skipped out on homeschool park day yesterday, I was so tired, and slept a lot. 😦 Today, however, we made it to piano lessons. We’ve switched with another family, and now we are going Friday instead of Thursday. That way, the kids get to continue with their regular homeschool park day, when we’re able to make it.
I found out from our piano teacher (yes, “our” teacher. “The Batman”, “The Artist” & I are all taking lessons!) today that “The Artist” is really an advanced student, and that when she was at his level, she was required to practice an hour per day, 7 days a week. He’s not real keen on that, so I said we’d work up to it. He’s already doing 40 minutes, so beginning Monday, we’ll add 5 minutes each week, until he gets to an hour. She did say that on days when the time really isn’t there, he’s to do a MINIMUM of 30 minutes. Here’s a short little video I took when we got home, after I convinced him to play just one song for me to post. He sounded much better at lesson, but he just wanted to get it done with when I was recording, LOL!
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I didn’t manage a weekly wrap-up last week. I’ve been ill off and on for the past couple of weeks, and then last week, I broke my glasses!!! All is well on that front though, this week I got a replacement pair, though I’m still waiting on my prescription sunglasses (a needful thing in a state with at least 300 sunny days per year).
Anyway, back on February 7, we had another co-op day with our church homeschool group. This time, it was all about nutrition, manners, and physical activity.
My friend Aimee, one of our fabulous homeschool moms, was in charge of putting this one together, and she really made it fun! Here, she is teaching the kids what would NOT be good table manners, LOL!
Aimee discussed with the kids the importance of good nutrition, and of drinking enough water every day, especially living here in the desert.
The kids learned about the importance of good posture, and in this video, you can see some of them attempting to practice USING good posture!
After all of this, we moved to another room, where we worked on stretching . . .
Exercises . . .
And a game to work on good sportsmanship!
This is one of MY favorite photos of the day, two of our toddler friends! 🙂
So, this was a good homeschool day, in the midst of my not feeling well off and on. My kids really enjoy our co-op!
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Well! This has been a very busy week! Our church had special meetings this week for our Family and Friends Revival, from Sunday through Wednesday. It was so good, too! Our guest speaker was Brother David Hetzer, and he was just wonderful! He has also been a speaker for our youth camps in years past.
We also were treated to The Epleys coming to sing for us! My family had last seen them many, many years ago, back during the early years we spent in Port Huron, MI. They came with their children and sang at the church we attended at that time, and we just loved them! We still listen to their music in the car! Well, now, We are in New Mexico, and they came to the church we are members of here! These days, their kids are grown and raising families of their own, so it’s just mom and dad singing now. I did not get a good video of them during the meetings, but here is one from youtube of them singing one of the songs they did for us. I hope you enjoy it!
It was a busy but good week! Monday and Tuesday, our church provided a meal at 6:00 for everyone who came before the meeting at 7:00, and then Wednesday we did potluck at the same time. Our pastor says we’re “the eatin’-est church in town”, lol!
Before all the business, we had a bit of silliness at our house one evening after supper, when my husband and some of the boys started fooling around with one of “The Puzzler’s” Christmas gifts, as you’ll see in the video below. They were sure having fun!
All in all, it was a pretty good week! 🙂
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It’s been kind of a tough time around here lately, and by Monday I(!) was pretty much falling apart already. No, I’m not going into any details, suffice to say that my anxiety was hitting a pretty high level. By Wednesday evening I was basically falling apart.
So . . . the first blessing . . . my husband took yesterday off and declared he was giving ME a day off! Really, all I had to do was get myself, “The Batman” and “The Artist” to piano lesson. He kept “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” at home with him. I spent most of my time before going to piano working on the book launch/review which I posted yesterday. This did help somewhat, but he was nice enough to plan ahead and put in for a vacation day so he could take TODAY off, as well! I did need to take all of the boys to our monthly homeschool co-op at church this morning, which you’ll see and read about later, but once we got home, my husband told the kids that now it’s “Mom” time, and they have to come to him for everything for the rest of the day. He even got supper started for me in the roaster after I told him how to season it (an extra turkey I got on sale at Christmas), since it needed to be started while we were gone. 🙂
Our piano instruction book that our new teacher is putting us into has not yet come in at the music store, so she is kind of just maintaining us with some practice from our old books. It’s been over a year and a half since we had lessons (before we moved here to NM), so this is fine, because I for one, have forgotten a LOT! As they were before, though, both “The Batman” and “The Artist” are WORLDS ahead of me, however our teacher says she believes I will do well. She seems to think she can train me to be a church pianist! We will see. 🙂 Here is a short video of “The Batman” entertaining our teacher’s younger son during “The Artist’s” lesson . . .
There is just no way not to feel happy watching that! 🙂
Last night, since we knew my husband would not be going to work today, we let the boys stay up just a bit later than usual, and watched Iron Man 3. I had not seen it, so that was pretty good. The kids kept almost slipping up and referring to stuff from the Avengers movie (which I’ve not yet seen), things that had a bearing on what was happening. So, now I’m wanting to see the Avengers movie as soon as we can borrow a copy, lol!
This morning, we had co-op with our church homeschool group. We’re doing something a little different this semester, in that we’re trying to do some more educational things as opposed to just social things. For the next few months, we are having what we are calling the A&W group, for Art and Writing. We began with some beginning art lessons . . .
First, making sure the kids know what will be happening, and what is expected!
here’s the agenda . . .
If you can’t quite read the sign in the middle of the board (the one where each line begins with the letters R O C K S),
it reads like this:
Raise hand, silent mouth
Obey right away, all the way
Concentrate and stay focused
Keep your stuff to yourself
Show consideration
All good things, I’m thinking!
Miss Erica, beginning some easy lessons . . .
Here are some shots of the group, paying close attention to Miss Erica . . .
And some close-ups of my kids, hard at work!
“The Artist”
“The Batman”
“Mr. Loquacious”
“The Puzzler”
Here is a picture of the pre-schoolers, they had their own activity going in another room!
One of the things they worked on was the basics of drawing a lego mini-figure, and they’ll be working on their own personal one, which is to show something about their own personality, to bring back to co-op in February.
After art time, we made root beer floats, then watched a video segment from the “How It’s Made” program (shown below) about a factory where they make pop.
After the video, our group split into two sections, early readers/writers, and more advanced. The younger group worked on a little art/writing project on how to make a root beer float.
The rest of the kids worked on brainstorming their own stories about “A Crazy Day In A Soda Factory”, and began working on their stories. They’ll write them over the next month to bring back to co-op in February.
Working on their stories . . .
They all seem to have had a good time, so I’m glad we’re taking the co-op in this direction! We plan to have a “Creativity Fair” in April, where they may display any creative projects they have worked on during this time, either things from the co-op time or something creative they did on their own. I think it’ll be fun, and my kids are happy, since they totally missed the literature fair last year, because I had surgery the day before.
So, I’m going to go now and finish my “me” day, designing and working on some cards.
As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email address into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss an update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please, go to our Facebook page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂
This week, we had our mid-week service on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. We had a potluck fellowship at 6:00, followed by the service at 7:00. Two of the boys at our church are home from college for Christmas, and they, along with two of the boys from the teen group each were given the opportunity to preach for about 10 minutes each. I thought they did an awesome job! The service ended around 8:30, and we went home to get the boys to bed. In fact, my husband and I did not stay up late, either, because he had to get “The Batman” and “The Artist” up very early, so that he could get them back to the church in time to leave with the youth group for winter retreat, in Colorado.
On New Years Day, the rest of us kind of had a lazy day. I wasn’t feeling real great, and napped off and on, but was better by that night.
On Thursday, friends from church came and got “Mr. Loquacious” and “The puzzler” for an overnight with their kids. I ended up with most of the day yesterday and today to myself!
I told you yesterday what I would be doing with the time, and I did. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve decided to join in with the Pantry Challenge posted by fellow blogger Jessica Fisher over at Good Cheap Eats. As I told I would, I cleaned out and inventoried my pantry, fridge/freezer and deep freezer. I’m embarrassed to say I had to throw out a bunch of stuff. That’s the other reason I’m doing this, so I can learn to keep track of what we have, and use it up, thereby being a better steward.
So, I have rather a lot of odds and ends in the pantry, but very little meat, veggies or fruit. So, before I head out in the morning for groceries, we’ll be going over what we have and figuring out what we need to go with it.
I will update on the pantry challenge at least a couple of times a week. Not necessarily every day, because I have other things scheduled for posting too, but I will keep up to date on this. 🙂 You can find out all about where I got this idea by clicking the graphic below . . .
Today while the kids were all still gone, I worked on my ministry cards. I have my own tiny ministry at church with my hand-crafted cards. So far, I have eleven ladies and one family on my encouragement list, and I make them a card every week. I bring them to church to give them on Sunday. I really enjoy it, it feels good to encourage others!
I also worked on getting my blog planner printed out so I can either get it into a notebook or have it spiral bound at an office supply store, and printed out the words to the song I’m singing next Sunday evening, so that the pianist and I can practice it.
Then, it was time to go pick everyone up! We got back a little while before my husband got home, and then he cooked supper, hamburgers and hot dogs, the extras we didn’t use on New Years Day. We also had the rest of the potato salad, coleslaw, and some potato chips. It was nice. 🙂
How was your week? Why don’t you write about it and then link up with us over at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers? Click the graphic below to read about the guidelines . . .
As always, I’d love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and never miss another update! And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please do go to our Facebook Page and “like” it. I’d sure appreciate it if you did! 🙂
OK, so, let’s just be real here . . . I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my kids, and if anything ever happened to any of them, my heart would be in shreds. However, as any of you who are moms surely know, especially if you are fellow homeschooling moms, sometimes, we just need a little break. Right? 🙂
So, my older two, “The Batman” and “The Artist” left yesterday with the teen group from our church for their annual winter retreat to the Cross Bar X Ranch in Durango, Colorado, and the twins, ”
Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” just left a little while ago for an overnight with friends from church who have two kids that are great friends with our kids. I am kid-less until late tomorrow afternoon when the teens return, at which time I’ll be getting the twins back as well.
So what will I do with my time alone, you ask? Well, write this post, for one, LOL!
I will also shortly, be doing an inventory of my pantry cupboard, fridge/freezer and deep freezer, in preparation for joining the Pantry Challenge posted by fellow blogger Jessica Fisher over at Good Cheap Eats.
You can read all about it by clicking the graphic below . . .
She is doing a two week challenge, with specific goals. My challenge to myself is not for a specific time period, because I am planning to simply have us use up what we have, with a goal towards purchasing only the grocery items needed to round out meals made as much as possible from existing supplies. This will do a few things . . . it will save money, first and foremost. It will also force me to be more creative in meal planning and preparation, and it will help get these three areas emptied out for cleaning. I think it will also serve to show me where I need to make changes in food shopping, either because we have things that turn out to be something we don’t care for, or because it may give me the incentive to try harder to use more “real” foods, instead of convenient, packaged things. It will definitely help us become better stewards of what we have, which, as a Christian, I believe is something we should all learn to do.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about what I find in my inventory, and hopefully, how I plan to implement this whole thing, and we’ll see how it goes.
In any event, I’m going to give it a try. Anyone game to join me? 🙂
As always, I’d just love it if you join me on all of “My Journeys Through Life”! Just go and enter your email into the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog, and you’ll never miss another update! If you enjoy “My Journeys”, how about a little Facebook “like”? I’d sure appreciate it! 🙂
For the first time, in all of the years I have been singing special music at the various churches we have been part of over the years, this year I was scheduled to sing at Christmas! I really love this song, and our youth pastor’s wife Aubrey Grantham (who is soon also going to be our piano teacher!) did an AWESOME job on the piano! 🙂
Meanwhile, at 8:00 straight up this morning, I called the doctor’s office to get new paper prescriptions for “Mr. Loquacious” and “The puzzler”, as they cannot be faxed or e-filed to the pharmacy. I’m hoping they call me quickly to come get them, I have a few last-minute errands, and really would like to combine the errands with picking up the prescriptions, if possible.
I also need to call the pharmacy itself and check on whether they have ordered a medication for “The Batman”, because it wasn’t in stock for them to fill the other day, and the pharmacist on duty at the time was a floater who couldn’t order anything. 😦
We’re having breakfast, and then I plan to get laundry sorted and started washing, after which, while waiting to hear from the doctor’s office that I can come get the prescriptions, I’m going to work on cards for my wonderful hairstylist, Jody Muniz. She chose different colors than what I used in the samples I showed her, so I’m trying a different look and will make one of each and send the pictures of them to her by text before making the rest of them. I think they will come out nice! 🙂 I’m also working on a set of cards for someone who won them from a drawing at one of my Close To My Heart gatherings, along with a set of baby scrapbooking pages for a friend who doesn’t scrapbook, but wanted them as a gift for her sister. Which reminds me, as you know, I am a consultant for Close To My Heart, and I want to let you know that there are a bunch of things being retired in order to make room for new, beautiful products! I have seen a sneak peek at the new things, and you’re going to LOVE them, but meanwhile, while you still have a chance to get them, you may view and purchase retiring items here.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! 🙂
As always, I would love it if you joined me on all of “My Journeys”! Just go to the “sign me up” button at the top of the page and enter your email, you’ll never miss another update! 🙂 And, if you enjoy “My Journeys”, please go to our Facebook Page and “like” it! 🙂
One of my boys, “The Batman”, specifically asked if Andy could come out and be in the picture with them, lol! 
My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico! 