Megan the bride-to-be

I would guess pretty much every little girl likes to play bride now and then. I would also guess that my having a business in the wedding industry makes my girls even more interested in thinking about their future weddings.

I have a wedding to do flowers for (they are basically done and ready to deliver now) this weekend and along with 2 uncles getting married this year, Megan has weddings on the brain. Yesterday she had fun dressing up and then wanted me to provide a bouquet (I had lots of flowers, didn't I?) but I told her to go find some dandelions for a bouquet. She brought some in and had me tie a bow around them. Then she wanted me to take pictures.

 She certainly makes an elegant bride!

Today as I was working on the flowers she came down to help (her special job is misting the corsages and boutonnieres and putting them in their boxes) and started discussing her wedding plans with me.

Megan: "Who do you think I should have for a flower girl?"

Me: "Maybe you'll need to wait to choose- I don't think she will have been born yet."

Megan: "I think I will have Jaten." (her 1 year old cousin)

Me: "How old do plan to be when you get married?"

Megan: "Oh, 28."

Me: "Then Jaten will be 24."

Megan: "Then maybe I will be 67."

I do love visiting with 5 year olds. They have no problem with outside the box thinking.
Megan does like to get life planned ahead of time. She plans on getting married and then she and her family will live with us. Meanwhile she is going to deliver mail and I get to take care of her kids. And...she is going to have an inside dog- so she doesn't have to sweep.

Sorry Megan, I draw the line on that one.

Hello June. I'm glad your here!

I love life (at least most of the time! ) and always enjoy a new month arriving. June promises to be full of good times and good memories! Here are some of the things I am looking forward to this month:

1. My sister Martha and her sweet children coming to stay here in our town (at my parents) for a while since their husband/daddy is busy serving our country. They normally live quite a long ways away and we will love having them close by!

2. Lots of fun messing with plants and playing in the dirt. I still have to finish planting the garden and then it will be time to care for it and harvest from it. I do love that we can watch things grow!

3. Wedding season has begun! I will get to do a lot of playing with flowers in the guise of running my floral business.

4. Going to bible camp! I have great memories of camp growing up and want the same for my children. Later this month my older sister Anna and I will be taking our children (4 each) to Bible Camp in Southern Iowa. We went there when we were kids and then Ken and I helped there while in college and my dad also attended there as a child. Anna and I will be helping out, my Megan and her Gregory will get to just hang out and have fun and the other 6 will be campers. I will miss being gone from Ken for a week but other than that I think it will be a lot of fun.

5. Watching my bees and giving them new honey supers as needed. My beekeeping mentor came over yesterday to check out my hives and said that both of them were doing wonderfully! I thought they were doing well but it was nice to know that someone experienced thought so too. He said that there isn't much work left for the summer, just make sure I always have empty honey supers on for them to fill up. I think I can handle that and am so excited about hopefully harvesting a bunch of honey come fall!

6. Getting to see various missionary and other friends that will be visiting at church this month.

7. The beginning of berry picking. We are really looking forward to that!

8. Biking. Lots and lots of it! Biking to church, to run errands and then bike rides just for fun on the beautiful trails we have around here. We had a very fun ride this past weekend but I think I shall have to write a whole post about that.

9. Enjoying the flowers. Even if they are just dandelions. Even if they are old dandelions. I was so amazed at how many flowers we had in May, June should be even better!

10. No more schoolwork! As of today (for the boys- Mara finished earlier) we are done with the bookwork and we are excited! That doesn't mean we won't be learning or that we won't be spending time in books but we won't have any required lessons for the summer and we are ready for that break!

 I love spending time with my kids and they love the summer. I thought I would share some of the things that they enjoy doing throughout the summer to go along with the "Mom, I'm bored." addition of Works for me Wednesday. My kids know better than to say "Mom, I'm bored" around here (as I can find them things to do quite quickly- and not necessarily things they want to do) so they figure out many ways to stay busy. Here are some of our ideas of fun things for kids to do: 

• Join me in enjoying all the things mentioned above.
• Play baseball.
• Visit the library and read lots of books.
• Try our hand at paper making. (doing our own recycling.)
• Go play and explore in the woods. Look for creatures such as the lizard we found earlier this year.
• Make lots of projects to enter at the county fair.
• Write letters.
• Celebrate odd Holidays such as National Dairy Month, National Candy Month, Fresh Fruits and Vegetable Month, Great outdoors week (2nd full week of June), National Camping Week (4th Week), National Crayon Day (June 7th), National Pink Day (on the 23rd but the boys don't want to celebrate) and Paul Bunyan Day (27th-A big deal here).
• Play in the tree fort and have fun building with old scraps of lumber.
• Play dress-up.
• Learn how to cook and bake better. I am thinking I will turn some of the meals over to the kids to be in charge of.
• Play in our sprinklers. They come on every afternoon and in warm weather the kids love to run through them.
• Play Catch.
• Play Croquet.
• Play Tennis.
• Practice piano and other music. I have now started teaching all of the kids the piano and hopefully they will get in quite a bit of practice this summer.
• Work on learning Spanish. We got Rosetta Stone this past year and we really enjoy it but we have neglected it lately so I hope to get back to it. Then we will try to have some Spanish meals and converse in it as best we can.
• Have picnics- even if it is in our own yard.
• Read books together- out loud.
• Make pudding pops and have fun eating them.
• Play board and card games.

 I don't think we will do any laying around feeling bored. Life is pretty fun!

I hope you have a happy June (and all summer) too!

Saving money at the pump....by biking!

Did you know that May is National Bike Month? That may not be on your calendar, but it is nevertheless.

  This year I have been watching the gas prices rising and rising and decided that once the weather was warm enough I wanted to see how long we could go without filling the tank on the van (which is our family vehicle and I drive it the most while Ken drives the car to work). I thought it would be fun to challenge myself and had contemplated challenging you all too and seeing if you wanted to join me for a race of sorts (How long can your tank of gas last?) on my blog. I didn't get around to blogging about it but I still thought it would be fun to try ourselves.

  I knew I had a lengthy drive early this month to get the bees and our wheat so I decided to start my challenge after that was over. That happened the first week in May so we officially started on our challenge on May 8th (Mother's Day).

  That first day of biking for the season ended up a little eventful! Ken had blown the tires up before we left but it ended up that a couple of them were blown up to much and they popped! Thankfully we had made it to church okay but we discovered them popped when we were headed home. We had some interesting times of trying to change tires, it starting to rain, wishing I hadn't forgotten my cell phone at home and then Ken having to rescue us with the van. I don't think we saved much in gas but it was a day to remember anyway.

That week we just stayed home all week except for church (I think that the 3 church services were are only outing anyway) and we had fun. I loved how relaxing it was to stay home! Ken had ordered more inter tubes for the bikes (because we ended up popping the spare for the trailer too) but they didn't come until the end of the week.

 The following Sunday we rode to church again and then we rode home for lunch and then rode our bikes to a special biking event. We were able to get some new helmets (very economically!) there for some of us, get our bikes tuned up and the kids got to make a smoothie with a bike that had a blender hooked up to the back of it. It was a free community event and we had fun at it.

On Tuesday we started to ride to our homeschool event but discovered that there was a nail in the trailer tire. I think maybe we should buy stock in the inter tube company! We ended up driving instead.

So far we have rode our bikes to church on an average of 2 out of every 3 times. We have also rode our bikes to our baseball games and out a couple of other times. Mostly we just aren't going a lot. We did make some rather long drives in our van that I hadn't anticipated when I started this challenge. We were invited to a birthday party, a graduation party and I was asked to play at a funeral all of which where quite a ways from our place and to far to bike in an afternoon.

  Our biggest biking adventure so far this month was a day of errands and shopping in town. (I had basically put everything off and tried to avoid stores but we were needing to get some things done so I planned a day of it.) We had lots of fun and I took pictures so I thought I would share our day with you. I am hoping it will also make others realize just how much can be done on bikes.

We left home at about 10 am after the boys had done most of their schoolwork (Mara is already done for the year).  We rode the 3 miles into town.

Our first stop was the post office where I mailed a letter and a package.

Second stop was the library. We had hauled our 30-40 books in that needed to be returned. We checked out around that many again. I had decided it might not be the best (both because of weight and because I didn't want them to get stolen) to haul them around town so instead we just hauled them over to where Ken parks his car while he is at work and put them in there for Ken to bring home that evening. We stopped in at Ken's office to drop something off as well and say hello.

Next stop was the eyeglass place as Mara's glasses needed to be adjusted. That was a quick stop. The cool bike stand above was just outside the eye doctors.

  We also went across the street to a used book store. I had brought 4 books to trade in. We found 5 books we wanted and with the value of our trade in we had to only pay 50 cents. I think I like that used book store!

  Next we rode to Ben Franklin where I hoped to find ribbon for an upcoming wedding. Unfortunately no success.

 Then we went across the street to Good Will. We were very excited to find tennis shoes for Jonathan that looked brand new and they were just his size. He really needed new ones and his old ones had holes in them. Megan also found some new looking "Hello Kitty" dress shoes and so we got them too.

 We rode on to another 2nd hand store where I found a salad master steamer for $1. I was looking for camping cooking pots and that won't work for that but I think it might come in handy. It looked brand new.

Then we rode across town to the bread store. We got bread and then also splurged on crackers and some sweet treats to add to our picnic lunch. We were able to put what we bought there in Mara's pannier bags, I hauled pretty much everything else in the trailer.

 Next stop was the park for a picnic lunch of PB and J sandwiches, oranges and the aforementioned treats.

 The crackers that we got were scrabble cheese crackers so Megan was trying to spell her name with them.

Here Jonathan was having fun with the cable bridge.

 Aaron and Mara climbed up high on a "rock". This park had all new equipment and so the kids had never played on it before. We had a fun time there.

After that we headed to the grocery store where I got a few things including a heavy watermelon and muskmelon and some pansy plants that weren't the easiest things to haul on a bike. We managed however!

 Next stop was Target where we did find some new running shoes for Aaron (but no church shoes for Mara- we can't seem to see any anywhere that we like) and I picked up some dressing and Mayo that were on sale and I had coupons for. Those weren't exactly light things to add to our load but oh well. We also had fun looking over the bikes. Both Jonathan and I are dreaming of getting new ones but we want to be careful this time. When Ken and Mara got new ones a couple of years ago we got cheap ones and we have not been impressed with how they work. I want to read up on whatever type of bike we buy next.

We ended up getting home around 3:30. It was a pretty full day of errands but we had fun and it worked to go on our bikes so it was fun to have that success. We were all pretty hot and tired by the time we made it home but we were ready to ride to baseball at 6 pm and the kids had fun playing that evening.

 Mara commented that she really liked doing our errands on bikes and getting to picnic as well. I love getting the exercise plus getting to really see things as we go by. We had such fun looking at all the flowers we passed. A day like that certainly isn't the most time efficient but it was fun and there were several benefits:

• We saved money on gas.
• I had a memorable time with my children.
• We got some good fresh air and exercise.

This weekend we hope to get some more bike riding in though it won't save us gas as we are planning on driving to try out a new section of trail where we haven't ridden before. It should be fun.

 Do you like to ride bikes? Are you doing anything to make it so you spend less on gas? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Getting schoolwork done fast!

I don't know about you all but at our house we are kind of ready for the school year to be over. There are so many fun things to do outside that we would rather not spend to much time inside doing bookwork. We have a problem however- the kids aren't quite done with their books (though Mara will be this week) and maybe I'm weird but I like them to finish them. Other years we have been done by the end of April but it didn't work out this year so we are still working.

 Jonathan not only has workbooks left to finish but he also was having a very hard time focusing on his work so we needed to find a solution. I did some brainstorming with my Mom and between our ideas this is the solution that has worked:

 My kids are racing to get their schoolwork done each day. Each morning we start out with Jonathan and Mara reading through their Math lesson and doing their practice problems while Aaron reads aloud to me. For that we do not race. But then they all come to the living room and I say "On your Mark get set, GO!" and off they race to their desk and Jonathan does 10 Math problems (1/3 of his lesson), Mara does 12 problems (1/2 of her lesson) and Aaron does one page.  Whoever gets done first can have 5 chocolate or butterscotch chips. We continue to race through the rest of their work.

I have divided their work into pretty short sections so the races go pretty fast. They do have to correct any problems they get wrong so they aren't hurrying to the point of not doing a good job. The races have simply helped them (Jonathan especially- the other two generally already did a pretty good job) to stay focused and concentrate.

We have all loved the result as now we are all done with schoolwork (except our fun read aloud learning books which we do year round after lunch) anytime from 10:30-11:30 and we are starting our workbook time around 9:15-9:30 (after we pray, sing, memorize and read a little). That really frees us up for the rest of the day to get other stuff done. We have always tried to get done before lunch (which can sometimes be at 1:30 pm) but this extra hour or two of time is very nice!

Anyway- for now racing with our schoolwork is working very well for us!

A busy week

 This past week was a busy one and this current one is shaping up to be even busier. Such is life. We will strive to enjoy all the activities!

Here are some of our fun "Homesteading" activities of the past week:

 Making noodles. I haven't done this for quite some time and my children were quite excited to see me making them. They love to help make them and they are a huge favorite of theirs for eating. My mom makes them more often than I so they consider them a "Grandma specialty" but were happy to have me make them too. Generally we use them to make chicken noodle soup but they are actually quite versatile.

 They are simple to make just needing flour, egg, salt and water (or a little whey or milk). I don't really measure, just mix them together to make a very stiff dough and then roll it out and cut it into strips. You can use them right away or dry them and then freeze them for later.

 Another activity that we did (well mostly watched my dad do) was doing some grafting and pruning on our apple trees. I had made the mistake of forgetting to put screening around my trees this past winter. Mice or something like that found three of them (I only have 4) and chewed on the bark around them. The were still alive but two of them were not doing well at all and the other one was at risk. Dad worked at fixing them up and the kids and I helped when we could.

 I am very blessed to have a Dad who knows how to do all sorts of things including grafting and taking care of and growing fruit trees.

This past weekend my parents went on a little trip and wondered if we could watch their bottle fed baby goat. They have a lot of baby goats (over a dozen) but this one was not claimed by it's mother and so they have had to feed it. By younger brother was going to still be home and do the rest of the chores but they thought it would be easier if he didn't have to bottle feed a baby too. Also they figured my kids would enjoy the extra time with Daisy Flower.

 We had decided that Daisy flower could stay in our garden since we have high deer proof fence around it and they brought an orange snow fence (I think about 4 feet high) along to block of the part of the garden that had growing stuff already in it.

The kids did have a wonderful time with Daisy Flower. They played tag and had tons of fun.

 We soon learned however that a baby goat does not care to be alone. We also learned that 4 foot or 5 foot fences were no match for a kid that is lonely.

 The brain in that head above is much smarter than you might think!

We soon began to think we were living out a nursery rhyme, except ours went like this:

"Mara had a little goat, little goat, little goat.
Mara had a little goat whose fur was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mara went, Mara went, Mara went,
Everywhere that Mara went the Goat was sure to go."

 We would put Daisy Flower in the fence and then come up to the house but right behind us would be a little goat that wanted to come in. We had turned one of my compost bins into a little shed and Daisy jumped up on top of it and then over the fence (since it was right next to the side). That process only took her a couple of seconds.

 So next we moved the orange snow fence so that daisy couldn't get to the compost bins and made her a new shelter smack dab in the middle of the garden. She still got up on it but she couldn't just over the fence from that location.

This did stump her for a couple of minutes and we figured we had things fixed up. Well we were wrong. She figured out how to go under the snow fence and then up on the compost bin and over the other fence. So Ken went out and made it so she couldn't go under. She worked on that a few minutes more and then she just jumped over the 4 foot snow fence and up onto the compost bin and over the garden fence and trotted right back up to the door again.

Here she figured if we didn't answer her first knock maybe she had better work to get some more attention!

She actually came straight in several times because our door doesn't latch securely and so she could just push it open. She was awfully cute but knowing her dirtier habits I just didn't care to have her in the house. Saturday it rained most of the day but the kids rotated and gave her company most of the day anyway. Since the garden was working they played tag all over the yard and had a wonderful time.

They had fun feeding her 4 times a day.

My younger brother took her home Saturday evening so she didn't have to spend another night (and during church on Sunday) all alone stuck in a little dog kennel which was the only way (other than the rabbit pen) we were able to keep her in a pen. We were sorry we weren't able to keep her the whole time but we were tired out and I am sure she was happier to be back with the other goats.

Lessons learned:

-If you get a goat don't get just one. They are very sociable and need company.

- We are happy to have an easy pet like a rabbit.

- Baby goats can act a lot like a dog.

Which was fun for a day but a good reminder to me of why we aren't ready for a dog.

-Don't underestimate the ingenuity and determination of a baby goat.

We are planning on getting some livestock soon however.

Around 1,800 of them to be exact.

I am extremely excited and nervous!

We are trying to get ready. 

Here I am suited up for the great adventure!

 We found out that the bees are coming on Wednesday! I got veils and gloves fixed up for Mara and I. We are using hats we already had and I made tulle veils. I used some plastic ribbing to make sure that they don't blow into our faces but rather stay firmly where they belong.

For gloves I did buy some for myself at Menards, just short leather gloves but then I sewed gauntlets onto them. For Mara I found some old ( I think actually antique) leather dress gloves that I had stored away and I attached gauntlets onto them. Mara is going to go and help me pick up the bees so I decided she had better have a suit too. Now all the kids want them and I plan on working on that after this extremely busy week is over.

What have you been working on at your place?

I am linking this post up to Homestead Revival.

He has risen!

Happy Resurrection Sunday to you all!

  We are at the time of year in which we celebrate the anniversary of Jesus' death and Resurrection. This event is so important, so life changing if you allow it to be. I hope that it is something you think about far more than this time of the year.

  It is so hard to believe, so amazing, almost more than we can comprehend, that God was willing to send His Son, Jesus, to come to earth for us. He is called Immanuel, which means "God with us". He came to earth to live a normal life and then not only be the greatest example ever but to become the needed sacrifice for our sins! He took the burden of our sins to the cross- suffering all the way and then He was put to death for us.

 "For you have been called for this purpose,

since Christ also suffered for you,

leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,

"who committed no sin,

nor was any deceit found in His mouth:"

and while being reviled, did not revile in return;

while suffering, He uttered no threats,

but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;

and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross,

that we might die to sin and live to righteousness;

for by His wounds you were healed,

For you were continually straying like sheep,

but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls."

1 Peter 2:21-25

   But that wasn't the end of the story. He was taken down from the cross and buried in a tomb but He didn't stay dead. He came to life again! That makes all the difference in the world. We do not serve and worship a God who is dead, He is alive! Death has no power over Him!

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received,

that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

and that He was buried,

and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."

1 Corinthians 15:3 & 4

Jesus did this for us because he wants us to die to sin and live to righteousness. He did this so that we could get rid of our burden of sin and have a new life with the promise of eternal life with Him in heaven.

Last week was a pretty exciting week for us because Jonathan and Aaron after several months of thinking and visiting decided that they were totally ready to make the decision to follow Christ and make the full commitment to having a changed life. Both boys are fairly young (7 & 9) and so I was hesitant in them making this decision but they were fully convinced that they were ready to do so and so I am rejoicing in that. They were uniting with Christ in His resurrection and death as it speaks of in Romans 6.

"Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus

have been baptized into His death?

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death,

in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,

so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death,

certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,

knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him,

that our body of sin might be done away with,

that we should no longer be slaves to sin;

for he who has died is freed from sin."

Romans 6:3-7

May you have blessed day remembering what Christ has done for you!

Ultimate Blog Party {It's a lunch date at my place}

Hello. I am so glad you stopped by to visit! Whether you come often or this is your first time (thanks to the Ultimate Blog Party), I am glad to have you here. Please come in, I can't wait to visit and get to know you better! (Side note- this is what I love about blogging. Not only can I stay in contact with family and friends across the world- I can meet new friends too!)

In case we have never met before I guess I had better do some introductions... My name is Abbi and I am happily married to my husband of 12+ years, Ken. I am very blessed to be the stay at home and homeschooling mom of 4 beautiful children, Mara, Jonathan, Aaron and Megan. If you have kids I hope that you brought them with you as my kids would love to play with them!

Mara-11, Aaron-7, Megan- almost 5 and Jonathan-9

They can be pretty goofy and silly but they have a lot of fun and I am blessed to be their mother. 

 So lets send the kids outside to play in the tree fort if it is warm or they can play inside if it is cool. Come to our living room and have a seat and lets get busy visiting!

  What would you like to visit about? It is my goal in my visiting (whether face to face or on this blog) to say things that encourage and build up others and glorify my heavenly Father. I know that unfortunately I don't always succeed but that is my goal.

   I have many, many interests (I think the woman in Proverbs 31 did too!) so I am pretty sure we have at least something in common. Maybe you would like to talk about....

• Homeschooling. I would love to hear how you do it and what books you love. I enjoy talking about the ways we learn creatively, making the world our classroom. We love reading around here and I would be glad to show you some of the ones we have really enjoyed and learned from. It is always fun to get together with another homeschooler and pick each other's brains.
• Gardening. I would love to give you a tour but it is still to early to plant here. In fact there is still quite a bit of snow on the garden. I did just get my seeds in the mail though and I will be starting stuff inside right away. I like to garden very frugally and naturally. I love to be able to get a lot of produce from it with which I can feed my family. We do also enjoy having quite a few flowers around our place and we keep adding more fruit trees and bushes about every year in hopes of someday having a lot of our own fruits. I am also studying up on and dreaming of keeping bees which will provide both honey, wax and pollination for our garden.
• Living frugally. I very much enjoy getting to visit with other mothers and sharing tips on ways to live better on less. To me living frugally is not a chore but rather a really fun challenge! I love learning ways to spend less on food though the prices go up- and this while we eat healthier. I also love to challenge myself to make most of our gifts, save on electricity, go as long as possible without buying clothes or just go without shopping in general. So many ideas! I love to hear yours and I try to share mine so that we can all be better stewards of what God has given us.
• Making things. In fact, if you want, I could pull out my stamps and stuff and we could have fun making cards together.  I love to keep my hands busy and I also really enjoy looking around our home and seeing things that we have made ourselves. To me it makes a home so much more personal to have much of the furnishings handmade.I have many interests in making things- sewing, knitting, crocheting, floral work, basket making, quilting, painting and more... 
• Baking and cooking. If you ask me if I love to cook, "Yes" wouldn't be my first response. I have however learned to enjoy it by making it fun for me. I do a lot of cooking as we eat at home most of the time and I like to have homemade meals. What makes it fun for me is in the process of creating meals that are healthy for my family and help us to keep our food costs low. I also make things interesting in the kitchen by making up my own recipes, figuring out ways to use what we have an abundance of and by using our meals to further our education. I enjoy combining what we are learning in school with our foods. (Such as having ethnic foods to go along with our geography.)
• Raising children, being a good wife,natural health, organizing, taking care of the earth God has given us and not being wasteful or maybe we could even have a Bible study. There is so much to talk about you might just have to come back again!

Can you stay for lunch? Lunches around here aren't very fancy, when it is just us we usually eat leftovers but today I think we will have soup. Would you like potato, tomato or split pea? The potatoes we gleaned from nearby fields and the tomatoes I grew in our garden.  I think we will have some homemade bread too, would you like to slice it? And we have some ginger cookies for dessert. I hope you like them!
 

So, what would you like to visit about? I would love to have you introduce yourself and tell what your favorite topic is in the comments! I look forward to meeting you all! Thanks so much for visiting!

Celebrating!

My kids (family actually because Ken and I do too) love to celebrate! It doesn't matter if it is a birthday or a holiday doing something special to celebrate is always fun. With my kids at least the celebration doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive, just something that makes it out of the ordinary and special makes them very excited and happy.

  Yesterday was Saint Patrick's Day. Well we aren't Catholic or Irish and it could be a day that is very easily passed by and it really has no significance to us. But my sister Martha's birthday is on that day and ever since she was born it has been a special day for us and we have tended to wear green and pinch anybody that didn't.

 Yesterday when I got up I remembered it was Martha's birthday but didn't happen to think about the wearing of green and so I didn't. Come breakfast time Ken came up with a green shirt on and reminded us (me with a pinch!) that green was the color for the day.

  

In the afternoon the kids thought it would be fun to have a special supper. I already had pizza on the menu but decided I could make it into a 4 leaf clover shape and Megan thought broccoli on top would help to make it green and we also used food coloring to make the cheese a bit green as well. For supper we also ate a green salad and apple juice which was our pot of gold. We had fun having a green table which I placed our shamrock in the middle of for our centerpiece. Mara made a Chocolate cake with green mint frosting for dessert.

All of our activities were easy using things we had close at hand but yet it was special and fun.

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring so we are trying to think of fun ways to celebrate that.

Making Our Home a Haven: Day 2

Happy First of March!! When March arrives it feels like Spring is near. :-)

 This was day two of our week of trying to make our home a haven. I was pretty tired today and not feeling all that wonderful and so I didn't attempt any big projects but it was still my goal to figure out ways to make our home a comfortable, pleasant and loving place to be.

  The picture above is actually one from yesterday but I took it after I wrote my post for yesterday. The kids went outside to play yesterday afternoon and I thought it would be fun to have hot chocolate ready for them when they came in. (Though Mara and Jonathan actually ended up taking theirs outside in travel mugs to give them something to keep warm with while they continued to work on their fort.) The kids all really enjoyed their hot chocolate and it was fun for me to think of a very simple way to please them and make them feel loved.

This morning I was able to get up early again for prayer time and then I meditated on these verses:

"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of me heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." Psalms 19:14  and A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1    More great reminders of how I want to use my tongue.

Monica had suggested that we write a note to someone. I chose to write three notes to various people in my life (a friend, an aunt and a cousin) who have all been fairly recently diagnosed with cancer. I just wanted to let them know that I care and I am praying. Writing notes was a nice activity to do while being available for the boys if they needed any help with their math.

Our day was pretty filled with schoolwork and going to an interesting lecture on Antarctica given by a man who had been there 21 times. I was feeling rather wiped out today so I didn't tackle any new projects but did work to keep our main living areas clean.

 The kids had fun taking my outside to tour the fort that they had begun making yesterday.

 It was pretty cold so we didn't stay out long but I enjoyed the tour.

This evening I thought it would be fun to do something to make our supper special. The only problem was I didn't have much energy or time. Then I thought why am I trying to be this super woman who makes our home a special place all "on my own"? Wouldn't it be even more fun to share that fun and excitement with the kids? I asked them if they wanted to work at making the supper table special and the younger 3 thought that sounded like lots of fun.

 They added a tablecloth to the table, a candle to put by everyone's plate (and we ate by candlelight), they wrapped our silverware up in the napkins, we used plates that aren't our usual plates and then Megan made heart place tags to put on top of them. They had a great time getting that down and it was fun to together work to make our home a happy place.

After supper we thought it would be fun to play a game but Ken had a project he needed to get done. We were able to help him do his project and play a game too. That was another fun way to do stuff together and work on having a happy home.

The day wasn't perfect, I was tired and struggled to not be grumpy but God helped us and blessed us in so many ways and helped us to make our home a haven.