One Thousand Gifts

I've seen this on a few blogs that I read. I've decided to join in. The Lord is so good and lately I find myself dwelling on the negative too much with losing my grandma and all the drama that surrounded that.

I want to dwell on the Lord's goodness after all the Bible does say in Psalm 100:5, "For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations." Now for my list, that I'll come back on add to on several occasions.

1. God's free salvation

2. My husband (who I don't deserve)

3. My son, John, who is a thinker and marches to his own drum

4. My daughter, Gracie, who loves to sing and has a hug for everyone

5. Our humble home with all it's mismatched furniture :)

6. God's Word that comforts me

7. God's grace that amazes me

8. God's goodness that leads me to repentance

9. My mom, my friend

10. Music to lift my soul in praise to God

11. Sunshine, that reminds me of the true Sonshine

12. Crisp fall mornings

13. Beautiful fall leaves

14. My children's sweet laughter

15. Homegrown tomatoes

16. My home church

17. The privilege to homeschool

18. A good children's book

19. Coupons

20. A new recipe

21. Making banana chocolate chips muffins with my kiddos

22. Watching my children play dress up

23. Writing titles for John's made up games

24. Reading aloud to my children

25. Making dinner for my hubby

Political Conversation between a 30, 6, and 4 year old

Today we had the pleasure of going on a walk. On our way back to the house we were seeing political signs. The following is our conversation.
John:"What does that sign say, Momma?"
Me: "It says Driehaus, John"
John:"Are we going to vote for Driehaus?"
Me: "I don't know, John."
Gracie:"I want to vote for daddy"
Gracie again:"No, I don't want to vote for daddy, because I love him."
John:"I don't want to vote for daddy to be the president, because then I wouldn't get to see him all day. Would I, Momma?"
Me:"Well, you probably wouldn't get to see him very much."

Oh, to be a child and to love your daddy that you'd vote for him, but then not be willing to sacrifice your time with your daddy. My children make me smile.

First Day of School

Today was our first official day back to school. For kindergarten we schooled through July and then took off the whole month of August. The break was good, but now we're on to first grade.
John and Gracie started their morning with homemade banana bread and some organic yogurt, oh, and of course their vitamins. John quickly asked if we could have a picnic. This is something I started about a month ago. We usually have a picnic atleast one time a day. We eat our food on a blanket spread on the living room floor, and after I'm finished eating I read aloud to them as they are the slowest eaters in the world. My mom says I'm just reaping what I sowed.

We then headed outside for some "First Day of School" pictures. In the background are all of John's new plants this year. He has become a plant fanatic.

Below John and Gracie are hard at work. I built a problem for John with our Math U See blocks and he's writing down what the number is. The number pictures is 124.

Gracie is busy sorting her beads. These are from our Preschool Activities in a bag swap. She uses her tripod grasp when picking them up.

This is our chart as we are counting how many days of school and after we reach 100 days of school we will have a celebration where we do lots of things with the number 100. Gracie put the fish on this year first as John did it last year. I told her it looks like he's trying to jump out of the bowl and she said the fish was just waiting for his food. The tape looks terrible, but it's the only thing that will keep it up on our basement walls. John is busy writing in the salt box. He already knows how to write his numbers, but we are gearing up for him to wrote them proportionally on primary lines. He's done this a few times on our dry erase board. They love the salt box.
John is placing our story disk on China. We are reading the Story of Ping this week for FIAR. We were discussing the Yangtze River and the Chinese culture. We watched a very interesting video called Families of China. It was really good. It was sad though how much the one little girl talked about the government and how they only "allow" them to have one child per family. John of course said that was not right. Amen, little guy!
Even though Gracie is looking a little whacky here, they are showing off their little booklets they made. One is of China's flag and the other is of a map of China. We took time to look at pictures of the Yangtze River online.

Now I just need to find some chopsticks for them to eat with. Not so bad for our first day of school.
P.S. I don't know why the date turned out wrong on these photos. It's suppose to be 09/02/2008. I checked my camera and my camera says it's 09/02/2008. I finally figure out how to post these pictures and now the date is wrong :)

Blueberry Picking

Some friends from church invited us to go blueberry picking when Aunt Christy was here. Now Gracie loves blueberries more than anyone I've ever seen. This makes this momma happy. So we jumped at the chance to go.

We now know why blueberries are so expensive. It's a lot of work picking berries. We had a huge bounty of them. This is what everyone in the group picked and they were so gracious to let us buy them all to bring home to store for our family. I would have never been able to pick that many with two little people with me.

Six Quirky Things Meme

Jen at Little Things tagged me for a little meme. Here are the rules. First, link back to the person who tagged you. List the rules in your post and tell about your six quirks. Then tag six more people.

So here goes:
1. I love peanut butter sandwiches with sliced dill pickles on it. It's really good, you should try it sometime. This is thanks to my dad.

2. I don't like for food to touch on my plate, it just gives me the creeps. It's getting better the older I get.

3. When I was younger, I would eat one thing at a time. Example: eat all my hamburger before my fries and then I'd eat my fries. I'd only eat them one at a time. I definitely have memories of my family waiting on me at a restaurant. I'm reaping what I sowed as Gracie is the slowest eater in the world.

4. B.C. that is before children, I could tell when someone was into my things. Now I don't have as much time to be as meticulous. I could go away and come back and tell someone had been in my closet.

5. I always have to have hand sanitizer in my purse. My sister calls me a germphobe. I don't know about that, but I'm the one that deals with sick kiddos.

6. I have to have a sheet on me just like Michelle or I can't go to sleep. If it's hot as it usually is in our house in the summer, I have to atleast have the sheet on one leg.

Those were hard to come up with. I guess since I think I'm pretty normal. Just joking, I know I'm not normal, but they were still hard to come up with.

Gracie Girl

Gracie is our child who says the most off the wall things. A few quotes from Gracie now follow.

In the car on the way to church, after watching probably too much of the Olympics, Gracie says, "John, we have to hurry the Japanese are coming."

Gracie has now renamed her babies, Gracie and Shawn Johnson. When she says Shawn Johnson, it's like it's one name too. It's hilarious.

I told Gracie to go put her toys away. Gracie said, "Watch me, momma, I'm so fast I could be in the Olympics."

When putting the children down for their naps, I turn on a tape of Patch the Pirate or Bible Stories, well the other day Gracie says, "Momma, I want to listen to Shawn Johnson."

Now I've saved the best for last. This morning we were picking things up and I said, "I don't know whose this is." Gracie says, "Oh, Momma, those are mine and John's. Granny just gave us some more junk."

Gracie really doesn't think they're junk. It's just that this momma has been flinging clutter out of this house like crazy. How can you not love such a girl?

I'm Still Here

It's been terrible long since I lost posted, actually so long that it is embarassing. Anyway, I guess we've just been busy doing lots of fun and working lots on decluttering this house. There's so many posts I've wanted to put up, but I have a terrible time getting my pictures to load and that's why I've not taken the time. When I get them loaded on the computer I always think to myself, "I can't believe I just did that." That's it for now. Hopefully I can figure out this crazy camera/computer thing.

My Little Man

As a mother, I think I tend to dwell on my kiddo's negatives a lot. I know it's because I'm trying to help them work on them. I know I want to be a good mother. Sometimes there's just times when your children do something and you're like "WOW, that was a blessing!" You really see something come out of them that you tried to sow in to them. Make sense?

We had a time like this on this past Friday. My hubby of course was at the homeschool convention and I heard we were suppose to be getting bad storms. Well, at our house when there are bad storms coming we have to make sure the drain is cleaned off at the bottom of our basements steps that are outside.

When I checked the drain, it needed to be cleaned off and there was debris on the steps as well. That debris could cause us big problems by getting washed down the steps and onto the drain. Well, I did not want to do this nasty job.

I called John and told him that daddy was away and that I needed a job done that a man does and he was the only man home (maybe it helped that we've been reading Old Yeller aloud at night and the boy takes care of the farm while his daddy is away). I told him I needed the drain and steps cleaned off. He said, "Yes, ma'am." He did not complain. I was expecting a complaint about how nasty the drain was or etc. Not that John complains a lot, but these were the thoughts in my own head about that nasty drain.

John was cleaning and Gracie and I were watering the plants in the backyard. John called, "Mama, come look at what a good job I'm doing." I went over and boy had he been doing a good job. He was doing an excellent job. I told him to make sure to clean off the steps too and to be careful.

We went inside and John said, "Momma, you know how daddy works so hard and has lots of jobs to do? Well, since daddy has so much to do, I want to do this job all the time to help daddy."

This was such a blessing to me. I do tell the children about how hard daddy works and let's get this cleaned up or picked up for when daddy comes home. It was a blessing to see John show some initiative.

When, I told Amos, he was happy too. He also said let's see how he feels in the Fall.

I just wanted to share and also encourage other mommas, just hold on you'll reap what you sow.

My Hubby

My husband, our friend Matt, and my mother-in-law are at the Columbus Homeschool Convention right now. They aren't just attending, they are sellers this year. This is the first time they've ever gone. You can see a picture of them here. Amos is the one on the right. They are there to sell things for Dr. Sam Gipp who owns Daystar Publishing.

Daystar Publishing has lots of good books and posters. They even have a Bible curriculum for juniors and seniors.

Gracie's favorite poster is "Wait!". She always says she wants to be a momma when she grows up and have ten kids.

When we were visiting with the Gipps at a restaurant, I told Gracie to tell Mrs. Gipp what she wanted to be when she grows up. Gracie then said, "A widow." We all started laughing and of course Gracie did too. She had no idea what she had said. Hey, she's only 3, right?

John's favorite post is "The Force". He's definitely a plane and train man.

I think everyone definitely has a new appreciation for the vendors at homeschool conventions. They do have a hard job!