We have designated Tuesday as our Christmas Craft and Baking Day.  Our calendar is clear, so we can spend the day making messes and memories!

The following are crafts we hope to try:

1. Clothespin Christmas Trees (The Shaving Cream Snowman in this post looks cute, too.)

2.  String Balls 

3.  Hands and Foot Reindeer

4.  Circle Garland  We’ll actually be cutting scenes out of Christmas cards and gluing them to some of our circles.  Alternating the picture circles with plain circles should make a pretty and unique garland.

5. Gingerbread Cookie Ornaments.  I found directions for making these out of construction paper, not actual dough (though I’ve made those before).  Since you sprinkle cinnamon over white glue on the front of the paper cutouts, we’ll still get that nice cinnamon scent.

6.  Button Wreath Ornaments

We’ll be baking these Chocolate Holiday Bears and Chocolate Peanut Sweeties.  I’ll try to remember to take pictures to document our day and to show how the projects turn out.  Since you all know about my limited crafting ability, I’m trusting our daughters to put their talent to work!

What have you been baking and crafting with your children?

Last night, our eight-year-old scored the winning goal in overtime of her soccer game.  It was a sweet moment for her and the team, as they’ve won only one other game this season.

While God gives us life, we will walk with our children through their victories and defeats.  Both are full of teachable moments.  In victory, we help them be gracious, humble, and thankful.  Through defeat, they learn to persevere, accept loss, yet hold their head up high.  This is true in any competitive venture, from athletics to academics to fine arts.

As parents, we celebrate or console, offer congratulations or comfort.  Either way, our children should be able to rest in the fact that they are loved unconditionally.  Whether or not they score a goal in the game, get an “A” on the test, or win a first place trophy, I will always be proud to be my daughters’ mother.

On Friday, we traveled back in time 150 years or so.

Being able to choose your field trips is one benefit of homeschooling.  Since our daughters enjoy history, we attended Living History Day at Boone Hall Plantation.  Re-enactors were dressed in period garb and talked with us as though we were walking through their camp during the 1860’s.

Being girls, we were enamored by the ladies in their hoopskirts.  We also learned about some of the schooling methods used during that time period.

Other highlights included dipping candles, sewing stitches in a quilt, seeing what a field hospital would have been like, and hearing a Civil War-era cannon fired.

Sometimes, spending a day in the past makes for good memories in the present!

To Our Daughter’s Future Father-in-Law,

Sometime in the coming years, our children will meet.  While your son’s quick smile or handsome face may at first attract our daughter’s attention, I trust that it will be his strength of character that holds her interest. 

Just to warn you – she’s used to being around real men, the kind who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, and have manly hobbies like hunting, fishing, and carpentry.  Perhaps your son likes to work on cars or plays sports. If he’d rather spend hours watching television or devotes his free time to video games, he’s probably not the one for her.

I hope that they will share a love of good literature and uplifting music.  While she won’t expect a wealthy lifestyle, she will want a man with a good work ethic.  We’ll advise her to watch how this young man treats his mother; it’s likely he will treat his wife the same way.

Above all, we are training our daughter to seek a man who loves God and wants His will for his life.  One of our greatest desires is that she will be equipped to support a husband in his walk with the Lord and work alongside him in whatever ministry God calls them to do.

I look forward to meeting you one day and, as time and distance allow, sharing a Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas Eve celebration with your family.  May we spend many happy hours together, welcoming grandchildren, rejoicing at God’s working in our children’s lives.

Until then, my husband and I will be doing our best, with God’s help and by His all-encompassing grace, to rear a daughter who will make your son a fine wife.

Sincerely,

The mother of your future daughter-in-law

One of the aspects of homeschooling I’m enjoying is that every day is different.  While our daughters have fallen into a routine of doing their subjects in a certain order, you never know what will spark their interest on a given day.

For my eight-year-old, yesterday was all about putting a lima bean in a cup of water to see if it would grow – then spending twenty minutes straight swinging on the backyard swingset when her work was done.

Our ten-year-old was working on a poster about mammals.  She had chosen to study the domestic cat and was excitedly sharing facts with us as she wrote them down on notecards. She also had a brief introduction to algebra during math class, which I think she found rather “grown-up.”

I guess we’re still in the “honeymoon” phase of homeschooling, but I find that sitting alongside our children while they discover something new is a real pleasure.  It leaves me wondering, “What will we learn today?”

Once we decided to homeschool our daughters for this school year, my husband got busy converting the playroom to a combination playroom/schoolroom.

We agreed to our ten-year-old daughter’s request to paint the room blue.  The bookshelves and other furniture was rearranged in an attempt to create two separate workstations.  We bought inexpensive desks from Walmart and put up two memo boards that our girls made in Vacation Bible School this summer.  My husband then put together a white board and hung it on the wall. 

While shopping at TJ Maxx last week, I found some new curtain panels at an excellent price.  I’m now in the process of looking for different desk chairs.  The ones we’re using belong at the snack table in the living area, but they’re working for now.

I like this new space so much that I almost wish I could go back to school!  Since they’ll be spending a great deal of time in that room, I’m glad the girls like it as well.

After months of prayer and much discussion, my husband and I made the decision to homeschool our daughters for this school year.  Once we finalized our plans a few weeks ago, we got busy ordering curriculum, reorienting the playroom into more of a school room, and generally preparing ourselves for this new phase of life.

It feels like most of the major decisions have been made and we are all very excited about beginning this adventure!  I think “adventure” is an appropriate word for this undertaking; the first definition I found for that word is “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.”  So I anticipate homeschooling will be – unusual some days, hazardous on others, and all told, an exciting experience for our family. 

While I won’t turn this into a homeschooling blog, I will share some of the things that happen on this journey.  Through other blogs, I am finding a wonderful homeschooling community online.  I look forward to learning from them, as well as from “real-life” friends who are already on this path. For now, we’ve committed to one year of homeschooling and will simply wait and see how the months ahead of us unfold.

Next Monday, August 22nd, will be our first day of school.  For those of you who are veteran homeschoolers, feel free to share any wisdom you’ve gained from your experience.

Let the adventure begin!