my blessed life

Here we are at the weekend again--where do these days go?!  It's been a very busy week around here ...I'm sensing a theme with that. Now let's see where we last left off.   Last weekend we enjoyed a short visit from my parents and sister.  While they were here we played a round at our new local mini golf --which just happens to be located at our favorite local farm !  We had fun--even if it was a super challenging course at which I stunk:) Of course, it's just fun to hang out at the farm anyway.  There are the kittens, the goats, the pigs, and swinging and rocking on the front porch is definitely a must! Sunday night was a par-tay at our house!  Woot!  We had a Super Hero party to honor all of our children and nursery workers and their families from our church.  The kids really got into it and wore full costume (mine are Batgirl and Spiderman).   My husband and the award-presenter as Mullet Man!  LOL  He cracks me up! He also dec

As I sit here at my desk this morning with a stuffy head and a scratchy throat, I am a bit overwhelmed at the planning I need to be doing.  We officially start back to school next Tuesday (the day after Labor Day) and I have not yet taken my usual whole day to do some serious lesson planning! Where has the summer gone?!  And August ?!  It has just been a blur!! I am really excited about this year though!  Even though we haven't made many curriculum changes, we do have a few new things coming up.  Although the reason we're sticking with some of the same curriculum is that we love it so much. Our " old faves " are Singapore Math, Total Language Plus, First Language Lessons, Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting, Story of the World, and Apologia science .  Our new choices and subjects include God's Great Covenant , Spanish, and piano.  You can read more about our choices for this year here . Now to just figure out how to fit it all in! I love how The Well-Tra

Being the history-loving family that we are, we have recently been enjoying an ebook from Golden Prairie Press called Ten Girls from History   by Kate Dickinson Sweetser and edited by Amy Puetz.   Ten Girls from History features ten {true} short stories about ten of the bravest girls in history.  Their tales of bravery, courage, and perseverance will truly inspire you!  Some of their names may be familiar to you, but some may not be.  But their stories are definitely worth the read.   These ten girls include: Louisa May Alcott : Author of  Little Women Clara Morris : The Girl who Won Fame as an Actress  Clara Barton : The Angel of the Battlefield Molly Pitcher : The Brave Gunner of the Battle of Monmouth Cofachiqui : An Indian Princess Madeleine De Vercheres : The Heroine of Castle Dangerous Dorothy Quincy : A Girl of the American Revolution Ida Lewis : The Heroine of Lime Rock Lighthouse Elizabeth Van Lew : The Girl who Risked all for the Union Virginia Reed

Ahh...it was so good to have my plan to refer back to and keep myself accountable throughout last week!  I felt like I was back in my groove:) It was a very productive week, too!  Got lots of housecleaning done, got almost caught up on my filing/paperwork (one of my least fave things!), started my lesson plans for the beginning of school which is coming up very quickly), Vince finished up several yard projects ....see, I just needed a plan to keep me on track. I also tried a couple of new recipes last week that we really liked.  The Prairieland Pot Roast  was very flavorful and good.  I was curious how it would taste being cooked in Catalina dressing, but we liked it a lot. The Balsamic Honey Chicken was very good, too, although mine didn't get that delicious-looking outer skin that it showed in pics on the blog that I found it (could have had something to do with my using boneless/skinless breasts instead of legs).  It tasted great though and was the perfect light dinner co

Here we are wrapping up another full week!  It's been a very productive one, too.  We have been working on several projects around our house.  Vince has been working on a deck expansion all summer and has finally finished it (I'll be blogging that soon!).  He's also had a major landscaping project in our backyard and that is just about to shape up.  We also tackled the garage this week.  I haven't been able to park in there for about 6 or more months now, but things are looking better.  The garage still has a long way to go though.  That will be yet another upcoming blog.  I love to blog about completed projects! Inside the house I tackled some way-overdue filing (about 8 months overdue!) and made good headway with that.  (I really hate paperwork and filing!).  There was also some organizing and cleaning that happened--that's always good, right?   I even started on my lesson plans (finally!).   In the meantime, Mr. B captured a couple of crickets and cr

Yesterday I wrapped up my Bible study on the Proverbs 31 woman.  I was a little behind schedule due to several trips in July and early August, but I was determined to finish.  Having a FB support group for this study has helped with my accountability--I must admit that I sometimes fall behind when I'm doing a study on my own and then just give up.  Also, having a group has been nice to bounce thoughts and ideas off of--and to hear theirs as well! The Proverbs 31 Woman ...One Virtue at a Time is a study by Courtney Joseph of Women Living Well and Good Morning Girls .  Even though they have finished this study, the resources are all still online and free for you to use and do on your own.  You can also access their weekly videos on these two sites. I have learned so much over the course of the summer as I worked through this chapter verse-by-verse.  I have absolutely relished my quiet times in the mornings (well, sometimes not-so-quiet times with my early-bird son--it'

The title on this book was enough to grab my attention: I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek.  As a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew I received not only the book but also the curriculum workbook by Apologia to go along with it. This books dives deep into why the claims of Christianity are actually much more reasonable than other belief systems and how it truly takes more faith to not believe in God than to believe in God.   This is not a light read--you actually have to think about what you're reading (that's a good thing!).  The authors of this book are not presenting their evidence in an emotional or manipulative way.  They are well-studied and intelligent, even scientific at times, in their presentation.  And yet they are passionate about what they believe and want to equip fellow Christians with the ability to also know why the believe what they believe and how to defend their faith to non-believers.  

( Cream Cheese Chicken Chili & Jalapeno Cheddar Parmesan Cornbread  that my hubby made me from recipes he's pinned--amazing stuff!!) I don't know about you but having Pinterest to be my personal virtual bulletin board or filing system has greatly simplified my online life!  I love being able to put all of my favorite things all in one place rather than having a million links in my *favorites* folder. Of course, every time I'm on Pinterest I find a bazillion yummy-looking recipes and they make me SO hungry-ha!  I have no less than a dozen food-centered boards.  There are more food-related pins among the other boards, but a total of 12 totally dedicated to recipes.  Yes, I like to cook and eat! This week though I decided it was time to create a couple of new boards to keep track of the recipes I've found and tried on Pinterest.  So I now have a board titled * Made It & Loved It * and one called * Made It ...probably won't make it again *.  I must s

Well, I thought that some of you regular readers may be getting tired of my posting weekly menus--plus I was so crazy-busy through July and the first part of August that I just slacked off--so I have not been posting my dinner plans on here for a few weeks.  Although I told myself that I would still make them out on paper ...but apparently I need this accountability to keep me on track because our dinners have been more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants or too much going out to eat.  So, back to the planning and posting! And it looks to be a yummy week: Monday: -Run errands -Start lesson plans (hopefully) -Dinner: Prairieland Pot Roast with Carrots & Potatoes Tuesday: -Weed front flower bed (do I really want to do that?) -Continue working on lesson plans -Dinner: Balsamic Honey Chicken Breasts and Red, White & Blue Salad Wednesday: -Cleaning and organizing at the church -Bible Study at church -Dinner: {out} Thursday: -Housecleaning in preparation for my family

Yea!  It's time for a Weekly Wrap-Up !  We haven't officially started back to school, but our co-op kicked-off this week and our homeschool group activities have started back up, too, so a wrap-up is in order.   I'll actually take you back to last week first.   We have been enjoying the free Lego builds that Lego stores host on the first Tuesday of each month.  This was our 2nd month to go.  The kids got to build a shark (last month it was an Olympic torch) to take home.  It's a great little freebie--and it gives us an excuse to head to Nashville for a night out:) My parents came in for a quick visit last week also.  The kiddos had fun hanging out and also building puzzles with them (last week was puzzlepalooza at our house--the kids worked over 20 and they were EVERYwhere!). This week marked the first day of school for our local public schools--one of our elementary schools is right next door to our church.  We were so excited to host a lunch