An Unusual Game

Playing "Travis"

The game of "Travis" is so fun and simple!
My 4yr old brother invented it!


He has a Playmobile soldier which he named "Travis".
And this lizard next to him is "Kobi"
They own the castle and all the other toy animals are their friends!

This game has become very popular!
We have a"lookout" Brontosaurus,
A "General" T-Rex, a "cook" named Mooch the Monkey, and on and on!

We have alot of fun playing this game, and alot more fun cleaning up all the animals after!

It's amazing how a simple game can be so much fun!
"Travis" is a great game for my two youngest siblings to play while Mom teaches school.
But sometimes Mr. Dinosaur roars a little bit loud!

:)

~Rebecca

Our Decision to Homeschool Part 1

I thought I would write about our homeschooling journey and how we decided to take that step of faith to home educate our children.

Back in 1992 my husband and I received Christ which changed our whole lives for ever.
At this point in our lives my husband and I had been married for 6 years and we had a daughter Rebecca who was 3 years old and a son Brandon who was 1 year old. Of course we were not really thinking about where our children were going to attend school up to this point but God definitely had a plan for us that He would reveal as time went on.

The church that we began to attend was a Bible believing church and they had their own Christian school so we began to think along this avenue. We did wonder how we would ever be able to afford Christian education on one income.

As our oldest daughter was drawing closer to school age we decided to enroll her in the Christian school at our local church. She attended there for Kindergarten and first grade. We noticed that she was starting to separate from our family and we were not pleased with her attitude that she was also developing. We knew that we really wanted to have more input in her daily life and that was not very easy to do when she was gone most of the day. Our son was approaching school age by this time and we really did not know if we could afford two in school.

Around 1995 the Lord brought a dear couple into our lives from our church. They had adopted a beautiful little boy who was my older daughters age and they had been homeschooling him.
I had never heard of homeschooling before so I had a lot of questions for them.
Why were they homeschooling? After all we had a Christian school at our church.
How were they homeschooling?
What about the law?

My dear friend was so wonderful, gently telling me about homeschooling and why they had decided to home educate their son.

I began to pray to the Lord about this. It was such a new idea for me. Could I really home educate our children?

I decided to talk to my husband about it.

My husband was not sure if this was really a good idea. It was new to him too.
He really did not think that this was a wise decision for our family. After all we had a Christian school at our church.

At this point I was also doing day care in the afternoon, and the Lord had blessed us with our third child, so it would be a challenge to manage school, day care and all of the many tasks of running a home. As I continued to pray about it my heart grew more and more burdened and I really felt like the Lord wanted me to take that step of faith and to trust Him.

I knew though that it would have to come from my husband to make this decision which was really hard for me.

As we continued to pray about it my husband and I decided that I would attend a homeschooling convention to learn more about homeschooling, and to see the curriculum that was available to parents.

I remember attending with my dear friend who was taking me under her wings. As the day went on every thing went very well until we attended a class about teaching higher math. As the class went on my heart sank and I know that it was very visible on my face. I began to think oh Lord how could I ever teach Calculus? Then I was reminded that my children were only going into 2nd grade and Kindergarten. What a great relief!

I went home that day with great excitement and shared with my husband all that I had learned.
We decided to give it a try.

Was I nervous? Oh yes! But I knew that the Lord would help me if I just put my trust in him.

In part two I will talk about our first homeschooling year.

(repost from July 7th, 2008)

Nursing home Ministry

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Yummy Apple Pie!

Can you smell that crisp fall air? See the leaves changing colors?
Up here in New England that is what we are seeing and with the change to fall is the wonderful smells of Apple Pie!

I always look forward to fall for those wonderful apple pies. We went to a local apple orchard and we were able to buy some second apples for 38 cents a pound. So my husband bought us 23 pounds of apples.

We have made some fried apples and of course apple pie.

My dear friend Pam moved to upper state NY and she asked me a couple of weeks ago to write a post about making apple pie. Now that I cannot make her one, since she is no longer here, I told her that I would post the recipe on our blog.

Here is how we make our apple pie.

First I pick about 7-8 nice large apples. Peel and core and slice into nice size pieces. If you want the apples really soft you can slice them really thin. My husband likes a little bit of a bite so I do not cut them really thin.

After I place them in a bowl and add sugar, flour and cinn. I set this aside to let the sugar create a nice apple juice in the bottom of the bowl.


Then I prepare the pie crust.

Combine flour, salt and shortening.

Cut shortening into the flour mixture.

Then I ad 7-8 tablespoons of very cold water to form the pie crust
I add ice cubes to my cold water a trick that I learned from a friend to make sure that the crust really forms well.

Then form into a nice ball on a floured surface and I wrap with syran wrap and place in fridge for a little bit. I find that if the dough is nice and cool it rolls out better.

Cut dough into two equal parts and flour counter. Roll out dough for bottom half.

Carefully lift crust and lay into pie dish.

Add apples, pile up nice and high!:)

Add a few pats of butter. ( I often forget this part:) )

Roll out the other crust and lay onto the top of your apples.

I like to fold and tuck the upper crust under the bottom crust to seal the pie and to give me a nice thick crust.

Then I pinch the edges to give it a pretty look.

Add a few slits on top of the pie to release the steam.

Now it is time to bake. Oven temp 425 degrees 40-50 mins

I like to place foil around the edges so they will not over cook. I remove them about 10 mins before the pie is done.

The best way to know that the pie is done is when the juice begins to bubble out of the slits that you made in the top of the pie.

Yum, doesn't that look so good! It smells good too! Add some ice cream and you are all set!

Here is the Recipe:

Pie Crust-
1 cup of shortening
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
7-8 tablspoons cold water (add a little bit of Ice)

Pie filling-
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp cinn.
7-8 large apples peeled and sliced
3 tlb spoons of butter or margarine


Well Pam I hope that you enjoy!

God Bless, Kathy

Fried apples are also good so give that a try too!

Visit Rebecca's blog!

Are you a young Lady, or a girl, who is unique?
Do people think that you are unusual?
Do you want to serve God with all your heart?

Then please visit this new Blog:

A Rather Unusual Maiden for God


In this blog you will find beautiful photos, encouraging scripture, a heart for God and a few fun and "unusual" things.
And you will also learn more about Rebecca- one of the co-authors of our blog.
We hope that you will enjoy it!


~Kathy and Rebecca~

A Day with Kate

Make a Smilebox slideshow We hope that you enjoy these pics of Kate!

Our Trip to the Zoo!

G'day mate!

This past weekend we went to a Zoo!

We had a lot of fun!
We saw many animals, and had a great day just having fun as a family!
I'll post a few pics and a SmileBox!

It did look like rain all day long, but God was good and allthough cloudy we did not see a single drop of rain till we were in the van for our long trip home!



Riding Sher-Kahn!


We liked this little guy, he was so cute!

My Hero!



Yes, I know, I'm sooo pretty. Don't you think?

Whoa Bessie! That's the biggest cow I ever did see!




I'm so blue, but not 'cause I'm sad, but if you touch me you will be sad!

That's no pussycat!
A very large tiger growls at the smaller tigers in the next cage.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Raising Children to Serve the Lord!

My son Jeremiah in the Nursing home being a blessing!

This is my greatest desire to have children that will walk in truth and serve the Lord.

I was reading over at Crystals blog Biblical Womanhood about the older women teaching the younger women and I often ask the Lord when do I become that older women?

My oldest daughter is nineteen and our youngest child is 2 years old so I still feel like I am in the mist of training our children and raising them for the Lord. My husband and I were saved when our oldest two children where 3 years old and 1 years old.

I have thanked the Lord so many times for saving my husband and I while our children were still so young.

So am I an older women? I just turned 45 years old so I feel old some days :) But than I have my struggles and I do not feel worthy of being able to give advise to the precious young wives out there desiring to do what is right.

I prayed about it and I feel that I can at least share some of the lessons that I have learned since I was saved in 1992.

I have been married for 22 years now and the Lord has richly blessed my marriage to my wonderful husband Doug.

So I thought I would start there. I hope that this series can be a blessing and encouragement to some one out there.

Raising our children for the Lord has to start with ourselves. The Lord has really been impressing on my heart that I need to be the example in my Christian life if I desire to see my children serving God. Lately I have felt frustrated because I do not seem to have the quiet time that I need with my savior every day. So this morning the Lord helped me and I was up at 5:00am to do my devotions. Now I am not saying this to make any of you feel that you have to get up at 5:00am to do your devotions I just find that for myself if I do not get up that early I just cannot find a quiet time with no one else up .

With that said I must say that I am not a morning person so getting up at 5:00am is not easy for me but I am praying that the Lord will help me to continue this. I would greatly appreciate your prayers for me in this matter. :)

I can always tell when I have not had my devotions my day seems to go wrong in every area and I just do not have the peace that only comes from walking in the spirit and not in my flesh.

I have learned that I can not train my children for the Lord in my own power. I need Gods intervention.

After my personal relationship with the Lord my relationship with my husband is the next most important thing.

If I desire to have children that will live for the Lord than my relationship with my husband has to be right.

Oh how I struggle with this. I desire so much to have a meek and quiet spirit and to be submissive to my husband in every area of my life. I know that God has commanded me to be in submission to my husband and this is something that he has been working on in my life.

If we do not have the right kind of relationship with our husbands one of respect and honor than our children will not respect the authority in our home.

Also our children need to see that mommy and daddy are happy together and that they have a stable home and a place of love.

I do struggle with this. I love my husband but so often I find myself not talking to him in a respectful tone and I have to ask him to forgive me.

Praise the Lord that he does not give up on me and that he promises to keep working in my life to make me the godly women that he desires me to be.

I have read several books about being a godly wife so I thought I would mention a couple.
The Excellent Wife, and Created to be his helpmeet. I would recommend you to read these books as a help and an encouragement.

God Bless, Kathy

(What adorable little peacocks!)

My Little Helper

One thing I have learned through the years is to take the time to train my little ones to be big helpers at home.

Our littlest daughter who is now two years old has such a sweet spirit about her and she loves to help!

The other night she wanted to help set the dinner table. So to the silverware drawer she went.




She put out the napkins and than began to work on the forks.






I just could not resist so I grabbed the camera and began taking pictures.

My husband patiently instructed her where to place the silverware , and she was eager to work!



So often I forget how important it is to include my little ones in the daily chores. They like to help mommy but I get so busy and rushed. Such a missed opportunity to teach them to have a helpful attitude.

The Lord has blessed us with eight children and we have been homeschooling now for 13 years so through the years I have learned how valuable it has been to have my children helping me.
Does the work get done always as I would like it to be done? Well not always but what valuable lessons have my children learned about helping.

One motto that we have here is that we are a family that pitches in and works together.
I hope to instill this in my children.

I remember my dad saying to me one day (who is 77 years old now) that he thought it so sad that children today grow up not knowing the real meaning of work. He grew up in a family of 12 children and on a farm so I am sure he knew what real work was all about.

I am thankful that my dad took the time to teach me the importance of being a good worker and that I can hopefully teach these values to my own children.

God Bless, Kathy

I guess this one missed the drawer! :)

A little Bit Under the Weather

As most of you have probably noticed the posts are a little scarce!
Our family is going through a bit of a "sick" period. Right now it is mostly colds and pink eye.
Please keep my Mom, Kathy, in your prayers, as she is very sick right now.
She has a sore throat on top of the back problems from that car accident a month ago.

Thankyou so much for your prayers!

She would be really encouraged by a nice little comment!

~God Bless~
Rebecca

Zoo pics Coming Soon!

Hello everyone!

Today we went to the Beardsley Zoo!
We had a lot of fun and I was able to take many pictures!
I will be posting them asap!

My younger siblings had a great time, especially when the free roaming Peacocks visited!


Pics coming soon!

~Rebecca~