January 1 - 4 My Thankfulness Planner and Journal

For 2013 I bought a The Thanksfulness Planner and Journal for Wives and Mothers from www.Joyfulmomma.com.  I love it!  It's very simple and takes me about 5 minutes to complete but it keeps me thankful for what I have. It helps my focus to be on the positive things and not the negative.  It helps me to remember the good things in my life.  I fully recommend that everyone find 5 minutes of time in your morning to name the things that you are thankful for.  Keep them in a journal.  You MUST write them down though.  Date the page.  You will find you are thankful for the small things more than you are the bigger things.  America has really went downhill in the past few years. I refuse to let my family fall into that category of going downhill.  If we go down with the world, how can we be a light to shine for those in the darkness?  I am THANKFUL that I stumbled upon this journal.  It really makes you thankful for the small and seemingly insignificant things.  My plan is to write a post once a week on my thankfulness journal, to write my thoughts and feelings and me filling in these blanks.  By the way the journal is FREE as an ebook on the website mentioned above.  Take advantage of it!

January 1
Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.  2 Corinthians 9:15
Today I am thankful for: family.
Today, I am thankful to my husband for: being a Godly husband and father gladly providing for his children and I.
Today, I am also thankful for: health.

Today I get to:
-Spend time with my Jesus
-Let my husband know how thankful I am to be his wife
-Love on my children and show them how grateful I am for them
-Keep Skyler
-Have lunch with my family, parents, and grandparents

January 2
We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints.  Colossians 1:3-4
Today I am thankful for: rain and health
Today, I am thankful to my husband for: putting up with nonsense at work.
Today, I am also thankful for: my parents, grandparents, my sister, BIL, church family, and pastors.

Today I get to:
-Spend time with my Jesus
-Let my husband know how thankful I am to be his wife
-Love on my children and show them how grateful I am for them
-declutter my boys' room
-spend this day inside with my kids
-budget
-pay bills
-plan 2 week menu
-write grocery list

January 3

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. 1 Chronicles 16:34

Today, I am thankful to God for: friends, health, happiness, and contentment.

Today, I am thankful to my husband for: his staying firm in his beliefs and being happy with the way he is even though a lot of people don't like it.

Today, I am also thankful for: my children and the priviledge to be able to homeschool them.

Today, I get to: go to Just Jump for Kids and let the kids run off some energy with friends and spend time with my friend Amanda.

January 4
And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel.  And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.  Ezra 3:11

Today, I am thankful to God for: my home.  It is a beautiful place.  Also for the safe community that I live in.  It is so peaceful and not so crowded.

Today, I am thankful to my husband for: for taking the kids to town and getting a few groceries for me so that I can have a few moments by myself.

Today, I am also thankful for: the ability to put up with my children and the fact that I look forward to doing school with them no matter how difficult it may get.

Today, I get to: 
-Spend time with my Jesus
-Let my husband know how thankful I am to be his wife
-Love on my children and show them how grateful I am for them
-clean my house
-spend time with my kids and husband 

Our Compassion Child

We will have more info within the next month but I am excited to say that we are sponsoring a child from Haiti through Compassion International.  We sponsor two children through another company.  We have not been able to correspond with them as much as I would like.  Since my children are getting older I want them to be able to write them letters and get letters back at least once a month.  Not only will it be a great thing to correspond with the children we sponsor but it's great practice in grammar and punctuation(coming from the mom who home schools)  During the Christmas season it's easy to focus my children to giving and on Jesus.  I was in search of something for the rest of the 11 months of the year.  I think this is an awesome way to keep the focus on others.  This should be our focus all 12 months of the year and not just in December.  We will certainly be serving others more, doing more for others, and just be a more giving family in the name of Jesus.  Our child we are sponsoring is in Haiti and he is 4 months older than Noah.  Our goal is to sponsor 3 children in all and them all be gender and age of our children.

Good morning!  Today will be an easy day for us.  Wednesday always is.  It is rainy outside so I have declared this a movie day for the kids.  I think that I may work on my declutter project an hour or two today breaking up into 1 hour increments.  I am so trying to get my home decluttered and organized this year.  That's really my only goal apart from just being a better person all around. 

New Year's Day was mostly spent at my parents' house.  We kept Skyler since his parents had to work that day.  He is always such a pleasant baby.  We stopped keeping him back in October. It was just too much to do it full time but I always enjoy keeping him every now and then when they need me.  We got to mom and dad's about 11 I think.  Maybe a little earlier.  My Granny Smith was able to come as well as my mom's parents, my Grandma and Grandaddy Walters.  It's always such a blessing that I am able to spend holidays with my grandparents.  That means that my children are able to spend time with their great-grandparents.  All of mine but one had died by the time I was old enough to remember them.  Some died when my grandparents were children.  I find it as a blessing to be with them.  They are all Godly people and I love my children being able to get to know them and hear them talk about Jesus and know that we have Godly heritage.  We had a delicious lunch.  Dumplins, sweet potatoe surprise, turnip greens, and other delicious New Year's food.  One thing is for sure. We ate very good yesterday.  We sat around and talked enjoying each other's company.  We left around 3 and took Skyler home because his mom had already got off work and was home.

Last night we had our family devotion.  This is something that we have wanted to do for a while and we have on and off but my husband and I feel that it's very important that we do this.  We are also going to be doing a study on the book of Luke.  I'm doing this with an online group called Good Morning Girls.  It starts January 14th and they are doing a study for kids too so I am going to participate in both.  They have free ebooks of the studies which I think is awesome.  The study is called Live Like Jesus.  I can't wait to start the study.

Something that is brand new to Noah, Sarah, and I in 2013 is the fact that we have completely changed our homeschooling.  They are both enrolled in Georgia Cyber Academy which is K12.  They start January 14th on that.  We are all excited about it but a bit nervous too.  I'm mainly ready to get into the groove of things so I can set a routine.  I'm a very scheduled person and I have found that my kids thrive off routine and schedule.  They are the type that they have to know what is coming next.  It's very beneficial to them.  We already have all of the school materials and can't wait to get started!

Fun Friday

Wow!  What a busy day!  This morning started out with a bang.  I got the kids up and we went to town and ate breakfast.  This was their reward for doing such an awesome job with their school this week as well as helping me so much.  I had a tooth pulled on Monday and they have been super awesome and very helpful to me.  We sent Caleb off to school and Noah, Sarah, and I went to Wal-Mart and bought groceries.  

After we bought groceries at Wal-Mart we came home and unloaded.  We  began on school and I am happy to say that we were able to finish all subjects.  Usually Fridays are fun days with little to no structure due to my husband being home.  We were still doing school when it came time to pick up Caleb from preschool so my husband was nice enough to go get him.  

When my husband and Caleb got home and they were eating lunch, I went outside to let Annie get some exercise.

Beautiful leaf changing colors

Here is my sweet Chaweenie AnnaBelle

Look what I caught on camera! Beautiful!!!

After taking pictures, I went back inside and the kids were ready go carve the pumpkin.  I gathered all the supplies and took them out to the table on the patio.

About to carve a pumpkin.  Kids were so excited.

Sarah and I dug the yucky stuff out.

Daddy helped too!

Sarah got her turn to carve.

And Noah got a turn.

And even Caleb

We will be roasting pumpkin seeds soon and saving some to plant for next year.

The finished product!

 After carving the pumpkin we went inside and rested for a bit.  Then I couldn't stand it anymore.  With the tooth issue with me I had bought apples and caramel to do caramel apples but I haven't felt like doing them.  So we attempted today.  This was my very first time ever doing caramel apples.  Ever!  I had my first caramel apple in the mountains back at the beginning of October when we went on vacation.  It was DELICIOUS!!!!

I bought caramel morsels and melted them with a touch of water in a pot.  Sarah watched me.

After about 5 minutes on medium high heat the caramel morsels had turned into liquid.  Sarah dipped her apple into the caramel.  It smelled delicious!

Ready to get his apple to dip it.

It turned out to be a little more difficult than I thought.  Sarah touched the hot pot so that made me run them out of the kitchen to just let me do it.  Here is the finished product.  I must say I don't think I did too bad for a first timer.  I had one this evening and it was delightfully delicious!!

 

 

Fall Frolic Event at Agirama in Tifton

On Saturday October 20 our family ventured off to Tifton, GA to the Agirama.  The last time I went there was on a field trip with my class in elementary school.  I don't even remember the grade I was in.  All I really remember about going is when we sat under the shelter to eat and the country store.  I remember that I didn't know to take money and everyone got something from there but ME.  LOL! It's funny the things we remember about events in our lives.  I do remember having a LOT of fun.  Anything that had to do with getting out of the four walls of a classroom was ALWAYS fun.  It never was a let down.

We arrived at Tifton and we went into the store to pay.  We ventured out to the fenced in area to the left of the store.  We noticed a corn maze but we wanted to get on over to the other side of the place to walk around and see all the things to do so we didn't do the corn maze.  We went through the pumpkin patch.  It was really just pumpkins sitting out and around the fenced in area and they had some neat little pumpkin related things.  They had some nice picture props with hay bales, old tractors, and also seesaws and tire swings.  There was a corn box for the little ones to play in.  The following are pictures from that area.

Noah is 8 years old and almost 5 ft.  It's not hard to believe since his daddy is 6ft 5inch and his mommie is 5ft9inch

Mr. Caleb 3ft at 4 years old!

Sarah at a little over 3 1/2 foot

Here's a group pic of the kiddos.

Sarah, Caleb, and Noah

 We rode the train over to the other side of the pond where all the activities at the old 19th century houses were located.  They have them set up for you to walk into them and see how families lived then.  They have a country store as well.  It is a very neat little set up.

We rode a train run by steam.

Here's a nice pic of the 4 loves of my life. Caleb, Larry, Noah, and Sarah

Of course they farmed and this is how they ate back then

Noah got to pull water from the well and pour it down into the water pot for the animals

So did Sarah!!!

And so did Caleb!!!

After seeing the outdoor farm part, we went into one of the houses on display.  It was considered a progressive farmhouse which means they were trying new things to be more efficient.  These were some ladies sitting on the porch quilting by hand!!! 

It was really neat to see how this one room schoolhouse functioned back a long time ago.  There were all ages in one room.  The teacher would call each grade to the front where they would sit on a bench.  I did not know this.  Funny thing is, this is how our school here at the house works.  I was glad to see that maybe I'm not ruining my kids by not sending them to school for a "professional" to teach them. :)  We LOVE homeschooling!!!!

This was the front porch of the one room schoolhouse

The special of the day was watching the Native American dancing

This woman is a Blackfoot Indian.  I'm part Blackfoot Indian so I thought it would be neat to get a picture of her.  Her name was Topsanna.  It means "beautiful flower".

This was Topsanna's husband.  He was of a different Indian tribe.  He is explaining some things from their campsite they set up for people to see how the Indians lived before modern times.

This man played in several movies and he goes around the country doing different types of Native American talks, competitive dancing, etc.

She was beautiful to me!!!

My mom and dad also came and joined us.  This is my mom.  I sure wished I could figure out how to rotate these pics!

See Caleb?  That's as close as he would go to this man.  LOL!  He couldn't figure out why he looked the way he did.  LOL!

This man makes arrowheads.  The rock he was using was from Washington state and it was volcanic rock

As I look back to Saturday we had so much fun.  It was a slow paced, self guided tour of everything.  We didn't see everything so we really do plan to go back and soon.  If you've never been to this place, I highly recommend that you go.  Don't wait for a special event.  Call ahead and make arrangements to let them guide you on a tour.  That way you get hands on experience with everything.  Those are my plans because the kids really enjoyed this day so much!!

Good evening to you all!  It was a beautiful day today.  I love this time of year.  I have to say that I am working on some entries from our vacation to the mountains, our visit with some Blackhawk Helicopters last Tuesday, a visit at the state park on Wednesday, and then we went to a Fall Frolic event at the Agirama on Saturday in Tifton.  Saturday was a family event.  Tuesday and Wednesday was more like a school field trip event. I can't wait to finish everything and post it!!!  I hope to get that done tomorrow morning before we go to Caleb's field trip to the library.  Then I will have more to post about the library field trip.

Right now I need to close. I hope everyone has had a good day and has a wonderful Thursday.

Hello there all of my followers!  I am so sorry that I haven't checked in for so long.  My life is very busy but as busy as these other bloggers' lives are I do believe that I can make time to have a blog.  It may be the only time I have on the computer but I am going to make time to blog.  If I can help one person by blogging, it will be worth the time and effort that I put into the posts.

Be looking out for more to come.  We just went on an 8 day vacation to the mountains and I have lots of pictures and information to share on vacationing to the Pigeon Forge, TN area.