Kickin' into high gear!

   We take the summer off from piano lessons.  It's a nice break.  Usually the girls will still play from time to time, but this summer it didn't happen very often at all.  Amera and Joelle are excited to be practicing routinely again and Amera will begin lessons the first week of September.  She is still teaching Joelle and doing a great job at it!  Joelle has matured so much, I'm so proud of her.

Just a couple samples :)

  The kids are all excited about "Good news club" on Thursday afternoons and "Kids 4 Truth" starting up again on Wednesday nights.  Joelle, Brienne, Javi, and Clara will all have verses to memorize and "Truth books" to work on throughout each week.  Phew! I know that this will completely take over what we are currently doing in Bible, but for the next couple of weeks until it starts, I have a plan.  The idea came to me as we were driving in our van to church.  We were listening to this CD...

   The music is beautiful.  I often like to read along with the lyrics to familiarize myself with the words and to learn them.  But the thought that occurred to me was that my younger children (especially those who aren't reading yet or just hadn't read these lyrics) may not quite be getting the wonderful message that these words deliver.  I decided to use the lyrics to these songs as a teaching tool.  We began after breakfast the other day with "Come to the light".

Like a sunrise slowly spreading

To illumine all the sky,

Comes the Christ into the shadows

Of a world condemned to die.

Great the Light that shines in darkness,

Gracious Dayspring after night:

Christ the gospel truth revealing;

Drawing sinners to the Light.

CHORUS:

Darkened soul, behold His glory;

Blinded eyes, receive your sight.  

Sinner, leave your seat of darkness;

Rise and come to the Light!

{2011 by Soundforth    Words by Eileen Berry    Music by James Koerts   Orchestrated by Richard A. Nichols}

   I read this to them and we discussed what light coming into darkness is like.  How it illumines things that you could not see before. We read verses from John chapter one and discussed how we need the light of Christ to enlighten us, to help us to see how wrong the sin in our heart is so that we can turn from it and follow him.  We also talked about how God's Word is a lamp to our feet.  It lights the way for us so that we don't have to grope along in darkness and fall into pits!  And Jesus himself is the Light!

    We concluded that we must humble ourselves before him, stop trying to find our own way, and come to the Light!  Our evil deeds will be exposed, we won't be able to pretend we are good enough for God, but if we are ever going to be healed in our darkest places we have to let the light of Christ shine in.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming

into the world.  He was in the world, and the world was

made through him, yet the world did not know him.  He 

came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name,

he gave the right to become children of God, who were born,

not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man,

but of God.

John 1: 9-13

   It was such a blessed time!  I wanted to keep going, but I decided to keep it under 15 minutes and teach on the second verse this morning before I went out for a coffee date with some ladies.  Learning more about the song and discussing it has deepened our worship.  What joy fills our hearts when we sing praises to him!

The joys of homeschooling

   It's such a wonderful thing to see God work, even in the planning of a schedule.  I have definitely availed myself of the benefits of his help and wisdom in all my plans for daily home life with homeschooling included.  Priorities were reevaluated, and a proposed plan was scribbled into a notebook, we were ready to begin this new school year.

   Our first day went very well.  Not because the day was perfect and problem free (because it wasn't) but it went well because we had a plan for what to do and in what order.  I believe that we have found something that really works for us!  Such a good feeling!  I'm excited about the coming year.

   I nearly lost my voice yesterday.  I think it was a combination of recovering from being sick and talking so much as I taught the children.  Needless to say I was pretty tired out at the end of the day!  The kids found my lack of voice a bit amusing.  Brienne said "You sound so sweet mom".  It was pitiful because I couldn't even lift my voice to call someone from down the hall.  Joelle was so thoughtful and said "It's ok mom, you don't have to talk."  She could hardly stand to hear me strain to speak.

 Joelle got a haircut, sometimes you just want a change.

She's such a sweetie.

   

Here we have one of the results of Joelle asking to use my camera.

   Amera is learning about poetry in Literature.  Toward the end of the lesson, I told her to think of a word.  She chose "casserole".  Her first task was to describe it to me scientifically.  Second, she would write a 2-4 line poem about it.  She claims to not like poetry much, unless it is religious verse.  Hmmm...maybe soon she'll begin to change her mind.  At any rate, I was pretty impressed with what she came up with...

My, what it takes to put dinner together

And when mother bakes, our dinner gets better

A moments reflection on what taste we wish,

She bakes to perfection a casserole dish!

She's a poet and didn't even know it!  :)

Homeschooling can be such a joy and even fun!  Sometimes its hard and challenging too, but I just wouldn't trade it for the world.  I love watching my daughter's eyes sparkle as her wheels get turning and she is enjoying learning and being creative in the process.  I love the moments we share every day.  The excitement bubbling up in a child who is so happy that they are improving at something.  The times when something is so funny to our family, but it's a "you just had to be there" moment.  So many good things, and growing through trials together.  I love it all.

   

Little man behind the wheel!

Manny takes any opportunity he can get to explore the front part of our van.  

Especially that fun steering wheel that daddy and mommy always get to play with!

After asking the girls to bring the groceries in, I had to indulge him a bit.  :)

"Did he just cut me off?"  

Now there's a friendly face!

Had to get a pic of the feet!  They are mini replicas of daddy's.  I love it!

I persistently tried to get a shot of him pressing his nose up against
the glass, it was so cute and I missed it!  Oh well, I like this one too.

Manny was just lovin' being in the driver's seat!
I love how excited he gets about it. :)

Ok, this is totally random, but the above is a locust (I believe) that came
waltzing up to the kids on the back lawn.  Brienne was so terrified, she
whacked the poor thing in the eye with a baseball bat!  I felt terrible when I saw
it's smushed eye.  I couldn't bear to post that photo!  Anyway, we set him
free after our photo shoot and we hope he's doing ok with one eye.  :(

This is Brienne's impersonation of the bug.  She thought he was rather mean.
Amera told me that when Joelle saw it she exclaimed "Ugh! That's what John the Baptist ate??!!!"
Probably not, but we still got a good laugh over that one.

   Tomorrow is a big day for us.  We are ready to begin a new school year.  Actually, not officially until Monday.  But tomorrow will be our practice run.  I want to see how my new schedule is going to work.  I'm excited and hope that tomorrow will show us what works and what kinks we will need to iron out.  I'm excited about getting started!

The Grand Finale!

Amera worked on shields and swords all day long!  

Her brother and sisters were very appreciative of her efforts!

  This was the night for dressing up like knights!  Since Javier had boxes at work that we could use to make costumes, I dropped him off at work and took the opportunity to get some much needed groceries afterwards.  The kids enjoyed having boxes to play in and made little "houses".  This has been quite an unusual week for our living room.  We kept "King Arthur" (the knight statue) in our living room during non club times.  We kept getting a little startled from time to time as we would think someone strange was standing there!  We all adjusted to having things a little out of the ordinary, but I must say the blessings of this week far surpassed any minor inconveniences we may have had.  We loved doing this!  And I know we wouldn't hesitate to do it again.

Anyone who came dressed up was in the costume contest.

This is the girl that won!!

Josh made his dramatic appearance just as Amanda and I were beginning to wonder where he was!

Knight?  Robot?  Transformer?  We weren't exactly sure, but he looked great!

Cross to the other side and don't get tagged!

Manny was dubbed "The Hawaiian Knight"!

Clara was a princess among a multitude of knights!

   The kids were delighted to have a chance to strum on Josh's guitar while he played the chords and sang "Jesus Loves Me", "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", or "Happy Birthday".  

Amanda reviewed the Armor of God from Ephesians 6, and went over practical ways in which we use it.

Pause.  Insert sweet mother-daughter moment...ok moving on!  : )

The children who brought at least two visitors won the opportunity to pick a leader and 

PIE THEM!!

..........................................................................

   We are so thankful to each and every one of our helpers this week, who all contributed to this club in their own special ways.  We learned from you.  We saw ministry in action and we have been blessed by your example.  Thank you for helping to make this such an amazing week!

May God bless you all!