Favorite Resources for School

I think I’ve mentioned all of these before, but just in case, here are some of my very favorite school resources!
The Homegrown Preschooler, Kathy H. Lee and Lesli Richards
Honey for a Child’s Heart, Gladys Hunt
God’s Creation from A to Z, My Father’s World
The Well-Trained Mind, Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
The Nature Connection, Clare Walker Leslie
The Story of the World, Susan Wise Bauer
Right Start Mathematics, Joan Cotter

Every Moment Holy

Thankful for a sweet Thanksgiving with our family today. We enjoyed hosting in our new kitchen, and starting a new tradition with a new liturgy. Have you heard of Every Moment Holy? It is a just-released liturgy for the everyday and special moments of life. Today we shared these words around our table:

A Liturgy for Feasting with Friends

Beautiful words to remember that as we feast together we are looking forward to the Feast of Heaven, where death and darkness will never triumph! You can order the book here.

Kitchen Reno!

Just in time to host Thanksgiving, our kitchen update is complete! We have been wanting to tackle the kitchen since we bought our house six years ago, but we were saving to do a total makeover and kept getting waylaid by things like flooded basements and failing retaining walls. We've been making do just fine but I have never liked our kitchen...especially the awful tumbled tile countertops that I could not keep clean. We have updated the rest of the house, and we wanted to do something with the kitchen before we list the house in the spring. We decided on a minor renovation and I think it turned out beautifully!
Here's a before picture and an after picture from the back door:

We changed out the light fixtures and cabinet hardware, put in new appliances, ocean black granite countertops, and took out the peninsula that took up so much floor space and made the small space even smaller. Then I put in a lot of elbow grease cleaning and painting and caulking. I just love the way it turned out and I'm excited to host our family Thanksgiving in two days!

Someday

About 15 years ago I started a “Someday” journal, a bucket list/wish list of sorts. It was mostly a list of places to travel and skills to master, with a few other things thrown in. I came across this little journal when I was cleaning out a few weeks ago. It was an interesting exercise to glance back through it, and see what dreams have come to fruition and what dreams have changed. And for my check-things-off-the-list and if-it-is-written-down-I-must-follow-through personality to realize it is okay for your dreams to change. To a great extent, many things in my life have gone the way I expected they would. I hoped I would meet my husband in college, work for a few years, and then have precious babies and stay home to teach them and watch them grow. Those things have and are happening and they are my greatest blessings. Along the way, of course, has been much unanticipated joy and anguish. And some of those dreams have changed. I wanted to adopt a little girl, but God sent us Jacob and what would our family be like without this precious son? Through it all I’ve seen our gracious Lord’s hand. He is so good to us.

Key Biscayne

A few weeks ago the Gent had a work trip to Key Biscayne, south of Miami. I was only too happy to tag along. ;) I took very few pictures, as I was busy lounging on my beach chair reading while he worked. I also finished my bikini body workout plan right before our trip ended. I got back in shape and am tons stronger--unfortunately I messed up my hip while doing so but thanks to physical therapy I'm almost back to "normal" now. Always something. Thankful for this respite trip in a busy fall.

Halloween 2017

Each year our neighbor hosts a dinner for the families on our street, and then the kids go out trick or treating. We always have a great time and look forward to this each year! This year all the kids chose their own costumes. Annie was Little Red Riding Hood, Jacob was Spiderman, Sophie was Cinderella, and Nora was a ballerina. The highlight of the night was my kids' indignation (and follow-up interrogations with teenagers we came across) that some older-children-who-should-know-better stole all the Halloween candy from the bowl we left on the porch (all our neighbors do this when they are at the party, and it has never been a problem before).

Bible Study this Year

The past four years I have studied a book of the Bible through Bible Study Fellowship. But with homeschooling taking off in full swing this year, I wasn’t able to participate in the weekly morning class anymore. And our family struggles with evening obligations. It is just hard to be out at night with kids, or for the Gent to be able to come home early consistently. BSF wasn’t something I could commit to this year. And the women’s studies at our church were all during the daytime, too.

But what to do instead?! I’ve been keeping up with my daily Bible reading. This year I have been reading through the New Testament. Did you know if you read one chapter a day, Monday through Friday, you’ll read all the NT in a year with a few days to spare? I’ve also been continuing in Nancy Guthrie’s One Year Book of Hope.

Now that our school year is in a good pattern, I’ve added a bit more in-depth study. Nancy Guthrie’s Holding on to Hope includes a study on the book of Job that I’ve started walking through. And I also have Ann Voskamp’s Broken Way study guide. I plan to tackle one at a time. Then after that I’m going to use my concordance to read through what the New Testament says about prayer. I plan to go slowly through this, with my journal, and really study for myself what God’s Word has to say about prayer. I’ve heard plenty of sermons on prayer and ready plenty of books about it, but after our journey with David, I just find prayer mystifying and confusing and sometimes futile. I pray for my family and Compassion kids and the needs I know of in our church and community group and elsewhere, but I don’t really know why I’m doing it or what I’m supposed to be accomplishing. I need to cut out the chatter from others and study and listen for myself to what the Lord really teaches about prayer in His Word. I’m excited to dive in to this and see what truths He has to teach me.

Little Punkins and Pumpkins