My kids love board games! They especially love board games involving money, although they have been known to start making up their own rules after awhile, and playing the game ElCloud style. I enjoy board games, because I know they are engaging my children's minds and teaching them things like strategy and math.
We were very happy to have a chance to review the Life On The Farm board game by We R Fun, Inc. It had been on our children's wish list for several months. This is a high-quality, well-designed board game with a colorful playing board. We received the original version, for players age 8 and up, but there is also a preschool version available which doesn't require any reading.
Life On The Farm was designed by Keith Gohl and his sister Ev Johnson, to help others understand what life on a farm is really like ... from a family business perspective. Each player rolls a dice, moves forward that number of spaces, and then follows the directions on the board. Players draw income cards and expense cards which require them to pay vet bills, taxes, or collect sale income. It's a game of chance, as my 12 year old daughter discovered last night. She was poised to win, until she had to pay taxes four times, when no one else paid taxes at all that game.
The goal of the game is to be the first to retire with 60 cows and the money you began farming with. As We R Fun states on their how to play page: "Life on the Farm is not about running other players out of business - it’s about managing money and making the most out of what happens to you - what life is really about on a family farm! It is a classic board game, fast-moving, easy to understand and fun to play, and it truly appeals to all ages."
While I agree that this game appeals to all ages, and the family can enjoy playing it together ... we didn't find it very fast-moving. Well, I suppose the plays happen quickly, but the process of playing the game itself can be long. The instructions do include a shorter version, and that is the only way we have played it so far. It's just the nature of this type of board game to take awhile.
My kids have enjoyed playing the game twice since we received it. They wanted to play it many more times, but we didn't always have enough time to fit a game in. In our opinion, Life On The Farm is a great board game, with educational entertainment value for the entire family. It's an excellent way to spend quality family time on a winter evening.
The original version of Life On The Farm (ages 8 - 108) retails for $25.00, and the preschool version retails for $20.00. The game can be bought from We R Fun, Inc, The Old Schoolhouse Store, Amazon.com, and also on Kmart.com.
This would make an excellent educational (and FUN!) Christmas gift for any children age 7 and up, or a family gift for those you love!
This item was provided free for our review as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew. We received no other compensation, and this review is our honest opinion. Click the TOS Homeschool Crew banner at the top to read more reviews on this product by other Homeschool Crew members.
On Saturday we attended a potluck dinner for our 4-H Achievement Banquet . Unfortunately, I was lacking inspiration on what to prepare. Just after lunch, I finally started flipping through cookbooks looking for ideas.
I settled on a cheesy scalloped potato recipe, but had to take shortcuts by microwaving the potatoes for awhile before putting them into the crockpot. (If you're curious it was Potluck Potatoes from the Fix-It And Forget-It Cookbook.)
But, I still needed a second dish. I started flipping through the desserts and salads in the cookbook my church put together. I found a Cranberry Jello salad that sounded good, but I didn't have fresh cranberries to boil into syrup, and didn't have time to mess with letting a jello set-up. BUT I decided to take some of the ingredients and improvise my own fruit salad. It was easy and delicious! (If you like the tartness of cranberries, that is.)
ElCloud's Easy Holiday Cran-Apple Fruit Salad
Ingredients:
2 (16 oz.) cans of whole-berry cranberry sauce
3-4 apples, cored and diced
1 cup mini-marshmallows
Directions:
1. Open both cans of whole-berry cranberry sauce and pour into a 2 qt. bowl
2. Use a spoon to break up the cranberry sauce.
3. Cut apples into wedges, removing the core. Skin can be left on, or peeled off.
4. Cut apple wedges into small pie shaped slivers.
5. Stir apples and mini-marshmallows into the cranberry sauce.
6. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
That's it! It looks beautiful, and it's delicious!!
We were so blessed to have Robert Brock and his family and friends at church yesterday to present a message about the persecuted church and join with us in our worship service. While he prepared the audience that this would be a difficult message to hear, we were to bear in mind this truth: we win!
People don't like to talk about the persecuted church. Who would, except a persecutor and Satan?
A Christian is compelled to be a witness for Christ. That witness sometimes must testify of troubling situations, including the plight of our family in Christ. Over and over again, our speaker reaffirmed what Scripture teaches: that we win with Christ, and that we must exhibit a tremendous forgiving love for those who would persecute us, sharing the Gospel with everyone. Story after story revealed that the persecuted church doesn't cave in---they reach out with love and the hope of Jesus to those that hurt them!
Most of what he presented was not new to those of us who are regular readers of the Voice of the Martyrs monthly free magazine or www.persecution.com . Pictures, stories, and camera phone videos of actual persecution were chilling. That look of , "I had no idea!" was plainly evident on many faces, even as it was on mine when I read Tortured for Christ more than nine years ago. One would think that such stories would be reported, they are so appalling. One would like to think that such inhumanities are worthy of at least as much air time as celebrity clothing and scandals.
Indeed, it is a shock to realize that the evening news hasn't reported the demolition of Christian churches in foreign countries, the jailings and beatings of Christians who have committed the atrocious crime of not renouncing their faith. There are no headlines on the news about Christians kept for months in shipping containers in Eritrea because their government won't recognize the validity of their faith.
It should come as a shock to us to hear about the refugees in Sudan, the FARC Marxist guerillas that gun down Christian ministers in Colombia, the mob riots in India where Hindus and Communists fight each other and use Christians as scapegoats, and the most hated group of people in the world--Palestinian Christians.
We should be shocked enough to hit our knees and pray for them daily, hourly if we can.
We should be so shocked that we permanently leave the "church as social club" lifestyle behind and forsake luekwarm Christianity forever. Especially in my area of the country, where church can often be more of a habit than a conviction, we need to recover the passion for Jesus, the lost, and ministering to those persecuted in Christ's cause.
We should be so moved that we not "shoot the messenger" who tells us about our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ, but ask ,"What can we do to help?"
Well, here are some simple ways to learn more.
1. Go to the Voice of the Martyrs website and sign up to receive their FREE monthly newsletter and a FREE copy of Pastor Richard Wurmbrand's book, Tortured for Christ.
3. Invite a VOM speaker to address your group, church, homeschool co-op or Sunday school, by going to www.vommeetings.com . You can also sign up to be notified of meetings in your area at that site, too.
4. Share! Give away your newsletters to friends, sign them up, invite them to a VOM meeting, email articles, blog about what you've read, talk about it with friends, share with your pastor, but somehow SHARE!
That's what Voice of the Martyrs is all about. Give them a voice---yours.
I'm an affiliate for Christianbook.com, mainly because it's my favorite place to find Bibles, Christian books, homeschool supplies, etc. I just visited their Christmas shop and it is oo-la-la for an avid reader like myself. They also have lots of music, Advent calendars, home decor, and other goodies, too.
Enjoy and thanks for shoppping with Doe Hill Homeschool and CBD!
"We have a problem. This could be “the big one”—bigger than coping with theAhmadinejads, Kims, and Chavezes of the world and bigger than our current economic woes. Our republic, our society, may be heading for a crackup."
Last week the Porch Team had some great posts for you on the subject of Thanksgiving. If you haven't read any of those yet, look in the archives and check them out! A few of them may have more to offer for this week.
Since November 1st I've seen a lot of posts about being thankful. Several bloggers have taken up a be thankful challenge where they have to list each day, the things they are thankful for. Here is a short list of my thankful fors:
The bloggers here at HSB (Yes, you! I love the bloggers here at HSB, you have encouraged me, made me laugh, and taught me so many new things!)
Of course I'm thankful for much more but the list would go on for miles if I kept at it.
I pray that each of you will have safe travels this Thanksgiving weekend, that you will be a witness to all you spend time with, and that your hearts are full of the blessings that the Lord has given to you.
I can't wait to read your posts about how you spent the Thanksgiving weekend!
It's a lovely morning here in the Northwest, as in it is forcasted to be cloudy today and not rainy.
It is a trying time of year for me. My Dad loves to tell a story about me that when I was a little baby, he'd take me out in the rain or the cold and immediately I would start crying. I feel like that on the inside now. Oh, where I live is beautiful. The terrain, the wide variety of activities within a short distance from one another, the green...but the constant rain... Well, I'm sorry, you probably didn't come to my blog to hear a lot of whining. I live in the jet stream and I live on the foothills. This time of year I dream of moving somewhere a little sunnier. In the late Spring, Summer, and early Fall, I wouldn't dream of living anywhere else. Our ties have us rooted here anyhow.
This morning, I felt like a "normal" family. Jon was taking Riah to school and he and I got up early (as in 7:00) to get her ready to go. I cleaned, the other kids slept. We have such freedom with our business that we tend to not get up till 8:30 or 9:00 and often Jon doesn't leave until 10:00. I'm always so behind in my day because of this...at least this time of year when it's dark before 5:00. It seems like with most families the husband has to be to work by a certain time and that provides some routine. Of course, I know of other families where the Dad work swing shift. That would be a definite challenge. I am challenged enough to establish a routine for my family with a decently early bedtime and a decently early wake time.
I'm planning on going out and soaking in some light and doing a bit of shopping before the Thanksgiving rush. Then, I'll homeschool. Wish me God's blessings.
We attended the Missouri Right to Life banquet last week. This was the first banquet I had attended in several years. It was good to see the crowd. It was good to know we're not alone in this issue. Jack Cashill spoke. He spoke about the media and many others that TABETTO. For those of you that do not know what that is... (and unless you were there, you won't) It stands for Turning a Blind Eye to the Obvious.
He was talking specifically about abortion, about how 300,000+ people can show up in D.C. for the Life March in January, 2 days after the inauguration and not one liberal media outlet reported it. Want proof... go to Jack's website and order "Thine Eyes." Proof is in the video.
But...
I have been chewing on this for the last week and have come up with many areas where people TABETTO...here are just a few...
It is obvious that a Christian has no business attending movies like Harry Potter and New Moon.
It is obvious that child protective services does NOT protect children...
It is obvious that a Believer, adult or child, has no place in a government school...
It is obvious that abortion is murder
It is obvious that the government cannot run private industry... Chevy found that out the hard way.
It is obvious that the government cannot run healthcare either...but I don't want to find that out the hard way!
It is obvious that homosexuality is a sin...just as drunkeness, fornication, anger, lying etc are sins...
It is obvious that the media worships Obama and disdains those that stand up for truth...
It is obvious that truth cannot be relative!
It is obvious that by seperating ourselves into "African-Americans" "Native-Americans" etc. we are only causing more racism
It is obvious that God created... how else can one REALLY explain how and why everything in this universe works the way it does...Yea, I know "big bang" that's why when a coke can explodes, it piles itself up into one neat place waiting to be cleaned up instead of saturating everything within it's radius with sticky goop...random chaos cannot create order!
When I read about this at Econobusters today, I knew I had to check it out. We don't live too simply(I guess that depends upon who you compare us to) and we don't live extravagantly either but I feel we could always live a little more simply. I know some things that I want to do this year that we haven't in the past. And honestly, I don't know if one could be more simple than we were last year since we had a baby on December 15th.
Some things I would like to do:
The typical home decorations with the blessings
Baking (we are going to make cookies and treats for the ladies' tea this year)
Go to the gingerbread house contest here in town
Drive around and drink hot cocoa and look at light displays and ice sculptures
Visit Christmas on Ice here in our little town
Watch Christmas movies by a warm fire with my family
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