Last week I talked about  how I cherish things from our past or others to decorate or use in our home.  A good friend of mines mom always makes cookies and candy for a bunch of us every year.  She is a wonderful baker and we get a box full of chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter ones, candy and in years past her great sugar cookies which I love.  Well, arthitis has set in and she can't roll and press the sugar cookies of years past so I was blessed enough to inherit her cookie cutters.  She knew how much I loved them over the years and gave me those along with her recipe for them.  This is the set.  Everytime I use them I will think of all the years these cutters made cookies for some many people in her life.  I am honored they are in my kitchen now!

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I love decorating the house with things from our past or pieces of our heritage.  I thought I would share some different things this Christmas season from that! 

The first picture is a painting my husband did in the 80's his senior year in high school.  He painted this for his mom as a Christmas gift, you can see the inscription on it below.  She passed away this year so all of these things I'm sharing today remind us of her this Christmas.  The picture don't do this painting justice because of trying to take the picture through the frame but it is so beautiful, my husband is quite the artist!

The next two are ornaments my mother in law made, they are now priceless to us!  We had many more and several years ago our tree fell over with help of our kitties and most of them broke.

My husband just loves this Santa, his mom put it out every year.  It's so 70's.  It reminds my husband of his childhood!

Dad was off work last week and we went to a real working farm that you could tour from the 1800's.  There was so much to see there and it was FREE!

It has a duplicate old school like in the Little House Days!  The good old McGuffey Readers!

Allie working in the OLD kitchen!

The old carriages that they used!

Baby pigs!

Still working the farm the old fashion way!

Me and hubby sitting on the old homestead.  We dream of having some land someday, we sat there and pretended all those acres were ours!

We had a great time!

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We love this plate, I had always wanted one for our family and a good friend at church bought it for me at Christmas a couple of years ago.  We had gotten away from using it but started again lately, my kids LOVE it.   A child who does an exceptional thing during the day-really good at sharing, helping with clean up especially after not being ask to, their birthdays or having a personal day of accomplish (like getting the next belt in taekwondo)  are all great reasons for the child to get the plate at dinner time.  You wouldn't believe how much they want this, even my 9 year old feels so special when he gets it-its amazing how something so small can mean so much to our kids.  You can get these at Christian Book Stores, I have even seen some parents who make one with their kids.  Just get a colored plate and decorate it. 

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My stack of to Read books.  Whats really sad is I have started many of them, why am I doing that?  I need to finish one first!  This doesn't include all the audio books I am listening to or have loaded on my MP3 player.   I also have another stack of books to read on people's lives (bios) 

Mary over at Canadagirl is hosting Friday Show n Tell this week and she wants us to share our pets if you want to and of course I love to show them off so here goes.

First there is Max, our pure bred labrador retriever.  He is a great family dog, he is just wonderful with the kids.  Of course he loves water and one of the funny things he does is lay down to drink his water, how lazy is that!  He is a beautiful dog.

Next is Mobly, Mobly was found as a kitten in our garbage in 1997 around Thanksgiving time.  He was very cold and hungry and when we took him to the vet they felt he was around 6 months old.  He has been with us every since.  He is more my husbands cat, he loves him.  He is very laid back and doesn't have as much energy now that he is 11 yrs old.  Mobly will only drink out of the bathroom sink, where water flows out so every morning when you go in you have to turn the sink on for him!  He has always been that way!

Last is Aslan.  He is a beautiful tabby cat, I love him.  He is only 2.  My oldest son has such a bond with him.  He climbs up the steps of his top bunk on the bunk bed every night to see him, its so cute.  He loves the kids too which seems rare for a cat.  I think it helps we got him after having a house that was full.  He seems to always want to be in  room with people and loves us being home.  He will be looking at the window when we drive up.   This is a picture of him and my daughter, I know he shouldn't be on the table and I don't let him but this picture was too cute to pass up!

If you look at my first page on my blog I have a couple more cute pictures of my kitties on Wordless Wednesday!

 Well this will be different, today my show n tell is going to be my new blog.  I'm so happy about it!  Christi from Christi designs took my husband and I's stick people and used it in the design yet added eloquence and beauty to my blog in a way I never could.  She did such a great job!  I couldn't be happier with it!  This was my mothers day present from my family!   Leave it to a blogger to want a new blog instead of flowers, ha ha! 

If you visit often but have never left a comment please let me know how you like the new look.  I would love to hear from your lurkers out there!

I have started a bible study by Beth Moore on the Life of David.  She has come out with a personal study series  called Personal Reflections.  I have always wanted to do a study by her that was geared for personal use, I have loved the studies I have done from her in groups for sure!  She has a deep LOVE for the Word and it shows.  She excites you so much about the Bible in the way that she teaches and I enjoy her studies a great deal.   I just started this one and already love it!  It is a 90 day journey about David, it is a thick book and even has a CD to listen to before you start the study.  She made the book look old and the pages worn on the side, I bought mine from CBD.   

I also have been reading Beth Moore little devotional book Breaking Free Day by Day.  Everyday you just read one very short page with a scripture verse and a little story from Beth.  It is so good that I have been know to read ahead.  The pages are dated.  This is just a one minute read everyday to hear a little of God's Word, I keep it on my nightstand and read it before I even get out of bed. 

Just thought I would share a couple of resources I was really enjoying.

Angela

Well today is Good Friday, a day that our Savior died on the cross for all of our yuck!  I'm going to be Mary (mother of Jesus) tonight in our Good Friday Service.  As I read my part it strikes me how terrible this had to be for her.  Imagine your innocent son on a cross suffering an unimaginable death!  I truly can't comprehend how terrible this was for her and yet in the midst of his agony he was concerned for her, he wanted her taken care of.  That wonderful love between a mother and son!  Praise God we have three days later on Easter when he AROSE and we truly know Yes, He is the Son of God.  Thank you Jesus for paying a debt you didn't have to pay for such undeserving people.  This gets me to my show n tell.

As my regular readers know my mother in law passed in January.  I can't tell you how much I miss her; it has truly been the hardest thing I have ever endured.  She was a firm believer and I know she is happier then ever but I struggle a great deal, I can't believe she isn't here anymore, she really isn't.  She had a way of making every holiday so special and with Easter coming up my husband and I am especially having a hard time.  She made all of her grandkids Easter baskets when they were born, when they went to her house after church she would have the baskets out on the table filled with goodies.  This year they will get those baskets from us, something to help them remember and celebrate what she has given them.  My oldest son said today, Gee lives on here and pointed to his heart and I said yes, she does.  She will always be a part of you, always!  I wanted to show the baskets she made with her loving hands, please pray for us as we continue to adjust. 

Praise God for Easter, because of the death and resurrection we will see Gee again and when that day comes, we will never part ways again!  Thank you Jesus for that, what an amazing gift!

My oldest Son's Samuels, it was decoupaged with bunnies

My middle Son's Zach's with eggs

My daughter's Allie.  Gee was really feeling creative this time, her and my nephew were born 1 month a part, his is below Allie's.

And Last the baby in the family my niece Liddy!

Alot of books suggest that you have a family center near the phone, one for your calendar, bills, business cards, white board for grocery list, and schedules.  I thought I would share mine.  I also received a chalkboard for Christmas, I love to put messages on it, especially for birthdays,and holidays.  Its also good for those days I do school in the kitchen to have a small chalkboard for spelling words. 

This is our trip to St. Augustine, Florida!  We had a great time!  Check the post before this one to get the details!

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I, like most homeschoolers love books!  For Christmas and my birthday which is a week later I received several great books that I'm so excited to get reading.  After I read them I'm hoping to review them here on my blog.  I thought I would share the ones that I received, let me know if you have read any of them.  My children received some great books too, I will show them some other time.

I heard of this book and website from Tiany's blog.  I'm really excited about getting some great parenting tips from this Godly Woman!

A Life That Says Welcome by Karen Ehman, I'm excited about simple ways to open my home to others.  She talks about having hospitality that doesn't have to be expensive or fancy.  Just opening your home to others and making people at feel at home is enough, she gives lots of tips on doing this.

Living Simply is a book I heard about on Monica's blog.  She has been convicted of living a more simple life and I will have to say so have I.  I'm tired of the stuff and too many outing and all the stuff that goes with living a cluttered life.  Can't wait to read this one.

I love to read political books too, I received these three.

I spoke at my homeschool support group on homeschooling and loving it , Bringing the joy back into your homeschool day!  Next week I'm going to blog about my talk, I'm going to do it in segments.  I hope to add some ideas to my side bar so you can get to those easily and hopefully to encourage new homeschoolers as well as seasoned.   If you here visiting my show n tell, please check back to see them next week.  I hope you all have a great weekend!

Angela

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In our homeschool coop we take different classes each semester.  This last semester before Christmas my son took an art class.  Art is not usually his subject, he has never really enjoyed art or crafts but this art class was unique and he LOVED it.  I took some pics of some of the great talent in our coop.  This is my show n tell this week.

This was not my son's grade but these were so cool, aluminum foil people!

I love all the people they made, this one in front in my sons.

 This is my son's decapauge (I know i misspelled that) vase, this was one of his favorites.

This was a piece where they wrote their name in cursive and made something out of it, a creative project!

This was one of my favorite projects, robots out of junk, pop can tabs, keys, anything!  This top one was one of my son's good friends, the bottom one is my sons.

We really enjoyed seeing all the kids work!

Angela

My Show n Tell is my son's webkinz party!  I can't wait to share with you all.  Well first of all for the ones who don't know webkinz, they are stuff animals that you buy and they have a code on them.  You bring them home and put the code in the website under adoption and your child can adopt a pet, they then can build a virtual home, buy things for their yard, play games and work jobs to earn money.  its really quite fun!  The site is www.webkinz.com.  We have never given our son a birthday party with friends, they are usually very expensive and his birthday is in December so its just so much to ask people to come at this time of year.  We decided to give him a party with the webkinz theme, my husband and yes I will admit it even me like to play webkinz sometimes so we looked at some sites that helped us come up with some ideas and we had some great games for the party.   This is the invitation.  The site that helped us the most is http://www.squidoo.com/webkinzbirthdayideas

Here is the cake, The W sign for Webkinz, its very colorful-My dh asked the lady at Krogers in the cake department if she thought she could do this, she said she could do a W with cupcakes if we brought her a picture of what we wanted. We did half chocolate and half yellow-it turned out so nice!

I do have a lot of pics however most of them have the group in them, I will not post pictures of other peoples children without parents permission so you will just see mine, I will try to tell you everything we did, We had so much fun!  I can't tell you what a success it was!

First we made crown of wonders, you can earn one of these in the daily gem hunt on webkinz.  Everyone was asked to bring their favorite webkinz and we sat at the table with crowns and gems and made one for each one.

When the kids came in they were all able to spin the wheel of Wow that my dh made, he was so proud of this.

We printed webkinz money, this took dh quite some time.  He found a picture of real money and then put pics of my sons favorite webkinz in the middle.

We then went out for the gem hunt.  I bought geodes from www.orientaltrading.com   You take them outside and hit them with a rock or hammer and some have jewels in them.

We then came in for the last game, the balloon dartz-there were different prizes under some, some 1.00 store gifts, some for webkinz money and some for candy and some empty just like the real thing.

We then had the W cake and sherbert ice cream, the same color of the sherbert bunny!  I gave each child a pack of webkinz trading cards at the end.  We let them cash in their webkinz money for a prize on their webkinz account, my husband and I play sometimes with our son so we had tons of money we don't use so we sat down at the computer and sent them a webkinz gift on the computer.  This was great because it was a prize that cost us nothing.  We had so much fun!  Hope you enjoy the pics!  My son said it was his best birthday ever and what was so great was we worked on this as a family, thats why it  will be so remembered.  My son was telling us that night that he loved his presents but thats not even what made it so great, it was the planning of the party and the friends that were there sharing it with him, wow-is he growing up! 

Angela

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I went to a Stampin Up workshop the other day with some girlfriends to make some things for the holidays, I had a great time.  I'm a little craft challenged but I really loved how everything turned out.  I really LOVE my Thanksgiving banner, this is why I went to the event anyway.  I really wanted this banner-it took me 3 hours to make it, every letter, every detail!  I couldn't think of anything better to show then all this work.

Here is a Thanksgiving Card

Here is my Let it Snow card

My star ornament

This is an ornament with F on it for Family!  I really like this one.

And last the famous Banner!

Every year since my oldest son has been born,  Papaw (dh's dad) has carved pumpkins with him and now four more grandchildren as well.  My son was the oldest one in the family and since we have had two more and my brother-in- law and sister-in-law have had two.  Its so great when I look through past pictures of all the years, and see all the great memories of pumpkin carvings with Papaw, the dads help too and us women take pictures and watch the kids.  We have so much fun, tonight was really great because the weather was perfect, just a great breeze and 75 degree weather, its usually very cold.  Here are some pictures from this years annual Grandpa Pumpkin Carvings!

My son Zach

My Sam!

My Allie getting all the gunk out of her pumpkin!

Allie and her cousin Liddy!, so cute!

Our sweet Papaw who plans this and buys all the pumkins every year!  He is helping Allie out with hers.

My nephew carrying a big pumpkin, it almost looks bigger then him!  My daughter and him are only 1 month apart.

The Finished Products!

Hope you enjoy, will have some more hands on projects next week!

Angela