Live,Laugh,Love

Our Nativity Tradition

For years now, we have enjoyed Celebrate Jesus at Christmas by Kimberly Ingalls Reese. The first couple of years, we did all the readings and activities as part of the Advent season. Now, we use the book for the daily Nativity Building.

The Nativity Building activities have you move around and add figures to your Nativity scene throughout the Advent season. Right now, our manger is under our Christmas tree with a cow and a ring. The ring is a 'reminder of our relationship with Jesus. We are eternally bound together in love.' (Celebrate Jesus at Christmas, p. 18)

Mary and Joseph are currently traveling to Bethlehem...

The shepherd is in the field tending his sheep...

The wise men are still at their home...

The best part of the Nativity Building is the first gift the kids open on Christmas morning. We wrap our Baby Jesus in gold paper and put Him in the manger. This is, after all, the best gift!

A New Christmas Tradition

We are trying something new this year. I have had this book Family Celebrations at Christmas by Ann Hibbard for some time now. The book gives you two years worth of family devotions to use during Advent to focus on Christ rather than the commercialism that has come to be known as the Christmas season.

Over our TV cabinet, we have a quilt banner hanger. I thought this would be the perfect place to hang our Advent Banner. Using material that I already had, I put together a wall hanging with a tree and 24 buttons to hang our 'ornaments' from.

So far, we have completed two days of the study. The first ornament has the symbol of Alpha and Omega. The second ornament has a Bible. There is a Bible reading and discussion questions for each day. I am looking forward to seeing our completed tree!

  It is after Thanksgiving and officially the time to start thinking, dreaming, getting excited for, Christmas! I listened to my first "official" Christmas song of the year: Welcome to Our World by Chris Rice, sung by Michael W. Smith. I love that song. I think my favorite line is, "Fragile finger sent to heal us; tender brow prepared for thorn; tiny heart whose blood will save us, welcome to our world". Just the fact that Christ was a baby sometimes escapes our memory. We, or at least I, think of Him most as a grown man during the height of His ministry. But before that He was small and delicate and who would have thought to look at Him that His fate was death, and spilled life-blood for a creation who would mostly shun Him? I think it very good to remember Christmas and its promise; that our lives were once pointless and sin-filled and horrible, but God sent His Son - who came willingly - to our earth as a child. That he might grow and live in our world and still be willing to die in our stead for our never ending sin. And that He did it out of love. Pure, True love that even Angels do not understand. And by this gift of God we may obtain a life abundant with Christ, and afterwards an even better, more wonderful life everlasting with our Great God in His heavenly kingdom!  What a blessed thing to remember and commemorate! What a beautiful gift that I gladly and humbly receive, and most definitely welcome to our world.

Things I am thankful for...

...the Word of God which gives me strength to get through each day

...my family 

...fall colors and blue skies in November

...seeing my winter garden through an open window...in November

...the freedom to homeschool my children

...wonderful hymns and worship music that God allows me to play and listen to 

...cookbooks with wonderful recipes to keep my family fed well

...many sewing and craft projects to keep me busy

...a meal from the freezer after a long day of cooking and baking

Matthew's birthday present...2 1/2 months later...

Matthew's birthday was in August and all we gave him was a piece of paper. It was actually a handmade certificate which stated: "This certificate entitles you to attend Moorpark." For most 15 year olds, this probably wouldn't be very exciting. However, Matthew has been looking forward to this since his birthday!

Moorpark holds a Civil War reenactment in November which we had heard has a great battlefield. They also recreate actual battles from the Civil War. We decided that a trip down to this reenactment would be a great birthday gift for Matthew. I don't think he was disappointed.

Here are a few photos from this past weekend:

Blueberries and a tree trunk

I have had a 10 pound box of blueberries in my freezer since Monday and I really needed to do something with some of them. This morning, I took out a bowl of them and bagged up the rest of them in freezer bags for later use. I ended up making a blueberry pie:

cinnamon-sugar pastry strips:

and blueberry jam:

Kelsey whipped up blueberry smoothies with what was left of the blueberries I took out:

Meanwhile, the guys were outside trying to get rid of a tree trunk that has been rotting away for three years now:

They ended up being successful, so I was able to plant some cyclamen and pansies:

Overall, it was a very productive day!

Apple Cake

This last weekend, we headed up to the foothills to a place called Apple Hill. While we were there, we found canning pears and Granny Smith apples for a really good price. We ended up coming home with 90 pounds of fruit!

Today was a very blustery day here:

So I decided to let Kelsey make an apple cake to take to our Bible Study tonight.

Here she is following the steps from the recipe:

Blue or grey??

Once again, we packed up our vehicle to head to another Civil War Reenactment:

In the first battle of the day, Matthew proudly protected the Union colors:

The gentleman in the middle needs some period correct clothing:

Wait, what is this? Matthew switching places with a Rebel soldier?

Can you believe he actually went off marching with the Rebel soldiers?

Meanwhile, Kelsey and her friend were learning more civilized tasks. This is vintage rug hooking:

Now that the battle season is over (well, one more that Matthew will be participating in next month), the stuff is all packed away until next year. Let more sewing begin!

The American Form of Government

What type of government do you think we have in the United States of American? If you are not sure, be sure to watch this video.

Our Daily Schedule

I have resisted for years making a daily schedule. I have always felt that it would be too restrictive and I would be setting myself up to fail if I was unable to accomplish everything in the schedule.

Last year, I created lesson plans for Matthew each quarter, but didn't date them. I was very happy with how well the lesson plans worked that I did Matthew's lesson plans for the whole year already for this school year.

So, I decided to do up a daily schedule. However, similar to the lesson plans, I did not put times on our daily schedule.

Here is our daily schedule:

Mama

Quiet Time

Breakfast

Chores

Table Time

Couch Time

PE

Prarie Primer w/Kelsey

Additional chores

Lunch

Reading

Sewing

Photos

Update school work

Free time

Dinner prep

Dinner

Matthew

Quiet Time

Breakfast

Chores

Table Time

Couch Time

PE

Individual Work

Lunch

Reading

Individual Work if needed

Guitar practice

Free time

Dinner

Kelsey

Quiet Time

Breakfast

Chores

Table Time

Couch Time

PE

Prarie Primer

Individual Work

Lunch

Reading

Individual Work if needed

Piano/fiddle practice

Free time

Dinner

For PE, we have been walking one mile, three times a week. I am hoping we can increase this as the weeks go by. My favorite time of the day so far is our quiet reading time after lunch. It has been really nice to slow down a little after lunch before we go into the rest of our day. So far, the schedule has been working out nicely.