So much has been going on in our lives, it's unbelievable.  We do not even participate in the craziness of sports with the children.  It's just stuff!

We have finished our 2008-2009 school year.  I've posted a slide show to show you actually what we did for the year.  I'm most excited about Music this year.  I made a goal of teaching the children to read and play music and they all passed with flying colors.  We are an official Recorder Band.  We have not come up with a name yet, but I'm sure you'll hear us when you drive by the house.  We wake up the whole neighborhood with Marching songs, and Bedtime songs and favorites like: Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little star, and many more.

We did not do everything in the planning book, but we came really close.  We are going to school through summer for a couple hours each morning.  If we don't stay on a schedule I run into many disciplining problems.  I'm excited to have Matthew on grade level in Math, he worked really hard this year.  Elizabeth has excelled in Math and Zachary is moving right along (if he'd work his problems out, he'd be doing much better), he'll start High School next year.

I'm pleased to say that we have made it through 3 months of doing the Dave Ramsey financial peace class.  It's been very hard, and I've shed many tears when there's been no money to do things, or pay bills.  If it hadn't been blessings from God then I'm sure we'd not be making it during this recession.  Because of HIS blessings, my business is booming and Kenan is feeling lead to go back to Ministry.  This has been a huge prayer for me and being patient, allowing God to grow both of us, it might just happen in the near future.

We've also enjoyed several field trips this year as well as some of our clubs.  I've begun planning for next year, it's always exciting to me!  This is the best part for me, I always ask the children what they'd like to learn each year, and most of the time we can get it done.  With Zachary starting High School, I'm pretty nervous about what I should be teaching.  Thanks to the help of several moms, I think I got it.

Until next time!

The new year, what does it hold?  Everyone always asks that question about this time of year and we all make silly resolutions.  I used to make those but never kept them so why make them.  If you are living the way God wants you to live and you are obeying his commands what is there to resolve? 

It's been awhile since my last blog and I have to say, WOW, have we been busy.  We had a great Christmas with both sides of the family.  Kenan got to go deer hunting with our new father in law.  I traveled to Colorado and back safely, and we started back to school this week.

We also finished our nutrition study.  What did we all learn?  How to count calories, how to know what is good and bad to eat, eating disorders, how to present a report and get a good grade (way to go Eli), and how to not present a report (Zach, has more work to do).  We enjoyed doing a project that taught us how to count our fat calories.  It was not a huge study, but we did read lots of books on the subject and my mr. know it all (age 14) actually learned something new.

We started this week with Chemistry.  I love the curriculum we are using by Answers in Genesis "God's design" series.  It's sort, to the point, and has experiments with each lesson.  We also started the year with writing cursive in all subjects.  That has not gone well, but they'll get used to it.  The children have had fun correcting my letters.  I'm thinking about doing mini lessons of school over summer.  This whole week they have all said to me "I forgot how to do that" it's kinda been frustrating.

I'll post our pictures later.  Hope everyone is doing well.  We are trying to stay warm with this bitter cold weather. Yikes.

Hi friends, I know it's been awhile.  Again I find myself busy with so much going on that I forget to stay connected with those that are keeping up with me.

We have finished our Election study, it ended up not being as exciting as I had thought.  Do you ever do that?  You have all these great ideas, and you get em' on paper and then you just don't do them?  Well, after two weeks of trudging through one week of our Unit, I decided to take over.  I did all the research and just presented it to the kids.  They still did vocabulary to do, and they had to copy everything I wrote on the white board.  Did they learn something?  Well, only time will tell.

Since my last post I've turned a year older.  It was such a great day!  I loved hearing "Happy Birthday" from everyone.  And when someone asked me what I got, I said, "nothing yet, just wish me happy birthday and I'll be satisfied".  I guess that's what old age is doing to me.  I'm appreciating more of the non-material in life.  Kenan planned a fantastic dinner and I did come home from church to a new outfit that was just my size.

We have also continued our clubs.  The children have enjoyed our last creation club for this year, and we are starting a chemistry club next week.  It's so refreshing to be a part of our home town home school group.

I hope to get some current pictures posted.  We started a new Unit on Nutrition, per Kenan's request.  Our daughter is getting older and had developed some of my unhealthy eating habits.  So this study will do us all some good.  Although, after today's study I'm not sure what direction to take.  It's such a broad topic.

Well, off to work.  I'm doing a Pajama pampered chef party tonight.  It will be lots of fun.

Well, that's a hard question to answer.  I feel like I'm the energizer bunny, I've been going and going for weeks now and haven't taken the time to sit and blog.  check out www.wellnessispriceless.com for more information about how i'm doing it. 

School has been going, not as much as I would like it to go ,but going.  We did take a fall break last week and enjoyed a couple field trips.  I was also out of town for business, which has been a HUGE blessing!!!!  Praise God!!!!! He gets all the glory for that, especially since I was so sick over summer.  My business is what has really been taking up a lot more of my time, and being my own boss is great.

Anyways, we are continuing to study the elections.  I'll be posting pictures next week.  We also visited the capital, governor's house, and both the republician and democratic headquarters.  It was a great field trip.  Matthew is still doing fantastic in Math, all the prayers have been working.  I'm using something called Wrap Ups and he loves it.  It really challenges him to do better.

Our clubs have been fun as well.  But dummy me forgot my camera for our Art Club this week, so I won't have pictures.  We studied types of Art: sculpture, photography, Media, Architecture, Decorative, and painting.  We did three projects for each age group: younger (10 and under), they had to draw a still life picture with chalk on a wall covered with paper, and then they had to take the item apart and draw it in it's pieces.  So we used a pencil sharpner, an apple, a banana, and a pen.  They then went outside and my wonderful husband had a board set up with balloons filled with paint and they got to through darts at it.  Which tied into the color wheels we did at the beginning.  The older group did the balloon activity as well, then we did some art to music.  It was so much fun, I played all different kinds of music and let them draw how it made them feel.  We then had a flower for our still life and they used chalk to draw it and blend colors.  At snack time I read a little bit about DaVinci and Renoir, the two artist for the day.

Well, I'm off, time to get ready and leave for work.  Hope everyone is doing great, thanks for stopping by.  I'll do my best to get some pictures of these activities posted next week.  Plus, a new what's for dinner post.

What a beautiful day we've had here.  I helped my daughter set up a blog, she's listed under my pals, "babies".  So we have got to spend lots of mother daughter time.  She is growing into such a beautiful women.

We also can't fix the pool.  I was determined to get some glue and patches, which they do sell, but the lady at the store told me it would be a waste of my money.  The hole was pretty big.  Matthew is still upset about it today.  He's so young and does not understand that God has a plan for everything in life.  I told him this will give us more time to read, play board games, take walks and bike ride.  That did not impress him very much.  He went upstairs upset and fell asleep.  I guess we'll have more time for naps also.  We got 4 1/2 good yrs. from it.

Playing with cousins from Cleveland and later 2nd cousins from Nebraska:

The hole!

So now that Eli has a blog she thought it would be funny to take a picture of Kenan Highlighting my hair.  It was funny, and of course it was bonding time for the two of us.  And he did a really good job, plus, the cost saved from going to a saloon was the best part.  You gotta save where you can, right?

Through all these tough times, me being sick, the pool, no money, God is really showing me lot's of joy through the Psalms.  I started with Psalm 120 and I'm on 126.  These last two have really brought home what I already know, God is with me no matter what, He is my strong hold, my keeper.  Today I was thrilled to think back on all the things He has gotten me through, and it brought laughter, joy, and even some tears.  I really pray my children can see God the way I do.  He continues to bless my business, just enough for me to see the blessings when I start doubting that I should continue.  Everyday blessings are also evident. 

Sparkles of joy: just today Matthew was putting away the dishes as part of his morning chore, he was singing and pounding on the mixing bowls, with the bamboo spoons, and was so filled with joy.  I just listened, months ago I would have yelled at him to get back to work, But my study in Philippians taught me that you can have joy even when putting away the dishes. I pray you have that kind of joy in your life.

Well here it is 1:23 a.m. and I'm not sleeping yet.  I guess that's what I get for drinking a Pepsi (which I have not had in over a week, trying to cut them out) before I go to bed.  I received a surprise visit today from my sister who is traveling home from a great vacation in GA.  So I was excited about that, excited to be feeling really good and now I've spent the last several hrs. updating my blog, like it?  I do, it's so colorful, and I love colors.

I finally finished all the books I was reading, well, except the Beth Moore study on the temple.  I guess God was not ready for me to understand that one, it was hard.  I'm now on a new study, which is God's timing all the way.  It's another Beth Moore study on the book of Psalms, actually "The Psalms of Ascent".  I am so excited what God is showing me through this study, and just how the spirit is working.  The joy I'm feeling to be in His presence again after such a long time away.  Even though I was studying and in the word I was letting satan "steal my Joy".  It was hidden from me.  It took a study from the book of Phillipians to get me out of my winter funk and joyful again.  Why can't I stay this way forever, just longing to be in the word daily is such a wonderful feeling.  I'll try to figure out how to add a column of the "Books I'm reading and a picture", but for now you just get the titles.  Chat more later.

Well, I've tried to add this picture as my advatar and then again along my sidewall and I'm not sure how to adjust the size, so I'm adding it here.

Kenan and I meet at CCU about 18 yrs. ago.  He was your ordinary college kid; studying hard, playing games, & doing weekend movies.  We meet while playing volleyball, he was really good at it and I just looked good (according to him). After dating 4 months, he asked me to marry him, and I was smitten.  We planned a very low budget wedding, since we were both in college, and it was beautiful.  Since then our marriage has been wonderful, you know; babies, dogs, money problems, moving, dreaming of a big house, raising a family and God's love joining us together.  We celebrate our anniversary in a couple of months and I'm trying to think of something special.  He is normally the one with all the fun ideas; like when he rented  log cabin and we spent the weekend living on of our dreams,  but this time we are on a very tight budget.  Any suggestions?  I'd love to hear from you. Hope everyone that reads this sees the positive that their husband brings to the marriage.  I know that is something I have really been working hard on.

I can't begin to tell you what we've been up to these last several weeks.  So I decided to just give you a short summary.  We took the last week in March as our spring break.  It was a fun week, we sleep late, went to shaker village (see slide show), and played games.  It rained the end of the week, but that was OK. The following week, after much prayer and discussion with my husband, I went to visit my mom.  It was a very pleasant trip.  We did take school with us (the joy of home schooling), math and geography and worked at the local library.  Matthew had some problems adjusting, they had different books then our library, but we did get some work done.  We played a great game of Monopoly, and with Matthew being the youngest, he was happy to own Park place & Boardwalk, needless to say, he kicked butt.

Now we are back home, back to the every day stuff.  I'm trying to get re-focused and be understanding with the children.  Matthew again is having a hard time doing his work.  He just won't stay focused.  I know that our geography is a lot of reading and writing (our worst subjects), but we are plugging through.  We will be finished mid-May.

Zachary is doing his Test Prep work this week and I'm very pleased.  He is wizzing right through it and he is almost finished with his math work for the year.  Kenan commented the other day about how much he's grown up from las year.  Last year he was my one grounded most of the year, he missed all hunting season's.  We'll I'm proud to say that this year he's doing all of them.  What a difference one year can make.  There is hope for those of you that have difficult children.  I'm sure no one out there has them, right?  Hee, hee. 

One day I'm going to do a day and life of the Adamson family.  It should be coming soon. Until next time, keep smiling.

As you can tell I'm catching up on all the pictures I've taken over the month of April.  This month has been really rainy and we have had lots of flooding, I know that flooding can be very dangerous, but it is something that also amazes me.  It reminds me of God's promise to never flood the earth again.  To know that I won't have to go through what so many went through during Noah's time is refreshing.  I'll die in God's time but not in a flood, I can't swim very well anyway.  Enjoy the pictures.