I have recently gotten re-interested in notebooking for the kids' schoolwork. We are going to do notebooks for history/geography and science. I showed the kids several websites I had bookmarked last week with lots of ideas, templates and clipart. I am very excited to get started!

Dd has been working on a notebook for the past several weeks for history. I had her start pages for each of the three colonial regions. She started her work on 12x12 pages, so we will continue with that size for her book, but ds will do 8 1/2x11 pages. Both books will have plenty of flap books, mini books and shape books, making sure to make the best use of our page space.

The biggest reason I started this undertaking is to have some nice, colorful keepsakes of the learning we are doing. I would like to have something to look back on to see not only what we learned, but to see how much the kids grow over the years. I will have to discipline myself to take lots of pictures, though.

I am so pleased that I was able to go to the local Christian homeschooling conference. My husband was able to move out of shift-work just in time for me to go. I talked to my neighbor the day before and she decided to go as well.

Both days were just wonderful. I mainly chose the workshops that dealt with homeschooling in junior and high school, but I did attend a workshop put on by IEW on story and book report writing.

The high school workshops were presented by Mary Schofield, the author of The High School Handbook: Junior and Senior High School at Home. I learned so much in these workshops. She made many great points, like the need to plan ahead and write out a plan of action for what you want to accomplish by graduation. She also had a good point about giving our children proper credit for the work they do. She said 1 credit in high school is equal to about 150 hours of work. If you give your child 300 or 400 hours worth of work to do, they should earn more than 1 credit.

I came away with a renewed energy and a renewed vision for what I want to accomplish in training my children. The keynote speaker was Ken Swanson and he was wonderful. He, along with Mary, reminded me that I need to work on character education first and that preparing my children to serve the Lord should be the most important part of our homeschooling journey. It will not matter how high the kid's GPA's are if they do not know Jesus as THEIR savior. Nothing else matters if you won't be spending eternity in heaven with Jesus.

The Bible tells us to do everything as if we were doing it for Jesus. That includes our homeschooling.

The annual homeschooling conference is finally here. I have never been to a real conference before with workshops and speakers so I am very excited. I had my application all filled out and ready to turn in to take advantage of the early-bird deal, but my husband went into shift work and I was not sure I was going to be able to make it. He rolled out of shift work last night, just in time for me to go.

I talked to my neighbor yesterday and she might go with me as well. She is praying to the Lord to give her the desire to homeschool if it is His will. I believe going to the conference will give her an increased confidence that she can do this, with God's help. I talked with her the other day and showed her all of my curriculum and gave her some general homeschooling tips. We were very excited to learn that one of my friends from my support group will be offering a workshop on how to use Tapestry of Grace (which she is very interested in using).

My big lesson that I learned from this is to trust God that He will provide for a way. I now have to pay $20 more than the early-bird price because I did not trust that He would enable me to go. It was not so much that I did not trust Him, but more that I was not sure if it was His will for me to go. I still have a lot of learning and growing to do in the area of hearing from God.

I will post more later on all of the great details.

My children are currently sitting at the table, playing a game of cards...together...with no fighting. Ds was taught this game by his new doctor and is teaching his sister how to play. These are the moments I try to remember when they are picking on each other and fighting.

Paradice Academy Mission Statement

My purpose is to train up my children in the ways of the Lord, to love Him and serve Him all the days of their lives. In so doing, I want to help my children to own their faith, so they will have a personal and close relationship with Jesus Christ. I desire to have my children see Christ's mercy and grace in my life. I promise to love, encourage, teach and correct them and to surround them with men and women who profess their faith in Jesus. With the Lord's blessing I will raise my children to do their best, realize their potential through Christ, develop a concern for others' needs and use their talents for God's glory.

Social Goals

To have a home filled with love, laughter, joy and peace. A home where everyone feels accepted and part of the family unit.

To take responsibility for ourselves: our thoughts, words, and actions.

To feel confident interacting with others in an appropriate manner, no matter what their age, gender or race.

Academic Goals

To develop a Christian worldview where we view everything we learn and all of life in the light of the Word.

To teach my children how to be resourceful. "It is not how much you know, but whether you know how to find the answers."

To raise confident and independent thinkers who have courage and strength of character to think and make decisions for themselves based on Scripture, truth and logic.

To instill a life-long love of learning.

To teach my children homemaking skills such as cooking, baking, cleaning, scheduling, and money management.

To instill in my children the desire to do their best on everything, remembering that we do all things unto the Lord.

”Looking unto Jesus and thinking about Him is a better way to meet and overcome sin than any physical austerities or spiritual self-reproaches. It is by looking at Him that we are changed.” Harriet Beecher Stowe

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. For I was born a sinner-yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me-now let me rejoice. Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your ways to rebels, an they will return to you. Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness. Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.

You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God. Look with favor on Zion and help her; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit-with burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will again be sacrificed on your altar.

What is God saying to us in this chapter? David wrote this psalm after he had been confronted by Nathan about his affair with Bathsheba.

David starts out by asking God for mercy, because he truly did not deserve forgiveness. David knew it was wrong to sleep with Bathsheba before he did it, but he chose to do it anyway. Max Lucado states in his book Come Thirsty, "Where we might think of sin as slip-ups or missteps, God views sin as a godless attitude that leads to godless actions." Lucado goes on to quote Isaiah 53:6, "All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's path to follow our own".

We do not have to despair, though. Jesus is on our side and loves us. Jesus tells us, in Matthew 18:12-13, "If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won't he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn't wander away!" That is such good news for us. We know that Jesus will come after us when we wander away from him and he will rejoice when he finds us. He acts just like the father did in the parable of the prodigal son. The father did not criticize his son and yell at him for his mistakes. No, he threw his arms around him, put a ring on his finger and told his servants to kill the fatted calf for a celebration.

David goes on in verse 2 to ask God to wash him clean from his guilt and to purify him from his sin. God gives us this promise in 1 John 1:9, "...if we confes our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to clease us from all wickedness". The key to this promise, however, is that we need to confess our sins. We cannot live in darkness by refusing to acknowledge our sins. We must confess them so God, in His mercy and grace, can forgive us and cleanse us. David said that when God washes him he will be whiter than snow. We can be whiter than snow because God takes the whole sin away. He does not leave a portion behind so he can rub our faces in it time and time again.

He also does not leave a smudge behind so we can dwell on it later and feel condemnation. The feeling of condemnation, after being cleansed from sin, is from Satan. Romans 8:1-2 states, "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death." When we have accepted Jesus into our hearts we have been made free from the power of sin. How awesome is that? We are no longer slaves to sin, but we now have the power of Jesus  to help us conquer it.

I have recently (just today in fact) revised our school schedule. I kept saying I needed to exercise, but could not find the time to add it to our busy schedule. I do not like to get up early and don't have time to exercise in the evenings. By the time we have dinner, get everything cleaned up and take the dogs for a walk, I don't have the time or the energy to go jogging or do crunches.

For now we are set to exercise each day at 3PM. Today was our first day so I got changed into my workout clothes and then after doing some stretches and crunches, I strapped my MP3 player to my arm, wrapped my knee in my new knee wrap and off we went.

I had done quite a workout on Saturday with ds's Sea Cadets unit. My husband and I are the PT leaders and as my husband had duty on Saturday it was all up to me. I took the kids through a decent workout with lots of lunges, squats, pushups, crunches, and of course a 1-mile run. The next two days were spent walking very carefully as my thighs were killing me. My husband laughed at me everytime he saw me trying to navigate a set of stairs.

Our run/jog went pretty well. Ds managed to jog most of the way, but I was forced to slow to a walk a few times as the top of my foot started hurting. I am not having any problems with my knee, for which I am thankful. I am hoping to soon be able to easily do a 1-mile run in less than 10 minutes. Who knows? There may be some marathons in my future.

My ds had his first Invention Factory workshop last Friday morning. The University of Hawaii offers this class to homeschoolers to teach them about simple electronic circuits, magnets and motors. They get to do things like build a printed circuit board lamp switch, make an Archimedes switch, build a simple LED circuit, construct an LED flasher, build an LED chaser, build a morse code buzzer and game, and build a simple motor.

Their focus in on using their new knowledge in ways to improve the well-being of people with special needs, such as the elderly and those with disabilities.

The class consists of 15 kids between the ages of 12 and 16. The class is eight sessions long and lasts for 2 1/2 hours each day. My ds seemed to have enjoyed himself. I have two reasons for signing him up for this workshop. The first one was to expose him to something new, hoping he might take an interest in it and possibly develop a new hobby. The second reason was to give him something to do that does not involve his sister or me.

I managed to switch dd's horse riding lessons to Friday mornings as well, which works out really well as they are only a couple miles apart.

I revised our daily schedule so we do devotions, math and english in the mornings and have latin, science and history in the afternoon. As it works out, we will skip math and english on Friday mornings due to being gone and then we will just pick up with lunch and Latin when we return home.

As Max Lucado states in his book, "Come Thirsty", our bodies need water in order to survive. Our body is made up of 80% fluid and cannot sustain itself without replenishing its fluid supply on a continual basis. When we are physically thirsty we drink, preferably water, but we must drink something. We should drink steadily throughout the day instead of waiting for our thirst to tell us to drink. Why? Our thirst mechanism is like the gas gauge in our cars. The light on the dashboard only comes on when the car is almost empty. It is the same with our bodies. We only feel thirsty when are almost on empty. By steadily drinking throughout the day, we keep our bodies hydrated and never get to the "almost empty" gauge reading.

Our spiritual lives are similar. When we are in constant contact with the Lord we are steadily replenishing our supply of his life giving water. When we slack off in our spiritual walk with Him, our lives start to suffer. How do we suffer? We get cranky, depressed, agitated more easily and have a general feeling of unease. It might not come right away, but it will come. That is our signal that something is not right. The Holy Spirit is speaking to us in those moments saying, "Please come back to me. I have what you need." As soon as we turn back to God and drink of his water we begin to feel refreshed.

Drink daily, and drink deeply. The living water Jesus offers never runs out!