Luke 8:15 - Homeschool Blogger

moving .......................

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 10:50:00 -0600

I *think* that I am officially moving my blog to blogger. I have had one over there off and on for a while now and, although I love the HSB community, I'm a bit tired of all the glitches. Please check out that blog -- Free Heart Reflections

Thanks!!

Grace's birth story .......................

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:30:00 -0600

Grace Evelyn was born on Thursday, December 15th, 2005 at 4:20 p.m. Here is the birth story ...

The birth was amazing and I would have done it in a heartbeat again if I could! I seriously mean that!!

We went in Wednesday night (Dec. 14) to begin the process. They put in the Cervidil and then I tried to get some rest, but I didn't get much. At 6 a.m. Thursday they woke me up to take out the Cervidil and let me shower and get ready for the big day ahead. They started the pitocin at 7 a.m. and the contractions began right away.

I got my epidural at about 10 a.m. and that was great ... it was just the right amount of medicine because I felt no pain, but wasn't completely numb. My midwife came in and out to check on me and visit with us and our family. Later in the afternoon the real fun began ...

At 4:00 p.m. Diane, my midwife, checked me and I was only at 6 cm. Diane was not pleased with that ... she didn't like how slowly she thought that I was progressing. We talked about how Little Buttercup's birth went the same way ... seemingly slow progression and then all of a sudden she was there. I told her that I didn't like the look on her face and asked her if she was concerned. She said no (after the birth she told us that the look on her face was because she was praying as we were talking!!). She asked me to bear down with my next contraction to see what that did to my cervix. She was pleased with that...

So she sat down and chatted with a friend of ours that had just arrived (Diane delivered her as well). Then I began to feel pain ... I said that I felt a contraction and felt like something was "between my legs". There were 2 nurses trying to find the baby's heartbeat with the monitor and neither could find it. They kept looking at each other wondering what to do, but little did they know that the baby was no longer where they thought she was ...

Again, I felt the next contraction hard, so Diane checked me and ... she announced that we were ready to have the baby! It was 4:10 p.m. and I went from 6 cm and 90% effaced to complete and the baby already coming down in about 10 minutes. They got everything ready and I pushed 3 times and Grace was here! We laughed and cried and laughed some more during the pushing ... it was truly a glorious experience!

Then everyone asked her name (we had kept it a surprise) and we announced "Grace Evelyn" ... Grace because the Lord gave us that name ... He taught us so much about His grace over those past 9+ months ... and Evelyn after my mom (who will never get over that!).

One Year Ago Today .......................

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:44:00 -0600

My precious Grace was born!

A couple of weeks ago during our Tuesday night prayer meeting at church we had a small group there and we took communion, but before that we had to talk about something that was a trial in the past year that we are thankful for (Pastor said 1 year, but I would have to make it 2). I wasn't actually in there -- DH told me about it -- I was taking care of the kids. I thought about what I would have said had I been in there and this is what I would have said:

Almost 2 years ago we became pregnant and were so thrilled after many months of trying to conceive and praying and disappointment. But then we lost the baby. It was very hard for me, obviously. The strangest things would trigger my emotions. A very dear friend lost her baby about 2 weeks before we did and so we were able to go through that together and that was a blessing. But still, it was very difficult, to say the least.

During that time we were in transition between a church that we had been in and the church that we were led to start a few months later, so we were visiting Free Chapel. I have to say that at a time like that it was nice, for me personally, to be "anonymous" and able to grieve and worship among many people whom I didn't know and who didn't know me. One Sunday we sang:

Blessed be your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where the streams of abundance flow
Blessed be your name

Blessed be your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name

Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say...
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your glorious name

Blessed be your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's all as it should be
Blessed be your name

Blessed be your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be your name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, Blessed be your name

That was a big day for me ... I cried and cried all during that song. And I wanted to sing it over and over. It was the first time I was able to truly say to the Lord "Blessed be Your name regardless of what I am going through ... regardless of the fact that I just lost a precious gift of life..." Since then I have truly been able to sing these words and mean them with all my heart.

At that same time that we lost the baby the Lord was teaching me a lot about worship and about His love for me. And I came across this poem:

HEAVEN'S NURSERY

In Heaven there must surely be
A special place, a nursery
Where 'little spirits' not fully grown
Go to live in their Heavenly home.

The angels must attend with love
Tiny spirits on wings of doves,
The choir of angels must sing lullabies
Maybe quieten their tiny cries.

The Father must come by each day
To cuddle and play in a special way
These tiny spirits left earth too soon
Little ones called Home from the womb.

These sparks of life did not perish
But came to the Father's love to cherish,
To grow and be taught in His own arms
Safely away from all earthly harm.

The comforter was sent to earth at once
To the parents who lost their little one
Their hearts so ache, their arms feel empty
The question 'why' seems so tempting.

Then all at once in the midst of tears
There comes a peace that stills the fears
The parents share the Father's own need
To hold their tiny spirit being.

They relinquish their own desperate hold
And release their baby to the Father's fold,
Then comes an angel to whisper the truth
Of a nursery in Heaven bearing rich fruit

Of tiny spirits chosen to worship the Father
A place that couldn't be filled by another,
Called to be spared from the struggles of earth,
Chosen to be one of Heaven's births.

So Father, whisper words of love from me
To our unborn 'life' in your nursery.

The Lord blessed me that day when I read that ... how that tiny life's soul is now in heaven with Him worshiping the Father, spared from this earth's struggles and life.

Then ... I got pregnant in March (we lost the baby at the and of January). But that month I had "given up". I was tired of thinking about getting pregnant. I was tired of not being content with the blessing of my daughter, little Buttercup, that I already had. And guess what? The Lord blessed me greatly that month by beginning a new life within (both spiritually and physically) and 9 months later our precious Grace was born. You can read her birth story below!

Is Labor Day a Christian Holiday ......

Tue, 5 Dec 2006 15:21:00 -0600

Please read JenIg's post for today ... she so eloquently wrote what my thoughts have been for years ...

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/JenIG/250401/

Blessings!!

Hi! I'm Heather and I'm an over-planner!

Fri, 24 Nov 2006 10:24:00 -0600

Now you say "Hi Heather!"

So ... I have been thinking about our next year of homeschooling - 2nd Grade - next year... almost a year away. But I don't want to do what I did last year and wait until the last minute to make my final decisions. So ......

I've been thinking ("a dangerous pastime" "I know" - Disney's Beauty and the Beast)

LANGUAGE ARTS

Reading:

Drawn Into the Heart of Reading (Teacher guide, student guide, project planner and book list)

First Language Lessons (which I already have)

What Your 2nd Grader Needs to Know

Christian Liberty Nature Readers (which I already have)

READ READ READ - Visit the local library!!

Writing:

A Reason for Handwriting B (I used this last year and liked it - we'll go back to it for next year)

Igniting Your Writing (recommended by Carrie Austion [Drawn Into the Heart of Reading])

Math:

Horizons Math 2 (if it ain't broke ....)

Science:

Exploring Creation with Zoology 1 - Flying Creatures of the 5th Day (already have)

History:

Mystery of History volume 1 (Teacher Guide, CDs, reproducibles, craft pack, timelie set & notebook bundle)

Geography:

Galloping the Globe (GTG Bundle)

Spelling:

A Reason for Spelling B

Music:

Progressive Recorder for the Beginner

Story of the Orchestra

Home Economics:

Pearables Home Economics 1

Enchanted Learning Membership

Art:

Artistic Pursuits

Bible -- this I have to figure out -- I wanted something in-depth but also with application. Still searching ....

I'm looking at

Studying God's Word B

Bible Study Guide for All Ages

Blessings!!

Give Them Parking Space, But Let Them Starve to Death

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 06:16:00 -0600

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: Keep A Quiet Heart
Scripture: Matthew 25:40

Give Them Parking Space, But Let Them Starve to Death

Another moral threshold was crossed when a tiny baby boy, at the specific request of his parents and with the sanction of the Supreme Court of Indiana, was starved to death in a hospital. "Infant Doe" (he was not allowed the usual recognition of being human by being named), born with Down's syndrome and a malfunctioning esophagus (the latter could have been corrected with surgery), died, as the Washington Post (April 18) stated, "not because he couldn't sustain life without a million dollars worth of medical machinery, but because no one fed him." For six days the nurses in that Bloomington hospital went about their usual routines of bathing and changing and feeding all the newborns except one. They bathed and changed Baby Doe but they never gave him a bottle. Over his crib was a notice, DO NOT FEED. Several couples came forward, begging to be allowed to adopt him. They were turned down.

What went on in that little box during those six terrible days and nights? We turn our imagination away. It's unthinkable. But if I were to think about it, and put down on paper what my mind saw, I would be accused of playing on people's feelings, and of making infanticide (yes, infanticide--call it what it is) an "emotional issue." Let me suppose at least that the baby cried--quite loudly (at first). One report says that he was placed in a room alone, lest his crying disturb others (others, perhaps, who were capable of helping him).

Joseph Sobran, in his column in the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, suggested that "opposition to infanticide will soon be deplored as the dogma of a few religious sects who want to impose their views on everyone else." The language sounds sickeningly familiar.

There has been a conspicuous silence from those who usually raise shrill protest when other human rights are violated--the rights of smokers, homosexuals, and criminals are often as loudly insisted upon as those of children, women, and the handicapped.

The handicapped? What on earth is happening when a society is so careful to provide premium parking spaces to make things easier for them, but sees no smallest inconsistency when one of them who happens to be too young to scream, "For God's sake, feed me!" is quietly murdered? It is in the name of humanity, humaneness, compassion, and freedom that these things occur, but never is it acknowledged that the real reasons are comfort and convenience, that is, simple selfishness. "Abortion not only prefers comfort, convenience, or advantage of the pregnant woman to the very life of her unborn child, a fundamentally good thing, but seeks to deny that the life ever existed. In this sense it is a radical denial not only of the worth of a specific life but of the essential goodness of life itself and the Providential ordering of its procreation" (R.V. Young, "Taking Choice Seriously," The Human Life Review, Vol. VIII, no. 3.)

But weren't we talking about infanticide and haven't we now switched to abortion? The premises on which abortion is justified are fundamentally the same on which infanticide is seen as civilized and acceptable. What Hitler used to call eugenics is now called "quality of life," never mind whether the life in question happens to be the mother's or the child's. Death, according to three doctors who put the issue out into the open in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1973, is now considered an option in the "treatment" of infants; in other words, a mortuary may now replace the nursery. One cannot help thinking of the antiseptic "shower rooms" of the Third Reich, where the unwanted were "treated" to death. Nor can one forget the words of Jesus, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40, KJV).

Can any Christian argue that the smallest and most defenseless are, by virtue merely of being too small and too defenseless, not His brethren?

*This article, written by Elisabeth Elliot, is about a case that happened in 1982. You can read a little more about it in this article "Is It Better for Deformed of Handicapped Children Never to Be Born?"

Photo Hunter

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 15:39:00 -0600

Grab the Scavenger Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Join the blogroll.

Hunting?

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 19:17:00 -0600

Those of you with Husbands and sons who hunt will appreciate this ...

Little Buttercup looking for deer ...

Little Buttercup enjoying her evening with her daddy ...

Isn't she cute? She was so excited about going hunting for the first time with her daddy. And they shot a deer and she watched him gut it ... she didn't flinch. The funny thing is that she can be such a girly girl and she is quite the drama queen. She is multifaceted and I love that about her (it's one of the ways that she is like her mama!)

Blessings!

long time no write!

Thu, 9 Nov 2006 07:16:00 -0600

It's been a while ... I have just been so busy!! Here' what has been going on ...

First, I am our Pastor's administrative assistant, which I do from home and so that takes time.

Second, I am our church's webmaster and I have been revamping our site and adding new features. One thing that I just added was our Pastor's sermons online & a podcast - check it out!!

Third, obviously we've been doing school :-)

Fourth, my almost-11-month-old is the biggest handful ever!

Fifth, I made a new blog - free heart - on Blogger ... it's a personal blog about the nuggets the Lord is giving me daily since my fast - He won't stop talking to me - LOL - and I love it!!!

Okay, so that's the brief update on me ... it's all good!

Blessings!

~Heather

Our trip to the Pumpkin Patch ...

Wed, 1 Nov 2006 10:50:00 -0600

Our trip to Burt's Pumpkin Farm in N.E. Georgia ... such fun!