my girls ( pic.s)

My 2 sweet girls so far! ( I am hoping for more) Big sister Sarah with baby Anna!! They are quite the pair!

Anna is almost 7 months. She, in the last couple weeks has mad great changes. Sitting indepently and almmost crawling. She can pull her self around god and pretty quick too. Now we have to watch whats on the floor! Everything goes in her mouth at this stage.

So sweet girls!! And they are so lucky to have 3 big brothers to look out for them.

I thank my Lord for these sweet blessings!!

( Sorry you have to turn your headd for this one.) Three yr. old Sarah looking chicky!

I absolutly love my girls!! And i do hope God sees fit to bless us with more. I hope and pray and strive to be every bit the Mom He wants me to be for them.

This is our school (pic.s)

Books is the way we learn!! And its never to early to start reading! Enjoying the pile of books are Samuel, 5, Sarah, 3, and Anna, 6 1/2 months.

Samuel goofing off for the pictuer!!

Nathan hard at work at his desk!! My oldest at age10 in grade 5.

Clayton in grade 2 and Samuel in K. They work at the kitchen table so i can help them.

My favorite magazine

I just had to do another short post to share with you all my very most favorite magazine!!

The Above Rubies !!

Haven't heard of the magazine? Then you need to go to www.aboverubies.org. And there you can find out all about it. You can get on the mailing list for it there as well. Its by donation only.

The magazine usually comes 4 times a year. That is not often enough for me, but their so packed full with goodies that it usually holds me over till the next one! lol Its so full of encouragement for moms of littles and for homeschooling and so.


Haven't been to an Above Rubies retreat? If not you really ought to check one. Go on-line to find listings of retreats in your area. I have been to 3. Love them so much!!


p.s. I guess the boys have adjusted to this cooler morning because they have traded their fire for the swimming pool!! But then it has warmed up to 84F now.

Have a blessed day!!! Mae

lovely morning in Texas!

I'd have to say this is one of the most lovely and perfect mornings here in a long time!!
When i got up at at 6:30 it was reading 63F with 74 percent humidity!!
Feeels so great after 100 degreees temps!!! I feel like i have so much energy!! I feel like running and jumping around like a child!!!

But my kids are complaing that its cold! I can't believe it. But there out side enjoying it now. But thats probabaly because they got a little fire going!!
Weathere like this makes me want to go camping. I love getting up in the tent on a cool morning. Sitting around the camp fire, and sipping a hot cup a coffee! Yep, anin't nothing like it!!

Its 72F now, but still feel so lovely!

Well i need to get off and get on with my mroning here. Got laundry going, got the breakfast dishes washed, and the kids just got me 2 older hens to pluck and clean. One will be for dumplins for supper and the other goes in the freezer!! Nathan is plucking the one now.

Thank you Lord for the great day!!

P.s I have just took some very cute pic.s of the girls, and of the boys doing school. I will share them here soon.

time , priorities, and i don't do it all!

I almost lost thought on what I was trying to get at in my last post! In the last couple days I tryed to regather my thoughts on this. Here's what i cam up with.

If your struggling with feeling like you need to "do it all" but you just can't, then don't!! :)
There, how do you like that for some great words of wisdom!!!

There seems like theres always pressure around us as parents. Theres so much out there to offer our kids, and they're all very good things ( or I am sure most is). But you just can't "do it all" and still keep your sanity, aleast I can't. So you make your priorities for your family and relax!

And I don't do it all! I keep up with the kids school, house work, cooking, shopping and so on. Thats about it!! We do like to meet with our local home school group on weekly park days which I work in with my shopping day. A new thing for us is volunteering at our local nursing home for an hour or so once a week. The kids love that!!

One of my top priorities is that we all have family evening meals together and that we read together before bed-time. ( I usually read a story or two out of a "good" book we are currently reading, and in the children's Bible book)

Oh something I failed to add in last post is that moms don't do everything all by them selves. For one thing there's wonderful hubby's helps with little ones , running errands, and running children to activities. And there's the older children that help out tremendously!!

What does God think of all that moms and families try to cram into their days and lifes? Well I wouldn't know. Every family has to answer that one on their own I guess.

I do think we need to be careful that we don't get caught up to much in the cares of this world, that we loose fouces of the reason we are here. We are here as servants of God, to live our lives pleasing to God, and to reach others for Him. Remember also that its no longer, "I that liveth, but God that lives in us". ( sorry I can not think of the Bible reverence for that at the moment)


Well it seems I again have lost my thought here!! Sorry! I will think on it it some and if I come up with somthing good I will share it, but if not I won't!! :)

time , priorities, and doing it all

Have you ever wished for more hours in a day?
I have countless times!!
Some days there just seems there so much to do and not enough hours to do it. It happens so often to me.
But God only created 24 hour days. So i guess he must of felt that was all the time we needed to get every thing done. So if more hours in a day is not the answer, then I would guess that we must be trying to do more than we should in a day.

This kind of goes with my last post of moms and their many roles they play. Just keeping up with basic duties of mom keep most running all day.

Theres homeschooling, cooking, house cleaning, keeping the laundry done, grocery shopping, keeping doctor and dentist appointments, tending little ones. That in its self is a full time job!! Actually enough to keep 2 or 3 going full time in my opinion!!

But that's not even all we moms do. Then there's sports, music lessons, swim lessons, boy scouts, dance lessons, karate lessons , co-op, volunteering, play-dates, and home school park days to keep up with!!

But your not done yet mom, theres more pulling your time. Theres e-mailing, face-booking, blogging, bills to pay,, ect..

Overwhelmed yet?

But were still not done ! We have left off the most inportian thing that you can possible accomplish in a day!

Family devotions, and morning and evening at that!!

But there's just no way one mom can possible keep up with all of that. She either is going to be stretched so very thin that shes going crazy or something is going to get the slack. Thats just the way it is. ( And so sadly it seems that family devotions are the first to go)

So then i guess thats where priorities come in at. Every family has to set their own priorities for their family. What means the very most to them. And fouces on those things and let other things go.

Now back to where I started on this. Its my thinking we may be trying to cram in to much into our days, and into our lives and kids lives. It could just be that God did not even intend us to live as we do, and do all the things we do.

But there's pressure all around us , for us to accomplish as much as we possible can, and that our children can experience everything they possible can. And that all of this will give them better advantage in life.
But what does God think?

Anyway it seems I have to much for one post so I will continue on this subject in later posts. That will give me time to regather my thoughts! :)

In the mean time I would love to hear from others on this.
I would love to hear how you handle it all.

Encouraging moms

Just had a few thoughts on mind about this I wanted to share . I think it came because i have just recently received a few negative words again concerning my parenting. It hurts when it happens.

I'm thinking come on can't you find a whole lot of things to compliment me on, or encouraging or up-lift? What about all the many things I do right? Why the few little things i fail in?
Why is that our short comings and faults are so easy for others to see? And why do they with out fail feel its their place to tell us?

So instead I think us moms need a whole lot more encouragement!!! A whole lot more pointing out all the areas that we are good in, and maybe that encouragement will flow over into the areas we are not. A whole lot more uplifting!! And i guess a tactful way to say the things we may not always want to hear.

We all got very full plates, and wear many hats. We may be stay-at-homes, but we are teachers, chefs, house keepers, keeping a well stocked pantry, coaches, secretaries, disciplinaries, and of course still a mom and a wife. We are stretched very thin at times. No wonder there may be an area that we are weak or low in. ( I believe we do need to be careful though that we do not over stretch our selves unnecessarily or add unneeded things to our plate)

So we need the encouragement and best of all the prayers of others to keep us going strong and flourishing as mom! We moms need to encourage and compliment each other.

And let us not forget our own moms! Now that we are a mom ourselves its easier to see all that she did for us! And also why she did what she did , and why she had the rules she did and so on. She needs our thanks, and our words," Well done mom" ," I am proud of what you did for me".
I challenge you to give encouraging words and compliments to a fellow mom this week. She will be happy for it!

I hid the DVD player,

and its been so quiet in here!! And no body is overly up set at me!!! So thats good!!

I think its one of those things that if its there then you want to watch , but if its not then you don't miss it. Kind of like out of sight out of mind!


Sarah, my 3 year old had been constanly begging to watch the latest carttoon i had picked up at a grage sale. The Bee Movie. She was watching it off and on all day long. Till i descided one night after she went to bed that the DVD player would go bye-bye!!

That was 4 days ago. So far so good! I do not know how much longer i can keep this up though.

Whats bad is that the Bee Movie is stuck in there, so thats the only thing that can be watched!

up-date on my goals

Well i think its been about a month since i have established my set of goals for the rest of the summer and beyond for some.
Heres a look at how i have done so far on them.

Decluttering and Organizing- barely happening , just a tiny bit. Got to work harder on that.

Daily Excersise- not happening. Its been more like weekly excersise!! Oh no, I got to get in to action!

Daily Bible Reading- happening for the kids, but not for me. I am so dissapointed in my self. I had planed to get up ealier and read while its quiet in the house. Well will try harder or appoinnt another time.

Going no Caffine- Thats happening! And i feel so good about it to. I am so glad to beable to say that i am sticking to one of my goals!! Except for an ocassional cup of coffee, like one a week. An actually thats what i am sipping on right now! Yes, caught in the very act!!

Eating a healthy Breakfast- happening!! I started this goal just a bout 2 weeks ago. And i have only scumed twice!! I had originally planned this goal for just a one month trail, To see how i would feel. See i had been feeling so tired and slugggish by mid-morning most days, epesially while i ws still doing 2 to 3 cups of coffee every morning. But now since I descided to cut out sweets for breakfast i have felt so much better all morning long.
So i feel like i will always try to do this. I also want to try having fruit only for breakfast often as I can ( thanks to a friend for sgguesting that.) I am exctied about doing that. It should be so healthy and give me energy.
My mom sugessted i try cutting out starches and add fresh vegtables as well.( She does this for my Dad who is diabetic. Oh i haven't forgotten that I was going to write a post on that)
I do have to keep in mind that I am a breasfeeding mom so I should proabaly make sure I get my protien in the morning as well.

Drinking more water- This is a new goal for my list. I have always been fairly good at drinking plenty of water but seems even harder to get enough when its so hot and I am nursing. That combo really depleats you. I should fill me some bottles and keep them in the fridge for easy grabbing and will be very refreshing!!

Wish me luck on my goals , i will need it!!

letting go ( Christmas)

I think we covered about all the bases on Christmas. So now what?
Well my oppinion would be that its time now to let it go. Give it Up. Give that Holiday back to the world.
I believe letting go of Christmas is very hard though.
But I think it may be easier after seeing the inside picture of it. And also understanding that since it is a pagan holiday that it really means nothing to Jesus. What you thought was so glorify and honouring to Him all these years really wasn't after all.

Here's a little something that may be helpful that you could compare it with.
When my husband and I got married I wanted to remember my mother-in-law's birthday. Tell her happy birthday on her day of course, but also do a little something for her. Get her a little gift.
I enjoyed doing something for her and she seemed happy for it, and thought that that went with it. But as the years went by she let us know that she really didn't care much for birthdays , that it didn't really mean anything to her. So that was fine. I realized if didn't mean anything to her then it shouldn't mean anything to me either. And the kids knew as well.

This past birthday I didn't get anything of course, and just a couple days before her Birthday I was out with the kids and they found out it was her Birthday soon. They all were like, " oh no, we didn't get her anything", " We want to get her something." "I said well what did you have in mind?" "That would be ok, but remember she has told us it really doesn't mean anything to her, and she has absolutely no needs, so it would just be something she doesn't need".

I went on to explain to them that getting her something seems to mean more to them than it does to her. I said so if your just doing it to make your self satisfied and happy, are you really doing it for her? You know we got to watch that we are not just doing something for our own gratification, but yet saying that we are doing it for someone else.

After they thought about that for a minute they totally understood and agreed that they wanted to get her something because it meant alot to them. So we agreed together that they could just make her a picture or a card instead. They were happy with that, and that saved their little bits money.

So if you think of it that way it may make it easier for you to let it go. Because if it doesn't mean anything to God ( the one we are suppose to be doing for in first place) then it really shouldn't mean anything to us. If it does still mean something to us, then it probably means we were doing it for self and not for God any way.

I hope this helps. Remember I love to hear from you. Tell me what you think.

Blessings, Mae

schoolin and what we use

This is our 4th week of school now. Nathan's 3rd week though, I had him start a week later so i could get the others in a bit of a routine first.

Nathan is 5th, using all Christian Light Education Curriculum. He really likes it. Its 10 little booklets to a subject except reading which has 5. He has Social Studies, Science, Reading, Math, Language Arts, and Bible. Hes mostly all on his own except for a few things he needs my help with from time time. He can even correct hi sown with the answer books, so that saves me time.

Clayton is in 2nd, using Christian Light Education as well,l except for Language Arts. For that we use First Language Arts For The Well Trained Mind. I have used that for Nathan as well. I have really liked it. It is mostly all done orally. It covers grades 1 and 2, so this is Clayton's second year in it.

Samuel is in K. I am using the book, 100 Easy Lessons To Teach Your Child To Read. Its going very well for him so far. I have used this with all 3 of the boys now. We take it kind of slow and break 1 lesson into 2 days. I write all the words that the book introduces on flash cards and go over those with him often.

Our school week starts on Sunday and goes through Thursday. That is new for this year. And i am very pleased with it so far. Friday is used for weekly cleaning , cooking extra for Sabbath, and will run any last minute errands to our local town. And Sabbath is our rest day.

Before i started this new schedule I was doing school Monday - Friday. And Friday was so hard for all of us because we tyred to do a full day's worth of school, and then cleaning too. I always dreaded Fridays. But not no more!!!

family gathterings ( Christmas )

I have also been told, "nothings wrong with getting together with family and friends giving each other gifts, enjoying good food and so". I was told this as an attempt at justifying Christmas.

True, but that still does justify the keeping of Christmas/Jesus's birthday. Somthing that was built on pagan tradtions and customs.

Yes its fun and good to get together with our family and friends, enjoying each others company, and enjoy wonderful food that God has given us. I think God loves the gathering of people, because its when were together with others, that we can talk about Him and and share His love and share the wonderful things He's been doing in our lives. Even talk about His birth with others.

Of course for family gatherings to happen we need an arranged day or days it seems and of course everyone needs to have the same days off work. And as long as this world turns it I'm sure there will always be vacation time from work at Christmas time.
So i can see that time of year would be most appropriate time to gather. But you don't need the excuse of celebrating Christmas in order to do it.

Nor do you need the excuse of celebrating Jesus birth in order to give your children, others and even your self gifts!! Surprise a loved one with a gift any time!! They will be so happy you did!! You don't need an excuse to buy that certain thing you always wanted , but don't really need. BUY IT!! ( providing theres money of course)

Its so very sad but it seems to me Christmas has become a very materialistic thing (or i guess it always has). To me its all about giving, getting, eating great food, party's. Oh yea, we throw in there remembering Jesus birth, since thats what its suppose to be about anyway. And doing good things to others.

I have heard said we need to put Jesus back in Christmas. But its hard to do.

Do you know why its so hard to put Jesus back in Christmas? Its because Jesus never belonged there in the first place. And why is it so hard to make Christmas truly God honouring , because its not a Godly holiday, period.

alot of good is done ( christmas)

"But alot of good things are done," I have been told, as a way to support Christmas.
Yes that's true, alot of good things are done at that time of year. But does that suddenly justify it? Does that make a wrong thing right?

Here is just a few of the many good things done at Christmas time.

visiting nursing homes and goody packages given to the residents there,
helping out at mission centers,
help packages sent to poor kids in 3rd world countries,
toy and food drives for the underprivileged,
goody packages and cards given to kids in the hospital,
visiting prisons,
donations made to charitable organizations,
blankets given to the homeless

All good things, but these things can be done all the time all year long!! God wants us to be meeting the needs of others everyday.

Another thing that Christmas does though not really related to the things mentioned above, is that is boost the economy. I guess that's good right?
I know theres always news on it after the biggest shopping day of the year ( day after Thanksgiving). Our economy just thrives on all those sales of Christmas stuff. Truly I do not know where the economy would be with out it.
But does that make it right?
And I wonder what God thinks of that as he looks down from above? All these people running around doing their shopping on all kinds of unnecessary things, some spending money they don't even have, but doing it all in preparing for Christmas.

honouring God ( Christmas/birthday )

Here's another thought on Christmas.

Say there was nothing pagan at all about birthdays. Still would Jesus really be pleased or honoured by his birthday being remembered?

I mean we are are earthly. We are fleshly. We love to be remembered , and we love to be given gifts. Its kind of nice to have our very own special day. And children look forward to their birthdays, they are eager to see what surprise you have for them.

But Jesus is so much different than us that way. He is heavenly. Does those things mean anything to Him? If the early Christains did birthdays back then he may have been in to it while on earth, but now?


But there is alot of things that does honour and please our Lord that we can do for him. Here is just a few.

Our pure and undefiled love and obedience to Him
feeding the poor
visit the widowes and the elderly,
visit the prisoned,
take care of the orphaned,
love our children,
remember His death,
just simply living our lives for His glory

Thats how we can honour God.

Also we have to remember that Jesus didn't just come into existence when he was born as a baby, like our earthly babies are. He always was. He was from the very beginning. So His life didn't just start when he was born.

Eating a healthy breakfast

I have just added a new goal to my goal list.
It is eating a healthy breaksfast every morning for a month!! And then we will see from there.

What has brought this on is that more often than not I find my self srambling arounnd at the last mintue in the mornings trying to figure out what to have for breakfast , and it ends up being somthing sweet.

So to fix this problem I have descided to plan a head on breakfast. Plan for somthing healthy. That will hopefully give me energy for the day and make me feel good.

Latly by mid morning I have been feeling so tired and sluggish and I have blamed it on my junky breakfast. Mostly the breaksfastest was sweet dry cerael, or sweetend oatmeal, toast with sweet jelly, or pancakes with sweet toppings, and occasionally eggs. Oh and when i was still hvaing cooffee it was 2 to 3 cups of coffee a morning with 1/4 tsp. sugar to each. I feel the comination of the coffee and the sweet breaksfast gave me a very bad start on the day.

I have know for so long that breakfast is the most importian meal of the day. But i was not treating it like it was.

So to start my ,"healthy breakfast for one month", off this morning I had scrambled eggs with hot dogs ( i know hot dogs is not to healthy but thier not sweet and thats what i am foucesing on right now), toast with only butter, a bannana and a glasss of milk.

My Dad is diabetic and just recently they have found out it you cut out almost all starches and go mostly raw you can reverse diabeteas. They have the book Death to Diabetes. www.DeathtoDiabetes.com Anyway it said just to focus on breakfast first, cut out all startches, and have brocile and brussle sprouts alot. He has cut back on his insulin since hes been doing that. I think he has been doing that about a month now. I will talk more baout that in a futuer post.

Anyway i was thinking i would probably feel good too if i had brocile and brussle sprouts for breafast!! I really ought to try it!!

If any one has good healthy breafast ideas plaease tell me!

An appology

I feel like I need to add here that I have written a post on Christmas this past winter that some of you have probably read. So you may be wondering why again? What posses her with Christmas anyway?
Well for one thing I deleted that post. I felt it came accross way to judging, to harsh and I just was not pleased with it. And I apploize for that. So i deleletd it.
But yet I did so very much want to share why it is I don't keep Chrsitmas, why I feel its not right, and also just my personal thoughts on it.
So thats why I come yet again with a post or should I say posts on Christmas. This time I am making them short and easy to read. And I am trying very hard to make them come accross very kind ,thoughtful and considerate.

I do not want to shirk from the truth but i want to present it in a very caring way. I don't want to turn any one off or hurt anyone. If I did I would not be achieving a thing.

I feel this is somthing that God has put heavy on my heart to share with others. Infact this alone was one of the main reasons I started my blog in the first place. This and a a few other things I felt God wanted to me to share. God has been putting other things on my heart and mind as well right along.

So if I have alreay hurt someone with this series of post on Christmas I deeply appolize. And I would hope you would continue to hang with me and hear what all eles I have to share on this.

I am so very thankful to God that I have this way of sharing with others.

Remmeber I love your comments!! And would love to hear your thoughts on this thus far.

Christmas ( heathen cutoms to glorify God?)

So if you have been following thus far on my series on Christmas you will have an understaning of the many tradtions and customs that have pagan origins.

So now with that knowledge we can go to a concordance and look under heathen, and find many places where God was not pleased with the ways of the heathen. And God certainly did not want his people picking up those ways.

Here is just a few scriptuers on that but i would urge you to look up your own as welll.
2 chronicles 36:14
Jer. 10:2
Ezekiel 36:24

In Jer. 10: 3-4 , we read of a heathen practice of cuting down a tree and decorating it. It sounds so much like the christmas tree and it makes me wonder if thats where the custom of the christmas tree came from.

So if God was not pleased with his people taking on heathen pratices and cutoms back then , don't you think He still feels the same today.

Aslo if the origin of birthdays them selves were pagan then how could cleabrting Jesus's birthday which christmas is all about , possibly be glorifying to God. We can not take a pagan thing and make it pure to God.

Well i will write more soon. I just want to keep these post short and easy to read.

Christmas

Ok, so i found that site i mentioned thats on the origins of Christmas. http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

Also here is one on the pagan origins of birthdays. http://www.cogwriter.com/birthdays.htm

I have info i printed off another site that has good info on pagan origins of birthdays as well, but when i tryed sharing that link here it just said page was not found. So i can not share that other link here.
But you can google this on google search and find several sites that way. Also if you have an enecylopedia you can look christmas up in there. That will give you a base of where i cam coming from and will give you some understanding in what i will be sharing in up-coming posts


I will be posting more on this soon.

Christmas

Most that read my blog know already that my family and I do not celebrate Christmas. In fact I never even once have in my life time .

The reason my parents were against it and why we are still, is of the pagan origins that go with all most all of the traditions and customs of Christmas. And by reading in Bible we can clearly see that God was very displeased with his people using pagan and heathen things to worship Him.

Even though i have known all my life Christmas is wrong ,i have only just recently come aware of even more and more things that make it so obvious that Christmas is not something that Jesus would be pleased with.

I plan to make several short easy to read post on that over the next month.

If this is a totally knew concept to any one. I apoizie for the bluntness this may come accross. Or the shock you may be feeing at the moment. Since I never have cleabrated christmas i do not know how it feels to have beeen doing somthing you felt was so honouring to Jesus for so long, and then have some one suddenly tell you that just the opposite is true.

To get you a base on what I talking about concering the tradtions having pagan origins you can google christmas pagan origins or Birthday pagan origins. This last winter I found a really good site on that by doing google search, but i have missed placed it some where. So when i find it i will sare that in up coming posts as well.

I would hope you will be eager and intrested to hear what i have to share on this and not be upset at me.
So keep on the out look for coming posts on Christmas, and hold off on purchasing that early gift just now, cause your mind is apt to be changed afterwards!!