Soap Giveaway

Go visit Shannon's blog at Song of My Heart for a cool giveaway from Virginia Soaps and Scents!  I love these soaps!  Hurry because the giveaway ends tonight!

Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving

 Even after Thanksgiving you can give thanks!  Here is my continuing list of things to be thankful for... 142. A husband who helps me through my weaknesses.143. A former student who sent me an email and a word of encouragement.144. A Word from God...He never leaves me nor forsakes me.145. Getting my Christmas cards done.146. Coconut cream pie!

147. Christmas decorations.

148. The ability to get through the hard times.149. Peace in my heart.150. A long weekend.151. God's Word, my constant help.

152. Hot chocolate...yum!153. The ability to go back to sleep after having insomnia.154. Watching the kids have fun with their friends.155. Thanksgiving day with friends.156. Walks with Titan.157. Support from church family.158. Good books to read-I am reading one about the tip of South America that is fascinating!159. A dirty house...yes, a dirty one!  I am thankful for my house no matter what condition it is in right now!160. The Argentina unit that we get to start today.  Can't wait to teach the boys about this wonderful area of the world.161. The ability to forgive.162. Watching a movie with Tim with the Christmas tree and village lights on.  163. My Partylite Nativity scene-one of my favorite decorations at Christmas.

164. The start of Advent and reading Tabitha's Travels.

165. Talking to my brother this past weekend on Thanksgiving.

166. Church Christmas parties that are coming up.

167. Getting a settlement check from a bankrupt business that owed us money.  We waited 14 years for that check!

168. Music that stirs the soul.

169. The sanctuary at church all decorated for Christmas.

170. My co-teacher in the Jr. High Sunday School class...I am so thankful that she taught for several weeks to give me a bit of a break.

 

Christmas Cards for This Year

Here are some samples of some of the cards I am sending out this year...

I love hedgehogs!

This is probably the most complex Christmas card I have ever done. To keep it closed it is wrapped in ribbon with a star in the appropriate place.

Here is the inside of the card. I made about 10 of these, and it took me about an hour and a half.  Kind of labor intensive!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Thankful...

"We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign." Revelations 11:17

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Deut. 8:10

Give thanks in all circumstances. I Thessalonians 5:18

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.  Psalms 100:4

God and the Closet

A couple of friends and I last week were discussing hiding in a closet.  Some days can be tough ones, and all you want to do is hide! We joked about bringing chocolate into the closet and sitting there and consuming it in our misery.  Well, God taught me this past weekend that we weren't far off the mark!

I have been doing the Beth Moore Bible study entitled "A Heart Like His" which is about King David.  My life in a lot of ways has been paralleling his experiences lately. There have been many a time these past few weeks that I have wanted to hide from people who have been critical and even hide from those who aren't being critical (in an effort to protect myself). Hiding from it all seems so much easier than having to deal with it all.  Well, it came as a surprise that my friends and I weren't the first ones to come up with the idea of hiding in the closet.  God highly recommends it!!!  Now, before you go thinking I am talking some kind of psycho-babble, read this:

Psalm 142

A maskil of David. When he was in the cave. A prayer.

I cry aloud to the Lord;
I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.
I pour out my complaint before him;
before him I tell my trouble.
When my spirit grows faint within me,
it is you who know my way.
In the path where I walk
men have hidden a snare for me.
Look to my right and see;
no one is concerned for me.
I have no refuge;
no one cares for my life.
I cry to you, O Lord;
I say, “You are my refuge,
my portion in the land of the living.”
Listen to my cry,
for I am in desperate need;
rescue me from those who pursue me,
for they are too strong for me.
Set me free from my prison,
that I may praise your name.
Then the righteous will gather about me
because of your goodness to me.

Did you catch that?  Where was David at the time he wrote this psalm? A cave...a Biblical times "closet" if you will.  The cave became a refuge for him, but David never actually states that the cave is the real refuge. No, he says that God is his refuge!  So God is the closet we should run to when we feel like hiding from the world.  He is our protector, our hiding place.  God is teaching me to run to Him...hide in Him.  Have Him be my comfort.

And I am pretty sure, He won't mind if I bring a friend and a piece of chocolate!

When Gratitude is Difficult...

Probably the hardest time to have gratitude would be when you are going through rough times.  That has been my life these past few weeks, so this list is extra important. 121. Family and friends that are faithful122. Brokeness, yes, I am thankful for my brokeness! God is speaking to me through it.123. Ann's post of  the Broken Beloved.  I so needed to read this this past week!124. A card from a friend125. Humor from another friend126. Homemade cinnamon vanilla applesauce made from organic apples from Azure Standard

127. Sharing a bulk food order with a friend128. God teaching me how to face my giants.

129. A God who protects me130. Thanksgiving131. A God who sees me and knows where I am coming from132. God speaking through my Bible study this week.  Every lesson I did was directly related to my tough situation...concepts like God going before us into battle, the rage of jealousy, that when we suffer God doesn't leave us, etc.133. Taco soup on a cold night134. Time with the Jr. High kids from church135. Laughter136. The ability to stand for what is right137. The strength to keep on going in the face of adversity138. Knowing my eternal destiny139. The life of King David...his situation has spoke to me the most this week140. Encouraging, uplifting words from friends...I wouldn't have made it through this past week without them.141. This quote from a friend, So, even though it hurts – sometimes I’m thankful, even for the pain. I never thought that would have made any sense years ago. I’m not actually sure it does now. But that pain brought so many blessings – when I stopped running from it – blaming others for it – and accepting my pain & brokenness as my own. Angie-you are brilliant!

Look What I Made!

Homemade English muffins!  I used a recipe from the More-with-Less cookbook.  These weren't hard at all and aren't even baked in the oven.  You cook them on a griddle.  I will say they are a tad time consuming so I am glad I doubled the recipe!

Titan and Television

Titan has recently decided that he loves certain images on the TV!  Here he is trying to play Wii by biting the characters in the game!! Needless to say, he didn't win!

Giveaway Winners

Today is the one year anniversary of my blog! Can't believe that it has been a year! 

We have two winners (which I selected using Random.org)  for my anniversary giveaway, and they are...

Andrea, who will receive Family Math
Dana, who will receive Hands-On Geography


Congratulations, ladies!!!

Resources for Studying Argentina

So in December we are embarking on studying Argentina through the book Chúcaro.  There is a unit for the book Chúcaro here.

Here are some other resources that we may use.  I wanted to collect them in one spot so that if anyone was ever interested in doing a unit on Argentina they could use them!

I love the "Choose-a-Country" lapbook available at Homeschool Share. We may use this as we work through Argetina.

Here is another unit on Argentina from the lady at Homeschool in the Woods.

General information about Argentina

Maps of Argentina

Christmas in Argentina from "Christmas Around the World" unit and lapbook-you will have to scroll to find Argentina.

Study Starters-We are going to use these pages as we go through our unit.  They are really cool and cheap!

Here are some units for younger kids: On the Pampas, Gauchada

A Bounty of Blessings....

There is so much to be thankful for...

104. Being nominated for the Homeschool Blog Awards!

105. Walking with a friend every Tuesday afternoon.
106. Safety on the roads
107. December is coming...I love the holidays!
108. A great husband that takes care of us financially.  He really is smart about those types of things!
109. Getting to go out to lunch with a friend today!!!!!
110. A invitation to do Thanksgiving at a friend's house.  I don't have to cook everything!
111. A new set of meals in the freezer
112. A phone call from a friend with a word of encouragement
113. Courage to teach both the Sr. and Jr. high Sunday School class.  Thanks you, Jesus, for calming my heart!
114. An opportunity to cook with my son
115. Titan's crazy antics that always make me laugh!

116. Awesome Bible stories to read to my kids
117. Friends and family that put up with me!
118. Thanksgiving!
119. Warm blankets in the winter
120. Time to scrapbook with a friend

What's in Store for December?

I am currently working on getting our December plans together for school.

We will be doing some different things for December this year...I have decided that we are going to be taking a break from our history (Ancients) and our science (Zoology) for the month of December.  This year we are going to do a unit study on Argentina based on the book, Chúcaro.  You can find the study here. I wrote this study so that I could do it with my kids. I have been to Argentina three times and love it there! I want the boys to have an appreciation of other countries.  So many times South America and Africa get left out in the dark so to speak when studying about the world. We recently did a study on Malawi, and now I thought it would be a great idea to focus on Argentina.

I am also planning on doing some fun projects in December related to Christmas.  Here are some of the ideas I am toying with...

I have wanted for a long time to make some of the treats from Bakerella...maybe some reindeer or Christmas trees.

We might do our 3-D snowflakes again this year and Minty Snowmen.

We always read one of the following stories each year for Advent...we have just voted on which one we are going to do (we have read them all so we decided to vote to see which one we will repeat this year). And we have decided to do Tabitha!

Stay tuned for updates as we get closer to December.  I am hoping to compile all we do with Chúcaro and put it on the blog in case there are others who want to do this study.

Zoology Lapbook Update-Ungulates and Primates

We have been working on ungulates (hoofed mammals) and primates.  Here are just a few of the lapbook pieces we have done. We are getting most of lapbook pieces from Homeschool Share.  We are putting the pieces in Bare Books (big spiral notebooks).  I just had to order some more books this week because we are running out of room!

Here are some of the books for ungulates.

Here are some of the books for primates...sorry, some of them are blurry!

A map of where the old world and new world monkeys are located.

Blog Anniversary Giveaways

November 18th will be the one year anniversary of my blog!  I can't believe it!  To celebrate I am doing a giveaway of some curriculum that I either have extra copies of or are not using.  In order to enter please leave me a comment telling me which giveaway (tell me the number) you want!

1. Family Math for elementary-jr. high.

2. Hands-on Geography for elementary kids.

You can enter up until November 16th.  I will announce the winners on November 18th.  Good luck!