Encouragement and Help in Raising Your Children

I read an article that I really enjoyed this evening and I wanted to share it with you. It is by Joshua Becker who has the blog "Becoming Minimalist" and the post is called : "35 Gifts Your Children Will Never Forget." Some great ideas on "giving gifts" that don't include cluttering up your home. It inspires you to think about things that truly matter.

I went to his blog tonight to read "Why Fewer Toys Will Benefit Your Kids" to which I wholeheartedly agree. It is another good article.

I thought you might enjoy them too.

I had fun finding a few old pictures of ours that went along with his posts.

 A trip where we had lots of fun finding beauty, learned a lot and appreciated nature.

 Creating with my girls. Art is always fun!

 Life long learning and nature again. Mara created a very cool fair project about trees.

 No toys needed to have a lot of fun! Imaginations at work. Creativity helps with costume making.

 We aren't quite minimalists truly but we do fully embrace the idea that it isn't stuff that makes us happy.

  I would love to hear your thoughts on toys and children.

Daily Bible Reading Challenge

I hope you are having a lovely Resurrection day! We are having some beautiful weather, had a good morning at church and are enjoying some of the kids friends here for the afternoon with the whole family due to come for supper. We feel blessed.

 We try to remember Jesus' death, burial and resurrection on a regular basis - weekly with communion every Sunday and then just often on our own - thinking in thankfulness at the wonderful gift God gave. As we read our Bibles it does help us to remember that gift regularly and to celebrate in the power Jesus has over death! In my reading this past week it was fun to notice how often Jesus' resurrection was mentioned. It is a critical part of the Gospel message and truly something to celebrate.

Here are some of the favorite verses from my reading this week....

What caused me to worship God more?
"O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before,  and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it." Psalm 139:1-6

When I want to be reminded of how God knows me very personally and loves and cares for me - Psalm 139 is a chapter I will quickly go to. The things this chapter tells me about my God causes me to worship Him even more!

What scripture touched me?
"...but they simply had some points of disagreement with him about their own religion and about a dead man, Jesus, whom Paul asserted to be alive." Acts 25:19

"And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made be God to our fathers; the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly serve God night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews. Why is it considered incredible among you people if God does raise the dead? Acts 26:6-8

Reading about Paul's time on trial  was very interesting as I noticed how often he referred to Jesus' resurrection. reading the Roman's view point: "About a dead man, Jesus, whom Paul asserted to be alive" really touched me when I think how what we know to be true about Jesus might look foolish to the world if only they would see and believe too.

What scripture inspired me to action?
"How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.... For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God." Acts 20:20, 21 &27

Seeing Paul's example inspires me to also be more bold. To share God's word with others more. We need people to realize the importance of repentance and faith and understanding God's will for them.

Interesting Fact:
"That the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. Acts 26:23"

It is because of Jesus' suffering on the cross and His Resurrection that can walk in light. How wonderful!!!

What nuggets have you found in God's word lately?

I started writing this post on Sunday but didn't finish before company came and then they were there til late and so I didn't get it posted and yesterday was busy with cleaning, schoolwork, teaching piano lessons and traveling to help out at an endorsing convention and getting home late so I finally have it going up today. :-)

Frugal Friday

 Did you have a good week of saving money? We did much of the time but we also spent some as well. But that is how life goes.

  I ordered my bees for the year and spent more on them than I ever have before but I am hoping that it will help me to save money in the long run as I got a different kind of bees - ones that are supposed to be hardier and people have reported better success at keeping them alive through the winter around here. So if that works I should save a lot of money in future years. So far in my bee keeping experience I have always kept Italian bees and any time I have tried to over winter them I have been unsuccessful. This time I am getting Carniolan bees. Just for interest sake - I am spending $260 on bees (for 2 hives) this year and am getting packages. Before I have always gotten NUCS and when I started I paid I believe $85 per hive. This year I would have been spending $250 for both hives as they have gone up to $125 each. I do generally get around 300 lbs a honey a year so it is still pretty inexpensive honey but it is a lot of money to shell out at one time. Anyway - I imagine I will write a "bee post" when I actually pick them up but I will get back to my more general money saving topics now....

One of our fun frugal activities this week was playing a game. Game playing is a nice frugal fun family activity but that isn't why I called this one frugal. This one was frugal because we wanted to play a game we had learned but instead of buying the game we figured out ways to use things we already had to play it instead.

   The game that we had learned when a bunch of family was here last month is called "Telestrations". It is basically a combination of the old game "telephone" and drawing pictures. It is fun, causes you to be creative and can get very funny.

 When you play the game each player gets a little dry erase "notepad". A friend had recently given us a bunch of scrap paper notepads about the size of the dry erase pads from the game and so we used those instead. You also get a writing instrument and you get a card that tells you what to draw. For our frugal game we used cards from "Taboo" a game that we already owned. You need to be timed when you are drawing so we pulled out the Boggle timer - that did end up being to long so Ken used his phone timer instead. We did also consider using a teeth brushing timer. Everybody puts there name on the front of their notepad.

  Then everybody picks a card and writes the word on it into the front page of their notepad. The next step is for them to draw a picture of that word. The photo above and below shows the progress of one word from our game (one that we found rather funny). Mara had the word "Convention" so she wrote that on the first page and then on the next page drew a picture. It was of a guy giving a speech and there is a picture of an Elephant (we are Republicans here and that is the type of convention we go to so it makes sense). After drawing the first picture everybody passes their notebook on to the next person and they look at the picture you drew but not the word you wrote and then write what they think your picture is. Jonathan's conclusion on Mara's picture was "guy giving a speech about his African safari".

Ken got the tablet next and he gets to look at Jonathan's conclusion but nothing else and then draw a picture of that. He draws the picture in the top left which was obviously somebody giving a speech but I didn't recognize his Elephant, lion and Africa so when I got it next and looked at the picture my conclusion was "Giving a speech about germs or monsters". Megan got it next and read what I wrote and then drew the bottom left picture to which Aaron decided that it must be "A weird guy".

  Anyway - we had fun (though we have found the game to be even more fun with more than 6 players. 10 or so generally causes things to get quite mixed up and then sometimes they can even make it somewhat back again.

Other frugal things....

Creamed Eggs on Toast.

• I had company for lunch and also served lunch today at a church activity and made soup (chili on Monday and split pea and chicken noodle today) both times. Soup is both an inexpensive, easy and well received luncheon meal to make.
• I organized an event today where we organized and fixed up one of the classrooms at the church building. We are (I have to finish tomorrow as the paint was still drying) putting up new shelves that are painted a pretty light blue green, adding a toybox and a rug for playtime, have nice fabric covered boxes for Sunday School supplies and I repainted a little chair to match the shelves. I spent less that $20 for the fix up (for shelves and brackets) as I had everything else we needed. I had been given paint and fabric. I had hot glue on hand and various people saved boxes for us to use. I am making the rug from fabric scraps and we could just use a lot of things that we already had on hand. Hooray for re-purposing and for having neater classrooms!
• We have been getting a lot of eggs so it has been fun using them a little more heavily in our meals. We can save money on meat that way. Mara made some yummy creamed eggs (a white sauce with boiled eggs cut in) over toast earlier this week and this evening I made an omelet of sorts with eggs, rice, veggies and a little meat. 
• Megan was needing a new spelling book. I was able to look through things passed down to me from my mom and find one that would work for her. I am amazed at how little we can spend on school books and supplies.
• We have saved a lot of scrap paper from things leftover from caucus and then from going through shelves today at the church building. We will save anything that has a blank back and that works perfectly for the kids to use for scrap paper for working on their math also it works great for all of Megan's drawing.
• I washed aluminum foil to repurpose it.
• I used old spaghetti sauce, salsa and jam jars to can our maple syrup in.

I would love to hear about any frugal things you did this week!

God's Giving

In my papers recently I ran across a poem by Helen Steiner Rice which I really love. It is so true and a great reminder. I want to share it with you.....

"More than hearts can imagine

or minds comprehend,

God's bountiful gifts

are ours without end.

We ask for a cupful

when the vast sea is ours,

We pick a small rosebud

from a garden of flowers.

Whatever we ask for

falls short of God's giving,

For His greatness exceeds

every facet of living."

~Helen Steiner Rice

Daily Bible Reading Challenge

Did you dig into God's word this past week? What are some of the jewels you found?
Here are some of my favorites (sometimes it is really hard to choose!)....

What caused me to worship God more?
"But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God,  and the prisoners were listening to them; and suddenly there came a great earthquake,  so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened." Acts 16:25 & 26

There are a couple of things in here that cause me to worship God more...

• The example of Paul and Silas to praise and worship God even when bound in prison. If they can worship even in the midst of trials then I can too.
• The example that we see of God's power and His ability to fix even the seemingly impossible situations. 

This year I have felt burdened more than ever before to pray for this presidential election. I feel that the stakes are pretty high - that we have various candidates that do not respect God or our constitution and if I am not careful when I look at how well they are doing in the polls and primaries it can cause me to worry. But instead I have been really working to pray. I am thankful for examples like this that just shows us that God is not bound in the same way we are. He can do things that we might never expect. Knowing that we have a mighty God is certainly a reason to worship and to quit worrying!

What Scripture touched me?

"Strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." Acts 14:22

The Christians in the early church had to often go through a lot of persecution but they were faithful. We want to be faithful too even should times get hard. People have done it in the past and we can do it too.

What prompts me to action?

"Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so." Acts 17:11

I think this is such an important example for us to follow today. We have many, many false doctrines being preached. Even among people that are Christians there may be someone who mis-speaks and teaches us something that isn't quite correct. Even in blogs that we read. :-) We need to ALWAYS compare what we are taught with the Bible. 

What interesting fact did I find?

"In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness." Acts 14:16-17

I think this verse is pretty cool and a reminder to us  that whenever we see rain, gardens, truly anything that God made it is a witness of Himself and a reminder to worship and serve Him.

I would love to hear what you gained from your Bible reading this past week. Please share in the comments!

Farewell to Winter

Looking up our lane.

 God gave us a most beautiful goodbye from Winter this week. We had such a pretty, sticky snow that was all over the trees and the ground. It was beautiful to look out and rather magical to drive through some of the roads around here where the trees rather go over the road. I had fun going out to take a few photos at our place.

Our house in the Winter Wonderland.

The branches were heavily laden.

The river is nearly open and looking very pretty.

Since the river has opened up we have had so much fun watching all the swans, geese and ducks come floating or flying by. We have also been regularly seeing an immature eagle diving to try to catch a meal. One lunch time we had such fun watching 4 otters out on the ice diving in and out of the water. God has made so many different things. I am totally in awe!

 The last two days has caused the snow to melt again so we are properly ready for Spring. Tomorrow after church we are going to celebrate my dad's birthday at lunch and then start the boiling down of maple sap. What a wonderful way to start Spring!

 I still think we will quite likely get more snow (which would be good for the Maple sap season) but we shall see.