Homemakers Do You Know About Laine's Letters?

Laine's Letters Laine is one more wonderful mother that God placed in my life at just the right time to help me with my homemaking. Laine has hundreds of tips for doing things more economically, faster and with the right attitude.

She has a beautiful testimony of how she began her deep walk with the Lord and rising at 4:00 am so that she could spend that very special time with God; reading her Bible and praying.Here is a portion of her testimony: "...Once I got home from the hospital with my new born, I knew I had to do what I had promised. So I started to get up at 4:00 a.m., as this was the only time of my day that I could be alone, and I opened the Bible to the beginning: Genesis. I asked Him to show me Who He was, and not as I perceived Him to be, as I did not know Him as I should. And I asked Him to help me love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. It was very hard for me to get up at 4:00 a.m. with a nursing baby, three other children, and home schooling. And I had always started to read the Bible before, but found it to be too time consuming and difficult to continue. But I feared God! So morning after morning I got up to be alone with Him. Soon I was growing and finding out who God was! And how much He loved me! I couldn't wait to get up and get into His Word, and many times would get up at 3:30..." Please visit Laine's Letters and learn from this godly woman. You'll be glad you did. I have learned so much from reading her letters. They are organized by subject as well as by date. When you go to her web site. If you click on the note pad you get letters from her by subject. Click on the wall picture and you get letters by date, beginning 1999 and are daily up through the year 2000 then they taper off a bit. If you click on her recipe box you will find some great recipes. Enjoy and God bless you. Kathi

I Just Watched "Julie & Julia" Again...

Dear Readers, I have a wish that I could do a project like Julie did. I want the project to be similar inwhich I would blog about it each day. I want the project to be fun and challenging. This project could be cooking,

sewing, (don't you love this fabric store?),
gardening, (I have always wanted to build a green house similar to this one),
decorating my house, or any number of things. I took the picture below from a restaurant. I'm afraid to decorate, but when I venture out and try it, I usually love the results.

Let me know your thoughts. I am like Julie in the movie, in that I must have a deadline, or I may not get started or finish.

Voice To Spirit: A Great New Christian Band

I want to share with you this Christian band called Voice to Spirit.I love their music, which is an electronic genre. Words and music are mostly original and created by this husband and wife duo, Mackenzie and Brittany. This is the front cover of their first CD.
This is the back side of their CD. Mackenzie did the art work on their album.
Voice to Spirit came to one of our youth meetings and sang in a park setting.
The teens enjoyed hearing the beautiful music and lyrics.
We had picnic food before the concert began and ice cream after.
Mackenzie and Brittany are dear to my heart. Their songs are soothing and worshipful. Brittany has a beautiful voice, which matches the heart-felt words that they both have written together on many of their songs.
If you have an opportunity to listen to them on iTunes, please do. I'm hoping they will put their music on play list so that I could play it for you; hopefully soon.
Mackenzie and Brittany are pursuing their dream of using their talents for the Lord. I'm proud of them and happy to say that Mackenzie is my nephew, (my sister Sharon's son), and Brittany is my new niece by marriage.
Again, this is what to look for when searching on iTunes. Bless you dear blogging friends.
"Come before His presence with singing." Psalm 100: 2

Our 41 pound Turkey

Is Homeschooling Good? or Can It Be Cultish?

Dear Bloggers, I am going to open a can of worms and ask the question: Can homeschooling be cultish? I believe it could be, but not necessarily totally true. For me IT WAS. I zoned in on "The Perfect World" syndrome. I began homeschooling in sin. I began homeschooling out of fear of the world. I didn't trust in the Lord enough. I feared the evils of the school system so much that I did not trust God to help me either way: public or home-education. There I was full of fear and dread. I fretted and stewed. I did not trust. I took the reigns in my own hands and by my will I decided to embrace seperateness from the world which included: weirdness of being out of sink with normal--wearing old fashioned clothing etc., thinking the Amish were pure and wholesome and so should we, the Mennonites--same thing, the pride of "I can do it better" which we know where pride leads don't we? DESTRUCTION! not realizing that Christ should have been the center of my thoughts and motives. Homeschooling becomes very ugly when the people doing it have pride at the center along with fear of failure at its root. That's where I was. I have more to share about our journey and how God delivered me out of this. I am not saying homeschooling is bad. I have many friends who have d0ne it all the way through successfully and with right motives and have wonderful children. I am saying that it can do so much damage to the people doing it and to their children when their motives are wrong and if fear and pride rule them. Does anyone else out there feel the way I do or am I alone? Please comment and share your stories. Thank you, Kathi

Teaching the Days of Creation to Little Ones

This is a fun project for mothers to teach their children about the days of creation. These seven numbers are cut out of light weight cardboard from cereal boxes, and covered each with different objects to teach the lesson found in Genesis chapter 1. They are for handling and for display on a bulletin board.
On the first day God created light. Cover the number one with foil.
On the second day God created the clouds. Cover the number two with cotton balls.
On the third day God created plants and seeds. Cover the number three with various seeds. Use Elmer's thick glue. Allow to dry over night.
On the fourth day God created the sun, moon and stars. Cover the number four with black construction paper and add a sun sticker, a moon sticker and lots of star stickers.
On the fifth day God created the birds and the fishes. Cover the number five with BLUE construction paper and add bird and fish stickers. (Mine had been blue, but the sun faded it over the years, as I had it up on our bulletin board.)
On the sixth day God created livestock and wild animals of various kinds and He made His prize creation, which was man. "...so God created man in His Own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." Gen. 1:27 Cover the number six with any color construction paper and add stickers of land animals of all kinds and of man and woman. I put a picture of my husband and I.
On the seventh day God finished His work and rested. Cover the number seven in flannel and make a little pillow. Add ribbon so it resembles a bed (although we know from Scripture that God never sleeps or slumbers; He did rest though.)
This is Garrett, my eight year old. He found these in a box, which I had set aside and forgotten about. I must have made these 12 years ago. Garrett enjoyed them as much as my older children had. "God saw all that He had made, and it was very good." Genesis 1:31

Candyland Cake For Garrett's Birthday

Our daughter Jessica got the idea to make a Candyland birthday cake from the Internet.
She and her sister Victoria and brother Harrison all pitched in to make this cake special for their little brother Garret. I'm so happy that the three of them work together and followe the directions. Jessica did such a beautiful job creating the gameboard by looking at it while working on it.
Many different kinds of candy was used including Starburst and Gummy Bears.
Harrison opened many candy cane circle candies for the little "fence" going around the cake.
I just love the way it turned out.
Garrett was so surprised and happy with his cake. We all got into the truck to drive to the pizza parlor, taking thre of his little frinds with him.
Garrett looks pretty happy. Several other children will meet us there. Here we are at the pizza parlor. Dad got to join us too.
Garrett got some wonderful gifts from his friends.
This pizza place has a huge play area so the children played between eating pizza and having cake.
Harrison's girlfriend Nikki got to come to and was a nice help to me along with my three teenagers.
Garrett and me enjoying the festivities.
Garrett had one of the best birthday parties ever.
These two mothers were a huge help to me. I was so thankful to have them here.
We ordered three large pizzas and all, but three pieces were eaten.
Garrett getting ready to blow out his candle. I told him to swallow first.
I can't believe my baby is eight years old.
When we got home we had our own celebration. My older teens bought Garrett some really nice gifts using their own money. I was really happy about this.
Garrett wanted macaorin and cheese for his special birthday dinner. This is our special birthday plate. We have a pink one for girls and a green one for boys.
I also served our own turkey which we raised ourselves, green beans, salad and bread.
Garrett wanted sparkling cider too.
We had a wonderful special dinner together and are all thankful for our Dear Garrett. "You will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy" John 16:22