Scrapblog

Journal ~ Homeschooling, Family Beach Day

Family Beach Day Seal Beach, Ca



Hello Sisters!

Well, our Jesus Week was good, but I expected it to be better. So.....we are doing it for another week. There was just too much research for me to do myself and then to "share it" with the kids...it was like "I" was doing all the work and then pre-digesting all the great stuff to my kids, which THEY need to be the ones doing the reasearch in order to receive the benefits!

So....we are doing Robin Sampson's WISDOM unit study, which is ABSOLUTLY GREAT! We did it about 2 years and HONESTLY, out of ALL the hsing things we have done, her study is at the top! My kids will always remember the "Wisdom study." I think you can download for free an excerpt of Wisdom.

We are also going to be going through the Adam to Abraham study she has. I think HEARTOFWISDOM.com is my best route because it puts Jesus FIRST, not academics. Yes she believes in academics, but only secondary to learning about God. High-School Formula is good (by Barb Shelton), but I don't do grades and all that school stuff because it is not important to me and it never has been.

Last week we went to the beach ALL day and had a great time. I even brought the play pen and laid the baby down in it for her naps. I got to swim with the older kids and made sand castles with the younger ones. We packed lunch, ate out for dinner, went for a walk around Main Street Seal Beach and even had Cold Stone Ice Cream! My hubby got a chance to get away for an hour and spend time with the Lord in His beauty complete with seagulls, blue gentle rolling waves, swaying palm trees and 75 degree warm day. It was pretty much perfect.

I gotta get up early, so I need to sign out.

By the way....remember when I said I was going to believe to get everything I needed, so as not to think about "where" I would get money for the things I needed. Well, last week a friend brought over $600.00, yep, that's right $600.00 and said he is blessed and wants to pass on the blessing. How awesome is the LORD????? Jehovah Jireah, my provider!!!!!

Blessings,
Shannon

Jesus Week

Hello Sisters!

This week begins our "Jesus Week" where we ditch the "school stuff" and DOUBLE UP on the Word of God!!!!!!!!! We spend extra time reading and studying the Word, singing, praying, hanging out in the yard, having a picinic, watching the 700 Club and going to see FIREPROOF and the movies Friday! :) We will be studying the blood covenant God had with Abraham and how it parelles the blood covenant with Jesus. I created these little scrap pages on scrapblog.com in order to have an attention getter for the children (o.k.....they are really fun for me to do also! :)

Blessings,
Shannon

Journal ~ Home Management Binder, The Book of Maccabees

Hello Sisters!

I've been reading the book of Maccabees (if you are not familiar you can get some info. on this book at Wikipedia) and I see even more how WHAT WE DO or DON'T DO, changes the outcome. I was taught that "whatever is whatever" with God and you "never know about your future." But in the scriptures OVER and OVER again the Lord in His GREAT LOVE and TENDER MERCIES always is endeavoring to get GOOD over to His people. If something is wrong in a person's life you can believe WHOLE HEARTILY, that the problem lies with the person and NOT with God! I would like to talk about this more, but as I was saying, I'm reading Maccabees.

The Jews are being told to give up their God and take on the beliefs and customs of the Greeks (this is about 100 b.c.) Many Jews cave in, but like always, there is a remnant who will not deny the GOODNESS OF THE LORD and who hold fast to Him. So Mattathias in Chapter 2, says to all the people, let us escape to the hills and not deny our God. Now these are all Jews who will not sell out to the Greeks, so these are the "hard-core" believers you could say. I don't know how many groups went into the hill country, but this is where it gets interesting.

1 group was slaughtered, men, women and children, these were the "hard-core" believers! They said, "we will not fight to protect ourselves, let us all die." The other group (with Mattathias) said, "we will fight, we will be strong, we will be courageous, we will not die like our kinsmen died."

I see 2 groups of hard-cores here (remember, these people could have taken on the Greek lifestyle and lived the easy life, so to put their life in danger they had to be another class of people) all believers, all sold-out to the "cause." Yet, 2 totally different outcomes all because of what they SAID, and DID.

As I study more, I'll share more. :)

I wanted to show you a bit of how I organize, so here are some pics. :) I'm still learning and I adjust things as is needed. I've found a 3-ring binder for me is not as useful as a BULLETIN BOARD!!!! I need to see things EASILY without having to flip through a notebook. One of the secrets for me in managing my home is to DAILY go over my Home Management Binder and take notes, make notes and make adjustments.

This is my little area above the toy shelf. Here I have my flowers, bulletin board, HMB, and a calendar in which I try and journal a bit about our days. Hanging up are the menus and daily, weekly and monthly chores (donnayoung.org)

Here is the front of my HMB, and the calendar in which I write about what has gone on during the day as far as learning goes.

This is a dry erase board that I have in the dining room. Here I list things that each member of the family needs to get done with the exception of chores, those they should have memorized! The things I list are like, fold laundry, make batch of bread, pick flowers, things that are not regular chores but that need to get done none the less.

Journal ~ Scrapfever...

Hello Sisters!

I've been scrapbooking as you can see! I can't recommend ENOUGH scrapblog.com It is FREE!!!! The templetes are beautiful, your scrapbooks are stored forever for free, and it is EASY!!! I played with ScrapMax, Acdsee, and Photoshop Elements. It seems like you can never really get going because there is SO MUCH to learn. Everything I need I found with scrapblog. I've been going to bed at 1am and getting up and 6am, and giving the Lord 6am-6:45. I know, my priorities are a little flip flopped. I just wanted to get at least ONE FINISHED!!!!

The bad side is that they don't offer printing at this time, they are looking into different companies so soon we will be able to purchase all the beautiful scrapbooks we have made. But, most of us have 1000's of photos, so for now at least we can get out pictures into scrapbooks by themes! Give it a try...it's free and NOTHING to download...did I say it's free!!!

Kerri....I am going to take some pics of my home management binder and post them with an explanation. :) I pray that everything is well with your family and new blessing. :)

Shannon

SISTERS

Journal ~ school or JESUS?

Hello Sisters!

Now that the neighborhood kids were back in school I thought I'd be getting some relief, but much to my surprise I had kids calling around 5pm to see if they could come over??? I told my children to tell the neighbors, "my mom said no one can come over till the weekend." Then all the neighbors wanted to know "why?"

Around here, the girls did their usual annual "getting ready for fall." Cut flowers in vases spread throughout the home, pulling dead stuff out of the garden, cutting the tree outside the dinning room window to allow more light to enter and cleaning all the windows. My daughter Bekah (11) came up to me and hugged me and said, "mom I love this time of year, it makes me want to cuddle up with blankets, drink hot chocolate and watch a good movie....but it's too hot!" Yes, here in Southern Calif. it's still in the high 80's during the day, the heat of the afternoon takes away from our anticipation of cooler weather as we can't seem to get comfortable anywhere in our home.

I have been for a few years now (although not always consistently) using Managers of Their Home schedule system. IT HELPS SO MUCH TO HAVE THE CHILDREN ON A SCHEDULE, especially when you have a lot of them! :) I really don't want us doing school over 2 hours a day with the rest of the time being spent with each child pursuing what interests them via the internet, books, hands-on, etc... What it vital to me is Jesus, math and English. But somehow I got history and science on my schedule too. I want my children to pursue history and science on their own because something in that area interests them...a war, a hero, weapons, a science experiment, an "i wonder how that works moment" etc... BUT...I'm NOT sure how that can work with many children and a schedule. Another feeling I'm having is that I want my children to study the bible more, I want my children to meet Jesus face to face. I want my children to be ON FIRE for Jesus. And that only comes from spending T I M E at His feet, time from digging into the Word, time from praying and time from praising Him. You could say I'm torn between this stupid thing we're so post to do called "school" and the place where I want to be called "radically walking in the Spirit...healing the sick, raising the dead " Mark 16:17-18....WOW, that's how I want to be! So what do I do? I'm leaning towards no more than 2 hours of school and the rest JESUS!!! I want my children to get up, spend time in the morning and say, "mom the Lord told me to have this guy over, and at 1pm, He told me I need to give so and so a call." So, I'm trying not to struggle in this whole thing, but just keep on looking to Him and speaking His Word and His promises throughout the day.

I've been reading Proverbs 2 over and over. It says if we seek wisdom LIKE A HIDDEN TREASURE, we will FIND IT!!!! If you knew you had millions of dollars worth of treasure in your backyard your yard would look like a minefield! This is a picture of how we SHOULD GO AFTER THE WORD!

My 8 yog just woke and wants some loving on the couch, so here is a good time to stop for now. :)

Kerri, write you back later! :)

Shannon