I just got finished reading this post on Sally Clarkson’s blog. Oh, how good it is. What an encouragement to stop seeking all that is around us and start seeking Him. In this busy world, we often have too much of everything. Too many choices. Too much on our schedule. Too much this. Too much that.  My favorite line in her entry is this:

 No wonder there exists so much shallowness in our culture–we are seeking so hard after the answers and He wants us to seek Him.

Hmmmm. Stop all the madness and just seek Him. Abide in Him. Rest in Him.

The new edition of the Charlotte Mason blog carnival us up! It is excellent…so many links and articles to read! I hope you’ll take a minute to visit Cindy’s blog and read up on how other homeschooling moms do CM style education in their homes! There are so many good ideas shared here today!

This morning was our first morning of the new semester of Bible study at church. Our ladies Bible study this session is Beth Moore’s Stepping Up, her study on the Psalms of Ascents. I came away very encouraged this morning and thought I would share. You may remember me sharing that I was excited about this study because the book of Psalms is my favorite book of the Bible! I knew I was in for a treat!

First of all, if you have never done a Beth Moore study (especially the video portion) you simply MUST give it a try. Everytime I hear her speak I am encouraged. Every.single.time. The Lord uses her to speak to women in all different places of life and that is another thing I love about her. You don’t have to be theologically intelligent. You don’t have to be on the mountain top with God. You don’t have to have all your ducks in a row. In fact, this morning, Beth shared that as we study the Psalms together the Lord is going to lift us UP.

Part of what Beth shared this morning was that the Psalms of Ascent were written to correspond to the steps leading up to the temple. 15 steps. 15 Psalms of Ascent (Psalms 120-134.)

Are you feeling down? Guess what? We are not STUCK in that place. Praise God, He is moving us to a new place. All of us! Even if we feel hopeless, there is hope in Christ. We learned this morning that our lives are a pilgrimage. A journey. We are not stuck in one spot or one stage for ever and ever. Eventually we will see Jesus face to face. And as we move through this life we are moving UP and UP…closer to Jesus. Closer to that day when we will spend forever in His presence. Let that sink in. You are NOT going to be in this circumstance forever. When we remember the fact that life is a journey, we are better equipped and more content to ride out the current “waves” of life. It helps us to remember that praise the Lord, we are not stuck.

The second way that I was encouraged was in our small group. I will admit to you that I was a little hesitant about the whole “small group” thing. Last year I came away feeling like I hadn’t gotten to know people better. I felt like we hadn’t gone too far below surface in our group time. So, I was hesitant. But, the Lord knew that and I had been praying about it. Most of all, I had been praying that I would be placed where He wanted me to and that I would have the freedom to be real before my sisters in Christ if that is what it took. Well, today several ladies shared personal requests and at the end we gathered around one hurting woman and prayed for a long time around her and for each other. I was blessed to be there. The Lord answered my prayers.

So, pray for me. Pray that I can share of myself without fear of what others think of me. Pray that as a group of ladies we can see beyond the surface and look into the hearts of our sisters in Christ. Pray that we can minister to each other and serve each other the way Christ would have us to do. And, I will be praying the same for you, friends! I pray that we all have those people in our lives we can be real with. And by real I mean authentic. Those people we can get messy with. Those people who see all our ugliness and still love us. We all need that, don’t we?

Emily and I had a date night tonight! We went and got haircuts together! After our haircuts we went to The Creamery for ice cream!

Here is a picture of the new hair-do’s.

We actually got a head start on our squirrel-y learning yesterday! And 2 of the books that we read were SO good that I wanted to share them. Again.

This first book is called Earl the Squirrel. It is written by Don Freeman, who also wrote Corduroy. Though I had never read about Earl the Squirrel, I figured if the author of Corduroy wrote it, then we couldn’t go wrong! This is such a cute story! And the illustrations brought back such fond memories…as they look similar to the Corduory illustrations!!

The second book I wanted to mention is a read aloud chapter book. Until I found this book, I did not realize that Cynthia Rylant wrote chapter books! We have read alot of her picture books, but this is the first chapter book we’ve read by her. Gooseberry Park is a funny tale about a squirrel named Stumpy who is friends with a dog named Kona and a hermit crab named Gwendolyn. The story is super cute and funny and the illustrations are great too! We read 5 chapters in one sitting, which is a rare occurance in our house for chapter books!

I have been hearing lots and lots about Michael Phelps as a child. As a parent, I have been so encouraged to hear that Michael had difficulties in school, difficulties focusing…but now, look at him! What a huge success story! Here is the beginning of an article I read…

DEBORAH PHELPS’S third baby and only son was larger than life from Day 1 — 9 pounds, 6 ounces and 23 inches long. As a little boy, said the mother, he asked 25 zillion questions, always wanting to be the center of attention. If he wasn’t zooming by on his big-wheel tricycle, he was swinging past on the monkey bars.

Starting with preschool, his teachers complained: Michael couldn’t stay quiet at quiet time, Michael wouldn’t sit at circle time, Michael didn’t keep his hands to himself, Michael was giggling and laughing and nudging kids for attention.

Read the rest of the article here.

We started this project when we read about Paul Revere and colonial times. We learned how to make pot-pourri the colonial way! But I thought I would make a separate post, because I think this makes a great gift idea!

Items needed

*flower petals (fragrant flowers)

*lemon or orange rind

*herb leaves - I used lavendar, you can also used mint, etc. for different scents

*spices - cinnamon, cloves (or you can use the actual cinnamon stick)

*orrisroot OR drops of oil - I used lavendar oil I had in the fridge.

*newspaper or paper towels to let the flower petals dry out on

*mixing spoon

*small jar containers with lids

Pot-Pourri Instructions 

First, you purchase flowers - or pull them from your flower garden! I used one bouquet of roses from the clearance rack at walmart. I got them for $4 because they were about to die…but that is fine for this project! We also used some marigolds from our yard!

The next step is fun for the kids! They got to pull all the petals off of the flowers! This actually took awhile. We pulled off all the petals from the roses and marigolds and also the leaves off of the lavendar. Spread them out onto newspaper or paper towels to dry. You will need to put them in a spot where they can lay (out of direct sunlight) for several days. It may take up to a week for them to dry out, I believe ours took 3-4 days. You can hand toss and mix the flower petals up once each day as they are drying.

Use a vegetable peeler or knife to peel off some small pieces of lemon or orange rind. Add this to your flower petal mixture to dry out.

After the petals are crisp and completely dried out, you can add your spices and oils. I added cinnamon, cloves and lavendar oil to mine. Basically I just sprinkled the spices & oil all over the petals. Then use a mixing spoon to mix the petals, spices, rinds, oils and herbs. You now have your pot-pourri mixture! You can divide your mixture into piles and even add a different scent to different piles if you wish to try that out!

When you have the mixture fixed to your liking, put the mixture into your small jars. I used 4 of the really small Ball jars from walmart - they are about 1/4 of the size of a regular ball canning jar. For a pretty gift, you could tie some pretty ribbon around the far and voila - a pretty gift for someone special!

After your mixture is in the jars, put the lids on tightly and put the jars away for 2-3 weeks. This allows the spices, oils and flower mixture to settle and the scent to “stick.” Once you have allowed your mixtures to “set” in the jars, pull out a jar…take off the lid and put it in the bathroom or a bedroom. You now have a good smelling room by means of an old colonial method!

You could also put a little bit of your pot-pourri mixture into a teacup and set it on a table for a pretty (and good smelling!) decoration!

Happy pot-pourri making!

We have enjoyed our first walk down the American History trail! I didn’t realize that I had so much to learn! Everything we learned about Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin was pretty much new to me as well! I especially didn’t know all of the things that Benjamin Franklin did! I guess I knew the whole flying a kite in the thunderstorm story…but I didn’t know he created the first library, the first hospital and the first volunteer fire department! The girls learned what an “inventor” was and we discussed all the wonderful things that Ben Franklin brought into our world!

We started on the colonial project of making pot-pourri earlier this week. It is kind of a lengthy project, because you had to let the flowers dry out completely…but here is a picture of step one in the pot-pourri process!

These are all the flower petals laying out on the table drying. A few days ago we picked all the petals off of the flowers (mostly roses and marigolds)  and laid them out on the table. Now, a few days later, they are mostly all dried out. So, in the next 1-2 days we will be adding a few spices and then putting the mixture in jars! (I will add more pictures as we finish the process!)

I also happened to find this book at a used bookstore, and it was a book on tape, so I snatched it up for $1 or $2 awhile back! The author is Gleiter. This book isn’t anything out of the ordinary, but told the girls the basic story of Paul Revere. And I always enjoy finding a book on tape to go with our unit! So, we started off our week listening to this so that we could understand the actual happenings of the midnight ride.

I absolutely LOVE granola! In the past I have tried several recipes and just wasn’t 100% pleased with how they came out. Well, that has all changed. I tried Elizabeth Foss’s recipe from her kitchen blog and love it! So, I wanted to share the recipe here with you too!

Favorite Family Granola

6 cups rolled oats
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup chopped almonds or pecans
3/4 cup coconut or canola oil
1/2 cup real or maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
½ cup flax seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
Up to 1 cup shredded unsweetened coconutPreheat oven to 325ºF. Spray a 13 X 18-inch baking tray or a big roasting pan with nonstick spray.

1. Place the oats, sunflower seeds, and almonds or pecans, flax seeds, sesame seeds, and coconut in a large bowl.
2. Combine the oil, syrup, cinnamon, and vanilla extract, and pour this in. Mix thoroughly. This is truly a great recipe for thorough toddler participate: scoop, dump, mix with clean hands!
3. Stir in the salt, and mix throughly with your hands.
4. Bake for 40 or 50 minutes, stirring every ten minutes.
5. Crumble in sugar as soon as it comes out of the oven. Dump onto a tray to cool. Add any post-baking variations before it cools. The granola will get crunchy as it cools!
6. If there’s any left (there never is in my house), store it in a tightly closed jar in the freezer.

Variations to add before baking. This list really could be endless.:

1 cup barley flakes
1 cup oat bran

1 cup raw wheat germ

1 cup millet

Up to 1 cup other kinds of nuts, chopped

(You might have to adjust the wet ingredients depending on the quantity of dry. Just play with this.

Variations to add after baking:

1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup roasted soy nuts

Dried fruit
Toasted wheat germ

*sorry for all the white boxes and such…I guess I was just too lazy to want to re-type it! Oh and as for exactly how I made this…I didn’t use all of the ingredients listed. I used the oats, almonds, coconut, raisins. I did also use the coconut oil that it called for and then the other “seasonings.” Yum!

This is one of those conversations that made my heart melt…and pound at the same time! I didn’t quite know how to respond to my 3 year old boy. One night before bed this is what Caleb said to me…

Mommy: night night, Caleb. I love you!

Caleb: Mommy, what is love?

Mommy: ummmmmm, welllll….ummm.

Caleb: No mommy, what is love?

Mommy: well, I love you means I care about you, you are very important to me, you are very special to me…(obviously floundering for words here!)

Caleb: but what does “love you” mean?

Mommy: well, it means that mommy loves you verrrrrry much! Now go to sleep!