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"Christ as God's sure mercies is the reality of all that God is and of all that God has given us; God's salvation, God's righteousness, God's justification, God's forgiveness, God's redemption, God's riches, and all God has and will do have been covenanted to us" -Isa 55:1-4; Acts 13:34-35

Happy New Year, may you be blessed richly.

*7 Quick takes Friday is hosted at Conversion Diary!

 Our Christmas week is pretty peaceful, the only celebrating happens at the grandparents' houses.  Here at home, it's peaceful, un-busy, simple.

We had a bit of wet weather here in So. Ca,
-needed rain, but we are not used to so much.  Usually around here, it rains at night, and we wake up to a sparkly new day.  Once in a while, it will rain during the day.  This is the moment we open the front door and say out loud, "what is THIS? ..this is not what I ordered!" and then we wonder where we put the one umbrella we own the last time we used it, oh two years ago.  And then we give up the thought and go outside without it. 



We are not used to a lot of rain, and not built for it.  Our chicken coop did not pass inspection.  Major leaks and the dirt porch portion was a big soppy, soupy mess.


Luckily, Sky remembered to have Demi put on a breathing filter- he is allergic to outdoor mold, I would have been up with him at 1 a.m. doing asthma treatments.  He has to wear it to do yardwork, too. 

The next day, rain resumed and we were back to the soupy mess.  Sky remedied this by putting down plywood on the floor.  Instant happy, dry hens.  Oh, and he purchased a tarp for the roof.  Part of our coop has a concrete floor and nice little nesting boxes, but the hens prefer to perch in the more open front porch portion...we even tried to move them to roost in the drier portion, we took down the perch...and they went back to their usual spots and sat there, huddled and wet.  I wonder about them sometimes...



Our beautiful Ca weather is back, I hope.  Welcome back, sunshine..we missed you!
  The hens have resumed scratching around, enjoying sunflower seed and the garden.

Our week during Christmas is pretty low-key, but now we are into our week-long Bible conference, we have 10 people staying with us...it's pretty crazy 'round here!

hope you are having a wonderful, very full week, bloggy friends :)

Labels: family

thanksgiving in Spokane, Wa-crab-apple tree

This moment in time: enjoying a house-full of guests.  I love hearing a house-full of young adults bantering/having fun/enjoying themselves.  Waiting for our Russian guests to arrive.  Relaxing after spending time with Sky's family and with my family for Christmas.  Enjoying the sun that has re-appeared after the unusual week-long rain here in So. Ca

Enjoying my company-clean house..except the part where we have mattresses strewn all over the living room...going to do some baking. 

Our week-long Bible conference starts tomorrow, we will be busy,busy,busy..but in a good way :)

hope you have a blessed week, bloggy friends

Labels: family

The winner for the book
"Expressive Photography: The Shutter Sister's Guide to Shooting from the Heart
is
#8
Siobhan Wolf
who commented:

...Thank you for the opportunity.

Congratulations Siobhan, I will be contacting you...

The winners for the Winter Lessons edition of the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge are:

1) Lori's Lolz


she wrote that they were learning about snowfall.  Awww!

2)  My Home in the Smokies

Joy wrote about her children working together to engineer this snowman, and about how happy she is that they all get along so well.

Thank you everyone for playing along!  The Challenge will be taking the next 2 weeks off-

I hope you will join us January 8th, 2011 when the challenge will be:  Weather

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

watercolor snowflakes

I shared in this post *Trying about wanting to implement new teaching techniques into our homeschooling, specifically, Waldorf art and rhythm/ritual.  My struggle is in finding time to

• 1st- research what I am wanting to learn about

• 2nd- find materials/ methods that would be a good fit for us, or figure out how to adapt them. 
• 3rd- find time to gather materials 
• 4th -Implement 

I had several interested comments, so I am going to blog about the steps I am taking as I explore Waldorf homeschooling.

First, I went to my go-to place for homeschooling advice- The WTM boards.  I posted a question about Waldorf rhythm for older kids and about Waldorf art more specifically.  Several wonderful replies pointed me to inspiring blogs, a few websites, and a book or two to order.

I ordered "Painting with Children" by B. Muller - on strong recommendation, and then
"Beyond the Rainbow Bridge" - a book I had considered purchasing a few years ago, but decided not to because my children are older...I wish I had ordered this before- it was very helpful. 

I really like how Amazon shows you books others have ordered after purchasing the book you are looking at, and how they have lists people make of different book interests.  There were several books I am planning on ordering, Seven times the Sun- is one I wanted, but was out of stock.
Heaven on Earth, and Making a Family Home were also recommended, I was going to wait and see if I got them as gifts- my birthday is coming up...but now I don't think I can wait that long, so I will probably order them myself :)

The trail of research led me to the Bearth Institute- a very faceted site that I still haven't fully explored.  They offer grade curriculum e-books, something I got overly excited about at first- because I always am tempted with the idea/hope that one curriculum purchase will answer all of my needs...after reading some threads on the WTM boards though, I realized that while the Waldorf homeschool curriculum style might have been fun for K and 1st- we are at a point where I want something that moves along faster and is a bit more rigorous.  So, back to adding in art and rhythm to our day... :)

The Bearth Institute does have helpful articles on Waldorf, podcasts, videos and e-books.  I ordered their e-book titled Waldorf Rhythm and stages: from preschool to grade 8.  They also sell small blocks of their homeschool curriculum, I am seriously thinking of ordering the Grade 4 Geography Block to play with. 

The blog Our Little Nature Nest- is a treasure trove detailing the learning days of homeschooling Waldorf.  I found this post- Our lessons this week-measuring time really helpful for seeing what Waldorf lessons look like.  I really liked this learning block- this is what has tempted me to try a lesson block on for size.

The blog, Hawaiian dreaming- has a great list of Waldorf links- this blogger pointed me to the one above...

Labels: homeschool, homeschool planning, waldorf

Welcome to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge, Winter Lessons edition.

Share your photos of learning happening in your life this Winter.  Examples might be; enjoying a good book by the fire, stringing popcorn, bird-watching, cutting snowflakes...or anything else that shouts "winter lessons" to you.

Linky for the challenge closes 10 p.m Sunday night, winners will be announced Tuesday night.

Good luck!

**of special note, I am giving away a copy of 
Expressive Photography: The Shutter Sisters' Guide to Shooting from the Heart - you'll love it, promise!

**To enter the giveaway, leave a comment - one comment- under this post (not the linkey box).  I will be taking comments for this until Tuesday night, 10 pm pacific time.  One winner will be chosen by random number generator.  I am sorry, but I have to restrict this giveaway to Continuous United States only - It's a big book and the postage would kill me....

Labels: Lens

• Today is free shipping for many stores, if you have last minute shopping to do, this page could save you money! Free Shipping Day Friday page  click over for a huge list of stores.

• artwork bunting at Our Life in Words- a really simple, low cost way to display artwork.

• blogger waxes poetic over mini-van angst -Old Tweener: Green Eggs and Ma'am.

We are wrapping up our study of knights and the Medieval age with Sonlight's Core 2 World History.  I love Sonlight, and it is really working with my 8th and 10th graders...but lately, with my 3rd and 5th graders- we are just not feeling the love with the Usborne Book of World History and the Usborne Time Traveler.  They are interesting books, don't get me wrong...but they are difficult for reading out-loud, the kids lose interest.  They are nice for the individual kids to sit with and read, but they are just not working for our group learning.

• What happened next cards

• the life of a knight tab book

• Where did knights live?

• design a shield

• Kn in Knight phonics add-on

• Protecting the castle

• Code of Chivalry

• Bible verse cards

• Vocabulary cards

Labels: homeschool, sonlight

Here are this week's winners of the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge- Our lettered days edition:

1)  Ten kids and a Dog



hands-on, creative learning at its best!  The letter of the day must have been K!

2)  Janet Rose



being creative with nature, love it!

Congratulations, winners!

I hope you can join us this Saturday when the challenge will be "Winter lessons"

* Also, I will be giving away a photography book!  Check back, it's a gem!

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

The winner of the uber-fantastic Agloves is #17- Deborah!  

Deborah said...

I so need a pair of gloves - I almost bought a pair last week at Target. But I must have had ESP. Because I know I'm going to win these. How totally cool would that be?? dmj53 ___mail.com

I will email you, Deborah for your info.

thank you everyone for playing :)  If you want a pair, you can visit the Aglove site and order, they would make a great gift!

Life has been really crazy-busy for me this school year.  It reflects mightily here on the blog, my posting has been pretty scattered.

My scattered days are leaving me a bit frazzled, and also leaves all the duties and cares in my life undone, half-done, forgotten, late and/or messy.

And yet, or maybe because of all this, I find myself yearning for a change in our homeschooling, back to our more Charlotte Mason/ art-centered learning.  I yearn for more order, more rhythm, more purpose.

A few years ago, searching for the how of rhythm -to- my day- (yes it's a re-occurring theme for me) I looked a bit into Waldorf homeschooling, but could only find books that seemed to center on young children- and also there are some parts of Waldorf that I don't feel are compatible with my faith-another post, perhaps.

So, here I am a few years later, on the same restless search for order/rhythm...and I found some really wonderful/beautiful/inspiring Waldorf blogs.  The wheels in my brain are already turning with lesson ideas, art ideas... Here's the thing though:  So many of my days are crazy/busy that I don't have time to plan, don't have time to gather craft supplies.  
The paradox: I want to make some changes in our learning days..but I don't have time to plan changes in our learning day.

The next few weeks on this blog will hopefully follow changes we make- changes I will try to make...I am reminded of a quote from The Karate Kid: "there is no try, there is only do".

Do any of you struggle with being inspired to try something new, explore a new learning philosophy but find yourself too busy to research and plan?  Frustrating?  Yes.


What new things are you exploring lately?

Labels: homeschool, homeschool planning, Jen's world

Welcome to the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge.

Today's theme is: Our lettered days.

Enter the url to your entry post, not your main blog page.  Linky will close at 10 p.m. Sunday night, winners will be chosen and displayed Tuesday night.  Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Labels: Lens

•  I am writing today at The Mothers of Boys Society about The Gift of Simplicity

• How to take the perfect Christmas card picture -it's totally tongue-in-cheek over at June Cleaver Nirvana

• The Bloggess vs. the PR company.  It's hilarious.

• even better is the video of the exchange here -Bad blogger pitches with the bloggess: an extranormal video.  P.S. the pr offer was part of an exclusive program, of course...

• HearthSong Catalog- a really nice place to look for gifts/toys for children.

 Here are the two winner's of the cropped edition of the L.E.N.S. Photo Challenge.


1) Scripted Hearts



Not at all what I had in mind when I announced the theme, but- I love how 'out of the box' this photo is, she answered the challenge in a different direction then the norm.

love it!  The flowers are sooo beautiful, too!

2) The Long Journey Home


Her original was more about the vastness of the water, than about this expression of joy.  Cropping tight around the subject changed the feel of the photo.  Wonderful!

So glad you were able to join up, I hope you will be back next week when the challenge will be,

Our Lettered Days

Labels: Lens, Lens winners

FOR TODAY... from My Daybook

Outside my window... I see the 3 youngest kids playing outside. Today was a beautiful, beautiful day here in So. Ca-in the high 70's.

I am thinking... about planning I need to do for the rest of the week, and about craft materials I need to pick up, if we are actually going to make crafts.  I am determined that busyness will not stop us this year from making winter crafts.

I am thankful for... my husband

I am wearing... jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a long gray cardigan.

I am remembering... things I need to do still.

I am going... to dance class after dinner

I am hearing...Josie practicing the piano, Sky using his saw in the garage.

I am reading... "The Life Study of Isaiah" and I just finished "The art of racing in the rain"- one of the best books I have read, and yet it captured me a little too much, I'm taking a break before I start new fiction.

I am hoping... that the washing machine repairman will arrive tomorrow with the right part this time. (the washer broke an hour before we left on our trip to Spokane...!)

From the learning rooms...the dining room is cluttered with our notebooks and math books from our learning time this morning.  Meg is at the table finishing her work.

A few plans for the rest of this week... to start a winter craft, Science and History in a big way for school, an Irish feis this weekend.



Pondering these words...

"I don't look back, but I know he's there.  I bark twice because I want him to hear, I want him to know.  I feel his eyes on me but I don't turn back.  Off into the field, into the vastness of the universe ahead, I run.

"You can go," he calls to me.

Faster, the wind presses against my face as I run, faster, I feel my heart beating wildly and I bark twice to tell him, to tell everyone in the world, to say, faster!"

                                                  -The art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein

the ending and beginning of this book are some of the best writing I have read.

From the kitchen... baking chicken for dinner.  I coated chicken in a mix of flour, pepper, onion powder and diced fresh rosemary, then put in a dish with chicken and rice soup.  It's super easy and Sky likes it.

Around the house... Sky just finished painting our bathroom, it is now brown, with one wall having stripes.  It was a little scary going for it, but it looks great. :)

One of my favorite things~ sliced apples with cinnamon. 

From my picture journal

new spelling notebooks for my 3 youngest students

Labels: daybook, Jen's world

This is the Cropped edition of the LEarning Never Stops Photo Challenge.
Link up your photos that are just so much more when cropped in tight.


Here is my cropped photo of Josie and Idle. 

Below is the original, straight out of the camera shot.  I cropped it to focus on their faces, getting rid of the clutter of the fences in the background.  I also cloned out the fence sticking out of her head, and the toggle on her glove.  I then played with the contrast and color a bit. 




Linky closes 10 p.m. pacific time Sunday night.  Two winners will be announced Tuesday night.

Labels: Lens

 Crazy Homeschool mom is asking for our school outside the classroom experiences.

Today, after we finished our lessons, after I fetched Meg to and fro for riding lessons, and after we had lunch...we packed up and headed for the skateboard park.  I love skateboard park days, because for my 3 youngest students, I count this as p.e.  We stay for 2 hours or more.  That's 2 hours of playing, riding, balancing, running, jumping, sweating. 
  



and hey, do you see how empty this very popular skateboard park is?  We try to hit it as early as we can, homeschool = wide open playing most days!

click over to Crazy Homeschool Mama if you'd like to link up your awesome world classroom days.

Labels: homeschool, memes

 Looking for a holiday gift for someone?  Or maybe just looking to gift yourself?  Or..like me, are gloves a necessity for cold hands?

Agloves are pretty neat, and stink'n brilliant.

Agloves are knitted gloves that you can wear and still use your touch screen devices with.

*wear: as in- you don't have to take them off first. See? Brilliant!

I received a pair to review, and they were not at all what I expected.  I thought they'd be kind of bulky and have something on the finger-pads to allow for touch screen use, but to my delight- my Agloves were thin, knitted gloves, not bulky- and totally smooth, no strange finger pad thing-ies.

I have something called Raynaud's Syndrome...we'll just skip ahead and say I have really cold hands, fingers and toes.  I am -a connoisseur of gloves- out of necessity.  I have a pair or two in my purse, a pair in my van, a pair in each of my jackets- and spares shoved under my bed.
I wear gloves in church, in So. California.  (it's because of the air conditioner)  Lately, I've been wearing gloves with these cute little finger and thumb that pop off.  But, they really aren't that cute, because they are bulky and the tops don't stay on, even when you want them to- so they look kind of messy and weird.

My new Agloves are sleek, fitted, but stretch-able.  They have silver fibers knitted throughout the entire glove, not just the fingers.  The entire concept allows you to text with precision, keeps the design lightweight for easier typing and evens out the temperature in your hand, keeping you warm.

I could get into the whole bio-electricity thing, and the whole AG/periodic table= conductive element thing (which as a homeschooler I find kind of cool...) but, you can click over to www.Agloves.com for the whole technical skinny- and this is where you can order a pair too :)




Agloves is giving away a pair to one of my readers.  To enter, leave a comment.  Please make sure that you are reachable through your comment, or leave an email address.

Giveaway ends Friday, December 10th, 2010- 11 pm pacific time.
1 winner will be chosen through random generator.

This review was made possible through MomSpark Media. Thoughts, opinions and review are my own. I was given a free pair of gloves to review.  My free pair did not influence my opinion, however, I did, indeed find that they rock.  I tested them on my iphone, wore them in church- used them with my husband's iphone which has our hymnal for church on it...and wore them while taking notes.  See, they do rock!

Labels: reviews

Labels: Wordless Wednesday