Halloween

Happy Halloween! What a busy fun day we had from breakfast till bedtime! We started our morning with making silly face pancakes....

Jay made orange,pumpkin shaped pancakes and I provided all the goodies for decorating.

Here's Natasha's

Jadon just liked eating everything.

Joshua's pancake

Anastasia's Pancake

Savannah's Pancake
Alexa's Pancake

Next up was carving pumpkins. The kids also had to measure and weigh them and compare the weight with and with out seeds. (math!)

Next up our crazy, fun lunch....this plate times 6!

After lunch the girls and Jadon took naps so I got to clean up the kitchen (somewhat) then we were ready for the afternoon....eating rice krispes and making caramel apples.

Finally it was the time they all had been waiting for time to get ready to go trick or treating... Jay stayed home and passed out candy and I got the privilege (LOL) of taking them. It was a lot of fun but I was so tired! Once Jadon realized he was getting candy, he was all in!! He loved it! He didn't want anyone to hold or take his bag.

Feed My Starving Children

Along with our Radical Challenge, we are looking for more ways to serve together in different capacities as a family.

Have you ever heard of Feed My Starving Children? If not check out their website: FMSC.org I have known about this wonderful organization for sometime now and we were finally able to go serve. There are not locations in every state but you can certainly donate money to help out this great cause. You can serve as an individual, a family, a church or organization. This time we served as part of our church Relevant Church. We spent two hours packing Manna packs that will be sent over to the Horn of Africa. To be honest with you I have never served in anything like this before and it was such a rewarding experience.

They allow children 5 and up to serve. Jay had to work that morning so Anastasia did not get to go because of our two under five. She decided to stay home and keep the little ones so that her mommy, Josh, Savannah, and Alexa could go. This was awesome also because this got to demonstrate what service is all about. Though Anastasia was not able to go her service allowed others to go. Service is doing what you can do based on the need so that God’s work can get done… this does not mean doing what you want to do it means doing what needs to be done.

We were given a brief overview and then went to work. Everyone was assigned a station either scooping, weighing, sealing and stacking. There was another group there as well so there were about 25 people and we packed 7,344 meals which is enough food to feed 20 children for a year!!! WOW!!

I wish I would have gotten a picture of the pallet of boxes that we filled. When we were done we were invited to go stand by the boxes and pray. The lady asked if anyone would like to pray and Joshua raised his hand. He said the most touching prayer. He had a lot of us in tears as he prayed that the food would get there quickly and safely to feed these children. It was awesome!

When we were done, in the lobby they had these M&M containers (round tubes the perfect size for holding quarters) You could by one for a dollar it was filled with M&M's. After you eat the M&M's you keep the container to collect quarters. When it is full you bring it back and donate to FMSC. If it is full it is enough to feed 58 children. So we bought 5, each a different color and the kid's want to have them filled by next time we go back in January or February (December is already all filled with volunteers).

My children realized that they had a way to take their money and give. They have been saving for a swing set they really want and Alexa my 5-year-old had a remarkable realization. They talked about going through this money and giving it to feed children. Josh interjected that they have been saving for a long time… He was not opposed to the idea but he was realizing the sacrifice. Alexa looked at him and plainly stated but Josh… We can go to a park and play and these kids are starving and dyeing. Out of the mouth of Babes. So awesome to be able to witness that conversation!

Continue to turn my children’s hearts to the Lord! Let us not treat Your word and Your people slightly!

Family Discipleship

Jay and I received a copy of this book from Uncle Welton and Aunt Gigi (two of our favorite people) and I recommend everyone to read it! It will SO challenge you, step on your toes and probably shins too! ;)
I will tell you what it says on the back cover otherwise if I got started sharing excerpts of the book I would copy the whole thing. Lol
"In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He show what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invited you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tell the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus."

Jay and I both read the book and as we prayed we were convicted to join in The Radical Experiment for one year. There are 5 parts to the experiment: 1) Pray for the entire world 2) Read through the entire Bible 3) Sacrifice our money for a specific purpose 4) Spend time in another context and 5) Commit our life to a multiplying community.

How are we doing each of these?

We started our commitment October 19th. Each day (usually mornings) we gather around the kitchen table and complete our Praying for the world and reading the Bible.

1) Pray for the entire world--- We are using the prayer calendar found at OperationPrayer.org
There is a specific country to pray for each day. We print out the country info the kids find the country on a map we pray for the country and the unreached people groups and we keep the info in a binder so we can refer back to it.

2) Read through the entire Bible in a year. After we pray then Jay reads from the Bible. We are using this Bible: It has daily readings and is in chronological order. We just started with October 19th.

3) We are still praying as a family where we want to sacrifice some of our income. There are so many worthy causes.

4) Spend time in another context: Our goal at this point is to possibly go serve in Montana next summer. Jay's cousin is a pastor up there. He and his family started a church plant about 5 years ago. This would be a place we have never been before and different for us. We aren't ready as a family to do a foreign mission just yet.

5)Commit our life to a multiplying community: This one is easy for our family with starting the church plant. The part we are waiting on now is actually being able to move to the community we are trying to serve in. (That is another blog post for another time) But please pray that we will be able to move soon!


I encourage you GET THIS BOOK and READ IT! You won't be sorry!


If you would like to follow along on our journey you can check out the blog my husband is keeping for specifically this purpose: Relevant Family Discipleship

School this Month

The kids have completed quite a bit of work this month. We are trying really hard to stay on task so that we can take three weeks of in December. I don't have a lot of exciting pictures as we have been doing a lot of book work. I have been trying to keep up with our workboxes but it doesn't happen everyday. What ends up happening is that we usually start with math so everyone brings their math books to the kitchen table (Savannah is the only one who likes to work at her desk) and I bounce from learning to write numbers, to adding, to multiplying and pre algebra. Whew! :) Next I will take turns working with Savannah and Alex on reading and Joshua and Anastasia will work independently. When the girls are napping I work with Joshua and Anastasia on the things they need help with.

At 11:00 we stop workboxes and get out our science (2 or 3 days a week). We finished Mars and now have been studying Venus.

Do you know why Venus looks so white?? It is because of the thick layer of clouds which are made up of sulfuric acid. Space probes that we have sent to Venus have to use radar to find out what the land is like.

So we did our own "radar" experiment:
Inside the shoe box (dora) that you see in the pictures are large legos stacked to all different heights. Then on top of the box is a numbered square grid. The kids cannot see in the box and they had to poke a whole in each square with their special rod. The rod was marked with colors and they had to color on their paper the color on the rod that showed when stuck in the box. When we were all done we "read" our grids and the kids had to tell where the mountains and flat lands were. This was a great experiment.


Next up Earth and the Moon!

Awana

If you know me at all you know that I LOVE Awana clubs and I was the Commander for 2 yrs at our church. Well with Jay resigning that was one of many ministries I gave up (at least for a season). I still wanted the kids involved and they love Awana too. So while we are still in CG I signed the kids up at another local church. This church has a wonderful Awana program.

Anastasia is taking a break this year. She is helping Jay on dinners and with all her other studies (including Bible as part of her curriculum already) we felt it was best not to add anything else to her schedule.

This year I drop the kids off and then take Anastasia to youth at another church. Then Jadon and I and sometimes Jay run errands and what not and then make the rounds again to pick everyone up. It is nice to have the break but I also miss the ministry. I did let them know if they ever need a sub in any area I would be glad to fill in. I do look forward to starting up another Awana when our church plant gets it's own permanent location.

This year Tasha is a Cubbie, Savannah and Alexa are in Sparks and Joshua moved up to T&T.

CRAZY HAIR NIGHT!

If you are interested in finding out more about Awana be sure and check out Awana.org and you can find a club near you.

Making Laundry Detergent

I FINALLY did it! I made my own laundry detergent and it was SOO easy. I don't know what I have been waiting for. Here's the story: I found a recipe on line about 5 months ago I bought the "ingredients" and then I just let them sit in my laundry room. I guess I was just scared to actually do it. Well this month at co-op during our mom time, another mom shared about making your own laundry detergent, how easy and CHEAP it is. Well that was it I was ready to come home and give it a try.

Here are the ingredients.... (You can use ivory soap instead of the Fels-Naptha but that is what I had) You can find these at any grocery store or even Wal-Mart. I think it cost less than $10.00 for all three ingredients. And as you will notice in the directions below when you are making a batch (which equals 2gallons) you only use a half a cup of each and one third of the Fels-Naptha bar) so this will last probably a year. I will let you know.

Homemade Laundry Soap
Three things you should know before you start so you don't think you messed up!

1. It isn't as "liquid" as liquid soap from the store. The end product is a bit more "gloppy" and you have to give the bottle a good shake each time before you pour it out into your machine.

2. It doesn't suds up like you are probably used to, it's still cleaning your clothes!

3. Don't use more Washing Soda/Borax then the recipe calls for thinking you’ll get things cleaner with more, in my experience I have found this will fade your clothes!
Ingredients and Directions:
-One bar of Ivory soap-All Natural
-Arm and Hammer Washing Soda
-20 Mule Team Borax
(Washing Soda and Borax are available in the laundry area, usually on the bottom shelf)

Step One: Heat 6 cups of water in a large stock pot over medium heat. (do not boil)

Step Two: Shred the Ivory soap, I use a cheese grater, works great! Add the grated soap to the hot water in the pan and stir until all soap is melted.

Step Three: Once the soap has all dissolved, stir in 1/2 cup of Borax and 1/2 cup of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda. Stir until it is all dissolved.

Step Four: Add four more cups of hot water to the pot and stir until well blended.

Step Five: Remove from heat and add one gallon plus six cups of cold water to the mixture. Mix WELL! Let sit for 24 hours on the counter. As it sits, it will become a solid "glob" in the pot. This is normal! In order to break it up so I can pour it into containers, I found it is easiest to use a whisk and stir it all until it becomes a liquid again.

*You can store it in your old laundry soap container or other large plastic containers for easy pouring. If you have a high efficiency machine, use 1/4 cup per load, otherwise use 1/2 cup!

I had been saving my laundry bottles and here is what I filled!!! (That is a savings of $30.00 right there!)

Go ahead and try making some!!!

And here is a verse for you :)

“But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?
For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap.” Malachi 3:2

October Co-op

The book we read for Co-op this month was The Borrowers. We are really enjoying this book and the kids had so much fun with the activities at co-op.

Each child brought in a box and everyone brought in little items to share so that each child could make their own Borrowers room. They could have spent all day on this! They did a fantastic job.

They even got to make a "Giant Diary" like Arrietty used.

The preschoolers even got to make their own "room"

We had a special visit from Homily and Arrietty.

When we got home from Co-op the kids wanted to finish their rooms. They spent at least another hour to hour and a half working at the kitchen table, putting them together. They got very creative!

Savannah's Room

Alexa's Room

Joshua's Room

Bike Riding

First off if truth be told this clip art picture above needs to have a "mom" helping with the bike riding not a dad, at least for our family. If it was up to Jay the kids wouldn't even own bicycles. He freaks out and thinks they are going to kill themselves. He can barely stand to watch them start to first ride without their training wheels. So alas, I help them but Jay does video tape. ;)

The weather has finally cooled off or I will at least say cooled enough to go play outside once again. So Jay got every ones bikes ready (tires changed/pumped and one set of training wheels off) and we let the kids ride their bikes out front. It was time for Savannah's training wheels to come off. I knew she was ready and would be able to do it because of how well she does in gymnastics and her great sense of balance. Sure enough I barely held onto the back of the bike just to get her started and off she went. No problems!! She just had to work on her turning some.

WAY TO GO SAVANNAH!!!!




Of course Joshua is an old pro by now! :)


So off to the park we went 2 days in a row. While at the park on the second day Alexa begged me to let her try Savannah's bike because she knew that she could ride with no training wheels as well. I finally gave in and let her try. I was really nervous because I knew if she fell and got hurt the WHOLE neighborhood would hear about it because she would be sure and let them know with all her screaming and crying. I go her on the bike (it's a little big for her) I held the back and was prepared to hold it and walk quickly along side of her. But no, not her. She took off like a rocket, balancing fine but it freaked me out. I had to run to keep up with her and like I said I didn't want her falling off and didn't know how she was going to stop. I kept yelling for her to slow down and she finally stopped (just fine on her own) She looked back at me with a big grin on her face and said "See I told you I could do it!" That girl did it from sheer determination and she was not going to be left behind and let her big sister have one up on her!!

So we came home from the park and ran in the house to let daddy know and Alexa wanted him to take off her training wheels right away!

WAY TO GO ALEXA!!!

Four down, two to go!