Changed By Love

Changed By Love

Following the Lamb wherever he goes… Revelation 14:4

Weekly Wrap-up Oct. 12

Emma colored her scarecrow the colors of the rainbow in the order that the colors actually appear in a rainbow. I heard her explaining to Abby that the order is Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet! I always have to think of the abbreviation ROYGBIV. She just memorized the actual color names in order. What a smart little girl! I don’t even know where she learned them.

We did some of the pages from the “S is for Scarecrow” Tot Pack by 1+1+1=1.

The following books were the books on which Carisa based the Tot Pack.

We have read these books numerous times. The girls really like both of them. We have read two other books about The Falling Leaves. These books are by Steve Metzger. The first is called “The Falling Leaves”. The other is called “The Biggest Leaf Pile”, which involves a bear and the same Falling Leaves we met in the first book. The Falling Leaves always learn lessons about how to be kind to each other and how to help others.

In The Falling Leaves and the Scarecrow, the Falling Leaves help their friend the scarecrow to do his job well so that the farmer is happy with him and he is able to keep his job.

In The Little Scarecrow Boy, a little scarecrow learns from his father how to be a scarecrow. From the back of the book, “This tender and funny story celebrates the tradition of passing knowledge from one generation to the next, and the exuberance of reaching one’s potential.” This book is written by Margaret Wise Brown, author of Goodnight Moon.

Abby loves scarecrows. She loved this one’s leg off!

I had to glue it back on. She loves to play with everything. She gives inanimate objects personalities and has fun wherever she goes. She plays with her hands! They have fights with each other. And they have many conversations with each other. The girl will never lack for entertainment.

We had two really big shows this weekend! Read that with an Ed Sullivan accent, if anybody remembers him.

Anna performed in some dances at a birthday party for a beautiful lady who turned 75 and went to high school during the ’50s. So the party was a 50’s theme party. The girls wore poodle skirts and some of the guys looked like greasers. Anna and her friend Cece put together some choreography to Rockin’ Robin and Jailhouse Rock and some other cool music and performed it for the party. They didn’t have much time to put it all together, but they did great! Melissa, the worship leader at church and her granddaughter Lacey danced in it, too. Another member of the worship team, Melody, held up the Tweet, Tweet signs during Rockin’ Robin

Here is the video of their dance:

No poodle skirts, but they did wear poodle shirts!

While Anna and the little girls and I attended this party here in Texas, the rest of our family traveled to Kentucky for a Quince Anos for the cousin of our “Mexican family”, the Sierras, whom we met through XBox Live!

I will upload pictures from that as soon as I get them. They are still driving home! It’s almost midnight Sunday night, and they’re not home yet.

Pictures from the Quinceanera in Kentucky!

Da Boyz!

Fiona, Kelsey, Jose, Morgan, Garrett

Patrick – the epitome of cool

The girl whose birthday it was. Quince anos = 15 years. She is the cousin of Jose and Alex Sierra who are friends of Patrick, Anna and Shawn through XBox Live. And through that, we gained a Mexican familia!

A Quinceanera is as fancy as a wedding! They had a court which performed a dance and everybody was dressed up like in a fairy tale!

One of the most special parts of this weekend excursion for Shawn (and really all of us) was that Jordan came to visit Shawn. Jordan and Shawn have been friends since they were 2 years old. Jordan went into the Army, and we kind of fell out of touch with him for a while. He got married, too! But he has renewed our fellowship, and we are very excited and so happy to have him in our lives again. We all love Jordan!

Patrick and Linda Sierra

They really weren’t trying to match outfits but even ended up wearing similar hats!

Gary and Jordan – catching up on 7 years of life!

The Quinceanera court

Kelsey and Linda

Morgan and Kelsey

Alex Sierra and Cherish

Patrick started playing XBox Live with Alex while we lived in Illinois. That was in 2009. They became good friends. We stopped by their house in Indianapolis on our way to move to York, PA in 2010. That was the first time we met them face to face, and it was a very brief encounter. They have continued to play together and talk on the phone and build their friendship. Anna and Shawn and Gary play with them, too, and Alex’s brother, Jose, has become good friends with all of them. So when they had to come to Houston last month for a funeral, they asked Patrick to come and see them. Gary, being the loving dad that he is, drove Patrick and Anna and Shawn and several of the other kids to see them.

While there, they met the rest of the family and fell in love with them. The Sierras invited our family to their cousin’s Quinceanera in Kentucky in October. They actually talked about going. I couldn’t believe it! But they wanted to really badly, so Gary, being the loving dad that he is, consented to take them there. It was quite an occasion, as you can see. We had to get new clothes, because the kids didn’t own anything dressy since we never go anywhere fancy.

We found out that the Quinceanera was going to be on the exact same date that Anna would be dancing at the 50’s birthday party at church for the pastor’s mother. So we had to make a difficult decision, and I stayed here in TX with Anna and the little girls, while Gary took all the rest of them to KY.

It turned out great in every way, but someday we are all going to go see the Sierras again. I have yet to meet Mama and Papa Sierra! And I’m the only one in our family who knows any Spanish at all.

So this weekend was very exciting and full of blessings!

This was a very unusual week. It was fun, but I will be very glad to have everyone together again, and restore our Full House once again.

I linked this post to the Weekly Wrap-up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

By the way, from this post you can see how “unsocialized” my kids are! Ha!

Do You Hear What I Hear?

The other night I told Abby I heard my bed calling my name. Attempting to get her to think about going to bed too, I asked her if she heard my bed calling her name. She said, “Yeah, I hear it.” A few minutes later she said, “I still hear it. What the heck does it want?”

I guess she finally understood what it was saying!

Standing Still is an Act of Faith

by David Wilkerson | October 11, 2012
[May 19, 1931 – April 27, 2011]

To stand still does not mean to be passive or to rest on fate. Fate says, “Whatever will be, will be.” But faith changes everything. Standing still is an act of faith, an active resting on God’s promises, a cessation of all questions, doubts and useless strivings.

Ever since I have been in the ministry, a major area of striving for me has been knowing the voice of God. I believe this struggle is common among Christians. We ask, “How can I know if the voice I hear is God’s or my flesh?”

Whenever I face a critical need that requires an answer, I turn to the Lord in prayer. I cry out, “Father, Your Word says You speak to Your people. Please, God, speak to me. Give me Your direction!” And then I quote Scripture promises:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
“Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it” (Isaiah 30:21).
“[My] word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart” (Deuteronomy 30:14).
Indeed, a still, small voice often comes to us and as God begins to speak, we suddenly have a great sense of peace and calm. The voice is comforting, soothing, and we leave our prayer closet feeling wonderful. But sometimes the word we hear in prayer does not come to pass and we realize we have heard another voice — not Christ’s. In such a case, it was either the voice of our own desires and ambition or the voice of our flesh.

Paul says, “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification” (1 Corinthians 14:10). There are many voices, including a voice of the flesh, a voice of the will, a voice of ambition — and they all scream for our attention.

No matter how much we pray or how close we are to the Lord, we all are fallible and make mistakes. Our flesh still has a voice and at times it will get in the way.

Let me tell you how God brought me through this test of faith. I am convinced God prearranges and sets up all my circumstances. He has promised, by covenant, to lead me and guide me by His Spirit and to keep me from falling. So, now I pray in faith, believing His word to me and I stand still and wait for Him to act.

Math with Manipulatives

We use math in lots of our daily activities.

And we use math manipulatives in our play and learn math concepts along the way.

I believe that this gives them a good foundation for the work they do in books later on.

Teddy Bear Math

Counting and sorting Teddy Bears

Geometry with Pattern Blocks. The older kids did these.

Math with M&M’s. This activity actually combines language arts and math. M was the letter of the week. So we did lots of M activities. And some of them involved color sorting and counting M&M’s. After they did the math, they got to eat the M&M’s.

Cooking Math

We have done lots of math with cooking. Here they are making Monkey Bread. My kids have learned about fractions from measuring ingredients. At least, they know how to read a fraction and have a pretty good idea of what fractions are.

They had to tear the biscuits into fourths and roll them in the cinnamon sugar. Then they put them in the bundt pan. I spooned some butter mixed with cinnamon and sugar over all the balls in the bundt pan.

Then we baked it and voila! Monkey Bread!

Math can be fun and delicious when you use manipulatives!

Journey of Fire

I can’t seem to write the kind of posts I intended to write when I started this blog. I wanted to write about our Journey of Fire and what we learned through it. For some reason, I don’t seem to want to talk about it. Not here anyway. When we meet someone new, we often tell them little bits and pieces about it, and they ask questions and we end up telling them more. And it’s enjoyable to reminisce about the miraculous ways that God provided for us. But to just sit down and write about it is not so enjoyable. Maybe it’s still too fresh. Maybe I’ve blocked it out, and it’s hard to bring it back up in my memory when I intentionally try to write about it.

I don’t know, but some day I think I will write about some of it here. I think that’s part of why I was supposed to start this blog.

Maybe I’m waiting for the day when the Journey of Fire is really over.