Robert and I have been talking about toys for the last few months. With more children comes more toys. That is obvious! And our three oldest have birthdays around Christmas. So every year I am cleaning their rooms out, getting rid of toys, and organizing before and after the holidays so that we will have enough room for all the toys and clothes. About a year ago I minimized all of our clothes. Ten short sleeved, ten long sleeved, and four or five bottoms is more than enough. More than that and things get cluttery! But I kept ramming my head against a wall on the toys!
Anyone can tell you there are tried and true toys! My boys have a whole box of cool toys and they spend most of the play time playing with dinosaurs and small cars. I love this because these two toys allow for more imagination than their blinking "educational" counter parts. Blocks will never go out of style! Every child spends some time of their childhood building castles and towers out of blocks! Our girls play with dolls. Not Barbies but baby dolls. They dress them up and mother them endlessly! Again, I prefer these games more than I do the flashy toys. It's not even because of the noise either. I easily ignore the noisy toys. It's because I see how much more the simple staple toys encourage imagination and brain power! Add that to the fact that we are trying to minimize unneeded things in the house and we have our solution! We are slowly weaning ourselves from the flashy expensive toys. It is my goal to have a good supply of staple toys that are universal for most ages. Such as: -Wooden blocks -Legos -Cars -Baby dolls (and accessories) -Dress up clothes (less princess stuff and more adult stuff such as fire fighter, doctor, police officer, knights) -Balls of all shapes -Animal figures One day, we would love to adopt and we don't know if the Lord will bless us with more biological children. So as a family that is growing (and growing, Lord willing) we realize what that does to family members in regards to birthdays and such. So here is my solution! First, our kids would prefer to see you above all else. Skip the expensive toy and spend it on gas to see us! We will feed you and put you up in our guest room! Toys mean nothing beside a weekend with Grandpa or Auntie or whatever! Second, here is a list of toys/supplies to help support the kids' education. These are things that I would like to have but will likely never splurge on or at least it will take a while to get around to buying, but they are cheap! I keep my eyes open for these things at Goodwill or flea markets a lot! -an abacus -Johnathan Park audios -Adventures in Odyssey audios (this is a favorite for all the kids) -any Imagination Station books (Darby flips for these! She has the first 3) -dinosaur books by Ken Ham -any books or films by Ken Ham -sports equipment (baseballs, basketballs, baseball gloves, goals, etc) -toddler puzzles (poor Deakin has only one so far that I found at Goodwill) -simple sewing supplies for the girls -crocheting supplies for the girls -yarn -a car play mat -any Dandi Daley Mackall books (she does all age levels!) -a globe -legos (the normal small type without a theme) -a lamenator (for schooling, they are as cheap as $20 on amazon! Who knew? Not me! Also, this is more of a mommy gift) -a fastener toy for basic skills (like below)
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We make our own chicken stock. I have friends that taught me how a few years ago, and it's so easy and so healthy that we do it all the time. Talk about saving money, too! http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/03/26/food-for-thought-health-and-nutrition-of-traditional-homemade-chicken-brothstock/ After I cook a whole chicken or pull all the meat off of a rotessouri chicken I throw the bones and fat into a big pot. Then I cut large chunks of a couple carrots, celery stalks, onion, and 3-4 garlic cloves and add those to the pot too. A splash of apple cider vinegar, a couple bay leaves and then I fill the pot with water! Put over low heat after breakfast and simmer all day. At the end of the day strain and refrigerate. Give the now brittle chicken bones to the dog. If he is like Jack he will leave the carrots! : ) The End!
I've decided to make a small change to the blog. I am using psudounems for the kiddos from now on. I went back and edited some of the older entries but not all. And if you are having a hard time keeping straight who is who just head on over to The Kiddos page to keep them straight.
9 year old girl = Tender 6 year old girl = Hurricane 4 year old boy = The Boy 1 (almost 2) year old boy = Wild Man This year we have a 4th grader and a 1st grader!!! Can you believe it?! So exciting! I have, literally, been on my knees for the last 8 months praying for this year of learning! I have prayed for the Lord to give me a passion for teaching my girls, I've prayed for Him to show me what HE wants my kids to learn first and for most, and I've prayed for endurance to stay steadfast throughout the whole year! And He has been soooo good! I haven't shared much about our educating up until this point because I feel weak and embarassed of how short I will fall in my attempts to obey the Lord in this area. More than anyone I am aware of how poorly equipped I am to do this. Which only keeps me falling at the Lord's feet begging for help, so I'm counting my weakness as good! I will boast in my weakness instead of pridefully trying to hide it. So, one of the ways I hope to stay steadfast is by doing a weekly posting about what we did in educating each week. If I know I will have family and friends reading about our progress and projects then it will keep me accountable to keep begging the Lord and working hard with the Holy Spirits power! So here, in this post, I will outline a few goals and our plans for this year of learning! Curriculum: I bought two this year. One for writing and one for Math. The girls have a real interest in writing so we are going to lean further toward learning how to write proper stories and essays and such than a language subject. Just for this year to see how it goes. For Math I chose a thorough workbook for Hurricane and Teaching Textbooks for Tender. Teaching Textbooks is a computer program where Tender will do everything! It's easier for Mama and more educational for her. Reading: I am writing lessons from a book called A Basket of Flowers by Christoph von Schmidt. http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/1442167122 It is very old and written in Old English language. It will be challenging! I have pulled out vocab/spelling words for each girl from each chapter and they are doosies! Along with extra learning from the Word concerning whatever trial the characters are facing. While the book is a children's book it was written at a time when children were just better educated and well read so it's harder to read similar to how it's harder for the average woman to read Jane Austen as opposed to Nicholas Sparks! The Lord really lead me to this book as Robert and I were praying about how to prepare our children to be able to read deeper books as adults. Robert has his doctorate but still has a really hard time reading Johnathan Edwards! We want our girls to be able to read the puritans and other classics with ease! Everything else: The Bible will be our starting point with every other subject. Each morning we will have our Bible lessons (this will be the only lessons I will require The Boy to be present for). We are starting in Genesis and working our way through. We will hustle through Genesis though because we have studied it a lot lately and I don't want to bore the girls. I will incorporate free lessons, lap books, reading books, videos, films, and informational websites along with whatever we are studying that particular day. I'm breaking things up into (roughly) six week unit studies. The first unit will carry us all the way to the story of Joseph. A couple weeks into unit two will put us into Exodus. At the end of each unit Tender will chose one person and event and do a study on each while Hurricane gets a breather before we start the next unit.
Geography, History, and Science will all come out of the Bible. For instance, when we get to the Tower of Babel we will start our History unit on Ancient Civilizations. We will study the Egyptians further(mainly their gods) when we get to the Passover story. We were going to start our Solar System unit with creation but I wanted to be able to do star gazing with a borrowed telescope and so we will wait until later in the year when the sun goes down earlier to do that unit. But we will do our Living Things unit for Science during the creation story. Basically these three subjects will spider web out of the the core source of the Bible. For each of these subjects there will be lap books, lessons I find online, websites, videos, songs, books from the library and anything else I can get my hands on for free! We will also incorporate copy work and diction from these subjects occasionally. Tender will do Typing twice a week, time allowing! This I will just be using websites that help teach typing for free! I read about something for the Littles called Morning Room Time. I latched onto the idea and just two weeks ago Robert and I finished up the video for the boys' Morning Room Time. We are using the concept a little differently. I went on YouTube and found several short videos that my kids love that also help them learn/memorize important things. Shapes, counting, abcs, books of the bible, fruit of the spirit, ten commandments, that sort of thing. Each morning after Bible, chores, and breakfast, I will put the boys in the guest bedroom with some toys and my laptop so they can watch/ listen to the short video and play so I can only concentrate on the girls. It will give us a for sure 30 minutes a day without them under foot. And they play pretty well anyway and I will have preschoolish stuff out for them the rest of the day. I will likely start this routine a week before we start school so that I can stay in there and supervise them so they know the rules and what to expect. That way when we start the girls' lessons I will be able to leave them alone (kinda). How I'm staying organized: About 6 months ago I looked up what 4th and 1st graders need to learn. I made tabs for each goal in a big three ring binder with plenty of paper in each section for idea writing. I then put a page protector in each section. When I print off a lesson or whatever from the computer I slip it into the page protector for that lesson. I have two page protectors in the Bible lesson section because I am furthest in my planning in that subject and they are filling up fast. I'm also using Pinterest for organizing ideas and websites. It's is a huge time and space saver!! I'm currently organizing my big "Homeschooing" board into several smaller boards, "Math lessons", "Ancient Civilizations", "Solar System", and so on and so forth! Well! That about covers it! I mean, without going into a huge amount of detail! Right now we are planning on starting up all this learning on August 5th! Pray for me to boast in my weaknesses and lean on the Lord! We recently went to a family's house for dinner and learned a lot. This family is further along on their walk through salvation than us. They are a bit older, have twice the amount of children and have been seeking the Lord a bit longer than us. So it was an awesome opportunity to learn from them! As the Bible teaches about letting the older woman and man teach the younger. We are trying to learn to do this ourselves and were soooo thankful to a family willing to do it for us in such a purposeful way. : ) So they gave us some ideas for discipling our children and we have been implementing some of what they advised along with what we were already doing. So I thought I would share what we do in regards to discipling our children just in case some of those reading this are looking for ideas. Obviously, this is just what we have been doing in the last couple of months, depending on where our children are and how old they are and such. So each family is different and needs different things.
We like to watch a movie that is called the Gospel of Matthew. It is word for word the book of Matthew from the Bible. One of my favorite things about it is how the disciples and Jesus are portrayed. They are joyous. They push each other around playfully, they laugh at their amazement over the works that Jesus does, Jesus douses Peter with water for fun. It is very similar to watching some of the husbands at our Bible study tease each other. The kids love it and I'm amazed at how much they have memorized just from watching this movie so much. Robert has started leading Family Worship daily. It is amazing what we have seen as a result! Our children are really changing, like a heart change. Softer words are being used and more interest in the Bible is cropping up. Every evening we sit down in the living room and we pray, sing a song (right now we are working on learning Nothing but the Blood), and read a page out of our The Gospel Story Bible. This is a great book! We went through Jesus Storybook Bible until I feared the girls would memorize it and then we moved on to this book. It's a little more mature. Then we talk about the lesson we learned from that book. Then the three older kids take turns standing up and practicing the verses they are working on memorizing. All the while Deakin is working on his "sitting quietly" skills. Which are limited, to say the least. ; ) In the mornings we read a chapter from Matthew while eating breakfast. Then we write down prayer requests into our "Prayer Book" (It's just a notebook) and pray before we begin the day in earnest. I keep two columns going in the book so that when a prayer request is answered we can go back and write it down. We have also started something called "The Question Box". It is a kleenex box that we decorated and made a pocket on the side for slips of paper and pen. The kids are able to put questions about the bible and God into it any time they feel like it. And then during dinner Daddy will take a question out of the box and answer it for them. This is so handy because the kids sometimes can think of the most inopportune time to ask these deep questions! And we say, "We'll talk about it later!" But then we forget and it never gets answered! So this gives us a specific time to answer these hard questions and gives the children a chance to write out their question right when it crops up. So that is where we are at this season in life! What works for you in discipling your children? "You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Deuteronomy 11:19 Seems dumb to post about this. But there are some things that people ask me about that I feel like I repeat myself over and over and it's just easier to email a link. So that is what I will do here similar to my post on baby wearing: http://coffmanfamily.weebly.com/1/post/2011/11/the-many-forms-of-babywearing.html So! Before I started the dreadlocks this is what my hair looked like: I typically straightened it with the chi. But this was the morning that I went to the Barber Shop to start the locks, so this was just washed and brushed. A bit wavy, never without body and if I put moose in it while wet then it looked a little more curly. Below is about a month after I cut the locks off. A couple days after I cut them off I realized that for whatever reason, my hair had entered a more curly season. So I started reading about how to deal with curly hair. I figured that with Robert gone I wouldn't be taking the time to straighten it and so the easiest thing would be to just let it curl. The more I read the more I heard that you must go to a stylist that is specifically trained in how to cut curly hair. Because typically they are not trained in how to cut curly hair. So I found one in Springfield, MO while I was visiting and got an amazing hair cut from her! Plus lots of tips. So here are the tips that I have learned and started doing. 1. Don't use shampoo. I don't want to spring for the extra money of chemical free shampoo but the chemicals are what dries out curly hair so bad. Evidently the main thing curly hair needs above all else is moisture. So if shampoo removes moisture then you shouldn't use it. So I wash my hair with a little bit of baking soda and Dr Bronner's soap about once a week. 2. Use conditioner a LOT! Every other time that I take a shower I just use conditioner. And a TON of it! Like, a lot. And then I barely rinse it out. And occasionally I add a bit of leave-in conditioner afterwards. 3. Never brush it or comb it. I put a pick through it after I apply conditioner in the shower, that is the only time I do anything relatively close to combing or brushing. 4. Don't use a towel on it. So the terry cloth is suppose to be bad for curly hair because it makes it frizz more. So you're suppose to use a cotton t-shirt or microfiber towel to scrunch your hair dry. So I keep a shirt hung up with my towel for after shower drying. 5. Don't touch it. So the idea is that you shouldn't touch your hair after you've styled it is because every time you touch it makes it more frizzy. Honestly, I've not struggled with this much because of how short it is, I think. But there it is. So with those new rules in mind here is my typical styling. I take a shower, do tons of conditioner barely rinse it out. I do a different type of gel or other product almost everytime because I'm still trying to figure out what works best. But lets assume I'm using spray gel. (I make it with two parts boiled water and one part gel mixed together) Before I step out of the shower or dry my hair at all I spray the junk out of my hair with the spary gel, while it's still dripping wet. Sealing in as much moisture as possible. Then I scrunch my hair up in the the tshirt to remove the extra dripping water. Then I start my day. I can use my diffuser but rarely have the time. So I typically let it air dry. Then a few hours later when my hair feels dry I go back to the bathroom, throw my head over and scrunch all the stiffness out from the gel. The stylist called this "breaking the gel cast". Basically you are making your hair movable. After I do this it doesn't even look like I put anything in my hair really. It doesn't feel like it, it feels normal, soft. Then I usually hair spray some and I'm done. Lots of changes but all the changes lead to less work. I usually take a shower every other day and I don't do anything to my hair the next day. I just get up and make sure it's not standing straight up, maybe put a head wrap on to keep it out of my face. All hair is different. The idea behind doing my hair like this is just letting it dry right where it is. Not pushing it or manipulating it into what I want it to look like. The left side of my head is always less curly than the right. In some places I have lovely little spirals and in other places my hair curls in one direction and then abruptly changes direction! And the longer it gets the more it is wavy and less curly. It's just embracing those differences and letting go of trying to control it so much. That's all! : ) And meanwhile I am working up enough nerve to make some homemade gel! Out of flax seeds! Still researching different ways of doing it so I will get back on that subject once I have a good recipe. : )
We are sick. We have been sick for a few weeks, off and on. About a month ago three of the kids had ear infections and I was exhausted and agreed to antibiotics. Now all three of those kids are getting hit with everything. Antibiotics kill all bacteria causing a crippling affect on the immune systems ability to fight off illness. So now those three kids are having a really hard time during such a bad time of year for sickness. So we are hunkering down and working really hard at getting our immune systems back up to par. Robert and I are sick too. Robert isn't too shocking since his body is still adjusting to a different climate and environment. But I almost never get sick, so you know it's bad! Mainly we are dealing with drainage, sore throats, achey, and unproductive, painful coughs. This has caused us to cancel part of our trip and post pone the rest of it. : ( Which means we have very sad kids. So I thought I would share some of the things we do when we are dealing with illness. Namely, cough and immune support remedies. I typically use homeopathy, and I have lately, but because of dairy allergies and the lack of homeopathic remedies that don't use a base of lactose I have been learning other alternatives. The above picture shows the cough syrups I had simmering this morning. The one on the left is a recipe my friend Melissa taught me except I added one ingredient. And the one on the right is a super easy recipe that I learned on line. For simplicity sake I will call the one on the left Herbal Cough Syrup and the one on the right Onion Honey Syrup. Almost anyone can make Onion Honey Syrup with what they already have in the house! And I can definitely sing it's praises. The Herbal Cough Syrup cured Cal and I of pneumonia a couple years ago. And I make it a few times a year whenever one of the kids is suffering from a cough that needs a little help breaking up the mucous. Above is the end product! Below I will share the recipes! Keep in mind that I made more than usual of each because so many in our family need them. Typically I would make about half as much.
Herbal Cough Syrup (the one on the left in the picture) -1/4 cup of licorice root -1/4 cup of mullein leaf -1/4 cup of marshmallow root (for sore throat) Cover herbs with filtered water in a small sauce pan. Put over low heat and let simmer for 30-45 minutes. Drain the liquid and mix with 2 Tbls of honey (preferably raw, local). Sometimes I add cinnamon too. I didn't this time. *Give 1 tsp (for adults 1 Tbs) every 30 minutes or longer. It tastes like concentrated sweetened tea. Bryse loves it! Really, there are so many herbs that are helpful with coughs but I keep these herbs in my medicine cabinet all the time, so these are easiest for us. Onion Honey Syrup -One onion -Enough honey to cover the onion(preferably raw and local) -Optional: A few cloves are garlic chopped up Put the chopped onion and garlic in a small saucepan and cover with honey. Simmer on very low heat for 30-45 minutes, until onion is cooked soft. You can drain if you want, but I try to leave some in the syrup because it doesn't hurt anything and the longer the herbs are in the honey the more healing power you get from them! *Give 1 tsp (for adults 1 Tbs) every 30 minutes or longer. Deakin is a fan of this one! This one is very basic, helps for any cold or cough, and if you put the garlic in there then you are really helping your immune system. Below is another recipe. You can actually find lots of variations of this recipe all over the internet. http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2009/11/homemade-cough-and-cold-syrup.html We have not used allopathic cough drops or syrups or suppressants in years! The reason for this is because we learned that God gave our bodies the ability to cough for a very good reason. To get out what doesn't belong there! So suppressing the cough or trying to stop it does the opposite of what the cough is trying to do. So now we use remedies that sometimes make us cough more or make our coughs sound worse, but in the long run we get better much quicker! I have both of the cough syrups sitting out and am giving them to the kids all day today. Already Cal's cough sounds less dry and more moist which makes me very happy. Now I know that (Lord willing) nothing will settle in his chest causing a longer, worse illness. Now on to immune support and supplements. I have all the kids on probiotics. Trying to help their immune system restore some of the good bacteria that the antibiotics destroyed. Echinacea, golden seal, vitamin C, vitamin D, and zinc along with their normal multi vitamin. If we had elderberry syrup we would be doing that too, but I'm out. For the boys (who can't swallow a pill yet) I open the probiotic and echinacea capsules into a bowl, add some cinnamon and cover with honey. Stir it up and then feed it to them with a spoon. You can also mix those vitamins with applesauce or DF yogurt but I tend to forget unless I just do honey when I give them their normal chewable multi and gummy zinc/vitamin D. We also do a lot of garlic during illness. I take a cut up clove like a pill twice a day for a few days. And I use my neti pot every night before bed to help with drainage and congestion. Also adding a tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar to a glass of water and drinking it throughout the day is very helpful for colds. I'm not even gonna touch essential oils today because it will take too long! Ha! During the summer we just do a mulit vitamin most of the time. But this time of year and during illness, we do a LOT of supplements! And when I'm pregnant, good grief! It's ridiculous! But good. Anyway, I didn't have any new pictures to share today so I thought I would post about this since it's fresh on my mind. For you uncultured swine that title is a song from My Fair Lady.
So there is something that our household revolves around a few times a week. What is that thing? Getting somewhere on time! Get to church on time on Sunday, get to bible study on time, get to a playdate on time, an appointment, and so forth. It seems that I hear families talking about how hard it is to get places on time. Especially families with younger kids. I know for me personally, getting Darby and Bryse ready is quite easy but Cal and Deakin are more of a challenge. And I remember what it was like when we had an exclusively breastfed baby in the mix. Which might seem like nothing to you that are reading this and didn't breastfeed or can't remember that far back, but it can be tricky. I tend to be a planner and sort of get a little high off of the challenge of getting everyone out and going on time. So I thought I would share some of my favorite discoveries in this ambition. Starting with a small baby: 1) Keep your diaper bag by the door. Or even in the car if that is possible. Personally, I use my diaper bag as my purse as well and kinda need it in the house, so I just keep it near the door, always in the same place. Keep it stocked with a change of clothes and plenty of diapers. 2) Have everyone ready to go except for baby. For us this meant that I tried to schedule an appointment for after a normal naptime. So I would have all the other kids with their shoes on, jackets either laying by the door or on and staying in one area. Have your shoes on, your hair/make-up done, and everything you need for the appointment waiting in the car. That way when baby wakes up, you can change the diaper, nurse real quick and go directly out the door as soon as baby is ready! (This trick does not work for husbands in general.) Now on to older children: 1) Teach the kids to buckle themselves and obey after the first command. "Load up and buckle up" is one of my most said phrases. If children are obedient, this goes smoothly. Which means that, in our house, Cal is still learning this obedience. He can buckle himself but still struggles with not getting distracted and obeying the first time. Both Cal and Bryse are forward facing but still in five-point harnesses and they buckle themselves. Deakin is rear facing in a five point harness and can't (or won't) climb into the seat by himself yet and obviously can't buckle himself yet. Darby is in a booster seat and buckles herself. So this means that when we get in all I am responsible for is Deakin and making sure Cal and Bryse don't get into a fist fight while getting to their seats! 2) If you child is over two (and sometimes younger) they can and should put their own shoes on. Now, having said that, if we are running late I help Cal with his shoes. But if your children will learn to take care of themselves then that frees you up to take care of other things. Again obedience is key here as well. "Get your shoes and socks on!" 3) Clothes. My kids aren't allowed to eat breakfast on weekdays unless they are dressed first. Even if we are going no where I still make them get dressed before they eat. So when it is time to go somewhere I don't have to make sure that they are dressed first. In general: 1) Leave early. And with kids can you ever leave too early? What about diaper blow outs? What about pulling over 3 times within the 10 minute drive to discipline? What about getting nearly there and realizing that you've forgotten something and having to go back? What about coaxing the dog out of the van and getting him back in the house? What about when the garage door won't close and you have to go tinker with the censor or move a yard toy out of the way to get it to close? If where I am going is between 1 and 5 minutes away I ALWAYS shoot for leaving 15 minutes before I need to be there. It takes us roughly 5 minutes to get to church. If it starts at 10:00, I am hussling hard to be loaded and in the van by 9:45. This allows for everything to go wrong and still squeak in the door on time. The whole time Robert was gone we were late for church one time (and even then it was only about 3 or 4 minutes). This works! If where we are going is 5-15 minutes away I try to leave 30 minutes before the time that we are suppose to be there. Robert hates this. Because sometimes, rarely, things all go perfectly smooth. The children are all smiling, dressed perfectly, hair combed, baby doesn't poop or throw a temper tantrum and we drive up to the appointment and are about 10 minutes early. So we have to sit in the van and talk or whatever to kill time. Although, that has only happened about 3 times. And honestly if I can choose between being early and bored to being late and frazzled? No contest. 2) Start getting ready early. I once read in an article on this topic a mom that said that they tack on 15 minutes for each additional child. So if you have one child then you start getting ready 15 minutes till the time that you need to leave. Two kids -30 minutes, three kids - 45 mintues, and so on and so forth. I assume this is working under the belief that you are starting to get ready from scratch; clothes, diapers, shoes, etc. I can vouch for this theory in regards to when we are going somewhere early in the morning. Need to be out of the house at 6am? 5:30 may work for a getting up time when you were childless but now you're looking at earlier. In the middle of the day this doesn't work though. I typically start thinking about what I need to get ready and slowly start getting things together about 45 minutes before I need to leave. Generally, I just try to always over estimate how long it will take. Example: Several Friday nights ago we had bible study that is 5 minutes away. There was a potluck before it at 6pm and I was bringing about 20 grilled soft tacos and cookies to share. I made the cookies during naptime and had them already packed and ready to go. This particular bible study has problems with people showing up late and the leader has asked repeatedly that people do their best to come on time. So I try my very hardest to honor him with our obedience to that request. So about 4:15 I started cooking. It ended up being the perfect timing too because I was done with cooking and cleaning up the kitchen at 5:30. The boys took late naps in preparation for Bible study because we stay up so late that night. Everyone was dressed so we only needed shoes, socks, and jackets. So at 5:30 we started loading the van and getting everything ready: dairy free snacks for the boys, sippy cup and diaper bag for Deakin, socks, shoes, jackets. And we were loaded up and out the door by 5:45. We had one little drop off on the way and got there right at 6:00! It was not totally peaceful and perfect, as nothing is in this world, but it was done! And while I do not believe being late for things is a sin in any way. I do believe in teaching my children that it honors others by showing them that you respect their time given. That is all I have! I really like Pandora! Every morning while I cook breakfast my phone sits on my phone speaker dock (that is a whole other ode to.... post, love that thing!) and we listen to my Waterdeep station. I mainly create stations with a specific artist in mind. This station is inspired by the amazing worship music of Waterdeep. I've often tried to start the day with one of my other stations but it just never works. I gotta start with the Waterdeep sound. We eat breakfast listening to it and do our morning Bible study while listening too. After I clean up breakfast and we clean upstairs well, we head downstairs to start schooling. Then we turn Pandora on the computer. Typically to Kids worship or, more recently, Radio for Kids, which is a Pandora built station. But the great thing about those is that as long as you give thumbs up and thumbs down, your Kids Radio station looks different than anyone elses! My kids LOVE to announce if a song deserves a thumbs up or down. I've made a rule that it has to be unanimous or we just leave the song alone. So our Kids Radio station is a lot of oldies, Tangled songs, and The Muppet Movie soundtrack songs. (By the way, almost all the songs from The Muppet Movie were written by Brett from Flight of the Conchords!!! Genius.) So when we have been working for too long and the song from Madagascar "I like to Move It Move It" comes on we take a dancing break. And then on some days when Darby is having a really hard time focusing we have to turn off Pandora. : ( Later when I'm cleaning. Scrubbing the bathroom floor of little boy pee or sweeping the kitchen or vacuuming or dusting I have to listen to my Trip Lee station. He is currently my favorite gospel rap artist. Deakin typically breaks out his moves for all of our entertainment. Our other stations include a Flame station (which is another gospel rap artist), Toddler radio for a more young selection, and my David Crowder station. And just as a cute little fact, Cal is a BIG thumbs up giver. He must be an eternal optimist or just really love music. And just for fun, here is what is playing right at this moment that we like a lot! And one of my favorite Trip Lee songs. "All I Need is One Sixteen! To brag on my King, Romans 1:16! " Have a great day everyone! Listened to this because Trip Lee was involved but found this Jimmy Needham guy! Gotta love his voice and this song and video is so moving. Preach it.
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LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
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