Barefoot In The Garden

We are soooo romantic

HA! We bought our own valentines gifts.... ;-)  BUT neither one of us is disappointed! I get my NIV dramatized audio bible (YAY!!!!!! I have bee wanting one for months) and hubster got his new toy - a little helicopter he can fly in the house. He can't wait to take it to church -- a couple of the guys have been wanting one (including the pastor) and he's going to have fun showing it off. Since some of the guys have RC cars like him and they race them - he's really excited to show off the new toy.

They kids made daddy valentines today and we're baking him cookies and brownies. This weekend hubster goes away for the weekend to race his RC cars at a rally thing-y. I AM THE BEST WIFE E-VAR!  I am fine with it - really. EXCEPT - now when he gets home, he gets sent to another city in the state (6 hours away) and will be there for 2 weeks. 2 WEEKS PEOPLE!! OK - he'll be home on the weekends but I will be alone all week -- ick -- we haven't been separated like this since before Thing 1 was born.

UGH.

ALSO -- I am IN LOVE with Paperback Swap.com I signed up for this cool feature - $8 a year and you can contact members and swap whole boxes of books without credits!!!!! Say I have 10 books you want and yo have 10 books I want - we can agree to trade! I AM IN LOVE! I made my first offer last night and got it accepted this morning. Now we are covered in snow so I can't mail it out for a day or 2 but THIS IS SO COOL!! For the cost of media mail postage I get 14 books and she gets 14 books! YA HOOO!!!!!! Go sign up (use me as a referral -- use me as a referral -- ignore the subliminal message -- use me as a referral---) it's so great!

And yes I know - I have to post the pictures of Dancing with the Stars! I have to do some cleaning up since I was seated on Mars -- well at least not as close as darling Perky! ;-)

Dancing With The Stars will have to wait

I have a 6 year old on my hands!!!

Today 6 years ago - my world changed forever. Our baby boy was born. My favorite Valentine.

He got to choose where we went for lunch -- Mc Donald's "and I want to eat INSIDE mama". He was my big helper at the grocery store and sweet talked me into about 3 different things to buy him at Wally World.

Tonight it's ice cream at Friendly's where they'll sing to him.  Saturday is the kid party at the ice skating rink. He's SO excited.

Happy Birthday baby.

One More..

Dancing With the Stars Post.... because....

I WENT TO SEE THE LIVE SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS SOOOOO GREAT AND SO. MUCH. FUN!!! EVEN HUBBY HAD A GOOD TIME!!!!

I'll post my pictures tomorrow (from the camera I wasn't supposed to bring.... I am a bad bad girl........ ;-> )

GO

Go, Read, don't be drinking anything.

Daring Young Mom.

You're welcome

God's hand in the air

I am constantly amazed. Look at the time He takes with snow. SNOW people -- the process that He put into place to grow such beauty astounds me. Even when I don't much care for snow. I HATE being cold, I hate driving in snow. But I LOVE the whisper of the first snowflakes falling. I love the anticipation, how the world seems to wait with baited breath for those first soft crystals to fall. I love the blanket of pristine whiteness on the ground. The stillness that comes with the snowfall. I love the wonder and joy on my children's face when the snow is fresh and new. Snowmen (which we have not seen yet his year) and snow angels are adorable. The simplicity and beauty in 1 snowflake leaves me breathless. Look at what HE does.

This is what happens when we try. This is man made snow. We cannot compare with Him in any way can we?

The kids and I are going to start a unit study for the next week or so. We picked up this book at the library...

(I picked up the pic from Amazon)-- It's a book about Wilson A Bentley.

The father of snowflake photography.  Go Here to learn more about him. His life is an interesting story. Turns out he published a book in 1931 with over 2900 pictures of snowflakes. That got us going. We trotted off to the library and had them track it down for us. So now we still have the above book, and we have Mr. Bentley's book Snow Crystals and since we have snow coming we are going to have fun!

I took out a half dozen other books about snow, weather and water and what kind of experiments that we can do with them.

Then God winked. He Did!! Someone on my homeschooling yahoo board mentions this great website SnowCrystals.com which totally ties into our lesson!!! Oh and there are directions on how to preserve snowflakes with crazy glue! We are SO DOING THAT!

I am truly excited about doing this one. The kids seem excited too (except for Thing 1's runny nose)

You know the Bible 82%!

Wow! You are truly a student of the Bible! Some of the questions were difficult, but they didn't slow you down! You know the books, the characters, the events . . . Very impressive!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

HA!! Now you KNOW the test was too easy!

In search of...

Has anybody seen my muse? I can't seem to locate it. If you find it - could ya send it on home? I miss it.

It seem like every time I sit down to write something (including this pitiful post) my brain just fizzles out on me. I am getting some things done in the house, and schooling is coming along. But the blog is suffering -- I am betting I have lost 90% of my readers - so the 2 of you left - HI!

I am in the process of gearing up and planning lessons for the 6 week course I am teaching this spring. I have 18 students (broken up into 2 class) and a waiting list. I have a co-op that is going to have me coming to them - and the co-op sounds SO GREAT I just might join it. I had a great time on the phone with the woman who started the co-op - she sounds alot like me. ;-) (frightening I know!)  And I have another home-schooler who does a virtual school 3 days, and she would like me to come to themas well and she may be able to round up a couple students.

MUST NOT GET SO MUCH ON MY PLATE THAT I AM NOT TEACHING MY OWN KIDS!!! 

However - now I have to get the house in shape for having the moms in my house. Since I invited the moms to hang out in the house (weather permitting the classes will be held in my garden outside), now I have to get it in shape enough to not be totally humiliated to let them in!

I still cannot believe the response I got from home-schoolers in my area for this class! Really it's cool and humbling. At first I thought maybe parents didn't really read the whole thing when I posted the class -- and I did get emails that asked questions I did have answered in the email. So I thought that maybe some of the moms would be surprised by the scriptures I plan on using each week - BUT God is good - several have emailed me and mentioned their own faith or how excited they are to have another Christian home-schooler teaching this.

AND a couple Christian home-schoolers emailed me who happen to live in my neighborhood - I am glad to find other home-schoolers within walking distance (we only knew one other). Very cool all around!

Also in the church news - myself and another SAHM are planning on starting a playgroup/moms group within the church. I would like to have the kids to play with other kids in the church and I really want to be able to socialize and network with the other moms in our church. I feel like sometimes I am foundering when coming to parent from a Christian world-view -- I would LOVE to have a greater circle of friends and sisters who are working though (or have already worked though) the same things. I must also keep in mind that it must meet the needs of the SAHMs and the working moms of the church.

And I am the "boss with the sauce" when it comes to the church garden! Was there any doubt? I am soooo excited that it's planning time!! I can't wait to be Barefoot again!!!!