My baby turned 1 (and had cake!)

Can you believe my sweet Joshua is 1 already?!?!  I made him a carrot cake for his birthday.  I kept the decorations simple, just some colored sprinkles.  He loved the frosting, but didn't eat much of the cake because he was too full.  He really did enjoy licking the frosting off!  We gave him the rest of his cake the next day and he finished most of it!

Happy Birthday Joshua!

Simple Mending

Use it up, wear it out,
Make it do, or do without!

My son's pillow pet had an unfortunate accident in the washing machine... and it's been sitting in the laundry room for the past 6 months waiting for me to mend it.  It was so simple to do!  I don't know why it took me so long to fix it!  I just sewed the rip closed using a hidden stitch (See this tutorial, scroll to the end, she shows the whip stitch first).

Now it just has a little scar!

PS: I've not been very good at getting my Word for Wednesday up...  Sorry about that!  I've decided to just to do an occasional devotional instead of doing it every week.  Thanks for understanding.

Gallery Wall, Paper Covered Letter, New Couches!

We got a new couch and love seat!!!  I'm so happy with them!  They are brown microfiber plush.  Our old set had large rips on the arms and was very worn, not to mention that it was a large floral print!  After two years of having almost nothing on the walls, I finally hung some pictures and made a gallery wall, which I love.  I have two more pictures to go up under the mirror, but I didn't get the pictures yet...  A good friend of mine took our family pictures this past fall, and I just finally ordered the prints!  I thought Snapfish was a great deal, the 11 x 14 family picture was only 6.99 (considered a poster).  There are close ups of each kid, and a collage of some of my other favorites.

I found this wooden "V" on clearance for 30 cents!  (Sometimes having a hard last name comes in handy!)  I painted the edges brown and covered the front with scrapbook paper using a glue and water mix.  

Here's the other side of the living room.  I moved the end table to the other side of the couch to prevent the kids from climbing on the arm to reach the bookshelf!  I like having the table there to set school stuff on.  Right now it holds our book basket, which is just out of Joshua's reach.  Thanks for taking a look!

Days 91-102, MFW First Grade

Have you missed me?  Our church did a media fast last week, and this week I have no excuses!  I realize I've been missing my Word for Wednesdays too, my apologies!  We've still been plugging away at school though, here's what we've been up to:

Bible: We've continued memorizing some Proverbs, they really amaze me with how much they remember.  I think they remember them better than I do!  Above are the kids posing with their paper baskets we made, like the ones the Israelite's gathered manna with.  (They were too hard for them to weave themselves, so I ended up doing them...)  We also went over the story of Caleb and Joshua, and the other 10 spies.  Yes, Caleb and Joshua are named after this story.  Then we covered battle of Jericho, and talked about archaeologists.  Below is a picture of them being archaeologists in a tub of rice.  They dug out bowls, spoons, straws, and toys!

Then it was on to the stories of Samuel.  We made paper mats like Samuel might have been sleeping on when God called to him.  They really had fun weaving these.

Today we tried some food that people ate during the bible times.  We tried pita bread, dates, dried figs, and Greek olives.  Everything was a hit except the olives...  We're not big fans...

Science:  We continued to learn about the science of water.  Below, they are blowing bubbles in the kitchen as we learned about water "skin".  

Math:  We're working on more addition, trying to memorize the addition facts.

Lastly, they've started daddy school!  After Caleb was especially interested in the inside of our computer, daddy decided it would be fun to start teaching him about electronics.  He purchased Snap Circuits and they had their first "class" this week.  They loved it!

Scrapbook Pages - Vacation

I had another fun afternoon scrapbooking with a friend this weekend.  Here are all my finished pages.

Scrub Skirts

I made these 5 scrub skirts for my mother-in-law for Christmas.  She found the pants at thrift stores, much cheaper than ordering scrub skirts online!  Click here to see how I did it!

My apologies for not posting as much.  I joined Weight Watchers, so I've been preoccupied with looking at recipes and tracking my food!  But I did loose 5 lbs, yeah!

Days 82-90, MFW First Grade

We are over half way though 1st grade!  In math, we are revisiting all the topics, but going deeper this time.  So we covered patterns, sorting, numbers, and comparing sizes.  Above is Caleb's pattern, and below is Rebekah working on a pattern worksheet.  Next we'll be covering geometry for a week, and then 5 weeks of addition and subtraction!

We finished the science book we were working though and began the one below, Science with Water.

We've done lots of sink activities, which means getting wet!  First, we did some floating experiments.  Yesterday we talked about ships and cargo, and the difference between salt and fresh water.  They both really like playing in the sink!

Caleb's reading is improving too!  He met his reading goal for December, so Kevin took him to Pizza Hut for his personal pan pizza!  (We do Book It for Homeschoolers.)  Here are his latest bible notebook pages.  I love that he's actually drawing things on his own, not just copying the book or me.

You can probably tell by his pages that we've been covering Moses in the bible!  We also learned Proverbs 3:5-6 and they made tambourines out of Styrofoam plates and beans.

That's it, see you next week.

Word for Wednesday #8

Photo from:  http://www.freefoto.com/preview/11-07-3/Fireworks

Happy New Year!

Janes 1:2-8  My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;  Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.  But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.  A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

My husband and I have been slowly reading through a commentary on the book of James written by Daniel L. Segraves.  This chapter has been on my mind, and then it was preached about in church this past Sunday. We're now in 2013!  No one knows what this year will hold.  Chances are, each one of us will have some type of trial this year.  James tells us to be glad when trials come!  What?  How can we do that?  The answer is in verse 5, pray for wisdom!  Daniel Segraves says it better than I could, here is a bit from his book:

"There can be no patience without wisdom.  The person struggling with impatience should not so much pray for patience as for the wisdom that produces patience.  Godly wisdom will give the perspective needed to be able to endure even difficult situations with patience, for godly wisdom enables one to see more than just the immediate circumstances.  It is wisdom that we obtain by prayer, a divine perspective that reveals God to be at work in all the affairs of life, even those painful developments that seem for the moment to be without explanation."

I wish for you all a very happy new year.  But if trouble finds you, remember James words, and pray for wisdom!