I’m sorry the first part was so long.  I will try to make this one shorter.

That night after listening to the car radio Chris decided to drive to a neighboring town to get gas because they were across the state line and had power.  He returned home around midnight and let me know about a certain subdivision that had been hit hard for the second time in 16 years.  My heart sank.  Just how bad is the damage?  We had no clue.

The next morning, Chris had to go into work for a brief meeting.   I was trying to figure out what to do.  We had no power, so I couldn’t get online to find out anything, I couldn’t do laundry, we couldn’t watch TV and breakfast was a bowl of cereal and yes that meant, NO COFFEE!!  We had originally planned to visit Chris’ Dad and Step Mom this weekend, were we going to be able to do that?  Chris’ job kept telling everyone in his Dept to “stay close”.  I guess that’s what happens when your in the IT dept for a company.   They wanted everyone that could close in case the systems crashed (which of course were being ran by generators).  I really needed my hair washed, sorry, I know, Gross!  But I really did and was afraid to tackle it by myself.  See my injury was on the back of my head, I couldn’t see it!  So anyways, I was having a hard time not being discouraged.

About an hour later Chris came home with my sister and her husband following close behind.  They came to help clear the tree and she brought a camp stove, eggs and a french press which meant, COFFEE!!!!  Hallelujah!!!   I cried when I saw her, she was a sight for sore eyes.  Her being here also meant someone could wash my hair, things were looking up!!

As the day progressed we gradually got reports of the power outage lasting anywhere from 5-7 days!  We finally got to the point of having cell service and were able to receive calls and make a few calls.  We made our plans and headed to Tennessee to visit Chris’ Dad where we could rest and heal.

As we drove out of town listening to the radio and hearing all the reports of damage, my heart broke for all the loss, pain and destruction.  So many people lost homes, portions of their homes, businesses, loved ones.  It was incredible, the path one particular EF5 tornado took, it started in Hackleburg, AL and traveled 106.9 miles to Franklin, TN, covering four counties in AL and one county in TN.  It was 1.25 mile wide and had winds of 210 mph!   Wow.  I was blown away when I heard that info.  Blown away.  I silently prayed for all those hurting people coming through the rubble of what used to be their home, or those who had lost loved ones.  I prayed for friends I hadn’t heard from yet, wondering and hoping they were ok.  I prayed for my family who was traveling to NC to stay with relatives till the power came on.  I prayed that our house would be safe, that it wouldn’t smell too bad when we got home.  And how my heart wanted to stay home helping all these hurting people.

Once we got to TN Thursday night, we were so thankful for a dry home to stay in, warm showers, electricity, warm food.  We could see pictures of the damage and destruction so close to our home and the area we live.  The desire to be home and help grew stronger and stronger.  But I would need to be patient, my head had to heal, Chris had flown to Virginia for Military duty and had asked us to wait till we had power to go home.  So Riley and I stayed at Grandpa and Meme Macks for almost a week.  We had a good time, we visited Cades Cove and the Titanic, both of those I counted as school days!  The other days we did school and hung out with Grandpa and Meme Mack.   When we got power late Tuesday afternoon, Grandpa said he could drive us home the next day.

It was so good to be home, to check on friends, neighbors.  It was good to see a dear friend and hug her neck as she told us of all the trees they lost.  She was so thankful none of them had fallen on the house they are building!  We stopped by Mom’s and checked on her, then went to the grocery store to stock up on a few things.  It was good to be home.

God is good, and sometimes our plans are not His plans.  Although my heart was here in  Alabama it was good to have a time to heal in Tennessee with loving Grandparents.   There were so  many stories of people helping each other, being the hands and feet of Jesus.  Our church jumped out there and got right in the middle of the hardest hit areas and helped many people with removing debris, putting tarps on roofs, cutting trees, or just giving a bottle of cold water.  Many other churches and individuals jumped in and joined the forces of helping clean up after the storms.  What a blessing to see so many people coming together to help those in need.

In our history lesson, we just learned about a certain man who was a soldier, leader and a helper.  He traveled from Holland on the Mayflower to America with his wife.  During that long, first winter, many pilgrims got sick and many died.  In spite of the difficult times he would look for ways to help.  He took care of the sick, gave them water, and helped with many other responsibilities around the fort.  He also became the Captain of the fort Plymouth.  So to help Riley think like this man and be a helper we  made him a hat.  Keeping it very simple using construction paper, tape and a glue stick.

Can you guess who he is?  In real life he had red hair and was very short but was very brave.  He made friends with Samoset.  Who am I?

In my opinion, its a very crude example of a pilgrim hat, but I got a “Thanks Mom!” and a hug for it!  He came running back in to the kitchen, “I look like Indiana Jones!  Or is it the Mad Hatter?”   Hehehe!  I think we should pick Indian Jones, don’t you?  He was pleased, that is all that  matters.

Now we  are off to Church this evening.  I’m looking forward to hear what God has to say tonight.   I hope y’all have a blessed Wednesday!

Some of you may be trying to decide how to educate your children.  Should we put them in public school?  What about private schools?  What about that homeschooling option that I’ve heard of?  Can we do that?  How do we decide?  Well, I can tell you how we reached our decision to homeschool, our thoughts and fears.

When Riley was born, I never would have imagined that I would be homeschooling him.  A dear friend of mine who at that time had been homeschooling two of her girls, had one getting ready to start and one on the way.  She and I would talk and I would hear of her homeschooling adventures, the good and the bad.  I remember thinking some of it sounded fun but some of it sounded really intimidating!  I guess at that time, my first thought that we would just send Riley to public school when the time came.  Boy was I wrong!  As Riley grew and life kept right on going, things changed around our home and within my husband Chris and I.  I quit my job as an Ophthalmic assistant when Riley was 3 1/2 and came home to become a SAHM.  We began to heavily pray about where Riley would go to school when he turned 5.  It was amazing how God worked in our hearts and grew us to a point that we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what we had to do.  At first, my thoughts on homeschooling were fear based.  Thoughts like Riley being harassed by a bully, teased, learning about life changes (puberty, procreation etc.) from someone other than Chris and I, or being caught up in drugs of some type.   These thoughts became my reason for keeping Riley home and teaching him all he would need to know. I was however, still very intimidated by the idea of being Riley’s teacher.   How could I know what all to teach him?  I could barely remember everything I learned in highschool, let alone elementary school.  However, while I was praying in a very selfish and fearful way, my husband was praying in such a way to seek God’s will for our family.

In 2004, Riley was just getting ready to turn 4 and Chris and I approached the issue of homeschooling one more time.  He was getting ready to ship out to Iraq in a couple of months so we needed to get the decision made.  By this time the intimidation was getting the best of me and overthrowing the fear factor.  I had about made up MY mind that I was NOT going to teach Riley, I was not qualified.  Well, God had other things in mind, remember, He is not a God of fear or intimidation, but a God of all possibilities.  Chris asked me where I stood on homeschooling.  I proceeded to tell him all my fears and intimidating factors, to which he quickly comforted me and reminded me of all my possibilities with God on our side.  He said that he felt very confident we were to homeschool and keep Riley home.  He felt it was best to evaluate the situation each semester/year and see where we were and what God was leading us to do at that time.

Since that decision our homeschooler’s journey has been full force, speed ahead!!  In fact, when we started kindergarten work here at home, I was so excited about our studies that my dear friend that I mentioned earlier in this post had to keep reminding me what we were doing and how old Riley was!  I can’t tell you how many times she would say, “Lyn!  It’s just kindergarten!”  “Let him have fun, he will learn all he needs to learn in due time…”.  We did have fun and I did tone down my excitement about the things we did not have to focus on at that time.  I finally learned to relax and have fun, and develope a system or schedule that works for Riley and I.   Now that he is 9, I am so thankful for the opportunity to teach my son what Chris and I feel is necessary for him to learn.  It has been a joy, a struggle, lots of learning, and lots of fun!  I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.  So for now, we keep on plugging at our lessons and praying our way through them, through those days that we both are tired of school.  Won’t you join us on our Homeschooler’s Journey?

The Lord is good all the time, all the time God is good.  I see all these Facebook posts that people are “lovin their sweet life”, and I wonder, what is it about their life that makes them love it so much?  I remember feeling at one point in time when I read one of those posts a little resentment because our life at that time was so busy and I didn’t really love our life at that moment.  Not that they aren’t entitled to love their life but that I wanted to love my life!

Here lately, I have been able to look at our blessed life and see all that God is doing in our precious family.  And that has helped me to love our life from a new perspective.  All the business doesn’t seem to overpower me now.

We started work on our kitchen the first weekend in October and things are moving along nicely just a little slow.  We tore out part of a wall and moved cabinets to another wall,  added new cabinets, and granite and are painting.  Chris finished the drywall in the opening area and I have started painting cabinets.   Still a slow process but we are making progress!  Most of the time the work has to be done in the evenings and weekends because of work and school.

This is before....

New countertops

Chris sanding the drywall, boy am I glad that part is done!! What a mess it makes!

School has gone well, Riley has done really well also.  It is such a blessing to see times that he is learning and growing.  That lets me know I am doing SOMETHING right!  Praise the Lord!

We participated in the geography fair with our school.  What an experience that was!  Riley’s state was Kentucky and he did a great job!  He read all about the state and then was able to put all the info together (with a little help) and make a display board and present facts about his state orally.  I was so proud of him for taking the initiative and having the courage to do it.

In our new church we are attending, they have Royal Rangers.  Our main reason for wanting Riley to join was to make some friends.  We thought there would be some overlap with the activities in Scouts but thought we would try it out.  To our surprise there hasn’t been any overlap yet but what Riley has learned has been great!  He has made friends, learned a lot about boy stuff, and the Bible.   It has been so awesome to see how God has blessed that decision and how Riley has been blessed as well.

Our church also partners with an organization called Manna House which is a food distribution warehouse that helps the needy for free.  Wow!  How God has opened my heart to people in need is so exciting!  I had no clue what it was like to work with such precious people.  To realize how God loves them and they need to see that love.  I am learning to put my political thoughts aside and love these people instead of  judging them for their misfortune.   To let them have a glimpse of Jesus in me or my family.  To let Jesus work through me and in me.

So yes, I do love our “sweet life”, but for a different reason.  Because God is working in my precious family, Chris, Riley and myself.  Keeping our focus on Him is helping us to see the blessings of a life in Him.  We are still busy but as long as our focus is on Him, the business is manageable and doesn’t over power us.  When we rest in Him, wait upon the Lord, let Him be Lord of our lives, we will see what He can do.  Our efforts by ourselves are nothing in comparison to what God can do.  With God the possibilities are endless!

We are using Exploring Creation with Zoology 1:  Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day from Apologia (written by Jeannie K. Fulbright). I love their science curriculum! Of course the number one reason is because it is taught from the creation perspective. The second reason is that so far it has held Riley’s attention and he has really enjoyed it (asking to do more type of enjoying it!). The third reason is the activities and projects she has in the book are fun, you can learn from them and easy to do. Most of the items needed for the projects are things you would have in your home. That makes it great! The less money you have to spend, the better in my opinion!!

This past Thursday as we finished up our lesson on birds, we got to make a bird feeder! The nice part was that we had most of what we needed and what we didn’t have, we could improvise a little. So here is how we made our bird feeder:

What you Need:
* An adult with a knife
* Two bamboo skewers (These serve as perches for the birds-we did not have bamboo skewers so we used sticks.)
* An empty plastic bottle with a wide mouth opening like a juice jug. You can use a plastic soda pop bottle instead but the narrow opening can make it hard to fill with bird seed. (We used a soda pop bottle and were able to fill it just fine. We just used a paper plate as a funnel and cleaned up our mess afterward!)
* Wire or string (we used a wire coat hanger)
* Bird Seed

1). Have an adult cut two holes on opposite sides of the jug, about two and half inches from the bottom. The holes should be about the size of a nickel or quarter, depending on the size of the seed you bought. The holes should be large enough for a bird to access the seed, but not so large that the seed just spills out. If you bought very small seeds like those from a thistle, for example, you will need to make the hole the size of a pea.
2). Have the adult use the knife to make a small slit at the bottom of the bottle on each side, about 2 inches below each side.
3). Slide the bamboo skewers (or sticks in our case) through these slits to make a perch under each hole.
4). Make a small hole on each side of the bottle, near the mouth.
5). Slide the wire or string through the holes and tie the ends together above the feeder’s mouth.
6). Fill the feeder with seeds and replace the lid.
7). Secure your feeder to a tree that birds are likely to see when passing through your area. (We hung ours outside our kitchen window since we do not have a tree that would support it close to viewing range.)

It turned out great and already some Black Capped Chickadees have perched on our feeder to get their dinner! Anything to draw more birds to our yard!  If you are doing a bird study or lesson this is a great, easy and fun project for your kids with some adult supervision.  Have fun!

Well I must say that this week has been much better than last. Attitudes were much better although still present. The Lord used situations this week to help me learn something about myself and my son. I am finding more this year how much of a strong will my son has. We knew and suspected that he did because we saw evidence of it as he was an infant or toddler. We saw more evidence of it as he grew up but it didn’t seem to be quite as previlant the last couple of years. Do any of you have a strong willed child? How do you deal with it?

A dear friend of mine gave me a great analogy yesterday as she was helping me through one of those battle of the wills. He is like a lion in temperament and I am like a lamb. The lion struts around trying to gain control of his territory and show he is king and the lamb stands there trying to figure out how to bring this to an end and keep from getting eaten. It isn’t like I don’t discipline him at all, I struggle with knowing how and when to do so and to what extent. My tendency is to threaten a certain discipline and then when it is too late I realize that I’ve really messed myself up by threatening and not following through.

I know the enemy seizes the opportunity to grab a hold of me in my weakness and cause me to doubt my ability to effectively discipline my son. Sometimes it takes me a little bit to realize that a situation is slipping out of control and like yesterday I loose sight of my job as a parent – only momentarily. Then I have to remember to ask myself, what has God called me to do as a Mother to Riley? These verses came to me this morning.

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4

34″A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35″By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

My job as Riley’s Mother is to train him up in the way he should go, so he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6), to raise him up in the admonition of the Lord, (Ephesians 6:4) and to show him Jesus, to set an example of Christ before him and be obedient and discipline him in love. In my thoughts and prayers this morning I have been reminded of Hebrews 12:4-12

4 In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5 And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as children? It says,
“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Wow! What encouragement to persevere, to press on and to not loose hope regarding my son’s strong will and my inability at times to keep the battle of the wills under control. Thank you Lord that your promises are true and you lovingly chasten us when we loose sight of our job as a parent to these precious gifts you have given us. As my husband and I discussed this situation we have with our son and how it is my job as his Mother and teacher to lovingly discipline Riley. God used my loving husband to show me that I need to have the temperament of the lamb but not back down, to keep persevering and hanging on to my territory as a parent. My prayer this week is that i don’t loose sight of that territory and give in to the lion that is waiting to take it from me.

Well let me just say, Happy New Year to each of you!  My prayer for you is that your New Year is rich with God’s blessings.

We thoroughly enjoyed our New Years Eve, the three of us stayed home and had a nice candle lit dinner of crab legs, shrimp, salad and sour dough bread! It was delicious!  Riley was so excited when he found out we were having a candle lit dinner and even more excited when he found out we were having crab legs!  He jumped in there and cleared the table, and helped get it set and got the candles ready.

As we ate we discussed what the new year brings, an opportunity to make resolutions, to make a new start and to anticipate what the Lord has in store for us.  We had to redirect Riley a little when he said his ‘revolution’ was to play more WII…it’s hard for an almost 8 year old to think about anything else except for playing.

Chris surprised me and asked Riley if he wanted to be homeschooled this next year.  I must admit, I was a little anxious to hear his answer.  Thankfully he said he wanted to keep homeschooling!  Whew!!!!  Then we talked about doing the Abeka DVD’s or continuing on our same curriculum choices we’ve been using.  Riley said he liked what we were doing!  That is a good thing!  I just need to get some more energy somewhere!!  This break we’ve had over Christmas has been a BIG blessing to me for I was really tired!!

I look forward to starting school next week.  I have some things to do to get ready.  Math, Phonics and Bible are easy because we’ll just pick up where we left off.  Science we are still studying birds and I need to see what is in store for us there.  We need to finish up our American History/Geography so we can resume our Mystery of History.  Of course we need to do some more reading and make a trip to Pizza Hut for his Book It awards.  We are doing a Coop this winter/spring.  I had decided to take the Fall off from doing any Coop classes and here’s why.  Last year we had Friday classes and it seemed that by Thursday school would be going well and we’d be on a roll then we would have to stop and go to classes on Friday and I felt like we were falling behind.  After taking the fall off, I’ve decided my plan worked, we really enjoyed staying home and getting school done and being able to do our own thing once we were done.  However, I really felt Riley was missing the interaction with other kids.  So we are giving this a try.  I’m looking forward to it, I’ve never done a Coop before.   Riley seems a little excited too, it’s always hard to meet new people.  It meets on Friday mornings from 9-noon.  So we’ll have the afternoon to finish up projects or get other stuff done.  We’ll see how it goes!

I have spent this past week cleaning out particular areas of our house.  They were in terrible need of purging and dusting and cleaning.  I feel like I have made some progress!

So I guess I say all that to say that I feel like we are going into 2010 somewhat ready mentally for somethings.  At least my home will be purged and clean for the most part and we will be ready for school next week!!

So blessing to you this weekend as you start your new year!