"Jonasin"

Jonathan is constantly being reminded by his 4 year old sister that he is a sinner. "Jonasin!" she hollers everytime he takes her toys. Of course she hollers "Jonasin" when he isn't doing anything also.

She calls her big brother "Joshwa", her big sister "Woofy", and her little brother "Jonasin". All these nick names are the result of our picking names hard for a little girl to pronounce. When Ruth was little she had troubles calling herself "Woof" as well.

I've been trying to help Hannah pronounce the names correctly. After Hannah gets it straight I'm sure Jonathan will be next. Right now he calls Ruth "Foof", Joshua "va" and Hannah "na". Mispronouncing words may be cute when they are little, but I have to remind myself that it won't be cute when they get older. I then continue to teach them.

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

Field Trip

Friday, the kids and I went with another homeschool family to the Lufkin zoo. We had a lot of fun. The homeschool family we went with was one of the first homeschoolers we met where we presently live. The mother helped us meet the homeschool group here and helped us get involved with the Keepers of the Faith group that I have been taking the children to.

The first picture here is of Ruth and Hannah riding a lion at the zoo. The second picture is of Joshua and Jonathan sliding down the slide at the playground outside of the zoo.

The kids had a lot of fun. I did too. I'm hoping to be able to get more involved with the homeschool community during the next school year. The group will be breaking for the summer. My husband and I would like to get more involved on the boys side of the Keepers. The boys are called Contenders for the Faith. Both groups are a Christian alternative to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. They have activities and Crafts and they are learning in all the activities they do to be all they can be for Christ.

Mother's day is tomorrow. We have quite a bit planned for this afternoon to get ready for tomorrow. We will be passing out a gift to all the mothers present. I am also working on a nice Mother's day bulletin. I am also needing to finish the skit that I'm writing for our Fifth Sunday Fellowship and Youth Sunday. So I have a busy afternoon before me. I am hoping to get all of this done and still get to bed at a decent hour.

I'll try to post more tomorrow. Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers that read my blog!

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband [also], and he praiseth her. (Proverbs 31:28)

The Days of Your Youth...

Scott and Joshua had a wonderful time at the All the King's Men retreat. Joshua made a new friend while there. There was another boy that was eight years old and he and Joshua hit it off well. Joshua even taught him how to play chess.

The rest of the children and I had a good time at our Keepers' meeting. There were fun games for the kids. One of the games that the girls played with the other children were musical chairs with a twist. The difference was that one of the chairs was a bucket of ice. Just like with a normal game of musical chairs one chair would be taken out each time. The only difference was the bucket of ice remained. Ruth chose to be out rather than to sit in a bucket of ice, which was the only chair available. Hannah however had the funniest grin on her face when she sat in the bucket of ice. Thankfully she didn't get too wet and she dried quickly. My camera ran out of batteries though, or I would have gotten a picture of it. I had tons of old batteries in my camera case but none of them had enough battery to even turn the camera on. So I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures of the kids at the meeting.

I did take this picture today though. One of the things we did this past Friday was to borrow my Dad's truck and trailer. We have some wood that we are planning to load up and haul it off back to Henderson. We are planning to possibly build a storage shed on my Dad's property with it.

We've been doing a little spring cleaning. I realize that it is just about Summer but I guess I procrastinated a little bit. We have too much stuff or at least not enough space. Both can go hand in hand. So we have been trying to go through some of our things and figure out what we don't need, what we need to store, and what would be good to keep. I have already made one list of things to pick back up that we have already put into storage. It's funny what you miss, when you realize it's not around.

Today, I have a soar throat. I think I've been a little behind on my sleep. Scott complained of his throat feeling poorly on Sunday and Monday. But today his throat seems to be doing better. So I'm hoping that mine will feel better after a couple of days as well. I'm going to try to get to bed at a good time tonight. I say this and it is already 11 p.m. :)

I think I will end this blog with a devotional I gave to my family the other night. We each take turns giving devotionals. It was taken from Ecclesiastes 11:9 - 12:1. Sometimes a chapter breaks in the middle of a thought. Here is the passage:

Ecc 11:9-10
(9) Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these [things] God will bring thee into judgment.
(10) Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth [are] vanity.
Ecc 12:1
(1) Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

You see the preacher of Ecclesiastes telling young people what most of them want to hear, follow your heart, do what feels right, what looks right to you. What kind of a preacher is this? But then he hits them with "But know thou that for all these things God will bring you into judgment." So have fun but remember that judgment is coming. Then he tells them what they should do "remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity." Then he tells them "remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." When you look back on your life will you see your life filled with doing God's will, or will you regret your past and wish you had done more while you were young? It's not to late to change. No matter your past you can start making a difference right now... the younger the better.

Father - Daughter Social

It's hard to believe that it's been a week since my last post. It's also been a week since my husband took our daughters to a Father Daughter social that was held for the Fathers and Daughters of our homeschool group. There actually were some mothers there to help serve food and what not but I decided to stay home with the boys and let the girls have some good quality time with their Dad.

The first picture my husband took of the girls posed on a bale of hay. The daughters were to dress up if they wanted to in old time clothes or even princess dresses. Ruth had a play dress her cousin had given her that looked real nice and old timey. So I told her she could wear it to the social. I ironed all the wrinkles out of it and then I fixed her hair up on top of her head with lacey material on top of the bun. Hannah wanted to wear her new Easter dress and she wanted her hair fixed up just like Ruth's. I was glad she had enough hair to put it up. Since I've cut her bangs, she has less hair to style. It turned out real nice and they both looked really cute.

This second picture is of Hannah riding on a wooden horse with wheels. Her daddy was pulling her around the room on the horse and he had to stop and take a picture of her having fun.

Joshua, Jonathan, and I had a nice quiet time at home. I was going to let Joshua play games or watch a movie. Whatever he wanted to do. Now what would you imagine a 10 year old boy would normally want to do? Video games? A boy movie? Nope he wanted to watch the cartoon Madeline. His sisters had watched it a few weeks ago, when he and his father went with my father on a hiking trip. I guess the girls talked about the cartoon so much that he's been wanting to see it too. He watched every Madeline movie we have while the girls were gone. After he watched the last one, he was about to ask me if he could watch School House Rock. Then I asked him if he would rather play a video game for a little while. He got all excited like the thought never occurred to him that he could play video games. It was really funny. So for the last few minutes before Scott and the girls got home he played Game Hunter. He even shot a deer. He also got to drive on a four wheeler, which he says is easier in real life.

So that was last weekend. This weekend, we drove to Henderson to pick up my father's truck and trailer so that we can haul some wood off. I left Scott and Joshua with my father's truck and they are attending an All the King's Men retreat at the camp there. I'm sure they are having a lot of fun. I wanted to send the camera with them but I will be using the camera tomorrow to take pictures of our last Keepers of the Faith meeting that me and the girls and Jonathan will be going to tomorrow. So check back soon, hopefully it won't be a week before I post those pictures. :)