wild weather where we live!!

for those of you who don't know the history of where we live, our house was built in the early 60's by my Dad's family. My grandmother and her oldest son (my uncle, an architect) designed the house and my dear Opa and his two sons built it from the ground up. It has gone through MANY changes over the years, going from housing a family with 3 adult children (my Dad's family) to a family with 5 children (my parents bought the house from my grandparents in the 80's and we grew up here with my grandparents living in the granny suite) and then after my beloved Dad passed away in 2001 it underwent major changes again to accommodate Kevin and I and our growing family as well as my mom and the 3 teenagers living upstairs. Since then 2 of my siblings have married and moved out but we still have Mom and 2 siblings still upstairs (including Michele, our new youngest sibling :) ) ...ANYWAYS, all this to say that Opa had a passion for gardens and planting and all of the big beautiful trees on our property were lovingly planted and cared for by him. :) I absolutely love enjoying them in the summertime!!

this picture (above makes me laugh b/c although its not very clear you can tell how stoked Steve -5yrs-is to be driving the lawn tractor around, and it shows what a sweet opa he was to let Steve get such a thrill of his life (turned sour pretty fast though when Steve drove it smack into a tree!! haha)

such a sweet sweet Opa. and my Dad was that kind of Opa too, i still get so sad that my kids can't enjoy him on this earth. He would have LOVED them!!!

my sweet Opa passed away in 1990 I think, but his legacy lives on. His & Dad's fingerprints are all over this place, and while we know that God alone deserves the glory for giving these men the ability and blessings to accomplish what they did, we fondly remember them when we enjoy the beauty of the property we have been blessed with.

so anyways, it is especially sad for us when things like this happen, and thing like this have been happening more often lately. These two huge trees were uprooted in a matter of seconds during Saturday's storm. There was a lot of damage like this in our neighborhood!

We have much to praise God for, thankfully no one was hurt and there was not more damage!

Amazing Grace by Il Divo

if you haven't seen this video (linked off of Steve & Amy's blog) you must!! What a powerful performance in such a historic venue. The only annoying thing is how they have the lyrics wrong in one spot!! and I'm not quite sure how to interpret that... THanks to S&A for the link!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtrnB4FZ-yc (sorry I don't know how to link properly)

my little preschool scientists

we "studied" rainbows and "made" lapbooks!! :) It was great fun, these little cuties are so fun to "teach". And so proud of their work.

Earlier we had coloured all the stuff necessary for the lapbooks and done the following experiments:

adding primary colour food colouring & dish detergent to milk and watching the reaction, so fun :)

They had to put the skittles (& blue m&m) in the rainbow-order before they could eat them. They all managed to do that perfectly in short order :)

I think of all the children Daniel was the most excited about this part of the study :)

Aren't they adorable?? What a fun age.

I must thank Holly & Rach for inspiring me to lapbook, although i have simplified it for my purposes, and i'm probably doing all kinds of things wrong (if there are rules about this sort of thing, i dont' even know). Its so fun, Ashleigh thinks it is the greatest. I just googled it to get started, and at least once a day one of us will say to the other "we should do a lapbook about that!" (ie. the other day it was about beavers who are chewing away at our trees in our front yard. :( maybe we could do a real life study with photos. booo.)

have a great weekend!

the lapbooks

*update* i should clarify that I am by no means the creative lapbooker that some other people are (ahem-Rachel!!) i just use the free templates and printables off the internet. For this one, I used these sites:

http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/group/littlelaplinks/forum/topic/show?id=1999465%3ATopic%3A8424

http://lapbooksbycarisa.homestead.com/Rainbows.html

http://simplylapbooks.blogspot.com/search/label/Rainbow%20Lapbook%20%28K%29

i think thats it!! hopefully i'm not missing any references, but its possible, sorry!!

T.I.M.E.

there is never enough of it, I find!! However, here are some encouraging words to help us make good use of our time: **from my notes on reading Small Changes for a Better Life, by Elizabeth George (I don't have the book handy so I can't properly reference it)**

"TIME isn't lost. We are the ones who have lost the use of the time allotted to us when we fail to take advantage of it for good, better & the best purposes."

Own the management of your life. Know your priorities.
"One's personality is molded inescapably into the image of his priorities."

Prioritize your time.
a) with God. ("seek ye first...")
b) with your husband.
c) with your children.
d) with family and friends.
e) for myself. (when you plan time for yourself to grow spiritually, you are re-charging.)
f) for the unexpected (learn to view PLAN B scenarios as opportunities from the Lord for you to serve someone else.)
g) for planning. Spend a short time each day thinking and praying about today and tomorrow. Allot another period of time weekly to thinking about the week ahead.
h) for work. (outside the home)

Learn whats important, learn to be more effective, learn to do things well with little wasted effort, learn to do the RIGHT things, the BEST things, God's priority things.

LEARN TO ELIMINATE - evaluate your day at day's end. IDENTIFY "TIME BANDITS" - read Titus 2:3-5 and list the 10 essentials for better living. Use the time bandits and God's list of 10 essentials and plan them into next week!! (btw a personal confession of a big time bandit in my life is this computer I am sitting at!! May God help me be wise in my use of this tool - a great blessing to have but often used by Satan to distract me from God's priorities for my time!!)

The mark of a woman who is living according to God's plan is that she enters each tomorrow with great excitement and enthusiasm.

TAKE TIME:
to WORK - it is the price of success.
to THINK - it is the source of power.
to PLAY - it is the secret of perpetual youth.
to READ - it is the fountain of wisdom.
to BE FRIENDLY - it is a road to happiness.
to DREAM - it is hitching your wagon to a star.
to LOVE & BE LOVED - it is the privilege of a redeemed people.
to CARE FOR OTHERS - it is too short of a day to be selfish.
to LAUGH - it is the music of the soul.
FOR GOD - it is life's only lasting investment!

and some more from Discipline, the Glad Surrender by Elisabeth Elliot.

Lover of all, O hold me fast by Thee
Ruler of time, King of Eternity.
There is no great with Thee, there is no small
For Thou art all, and fillest all in all.

The newborn world swings forth at Thy command
The falling dewdrop falls into Thy hand
God of the firmament's mysterious powers
I see Thee thread the minutes of my hours.

"I don't have time" is probably a lie more often than not, covering "I don't want to." Demands on our time differ, of course, and it is here that the disciple must refer to his Master. "What do you want me to do, Lord? There will be time, depend upon it, for everything God wants us to do.

There is always enough time to do the will of God. For that we can never say "I don't have time". When we find ourselves frantic and frustrated, harried and harrassed and hassled, it is a sign that we are running on our own schedule and not on God's.

It is said that Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, once a year sorted through everything he owned. Things he had not used for a year were given away. He believed he would be held accountable for what he retained and there was no reason to retain things someone else could use...

weighty thoughts, eh??

more Myrtle Beach and other random things (brace yourselves, this got really long somehow!)

well I started out this day very much resolved to make the most of my time. (see post on T.I.M.E. above, this has to do with my new resolve to memorize more Scripture and do a better job of living it). Ahem. I then decided it was worth sharing, so i would blog my inspiring quotes. I furthermore decided that sometimes blogging can bit spruced up with pictures, for those of you who tend to skim words and look at pics (or am I the only one who does that sometimes??) so i decided to add one. from there, while keeping ashleigh focused on her school work, i thought i might as well add a few more random pics since i was blogging anyways and there are so many pics i have left un-blogged. then i remembered i never did post the rest of my MB pics which i'm sure my audience is dying to see!! well i hope you are dying to see them b/c here they are in the longest post i've ever created, i'm sure. once i started the MB pics i couldn't exactly stop and so it has taken me FOREVER!! enjoy!!
these are completely backwards, so here you see the last few days of our trip (ie. the week of "the BUG" to use Sarah & Jay V's name for it :) ) ...of course it didn't last the whole week, but this (below) is how I remember quite a few hours spent, with one boy or the other :(

so many fun memories of game nights (first with STeve & Jo, one with John Michael and Becky, and of course a week straight with Brian & Holls!!) We learned Ticket to Ride the week with B&H..so FUN!!

the watching tv sequence - FYI this was i think the only time the audience included mesmorized adults as well as children :) (some cookie making show, obviously very captivating!! :) )

Justin found some friends while taking a stroll down the beach :)

those kites were a hit that day, thanks Maria for bringing them!! :)

I don't know who all of the kids are, but I do know that this adorable baby with the gorgeous blue eyes is Judah, John Michael and Becky's youngest. how adorable he is!!

poor Isaac was a little under the weather (little did we know what was to come) so he had a little snooze in the stroller. :)

before being stricken by the bug, Joshua had been really trying to stand more and had taken a couple of little wee steps (BEFORE his first birthday, might i mention!!). After the bug however he barely ever tried even to stand, and is just starting to try more now.

brave boy.

don't worry he wasn't attacked by a shark and bleeding at the neck. just sunburnt. :)

fat baby with the terrible hair part 1 (above) :)

fat baby with the terrible hair Part 2 (it gets even worse :) ) (here we try to cover up the bad hair with a ridiculous hat)

fat baby with the terrible hair Parts 3&4 (not to worry, he has since had a nice haircut although I couldn't bear for Kevin to chop all of the baby tufts off the top :) )

haha!! still so adorable :)

and a few pics of our short visit with Pete & Lauralee!! how we would love to visit with them longer if time allowed, but of course short and sweet was better than nothing :) Thanks again for having us!!

and the sweet adorable babies. This is Katie with Josh :)

i think she is realizing here that he actually has her toy that she loves :)

and this is what i started out with, very random pics of a coffeehouse here last summer. we LOVE serving as youth leaders for this fabulous group of young people!! They would appreciate your prayers as the work towards hosting Tamarack again this year!! :)

even more random, Joshua with baby Lauren, about a year ago!! how time flies :)
have a great weekend everyone!! :)