Bunny Slippers for American Girl Doll Kit and crafts to Soothe The Soul

My son has been having issues getting his school work done. My 4 year old has been begging for mommy to play with her. So, today we took some time to simply reconnect and we made a ton of crafts.

We made little purses out of an old pair of pants. We made pom poms which we put on hair bands and my daughter added them to her boots. My 4 year old made a paper doll, and of course we had to have plenty of elephants for my elephant-loving daughter.

My favorite are the bunny slippers we made for Kit, my oldest daughter's American Girl Doll.

Do you think we can sell any of it on Etsy?

My Personal Sanctity of Human Life Pro-Life Story

 

NOW ON A PERSONAL NOTE:

Today, January 23, is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. It's a day set aside to honor life. For many, it's also a time to give praise to the creator of Life! For many others, it's a day of horror as thoughts from the past come back to haunt about decisions made to end a pregnancy. For others, it's a day of anger or disbelief as they shake their heads and insist a baby is not a baby until it can survive on its own, outside of its mother's womb. Perhaps to others, the day simply holds indifference.

I am very humbled and a bit embarrassed to admit that until a couple happenings in my life, I fell in the category of indifference, perhaps even bordering on anger that people would interfere with someone's personal decision. Years ago, before I married the man I have been married to for almost 19 years, I was engaged to another. My initial engagement turned into a disaster with a series of many red flags including my first fiance' impregnating another girl. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I was purely selfish. But, I will humbly admit that I never wanted to see that pregnancy come to term. In fact, I had wished the whole thing had never happened and that I didn't have to face some harsh realities. Many emotional details of life later, the two gave the baby up for adoption to give him the best shot at life which they had chosen for this child.

Fast forward time with that relationship long over, and me married to a different, much more wonderful man, we discovered we were expecting our first child. We very much wanted the child and had no thoughts other than bringing this life into the world. But, the reality of my indifference to abortion (no doubt from earlier experiences) came to light as I gazed upon an ultrasound of my own son. I was 8 weeks pregnant, and it looked like nothing more than a blog bouncing about as the doctor pointed out the head and the body which I could not make out on the black & white screen back in the fall of 1999. I left the office just happy that the blob on the screen was my developing baby but holding onto nothing more than faith that it was truly what the doctor had seen - The eyes, the head, the body that all looked like a blob, make that two blobs connected, to me.

BUT THEN........Something happened - two things really - that changed my perspective on abortion and about life inside the womb.

One - I went back to the doctor just a few short weeks later. This time, when he put the ultrasound wand on my belly, up on the screen popped a full skeletal outline of my son. It was no longer a blob bouncing about. I could see his heart, his bones, etc. It was jaw-dropping amazement! I was flabergasted that this came about so quickly. From the first visit until this one, just a few short weeks later, this blob had formed into a miniature human form. I left the doctor's office staring at the ultrasound pictures. I could not take my eyes off of them as I could clearly make out the form of a completely formed baby inside my belly.

Two - The next thing that happened to change my view of life inside the womb was that following my son's birth, I enjoyed another healthy pregnancy of a daughter. I then, endured three miscarriages in two years' time. Honestly, I believe there was at least one more that was not diagnosed. But on another fall day, I found myself in the same doctor's office where I had gazed upon my son's ultrasounds, and healthy ultrasounds of my daughter. I now, however, sat in front of a screen that showed a slowly beating heart of a developing baby struggling to survive. Something was wrong, and the doctor told me that all I could do was wait and see what happened as he had seen similar pregnancies carry, but he has also seen them fail. We waited, and one week later, I had completely lost the baby through miscarriage. I was at a point in the pregnancy where we were just getting excited about announcing it as I had almost entered the second trimester at the point of loss. This sounds early, but still there was a beating, though feeble, heart and a baby struggling to continue development inside my belly. There was a delivery complete with labor pains similar to my other two labors. And, even the strange, out-of-place feeling of elation upon the "birth," that still baffles my mind. In the course of the next two years, I proceeded to conceive and lose two more babies. Then, our miracle happened!

I will credit God, because I believe the next part of my story is truly miraculous in not only the life, but the details of how the life came about. I was able to enjoy another full-term pregnancy and the birth of a healthy baby girl. I was also able to tell my miraculous story on The 700 Club. I would love to share it with you!

My Personal Story of Hope!

A Snowy Key Hole View Into Winter-Time Family Fun

There's snow in our part of the world! 9 3/4" was the exact amount that fell on the patio table on our deck. This meant knee-deep snow for my children. It was very fun watching them tackle walking through this white fluffy and cold obstacle to get to the top of the hill in our backyard to sled. The amazing thing about this snow as how it glistened in the sun. It looked almost like the fake styrofoam version used in Hollywood movies as we watched it fall the night before.

Snow often reminds me of the sand on beaches, only much colder of course. As my children made their way through this wintery sandy beach of a back yard, I got our my camera and got creative. I began to bore out holes with my gloved-hand through the tall snow that had landed on my deck's railings. Then, I got the idea to take photos viewing through these holes. I was really happy with the outcome and found it to be very poetic and inspirational. As I look at the pictures, it's as if I'm looking through a key hole surrounded in snow into the lives of my family.

The thought occurred to me that it looked as if I was gazing into a dream, or a scrapbooked happy day to remember. It has been my dream to be married, have children and to teach them at home. As I gazed through my snowy key hole yesterday, I realized how fortunate I have been and how wonderful my God is to allow my dream to be fulfilled. I hope you enjoy my wintery key hole pics!

Homeschooling In The Snow

Snooowwwww Daaaaayyyy!!!! Did you feel the earth shake a my children one by one woke up to discover today's schooling would, for the most part, take place outside bundled up and squealing excitedly as they sled down the hill in our back yard?

Being a homeschooling parent, you know I couldn't help but include some amount of education besides the obvious PE. Of course, we had our daily Bible reading before heading out. We're reading the Bible Chronologically this year. The science learning started off well when my son found a leaf frozen inside a giant ice block. Then, upon their return from the snowy tundra, we talked about scientific terms such as DISSOLVE while making the hot chocolate after the snow play was finished. I quizzed about boiling point temperature as I made some ice candy (currently cooling in refrigerator), and we explored vocabulary tongue twisters as they drank the hot chocolate and ate. Tomorrow is a great time to start back to the books. Today, we'll enjoy homeschooling at its finest!

It's January 10, So Why Is My Christmas Tree Still Up?

The house smells like gingerbread!
We have a warm fireplace (heater that looks like a real fire) going!
The sounds of Christmas are in the air.....But, wait! It's January 10! So, why are we celebrating Christmas today?

This year Chritmas got off to a good enough start in our household with the tree being up even before Thanksgiving ready and beautifully in place in time for my parents to come enjoy Thanksgiving with us. Then, we celebrated Hanukkah (yes, we're an odd household that enjoys Hanukkah as well as Christmas). Then, we went into celebrating an early Christmas with my husband's side of the family. They came over here. Then we had the real thing. Then, a late Christmas celebration (on New Years' Day) with my side of the family.

Perhaps it was the late Christmas celebration that threw my kids for a loop thinking the season was still upon us. But, I FINALLY got around to taking the ornaments off of our tree last night only to be met with - "What are you doing?" "No, don't take down the Christmas tree!" "It's just not winter without that tree up." You get the idea. These were not just simple notes of a tinge of sadness but deep, gut-leveled jeers that began to tug at my heart as I placed each ornament into a tub to storage. I got to the point of having less than 10 ornaments hung when I decided - "I have an idea!"

I told the kids that on Monday, instead of doing typical English, Math, etc. that they could say their good-byes to the Christmas tree. So, this morning when they woke up one by one, one child plugged in the Christmas lights on our bare tree, and then they began to weed through the Christmas movies which they had missed this year. We are having a Christmas movie marathon before taking down the final ornaments, lights and branches to store away our artificial tree (severe pine allergy on that one) for another year. We are baking gingerbread cookies (though, we did shape them in the shape of hearts for a more up-to-date holiday - Valentine's Day!)

Now, if and how I can log this day of farewell to Christmas has taken some thought. I will incorporate the benefits of ginger and the history of it with our cookie making and allow the children to design their own cookies. I even brought up the story book we have that tells the Christmas story using cookies. So, I can definitely log as Religious Studies through the telling of the actual Christmas Story. Though, the watching of the Grinch and Strawberry Shortcake Christmas may take a bit more imagination as to how they are applicable to the Three R's.

And, from a glance out my window; tomorrow looks as if it will be a day of snow learning complete with sledding and maybe some more snowflake investigations!

How to Teach Your Child To Read

I ran across a Youtube video today that was pretty good information on teaching a child to read by starting with an alphabet chant. It's from the Homeschool Learning Channel, and it goes like this:

The Alphabet Chant!