Art Night- Autumn Wreaths

Monday night is Art Night at our house. And tonight was a beautiful, warm October evening so the kids and I went the local park by the library. We walked around the ponds and watched the ducks, saw some squirrels chasing each other around, and even saw at least one blue heron (not sure if it was more than one or just the same one flying around). While we walked and enjoyed nature, we also kept our eye out for pretty leaves, acorns and other things to use in our art project.
After the kids got tired of walking, we headed home to make our Autumn wreaths. We just cut holes out of the middle of paper plates and then glued our findings on any way we liked. We were going to hang them up once they're dry, but I think we are going to put some candles in jars in the centers and arrange them on the table for some festive fall decorations.

Hannah had so much fun that she made two wreaths AND then filled this shallow box with more treasures.

James stuck with simplicity on his and I glued as many leaves as I could to mine. We all had a great time exploring outside together and creating our wreaths.

Attitude of Thankfulness: The start of my journey toward a thankful heart

I recently came across the most wonderful, encouraging blog, A Holy Experience by Ann Voskamp. It is like a little retreat heading over to her blog. The way she writes, what she writes about...it is truly inspiring!
On her blog, Ann has started a Gratitude Community where people can join and share what they are thankful for. The goal for each person is to eventually have a list of 1000 things. But more than that it is to teach us and create in us a heart of praise and thankfulness to the Lord, our Maker. It really struck me when I was reading today, how Ann talks about how we were created for praise.
How many days do I let slip by without even being thankful for one thing? We are blessed so abundantly and in so many ways, and I have been inspired to start cultivating a heart of thankfulness and praise.
I know it will take me a long time to reach a list of 1000 things with just 20 per week, but I'm starting with baby steps. And I have a feeling that soon I won't be able to stick with just 20.
I am going to try to come up with 20 things on Sunday evenings. I figured what better way to start the week than by thinking of ways I am blessed!
So here goes:

1. The beautiful spider web that is new on my kitchen window every morning.
2. Tiny toes
3. New sprouts in the garden
4. Bouncy curls
5. Precious smiles
6. Playing chase with my hubby in the dark outside
7. Pumpkin pie!
8. The anticipation of getting a new camera
9. An hour to go out by myself to Target
10. Classical music
11. Green yarn coming together on my knitting needles
12. Children's laughter
13. A new week ahead to learn new things
14. Watching my girls enjoy books
15. Playing games on my ipod with my good friends who live in Colorado
16. Telephones to be able to talk with family far away
17. Sunday afternoon naps
18. Singing praise songs with my girls
19. Reading devotions with the kids before bed
20. Teavana tea

to be continued...

Pumpkin Patch!

*Sorry there are no pictures of our fun day yesterday. Our camera has been acting up and didn't work for us yesterday. Hope you enjoy this pic of Hannah enjoying her cocoa before our adventures. :)

Yesterday was a GORGEOUS Fall day here in the Northwest, James didn't have school, Matt didn't have work, and so we decided it would be a great day to go to the pumpkin patch! We packed a lunch and headed out for the day. We decided to be a little adventurous and check out a pumpkin patch near Hood River, about 2 hours away. On the way we stopped and had a picnic at Multnomah Falls, and took in the scenery. Then on to the pumpkins! The kids had so much fun going through the corn maze and the Pumpkin Funland, and then the hunt was on for the perfect pumpkin! Hannah took the first one she found that she could carry, while James took a good long look around the patch to find the biggest one he could carry. Ellie just enjoyed walking around feeling all the pumpkins and tasting the dirt. We couldn't have asked for better weather!
After the pumpkins were all loaded safely in the back of the truck, we headed for home via the scenic route around Mt. Hood. What a beautiful drive! The leaves were starting to change, the sun was radiant and the white clouds floated lazily through the sky. We took a short side road jaunt up to the Timberline Lodge as we had never been up there before. It was awesome! Mt. Hood is so amazingly huge! We are definitely planning to go back there and hike around some of the trails.
After getting back into the city we headed over to The Old Spaghetti Factory for a nice big dinner to finish off the day. Yum!

Aaack!

Please excuse this mess! I was trying to make a few changes to my blog layout and fix things up a little more, but somehow I ended up with this. I admit I am not technically inclined in anyway, so that explains how I ended up with a nice mess of things instead of a nicely arranged blog. Hopefully it won't be long until I have things back where they should be. Thanks for your patience!

Have a blessed day!

Weekend Fun

Ellie digging in the garden...she actually didn't try to eat the dirt this time! :)

Hannah and her worm she found while helping me dig in the garden. She had so much fun!

This past weekend was another beautiful couple of days and we made good use of the nice weather. Saturday morning Matt and I took the girls down to the farmer's market and got some fresh produce and some yummy treats. And Hannah helped me pick out another bouquet of flowers for the dining table. So glad there's still a couple more weekends of the market left! We always have such a good time walking around in the fresh air and looking at what everyone has to sell.
After the market, we came home and had lunch and then the girls and I headed out to check out some garage sales and go visit our friends at their coffee shop. We found a few good deals. Hannah is especially excited about the little mini bread pans we found so she can make her own little loaves of bread. (Yes, we are going to attempt making bread completely from scratch, by hand next week! Will let you know how that goes!) We also found a popcorn popper that looks like an old fashioned popcorn cart (except smaller) for $3! It doesn't work quite as well as I had hoped, but we are still having fun with it.
We decided that since it was such a nice day outside we should work in the garden for a bit, so after the coffee shop we headed to Home Depot to grab a bag of compost (I know, I know, we should have a compost pile in our backyard...it's on my to do list, and maybe it'll happen this year, but with two littles running around well......let's just say compost pile got put on the back burner. I'll keep you posted on that too). The girls were such good helpers and helped me mix the compost into our garden box and we got it all ready to plant some seeds. We put some plastic over the bed and are going to try growing some lettuce, spinach, carrots and a few other things. We thought since we started some things in our "greenhouse" toward the end of winter/early spring this year, we'd try growing some things on the other end, heading into winter. I'm excited to see how it does!
Sunday was just a nice relaxing day with church and afterward the kids enjoyed playing together out in the yard. So blessed to have a yard for them to run and play in! We also got to have some time chatting with my mom on Skype.
All in all we had a wonderful weekend just being together and enjoying this beautiful world we live in!

Ellie sampled the cherry tomatoes while the older two ran around in the yard. She LOVED them!

Couldn't resist posting this pic of Hannah. Love how her curls are all bouncy when she runs!

Love to see the kids playing and having fun together!

"But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful."
Psalm 68:3

Garden Update

Fall is here and the garden is on it's way out. Most everything is done with for now, and I've been working on pulling out dead and overgrown plants and getting the garden ready for fall. I had planned on planting some crops for the fall, but the days just got away from me and it hasn't happened. I am, however, planning on trying a few things like lettuce and spinach in my little makeshift greenhouse which will be fun.
We do still have lots of tomatoes and they are finally starting to ripen! (They are kind of behind because I started them outside later, and we had such cool weather for a loooong time this spring/early summer). And I love it that Hannah is eating tomatoes now! She had gone through a stage where she refused to eat tomatoes. I'd have her try them now and again, and one day she decided she liked them! Hooray! Now she loves to go out and find ripe cherry tomatoes on our patio plants. Even Ellie likes to grab the tomatoes off although she usually ends up with a green one.
I'm hoping to have enough tomatoes to make some sauce to can, but we shall see...

Family Art Night!

James' painting...He put paint on one half of the paper wherever he wanted and then folded the other half over and rubbed it around and this is what he got! We thought it turned out looking like a butterfly.

A while back we started doing a Family Art Night once a week. Then life happened and summer came and Art Night got forgotten for a time. (There is a season for every thing, right?) Now that school is back in session, fall is here, it will be getting dark earlier, and the days will be cooler, we'll be needing more things to do inside, so we are picking back up with Art Night. The kids were all excited to do their art tonight and even Ellie got to join in the fun this time, creating her very first painting! I try to let James and Hannah have a turn once a month choosing what kind of art we will do, but tonight we voted to pick something from our "art jar" (We have slips of paper with different art projects on them and then we pick one from our jar...although at the present time I guess it is a tea cup. LOL). Tonight we got painting! We had lots of fun, and I really enjoy seeing what they each create with their paints!

Hannah used string to paint her picture, and then ended up just using her fingers. She was excited to use the string as that was something we haven't tried before.

Ellie had fun and ended up just turning her paint plate into her art, and of course she tried tasting it too! We'll need to do this more often!

(I know, this isn't a painting, but I just had to share a pic of the flowers I got at the farmer's market on Saturday. They are just so beautiful!)

Bedtime thoughts....

‎I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD. Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Psalm 40:1-4 KJV

Tonight as I was cruising around Facebook, I came across this verse that someone had posted. And it really spoke to me. I've been feeling kind of "down in the dumps" the past couple days. Attending a few pity parties...alone of course. Moping around the house. And generally just feeling sorry for myself.
It might have to do with the lovely "gift" Mother Nature likes to bring aroud every month. But a lot of it has to do with my heart. I've been letting it go towards dark places. Sad places. Loitering in places it should not.
I've been feeling like all I do is take care of kids (don't get me wrong on this one...I LOVE my kids, and actually wish I could just spend more time with them playing and having fun), trying to figure out how to make healthy meals that everyone will actually EAT, cleaning, laundry, yard work, and blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH! And indeed these things are on my job description of homemaker, but I have begun to drift into the other lane. The lane of selfish thinking. Where I forget to have a joyful heart and cheerfully serve the wonderful family that God has blessed me with. This is my job as a wife and mother. It is my duty. It is my ministry. I have been blessed with such a great service, and I have turned it into drugdery. Because I have taken my eyes off my Lord and put them on me. And I am not strong enough to help myself get through the day. I cannot save myself from drowning in all that is overwhelming.
But HE can. And HE is there. HE hears my cries for help. HE pulls me up onto solid ground. Because of HIM I can have a song in my heart. I must put my trust in HIM. Not in the lies of my selfish heart.
I feel like I am going to bed much happier than I woke up. All because of this reminder from HIS precious, holy word. I do have a new song in my heart! And though I know this doesn't mean I will never swerve into the other lane, my hope is renewed tonight. My perspective is back where it should be. And hopefully it will be easier and easier to keep my eyes on HIM. My Savior. The ONE who pulls me up when I am down. My trust is in HIM!!!

(Disclaimer: It is 10 o'clock at night and I have been running on little sleep the past few days. Not sure if any of this made any sense . But I guess it doesn't have to. It made sense to me. In my heart. I do pray that somehow you might be blessed as well. Even if my writing is confusion, I pray that HE can make order out of it.)

Good Night!

School Time!!!

It's that time of year again! School time! A bittersweet time. The easy, fun days of summer fading into the past. New, fresh routines and learning adventures before us.

Ellie is only 1 so she's not doing "schoolwork" but she is learning plenty! The biggest thing she is working on mastering right now is walking! It is the cutest thing to see our tiny, petite Ellie wobbling around the house. For her, crawling is still a faster way to get around, but she is well on her way to chasing after her big sister. She is becoming much more interested in books and we love to read everyday. Ellie especially enjoys books with animal pictures and we are working on learning animal sounds. Oh, the wonderful world of a one year old!

My Hannah girl is 3 1/2 and loves doing her "school". We are not doing any structured bookwork since she is still quite young, but I definitely want to make sure her days are filled with lots of learning opportunities and fun. That is one of the most wonderful things about homeschooling. The freedom to plan around how your child learns best. And right now, lots of hands on activities are where it's at. Of course there is reading too. We started reading my FAVORITE book series...Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie. I am so excited to be able to share these stories with my girls. We have been reading a chapter everyday from the first book, Little House in the Big Woods and Hannah seems to really be enjoying it. She is also enjoying working on Scripture memory and has already memorized our verse for this month!

James is a big 5th grader this year. He says his teacher is really nice and he thinks it should be a good year with her. And so far he is happy that he only has 30 minutes of reading each day for homework. I think as parents we've had more homework from the school than he has! James is also doing football for the first time this year and has been having a blast. He's so excited for practice each night, and works really hard to get better. We all got to go to the first game last weekend and his team won 26-6! It has been good for him in a lot of different ways to be involved in football. Now if only he could be as passionate about cleaning his room....

Calender and Bible verse memory chart...We've got stuff posted on almost every square inch of wall space in our small house!

Some of the books we're using. Hannah really loves hearing Bible stories!

Hannah's drawing of herself that she did for our devotion on Monday. The first time she's drawn something other than scribbles and swirlies. Sooo proud!

We will miss the warm days, the long daylight hours for endless play, but we are excited for what lies ahead in this new season!

Ellie is 1!!!

Yes, it's true, as of September 1st our little baby Elissa is one year old. It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed by since she came into our life. It has been a wonderful year and we are so blessed to have such a sweet, happy baby. She brings so much joy into our family! Looking forward to the year ahead and all the learning and growing that will come with it!

To celebrate we had a little party with Grandma and Grandpa...

cupcakes...

presents...

delightful messes...

and lots of hugs!

Happy birthday, sweet Ellie! We love you so much!! We thank the Lord for you everyday!!
xoxoxoxoxo