Brooklyn's Spiritual Side (is lacking)

We've recently gotten back into the habit of having a family devotion time most evenings.  

Like anything else that goes on around here, you never know what may happen. Lately Brooklyn has taken it upon herself to keep these times interesting.

Our bedtime prayers routine with the boys involves taking turns saying our "thank yous" and "please helps" from the youngest to the oldest: Tyler, Alan, Dale, Mama, Daddy.

Someone is usually bouncing Daniel and Brooklyn tends to roam free.  Did you catch that? Brooklyn roams free.  That explains a lot already, doesn't it?

One night last week we had each said our prayers and Daddy was finishing us up, when without warning Brooklyn turned on the nearby cd player.  Which was on the radio setting.  So in the middle of our talking-to-God thoughts, we are interrupted by the middle of a blaring.... Bohemian Rhapsody. 

 Which is, unfortunately, not nearly as funny in the retelling as it was at the time.

Trust me, it's tough to keep (and regain) your composure after that.

And speaking of composure, none of us even tried tonight with Brooklyn's second stunt.  Her timing in impeccable.  

Greg had read Psalm 24:1-2 about the earth being the Lord's and everything in it.  We were talking about contentment with what we have when Greg quoted Paul from I Timothy 6:8.

Greg: "and having food and raiment let us therewith be content."

Lightening McQueen, quite enthusiastically: "that's what I"m talking about!!"
 (via a toy button pushed by Brooklyn)

You know how Lightening loves his meat & taters!

Saturday Links 2/9

My friend Karen has done Weekend Links posts for a long time now, and I always enjoy browsing through her weekly finds.

It finally occurred to me to join the party.  Maybe some of you will like some of these links as much as I like Karen's!

This week's links:
We've always used (and liked) the Bible coloring pages from Calvary Curriculum, but we're starting to wear them out! I was happy to find some new ones this week: Beginner's Bible coloring sheets

Loved the sound marriage advice and good reminder in  Start a Small Kitchen Fire.

As much as our boys love computer time (and we're moving on up in the technology world - a tablet coming soon!), I'm always looking for ways for keeping up with screen time.  We may try this method for a little while.

I love my crock pot. May have to try this crock pot peach cobbler soon!

For inspiration and help keeping up with deep cleaning projects 31 days to a clean house   is helpful. She includes a handy  printable in the post.

I loved the article Living Small.  Every so often I cycle through feeling all down on my blog or myself... falling for the comparison trap.  This is a great encouragement to serve well and find significance where you are.

More helpful admonition and encouragement, from a different angle: Are You an Angry Mom? from Amy @ Raising Arrows.

A few of my favorite Pins this week:

Ignore the goofy look.  This post has some great marriage do's and don'ts!

Source: danoah.com via Amy on Pinterest

Sweet truth for Valentine's Day.

Source: onfaithandcoffee.com via Amy on Pinterest

We are in love with these triple bunks! Maybe someday...

Source: thehandmadedress.blogspot.com via Amy on Pinterest

Linking up with Saturday Linky Love.

Boy-Friendly Valentine Art

My guys like doing all kinds of art and craft projects to go along with the current season or holiday.  Valentine's day, though, has always been challenging, what with all the hearts and pink and stuff.  This seems to be the case more so in recent years.  I don't know... maybe adding a sister to the mix has them drawing gender lines? 

At any rate, I loved how today's project celebrates the season of hearts and love without being frilly, and so did my boys!

First we cut and tore bits of colored tissue paper, ideally into roughly postage-stamp size pieces, but some people liked theirs bigger.

I added a few drops of water to our glue to thin it, and then we painted it onto plain white paper one section at a time, randomly sticking tissue bits down as we went.

When that was completely dry, we cut out as big a heart shape as we could.

Then sponge painted black around the edges.

And finished up with a few black splatters.  I thinned the paint with several drops of water for this step.

Our finished hearts:

I can just imagine how striking these would be in shades of pink and purple.  With maybe a little glitter sprinkled in? Mmm-mm!  Maybe in a year or two!

(Our hearts were inspired by this project)

Digging Holes

We've had a couple of crazy days around here, surrounded by a work crew repairing our house's foundation.  Day 1 was all outside, and today they worked inside, as well as finishing up outside.

Of course, we didn't even attempt school with all of this going on.  Even so, as much as the boys enjoyed watching all the action I could easily see by mid-day today the negative side effects of being out of routine.

But all's well that ends well, right?  And seeing those brick cracks disappear and not having to fight to open and close doors definitely counts as ending well in my book.

Fifteen holes like these were dug around the outside of the house:

Some in concrete, some in dirt. Metal poles as tall as me were driven down them underneath the house, and then jacked up to raise the foundation.

Inside, there were 8 dime-sized holes drilled into the floor and through the foundation.  In each of these holes the workmen sprayed some super-powerful, hot and steamy expanding foam, which lifted the foundation from underneath.

(My man tells me it's polyurethane.)

Not coincidentally, I've had "On Christ the Solid Rock I stand" in my head for a couple of days. "All other ground is sinking sand", right?
That and "He Lifted Me". :)

In other news, Brooklyn is still quite infatuated with Daniel.  He's her favorite person.  One morning recently we were setting the table for breakfast.  Brooklyn made sure Daniel was taken care of:

Isn't she a sweetie? 

Me & my girl:

Meal planning all day long

I have been menu planning our suppers for years.  I can't imagine buying groceries or feeding this family supper day after day without a plan!  But never thought I would like extending that plan to include breakfast and lunch.

I was so wrong!

One of the main things I thought I wouldn't like was not not being in the mood for a certain food (hasn't been an issue) or not being able to make something that wasn't on the plan (it finally occurred to me that if it's my plan I can deviate at any time, right?).

For about a month now the boys and I have had the same thing each week for breakfast and lunch and we all love it!  They like having a rotation and knowing what's coming.  I like not having to decide what to serve.

Here is our (for now) menu:
Breakfasts:
Sunday - Homemade Biscuits (cinnamon raisin or regular)
Monday - Cream of wheat cereal
Tuesday - Smoothies and toast (cinnamon or peanut butter)
Wednesday - Baked oatmeal
Thursday - Eggs (with toast, in a tortilla, or in a croissant)
Friday - Muffins
Saturday - Pancakes

Lunches:
Monday - Tomato Soup & Grilled cheese sandwiches
Tuesday - Loaded baked potatoes
Wednesday - Veggie soup with noodles
Thursday - PBJs
Friday - Mac&cheese (usually with tuna & peas added in)

Most meals have an added fruit or vegetable...whatever we have on hand at the time.

Our mealtimes have flowed so much smoother with this plan!  I can imagine even when the items on the menu change, the simple habit of having one will stick with us for a while.

Do you plan your meals?  What's on the menu?

Experimenting

After a couple of over-filled and stressful Tuesdays (story-time at the library and other outings) ...

and getting tired of never being able to make the time for extras like science experiments, art projects, etc,...

 I decided to eliminate most of our regular school work from Tuesdays and fit in one or two of the fun things.

Today was the second week of such a Tuesday and I think it's going to work for us!

Not only did the day go more smoothly and pleasantly, we all enjoyed some hands-on work.

Alan is doing Five In a Row this semester, and both weeks our inspiration has come from the science section of his current book.

Last week was The Little Red Lighthouse (in which a big bridge is built), so we built bridges from index cards, made our predictions, and tested their strength with pennies.  (From this site.) (and I didn't take pictures! bad blogger. But fun Mama!)

This week's book is When I was Young in the Mountains, and one of the suggested science lessons was snakes.  We checked out several snake books from the library today and spent some time snuggled up on the couch reading through them together.  Later I had the boys give me some snake facts, which I wrote on our chalkboard door.  We then made a flip book and Dale and Alan wrote a fact on each page.

We also did a couple of water experiments today.  One was this displacement experiment from Kids Activities Blog.  We filled a cup to the brim with water and carefully added pennies, watching the water swell up to the top and finally spill over.  Tyler won the award for 'most improved' with this one; he started throwing them in like you would chunk a penny in a fountain, and ended up being just as careful  - or more so! - as the other boys.  

To finish up our science day we did one more water experiment.  If you look at kids' stuff at all on Pinterest you've probably seen this one.  

And it worked!  We have 1 blue paper towel, 1 yellow paper towel, and an inch of green water in that middle glass all sitting on our kitchen counter right now.  The boys wanted to leave it sitting over night to see what would happen next.  And I agreed. Ah, the life of a scientist!

Happy Tuesday! Just might be my new favorite weekday!

Super-full Sunday

As we were sitting down to a quick Sunday morning breakfast, I got a text from Gramps: Think it's a good day for a picnic lunch?

Four hours and one church service later, we found ourselves here:

We ate, and then we did stuff.

Like take walks:

And dig in the dirt:

And read books:

And shoot the BB gun:

Can't forget to check on the sleeping baby:

And then....

We drug the boat out of the woods and launched it!

Go, Mimi, Go!

What's a day in the country without a big goober dog to share it with?

Go, Mama, go!

After all that we needed more cookies!

And a good time was had by all! :)

*Special thanks to Mimi for all of today's pics!*