Golden Autumn Days

The golden Autumn days are going by quickly.  It seems to me that this  restful time of year,  should linger slowly, but it has not.  It is clipping along in the same fast pace that raced through spring and then summer. Thanksgiving is a little less than three weeks away, and I am thinking we should still be in September.  We have had more than usual happening at our home, which must explain it for me. Nathan and his family here with us,  have filled our lives with activity, joy and laughter.  We are also busy with projects that have needed doing and are getting ready to go to Phoenix for our son Russell's wedding, which is  two weeks away.  I have a few recipes to share soon, but am still editing pictures.  I sometimes find the brainstorm of recipes or crafty ideas fills up my thoughts and sets me off on a creating spree.  I end up with quite a few things in progress,  many messes, a huge amount of pictures that need to be edited, and a large bulging "draft box" that nags me.  So today, on this lovely peaceful, golden day, I am enjoying a bit of lazy rest, and blogging work that is long past due. 

The grandchildren are enjoying Colorado, and Steve and I are thoroughly loving how they are right at home.  They have been playing outside in the grass, the dirt, the canyon, feeding cows with Grampa, riding the four wheelers, helping me cook and paint, doing school with their Mama,  and completely blessing our lives with their sweetness.

This picture makes me laugh, as it it evidence of their lives in the midst of everything.  My pantry has never been so happy, as it is now, bulging with Nathan and Himilce's groceries, and Elon, Asher and Elyse's little friends.  This "under the stair" pantry is their hideaway, and private office.  It has reminded me that our first four played similarly in this pantry when they were the same ages as our grandchildren. Steve's grandparents owned this house when our children were small, another generation has grown up and now it is our grandchildren playing in here, hunting for crackers and snacks and filling the walls with joy.

Marie and Elizabeth  sent out a wonderful box last week for all of us here.  It was like Christmas when we received it; full of chocolate, nuts, tea, and some Asian treats they had gotten at the local Asian market.  Their boys also picked out some treasures to send to their cousins which brought a loud hoot of happiness from the three here. 

Included in the box was a beautiful crocheted cake, made for Elyse by Auntie Elizabeth. Elyse hoarded this cake quite passionately, but soon was enticed to share with the boys, who had a longing to get a hold of a piece of that crocheted cake for themselves.(Click here to see Marie and Elizabeth's Pattycake Crochet shop on Instagram)

We had a little tea party last week, to celebrate fall.  Elon had wanted to have one, (and he was particularly craving some scones)  and all of us agreed that there was no reason in the world why we couldn't enjoy a tea party with the boys as well  as the girls, any day, so we had fun working on some fall tea party decorating.  We also did a little owl unit study, which opened up our imaginations to add a little bit of a theme to our tea party.  Himilce's old friend Jennifer came by with her children that afternoon, so it turned into a full fledged tea party.

I do love decorating with the things of the season; since we had such beautiful leaves on the trees, it seemed appropriate to use them to decorate in the house.

Himilce and I made some yummy treats for our little tea party, a couple of which I will share in the next week or two.

Pumpkin Scones with Cinnamon Essential Oils.....

......and Mr. Owl Cheese Ball are a couple of the recipes I will share soon.

Nathan took a few of these beautiful outdoor pictures.  I love his Photography, and couldn't resist using them in this post. The days are getting cooler here. It has finally begun to freeze at night.  The cold weather has been slow to come along.  We have had some fires in the wood stove this week, and have brought in the Pumpkins from the front door step.  I have some pumpkin recipes I have been working on (such as the scones above) and perhaps a couple of pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving will come out of those pumpkins.

Tonight we get to babysit the  3 precious dumplings, while their Mama and Daddy go off on a "long over due" date, and so we will have a cozy, happy, lazy Autumn evening with the grandkids, which is my reward.

For those of you that read this blog regularly, I would like to ask you to keep Steve's Mama in your prayers, as she is struggling again with cancer.  We found this out after Steve took her to Phoenix to stay with his sister last month.  I know some of you are wonderful prayer warriors, and we are so grateful for your prayers.

Be sure to enjoy the Golden Autumn days.  I hope they will softly linger, 

 and have a blessed weekend.

Home Style Teaching and Homegrown Kids

This week, my grandchildren all had their first day of Home School.  My two daughters and daughter-in-law officially started the same journey that I began thirty years ago.  They have started the second generation of Homeschooling in our family. I dug out and dusted off all of the books that I had acquired many years ago.  I decided to send a "Happy School Year" package out for each of them, with some of these goodies. I am thinking; Perhaps one of "these" will be a treasure they might want to read.  In this generation, with the almost universal presence of internet and google , there is enormous access to so much more information than we ever had (even 15 years ago), so we don't always find ourselves as interested in all the books that we used to hoard, yet I believe there is still great value in these old books, so off they go into boxes to be mailed out today.

Memories of those years came pouring in as I was going through my old books. I have missed those days very much. They are where so many of my happiest memories have come from. As a mother, I found great fulfillment in "sharing life with" and "teaching" my children. I enjoyed the fullness of having them around me, exploring all of God's amazing creation with them, and marveling as they learned to read, write, and express what they have learned.

I started Homeschooling because of the book "Home Style Teaching " by Raymond Moore.  I had ordered it through a book club years ago, when Nathan was probably 5 and Luke 3, and the girls barely 1. I didn't really know what it was about when I ordered it, I just liked the sound of it. Little did I know it would change the course of our lives, our children's lives and our grandchildren's lives. I was enthralled with this idea of teaching our children at home.  I had never heard of such a thing being done in modern history; but it all  made sense to me.  Steve liked it  as well, and we both agreed that this what we wanted to do.  It was never a big ordeal to us; isn't that funny… I mean this was really a radical idea in our world, at that time; but we didn't think of it like that; we just thought "Hey, lets do this". So we began the journey.  We devoured everything we could get our hands on about the subject.  We became book collectors (perhaps I should confess that I was already a book collector… but I became quite free in collecting more :) ). I gathered school supplies and art supplies, then I dove in.  I definitely had days that I thought perhaps it was all too much for me, but after a little break, I would be renewed, refreshed, and enthusiastic to keep going.  I learned to pray through homeschooling.  I needed the Lord more than I ever had through those years; and He was with us.  His grace strengthened us, blessed us, refreshed us, encouraged us and helped us.

There's no doubt in my mind that Homeschooling was/is a God inspired movement that had been revived from our History, and that we were very blessed to get to be a part of it.  I would do the same thing all over again.  On more than one occasion, our children have thanked us that they were home schooled.  I marvel that they would say how glad they were that we did it; that is one of the rewards that I have always cherished. Let me say that we are not a perfect family; Steve and I are not perfect, our children are not perfect, we are human with flaws and troubles just like anyone (thank goodness for the grace of God), but  I would like to encourage the future homeschool generations by saying that it is worth the work. The fruit of this labor is such good fruit.  And if you will plant good seed, you can expect to bear good fruit.  Here is some of the fruit you can expect to see in your children from the sacrifice that you make.

1.    Their character will be strong
2.    They will love to learn.
3.    They will be able to defend their faith.
4.    They will become good students.
5.    They will become self learners.
6.    They will be nice people.
7.    They will be polite.
8.    They will have good social skills and interact well with all age groups.
9.    They will become hard workers.
10.  They will be creative.
11.  They will be self motivated.
12.  They will be vessels of truth.
13.  They will be safe.
14.  They will be happy.
15.  They will be capable.
16.  They will be responsible.
17.  They will be respectful.
18.  They will be helpful.
19.  They will be self disciplined
20.  They will be able to think for themselves.
21.  They will be kind.
22.  They will be innovative.
23.  They will not be controlled by peer pressure.
24.  They will be problem solvers.
25.  They will be blessed.

Remember that seeds do not usually sprout over night, and plants do not produce fruit before they have grown mature enough, some seed sprouts more quickly than others, and some plants mature sooner than others, but  fruit only comes after a seed has been planted, nourished and watered…. then God gives the increase in the right time.

Many Blessings to you all as Fall begins.  Enjoy the moments, and don't be driven by stress, or the expectations of others.  Remember that "His" yoke is easy and His burden is light.  Let your work be in rest…. His rest. 

Paper Flowers on Canvas

I think I must have a "thing" for paper projects; I seem to have made quite a few. I can't resist pretty scrapbook paper, so I suppose I am always drawn to just a little more, and am always mulling over something to make with it. You can make these pretty little flowers in no time, and use them to decorate walls, windows, packages, scrapbook pages, envelopes, cards, picture frames, and more.  Last week, I used them to help my grandsons make some Mother's Day presents for their Mama's.  We had so much fun creating pictures on a canvas.

Here they are strung out on a line with clothespins, or you can also sew them together like I did with these and these.  To make a canvas picture you will need the following:

You can buy pre made flowers like the ones on the left, or you can purchase a punch with the flower shapes you want, as seen top left and top right: I combined both.

Supplies:
1.  Pre-made paper flowers or
2.  Paper flower punches
3.  Scrapbook paper
4.  Glue or brads for holding flowers together
5.  Mod Podge
6.  A canvas as shown below
7.  Spray Paint to spray the canvas with.


Instructions as Follows:

1. Prepare a Canvas for your picture:

 I had painted the canvases black before the boys came over, so they were ready to go when they got here.  Black is a good color to make the picture elements pop forward.

2. Cut out flower shapes

If you purchase a flower punch,  you are always ready for a project anytime of the year. 

I got these flower punches at Hobby during one of their half off sales.

The boys had a good time punching out flower shapes.

Each of them loved taking their turn.

3. Layer and glue or attach each petal group together.

You can glue your flowers together, or layer them, pierce a hole in the center, and put a brad through the hole to make a cute center detail and hold them together without glue…. there is an example of the brad in the bottom picture on the left.

4. Glue Flowers and leaves to the canvas.

When your flowers and leaves are ready, draw a line on the canvas with paint or crayon or chalk that will represent the stem of the flower.  Next glue the flowers and leaves to the stem.

They wanted to add a little grass on the bottom as well.

We started out using chalk, for the stems and grass, but ended up using a little acrylic paint once the Mod Podge was dry, because the chalk disappeared under the Mod Podge.  You could start with paint or crayons, and allow to dry before glueing on flowers and leaves.

5. Paint over the top with a coat of Mod Podge.

6.  Allow to dry.

Allow to dry 30 minutes to an hour or maybe more, depending on how thick you paint the Mod Podge on. In these pictures, the Mod Podge  is still drying, because it went on really thick.

When these were good and dry, I helped the boys wrap them for Mother's Day for their Mamas.  They  had a great time, and were very proud to walk out the door with a present ready for Mother's Day.

Here is how it looked once the Mod Podge was completely dry.

Have fun.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there.  

Everyday Beauty

My daughter Elizabeth has a blog called "Making Today Beautiful".  I have always loved the name of her blog, because it stirs my heart to do just that; make today beautiful.  There is enough ugliness in the world to dishearten all of us into the grave if we allow it.  All you need to do is turn on the news and  ugliness abounds. Times are indeed difficult.  But we can find  beauty every day,  just by slowing down, looking around and focusing on what we have right before us.  All that God gives us is beautiful and every good and perfect gift comes from above; from our Father of Lights; only sometimes we get too busy  or too stressed to see it.

Thus I find that it does me a world of good, to take a deep breath, slow down, cast off anything that makes me feel as if it is "too much", look around and drink in the goodness of God.  Some times our soul needs healing before we can enjoy His blessings. The more "whole" our souls become in Jesus, the more we can find delight in each tiny thing God has given us.  

When we first adopted our children from Russia, they were very wounded by the trauma of their earlier years.  It was difficult for them to enjoy anything, or see what abundance they had. They "wanted", they "needed", but they had no satisfaction.  We wanted to give them so much, but they could find no delight in any of it at first, because their souls were in great need of healing. God would show us specifics of what to pray for for them, and we prayed diligently for each of them, all the while trying to maintain a peaceful and loving momentum in our home (not always easy).  But after a while, they settled in; healing began, and joy began.  I remember praying that God would open their eyes to the beauty that surrounded them.  The mountains and the countryside were so beautiful, but they didn't notice any of it, until after a season; I remember Olga declaring how beautiful the mountains were, out of the blue one day; almost as if for the first time she was seeing her surroundings.

And so it can be for any of us in one degree or another, if we have wounds in our souls that need healing.  We miss the beauty of everyday blessings.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  We must let Him touch us and heal us.

Little pleasures, simple beauty, each are a gift.  Flowers bought, or cut from the yard, a comforting drink, a beautiful smell, a peaceful sound, a soft touch, a sharing of food, a kiss, a snuggle, a laugh, a walk, a visit, a loved one, a friend, a pet,  are all the sweet things of life, and all evidence of the goodness of God.  How wonderful to have eyes to see, and ears to hear, to be able to taste and feel and smell it all.

God gave us our five senses so that we might receive blessing through them.  Sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing; all amazing receptors.

There is beauty in each creation.  This morning I filled my heart up by feeding these guys.  I love that they all come over as soon as you start feeding them; even the fish come.

Who doesn't love to see a beautiful goose or a big fat turtle swimming in the pond.

I think even the snapping and soft shelled turtle are beautiful, and love how this one comes around for his portion.

This guy was just sitting to the side of my deck this morning, watching the geese, ducks, turtles and fish getting fed. 

Turtles in the pond….

Canadian geese….

Tomatoes on the vine…

Hibiscus in a Pot...

Orchids that I purchased for so little at the flea market….

a little dollhouse from a garage sale, for the grandkids…. so many simple pleasures.  What is on your list of blessings, and everyday beauty?  

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

 Ecc 3:11

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Philippians 4:8


Two of my daughters have blogs that help you make today beautiful here are the links if you want to read them:
Elizabeth's blog: Making Today Beautiful
Marie's Blog: Baking Chic