Mom vs. the Dot: Making it COUNT!

Here are a few pictures of what we did during the Great Big Snowstorm of 2016: While it was snowing, we made things.  First, we made snow ice cream  (we had this for a snack 3 days in a row!) Then we made some chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies.  I love making these because they are easy and they don't dirty too many dishes.  And they're really yummy, too. Once the snow stopped falling, we had some fun!  We measured 13 inches of snow, which was knee high for our 4- and 5-year olds.  What an adventure trying to walk in deep snow! We made a snow man (complete with carrot nose) We went sledding the next day - we've been dying to try the new sledding hills at a local park, and our kids were finally all old enough to take and try it out.  Yay! We had a great time!  My littles were too timid to try sledding on their own, so my husband and I took turns scrunching together with them on the sleds and shooting do...

What do you do when you homeschool and you are concerned that one of your children may have a learning disability? I have struggled for months, trying to decide whether or not to have my child evaluated.  I would have to send a formal, certified letter to our public school basically demanding that my child be put through a battery of tests to determine where the problem lies. I don't feel qualified to make this demand of my local school district.  I don't even know exactly what I'm asking for, or what I need.  When a child is in public school and his teacher notices he's having some problems, the special education teacher is consulted and testing may or may not follow.  It's all in house - easy peasy!  (I've never actually been through this process myself, but this is how I picture it.)  The support staff are there, the psychologists and special education staff are there.  This is what they do. When you homeschool, you have to figure it all o...

In high school, I had a friend who was a foreign exchange student from Germany.  She told me that church in Germany was only for the very young or the very old.  Many churches were empty, abandoned.  She even told me of a church that had been turned into a climbing center for fitness enthusiasts.  I couldn't believe it!  That sounded so unreal, and that was in the 1990's.  Sadly, this is becoming the norm for many churches in our part of the country.  So many churches are dying and closing their doors. During the summer just before our move, we visited one of the churches my husband went to ask a boy.  It was a tiny country church that his dad pastored when he was young.  Counting our family, I think there were 9 people in attendance.  I had never been to a church that had so few in the pews! After the service, we visited with my husband's old friends, and the wife of the couple pulled us aside.  Tearfully, she explained how...

The next step in my plan was to clean up the remaining two classrooms and make them ready for use.  Praying as I worked.  Praying for kids to fill the classrooms.  Praying for teachers to step up.  Praying for young families to come to the church.  Praying for my husband as the leader and shepherd of this new (to us) church.  Praying for the church members to be receptive to changes and additions.  Prayer for God to work in this community and in this church. To continue the story, we freed up the stairways to the classrooms.  Old furniture that clogged the stairs?  Gone (with my hubby's help, of course.  Some of that old church furniture is HEAVY!).  Couches that clogged up one classroom?  Tried to sell them on Craigslist.  No dice. I needed someone who wanted the couches and could haul them out by themselves.  Our people couldn't do it.  The town's youth center accepted the couches and picked t...

This started out as a daunting task and a crazy leap of faith. Since then, God has given blessing after blessing, and many awesome answers to prayer. So here we were, in this age-old building with a congregation with 1 or 2 people in their 50's and the rest of them upward of 60's, 70's, 80's...we even have a woman that is now 103 years old!  She comes almost every Sunday, bless her heart! I decided to weather "big church" with my kids that first Sunday, armed with activity bags.  I put coloring books, crayons, markers and marker boards and some little characters in each bag, thinking it would occupy them for an hour.  My girls did fine, but my boy wanted nothing to do with sitting still and being quiet, thank you.  I brought lollipops, but that didn't last too long.  Only 10 minutes or so into the service, my 3-year-old was army-crawling under the pews.  I was mortified.  Here we were, trying to make a good first impression, and he was bein...

  (Sorry for the blurry picture - I tried.) In order to enjoy the freezing cold temperatures with my kids, I decided to bundle them up and take them grocery shopping.  Actually, we were out of tp.  And bread.  And milk. Does anyone else put off grocery trips until they can no longer be avoided?  Maybe it's just me. So, as we were strolling through Aldi (fist pump for Aldi!  they save us more money on groceries than...any other grocery store.), we stopped at the leftover Christmas toy section to see what might be had for bargain basement prices.  And my 4-year-old son spotted something perfect.  He jumped up and down.  He "loved" it - it was the Skyscraper Marble Mania Marble Run Set.  The boy had some extra Christmas money leftover.  I thought it looked like good fun, so I said the word he was anxiously waiting for.  "Yes!"  After helping carry in and put away some groceries at home, the kids opened the box a...

This part of our story began in the fall of 2014, when we traveled to see this small town church.  We were to take a tour of the building and meet the head of the staff-parish relations committee.  We didn't know what we were walking into, but we had been told that this church had stagnated and was "dying," but the members want it to become a growing, prosperous church again. It was interesting that we took a tour of the church, guided by one man, and we were to make a decision on whether or not my husband would take on the challenge of pastoring this church...before we met anyone else who attended it. I don't know about you, but typically, when deciding whether or not to make a church my home, I need to meet the people who go there.  Call me crazy, but I want to know if I can get along with them.  To make a home with them.  To make friends! We left the kids with their grandparents and braved the tour together. First impression:  Lift chairs ins...

For over a year, I have written this blog and loved doing it!  Most of the time, I'd rack my brain to come up with something interesting to write about, or I would recall conversations with friends that might have contained some of today's parenting issues. Today, I have decided to start a small series on what I do with my week - when I'm not homeschooling, running errands, or housekeeping. The majority of my "free" time is spent working on things for our church.  I don't know how common this is for many people, but it will give you a peek through the window of a pastor's wife/stay at home mom/homeschool family's lifestyle.  Interesting or not, here it goes! I personally think this is tremendously interesting and amazing because of God's answers to prayer and His work in our lives and in the life of our church.   His hand at work is undeniable. And so, I'd like to write about our personal experience with one of the many churches i...

After a three-day stint of "holing up," I decided to brave going out into the world again. Well...it wasn't exactly a voluntary decision.  We were out of groceries. The break was so nice - we spent half a week visiting with relatives and opening Christmas presents, and the other half of the week resting at home and enjoying our presents.  I couldn't have asked for better.  And hubby had the week off.  Nice to have him home.  Days on end with no schedule, no appointments, no commitments - it was grand! And a little unnerving.  I felt so off-kilter not having our normal routine.  The kids sort of went crazy the first two days we took off of school, then they played endlessly at every relative's house with whichever children or dogs were available to play with. Hours and hours of Infinity 3.0 were logged (our 8-year-old's most-wanted Christmas gift).  The "twins" spent many hours on the iPad, playing computer games, and playing. ...