My Friend in Glory Land

Today, I attended my friend's funeral.  Tony & I used to get together with her & her husband, Scott, a good bit before we had children.  Before both families started having babies, the Lord led them to another church.  I am thankful for Facebook where we were reunited.  Rhonda & I would instant message each other about our families, school & the Lord. 

My heart is so heavy for her husband, Scott as well as for her 3 young children.  Her arm started hurting  & she went to the doctor last Mon. or Tues. Without going into all the details, the Lord took her home Wed. night.  It happened so fast.  It was her time to go home to be with Jesus.  I have to admit, I have asked the Lord, why.  She was living for Him & healthy up until now.  I do believe that it is okay to ask for answers. This is an answer that I will have to wait for until it is my time to cross over into Glory land.

During the funeral, I could see Scott.  What a testimony he has.  He is clinging to the Lord & the Lord has given him the grace that he needs to get through this time.  I know that Rhonda is having the time of her life.  I am sure, that if given the chance, she would not wish to return to this world.

Although, I do not understand God's will ~ I trust in Him completely & know that He loves Scott & the children .  He only wants what is best for them.  He did not take Rhonda home to hurt her family.  My God is good ~ especially through the trials/bad times.

NAWIC Block - Kids Building Contest

The National Association of Women in Construction Education Foundation (NAWIC) has a Block Kids Building contest every year. The goal is to introduce kids to construction & designing.  We were excited to participate again, this year.

The kids were given a bag of Legos along with 3 other items. 

Collin chose a rock, tin foil & string.

The contest is for 1st grade & up.  Faith & I went downstairs during the 

contest & played with Legos, colored & played Uno.

The judges judging the buildings.

We had a great slide presentation of popular buildings in the US.

Will in front of his "house in the middle of construction".

 Collin in front of his " underwater shark house".

They had a winner from each grade.

And the winners are............

Collin & Will.

All winners 1st - 6th grade were in our homeschool support group.  Way to go kids!!!!

The busy days of the 'lil Bucks, Part 2

Swimming in January!  The kids were so excited to be invited to their friends' (twins) swimming birthday party.  The parents rented a room & were able to have the pool for the party.  So much fun.

Will with his goggles.

Collin loved this waterfall.

Faith was the youngest that was invited.  Everyone wanted to borrow her pink floaty. :)

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 We love our local library.  They have great classes throughout the year for homeschoolers.

 The Gems & Mineral Society did a class on gems & minerals.

Will & Collin examining a rock.

 

Faith and her friends, Jacob, Eli, Cheyenne & Cayman examining the gems.

Can you guess what they are checking out by the looks on their faces? 

Sulfur.

 I love this fossil.  

A shell was oxidized with iron.  

I learn a lot in these classes as well.

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My friend, Amy, gave me the idea of doing a chocolate unit study around Valentine's Day.  It was a lot of fun & changed up our routine a little.

Will came up with this experiment.  To see which would melt first an M&M or a Hershey's Hug.

The M&M did because it was smaller than the Hug.

Collin doing Hershey bar fractions.

Faith doing M&M math.

Will working on Hershey Bar fractions.

 We checked out the original version of Willy Wonka from the library.  

We have watched it many times.

We are reading The Chocolate Touch.  

This was a favorite of mine when I was young.

We also studied the rain forest,~ which is where Cocoa is from, how Monkeys help in the chocolate process, geography and so much more.

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Our zoo has free Fridays during January & February.  Last Friday was in the mid 50s, so we took advantage of the free/warm day.

  

My favorite animal, penguins.  We got to watch them get fed & learned a lot about them.

:Love starfish:

We were disappointed  that the tortoises were not out, 

but we did have fun with this bronze tortoise.

:Elephants:

 Will & I on the bronze elephant.

:Feeding the goats:

Flamingos!  The kids found flamingo feathers on the ground.  What a great find!

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Our friends, Logan & Carson were born on Feb. 12th & Feb. 15th  2 years apart.  They had a joint birthday party this past Saturday at a ceramic store. 

 I was very happy that the boys really didn't mind that
they were older then the other kids.

Collin painting tiger paws on his mug.

  

:Faith & Collin:

 Will striping his bowl blue & yellow.

We can't wait until later this week to see what they look 

like after they are fired in the oven.

Carson, Faith, Logan, Collin & Will.  

They are such sweet young ladies.

A Life Lessson for Valentine's Day

We had a great family Valentine celebration, for the most part.  Tony took us to Yamato Japanese Restaurant.  We love watching them cook & send up the fire.  (One of our favorite songs is Send Down The Fire by the Primitive Quartet.  We sing it every time we see fire. :)

Then we went to H H Gregg to look at televisions.  While we were there my cell phone got stolen.  Collin used my cell phone to call Tony about a cell that was at the front of the store. I took Collin & Faith to the restroom. Collin took it in the stall with him. A lady came in talking up a storm, she seemed real nice. She went in the stall after Collin. I asked him where my phone was & he said that he left it in the stall. (She could hear us talking.)

After she came out, I went in to look for it, it was gone. I checked Collin's pockets & jacket one more time (cause I thought "I know that lady didn't take it, she was so nice.) By the time We got out the restroom, I scanned the store, no sign of her. I went to both desks asking if someone turned it in., Nothing.

We told Tony, he started calling. She answered 2 times, but didn't say anything & hung up. To make a 2 hour story short, we talked to the police & deactivated it.

We prayed for that lady several times, because she either isn't saved or is so far away from the Lord. Collin feels like it's his fault. I assured him that it was not.

This was a huge teaching lesson about why I won't let them wonder off in a store alone. Thieves don't always look scary & may be very kind. I praised God that it was only my phone that was stolen & my babies were safe.

After this eventful trip, Tony took us to Starbucks.  The kids got a "milkshake" & we got coffee & just had fun talking. 

Needless to say, I praised God some more & I hugged my kids just a little tighter & longer before going to bed.

Karate Belts

Faith is in the Little Warrior's program.  It's a scaled down version of what the big kids learn.  She tells me often that she can protect me if anyone tries to hurt me.

Faith testing for her orange belt.

She was so excited that she passed.

Mr. Gerald is so good with the kids.

3 guys were getting tested for green belts & one for his orange belt.

:Will receiving his green belt.:

:New rank in the house:

Mr. Gerald work the boys hard.  They were all barely able to walk after their test.

Grant & Will ~ Green Belts

Valentine Crafts

God always meets our needs.  At times, He meets our wants as well.  We didn't have to make our teachers Valentine gifts, but we wanted to.  He provided an idea as well as the resources.  Money is tight & we didn't have a lot of money to spend.

We used Snapple bottles that we already had, printed off these labels & filled them with Smartie candies.

The teachers loved them.

For the men AWANA teachers:

My in-laws stock up on Dasani water.  Faith decided (on her own

to call Papa and ask if he could bring us a case.) We used card stock 

paper that we already had from Faith's B-Day party, found a fish template on the internet

for the tags & used some Kool-Aid packets that we had.  We printed off labels 

that said Fish Bait, attached it to the packets & tied it along with a straw onto

the bottles with ribbon.

 For the lady AWANA teacher:

We did the same as above, but found some Valentine wrapping paper at

Target in the dollar aisle.  We used some diet pink lemonade drink mix that we had.  Printed off

labels with Love Juice on them.

These were ideas that I found on the internet.  I apologize to the 2 blogs where I got these two ideas from.  I did not save the site so that I could give them credit.  

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Quilling

 

My friend, Melinda introduced us to Quilling.
We were blessed thatshe gave us some supplies to get started.
It's an old craft dating back to the 1600's.

My sister-in-law had a heart attack on Valentine's Day last year.  I wanted to make her

a card to celebrate her year since the attack.  This card started our love for quilling.

(For some reason, I can't get this picture to turn like it should) 

Here is one that I made for a friend for Valentine's Day.

 Another card.

The kids have picked up on this craft as well.  It is 

inexpensive, fast & fun.

The busy days of the 'lil Bucks, Part 1

This year has flown by.  Can't believe that it is February.  We have had several fun mini excursions.

We were able to buy a year's membership to the children's museum for 1/2 price.  What a blessing!

Will inside a giant boy's stomach, laying on an ice cream sandwich.

 Virtual volleyball.  Notice the 'lil Bucks on the left side of the screen.

Will, letting the skeletons out of the closet.

 

Faith, the fire girl.

This is Collin & Faith's favorite "exhibit". They get to go grocery shopping & then check out.

:Fireman Collin jumps into action:

I just love penguins.

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Faith & I adore our tea parties.  I posted about this quaint little restaurant before.  This time, we took our tea cups.  Our waitress thought it was such a great idea.  We got some looks.  I can't help but think that they wish they had tea cups too. :)

Faith "Ladies must have their pinkies up."

One of my favorite tea cups.  I found this cup at antique shop.  All 3 kids went with me last time & found great treasures also.

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 Our annual AWANA Grand Prix is always an event that we look forward to.  This year, the time slipped up on us & we didn't have time to make new ones.   Thankfully, the cars from last year were still in good shape.  

Will's car is on the left.  He was excited to win 1st place.

 

Will hanging out with friends.

 

Collin with his 3rd place camo car.

Faith still loves her watermelon car that got her 2nd place in Cubbies.