Thankful Thursday - An Awesome Week

It has been an awesome week! Praise the Lord for His goodness!!!

1. I am thankful for starting the day with a nice cup of hot tea, alongside a chocolate croissant.
2. I am thankful for a fun filled day yesterday with my mom, a friend and a few of my children. We took a foodie field trip down to the Dekalb Farmer's Market. YUM!!! The choices, cultural diversity of food and people, and great prices when buying in bulk made the trip well worth it.
3. I am thankful for God's faithfulness as I train my children to serve and love others. Many days it seems all my work is in vain as I continue to train and retrain, correct and re-correct, the same issues over and over, ad nauseum, but then there are days when I see the fruit of my labor. Days like yesterday where my daughter volunteered to hang out with my cousin and serve her by caring for her two little toddlers and my son spent the day entertaining and caring for my friend's grandson. Seeing how attentive and caring my children are for others warms my heart and makes me smile.
4. I am thankful for fellowship! God gave me several opportunities to fellowship over the last week including a night out with home school moms, an afternoon at a home birth meeting, a baby shower, and dinner with friends. I am a people person and am so thankful when God divinely fills my need for fellowship!
5. I am thankful for my gradually improving photography skills. I have now learned to shoot in manual and use back button focus. Yeah!
6. I am thankful for my bff from high school. We had similar interests & passions way back, when we spent our afternoons perfecting our arabesques and pirouettes, working late into the evening rehearsing combination upon combination, song after song. We still have similar passions and interests now after 20+ years of graduation and living on opposite sides of the globe for a time. We love God with all our being, are endeavoring to train our children to serve Him as we pour ourselves into their lives through homeschool and we both have the same love and interest in photography, our new creative outlet, since dance just doesn't fit into our lives anymore. God has really blessed me through this friendship!
7. I am thankful that God has refreshed my passion and energy for homeschooling. I was burnt out, rather fried and not at all looking forward to a new year, but God has given me a fresh vision for this upcoming year. God has also shown Himself able in all the areas I was fumbling and failing in. God has made up for my inadequacies in a mighty way. Praise HIS NAME!!!
8. I am thankful that Little Man has discovered how to MOVE, well thankful that he is growing and developing properly, not so much thankful that I now have to chase him down. Gone are the days of sitting him in the middle of the room to play for an hour, now I'm chasing him down, saving him from all the hazards. Major baby proofing is now in progress around here, which means I may actually finally get this place cleaned up. Praise, God for His protection of my little ones every moment of every day!
9. I am thankful for a playpen, to confine Little Man, so I can get something done other than chase him.
10. I am thankful for God's timing and plan. I get frustrated when things don't go as I think they should, but I can rest and trust that God knows best and ALL things will work out according to His plan and in His time.

God is good! Join us and count your blessing today.

Back Button Focus - Take 1

A couple of weeks ago I moved my camera into manual mode and have been enjoying the freedom and creativity shooting manually allows. This week in an effort to improve the sharpness of my images I attempted to learn Back Button Focus. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this, but I think I'm on the right track. The following photos are experiments from my trial and error session.   All of these were taken with my 50 mm, with the aperture wide open at 1.8 Critiques are welcome.

Favorite photo

June was a month of growth for me photography wise. I learned to use my meter scale, moved from shooting in aperture priority to manual, learned to over expose for a dreamy light effect and began to discover and experiment with back button focus. Picking a favorite was hard because I ended up with some great shots. I even managed to capture one of all 7 of my children looking at the camera. I love this particular photo because it captures the stage my daughter is in, as she contemplates everything. I also love the lighting I captured in this shot.

Thankful for the "To Do List" that Didn't get done.

The past couple of weeks we have been busy with birthday celebrations, Father's Day, baby sitting my cousin's children, helping my cousin unpack...all of which added up to a very disheveled home. Yesterday was the FIRST day I had to be home ALL DAY and I had a nice running list of "To Do's" that I planned to accomplish. God had other plans for us and for that I am thankful.

1. I am thankful for God giving me the ability to be flexible and adapt to His plan even when it doesn't line up with my plans.

2. Little Man was needing more attention than normal. I am thankful for the opportunity to sit and snuggle.

3. Mighty Mouse also needed some lap time, which was interrupted by an afternoon rain shower. I am thankful for the time I had to sit and snuggle with her.

4. I am also thankful for rain to run in.

5. I am thankful for rain to jump in.

6. I am thankful for rain to sing in.

8. I am thankful for puddles to play in.

9. I am thankful we were home and free to take advantage of the blessing and refreshment of the afternoon rain shower.

10. I am thankful of the few items I crossed off my "to do list" and for the opportunity to stay home today, another rainy day and continue working my way through the list, while singing and playing with my children.


I am always reminding my children that "people are more important than things".  I am thankful for the opportunity to practice nurturing the people in my life over caring for things.   Whatever your day brings may you embrace it with flexibility, and not forget to stop and snuggle, run through the rain, smell a flower or whatever else the day afford.


FLEXIBIL'ITY, n. [See Flexible.]

1. The quality of admitting to be bent; pliancy; flexibleness; as the flexibility of rays of light.

2. Easiness to be persuaded; the quality of yielding to arguments, persuasion or circumstances; ductility of mind; readiness to comply; facility; as flexibility of temper.

 What are you thankful for today?  Count your blessings and join us at:

Math Review on the Cheap

Around here we school year round, it goes with my philosophy that life is school and school is life.  In other words I don't try and segment everything into neat little subjects like they do in a brick and mortar school but instead we all are learning ALL day, every day with every thing we see and do.  There are some subjects that need a bit more repetition and reinforcement than we get on a daily basis and one of those is math.  This past year our oldest son took Pre-Algebra once a week at a co-op, which proved an ill fit for this particular child.  He needs A LOT of repetition in order to truly master the skills...the co-op moved much to fast for him to acquire the mastery through repetition.  After giving him a few weeks off to decompress from the stress of Pre-Algebra we are now back to devoting a bit of time each day to formal math study. 

Here are some resources I've found to be helpful in our formal study of math:

Khan Academy  - this site has thousands of free video tutorials on different math concepts, from basic math through advanced college levels.  They explain each concept several times, several ways, making it easier to understand.
Math Drills - here you can print out many different worksheets to review math facts and concepts.  They cover basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, place value, decimals, fractions, geometry, etc.
Multiplication Table  - this is from the above site and I print these out for each child to place in their notebook, to help them look up the correct answer while they are in the process of memorizing their multiplication facts.
Math Worksheet Site  - this is another great site to print review worksheets from. 

I'm using these tools as review for my older children but you could easily teach your child basic math with the above tools and hands on manipulatives, like math cubes, beans, Popsicle sticks, etc.

" Let all things be done decently and in order." - I Cor 14:40

What better way to disciple our children in God's design and order than by teaching them the orderliness of math.

How to Clear A Play Ground

Today I took 6 of my children + my daughter's friend to ChickfilA for some food and fun.   We had been there for an hour or so and I was in the middle of feeding Little Man some baby food when Princess came running out of the play area to inform me that Mighty Mouse had an accident and ummmm....wet herself.  Instructing Princess to round up the troops for departure, I grabbed the baby food jar....it slipped and with a loud crash I found myself standing in the middle of the restaurant covered from head to toe with sweet potatoes.  I literally had it in my hair, all over my face, down my shirt, skirt and covering my feet.   Grabbing napkins I tried to wipe the baby food from my body as Mighty Mouse comes running, DRIPPING WET, leaving wet footprints in her wake.   Word was out at this point that a kid had peed in the play area and ALL the other mom's there were grabbing their children, wiping them with purrell wipes, as they tip toed across the wet footprints, while giving me the evil eye and commenting loudly about what a BAD mother I am to let a poorly trained child play and how I had RUINED their afternoon.  SERIOUSLY!!!    After what seemed like an eternity I had myself wiped up enough to head to the car with sweet potato matted hair, wet Mighty Mouse in arms, and the others trailing behind the mother hen.   I mustered up all my strength as I attempted to stay composed, smile sweetly and not burst into tears.  I silently struggled asking God to bless them instead of curse them, which is what my embarrassed, insulted flesh wanted. 

Parenting 7 children brings along with it opportunities which mold you into a compassionate and humble person.  Everything I said my child would NEVER do at least one of them has done and more.   Today was another of those compassion and humility molding opportunities that equips me to better serve others.

"My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience." - James 1:2-3

Averting Disaster

 

Yesterday I kept my cousin's children, ages 2 & 1, for a few hours. Since my older children were gone this left me home with 6 children 8 & under, 4 of which were 3 and under. Within the first few moments of their arrival I saved my leather sofa from a mortal puncture wound and interceded in removing a serious choking hazard that had made it's way into their mouth. That is when I decided that some fresh air and sunshine would do us all good, especially since it was cool compared to the last few weeks. I herded the troupe out the door and grabbed my camera in route. There was plenty of things to be explored out of doors that held their attention but getting them to hold still long enough for a photo proved about as difficult as keeping my house relatively neat. I got a lot of action shots(aka: running full speed ahead) and I tried to get them to stop and smell the flowers, but instead they stomped them :O I got an action shot of J sliding down the hill in the mud and the remains of that fun! Just before we came in, as the sun was getting high and casting lovely shadows, I managed to capture the following two shots, as they climbed on the fence. I'm a bit bummed over the shadow on J's face, but it is the only shot I managed to capture of him actually looking at the camera. I tried to touch it up but that only made it more noticeable. I love the shots of got of Z. I actually managed to get about half a dozen of her looking at the camera so I had several to choose from. Today they move into their new home and I will give these to their mother framed, as a house warming gift. I am thankful that God gave me the opportunity to capture this moment in her precious children's lives.

 

 

 

Thankful For Chaos Thursday

"YOU CALL IT CHAOS. WE CALL IT FAMILY"

That was the inscription on a photo frame some friends gave us for our anniversary.   Most times chaos is a great description of what our home looks and sounds like, so for today's Thankful Thursday post I am giving thanks for all the chaotic moments in my life.
1. I am thankful for the piles of shoes and muddy foot prints that represents the feet in this home that will someday carry the good news of the gospel to others.
2. I am thankful for the never ending fingerprints on my windows, refrigerator, computer screen, and iphone.  Those fingers will someday play melodious music, lovingly stitch material, gently wipe away tears, type and write notes of encouragement and joy.
3.  I am thankful for the noisy voices...squealing, yelling, laughing, bickering...one day those voices will speak encouragement to weary souls, raise up melody of praise to their Saviour and guide others to His feet.
4.  I am thankful for the left out tools, shredded up paper, glued together books...they are hallmarks of ingenuity and creativity, an opportunity to be who God has created them to be.
5.  I am thankful for the half done chores, that gives me opportunity to come beside them and instruct them in diligence, helping to prepare them for what God has for their lives.
6.  I am thankful for bickering...it prepares us for loving and serving others God's way.
7.  I am thankful for limited resources...it teaches us to seek God for our needs, be content with what He has given, and be resourceful and creative.
8.  I am thankful for the challenges of raising up so many...mighty warriors for Christ...it forces me to seek
God for wisdom, direction, strength and resources...building my faith and theirs.
9.  I am thankful for thunderstorms and a king size bed where I awaken to find 4 children crammed snuggled beside me, sleeping soundly, safe and secure between their parents.  May they learn to find security in God.
10.  I am thankful for the beautiful clear morning after the storm.  Every thing is so peaceful.  A reminder that even amidst the chaos of a full life with 7 children, life is peaceful because we rest in HIM.

Count you blessing this week and join up at :

Learning New Things - Part 2

After yesterday's experiment, I  re-read the Dreamy Summer Lighting article and decided to try once more to capture some dreamy summer light, but first I needed a group shot for a frame some friends gave us for our anniversary. It reads, "You call it chaos, We call it family." That pretty much sums us up. Here is the photo I chose.  My skills are improving...they were actually all looking at the camera. 

Then I moved to capturing the dreamy lighting and out of aperture priority and in to MANUAL! First attempt(actually 2nd attempt, the first shot out of my camera in manual was completely white.)

Converted to B&W

Then I attempted to capture Little Bear smell  a dandelion.  The over exposure blew the dandelion out and my color is off a bit, but it definitely captures that warm hazy light I was going for.

This one of Princess also blew out the dandelion but again I like the lighting and the highlights on the right side of her face.

I absolutely love this shot of our Princess.  It really captures the stage she as at, contemplating everything.  The lighting is exactly what I was going for.

I also love the following shot of Little Bear.  This child is so photogenic that I used to accidentally get great shots of her ALL. THE. TIME.  That gave me the confidence and desire to move from a point and shoot into a dslr and slowly but surely begin to develop SKILL.  My skill still needs A LOT of development.

Learning New Things - Part 1

Yesterday, just after dinner, I noticed some sunny patches on the lawn as the sun peeked through the trees on it's western decent. I decided to grab my camera and try to capture some dreamy summer light, per this article I read a few weeks back.

Mighty Mouse quickly volunteered to be my model as she ran to grab her pink dress.

The boys decided to drop in for a photo.

or two.

Little Bear joined Mighty Mouse as they worked through a choreography of running, twirling and a sisterly embrace.

I just couldn't resist capturing this face.  He just makes my heart melt.

Mighty Mouse discovers that her toille dress is acting like a bug net.  "A bug in there!"

In a fit of screams she wiggled out, leaving this behind.

Little Bear stepped in to finish the Dreamy Summer Lighting shoot.  Not the perfection I'd hoped for but a start.

How are you educating?

A couple of weeks ago we attended an ATI conference and the first speaker I heard there made this statement in regards to educating our children, "Are you walking with God in the cool of the day or standing at the tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil?". This statement spoke to my heart, refreshing me and giving me a renewed vision. This past school year was physically, emotionally and spiritually draining...for me, my husband, the children, the entire family.   In addition to adding a baby to our family, I suddenly decided to conform to the world's idea of education, since my oldest was in 8th grade and preparing for high school.  I got my eyes off of God and His plan, and instead listened to advice from peers.  I plowed forward with the plans I laid, forgetting to seek God as to what His plan was for the year and for each child.  Lesson learned! As I begin to prepare for next year, I am seeking God first for His direction and remembering Isaiah 55:8-9,

^"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 

so are my ways higher than your ways,

and my thoughts than your thoughts." 

So this week I'm working in the basement, clearing out much knowledge clutter that fills my shelves as I seek God's input on each and every resource I use to train and educate my children.   Although possessing many resources is not inherently bad, if it distract us from God's plan, clutters our conscience and home then it is time for them to go, so that we can be free to follow God without looking back to the tree of knowledge.

Never Leave Me or Forsake Me

This morning as I was reading through Hebrews 13 verse 5 really grabbed my attention.

"Let your conversation be without covetousness;

and be content with such things as ye have:

for he hath said,

I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." 

There has been many a time that I have quoted the last portion of that verse but what grabbed my attention this morning was the first part of the verse.  We are to be without covetousness and be content.  WHY???  Because He has said that He will never leave or forsake us.  He is our ALL.  We are to put all our hope, expectations and trust in Him.  If we are doing that we have no reason to covet or be discontent.  Reading on in verse 6, I have even more reason to get excited.

"So that we may boldly say, 

The Lord is my helper,

and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." 

The LORD IS MY HELPER!  Really, what more should I want, or even ask for?  What do I have to fear with Him on my side?  Futhermore with Him as my helper I can do ALL things, even the things that, as of late, have overwhelmed me and seemed impossible.  They are impossible in my own strength but not for Him and He is my helper.  

Thank you, Father for reminding me that I can be content in all things because You are here and You will not leave or forsake me.  Thank you, for reminding me that You are my helper.  You are there helping me to love, be patient, diligent, nurturing, kind, forgiving, self-controlled, and whatever else I need throughout the day.  Thank you for setting me free to live in You!

 

Little Man - 6.5 months

My Little Man is growing up WAY TOO FAST! Just this week he started to eat solids. His first experience was avocado,which he seemed to enjoy. He has now added bananas to his diet as well. I find adding solids in their diet bittersweet. It is the first step towards no longer needing me, the beginning of the journey to their own individual life. From here on out it is more and more independence for them and I begin to get a life back, which is a good thing.  He is sitting up well now and will sit and play for an hour at a time.  Last week we were at a conference and he sat at my feet in a laundry basket playing most of the day.  Have I mentioned that he is just a dream baby?  Despite much coaxing from his older siblings, he is not crawling yet.  He is content to just roll around and turn in circles, for that I am thankful because I'm sure once he discovers he can move I will be very busy keeping up with him.   I have experienced God's favor with the child through pregnancy, birth and infancy.  I am so thankful God blessed us with the privilege of raising him up.  He is a treasure.