5 Minutes for Mom has a great giveaway for a Lands End swim suit. Their suit claims to make you look a size smaller, so sign me up. Can I wear it all year?

Intentional Mommy

I have been reading My Heart's at Home by Jill Savage. The subtitle is 'Becoming the Intentional Mom Your Family Needs'. This year two words keep coming up: Purpose and Intentional so naturally I had to read.

In a recent chapter I've been reading about being your families cheerleader. That home should be a place of encouragement. I am not so good at that. It has always bothered me when parents (mainly mommies) go on and on about how great their kids are. All the accomplishments, awards and great grades their kids get. So I don't. But I need to some. This chapter really brought hit me with how important it is for our children to feel like mom believes in them. That mom is their number 1 fan. For that same matter so do our husbands. Need to work on that one too. So today as I sent hubby and our eldest off on a mission trip for the week I packed their bags with goodies and a card telling them how much I love them, will miss them and I am proud to be their wife and mom. Just a start.

We have some horrible stomach bug that keeps on finding its way back to our family. Five of the seven of us have had at least two battles with it, and it has gotten the best of us each time. Without the gory details we have never been sick like this before. SO...today I brought out the smoking guns.

I took several tubs of Lysol water and cleaned every solid surface I could get my hands on. Every door knob, cabinet, wall, counter, floor, window ledge, everything. My kids were lucky I didn't give them all a dip in the water too! The house has not smelled this Lysoly for a long time. Surly nothing can live through that. I guess Spring Cleaning is coming twice this year.

Here's to a clean house and healthy kiddos!

We are back from vacation and ready for all the fun and chaos that it brings. Being a family of a Youth Pastor means that when the kids are out of school dad is on duty more than the rest of the year. We came home Wed afternoon and went to church, had a summer kick-off party Friday night and youth and families to our home on Sun evening. It will continue like this til September. It is lots of fun, and lots of work.

While on vacation I picked up what promises to be a great book. My Heart's at Home by Jill Savage. I am only in Part I of four, The Foundation. Jill Savage has some great insight on the kind of home we need to have for our families. She also has great advice on not over-programing our children. A couple posts ago I talked about my inner struggle with wanting my kids to have all the opportunities available as we educate and disciple them. Mrs. Savage had several references that talked about how that it is actually bad for our kids to have too many opportunities. And how much they really need down time that is unstructured to use their imagination and learn to entertain themselves (without the TV). This was a great encouragement for me to really seek out God's best and not settle for just good things.

The book also has some great ideas and tips on Family Nights, Meal Planning, and the lost art of Neighboring or Porching. I look forward to the next chapters and will let you know if anything sticks out.

I have been out of the blogging loop for several days. The flu bug hit again and took a few of us out. But God in His wonderful mercy and love has given us good health so we can go on our vacation tomorrow! Yea Hoo!!

We have been planning this vacation for a year. With my husband's work schedule we always do this. Every other year we go to the beach. There is a Christian Confrence Centerthat lets pastoral staff come stay a week every other year for FREE. Such a blessing!

And on the off years we head off somewhere else. Hubby's parents have a timeshare thing and give us points to use wherever we like. This year we are off to the mountains! I have been counting down days for the past two months. School is out, bags are packed and we are all ready for some family fun.

I hope to return rejuvenated and refreshed. Have a great week.

Tis the season for school examination. Fa la la la la...

From the end of May til mid July I spend a lot of time evaluating our schooling. What worked well, what worked OK and what didn't work as great as I thought it would. I evaluate each child and the progress they made. Learning styles and so on. I love it. I hate it.

I love looking back and seeing the progress, the lights that were turned on and milestones reached. I love pouring over catalogs and websites to evaluate books and curriculum choices. I love the dreaming process. The hope of finding the magical but ever elusive book that will excite my kids in the subjects they just don't care for. I love the planning and organizing. I love that we have so many options and choices available to us.

I hate that there are so many options and choices available to us. Classical, Charlotte Mason, ABeka, Bob Jones, Saxon, Singapore, kits, workbooks, hands-on, DVD, text book, games, puzzles, manipulatives. As I plan for the next school year I always feel as though my decisions will make or break the homeschool experience. If I choose the wrong one, devastation in that subject. The kids will fall behind and never catch up. Or worse yet, they will loose all interest in learning that subject and forever be tainted. I know, far too dramatic.

We have the option like many to take classes outside the home. In fact we have so many options we could skip the three R's and just take outside classes and never actually be home to school. Art, band, science, drama, Spanish, piano, Latin, and etc. I want the American Dream. For them to 'have it all'. Excellence in education. Fun social opportunities with peers of superb character. Wonderful enrichment opportunities and plenty of team sports to boot.

The reality is to achieve the dream we can not do every good thing. We must decide was is God's best for our family. No small task when it is all good. Not all God's best, but all good stuff. I feel especially burdened this year with the children all getting older and a baby in the house. This is a big responsibility that I don't want to mess up. I don't want to look back and think 'Why did we waste so much time with that?'

Good thing I have a couple months to work on this stuff, pray and sort it out.

I don't know how productive this posting my menu plans is since I think last week I only fixed one of the meals I posted. Last week was crazier than usual with lots of unexpected thing coming up. Hopefully this week will be more predictable.

Monday: Rotisserie Chicken from Costco, green salad and bread
Tuesday: Mexican Stack (Rice, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, green onion, cheese, taco meat and tortilla chips with salsa, guac, and sour cream.
Wednesday: Church dinner - Again, I have no idea what they will make, but as long as I don't have to cook it or clean it up it always is a good thing.
Thursday and Friday: Ron and Eli are gone on a fishing trip to the ocean (sounds like fish on the menu next week) so the girls and I will do something fun. Maybe more Mexican!

Have a great week!