Blogkeeping

Sorry blog readers/commenters... I've been getting a ridiculous amount of spammy comments all of the sudden.  At least for the time being, I am adding word verification in the comment box in hopes that it will foil the spambots.  I hope this doesn't make commenting too cumbersome because I so appreciate each and every one of your comments.  Please let me know if you have trouble with the new setup and I will do what I can.  If you can't get through with a comment, you can e-mail me here:  churchmouseathome@gmail.com

Now, why so quiet around here?  I am finding that trying to keep up with the day-to-day cleaning, laundry, cooking and basic needs + homeschooling + taking care of myself means no time to blog.  I have wondered for a while when that day would come. The biggest change has been that my primary time for writing has always been during our daily "quiet time" and I have been needing that time for a daily nap.  That time is also now very, very limited now that my eldest child no longer naps.  It has kind of all happened at once.  So I'm not giving up entirely because I still love having a place to write, but I am finding that it will probably happen with much less frequency. 

It's just the stage of life I am in.  But I am still here, and I will still write when I can. 

I hope you have a blessed week!

Love,
Heather

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Simple Gifts

This blog might step on some toes.  It definitely would have stepped on mine a few years ago, so take it with a big old handful of salt and use what is relevant for you.  Differing opinions will not bother me, you have my word!

Simple.  Everyone wants simple. 

But simple does not make very much money, does it?  And money is what makes the world go 'round. 

Specifically in regards to homeschooling and teaching Bible (and we ALL do it - remember, you are your child's first teacher even if you send your child to public school), I've been drawn more and more to simple. 

Full confession:  I have a bachelors in music education, taught children's Bible classes since I was 16, and I was a music and pre-school teacher before I became a stay at home mom.  I LOVED making beautiful bulletin boards, handwork, decorating my classroom, etc...  I poured a lot of time, work and much to my husband's chagrin, money, into teaching other people's children.  And if I am being completely honest with myself, most of that work was not for my students.  It was for me.  Much of it really didn't enhance the actual learning of the students very much.  (There are a few exceptions, but sadly, very few.) 

I like coloring, cutting, pasting, laminating and making things pretty.  So there. 

And I still do!  But as a homeschooling mom, I don't get very much by way of daily prep time for that kind of thing.  And because of the situation in our local church where my kids are the only children that attend our small, just-getting-started group right now, I am their perpetual Bible class teacher.  This has caused me to re-evaluate just what is important and just what really enhances their learning and what is just... fluff.  Pretty fluff.  But still fluff. 

My time is valuable.  Their learning is important.  I have needed to be more discerning to make the most out of what we have.

All those adorable Pinteresty things for homeschooling and Bible class... how many of those projects are really only for the teacher/mom?  Be honest.  And there is nothing really wrong with that.  But I just don't have that kind of time any more.

I need to sleep and take my vitamins.  I need to get outside with my children.  I need to read them piles of books and cook them healthy food.  My husband needs lovin' time.  I need to wash the dishes and do laundry.  A couple of times a week, I really just need to get a shower. 

I'm a thirty-something-year-old mama and I need to keep things simple. 

And simple works.  It really does. 

We don't do crafts in Bible class.  We have a simple timeline posted on a wall.  We have a bookshelf with Bibles and a stack of white copy paper on it.  I have the ESV Family Bible and a set of Betty Lukens felts for a visual aids.  If we didn't have that, a whiteboard and some markers would do.  We have a box of crayons.  And my boys are learning at a tremendous rate!

This is our simple Bible class "program" for two boys, ages 5 and 3:

• We pray
• Sometimes we sing Bible songs that go with the lesson.  Nothing complicated though.
• We go through the Bible and read a Bible story.  We work in chronological order.  
• We find our Bible story in our simple timeline.
• Sometimes we look at things on maps if it is relevant to the story.
• We review the story with the felts.
• The boys "narrate" the story back to me as they draw key events with crayons on the plain paper.  

Most people would say our classroom is bare.  But it is simple.  It is without distraction.  Preparing a lesson every week is practically no work for me, which is important since I have been teaching without a break for about 3 years and don't expect to stop any time soon.  (Just FYI - I only teach on Sundays.  Midweek we meet with the adult class, since we do so much Bible teaching at home also.)  Simple only seems to enhance their learning.

And it is the same for homeschooling.  Mostly it is about the books, and when it comes to Bible, it is about THE Book.  We don't spend a lot and we don't need a lot.  But you won't be able to find this sort of thing at a convention or in a catalog. 

Your most valuable resources are things you already have:  your Bible and your mind

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Snapshots of our School Days

Big Little turned five this past fall and while we have been homeschooling him since the day he was born, we've been slowly working towards a little more structure in our day.  I do not believe all five year olds need this kind of structure, but our son really seems to crave it, and thrives with the mental stimulation that he is getting.  Starting at the beginning of January, I adopted the above "routine" and we are all just about used it it by now.  We are aiming for "doing school" three or four days a week at this point and I am actually amazed how much we get done and in how little time! So I will share some of what we are doing, but please know that this is just what works for our family and do not hold it up as some kind of standard.  As you will see in the pictures, the boys are still learning mostly through play and I believe this is as it should be.

If your are interested in more information, I use Ambleside Online year 0 and we follow the Charlotte Mason philosophy. 

Some of our learning looks fairly traditional.  Note the look of concentration as he does copywork.

Biggie got to the letter "d" and wrote it the way you would write a half note - he didn't do the downstroke to the bottom of the line. I pointed that out and he answered, "Oh I never do that part. It's just a spot of bother."

Some of it is disguised as play.  (See the letters made out of legos?)

Some looks like "work".  (Trying out parsnips for the first time in our soup!)

sorting out lowercase and capital letters while Little Littles plays along

And we do lots and lots of reading.  And apparently, playing with string.  :)

Notes -
We are working through the Singapore Math level A book and we both like it very much.  We supplement with sorting buttons, working with an abacus, and various other math games.

For piano, I used to teach beginning piano, so I am just doing little 10 minute sessions with him using the Jane Smisor Bastien "Very Young Pianist" series, which I really, really love.  It uses wonderful illustrations, teaches the basics of music and it is simple and not cluttered with overly flashy cartoony stuff.

Science and Art and such very much follow our interests and whims... painting with watercolors, practicing with scissors, bird watching, etc...  As the weather warms up, we will be spending more time outside doing nature study.


And in between all of this, you will find me running laundry to the washing machine, folding it, working on a grocery list while the boys paint, etc...  Work, play, and school are all woven together into a rich and vibrant life.  It is a lifestyle that we feel blessed to live.

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Tips for Keeping a Clean Bathroom part 2

That is not Lysol in that can!

Almost two years ago, I posted My Tips for Keeping a Clean Bathroom where I encouraged my readers to try keeping a spray bottle of vinegar and a stack of rags in each bathroom for simple, quick clean-up.  I still think this is a wonderful method, but I have found a few more simple cleaning techniques I'm excited to share that have really helped me keep up a clean bathroom.

First, I combined a few different ideas from Pinterest to create my own disinfecting wipes.  I used an old Lysol container and put in pieces of my husband's old undershirts that I cut up.  (I cut the body of the shirt into quarters for these wipes.)  About 10 of these wipes fit in the container.  I mixed up a cleaning solution in a jar that consisted of the following:

• 1/2 c. vinegar
• 1/2 tsp. Dawn dish soap
• about 15 drops of essential oils (I like orange and tea tree oil.)

I poured this mixture over the wipes, shook them up, and I had wipes ready to go for cleaning the entire bathroom.  They even worked nicely on the mirror!  (If yours seem a little dry, you can always add a little bit of water.  If they are too wet, you can squeeze out the excess liquid in the sink before using them.)  These 10 wipes lasted me about a month, and then I just laundered them and made up a new solution.  I have such a small bathroom and it has no cabinets, so this one little container hides in there very well.

The second idea is for cleaning the tub. I use coconut oil in my boys' bath water in the winter and this tends to make my tub get dirty in a hurry.  It is so much work trying to scrub out the bathtub, that I tend to put it off way too long.  I bought a little dish scrubber (shown above) and filled it with equal parts Dawn dish soap and vinegar.  I keep it right in the shower on the hanging rack.  About once a week while I'm taking a shower, I shake it up and do a quick once over on the tub and tiles.  This takes less than a minute and has been keeping my tub nice and clean.  I'm thrilled to give up the task of scrubbing out the bathtub every month!

Do you have any tips for keeping the bathrooms clean?

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Big Littles Gets His Wish

We've had flurries and a few flakes, but no ground cover to speak of... nothing snowball worthy.  Big Littles has been dreaming of snow for weeks.  Thanks to facebook friendships, we've seen pictures of people living north, south, east, and west of us all getting snow, but nothing here.  It's actually been too warm here most days and we've had lots of rain instead.  Big Littles announced one day that he was going to pray to God that we would have snow on Christmas.

I took a deep breath.  That was a tall order.  But I told him to pray anyway.  God would hear him, and if it was God's will it would happen.

On occasion I gave him further explanation and told him that sometimes God has other plans that need to happen for other people and that sometimes when God says "no" it has nothing to do with us.  But I also said that God loves to bless the people that love and obey Him, and we could pray that God would bless us with snow on Christmas. 

So for weeks he has prayed that we would have snow on Christmas.  And I just kind of held my breath and hoped he wouldn't be too disappointed because the weather forecast was not looking very cooperative.

Yesterday, after not saying anything about it for about a week, Biggie confidently announced that we would indeed have snow on Christmas.  I asked him how he knew that and he said, "I've been praying to God about it."  I smiled and gave him a few more encouraging words, but honestly, he had the faith to move mountains and I had almost none that this was going to happen.

So when we woke up this morning and Preacher Man looked out the window and announced that we were going to have a white Christmas, I almost didn't believe him!  And the next moment, I thought of the joy this was going to bring to my son and how this one blessing from God would do so much for his growing faith (and I must admit, mine), and I thanked God for this wonderful gift.

Indeed, it was the best gift of all today.   Sometimes God just blows me away.  I am humbled and thankful that He would be mindful of my young son... and me. 

Luke 18:15-17 - "And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  

Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”
 

The long-anticipated snowball fight!

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Martha, Martha

 If Thanksgiving is a holiday where I work like a slave in the kitchen for days, I'm trying to not let Christmas become that and it would be so easy to do.  My favorite Christmas memory with my children is from a couple of years ago when I collapsed on the floor in exhaustion and my two boys who were still just babies, laughed and cuddled and crawled all over me.  That moment was pure happiness.  And so I try to keep that image in my mind as my goal for the big holiday.  THAT is what I am trying to achieve, not culinary perfection or a home straight out of Pinterest.  It is hard for me, but here is what I am doing to let go of my Martha tendencies and just enjoy the holiday.

my cardinal tree topper that I just love

We eat more junk food.  We just do and I don't stress about it.  For breakfast Christmas morning, we still need protein, so I buy those Little Smokies sausages and crescent rolls in the tube and make pigs in a blanket for us to munch on while we exchange gifts. 

I try to also have some tempting fruit available.  This year, we are doing our big dinner on Christmas Eve, so lunch on Christmas Day will just be leftovers.  I'm liking this arrangement more and more.

For dinner, we are having frozen pizza. 

Frozen pizza came about because we have Bible study that evening and we will be leaving at about 2 am the day after Christmas for a big road trip.  We very rarely have frozen pizza, so this will be a rare treat that everyone will love.  And you know, Trader Joes has cheaper and healthier frozen pizza, so it is easier to let go of the guilt.  I think this might be a new tradition. 

Be blessed, my friends.  Enjoy your day with your family, no matter where you are and no matter how you celebrate. 

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Comfort and Joy

This is a meal that never fails to leave a sense of satisfaction.  I had major tomato soup/grilled cheese cravings when I was pregnant with my second child.  I grew up eating Campbell's in a can but I finally took the plunge and tried a homemade version and I LOVE it!  It is so easy, I can't believe I didn't do this sooner!

Tomato Soup

• 2 Tbs. butter
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced (or 1 tsp. garlic powder if I'm in a hurry)
• 1/4 c. flour (or cornstarch or arrowroot powder)
• 28 oz. can whole canned tomatoes
• 1 c. chicken stock
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste

 Saute the onion in the butter over medium heat until it starts turning golden brown.  Add the garlic.  After about a minute, quickly stir in the flour and try to incorporate it all into the butter.  Cook and stir it for about a minute and dump in your canned tomatoes and chicken stock.  Season with the oregano, salt, and pepper.  Use a stick blender to puree your soup and let it cook on the stove to meld the flavors for 15 minutes or so. 

(I LOVE my stick blender for soups, but if you don't have one, you can transfer your tomatoes to a regular blender or food processor.  It's just much messier that way.)

Grilled Cheese
I fee like I hardly need to share a recipe, but I guess not everyone knows how to make it... I know I didn't when we first got married!  The first time I made it, I burned the outside and the cheese was still cold!  Butter the outside of two slices of bread and lay the butter side of one of them down on a heated griddle or skillet.  Quickly add your cheese - our favorite is good old cheddar or pepper jack.  Top with the second piece of bread, butter side up.  Once the bread turns golden brown, flip it over to toast the other side.  Once it is done, let it sit on a cutting board for a minute before cutting your sandwich into triangles. 

Also yummy when you add sliced lunch meat, or thinly sliced fresh tomato.  Really, the possibilities are endless.

Do you have a favorite comfort food? 

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