Proverbs 30

Hooray!! It's time to study a Proverb together!!
 I am very excited about doing this each Tuesday. I hope you will get excited too, as you teach the Proverbs to your children. They will get no better wisdom in life, than to study this book which is full of godly life lessons.
This week has some really meaty passages, and I know my girls will be especially excited about chapter 31 coming in this week! But, in case you have no girls, or you have all younger ones, I will be going over Proverbs 30 for now.

To begin, read the chapter to your children, or have them take turns reading. This is a rather long passage, with 33 verses, and the verses are long too!

This passage is pretty neatly divided into sections. If I were teaching this to all little ones, I would especially hit on verses 4, 18-19, 24-28, and 29-31. They will have a lot of fun acting out all those animal parts, and listening to you explain how God made each animal to fill its own role in creation. Verse 4 is an amazing description of God. I would supply some definitions for words like ascended, descended, gathered, and established. You could read this verse slowly and let them answer all the questions that are asked. I love at the end where it says,"Surely you know!" I would ask them, "Can you gather the wind in your fists? Why not?"

For the older ones, I would definitely explore verses 7-9, 11-14, and verse 17. In 7-9, we would have a discussion about why some people are never satisfied, no matter how much they have. I would ask them if that applies to any area of their life. And if I have difficulty in that area, I would confess it to them and we would talk about it. We might turn to Philippians 4:11-12, where Paul talks about being content no matter what he has. An excellent discussion could be had on contentment- what it means, how we live it out, what  it looks like in daily life.

Verses 11-14 and 17 could describe many children today! Do your children act disrespectfully to you or their Dad? Do they roll their eyes? Do they huff away? Do they walk around with a hateful look on their face? You know exactly what I am talking about! These verses address those very issues. I would ask, "So this passage tells us what kind of person does this. What does it say in verse 12? He is pure in his own eyes, but is not washed from his filthiness." What does that mean? Have them answer.

Listen Mom, don't be afraid to sit there in silence for a couple minutes if necessary to let them think about it.  Then ask again. So what do you think that means..."Is not washed from his filthiness"...?

There is so much more to this passage of Scripture, but you want to save some for next month! Stop while they are still having fun and wanting to do more. I always stop early enough that the children groan and ask to do just one more verse. Of course, I do let them do just one more, but that is it! I always say, "Don't worry...we'll be back here again in a month!"

Well, there you have it. You just sat in on our Proverbs study time! Now go start your schoolwork!!


Let me say this, I do not use our study time to point out character flaws in my children. If one of them brings something personal up, we will talk about it and try to see what we need to do to change, and they will encourage each other. But I really want to encourage you to not make this a time to slam them. If you do, they will hate this study, and they won't listen, and you will give them cause to run from God's Word instead of embracing it.
I do use Scripture in disciplining, of course, but study time is study time.  It's just a time to enjoy talking together about God's Word and seeing what it says and how we can apply it to our daily life.

Heart Attack Mac

My great grandmother, Granny, was famous for her macaroni and cheese. I can remember going to her house in Sylvania, Georgia for all the major holidays when I was growing up. And even as a little girl, I always looked forward to the pan of golden, gooey, goodness that I knew awaited us!

Granny died when I was 12 or 13, and it was a while before we had good mac and cheese again. But my grandmother set herself to the task, and it wasn't too many years until we were back to big pans of  cheesy heaven. Every holiday, no matter how insignificant, merited macaroni and cheese.

My dear grandmother passed away 2 years ago. My daughter, Jessie, is rather fond of macaroni and cheese. As in, she could eat it 3 times day, seven days a week!! She was feeling the lack of mac in her life. So, I set myself to the task. I have experimented over the past few months. We all agree that I have finally gotten it just right.

warning: the following pictures can clog your arteries...if you have heart problems, better go read a different post for today...don't say I didn't warn you...

Okay so this is nowhere close to a healthy recipe. It uses a ton of cheese; real and fake. If you are  trying to eat healthier, this is not your recipe. Everybody else...follow me....



 Grandmama's Macaroni and Cheese



This is how I make myself feel better about this recipe; by using healthier pasta. You'll need a full 14.5 oz box. You can use regular white elbows if you like. Start the pasta water boiling while you grate a full pound of hard Extra Sharp cheddar cheese. Gotta be Extra Sharp...cause my Grandmama said so.




You will also need 6 slices of American cheese, and 8 ozs. of Velveeta. Hey, I told you this was not a healthy recipe!
Divide each slice into thirds, and cut the Velveeta into smallish chunks. Divide your pile of chunks in half- I had 16 in each pile.




When your pasta is done, put half of it into a 9x13 dish. Then , snuggle half of the Velveeta chunks down in the noodles. Push them down in there! Now, lay half of the sliced cheese pieces on top of that.




Using half of the cheddar you grated, cover the top of the noodles with it. Spread it over thoroughly.
Then, do another layer just like the first: noodles, Velveeta, sliced cheese, and shredded cheddar.




Didn't my eggs make the cutest smiley face?! Oh well, time to beat them anyway...after beating them, add enough milk to make 1 1/2 cups. Pour this evenly over the whole pan of mac and cheese. Then, pour plain milk over until it comes to within a half inch of the top of the noodles.





Now it's ready for the oven. 350* for 45-50 minutes. Then, let it rest on top of the stove for at least 15-20 minutes once you take it out. This will firm it up.




The finished product. You want it nicely browned on top. It looks kinda gooey here because it hasn't done its sitting time yet! After 20 minutes, it is perfect for spooning out!

I do mine in a glass dish, and put it straight in the frig with any leftovers. One word of warning: do NOT reheat this pan in the oven. You will have baked on macaroni and cheese that will never come off.
This stuff reheats beautifully in the microwave.
So there you have it...if your arteries can take it!!

Linking this up to Raising Arrows.










Book Study

I have been thinking about taking one day a week here on my blog for doing a book study. I would love to know if anybody is interested. I will choose  a book, and then every Thursday, I will post notes and discussion questions on the current chapter. I plan to only cover one chapter per week. The first book I plan to do is The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. I have read this book before, but feel like I need to go back through it again! It is such a rich study on why we should pursue holiness, and how to practically do it!
                                                           



                                                
If you would be interested in participating, would you leave a comment below to let me know? Or comment on my Facebook page to let me know you would like to be a part. You can also email me at
onefaithfulmom@gmail.com . I have several books I would like to study. If anybody is interested, I will begin the first chapter of The Pursuit of Holiness 2 weeks from today: Thursday, April 7, 2011.
If you do not have the book and would like to purchase it, you can click through my link above.
I hope to hear from some of you! I am looking forward to it. And if you can't buy the book, no worries. You can still participate just by reading the posts!

Letting Go Of Perfectionism

Anybody else out there struggling with perfectionistic tendencies? I feel quite sure I am not the only one! I suppose I was set up to be a perfectionist from the beginning. I was an only child, the first grandchild on both sides, raised around adults for most of my childhood. I had 2 cousins that I played with on a pretty regular basis, but my world was an adult world.
It's funny...I never considered myself a Type A person...I am actually very spontaneous and relaxed. But when I think about it, I like to list out what needs to be done, and then get busy! I can become drill sergeant Mom if I don't see people as busy with work as I think they should be!

As a perfectionist, I suppose I know that I have unrealistic expectations of myself. Unfortunately, all too often, I have unrealistic expectations of others...like my children. I get all excited about getting a plan in place, and then I get frustrated when the plan doesn't lead to perfection. I thought I would share with you my most recent plan of action, and the reality that followed.

                                                              THE PLAN

 This took me hours of work! I took it to Staples, had it enlarged and laminated, and put magnets on the back. I know I should know better, but I really thought that it would solve all our problems...our messy problems I mean!! Oh, everybody was excited about it at first; running to check it every morning to see what they were supposed to do that day. It seemed like my plan was working. I could see perfection looming on the horizon. Somewhere along the way I guess I forgot that when 11 people live in a house, perfection is a joke. And so I was brought back to...

                                                          the sad reality...

 The dishwasher was loaded and running when I took this picture. This is what all wouldn't fit.

  And evidently, they don't quite get the concept that cleaning out from under your bed doesn't mean that you just pull it out and leave it there.

I didn't turn into drill sergeant Mom though. As a matter of fact, all those messes are still there. We'll get to it.
Sometimes, we just need to ride our bikes, or play with the dogs, or take a nap.
So I am learning to let go of my perfectionism...a little bit at a time. It's not easy, and I probably won't get it right for a long time, but I'll keep trying. Until I can do it perfectly.    smile

Studying Proverbs with Your Children

This post is only for mothers. I do not teach men how to study the Bible with their families. This method is what I use with my children in the mornings before we begin school, after their Dad is gone to work.

I am a woman who is absolutely and completely dedicated to being a faithful mother. I do not intend to fail my children by not instructing them in the Scriptures. If I do not teach them the Word of God, I have no reason to expect that they will grow up to be godly people. It doesn't happen by accident or by default. It is my responsibility as their mother to teach them what the Word says and how to apply it to their life.

Please do not think that I am saying that fathers don't have the same responsibilty. I  believe that every father will answer to God for how he has discipled his family. I am only speaking of my role as Mom. If I am to be a faithful mom, I must teach and train my children in the Scriptures!

So with that being said, I want to share how the kids and I study Proverbs together. We do this in the morning, after breakfast and chores, but before we start schoolwork. If the kids are dawdling, I call a halt to chores and we do Bible time. They have to finish the chores later during free time. Yes, I'm mean like that.

We always do the Proverb of the day. In other words, if it is March 21, we do Proverbs 21.  We begin by reading all the way through the Proverb. Some of them are quite long...up to 36 verses or so. That's okay. We are in no rush to finish studying God's Word. It usually takes us between 30-60 minutes to do this.

I currently have a  16, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 6, and 4 yr old doing this. The little ones are expected to sit still and be quiet. This is excellent training for sitting through church! I sometimes let the little guy play with a couple of quiet toys right near my chair. Otherwise, they sit on the floor, couch, or with me.

Every child that can read has his Bible open and ready. Most of the time I read the whole passage. We sometimes take turns, but that usually causes some frustration. Slow or new readers take a lot of time and patience, and we are really trying to get a good overview of the passage. The reading should be fairly quick, but with much enthusiasm and good inflection. The children follow along in their Bibles.

As you read through the passage, you'll begin to pick up on some themes. There are usually anywhere from 2 to 6 themes in a Proverb. Some familiar ones are wisdom and foolishness, laziness and diligence, honesty and deceit, working hard and slothfulness, sin and righteousness, being stingy and being generous...those are a few common themes you'll see repeated throughout the Proverbs.

So after we read the entire passage, I ask the children if they see any themes. When we first started doing this, I would name 2 or 3 themes and just let them find the verses. They have progressed to finding the themes themselves! When a child names a theme, he/she must tell me a specific verse that has that theme in it.
Example: Proverbs 6 has the theme of laziness vs. diligence in it. The child might refer to verse 6 which speaks of looking at the ant as an example of diligence.

At this point, I allow the child who is giving the verse to read it aloud. Then we discuss it. I ask them questions; they ask me questions; I offer definitions for unfamiliar words. As an aside, this is where I teach them to use their concordance. They look up unfamiliar words in the back of their Bible. Once we have meanings, context, and any questions answered, we look for application.

To me, application is the most important part of what we do with the verse. We talk about ways we can use the verse, or things we need to change about ourselves.  We talk about situations we have found ourselves in, and how the verses could help us.

I try to give each child a chance to give at least one verse. We will do 2-3 verses on each theme, and then go to the next theme. We can never exhaust Scripture, but I do try to save something fairly meaty for our next go round!
My 6 yr old is still a beginning reader, and ny 4 yr old isn't reading at all  yet, so they have been mostly listening up to this point. But when we start application, look out!! They can come up with all sorts of imaginary situations where the verse would apply to them. I love hearing them get excited about God's Word. It might seem silly to some to hear the things they say , but it is not silly to get your children excited about studying the Scriptures! They also love to have me use them as examples in situations I make up. My 6 yr old just said the other day, "Talk about me, Mom. Use me in a story." So cute!!

Once we have done 2-3 themes, and a verse or two for each theme, quite a bit of time has passed. I am always amazed by how quickly the time passes when we are immersed in God's Word! That is a warning to you though: if you are going to be stressed over getting a later start to school, keep in mind that you don't want to be saying, "Come on, find a theme already. We've got school to do."  That wouldn't be good.

And there you have it...an easy way to study God's Word with your children. I like that I can include every age child I have and everyone has something to contribute. Try it with your precious little, or big, ones this week, and let me know how it goes.

Starting next week, I will be putting up a sample study from Proverbs every Tuesday. I will use one of the weeks' passages, and give some possible themes, questions, verses, definitions to look up, etc. I hope it will be helpful to some of you!

Pieces Of My Childhood

I can remember it like it was yesterday. She would wake me up in the wee hours of the morning, and tell me to get dressed and put on some shoes. We had to go look for Daddy because he hadn't come home. Again.

Or, we had to go because Daddy had been in a wreck and we needed to go to the hospital.

Or, we had to take Daddy to the hospital because he was sick with kidney stones. His buddies had brought him home from a night of drinking, and I could hear him outside my bedroom window, hollering out in pain from the stones. I can see him in the wheelchair, as the orderly pushed him along, vomiting into the metal trashcan he held in his lap.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night; hearing him stumble to his bed, not a word to the wife who had waited to be sure he was coming home.

I remember him coming home from work and saying he just needed to run downtown for a minute. Momma and I knew what that meant. He wouldn't be back; at least not for hours, and not in a good state, if he made it home at all.

I remember my 15th birthday. All the family was there, everything was ready. But he never came home for the party. We finally had the party without him.

So many memories. Everybody has a past; mine just isn't much to look at. I have never talked much about my past...too painful. But there is something else I remember that makes me begin to share.

I remember the fear...and the overwhelming shame...to be continued

Still Alive

I am still alive and kicking, but my laptop has been "in the shop". I hate writing on the desktop...spoiled, I know...but there it is!
I am getting my laptop back on Sunday morning, and will be back to regular posting next week.

Gosh, I miss y'all!!!
Stay tuned...

Two Wheeling!!

It has been super nice weather wise here lately! The kids try to finish their schoolwork and chores as quickly as possible so they can get outside. We have a lot of room to play, so they ride their bikes in our yard. I don't let them ride on the road.
Last Friday, Sam decided to teach Courtney to ride a 2 wheeler. Now, Sam learned to ride a 2 wheeler at the tender age of 3, thanks to his determination, and the patience of his sister Jessie! So it was fitting for him to teach someone.
After about 30 minutes, she was pedaling alone! This morning, he was teaching her about turning...without falling down, that is. Here's some pictures of the lessons.

She was so proud!! And he was too!! He needs to teach her to climb on and take off by herself still, so I think the lessons will continue for a few more days. Such fun times!!

I had to put in one last shot of my pretty girl...

Updated to add that she is now starting off by herself, and can do a complete turn around without crashing!!

Now, to teach her about the brakes...

Birthday Time

This past Friday was our John's birthday. He is now 8 years old! He requested tacos for supper.

He wanted to help make his cake, so we did that together. Then Jennifer helped him frost it. He went a little crazy with the sprinkles! Kids can't get enough of them I guess!!

 I found some candles at Rite Aid that were individual letters, so his candles spelled out his name. They were very flimsy though, and the "O" was holding on for dear life. It wouldn't even light.

Happy birthday, John...now BLOW!!!!!!

For his gifts, he got a radio controlled police car that he's been wanting, and a Lego City sticker book. He also got a watch, some sunglasses, and a cool cowboy vest!
                                                          Facts about John
John is our 8th child. He is the most affectionate of our bunch, and pretty close to the most stubborn too! He's small for his age, but exceedingly smart. He's a second grader this year. I call him John-boy nearly all the time. He loves to read his Bible, and he likes to read books to his 2 younger siblings. He has a very tender heart, and still likes to kiss his momma. What more could I ask? Just that he not grow up too quick.

                                      Happy Birthday, John-boy!!!

Do You Know What Time It Is?

At our homeschool support group meeting last night, the subject of this post came up. I wrote this post a week ago, and I was so affirmed that this is an issue which needs to be addressed.

So, do you know what time it is?

Time seems so elusive sometimes, doesn't it? Days go by, weeks go by, months go by, years go by. We get older, and we wonder how in the world we got here. How did the kids grow up so fast? Every day seemed an eternity, with dishes and laundry and meals and schoolwork and chores and diapers and shoes to tie and noses to wipe and jackets to zip and on and on and on.

Then one day, we wake up and realize that it's all done. They are all grown up.

So, do you know what time it is?

There are so many different times in life. How do you tell time? Have you learned to tell time God's way?

Is it time to rock the baby for just a little while longer? Is it time to read a big stack of books to your little boy or girl, and let the dishes wait for a bit? Is it time to listen to your 8 yr old's long involved dream from last night, and change the laundry over  when he's done?

Is it time to sit on the couch with your husband, and wash up the supper dishes later? Is it time to listen to your teenager's plans and goals, and miss a couple hours of sleep?
What time is it?

How do you know what time it is? How do you learn to tell time?

If you are a mother of young children, then the time you spend with them is crucial. It is time for you to train them to obey; to teach them to work; to read God's Word to them; to sing songs with them. It is time to love on them and squeeze out all the sugar you can! I am squeezing my 4 year old as much as I can!

If you have older children, it is time to teach them to be self starters; teach them to do their work independently; talk to them about this world and how to live in it; to listen to their dreams and plans; to laugh at their silly jokes that you've heard a hundred times before; to teach them to cook, clean, and serve wherever they see a need.

Some of you are blessed like me and you have children in every stage of childhood. We get to do it all!!!! I get to sing the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and 10 minutes later, I get to do a reading lesson, and 15 minutes after that I get to listen to an advanced piano student play me her latest piece. I get to teach someone to make a meal, and teach someone to tie her shoes, and teach another one to play quietly while I am reading aloud.

So, what time is it? How do you tell time?

Where are you in your life? What are your priorities? What do you need to take the time to do today that won't wait? And I do not mean the laundry! 20 years from now...10 years from now, what will you wish you had spent more time on? Then it is time to do it now!

You learn to tell time by seeing where God has you right now, and then...embrace it!!!! Live every minute to the hilt. Don't waste time by wishing it away. That toddler who drives you crazy by getting into everything...he will soon be a teenager. Look at what time it is. Train the little rascal now. It's time. Don't just wish he was older.

So,  what time is it in your life?