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Showing posts from December, 2013

Saying Hello to 2014

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As I think about saying hello to the new year, I can’t help but think about what goals I want to accomplish.  There are no major life events planned.  We’ve not been invited to any weddings, nor have the girls been asked to be part of the weddings. (We had flower girl in 2013.) None of my girls are set to graduate in 2014. (We had one in 2013 and we’ll have one in 2015.)  So what am I looking forward to? Using my 2014 Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog Planner ~  I tried a bit to use a blog planner for 2013 but couldn’t really find one that I really liked.  There are parts of this specially designed for 2014 Schoolhouse Review Crew Team Members planner that I don’t need and won’t use but I’ve printed out and bound the pages that I want. Keeping my blog real.  Blogging from my heart about what’s on my mind, about what’s happening in my life and my thoughts and reactions to issues of faith, family and home education. Using a new simplified check off system for chores.  A list of chores

Saying Goodbye to 2013

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I can’t say that I remember much of the first half of 2013, but the second half? Especially the summer? That was a stressful and busy time! I’ve decided to take a photo tour of the year! Sharing pictures as highlights from 2013. But first I’m going to start with some blog post highlights though: I chose my focus word for 2013 BooBear was accepted to her first choice college and received an academic merit scholarship ! I posted my most popular ever post in February of 2013.  It was a recipe  for “Stir Fry” in a Crockpot! I wrote a post about Better Butter ! Now for a few pictures! From January to May we experienced a Recital, Every Day School Life, a Birthday and Pascha! June through December we experienced another recital, a heart attack, a graduation, a wedding, and more birthdays. Other 2013 Highlights include:  Honeybear reading the Epistle for the first time, growing a garden, and I became an Orthodox Godmother for the first time. My friend Susan has organized a bl

Forever Friday {Book Review}

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WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Title: Forever Friday Author: Timothy Lewis Publisher: WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group Format: Paperback Page Count: 288 pages Sneak Peek:   includes chapter 1 download link Though some would say I am a hopeless romantic, romance novels are not my go to genre when choosing a book but Forever Friday has a different approach. It’s not a typical boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, have conflict, resolve conflict and live happily ever after.  Yes, boy does meet girl.  Yes, boy and girl fall in love.  Yes, there are conflicts and problems to solve that do get resolved and yes the one couple lives out the “’til death do us part,” but the love story is a story in a story and it is beautifully woven together dancing from the past to the present as we get glimpses or pictures of the love story that spans 60 years. About the Book: Adam Colby is just

Random 5 on Friday {Last Edition of 2013}

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I did not get this posted yesterday so really it’s Random 5 on Saturday <grin>. 1.   Christmas Eve ~  Our church has two services.  The first is at 10am and is “Royal Hours”.   I love this service.  The hymnography tells the story from Joseph’s perspective.  At the beginning of the service Joseph is troubled.  He wonders why Mary is doing this to him and bringing him dishonor.  By the end of the service Joseph is “convinced that Mary will birth to God.”   It has become a tradition in our church for the Youth to be the choir.   2. Christmas Eve~  We attended the beautiful Vesperal Divine Liturgy of St. Basil which includes many OT readings read by the laity. None of us participated (we got there too late!  Oops!) but Honeybear ended up reading the Epistle that night. The Liturgy was followed by a Lenten potluck.  There were some traditional Holy Supper foods as well as candles on the tables. Very beautiful. (No pictures!  Sorry!) 3.  Christmas Morning ~ More church!  Matins a

I, J, K, L Christmas Alphabet Blogging

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I decided to the follow the advice that a friend gave to someone else: make a list for the letters that you are missing.  So with this post I hope to be on the same letter as Marcy over at Ben and Me. This my Merry Christmas Edition of Alphabet Blogging:   I is for Icon of the Nativity of Christ For information about the icon: the symbolism and theology you can read the Orthodox Wiki article: Nativity Icon J is for baby Jesus in the Manager: The phrase “baby Jesus in the manager” brings two things to mind or rather I hear two things.  I hear the song “Away in the Manager” (which bugs me with the line “no crying he made.”  He was a baby.  He cried.  He was fully human. He did not sin.  Crying is not a sin.  Crying is a human baby means of communicating. Rant over.) and the other is a CCM song.  Casting Crowns?  Third Day?  Oh it’s Third day and the song is “Born in Bethlehem.”  I always hear “baby Jesus lying in a manager” when I think of the phrase ‘baby Jesus in a manager.”

Christmas: It’s not a Birthday Party

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I do celebrate Christmas.  This isn’t a post about why you shouldn’t celebrate or that Christ wasn’t really born on December 25 or that Christmas is pagan.  Nope.  I spent a few years in the “Christmas-is-pagan-therefore-we-can’t-celebrate-it” camp. That is a whole ‘nother topic for another blog post and not one I want to tackle today. Instead I want to share about my journey from celebrating Christmas to not celebrating Christmas back to celebrating Christmas and what Christmas means for my family. It’s a heart to heart about why we celebrate Christmas and why it’s important to us. I grew up Catholic. (Yes, Roman Catholic. though there are several “ rites” that are in communion with or fall under the Bishop of Rome . The largest is the Roman Rite which is the one that most people think of when they think “catholic”.) We always celebrated Christmas which included attending mass, though we usually did that on Christmas Eve (the 4:30 service though I always wanted to go to the Midnigh

Still Looking For Gift Ideas? Fun Family Games!

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We are a game loving family and part of our Christmas holiday tradition is playing games during the 12 days of Christmas. Dad takes time off from work and we have lovely days of sitting around munching food and playing games.  We do something similar at Thanksgiving as well. It’s also become a tradition that there is a least one new game under the tree. With Christmas coming up fast [in just a few days!!] I thought I would share a list of games that we love, some of which have been Christmas presents. Wits-n-Wagers Family Edition ~  We reviewed this one crew year and it quickly became a family favorite.  Say Anything Family Edition ~ Like Wits-n-Wagers, this game is from NorthStar Games and we had the privilege of reviewing it for the crew. We can all play this as a family as well but we did have to modify it a bit in order to include Supergirl. 10 Days Games  from Out of the Box: Engaging Games ~  We purchased these years ago, there are several. We have: 10 Days in Africa

Random 5 on Friday {Dec 20 Edition}

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It’s just days until Christmas.  Here’s some things that have happened this week: 1. I played Taxi Driver for most of this week.  It’s finals for my oldest and she didn’t want to hang around all day on campus when she only had one final.  Two of the 4 days that I took her in she only needed to be there for 10 minutes or less!  I’m exhausted from all the driving. 2. Speaking of finals.  One of those less than 10 minute finals (which technically was last Friday) was her “Music Program Entrance Audition.”  As a music student her final is a “jury review.”  She received her letter informing her that she passed and she can now fill out the paperwork to formally declare Music Performance as her major.  I am so proud of her.  3. The majority of my Christmas shopping has been completed online.  I am not done shopping though.  I need to get a bit more done on Saturday but I plan to be done on Saturday!! 4. Yesterday this was delivered: And this is what was inside: 5.  Lots and lots of ma

H is for Happy Holidays {Or Why I think this phrase is perfect}

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It’s that time of year again; the time of year when some Christians get all up in arms and their undies in a bundle and declare that there is a war on Christmas.  Why?  Because they object to the phrase Happy Holidays. They get mad because the sales clerk, telemarketer, friendly stranger on the street failed to say Merry Christmas and instead wished them well by saying Happy Holidays. I love the phrase Happy Holidays . I don’t mind if you say it to me.  I’ll be happy that you want me to have happy holidays. Notice the plural.  Not a Happy Holiday.  But *holidays*.  More than one.  I do celebrate more than one holiday between November 15 and January 6.  During this season Orthodox Christians will celebrate 3 of the 12 Great Feasts of the year.  THREE.  That means HOLIDAYS.  Plural.  That means more than one.  More than one Christian Holiday: Entrance (or Presentation )of the Theotokos (Nov 21), Nativity of Christ (Dec 25), Theophany (Baptism of the Lord)(Jan 6). In addition to th

Misery Loves Company {Book Review}

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Tyndale House Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. Title: Misery Loves Company Author: Rene Gutteridge Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Format: Soft Cover Page Count: 368 pages I rarely read a book more than once. If I do read it a second time, I can’t remember doing so, so soon after the first reading, but Misery Loves Company by Rene Gutteridge is so good and I read it so quickly that I had to read it again. I intended to just pick it up to refresh my memory and find a quote or two for my review and found myself reading the whole thing again. Loving it just as much the second time as I did the first time. About the Book: Filled with grief, Juliet Belleno rarely leaves the house since her husband’s death while on duty as a police officer. Other than the reviews Jules writes on her blog, she has little contact with the outside world. But one day when she ventures out to the local grocery store, Jules bumps

Adorable Must Have Children’s Christmas Books

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Here were are just under 11 days from Christmas.  I’ve decided to share my short list of wonderful picture books that we made traditional Christmas reading here at my house.  These would all make great Christmas gifts as well as be wonderful to add to your own collection for family traditions. I reviewed Smudge, and the Book of Mistakes: A Christmas Story nearly a year ago. We read it through the Christmas season.  Though this is a Christmas Story, it can be read all year long. This has more text than the other books I’ve listed but not so much text, in my opinion, that you’ll loose preschoolers but enough that even your older students will pick it up to read. Last year during the Twelve Days of Christmas (the time from December 25 through and including January 6) we enjoyed this fun picture book: The Twelve Days of Christmas . We all, adults included, enjoyed the illustrations and finding the poor bird on each page.  And when ever read this book we really can’t read it; we must

Random 5 on Friday {Dec 13 Edition}

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Yes, it’s true.  Two Random 5 on Fridays in a row!  (I hope I am setting a good trend for myself!) 1.  Miranda over at The Pebble Pond had let some of us know that she was not going to be continuing to host random 5.  Thankfully she posted this morning saying that this week is NOT the last week.  Yay!  2. Last week (Friday Dec 6!) we celebrated St. Nicholas Day.  On Sunday our church had our annual St. Nicholas party complete with the reading of the story and a visit from St. Nicholas. The girls posed with Godmother Kim and St. Nicholas.   r 3.  Getting the Christmas tree up and decorated was more time consuming than we planned.  We intended to decorate the tree on Sunday.  The girls had assembled the artificial tree.  (Yes artificial.  Though I would love a real tree, my family has this silly idea that breathing is essential and would rather be able to breathe. Tree allergies stink!) But when Daddy and the girls tested the lights, the production was a no go.  1/2 the strand wo

G is for Goal Evaluation

Here we are in the last month of the year.  Time for me to think about the goals I set for myself in 2013.  Were they realistic?  Did I meet or exceed expectations? If I failed to accomplish the goal, why did it fail?  What could I do differently?  One of the things I learned as the parent of a special needs child is that a goal should be measurable so that you can gauge whether or not you met the goal.  Over the years we’ve (therapists and I together) written many goals for Supergirl such as will open screw top container 4 out of 5 tries.  I do not always succeed in writing goals with such specific outcomes but I did set out with a very measurable Reading Goal for 2013 .  I re-evaluated the goal a few months into the year but I still haven’t come close.  I haven’t written a Reading Goals post since April. I had a blog goal of posting an average of every other day.  Some months I did great.  Other months (oh like this month of December!) I fell short.  Sometimes it was because thin

Random 5 on Friday {December 6th Edition}

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Yes I missed last weekend.  I’ll just blame it on Thanksgiving Weekend.  I um ate too much great food and couldn’t bring myself to have enough energy to type?  Yes that must be it!  Hope you had a great week! 1. Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas.  Most of the traditions I have seen involve children putting out their shoes and St. Nick fills them with treats.  Chocolate Coins are very traditional as they represent the coins that St. Nicholas gave to the sisters for their dowry.  Wonder what I am talking about?  Here’s a couple of links.  This first one from Alex Riggle is quite humorous:  St. Nicholas of Myra .  This second one is far more educational based and is a website with lots of links: St. Nicholas Center . 2.  We don’t do the shoes.  We do stockings hung by the  fire. It just seems to connect more for me with story that we hear every year at church.  St. Nicholas flung a bag of coins through a chimney and it landed in a sock that was hung by the fire to dry.  The girls foun