Another great home education site to check out

I love homeschooling sites.  

In my early years of home education, I did not even own a computer- and now the  amount of internet resources at my fingertips is unreal!  

I have great admiration for the pioneers in this movement, who did it all without the ease of modern technology. 
I also have huge respect for those who take the time to share their successes, inspired ideas and unique notions  online.
Every now and then I find a great homeschooling site of which I was not aware.
  Often times, someone sends me an article and I follow it back to its source, only to find a treasure trove of others.
I love it!  Although I've been immersed in home education for 12 years, I am regularly inspired by other mothers and the doings of their families.   In my opinion, women / mothers are one of the greatest resources in the world.

So for those of you who would like to check out another great home education site,
go here.

The Greatest Forces in the World

At the beginning of the twentieth century,  F. M. Bareham wrote:

A century ago men were following with bated breath the march of Napoleon, and waiting with feverish impatience for news of the wars. And all the while, in their own homes, babies were born. But who could think about babies? Everybody was thinking about battles.”

"In one year, midway between Trafalgar and Waterloo, there stole into the world a host of heroes. Gladstone was born in Liverpool, Tennyson at the Somersby Rectory, and Oliver Wendell Holmes in Massachusetts; and the very same day of that same year Charles Darwin made his debut at Shrewsbury, and Abraham Lincoln drew his first breath in old Kentucky. Music was enriched by the advent of Felix Mendelssohn at Hamburg”

"But nobody though of babies; everybody was thinking of battles. Yet which of the battles of 1809 mattered more than the babies of 1809. We fancy that God can only manage His world with big battalions when all the while He is doing it by beautiful babies. When a wrong wants righting, or a truth wants preaching, or a continent wants opening, God sends a baby into the world …perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother's heart, and she puts it into the baby's mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies."

Thought Provoking

I recently ran across this video.
I thought you might be interested in it, too.

Here's to good health!

Baking in Boots

Mommas don't let your babies grow up to bake in hot pink boots.
Snow boots at that.

This is my little girl- enjoying her own sense of fashion, as usual.
Polo shirt- check.
Shorts- check.
Apron- check.
Hot pink snow boots begged for and bought for $1.50 on clearance at Walmart- check.

Chocolate Chip Cookies fresh from the oven and served by an adorable little daughter: 
Priceless.

Gotta love her reflection while she's waiting.

(Completely ignore the dirty oven window.  It's what happens in a home where children bake.  And it's  been cleaned since then.)





And this: 
This little girl, with her unique sense of self. 

 She's mine.  All mine.  And you can't have her.  : )

Birthdays

                                  Our Kit Kat Extravaganza
                                  birthday cake we created.



Around here, we have birthdays quite frequently.
Each child looks forward to their next number in life, hoping the current year will pass quickly.

I remind them that childhood goes by way too fast, that they should enjoy the age they are.

I remember my grandmother telling me the same thing when I was eight or nine and couldn't wait to be twelve.  Twelve was grown up to me.

I was just as impatient to reach each new milestone as my children are.    

So I try to soak up and enjoy the fleeting time of each new age.

My little girl just turned eleven.  I was finally getting used to her being ten!
Here she is, now on the brink of young womanhood.  

Ladies (and Gentlemen), if you have little ones at home, drop what you are doing and go kiss and play with them.
  Let them show you rocks and bugs and ask all the questions they want.
Ooh and aah over every drawing, let them help you cook in the kitchen, let them help you clean and don't redo their work afterward.  
Look into their eyes, breathe them in, hold their little bodies and feel the soft skin and hair.  

Because babies don't last.  And neither do toddlers or preschoolers or children in general.


Here are pictures from my daughter's day: