Mary's Birthday

I posted this on Facebook yesterday on Mary's birthday. 

Mary turned 9 today! I feel so happy to be her mom and see her grow. She is truly a gift from God. She has grown so much height wise and being her own person. Mary you are such a help to your folks, clearing the table, making your bed, running and getting things for us, working out in the garden, and learning how to make things. It is so fun doing crafts with you and most of all playing the piano together, making music in our hearts. You are already a great little song writer. Your teacher was so pleased with your Cricket Song and she is teaching you chords to help you write more music. Most of all I love to see you blossom with your walk with the Lord and how excited you were to get your first Bible and I look forward to reading it with you each night. What a precious girl you are to both of us and you make us so very happy!

 

We had a great day of celebrating.  She picked Roadhouse Grill for her birthday dinner.  It was so cute they brought her a coffee filter hat and a ice cream Sunday for dessert and sang Happy Birthday to her.  She got such a kick out of it.  She got some really nice phone calls and lots of lovely cards and gifts in the mail.  So hard to believe at times that our little girl is 9 years old now.

School Work

This is the Fall bulletin board we put together for the school room.

 

We studied George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We had fun with a flag painting day.  She also made a construction paper head of Washington.  We studies about the founding of our country and the Revolutionary War.

 

We also studied about Johnny Apple Seed.  We learned about who he really was and got poems, stories and songs about him.  Mary wrote a story about him.  Lots of fun!

We also baked an apple pie in his honor.  Mary helped with most of it.

Another snack learning event was making Abraham Lincoln's cabin out of gram crackers, pretzels and wheat thins.  We used peanut butter to cement it all together.

Mary made a construction paper head of Lincoln and learned that is hat served as a brief case for his important papers.  She learned about the Civil War and about Lincoln's life.

This came out wrong and I can't turn the next 2 but they are illustrations Mary did for her 2 stories she wrote about Huck Finn and Johnny Appleseed.  The expression she used in them cracked me up.

The last 2 weeks we have been doing some writing prompts on pumpkins and we have done several craft projects involving pumpkins.  She has been reading some Fall poems.

We made some origami pumpkins and they were enjoyed by all!

Here is poem that Mary wrote about a pumpkin.  I thought it was really good for her age.

Back Yard Camping

A few weeks back we decided to do some back yard camping. Rich wanted to get Mary and our little dog used to camping out in a tent and he figured it would be easiest and most reasonable to do it in our back yard. We are having glorious weather here. We always have Indian summers here with cool nights and warm days. This weekend weather was true to form! After we had made the plans, I noticed it would be one week before the Feast of Tabernacles would be celebrated and we decided that we would do a family devotion teaching Mary about the Feast and what it symbolizes. No, we do not keep the Feasts of Israel or any Jewish Holidays. We just love the symbolism and wanted to share it with Mary and bring out some wonderful scriptures in the Old and New Testament. I have included some still shots and a slide show that gives more explanation of the Feast. It is a fun holiday where people live outside in booths or tents and remember the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness before coming into the Promise Land. The Feast is very Messianic and it was when the Jews of Christ day had the highest hopes of the Messiah coming to physically rule and reign on the Earth from Jerusalem. One of the practices of the Feast is to wave palm branches and say, Hosana! Also you decorated your tent with the fruit harvested from your land and light your area with beautiful lights. Also on the last day of the Feast water was fetched from the Pool of Siloam and brought to the temple and poured out. This was a symbol of the rain to come but more importantly the out pouring of the Holy Spirit. So we had all of these elements in our camp out and had a time in the evening where had Mary poured water out into a bowl, wave branches and sing, light candles and talk about how living in a tent is like our earthly bodies that will fail and one day we will have a new body and be with the Lord. Also sleeping in a tent makes you more appreciative of your house and all the luxuries we have become so used to.

Flowers and herbs all from our garden

Produce from our garden and some from the store

 

 

This free slideshow created with Smilebox   Here are some scripture references we read during the different activities: The Feast of Tabernacles established: Lev. 23:39-44 The Water being poured out: John 7: 37-38, John 4:13-14 and Isaiah 55 God is our Shelter: Luke 12:22-34 and Isaiah 25:4 Jesus is the Light: John 8:12 and John 1:1-9 Waving the Palm branches: Lev.23:40 and Psalm 27

Back to School

We started school on Tuesday.  Mary has had so much fun in our summer classroom, our garden.  She has learned about raising sunflowers and butterflies.  She is doing so well.  She got straight A's on her state test and is going on to 3rd grade.  I send her grades into the school district's homeschooling office and they keep a permanent record of her grades and it will be available to what ever college wants to go, if she wants to go.  We love homeschooling!

The next day we released our last butterfly of the season.  We raised and released 8 all together.  We had 2 males in the bunch and Mary named them Lightening and Bob.

 

We also got her beginning tap dance class photos that day.  I just loved this one and had to share.  Mary and the little girl, Lyla, on the other end were good friends.  Lyla is 4 and very tiny for her age but that didn't make a difference for those two.  They are kindred spirits!  I will always treasure this picture.

 

 

Mary, Shalom, Anika, Gabriella and Lyla

Rich's Birthday

Rich's Birthday was this last week and we had fun celebrating.  We went to his favorite restaurant, Road House Grill.  Rich got a steak and I got the catfish.  Mary got a hamburger and his dad got Fillet Minyon and his mom got chicken.  It was delicious!  We went back home for cake and ice cream.  I made Rich his favorite, Chocoholic Cake.  I use and chocolate cake mix, 2 cups of chocolate chips, instant chocolate pudding, sour cream and 4 eggs.  I put it in a bundt pan and it comes out so moist.  Here are some pictures of the day:

 

 

 He wanted a pocket sized Bible that he could carry with him everywhere and that is what we got him!