BFS #119 Be all that you can be (US Army)

Memory Verse: 1 John 4:16 (NIV)

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

Intro: Sometime “being all you can be” is a challenge. We are trying to balance being a godly wife, mother, teacher, keeper of the home, and much more. None of us are perfect and we all struggle in our own ways with being able to achieve what we feel needs to get done.

Assignment: This week I thought we could share what great ways we have found to help with all we have to do. Besides the obvious getting face down in front of God, what have you found that works? Have you done a great bible study that deals with this area? Do you have a certain “thing” that really helps you like a planner or gadget? Do you have a certain bible verse that just speaks to you and you have it posted so you see it all the time? Is there a website that is really valuable to you in this area? What do you do that if someone else found out about it, they could benefit from it?


I thought I would post some of the useful websites I visit often:

orgjunkie Although she has a lot of great posts on organization, I love her Menu Planning Monday. Menu Planning helps me by taking away one thing I have to think about each day. Even if I don't have a day by day meal plan, if I just have a plan for 7 meals and the things on hand for those seven meals it helps me. I like to visit her site on Mondays to get menu ideas.

biblicalwomanhood I visit her site often for encouragement, advice, tips and recipes. To add the money saving ideas, I visit her other site: moneysavingmom

I have found that a planner is very useful in order for me to remember things from day to day. Although I have not found the perfect planner and am just using one from Walmart right now, using any planner has been great. Any ideas on a good planner anyone?

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has posted.

BFS #118 All You Add Is Love (Purina Dog Chow)

Memory Verse: Psalms 127:3 (New Living Translation)

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.

Intro: This week we continue with shaking things up a bit. Children are often so pure in what they say. There is no sugar coating it, they just say it as they see it. There thoughts can make us laugh, touch our hearts and open our eyes.

Assignment: This week are going to do an "Interview With Mom" and post it to your blog. There are a list of questions below to interview your children with. Feel free to add your own questions or remove any question you don't want to use. You will then ask your children the questions and post the answers that they give you.



Here is my interview with my six year old daughter:



WHAT DOES MOM ALWAYS SAY TO YOU?


Reeeaaaagan



WHAT MAKES MOM HAPPY?



Giving you hugs and kisses (so true)



WHAT MAKES MOM SAD?



Not listening



HOW DOES MOM MAKE YOU LAUGH?



She didn't have an answer for this one, she couldn't remember why she laughs when we are together.



HOW OLD IS MOM?



43 (pretty close...41)



HOW TALL IS MOM?



Well......your short. (LOL, I am 5'4")



WHAT DOES MOM LIKE TO DO?



Play with me.



WHAT IS MOM'S JOB?



Doing the dishes, taking care of me.



WHAT IS MOM'S FAVORITE FOOD?



Pork chops (not sure where this came from, because we don't eat them that often)



HOW DO YOU KNOW MOM LOVES YOU?



Kisses and hugs all the time and playing with me.





Some of the answers suprised me a bit. It was a bunch of fun watching her little brain think about all of the answers.

BFS #117 - Say It With Signs

Memory Verse: Genesis 1:14 (King James Version)
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.

Intro: This week the other Teachers and I want to shake things up a bit! We wanted for everyone to have some fun and have an assignment that would be easy and enjoyable too. This is a creative blogging assignment but hopefully it will offer help to some newer bloggers still trying to learn “how” to add pictures to their blogs and also help learn your classmates names to easily identify them…and it’s just FUN!

Assignment: This week you are to use your Blog Name (or your own pen/real name) and create signs.

Great assignment Mrs Nancy!

Just Another Ordinary Day

Nothing exciting is going on around here today, just the usual in's and out's of the day. It is cold (22) here today and so we are staying inside keeping warm.

I used this opportunity to catch up on some cleaning, etc. I cleaned the oven, bathed the dogs, slipped out long enough to get some grocery shopping done and then we watched a really great movie. I highly recommend this movie, we just loved it at our house:

All Roads Lead Home

The only thing in the movie that some might be sensitive to is the death of her mom (not seen) and the death of a pet. Excellent movie!!

Reagan has spent most of the day playing with her Barbi's and Brittni has spent most of the day choreographing a dance the the song "Hallelujah" by Imogen Heap.

I will soon start dinner and we will be having Cheesy Porkchop Casserole (recipe below). I just love days like this, just calm and relaxed.

Cheesy Porkchop Casserole

4 potatoes (sliced very thin)

4 pork chops

1 can condensed French Onion soup

1 can condensed Cheddar Cheese soup

2 cups Monterrey Jack Cheese

Put sliced potatoes in bottom of 9 x 13 pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Place pork chops on top of potatoes. Mix together the soups and pour over the top of the pork chops. Bake at 350 for one hour, remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese. Enjoy!!

Nature Study

I have had Anna Comstock's The Handbook of Nature Study for a couple of years and have just been so lost on exactly how to use this book. I recently started following this blog and have been inspired and education on picking this book up again and beginning a nature study.

We live in the city, but are fortunate enough to have a wildlife preserve called Martin Nature Park. This is an awesome park that is so perfect for a nature study, there are bird blinds to stand behind and watch the birds, there are various stands across the park to climb up in and watch nature below, they have a stream, and many, many nature trails.

We are going to try and make this a weekly outing at our house and use The Handbook of Nature Study to enhance and enrich our nature time. I am really excited.

If you have ever considered beginning a nature study you need to visit here. She has several posts on getting started. Look on her sidebar for getting started. She even has the Outdoor Hour once a week with an assignment. We will be starting this either this week or next.

The Love Dare Goes Private

I have not posted about The Love Dare for a couple of days because I was struggling with the fact that some of it was becoming personal and I wasn't sure what to do. After much consideration, I have decided not to post about The Love Dare anymore and instead continue privately.

It is such a great book and a great challenge and I encourage everyone to go to familylife.com and give it a try.

Weekly Homeschool Report

This will be my first time participating in this. I have loved reading what others have been doing in their homeschool week and have even found some great things to add to what we are doing now through these blogs. I am looking forward to staying on track with all these wonderful women.

This is really the first week that we have gotten back into the swing of things. I think that I will lay this out differently after this, but this week has been so sporadic that I am not real organized.

We are working on a lapbook called Princess Papers that we found at lapbook lessons. This lapbook is on how to correctly correspond with others through mail, email, message taking, etc.

This week we learned how to correctly write a letter. Reagan is not doing a whole bunch of writing yet, but we went over the basics. We also learned how to address an envelope and talked about stamps.

We are learning how to read with the Bob Books and continued to work on site words and reading through the books.

Our math consisted of mainly games on the computer and counting various things around the house. We also did some adding and subtracting of these items while counting.

Our goal for next week is to finish our Princess Papers and to lead into talking about the Post Office, mail delivery and hopefully a Post Office tour either next week or the following.

I hope everyone has a great week and I look forward to reading your posts.

For more weekly reports visit Mrs. Cuddles.