Healthy Traditions

I've started yet another blog. Yes, in an effort to find more order in my life I have to put all the subjects of my life in nice neat little blogs. That just makes more sense to me. So my new blog is all about cooking and is called Healthy Traditions. I plan to document all my fun little "experiments" that I try from the book, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. Basically it's all about whole food, traditional cooking. Lots of flour soaking, yogurt making, seed sprouting, and sauerkraut fermenting kinda stuff. Not your boring old recipes!

James and I made popcorn today....you can see the post here!

Lost Tooth and Prayers

James lost his first tooth this month! He was so excited that this meant he was getting older. He has also recently learned to whistle! I remember how mad he was that he could not whistle like Callie and then all of a sudden one day his little whistle came out. Oh how he danced around the room. And now today I heard him whistling "Oh what a beautiful morning" to Clovie our parakeet in perfect tune.

I just had to come back and write the sweet little prayer that James gave tonight: "Dear Lord, thank you for my family, thank you for this beautiful world you created, for the rainbows, the light, the dark, thank you for sending your son, Jesus, thank you for the hot and the cold, AMEN!" I need to start writing down his prayers because sometimes it can really amaze me what can come out of that sweet little mind. Like once he said we needed to pray for his future wife....like WOW...that coming from a 5 year old! I was awestruck!

While I'm on the subject of prayers, this made me think of how Joshua's prayers have evolved and I wanted to write it down before I forget! I have always said a good night prayer with him every night. Slowly over time he started saying parts of the prayer himself, like just the AMEN part. Then he would say the same memorized prayer each night like, "Dear God, thank you for Mommy, Daddy, Callie, James, Joshua, AMEN" Then I remember one night he said his very own prayer...I mean...he thought it himself! I was so excited...and this was the prayer: "Dear God, Thank you (for) Burger King! Amen! We had eaten at Burger King that day and it must have really made an impression on him. HA! And then another time he prayed, "Dear God, thank you (for) Chuckie Cheese! AMEN! HA! HA! Yes he likes to eat!

Now each night he says his prayer and he goes on and on talking to God and I can't understand half of what he says, but I'm smiling in my heart....knowing that I planted the seed of his relationship with our Lord!!!

Blogging on the Brain

I have a dear friend that is working on her first blog. Isn't it amazing what a phenomenon blogging has become? It is such a fun way to keep family and friend connected. Whether you live in the same town or far away from one another. There are so many reasons people blog. Some to share fun family events, some use it as a journal, others a witnessing and encouraging tool. The possibilities are endless.


I told my friend some things I consider when writing a blog that I hoped would be helpful to her. One was that I did not put my entire name or the specific place I live. That just makes me feel safer knowing that anyone from the entire world could possibly be reading the blog. I know there are other people who only let people they know have access to viewing their family blogs.

Another thing I mentioned was, to think about the audience of your blog. In other words, before I write something, I imagine everyone I know reading it. Would they cringe and think..."Too much information.!!!" I have read some way too personal things on other people's blogs and thought, don't they know their MILs are reading that? HA!


I have recently started using blogs as a way to organize some of our homeschooling things and other things that I don't want to forget. I thought it would be too much disorder to just put it on one blog. These are mainly for me, so I will have the information neatly organized in a place I can refer back to as I homeschool all my children through the years. However if others can benefit from what I am putting together, that is great too. Here is a list of my new blogs if anyone is curious:



Helpful Homeschool Treasures: Internet resources I have found to help in homeschooling

Blog of Centuries: I plan to make an online record of all the historical things we learn about

East Texas Fun: I plan to list all the fun things to do and see in the East Texas and surrounding areas with an emphasis on FREE!


Callie and James have begged me to have their own blogs as well. I have put them off saying that we would just put everything on the main family blog. But now I have decided to go ahead and let them take ownership of their own blogs and use it as a learning tool. I think it will be great for Callie to practice typing out her thoughts and to practice spelling and sentence formation. I am going to do my best to have her do as much on her own as possible. I am hoping that this will be a completely child led learning activity. James' blog will mainly be a place for him to put all of his favorite and silly links.

Ups and Downs

I almost fell out of my chair when I heard Callie tell her best friend on the phone that she would have to call back because I was reading her a story and she wanted to hear the end of it! Never for a thousand years did I think I would ever hear that. I was reading her our lesson from the book "Our Island Story" about how the evil King John of England got excommunicated by the Pope and then later signed the Magna Carta, much to his dismay. I told her I was so proud of her for choosing to get back to her school work and she said it was just getting so exciting! She has never really gotten excited about this particular book before.

And then...James invented his own math game, which I think is pretty clever. We were playing War with some of his math cards and he said why don't we get some change and play war with all the different kinds of coins. And it has turned out to be a wonderful game to practice the names and values of each coin!!!

So this homeschooling momma had a blessed day of attentive children. If only all our days were like that.

I'm trying to count my blessings and not dwell on the fact that my house is one giant Fly Lady Hot Spot!! Oh how I wish that the Fly Lady and Charlotte Mason would come to my house and program some Habit training into my brain. I have to train myself before the children! Ok...Stop sounding whiny! I hate that. I promised myself I would not go into whiny mode on this blog. So stop it Cheryl...slap..slap..slap. Think baby steps...baby steps....Hey that reminds me of a funny psychobabble movie I saw years ago called "What About Bob" All I remember is that it had Bill Murray in it and that I laughed my head off. I don't even know if I would find it funny now or not. I think I will look it up on Netfix...I need a good laugh.

Christmas Fun

Cookies for Santa!

Christmas was nice and relaxing for our family this year! We made Christmas cookies and made a special plate for Santa on Christmas Eve. After the kids were snug in their beds we heard Santa up on the roof!! (aka Daddy) You should have seen the look on James' face.....priceless. This is the first year that Callie was in on our Christmas secret. She figured it out last year and now enjoys helping in the fun tradition for the younger ones.

Christmas morning was full of excitement as the gifts were ripped open. Joshua's favorite gift was a new guitar from Oma and Granddad.

James' favorite gift was a new hot wheels set that has loopty loops!

Callie was so excited to to get a parakeet. She named it Clovie. It is very sweet. We are trying to teach it to sit on our hand and hoping it will learn to talk.
Memaw, Pawpaw and Uncle Mike came over and we had a big breakfast. Then they left and went to Hot Springs to visit family there. We had a nice relaxing rest of the day. To view more pictures visit my facebook album here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155825&l=25c07&id=1384546354

Last weekend we decided to go to Jefferson to ride the Christmas train and drive through Marshall to see the lights. I love Jefferson! Every time I go there I feel like I have gone back in time. Before it got dark we drove around looking at all the old homes.

This was the first time we had ever ridden the old steam engine! When we got on Joshey freaked out and started to cry and I could tell he would not be happy. So I ran in and got a refund so he would not ruin the ride for everyone else. He loves trains so I don't know if it was the fact that it was cold and dark that scared him. Justin was so sweet to walk around downtown and look at lights with him while I rode the train with James and Callie. It was fun, but cold and we were wrapped up in blankets to keep warm. As we rode the train we saw pretty Christmas lights along the route and they even shot off fireworks!

Then we drove into Marshall. It had been several years since we had gone there to see the lights. It seems like there are not as many lights or maybe we did not go to the right neighborhoods. Or maybe I had seen so many lights already that it was overkill?! It just didn't seem all that great to us. Josh and Callie fell asleep as we were driving around. James, my night owl, finally fell asleep on the way home. Ah, that was a nice, quiet, peaceful ride home!!

Violin Recital

Callie and James were both in their first violin recital on December 16th. They both played versions of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Callie played with the bow and James played pizzicato style, which means plucking the strings. We have really enjoyed our lessons so far and are looking forward to when we will be able to play really well!

***Sorry Oma, I've been trying to upload a video clip of the recital but I am having technical difficulties. So I'll let you know when I get it up!