Parakaleo Retreat

Last week, I had the opportunity to take a week away for some ministry training and refreshment. Parakaleo (a Greek work meaning "to call to one's side") is the name of a group that was started to provide ongoing training, coaching, and relational support to empower spouses for their vital role in kingdom work. This is the first retreat I've attended (I believe it's their 3rd/4th). It took place about an hour and a half from here at Lake Oconee.

One of the biggest things for me was being able to take time away to be quite and to listen to other stories from church planting wives. Getting to know other's stories is fascinating to me, and it gives me the wonderful opportunity to see how God has worked in other people's lives.

The name of Parakaleo's new book
and some of the things we covered over the week

Also, I was afforded the opportunity to do a couple of my favorite things (music and design) which I don't always have the time to do in this capacity. If you're interested in what the week looked like in pictures, check out below.

Next week we will be back to our regularly scheduled homeschool program! :)

Hodgepodge Weeks

We had quite a fun couple of weeks, so it wasn't too organized, but I'm sure you will enjoy some fun pictures of the different things we learned and explored this week...

We went on a hunt for signs of autumn, and played in the leaves together!

We went and learned about some ancestors at the Stone Mountain Highland Games...

Zoe participated in her first homeschool Project Day (a day where the kids get to share something they're learning with everyone else... kind of a mix between a talent show and a school fair)...

Watch her recite her poem here

Helped Daddy plant a new tree in our front yard...

I've wanted a weeping Japanese Maple for some time now

Our neighbor boy, Matthew loves to help in any way he can

What a handsome helper

So, as you can see, we had quite a couple of weeks. There are several other things that happened, but unfortunately, I can't remember by this time since I am behind. I will post again soon about my week away last week!

On Faith

Well, I have a couple of weeks to catch up on, and I think I might post sometime this weekend, but for now, I wanted to share a post from one of my favorite blogs sites that I thought was very thought provoking.

Locks of Love

I almost forgot!! Last week Zoe went from this...

to this!

She had been asking me for three weeks to get her hair cut so that she could donate it (click if you want to view a little video). We have a friend who had Lukemia when she was young - she is 13 now, and cancer free - and was the inspiration for doing this. Needless to say, we are very proud of her!

A's, Apple Pie and Seeing the World

We had a great time this week! (maybe it was to make up for my lack of planning last week...) Regardless, whatever the reason, I'm excited to share with you some of the things we did together for our homeschooling this go around.

Cameron became an "A" expert this week! We had fun "A" picking (matching up which ones are big "A's" and which are little "a's."

She learned how to write an "A" as well, but I didn't take pictures of that. One day I might be more organized (I keep dreaming it will happen, but I don't think that actually makes it happen). Here's some stuff we did with our book this week.

"How to Make an Apple Pie and see the world"
by Marjorie Priceman (c) 1994

This book opened up our world to several activities as well as made us laugh each time we read it! The main character opens up her recipe book to make an apple pie and goes to the market to buy her ingredients only to find that the market owner has closed up shop and "gone fishing." So, rather than give up hope, she decides to get the freshest ingredients possible from... around the world.

1. Italy for semolina wheat (for flour), 2. France for a chicken (which lay the finest eggs),
3. Sri Lanka for bark off the native kurundu tree (cinnamon), 4. England for a cow
(milk to churn into butter), 5. Jamaica for sugar cane (picking up some salt water
on the way) and 6. Vermont for the apples!

So, we got to learn a lot of geography, work on some vocabulary, do a little math, go on a field trip and, of course, make some apple pie! One of our favorite parts of the week was making an apple pie together and inviting our neighborhood friends over to share it with us. We read the story to everyone while enjoying the pie.

Some of the neighborhood kids. They liked the story too!

Well, we didn't travel the world for our ingredients, but it was delicious for our very first homemade apple pie!

Burning

Well, I know this a homeschool blog, but I just need to get something off my chest. In this case, literally off my chest, such as...

Heart burn! Let's talk about heart burn. Have you ever had heart burn? Constantly? Well, if you've answered yes to both questions, you know exactly how I'm feeling now. Sleeping, or should I say going in and out of sleep, sitting up is for horses. It really doesn't seem to matter what I eat, either. I can drink a nice cool glass of water and get indigestion! I don't know about you, but I think that's just wrong. I've tried chewing a Pepcid AC tablet before eating, I've tried eating Tums while experiencing heart burn, but nothing seems to be helping and it's only getting worse. I'm hoping to talk to my midwife this week and see if I can get something stronger. Something that will work!

See this lovely diagram of what is happening in my stomach? Well, the main reason for this is actually because I went from this:

Source: The Growing Uterus Charts,
© 1989, 2006 Childbirth Connection

To this: (notice my internal organs and the fact that he still has quite a bit of room in there)

Source: The Growing Uterus Charts
© 1989, 2006 Childbirth Connection

And in about 10 more weeks, I will be at this: (it's amazing my internal organs still work)

Source: The Growing Uterus Charts
© 1985, 2006 Childbirth Connection

I must say, it's quite amazing how a woman's body adjusts to a child growing inside. It's just that my esophagus doesn't seem to like it so much. But, if it's anything like my previous pregnancies, the heart burn will go right away after delivering our beautiful baby boy. Then, I won't sleep for a different reason...

To Fly

There is so much to homeschooling that I can't even begin to write down the things that we learn together (mainly because it's hard to live life and catalogue everything)! I've also been deficient on the picture taking this week, so you'll just have to read this time.

Our book this week was, "The Glorious Flight" by Alice and Martin Provensen (c) 1983. This story is about an historical character by the name of Louis Bleriot, from Cambrai, France who was the first to fly across the English Channel in a plane of his own invention back in 1909. He overcame many obstacles to achieve this goal!

We talked about France again, and learned about the English Channel and where England is. We talked about how airplanes were very new and in the works at the time and how they didn't have jets and helicopters like we do today. We did some copy work of some of the descriptive writing from the book. Zoe is really getting good at tracing her letters! Zoe can now identify Onomatopoeia with no problem ("BOOM!"). We observed how some of the illustrations in the book looked a little strange, and talked about drawing things from different perspectives. Matthew did school with them today, and had a great time! They learned about Roman Numerals today, made paper airplanes and went to the park to learn Spanish with Nana and play on the playground. Wow, daddy has so much energy! I'm thankful for the times that he gets to spend with them.

Meanwhile, as I'm typing this, our little boy in utero is letting me know that he will be excited to enter into the world with our family (he moves a lot). The girls continue to be excited about the arrival of their baby brother, and Zoe has started a little tradition where every night she kisses my belly and says, "Good night baby brother." Then, Cameron follows suit and does the same. It's so adorable! I'm going to have to record it sometime so you can see what I'm talking about.

Well, you remember how I said I didn't have any pictures? I lied. Matthew told me he took a few today of our girl's cute faces. Then I took a few more. So, if you've stuck with it this far, here is your reward! :)

Our book