Eternality of God

**I've decided to put my ladies' Bible study talks on this blog for now for the benefit of those who have to miss from time to time. We are going through Phillip Ryken's book, Discovering God In Stories from the Bible. Each chapter covers an attribute of God which we discuss together in our Bible study each month. We'd love for any local ladies to join us.

In the Andean Highlands, near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, an elderly man walks out of his dirt floor dwelling to dimly see the sun for another day.  This former sheep and cattle herder hasn’t had an education and cannot speak Spanish, the national language.  He has buried two of his three children, and lived to have forty grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren.  The remarkable thing about Carlos Flores Laura is that he is the oldest living person alive today, if the records are accurate in Bolivia.  Carlos is 123 years old.

Maria Esther de Capovilla, an Ecuadorian woman, a colonel’s daughter lived to see three centuries.  She was the oldest person living in the world in 2006.  Maria’s daughter indicated that her mother’s calm disposition was the reason for her long life.  When Maria was 100 years old, she was read her last rites in the hospital while suffering from a stomach illness.  She got better and lived another sixteen years, dying in 2006, just eighteen days before her 117th birthday.

I did some research about long-living folks.  Experts have given the term, “centenarians,” to those rare people living to their hundredth birthdays.  Even rarer still, are the “supercentenarians,”  individuals living at least 110 years.  Supercentenarians were common in the Bible, but in the modern world, it is highly uncommon.  When interviewing supercentenarians, reporters always want to know the individual’s secrets to long life.   Some people make it their life mission and vocation to study the mysteries of aging.  

One such case, currently under much study, involves a twenty year old woman by the name of Brooke Greenberg from Maryland.   Brooke brought much joy to her parents and three sisters although her life was anything but normal.  She was very tiny and at age five, she stopped growing.  She remained the size of a small toddler, being driven in a car seat, and strolled around in an infant stroller.  Her mental capacity did not extend beyond ten months.  Scientists are studying her DNA in hopes of finding ways to stall the aging process especially with patients succombing to age related diseases.  Brooke passed away of unknown causes just a few days ago.

No matter what discoveries researchers make, no matter what formulas nutritionists devise, no matter what claims people make to the fountains of youth, one thing is certain:  we will all die sometime.  No human being or any living thing on earth is eternal.  Eternality is one of God’s mysterious attributes.  We will do well to ponder and explore His eternalness.  

Merriam Webster’s full definition of the word eternal provides some food for thought if we consider it in the sense of relation to God.  The primary definition is threefold:  having infinite duration, everlasting; of or relating to eternity; and characterized by abiding fellowship with God.  Since God is everlasting, He has no beginning as well as end.  This concept is difficult for us time-conscious people to understand.  A.W. Tozer explains, “Because God lives in an everlasting now, He has no past and no future.  When time-words occur in the Scriptures they refer to our time, not His.”  God has always been and always will be in existence.  I like how Philip Ryken elaborates on this concept:  “He is not in time at all.  He cannot be timed.  He is never early or late.  He never clocks in, and he never clocks out.  He is outside of time altogether.  He is eternal by his very nature.”

The second definition given for eternal is continued without intermission and seemingly endless.  While an intermission through a lengthy musical might be welcome, I’m so glad to report our God does not take an intermission on His existence.  In fact He doesn’t even take a nap as Psalm 121:4 says, “Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”  Hallelujah that His existence in not just “seemingly endless” as the definition states but we know that it is completely endless.  The third definition is an archaic one relating to Shakespeare, thus no correlation there.  

The fourth definition presents an interesting perspective stating “valid or existing at all times,” also “timeless”.    What could be more valid than the truth of our God’s forever existence.  One of the things I enjoy is thrift shopping.  I can’t tell you how many times, I’ve run across something from my childhood.  In the past month I’ve seen the pale blue butterfly sheets I had as a child, a pillow with the exact same brown calico print of my parents’ comforter when I was in the second grade, and familiar clothing that saw better days in the 80’s.  While still in existence, the styles were clearly not “timeless.”  One day those things will cease to even exist.   Ladies, our God is timeless- in His very being, and in His very message for all the world.  Webster’s gives “temporary” as an antonym and several near antonyms for eternal, two being “outdated” and “obsolete.”  Think about it, He will never be outdated or obsolete.  He doesn’t swoop in as God in any sort of temporary way when he just happens to feel like it or isn’t too busy.  He is eternal in who he is and what he does.  I Timothy 1:17 says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.  Amen.”

There are two main points that Philip Ryken makes involving the eternal attribute of God.  First of all, because God is eternal, his judgement lasts forever.  If He were not eternal, then how would he carry out the final judgement of individuals?  Hell would hold no weight.  Furthermore, since God is eternal he has the ability to guarantee salvation.  Everyone who believes in Christ will enjoy the riches of an eternity with Him.  The saints of God aren’t sitting around in heaven wondering when it will all end.  God will last forever, thus so will heaven.  This is so wonderful, we can hardly grasp it.

As is true of all the attributes, Jesus and the Holy Spirit possess eternalness as well.  Jesus conquered death to sit at the right hand of the Father, a “permanent priesthood,”  “living forever” as mentioned in Hebrews 7:24.  The Holy Spirit is “the eternal Spirit” as found in Hebrews 13:8.  

The attributes are all so closely woven and interconnected.  If you take away the eternality of God, what would God’s glory look like?  That would have to mean at some point an end to his glory.  What about his omnipresence?  God is always present everywhere would have its limits if He was not eternal.  The immutability of God would be affected as well, because to cease to be would in fact be a change in His being.  I could go on and on but you can clearly see that if He is not eternal, at some point each of these attributes would be void.  

In studying this attribute, I am most drawn to the fact that He will always be the righteous judge, always be our Comforter, always be our Sustainer, and the great I AM.  Because He is eternal, His promises don’t have an expiration date, His love is always lavished upon his children, His mercy never ends, nor does His extravagant grace ever come to a close.  While we may not be able to grasp this awe-inspiring attribute, we must embrace it and worship him for it.  

As King Nebuchadnezzar learned after God dealt with his sin of pride, God is eternal, but we are not.  All that we have is God’s, our time is but a vapor, may we constantly evaluate our abilities in the light of the giver of good gifts.  Being reduced to a grass-eating, crazy wanderer will have a way of humbling one.  Nebuchadnezzar proclaims in Daniel 4:37, “...for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.”  The restored king learned his lesson well in seeing the contrast between the who and what God is---- “with an everlasting dominion, whose kingdom endures from generation to generation” to his own reality as “an inhabitant of the earth accounted as nothing”  (see Daniel 4:34-35).  James 4:14 says, “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”  Also, Psalm 144:4 says, “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”  

As we focus on the eternal God, may we gain perspective in our time-driven lives.  Before we work on our discussion questions, I’d like to close this time with Psalm 90:12-17.  May this be the prayer of our hearts.  The psalmist says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.  Return, O Lord!  How long?  Have pity on your servants!  Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.  Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.  Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.  Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!  Amen.

August- New Beginnings

This blog has fallen by the wayside.  However, I really am going to try to do a one month post of the kids' school work, activities, etc.  I know one day they will enjoy being able to look back at a record of themselves.

We started back school the first week of August, making this past week our fourth week completed.   Hooray!  A few things are different for us.  We're modifying Ambleside Online, combining it with Memoria Press Classical Curriculum.  On Wednesdays, the boys attend outside classes.  The other thing that is different this year is that the girls have a classmate.  We added our sweet neighbor, Miss B, a third grader to our homeschool.  So, on any given day at our house, we're covering first, third, fifth, ninth, and tenth grades!  Yep, I'm pretty busy!  If you see my free time somewhere out there, would you mind putting my name on it with a sharpie, so I can get it back one of these days!  Seriously though, my motto these days is "Life is hard, but God is good--- let's give Him the glory in all we do!" Even though this is the 10th year of homeschooling, and Lord willing there are twelve more to go, I know in my heart of hearts I'll miss it when it is gone.

Playing apple math with mom

Cookie Sheet Spelling

Her fabulous apple pie!

Miss Cupcake takes a "steps-forward, and a couple back" approach to learning.  You see, I am a slow learner at patience, so I need lots of PRACTICE.  I discovered some approaches to addition besides just using the math-u-see color number rods.  (She was just memorizing color, not getting concept).  I've added in some Math Mammoth (www.mathmammoth.com) for her.  I love the variety of ways the same concept is taught.  The first time she saw adding by the number line method she said, "This is the best. It is more FUNNER, Mom."  With reading, she's decoding words but with still a lot of struggling.  So, we're still taking it slow, trying to reach fluency with CVC words in short sentences.  Little Bobo is Lost is her favorite book with which we do some "buddy reading."  The book is a 1947 old school book reader I picked up at an antique store.  Little Bobo is a deer with many endearing adventures.  We are using lots of picture books for unit studies, many of which are scheduled in the Memoria Press Kindergarten Enrichment (very adaptable to first grade).  One of our favorites this month was How to Make An Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman.  We've done apple math, apple crafts, apple science, geography, and her favorite activity--making the apple pie recipe included in the book with her daddy.  Everyone enjoyed eating it.

Muffy's watercolor of grasshopper

Miss B tells us she loves homeschooling.  She is a bright and diligent student and always eager to please.  She is doing great.  We are focusing on lots of reading, providing a high quality diet of books using Sonlight reader selections, as well as some of Ambleside Online 1.  We are using some of the free lapbook ideas over at www.homeschoolshare.com.  I adapted another book unit on hot air balloons for a lapbook for the book, The Big Balloon Race by Eleanor Coerr.  She's started working on some very nice notebooking pages for learning the states and capitals, is learning cursive, and many other things.  My favorite quote from her this past month, "I really like that book, can I take it home and read it again?"  Music to a teacher's ears when reading becomes a joy rather than a task!  Unfortunately, I can't find the pics I took of her art and lapbook.  Argh!

Miss B, Muffy, and Cousin C

section of Muffy's Mandie in the Secret Tunnel canvas

Miss Muffy, our fifth grader, is working through most of Ambleside Online 4 this year.  Her literature for the first term is Robinson Crusoe.  Her assessment of it thus far is that it is a bit boring.  We've added weekly written narrations to This Country of Ours.  New courses added this year are Memoria Press First Form Latin, Memoria Press Greek Myths study, Memoria Press Insects science study, and Memoria Press Classical Composition Fables.  In her free time, she enjoys reading Cherry Ames (old 50s series about a nurse) and drawing.  She loves her art supplies.  For this term's artist study, I had the girls reproduce John Singleton Copley's portrait of Paul Revere.  She worked on it over a course of serveral days.  She also is getting fairly independent in the kitchen.  I bought her the Keepers At Home handbook which she loves working on spiritual goals, cooking goals, various craft skills, etc.  She will earn badges as she completes the items.  It is a blessing to watch her grow and mature in the faith.

Muffy's copy of Copley's "Paul Revere"

Cupcake's version of Revere, black lines on face are his veins of course!

Mr. S is in his first official year of high school.  He's not excited about biology but is getting it out of the way this year, taking the lab through an outside source.  We are having lots of pep talks about what his responsibilities are and what mine are.  His dad has taken over math with him.  It is going fine as we decided to switch curriculums and do Algebra over so he gets a good foundation.  I've modified the AO 9 for him, by primarily working through the literature and history selections, covering early American and world history.  We thought Paul Johnson's, A History of the American People would be tough, but he is enjoying it and understanding it quite well.  He's reading A Tale of Two Cities, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Gulliver's Travels for the first term (2 of which were sub. titles, not what AO scheduled).  He says The Scarlet Pimpernel is his favorite.   He's also taking an outside writing class and a Christian Worldview class.  Music still seems to be his favorite thing which keeps him busy with piano, cello, and violin.  He is also teaching Miss B piano.

Mr. E is glad to be done with biology and covering physical science this year doing the lab with an outside class, as well as a writing class and Christian Worldview.  His favorite subject is literature with history a close second, using AO 9 along with Mr. S.  There isn't a book he doesn't like.  Best quote of the month from him, "Mom, this is going to be such a great year---- all those wonderful books I get to read."  We are working with him on social/life/study skills to help him develop his full potential.  He would really like to be a middle or high school literature or history teacher and do writing on the side.  He spends a lot of time writing stories and poetry, visiting the ice cream shop, bike riding, and reading great classic literature.

My summer and most of the days are spent in school, preparing or working with the kids.  I was hoping to take some classes for women through the seminary, but decided my plate was full and will postpone those plans.  Matt is back in school at the seminary, working on his THM, while continuing to work full time.  He preached twice in August while our pastor was away.  He's busy, but is a big help keeping things going on the home front.

Till next time.

Tiffany

January

I guess you could say we've been a little busy since I haven't posted since November.  Perhaps I could manage at least one post a month.

The Cupcake is doing a new phonics program called Primary Phonics by EPS.  She has a workbook and a set of readers.  This past week she got the phonics work done to be able to read the first book, "Mac and Tab".  I'm very impressed with this program.  It has just the right amount of repetition that she needed to build confidence and succeed.  I'll be ordering level 2 very soon because the girl is making great progress; just have to keep reminding her to sound it out, NO GUESSING!  She's also working on d'nealian handwriting each day.  We've made it to letter "P" in her ABC Bible Verses book.  In math, she has learned quite well how to skip count 2's, 5's, and 10's, add with her blocks, and currently learning about time.  Last week I gave her the opportunity to make some money (and count by 10's at the same time).  I gave her a dime for every sock pair she could match.  I'm proud to say I owe her about four dollars!  (Some of those socks had been waiting for their mates for months!-- win, win, for the mom and the child.)  Favorite stories have been folktales like Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Empty Pot, Chicken Little, etc.  Sometimes she helps make a story map for re-telling.  She hasn't completely abandoned Thomas the Tank Engine in her play, but is more a fan of playing American Girl dolls with her sister these days.  She was so delighted to get Audrey Anne (a Target Our Generation doll) for Christmas along with a jeep and salon chair for the dolls.  Oh, by the way she's lost five top teeth all at once, well almost!

Muffy girl has developed a love for honey vanilla chamomile tea paired with a deliciously good book.  She started over reading A Little Princess and sometimes tells me "Sarah" is calling her (to come read and have a cup of tea).  She and her Auntie Missy are still reading Anne of Green Gables together, taking turns doing the reading out loud.  Not to be left out, she's reading The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge with her dear mommy.  We love it and some days would like to transport ourselves to Moonacre Manor and visit Maria, Miss Heliotrope, Wrolf the dog, Zechariah the cat, Sir Benjamin, and the tiny chef with the enormous vocabulary Marmaduke.  She traveled to Nepal in her mind and studies over the last few days, creating a beautiful map/flag scrapbook page, and notebook page for her geography notebook.  After finishing the Real Kids elementary biology, she decided to study about the body from the old "All About...." science series by Random House.  (This is an old series but excellent for homeschooling and getting a lot of information on a particular topic).  She enjoys drawing and labeling diagrams and pictures of what she learns.  Last week she baked chocolate chip peanut butter cookies and a butterscotch pudding pie and this week's creation was key lime pie milkshakes!  

Sir S- is busy with his school work.  He's almost done with a few of his Ambleside Online books for this term.  We're going to skip a few of the term three books and pick up some of the books from the year 8.  The reason being that will put both boys in the same place in history to do year 9 next year.  I CANNOT get enough of the readings done myself for two separate literature and history programs, so I'm tweaking to fix it for next year!  I returned from Cupcake's speech session the other day to find S and his accomplice, Muffy, both with the frizziest hairdo's ever to which he explained it was part of his physical science lab to make lightening with hair and a balloon.  He's progressing nicely with both violin and piano.  I've enjoyed some late night piano concerts as he practices from the music books he received for Christmas.  He got quite a few since that was all he really wanted this year.  He just began a new musical adventure, learning the cello.  His previous strings experience benefits him in this endeavor.  He's getting a good quality sound already.

Mr. E is such a good student.  He jumps to his studies right away to get done early enough to ride his bicycle around town before the sun goes down.  With the colder weather, the snow cone business has changed to the hot chocolate business with his helper Muffy, along with making smores with his new smores machine.  The boy loves his gadgets.  We've been working on fixing up his new room.  He was excited to finally get a bookcase for his prized possessions--- new books by Sir Walter Scott and Robert Lois Stephenson for Christmas.  He's still plugging away at biology and gee wiz I do think his book is tougher than I remember my biology class (which was even AP).  All that vocabulary!!!!  He reached the half way point in the book so there is no turning back now.  

Enough catching up for now.  

Wow, it is already November.  The leaves are just about off the trees, and it has been chilly in North Carolina.  This week marked the end of the first term which means we are 1/3 of the way through our school year already.

Cupcake is working on learning her vowels.  She's made it through the rest of the alphabet, and is making progress.  She continues to practice counting by two's and added counting by ten's this week.  I introduced her to another favorite storybook character, Milly Molly Mandy.   She learned a bit about migration, seasons, directions, and weather while I read the picture book, The Little Island each day this week.  To accompany the book, we completed her first lapbook.  A lapbook is a folder with little cut and paste notes and booklets glued to the inside.

Muffy and S- have been busy practicing for the Christmas recital as well as the next orchestra performance which will be in December.   The piano and violins are not sitting idle much lately.  They have time for a bit of fun too.  S- is still reading Oliver Twist and sometimes baking, while Miss Muffin has several books going and is learning to cross-stitch.

Our big boy is turning 15 tomorrow.  Can you believe that?  He is looking forward to birthday chocolate pies tomorrow instead of the traditional birthday cake.  He says he has been working on his annual Christmas poem, but he hasn't let me read it yet.  His nose is often in a book, especially ones relating to the middle ages.

Matt had the opportunity to preach at our church three times this past week.  He preached about Israel demanding a king.  I guess I'm a bit biased, but feel he did a very good job.  He was quite diligent with studying and preparing in the wee hours of the morning and in the evenings.

I don't have pictures of the kids work as I'd hoped too, and haven't been too good about pictures in general, but decided to give an update anyway.  Here are some pictures taken the day of the orchestra concert in October.   I'll try to get pictures of all the children next time.   -Tiffany

Letters, Queens, and Mushrooms In the Middle of Construction

Our family has not dropped off the planet.  However, we are living in a construction zone, with lots being done with floors and walls of this old house.  Plus, before that most of us had a cold bug.

Cupcake has been working hard at speech, learning to say s-blends.  Just ask her to say SPIDER.  She will grin and say it with pride.  At home, we added the letters J, K, L, R, Y, and V since our last post.  We continue to use some of the Hooked on Phonics materials, but have added handwriting and phonics sheets from www.starfall.com.  The starfall sheets have a place to paste pictures from magazines that begin with that letter.  Thank goodness the library seems to have a lot of free magazines these days.  Also, I added the C book from Go for the Code (primer to Explode the Code).   I'd gotten free somewhere.  We'll finish it and begin the Explode the Code series.  It seems to be a good fit for her.  It is exciting to see her be able to hear a word and figure out its beginning letter.  This was so hard for her at the beginning of the school year.  In math, she's learning to add doubles with her math-u-see rods.  Another thing we are doing that is a bit new is workboxes.  I have about six clear dollar store shoe boxes that I fill with various activities such as puzzles, colorful printables in a plastic sleeve with dry erase marker, vet kit (doctor kit from dollar store, with rotating tiny stuffed animals), foam letters for copying spelling for short words like bug and rug), tangrams, etc.  Mommies of littles, I'm open to new ideas.  She's always so full of energy, directed independence is good for her (and me).  She's doing a great job learning verses from her ABC Bible verses book.  We go slow with constant review to keep the previous verses learned in her memory bank.  At the store today, she said something about remember that verse, "Even a child is known by his deeds", well mommy don't you think these people in the store think I'm behaving nicely! "  There is so much she doesn't understand, but she sure is trying and soaking it all up.  She shared with God that her day had been so boring (she had to shop with her mommy and auntie) and could he please help next week not to be so boring!!!

Demonstrating Letter "K"

Princesses and queens have been a big part of the Muffy girl's studies.  The last three weeks have been about Lady Grey, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth.  For one of her written narrations, she decided to do a creative narration in the form of a poem.  I'll copy it below for you.  The Muffy girl was disappointed in Queen Elizabeth.  After her reading yesterday she said with a frown and a sigh, "I really wish Elizabeth hadn't been so vain."  She also learned about the French colony of the Huegnots in Florida, called Fort Caroline.  Next time we go to Florida, we'd like to go visit the historical site.  It isn't too far from her grandmother.  In her free time, she's enjoying Cherry Ames and On the Banks of Plum Creek.

          Cruel Mary 

Muffy and her vacuum cleaner scarecrow

Mary was very extraordinary
And not in a very nice way.
Lady Grey reigned only a few days
Before Mary beheaded her.

Elizabeth had no power
And so she was thrown in the tower
Since Mary was so cruel.

Even though she was ill 
The soldiers took Elizabeth still
Because Mary had no pity.

King Philip cracked the whip
On the poor people of England.

Mary used the man from Spain
To regain the Roman Catholic faith.

And so she earned the name of 
"Bloody Mary."

S celebrated his 13th birthday last week!  Our house was a bit too out of order for company so we went to his grandparents house, grilled some burgers, and had a yummy chocolate chocolate chip violin cake.  One of his presents was a beautiful wooden music stand.  We've repaired (taped) his old yellow metal one a zillion times.  It was hard to keep the secret when he was begging the last few weeks up to the birthday to please take him to the music store and get him another stand.  He's covering the life of King Alfred in his history studies.  He's starting to make connections between the various books he's reading.  This is one of the things Charlotte Mason believed in with this kind of education for students to make their own connections.  We only have three weeks left of the 1st 12-week term.  S- and the Muffy girl have their first orchestra concert tomorrow.  They are excited about it.

Another teenager in the family

See, I can do something other than Ipad.

E finished Ivanhoe this week, which he loved.  He wrote four essays to end the study of that book.  He was excited to begin The Talisman, also written by Sir Walter Scott.  In biology, he just finished a module about fungi.  Yes, I did embarrass some of my children at the outlet mall parking lot when I picked some mushrooms from a grassy tree area.  I think they walked a bit faster so maybe people wouldn't think I was related to them.  Unfortunately, we didn't have much success getting the spores out to see under the microscope.   A couple of years ago I bought him the Grace and Truth boys character series.  For some reason, he started reading them one after the other and has just about finished the set.  They are reprints of very old books.  Maybe having his reading ability restored to him after last year has made him appreciate books much more.  He's been working on a big list of what he wants for his birthday---can you believe he will be 15 in a couple of weeks?

As usual, Matt and I are busy keeping the house a float.  We've also been busy with church activities.  He's still teaching adult sunday school and had the opportunity to preach last Sunday night.  I spoke on the second half of Ruth at our new ladies Bible study this week.  It brings me joy that we share a passion and vision for ministry.

I hope I'll get some good pictures of the house and the kid's concert for the next post.  That is all for now.  This post was brought to you by the letter K!

A Breath of Fresh Mountain Air

One of the benefits of homeschooling is getting to take vacations when most folks are in school.  This means better rates and fewer crowds.  Plus, after five rather intense weeks of school we really needed to get out of the house.  If I could live in two places at once, I'd live here at home and Lake Lure.  I love the mountains in general, but Lake Lure is one of the most beautiful spots in North Carolina in my opinion.

We spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday doing a bit of relaxing, playing pool at the cabin, me working on my Japan presentation for homeschool co-op, picking apples,  hiking at Chimney Rock State Park, and a pontoon boat ride across Lake Lure.  We also enjoyed several Lamplighter Theater audio dramas in the car.  Everyone's favorite was A Peep Behind the Scenes, closely followed by Charlie's Choice.  I can't even begin to tell you how good they are, both the books and the audio dramas.  The spiritual truths are so good, always causing me to tear up a bit.  Few books these days are as well written as these timeless treasures from days long past.

It is probably goofy looking but we all wore brown for our trip to get apples, thinking we'd find lots of pumpkins as well for a fall picture.  However, we were too early this year for that.  The apple farm did have a few pumpkins for decoration that we used to get a picture of the girls.  At the apple orchard we were introduced to the Ambrosia and the Mutsu varieties.  The kids love the sweet Ambrosias.  We also picked Fuji and Cameos.  The kids had some yummy apple slushies to cool them off.  The apple experience would not have been complete without the apple cider doughnuts and apple cider we bought for breakfast.  Delicious!

Sewing a tiny purse for her sister's church offerings

And now that I've just made myself hungry, I'll leave you with some pictures and I'll find a snack!

Everyone got a turn to drive, except Mom

Momma, phonics is better with plum tea!

Lake Lure (taken from the boat)

My Sweet Pumpkins

Sweet Little Apples

Pick a bit faster, that sun is bright!

Ride almost over-- guess we can't keep the boat.

One of our attempts at a fall picture

Growing Boys--Opposite as Night and Day

We just noticed S has also passed his momma in height

Chimney Rock Hickory Nut Falls

Hickory Nut Falls, Careful Slippery Rocks

"The Chimney"  Kids are on the rock near steps

Yummy Science and the Not So Tasty Looking Science

While the local schools around here began their first week of school, we completed our fourth.   I'm so glad to have those first few behind us!  We are already one-third of the way through our first term.

C for Cat and D for Dinosaur

Today I met with a team at the local school to go over Cupcake's full evaluation.  It was encouraging that most areas of cognitive development, she is on target or pretty close.  Given her start in life, we feel she will catch up in the ones that were on the low side.  The greatest concern is her speech and language.  Articulation is a big area of concern, as well as some of the receptive language.  She will be getting two speech therapy appointments each week for a year.  The goal is to work on about eight sounds.  Some of her errors are consistent with what they see with previous hearing loss.  Now that she is hearing in normal limits, they must retrain her brain out of the habits set in place when she wasn't hearing the right sounds.    It finally clicked with me during the meeting that her problems with phonics are LARGELY related to the speech, which in turn relates to the hearing.  Another goal will be to increase her vocabulary so she can catch up to her age of peers.  I told her today that she would be getting help with her talking soon, and that the people are excited about helping her.  She said, "Oh, they excited? They jump up and down?"

Learning to work on a task indepedently

We did not do any new letters this week but gave more focused attention to "C" and "D".   Cupcake did much better with letter sound games this week.  I decided to give only three choices of letter cards to pick from for beginning sounds.  She did some very nice upper and lower case D handwriting pages.     For story time, we enjoyed cat stories, her favorites being Tom Kitten and Miss Moppet.  For art, we did a draw-write page on the cat.  Hers turned out so cute.  Aunt C., doesn't it look just like Picasso?  Another project involved cutting out the letter "D", some shapes, and glue for a D is for Dinosaur (see pic above).  For math, we began working with the Math-U-See colored bars, similar to c-rods.  This week she had to match up the bars for each number with the same number of units.  For example six ones (individual green units) to the purple bar that is one piece but the equivalent of six.  This is supposed to be very important concept before we begin adding them.  She's enjoyed continuing to create numbers with the hundreds, tens, and units.  I love that she is finding numbers EVERYWHERE and practicing what she's learned with the tens and hundreds-- in books, street signs, clocks, etc.

The edible cell--MMM mitochondria!

Muffy enjoyed a delicious science lesson this week.  She baked and decorated a cake to show the parts of an animal cell.  She spent a great deal of time making a list of what would best represent each part.  Needless to say, she likes her biology lessons.  For history, she did a very nice timeline notebook page of King Henry VIII, and in case you didn't know he had a tendency to cut off people's heads.  You would not want to have been one of his wives!  In literature, she thoroughly enjoyed The Merchant of Venice in Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.  She loves the Princess and the Goblin and wishes she would be allowed to read it faster.  It is scheduled for the whole first term.  I had to convince her dad that it is part of the philosophy and program to not read it straight through.  Charlotte Mason believed that children make more lasting connections with their studies if taken in challenging but small doses over a longer period of time.  Of course, her free reading can be done at whatever pace she chooses!  She is filling up a commonplace book of quotes in her books that strike her fancy-- from school selections and those for fun.

The pre-details before the experiment

S- continued reading in his many AO selections for school this week.  I think he's improving on his reading speed with the school load.  He says Ivanhoe is getting much more interesting and easier to read.  (I've dropped it for me now along with Birth of Britain, as his dad is covering those).  In Brenden Voyage, the ox-hide canoe replica is finished and ready to set sail.  It is amazing the lengths they went to in making the vessel as accurate as possible.  This was experiments week for his physical science module, so some messes were made in the kitchen.  He learned what happens when you use a little bit too much baking soda with your vinegar, oops!  Speaking of vinegar, I really need to put it in a permanent position on the grocery list like milk, or otherwise, buy an enormous bottle.  It seems when I need it to mop the floor, SOMEONE has used it up!  One of his experiments involved showing that a candle lit under a jar will go out due to lack of oxygen, but a balloon filled with oxygen gas pumped under the jar and into it will keep it lit.


E- and I were busy with Shakespeare's historical play, King John.  Thank goodness for Spark Notes on the computer.  At first we read a portion of the play, followed by the Spark Notes.  Then I got wise, and reversed that order.  The history curriculum guide said to read it out loud and that it should only take two sittings.  Well, we did four sittings this week and did not finish it.  Since the play is taking longer than planned for, I had him go ahead and begin Ivanhoe.  Yep, different curriculum from S- but same book.  Beautiful Feet's plan goes through it much quicker, as this counts for literature and history.  For free reading and extra literature, he finished Howard Pyle's Men of Iron.  I do believe that might be one of his most favorite books.  I never asked for narrations for this free-read----He ALWAYS gave them with lots of details.   This has been his experiment week for his module in biology too.  So, he and his dad have been enjoying the microscope (actually everyone wants to use it!).  They set up some yummy looking jars on my kitchen counter--- pond water cultures for bacteria being fed by various things- rice, egg yolk, grass, and dirt.  Hmm, I think my canning jars are going to get a lot of science use this year.  We added an elective that is still in the trial stage, although I'm inclined to keep it.  I found a physical geography e-book online for free.  I think we should be able to get at least a half credit from it.  Then we might do Bible geography for the other half.

The microscope owners-sometimes they share!

Matt and I seem to just manage to keep up the fort.  With two doing high school work, it is definitely becoming a bit more of a team effort to homeschool.  I'm thankful he has taken over S's history, two of S's  literature selections, E's biology, and one of the Muffy girl's literature selections.  I am making the time to run, and am finally starting to see better numbers on the scale.  Little sis encouraged me to time my 2 mile run, and I was pleasantly surprised with a total of 22 minutes!  Just like everything these days, discipline and slow but steady progress eventually pay off.

Happy weekend everyone.