Oh, wow.
{tears}
Do you have 15 minutes to go watch something? I just finished watching an adoption story.... twice. Once alone, once with Ella. I *loved* this adoption story, and how the character of God is
revealed through it.
In an effort to "hook" you to go watch, this is a family (The Via family) in the process of adopting a little girl, Chloe, from Uganda. They find out that Chloe is not granted a visa, so she is not able to come home to them.
So they decide to bring home to her.
Go here to watch. (Follow the link, watch the video (4:58) at the
top of the page, and then watch the video at the bottom (10:09)).
Loved this.
~Stacy
ABC Hunt, Take 2!
Major parenting fail, here. A couple of weeks ago I was singing the ABC song with the little girls and it became apparent that Audra isn't super familiar with that song. #youngestchild #sorryaudra ;)
This is not to say that she doesn't know her ABC's. She does. And she knows the sounds most of them make. And she can write all of her uppercase letters and is learning her lowercase letters. But. The ABC song? Not so much.
I'd been meaning to put up the alphabet somewhere around our house for the girls, so I did that recently. And now we're practicing the song.
This reminded me of a game I started doing back when Isaac was in Kindergarten (*sob* about him being five. I love memories of Isaac-at-five.) We did a game called "ABC Hunt".
This is not to say that she doesn't know her ABC's. She does. And she knows the sounds most of them make. And she can write all of her uppercase letters and is learning her lowercase letters. But. The ABC song? Not so much.
I'd been meaning to put up the alphabet somewhere around our house for the girls, so I did that recently. And now we're practicing the song.
This reminded me of a game I started doing back when Isaac was in Kindergarten (*sob* about him being five. I love memories of Isaac-at-five.) We did a game called "ABC Hunt".
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| ^^^These are Isaac's chubby little five-year-old hands and his wobbly five-year-old handwriting. |
So this morning I did this with the girls. I just traced a plate onto cardstock and cut out the circle, then glued it onto a craft stick and did some cutting and writing. They thought it was pretty fun. :) The only rule was that they couldn't stand in front of the alphabet on the wall and flip their little tabs. ;)
Fixing our gaze
Encouraged and exhorted by these excerpts from the book Women of the Word, by Jen Wilkin:
We must make a study of our God: what He loves, what He hates, how He speaks and acts. We cannot imitate a God whose features and habits we have never learned. We must make a study of Him if we want to become like Him. We must seek His face.
We become what we behold. Do you believe that? Whether passively or actively, we become conformed to the pattern we spend the most time studying.
Upon what is your gaze fixed? ...It is the nature of this life that we must fight daily to make room in our line of sight for that-which-transcends. Many things hold a legitimate claim on our attention, but when our eyes are free from the two-year-old or the spreadsheet or the textbook or the dinner dishes, where do we turn them? If we spend our time gazing only on lesser things, we will become like them, measuring our years in terms of human glory.
By fixing our gaze on [His] face, we trade mere human glory for holiness: "Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we are] transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another" (2 Corin. 3:18)
There are really only two possibilities in this life: be conformed to the image of God or be conformed to the pattern of this world. No doubt, you want the former. So make a faithful study of the One you want to imitate, as a dearly loved child. Study everything that makes God wonderful and mimic to your heart's delight, as the joyful expression of your reciprocal love for Him. Respond as David did, "My heart says to you, 'Your face, LORD, do I seek'' (Ps. 27:8). To the one that seeks Him, the Lord is pleased to lift up His countenance.
Good reads on the web and some organizational stuff
Well. Somehow I've injured my foot and I'm hobbling around the house- seeing all the things I can't do as easily and wishing for pain-free walking. But tomorrow I get to find out what the doctor says. Peeking in here a day late to let you in on some reading I've enjoyed around the web, and some things I'm doing on the homeschooling/organization front:
I hope you're having a wonderful day! Mark is just wrapping up two days off in.a.row (unheard of!) and so it's been a great two days and I am loving it. Blessings to you all...
~Stacy
- Foster Care: It's Just Too Difficult is a beautiful post on foster care. Katy Rose shares her heart as she fosters and it reminded me of our own experience. And I love what she says about it being a family's ministry. So true.
- I always love Heather's book lists, and she does not disappoint with her September/October Book List.
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| My carry-around-with-me-throughout-the-day clipboard |
- I really appreciated Misty's recent series of 31 Homeschool Lists. I read this post (and watched her video) and was inspired to re-vamp the top sheet of my carry-around clipboard, and I started filling out daily index cards. I also made daily checklists for my older three kids after reading this post. (I tried this once before, a couple years ago, and it was a flop, so I'm trying it again, in an effort to get the kids working more independently without having to rely on my to-do-today list on the dry erase board.)
I hope you're having a wonderful day! Mark is just wrapping up two days off in.a.row (unheard of!) and so it's been a great two days and I am loving it. Blessings to you all...
~Stacy
