To cultivate an ongoing spirit of thankfulness, I'm thinking through the things - both big and small - that I want to thank the Lord for sending into my life.

Last week my daughter and I were focusing on "Being a Thankful Woman" in our Bible study that we do together. We came across this challenging thought - What if God took away from you everything you've never thanked Him for giving you? Like a waiter taking back your food because you were ungrateful or like a grandparent taking back a birthday gift because you showed no appreciation for it... what would be taken away from you if God saw your lack of thanks-giving as a true lack of appreciation for the gifts He's given?

I am certainly not saying that God will do that. Or even that He is keeping a tally of things we thank Him for and things we don't.

I am suggesting that He has given us THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS of blessings, gifts, relationships, and joys. We should not be lacking in finding something new each day to focus on and say "Thank You, Father!"

I am reminded of the 10 lepers who were healed by Christ in Luke 17. Only one took the time to return to Christ and express his gratitude. The rest went on with life. I'm sure they were rejoicing, probably ecstatic to return to their families after being outcasts. Even though they had so much to be thankful for, they failed to give thanks to the One who healed them and caused them so much joy.

So today, I am thankful for the Bible. I am thankful for the Word of God that is still living and active and powerful and speaking to our lives this very day. How lost we would be without God's Word to guide us through this life and lead us to Him!

Let him who has eyes to see see what the Father has bestowed... and give Him thanks!

What are you most thankful for today?

3/16/2011

Cutting onions. I hate it. I cry every time.

Recently I came across this tip: cut the onion in your sink while running a slow stream of water over it. The water will wash away the vapors, instead of them being released into the air and bombarding your eyes!

I tried it. It worked. I will never again be brought to tears over an onion! :-)

I've also heard - but not tried or verified - that putting the onion in the freezer for 15 minutes before you cut it will tame the vapors.

No more tears! It works for me!

We have been reading through the Little House series and are now finishing book two - Little House on the Prairie.

We'd read the first book a few times in recent years, but this one is new to my daughter. I love to read of Laura's life and see those experiences through my daughter's eyes. The history is so rich, lending itself to further study in many areas.

In this book, the Ingalls family leaves the Big Woods of Wisconsin and heads west in their covered wagon. They settle in Indian Territory where they start a new life for themselves - building the house and stable from the ground up. A chapter is devoted to how Pa built the chimney for the house and another for the roof. It is eye-opening to see how much work was put into basic shelter and finding food. We take so much for granted now that they used to have to do by hand.

Indians play a large role in this book and eventually the Ingalls are forced off the land on which they built because the government is giving that specific land to the Indians. These events led to some insightful questions from my daughter about how the early settlers treated the Indians and vice versa.

A favorite chapter told of the family's first Christmas on the prairie. My daughter was amazed at how thrilled the children were with their very simple gifts - a shiny new tin cup, a candy cane, a sugar cookie/cake, and a new penny.

We highly recommend this classic book - Little House on the Prairie!

For those homeschoolers out there: check out the free lapbooking materials available here for this book!

3/14/2011

My 7-year-old daughter is so pretty. She's a girly-girl, who loves to be the princess, all dressed up in dresses and jewelry. Even so, we often remind her that it's more important to be beautiful on the inside than to be beautiful on the outside. One's character is much more important than what they look like on the outside.

1 Samuel 16:7 that says "People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

1 Peter 3:3-4 tells us that "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, but rather it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight." I love this verse as it's so clear about what is of "great worth" in God's sight! No doubt about it (like asking your husband, "Do I look good in this?"). God is clear about what He defines as beauty.

Recently both myself and my daughter have been challenged in how much we really believe these verses.

My daughter has been sick (like the rest of us). In wiping her nose so much, she wiped the tip of her nose completely raw! It is now a big red scab. When she gets sick or stressed, she also develops cold sores. Not small and not just one - these are large and are like a big cluster of cold sores. These showed up to make her nose and lip all the more red and sore. To add to it, one of her teeth is loose and almost out, so she has a crooked tooth and sometimes blood in her mouth.


Here she is, a few days ago, with her dangling loose tooth and all.

So, she is hesitant to go to church or anywhere in public. She knows she doesn't look good. She is naturally shy and doesn't want to attract attention. That is a bit impossible with the big red scab on her nose! So she is being pushed a bit out of her comfort zone. And she is being challenged - Can she be confident when she doesn't look good? Can she consider herself beautiful because of what's inside regardless of what is outside?

And as her mother, I am challenged too. I want to protect my little girl from the stares, the gasps, all of the "Whoa! What happened to you?!" questions we've had recently. Can I feel the concern behind the statements? Can I focus on my girl's inward beauty, to model for her the lesser importance of the external? Can I walk with her through her suffering, through feeling like the ugly duckling?

There's a lesson to be learned. The truth is that all of us, young and old, will eventually face the day when we're not beautiful on the outside - at least by this world's standards. By then it will be too late to start cultivating that inward beauty that is of great worth to God.

An important lesson - for the 7-year-old and the 33-year-old! :-)

3/10/2011

I've mentioned more than once that we've been sick lately. The reality is that all 4 of us have been sick off and on for over 3 weeks.

The good news: my son, my daughter and myself are all about 95% healthy these days! Coughs are lingering and my daughter's chapped nose looks terrible, but we are on the road to recovery and we are oh-so thankful for that!

The bad news is that my hold-out husband now has the full-blown version of it. Sinus inflammation, coughs, sneezing, drainage, tired, lack of appetite. He's missed one day of work this week, so far.

So why is this part of a Thankful Thursday post?

Maybe it's just me, but whenever I'm sick I realize how much I take my good health for granted the rest of the time. Most days I get up and do my daily tasks without a second thought about how healthy I am, how blessed I am to be able to do what I do without pain, without any physical issues to slow me down. So even though no one in my family is 100% healthy right now, I am thanking the Lord for health. For the good health we enjoy the rest of the year. For healthy bodies, healthy minds, healthy spirits. And I often ask that He would make us more mindful of these things and therefore my likely to give Him thanks and praise.

When was the last time you thanked the Lord for a healthy body? Don't take it for granted - it's truly a gift from God!

I have a friend who is 40 years old and has been close to death in recent months. She was dying of a living disease and her only hope was to receive a new liver. She just got that new liver so we'll see how things progress from here. Each time I pray for her, her husband and her 3 young children, I also thank the Lord for the good health He's given me. I don't want to take it for granted nor do I want Him - the Giver of all good gifts - to think I'm ungrateful.

What are you thankful for today?

3/8/2011

It's been a long week, with sickness and some other stressful situations happening at our house. Yesterday, though, there was one big bright spot in my day - I won a book! Peak 313, a blog that I follow, was giving away a few copies of Candace Cameron Bure's book "Reshaping It All" last week. I entered. And I was notified yesterday because I won!

I'm excited about winning this book because:

• The sitcom that Candace Cameron was a part of (Full House) was my favorite TV show for years. Just to see what she's up to these days will be fun.
  
• I have been trying to make lifestyle changes in recent months with the goal of living healthier. So I expect to be challenged and encouraged by this book.

3/7/2011

It's Monday. We are still battling illness at our house. We have plans tomorrow and Wednesday, so I am hoping we are better by then!

Prayers are appreciated. Thank you!

3/3/2011

My daughter and I are starting a new series of books - the Little House on the Prairie series. This week we read the first book - Little House in the Big Woods. This is one of our favorite books. We have read it together at least once before, but we have never continued on with the other books in the series.

One of my favorite parts of homeschooling is that younger children can be a part of the learning process too. My son is only 3 years old, but listened intently as we read most of this book. He especially enjoyed the pages with pictures, but sat through it all. Being read to is so good for him - to expand his vocabulary, to deepen his love for books, to let his imagination soar. This book is a great one for boys as well as girls, since there is plenty of talk about guns and hunting and bears!

Little House in the Big Woods - a timeless classic for all ages!

Some related items:

• To see my blog post about a field trip to step back into pioneer days, click here.

• For the blog post I did about the lapbook my daughter did to go along with the Little House in the Big Woods book, go here. The link to the website where I found the FREE lapbook materials is included in the post.

• To see the pretzel log cabin my daughter made last year when we read this book, click here.

3/2/2011

The thought of having a meeting about a budget may send some folks running for the hills. That'd be my husband. On the other hand, I am a numbers nerd who actually enjoys balancing income and expenses, creating Excel spreadsheets and knowing exactly where our money will (and does) go. One of my household duties is to track our expenses and to create a budget draft for us to discuss. At the start of each new month, we sit down together and have a Budget Committee Meeting. :-)

My hubby's job is to be a part of the discussion. He doesn't have to do anything but be present and participate with me in a discussion about how to spend our money. We look over the budget draft I created based on this month's expenses. Although I do the prep work, my husband is a vital part of the discussion. "We" does not mean "me" when it comes to our money. We talk about it. We decide together how much money we could spend this month on any negotiable areas (such as home improvement projects). In the past, we have actually both signed the budget as a way to say "we agree" to carry out the plans we established here on paper.

Here are some benefits of holding a monthly Budget Committee Meeting:
1) Accountability - we both look together at the previous month and see where we stayed on track and where we overspent. The numbers speak for themselves - no hiding anything here!
2) Just in Case - since we discuss our financial situation monthly, if anything ever happened to me, my husband would be fairly current on our financial status. There would be no surprise bills showing up. And he knows where to find our financial documents, just in case.
3) Shared Goals - there is power in working together to make shared dreams a reality. We discuss our goals together and then come up with a game plan to baby-step our way to them. When we aim for a goal and reinforce that importance of that goal each month at our meeting, we are both more likely to do our part to curb spending in other areas and to do our part to help accomplish our shared goal.
4) Celebrate Financial Victories - to be on the same page, working together financially, makes each financial victory so much sweeter! To see how far we've come in paying down debt, to celebrate together as a credit card is paid off and cut up, to take a vacation together after saving our pennies for months and months, to save up to give extra to a special missions project... all of these are sweeter because we can celebrate together. We each did our part and can see the fruit of our labors.

It works for me! Visit "We Are That Family" for other Works-for-Me-Wednesday posts.

3/1/2011

We enjoyed a field trip last weekend to the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan (thanks to our family's "adopted" grandparents Greg and Ruth)

For us to get to Kalamazoo was just about a 2-hour drive. Then we spent a few hours at the Air Zoo. There were planes, helicopters, hot air balloons and shuttles to see.

The kids enjoyed some rides, while my husband especially enjoyed the military planes and their history. Admission is free, but the rides cost extra. There was more to it than we could see, as one part was closed for remodeling (due to re-open in June). But overall we enjoyed the trip!

Visit the Air Zoo website to learn more or plan your visit!

2/24/2011

I've been thinking a lot about seasons lately. The changing seasons. Each so beautiful, each so unique. How God timed the seasons so perfectly - a few months of one thing and our human tendency is to get bored with it and want to have something new.

This led me to ponder the seasons of life, especially with children. During their early years, our children are constantly growing, changing, moving from one season to another. From a season of newborn stillness to a season of movement with crawling and walking. From a season of silence into a season of talking. Seasons of fast physical growth and seasons of slower physical growth while they grow in other ways.

Constantly changing.

The last few months have felt like changing seasons to me. Last summer was a season of busyness. Last fall was a season of preparation, as we delved back into homeschooling and preparing for foster parenting. This winter has felt like a season of renewal - lots of time spent indoors, refocusing time and attention on family. It has felt like a season of waiting, of anticipation as we wait for our next fostering opportunity. It feels much like waiting for spring, waiting for what we know is coming, waiting for what God has planned and in some ways wishing it were here already. Like spring's arrival, we know it's coming but we don't know exactly when it will arrive. Sooner. Later. We wait. And we use the waiting time to be strengthened, to be rejuvenated.

I thank the Lord for the changing seasons - the beauty and uniqueness of each one.

2/22/2011

Recently we read The Courage of Sarah Noble. I was surprised at how much I liked this book and wondered (as I have many times in the past) why I'd never read it before! There are so many wonderful books out there for children... I feel like I'm discovering a whole new world!

This book is short, making it easy to read in just one or two sittings. Sarah Noble is just 8 years old when she travels with her father to the site of what will be their new home. The setting is back in early America, early 1700s when the threat of an Indian attack was real. Sarah cooks for her father, while he works to build the family's new home. She befriends the nearby Indians and learns an important lesson - people are people, no matter where you go, no matter what they look like. When Sarah's father finishes the house (with the help of the Indians), he needs to return to get the rest of the family. He leaves Sarah in the care of his Indian friend. Eventually her father and the rest of her family return to live in the new house that her father had built.

Sarah faced many scary situations with courage and true bravery. Honestly I don't think I would've reacted with such courage had I been in those same situations... and she was only 8 years old! What a story... and it's true! Heart-warming and inspiring for young and old alike.

Perhaps I liked the story all the more because of the courage I lack... and the fact that my daughter is very much like me! This book made the point that you might just make a new friend or discover a whole new world if you have the courage to take the first step.

Two thumbs up for The Courage of Sarah Noble!

I found this idea at Courtney's Blog here and decided to try it recently. It was easy and delicious. My kids gobbled it up, so this recipe is definitely a keeper!

I made one change - instead of using a refrigerated pizza crust, I made homemade pizza dough (using the bread machine). Otherwise followed the recipe. Rolled our the dough. Layered on cheese and pepperoni. Rolled up. Sprinkled with a few seasonings. Baked. Dipped in pizza sauce. Enjoyed!

One of our all-time favorite read-aloud books is Mr. Popper's Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater.

This is such a fun story of a regular guy, Mr. Popper, who is given a penguin. Soon he is given another penguin because the first one was lonely and soon after that there are 10 baby penguins in the picture! Mr. Popper remodels his home to accommodate the penguins and eventually comes to the conclusion that he should train his penguins to perform an act (which could pay for the remodeling, the fresh fish and other costs associated with a dozen penguins). The show goes on the road and the crew have some laugh-out-loud moments on the stage.

While there are a few educational tidbits in this book, we love it more for the fun storyline than anything else. Just the idea of having a pet penguin sends your imagination soaring. The reading level for this book is around 4th grade, but as a read-aloud it is appropriate for ages 5-10. We've read it numerous times in the last few years and both my daughter and I want to pick it up and enjoy it again.

Four thumbs up - from me and my daughter - for Mr. Popper's Penguins!

In December, one of the blogs that I follow, 5 Dollar Dinners, was doing a 12 Days of Christmas giveaway for her new cookbook. I ended up winning and have the hot off the press cookbook in hand! I've looked through all 300 pages and marked recipes that I will try. I actually tried the first one yesterday - homemade granola - which was a yummy addition to my homemade yogurt.

So far so good! Thanks Erin for the giveaway and cookbook!