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Credits: Project Life Templates – Becky Higgins
Grass is Greener Where You Water It – Lauren Grier (papers & elements)
Roughin’ It – Heather Roselli
Bits & Bytes Weekly Title Cards – Nettio Designs

I’ve gotten a bit behind in everything lately.

My computer is running super slow and that makes digital scrapbooking dreadful. So, I’ve had a hard time sitting down to scrap anything at all, including Project Life.

The threat of getting too far behind was what finally pushed me to sit down and just deal with the slow moving brain of my computer to get a spread done this afternoon.

I was reminded of the importance of preserving our memories while watching the new Superman movie with my husband this weekend. After the Kent home was destroyed the one thing that Mrs. Kent held onto was her photo book. The memories we make together as a family are so important…in many ways, they’re what make our families unique. Scrapbooking isn’t just a little hobby and by no means is it a waste of time as some may think, it’s vital to preserving the memories that we work so hard to make.

How are you preserving your family’s precious memories?

My husband had quite the weekend as we celebrated his birthday last Thursday and then Father’s Day yesterday.

I am so thankful that God brought Keith into my life. He is so much more than I could have ever asked for in a husband and a father to our children.

He teaches me so much about life and being a kid at heart.

Have you seen this Velveeta cheese commercial showcasing the “guy at the mall” who flies helicopters?

It’s pretty funny!

My husband loves it…as soon as he saw the commercial, he said that he wanted to be like that guy at the mall….just enjoying life flying his helicopters.

In fact, Keith loved it so much that he added a remote controlled helicopter to his Amazon wish list.

I considered getting it for him for his birthday, but then read in the description that it is for indoor use only.

I wasn’t a big fan of the idea of a flying helicopter inside my house, so I passed.

Only to get a phone call from my mom a few days later letting me know that she sent Keith’s birthday present…the remote controlled helicopter from his wish list.

Keith can always count on my mom to get the best, most fun presents for him!

He has had a blast the past few days flying his helicopter around the house.

And I have had the best time watching him and laughing with him.

My husband works so hard for our family.

He gives and gives and gives some more so that we can have a good life.

He sacrifices time and energy to provide for us.

He serves God faithfully.

He ministers to Army soldiers day in and day out, many times without thanks or recognition.

He leads our family and guides us lovingly.

Seeing this smile on his face as he enjoys himself flying a little remote controlled helicopter brings me such joy.

I desire to be an encouragement to my husband and I am so thankful that my children and I were able to celebrate him last week.

We are so very close to finishing up our school year. Just a few more math lessons to go and we’re calling ourselves done until we start back again in August!

As we’re finishing up and I’m making final decisions about next year’s curriculum (it’s a never-ending process, isn’t it?) I thought it would be fun to do reviews of what we used this year.

I’m doing this to evaluate what worked and didn’t work this year and as a reference for others who may be searching for next year’s curriculum themselves.

I’m going to make this a series of posts on Thursdays for the next several weeks and we’re going to get started with our core curriculum, Sonlight.

Sonlight is a literature based curriculum that we have used since the beginning. I started my twin girls with Sonlight’s P3/4 curriculum when they were three. It basically just consisted of sitting together and reading books…I loved it!! This was a wonderful way to begin our homeschool journey.

I have continued using Sonlight as our core curriculum every year except last year, when I tried a piecing together a classical curriculum on my own.

I debated again this year whether I would continue using Sonlight and evaluated lots of factors in making my decision.

If there is one thing that I want to give my children through homeschool, it is a love for books and for reading books, especially quality books, like the ones that Sonlight includes in their cores.

I strongly believe that books can open up new worlds for my children and shine a light of understanding of the “old” worlds that I want them to learn as we study history.

With a love of reading, my children can learn anything else that they are interested in…there’s no stopping them!

I love and appreciate the foundation that Sonlight has given my family in this area so, I have decided to continue using Sonlight as our core curriculum.

When I say core curriculum, I am speaking of Bible, History, Literature and Read-alouds. I have chosen to supplement Sonlight’s language arts program quite heavily, and I will be reviewing the materials I use for that in a separate post.

This year my girls, second grade, completed Sonlight’s Core C program, the second year of World History. We covered the time period from the fall of Rome through modern world history. Through the books that we read together this year, we traveled through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and more. We prayed for countries and people groups all around the world. My daughters were just reminiscing last night about how they have enjoyed all the books we read this year.

I started Will, my kindergartener, with Sonlight’s Core A, Intro to the World: Cultures. A few weeks into this year’s school year, it became apparent that he just was not ready to continue on with this core. He is a very typical boy and did not have the maturity to sit, listen, and grasp the concepts that were being taught in this core. So, I decided to focus my time with him this year on learning to read, handwriting and math. I am so glad that I did! He made a ton of progress throughout the year and has learned so much because I stepped back and did what was really best for him at this time.

I was quite perplexed as to what I should do for next year, but after speaking to a Sonlight advisor, I am so confident in the decisions that I have made and {almost} can’t wait to get started again!

If you use Sonlight’s curriculum or are even considering it, but aren’t sure how to make it work with your family, I would strongly encourage you to call a Sonlight advisor. I felt so encouraged and empowered after making that call myself!

If you are looking for a literature based core curriculum, I would highly recommend Sonlight. It has served us well and I know it will continue to do so for many more years to come!

I joined a Good Morning Girls group for the first time last week and I am so excited about it!!! I have always wanted to do this but didn’t step out to join a group. Last week I saw a friend of mine comment about the group on Facebook and I asked to join. I am so glad that I did!

Along with reading and journaling through scripture (using the SOAP method) I’m reading Anything by Jennie Allen. Anything is challenging me to desire more in my walk with God. It is making me think beyond the status quo of just being a good Christian to desiring a life that really matters.

I want a life that is surrendered to God.

I want to be courageous in my walk with Christ and how I share it with others.

Anything is challenging me to do that.

I started reading Daring Greatly after listing to a discussion about it on The Digi Show, a digital scrapbooking podcast.

This book by researcher Brene Brown discusses the power of vulnerability and how embracing vulnerability leads to wholehearted living. She also discusses the power of shame and our reactions to it in our lives.

Daring Greatly is based on years of research by Brene Brown and it is truly impacting my thoughts on creativity (mainly in scrapbooking), in how I live my life, my faith, and especially my parenting.

The title Daring Greatly comes from this quote by Theodore Roosefelt -

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

Wow! I don’t know about you, but I want to be in the arena, face marred by dust and sweat and blood, striving valiantly in everything I do.

If I fail in life, I want to do so while daring greatly.

If you want to learn more about Daring Greatly, check out Brene Brown’s blog and listen to her TED talk.

What are you reading right now?

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As you can see, the big event of last week was celebrating Jenny’s birthday.

We didn’t have a party for her this year. Instead we had a park play date with friends and we had a family party. She was so excited to be three…she’s been claiming to be three for so long anyway!

At the beginning of the week, I took Will out to Target to spend his birthday gift card and we stopped by McDonald’s for a chocolate dipped ice cream cone.

The girl are really into playing chess. They beg their daddy to play with them almost every night. As Keith was grilling our dinner on Monday evening, he brought the chess set outside for the girls to play. They’re pretty good, even through at this point their main concern is taking the other person’s pieces. My husband is convinced that they’re going to be dangerous when they start to learn some strategy.

We had a retreat for senior leaders in my husband’s brigade. I was able to share my Army story with the leaders and their spouses. I loved being able to speak to them and get to know our new Army family here at Ft. Bliss!

Credits: Project Life Templates – Becky Higgins
Bits & Bytes Weekly Title Cards – Nettio Designs
A Girls Perfect Birthday – Jady Day Studio

Post linked to: Project Life Tuesday at The Mom Creative

I took one Wilton cake decorating class when I was pregnant with EA and MC over eight years ago and had to drop out because I was sick. BUT I did learn out to make the little stars that cover shaped cakes. So…this is the extent of my cake decorating skills.

Will had a Star Wars themed party since he is obsessed with Star Wars right now. I searched everywhere for a shaped pan. I fount a Wilton Darth Vader shaped pan, but wasn’t crazy about making an all black bad guy cake for Will’s birthday. I also found some old R2D2 shaped pans by Wilton being sold on E-Bay for way too much money.

Finally, I landed on a small silicone R2D2 Birthday Cake Mold.

It was exactly what I had in mind!!! I was a bit nervous about using a silicone pan, but it did just fine.

With just a few colors, this cake was fairly easy to decorate.

Will sat by my side as I piped out hundreds of buttercream icing stars and he was thrilled with his cake.

Jenny began asking for a Dora cake as soon as she realized that she had a birthday coming up.

This shaped pan was fairly easy to find at my local Hobby Lobby. I had to be a little creative with the colors since they did not have the official set of Dora colors, but I was able to improvise and my little girl was tickled pink with her Dora cake as well.

I was so excited to make these two cake for my little birthday people last week.

The Dora cake took 2-3 hours to decorate with all the color changes and I had a sore wrist and arm afterwards. But the look on Jenny’s face as she saw Dora come together was worth every bit of effort.

I had decided that from now on I am making birthday cakes the day before their birthday so that I can enjoy looking at my creations before they are devoured.