Heart Reflections Live

What beautiful Autumn weather, and what blessed days we've had the last couple of weeks. Even with last week's emergency, God's blessings are everywhere and are richly savoured by the Roberts family.

We are currently enjoying a two week break from homeschooling, and what a delightful refreshing time it's been. Amazingly Talitha is now enjoying homeschool so much, she was reluctant to take a break! However my ironing pile had grown over the term and was whispering my name every time I walked past it. Homeschooling is such a lovely relaxing lifestyle, but I've had to reorganize some of my household jobs. Ironing has pretty much been the only area that's suffered. But I guess that's part of our lifestyle choice too- choosing to wear clothes that need ironing. I'm just not a jeans and T-shirt type girl.

Talitha has made wonderful progress in her first term of homeschool. She has gone from, "That's not how they do it at MY school!!!" To now proudly telling people she is homeschooled and that she is reading. Using a simple phonics reader from the internet I had her reading simple books-old fashioned ones from the 70's over her first 3 weeks. Now she is working her way through fascimile copies of my Mother's schoolbooks from the 40s and 50's (from Queensland State schools). Her manners and behaviour have improved a lot over the past few weeks, and she is slowly losing that wordly kind of attitude, she picked up in the Christian school, from the majority of non-Christian students. She is becoming a very compassionate little girl.

Next term Zara will be joining us at the kitchen table. She is very independant and keen to learn. Zara is sooo independant that if she sneezes she says BLESS ME before any else has a chance to get a word in! It will be challenging but fun to have the sisters learning together. Zara joins in a bit anyway, with our devotional and chapter book time, and I'll download some age appropriate stuff for English and Maths. She is used to me reading aloud, and a lot of our history, some science and social studies is done through what we consider to be living books. It was a delight to find the girls playing homeschool and working together, when I came back from my sewing lesson last Saturday.

They'll also be learning French with a family friend. I've found a free online Christian French curriculum for children. There is so much good free stuff online!!!- Even out of print books can be read or even printed if you so desire.

God has also blessed us out of the blue with clothing this week! My husband was given a couple of pairs of jeans for the garden, and the girls were blessed with 6 to 8 dresses between them- all brand names like Osh Kosh, Marks and Spencer and Pumpkin Patch. I'm not a brand snob, but I do like the quality stitching and fabric.

It was a week for enjoying God's creation too, with hubby back in the garden, a couple of days after his hospital trip. The garden was severely neglected for over 10 years, when we moved in here, and he is trying to restore it bit by bit as he is able. Max loves gardening, and it's good exercise for him. The girls have also been enjoying running around in the cooler weather, playing in their snow tree cubby and acting out Bible stories. Baby Moses is still a firm favourite, but they switched to Samson and Delilah the other day, inspired by a piece of wood they said "Was the Jaw bone of an ass!"- Bless their hearts!

I've also finished reading "Stepping Heavenward" by E. Prentiss and found it a great blessing to read of the transformation of a worldly 16 year old to an older Mother at peace near death. It is true that the more we trust in the Sovereignty of our loving Heavenly Father, the greater the peace we will have in this world. It really challenged me not to seek ways out of difficult situations, but to find God's peace through letting him work changes in me through them. I highly recommend this book!

What have you been reading or doing lately?

Labels: family, family life