Heart Reflections Live

Labels: Books

Labels: family fun, family life

Isn't it priceless! Talitha in the stocks at the castle.

Labels: family fun, family life

Labels: Books

When I started school in the 1970's, these Happy Venture Readers from the 50's were still in use. I'd been looking for one for ages, and yes, one turned up in a garage sale in my hometown.

The books, though very simple, are based on PHONICS not sight words, and I'm using the phonetic word lists at the back to get 4 year old Zara started with reading.

When you compare these lovely old readers to the more modern ones, you can really see the literary decline even over the last 40 years...

Labels: Books, Teaching children

Labels: Books, reading, Teaching children

In our quest to keep all things pure and lovely before our children's eyes, one thing we love to collect are vintage children's books.

The illustrations are far more beautiful I believe than many of the more modern children's picture books, they concentrate on stable families and good values,traditional gender roles, and I love the clothing.

These are just a sample of many we've picked up recently from garage sales for next to nothing. Sadly, but happily for us, no one seems interested in them anymore.

Phillipians 4:8 is a great guideline for choosing products for children in this wicked age. As well as vintage books, we look for Bible Stories with reverent realistic pictures, good Christian books, and old classic novels with good morals. Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy, I'll post a few close-ups for you.

Labels: Books, reading, Teaching children

For those of you, like myself, who loved the blog "Eyes of Wonder", well it's back after a year and open to public access again.

For those of you who aren't yet acquainted with this dear Christian lady and her 10 children, please do take a look. Jewels is a true Titus 2 woman, whose simply written posts really minister to me and touch my heart. She doesn't preach, she doesn't have to, a lovely life lived well speaks for itself. I am constantly challenged by her writings not to stress on the small things and to live a richer simpler life by grace before the Lord.

I pray that her blog will enrich your life too. http://eyesofwonder.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Labels: link

My poor little blog has been a bit neglected lately, due to family days out, medical appointments, and extreme tiredness at the end of each day. But isn't that what we're all doing when we're not blogging- living life and enjoying our families?

So here's a catch up for you! We had a fantastic family day on Saturday. We went garage-saling for treasures in the morning and got some fabulous bargains for very little cash. While there weren't a lot advertized in general over the coast, our nearest large town had 9- so we hit them all!! We got a decent looking pine tall-boy for the babies for just $5, a big pile of 40- 50 year old vintage children's books for $3, a designer jacket for Zara- $4, a lovely glass water jug for the table and a new looking Ikea Pie plate, an antique New Testament and Commentary 1st Edition from England and various other items for next to nothing!

After coming home for lunch, we had a family trip to Bli Bli's Fairytale Castle, which we really enjoyed. The vintage doll museum, fairytale diaramas, and international doll collections were great. I was determined to waddle up the top of the high tower, as I knew that with twins coming in November, it would be about 3 years before I'd get another chance to go- and I made it- huffing and puffing! It was a lot of fun.

The next day we were blessed again! Elderly friends of ours were decluttering, and gave us another Portacot, single bed sheets for the girls, some more vintage books, and some 1960's ? vintage tupperware. I was actually really excited with the extra tupperware as I'm going through our kitchen slowly, getting rid of cheap plastic items (EXCEPT for Tupperware, and some children's dinnerware) and replacing a lot of it with glass.

On Tuesday, we went to the big Brisbane Hospital for my 20 week ultrasound ( I'm only 19 weeks actually,even though I look full-term!) and we are expecting 2 very healthy identical twin boys! (If you know my parents PLEASE don't tell them- they want to find out the old fashioned way- after the delivery!) We have never tried to find out the sex of our other children, but as we save ALL our baby stuff and we are expecting 2, we wanted to sort through things before the babies arrive :-)

Oh, and another blessing in a funny sort of way... I woke up Monday morning with a mysterious sprained ankle, with no recollection of any injury. After hobbling on it for 2 days, by Wednesday it was excrutiating, and my wonderful hubby insisted I rest ALL DAY- apart from home school lessons- while he did all the housework. Am I a blessed woman or what!!

More posts coming- I have heaps of ideas swirling in my head at the moment!

Labels: family life, frugal living