Back At The Ranch

HUGE News!!! :-)

2010-02-18T07:41:00.001-08:00

I keep meaning to get over to this blog and post pictures from Ana's birthday party we had this past weekend. We had seven adorable little girls running around, all being "Fancy"! We had a "Fancy Nancy" party. Very fun! If you'd like to see pictures, head on over to my adoption blog to see how cute they were!!!

BUT...we have even bigger news on the adoption blog!!!!

We received our referral of our baby!!!!!!!!

She was born on February 5th, 6 lbs. 3 oz., 20 1/2 " long! She's absolutely adorable!!!!! If you'd like to read more about it, also head on over to the adoption blog!!! I'm still floating around on cloud 9!! I just can't believe how awesome, gracious, and generous our God is!!! He is amazing!!!

I can't post pictures of her yet, just a teaser! Just know she is gorgeous!!!

Praising our awesome God!!

One Of The Best Weeks Of The Year!!!

2010-02-10T16:33:00.000-08:00

Do you want to know why I think this is one of the very best weeks of the entire year??? Head on over to my adoption blog to find out why! (hint... it has something to do with "birthdays"!)

The pictures definitely have something to do with it!

Hope you have a great week too!

Great Quote!

2010-02-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

As I was drinking my coffee this morning, I stole a little quiet time (before children woke up!) to skim through my new copy of The Old Schoolhouse magazine that came yesterday. I came to an article called, "The Princess or the Pack Mule" by Denise Mira. I was drawn to read the entire article, instead of just skimming over it (as I usually do for the first time through.) There was one paragraph that I just had to share! I know my non-homeschooling friends are not going to agree with it, but it kind of sums up one of the main reasons why we homeschool!!

"So why must we pray about whether or not to send our kids away to be trained by institutions for the best forty hours of every week? Most parents won't share their car keys or pin numbers with anyone, yet they'll give strangers complete, unsupervised access to their most valuable treasures--their offspring--without a second thought."

Amen! :-)

Question?!

2010-01-24T16:14:00.000-08:00

I am conducting a poll on my adoption blog. I would appreciate it if you would read the post "Got A Question For You!" and then answer the poll on the right!

Thank you so much!

Christian Heritage Homeschool Conference

2010-01-21T07:06:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again!!! The homeschool conventions dates are starting to be advertised so we can all plan accordingly!

Last year, my dear friend Terri, came up from Colorado with her six children for a wonderful visit. While she was here, she and I, and her oldest daughter Tayler, went to the Christian Heritage Homeschool Conference (in Redmond, WA) put on by the Christian Heritage Home Educators of Washington. The key speaker last year was Voddie Baucham (if you ever get a chance to listen to him speak, do it! He is incredible!!). We had seen that he was the speaker months before and knew that we wanted to go hear him, so we planned her trip around going to this homeschool conference.

This conference was not like the "homeschool conference" that the state puts on. I usually come away from that spending far too much money on things that realistically I won't use as much as I hope. I usually go to a couple of workshops or hear a few speakers, but usually it's not anything that deeply inspires me or tells me anything that I don't already know. It's pretty much, in my opinion, a glorified curriculum mall that usually overwhelms most of us!

The Christian Heritage Homeschool Conference was truly different!! I came away completely encouraged, very deeply inspired, and re-energized for the job that God has called me to do! I truly don't think I will ever go to the "other" conference again! (Sorry friends that I used to go with!! LOL!!)

This year's key speaker is Ken Ham! If you know anything about creation science, then you probably know who Ken Ham is! His books, DVD's and ministry (Answers in Genesis) have taught me so much over the years. I am really looking forward to hearing him speak in person!

So, if you live in WA state, I would highly recommend you try to attend this amazing conference! Here is the information for it:

5th Annual Christian Heritage Family Discipleship & Homeschooling Conference

April 22-24th, 2010

Overlake Christian Church
9900 Willows Road
Redmond, WA 98052

$65 – EARLY BIRD Discount by midnight, February 27th!
$75 – Pre-Registration Discount by midnight, April 10th!
$85 – at the Door

Spouses attend FREE!!!

You can download a brochure HERE.

The main conference days are the 23rd and 24th. We had to stay the night up there, since we live about 2 hours away from Redmond, but there were many hotels in the area that were giving discounts for the conference.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that if you live in WA state and homeschool, that you at least knew about this amazing homeschool conference!! I can't wait!!

What We've Been Up To...At Least For Pre-School!

2010-01-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

I have not posted for a while about what we've been doing for school, so I thought I'd at least get what we've been doing in our "preschool" for Ana the last couple of weeks up! She is such a bright little girl, she loves to learn!! She knows all of her letters and their sounds, and as you can tell by the picture below, is really starting to want to "write" them too! She also has been putting letters together to spell her name, Meg, Mom and Dad. And yes, you are seeing right! She's a lefty! :-)

She absolutely LOVES puzzles! This is a big USA floor puzzle that she wanted to do. I didn't think she'd be able to do it, but I only ended up having to help her a little bit! She was determined to do it!!

All done! She was pretty proud of herself! She like learning where we live and where her other relatives live as well. For a not-yet-four-year-old, she loves geography! We have a globe, and she can find Taiwan (where her baby sister or brother is!), Germany, Hawaii, New Zealand, (all places her Dad flies to somewhat frequently) and Kazakhstan (where her "far-away castle" that we went and rescued her from is...yes, that's what she tells us!).

She got a Princess Memory Game for Christmas, and loves it! She has a great memory!

I found her an old SpiroTot, which she loves! (It's like a Spirograph, for younger kids.)

Of course, a little snack time, but had fun counting the cheese and crackers! :-)

Well, that's a small glimpse of our pre-school week! We try to have fun, in whatever we are doing!

Have a great week!

Never Too Young To Hide The Word In Your Heart!

2010-01-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

We've been trying to memorize bible verses every week for school. I decided that Ana wasn't too young to try as well. We started with Genesis 1:1. She picked it up amazingly fast! She doesn't normally stumble through it as much as she did when I recorded her saying it, but I think she was a bit distracted. She's quite proud of herself for being able to do something her much older brother and sister are doing too!! We are quite proud of her too!

Outdoor Hour Challenges ~ eBook Giveaway!!

2010-01-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

Since I love the Charlotte Mason "mentality", I love the idea of regular Nature Studies. (I'm just not very good at working them into our homeschool!!! Maybe that can be a New Year's resolution too!) The idea of getting the kids outside to learn about and better appreciate this beautiful and fascinating world that our wonderful Creator made just makes so much sense to me!

Barb (aka Harmony Art Mom) has created a wonderful way to incorporate a weekly "Outdoor Hour Challenge" into your homeschool using the well known (and loved by homeschoolers!) Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. If you haven't checked out the amazing "Challenges" she's put together, you really should! (Look for them on the right hand column.) She also has an amazing blog dedicated to art and music appreciation too at Harmony Art Mom.

She has recently finished a new ebook for the Winter Series of the Outdoor Hour Challenges. It includes 10 nature study challenges, plus three months of music and art appreciation, all with a winter theme!

The best part is she's giving it away to one lucky winner! Hurry over to her blog and enter, she is drawing Friday, Jan. 8th at noon! All you have to do is leave a comment. Couldn't be easier than that!!

Good luck!

Polar Plunge!!

2010-01-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

(good thing they had made a big fire beforehand!)

(Ana waiting patiently for them to jump in so we could go home and get warm!)

(just seconds before the big plunge!)

My 15 year old son (the one on the right in the Hawaiian looking swim shorts) and some of his friends decided to do their second annual Polar Plunge yesterday morning, January 1st, 2010! We live on the Puget Sound in WA state, and the water is certainly not warm! It was probably in the low 40's and drizzling out! Crazy guys!! They not only did it once, but twice in a matter of just a couple of minutes!

It was fun to watch (although I was very thankful to be bundled up and dry!!). I thought I'd share it with you!

Stay warm!

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-01T07:45:00.000-08:00

Wow! Can you believe it's 2010!! Happy New Year! Time just flies, doesn't it???

I always love this time of year when I have the whole year ahead of me. I always love the excitement of finding out what God has in store for us, and this year is no different! I have high expectations for this upcoming year! Here are some things that I'm really looking forward to:

Getting a referral for our child in Taiwan
Going to Taiwan to GET our child!
Starting an Etsy store to sell my bags (I've already "started" it...just need to get ahead on making bags to put on there!)
The anticipation of selling our house this year and starting our "new" life (outside the Air Force. Mostly to have Dad home!!)
Have a great rest of our school year

My goals for this year are:

To spend more time with my Awesome God
Spend more time doing fun things with my kids and husband (have to remind myself that housework, etc. will still be there... but my loved ones might not!)
To live with less
To continue my on-going quest to get rid of "stuff"!
Have a more organized homeschool
Continue to work towards no debt
To give glory to God in everything that I do, say, think!

I pray that 2010 will be a year full of blessings for everyone that I know! (and those of you that I don't actually know! :-) Here are some Christmas pictures I thought I'd share! Once again...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

(Christmas Eve night. Kind of the "calm before the storm!")

(The kids Christmas morning, before the "storm" of package opening!)

(Ana holding up a very cute nightgown her grandma in WI made her!)

(Ana receiving the MUCH hoped for Bitty Baby!!! She named her "Mariya"...which was her name in the orphanage, and is her middle name.)

(Kyle, sporting a new shirt from his aunt and uncle)

(Ryan, "sporting" his new bass guitar!!)

(Meg with the boots she had really wanted)

Out With The Old...In With The New!!!

2009-12-31T17:58:00.000-08:00

Glitter Graphics

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Well, as you can see in the title of this post, I've decided to move my homeschool/family blog! Wow! What a chore that was, although I'm not completely done, as you can probably tell!

My hope is that switching to Blogger, it will make it much easier for me to blog on a much more frequent basis!! We have had wonderful things in our homeschool and family that have happened over the past few months, but unfortunately using HSB for my homeschool blog wasn't nearly as user friendly as Blogger! (As much as I really did love HSB!) Every time I wanted to sit down and tell what we had done, I became overwhelmed because I hadn't posted my pictures to Photobucket, or I would have to figure out some html for something fun I wanted to do, but didn't really want to take the time to do either. I think this will be a much better set up! If you haven't been to my old blog, here's the address... http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/BackAtTheRanch/ to catch up on what was going on there.

So...for those of you that do check my blog on a somewhat regular basis, one of my New Year's goals is to keep you update better on what's going on with us! Over the next couple of weeks, I will try to post a few summaries of some of the fun things we've done the past few months. So check back, if you'd like! :-)

But for now, I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year of contentment and blessings!! I'm looking VERY forward to 2010! I hope you are as well!