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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Life of a Magnolia Tree



 I have taken many pictures that remind me my camera is only capturing a shadow of the True Glory of the Lord. In no way is my little photography talent comparative to the Glory of his creation, but I want to use it to Worship Him.

Included is this series is the the short life of a blossom on my magnolia tree. I am obsessed with trees because I feel like they show so many facets of God's Glory; His provision, His Strength, His constant care, and of course His Beauty.

"And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight." Genesis 2:9


Choosing Gratitude


I Praise the Lord for giving me his eyes today to see his Blessings in ABUNDANCE today.
I pray I see them tomorrow.....

I am thankful for the dishes because it means my kids ate two full meals already today and it's only noon.

I am thankful for dirty bathtub because it means my kids have clean enough water to take bath indoors.

I am thankful for my overweight thighs because it means I have never been truly starving a day in my life.

I am thankful for my stretch marks because it means I carried healthy twins full term. (PRAISE JESUS!)

I am thankful for my small house because it means my family will always be close:)

I am thankful for the heat advisory because it reminds me I have clean running water to keep me and my children cool.

I am thankful for the piles of laundry because it means I have more than one set of clothes.

I am thankful for my old dishwasher because it means I have indoor plumbing and don't have to walk a mile to get water.

I am thankful for the messy office desk because it means my business is thriving.

Thankful for a tight budget because it means we can praise God for His repeated Provision.

I am thankful for the dozen matchbox cars on my living room floor because it means my kids have toys.

I am thankful for the messy garage full of tools because it means I have a husband who is handy.

I am thankful for a messy van because it means we have a working vehicle.

I am thankful for the pencil drawing on my wall because it means my kids love to write, and have access to art supplies

I am thankful for an uncleaned toilet because it means we have a safe sewer system that so many countries lack.

I am thankful for the spiderwebs in the corner because it remind me me that I don't have to live outside with dangerous animals.

I am thankful for politicians who argue over debt ceilings & taxes, because it reminds me that I love in a country where we can accomplish a change of power without bloodshed every 4 or 8 years.

I am thankful for the pain I have experienced because the wisdom it brought.

I am thankful for being hurt because I get to see how hard forgiveness is, and appreciate the forgiveness we are given through Christ's Blood that much more.






Please add something that you are thankful for in the comments.  Let's all be PollyAnna together!

Friday, March 16, 2012

Homeschooling Quotes

Below are some quotes that encourage me as I wade into this new realm of homeschooling. Please feel free to add quotes in the comments that help you in your journey.


Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire! --W.B. Yeats


Homeschooling and public schooling are as opposite as two sides of a coin. In a homeschooling environment, the teacher need not be certified, but the child MUST learn. In a public school environment, the teacher MUST be certified, but the child need NOT learn. - Gene Royer


I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain


Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be rather a sort of amusement; this will better enable you to find out the natural bent of the child. - Plato


Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. - E. M. Forster


Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself. John Dewey


 I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less slowly. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table while a sweet-voiced teacher suggest that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of colored paper, or plant straw trees in flower pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences. - Anne Sullivan


I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas. - Agatha Christie


It is hard not to feel that there must be something very wrong with much of what we do in school, if we feel the need to worry so much about what many people call 'motivation'. A child has no stronger desire than to make sense of the world, to move freely in it, to do the things that he sees bigger people doing. - Holt


All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education. - Sir Walter Scott


A love of reading is an acquired taste, not an instinctive preference. The habit of reading is formed in childhood; and a child's taste in reading is formed in the right direction or in the wrong one while he is under the influence of his parents; and they are directly responsible for the shaping and cultivating of that taste. - H. Clay Trumbull,Hints on Child Training (1890)

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