Flat Stanley

Have you heard of Flat Stanley? Our friends in Texas sent Flat Stanley to live with us for a few days. I have to admit that I had to charge my camera before we could do much of anything, and then I had to remember to actually take him with us to do stuff!


He did make it to church with us this morning. New Life Church went to Shelby Forest Baptist Church for a covenant service and a yummy pot luck meal afterwards. Stanley had his picture made with Kelly, the pastor, our family, and another family from the church. Fortunately, Stanley doesn't eat much, being so flat, so he made his appearance after lunch.


Stanley has also met some other friends of ours, and tomorrow we are off to the seminary to introduce him to the President!


We hope that Mrs. Keeton's class enjoys seeing Stanley when he returns home! He can't wait to get back to Texas!

Home from Louisiana

We just spent a week at Keith's parent's home. We have only been twice in the last three years, so this trip was a long time coming! The kids got to play with their cousins and Keith and I finally got to meet our 'new' brother in law and our niece and nephew. We all enjoyed being there and no one was ready to come home.

Keith golfed, played basketball with his friends, and fished with the boys and the other guys of the family (and Aunt Toodie!). Both Seth and Micah caught fish. The kids played outside for hours and had a great time. I shopped with my sister in law and enjoyed my mother in law's cooking.

On Saturday, all of Keith's brothers and sisters and their spouses and kids, and his uncle and aunt came to see us from Houston. We loved getting to see everyone. It was a wonderful gift from the Lord to get to go. Here are pictures from the day:

Bethany

Abby

Everybody - Keith's parents, and and aunt and uncle,
brothers and sisters and their spouses and kids.

*trying* to get a family shot

Seth, Bethany, Keith, Nathan, me, Abby, and Micah

Mamaw and Pawpaw join us

Oh yeah, I posted it...check out the video below!

Keith, Bethany, and Abby's head

Daddy and Nathan

Micah with his new 'do

Seth

Bethany calls him Nay-Nay

This video of Keith and his sister, Christy, is too funny...

Why we homeschool

We've been asked many times over the last few years why we homeschool. There are lots of reasons, really, but one chief reason towers above all other reasons. We want our children to love the Lord their God with all their heart, all their mind, all their soul, and with all their strength. Every subject that we study, whether math or history, can be directed back to Christ so that they can learn to love Him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. In history, we talk about nations and peoples and what they believed. We talk about their gods and their worship. Then we talk about what the bible says: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. So many good theological conversations start when we read about pagan cultures!

There are so many opportunities throughout the day that I ask the kids (and myself!), “How does God want us to respond?” or “How can we honor Christ in this situation?” There are also lots of opportunities for repentance and forgiveness, too! And this isn’t just during ‘school time’ but through out the entire day.

Another reason that we are glad to be able to homeschool is that their education is tailor made for them. If Seth doesn't understand a math concept, we stop. We look at it from different angles. We work on it until he gets it. We have unlimited time to work on any area that needs more attention.

During Seth’s kindergarten year, we started with a particular math curriculum. We were almost done with it by Christmas - it was just too easy for him. So I found something more challenging for him to do. Micah is in Kindergarten, but is doing 1st grade math because he listened to Seth doing math over the last couple of years. Micah’s grade is Kindergarten, but the level that he is working at is higher than that because he was able to learn along side Seth even when he wasn’t yet ‘in school’.

Teaching my children has been quite a learning experience for me, too. It has stretched me as a person and as a mom to be creative and patient. Neither of these things are in my DNA! I’ve learned so much about my kids that I may have missed if we weren’t learning together.
So it boils down to this for our family: we see it as our joyful responsibility to raise our children in every area, even their education. I love teaching them and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

My babies

My "cool dude" - don't call Micah cute because he will correct you.

Seth, my handsome 7 year old.

My three babies, Abby, Bethany, and Nathan

My babies, Bethany and Nathan

First Post

Hey Everyone!

I finally got into the 21st century with a blog! This is to keep family and friends posted on our lives, and also a place for me to share what's going on in my brain. You might want to skip those parts.

Most of you who might read this probably know me and my family, though it may have been a while since we've seen you. So let me catch you up:

We have 5 - Seth, 7, Micah, 6, Abby, 3, Bethany, 1, and Nathan, 5 months as of this post. Seth and Micah are in 2nd grade and Kindergarten, here at home. The dicipline and ability to homeschool is not in my nature makeup, however, I love it and I think the boys do, too. This is our third year, and I think I learned more the first year or two than they did.

Having 5 has pushed me out of my realm of ability. If you want to HAVE to lean on the Lord daily, I recommend having a large family! If anything gets done, its His grace in me doing it!

Keith is now pastoring a church plant. We hope to begin meeting soon on Sunday mornings (right now, we are all still meeting with the 'mother church' on Sunday mornings) and we hope to go public soon after. Starting a church has been a dream for Keith for several years. We've been in churches where Christ is proclaimed through the scriptures every week, and we've been in churches where we didn't even need to take our Bible to the service. We've seen a lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of down right ugly. But God meant it all to sanctify us to look more like Christ, and to prepare us for this new ministry. We are excited to see how He is using us to further the Gospel!