Win a free year of Sonlight for you and a friend!!

You can win a free year of Sonlight curriculum!! For yourself and a friend!
Just click on the picture or the link below to register!

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Making Your Home a Haven Challenge Week 1

I'm joining another challenge this fall!!  The challenge is from Courtney over at Women Living Well: Making Your Home a Have Challenge. Each week during the month of October, Courtney will give us a practical tip and spiritual tip plus a giveaway related to those challenges. I'm excited for this challenge because I really need the accountability. I've been so stressed and frantic regarding the running of my home that I think this will help.

Are you interested in joining the challenge? Click the picture above to find out more! Please let me know in the comments if you are joining this challenge.

Women Living Well Review

I wanted to repost my review in a post without a giveaway.

I've had the immense pleasure and privilege of being on the launch team for Courtney Joseph's new book, Women Living Well. It is a wonderful book, filled with encouragement and practical tips and ideas on how to live a God centered life. She talks about how to take pleasure in the roles that God has give you to fill.One part that really spoke to me, in particular, was how she talked about praying while she did regular, ordinary tasks. 

She talked about using those moments to pray for her family and/or to thank God for those things. For instance, when she was making her husband's side of the bed, she would pray for him and thank God for giving her a husband. When she washed the laundry, she would thank God for having clothes to wash. This really struck me. I recently had my fifth child only a little over a year after having my fourth so we were still technically adjusting to four children when the fifth came along. I had been struggling with so much to pick up and do with a year and half old son and an infant son. After reading this in her book, it opened my eyes. I was walking from our dining room into our family room and noticed a toy train on the floor. At first, I immediately had a bad attitude and thought about the five other people that had stepped over this train without picking it up. Then I thought about how my son loved playing with that train, and how if he wasn't around I wouldn't have a train to pick up. I picked up the train and thanked God for giving me that son who left trains and other toys all over my house. I thanked God for giving me him to love and to teach me how to love. I noticed that my attitude towards my household tasks changed after that. I still had times where I was tired and frustrated but they were less and less. I enjoyed taking care of my family in this way because I enjoy my family and I'm so thankful God gave them to me.Courtney's book comes out on Tuesday, October 1st.

Giveaway!! Signed copy of Women Living Well by Courtney Joseph

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I've had the immense pleasure and privilege of being on the launch team for Courtney Joseph's new book, Women Living Well. It is a wonderful book, filled with encouragement and practical tips and ideas on how to live a God centered life. She talks about how to take pleasure in the roles that God has give you to fill.One part that really spoke to me, in particular, was how she talked about praying while she did regular, ordinary tasks. 

She talked about using those moments to pray for her family and/or to thank God for those things. For instance, when she was making her husband's side of the bed, she would pray for him and thank God for giving her a husband. When she washed the laundry, she would thank God for having clothes to wash. This really struck me. I recently had my fifth child only a little over a year after having my fourth so we were still technically adjusting to four children when the fifth came along. I had been struggling with so much to pick up and do with a year and half old son and an infant son. After reading this in her book, it opened my eyes. I was walking from our dining room into our family room and noticed a toy train on the floor. At first, I immediately had a bad attitude and thought about the five other people that had stepped over this train without picking it up. Then I thought about how my son loved playing with that train, and how if he wasn't around I wouldn't have a train to pick up. I picked up the train and thanked God for giving me that son who left trains and other toys all over my house. I thanked God for giving me him to love and to teach me how to love. I noticed that my attitude towards my household tasks changed after that. I still had times where I was tired and frustrated but they were less and less. I enjoyed taking care of my family in this way because I enjoy my family and I'm so thankful God gave them to me.

I've been provided the opportunity to give away a signed copy of this book. I had planned on starting this giveaway yesterday, but I spent the entire day canning applesauce and unfortunately I couldn't get to writing a blog post. Please forgive me for being a day late. This giveaway will run until Sunday night, Pacific Time. I will announce the winner on Monday. 

Courtney's book comes out on Tuesday, October 1st. Also, don't forget about the pre-launch giveaways that she is doing on her blog. Click the picture below for more information.

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To enter the giveaway, use the Rafflecopter widget below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


 

Women Living Well

I have had the great pleasure of being chosen to be on the launch team for Courtney Joseph's new book, Women Living Well. Many of you will recognize her name from her blog, Women Living Well, as well as the Good Morning Girls website.

She has recently written a book entitled Women Living Well: Finding Your Joy in God, Your Man, Your Kids, and Your Home.

 

She talks about obstacles we face as wives, mothers, homemakers, etc. I have really enjoyed this book. I was given an advanced copy to help put the word out as well as review. Below is a trailer announcing the book:

I will be posting a full review when I finish reading the book. So far, it has been very helpful and somewhat convicting. And I'm only halfway through!! I will also be hosting my first ever giveaway for a signed copy!!

If you can't wait for the giveaway and want to pre-order your copy now, Courtney is offering a 10 ebook bundle as a free gift. There are also several other gifts if you order more. Click here to pre-order and for more information on the free gifts click here.

My giveaway will start on September 23rd, so check back then to enter to win a signed copy of this wonderful book!

 

Time4learning Review

     I was recently invited to try Time4learning for a month free in exchange for my honest review. I hadn't heard of this website before, so I was excited to check it out. I signed up my three oldest children ages, 10, 7 and 3 as members and we were on our way.

     The website is very easy to use and does a wonderful job of introducing you to its functions and features. My children, with except of the 3 year old, were able to log in and complete lessons without any assistance from me. It includes fun videos that made the kids giggle and laugh and really enjoy learning.

     My 10 year old who is currently in 5th grade especially loved the Language Arts lessons. He loved "The Old Time Wordshow" and "Word Herd". Word Herd is the name for the quizzes. I would hear lots of giggles every time he was working on a lesson. He wanted to do more than one lesson at time because he enjoyed it so much.

    My 7 year old also really enjoyed the Language Arts lessons. She is currently in second grade and easily completed each lesson on her own. She is advanced above the second grade level in some areas and it was very easy to change the difficulty in her lessons.

    My three year old is just learning her numbers and ABC's and the preschool section was very easy for her to follow. She wasn't able to complete the lessons on her own since her computer skills aren't very good, but she enjoyed pointing to what she wanted me or her older brother to click when answering questions.

In closing, I think we will consider joining this website in the future. My children really enjoyed it and continually asked to do more lessons, or "Can I do my time4learning now?" I recommend this program for at least the ages of my children, if not all ages.

Apologia Giveaway on TimberDoodle.com

TimberDoodle is giving away Apologia Science books! Check it out here:

http://www.timberdoodlecompany.com/doodleblog/2012/07/09/apologia-giveaway/comment-page-2/#comment-8604

I am interested in the Astronomy and Anatomy Science Books.

Our Unexpected Benefits of Homeschooling

This is our first year homeschooling. I don't know why I chose to wait to start homeschooling until my son was in fourth grade and my daughter was in first grade. :) I was also pregnant with my fourth child and had a very busy two year old running around. I'm starting to understand why my Mom says that I do everything the hard way. :)

Anyway, I had felt like the Lord had been convicting me to homeschool for a few years before we finally made the decision. There are many reasons why we homeschool, our faith, good education, behavior issues, etc. The thing that I want to talk about in this blog post are the unexpected benefits we found so far in our homeschooling journey.

1.) More family time:  This one is obvious as since the kids do their schooling at home, we are together more often. The unexpected benefit was that even though Daddy works out of the home, we found more time with him too. Running to his work while we were out or taking Daddy lunch provided extra time for the kids to see and talk to him.

2.) More Opportunities to learn: This one was a benefit that I hadn't even thought of before we started homeschooling. Since I know what they are learning in their school lessons each day, it is easier for me to incorporate that into everyday situations. For example, my son and I were learning about caterpillars and how they cocoon and turn into butterflies. Well, a few days after that we were looking at our plants in the backyard and found a cocoon on our cauliflower plant. It was so neat to be able to take what we had read in the Science book and see it before us happening in reality.

3.) More Time for Extracurricular Interests: This one was really a great, unexpected benefit since both of my school-aged children decided they wanted to try playing basketball for the first time this year. Since we can usually get all of our schooling done in around four hours, we have more time to visit friends, take music lessons, and do sports.

4.) More Time for Real World Learning:  Since my children are with me all of the time, I have the benefit of being able to teach them many skills that they will use as adults and parents themselves. When I run to the bank or go to an appointment or pay a bill, they are with me. I can teach them how to deposit money at the bank, clean the house, call for services, etc. My Mother was very good at teaching me how to do all these things, but I've had a few friends who were completely unprepared for running a house. These skills are almost more important that the lessons we learn in schooling since they will be used more often.


These are just a few of the unexpected benefits that I've found in my homeschooling journey. There was a time in my life where I would have never considered homeschooling my children. I'm happy that the Lord has changed my heart and mind and now we are able to enjoy this new chapter in our lives.

 Do you homeschool your kids? Have you ever thought about homeschooling your kids? Are you against homeschooling? Please share your thoughts in the comments! :)


Linking up with Time Warp Wife at http://time-warp-wife.blogspot.com/2012/06/titus-2sdays-link-up-party.html

and Linking with. http://womenlivingwell.org/2012/06/keeping-your-husband-the-man-of-your-dreams-wlww-link-up-party