Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord!

This post refers to Saturday, September 24th.  I typed up the text for Facebook, but didn't get a chance to add the text and the photos to the blog until tonight.

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Psalm 68:19 ~ Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation.

I couldn't go to bed tonight without sharing a special blessing the Lord had for us today.

Earlier this morning, Rick and I were reviewing some medical bills and what money we had in our medical savings account. We decided we could pay the bills and have enough to pay for the 6-month family plan at our chiropractor. (Besides the Lord, I feel having unlimited access to chiropractic care last winter enabled us to fight off most germs.)

Today was the annual Chiropractic Customer Appreciation Day at our chiropractor's office. They have games for the kids, face painting, free adjustments, food and prizes (anything from gift cards to local businesses and t-shirt to free chiropractic care). Rick took the kids as I had other plans for the day.

I received a phone call this afternoon from Rick. Each of the kids had been given a tote bag with water bottles, pens, coupons for personal pizzas and lots of other goodies. During the prize raffle (everyone gets a free ticket upon arrival), Rick won a gift pack of a t-shirt, hat and water bottle with our chiropractor's name on it. Isaiah had won a free consultation with a certified financial planner. (HA! For those of you that don't know -- Rick is a CPA and is a controller and does a lot of financial planning on a regular basis.) We had also won two gift cards to a local eatery and Makenna won "6 months chiropractic care FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY"!!

That in itself is a huge blessing, but the silver lining is we can now use the money in the health savings account to pay for speech therapy for Isaiah -- something we've been wanting to do but couldn't afford.

I know the Lord daily loadeth us with benefits of a home, employment, food, a Godly family, good health and the list goes on. We do thank Him for those things, but today I just had to give extra thanks for the extra benefit He gave us, His children.

BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD!

The Sleep-Deprived Indian

Our summer went by quickly.  I swore (well, not literally!) that after a VERY busy summer three years ago we wouldn't overbook ourselves like that ever again! Summers since haven't quite been that busy, but they have been busy.  Jumping right into homeschooling was not a big help.

Sleep deprivation has been a big issue for me this summer and on into the school year.  I'm learning to deal with it (since I don't have many opportunities to catch up on sleep), and thankfully the Lord has helped my to deal with my chidren in a normal way instead of the way I would normally act while sleep deprived.

Last week, Isaiah was working on a school paper.  The teacher told him to color the capital I and little i green, then to color the feathers his favorite color.  The indian's hair was to be brown as well as the face.  I thought that might look a little strange as he has a heavy hand to his coloring.  So I told him we would change things up a little and use yellow for the face (hey, we're limited to like six colors here).  I asked him what color we should color the tongue.  He replied, "Red."  I expected him to put the red crayon down after he colored the tongue and pick up his brown crayon to finish the hair.  But when I looked back down at his paper he was coloring the eyes red!  I stopped him thinking I would take this time to "educate" him on the parts of the eye.  I said, "Now wait, Isaiah.  Lets talk about eyes for a minute.  There is a colored part -- you and Mommy have blue, Daddy and the girls have brown.  But the rest of the eye is mostly white.  See?", as I pointed to my eye.  His reply. "No, its not.  It's red!"

I didn't even bother trying to explain to him why my eyes are red.  I just had to laugh and then take a picture of his drawing to remember this too cute moment with my son.

He Has Been Named

Unfortunately the chipmunk is still alive.  This thing has a will of iron!!  We've unknowingly made a couple mistakes in our care for him, and he's managed to survive.  We've moved him into a bigger box (I have to upload those photos before I can load them -- come back soon)!  He seems to really like it and has started to move around a couple times a day.  Although he may just be getting older and venturing out.  What do I know!?!

Not that I like him, but he is adorable when he eats especially when he holds on to the dropper like this!  I've figured out I can pick him up in a washcloth so I can feed him.  Otherwise, I still can't touch the thing.  He has started eating some solid foods -- plain Cheerios, chopped peanuts (compliments of McDs $1 sundae) and now acorns!

The kids really like him and continually ask if they can pet/hold him.  Daddy seems to have named him.  There really wasn't a debate.  He just started calling him . . .

Chipy!

Meet . . . The Chipmunk

Madison found this baby chipmunk out in the yard Saturday.  Since we didn't want to leave it to die, we brought it in.

 This is what it looked like when we brought it in -- cold and shaking.

He just laid there in the rag. 

Daddy was warming him up in his hands while he and Madison rubbed his head.

Once he warmed up, he stood up and fumbled around. 

He stayed still while we fed him. 

We made it a home in a cardboard box and placed it on top of a heating pad to help keep it warm.  It slept for a long time.

When we went back to feed it that evening, it almost RAN out of the box!!  Ya, I'm not one for rodents and especially ones that are scampering around my livingroom!!!

After we fed it, we placed it in a plastic tote that we knew it couldn't climb out of!

This is currently its home. 

It likes to crawl in a little space and hide.

The Sunday update:  It's still alive. {sigh} It still sleeps alot.  The only cute thing about it is when we feed it now, it holds onto the dropper with it's claws.  Tomorrow is the first day Daddy goes back to work since we found this thing.  It has to be held (see 3rd picture up) when it's fed.  I WILL NOT hold the thing so someone else can feed it and I REFUSE to trust allow one of my children to hold it while I feed it.

We'll see what happens.  Daddy thinks this is a great homeschool project.  I think this is one more thing that is dependent on me for survival.

Nothing Much

Nothing much or at least nothing exciting has been going on around here.  Our days are full of school work, tending to the too many animals we have accumulated and trying to keep sane. 

Speaking of animals, our rabbits (well, at least the boys) have become yard bunnies. Long story short, we'll leave it at that.  It is kinda neat seeing them run around the yard, and we don't have to feed them because we have plenty of grass for them to eat!  Don't know how long we'll have them as a friend said she could take them when they move in October.  They are becoming just another thing to take care of on my to do list.   The cats have taken to them.  Patches doesn't really bother them.  The just co-exist in the yard.  Toothless likes to run around and chase them.  Did I ever tell you all that we changed the kitty's name from Licorice to Toothless??  Maybe not.  He wasn't quite a Licorice.  If you've ever seen the movie "How to Train Your Dragon" and you've ever met Toothless (our cat, that is), you'll know why we changed his name.

(Pictured:  Patches and Buzz) 

This child of mine amazes me.  She is a creature-loving child!  There isn't a newt, toad, frog, cat, dog, horse, SNAKE this girl wouldn't love to hold or explore!  One of her favorite subjects is Science.  She informed us ignorant folk that there is a difference between bugs and insects.  Did you know that?

Last week before some friends of ours went back to school, we met them at the park for the afternoon.

 Nothin' like being entertained with a plastic cup . . .

and some Red Light, Green Light! 

And now I introduce you to the newest member of the two-wheeled bike riding club . . . Madison!

Two weekends ago now, she learned how to ride her bike without help.  So far she's only ridden in the front yard on grass.  It's probably a good thing since she's already flipped over the handle bars!

Last weekend, I came home after being out most of the day.  Daddy had the two younger kids with him while he worked outside.  For some reason I had the camera out and all three kids were together.  Always looking for an opportunity to get a picture of the three of them together -- as you can tell, it didn't work out well this time either. 
 

Attempted a picture of just the girls since the "sister" frame in their room has a picture from when Madi was about a year old!

Zaya didn't want his picture taken and thought if he closed his eyes I couldn't take his picture!

Well, I guess that bike riding part was a bit exciting, but other than that we are just trying to get a hang of this homeschooling thing!

Tie-Dye Reveal

Here are SOME of the items we created along with a few words of advice for tie-dying . . .

Don't do over a dozen items at a time. (It's easy enough to put caps on bottle of dye and clean up work station. It's TOO much work rinsing and washing multiple items.)

Put children to work in the beginning as they tire of working quickly.  Also, socks you never could get white after child wore them outside in the mire and muck come in quite useful when your child wants to tie dye multiple things.

Get directions or watch how-to videos for difficult patterns like an earth (see upper left for attempt from a picture found online). Also difficult patterns are for older children and adults, not elementary children.  Found a couple how-to videos for Mickey (bottom right) -- turned out really well! 

Lastly, tie-dying takes lots of patience and lots of rubber bands!