A "Living" and Lovely Education

I am excited about our upcoming school year but I am struggling with the old tug of war in my head of academics versus relaxing and loveliness. I am reading a lot about using a Morning Basket approach which I will probably blog about later but for now I am loving just reading and thinking on THIS post of the Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth blog. Be sure to check out her blog, especially on her Home- Making Mondays link-up.

My Foray into Essential Oils

Not too long ago I signed up for a membership with Young Living Essential oils. I had been reading different books and blogs on essential oils but kept dragging my feet about using anything beyond Lavender. I have been enjoying learning more and even branched out recently into making some essential oil blends in roller bottles. Now I know that some of you have been using oils for a long time but for a newbie like me its the little things that are exciting.

I recently wrote on my Facebook page about the baby having a giant sliver in his toe from our deck. I was really dreading having to hold him down while the hubster dug it out with the man's tool of choice, a needle. Yes, I know you are all shaking your head at the truth of that last statement! Anyway, in my experimenting I had made an Owie Blend, recipe can be found HERE, so I thought slivers definitely count as an Owie. I rolled it on his toe before bed and then again in the morning, then promptly forgot about it but when I remembered later in the day I found it to be gone. Yea! No needle needed.

My next victim, I mean opportunity came after B#4 went on a Search and Rescue hike and came back with some bug bites. Amazingly enough I had a "Something Bit Me" roller bottle blend from THIS blog. She tells me that it worked great.

I have also been having her(when she remembers) use some Thieves and Frankincense on a bum toe that she got on the same hike. So far she has managed to steer clear of the doctor's office for it so I think if she remembers to apply it we will have some success there.

My last attempt so far was for some "that time of the month" cramping and although it was only used once so far I was told that it definitely helped. For that blend I used THIS recipe.

So far those have been my only experiments but I feel that they helped us out and hopefully it will encourage and inspire someone else to keep on learning and give essential oils a try.

How about you? What all have you used essential oils for and what are your favorites?

Never too Old to Learn Something New

I recently had the privilege of attending the OCEANetwork Conference in Portland. It was a wonderful two days of speakers who were all so very down to earth. Everyone loves listening to Todd Wilson, http://familymanweb.com/blog/ and http://familymanweb.com/. His wit and true life experiences as a homeschool dad are spot on and his encouragement to homeschool families to stop comparing ourselves to others is so timely for me.

I chose to focus my two days on Child Training workshops. I feel like I am in this funny, starting over phase of my life. Having raised our first set of 6 children to middle school on up to graduation, I am refocusing on training younger ones again with our second set of 6.

The first day I went to a workshop by Vicki Bentley, http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=479057 and https://www.hslda.org/speakers/speaker.asp?s=29 on getting our children to help out at home. Now my kiddos already help out at home, quite a lot actually but as the title of this blog post says we are never too old to learn. Mrs. Bentley had several good things to share. She has some books available for purchase as well. I really love her reminders that we need to teach our children what we expect of them. She talks about having cards made out with all of the steps necessary for our children to clean an area or do a chore the way we want them to do it. I found that to be a wonderful suggestion for my boys. It seems like inevitably when it comes time for them to clean their room they can't remember what needs to be done. So I came home and made up a card for the things they need to do in their room. I won't say that it helps them to stay on track but I can at least go in there and point to the card to see what they need to do next.  I believe that she has cards already made up in one of her books for you to use if you choose to.

She also had a workshop on being a Joyful Mother. I didn't make it to that one but did buy the MP3 of it to listen to. I know that is something I need to work on. I can easily slip into grumpy mother mode whose main focus is the laundry monster that needs to be slain on a daily basis.

I spent the rest of the day roaming through the Exhibit Hall looking at all that the Vendors had to share and spending a bit of money shopping for school items. There was also a Used Curriculum sale where I found a few things. I took the baby and B# 6 with me the first day so I didn't try to cram too much in that day.

The second day I went by myself and thoroughly enjoyed not having to share my hummus with the baby! I chose to go two workshops by the same speaker, Pam Forster who writes and publishes so many good things for child training. One of the workshops was actually called "Child Training Bootcamp". You can peruse her items HERE.

Mrs. Forster also spoke about things that we do that can actually lead our children away from Jesus. What I really took away from that session and the whole conference in general was that as a parent if we are not in God's Word then we do not have anything to pass on to our children. So I am determined, with God's strength, to be in THE Word everyday and find as many ways as possible to pass on to my children what I am learning in Scripture.

So why am I writing all of this to you today? Well, to encourage you to never think you are too old to learn something new or that you know it all already. And to encourage you to check out the OCEANetwork homeschool conference next year. We all need some encouragement.

16 Months

I can't believe I have not blogged in 16 months, almost to the day. As you can tell from my last post 16 months ago brought baby number 12 in to our lives and it has been a wild ride so far. I guess one of the main reasons I haven't blogged has been my health. After having him the high blood pressure that I usually get during pregnancy decided to stick around and plague me. Sleep was very elusive, still is  most days but during that post partum time I was really struggling with insomnia and anxiety. Things have gotten better for the most part but I do sometimes have bad days.

Even after 16 months and weaning him he isn't much of a sleeper so as cute as he is I am usually quite exhausted. However I am hoping to pick up the "pen" again and work at trying to do this blogging thing better. First on the agenda is to figure out why I can't get my photos to work on here...

I have lots of posts floating around in my head so if you think about me check back to see if I have made any progress.

He has Arrived!

Sorry to take so long to post a picture. The c-section went well on Thursday. I had great intentions to stay in the hospital until Sunday, resting and watching all the movies I packed but as with all great intentions...they don't always turn out. By Friday I was ready to sleep in my own bed, mainly because the hospital doesn't allow you to sleep with your baby in your bed but we weren't getting any sleep otherwise so I figured I could get better sleep at home. So they let me go home Friday evening after it had been 36 hours from the delivery. The only thing I missed about the hospital was the adjustable bed. It isn't so easy laying flat in a bed after a C-section. But being home was definitely great, especially since I didn't have a DVD player in my hospital room to watch all of the movies I packed anyway.

Anyway, without further ado...and rambling...we are very pleased and proud to introduce Daniel Noble. He weighed 7lbs 2oz and was 20inches long. Born with a head full of dark hair.

We chose his middle name because it is Dad's 105 year old Grandmother's maiden name. I will post some better pictures soon.

Two More Days

We are down to just two more days to go until the scheduled C-section. The Lord has been gracious in answering some specific prayer requests...DH's mother was ill and he needed to travel to see her but we knew there was a possibility of needing an earlier C-section if my blood pressure didn't cooperate. First we prayed that he would make it safely to see her before she passed away. He did make it and was able to be there with her as she went to meet Jesus. We knew we wanted him to be able to stay a bit longer to see his sister when she arrived from out of town so we prayed that my blood pressure would stay down until he returned. He got home safely and it stayed fine....

Until last night. We spent a couple of hours in Labor and Delivery last night monitoring my blood pressure and the baby as it had creeped up a good bit. After resting for awhile and seeing that the baby was doing fine the mid-wife let us go home. So now we are praying that if I rest for the next two days that all will be well until Thursday morning when it is all scheduled. Of course we covet your prayers that all will go well with the actual delivery.

Keep watching for the update that baby has arrived and his name...

A Question

Here is a question I am pondering on this Resurrection Sunday...if you believe that "good" people go to heaven, what was the purpose of Jesus coming to earth as a baby, living a sinless life, dying on the cross for your sins and mine and then rising from the dead, (which is why we celebrate Easter)?

And a follow up question to that would be how would you even know if you were "good" enough?

Food for thought...or maybe for reflection and revelation.