Get out of the Rat Race!

I got caught up in the rat race again!!

My observation is that this is the easiest way for the Enemy to distract me and steal my peace. Between finishing home school projects, extra murals, sick children (all seven of them had a tummy bug in two days), cleaning up and a special birthday (me turning 40), I was so busy with all the many, many ‘good things’ and missed out on ‘best’. I got caught up in planning, preparing, organizing and delegating. I’ve realized that these take away your focus from today. All this planning, preparing, organizing and delegating are for the future.

But what about today?

Today I want to stop when my baby smiles at me with clear, innocent eyes.
Today I want to hold my toddler when he asks me to, give him a kiss and I don’t want to be in a hurry.
Today I want to stop to appreciate my little girl’s newly drawn picture.
Today I want to push my boys on their swings and enjoy the fresh morning breeze.
Today I want to stop when my boys want to tell me a story, look them in the eyes and listen.
Today I want to stop and acknowledge and appreciate my older ones’ efforts helping with the younger ones.
Today I want to serve my big boy lying sick on the couch, pretending he is my little boy again. Today I want to look at my children and remember they are the reason I’m a Mother.
Today I want to stand a little longer in my husband’s embrace and remember the way he smells.
Today I want to take a minute and write my husband an encouraging-thank you letter.
Today I want to look at my husband and remember he is the reason I’m a wife.

But most of all I NEED to stop and remember I’m God’s child. I want to sit at His feet and let Him fill me with His Spirit. I want to be in His presence, be myself and know it’s good. I want to remember I’m God’s precious daughter and I want to remember He is the reason I live!

I want to stop pretending.
I want to stop being like the other Mothers.
I want to stop comparing my children with other children. It is when I try to be a mother and wife the way I THINK I should be, or in my own strength, that I fail.

I can only be a loving Mother when I make peace with the unique person God created me to be.
I can only be a peaceful Mother when I am drinking out of His well of living water.
I can only be a caring Mother when I mother through His strength.

Only He can make me serve with a serving heart.
Only He can give me patience and longsuffering to handle the frustrations and chaos of little children.
Only He can give me the wisdom and attentiveness to know my older children.
Only He can make me a submissive wife who loves her husband unconditionally.
Only through His peace can I manage my house.

But I don’t want to have this only for today; I want to have it every day, for the rest of my life!

This morning God gave me the answer – like so many times before!
I can only get out of the rat race, when I come to Jesus and learn from His example. When I take His yoke upon me; when I have His gentle and lowly heart, then I’ll have rest for my soul.

I am going to take the challenge again to know Jesus more, to give Him all my burdens and ask Him to reveal Himself to me.

I got out of the rat race and I can already see the difference in myself and in my home.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matt 11:28-30

PS. I’ve just received the newest Above Rubies magazine, #75. Inside is an article by Nancy Campbell (Editor and Founder of Above Rubies) and guess what one of the main articles is? ‘Help! How can I have PEACE in my Home?’

Wow, what an amazing article! Just the right timing - just for me!!
Maybe it is also intended for you….?

To receive this copy of Above Rubies, subscribe HERE.

The Children, Christo and I with my birthday cake! Four candles, one for every decade!!

My goal for the next 40 years? To live a simple, quiet life.

Our Colour Lapbooks Finished!

Here are the final products of Josua, Danika, Andrew and David's Colour Lapbooks:

At the back of the file we made a pocket file for extra art.

Why Make Books?

1. Book-making is good for children's brains;


2. Book-making turns words from foes into friends;


3. Book-making helps children "own" the information you are presenting;


4. Book-making develops creative skills;


5. Book-making provides a positive tool for sharing your homeschool experience;


6. Book-making is a way to preserve precious work for years to come;


7. Book-making helps parents evaluate mastery;


8. Book-making communicates to the child that "your art is worth all this 'fuss".

(Quote from The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook)

Celebrate!

God loves feasts! As a family, we love feasts too! On Saturday night we celebrated the love in our family and God's love for us, that He sent His Son to redeem us from sin and gave us eternal life with Him.


Heidi-Mari and Danika made all the decorations for our table and got CJ to help them decorate the room.

Christo led us in Communion, to remind the children of the greatest sacrifice of love Christ made for us.

We had a stir-fry evening and every one enjoyed preparing his own meal.

After our meal, the little ones were very sleepy and they went to watch a video. Christo, the three older children and I laughed and chatted for another hour.

What a blessed evening!

Our Home School Journey

Colour Lapbook

Danika, Andrew and David are almost finished with their first Lapbooks. What fun we had! We did a Lapbook on Colours. We started with Noah and the first rainbow. They made an ark, with Noah and animals peeping through the ‘windows’ and the rainbow that covered the sky.

Noah made a big impression on Andrew. He is my operator and the one who can’t wait to be in control of his own life. Answering dad's question of who Noah was, he answered, “He is the Boss of this boat!”

To illustrate the animals going into the Ark two-by-two, we made a male and female lions with different sizes circles. We counted the circles and played games by arranging the circles in different sizes.

They also made monkey faces on sticks and played monkey-monkey the whole day!

The focus of our lapbook was to learn the primary and secondary colours. We did a lot of activities to reinforce this concept.
We illustrated primary and secondary colours with paint. They mixed the primary colours to make secondary colours and painted rainbows.

We also used play dough to demonstrate the mixing of the primary colours to make the secondary colours. At the end they could mix the colours as much as they wanted, without mommy complaining, she even encouraged them! See the joy on David’s face!

We also used Oil Pastels to mixed the secondary colours.


For Friday baking we made rainbows with jelly tots, tennis biscuits and icing. We practised sorting colours and counting, without them even knowing they were learning.

This was great fun and a huge spoil, since my children only get sweets at birthday parties.

We illustrated the rainbow with different layers of jelly. We cheated a little with the blue, and mixed in some food colouring! For ‘clouds’ we whipped some Orley Whip. Even the older children could join us for this activity. See the anticipation on Heidi-Mari’s face!

We cut and pasted coloured ice cream scoops on cones. For Danika we put numbers on the ice cream scoops and she had to put the scoops in the right sequence.

Josua had to learn to write the names of the colours. I put the names of the colours on the ice cream scoops and he had to match it to the correct colour.

We coloured umbrella’s and rain drops, cut them out and matched them again.

We coloured in two by two pictures and they had to connect them with lines. At first it was a new concept to Andrew to connect the same pictures, but by the end he could do it with great confidence.

David did not know any of his colours before we started. Today as we did the lay-out of the lapbook, I could asked him to show me a picture of the colour red and he could immediately show me a red picture. He couldn’t say the name of the colour, but he did know what red looked like. Andrew knew his colours from a very young age, fso for him it was only reinforcement to learn the colours, as well as for Danika and Josua. Danika and Josua enjoyed the mixing of the colours.

I got all my ideas and activities from: kidsparkz; first-school; dltk-kids and lapbooklessons

As we finished one activity after the other, we put it in a plastic file. Today we start to put it all together on our lapbook-file. (Read more on lapbooking on our website)

We are now in the final stage of putting this together. I will post pictures as soon as it is finished.

Have a fun activity day!

Our Home School Journey

January 2009 – CJ

The New Year has brought a completely new routine to CJ ‘s Home School Journey. CJ is now 14 years old and we now need to gather credits and build his portfolio over the next four years in order for him to be able to study at tertiary level if he so chooses, when he turns 18 years of age.

Up to now we followed the Konos Learning Lifestyle, Maths-U-See and LLATL. He will continue his Maths through Maths-U-See and his English through LLATL. His new learning areas will be History, Geography and Arts through Konos HOW, Science and Physics through Apologia and Dad introducing him to IT-work.

Since my day is fully packed with Heidi-Mari and Josua’s Konos, Maths, LLATL and Afrikaans (our first language); the three toddlers Danika, Andrew and David’s drawing, colouring, painting and counting (we do that through lapbooking) and Baby Daniel who needs a lot of attention, I couldn’t figure out where to fit CJ’s extra work into the day. Miraculously God intervened and gave us the idea of Daddy taking an hour every morning between 07h00 and 08h00 while breakfast is prepared (we believe in starting the day with the main meal – a full English breakfast – read more) and an hour at night after the little ones have gone to bed.

So, we began this new routine….

I was amazed at how quickly everyone adapted to the new routine. But why am I amazed? It was God who gave us the idea, and His ideas always work. The little ones had to learn that this time was exclusively for CJ and they had to wait their turn. The Lord went before us and they handled it quite well.

CJ and Dad’s first project was to get our home school website going. CJ had to gather information about the curriculums we use, helpful web-links and introduce some of our home school methods. Even I was interviewed by ‘The Webmaster’ and a lot of photographs were taken. Throughout January he worked many hours building this website. CJ has a special gift for bringing a message to life through pictures and graphics and enjoyed every moment of it. Finally on Friday the 23rd of January they published the HomeschoolSA website. http://www.homeschoolsa.co.za/

CJ also started his Science curriculum through Apologia’s ‘Exploring Creation through Physical Science.’ This is a full years course and during January he studied the Human body. During this module he did an experiment with a chicken bone to study the elements of bones.


Apologia also has a ‘question of the week’ competition, and he has already answered 3 out of 12 questions correctly. In order to answer the question he REALLY has to do a lot of research. This is such a wonderful opportunity for CJ to learn how to research in this knowledge exploding era –where to look for information, what to look for, how to distinguish between all the bits of information and condensing the information into a presentable answer. That is one of the main reasons we home school our children - to teach them how to handle information. In this era of knowledge explosion, filling in the blanks and memorising facts, will get you nowhere. You need to know how to search for information and present it. Then you will be able to do anything.

Another New he started this month was to manage his own time. He needs to learn how to divide his available time between his different learning areas and in order to qualify for credits over the next four years, he needs to keep account of every hour he works in each of those learning areas. He learned to create an excel sheet that keeps record of all the hours.

In LLATL he had to draw up a selection of Poems, illustrate them himself and put them together in book form with a content and index page. My big boy was by no means enthusiastic about this assignment. I used it as an opportunity to teach him that not everything we do will always be fun. Sometimes there is a call for things we have to do, which we don’t want to do; but if done properly, will take you to a higher level. I allowed him to do some of the poems on the computer and some he had to write and draw by hand. I was amazed at his change of attitude by the end of this assignment. I wouldn’t say he got all excited about it, but he definitely wasn’t so anti-poetry by the end. And he was quite proud of his Home Illustrated Poems collection.

“School” for CJ has started on a positive note and, as a bonus, he and Dad are having very special times together. I praise the Lord for the opportunity to make learning a part of life!

Making Memories

The day our little girl was born, was one of the most joyful and thankful days of our life. Our firstborn was a boy and now… a little girl.

A Girl to dress in pink, a girl to play dolls with, a girl with whom I could have tea and cake when she grew up, a girl to plan a wedding for one day, a girl who would become my best friend. She was my second baby and with the optimism of a young mother, I believed I was prepared for all the changes and challenges a new baby could bring to the house. I was confident and looked forward to taking my newborn baby home.

After two days at home, I realized that she was crying far more than I could remember my first born ever doing. She would start complaining with her little voice at eight and nothing could stop the increasing pitch of her cries.

When she was 5weeks old, CJ turned three years. I remember decorating the living room for his birthday party, the night before his birthday, with a screaming baby. That night I had to admit to myself, my little girl, was a colic baby! It was a terribly, fearful moment in my life. My sister was a colic baby. I was 5years old when she was born and I could clearly remember the effect my sister’s cries had on my mother. Would I be able to handle this baby?

Many days I just could not take it any longer. I would call the babysitter or a neighbour and just leave her for an hour or so to go and sit on a bench in the park, sobbing in hopelessness. What had happened to my expectations for this little girl? I thought that I must have been doing something wrong, as she did not want me. That was my main concern that she didn’t want me…

Over the following months she developed eczema. At 6 months her body was as raw and red as liver and pus came oozed out of her skin.

I visited a homeopath who immediately told me she was allergic to dairy and MSG. These ‘toxins" entered her body through my breastmilk. That whole idea was foreign to me. I was a qualified Dietician and never had anyone ever taught me that the mother had to watch her diet when she breastfed. Only chocolate and coffee could reach the baby through the breastmilk. I immediately stopped drinking milk and eating cheese, ice cream, cream and all processed foods loaded with MSG. As time went by, we also learnt that I had to avoid wheat products. Read more...

Gradually my baby’s condition improved, but the scars were there. The damage was done. I remember looking at my sweet little baby, that didn't cry any more from seven in the morning till seven at night, wishing I could just turn back time and prevent her from crying so much in those early days.

As time passed by, this sweet little baby became a toddler and a beautiful little girl, but I was so startled by those first few months, that real bonding didn’t take place.

For years I cried out to the Lord, to please restore our relationship, to please wipe out the memories of those first few months! My husband prayed for years, for the restoration of our relationship. And then just before her ninth birthday, it hit me. We had to start doing something together, just the two of us. We needed to spend time together building new memories.

She was now the most beautiful young girl and she wanted to please me with everything she did. It was my greatest desire to love this girl with all my heart. But what could we do, and how were we going to do it with three smaller children and baby number six on the way? One afternoon, while driving home from a mall, pondering on what I could buy her for her ninth birthday, I saw a big advertisement on scrapbooking. I didn’t have an idea what it was, but the advert said, 'The Newest Hobby'! I love to be creative and decided to stop at this “Scrapbook Shop”. And there my journey with my little girl changed and years of prayer were answered. The lady at the Scrapbook Shop was so friendly and helpful and on my girl's 9th birthday we gave her some scrapbooking tools. I also arranged for the two of us to take an introductory course on scrapbooking. So, off we went. Today, almost 3years since we started scrapbooking once a week for 2 hours, we have made the most beautiful pages filled with memories.

But more importantly, we started building new memories by sharing this precious time together. Many nights we would start scrapbooking and by the end of the night she would have shared her dreams and hopes with me. We’re now best friends!

I have realized how important it is to let every child know, that we want to spend time with them, that we want to be with them, that we don’t just love them, we also like them. They must experience that they are special.

They are God’s gift to us.
Through our scrapbooking evenings, I’ve sacrificed time, to be with her. The time I’ve invested in these evenings, will reap a harvest that I can’t comprehend now. In the very near future she’s going to be a young woman, and I want to be the one that she trusts with her dreams and fears. I believe these Scrapbooking evenings are going to be the key to her dreams and fears.

I once read:
“Love is to gently run your hands over someone’s soul, till you find a crack, and then fill that crack with your love, for it to heal.”

Through our Scrapbooking evenings I am able to keep my hand on her heart, ready to fill it with love, whenever she needs it.

I do not miss my Monday nights of scrapbooking with my daughter for anything in the world!

Well done, good and faithful servant

The tiredness is starting to build up. The days are packed with activities. CJ is now working separately from Heidi-Mari and Josua. And since the beginning of this year we are actively busy with the little ones too. Danika, Andrew and David are doing their studies through Lapbooking. Daniel is starting to sleep less at night - all my babies' sleeping patterns change when they turn 6months. Their normal once a night feed turns into 4-5 times a night. That doesn't make it easy on Mom's emotions!

Today we planned to wrap up CJ's Poetry Mini Book for LLATL, and he wanted me to check it before putting the final product together. Heidi-Mari and Josua haven't had a Konos fun day since the year started and we put today aside for that.

We planned to do Danika, Andrew and David's colour lapbooking this afternoon and hoped they would be able to play in the sandpit while we are busy in the morning.

Daniel is currently in the pattern of sleeping at least 90min in the mornings and we counted on that to make the morning a success.

Everything went according to plan. We took Andrew and David to the sandpit with aeroplanes, cars and animals to play with. Then I went to put Daniel to sleep while CJ, Heidi-Mari and Josua prepared for their activities.

But...

While I was putting Daniel to sleep I remembered that Christo and the boys were going camping this weekend and I still had to do some laundry before then. I realised this could potentially interrupt the well planned morning. I can so easily get distracted by activities, and then struggle to focus again!

As soon as Daniel was asleep, I grabbed the laundry basket, to discover with shock that there were at least 3 bundles of laundry! I would just start doing it inbetween the fun. I quickly peeked in at CJ and gave him some suggestions and praise. Now we could start with the fun. Heidi-Mari and Josua are doing the Muscular System (of the Human Body) and today we're going to make faces and draw pictures illustrating which muscles do the work. For that I got the camera ready to take some pictures.

Danika was drawing next to us and we had a good laugh at all the silly faces Josua could pull.

Then reality struck.....

Andrew and David started fighting about the same aeroplane, the orange one! I ran outside to sort it out, and as I ran past the scullery remembered the laundry. I quickly popped in the second bundle and decided we would put the first bundle on the line when we took a break. Before I could reach Heidi-Mari and Josua (they were waiting for me to help them trace the outline of a face so they could draw the muscles), I heard Danika crying. She had tripped over something and hurt her knee. I quickly stopped by and gave the necessary tender, loving, care. Back to Heidi-Mari and Josua, only to hear Heidi-Mari announce Daniel was awake.

This is where I realised it is down-hill for the day. The morning was too short - as usual. It was almost 12 o'clock and there was so much more fun to do. But the little ones needed lunch by 12h30 to keep their blood sugar levels normal, and this afternoon was Christo and my coffee date. In the next hour, we had to wrap up the Konos fun, had to prepare lunch, I had to get dressed, Daniel had to be breastfed and needed a dry nappy and clean clothes. I also realised there was still one bundle of laundry to be done and it was the bundle with CJ's horse riding pants, which he need by 16h00 this afternoon. I wasn't even sure if there would be enough time for it to dry on the line. On top of it the little ones were by now starting to get cranky. David had a dirty nappy (only I am allowed - or have the stomach - to change a dirty nappy). Time was running out, and it felt like I was spinning out of control. A feeling I'm used to in situations like this, knowing that I alone am not enough for all this.

By 13h10 Daniel and I jumped into the car. The babysitter had arrived on time (thank you Lord!), everyone had lunch (except me - no time) but Daniel's tummy was full and his bum was dry. I was exhausted and fled defeated. How many days would end like this? I have all the expectations of a great fun day and at the end the little foxes like sibling quarrels, crying toddlers and injuries take up our time and we have to settle for 'trying again tomorrow'.

For a moment I allowed myself to lean back and try to figure out what had happened the last 3 hours. I actually cried out to the Lord. Adrenaline was pumping through my veins and I felt like hyperventilating. Lord help me!! I don't now how to do this. Was this really going to be the pattern of my days ahead? What am I doing wrong? (I'm not a very organised person - could that be the reason?) For a split second I questioned my motives for homeschooling my 7 children. Was it all worth it? Are my children actually benefitting from this .... chaos?

And then I heard the soft voice of the Lord in my spirit: "My daughter you are in My perfect will. This is the reason I created you, you are doing it for Me. You bring Me glory through receiving all the children I wanted to give you and raising them up in My ways. Right now you don't have the full picture. You will only have the full picture in Eternity. Then I will show you what I have accomplished through you and your children for Myself and My glory. This is not about you, it is about the purpose I have for you and my children.

Take courage, my daughter, I will reward you One Day. Keep on keeping on. I do know the sacrifices you are making in raising a Godly generation. I do know your tiredness and frustrations, but this is a very special time of your life. This is My calling for your life. Be faithful and in due time you will reap the fruit of your obedience."

I could feel His peace settling in my heart. I could look back at the morning and have hope and joy in my heart. This is worth it. I could remember the pride in CJ's posture when he showed me his Poetry Minibook, I could remember Heidi-Mari's remark, 'the Muscle system is such fun Mom', I could remember Josua's shyish laugh when he saw the pictures of his silly faces,

I could remember my two toddler boys' laughs of joy in the wet sandpit;

I could remember Danika's thankfulness after I'd kissed her injured knee, I could remember little Daniel's sleepy face against my breast.

I don't want anything different in my life. This is the precious time. I will keep on keeping on.

Tomorrow I will start again, love my children, train my children and have fun.

I will also take every challenge that comes my way, for one day in Eternity I will bow before my Lord and hear the words: Well done, good and faithful servant, Enter into the joy of your lord.’ (Matt 25:23)