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Thank God For Dirty Dishes
Thank God For Dirty Dishes
Thank God for dirty dishes; They have a tale to tell.
While others may go hungry, We’re eating very well.
With home, health, and happiness,
I shouldn’t want to fuss;
By the stack of evidence, God’s been very good to us.
Author Unknown
My mom reminded me of this poem yesterday when I was less than enthusiastic about cleaning up the kitchen after Thanksgiving dinner. My paternal Grandmother has this hanging in her kitchen when I was a child. I think I will type it up and frame it for my kitchen too!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Today I Am Thankful For…
This month I decided to write down one thing each day that I am thankful for. It has been an interesting experience. What I have learned is that the "things" I am most thankful for are not "things" at all. They are mostly people, relationships and blessings. Here is the bulk of my list. Some are more private things that I didn’t want to share with the whole world. :^)
Today I am thankful for my family. What a wonderful husband and children I have been blessed with.
Today I am thankful for my dog Elvis. He is so loving and devoted to me. A consistent reminder of how I want to love God and others.
Today I am thankful for freedom. God bless all the veterans past and present who have sacrificed to give us freedom. God bless America!
Today I am thankful for our church home. Wow, what an awesome church home God has blessed us with! A place where we can serve, as well as be served. A place for friendship, encouragement and deep commitment to spreading God’s Word.
Today I am thankful for homeschooling. What a blessing homeschooling has been to our family! I know that the time and energy I have invested in my kids will pay back dividends their entire lives!
Today I am thankful for all my homeschool mom friends. Each of you have encouraged, supported and loved me on my homeschool journey. You are each a blessing to me!
Today I am thankful for my husbands job. He enjoys the work and the people he works with. The kids and I enjoy that he has nights and weekends off. (Something we missed A LOT the 6 years at his last job.) It’s a winning combination for a happy home!
Today I am thankful for AWANA. Our family has been involved in AWANA for 13 years, in 3 States at 7 churches. Each and every one has been a place that has brought us closer to God. Over the years we have hid His Word in our hearts, made friends and found a place to serve others through AWANA. What a blessing!
Today I am thankful for my new house! It’s been 6 weeks since we got the keys and 4 weeks since we spent our first night here and it totally feels like home. :^)
Today I am thankful for my job at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine. I get paid to write, which is a dream come true for me. I get to write about homeschooling, which I love. I get to work my own hours, from home, with my kids underfoot. It’s a win-win!
Today I am thankful for our new homeschool parent support ministry at church. My friend and I started it this year. I have been so blessed to get to know and grow with so many great homeschool parents. I am especially thankful for my friend who is my ministry partner in both Awana and the new homeschool group. She is an amazing blessing to me!
Today I am thankful for our friends M, A, I and C. It has been so great having "old" friends in a new place! Getting to be close to our "nephews" has been wonderful! I am so glad to have adopted family close by. :^)
Today I am thankful that my mom taught me to sew when I was young. I love to sew. Sewing relaxes me. Being able to save money making or fixing things instead of buying new has been a great blessing to our family over the years. :^)
Today I am Thankful that my mom arrives this afternoon to spend Thanksgiving week with us. I have some excited kids on my hands!
Today I am thankful for my parents and my sister. :^)
Today I am thankful for my "PAMily". You know who you are! ;^)
Today I am thankful for my blog. It is a blessing to me as a creative outlet as well as a place to connect with other homeschoolers all over the world.
Today I am thankful for my American Girls! (And their mom’s.) American Girl Club has been such a blessing to me. I look forward to learning American history with my girls for a long time to come!
Today I am thankful for John 3:16! "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only son that whoever believes in Him will no perish but have ever lasting life." The ultimate free gift!
I pray that each and every one of you have an equally wonderful list of blessings!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Jamin
Pumpkin Dump Cake
One of my friends made this for our Pumpkin Party earlier in the month. It was SO yummy I had to get her recipe. I am hoping to make this today to share with my mom who arrived yesterday to spend Thanksgiving week with us. :^)
Pumpkin Dump Cake
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1 can pumpkin (29 oz.)
1 C sugar
1 can evaporated milk (12 oz.)
3 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C melted butter
1 C chopped pecans
Combine pumpkin, sugar, evap. milk, eggs, spices, and salt in mixing bowl. Beat well. Pour into greased and floured 9×13 glass pan. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over mixture. Sprinkle the pecans over the cake mix. Pour melted butter over all. Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes. Watch closely, burns easily. (Knife inserted in the middle of cake should come out clean when done.)
If you are looking for a new yummy Thanksgiving recipe you might want to give this one a try!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
First Thanksgiving Dinner Celebration!
Our First Thanksgiving Dinner was Friday and it was AWESOME! We had 40 kids from 18 families attend for a total of 60 people in attendance. (Just a few more than the 53 Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving!)
Here is the day in pictures…
Here I am with my 2 youngest. (Oh, come on you knew you would see me dressed like a Pilgrim at some point! LOL My costume was just a black shirt and skirt I had in my closet. Then I wore one of the hats I had made and added a collar and apron made from white felt. Super simple!)
Here are some of the Indians and Pilgrims arrving.
My handsome Indian teenager!
His shirt is a white t-shirt we tea stained and then fringed the edges with scissors. It was super easy! (I boiled about a gallon of water and then seeped 7 tea bags until it was pretty dark. Then I removed the tea bags and soaked the shirt for about 30 minutes. Then I put the t-shirt through the spin cycle of the washer and ran it through the dryer. Once it was dry we fringed the edges with scissors. You could add beads too.)
After everyone arrived and got their hats on I spent a few minutes talking to the kids about the first Thanksgiving. Here are some of the kids listening to me talk.
I asked them lots of questions too so they all got to tell what they know about the first thanksgiving.
Then we had a story.
The First Thanksgiving By: Linda Hayward
Here is my daughter reciting a poem she memorized as the blessing for the food.
The First Thanksgiving
When the Pilgrims
first gathered together to share
with their Indian friends
in the mild autumn air,
they lifted the voices
in jubilant praise
for the bread on the table,
the berries and maize,
for field and for forest,
for turkey and deer,
for the bountiful crops
they were blessed with that year.
They were thankful for these
as they feasted away,
and as they were thankful
we’re thankful today.
Author Unknown
She did an AWESOME job. I was so proud of her!
The FOOD!
We had turkey, fish, deer stew, fruit, nuts, cheese, corn chowder, potatoes, cranberry salad, apple sauce, and a lot more! Yummy!!!!
Pilgrims and Indians eating together.
Lots of yummy food!
We also played games. Here are a few of the pilgrim girls heading out to play games.
And my WILD Indian boy!
3 Legged Races!
Corn Toss
The Turkey Shoot!
There was also a corn hunt (Similar to a egg hunt except dry corn was thrown in the grass and everyone hunted for it.) and pumpkin races where the kids pushed a pumpkin with a stick, The games were great!
And lastly we made our craft (Which the kids LOVED and I didn’t get any pictures of.) and then played Thanksgiving Jingo!
It was an awesome day. I can’t wait to do it again next year!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Click HERE to read my post on planning out this party. :^)
Thanksgiving Dolls
Not to be outdone by her mother my daughter spent yesterday afternoon putting together Pilgrim and Indian outfits for her dolls. :^)
I love the way that girl thinks!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
First Thanksgiving Dinner
This Friday our homeschool group is having a First Thanksgiving Dinner. I am SO excited because this is something I have wanted to do with my kids for years! As you can see above my littles are ready to go! My little man is SO, SO excited about getting to dress up as an Indian! (Can you tell from the picture?)
So here is the plan for the dinner.
Everyone has been invited to come dressed as either an Indian or a Pilgrim. For kids who don’t come dressed we will provide either a Pilgrim hat or Indian headband made from felt. (If all the kids come dressed the mom’s will get to wear the hats we provide!)
Here are the instructions for the hats we will be providing:
Boys Pilgrim Hat:
http://crafts.kaboose.com/pilgrim-hat-for-boys.html
Girl Pilgrim Hat:
http://crafts.kaboose.com/pilgrim-hat-for-girl
Indian Headband:
http://www.ehow.com/how_4495065_make-indian-headband-thanksgiving.html
Each family has also been asked to bring a food that would have been eaten at the first Thanksgiving. Here are the suggested menu items:
turkey, lobster, goose, deer, clams, fish, pumpkin, onions, corn bread, berries, nuts, corn, peas, beans
We will also be eating without forks for pepper because those were not used at the first Thanksgiving. (Spoons and knives were used and pepper was cooked into food but not used on the table.) Desserts will be served right along with the other food, not at the end of the meal because that is how it was done in the 1600’s. Of course their desserts would not have been sweet since they didn’t have sugar! (I am betting our pies will have sugar! LOL)
We will also be playing traditional games…
Duck Duck Goose, Marbles, Tag, Relay Races, Nine Men’s Morris, and Fox and Geese
I am also hoping to have the kids make a Wampanoag Toss and Catch Game to take home and play with. Yesterday I spent the day making 72 hats so if I can catch my breath after that I will work on collecting the materials for these.
It’s going to be a great day!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
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Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Apollo Eight Astronauts Read From Genesis 1968
The other night my daughter came to me with her Awana book and said "It says in here that in the 60’s the Astronauts read from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve from the Moon. Is that true or something Awana just made up?" I happened to be sitting at the computer so I played this for her…
http://www.archive.org/details/Genesis-ApolloEight-24Dec1968
Pretty cool!
I am assuming I don’t remember this from the original airing since I was only 3 in 1968! But I do remember hearing it before. It is quite touching to listen to and somewhat sad to think about how much our world has changed in the last 40 years. I can’t imagine something like this happening today and obviously neither could my daughter since she thought they had made it up for Awana.
I am praying for a revival for America! How awesome it would be to NOT be surprised to hear prayer in this country! How wonderful it would be for my children and grandchildren to live in an America that honored the one true God! Please join me in praying for our country.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
Psalms 33:12
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Pumpkin Party
On Oct. 1st the kids and I were in the car headed to the pumpkin patch! They were all dressed in fall t-shirts and I was ready to take some great pictures! Then it started raining…I pulled over and made a few quick calls to the homeschool friends we were suppose to meet. We all decided to go another day. Little did we know it was going to rain for 30 days straight! (I am exaggerating a little here, but honestly this is the wettest Oct. I have seen in my life!) Meanwhile we were in the middle of moving. The rain meant we were moving in the mud and the last thing I wanted to do was trek out into a pumpkin patch and collect even more mud. As the month headed to a close I started to realize a trip to the pumpkin patch was not going to happen. So I did the next logical thing…I decided to have a Pumpkin Party! LOL
What is a Pumpkin Party??? Honestly it’s something I made up. But, we had our first one on Nov. 2nd with 97 people in attendance! Thankfully the rain finally stopped and we found a park with lots of concrete to keep us out of the mud. The party was a huge success and a LOT of fun! Here are the highlights….
We started out with the kids each decorating a pumpkin cookie.
Then they ate their cookies while waiting for the pumpkin story to start.
Next we listened to the Pumpkin Gospel
You can read all about the story at the link below
http://ginaconroy.com/ginablog/wordpress/2007/10/30/the-pumpkin-gospel/
Then we played pumpkin games!
Pumpkin Parachute Game.
I got a package of Fun Foam Pumpkin and made a smiley face on one with a marker. Then they would put all the pumpkins in the parachute, throw them up in the air and the person who found the smiley face got a piece of candy. Repeat until everyone wins!
Pumpkin Bowling was a favorite!
We also had Pumpkin Golf! My husband cut the bottom off the pumpkin and made 3 holes for us to golf into!
The kids loved this! I got the idea here:
http://familycrafts.about.com/od/pumpkingames/Pumpkin_Games.htm
We also had Pumpkin Hot Potato.
And we had Pumpkin Relay Races!
We finished off the party with lots and lots of pumpkin food! Everyone brought a pumpkin dish to share. We had pies, breads, cakes, cookies, pumpkin dip. The food was amazing!
It was a great day and I am sure we will have many more pumpkin parties in the future.
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
Just Call Me Jamin 