Titus 2:1 Conference Review

I went.  I learned.  I loved it!

It was beautiful. Encouragement for homeschoolers abounded.  The attendees were real.  Nobody even laughed at my newb questions about Twitter and blogging!  Ok, well they laughed a little when I asked about contacting Nike for sponsor information because I'm a runner an love Nike products.  But so did I, so no harm done!

Chocolate was teeming, food was spectacular, and sharing a room with two other women I never met was a gift from God.

Although there were many more, here are 10 things I'd like to share that I learned or found helpful to hear again.  These are all from what the speakers shared.

1. Homeschooling is not about academics, but about glorifying God.  
2. We are raising world changers.  We are changing the world. 
3. What we have to say is important.  So, don't stop blogging.
4. Relationships are key to everything.  (Relationship with Jesus and relationship with others.)
5. Our children are arrows.  Uh huh.  We are sharpening them to send them out to be world changers.  We are going to dare to shoot them out.  You don't sharpen your arrows to keep them on your back. 
6. We need a bigger vision than surviving next week or we won't survive next week.  
7. When you fight and/or pick on one another you are working for the devil.  I don't want to work for the devil.
8. Homeschool with joy so your children will too.  We want the next generation to continue homeschooling.
9. Your joy is your salvation.  It's not about happiness which is immediate, temporal, pleasure regardless of the impact on others.
10. Nehemiah didn't divide the people into age groups to rebuild the wall in Jerusalem in 52 days. He divided them into families.  Sound like counter-cultural homeschooling?  Did it work?  Yes, epically.

Keynote speakers were Rachael Carman, Christine Young, Heidi St. John and Rebecca Ingram Powell. 

Best Verse:  Luke 6:38  Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” 

Are you using your gifts from God?  How?

I'm on Twitter!

Click here Sue's Twitter and you are welcome to follow.

I'm rooming with two wonderful ladies whom I met when I got here- where the virtual world meets the real world.  

 Click on their name to visit their website:  Donna and Connie and you can meet them too.

Connie uses Sonlight for all levels and loves it for all levels including High School and loves it, so some day I'm going to update my comments on Sonlight for high school that I posted yesterday.

Going to The 2:1 Conference Tomorrow!

 

 

 Leaving for the first ever The 2:1 Conference tomorrow.

 You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. ~ Titus 2:1

"The 2:1 Conference is a faith based conference for homeschooling parents that blog (not just about homeschooling), or are otherwise interested in social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.  Blogging and homeschooling are journeys; each changing with the seasons of our lives."

 

Flowers from our front yard.

Last Day of Jesse's "Computer Animation" Class

Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace Comparison

I finally did as I promised and wrote my thoughts on Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace.

Both Sonlight (SL) and Tapestry of Grace (TOG) are excellent curriculum resources.  


Sonlight says it's a literature based program for preschool through 12th grade.  Sonlight uses a Charlotte Mason approach.  You can find out more about curriculum types, such as Charlotte Mason, in Kathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum. 

The Tapestry of Grace website says it "helps parents provide a Christian, classical education using a guided unit study approach, with the history of the world as the core organizational theme. From Grades K–12, all students cycle through world history every four years, with all ages studying the same slice of history each week, each at their own learning level."
 
When I started homeschooling I used Sonlight and continued to use for 6 years.  I loved it. Still do.  So why did I stop using it?  The last year I used it, I had a child in 4th grade, 2nd grade, kindergarten a preschooler and a baby.  I was using two separate core programs to accommodate multi-aged children, so essentially I was doing two totally different schools.  It took way too much time.  I later found out that there was a better way to use 2 different cores with Sonlight, but by then I had made the switch.  You can find information about that on their forum.

I looked for a curriculum that would be a better fit for me and somehow, I can't even remember how, I found TOG.  The biggest selling point at that time was that it was created by a mother of 6 who designed it to be used with multiple  kids at different learning levels.  Voila.



You can continue to read more below about what I like about both curriculums.

Picture day for Jesse.

Not to be out done, Levi gets in the action.

Here's what I like about the two curriculums: 

Sonlight:

• Read-a loud books for the younger students.   Some of my favorites are Understood Betsy, The Year of Miss Agnes, And the Word Came with Power and Missionary Stories with the Millers.
• Open-and-go.  
• You can order everything from them; get everything in a box.
• Forum.  The best.  I go to this for everything, homeschooling and non-homeschooling.
• They have consultants you can talk to.  
• Great customer service.
• Their catalog.  Even if you don't use SL, get their free catalog.  I always recommend it to new homeschoolers.  It has wonderful descriptions of many different curriculum that SL sells (like math, science, handwriting) and it has a synopsis of all the books they sell.  There are lots of articles that have a wealth of information about homeschooling in general.

 Tapestry of Grace:

• Classical, therefore history is taught sequentially and  you repeat it every four years using progressively more difficult resources.
• The ability to teach all learning levels at once and everyone is studying the same topics.
• Classical literature:  The Illiad and the Oddessy, Shakespeare.
• There are read-a-louds but not as many as SL, so not so teacher intensive in that respect. 
• You can buy all the books on their affiliate, The Bookshelf.
• Excellent customer service.
• Online classes!!
• The Bible study that goes with Year 1 correlates with the actual history going on in the world at that time, so history makes sense.
• Forum.  Not as extensive as Sonlight.  Marcia, the  creator of TOG, frequents the forums with answers to questions.

Sonlight for High School.  

Sonlight's high school history is unusual.  I haven’t used it but it doesn’t fit in with traditional high school history courses.  Not saying this is a bad thing.  In my last post I wrote about how another mom encouraged me to think outside the box for our kids' education.  

There is an American History year, but one of the optional resources is a resource that TOG uses for upper grammar students (3-6^th grade).  The only world  history that they offer for high school is 20^th  Century World History so that means in high school they don’t get any ancient history.  Colleges probably don’t  care  about that but I do.  I like my kids getting the full cycle of history during high school.   

The high school courses they offer were not quite what I was looking for.  They offer the following:

•  American History
• 20th Century History
• History of God's Kingdom
• Civics/American Government
• British Literature

Now, I must say that I  have trust in SL and I believe that if a student graduates from high school using their curriculum they will have a solid education.  Absolutely.  No doubt.  It was just not the best for our family, at least not now.

I may have some of kids use SL for high school!  I don’t know.  As I was just glancing at their website I thought that SL may be better for at least one of my children for high school because the reading amount seems to be less for literature and history.  That doesn’t mean it’s less stringent or that they won’t learn enough.

 

If you are just starting out I recommend that you start with Sonlight and then change to TOG in about 5^th grade.  That way they will get two cycles of history in 8 years with TOG.  I may do that with my youngest child because I really loved those read-a-louds in SL for the younger students.  Really, it’s about me, I'm the one who wants to read those books again.  

Dual Credit Online Courses, etc.

I've been having, what seems like,  a ton of dialog with some veteran homeschool moms about what our kids' high school will/could/should look like.  Will it have dual credit, CLEP, what level of math, what sciences?   

One mom whose kids have completed numerous dual credit courses and CLEP exams gave some great insight on planning what our children's education can look like.

 She said, "Let's not allow the government to decide how and what we feed our children's minds."  

 She suggested for high school history to go to a local coffee shop where wiser, older men hang out and discuss life, the way it was and they way it should/could be.  The kids can learn real history there, as well as possibly some "colorful metaphors" which give character training opportunities, and then they can take the US History CLEP test at the end of the semester.  Unusual, unique, hands-on, idea-spurring education.

Another homeschool mom, a high school consultant at HSLDA, cleared some things up for me about dual credit and gave me some resourses that I hadn't been able to find.  I was looking for Christian colleges that offer affordable dual credit online courses and she told me some that I already knew about and a few others- one (Regent University) which, I think, has exactly what I had been looking for in terms of price and particular classes.

Here's a short list of Christian colleges that I found that offer affordable dual credit online courses:

• Liberty University
• Patrick Henry College (pretty costly)
• Regent University
• Taylor University
• Bryan College
• Grand Canyon University
• Letourneau university

If my kids take dual credit courses (or CLEP) they can complete an entire year of a high school course in just one semester.  That would leave them time to pursue other areas that interest them.  I am always trying to find out what their interests are and to let them experience them as much as possible.  Still searching....

Our garden gnomes.

Tapestry of Grace for High School

A friend of mine is thinking of using Tapestry of Grace (TOG) next year and she was asking me some questions about using it.  I thought others may have questions like hers so I put the answers in a page on by blog named "Curriculum."  Here is the link that will take you right to it.

Tapestry of Grace curriculum

Something that I learned from our conversation is that the TOG forum has a link for buying and selling used TOG curriculum.  I looked at it and there were some good deals on it. 

I still need to give my two cents about the difference between TOG and Sonlight for another friend!

Our kitchen window.

 

Josh helped make pancakes for lunch today while I made an omelette. He wanted to make a "big" pancake.

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Homeschoolers and standing in line.

It's Fiesta week in San Antonio. 

History of Fiesta:  By 1890, San Antonio, Texas, was a thriving trade center with population of 38,000. In 1891 a group of citizens decided to honor the heroes of the Alamo and Battle of San Jacinto with a Battle of Flowers.  (http://www.fiesta-sa.org/about-2/history-of-fiesta/)   There was  a mock battle where the spectators and people in the parade threw flowers at each other.  Over the years other events were added and now it's a week long celebration with parades, balls and more. 

We attended the local Fiesta celebration that had food, bands, rides, games, etc.  Levi (3 yo) wanted to go on a blow up slide.  There were a few kids waiting in line.  Levi walked to the front of the line, because he knew that was the way into the ride. 

I had to explain to him that he needed to wait behind the boy who was last in line, that he needed to stay behind him until it was his turn.  He understands taking turns, but I don't think he had to stand at the end of line for something before.

So, school for my pre-schooler today was, "learning to stand in lines!"  I'm not sure how or when my older ones learned that, but they did.

Susan Wise Bauer, in her book The Well-Trained Mind, talked about how, when she was a teacher,  she could tell the first graders who had been to kindergarten and those who had not.  The difference was the ones who had been to (an institutional) kindergarten knew how to stand in lines.  Ha! 

Caroline went to a 12th birthday Tea Party yesterday.

She looked beautiful!

Bad decisions

Do your kids make bad decisions?  My kids do sometimes.  Okay, so do I!  I so wish my kids wouldn't. 

 But, in the words of Winston Churchill, "Never, never, never, never give up."

Or, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "Pray without ceasing."—1 Thessalonians 5:17.

We will fight for them even though it may, at times, seem to them that we are fighting against them.

On another note...

I took one of my kids to see The Three Stooges movie tonight.  Not my favorite type of movie due to the slapstick "violence".  It did, however, have a positive theme about benevolence and it most definitely promoted adoption.

If you want to keep up with Journeying Sue....follow the blog by clicking on "Join this Site" on the sidebar to the right.

Life is school

There is so much to be learned outside of the "school walls".

The other day I was speaking with someone who found out I homeschool, so they understandably assumed that I'm at home. Just because I homeschool doesn't necessarily mean I have all my school at home.

My kids learn from most, if not all, situations both inside and outside the home.

Tonight our small group volunteered at a homeless shelter.  Our family has been there before, but this was the first time our small group volunteered.  We all took our kids to help.

While we were there, for under two hours,  we went outside to a playground with the kids who live at the shelter and played with them while their parent/parents took classes or had a chance to just have some down time.  One dad lives there with his 6 very young children.  He had some time to himself while we watched the kids.  

The shelter is for families with one or two parents who have kids.  It  provides classes necessary for the families to "get back on their feet."  

The kids from our small group seemed to really bond with the kids from the shelter.  Our kids found pleasure in doing this.  We didn't do this for the "thanks."  We did it because our God who loves us called us to. 

God's concern:  Is. 25:4. For You have been a defense for the helpless, a defense for the needy in his distress. 

God's command:  Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.

 Class dismissed.

Education and schooling

Our field trip today to Aquarena Springs in San Marcos included a glass bottom boat ride.  

The focus at Aquarena is education and preservation of water and outdoor life. 

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.  

Mark Twain

Our school consists of, among other things, Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts, field trips, church choir for my older kids, sports, volunteer work with our family, small group family ministry, hosting foreign students during the summer, delivering occasional meals to people who can really use a little extra help...

We had about nine families join us.  Here are my little Levi and his buddy are intently listening to our guide who was teaching about bugs that live in the lake.

Once in a lifetime view of a Texas River Cooter turtle making a nest to lay her eggs! 

Glass bottom boat tour.  The water was crystal clear.

Our Group

Class dismissed.

If You're Bored, Do A Chore

Don't tell anybody this, but today after school, when I came downstairs from "Story Time" with my 3 yo (that used to be "nap time", but he caught on so now it's the part of "school" called "Story Time" and he usually ends up taking a nap!) I found the rest of my kids.....gasp....watching TV.  Don't they know they're homeschoolers and they should be doing things like science experiments, helping the elderly, learning how to play the violin or something other that watching TV?!  Especially when I was still finishing laundry, getting ready to make dinner (while 3 yo was sleeping), and whatever else it was I had to do.

I had them turn it off and quickly assigned chores to everyone.  I decided that I need a "If you're bored, do a chore" list.  Or, maybe a basket filled with strips of paper, each with a chore to be done by bored children.  

Once they did their chores, most of them found something better to do than watch TV.  

Here are some ideas for the "Bored Chore Basket":

Sweep back porch

Sweep back side walk

Cut grass

Help with laundry

Sweep front porch

Sweep front steps and sidewalk

Help with dinner

Brush the dog

Can anyone give me some help here??  I could use some more ideas.

A few too many things

There are a few more things than usual going on this week. 

• I just became the "person in charge" of a field trip in 2 days for our homeschool group.  It should be a great trip- a highlight of our homeschooling year.  Headwaters of the San Marcos River .

• We are submitting paperwork for hosting students from Europe again this summer with Nacel.  We are planning to get a boy from France and a girl from Spain.  They come for 4 weeks, stay with our family, and their mission is to learn English.  We had a boy from France last year and we loved having him!  We took him to church for the first time in his life, except a funeral, but he was late for that so it didn't really count.  

•  I am pursing part-time employment. 

• Getting ready to attend the 2to1conference in 9 days.  It's a conference for blogging homeschool moms.  Isn't that wild!? As Spock would say, "facinating."

• Our small group is volunteering at Strong Foundation homeless shelter this weekend. 

Just going to deal with one thing at a time and next week should be back to normal at a much slower pace.  It's all exciting, just a little too much for one week.

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Teaching a Coop Class

Most homeschoolers know what a "coop" is.  It's a cooperative, so "koh-op" not "coop" (like chicken coop)!  

Coops (or co-ops) usually have the homeschool mom, or dad, teaching a class while their children are taking classes.  Often there is no fee involved unless there are supply fees.  A few years ago I was involved in a wonderful coop that lasted about 9 weeks.  Sadly, I had no idea what I could teach. I had been homeschooling for YEARS and I could not think of something to teach. Fortunately, one of the moms couldn't make some of her classes that she prepared so I substituted for her.  The classes were Music for Pre-schoolers (how can you mess that up?) and Cooking.  That is actually hilarious because I don't have any musical ability or skills and I pretty much despise cooking.  Baking, I like.  Cooking meals, not so much.  I was also the assistant to the art teacher.  Comical.  Another subject that is not my forte.  (Are you wondering, like I was, if there is anything I can teach?!)  I was pretty much the girl Friday so it was easy...and fun to see all those creations!!! 

That coop met every Wednesday.  The kids took two classes, had lunch, then had one more class.  There was a nursery where teachers could have their kids while they taught.  One of the teachers, my friend, who taught a writing class that my son was in, had a policy that if the students didn't do their assignments, they had to each lunch with her.  Instead of with their friends.  Brilliant!!  I thought it was brilliant because my son was in the class, not because he loved writing, but because he struggled with it.   When I asked her if he could be in the class even if he was being forced by his mama, and she told me the rule about having to eat with her...Yes!  She made the course fun, of course, and I don't think any kids ended up eating lunch with her.

A tour guide once told me that you just have to know a little more than the customers you serve;  so I went with that theory.  I mean 4 year olds had no idea that I couldn't carry a note!  They just loved singing and dancing!  And the cooking class?  There were  three high school aged boys with no cooking background!  Score!  That class was sooooo much fun to teach!  I threw some baking in.

So now, I'm possibly moving  into the real world of teaching coop.  Another  name for teaching classes to homeschool students where you get paid for your services is "Class Day".  I'm considering teaching at a "Class Day" next school year.  If I continue this blog next school year, I'll let you know how that goes!

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Unkind Speech vs. Kind Speech

 I wonder why the day after I wrote about responding to the "Do you do anything?" question, the Lord prompted me to write about unkind speech?  ("Do You Do Anything?")   We talked about unkind speech during school this week, and below is some of what we talked about. 

"What does our speech reveal about us? What kind of impact does our speech have on other people? The following Bible verses teach us how to use our speech to honor God. Our words have a tremendous impact on people. It's important that we learn to communicate with wisdom and purity. We must keep in mind that our speech can serve as a reflection of our relationship in Christ. The following Bible verses provide a model for our speech so we can communicate the truth in love.
Here is a list of Bible verses about our speech."  John Sachem 

•  Psalm 19:14
  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
•  Psalm 34:12-13
  Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.
• Psalm 37:30
  The mouth of the righteous man utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just.
• Psalm 39:1
  I said, "I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.
•  Psalm 119:172
  May my tongue sing of your word, for all your commands are righteous.
• Psalm 139:4
  Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
• Proverbs 8:13
  To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.
•  Proverbs 10:31-32
  The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be cut out. The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.

 See link for full article.  http://voices.yahoo.com/bible-verses-our-speech-5577521.html?cat=34

Our dog, Darby, on the right, and her best friend, Sadie.  Sadie is moving this week and she'll be greatly missed.  Her "people" are the best neighbors and we will miss them too!

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Do you do anything?

Okay.  Sometimes when I meet people and they find out we have six kids and Steve is in the Army, they ask me, "Do you do anything?"  Or, "Do you do anything outside of the home?"

After counting to about two and a half and putting on my "I'm from Philly, have a Master's degree in Nursing, and spent 20 years in the Army" stance (exhale), I usually smilingly answer, "No, I don't do anything.... except homeschool our six kids.."  And then I continue looking at them in the eye.  

I'd really like to change that to something "better" though.  I haven't found that answer yet...still trying them out. 

Here's one:   I keep thinking of saying ..."Yes, I'm raising future leaders of the next generation." Period.  

Or, my favorite,  "No, I don't do anything else now.  But for 20 years I was in the Army defending the Constitution, helping to protect the right to free speech so that people can ask questions like, "Do you do anything?" to mothers with six kids. 

For those of you who are familiar with Tim Hawkins, the Christian comedian, at this point I think he would sort of sarcastically say something like, "Well that wouldn't be the Christian thing to say to them.  So, I'm saying it  to you instead!" 

Just sayin.

Apparently, even if you don't live in Louisiana, but you do live in neighboring Texas, you can still get live crawfish during crawfish season.  We saw these crawling around in a bin at our local HEB today.  When we lived in Louisiana we would always get crawfish during crawfish season.

This isn't the Crawfish Shack where we ate, but we ate at plenty like this! 

http://www.tylerites.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04

A beautiful miniature rose that Steve grew by our front porch!  It's sitting on my desk now.

Teaching Time Management

When I was in Army ROTC in college I specifically remember the classes on time management.

This year I've been working on teaching the basics of time management and planning school work to one of my older children.  

Here are two important aspects of getting things done and in a timely manner:

Making a weekly schedule.  Here's the short version.

• Before your week begins, make or obtain a calendar with each day of the week and include time slots in half hour or one hour increments beginning from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed.
• Make a list of everything you need to do that week.  Include meals, exercise, grocery shopping, etc. 
• Plug those into your calendar beginning with most important items first.
• Voila.  It's like a puzzle.  Put things in realistic places.  Breakfast at 0800, lunch at noon, dinner at 6:00pm.  Exercise 0600-0700 (am or pm).  Medical appointments for the week...include travel time.  You get the idea.

Backwards planning.  This means when you know you have somewhere to be or something to do, figure out what time you need to be there and then work backwards to figure out what and when you need to do everything else to get you to your activity/appointment on time.  

For example, you want to see a  movie at 7:00 pm.  It's 3:00 pm.  You should be at the theater at 6:45 (not 7:00!).  You need to leave your house at 6:15 to park and get in the door at 6:45.  So, you'll need to eat at 5:00pm so you can eat and clean up by 6:00pm.  That allows 15 minutes to "get ready" to go- shoes and makeup on.  You need to cook dinner at 4:00.  You can play outside with the kids from 3:00-4:00, then follow your plan. 

 If you didn't plan like that you might just start thinking about getting dinner ready at 5:00 to get the movie by 6:45 and it just won't work- well, at least not without alot of stress.  

Start planning from the time you have to be there, and go backwards to see what you need to do, and  when you need to do it, to get where you want to be, and to be there on time.

If I would have followed this advice I would have planned to be in bed now, and started blogging earlier! 

Thankful Thursday - 12 April

 Some things I'm thankful for:

•  That the 5 foot snake that my neighbor's daughter found at their back door didn't come to our house to visit...yet.

•  That it was a harmless snake. 

• For honest car mechanics.

•  For my extended family.  As a military family, we don't get home to our to see our relatives often.  I am blessed that my family always warmly welcomes me when I do get to go home.  I will be traveling to be with my family in a few weeks to celebrate the life of my (young) aunt who died this week.

•  For friends with whom I can be real.  Is this becoming less common in the technology world? 

San Antonio River Walk

•  Beautiful warm, sunny weather.

• That our vehicles work.  Well right now, most of them!

• M & M's on sale at the Commissary (the military food store)!

•  Jan, my homeschool group leader.  Wow, she connects the entire northeast part of the city's homeschoolers.

•  That I can read.  I really can't imagine going through life and not being able to read.  I realized today, well maybe I already knew it, that my favorite part of homeschooling is reading books to the kids.  We are just getting to the American Revolution time period so there is some very exciting reading going on...war, treason, name calling ("Lobsterbacks"). etc.  I'd like to read more of the gazillion books that I have sitting by my bed that aren't "school books".   But where to find the time?  Do ya think the kids would notice if I read those books to them and told them it's a read-aloud and they have to sit and listen...just so I would find the time to read my own books?  Na.  But one can dream.

• We're going on a weekend retreat with Officer Christian Fellowship (OCF)!  And, some of our friends are joining us!   OCF is an organization that helps military members and their families grow together in their relationship with God and others.

 
Cowboys for Heroes event on our military post.

Do Hard things. Do Hard Things Well.

Just for fun, watch this:  "Seven Lies about Homeschoolers."

I especially liked Lie Number 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJHt-m3VX6o&feature=share

Lately I've been thinking that want to communicate to my kids, my boys especially, to "Do Hard Things Well."  I want them to do the hard things.  To the best of their ability.  In a way that pleases God.  To do them well.

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When I'm done homeschooling my kids....

When I'm done homeschooling my kids, I hope to go through the Tapestry of Grace curriculum and read all the books that I didn't get to read when I was teaching my kids.  

Once kids are old enough to read, they end up reading most of their work themselves and I just read a synopsis.  I want to read those great works that I missed.

Homeschool moms:  educating two generations at one time!

My newest, favorite Easter tradition.

  We've had some Easter traditions in our family.  Last year we started a new one after a man in our Sunday school class said that's what his family did.  It was to use china dishes during Holy Week.  I thought that was awesome so we did it last year and ended up using the China for about a month.  Ya know it takes some extra effort to pull out the China and exchange it with the "everyday" dishes so it took me awhile to get motivated to to do the exchange in reverse!

Here are some of our Easter traditions:

1. Use China during Holy Week
2.  Bake resurrection rolls (oh, no!  we forgot this year!! Ok, I forgot!)
3. Decorate an egg tree/bush

 

4.  Easter dinner- make a big, special dinner and eat in the dining room

5.  Egg hunt- inside or out

6.  Find a basket - when the kids wake up they look for a basket filled with treats

7.  Go to church- get there early to find a seat

 8.  Decorate eggs.  This is the NEWEST FAVORITE.... with tissue paper and/or crepe paper

  Crepe Paper Easter Eggs

Levi's hand

Is there just a little competition here?  Hmmm?

9.  Spend time with family

It is great to have my mom visit from half way across the U. S.!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 10.  There must be a number ten, right?  Okay....I eat/ ate too much!

He is Risen Indeed!

Happy Easter!

  Our annual egg hunt.

Levi got to go first while the others waited. 

Oma joins in.

Each year we have a "big egg" that has something special in it.  Luke found it this year.