Well Planned Day Software Giveaway

Home Educating Family is giving away one year's subscription to their new Well Planned Day Software!  Head on over to this link and see how to enter. This planner is fully accessible via internet on your computer or mobile device.  It includes homeschool planning as well as home and family planning all in one. :) I am very interested and hope you are too!  Best wishes to you if you enter this week's contest!

Kids Flag Page

It's been a long time since I've posted, and we are in the home stretch working on the new house.  Since my last blog post, my mind and body have been very busy to say the least!

After folding laundry tonight, I thought I'd take a few moments to do something fun for me. :) I logged on to check out one of my favorite blogs this evening...mama jenn.  I was excited to read her latest post on a product called Kids Flag Page, and I had to share with my Domestic Engineering readers! 

Quoted directly from the Kids Flag Page web page:
"The Kids Flag Page is a fun way for moms and dads to interact with their kids and truly discover the heart of each child—who God created them to be. When you follow the simple, step-by-step instructions to complete your child’s Flag Page and read the information in the accompanying book, you will:

• Discover the way God uniquely hardwired your children individually and how to best relate to them.
• Find the six key things that motivate your child
• Find out what your children love most about life.
• Connect to the heart of your child.
• Learn the do's and don’ts of how to motivate, encourage, discipline and help each child succeed in life.
• Learn how to raise your kids in the power of God’s grace.
• Discover how to bring the best out of your strong-willed kids."

The Kids Flag Page is created as a parent/child interactive board game, which helps the parent find out each child's personality type.  As a parent this "game" will give you tools you can use to better interact with your child or children, and parent each child accordingly with grace based parenting.  I definitely could use something like this to help me with parenting my children because they are each incredibly different! 

Check out the links to see the Kids Flag Page with a video explaining the product as well as ordering information.  Also take a look at  mama jenn's review/giveaway on the product :)

Thanks for reading!  Be Blessed! And, I hope to post again after we've moved :)

LOL Quote of the Day and Changes

Tonight during our family dinner conversation my 3-year-old daughter out of the blue and very seriously said, "I don't remember what I was going to talk about."  My husband and I looked at each other, and of course we laughed.  The funny thing is, I have felt this way often lately.  I haven't been able to find time to blog or even focus myself enough to consider blogging...  Thus, the absence of blog posts.  "Why?" you might ask. 

Our family is preparing for a season of changes.  What do these changes look like?  1. New job for my husband, starting Monday.  2. We are smack in the middle of purchasing a "new to us" house closer to the new job.  3. Fixing up the new house once it's purchased.  Yes, we're attempting another fixer upper, but the price was right!   4. The task of packing and moving which comes along with the new house, while still maintaining the current household and homeschooling.  5. Finish fixing up the old house, and (with lots of prayer) sell it! 

Needless to say, the next several months will be without a doubt a whirlwind of activity or a tornado, I am not sure which.  To leave things on a positive note, as far as we know these changes are good, and once we are settled should make life easier for our family in the future!  

The New House

Over the next several months, as long as I can somehow find the time and the focus I shall blog when possible.  Otherwise, I will see you all on the other side from my different new house!  Be Blessed!

A Little Taste of Home for the Christmas Holidays

Today I got a little fire lit under me.  I managed to get my floors mopped, bathroom cleaned, and then I decided I'd better get movin' on my Christmas duties...Christmas is almost two weeks away! 

Each year our family gives a small Christmas gift to those who are part of the ministries we oversee at our church, or who minister to our family in some way.  This year I planned to use homemade canned goods from the abundant apple harvest as a little taste of home for the Christmas holidays for our friends.

In the Fall I canned about 30 small jars of apple butter, and several large jars of applesauce. 



Apple Butter



Applesauce


I think canned goods are pretty just as they are, but when giving them as a gift I want them to have a little something special.  I found these pretty 5" fabric squares the at the Wal-Mart, 100 for $10.  There are 5 different coordinating prints included.  I looked at other fabric and figured it may be cheaper to cut my own squares, but sometimes weighing the cost of my time is well worth the cost of convenience.  Obviously, convenience won this time.




Here are the 5 coordinating fabrics in the Fabric Cuts I chose.


In my basement I had quite a few extra canning lids.  So, one fabric square and one lid per jar...



Makes quite a stunning display!



This basket is for my neighbors.



These are for church.

With help from one pair of little hands and my own of course, we soon had all the fabric squares and canning lids attached.  My daughers' teacher is diabetic, so that's the reason for the one jar of applesauce.  Everyone else gets the ever so sweet apple butter.  Yummy!

Living Life In The Zone, by Kyle Rote Jr. and Dr. Joe Pettigrew

Living Life In The Zone, 

A 40-Day Spiritual Game Plan for Men,

by Kyle Rote Jr. and Dr. Joe Pettigrew. 

Being the wife of a NFL fanatic, I jumped at the chance to review a men's sports devotional, and I give it a Touch Down!  With an easy to read straight forward man to man format, this sports themed devotional speaks to real issues real men face.  The purpose of Living Life In The Zone is to give men Biblical direction and Spiritual insight to live and enjoy the abundant life Jesus Christ promises.  The reader gains Biblical direction, and Spiritual insight from famed christian men in sports, as together they focus on God, wife, children, friends, and work.  Including insights from Playmakers such as Coach Tony Dungy, the authors encourage men daily through God's Word in The Game Plan, challenge them with a short contemplative Time Out, followed by implementing what they've read through Today's Assignment.

This is a great devotional for that special man in your life who loves sports.  The devotions are specific and relevent to real issues married/family men face in their day to day lives.  The authors hit a home run when they decided to incorporate not only a sports theme, but wisdom and insight from christian men in sports whom men respect.  As a devotional, the format is consistent and easy to follow.  The Game Plan sections including God's Word are right on target because God's Word is the ultimate Game Plan!  I would certainly recommend Living Life In The Zone for any married/family sports fan man!

Booksneeze has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book.

YOU ARE DOING A GREAT WORK

Sitting at my computer at the point of having a complete meltdown yesterday, my husband entered the room and very calmly and lovingly asked me if I had subscribed to an email from Above Rubies that came into our joint email account a few moments before.  I opened my email account and the subject line read YOU ARE DOING A GREAT WORK.  As I sat there reading, tears flooded my eyes.  I felt a great release.  God knew I needed the encouragement from this email at that exact moment.  Because the message and kind words of this woman meant so much to me, I am compelled to share it so that other women may also be encouraged.  YOU TOO ARE DOING A GREAT WORK!   The following are the words of Nancy Campbell, the founder of Above Rubies: Encouraging Women in their High Calling as Wives, Mothers, and Homemakers.

Dear Aja, Anointed to mother,

May God’s blessings be mightily upon you and your husband and all your lovely children. May God keep you from accident, harm, sickness and danger and all enemy attack. My husband prays this prayer over our family every day.

May God fill you with His strength, patience and anointing as you nurture your treasures, the children whom God has so graciously given to you.  Each one is a special gift from God, Isn’t he?

Aja, you are doing a mighty work. There is nothing greater that you could be doing in the whole of the world. Your work is for eternity. Your children are eternal souls who will live forever. Not only are you training them for the purposes God has for them in this world, but you are also preparing them for the eternal world! Wow! What a mission!

How blessed you are to have your children around you. I know that you often feel overwhelmed, but I want to remind you that in the midst of all the frustrations and tiredness, that this is a very precious time of your life. It was the most precious time of my life. I look back and remember the times I felt “so tired” and yet I can’t think of anything in my life that has been more meaningful and more joyful than those wonderful days.

Don't endure each day, but seek to make it special. You will never have these days with your children again. They are for such a short time. Enjoy them. Revel in them. You may feel that you are not accomplishing a lot each day, but there are years ahead to do all the projects you want to do. But at the moment, your lovely children are your priority. I remember thinking as I watched my children, “I will never forget them at this moment,” but the years have gone and I can't recall many of those moments. They are now all married and raising their own children and currently we have 34 grandchildren.

Back in those days I remember reading the thoughts of another mother and they were a comfort to me. She said,

"These are the never years. Never enough money, never enough time, never enough sleep - but always enough love. The sweetest kiss of a baby the tooth-paste-flavored kiss of a child on his way to school (sadly, homeschooling wasn't in process in those days in New Zealand over 40 years ago); the sleepy kiss of a husband who is just as tired as you.

These are the busy years, the wonderful, hectic, impossible years. Soon the children will be grown and I'll have plenty of time to organize my house, to sew and to cultivate outside interests. I wonder if it will be as wonderful as I sometimes dream it will. Or am I in the middle of the wonderful years... right now?"

Yes, you are in the wonderful years now. I look back on the years when all my little brood were under my wings (or I should say, under my legs and in my arms and one or other of them needing me at every moment) and they were definitely the most blessed years of my life. At one stage I had three in 17 months! That's because I had twins although they are now 45 years old! Then I had four children in less than four years. So I can certainly relate to how you feel at the moment.

We eventually had six, although we have since adopted some teenagers from Liberia.  But six children never seemed very many. Nearly every day my husband and I say to each other, "Where are the rest of our children? I wish we'd had twelve!" It just seems like one blink of an eye and they have all grown up and married. That’s why we have recently adopted four teenagers who keep us really busy!

I love some of the beautiful names God calls our children. Isn't this a lovely one? The "beloved fruit of the womb." (Hosea 9:16) Not just the "fruit of the womb", but also the "beloved fruit of the womb." The context of this passage is God’s judgment, because of their wicked works, was to destroy the beloved fruit of their womb, but it reveals how God views children and also how the early Hebrews felt about their children.

Here's what some of the other translations way...

NIV, Cherished offspring

RV, Beloved children

NAS, Precious ones

NEB, Dearest offspring

JER, Darlings

NAS, Treasures of the womb

Now there are some good names to call your children!

Hebrews 11:7 is a great Scripture, "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

For 100 years, Noah did the same old thing - hammered, nailed and keep on building his ark. He didn't have time to do all the things that everyone else was doing. He just kept on slogging and being faithful, doing the same thing every day for all those years - but in doing so he condemned the world. Yes, he changed the world because he stuck with the job he was given to do! He changed the world by doing the same thing day after day after day.  And at the same time he saved his family!

You may feel that you are just doing the same old thing every day, but as you are faithful to raise godly children, and build an ark for the saving of your house, you will condemn the world around you.  You are accomplishing far more than those who go out to seek a worldly career to the detriment to their highest calling. Your influence goes on into the generations and even into eternity.

Isn't it amazing that our daily faithfulness in the home will have its impact on earth -- and also for eternity? It can change the world! We have to remember that bearing and raising children is a long-term investment - in fact, an eternal one! In a culture where everyone wants everything to happen instantaneously, we must learn to think long term - for the future.

So rejoice and be glad in your high and noble calling.

YOU ARE CHANGING THE WORLD!

Remember, you have the most important career in the nation!

Love from

NANCY CAMPBELL, Above Rubies

By the way, are you on my email devotion list? It will encourage and strengthen you as a wife and mother.  If not, and you would like to, all you have to do is send a blank email to:

subscribers-on@aboverubies.org

And don’t forget that Above Rubies is now on Facebook. Join and be encouraged each new day.

My Little "Bumble Collection"

When I was pregnant with my son, I stumbled upon a beautiful diaper bag at T.J. Maxx.  It was a little more than I would normally spend on a bag, but I absolutely had to have it!  The fabric was quality, and the pattern was unlike anything I had ever seen in the realm of diaper bags.  Who knew diaper bags could be more than pink, blue or Winnie the Pooh?  It was a defining moment for me, finally a diaper bag with style! 



Buttercup Bliss Kimberly Tote, My Spring/Summer diaper bag


After my purchase, I embarked on a search to find out more about my new Bumble Bag.  I found a website for Bumble Bags, and thus became my fetish with The Bumble Collection.  If you're like me, pricey diaper bags aren't in the picture.  However, to my delight The Bumble Collection recently announced a decrease in their prices by 40-50%!  Not only that, they are now available at Babies R Us at their new reduced prices.  Follow this link to see The Bumble Collection official annoucement. 

Since that first day discovering The Bumble Collection, I added two more bags to my little collection. 



This pretty Madeline Backpack works great as a multipurpose purse complete with diaper changing pad!



Kimbery Tote, My Autumn/Winter diaper bag

Go to The Bumble Collection to see the entire line of Bumble products.  You'll be glad you did!