Starsongs Magazine                            After 10+ years of homeschooling and starting out having no clue to what we were doing, I can honestly say we are starting to see some fruits of our labor.  Our son Cameron wants to be a writer.  With all his heart that is what he wants to be.  He has many of those eccentric quirks that you hear about writers having, like getting up at 5a.m. to start school so he can have the afternoon to write (crazy, I know, but true)  We have encourage all of our kids to write a lot for school.  He was given an assignment to write an essay about slavery.  He asked if he could write a poem and I agreed.  His poem title "A Slave, No Less, No More"  blew us away.  He was published in the Spring edition of Starsongs magazine.  Which, if you have a budding writer, I would encourage you to see about sending work to this magazine.  They do a fabulous job. A Slave, No Less, No More Having conquered the wretched fool, Having pained like

Remeber why we celebrate this day! 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”  Mark 16:5-7

Just a reminder that coming up I will be teaching a drop spindle class on May 3 from 10a.m.-12:30p.m.  Details on my class can be found at their website here Homemaker Ang along with all the other upcoming classes they have going on. I would highly recommend taking the time to do this.  Not only will you learn some invaluable information, but Ang and here family have a wonderful gift of hospitality that matches no other!

Twenty years ago today on a cold and snowy day (we got a snow storm that left 9 + inches on the ground the night before our wedding;)) I married the love of my life.  We have truly lived out the words in our ceremony.  We have been through better and worse, richer and poorer (more the latter:) and through sickness and health.  That last one has been a biggie for us, as the first five year of our marriage brought two major illnesses that I was not expected to survive, which is a whole other post.  Scott has made me laugh through it all and still does to this day.  We enjoy life as much as possible, knowing tomorrow may not come.  We have been blessed with five miracles from God, and are moving into a new season with our chicks starting to "fly from the nest" this year.  I am looking forward to the next season, although youngest is only ten so we have a few more years of kiddos being here. I am blessed.

We are back to beautiful spring like weather again. The three youngest and I went for a long walk today and got some things to use for nature journaling. If you have never used this idea in your homeschooling I would highly suggest trying it. Basically, we use field guides to answer our questions and the kids all keep journal books that they all draw and write the information in. My all time favorite "field guide" type book is this: It was written in 1911 by Anna Botsford Comstock.  She wrote it to be used as a correspondence course, so it is perfect for a lesson with the kids.  Each sections comes with questions to get their gears turning.  The only thing I wish it would have is colored pictures, but her descriptions are so good you really don't need the pictures in color.