Things Change

The first item to change is my age, today is my birthday. No big plans for today, except very minimal school for Emilie and Olivia. Bella's lessons don’t take long and I will be able to really focus on her today. My mother and gramma are coming up from Austin, not for my birthday, that is just a nice coincidence.

Tomorrow the girls are in the Veteran's Day parade, on 2 different floats. We will be going out to eat lunch with mom and gramma and the girls.

The trees are starting to change and the smell of fall is in the air. I love autumn, it is my favorite season. The girls have been spending more time outside this week, which is nice since we had nearly nonstop rain for 2 weeks. We did school outside yesterday.

Emilie and Olivia went to the Powerhouse Wednesday with a friend. They all loved it. Live youth band, lots of friendly nice kids. The girls didn’t feel excluded, but excepted. The knots of kids, enlarged, (they stepped back to make room for others) not turning their backs to keep others out. They enjoyed the lesson, Emilie really likes to have a good lesson. I’m thinking about letting them go once a month. I don’t feel it is right to abandon our church, but I do want them to have spiritual growth, feel a part of a group, witness other youth living for God, & witness youth’s authentic worship.

Bella told me this week, that this year in school is “really good, better than last year.” So I must be doing something right! When I asked her what she likes best, she listed everything except math, and she isn’t to fond of Language Arts.

After 8 weeks of LLATL with the “sisters”, we dropped it. None of us liked it, very little grammar work, not much creative writing. So I started back the Language Arts in our unit study- Learning Adventures. I know it was a “God Thing” that we started it back when we did, because when I opened it up, it was the beginning a whole new unit on newspaper writing. That coordinates with their literature section- reading a biography on Ben Franklin. The Fine Arts lessons are about cartooning. Both the girls love to draw and both are really good at manga, so that has been enjoyable for them.

This week we started reading the New Testament on a 90 day plan. Not sure if we will finish in 90 days but we are working on this. Emilie has read a lot of the NT herself, but not front to back all the way through. I’m excitied about this.

Remember this?

Do you remember this afterschool special? The Wave

Very creepy, very interesting in light of present day climate

Wholesome Children's Stories

Want to entertain your kids with wholesome stories?
Take a peek at Paws and Tales. You can subscribe to the free weekly podcast.

"Welcome to Wildwood! Here the folks live just like you and me. They love fun and adventure, enjoy their work and family, and try to learn each day what it means to be like Christ.

The Paws & Tales radio drama is heard every week on more than 450 radio outlets in North America and around the world, as well as on the Internet. As a ministry of both Insight for Living and Insight for Kids, the mission of Paws & Tales is to help parents teach biblical theology to their kids through memorable, meaningful stories and music."

Parental Rights

We apologize for the inconvenience of a second email, but many of you who tried to donate were unable due to problems at our website. To correct this, we urge you to give through the Home School Foundation instead, whose link is provided at right or in the text of Dr. Farris's letter (below). We thank you for your wonderful response this afternoon! -ParentalRights.org

A Letter from Michael Farris,
President of ParentalRights.org.



Dear Friend of Parental Rights,

I was in the United States Senate this past week meeting with lawyers for a Senate office. They told me directly what I have been hearing indirectly on a regular basis ever since the election.

Those who want to change family policy in America to comply with international law are preparing a full-scale effort to seek ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child during this next Congress. Barbara Boxer recently told a planning group that they intend to use children’s health care as leverage to seek ratification of this UN children’s rights treaty.

Please link to our website to see a succinct summary of the problems with this UN treaty.

The strength of their forces has been greatly increased with the addition of Hillary Clinton as the nominee for Secretary of State. She will have direct control over the submission of this treaty to the Senate and will acquire the authority under international law to sign any other treaty on any subject.

Hillary Clinton was the person who made the announcement for the Convention on the Rights of the Child when her husband’s administration signed the treaty. Seeking its ratification is a lifelong dream for her.

Our situation is grim if we were to look only at the position of the elected officials.

However, recent post-election polling demonstrates that almost 70% of Americans do not believe that the use of international law in American courts on such matters is appropriate. Less than 20% favor the use of international law. (The rest are undecided). Virtually every sub-group in America opposes this kind of use of international law.

America is on our side. However, we have to be able to get the word out to help people hear the truth about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Our proposed Parental Rights Amendment will permanently stop this treaty. So we have a one-two punch planned for the internationalists.

First, we must build a huge grassroots movement of patriotic Americans who believe that good families should be able to raise their children without worrying about compliance with international law.

Second, these same grassroots forces need to convince our elected officials that we are not content with defeating this treaty for today alone. We insist on a permanent solution. We need the Parental Rights Amendment.

I need you to do two things to help this become a reality. First, please send a copy of this letter to everyone you know who believes in parental rights and American patriotism.

Second, we need to raise a war chest to get prepared to launch a massive grassroots campaign. The other side has millions of dollars left in their campaign coffers, and they have the President of the United States, the Secretary of State and all the media waiting to carry their message.

We can win the debate because we have the truth on our side. And we have public opinion. But we won’t win if we can’t reach people.

Will you please make as big a gift as you can to support Parentalrights.org?

Here is what they are saying about us. At the hearing which featured Barbara Boxer, one of the speakers said that the people who will oppose this treaty are the “narcissistic sovereignty crowd.” In other words, those who love America first are so guilty of excessive self-love that he describes us as having the mental illness of narcissism.

This is their real heart. Not only do they want international law to control our families. They think that we are mentally ill for loving America.

It is time for those of us who believe in loving our families and loving America to rise up! We will not surrender this country or our children to such people.

Get involved today! The battle is about to begin.

For God, family, and America,

Michael Farris

Lovely Husband

My husband gave up his usual Saturday plans of motorcycle riding so I could go out to breakfast with some ladies from my homeschool group. We met at Cracker Barrel at 9am and enjoyed a nice breakfast fellowship. I left there and dropped in to see my gramma for a few minutes and then it was off for "power shopping" for Christmas.

I wasn't able to find everything I was looking for, which is a bummer. I finally went hope about 4:30 with a headache. So the adventure continues this week. I need to take each girl out to buy something for the sisters, and finish up everybody else.

PS, he also did the grocery shopping, so I made chocolate chip/carmel cookies.

Christmas Book Basket

I collect all our Christmas and Winter themed books and read one each day, leading up to Christmas. Some years I would wrap the books and place in a basket under the tree, letting the girls pick one to open each day. That way the book is a surprise and they get to open something which is always exciting.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have plenty of Christmas and Winter books to use. If you need to supplement with library books, I wouldn't wrap them. Save on those overdue fine. :) Or I suppose you could just keep renewing them until they get picked.

Online Christmas Party 2008

Christmas School

For the month of December we stop our normal curriculum and do what we like to call "Christmas School" There are several free online Christmas unit studies out there that we we rotate each year. We also include some sort of craft, or make a memory activity.

This year the girls have their own Holiday Journals, a combination of several different journals, including Our Christmas Journal by: Sheri Graham of Graham Family Ministries
www.school4jesus.com

This year we will do an Inductive Advent Study

Online Christmas Party 2008

Online Christmas Party

The second annual Online Christmas Party is gearing up for another fun and memorable year. So grab a cup of cocoa and your favorite fuzzy slippers and visit us at the Online Christmas Party 2008!