Daddy fishing on Memorial Day, 2007
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Daddy pulling a hook from the mouth of a catfish (caught my our 8 year old.)
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Big sister still waiting for a bite.
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Nick's first catch of the day.
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I bet this mess of fish weighs as much as my little man does.
As you can see, we had a great day. Hope you all did the same.
Blessings,
Amanda
Daddy waiting on a bite.
CJ waiting on a bite.
Daddy was pretending to eat a raw fish.
Nick waiting on a bite.
Papa and CJ getting their lines ready.
Papa caught the first fish of the day.
Nick's first fish of the day.
Papa baiting his line and Nick waiting on the next bite.
CJ's first fish of the day.
Daddy was too busy repairing broken and baiting lines to do much fishing.
Papa is trying to get as close as possible without falling into the water.
CJ caught a fish.
Daddy casing his line; CJ taking lessons.
At the end of the day,
CJ caught 2 and Nick caught 5.
They love to fish and
we love to spend time with them
doing things they enjoy.
They didn't want to leave when we did,
so we will go again Monday,
Memorial Day.
Friends, please remember how important it is to spend time with your little ones,
while they are still small.
Value the quality time, not the quanity of time.
Take care, friends.
I need to go wash fish slime from my hands.
Love, Amanda
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Daddy tilling up between rows. (Boy was he stiff the next day.).jpg)
Daddy giving me a lesson in weeding. Potatoes need the dirt to form a mound; onions need the dirt pulled away. Who knew there was so much to gardening?
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I guess someone decided to take a break.
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In the end, this is what our beauty looks like all cleaned up and weeded.
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We decided to put our tomato plants beside the barn instead of in the garden.We have three rows of sweet yellow corn, one row of sweet white corn,
1/2 row of watermelon, one row of cantaloupe, 1/2 row of sweet squash,
two rows of onions, 3/4 row of potatoes, and 16 tomato plants.
I think that is great for my first garden.
I done very little canning last year, so this will be our first year canning and putting up.
I know I have a lot to learn, however I think I am well on my way.
I am still amazed at how well God provides for his children.
So, until next time, Friend. God Bless.
Love, Amanda
My Heavenly Song
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Today, as I was preparing for lunch, the sounds of angels rang through the air. I heard children squealing, sounds of laughter, the crackle of the big wheel on the gravel, and the pop of the jump rope each time it came down to sweep underneath my children’s feet. In the background, I heard the beautiful song of the wind chimes as they blew in the wind. At that moment, I felt such a sense peace and satisfaction. Who would have ever known that such a young, unwed mother seeking the love and security from the arms of a protector would have ended up as blessed and cherished as I am today? With the love and protective covering of my Lord and my beloved, I sometimes wonder what I did to deserve such abundant blessings. I finally realized that it wasn’t anything I did or didn’t do. It was something that my Heavenly Father did. He washed me in the Blood of the Lamb. He saved me from eternal hell and blessed my life abundantly. I love the Lord and His blessings shine in my life daily.
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Blessings,
Amanda
FYI.
Most of the books I read anymore are spiritual "classics". The reformers, revivalists, mystics and puritans of the 1600's, 1700's & 1800's, etc. I have found only a few books that are written today that have absolute truth in them. We have lost sight of truth and instead have substituted what is pleasing to the ears, what writers know people want to hear. There is such a rich treasury of truth and wisdom to be found in the saints of old!
I would like to encourage you, if you haven’t already, to check out FlyLady.net. I am a SAHM, however that doesn’t mean I have all the free time in the world. I still need to use my time wisely in order to get things done each day. FlyLady had given me a way to do what needs to be done each day with plenty pleasure time remaining. FlyLady has created a schedule that works best for her own needs. However, you can utilize the information and the organizational information and change it to suit your own home.
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I love the way she has the home broken into Zones. That way, each day you can work on a different Zone. She keeps you reminded about the Morning Routine and the Before Bedtime Routine that makes each and every day run so much more smoothly. I seem to be able to roll in the morning when I have completed my Before Bedtime Routine the night before and my Morning Routine when I get up.
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I know what you’re thinking. Where do I start? Well, she can help you there, too. She instructs you on how to get started using Baby Steps and Decluttering. She advises you to take frequent short breaks to keep you from getting frustrated. If you join the FlyLady yahoo group, you will receive daily reminders about certain thing to help keep you on top of things during the day.
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So, check it out and see what you think. I know it will change the way you clean your home.
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Blessings,
Amanda
My schedule for today was somewhat different since house sitting is not on my daily routine.
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I was house sitting for about 5 hours, today. Afterwards, we came home and started our daily tasks.
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CJ and I scrubbed the kitchen sink. She and I both like it to be very shiny most of the time. First, we ran a full sink on hot water with a ½ cup of bleach. We let it soak for one hour. We rinsed the sink well and gently scrubbed with a Brillo pad. We rinsed it again and wiped dry with a towel. Finally, we sprayed Windex on the sink and faucet and wiped dry with a towel for a final time.
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Wow! That sink is so shiny. I try to keep CJ involved in all of the details of keeping the home in order for her to know how to keep her home, one day.
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Later in the evening, she and I rearranged her bedroom. She had a set of bunk beds in her room and wanted the top off in order to have it more open feeling. We took the top bunk off and put the mattress on her bottom bunk. Now, she has a tall single bed. We put on clean sheets and pillowcases on her tall bed and cleaned up the mess we made in the process. We moved her sewing table to a more accessible location and her dresser down a bit. I am guessing she is pleased with her room; she has been in there for an hour arranging pillows.
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I went ahead and sorted through Nick’s room while I was at it. He and I decided to get rid of tons of stuff from his room. I had a problem getting rid of things of theirs up until this week. After speaking with a friend of mine, I decided to let CJ and Nick help me decide whether or not to get rid of something they gave me. If it cost a lot or had great sentimental value to it, we kept it. If not, we tossed it. It made me feel better by getting their opinion on the items. Between both rooms, we ended up getting rid of 6 garbage bags full of things.
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Supper, tonight, included stew, potatoes, beans, and cornbread for supper. Actually, it is the same supper we had two nights ago. I just warmed up everything; I made fresh cornbread. My family has a problem with warmed up cornbread. That’s okay with me. I just bag it up and put it in the freezer for tomorrow’s meatloaf. Oh, that just reminded me. I need to take the hamburger meat out of the freezer before I go to bed.
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Okay, well my night is coming to an end. It’s time to go to bed. I certainly enjoy blogging and I am thankful for your interest.
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God bless,
When I need to look at one on the bottom of the stack, I simply use a clothespin to hold the others up.
CBNNews.com - It was Theodore Roosevelt who said, "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
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Many homeschoolers share this sentiment when it comes to public schools, believing that the moral relativism, violence, peer pressure, drugs and promiscuity found inside their gates provide an inadequate setting to properly socialize their children.
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Yet 92 percent of superintendents believe that home learners are emotionally unstable, deprived of proper social development and too judgmental of the world around them, according to a California study by researcher Dr. Brian Ray .
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What makes homeschool socialization such a hot topic?
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With approximately 4 million children currently being homeschooled in the U.S., along with a 15- to 20-percent yearly growth rate, many professional educators and school boards are concerned that this exodus will keep funds from entering the public education system.
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Many teachers also believe that successful home instruction by uncredentialed parents undermines their expertise and jeopardizes their jobs.
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A look at the research on this socialization debate shines further light on the issue.
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There's no place like home
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Why is there such a dichotomy in the socialization experienced between homeschoolers and conventional students? It all has to do with the learning environment.
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The National Home Education Research Institute disclosed that the 36 to 54 hours that students spend in school-related weekly activities make peers and adults outside of the home the primary influences in children's lives - not the parents.
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Realizing the harm that this constant exposure can produce, especially if it's not countered by involved parenting, most homeschoolers are well aware of their children's need for close one-to-one contact throughout the education process.
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Jesus understood the importance of continual intimate contact with His students, as He ate, slept and fellowshipped with His disciples 24 hours a day. It is unlikely that Jesus would have entrusted their training to strangers.
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So how do these different settings affect children? Dr. Thomas Smedley believes that homeschoolers have superior socialization skills, and his research supports this claim. He conducted a study in which he administered the Vineyard Adaptive Behavior Scales test to identify mature and well-adapted behaviors in children. Home learners ranked in the 84th percentile, compared to publicly schooled students, who were drastically lower in the 23rd.
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Welcome to the real world
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Many school socialization advocates argue that homeschooling precludes children from experiencing real life.
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Instead of being locked behind school gates in what some would consider an artificial setting characterized by bells, forced silence and age-segregation, homeschoolers frequently extend their everyday classroom to fire departments, hospitals, museums, repair shops, city halls, national parks, churches and colleges, where real community interaction and contacts are made.
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Dismantling the stereotype that home learners spend their days isolated from society at kitchen tables with workbooks in hand, NHERI reports that they actually participate in approximately five different social activities outside the home on a regular basis.
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Furthermore, researcher Dr. Linda Montgomery found that 78 percent of high school home learners were employed with paying jobs, while a majority engaged in volunteering and community service.
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Research presented at the National Christian Home Educators Leadership Conference divulged that homeschool graduates far exceeded their public and private school counterparts in college by ranking the highest in 42 of 63 indicators of collegiate success. They were also ranked as being superior in four out of five achievement categories, including socialization, as they were assessed as being the most charismatic and influential.
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Biblical or worldly socialization?
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When most home educators and school administrators speak of successful socialization, are they referring to the same thing?
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Education researcher Dr. Michael Mitchell found that being popular, aggressively competitive, materialistically driven and self-confident are traits promoted in conventional schools.
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His study shows that these campus ideals are discouraged by Christian home educators in favor of building their children's character and dismantling selfish ambitions. Integrity, responsibility, respect for others, trust in God, biblical soundness and an amiable disposition topped the ideal social qualities they desired their youth to embody.
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Many Christians who homeschool believe that the greatest socialization their children can have is to be trained to emulate Jesus, who is a servant of man. Home educators examined by Mitchell strive to dismantle any selfish ambitions and self-aggrandizement seen in their children, as opposed to cultivating them.
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Getting ahead of one's peers is not consistent with Jesus' urging in Matthew 20:25b-28, which calls for Christians to seek a lowly and servile role to those around them. However, this does not mean that Christians are called to underachieve, as Colossians 3:23 exhorts readers to push for peak performance in every endeavor, but for the glory of God rather than for selfish ambition.
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Pride is also promoted in the public schools. It is often repackaged as self-esteem in programs such as "Here's Looking at You, 2000," in which education researcher Dr. Amy Binder reports that students are instructed to believe that they are "the most important person in the world."
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Many Christian home educators assert that the kind of pride being taught in the schools is discouraged throughout Scripture by Jesus and Paul, who preach against lifting oneself up or putting oneself first in favor of assuming a lowly position among others, as seen in Luke 14:10-11 and Romans 12:3.
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They often contend that traditional students are driven to achieve high marks in order to attain lucrative and prestigious jobs that can lead to lives of self-indulgence, while the Bible calls man not to be overcome by material concerns.
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Even though God enjoys prospering His children, He also warns us in 1 Timothy 6:10 that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
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Negative socialization
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The mass socialization conducted within schools has brought about a proliferation of delinquent behavior within this nation's youth, reports education researcher, Dr. Michael Slavinski. He notes that student bodies are increasingly riddled with violence, drugs, promiscuity, emotional disorders, crime, contempt for authority, desperate behavior, illiteracy and peer dependency - just to name a few.
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Today, parents are not as surprised to see reports of fifth-graders having sex in class; hear about school shootings; find drugs or condoms in backpacks; receive phone calls from the police and principals; or witness defiant, apathetic and unrecognizable tones in their children's voices.
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"Live and let learn," say many parents. Most home educators are fine with this, as long as their children's learning comes from mature, seasoned and embracing adults who have the children's best interests at heart - above political or economic agendas. They believe that such training shouldn't come from peers either, which amounts to the blind leading the blind.
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When the Direct Observation Form of the Child Behavior Checklist was administered by education researcher Dr. Larry Shyers to identify 97 problematic behaviors in two groups of children, traditionally schooled students exuded eight times as many antisocial traits than their homeschooled counterparts. This lies in direct contrast to claims by public school advocates that exposure to campus life leads to proper socialization.
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Light of the world
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Many Christian parents are concerned that homeschooling would not allow their children to fulfill the great commission of sharing the gospel with non-believers. They often site Matthew 5:14-16 about being the light of the world.
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Some Christian homeschool parents argue that even though young believers are to reach out to the lost, they are not called to immerse themselves daily in a hostile setting that constantly works to influence them in the ways of the world. They recognize that those with strong Christian upbringings are still vulnerable to the ungodly climate of the schools.
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In Proverbs 4:11-15, King Solomon realized the vulnerability of his son, proclaiming his responsibility to train him in godly teachings and keep him from stumbling over the vices of this world.
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Just as parents know that children are not prepared for war, many Christians believe that youth are not equipped to fend for themselves in the spiritual warfare taking place within schools.
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A nationwide survey conducted by The Barna Group shows that 80 percent of Christian families send their children to public schools where their faith is attacked. Based on the study's findings, it appears that their kids are the ones being "evangelized" by the religion of secular humanism. More than half of their Christian teens believe Jesus actually sinned and only nine percent hold to moral absolutes, while 83 percent of children from committed Christian families attending public schools adopt a Marxist-Socialist worldview, reports the group.
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For more statistics on Christians in education, click on The Barna Group.
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Consistent with these figures, Christian producer and occult expert Caryl Matrisciana reports that 75 percent of public-schooled American youth brought up in Christian households disown their Christian faith by the first year of college. NHERI finds that this is only true for less than four percent of homeschooled youth.
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Most home educators would not trade the blessings that homeschooling brings their families and society for the world.
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, The Barna Group, NHERI, Dr. Michael Slavinski, Dr. Brian Ray, Dr. Thomas C. Smedley, Dr. Larry E. Shyers, Dr. Michael Mitchell, Dr. Linda Montgomery, Dr. Rhonda A. Galloway, Dr. Amy Binder
