Auto museum

The auto museum had a cool display of tractors too!


Here is Claire in front of a 1967 Mercedes. When Scott's not so reliant Reliant K broke down he had to drive a Mercedes like this one to MSU. It certainly did not look this good!



The kids loved this car. They got to play in it!




Here is Aaron and Jaden crusin'



Anna and MacKensie are in front of Canoe's car from That Darn Cat







Anita and Caedmon are in front of the 1984 car that cost $150,000 way back then!!

John liked the old cars.

Ben in front of a golden oldie.

Claire and Kaelan had a fun day.

We are studying the Great Lake states this week and in honor of Michigan we took a field trip to the car museum. I had never been there before and it was very interesting. They had cars from every decade. Some of them brought back some memories of yesteryear!

Thankful heart

Reflecting back over the weekend, I remember on Saturday night as we were all gathered around the "fancy eatin' table" as Jethro called it, looking at the faces of my precious hubby and 4 children, I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of gratitude to God. What a precious gift to be put in a loving family. I am so glad God allowed me to be a wife and mom and how truly satisfying it is.

Saturday morning Scott took all the kids to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and let me sleep late in a super quiet house!! It was wonderful and I drifted in and out of dreamland until almost 10 o'clock (obscene, isn't it?!?!?). We piddled around the farm in the afternoon and Ben and I cooked a candlelight suppa (Hyacinth Bucket fans) for the family. It was delightful.

Sunday was a great time of worship and teaching at church and Sun. afternoon we had two precious families from our church over for supper. We had a special time of fellowship and singing and talking about God.

Today, my sister Cathy and her grandson Bailey are here and we have had a good day visiting with them. Mom and Dad came down for lunch also. I am so thankful they are still well enough to travel and get about. We are about to head out to an old country store in Jug Fork. We got Coca-colas and Sprite in a bottle and some junk food. Here are some pics.

Bailey and Claire in front of Anderson's Gro.

Scott takes the kids here quite often and they LOVE it- lots of junk food.

Scott used to ride his horse up to a store very similar to this when he was a little boy and I think that is why he loves this place so much.

This store has everything you could ever need - from oil filters to oreos!

Some of the merchandise is 60 years old! There are concrete floors and concrete block walls.

Anna posing.

Jay loves the coca-cola in the bottle. There are always a group of men sitting around talking.

There were 4 of them in there today.

Claire, Ben, Bailey and Amy

They have bologna and hoop cheese that you cut yourself.

Konos "off" week?

Joshua , cutie pie extraordinaire!!


KB is all smiles.




Cassia had on the cutest Valentine's outfit!




Clay and Ben had bags of candy!?!?!

Ben and Robert and Clay making their cards.

There were over 100 children at the Valentine's party today at Harrisburg.

All my children had a great time.

John is making cards. The children made cards for their parents and for residents of a nursing home.

Cassia, Anna and friends.

Lots of goodies! Allison's cupcakes were especially scrumptious!

Julie and Claire making cards.

Kara Beth, Julie, Ashley, Olivia, Anna and Leah

This was our off week for KONOS. A time, I thought, to really concentrate on the three "Rs".

Well, the week has been so busy, we barely did school at all. Monday started out at the dentist with Anna and Claire. Claire has major loose tooth issues. (She will not brush or even sleep on the side with a loose tooth?!?!) Well, she absolutely had a fit in the dentist chair and he had to hold the gas over her nose and mouth until she nearly went to LA LA land before she would let him touch her loose teeth. In a matter of seconds they were gone. She never knew when they left and had to actually see them in the little container before she would believe they were really gone. Monday night was Keepers and Contenders, our monthly Mother/Daughter and Father/Son night where the girls do activities with their Moms and the boys do activities with their Dads. This month Anna's group learned how to make homemade pie crusts. It turned out to be a delicious evening! Claire's group did storytelling and it was a fun session as well. The guys did chess. Last month they built birdhouses. Our family really enjoys this time of fellowship. We have over one hundred in our group.

I am trying the Popsicle stick idea from Roan's blog this week and most of Monday morning was spent in cleaning zone 1 of our house. Tuesday morning we finished zone 1. I realized I had never taught Claire and Ben how to clean the bathroom properly or how to wash clothes or mop.

So, pretty much all day Tuesday was hands on Home Ec for the whole family.

We did get around to math and grammar.

Wednesday, we spent the morning on zone 3 and a little school. Granny came and we had a great lunch provided by her. Then we loaded up and went to the new Healthworks! museum here in Tupelo. It is an interactive place where the kids learned about the human body by playing games and other activities. We could not find the camera so I do not have a single pic. If any of you decide to go, take your camera. There are quite a few cute photo ops.

Then the girls and I got our hair done, and then to Kroger and Walgreens. Thanks to Penny, I was able to get quite a few free things at Walgreens. My bill was $60 and it went down to $13 counting the Easy Saver rebates!!!! Then to Kroger where coupons saved me about $75 there!

Thursday was a wild day of activity. We left our house about 9:30 and went to the Amish settlement in Pontotoc County. We had been studying the Amish in school and we wanted a first hand look at how they live. We drove up in 4 big vans and were a little worried that we would overwhelm them with all the kids. I got out at each place and asked if it was OK to come look at what they had to sell. Almost every house has signs out front telling what homemade goods they have for sell. We talked to several of them. One older gentleman in particular was very talkative and we learned quite a bit from him. I bought a beautiful handmade basket and several jams and jellies and candles.

On the way home, Scott called and wanted to go mattress shopping! So we shopped until 5:30, rushed in to make a salad, corn, cookies and rolls for our coop family night. We had a great time of fellowship with everyone.

Today we had a Valentine's party at Harrisburg. Clay and Olivia came home with us and Claire went home with Julie. The girls are cooking right now and Clay, Ben and John are outside playing with fire!!?!?!

Clay, Ben and John playing in the brush pile.

Anna and Olivia making pie crust from scratch!

The pie turned out good!

We were talking tonight and Olivia and Anna have a long history of cooking together. One episode that sticks out is their from scratch chocolate cake. Let's just say it was not too tasty!

But, after years of practice they have turned out to be fine cooks.

Hard lessons

Our sermon Sunday was very convicting. Scott Duley shared that we have 5 faculties of the soul. Our mind, memory, conscience, will and affections. When Christ rescues a soul from the kingdom of darkness and transfers them into the kingdom of light there will be a very radical change in these 5 things.
MIND
How is our mind? What do we fill it with? What do we think on?
We talk about what we think about and we think about what we LOVE. What does come out of our mouths? Sweet water or bitter? Encouragement or Negativity? Do we speak about Christ?
The mind of the lost is all taken up with self. The lost person is controlled by self centered interests. The redeemed will focus on Christ's kingdom(not perfectly) The lost mind cannot comprehend the things of God.
The mind of the Christian wants to dwell on Christ.
MEMORY
What do we store in our memories? What books, music, movies or images? Is our memory a storage house of evil or self gratifying thoughts?
The memory of the redeemed is filled with scripture, sermons and truths of God.
What did we put in this week - does it honor God?
CONSCIENCE
This is the voice of God to our souls. Even the lost person feels a twang in their conscience when they sin up to a certain point. Of course a continuation in blatant sin can result in the awful Romans 1 consequence of being turned over to a reprobate mind.
To the believer, our conscience is a road map of how to love, honor and obey God. Our conscience leads us to walk with Christ.
WILL
What we want before the light shines in our souls and what we want after it shines should be very different.
Scott encouraged us to keep a journal for a week of what we DO. What we do shows our will clearly. WOW!!?!?!
AFFECTIONS
What we love. What do we go after? What excites us?

These faculties of the mind give us much to call on God for.
If we are believers and our mind is filled with other things we need to run to Christ as beggars and ask him to transform our minds. Our minds are transformed when we drink deeply of God's word and spend time with Him.

We can use these as a test. Do we have a general pattern in our lives of loving Him, Thinking of Him and filling our memory with things of God. Are we yielding our wills to God or running away? How do we spend our time?
Again, we can use these convicting questions to cry out to God for help. Help me Lord to use these 5 faculties of my soul to love You.

Another great coop!

John's class is so excited about their Statue of Liberty costumes and their Hershey's candy!
We studied New York and Pennsylvania this week. Hershey, PA is one of my favorite spots in the US.



John, Elijah, Avery, Jared, Mitchell and Mrs. Lynn in the back!



I think my hat is on crooked!




Rebekah, Caroline, Claire, Molly and Noah B.
Mrs Michelle, too!




Mrs. Diane and Mrs. Grace are holding down the fort in the nursery.

Ben, Mark, John Parker and Andrew with their Hershey bars.

Ben's class made crystals today.

Hannah, Ben, and Martha.

Claire's group made Statue of Liberty costumes and punched tin art!

Joshua, Eli, Jesse, Macain, Austin and Molly

Sculpting the body.

Where is her head?!?!?!?

Is that the right head on our lovely Lady of Liberty?!?!?!

Ryan, Noah, Anna, Julie, MacKenzie, Laura, Olivia and Margaret

The older group sculpted a replica of Lady Liberty! It turned out really well.

I am thankful for such a great group of ladies to

coop with this semester!

Overwhelmed but Hopeful

I have been a little stressed out this week. I just cannot seem to get it all together. I have been feeling inadequate, frankly. Well, tonight's sermon by Chuck Baggett really hit my nail on the head. I AM inadequate and I need to feel humbled by that thought as I turn then to the ONE who is adequate and run to Him. I woke up in the middle of the night wondering why I do not seem to get even a little of what I want to get done, actually done. I just could not do anything but call out to God for help. Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift in His Son. Oh Jesus accomplished it all perfectly, and we need to have humble and contrite hearts and turn to Him.
I definitely feel needy for Him and I am thankful to Him to be at that point. I pray He will use this time to mold me into more of His likeness.
I am so thankful for His kindness to me and His mercy which is so undeserved by me. What a glorious God!
I am thankful for words of challenge and encouragement from His word that never leaves us as we are!
Our memory verse this week for school is Philippians 1:6. "Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."
Thank you Lord for not leaving us as we are. We are adequate in Christ Jesus.

Working our way through the US

It seems like all my posts lately have been about school. Well, that is very reflective of my life. It has been taking me ALL day to finish school with everyone. We are doing more KONOS this semester than usual, but I still cannot figure out why it is taking me all day to get just school done! Anyway, we are studying New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware this week.
Anna is doing a very interesting report on the Amish. We all have enjoyed learning where they come from and more about their beliefs.
I am hoping we will finally get around to cooking our apple crisp today in honor of the "Big Apple".
Happy Birthday to my niece, Jessica!
I love you!!