My First Gratitude List

I have come upon a truly inspiring blog by Amanda Blake Soule titled Soule MaMa She knits & sews beautiful things and her photography has a way of catching the essence of the moment. I want to be her when I grow up ;-)   
One of the things she does is write a list every now & then of things that are bringing her joy right now. I am borrowing her idea and tweaking it a little bit to be a Gratitude List. You know that Veggie Tales song that says, "A thankful heart is a happy heart. I'm glad for what I have, that's an easy place to start."? This little tune keeps playing through my head as I think about my list. So here is my first Gratitude List (in no particular order).

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

~ James 1:17

1. Park Days with Homeschool friends

2. My daughter's Summer obsession with digging in the dirt & playing in creeks

3. The Hummingbirds at our feeder

4. A great week of Vacation Bible School

5. Planning our Love of Learning Club for next year Check out our website HERE

 

6. Lilacs in my kitchen

7. Coming up on 17 years married to this guy. I couldn't ask for more!

8. Taking the time to sit & think about what I am grateful for!

I am so thankful to God for how he designed our hearts & minds to work. Thinking about the good in your life really does help change your outlook! Try it! You won't be disappointed.

 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

~ Philippians 4:8

Summer Starts with a Bang!

In the last 5 weeks I have been out of town for 2 1/2 weeks and have had family visiting for 1 1/2 weeks. Needless to say it has been crazy & fun, or should I say crazy fun! La is really exhausted. I cannot wake her up before 9am lately. I put her to bed by 9pm but she just can't fall asleep and then she sleeps late. Next week is VBS & she must be there by 9am. I am hoping that will get us back on a schedule. 


Here are some highlights from our trips & visits.
I already posted about our AZ trip here.


Chris's Mom, Dad and our niece Isabel came to visit. We went to Yellowstone, Grand Tetons & Fossil Butte with a few rabbit trails thrown in.

We stayed in Jackson, WY

La & Bella Watching Old Faithful

 

Grand Prismatic Spring

Yellowstone Falls

We Saw Lots of Bison - Close Up!

Mammoth Hot Springs (above & below)

The girls earned 3 Jr. Ranger Badges on our Trip!

 A Pilgrimage to Napoleon Dynamite's Town

Preston, ID

Took a chairlift ride at Park City Mt. Resort

Also went on the Alpine slide & Roller Coaster

The Girls Made a Clubhouse Area on the Side of the House

We went to This Is The Place Heritage Park & did many Pioneer Activities. The girls like Pioneer School so much they did it twice!

Well that is a summary of our trip. I also went to the Utah Home Educators Conference this past Saturday. Right now, I have a ton of projects going on...

Making a trip DVD, Planning a Homeschool Info Night, helping with VBS & garage sale at our church, and lots of household projects like cleaning out La's drawers & closet, getting a summer schedule going, revamping my Inspiration List, planning & organizing for next year's Firefly Corps. I will be writing more on these later. Time to get to my To Do List! :-)

The Last Few Weeks

My poor neglected blog! It has been so long since I have written! I made a promise to myself to write something at east once a week. It's not that I think anyone is waiting for my posts with baited breath or anything like that. It's just that I want the practice in writing for myself and I want a record of life to look back on.

Here is a summary of the last few weeks.

Our History Club finished up our American History Study with the American Girls. We made a a movie about  Lewis & Clark. Then we had a Showcase Night for the girls to show off all their hard work and preview the movie.

Above is Part 1 of the movie

Below is Part 2

Here are some pictures from Showcase Night

 Our Time Line & other projects

 

The girls enjoying the potluck

In the middle of all this I spent 2 weeks in AZ with my awesome Grandma & the rest of my family there. We went to Biosphere 2, visited with my friend & her new baby boy, and made some great memories.

Grandma & La made dog biscuits together

 

Grandma also taught La how to play Amazing grace on the Ukulele!

Since we have been back from AZ we've been getting ready for a visit from my husband's parents & our niece. They arrive tonight & we are heading off to Yellowstone tomorrow. I have never seen La so excited about the trip. She has been reading all she can about the park and making herself a research guide. Ah, the art of inspiring. It's so wonderful to see your child take off in these inspired interests, but I don't make a big deal about it in front of her. Inside I am screaming "YES! It's working!". If I show too much enthusiasm about what she is doing it usually drowns her spark. I think it's because that kind of enthusiasm on my part borders on manipulation (if I show her I approve, she'll do more). At least I think that's her interpretation.

Bedschool ~ La working on her own Yellowstone Research Guide & Journal

Those are the major events of our lives since my last post. I will be posting about Yellowstone & our visit with Nonna & Poppa soon.