My hubby turns the big 3-0 in September, and I have been running over the idea of throwing a small suprise party for him!!!  He came from an odd family (to say the least), and never really had any birthday parties with friends and a big celebration.  Now, I am not saying you need to spend alot of money to have a party for your child.  But I think a birthday is definately something to be celebrated, and he missed out on all that.

So, I have been cooking up some ideas on it, and more than anything, this post is to write the ideas down, and possibly get some new ideas from some of you out there!!!  One idea I have is to do a theme cake.  I was thinking a cheeseburger!!!  LOL  I have been looking them up on the internet, and it sounds so neat.  You bake two round cakes for the bun, top and bottom from yellow cake mix.  The hamburger is from chocolate rice krispie treats formed into a hamburger.  And the rest if alot of frosting!!!  Then I am thinking of making "fries and ketchup (or is is catsup???)", from sugar cookies cut into long strips and baked, and a blob of red food coloring!   What do you think?????  I will round it off with nuts and mints and some punch.  If I need to, I can make some cupcakes too.

For decorations, I am thinking a diner type theme.  Not sure how to do that just yet, but searching the internet for ideas.  Maybe a red and white checked tablecloth and such. 

Guests will be family (his and mine), and some close friends.  Not many people, because we don't have a large house, but it is always the more the merrier here too.  Some will wander outside anyway, because they will have to take a smoke, and know it isn't allowed in my house. 

I am not sure what to get him for a present.  In our family, we decide on a certain amount of money, and the birthday person chooses what they want.  But I would like to get him a small something from Noah and I for him to open at the party.

So, after reading this, do any of you have any ideas that might go with this theme??? 

Hello all!!!  I just wanted to thank everyone for their well wishes on my migraine headache the other day.  It was a bad one, like one I have never experienced before, but at least it only stuck around for a few days.  I have endured migraines for 28 days before!!!!  I was stupid then, and too afraid to go see a doctor about it.  LOL

Tonight I have a headache starting on the left side of my head.  I don't know why, or if any of you have expeienced this, but the right side is usually not so bad and I can take meds and it will go away within 30 minutes or an hour.  The ones that start on the left side of my head are always real doozies.  They are the ones that are real entertaining to friends and family too, because they make me slur my words sometimes, walk into walls, etc.  LOL  I just took some meds though, and plan on going to bed soon, so it should be gone before morning(praying) when I wake up. 

Hubby is working tomorrow and Monday with his second job.  He is really learning alot about being an Electrician and has been able to make some decent money at it as well.  He has changed out several outlets, etc. in our house with his experience.  (We live in a house that is 98 years old, so basically everything needs to be updated! LOL)  He felt the need to learn this new trade several months ago, and I prayed about it and thought it was good idea as well.  It gave us both total peace and we didn't know why, but God urged us to go with it.

Now, we understand why.  Matthew works for the city in the Internet Department as an Internet technichian.  He has one person, his supervisor over him.  For the last 3-4 weeks, hubby has been coming home telling me they are having some huge bandwidth problems in town.  Basically, they are full up on customers for the amount of bandwidth they can give out.  So they have to "buy" more bandwidth and the towers and such that would come along with this big upgrade.  The supervisor and CEO are not interested in spending the big bucks to do this, and they already have some customers calling and saying, we aren't getting any speed over here on our highspeed wirelesss internet, and if it doesn't get fixed, we are going with cable.  So.............Matthew was talking to me about this the other night, and we both said, well the CEO has a job no matter what happens with the internet (the decide to fold the whole operation or just piddle with the customers who stay with them), and the Supervisor just got married to a guy who lives in New York (we live in Missouri), so if it folds, she will just move to New York with her hubby and probably won't get another job since he can support both of them.  The one that would be seriously hurting in all of this????  My hubby! 

So, you can see now, we are thankful that Matthew has been learning, and will soon be able to take the Electrician test for the city and get liscenced as well.  This way he will automatically have a job to fall back on.  Currently, he is working under someone else who is paying him, and teaching him what he needs to know. 

We were laughing about this the other evening as well.  Because it seems God has done something very similar to this to us when we just got married 3 years ago!!!  I was working 40-65 hours z(mostly higher hours) as an Accountant for a large General Contracting company that went in and overhauled the inside of a mall shop.  Matthew was working at Wal-Mart in the Electronics department and looking for a better job.  I was the major bread winner, and we had a VERY stressful job.  We prayed about it for weeks, and decided one night I should write a letter and quit my job.  Did I have another job??? NOPE!!!  Had I been looking??? No!  But we knew God was telling us to do this and trust Him.  In the meantime, Matthew had heard about this job with the city as internet tech, and had put in an application once, and was not hired (Casey told them to hire Matthew, but they decided to hire Jason instead).  The new guy, Jason, was fired after 2 months, and then Matthew was called in for an interview again.  The day after I quit my job, he walked into Wal-Mart and quit, telling them he had a new job!!!  LOL  They had told him over the phone he had the job, but nothing was signed.

So, neither of us had a job, and what did we do??? We went camping! LOL  And evidentially became pregnant, we would find out later.  LOL  Matthew officially got the job 4-5 days later, and ended up making more money than my paycheck with accounting, and Matthew's job at Wal-Mart put together, plus he has awesome insurance!!!

We are concerned, and listening to God, but we are not worried.  LOL  God has brought us through things before, and as long as we listen, and let Him guide us, He will bring us through this one too!!

Good Afternoon Friends & Family! I pray that you are all having a great day in The Lord. It has been a really good day here on the homestead. School has finished for the day and we are ready for the weekend.

We had a great time at Homegroup yesterday. We got rained out at the park and ended up doing our yearly planning in a members van. We only had three families show up yesterday because the others had previous engagements. I'm glad that it was a small group yesterday, otherwise we wouldn't have all fitted into the van.

 I am really proud of the 4 children we had. They played in the back of the van for almost 3 hours while we parents discussed the upcoming school year and what activities we wanted to plan. They were ALL so good with no complaints at all. Now that says a lot for our kids. Homeschooled kids are more ready to adapt to whatever their circumstances!

My DD (15) wanted to stay home by herself this time. So I let her have some "alone" time while at the meeting. My other DD (18) had to go to work. I am so going to miss her this year at our Home group meetings. I have no doubt that when the time comes that she will be able to Homeschool her children for the glory of God.

DD (18) has been my "guinea pig," so to speak when it comes to Homeschooling. I have also learned that each one of my children has different needs and different ways of learning. So what has worked with one doesn't mean it will work for the other. Trial and error, prayer and more prayer.  I am so thankful that I have the blessing of teaching my children and not having to hand them over to others for 7 hours a day.

I get the privledge of seeing them grasp a concept for the first time. I got the privlege of teaching my son (9) to read. I got the blessing of seeing my Dd  FINALLY grasp Algebra and move onto geometry all by herself. I also get the privledge of seeing my children grow daily in their walk with The Lord.

It's not always easy. There are days when I think, "they need to get on that bus and let "the professionals" deal with them. Well, God made me their Mom and that's as "professional" as it gets. He who has called me will be faithful.

Most importantly though is what I have learned over the past 9 years. God has used this Homeschoolinhg experience to shape and mold me as well as my children. Being around one's children ALL of the time really makes you realize just what an example you are. The good and the ugly!

All of my strength comes from My Lord though. It's The Lord that I cry out to daily and I am so thankful that He is always there no matter what the situation. He has shown me time and time again that it needs to be Him that  I need to turn to when a problem arises. Homeschooling will really make you see problems and issues that might be easier left to another, but ultimately better left to the professional, Jesus Christ!

To God be the glory now and forever!

Bless all who pass this way!

Amanda <><
II Corinthians 5:7

Hello Homestead bloggers.  I'd like to say a special hello to the handfull of ladies that posted on my blog, asking about me since I've been away from the computer.  Thank you Trixi, Farrah and Julia  and of course, Kitty who is a close friend that I keep in touch with in other ways.   

I'm dissappointed that one can go from being a long standing  "top commenter" here  (one who reads and comments on others' blogs) to not blogging at all for a long time and come back to wonder if all those friends from my "friends list" even cared I'd been away.  Plus bunches had removed me as a friend of theirs altogether I noticed.  So I'm hurt but won't stay that way.        Blogging is strange....

On a different note some of the things that have been going on have been:

We took a short trip to Memphis with hubby on business.

My hubby's dad has been really sick and in the hospital.

Our oldest daughter is in hospital passing kidney stones.

Been gathering lots of eggs.  (getting double yolks from our new chickens!  I'll take a pic soon of the pretty baby blues and greens and avacado green and browns and white eggs.)

Got lots of rain from Faye which relieved our parched area.

Gearing up for Gustav here in South Mississippi  : (  When Katrina hit we were without power for over a week and lost all our food in freezers/fridg, waited in long lines to get gas that got higher by the minute, lots of clean up, etc....We're going tonight to the store to stock up on some things for the storm.  We've already got some batteries.  And since Katrina we've gotten a generator and a window unit air conditioner so we can at least stay in the house during 90 plus temps outside if the power goes out. 

Lots of things going on at Church.  I'll be teaching 1st and 2nd grade Sunday School for the new Church year again and it will begin Sept. 1st.

Our 26th Wedding Anniversary is next Wednesday.

Our oldest granddaughter turned 5 this week.  Her party is Saturday.

Our 3rd grandchild is due Thanksgiving day!  It's a boy!

Several little trips planned to flea markets and such.

My first post in so long should be more exciting but maybe next time.   With pictures! 

~God bless everyone~