Gratituesday- My Inlaws

We have just said good bye to my in-laws after their 3 night stay with us. Oh what a blessing they are.

My mother-in-law (Moira) is a retired K-gr2 teacher. She is a wonderful resource for games and lessons planning.  Not to mention she does the dishes and sweeps my floor.  We call her Super Nana..

My father-in-law helped Craig get three (yes I said 3) truck loads of wood to prepare for heating our house this winter.  I am so thrilled!  I love our wood heat and being prepared is so comforting.

It is such a gift to have these two to love and love us.

What are you grateful for?  Head over to Heavenly Homemakers to link up!

We Are in Training!

Craig, Hudson and I are in training, each for a different race .  Craig is running a half-marathon, I am running a 5k and Hudson is running a 1.6K (1 mile).
I really didn't think this had anything to do with my spiritual growth until Sunday morning at church.
Craig's running partner preached the sermon and it totally spoke to me.

Running is about discipline.  I can choose to put on my shoes and hit the pavement or I can give in to the wants of my flesh and laze about on the couch for the evening.

Running us also covered in the bible. 1 Corinthians 9:26-27
²⁶Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. ²⁷No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
 Know your goal.  Know your purpose. Be obedient.

Aren't these the cutest athletes you have ever seen?

Saturday Scripture

25 The fear of human opinion disables;
trusting in God protects you from that.
Proverbs 29:25 (Message)

Stay at Home Date.

The other night Craig wanted to have a stay in date with me. I didn't really want to watch a movie. So what else could we do?
We had coffee and dessert.  It was a great idea!  Totally something we would do if we were out, but we got to be in out jammies snuggled up on the couch scarfing nibbling this divine creation.

Oh yes my friends... That is a brownie with crunched Oreo cookies, icecream, slivered almonds, melted chocolate and whipped cream on top.  We will for sure be returning to Cafe` Scott for another date sometime soon. :)

I am linking this up with The Diaper Diaries Things I love Thursday

Wordless Wednesday- Pretty as a picture

For more Wordless Wednesday head over to 5m4m.

God Lessons

1. On Sunday at church a dear sister with a gift for intercession and teaching spoke to the congregation.
She told us, having a relationship with Jesus is simple. Being in His word is a very important part. But get up in the morning and pray.
Say "Jesus, what word do you have for me today?" Then listen. Receive the Word. Thank the Lord for the Word. Then talk to Him like He is your friend. Tell Him your hurts and failures, your joys and victories. Have a serious relationship with Him.

2. On my very first Monday of waking up early to have quiet time with God I was reading my email devotional from Proverbs 31 Ministries.  The topic was being a bold christian.  I clicked the link to Karen Ehman's blog and found a very valuable tip.  Tell people you meet that you are a christian early in your conversation with them.  This doesn't have to be robotic "hello my name is Sarah and I am a christian."  Praise Him for something in your life in front of that other person or people. So they might see Christ's light in you. 

That is what I learned this week and I am so very grateful for those lessons.

Head on over to Musings of a Housewife for more What I Learned This Week and Heavenly Homemakers for more Gratituesday.
 Also remember to head on over to my new home preschool blog The Fifth Street Academy and enter my giveaway.

New Home Preschool Blog!

My dear friends. I have decided that I want to share more of our home preschool fun with you. However the Fifth Street Palace is becoming to cluttered with a hodge podge of regular life adventures and not enough school experiences. The solution...

The Fifth Street Academy

The Scott family's new home preschool blog. Stop on over for tons of great ideas and wonderful fun. Do stick around the palace as well though. There is plenty to talk about here as well :)

P.S. Be sure to stop by the Fifth Street Academy for some really great giveaways at the end of this week.

Motivate Me Monday- Discipline

The root word of discipline is disciple. I am not writing today about discipline for my children. I am writing about discipline for myself.
Specifically routinely putting God first. In order to do that I need to develop disciplined habits that are righteous.
The first step I will be taking in making God top priority is creating a morning routine with God at the top of my list.
So here is what my new morning routine will look like:

Wake up and pray.

Read the Proverbs chapter of the day.
Make breakfast
Shower (if needed)
Get dressed and be open to doing God's work both in my home and outside.

In order to do these things I need to develop the habit of getting up before my children. I need to have the attitude that is DOES matter whether or not I am wearing my PJ's all day. I need to fear the Lord and long to be in His presence.

My job as a disciple of Jesus is a REAL job and needs to be taken seriously.

Tot School Letter J

In my last Tot School post I promised you a really great J week. Well let me tell you I am about to deliver (a week late but who's keeping track?)

Day 1 of J week we jump painted.

Daddy tried it first.

It is a bit slippery to have paint on your feet so do be careful.

Our family's jumping foot prints

We practiced tracing letters in Jello powder.

I drew the letter first then Hudson traced along with his finger.

The highlight of J week was for sure having our good friend James come over for a morning of school.

We made freezer jam

Try to ignore all that sugar please.

We made crescent rolls to eat with our jam. (If I had been thinking we would have made them J shaped).

The boys had a blast Jacks in the box painting.

Jumping

Jiggling
Voila Masterpieces!

We did some other non J things this week as well but this post is getting quite long. I hope it was worth the wait! Check out 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School Fun!

P.S. Just in case you missed it, my Pay It Forward giveaway has not been all filled up so check it out!

Win Some Uggs!

In order to sign up to win some awesome Whooga Ugg Boots, you must have a blog or website or myspace. BUT this giveaway is open to everyone, everywhere because they ship internationally!!!
If you want a chance to win a free pair of Ugg Boots (they give away three pairs every two months or more!) click here. Grab a button for your site, then sign up to win.

Pay It Forward.

I had been wanting to participate in a pay it forward prize swap for a long time. Well finally I got my chance. The Writer Chic hosted a Pay It Forward giveaway and I was one of the blessed folks to be sent a special surprise (I will post about that when it gets here).
So here are the rules:
The first three (3) people to post a comment here will get a little something from me in the mail.
You must leave your email address if it isn't already in your profile.
A fourth commenter will also be chosen by random.org to receive a little something from me (I am a comment junkie can you tell?)
The catch. You must host your own Pay It Forward giveaway on your blog if you are one of the first 3 commenters or the 4th randomly chosen commenter.
Do try to make your comments interesting. I accept poems, knock knock jokes, flattery and any other creative writing you come up with.

Fab Giveaway.

Head on over to Creating From The Heart

Wordless Wednesday - Sand Surfing

For more Wordless Wednesday head over to 5m4m.

Spa Night!

I used to be one of those people who thought giving a coupon as a gift was really tacky. (Now granted if you are perusing the paper and come across a 50 cents off butter discount coupon and you cut it out and put it in a card for your mother, that is tacky.) Until I became good friends with Lisa.(That's paraffin wax on her hand.)
Last year for my birthday Lisa brought me breakfast in bed and gave me a punch card for 30 minutes of massage time from her. Now she is not a professional, just a wonderful friend giving the gift of herself to me. I am very grateful for my dear friend who has such a wonderful servants heart.

So I thought what better gift to give Lisa for her birthday than a spa night.

We drank coffee and ate fruit and chocolate.
I created a foot mask from ingredients in my kitchen.
Foot Mask Recipe
1/2 an avocado
2 tablespoons of honey
1 egg
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 handful of oatmeal

Mix together in the blender. Glob onto feet. Let sit for 20 minutes then rinse with warm water.

I rubbed her feet and painted her toenails.

She dipped her hands in paraffin wax.

We finished off with a relaxing back rub.

So what have I learned? Service gifts are wonderful. This spa night was relaxing and fun. It will not clutter up Lisa's living room and it was given with love. Not tacky at all.

I am linking this post up with What I Learned This Week and Gratituesday.

Home for a while I hope.

Thank you to my bloggy friends who were worried about me. While I can not go into detail I will tell you that our family here in the palace is wonderful and well.

Our Summer has been full of travel this year. We have been on 6 trips this summer. I used to think I would love to travel all the time. A new adventure waiting around every corner. Amazing things to see and fantastic memories to create. I do love to go different places and really experience life.

However I learned this summer that one really can have too much of a good thing. I can have adventures at home as well and being with my family in our very own kitchen (living room, back yard...etc) can create really fantastic memories.

So as I sit here blogging and smelling the beef soup stock I have simmering on my stove i am really grateful that I am learning to love home.

Unplugged

Hello my dear friends. I have some stuff to deal with so I will be unplugged until Tuesday. Have a blessed weekend!

What I Learned This Week

Step right up! You are about to witness a very valuable lesson.

If you ever decide that you want to have a super cool, more Montessori inspired Tot School like some of the other Tot School moms in blogland you may go searching for really great tools you can make yourself. And if you go searching for really great tools that you can make you may come across Chasing Cheerios . Once you have discovered Chasing Cheerios you may have the urge to make these great, sensory, large and fine motor skill enhancing cornstarch balloons.

Pretty aren't they?

Being the computer savvy super mom that you are you will probably Google "how to fill a balloon with corn starch."
You will be so excited to come across the Simple No Mess Instructions.

But even though you use the Simple No Mess Instructions your kitchen may still end up looking like this :
Here's the close up version:

And you may look like this:
But in the end your super mom shenanigans will be well worth it :)

See what other folks learned this week at Musings of a Housewife