Friday, December 17, 2010

Monday, December 13, 2010

Rosetta Stone Give Away!!!

Now is the perfect time to give your child the gift of possibilities for the holidays with Rosetta Stone Homeschool — and you can WIN a Level 1 Homeschool program, language of your choice (valued at $249)!




Right now Rosetta Stone is having a special Holiday promotion on our Homeschool Edition program and we’d like you to help spread the word! Everyone can save up to $150 on Rosetta Stone Homeschool by visiting our website at http://www.RosettaStone.com/hsw1110.



By helping us spread the word you can win a Rosetta Stone Homeschool Edition Level 1 program, language of your choice, valued at $249.



This is a computer based curriculum and Rosetta Stone will also include a headset with microphone, and a supplementary “Audio Companion” CD so you can practice lessons in the car, on the go, or where-ever!





Students participate in life-like conversations and actually produce language to advance through the program. Rosetta Stone incorporates listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing along with speaking and pronunciation lessons. For parents, the new Parent Administrative Tools are integrated into the program to allow parents to easily enroll up to ten students in any of 12 predetermined lesson plans, monitor student progress, grade completed work (the program grades the work automatically as the students progress), and you can view and print reports for transcripts. Homeschooling a lot of kids at your house? This program is designed to enroll and track up to ten students (five users on two computers) and will work for nearly all ages — from beginning readers up to college students.



To win this program, copy these paragraphs and post them in (or as) your next blog post, and/OR post about this contest on your facebook page. Then go to the original page at

http://www.othersuchhappenings.com/2010/12/rosetta-stone-giveaway-yay.html

and leave a comment saying that you’ve posted about, or have linked to, the contest. Please make sure the link works to get back to the original contest page when you post, and good luck!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

My family, my church!

I am once again moved by the outpouring of love and the true family connection that our church has. Tonight, Chris and I got a much needed night out together at our annual Christmas Progressive Dinner. We have four families that live relatively close together. One provided childcare, one appetizers, one dinner, and one dessert.

It was beautiful and delicious! The adults had a chance to get together as just adults. We all cherish our children and love our role as parents, but we are all in need of refreshing from time to time.

While enjoying this company of friends, I was struck once again by my church family. I have never been a part of something so beautiful and so consistent to God's word. This gathering is the picture of the body of Christ working together for His glory. The word of God is spoken boldly and His grace and love is poured out on one another. I love each person that God has brought to our congregation. Each is so unique, the personalities so diverse, and we learn so much from each other. I love the fun, the prayers, the encouragement, the friendship, the worship, and so much more.

We had a wonderful night tonight! I am so thankful that God brought us to Covenant of Grace!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Advent

Well, I am not going to keep up with the daily posts. I really don't feel they are necessary anyway. If you are interested in what we are doing or would like some ideas for your advent traditions, just follow the links below.

Advent countdown activity/devotional chain: http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/christmas.html


Jesse Tree devotions and ornaments: http://www.eriercd.org/pdf/reflections.pdf , http://www.eriercd.org/pdf/jessetree_4up.pdf , or you could find it here as well : http://www.aholyexperience.com/2010/11/free-jesse-tree-advent-devotional-book/


Jotham's Journey: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_39?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=jotham%27s+journey+a+storybook+for+advent&sprefix=jotham%27s+journey+a+storybook+for+advent

We also love to do Adornaments by Family Life. I finally found them online! I really thought they might be out of print and the kids LOVE them!!! http://www.christianstories.com/categories/books/christian-content/adorenaments.shtml

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Advent - Day 3

Today, after catching up from yesterday, we will take our third link off the advent chain we made.  This is a good day for us because another angel craft is called for. We will probably just do one and call it done. ;-)
Today we will be talking about how the angel told Mary of Jesus' coming birth. We will read Luke 1:26-38.

Jesse Tree:
symbol: ladder = Jacob's dream when he was fully aware of God's presence with him
Read Genesis 27:41-28:22

If you would like to see the sites where I found these devotions and activities, click here to see my Day 1 blog post.

Advent - Day 2

Well, today, great things took me away from our "normal" (whatever that means). The girls and I had the opportunity of going to a special Nutcracker production for school groups. It was so fun to dress up and drive downtown and go to a nice theater!! We had a great time together. The boys had fun as well playing with some good friends of ours. So, I will tell you what we were supposed to do today, and that we will hopefully catch up tomorrow.

Countdown chain:
Read Luke 1:5-25
Make angels
Sing some songs from the songbook (Click here to go to Day 1 that includes all the links I used.)

Jesse Tree:
symbol:  ram = The sacrifice God provided Abraham when he saw Abraham was willing to give up his only son, if that is what God required of him.

Read about Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22:1-19.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Our advent activities!! Day 1

Well, Advent actually began this past Sunday, but I was out of town and totally unorganized at home. As we go through our month, though, I would like to share what we are doing. I will try to post in the morning or night before so that you may use this as a guide for you if you don't know what to do this year.

First, we are reading a book called Jotham's Journey. It is the first in a series of three books. You can find them here at Amazon.com. I won't post on this each day. Just know they are WONDERFUL books and that we will be reading in it each day.

Today, we made our devotional countdown chain that I found here (click on sentence). Each day, we will take off a loop, read the scripture on it, sing a song or two, and do an activity.

Today:

We discussed how the Bible is split into the Old and New Testaments. We talked about how in the Old testament many people were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the King spoken about in the Bible. The Old Testament foretold the birth of God's chosen King and Savior. The New Testament is the fulfilling of the prophesies and shows Jesus' ministry and love for us.

We read Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 9:6-7.

We then sang Jesus Loves Me.

Next we set up our Nativity and decorated for Christmas. 

Finally, we are also starting a Jesse Tree. The devotions I am using are found here, and the pictures, which I printed and laminated to hang on our tree, are found here. Today, we are actually catching up from Nov. 28 until today. I am going to type an abbreviated version here this time because of the amount. (You may need to edit as you read these to make them match your specific theology.)

Nov. 28
Dove = God's creation
Isaiah 11:1-10 (story of Jesse)
1 Samuel 16:1-13 (David)
Jesse is the father of David, beginning a line of descendants that will lead to Jesus, the Messiah.

Nov. 29
Apple = original sin
Genesis 2:4-3:24

Nov. 30
Ark = This symbol reminds us that although God was displeased with the wickedness of the people, he also sees the best in us and renews his covenant with us through forgiveness and mercy.
Genesis 6:11-22, 7:1-8:22

Dec. 1
Field of stars = God's promise to Abraham
Genesis 12:1-7, 15:1-6

I hope that no matter how you choose to celebrate this Advent season, you will draw your family close and remember God's love for each of you!!!