The Big Week

Not a single thing of interest or consequence has happened since last I posted.

Not a single thought of any depth or edification is coming to mind :-)

I am totally in holiday mode!

The holidays have been fabulous and I feel at last some of the exhaustion

 of the past year has lifted. (sigh)

This week hubby and I celebrated our twenty sixth wedding anniversary

with a nice dinner out and some time for reflection and quiet.

I have read and enjoyed "War Horse" and now look forward to seeing the movie.

I have had a great day today on my birthday!

Tomorrow we will spend time with other family at the coast

and I imagine we will see the New Year in very quietly.

Little sister and two year old crashed out on a rainy afternoon.

Little two year old fallen asleep at the door waiting for Mummy to return.
Snavelled one of the babies bottles and set guard on the door.
Little darling fell asleep right there!

Homeward bound.
Love this pic of my crew.


2011 has been a very challenging year with many highs and equally as many lows.

May God bless all who read here in the coming year as we look to him
who is our fortress, and our strength.

Emmanuel - God with us!

in·car·na·tion/ˌinkärˈnāSHən/

Noun:

A person who embodies in the flesh a deity, spirit, or abstract quality: "Rama was Vishnu's incarnation on earth". (in Christian theology) The embodiment of God the Son in human flesh as Jesus Christ.

As Christians that fact, that wonderful event,  is marvelous to us who believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ!  God in human flesh! 

Q. 22. How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
A. Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.  (Westminster Shorter Catechism)

That God has so great a love for His people that He, the Creator and Sustainer of all the earth, came down from Heaven's Glory and took on a body, weak and frail like ours. Fully God, fully man. A great mystery which we hold in awesome wonder as Truth.
This great event, amazing as it is, is termed Christ's humiliation. Stooping down to his creatures. Looking with determination and obedience to the Cross where on He would die a gruesome death for the sins of many.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism says in
Q. 27. Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist?
A. Christ's humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time. .

So while we do not celebrate this momentous event in time in any religious or traditional way at this time of year, we do solemnly ponder it and give praise and thanks to God for it all the time.  Neither do we celebrate the OT feasts which foreshadowed different aspects of Christ's attributes and works, yet we learn much from the reading and studying of these God given feasts days, about our Lord and Saviour and His promises to us, His covenant people.

I will be your God, you will be my people.

We instead celebrate the Exaltation of Christ every Lord's Day. He is Risen...Alleluia!

Again Westminster Shorter Catechism 
Q. 28. Wherein consists Christ's exaltation?
A. Christ's exaltation consists in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day.
.
Many Christians praise and honour God at this time in a special way. The Incarnation, the coming to earth of the Lord Jesus is truly to be remembered on every day as we walk this pilgrimage.  The world, sadly, has taken a pinch of this glorious and miraculous event and made it into something "worldly". The silly season. A time when few are focusing on the Incarnation at all. 

This year, with the 25th falling on a Sunday, the Lord's Day will see little of true worship of our great God. Let us keep our eyes upon Jesus and His blood shed to save sinners, such as us, and not solely upon a baby lying in a manger . Let us rejoice in the victorious exaltation of our Lord who stedfastly completed the work which he came to do.

Let us with expectation wait upon His triumphal return!

Come Quickly Lord Jesus!

I will lift my eyes unto the hills
From whence cometh my help.

F Troop

There's a funny story of how we came to watching old black and white F-troop DVDs this week.

Our neighbour has recently given birth to a baby boy and named him........Forrest. We have no room to talk when it comes to unusual names but, well, we cannot help but feel for the sweet little baby who will one day be a young man and have to deal with "Run, Forrest, Run!" and "Life is like a box of chocolates"  all his life.  We wish him well and hope that he is brilliant, and a good runner :-)

His name,, apart from reminding me of Forrest Gump, also jogged a memory of the actor Forrest Tucker who played Sergent O"Rourke in F-Troop.  Now we happen to have a couple of old DVDs from the first series of F-Troop and dug them out.  Despite everyone having seen them before we loved them all over again and the fact that they are black and white just added to the fun!  Apparently the subsequent series were in colour, but I don't remember that as we only had a black and white TV way back then. (Late 60s)  How we laughed then with Mum and Dad and all of us kids loving that time slot.  You remember?  The Ghost and Mrs Muir, My Favourite Martian, Dad's Army ah, the good ol' days!

Hubby ended up hiring a few more from the Video store so we have had a feast of them.  Very politically incorrect weren't they!!??  I wonder if any American reader could tell me whether these type of shows are now frowned on in the US "seeing as how" poor  old Chief Wild Eagle and the Hekawis are often the brunt of the slapstick comedy.  Would indigenous Aussies have a problem with such a portrayal?

( We have a number of quite bad movies etc from the early days of TV which probably don't get aired these days.  I vaguely remember seeing the movie "Jedda" as a child but can only seem to recall the scene where Jedda jumps? is thrown? from a cliff.  I recently saw Gnarla Kunoth (Rosalie Kunoth-Monks) who starred as Jedda in that 1955 movie on a television program.  She is a leader among the Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory, and clearly does not think her people are in any different situation now to then. "Jedda" of course is not a satire like F-Troop and portrays life in that part of Australia as it was for both the indigenous people and white settlers  Rosalie did not regret making the movie.)

So what have you all been doing so far on the holidays?  Aussie homeschoolers will mostly be on a break though I realise that the Northern Hemisphere is still in full swing.
We have been relaxing, done a little visiting, been to the pool, had a few visitors, done lots of washing (a few rainy days here amid the heat).  I am really enjoying the grandchildren at the moment with no school lessons to interfere with the important stuff.  Two year old fronts up regularly with books in hand and says "Tory Time?" I am loving reading with the grandies as much as ever I did with my own.
To conclude, a wise old Hekawi saying. " When Mumma gets tired, Mumma ain't happy, whole household not happy."

So this little Mumma had better head off for the evening. Ready for bed? You can betcha a bucket of buzzards I am!

Love those old F troop lines.  They get a laugh every time!

Arggggggggrrrrrr...........a two year old in the house!

He may be almost new but my little two year grandson is keeping our household on red alert!

Why is it that the cheekiest, most mischievious ones are also the cutest and cuddliest ones?

The little man received this bike for his birthday yesterday and within minutes was stunt riding, standing on the seat, doing wheelies and crashing into everything in sight ~ including his six month old twin siblings who are now motoring around on the floor.

How can we resist when he says things like "Torry" and "Tory time" !

Love that little guy.

Good times!  Good times!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

He may be made from snips and snails
but he is just adorable ♥

The Ideal Location to Homeschool

Sometimes I feel very sympathetic towards home school families who are isolated or pretty much the only family in their area/ church taking on the challenge.  Internet contact is great but nothing replaces face to face friendships and advice.

From a small group of maybe half a dozen families twenty years ago, we have ballooned into a very active, motivated and dedicated group in Central Queensland,  involving over one hundred students and their families.  We have many organised activities including sports, swimming and educational excursions.  We have informal nights out for mothers which are great when new to homeschooling mums need encouragement and advice.  We have the opportunity to mentor younger mothers and sometimes  share lessons, as a few friends and I did with the Art a couple of years ago.  The high schoolers have an end of year dinner to celebrate the graduation of Year Twelves.

So here are some pics of some of the crowd who showed up at our Break Up Day this year.
Mums, Dads, students, some past graduates and friends etc.  You may notice the brave, super -  cool,  foolish few at the pool bare chested.  Believe me that is not the savvy thing to do in our climate. Central Queensland has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world.  Don't let that put you off if you are thinking of moving here.   Most people in our group cover up for modesty and major sun protection!

(One of) The Best Days of the Year!

The final day of school!!

Happily for my  zealous , enthusiastic,  somewhat  reluctant students, our Breakup Day was brought forward from Friday to Wednesday.  Since I, and they, would find it very difficult to work after the big break up party we are calling it quits for 2011.  Despite my frequent whingy mentions of lack of work accomplished and failure to motive blah, blah, blah we have finished off quite nicely.  The boys and I have even done a little bit of clearing and dumping (groan) in our school room.  It has been a very tiring year, and full of ups and downs so we are hoping to have a good rest plus some major clean up days over the break.
~ A girl can dream ~

In 2012, Lord willing, my youngest will begin his high school years and we, our twentieth year in home education. Phew, it is a marathon isn't it!  So, dare I toss out even more accumulated stuff? Most homeschoolers I know have nearly as many books as the local library and I was heading that way until the major haul out which I posted about here, back in 2009. Since then I have restrained myself from buying except what has been essential to their work and we've utilized the library a lot more.  It is a practical matter for me.  Much as I love books and the wonders they hold, I do not have a skerrick of storage space, my homeschooling days are drawing to a close, my children are not the voracious readers that hubby and I were, and ..........  well, I do not want to leave this job until I am gone and it is lumped on the family.

Breaking up Day has such golden memories for me as a child.  What special traditions did you have for that occasion?  Watermelon, novelty races, plums and apricots in our goodies bags.  I just don't know that kids these days are so excited about fruit for a treat.  I may be wrong?  It was always hot but everyone, parents, students , teachers and towns folk all came to the Break up day festivities, in the good 'ol days!

As a group our families have tried many different type of end of year events.  You may remember the tour of the local caves in 2008 and the sand castle competition at the beach in '09.  Some years we've organised treasure hunts, done the old fashioned egg and spoon and three legged races and played lots of cricket.

This year it is a little simpler.  We are meeting at the pool and the children will have some inflatables and lots of friends to laugh away the special day.  I'm glad that is a relaxed, non organised, sort of event :-) I am looking forward to catching up with friends who I seem to have missed over this past busy year.

GS 5 begins his education!