I love you!!

This past Friday was my sister (Hosanna's) birthday but we were busy that day so today Monday we are celebrating her 11th birthday:) she is a joy to all those who meet her and a help to everyone!! she and I are very close and share all kinds of things...Hosanna

Happy
Obedient
Sweet
Amazing
Nice
Neat
Awesome



I love being the sister to you Hosanna!!
I love you!!

Hope S.

Reenacting

My sisters and I are homeschooled, which naturally leaves a lot of space open for creativity to help us put learning into a certain perspective. Some of my favorite memories from lower grades (I'm a senior this year, graduating in May) have sprung from days when we decided to make history or literature, or some other subject, come alive. Wild science experiments, dressups like book characters, little skits that helped us to remember what we were learning about...our photo boxes are happily stuffed!
But reenacting a Bible story, building a food pyramid out of plastic food, or any other sort of fun hands-on approach to integrating these bits of knowledge into the brain doesn't have to be school-related. Sometimes it's much more fun to come up with something entirely on your own, gathering your siblings together to put on a show for your parents or taking something you learned that morning and making a performance out of it. Giving life to what's on your mind or your lesson plans is one of the best ways older siblings can get involved, and younger siblings to remember what they learned. My parents have often been pleasantly surprised when we decided to perform something we learned on our own; it shows them that we value what they teach us enough to spend unstructured time dabbling with it.
I'll give you an example that happened just today; my two little sisters have been learning about the pilgrims on the Mayflower, so we cut up some cheese and salted some lunch meat, got out some Saltine crackers, and put some leftover rice in a bowl for porridge. We draped a bedspread over our dining table and everybody, including Mom, crawled underneath the table and we all pretended to have a Mayflower meal! We rocked back and forth for the waves and "hurled" into a water pitcher. We substituted cranberry apple juice for ale, but it was still a big hit. If you've read any posts about my family prior to this, you can guess there was some hiccuping going on. But the point is, it was a great way for the Girls to associate something with their study of the Mayflower pilgrims. We actually did this activity a few years ago, when I was learning about that time period, locking ourselves away into a closet with much of the same foodstuffs.
Be creative with this and really make it your own. You might get some "book larnin' " out of this, but you're sure to get some great memories and photos! Post them on your blog and put a link here; we'd love to see what you come up with!
(It should be noted that soon after our Mayflower meal, my baby sister knocked an entire bottle of Italian salad dressing off the counter, and while we were all cleaning it up, my other sister says, "Well...sister Mary barfed again.")

Quotes

Here are some quotes about siblings I'd like to share. (And just for the record, I don't know who a lot of the people who said the quotes are.)

Sisters

If you don't understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child. ~Linda Sunshine

You can kid the world. But not your sister. ~Charlotte Gray

Help one another, is part of the religion of sisterhood. ~Louisa May Alcott

A sister smiles when one tells one's stories - for she knows where the decoration has been added. ~Chris Montaigne

A toast once heard: "To my big sister, who never found her second Easter egg until I'd found my first." ~Robert Brault

The mildest, drowsiest sister has been known to turn tiger if her sibling is in trouble. ~Clara Ortega

Sister to sister we will always be,
A couple of nuts off the family tree.
~Author Unknown

Brothers

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero. ~Marc Brown

After a girl is grown, her little brothers - now her protectors - seem like big brothers. ~Astrid Alauda

(Sorry, I couldn't find a lot for brothers!)

Brothers and Sisters

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. ~Clara Ortega

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at. ~Maya Angelou

~*~*~*~*~*~

Soli Deo Gloria!

Taylor

Frog and Toad

I know that when I was younger, I loved it when my mom would read books aloud to me. My absolute favorites were all of the "Frog and Toad" books. If you have younger sibling, and they enjoy reading and/or being read to, I highly suggest these books.

The two main characters of the stories are Frog and Toad. Frog is a rather relaxed and optimistic character, whereas Toad is pessimistic , a lot of the time he is very serious, but usually very kind. Frog is particularly tall and green, but Toad is brown, short, and stout.

They are very cute stories. They have their fun little adventures together, sometimes something happens that they think is scary or startling, but everything is always end up being okay.

(Considering my own opinion of these books:) I have nothing in them that I don't like. I love the characters, the humor, and the cute illustrations. Arnold Lobel did a very good job on these books. (I also suggest reading "Owl at Home" by Arnold Lobel.)

~Emma~

National Bible Bee 2010

The National Bible Bee Competition is a series of events designed to help parents encourage diligence in Bible study, Scripture memorization, and prayer in their families. There are two focal points: 1) Bible memorization and Bible knowledge competition held at Local Bible Bees organized by volunteer Hosts and Local Event Teams in various locations throughout the United States, and 2) The National Bible Bee competition for the 300 top-scoring contestants from the Local Bible Bees. Family discipleship is reinforced during the time leading up to these events through planned voluntary social interactions around the Word, memory verse games, and Christian fellowship.

On August 28th youth and children across the US competed in what is called a local Bible Bee to see who would go to nationals in November. Someone would volunteer to host it locally and then the competitors would go to the place hosted that was near them and compete against each other reciting Bible verses and then also doing a written test and whoever got the highest score would go on a list to see if they made it to nationals. There are 3 different categories: Senior, Junior and Primary: I had a sister in primary and 2 in Senior. They all studied very hard through the summer and then attended the local on Aug. 28th and all did a fantastic job!! But 1 of my sisters in Senior (Haylee by name:) was anxiously waiting the time when they announced who all was going to nationals: 300 young people total go... 100 from each category. Haylee just made the nationals and has been busy packing and studying for the coming day. She will fly out with Dad and head to Chicago to compete on Nov. 11th-13th. She is flying out late tonight and will be in Chicago at 5:30pm and will be (hopefully) ready for the day she will be on stage competing:):). To check out the prizes and for more info or to watch it live go to: www.biblebee.com and there you have it:) I would like to ask you all to please be praying for Haylee and my Dad as they fly, and also Haylee as she competes!! GO HAYLEE GO:)!!!

Turning Up the Radio

Today I'm going to share a fun idea with you, something that my two little sisters and I love to do when we have enough time on our hands.
We've always been crazy about music; we'll turn on the radio in the car, sing snatches of songs across the house to each other, have inside jokes about "oh, that guy went so high he sounded like a girl!" or "man, she's yodeling." Music is something that we can all three relate to and share ideas about; this guy shouldn't have had that stupid bridge, this girl should have thrown in another funky vocal trill. We love speculating on all sorts of songs, both the old black and white movie soundtracks and the new Christian stuff coming out on our local station.
So it comes as no surprise that we all love to flop on my bed, turn on my laptop, and listen to our favorite songs. We'll watch music videos and listen over and over to our special picks, taking turns to choose a new song. It's fun to talk about whatever song we're listening to, trying to match the lyrics to an idea floating around in our head, try and fit the song with an actor or a particular person who best emulates the lyrics. And of course, it's always awesome to turn the music way up and dance to it!
Spending time with music, just listening to it with your siblings, is always fun but you don't have to confine music to a certain period of time on blah-blah day. Turn it up while you're doing school with siblings or try singing with them. Teach tiny siblings a new song or get your older siblings' opinion about the current popular music.
YouTube has a feature now where you can create a playlist; pick a bunch of songs that you and your siblings like and let it play! (A note of warning; do use caution on YT, as some ads on the side of the screen aren't for small eyes.)
There is a good feeling that comes with having music flood your house. Good feelings are meant to be shared, so get that radio pumping.
-Pip

Acting?

A few years ago, my sisters, friends, and I saw for the first time a movie called 'Bleak House' , which was based on a Charles Dickens novel, and, long story short, we became infatuated with it. We would always pretend to be the characters, and we would sometimes even have dinner parties just so we could act like we were back in the early 1800's. My 14th birthday party was even a Bleak House dinner.

One day, one of us decided that we should act out the movie. Our first attempt didn't work out. We were at first acting while the movie was on, reading the subtitles as it went along, but that quickly failed.

Later, we agreed that we should type up the script. It was a great endeavor, considering the movie was about 8 hours long, but after a while, we finally finished typing up what we needed.

Then we had auditions for who wanted to play what role. We had a great time with that. The people who wanted to have a certain part would say a few lines that the character said, and the ones who didn't want the role would vote on who did the best.

Finally, we were ready to act it out. After trying to act out the first part of the movie, we decided we wanted to skip to the second half, because it had more fun acting parts in it. As I look back at how it all went, I laugh to myself. Even though none of us will ever be award winning actors, we had such a good time doing it, and made a lot of memories along the way.

I encourage you all, even if you don't think you are a good actor (I certainly am not), pick out your and your sibling's favorite movie, type up the script, give out parts, and have the time of your life!

Soli Deo Gloria!

Taylor