I woke at the ridiculous time of 2.45am and couldn’t go back to sleep so I read for a while (hoping it would send me to sleep but it didn’t – it woke me up more so!!) So I decided to get up and do some blogging and reading.  Time flies doesn’t it.

But I did manage to pull myself away at 5.00 and start my morning routine.  Domino (the dog) and I met a stray/wild dog on my walk which made me turn back and cut my walk a little short.  Not very brave when it comes to dogs!

Family Devotions – we spoke about honour again.  We read the story of Mary washing  Jesus’ feet with her tears and then with perfume.  We talked about the external expression of honour – that though it starts with a heart change, it is expressed by the things we do, namely, service and giving.   A good challenge for family relationships.

Nomi and Daniel then went straight into their Bible studies – but I hadn’t prepared the bits and pieces for their notebook pages that I wanted them to make so they worked on their timelines (that we started yesterday) while I did some photocopying and thinking.  ½ hour later we were ready to start.  We covered the main eras, main figure and geography of that era of the Old Testament.  I just used photocopied text from the book I’m reading from, the kids cut this up and glued it as I talked and gave them a running commentary.  When there was something that I knew they would know, or something that they could think about I would pause and they would fill in (or we would talk about) the narrative/lesson.  The idea of this lesson is that they understand the main keys that give a progression of God’s story though the Old Testament.  Our next lesson will start with the details.

Here is Daniel’s notebook pages.

Old Testament overview

I have hung his on the wall so we can refer to it during the coming weeks – Nomis was exactly the same.  The idea of these pages was to have a quick visual overview, seeing the main event, people and place.  I didn’t want them to be fussed about neatness – if they want to redo it, now they know where we were headed they are welcome to but I doubt they will.  It is a notebook page made for reference.

Then we picked up our Tiner’s Exploring Planet Earth and read about the wind.  Once I finished reading the short lesson Daniel gave me an oral narration which he then went and typed up.  Nomi went straight to the computer to type her narration / understanding of the lesson.  I had drawn a very simple illustration on the white board and they were to copy that onto their notebook page (by hand, with textas/markers).

Here’s Nomi’s Notebook page for the day:

Nomi's Notebook page after our study of the Winds

I then packed myself off for a sleep – remember I woke at 2.45am today so I really needed a sleep, not just the cat-nap I normally take.  The kids continued with their notebook page or math for the day.

Today we went out for lunch with my friend (MC).  Her kids are my kids great friends so every one was really excited.  She provided breadrolls and bits and pieces, I took along a berry dessert and nut based chocolate thickshake (no milk).  We haven’t sat and chatted about anything and everything since late May when two friends visited from out of town.  We hardly saw the kids – and the kids hardly saw us.  We talked about books we’ve been reading, things we’ve done with our kids, challenges we face, good things that happen, our dreams and plans.  It is good to have these times.  But we were on a time limit – we had alarms (that is 2 alarms) giving us warnings to help us get out the door!!  We took an extra 10 minutes which is probably a record!

Once home and resettled I closed the office door and told everyone that I needed 1 hour uninterrupted time – only knock if there is blood and no breathing.  So I got a fair bit done – just little things that needed doing.  They read, played on the computer, blogged and whatever else they felt like.  I actually worked for just over 2 hours so it was a very productive time.

We had a simple dinner of poached eggs on toast – mainly so Nomi could practice cooking eggs.  Over dinner I just happened to quote something from Proverbs 31, and then asked the kids if they knew that Prov 31 was actually written for the boys, not necessarily for the girls – afterall the ‘poem’ was the words of a mother to his son.  This of course raised some conversation .  Daniel asked me to read it, which I did, and then we talked about the need for choosing their wives wisely.  We also made application to the girls as I do believe it is for girls too – afterall there is some mother somewhere teaching her son to look for a wife wisely – my girls need to be ready!!

We then served dessert and finished our read aloud – The Mountain Born.   Its been a great day – good lessons, a fun time visiting friends, a productive time in the afternoon.  But I’m about done… early to bed for me.