Thoughts on Time With our Children

In working at preparing our children for life, we are constantly looking for resources to help us in this journey. I have found a very good book called Life Skills: Equipping Your Child for the Real World. It is written by Christine M. Field. The book teaches about subjects such as time management, decision making, money matters, healthy habits, house skills, organizational skills, handling difficult relationship issues and much more. So far the book has been very helpful.

In reading this book, I came across the chapter Responsibility in the Small Things. Within this chapter there is the subject of time and how we handle that time. Here is a paragraph taken from a book called 401 ways to Get Your Kids to Work,

By the time your children reach eighteen years of age, they will have spent 32,234 hours under your guidance and training. Consider that it takes only 2,100 hours of classroom and outside study time to complete a bachelor's degree in college and half that time to learn some skilled trades. Your home has sixteen times more teaching hours than does the university. What do you want to do with this time?

In reading, I was reminded that my husband and I only have so much time to apply to the hearts and minds of our children. It was a good reminder that we need to be proactive in our choices concerning our commitments and not just let life take us by the hand and lead us on into directions that God has not led.

I am grateful for the work of others who encourage and help to keep us on track in our thinking and living.

God Bless,
Tamara

Some Thoughts on Christmas

As the holiday season has come to a close, I have been thinking a good deal about how wonderfully warm and memorable it was. Though we had wonderful gifts to share with each other, the gifts were not the priority. (And I must say our daughters were so thoughtful in their gift selections.) We were able to spend time crafting with friends and took a special friend to see the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Making some new friends while we participated in a few craft fairs was a highlight of our celebration as we shared some of our favorite Christmas stories from the Joe Wheeler's Christmas in My Heart books and some of our huge paper snowflakes.

I am grateful for the peace and for family & friends this year as many folks in our area experienced tragic losses of loved ones through accidents and illness. As we prayed for them, I was again reminded of how blessed I am..

These are ust a few of the thoughts that I have had this past week as the new year has begun. The season was so full of richness that I am sad to see it pass and challenged to keep the spirit of celebrating our Lord and others all though the year..

God Bless and A very Happy New Year..

Here are four of our girls along with our youngest grandaughter, Anayah.~

We are so blessed to have our girls serving the Lord and learning His ways. God is so very faithful to take what we have sown and multiply it back for His purposes. As we disciple our girls to be polished cornerstones, He will use them to stand strong and to be pillars in His Kingdom.

One of our favorite resources is a book called Before You Meet Your Prince Charming. It has been fun, interesting and full of scripture and Godly advice to help young ladies stay focused on their roles as Kingdom daughters. Encouraging them in singlemindedness for the Lord and giving practical ways to be fruitful while waiting on God to direct their steps.

This picture was taken after our son's wedding in Tulsa. It was in the upstairs lobby of the Holiday Inn Express in Jenks, Oklahoma.
Pictured left to right are Charlotte, Mikailah, Tamara, Kenneth & Grace. My Honey is taking the picture. I should have gotten one with him in the photo. He looked very handsome in his black tuxedo.. We had a wonderful time at the wedding visiting with old friends that we hadn't seen for a very long time and we made some wonderful new friends. Our son Dylan married a wonderful young lady and she has a lovely family. We are very blessed to see our oldest child marry a young lady who loves the Lord and desires to live for Him. What a blessing it is to see our children walk in the ways that they were taught as children.