As I cleaned out cabinets and got rid of stuff, I prayed the Lord would get rid of the stuff that I don't need pinging around in my head that distracts me. As I get rid of stuff, I feel "free-er." 
I taught the kids the song, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus" the other morning and as I sang it, I felt the Lord tell me that the many things of this world are making it harder for me to keep my eyes upon Him, but keep my eyes on Him, I must-and get rid of the things that He leads me to.
I'm reading a book called Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World by Joanna Weaver. WOW-this book has touched on some things I need help with!
I've been very distracted by the "dos" in my life rather than "seeking the better part" at Jesus' feet. This is what she says about distraction:
..."distraction is where Satan usually begins. He knows if we're overly worried and bogged down by duties, chances are good our hearts will not hear the Saviour's call to come. While distraction may not win the battle for our soul, getting our eyes off of what is important will certainly make us more vulnerable to attack."
School last week was fantastic. Hannah said she doesn't want the American Revolution unit to end.
Here's a few things from the school week:
--Continued reading the Patrick Henry bio-what an amazing man!! He was a wild boy, too-his school was glad when his dad let him quit in elementary school! LOL We discussed how his oratory (and others) and the written words of Thomas Paine were often catalysts for the action of the Revolution. Used this info to understand the statement, "the pen is mightier than the sword."
We also learned that Sam Adams & Paul Revere used a bit or propaganda to get the colonists on board with breaking away from England. The Boston Massacre didn't happen the way we all learned it. Check it out-very interesting!!
P. Henry even led a military attack against the Virginia governor for stealing gun powder from Williamsburg. We discussed how people willingly followed him and how we can influence people with our words and actions or be influenced.
--The kids memorized part of Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death" speech. They wrote some of Thomas Paine's words on paper we aged by crumpling it and wiping wet tea bags on it and then I burned the corners of the paper a bit. They wrote with "wood-nibs" that they made and used ink wells and blotters. We learned a lot of vocab just from one paragraph of Common Sense and identified the metaphors and similes. They used an awful lot of metaphors back them!! LOL
--Learned a lot from an awesome book called Picture Book of the Continental Army by C. Keith Wilbur.
--read bios of John Paul Jones, Benedict Arnold, Peggy Shippen Arnold, The Bonhomme Richard (a ship), Nathan Hale (and memorized his last words)
--learned about Marquis de Lafayette-another amazing man! Did you know that when he died and was buried in France, his grave was covered with American soil?
We did a little review on the French & Indian War, French Revolution and the Reign of Terror during this bio.
--The Crossing of the Deleware & Battle of Trenton. This story is absolutely mind-boggling. It gave us a new respect & admiration for the men who fought in the revolution.
Colonel John Glover (one of our new heros) was a fisherman from Marblehead, Massachusettes. All the men under him were also fishermen-and they were armed with fish picks. These men were in charge of getting the rest of them (and the horses and cannons) across the Delaware-it took all night. Washington gave Glover total control of the army for the crossing. They were all freezing, hungry and exhausted and there were only a few small boats to get about a 1,000 men over. Then, when they were finally all over, they marched 9 miles to Trenton, New Jersey and beat the Hessians (German mercenaries hired by the British to fight here). G. Washington planned it like this because it was the day after Christmas and at daybreak when they marched in the Hessians were all sleeping off hangovers. I think there were about 2000 Hessians.
After learning about this, the kids made shadow boxes depicting this event. They also filled the tub with cold water and ice cubes and floatet boats "across the Delaware."
Hannah wrote a paper comparing the positive & negative considerations about this battle. Jonah narrated his.
--another fun thing the kids did was pretend to be minutemen. They had their muskets (nerf dart guns) with them and ready for an entire day and every time I yelled out "call to arms," they ran to me as fast as possible. We also talked about being ready for God's "call to arms" and responding immediately to that.
We also did all the sit down stuff we normally do. Here's a fun thing from FamilyFun magazine we did. Even Susanna helped.
Put fruits and nuts in a container, add water and a rope at one end. Freeze and hang outside for the birds. The woodpeckers and the tufted titmice are really loving this!
Yesterday we had 2 families with kids over. Pat made pizzas and the kids went sledding. I turned on the Christmas lights on the porch for them. Pat and another Dad pulled the kids behind the 4-wheeler and gave them rides on the snowmobile, too. They had a great time!
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