Passing along the award :)

I got home late this evening and had to check my 'Bloglines' listings before hitting the hay. Well guess what I found over at Buffaloes & Butterfly Wings?!?! She awarded me with this:



I was shocked... and then very excited to see my name in her list of excellent blogs. Thank you very much Amy!

And now I get to pass on this Excellent blog award to 10 more people. Love it. So here we go on 10 blogs of my choice, and the first one will be thrown right back at Amy. I've been keeping updated on her family's journey with her brave little boy. I forget how I found her blog, but I've checked it daily ever since. :)

Buffaloes & Butterfly Wings

and now for some others I really enjoy:

Amy's Humble Musings

Seven Meadows

There is no place like home

Peculiar People

Preschoolers and Peace

The Rebelution

Smockity Frocks

The Sparrow's Nest

Token Sister

So, if you were awarded this Excellence award by moi then you get to pass it on.
and here are the rules for passing it on…

By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, you have to award it to 10 more people who’s blogs you find Excellent Award worthy. You can give it to as many people as you want but please award at least 10.

Now, I really must go find a pillow somewhere. Tomorrow is just minutes away! :(

Dreams of summer.

It's freezing today. It took me a few hours to warm my hands this morning. They aren't completely purple anymore. Ah, the joys of older homes. :)

Anyway, I've been dreaming of summer and thought I'd share a few of my favourite summer photos with you. If you want to take part in dreaming of summer, post some pic's of your own and leave a comment so we can all dream together. :)

Book Review Friday: Leviticus 6-10

First things first, If you have no idea what Book Review Friday is all about please see my sidebar and you'll learn really fast and want to join in! :) This week we'll be reading Leviticus 11-15. Keep faithful in your reading. It's those Leviticus type books that we often want to skip, but we're all going to stick with it anyway and give it our best shot. God has stuff in there for us! :) I noticed one of the titles in the upcoming chapters this week is 'The Law Concerning Bodily Discharges'. Hmmmm, sounds....... ewwwww.

Okay, now for my review on chapters 6-10. Again, I didn't get much to share but I have a verse starred and circled. :)

"By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified." 10:3

Mister man, what a verse! A shake in your boots and get down to business, kind of verse. Love it. God will be glorified whether it is through your life or by taking your life. He means business and we don't get it. We do not take time to consider who the God we serve really is each day. Yes, God loves me, and yes He cares about me and my family, I'm thankful. But I forget that we are here to glorify Him, not be blessed by Him. His ultimate goal is to be glorified, and if that means he must devour someone with holy fire for disobeying, even my own child, then so be it. I just don't want to be on the receiving end of that judgement.

The story of Nadab and Abihu is only a few verses long but they pack a might punch. Two brothers who had just been told exactly what they were supposed to in worshiping God as priests and immediately revert to doing what they want instead and are killed for it.

I can stand on the sidelines with my many different feelings in the situation. I can be horrified at the whole affair for the parents sake. Imagine watching your children burn to death because they profaned the name of the Lord, and then be told you are not allowed to mourn. That's horrible. But then I can totally be on God's side and say "They deserved it! How dare they directly disobey God's clear commands!" (Don't judge me here folks, I know everyone does that sometimes!). But that self-righteous feeling doesn't stay too long because I know myself too well to dwell too long on others faults. That's when my feelings of pity and self-righteousness turn to fear. Oh my, we don't fear God anymore. We down-right don't care much of the time. If the truth were known, deep down in our hearts we would much rather enjoy some 'strange fire' than do exactly what God wants us to do. Before long we are so mixed up in our own made up acts of spirituality we don't remember what pure, unadulterated, God-centered living is like. In fact, we don't even have a clue that we're mixed up. One major reason why I'm loving BRF with all of you is that it's getting us back to the basics. We're learning the Bible, just the Bible. We read, God works. It's awesome. He even uses Leviticus to teach me amazing things.

So from Leviticus I'm taking away one major theme: Do not mess with God! He made us, He saves us, He expects us to live by His rules. And He has every right to deal with those doing their own thing in whatever way He chooses, even me. Yikes!

Well, that's all I have time for right now. We've had a busy but very good day here at Watchthesky and this mommy needs some sleep. I'll be checking Mr.Linky out one last time before bed to see if anyone else was able to complete a review though. If you would like to post a review from the reading this week and do not have a blog please email it to me and I'd love to post it for you.:) But of course, if you do have a blog, here is Mr.Linky. Link away. :)

Links you'll love

My hubby and eldest son are in the woods this morning snaring rabbits. We made this a reason to take a break from school and get a few extra things done around the house. I thought I would be able to have things taken care of and sit down with a cup of tea mid-morning and blog away. My, things take a long time. It's now almost time to get lunch started and many things still need to be done but I'm posting anyway, today will be busy and there won't be another chance... and I just have to post! :)

I have a few links I'd like to pass along. The first and foremost is one I need desperately! I was reminded last night as I did a bit of a grammar test online. I thought I was doing well and pretty proud that I knew what I did. The results actually told me, "You should be embarrassed!". That said, I remembered about a site that explains all I need to know. I'll be looking up some things later on. If you don't need to look because you actually learned it all in school when you were younger I'm jealous of you! :) But if you would like to improve read this site:

Grammar Girl

I also love the LAF website. I do not have much time to read all the great articles they link to but take time every now and then to catch up. Here is the Ladies Against Feminism website:

LAF

And here is one of the latest I've read from there and I would encourage any other moms out there to do the same (without tomatoes in your hand please!) :

The Me Time Myth

Now for those interested in learning a bit more about our Canadian geography and reinforcing all the info with your children check out this site. It's fun and can be easy or challenging for them (and you maybe). It also has a link to print a blank map of Canada and also more links to printable map pages.

Sheppard Software

Now for the jackpot. :) I have fallen in love with the Donna Young site. She is the fairy god mother for the homeschooling family. I was just using her cursive sheets but Seven told me to look around at all the other cool stuff Donna had on the site. Woo Hoo! There are some great things there and so I pass them on to you. Here is the homepage and a few of my new favourite links:

Donna Young's Homeschool printables & resources

Donna Young's printable Calendars

I have my 6 year old doing these penmanship sheets each day. I also started my older two doing them simply to learn the rules. It just so happens that it also makes their writing much neater along the way. :)

George Washington's rules of civility

And my absolute favourite these days is the little link for the math drill sheets. What a great resource for the homeschooling mom! I print myself the answer key and then some drills in addition, subtraction, multiplication, fractions, etc.. After just one week we've seen much improvement. It is meant to get all the basic math facts memorized so that thought isn't even needed. They just know that 9x12 is... um.... well, maybe I should do a couple of those sheets too. :{ Here's the link:

Math drill sheets

That's not all she has of course. There are even resources to help you organize your home and stuff. She's awesome. :)

Well, that's all I have time to pass on. I started 25 minutes ago and now it's time for lunch and I better have a quick plan. Tell me it was worth it. Tell me you looked at every link and totally loved them. Tell me Donna Young is awesome and you didn't throw any tomatoes at the third link. Just tell me so I don't feel guilty for updating my blog.

Okay it's now been 27 minutes and I'm very glad there are some leftovers we can scrape together. :)

Need a tutor?

There are a few people out there who would like to know how to crochet. I happen to have found a great tutor for you. I'm thinking mostly of Seven & her daughter. :) Check out this gal and her very own technique.

Proper Crochet Technique 101 by Smockity Frocks

Check it out, you'll be glad you did. :)

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

After entering Blockbuster yesterday to find a 'childrens movie' and having to weed through horribly disgusting images I am thinking I'll never enter a movie place again. I'll just call ahead and ask them to set the one I want aside. Who wants to look at extremely pervise things just to find Mary Poppins? Seriously. Now, once we've watched our latest purchase and join in on the 'Let's go fly a kite' song, I know what the next movie I want to see is. Check out this trailer and see what you think.

Book Review: Leviticus 1-5

** If you do not know what Book Review Friday it just check out my sidebar and we'd love to have you join in with us!**

First things first, let's read Leviticus 6-10 this week. Stick with it girls! :)

Wow! I'm glad I live in the here & now. All those sacrifices given means that I would have needed to own some pretty big herds. I would have spent my days at the tabernacle door killing one animal after another and passing Moses & his sons some grain & oil every now and then.

This is the first time I've seen the need for confession and keeping short accounts with God as I read. That doesn't mean it wasn't there to see in the other books of course, I just didn't see it. These people would have thought twice before lashing out or speaking ill of another person, it would mean getting another one of your animals and going through that whole process again. And they were learning in the not so distant past that their God was not to be trifled with, so they had to do it.

I'm so glad that I'm saved and have Christ as a mediator. Although the thought crossed my mind that His own sacrifice to remove the need of all previously needed sacrifices has made me lazy. It's much easier to 'kill Christ' than to sacrifice as the Israelites had to. When I do something wrong I feel guilty and sorry, but that's the end of it and soon forgotten. If I had to kill a cow or wring the head off a bird every time I sinned or thought I might have, it would have more of a lasting effect.

The whole comparison with the need for sacrifices from the Israelites and the priest being mediator for the people, and my own sin and the need for it to be paid and Christ being my high priest, is amazing. Thank you Jesus for being my high priest, for all my sin shall be forgiven me!

"So the priest shall make atonement for his sin that he has committed, and it shall be forgiven him." 4:35c

I'll be praying that the Lord reminds me of His sacrifice on my behalf and also to remind me to confess & keep short accounts with Him.

Now it's your turn to add a review to Mr.Linky. If you would like to write a review but don't have a place to post it just email it to me and I'll post it. I can do things like that. :)