Thankful for music, electric, and heat

Landon continues to read and this morning I found him reading the KJV Bible after seeing his older brother reading. I was blessed beyond words. 'This is the best Book anyone can possibly read', I informed him. He told me he was 'reading in the book of John'. I simply can't express how happy this made me as a parent.

Bread needed to be baked, but Mondays often start slowly. First, I needed to get that garden seed order in the mail.  

Amber began by teaching a little violin to the boys. We are using Ebaru which we are extremely happy with and HIGHLY recommend! The visual artwork and well written step by step learning instructions are perfect for anyone wanting to learn how to play violin. We met the owners of the company at a homeschool convention last year. In fact, our girls are learning more with this program than with their current hands on teacher. Don't get me wrong, we do love our teacher, but this program is worth every penny.

All the boys are doing exceptionally well, and just soon they will be playing a song after all their hard work of learning proper posture, timing, and mechanics which is of utmost importance before anyone begins to play.

Zach and Landon did a crazy thing this morning. They switched violins. Zach's 3/4 size was way too big for Landon, but he still played a few notes. Again, we heard joyous laughter! After all, it's what makes our school anything but boring!

 By 10:30 a.m. the electric flicked off and stayed off until after 4 p.m. It's a good thing I was delayed with baking bread as it would have either been in the rising or the baking process and would have been completely ruined.

What's for lunch with only one piece of bread in the house, six mouths to feed, and no electric?

Thankfully, we had a backup - our propane campstove which Zach so kindly rigged up. He was so excited about using it that he fixed our lunch completely on his own - leftover chili soup and baked potatoes which he grated and fried. He was hungry so he thought, why not fix it for everyone? What a chef! What a man!

With hot chocolate and hot food, who cares if we didn't have backup heat? It was enough to give us a little warmth. Can I mention that it was another gift to be thankful for? Warmth. Just a cup of hot water or hot soup. And we had a break from washing dishes.

It reminds me of what my Mom told me a couple days ago.  She often thinks of our good friend Sylvia who was imprisoned in Romania. She and her friends were so cold. If only they would have had one cup of hot water - JUST ONE CUP - to keep them warm, it's all they would have needed. But they were denied even that. I am thankful for all our hot food and drinks.

(Braden wore his coat and cap to do school, keep warm, and eat.)

It was getting colder in here past mid afternoon as the sun slowly faded behind the mountain while the wind continued to howl outside. The temps inside barely went below 65° but we were starting to feel uncomfortable. Yet we praised God that we were out of the outside elements as we headed for the library, just to get warm.

When we came back, the house was warm and the electric probably came on soon after we left.

Another thing to be thankful for - heat, light, electric, indoor plumbing.

And that beats hauling water from the creek several times today just to flush the toilets!

But I know it wouldn't hurt us a bit to live more simply like in the olden days, work a bit harder for our food and heat, and have less distractions like computer or internet to keep us from doing school.