A Secret Treat

Melted chocolate and deliciously sweet strawberries shared, devoured, and enjoyed with my littlest:) 

A Day at the Spa!!

Twinkling lights.

Relaxing music.

Giggling girls .

The perfect setting for an 8 yo party! We had a blast celebrating our sweet friend Hillary! 

Chesney didn't know what to think! She anxiously laughed as they smeared chocolate on her face and placed cucumbers on her eyes. Her hands, arms, and legs were all massaged by a professional masseuse! In the end she relaxed and enjoyed the fellowship with her dear friends. A site that always melts my heart. My shy girl is slowly creeping out of her shell...

Pool side frog dissecting!

So what do home schoolers do on a lazy afternoon of summer swimming, besides swim... We dissect dead frogs so we can study their innards:) If you get queasy at the sight of cut open frogs, you may want to skip this post😉

 Yep, this froggy ate a roly poly for lunch! We found out once we popped open the stomach! This was a fun day of school! Nothing like swimming and dissecting. My favorite kind of day!

Growing UP

My baby is officially a young man! For 11 years we have carefully guarded his heart,mind, eyes, and ears from the world's view of sex. We prayed fervently that we'd be able to shield him from learning about sex from the world or peers. Praise the Lord, our prayers were answered! Keith took Britton away for a weekend to share it ALL from a biblical worldview. It went well! Britton loved spending the weekend with his Dad talking about all the intimate details of God's design for our bodies. It wasn't an awkward conversation at all, because he was learning it all for the first time. To him it was just another day of learning from his parents. He received it all with an elated heart because he felt as if his Dad was entrusting him with precious information. He came home, proud. Keith came home relieved. Our prayers were heard. The cries of our heart heard from our heavenly Father! Britton looked and acted older. My precious baby boy is turning into a very fine young man that I am so very proud of!

Going out with Dad for a special dinner!

His Passport to Purity journal.

A ring to signify the commitment to remain pure. 

One month later, preparing for leadership training at church!

A fine young leader he is and will be!

Crabbin with cousins :)

Lunch with my little warrior

We made a "spearmint" today by mixing mayo, ketchup and dill relish... aka -1000 island dressing.. He wanted to spearmint with PB and ketchup so I steered him in a little different direction.)  It was such a hit that he ate BROCCOLI with it for lunch! He also felt that it was such a special sauce that it needed to be heavily guarded by some special forces! Ha! He melts my ❤. Every. Day!

Boombernickle and a few good reads!

Yep Boombernickle has entered the Best house! He marched right out of our current read- aloud book and right into our daily routine. We are currently reading this book:

Ginger Pye is just a good old dog book! Light hearted, not much thinking, just plain fun reading. We're only a few chapters in, but we've already picked up a new past time in the Best house all because of this book. The siblings, Rachel and Jerry, take turns telling  a bed time story to each other every night based on the made up character of Boombernickle. The stories are full of imagination and serve as a time for them to wind down their day together. My kids of course loved this idea! For the past three days at bedtime, they let their imaginations soar high as each of them take Boombernickle on adventures. He's been inside our bodies, Mrs. Frizzle style, and across the countries we've learned. He shape shifts into all kinds of creatures, plants, and super heroes. Man our Boombernickle has been on one amazing journey since he landed in the Best home. I absolutely love it when a book sparks my kids' imagination and creativity. We're only 4 chapters into this book and our lives have been fully enriched! Now that's a good book, if you ask me!

A few other great reads from this year:

Another book about siblings! We loved this read and ended up reading the whole set! We learned the term OAP- Oldest Available Penderwick thru this book. The oldest sibling, "OAP"  is the one that calls all the shots when Dad's out of town. We just rolled that over in our house to the "OAB".  It's actually helped my oldest two to have a little more respect for one another. We've got a long way to go especially between kid #1 and kid #2. However, this book helped them both to see the proper chain of authority in the house and how it can be useful when Mom and Dad are tied up. Like I said this is a work in progress for us, but the book helped put some pieces together, which makes this a good read!

Next on the list is one of my FAVORITE all time reads!

This book is a beautiful peak into the life of Christ as He walked the earth. We read this because we were studying ancient history this year. It was so well written. It really gave my kids a true understanding of how oppressive the Romans were to the Jews, how different Jesus teachings were, and most importantly about forgiveness. This was one of those books the kids begged me for "just one more chapter Mommy, please!" Chesney said she felt like she was peering through a window  watching Jesus' life.  It truly was a wonderfully written book.


Our ancient history studies also lead us to read all three of these books:

These are based on the life of King David.  So much fun! These were my kids FAVORITE read aloud this year. A must have for any home library!


Next we learned about ancient Egypt and the Egyptian gods in this series:

This was a fast paced, on the edge of your seat, and wildly imaginative! My kids loved every second of it. Plus, I got A LOT of practice on my British accent :)


We read many more, but these are the stand out books. The most memorable. What a great school year we had. Nothing beats curling up on the couch with the kids and reading a good book! This is my absolute favorite part of every day!What a blessing!