Tiana's January Projects

 Tiana has an online business called Redberry Supply where she sells crafting supplies.  Between her profits there and a mamma's helper job she has she paid for a camera of her own to learn photography with.  Below are a couple of samples of her beginning work.

 Being that I have a few photographers in my home, I notice that they see life through the camera and therefore notice things and view things with the art of a picture in mind.  This is what Tiana saw when we woke up to go somewhere and the car was frosty.

 Lately Tiana has taken to drinking tea, listening to music from the 40's - 50's while she is crocheting, knitting, drawing or whatever.  What a peaceful and creative life she lives.

As a part of her blogging and photography she has been led to learn PhotoShop.  This is a fun project she made for the header of her blog. 

 Tiana has become quite the Tangled fan which has led to lots and lots of drawing.  She has been getting books from the library and practicing her drawing for hours.  Here is some of her latest drawings of Rapunzel.

It is quite normal to see Tiana working on some sort of yard project at any given time.  This is a new pattern she learned online.  She is currently working on crocheting a hat and I noticed she has another knitting project started too just yesterday.  The wheels are always turning in her head.

A few years ago Tiana took up an interest in tap dance and began to teach herself some steps with the help of YouTube.  This summer she began taking tap classes and was able to skip the first several levels because of the work she has done at home.  She has invested in her interest by teaching herself and continues to invest by paying for half of the monthly fee for her tap classes.  She has wanted these shoes for a long time and was finally able to buy them thanks to her job and business.

Sereina's Projects

Something I originally wanted to share when I started this blog was my children's projects.  Initially I thought I would talk all about them or have them talk all about them.  They enjoy blogging about the projects on their  own personal blogs which seemed like a lot of duplicity and life has been busy so, as you can see, I haven't posted much in a long time.  This morning the Lord inspired me to post monthly about each child's activities, just highlighting various projects.  That feels so much freedom to me  to do that since it's still on my heart to feature my children's projects.

Sereina made this gift to give a friend for her birthday.  

She made the salts and decorated the jars.

Sereina was inspired by another blogger to do her first painting.  She chose Paradise Falls from the movie, "Up."  She doesn't consider herself very artistic, but I really think she is.  She had to redo the background  since she felt it turned out too dark the first time, which was a blessing to see as I remember a time when not getting it right the first time would have been really hard for her to accept.  I am really glad for the teaching in Lifestyle of Learning about how to develop character along with their learning activities so they have a truly well rounded education.

The above and below pictures are some of her photography artwork which is her main passion and her new vocation, she started her photography business, Sereina Charise Photography,  in the beginning of January.  The above picture colloage is Koko, one of our Seal Point Siamese cats.  He's quite the character as you might note from the picture.

This picture collage is from our state capitol building.

Sereina and a friend got together to craft and they each made a couple of knotted bow headbands.  this is one of Sereinas.  They found the idea on Pinterest.  I think they look very cute.

These are some of Sereina's projects from the last month or so.

Experiencing God's Love in Insignificant Things

Alina “loves” to swim. Today was the first day of public school for our local district so we planned to go to the pool, knowing the kids would practically have the pool to themselves.

In order for us to actually get out the door to go swimming there were several responsibilities that needed to be taken care of. As the kids were taking care of their responsibilities and I, mine… Alina was pulling together her swim gear and couldn’t find her swimsuit. After I gave her a few suggestions of where to look she came to me in tears.

Looking back over today’s event and processing it I thought about the fleshly tendencies that were developing in my sweet Alina before we began the journey of learning how to love with a Christ-like love through the   Lifestyle of Learning™ ministry. Something particular I was beginning to see develop in her was an attitude of irritation in circumstances like this morning. Extreme irritation and anger when something was lost, was common among the older siblings and adults in my childhood, and I had also developed that fleshly unloving way of dealing with such circumstances, and was passing it on to my children. But, the Lord was good and led me to the  Lifestyle of Learning™ ministry and gave me the gift of Barbie and Marilyn speaking straight into my life. Today, there was no irritation or anger in Alina’s response, she was just simply frustrated (stopped up) and in tears. I would like to clarify that I use to soft sell my sin - my anger, by saying I was just frustrated when I was truly irritated and angry which is unloving (sin is the self centered failure to love).  I have since learned that we can be frustrated and still be loving, but when we move from frustration to irritation we are unloving (sin).

I hugged Alina and took her into my arms and I prayed. In my conversation with the Lord and with Alina we focused on how grateful we are that Alina did not go from frustration to anger. We thanked the Lord that He is concerned about what Alina is concerned about. In my past I would have thought the Lord wouldn’t be concerned about something as insignificant as a bathing suit or swimming, but I have been learning different and we thanked the Lord for His concerns for us and that He is concerned about the things we are concerned about. We asked Him for help in finding it, and thanked Him for loving Alina SO MUCH! I encouraged Alina to surrender her worries to the Lord and to trust that He will provide for her to go swimming.

Alina went to her room and lay down. She later told me that she knew if she kept looking in the state of mind she was in she would still feel stressed and she thought she needed to rest. As she did, Daniel entered the room (unsolicited) and began asking her questions, he was entering into her concerns with a heart to help her. He began to help her look, lifting up a bag and other things, helping her look around the room. Alina noticed the bag Daniel had lifted up and remembered she left her swimsuit in that exact bag last week when we went to the beach.  Before I knew it, Alina peered around the corner and told me that she found her swimsuit and we were soon off to go swimming.

I was thinking about the events of this morning and how different it might have been if we had stayed on the road we were on before  Lifestyle of Learning™ entered our life. I also thought about what a gift it was for Alina to experience God’s love for her in the small (insignificant) things in life, to experience the love that has been growing between her and her brother, and also for God’s love to still point to her need to continue to learn to put things away – something she is working on.

I talked with her after we got home from swimming about all of this. She said that she is so happy that our family has been learning to love and that she never wants to go back to the way it was.  She often tells me she is so thankful we started  Lifestyle of Learning™  because she enjoys school more now and because she is grateful that our family is learning how to love each other in a much deeper way.  She told me how she now says things with a sweet spirit, she said sometimes she hears in her mind the same words with the unkind tone she use to use… she followed that up with telling me that it has become much easier to be loving to her siblings and that she never wants to go back to being unloving. We agreed that there is no better place to be than in the place of experiencing God’s amazing love in the very details of our life and that there is no going back.

Jam: Beginners Edition

At the end of June, we went strawberry picking for the first time in quite a few years. Even though it was cloudy, it was fairly warm out and soon we were ready to leave, after we had picked 35lbs of berries!

Jam had been something that I thought would be neat to make, but always seemed a bit intimidating, because of all the boiling of the cans and lids, keeping them sterile, etc.. Another thing I didn't like was all the sugar that was used in the recipes. I always try to make my food low to no sugar or use something like honey or maple syrup instead. So after finding a recipe online with just four ingredients, plus it used honey instead of sugar, I decided to can some jam for the first time.

 Since I'd never made jam or done any kind of canning before, I didn't have any of the usual canning supplies (canning jar rack, canning funnel, jar lifter) other than 7 Kerr Mason Jars that my mom had.

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The first thing to do was wash all of the jars and lids. After they've been cleaned, they were placed in a large pot. Since I didn't have a canning rack, which goes in the bottom of the pot to keep the jars from touching the bottom of the pot, I used a few old kitchen towels. I used one on the bottom and two or three around the edges and between the jars. The pot was then filled with water and boiled.

The jar lids (the flat parts, not the rings) went in a small pot of simmering water to sterilize. 

While the jars simmered, I made the jam, following the recipe. The strawberries are mashed to the desired chunky-ness, then the pectin was added.  There were several different types of pectin at the store, and the recipe didn't require a certian type, so I went with Classic Pectin.

Next the honey and lemon juice was added, then the jam was boiled.

Using two pairs of metal tongs, I removed the jars from the boiling water, filled them with the jam while leaving a little space at the top, and placed on the lid, using tongs to keep them sterile.

Once all the jars were filled, they were placed back into the water and boiled for ten minutes.

Then they were removed from the pot and set on the counter to cool. While they are cooling, the lids will pop once the lids are completely sealed.

And there you have it! Homemade jam, without sugar, and no special tools that you don't already have in your kitchen.

By Sereina