Gifts for the Homeschool Mom's Heart

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With Christmas just around the corner, here are a few ideas for gifts to warm the heart of a homeschool mom in your life. Every mom, homeschool or not, needs encouragement and heart snuggles. I'd love to hear some of your ideas, too!

Great books for moms heart. And maybe a Starbucks card so she can have some coffee and quiet to read them. Here are some books that I recommend:

Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe For the mom you know who just needs to know there is a light at the end of very long days.

The Busy Homeschool Mom's Guide to Romance A fun and straightforward read for moms looking to put a spark back into their marriage. A happy healthy marriage makes for a much more fun house!

Radical Hospitality: Benedict's Way of Love: Benedict's Way of Love This book completely challenged the concept of hospitality I had and really helped me to see what Christ like hospitality looks like.

Dear Mom Letters A great book that touches on so many mom emotions and gives encouragement by the barrel full!

How to Have a HEART for Your Kids A book to help focus priorities, filled with awesome advice from veteran homeschool mom of 7 blessings, Rachael Carman. The HEART acronym is awesome!

The Unwired Mom For the mom who want to step away from technology.

Training Up a Little Guy: Inspiration and Wisdom for Raising Boys (for boy moms)A sweet book of encouragement and wisdom for moms with little guys!

Conventions and Retreats

There is nothing like getting new ideas for the nuts and bolts of homeschooling while being discipled to by awesome encouragers AND getting to check out great curriculum. Teach Them Diligently and Great Homeschool Conventions are both wonderful Christian homeschool convention with multiple locations.


You can read all about my first Teach Them Diligently experience! It was my first homeschool convention!


If you really want to give Mom something special, the best experience I've had by far was at The Real Refreshment Retreat for worship and uplifting encouragement. A room full of mamas clinging to Christ and raising their voices in song is just an amazing thing to be a part of. With retreats in Baltimore and Atlanta, it's perfect for any East Coast mom!

And over the holidays, as  Mom get's busy and tired, make sure she gets plenty of rest and snuggles! The best gift we get all year round is sweet time with our family!

HEART, Rachael Carman and One Awesome Workshop

*We are vacation roadschooling this week. Please enjoy revisiting some favorite posts*

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Here's the background on how I was introduced to Rachael Carman and why I was so excited to meet her at the Real Refreshment Retreat and attend her HEART workshop at Teach Them Diligently.

Mr. T. I don't post a lot of stories here about him and his antics, but there are many and most are hysterical, at least later on. He is so smart and resourceful and such an awesome climber. He has such a strong will and a very determined mind of his own. And all this was very evident by the time he was 18 months old. I was struggling, he was struggling and so I took the advice of lots of boy moms and got a copy of The Strong-Willed Child . Great book, awesome advice, but it wasn't sitting right. Then my sweet friend Hope told me about HEART . She even offered me her copy to borrow, but I'm an underliner, highlighter and dog earer of pages so I got my own copy.

This book has been a game changer for me. It was almost a year later when we received a diagnosis of Apraxia for Mr. T as well as gluten sensitivity, hyper permeable intestines and sensory/coordination issues. I am so glad I listened to that tiny voice urging me to go a different direction. Thank You, Lord, for your Holy Spirit and gentle nudgings!  I would hate to think what our home would have looked like had I held firm to The Strong-Willed Child practices. That was not what I needed and it was definitely not what Mr. T needed.

Rachael is a homeschool mom to 7 blessings and blogs at His Sunflower. She also heads up Apologia alongside her husband Davis. I was very blessed and excited to get the opportunity to attend the Real Refreshment Retreat in Atlanta where I got to meet Rachael and hear from her and lots of other great speakers while worshiping with many other homeschool moms. It was amazing! Rachael has a wonderful capacity for encouraging moms to focus their heart on God and bring glory to Him through serving and raising their families. She also likes to share chocolate :) Her favorite are M&M's as a reminder to memorize and meditate on God's holy word!

HEART is an acronym for:
H - Have a Heart for the Things of God
E - Enrich Your Marriage
A - Accept Your Kids (this was a big one for me during our personality clashing)
R - Release Them to God
T - Teach Them the Truth

The HEART workshop was full of wonderful heartfelt extras that really brought home several points from the book, and Rachael is a lot of fun to listen to even when you feel convicted by some things. Some of my favorite notes in my TTD journal from her workshop are these:

* Be excited about God!
* Teach your children what you are learning during your study of the Word
* TRUST God
* Bless your future sons/daughters in-law with the marriage you have today.
* Live a marriage worth defending
* You child has been sent on time, on purpose, to be a blessing.
* Tell your children "God needs you to be exactly how you are so He can use you for what He has planned."
*  Pray now for the strength to release your children to go and do what God has called them to do.
* Intentionally choose mentors for your children
* Teach them that God is the priority, not "God plus _____"

If you haven't already read it, I recommend reading HEART . I think it's a wonderful encouragement for moms in every stage of life! What is a book that was a game changer for you? I'm always looking for new and encouraging things to read!

Iced Coffee and Vanilla Syrup

Iced coffee is my favorite summer time treat! And this year, since we are trying to be more economical, I have been brewing my own. Cold brewing, to be exact. I sit a gallon of cold water in a pot, add an entire bag of dark roast ground coffee, and let it brew overnight. I strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a pretty glass pitcher and let it sit in the refrigerator until it is really cold.

Or sometimes I cheat and make a half gallon pitcher of instant coffee. It's not as good, but with two mobile boys it is a lot easier!  Pick your favorite method!

I also love vanilla bean syrup. It's good in coffee, black tea, milk, on pancakes and scones and is great for baking! Mr. T is a big fan of just drinking it, so it has to go to the back of the fridge on the very top shelf. Boys are funny like that.

Here's my recipe for Vanilla Syrup. Let me know if you try it!

Vanilla Bean Syrup

1 cup of sugar(this time I used coconut sugar so it has a caramelish flavor which is really good!)
1 cup of water
1 vanilla bean split
1 TBS pure vanilla extract

Put all the ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until all the sugar is dissolved. Remove vanilla bean and scrape the seeds, add the seeds into the syrup. and simmer the syrup for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a glass container. I like to put the vanilla bean pod into the glass for extra flavor and so it looks pretty. This syrup will last for about a month, kept in the refrigerator.

Vanilla Iced Coffee:
Add 2-3 teaspoons of syrup, cream or almond milk and iced coffee in your desired increments to a tall glass filled with ice. Enjoy!

B90Days and other happenings

 

I am currently reading the Bible with the Bible in 90 Days program with a great group of ladies over at Moms Tool Box which is really exciting. As a Christian, I'm a little ashamed to say I've never read the entire Bible from cover to cover, so this is a great way to meet that Faith Goal for myself. So far, so good! I'm praying for continued excitement and learning from this experience.

In other news, we are planning out our school room, which will hopefully be finished by October! YAY! I will be doing a lot of budget friendly decorating and using a lot of recycled furniture. I'll try to post how to's as we go, and then show the finished product! I can't wait to have an official school room!

Today I am praying very hard about homeschooling, and I am finding the more I pray the firmer my convictions are in regard to providing the best possible schooling for my child. I'm also realizing that I have become "that mom". What do I mean by "that mom"? Well, when I was younger (before I met my husband) I was the best parent in the world (you know you did it, too). I was never going to be "that" strict about what I let my child watch, read, listen to, or be around. I wouldn't have an "over protected child" that was "too sheltered" who would have issues dealing with the real world. Ahem. Yes, that was me. 

I have learned that my "wisdom" was very misguided, just as I was. I no longer view it a too sheltered and over protected. I see my son's innocence and loving nature, and I HAVE to protect that. I was given this child by God, with all the rights and responsibilities of being a Christian parent raising a God loving, God worshiping child in a Christ centered home. That means being vigilant. Right now I make the decisions of how carefully his little eyes, ears, hands and mouth are protected. So yes, there will be select TV shows he can watch. There will be certain books we will keep around for him to read, and certain ones he can choose at the library. There will be places he cannot go and people with whom I will limit his contact. I don't plan on locking him up in the basement till he's thirty, but I do plan on prayerfully planning out our sweet days together learning, exploring, and growing. 

How do you implement boundaries to protect you little ones?