The Great Call

The Great Commandment


And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Deuteronomy 6:5-7


Getting to church has been so hard since mom died. For so many reasons and here it is Sunday and we didn't "GO" to church again. I have been worrying about this alot lately and feel I must try harder to get there. I am setting a bad example for the kids. Although my older children don't attend church now that they are grown and we NEVER missed church when they were little. I miss the fellowship I get from church but the big question is WHERE to go. Growing up I have been close to all four churches near my home and attended all when the doors were open.Forest Hill was our primary outside of town where I taught Sunday School for 12 years. East Superior is close and in town and I went to camp with the former and current minister but always went skating with them on skate night and it is the closest to our new house. Coe was my mothers church when she was little and has a youth program and lots of my family attent there. But the tiny little Salt River is the church of my heart and I have PLEDGED to" keep the doors open no matter what  as long as one of the McNeill's breath air on this planet". This I will do for my Lord and my Dad. But they do not have a sunday night program or other kids. How can I teach my kids the importance of keeping Salt River open if we don't go there? I would just like to start taking the kids to Forest Hill's youth group on sunday nights. I think that is a reasonable thing to do especially since Aaron will be out hunting anyway.

Madeline Fiar study

We have started our Study of Madeline by Ludwig Bemelans
I chose this book this week because Flat Stanley sent us a post card from Paris. (Thank You Dick and Sue D. from work for helping  Flat Stanley to send us card while you were on vacation in Paris.) the post card arrived yesterday to much excitement. It has a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. I am doing my own modified version of the  Flat Stanley Project.where anyone I know goes on vacation and I as them to send us a postcard from Stanley. The kids love getting mail and looking up on the map where Flat Stanley is now! So far our Stanley has sent us cards from as far west as South Dakota and as far south as Arizonia, and from other countries like France.  Rumor has it he is in St. Lucia right now and we should be getting a card soon in the mail. what a fun way to study geography.

Our  Bible verse this week:
 Philippians 4:8 Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.:


 I have a couple of coloring pages of monuments to color. And a couple of Madeline book pages to color.We discussed a little bit regarding Bemelmans' use of color in the illustrations like  how there were a few pictures in full color, but most were done simply in black, white, and yellow.

We already know Je t'aime is I Love you in french so we will study a couple more french words this week

I plan to continue our study of the human body with a discussion of appendicitis. Easy peasy when your mom is an Operating Room Nurse.

I also plan to rent the 1998 movie version for the end of week movie night.

Life Lessons

No School today the kids had to work independently. I took little man to see his birth-grandpa and birth family at the hospital. Grandpa S. was given just two weeks to live after being diagnosed with liver cancer on Sunday. He had only seen little-man one time long ago and they wanted me to bring him up to see him but he was too sick for visitors really. We took a three generations picture for little-mans life book. ( A life book is more complete than a baby book for adopted kids.) Life is short and precious--treat everyone with respect and dignity.

poem of the day

Harvest Song


Come to the field and orchard,

Come with your cart and baskets,

Come with your bags and barrels,

For harvest time is here!

Gather the golden pumpkins,

Climb for the rosy apples,

Dig for the brown potatoes,

For harvest time is here!

The Story about Ping - day 4

Today we made these wooden dolls with hats that look like the man in ping's story. This lead us to make some cute little peg dolls. That led me to a website Twig and Toadstool with the cute toad stool stools for the garden. I will make these as soon as I find the wooden salad bowls at the thrift store!!!! we camp out alot in the summer so these should appear on our next camp trip to keep the kids out of the adults seats! They will look good in our play house too. I am so excited. Aaron I need help cutting a few stumps for the base do we have any already down in the woods? I am sure he can find a few while he is hunting deer this week. I just need 5 or 6 dear.

Sensory basket-fall theme

Inspired by a post at counting coconuts blog I decided to put together a fall sensory basket for the kids.So far from around the house I have added:
a felt letter A
a wooden red heart
2 red pipe cleaner circles
1 pipe cleaner apple (I made)
2 cinnamon sticks
2 pine cones
a is for apple card
1 magnifying glass
15 fuzzy red pompoms
4 large acorns
4 red-orange maple leaves form our tree
6 beechnut hulls from our beech tree

little boys poem

AMen