The Necessity of Reevaluation in Homeschooling

In the introductory post for this series, I listed four areas of life in which regular reevaluation is highly beneficial and today we will focus on the third area, that of homeschooling.  As anyone who home-schools knows, there are many reasons why you may need to change up your home school routine!  I think it's important to reevaluate things at least at the end of each school year, but more often than that is even better, especially if you start noticing a problem.  Now, let me start off this post by stating that this is my first official year of homeschooling.  We have just started out with our oldest child beginning first grade work this past year.  So, my advice is definitely not that of a veteran homeschooling mom, but, as someone who is dedicated to homeschooling my children and knows its importance to their spiritual growth, I will offer you what I know from my experiences so far.
 

Why Reevaluate?

There are many reasons for this, but the first one is that it is wise to do so at least annually, as I said above, whilst planning for the school year to come.  I will soon be entering this phase as I make plans for next year, as will many of you.  However, there are many valid reasons to reevaluate things more often than this.  Here are few for starters:

• Your child is not learning well using the particular publisher you have chosen for a subject (math, language, etc.).
• You and your child are constantly battling over schoolwork.
• You have gotten behind due to circumstances, which may or may not have been under your control.
• Your routine or order of subjects isn't working out well.
• You don't have a routine! (this was me for the first half of the year or so!)
• You are becoming discouraged.

Let's look at some specific things to consider in reevaluating based on each of these reasons.

1. Your child is not learning well using the particular publisher you have chosen for a subject.

If this is the case, I would definitely recommend switching your curriculum in whatever areas your students are struggling.  It is always nice to be able to actually see a product before you buy it, so ask around among your homeschooling friends to find out what they use in math, science, etc. and ask if you can look at their book to see if it might work out for your child.  Many places also have used curriculum book stores and various sales of this sort.  These are also good places to take a look at an item before purchasing.  

Also, let me just throw in here that I don't recommend constantly switching publishers just because another one might be better than what you're currently using.  It's fine to consider new curriculum and sometimes beneficial to switch, but I think it is also easy to get overwhelmed with all the options that are out there nowadays.  So, if what you're using now is working well for you and your children, I would stick with it.  Most of the books we've used this year have been great, so I'm going to use the next grade level up in each of these next year.  I'm not going to worry about looking through lots of different types of curriculum, because I think what we've got right now is working well!  As my other children officially start school, I may have to rethink this though, because what works well for my daughter may not be as good for my sons.

2. You and your child are constantly battling over schoolwork.

Well, at our house, I wouldn't exactly classify it as battling, but I do hear this a lot:  "Mom, how much longer do I have to do school?  I've been doing it for a long time already."  And often this question comes as we are still working on math, our first subject for the day!  Perhaps your child needs to have more incentive to complete their work without complaining.  At our house, we have recently discovered a fun, learning site called Always Ice Cream (this is the version for girls - there is one for boys as well).  My daughter really enjoys playing and learning on this website and it seems to be a good motivator for her.  If she does her schoolwork well during the day without complaining, then she gets rewarded with some playtime on Always Ice Cream (although she is still learning a lot of the time she is playing!).  What motivates my child may not motivate yours, so think about your individual children and see if you can come up with some ideas to use as incentives for them to get their work done, without complaining (this was key at our house!).  

3. You have gotten behind due to circumstances, which may or may not have been under your control.

Life happens!  Things come up and take us by surprise or perhaps we get behind little by little as time goes on.  This year at our house we've been working on a major addition to our home and doing a lot of the work ourselves.  I have had to spend a lot of time coordinating subcontractors and dealing with purchasing supplies and getting quotes from Lowe's.  This definitely impacted our school year, especially during the fall when we were on the first half of our project!  So, I was a little behind when we got to the midway point of the school year.  We are catching up during the second half though and it will work out fine when we finish up at the end of June.  Others of you may have dealt with unexpected illness or an accident or perhaps even losing your home to a natural disaster.  We can't predict when most of these things will come, but we certainly can get ourselves back on track after we work through or adjust to these circumstances.  One of the great things about homeschooling is the flexibility.  If a family member is diagnosed with a major illness and you don't accomplish quite as much as you desired during this school year, next year you can plan to make up for that.  If your family has to work on a major project together, such as building a home or addition, you can make plans to lessen your schoolwork during the time you'll be working on the project and then increase the amount of school time as the project winds down.  If the children are involved in the project, you can also include them in it as much as possible and this could be a major teaching opportunity as well.  I just love the flexibility of homeschooling!

4. Your routine or order of subjects isn't working out well.

Sometimes, the best laid plans just don't work out the way you expected.  Maybe your child is more alert a little later in the morning and would do better starting school at 10:00 a.m. instead of 9:00 a.m. as you had originally planned.  Perhaps your child would do better starting out with math instead of science like you thought.  Maybe your child would prefer to get all the more difficult subjects out of the way first and then do the easier ones instead of alternating them like you planned.  If something doesn't seem right about your daily school routine or subject order, try switching it up and see how it goes until you find the right fit.  Just make sure you try each new order for an adequate amount of time to get used to it and be sure whether or not it works well.  

5.  You don't have a routine!

Okay, this was definitely me at the beginning of this school year.  We were floating along getting school done on the days we were able, but it wasn't really in any specific order and it definitely wasn't happening every day.  On the days we did do school, I just picked up whatever book I felt like using first and we did that and then moved on to whatever I decided to do next.  There wasn't much preparation ahead of time or planning.  Now, I have to admit that most of my books don't require much preparation, but I wasn't doing any at all.  This went along alright for a while, but eventually I got to the point that I knew it just had to stop!  I had to get a little more organized or I was not going to get our books done for the year.  So, I reevaluated things halfway through the school year when I turned in our number of days for school from August through January to Homelife Academy and realized that I had much less than half of the required 180 school days completed for the year.  Now we have a schedule and a plan for how many lessons out of each book we need to do weekly in order to finish the books by the end of our school year.  This is a great help and although I do not have an exact order for every subject in the day, we do always start out with math since these lessons seem to take the largest chunk of time.  If you don't have a routine, I definitely recommend that you get one!  At least try to make a loosely defined one, because it is definitely possible to plan everything out too rigidly and then get overwhelmed it you aren't able to stay exactly on schedule throughout the day.

6.  You are becoming discouraged.

If this is you, I recommend that you first of all recall why you began homeschooling in the first place.  For us, it is because we feel very strongly that a godly education for our children is our responsibility as parents and that the best way we can ensure this is to teach our children at home ourselves.  It is possible that sometimes parents may truly change their minds and no longer think that homeschooling is what is best for their children, but I would like to encourage you not to make that decision simply because you are discouraged.  I think Satan can certainly use discouragement to cause us to make decisions we would not if all were going well.  

If I start to feel discouraged, I try to remember what my most important job as a parent is.  I need to do all I can to lead my children to Christ.  Ultimately it is their decision and responsibility to follow Him, but it is my responsibility to teach them as best I can.  Giving them a godly education is more important than having free time for myself or getting to do any number of activities I could enjoy, if only I had more time away from my children.  And, no, I do not sit around wishing for "more time away from my children."  My point is that if you are having a bad day or week or month with your homeschooling and the children are bickering and whining and you are simply worn out, it is quite easy to start wondering if you are making the right decision and if everyone would be better off if you just sent them to school.  When you start to feel worn down and discouraged, first of all, pray for God to give you strength and endurance!  If this is God's will for your family, then He will certainly give you the strength to persevere if you will but ask Him.  Also, remember why homeschooling is so important to you as parents.  I would encourage you to write down why you home-school somewhere you will see it often as a motivator, perhaps in the front of your school or household planner!  And, as always, remember Deuteronomy 6:5-9:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."  (NASB, emphasis mine)

So, those are my thoughts as an amateur homeschooling mother.  I'd love to hear any bits of wisdom you have to share about dealing with any of these issues.  Leave me a comment so your experiences can benefit others!

"Food Fridays" and Homemade Biscuits!

We have biscuits fairly often at our house.  My daughter and I have a yeast sensitivity, so when we want to have bread with our meal, biscuits it is!  They rise with baking powder and not yeast like most breads.  Here's the recipe for some yummy biscuits!

Homemade Biscuits

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour (this can also be 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 regular all-purpose)

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup butter (1 stick, slightly softened) and 1/4 cup shortening

1 cup milk

Dough ready to cut!

Directions:

Ready for the oven!

1. Pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cream of tartar in a large bowl.
3. Cut in the butter and shortening using a pastry blender until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.
4. Make a well in the center and add milk all at once.  Mix with a fork until just moistened.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead it by folding and pressing it together 4-6 times or just until dough holds together.
6. Pat or gently roll it down to about 3/4" thickness.
7. Using a floured biscuit cutter or round-shaped glass, cut out the biscuits.  Get as many as you can in the first cutting since the rolling out the dough a second time makes the biscuits a bit tougher.
8. Place them 1" apart on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes or until golden.
9. Enjoy!  I usually get 16-20 biscuits, depending on the dough thickness.

"Food Fridays" and No-Sugar-Added Banana Bread

This banana bread has applesauce in place of the sugar, so it's great if you're diabetic or trying to avoid table sugar for other reasons.  You could also add some stevia extract, if you'd like some extra sweetness, and keep the applesauce in as filler, but you'll have to experiment a little with the amount of extract needed for your tastes; it doesn't take much of this!  You can also simply replace the cup of applesauce with sugar if you're not concerned about lessening the sugar content.  At the end, I'll tell you what we did with our bread for a little added sweetness.

No-Sugar-Added Banana Bread

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 beaten eggs

1 1/2 cups ripe mashed bananas (5 medium)

1 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup melted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Grease bottom and sides of a 9x5x3-inch bread pan.  You can also accomplish this and melt the butter at the same time while setting your stick of butter in the pan and allowing it to melt while the oven preheats.  Be sure to take it out before the butter starts to burn!
3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.  Make a well in the center and set aside.
4. Combine eggs, bananas, applesauce and butter in another bowl.  Add this mixture all at once to the flour mixture.  Stir until just moistened (batter will be lumpy).  Spoon into greased bread pan.

5. 

   Ready for the Oven!

6. Bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes, until a wooden toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  You may need to cover it with foil the last 15 minutes of baking to prevent over-browning.
7. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.  Then, remove from pan and serve warm!  
8. If you'd like to store it, allow it to cool completely on the wire rack and then wrap and store.  

Yummy Breakfast!

I reheated slices of our bread in the oven the next morning and then added some 100% pure maple syrup for a little sweetness.  It was a delicious breakfast!  

The Necessity of Reevaluation in Household Management

In the introductory post for this series, I listed four areas of life in which regular reevaluation is highly beneficial and today we will focus on the second area, that of household management.  Here is a great theme verse to keep you motivated in what can often become rather mundane tasks:

"She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness."                                        Proverbs 31:27 (NASB)

Yes, that godly lady that we all aspire to be like in chapter 31 of Proverbs looked "well to the ways of her household."  So, my first point is that we are going to focus on our own households; it doesn't say she looked "well to the households of others."  Our priority as Christian wives and mothers should be to focus on our own home and maintain it well.  Everyone has different standards and, although it is fine to offer tips or share helpful information about cleaning or cooking that we have learned, we should not be constantly looking down on someone else's seeming inability to care for their home (up to our standards) or talking about them behind their back.

However, we should also note that our behavior as Christians reflects God to the world and it is important to take our dominion over our homes seriously.  The woman in Proverbs 31 also did not "eat the bread of idleness."  Does this mean she never rested?  Certainly not!  She at least had to rest on the Sabbath as she would have been following the Old Testament law.  Also, Psalms 127:2 says:

"It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors; for He gives to His beloved even in his sleep."

My take on the verse from Proverbs 31 is that this woman lived a productive and diligent lifestyle.  Her home and family were well taken care of and she certainly could not be accused of being lazy!  She had to rest though since God designed our bodies to need this regularly, especially in the form of sleep at night!

Titus 2:4 is another verse, specifically relating to the older women teaching the younger women about the importance of being busy at home:

"so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored."  (emphasis mine) 

Now, on this note, if you are an older woman with experience in managing a household, you may have opportunity to help teach and guide younger women in ways to best accomplish these tasks.  In this instance, as always, it is very important to remember that all of our actions and comments should be grounded in Christlike love and genuine concern for the person with whom we are interacting.  I would also like to point out here that I am far from perfect in this area of my life and am often reevaluating how things are working in my own home.  I'd like to share some things that have been helpful to me in conducting this reevaluation and some suggestions for making changes if needed.  There are three areas related to household management that stand out to me: cleaning, cooking and managing finances.

Cleaning

Several questions that come to mind you should ask yourself to determine whether this section of  your household management needs tweaking:

1. Does your house reflect the orderliness of God?
2. Is your home messy or cluttered to the point that it distracts you when you need to focus on other tasks (such as homeschooling your children or spending time with your husband)?
3. Does the state of your home bother your husband or keep him from feeling relaxed when he arrives home?
4. Do your family members have clean clothes when they need them?  *And, yes, my answer has been "no" once in the past to this question.  This one is in here at my husband's suggestion!*

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, chances are your cleaning routine could use some brushing up!  I think there are several steps that are helpful in creating a cleaning routine that works well for you:

1. Prioritize

There are many tasks that need to be done to maintain a clean and orderly home.  Some of these tasks are vitally important to the functioning of your home and proper care of your family.  Other tasks are not quite as important, but are certainly desirable in maintaining a well-cared for home.  For instance, it is much more important that your family members have clean clothing to wear and clean dishes from which to eat than it is for all the ceiling fans in your home to be dusted.  It is very helpful to make a list of all the cleaning tasks that can be done room by room in your home.  Once you have your exhaustive list, you can prioritize these things according to things that are "desirable" and things that are "necessary."  It would be great to get your husband's input on this as well, so you know which things are most important to him!

2. Divide

Once you have prioritized your exhaustive list, you can divide the tasks up by days, weeks, months, seasons, etc. according to how often they need to be done.  This can be highly structured or somewhat flexible.  I have found it immensely helpful to make a laminated chart which can be used over and over again to keep up with regular household tasks.  For more on my personal household chore charts, click here.  

3. Organize

Regular maintenance of your home becomes much simpler if you cut out as much clutter as possible and designate a place for things in your home.  I'm sure you've heard the saying, "A place for everything and everything in its place."  Well, in my house, the clutter sure can build up fast and a lot of it isn't junk.  We're a little tight on space right now while we're waiting on the completion of our addition, but I am looking forward to the day I have more space to organize things.  Some stuff I just don't have a place for right now, but we will very shortly.  My plan for the future is making sure that everything that comes into our house finds a "place" very quickly or it will not be staying in our home.  I'm sure that will help cut down on the clutter!  It remains to be seen how well I will implement that plan, but I'll do my best!

4. Delegate

Ah, here's a great one!  If God has blessed you with children, then you have some built-in helpers at your home.  Even the preschoolers can help with a few things.  After I helped him a few times, my 3 year old was able to fold and put away the washcloths when the laundry is being done.  He can also help pick up his own toys.  My oldest child, 6, can do quite a bit more than this.  Take advantage of the helpers God has given you.  They create many of the messes and dirty the clothes and dishes, so train them to help clean up after themselves and care for their home.  Sure it takes a little more work on the front end as they learn to do tasks on their own, but I hear it's well worth it!  I'm mainly in the "more work" stage with my young children right now, but I can't wait to see what a help they will be as they grow older.  Now, let me say that I am certainly not advocating having your children do all the work while you laze about!  But, it is highly reasonable to teach them to care for their own things and pitch in to maintain the family home.  Also, I would not encourage you to "delegate" things to your husband.  First of all, he is your head (Ephesians 5:23) and he is working hard to provide financially for your family (I Timothy 5:8).  If he helps with the household chores, it definitely needs to be of his own accord.  (I must throw in here that my husband is a wonderful help right after we have a baby!  He takes care of the dishes and keeps the laundry going for a couple of weeks until I bounce back.  He doesn't do these things on a regular basis however.)

Cooking

It's 4:30 p.m. and your husband is due home within the hour.  You're frantically rummaging through kitchen cabinets searching for the last ingredient for the dish you think you'd like to make.  After determining that you don't have that ingredient on hand, you start another search to see what you do actually have the ingredients to make.  You finally discover some canned pasta sauce and find a box of spaghetti noodles stuffed behind several things in the back of the cabinet.  Quickly, you manage to get this cooked and thrown together on plates just in time for your husband's arrival.

Does this sound like you?  If so, your kitchen routine could use some aid!  It used to be me quite frequently and it didn't seem like such a big deal at first, but it became more and more difficult as children were added to the family.  Throwing something together at the last minute doesn't work very well when you have an upset baby and/or a toddler who hasn't had a nap and is fussy about everything.  I now keep a regular menu, which is somewhat flexible.  I try to make sure we have something fast and easy planned for certain nights (such as Wednesday when we have Bible class to get to) depending on our schedule for the week.  It is so much less stressful to know what meals I'll be cooking for the week and that I have all the ingredients I need!  

Planning a menu is simple and well worth the time it takes.  You could plan out three meals a day or just plan dinner and keep easy things on hand for breakfast and lunch.  I generally plan a week at a time.  A major factor in this is keeping inventory of what you have in your kitchen.  I do this just before planning out the menu.  Make categories of vegetables, meats, fruits, dairy, etc. and subcategories of items in each category.  Count them up and mark down how many you have.  Here's an example:

Dairy                          Amount
Sour Cream                 2 16 oz. containers
Milk                              4 gallons
Shredded Cheddar     3 8 oz. bags
Butter                           5 sticks

As you plan your meals, lower the number for the item you have planned to use in a meal.  If you plan chili and you will use 1 16 oz. sour cream and 1 8 oz. bag of shredded cheddar, then you would cross out the numbers on your list and mark down 1 beside the sour cream and 2 beside the shredded cheddar.  That way you don't plan to use more than what you actually have!  This idea works great for me.  It also helps me see if there's one or two things I still need for something I'd like to have on the menu soon and I can add those things to my shopping list.  Just figure out what makes things run more smoothly in your home and go with it!

Managing Finances

I realize not all of us will have the same level of responsibility in this area, but we all influence it to an extent.  Here are the questions to ask here:

1. Am I doing my best to manage our family's money wisely as I have opportunity?
2. Am I remaining within budget in the areas over which I have control?

There are two areas for which we as women most often have control over the spending: groceries and clothing.  There are also many strategies to save in these areas.  You may have good access and ability to use all of these methods or only pick a few that work for you.  Here are some tips for these areas:

• Use coupons as much as possible.  You don't have to get the local paper to do this, although that may be helpful as well.  There are websites online from which you can print coupons (SmartSource or RedPlum).  You can also sign up for e-mail offers at many companies' websites and they will send you coupons occasionally.  Also, try to take advantage of using them at stores that will double or triple them.  
• Plan your menu around the sales and not just what sounds good.  I'm trying this out this month in efforts to rein in our food budget which seems to need major attention following the first of the year.  I think food prices have gone up!  Anyway, I used to make my shopping list from my menu, which was mainly planned based on what sounded good to me that week.  I am now going through the sales papers for my local stores and purchasing a reasonable amount of things on sale that we regularly use.  Then, I take kitchen inventory and plan my menu based on what I have.  This also gives you a list of things to watch the sales for during the remainder of the month.  I found pasta on sale well the first week of the month, but the store didn't have any pasta sauce we like on sale well, so I'm watching for that now.
• Check around for local discount stores or "scratch & dent" stores.  I recently discovered one of these nearby thanks to word-of-mouth and got some great deals on produce and a few other things.  You do have to be careful to check dates and look things over carefully, but if you are discerning you can get some high quality things at great savings!
• If you shop online, make sure you're getting rewarded for your purchases.  Check out my previous post about "My Points" or the website for UPromise.
• Shop the clearance racks at the end of seasons for clothing.  I try to do this as often as possible, but I don't get out to the department stores and mall as much as I used to!  Going with three children in tow is much different than alone or with just one.  It is manageable though and I try to plan my visits when they are switching out the clothing for the next season.  As long as you know what size to plan for, you can find clothing for your children and yourself at great discounts!  You can also keep an eye on clothing sites as they often put things on clearance as well.  
• Check local consignment sales.  Many times you can find quality items for a good price at these sales.  

If you're still struggling to keep these areas within your budget after trying out these and other money-saving tips, you may need to do some rearranging of your budgeted funds if possible.  Sometimes, such as when cost of living goes up or you add another child to the family or have a child switch over to table food from nursing, it does necessitate a slight increase in a budget category if possible.  These changes will definitely need to be discussed and planned out with or by your husband and prayerfully considered in light of how they will affect the rest of your budget.  Also, if you find yourself in need and unable to meet your family's food or clothing needs, please see what options are available to you while you work through this.  My local congregation, for instance, has a food pantry, as well as a clothing closet which is open once a month.  There are many who are willing to help you while you work through your financial difficulty.  

In closing, many of you reading this are the Titus 2 "older woman" to me and I'd love to hear your thoughts and tips on some of these items!  Please share what has worked well for you in any of these areas to benefit others.  Your ideas may really help someone else!  Also, feel free to add a link to your own blog post on these subjects if you've got one!  God bless us all with perseverance and motivation as we strive to look well to the ways of our own households!

"Food Fridays" and Coffee Cake Muffins!

Sometimes I make things that my kids don't care for too much, but these definitely aren't one of those things.  Here's my daughter's response after trying a muffin, "Mommy, you can make these again!"  As if I need the permission of a six year old to cook something...but, it's always nice to know your cooking is appreciated!  These are, in fact, the birthday breakfast of choice for her!  So, here's the recipe for these scrumptious muffins:

Coffee Cake Muffins

Ingredients:

Topping

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

raisins

Muffin Batter

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup rapadura sugar

1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon Watkins ground cinnamon (this stuff is wonderful!)

1/4 teaspoon allspice (or you could use ginger)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup slightly softened butter

1 beaten egg

1/3 cup applesauce

1/2 cup buttermilk or *sour milk

*You can make sour milk as a replacement for buttermilk by putting 1/2 cup of milk in a measuring cup and adding 3-4 drops of lemon juice.  Allow this to sit for about 5 minutes before mixing into your batter.*

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  
2. Grease 12 regular-sized muffin cups or line them with paper baking cups.
3. For the topping, stir together all the dry topping ingredients in a small bowl.  Then, cut in the 2 tablespoons of butter with a pastry blender or fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Do not mix in raisins.  Set aside.
4. In a medium bowl, mix the 1 1/2 cups flour, rapadura sugar, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, allspice, baking soda, and salt.  Cut in the 1/4 cup butter with a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 
5. In a small bowl, combine the egg, applesauce and buttermilk.  Add this mixture all at once to the flour mixture.  Stir until just moistened.  Batter will be thick.
6. Spoon half of the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 1/3 full.  Top with about half of the topping and sprinkle 5-6 raisins in each cup as well.  Cover with the remaining batter, evenly divided among the muffin cups.  Finish by sprinkling the remaining topping mixture on each.



Ready for the oven!  

7. Bake at 400 for 15-18 minutes or until golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.  Serve warm.
9. Enjoy!

"Food Fridays" and Cookie Cutter Pancakes

Snowman!

My kids are always after me to make them pancakes that are shaped like certain things. Around Christmas, after doing my usual "Mickey Mouse" or bear and even managing a heart for my daughter a few times, I had the idea of using my large Wilton cookie cutters to make the shaped pancakes.  This worked like a charm.  At Christmas time, we had gingerbread man pancakes and this morning we enjoyed snowmen.  This is the cookie cutter I used for my snowmen: 

Wilton Snowman Comfort Grip Stainless Steel Cookie Cutter

These cookie cutters work great for this!  We also have this same brand of gingerbread man cutter and I will eventually add some other shapes to my collection.  The size is a little larger than a standard cookie cutter, which works out well for a pancake mold.  You could try other cookie cutters as well, but make sure they are metal as you wouldn't want to melt a plastic one in your pan!  So, I'll share my homemade pancake recipe and then give you the step-by-step instructions for making your own shaped pancakes.

Homemade Cookie Cutter Pancakes

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
2 beaten eggs
4 tablespoons oil (olive or coconut)

Other items needed: shortening (I use Spectrum Organic Shortening -- 24 oz) and decorations for your pancakes (icing and chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. This is very important!  Start heating your pan so it can warm up while you make the pancake batter.  The first batch won't turn out well if your pan isn't hot enough.  So, put a spoon of shortening in the pan and set your burner to medium-low.  I like to cook mine in my enamel-coated skillet.
2. Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
3. Beat eggs together in a small bowl and then add in milk and oil.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients.
5. Mix well!
6. Grease the inside edges of the metal cookie cutter.  Don't be stingy with the shortening!  Your pancake will stick if you don't have enough.  Now you're ready to start cooking!
7. Lay the greased cookie cutter in the middle of the pan.
8. Scoop up some batter and pour it into the cookie cutter, making sure it spreads to all edges.
9. Allow the pancake to cook until small bubbles start to form on the top.
10. Using a potholder, gently lift the cookie cutter from the pancake.  If you used enough shortening, it should come right off.
11. Flip your pancake and allow it to finish cooking.  
12. Trim any edges off that spread out after you flip it.  
13. Decorate, add pure maple syrup and enjoy!

This recipe makes plenty of pancakes for our family of 5 to have for breakfast alone.  It gives the small children 2 each and 4 each for my husband and I.

The Necessity of Reevaluation in Your Spiritual Life

In the introductory post for this series, I talked about why reevaluation is necessary.  Now I'd like to specifically look at certain areas of life in which this is especially valuable and we'll start off with our spiritual lives, as well as those of our family.

In my own life, I personally find it easy to get overwhelmed with the many demands of life and then my time spent with God ends up on the back burner.  After a short while, I really start to notice a difference in my life and it's time to take another look at what I am doing to maintain and grow my relationship with God.  There are several things that I find key to maintaining growth in my spiritual life: prayer, time in the Word and service to others.  These things can be maintained by sheer will, but without the motivating factor of love they can be worthless and become very difficult to maintain long term.  In I Corinthians 13:1-3, Paul writes:

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." (NASB, emphasis mine)

The driving force behind all these actions that give us growth spiritually should be love.  And why?  I John 4:19 tells us:

"We love, because He first loved us."  

All these actions are a demonstration of our love toward our God who first loved us.  All of these areas should be applied in our spiritual leadership of our children, as well, and our encouragement of them as they grow and develop their own personal relationships with God.  Let's look more closely at these three key areas.

1. Prayer

We're told in I Thessalonians 5:16-18:

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (emphasis mine)

You know, sometimes we talk about seeking the will of God, and that's great; but, I love it when we have verses like this one where it's so clear!  Why should we pray?  Well, the number one reason to me is because God commands us to and the other major reason is that it is our means of communication with our Heavenly Father.  We should want to and we desperately need to pray.

Consider the description in the New Testament of the church as the bride of Christ.  How does a bride feel about her groom?  She loves him so much that she wants to be with him all the time.  When she gets exciting news, he is the one she wants to tell!  When she needs advice, she wants to talk to him about it.  When she feels like having coffee and a chat, she seeks him out.  He is her beloved and her love for him motivates her to spend all the time she can with him!  This is how we should be with God.     Prayer is our avenue of communication with him.  Think about what happens to that bride's relationship with her groom if she doesn't invest time talking with him.  Their relationship deteriorates, possibly even to the point of divorce.  She does all of her communicating with other people and suddenly the bride and groom may even feel as if they don't even know each other any more.  Get the picture?  This communication with God is vital to our relationship with Him!

2. Time in the Word

In II Timothy 3:14-17, Paul writes to Timothy:

"You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (emphasis mine)

Spending time in God's Word is necessary for our growth as Christians.  This is God's means of communicating with us.  Think about how important it is for the bride to get to know her beloved.  Reading His Word is how we get to know God.  It's like one big letter just for us, telling us everything about Him that we need to know and how He wants us to live.  We should want to spend time reading it because it teaches us more about Him.  We want to know how He wants us to live, because we desire to please Him.  Again, it is all motivated by our love!

3. Service to Others

A major way that we demonstrate God's love to others is through service and this also helps us to identify with Christ's sacrifice as we lay down our selfishness and give of ourselves.  When speaking of the final judgment, Christ says in Matthew 25:34-40:

"The the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'  Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give you something to drink?  And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to You?'  The King will answer and say  to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' (emphasis mine)

Truly, these actions of service draw us closer to God.  They help us identify with the sacrifice that Christ made for us.  Although most of us will not be called to sacrifice to the point of laying down our life, we do need to die to self daily and put others first.  For the motivation behind this one, consider I John 3:16-18:

 "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in the person?  Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  (emphasis mine)

Clearly, our service to others is motivated by our love for God and our desire to show His love to others!  

Application

I'm sure we all see how these things are vital to our growth as Christians, but how do we actually implement them?  It can certainly be hard with all the things in this life that press at us on all sides, vying for our attention.  First of all let's look at some questions to ask in relation to each area to assess how well your efforts for spiritual growth are working right now and then we'll conclude with some ideas to help spur on that growth.

• Assessing Your/Your Family's Prayer Life
• Do you spend time each day in prayer?
• When you receive a great blessing, how quickly do you thank God for it?  
• If you encounter a problem, do you first try to solve it yourself or do you begin by seeking God's intervention and trusting Him to lead you?  
• Do you pray together with your family?
• Do you encourage your children to pray?

• Assessing Your/Your Family's Time in the Word
• Do you spend some time each day in God's Word?
• If you encounter a problem, do you first seek guidance from God's Word?
• Do you make a regular effort to memorize God's Word (Psalm 119:11)?
• Do you spend time teaching God's Word to your children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7)?

• Assessing Your/Your Family's Service to Others
• Do you purposely plan ways for your family to aid others?  
• Do you involve your children in those efforts?
• Do you train your children in service by allowing them to help with activities they are mature enough to handle?
• Do you strive to put others ahead of yourself (Philippians 2:3)?

These things can be difficult to maintain and we have to deliberately carve out time to dedicate to these activities.  Also, we need to constantly ask the Lord for strength as we work on establishing better habits in these areas, because you'd better believe the devil will be working overtime to stop any activity that creates a stronger Christian!  Here are some suggestions in each category of ways to encourage personal growth and growth of your children in these areas.

1. Prayer

Some of the suggestions below can be much more difficult to implement depending on your season of life.  My season currently involves several small children, which can make spending time alone with God rather difficult.  I either have to manage to get up early enough to do it before it's time to start breakfast and everyone else is still sleeping or to get all the children down for a nap at the same time (rarely happens!) or to stay up later after all the kids are in bed.  None of those things happen very often at this point in my life, but I definitely make an effort to spend time with the Lord together with my children and this, I think, is also a great benefit to them.  Here are some suggestions:

• Try to carve out at least a small amount of time each day to spend time in prayer privately (Matthew 6:6).  At my house, this doesn't necessarily happen when everyone is far away from me and I'm completely alone, but I think it can even be managed while you're alone in the kitchen washing the dishes and the children are occupied with daddy or playing somewhere else in the house.
• Pray with your children daily.  We try to do this most evenings together when we have family worship time.  This gives us a chance to see if they have prayer requests that we can bring before the Lord together as a family, as well as model prayer for our children.
• Teach reverent behavior to little ones while others are praying.
• Encourage your children to pray out loud.  Our kids usually take turns praying before the meals while daddy isn't home, and occasionally they pray after daddy thanks God for our dinner meal, as well.
• Talk with your children about things to be thankful for and then praise God together for those things.

2. Time in the Word

Here again it can be difficult for me, as with other young mothers, to spend time with my undivided attention on God's Word.  I don't get a lot of chances to spend a long amount of time just studying unless it occurs during some of the above-mentioned times, which I am grateful for when they do occur!  Also, it seems that there are many other tasks that would be much easier to accomplish when the children are not around which are competing for my free time!  Here, prioritization is called for, and spending some devoted time in God's Word definitely needs to be top priority when I have those opportunities.  I am also working on getting up at an earlier time each day so that I have a regular opportunity to spend personal devotion time each morning, but that is definitely a work in progress!  

• Spend some time each day in God's Word.  There are so many ways to do this.  You can simply pick up a Bible and read a set amount of Scripture or you could listen to preaching.  You could also listen to the Bible read aloud while working on other housework.
• Spend time as a family in God's Word daily.  Even if you don't get some time alone in God's Word, pick up a Bible and read a selection with your children or, if they are old enough, have them do some or all of the reading of the passage.  We try to read a chapter together each evening during our family worship time.  Then we have opportunity to talk about it with the children as well.
• Make a conscious effort to memorize God's Word.  We have a memory box that we work on most school days.  There is a great and simple Scripture memory system found here.  This is what we use and it's worked well for us.  I also post verses I'm working on around the house in places I tend to be for longer periods of time, like beside the kitchen sink or on a mirror.
• Teach!  This is a great motivator for me, and even planning posts on this blog has been a spiritual boost as it requires study and application of God's Word.

3. Service to Others

This one is a little easier to me as we have ample opportunity every day in our homes to model service to our family.  It takes a little more effort to plan service to others outside our homes though.  This is still very simple to do, even from home, and you can easily involve even very young children.

• Be sure you are serving your own family cheerfully (II Corinthians 9:6-8)!
• Let your children help you think of people that you can serve together.
• Have your children draw pictures to put in cards of encouragement to others or have them write their own note if they are capable of doing so.  
• Let your children help you pick out canned goods and other non-perishable items in the grocery store to take to your church pantry or other place that provides food for people in need.
• Sponsor a child as a family.
• Pray for the missionaries your local congregation and/or your family support.
• Encourage your children to serve those in your own family.
• Let your children help you prepare and deliver meals to those who are sick or in need.

There are so many ways that we can improve each of these areas in our lives!  I'd love to hear ideas that have worked well for you or your family in your spiritual walk!  Please leave a comment and share so others may benefit from your experiences.  God bless us all as we strive to grow more like Christ and closer to Him!