A Beautiful Home Atmosphere

I have 3 daughters and they all love to create a beautiful atmosphere in our home.

They bring in flowers from their nature walks and meanders through the farm, and I love the special little handfuls of wild flowers that nestle in little glass vases on windowsills.

They help set tables and create flower arrangements for the living room and guests bedrooms.

Tea times outside are a special pastime.  Sometimes the girls and their friends bake something, set out tea with pretty linen and invite us to join them under the trees.

Sometimes we have tea and poetry.  We read, discuss, recite and enjoy several poems and drink tea out of our special tea set instead of our usual mugs.

When we clean house together, they love to select lively music and we “dance” through the sweeping, mopping and dusting.  But we also love to listen to classical music while we craft or cook.  My youngest children love their music appreciation log pages for our music appreciation lessons.  At the moment Vivaldi’s Four Seasons plays in the background.  This year I took the plunge and subscribed to Naxos for our classical music appreciation and I enjoy access the seemingly endless classical music.

Art appreciation is another source of beauty in our home.  We use our kitchen cupboard as our art gallery.  Sketch Tuesday paintings and art appreciation pictures fill the doors as the term progresses.  Currently our Gauguin pictures of M Loulou stand out with their bright colours and contrasts.

The girls love to sew, make stunning cards and create lovely homemade gifts.  They love to light candles and set attractive tables for dinner time.

But beauty is not all a girl thing!

Charlotte Mason inspires me to encourage the family in the love of nature, great literature, living books, great art and classical music.  Her philosophy teaches us how to appreciate real beauty.

As a Christian mother, I am constantly conscious of cultivating the beauty within each of us.

Jesus’ Beauty.

His character.

And again, Charlotte Mason reminds me to train habits.

God’s word teaches me to instruct and train my children in His ways.

Often I fail here.

There are days where ugly sprawls out, when tears falls, words hurt.

When we want to be and do Beautiful, but don’t.  Can’t.

We all fail to stay in Beauty.

I pray more fervently, because this hidden work is not mine to create.

May He take away more of me and fill me with more of Him.

When Jesus fills our hearts and spills out in words and deeds, our home atmosphere becomes truly beautiful.

May our lives be like wild flowers,

like inspiring art,

like soothing music,

like tea in pretty cups.

A beautiful atmosphere.

Blessings,

Visiting Family and Friends

We are going to visit our family and friends for a fortnight!

We last went away 3 years and we are all so excited!

So,  until we return, may you all be blessed,

Timing myself!

Just after we started our homeschooling, I re-evaluated my schedule. I realized that things were not in balance. I went to pray.  The Lord really convicted me about my time spent on my computer.

I realized that I spent hours at my laptop every day. I love to read, and research, create and write. I love to read new posts on my favourite blogs. I love to receive emails and write and encourage others.

Isn’t this my “ministry” while I live on a farm so remote and far from everyone?

But I spend too much time here everyday.

So, I committed my time to the Lord anew. I took my handy kitchen timer and placed it on my desk. I now limit my computer time to 1 hour for the day. For everything. Emails, posts, writing, reading, creating my own pages, whatever. When that bell rings, I must stop.

Shut down.

Walk away.

Seriously.

My hubby is glad. My children are very glad.

This is right. And I am so grateful that the Lord stirs my conscience and urges me to hear His soft voice. May my use of my time honor Him.

Blessings,

Gauguin’s Loulou

Image via Wikipedia

This year we returned to our study of Famous Impressionist Artists and looked at the life and colourful works of

Paul Gauguin

I read a short biography from Garden of Praise and some extracts from my book Impressionist Painters.

We looked at a selection of his art works.  He is most famous for the simple, yet colourful style he used once he lived in Tahiti and enjoyed the Polynesian island lifestyle.

(Just a note: I only made slight references to Gauguin’s  troubled and dissipated lifestyle and we did not include any nude paintings in our review.)

We watched a lovely slideshow of his works.

We put up our picture of Gauguin and his gallery of paintings on our wall chart.

The children wrote some biographical information on our biography pages.  They cut out and pasted the Gauguin thumbnail paintings on their minibook and pasted this on their biography notebook page.

As Charlotte Mason suggested, we will study Gauguin for a month. Each week we will focus on a new painting and do an art appreciation lesson.  This may just be a detailed oral narration of what they remember in a painting once they have sat quietly and looked at it.  Or they may write a detailed description of a painting.  Or we may create a copy of a masterpiece, we may use a similar technique in our work.  Not every lesson is an art lesson!

This week we copied ~

M. Loulou

I printed out the simple and colourful work.  I wanted the girls to copy the painting with a grid. 

We drew a simple 4 x 4 grid across the picture.

I then pencilled in a similar 4 x 4 grid on our drawing paper.

We outlined the main features of the picture, using the grid as our guidelines, comparing lines and distances square by square.

Here and there we all realized that without the grid we would have mistaken the proportions.

After a short while, we were ready to colour our pictures.

Miss. K and I both painted our picture, while Miss. L used watercolour pencils and washed over her picture with water to get the paint effect she wanted.

Completed painting before black outlines

When everything was dry, we outlined the picture in black.

Miss. L's watercolour pencil painting (8-years-old)

An easy and successful art appreciation lesson.

Miss. K's painting (11-years-old)

Nadene's painting

We have Gauguin’s M. Loulou in our heads and hearts!

How have you enjoyed famous art?

Blessings,

Special Night-time Notes

Children grow up so quickly!

With busy days and responsibilities I don’t always speak to each child privately.  And in the busyness, they don’t share their troubles and concerns.

Sadly, I don’t journal the many precious moments and memories.

But for almost 6 months now, this has changed.

My younger daughters and I write special notes to each other almost every night.  Remember I suggested handwriting notes?

We use special spiral notebooks, and I bought each child a special pen.

We write and reply to each other’s notes.

When we have finished writing, we tuck the notebook secretly under a pillow.

Of course, spelling and handwriting does not matter in the least.

My children love this liberty and they write freely.

Some nights there are questions.

Other nights they share concerns.

Most notes are simple love notes.

And now and then, they draw a picture or write a joke.  Humour is such a glorious gift!

Reading my children’s thoughts, prayers, fears, hopes and joys fills my heart with gladness.

I love the freedom they have to write and ask me deep and personal questions they would be too shy to ask out loud.

I especially love to bless them.

In meaningful words.

Scriptures.

His promises and blessings.

I write of my joy and pride in them.

It’s personal.

Private.

From my heart to theirs.

From their child-hearts to mine.

We re-read these notes and bask in the joy of such love.

Recently, when my 11-year-old finished her notebook, she came to me and asked me to keep it safe for her.  I know she may cringe when she reads it when she is older, but I will always treasure it.

Captured in these pages are the joyful memories of our relationship and lives.

Savour your children and speak the words that fill their hearts.

All too soon they are grown up and going out into the world.

These are the memories I want to savour forever.

Blessings,