Luv'N Lambert Life

A blog about living with Epilepsy, IBHS, Homeschooling and so much more

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Questions {Thoughts From Me}

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When starting over and redoing one’s life, where does one begin?  What do you even start with?  Yourself? Your family? Home? Life?

How do you decide what’s the main thing to work on first?  Then there are the goals to set.  Which goals come first? Which ones get the most attention?  How do you chose one over another?

Where do you even begin to begin?

I’m sure I am not the only one asking these questions.  I’m sure they’ve passed through minds thousands of times before mine.  I’m just as sure that someone else is asking these same questions right now, looking over their life and wondering where to begin with it all.

So where would you start?  What’s your story?  Share with me and let’s all start again to find the way.

Happy Kids Songs {Crew Review}

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I was really excited to see this vendor come up this year.  Music is a huge part of our day and lately I have been looking for some new songs to keep things interesting.  Lets face it, you can only listen to the same repetitive songs before you become bored as a parent and having four children home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, I’ve heard them all.
Happy Kids Songs gave us new, fresh music to listen to and learn with.  These songs are a lot of fun both in sound and with the activities that accompany them.  The activities are very easy to do with even young children.  Specifically, Happy Kids Songs is designed to be used with children who are ages 3-8 but even my 11 and 13 year old enjoyed listening and helping me with the younger kids.  
As some of you know, we are eclectic and unschoolish in Homeschooling style so Happy Kids Songs really went along with our idea of school.  I was easily able to put these songs on my phone or iPad and plug it into our radio so that we could listen, learn and dance.  The kids, of course, LOVED dancing to the songs and really learned great things just by listening.
We listened to these songs repeatedly and talked about the things they heard and learned through listening to them.  The kids never got bored of listening and every time they did they learned something new.  They truly enjoy these songs.
The workbook is a great addition as well.  It contains over 122 pages of fun.  The lyrics for each song and an activity sheet are included in the workbook.  In the back of the workbook, parents and teachers can find great activities to do to help build the skills and lessons being taught through the songs.  We did not do all of these but we did enjoy quite a few and even built upon the ideas on our own.
The workbook is reproducible for Homeschool use so copies can easily be printed for use with multiple children.  I was thankful that this was an option.  You can also download these same worksheets for free and print from the computer through the company when you purchase the CD’s.  
The song set titles are pretty self explanatory.  There are 8 titles in the series, all adding up to a huge amount of fun.  For our review, as I mentioned above, we received the following:
Friends and Sharing – this song set focuses on building friendships and learning to share with others.
Happiness and Attitude – this song set focuses on being happy, making others happy and having a great attitude as well.
Manners and Character – this song set focuses on learning good manners and having a great personal character with others.  
Each of these song sets are available for purchase through Happy Kids Songs website either on Amazon or iTunes for $4.95 per album of all five songs or songs can be purchased separate for $0.99.  The pages within the workbook are available for free through the website but you can purchase the pre-printed Happy Kids Songs Workbook from Amazon for $12.56 at the time of this review.
You can find Happy Kids Songs in the following places online:

Twitter: @howsyourfam

Please click the banner below to read more reviews of Happy Kids Songs!

Click to read Crew Reviews

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G is for the Good Things {Blogging through the Alphabet}

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Ben and Me

So I have fallen off the Blogging through the Alphabet wagon for the past few weeks but I will be completing those posts later on.  For now, we are on to the letter G.

G is for Good Things in Life

Lately, there is so much negativity in the world and not nearly enough appreciation for the Good things that we are blessed with in this life.  In the news daily, there is constant death, stealing, bullying, and more.  Concentrating on these are sure to drag us all down and creep into to destroy happiness in our lives.  Many people come to dwell upon these negatives, losing thankfulness for the great things happening around them.

I, personally, share a lot of these things through my Facebook page and then see them shared forward by others.  A few weeks ago, this negativity really hit me straight in the heart.  I realized that this is not what I want to known as: The Negative Facebook Poster.  I, instead, wish to bring light and love to others through our lives, shining like a bright star.

Over the past few days, I have actively chosen NOT to be on Facebook and to share mostly positive things (I’ve been doing that for a few weeks now).  Sure the negative and local news still sneaks through (I often share for some of my local friends who would miss out on the news if not for those posts and have actually asked for me to share them) but I am making an active effort to be choosier about those posts.

A friend tagged me in a post the other day to share positive things, and I felt it was lead to me after realizing I needed to do these things already.  I want to be more appreciative and I know that sharing these small things I’m thankful for will  help me realize just how lucky I am to be blessed to live and love in this life.

So hear are 5 things I’m currently thankful for aka my Good Things in Life:

1.  Always and forever, foremost I am thankful for my children: Winston, Mimi,  Laycie and Jackson.  They are such blessings for us.

2.  I’m thankful for my Husband.  For the love he gives to use and how hard he works to provide a home and life for these kids.

3.  I’m thankful for my Momma.  I couldn’t raise three kids with Epilepsy and Involuntary Breath Holding Spells without my Momma.  She is there when I just can’t do anymore.  She loves and cares and helps every single day and I’m so thankful to be blessed with a Momma that loves me and my children so much.

4.  I’m thankful for Prayers.  Without them, we’d be lost.  So many times a simple prayer has gotten me through, even when my faith was small and frail, these prayers have carried me through.  For that I’m thankful.

5.  I’m thankful for Life, for everyday when I wake up and share the day with my children, family and friends.  So many times, I just go through the process of the day but there is never a day when I don’t see the “Life” we are given as a blessing and there’s never a day that I’m not thankful for another day with my babies.  I know that this can be taken at any moment and I try to live it fully and to enjoy every moment I have.  I try to teach my children to do the same and never take a minute for granted.

These are only a few of the many things I am thankful for.  What are you thankful for today?  What are some things you can do to be more appreciative of your day to day life?  Share with me in the comments below!

Settling In {Thoughts From Me}

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It has truly been a long year for us.  I can hardly believe October is already here.  It just seems like the entire year has flown by.

Next month is the last month of reviews for the TOS Crew year.  It’s passed by so quickly but the break will be nice.  I plan to work on my blog, create some posting ideas and prep for next years work as I hopefully will be returning to the Crew in January (we will see!).

This week, I have had no scheduled reviews for the Crew, so it’s allowed me a nice little break to get some much needed mind-clearage and also to focus on my house.  The house and the mind are in dire need of an overhaul.  It’s a slow process but the house is becoming more organized every day.  After four years of living here, I have to admit that it’s about time!

I looked at Winston just yesterday and we discussed that we’ve never stayed in one place so long.  When we lived with his father, we constantly moved.  There was no security and no reason to unpack because we knew before long we would be moving again.  I can’t blame his Dad, as that’s how he was raised but I wasn’t.  My parents lived in the same home for 26 years of my life.  Moving was not something I knew how to do.  Neither was organizing, even though we’d lived in the same home so long.

Organizing has been something that I’ve recently been learning.  Sure my Mom’s house was neat and kept clean but it was all done by her.  I never learned those important skills that I needed to because, well, I knew Mom would do it for me!  And she has, even in my own home, she’s always come in and put things where she felt they belonged, which really didn’t work for me!

So now, here I am at age 34, learning to organize and clean my way.  Since I have never been good at this, my kids are also learning along with me and they are greatly enjoying the process of having a home that’s organized.  They are also enjoying having a home that is permanent, that we don’t have to keep packed up and that we can enjoy our life and our time in.

My son tells me he’s never seen our home so organized and that it makes him happy.  That makes me happy.  These kids are my world!  I could never imagine my life without them in it and my heart is full having them journeying through it all along with me.  I could not be more thankful.

This has been a hard year but it’s coming to an end joyfully, full of life and love and living.  I would not have that any other way.

Finding Peace in God’s Love {Thoughts From Me}

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It seems I always have 1000 things running through my head these days that I want to post about and yet I never do.  I come to the blog, I open a post and yet I shut my mouth so to speak.  Me at a loss of words!  Can you imagine? 

I try my best to avoid drama and it seems to be drawn to me like a bear to honey.  It finds me, searches me out no matter how much I try to hide from it.  I find that to be a huge reason behind my lack of inspiration in writing and sharing with others online lately.  I’m sick of being drawn into the midst of some small drama that turns huge for no reason and I surely do not want that monster to find my sweet little blog!!

But I feel the need to write, to share, to talk, to guide, to let God speak through me as much as I’m able and to share my thoughts with others.  Many of us feel that way, I know.  I read wise words from my lovely friends and those who inspire us every day.  I see God in these works and I want to see God in my work too.

Lately, I’ve been persuing my photography career thanks to my dear friends who have greatly encouraged me (you know who you are).  It’s been time consuming and enjoyable all at the same time.  I see God in their shoves and God in my work.  Now I find myself wanting to see God in my words too.  Is he there?  Can I easily find him? 

I personally don’t see it often enough.  I feel the weight of the Devil on my thoughts and I try to avoid him like the plague.  I feel depressed and discouraged, left abandoned and wanting for more from this life of mine.  God can overcome all of this, I know.  I have that faith in him.  That mustard seed of faith that I must always keep just to perservere and tredge ahead in my personal world. 

Tonite, I feel God calling me to do more.  I feel him saying Grow, Blossom and share my love with others.  Share your talents as I provide them, he says to me and so I am doing my best to do that both in my words and my photography.  I am finding peace in my thoughts, peace in my words.  Much needed peace that I don’t want to forget and can’t always find.  By seeking Him I can find them though.  And that is what I need to do more of.

I’m surely not alone in this need, to find peace and love and God all at once together.  And in God is where I will find the three.  Only in God.  I know this.  You know this.  It’s what each of us seeks daily.  His guidance and His Love. 

There is so much more to do, to say, to be and yet His Love is enough.  More than enough ever it will be.

Goodnight all.

Dana <3

Writing and more

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I think I may be getting the writing bug again thanks to a new group I have joined on Facebook.  It’s a small group of like-minded women who enjoy writing about many things and enjoy discussing those writings and sharing in the triumphs and disappointments of each one.  It’s spurred my thinking again and is providing me with just the intellect I need in my life. 

I love to write.  I love making words touch others, making them flow into thoughts, paragraphs, short stories and I love seeing the results of my writing in final form.  I think I am good at writing, though at this point I feel I am very out of practice.  And there are days when the words just won’t come because there is so much busy-ness in the way of them.  Writer’s block is an atrocious thing!

There are many things I love doing but never seem to have time for.  Writing, painting, cake baking, simple home cooking, photography, drawing, reading, watching movies, and even blogging.  I would love to find time to do each one of these things but often Life calls instead.  (Speaking of Life – new header above ^^^)

My quest for the things I should be doing, for the changes in me, has turned into a quest to organize my life and my time so that I can do the things I enjoy.  Organization is yet another thing that has always eluded me.  My cluttered mind only echoes that of my cluttered life, completing the Chaos of my world.  Add children on top of that and it’s a downward spiral all the way!

Speaking of children, the kids and I have been busy buying seeds to plant for the garden and can hardly wait to get them started this week.  We will be constructing a bigger light box than we originally expected and planting many different things: squash, watermelon, lima and green beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, and much more.  We also have a few flowers to plant, including four o’clocks to toss down our ditchbank to grow on the side.  I can’t wait for those to grow so the kids can time them to open and close each day just like I used to as a small child! 

We will be reading more about plants this week, in Botany and as I said completing our light box.  We will hopefully be taking a field trip to look at the plants tomorrow, now that it’s dried out a bit, before the rains come again on Tuesday. 
We will also read more of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which the kids are extremely excited to do.  When we finish I will order the movie for them to watch from Netflix, so that we can compare the book to the movie like we do with all of our Literature.
We will be playing catch up in History this week as we missed a couple of days of lessons last week when we were involved in Life Lessons.  We are currently covering Prehistoric History and will be beginning timelines soon.  I’m looking for Historic People to use on our timelines but haven’t had success with it yet.
And of course we have all our other studies of math, reading, writing and Bible.  Our weeks never fail to be busy and full of Life for us.

Hopefully somewhere in there, I can schedule some time for me to write but for now I guess I’ll just continue to enjoy Luv’N Lambert Life!