Shelby's Everyday Homeschool Blog

2011-05-02T17:46:00.003-05:00

The place where me and my mom walk had fields full of these things.

Swagbucks

2011-04-06T14:09:00.000-05:00

Have ya'll ever heard of Swagbucks? Well, when I first looked into it I was pretty skeptical. But then I researched it and had seen it several places so I decided to give it a go. If you do your searches through Swagbucks then you earn points(swagbucks) that you can redeem for gift cards or various sundry thing in the Swagstore. I currently have about 400 points, so I am saving for a $10 Starbucks gift card so me and Mom can get some coffee. =) A Starbucks gift card is 1300 points so I have a ways to go yet. I think gift cards are the best use of points but that's just me. After Starbucks I'll be working toward an Amazon gift card (that means more books!!)
It doesn't take very long to earn alot of points. I do alot on the internet for school so that is how I earned most of my points.
It is definitely worth checking out. =)

Hi!

2011-03-31T15:21:00.001-05:00

Just popping in to say "Hello!"

These were everywhere the other day, until we mowed. =)

Baseball, Spring and Japanese Magnolias

2011-03-03T14:57:00.002-06:00

While the coming of Spring for some people may mean flowers blooming and warmer weather, around our house it means baseball. My brothers (the youngest two) live and breathe baseball. But it's not just during spring that that the bug bites them, it is all year. They made a mound in the back yard, so they could pitch and catch all year! That also means baseball games! =) Games were kinda boring when they played t-ball, but they are plenty fun to watch now, especially if they hit a home run.

Japanese Magnolia Bud

My favorite

So when Spring starts showing itself, what do you think of?

Bloom!

2011-02-26T17:30:00.000-06:00

the Japanese Magnolias are blooming

pictures

2011-02-24T15:05:00.000-06:00

.:Blossoms:.

2011-02-20T20:49:00.000-06:00

I'm really liking the bokeh!

Proverbs 31:26

She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue

Some favorite recent pictures

2011-02-17T14:16:00.001-06:00

Some of my favorites over the past couple of weeks:

Have a great weekend! I am gonna get to see my oldest brother in college this weekend! =)

Spring

2011-02-15T07:42:00.001-06:00

I love the colors in this one.

2011-02-14T18:10:00.001-06:00

Hi! just a heads up, I am working on my blog right now!

Kumquats

2011-02-14T15:58:00.000-06:00

Kumquats do not taste that great but they sure do smell good.

Goodbye Winter...

2011-02-14T11:36:00.000-06:00

taken on a cold morning in December

I bet we still have a few cold days ahead, but I think that we have seen the last of the REALLY cold days. It's around 70 here but with the humidity it feels hotter.

2011-02-10T07:21:00.000-06:00

I really like this sign. I think my mother needs it for her kitchen. =)

Fall's beauty

2011-02-06T20:39:00.000-06:00

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

..

2011-02-05T07:22:00.002-06:00

and here is the color version with the verse on the picture with no grain

The word of our God...

2011-02-04T20:27:00.003-06:00

The grass wither, the flower fades: but the word of our God shall stand forever. Isaiah 40:8

I took this with a batch of pictures and just now got around to editing it.

This is the first picture I have put a grain on. What is your opinion?

.....

2011-01-25T14:08:00.001-06:00

Job 5:17-18

Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects: therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty:

For he makes sore, and binds up: he wounds, and his hands make whole.

Anybody here.......

2011-01-17T16:36:00.004-06:00

Well obviously I have not been seen around here for a while. So sorry. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. I just can't believe how quick this past year went by. It's been rather cold around here, like around 40 degrees (I know that is not so cold to you northern people, but it is to this southern girl =) so I have just been doing school work and reading and drinking coffee. You may ask what have I been reading, well, I shall happily oblige you. =)

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas

First of all this book was amazing. I at first didn't want to read it because I had seen, what I thought at the time, a rather outlandish quote by him. But mom urged me to go ahead and read the book because when he was younger, his theology hadn't all been hammered out yet and he also had sat under some of the most famous liberal theologians of that time (1930's) So when I read it, the quote made more sense.

So, who was Bonhoeffer? A Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany who resisted Nazi takeover of the church and formed the Confessing Church of Germany. He was also involved in the plots to kill Hitler, Valkyrie probably being the more famous of the many. 3 weeks before Berlin was capture, he was executed, with the order given personally by Hitler.

In the 1930's he went to America. He visited Riverside Church. A church built by John Rockefeller Jr. for the infamous Harry Emerson Fosdick , a famous theological liberal of the day. Here is what Bonhoeffer said of it,

"The whole thing was a respectable, self-indulgent, self- satisfied religious celebration. This sort of idolatrous religion stirs up the flesh which is accustomed to being kept in check by the Word of God. Such sermons make for libertinism, egotism, indifference. Do people not know that one can get on as well, even better, without "religion"?..

Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption. Christ alone is the conquering of death.- Bonhoeffer

This is a book that I should read a couple times a year. Very, very good.

Oh, here is a random fact for you. He got engaged when he was about 38 and the girl was 18. But he never got married because he got put in prison and then executed.

I STRONGLY recommend this book.
Now I need to find a copy of The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer....

O God,

Early in the morning I do cry to thee.

Help me to pray

And to think only of thee.

I cannot pray alone.

In me there is darkness,

But with thee there is light.

I am lonely, but thou leavest me not.

I am feeble in heart, but with thee there is peace.

In me there is bitterness, but with thee there is patience;

Thy ways are past understanding, but

Thou knowest the way for me. - Bonhoeffer

While we are on the subject of books......

Don't you just hate it when you lose a book that had been on your shelf for the past 5 months and then when you want it, it has disappeared.
1. see if book is under the bed. (if you are a clean freak and there is nothing under your bed, skip to #2.)
2. look behind the books on the bookshelf to see if it got pushed back.
Still no book?
4. now you go look on the library catalog website and see if your book somehow got mixed in with theirs. =)
if that is a dead end....
5. As a last resort you buy another copy and then find the other copy. Then you have two copies of the same book now! How's that for genius.

I haven't gotten to step 4 yet, because I know that when I get the new one, I'll find the old one. That's the way it always goes. So for now I keep looking, even though I looked everywhere. BUT I know that if I had looked everywhere I would have found it.

What have you been reading?

Candy Cane Coffee Bread

2010-12-21T09:05:00.002-06:00

Candy Cane Coffee Bread

not my picture

ATTENTION: You have to make the bread dough the night before. So don't get up in the morning thinking you're gonna do it all that morning. =)

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (105 degrees to 115 degrees)
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
2 eggs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour

FILLING:
2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

TOPPINGS:
1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar
1 (12 ounce) jar cherry jam (or strawberry, which is better and what we use, but whatever floats your boat)

Directions:

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. In a mixing bowl, combine the butter, sour cream, eggs, sugar and salt. Add yeast mixture and flour; beat until smooth (do not knead). Place in a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

For filling, in a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla until blended. Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface; divided in half. Roll out each portion into a 16-in. x 10-in. rectangle on a greased baking sheet. Spread filling down center of each rectangle. On each long side, cut 1-1/2-in.-wide strips about 3 in. into center. Starting at one end, fold alternating strips at an angle across filling. Pinch ends to seal. Curve one end, forming a candy cane. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Carefully remove from pans to wire racks to cool. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Stir jam, then spoon over top of leaves, creating candy cane stripes. Refrigerate leftovers.

We love this bread, we have it every Christmas Day!

What is a tradition at your house?

Merry Christmas!

pictures (I'm not very creative with titles)

2010-11-02T14:13:00.000-05:00

Whenever I see this picture, this verse come to mind,

John 15:4,5 "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."

I especially like the last part, you can do nothing apart from Jesus, and I am nothing apart from Him.

I finally did what I knew was inevitable, I lost the lens cap. It's not connected to the camera which I like because then it doesn't get in your picture, but it is then easily lost. I had forgotten it a couple times before, but then had found it. This time I lost it at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and I have no clue where it is. Sometimes the stuff I do amazes me. I am not ditzy or scatterbrained, but sometimes I do weird things. My mother can attest to this. =)

Well, Mom and I started our next church class. This one is on the Doctrine of the Church, we had the first lecture last night, it's going to be very good!

Till next time!

recipe: Pumpkin Creme Pies

2010-10-28T19:24:00.000-05:00

I made these cookies today. They are very good, but they take forever to make, but well worth the wait. I got the recipe from here I think I would just make them at Thanksgiving, or for special occasions, just because they take so long. My dad and brother are coming home this weekend, so I froze some to fill for them. They are very, very moist. Like a oatmeal creme pie, except they're not oatmeal and not marshmallow in the middle. Ha! bad comparison. Oh, well. They're good!!

Pumpkin Creme Pies from Tasty Kitchen food Blog
The Deutsch Girl

1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Sugar
1 cup Vegetable Oil
1 can Pumpkin (15 Oz.)
2 whole Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
½ teaspoons Salt
½ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg
¼ teaspoons Ground Cloves
_____
FOR FILLING:
1 package Cream Cheese Softened (8 Oz.)
1 stick Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
1 package Powdered Sugar (16 Oz.)
3 drops Vanilla Extract
2 dashes Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pumpkin Creme Pies: Beat together brown sugar, sugar, oil and pumpkin. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition, followed by the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.

Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet until just combined.

Cut 3 inch squares of parchment paper, about 24.( I didn't want to cut out all those squares, so I just greased a cookie sheet real good and it worked out fine) Using a pastry bag with a round tip, or a big ziplock bag with one corner snipped, squeeze out concentric circles of batter, starting from the middle and working outward until the circles are about 2 inches in diameter. (Note that the squares allow the baker to move the square while keeping the bag in the same spot. Just squeeze for easy circle making!)

Transfer each square to a baking sheet. Bake for 11 minutes, or until firm, and cool on a rack.( a paper towel gets the job done)

Cream Cheese Filling: Beat together cream cheese and butter. Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon. Frost flat side of half the pies and top with another piece. (I filled another ziplock bag with the icing, I would think it would be easier than spreading because the cookies are so moist and kinda flimsy)

Enjoy right away , or chill overnight (I don't see how you could let these sit in the ice box all night. Dig in!). These keep very nicely in the fridge for at least a few days

The twins really enjoyed them, which is a plus since they are so picky.

Rose pictures

2010-10-09T07:21:00.000-05:00

It is much safer, from Satan's point of view, to vaccinate a man with a mild dose of Christianity, so as to protect him from the real thing. - C.S. Lewis

2010-09-15T19:58:00.002-05:00

Well, the field that i wanted to take a picture of had been cut. I was really bummed out. Tall grass with the sun rising behind it, with dew on all the spiders webs. I mean there was a ton of spider webs. Phooey on them, they messed up my picture. I only found one or two that hadn't been cut.

you can see the reflection of the trees in droplet. You can't see the web very good

water droplets (betcha couldn't have figured that one out. ha!) Iwas pleasantly surprised at how this one came out.

Corral Vine

we actually have some of this kinda vine, But after getting run over with the lawnmower and weedeated, it's growth has been stunted.=)

this picture looks like it could be fall, but don't be deceived it doesn't even feel like fall yet. Still 90 degrees
with an occasional breeze. Oh, for cooler temperatures.

Well ya'll I promised it would be today that I posted but I didn't say anything about the time. =)

I don't know if I like this one or not, what do u think. They had already sprayed Roundup on the morning glories. They sure know how to ruin a girl's picture.

A butterfly

2010-08-23T10:11:00.002-05:00

i really like this picture, i guess it's because it's so offbeat and funny in a weird sort of way. By the way those are spent shells

an ugly bug picture

2010-08-13T14:50:00.002-05:00

I don't like these bugs, they look evil and we have an abundance of them. I don't mind bugs, but these are downright ugly and they stink when smashed. =)

it's a stink bug of sorts

Pond Reflections

2010-08-09T11:26:00.001-05:00

my favorite

my mom and dad. and no it's not upside down, it's a reflection in a pond

i'm having fun with Photoshop. =)

so what's your favorite

Just a few new pictures

2010-08-06T16:10:00.000-05:00

Teach Us to Number Our Days

2010-07-21T12:42:00.000-05:00