Gratituesday Archives | Page 11 of 20

Gratituesday: My Date With the School Books

July 23, 2012 by Laura 21 Comments

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Maybe it’s been the heat, maybe it’s been the lack of routine, I really don’t know. But for some reason, for the first time ever, I had not been as eager as I typically am about the arrival of this upcoming school year.

Why would I feel that way when I love school time with the kids? I’m pretty sure it’s just because starting school means that I need to be a bit more disciplined and organized. I’ve enjoyed our “take it day by day” schedule this summer. What can I say?

However, with school starting for our family in just two weeks, I finally made the time to sit down will all of our books and began to get myself organized. Once I sat down, I believe it took about 3.2 seconds for me to get excited. Books! History! Fiction! Non-fiction! Goals! Fun!

I am once again feeling like I can get into the home schooling groove. Not only that, I am super excited about what the kids and I will be learning this year. (Yes, the kids and I…because I usually learn as much as they do. It’s a huge perk to home schooling. I, the mom, get soooo much smarter. Although please never, ever ask me to be a participant on Jeopardy.) :)

As I made out our schedule, I was pleased to see that it actually seems to work on paper. We never carry out our schedule perfectly, but sometimes I can’t even get it to work on paper, much less in real life. This year, I believe I figured out what might work. (And if I’m wrong, we’ll just tweak it as needed.)

I am so grateful for the opportunity to learn along with our kids, the chance to read loads of excellent books with them, and the privilege of being with them for so much of the day. 2012-2013 school year – here we come! (But not for two more weeks. For now, I’m going to stick to a non-schedule, thank you very much.) ;)

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Gratituesday: Coppinger Sister Symposium

July 16, 2012 by Laura 15 Comments

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I am blessed beyond words. Not only did I marry a great man – part of my marriage package includes a great set of in-laws.

As a part of this prize package that I acquired upon becoming a Coppinger, I received two sisters-in-law: Matt’s sister, and Matt’s brother’s wife. Blessing upon blessing – all three of us get along.

Actually, to simply say that we “get along” may be an understatement. Our relationships are so much deeper than that. We laugh, we cry, we pray, we share…and oh my…we shop.

Which is what the three of us did for several days together last week. Don’t worry, we did much more than shop. We laughed, we cried, we prayed…and we ate cheesecake. It was awesome. Our get-away time together is something we started probably around eight years ago (none of us can remember exactly). Since the two of them live in California, and I live in Nebraska, we rarely see each other. Therefore, we’ve been intentional about meeting up for a long weekend every two or three years.

We now lovingly call our get-away time the “Coppinger Sister Symposium”. Sounds so much more fun and official than just a simple “sister weekend”, don’t you think? ;)

I flew to L.A. on Wednesday, and the fun began. (As did the lack of sleep. There was too much fun to be had!)

Here we are at Malibu beach one evening. Oh my word – I couldn’t get over the beauty. And joy upon joy, with bare feet in the glorious sand – I took off for a short run. Walking and jogging on the concrete of Nebraska may never be the same again after the exhilaration I felt during and after that run. Wowza.

Oh, and we saw dolphins! And as we watched the tide roll in, we sat on a blanket and shared – praising God for our marriages and children. The shopping, the partaking of awesome California food (can you say fresh strawberries?!) was all wonderful. But that time together on the beach, I will be gushing about forever.

I came home tired, yet incredibly refreshed and encouraged. I thank God for putting these wonderful gals in my life. (And a big shout-out goes to our three husbands who willingly and sweetly took over in our homes while we enjoyed our “CSS”.)

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Gratituesday: Garden Beauty

June 25, 2012 by Laura 37 Comments

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Several have requested to see pictures of our garden this year. I figured what better day to share them than Gratituesday?!

I can take very little credit for our beautiful plants this year. Matt and the boys have been working hard with little help from me out in the garden. Matt does such a good job keeping up with it and has some great veggies planted.

He planted quite a bit of okra, so we’re hoping to get a nice crop so we can eat a bunch and freeze a bunch. Okra sliced and fried in a little olive oil is the best!

Here’s a shot of part of our peach tree, which is loaded with fruit this year.

Our tomato plants aren’t very big yet, but they are starting to get little yellow flowers all over them, and you know what little yellow flowers means on a tomato plant right? (BLTs – of course.) ;)

Here are Matt’s babies, the sweet bell peppers, which he planted in a raised garden bed that he built. We can’t wait until these are ready to pick and eat!

This is kind of a funny shot, so let me explain. Matt planted four long rows of green beans. For whatever reason, one row is doing awesome, as you can see. The other three rows decided to be rebellious. However, we ate our first picking a few nights ago and they were so delicious I thought I might pass out. Here’s hoping the one long row that actually grew will continue to provide lots of beans!

Malachi planted one pumpkin plant, and is very excited to see a yellow blossom growing. He has plans to grow the biggest pumpkin ever, but hopefully he’ll settle for a regular ol’ pumpkin when the time comes. :)

I’m so grateful for my family’s hard work in the garden, and so very grateful for God’s goodness in how he always provides for us!

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Gratituesday: Long Awaited Visits

June 18, 2012 by Laura 16 Comments

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First, let me say that I’m so disappointed that I have no pictures to document what I am about to share. :( I guess I was thinking about that hugs instead of the camera.

There is a big camp, called Soul Quest, hosted by our local Christian college, which took place last week. We always love being a part of this, making a point to go each evening to worship with the hundreds of youth and adults that are on campus. (Asa, our oldest, goes as a camper and loves it!) One of the best parts of Soul Quest is seeing many friends that we rarely get to see. It’s like a big reunion and it’s wonderful. :)

Then on Saturday we picked Asa up from Soul Quest and dropped him off at church camp where he is serving as a counselor this week. (Yes, Asa is just a little bit busy this summer. Ah to have the energy of a 15 year old!)

I had heard that my friend Donna, whom I haven’t seen for way too long, was going to be at camp this week with her boys. Therefore, I hoped that when we dropped Asa off I might have just a small chance to hug her neck and catch up for a little while. Well guess what? Donna was the first person I saw when we arrived at the camp ground. And then guess what else? We actually got to visit for over an hour while as our boys played (and got filthy) together. :) And then guess what else? (Why yes, I am excited about my weekend.) After I had visited with Donna for a while, her mom showed up and I got to hug and visit with her too! Donna’s mom has always been a lovely encouragement to me.

I left camp with my cup overflowing.

(I also left with a few ticks, but let’s definitely not talk about that…) ;)

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Gratituesday: Healthy Marriage

June 11, 2012 by Laura 23 Comments

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You know you’ve been married for almost 18 years when you pull into your driveway and your heart melts at the sight of your husband dripping with sweat, with dirt under his nails, and wearing mis-matched work clothes. Hey, what could possibly be more awesome than the sight of a hard working husband, taking such good care of his family? He could be dressed all spiffy like, bringing me flowers, and I guess I’d be okay with that too. But I’m telling you – give the guy a shovel or a paint brush and my heart starts to thump.

This proves I’m an oldie-wed, but I don’t care. I love how Matt shows his care for me by doing all the “little” things that need to be done around here.

Matt and I feel very strongly that God has called us to encourage others in their marriage. We are so thankful for the marriage God has given us and would love for others to experience the same. (We also pray often for protection in our marriage and for others who are striving for a healthy marriage. Satan would love to destroy strong marriages. We’ve got to fight, friends!)

As a reminder, since we haven’t shared it here for a while, we’ve got a FREE Healthy Marriage From A to Z eBook in our Shop. We’d love for you to go download it (no strings attached!) and read through it. Feel free to share it with anyone you wish. We don’t claim to be experts. We just enjoyed sharing our hearts on the subject and put it into a free resource for you. (We finally put a link to the book on our sidebar too, for easy access!)

Praise God for marriage! He is good.

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Gratituesday: Yard Sale

June 4, 2012 by Laura 18 Comments

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I typically do not enjoy having yard sales. They are a lot of work and take a lot of time. However, for a few years now, we have been accumulating items in our basement we wanted to get rid of. Last weekend, we finally decided to just get it done.

The boys hauled it all out, then we set to organizing it on tables.

This unrecognizable kid showed up sometime while we were getting things out of boxes and setting up. We were pretty sure it was Malachi, but we may never know for sure…

Just for fun, I took a picture of some cooking I did last Thursday in an effort to get ahead for the weekend. I knew Friday and Saturday would be full, so having easy to warm up foods was a real life saver!

I made Calzones, Corn Dog Muffins, Cheesy Salsa Enchiladas, and Giant Breakfast Cookies. What? The giant cookies don’t look very big? Well, that’s what happens when you’re making too many recipes at once and you forget to add eggs to the cookies. Ah well, at least they still tasted good. ;)

But back to the yard sale. Ultimately, we just wanted to get rid of the “junk” and de-clutter our home. Therefore, in the hopes of seeing the stuff walk away, our yard sale prices were crazy low. In fact, we didn’t put a price tag on much of anything. When people asked what we wanted for an item, we just threw out a low number, in hopes they would just take it!

More than once, when asked how much we wanted for a toy or a plate, we’d shrug and say, “How about a quarter?” And would you believe that people would say, “Oh, that doesn’t sound like enough! I’ll give you 50¢. How does that sound?” Ha! It was the opposite of anything I’d experienced at any yard sale. People were requesting to give us MORE money than we were asking for.

By Saturday, we’d sold everything of value to us, so we just told people to take whatever they wanted for free. We found that it was a fun way to bless people and get our house cleaned out at the same time.

It ended up being a great weekend and yay for me, my house is cleaned out!

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Gratituesday: The Cousins

May 28, 2012 by Laura 22 Comments

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We have had a great big cousin filled weekend. The boys are dirty, tired, and basking in the memory of the past few days.

We were blessed to go to Kansas for an extended weekend where we had two different reunions. I come from a very large extended family. My grandfather was the youngest of twelve children, and my dad was the youngest of nine children. So when I say large extended family, I mean large extended family.

And oh the cousins!

I’m thankful for the blessing of family. I’m thankful for the blessing of a Christian heritage. And I’m thankful that I was able to celebrate both of those this weekend.

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Gratituesday: Four Plus Ten…the Houseful of Boys

May 21, 2012 by Laura 38 Comments

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We have had a big day. Cleaning, baking, rearranging furniture, getting out towels and sheets…

Tonight, our church was honored to host a high school choir from out of state who is touring over the next few days. We signed up to keep ten boys at our house. Why ten? Well…why not? :) (The real answer is that we have a big house, and filling it with boys is fun for us!)

I had so much fun baking and getting food ready for this crowd. I knew they’d be hungry after the concert, so I made a pan of Fudge Brownies, a pan of Butterscotch Bars and a triple batch of Cream Cheese Salsa Dip for them to eat when they got here. They did not disappoint. Apparently, singing makes teenage boys hungry. ;)

Take a look at who is singing with the choir there on the bottom right!
The director invited any young children from the audience to join them for one song.
Justus was the only one of ours brave enough to go up there.

I took a few pics during the day while I was preparing some of the other food for their visit. I decided to make several batches of muffins for breakfast since we need to get them up and out the door fairly early tomorrow morning. I’ve got (hopefully) plenty of fruit to go with the muffins.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, Banana Muffins,
Blueberry Muffins, and Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

I packed lunches for 16 boys (the ten we hosted plus six more), and found that an assembly line with help from a great friend was a great way to whip out 36 sandwiches.

Once we finished the sandwiches, we kept with the assembly line theme and loaded up big sacks. The boys will take these on the road with them tomorrow. (Sandwiches, chips, crackers, applesauce, homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies, a cereal bar, and a bottle of water.)

We’re so thankful for the blessing of hosting these boys. Oh, and did I mention that I found out this morning that two of them are my cousin’s boys?! I had no idea they were touring with the group. What an added blessing!

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Gratituesday: My Gift

May 14, 2012 by Laura 42 Comments

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Ever since I lost my mom to ALS in July of 2004, Mother’s Day has been difficult for me. I miss her every day, but Mother’s Day is always harder.

Matt has always been so considerate each Mother’s Day – spoiling me and making the day special, yet acknowledging and understanding that it is a day that I tend to feel sad. I love his strength and compassion.

We don’t tend to give each other gifts on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. We’ve never felt much need, and instead, fixing special food has always been our fun tradition. That is why I was so surprised to be presented with this on our way to church Sunday morning:

Receiving a gift at all was surprise enough. Seeing that he picked out a Bible with a cover described as “Pink and Chocolate” – well, does that tell you how well he knows me or what? And did you see what he had engraved on my new Bible?

Isn’t he the sweetest?

My husband shows me great honor in how he continually treats me like his queen. He had all of our boys sign the inside of the Bible, letting it be a gift from all of them.

I feel empowered to rise to the occasion and be the kind of Heavenly Homemaker they deserve and desire. I am honored to be the one God has chosen to make our family’s home more heavenly.

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Gratituesday: Wrapping It Up

May 7, 2012 by Laura 33 Comments

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Every year is my favorite school year. This year was no exception.

I love home schooling my kids. I love all the time we get to spend together every day. I love reading piles of incredible books with them. I love having a flexible schedule. I love learning beside them. Seriously, did you know that we have 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies? That’s enough to go around the entire earth almost three times! Yes, I learned that today. I am getting so smart. (It is an added benefit to home schooling that the kids are getting smarter as well.) ;)

We’ll be continuing to read all summer, but we do usually take a break from “regular school work” for a couple of months. This week, we’re wrapping up our last few math lessons and finishing the final chapters of a few books…

And then? Well, it would appear that we started a new tradition last year on our final “official” school day: Ice Cream Cones for Breakfast.

And not the healthy, homemade ice cream either. I know. I don’t know how that even came about. But apparently I did it last year, so that’s all the boys have been talking about for the past few days. Hey, why not? We can have broccoli for lunch that day.

I am so thankful for the gift of another great school year with my kids. And…I am amazed at a God who could arrange 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels in my body with such perfection. What an amazing Creator!

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