Capture Your 365

Time for another week of photos!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.8, 1/6 sec

Day 52 – Performance: Kelsey working on her least favorite subject, math. At least she likes the program we use: Teaching Textbooks! I love that all, and I do mean all, of the problems have a solution that is explained in easy to understand terms. The curriculum has made my life easier as a homeschool mom!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/50 sec

Day 53 – Sweet Treats: I have to say I am loving these excuses to bake! Made up a batch of my favorite sugar cookies for this photo prompt. Kelsey helped me with the icing and the sprinkles. Even though the icing turned out a little too pink for my liking, it was the perfect color for the photo.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.5, 1/13 sec

Day 54 – Framed: I am not one to usually take pictures tilted, but given the suggestion for this prompt, I thought I would give it a try on this photo. That wicked cough came back over the weekend, so hot tea with honey was my way to try to beat it, with one of my favorite mugs of course.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.5, 1/13 sec

Day 55 – For the Love Of Music: Kelsey has been diligently practicing a song with the hopes of playing it at church soon.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/60 sec

Day 56 – A Cup Of ____ : For me in the morning, it is always orange juice! My favorite go-to breakfast most often is a bowl of cheerios and a cup of orange juice. Yum!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/13 sec

Day 57 – From The Side: This Bible sits on a table in the entry way of our home. It belonged to a set of great grandparents who I don’t believe I ever met. But it was special to my grandmother, and she gave it to me to keep, which makes it a special heirloom for me to cherish.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/2000 sec

Bonus photo!: On my way home from photography class last week, I just had to pull over to take this picture. The sun was starting to set and I had noticed on the way to class that some of the almond trees were starting to blossom. Sure is nice having that big girl camera with me at times like this one!

What did you photograph this past week?

Want to join in the fun? Visit Capture Your 365 and sign up for her mailing list. You get a daily e-mail with the photo prompt for the day. As you may have noticed, there are days that I have missed, but it sure is fun adding a little creativity to what I am able to capture each day. Hope you join me on this photo adventure!

Have ‘Just A Minute’?

If you do, you might just have a chance to win a book!

Over on the Compassion blog today, there are some details on how you can earn a chance to possibly win one of 50 copies of this book, Just A Minute by Wess Stafford. This book includes 68 stories, 68 moments that have changed the lives of children. If you love the mission of Compassion, you will want to have a copy of this book in your home library. Reading this book will inspire you to remember to take a minute, a moment to make the difference in the life of a child.

So go ahead and enter the contest! And if you do, let me know where you shared your picture. But hurry, you only have until February 28th!

You started blogging when?

So I took a peek back at my old blog to remember when I posted my first blog post…April 2006!! Almost 7 years ago! Yikes!

My kids were this little once!

One of my very first posts was about our cookie making activity from using the Mystery of History curriculum. I find this very interesting because Kelsey and I are going through Volume One again this year, although I don’t believe we made the Joseph coat cookies this time.

A lot has happened since that first set of blog posts: my kids are 7 years older (and so am I!), Matthew has graduated from our homeschool and is working full time now, and Kelsey is my only student. Over a year ago, I moved my blog to Blogger and just a couple of months ago, to WordPress.com. And over the last 2 years, not only do I blog about my family and some of our daily happenings in our little corner of the world, but our experiences with Compassion have taken a front seat on my blog.

My blogging goals are posted for this year on my About page. On that page, you can also find links to some of the posts that were popular on my Blogger blog before I moved it over to WordPress.com. There is also a link to the Compassion website and a link to a Pinterest board with letter writing ideas for your Compassion sponsored kids. If you haven’t taken a peek at my About page yet, you might just learn a little more about me with the random facts I have listed.

My friend, Kendra, over at Preschoolers and Peace has been helping me with some great tips and encouragement as I begin to be more intentional about my blogging. She has a lot of great information to share, so be sure to visit her blog today.

So, if you are a blogger, how long have you been blogging?

Capture Your 365

Out of the seven prompts for this week, I only took photos for four of them. Had trouble getting inspired with a couple of the prompts for this past week. But I hope you enjoy the photos I did take this week!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/80 sec

Day 45 – Love: It just made sense that the prompt fell on Valentine’s Day! We have made it a tradition to stay home on this day for and have a nice dinner with the kids. We bring out the china and crystal, and usually have a fancy dessert. Less pressure on us this way…

ISO 100, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec

Day 48 – Color From The Garden: First of my bulbs to bloom! It is always a surprise in the spring to see what bulbs are going to bloom.

ISO 100, 50mm, f/5.6, 1/8 sec

Day 49 – A Favorite Snack: So I thought today would be the perfect day to bake my favorite chocolate chip cookies (it is worth the 14 day free trial to get this recipe!) and photograph them. However, I didn’t put the full amount of flour in these so they turned out rather flat (I can’t believe I did that!) To remedy this, I took another photo after dinner…

ISO 100, 50mm, f/2.0, 1/30 sec

…ice cream, another one of my favorite snacks!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/4000 sec

Day 50 – A Tree: a winter, leaf-less tree awaiting the coming storm

What did you photograph this last week?

Sending more than money

There are a few things you can do to make your relationship with your Compassion sponsored child just a little more special.

1. Lord willing, continue your financial sponsorship until the child has completed the program
2. Pray for your sponsored child and his family daily
3. Post a photo of your sponsored child in a special spot in your home
4. Write letters of encouragement to your sponsored child

If you do these four things, you will be making a huge difference in the life of a child living in extreme poverty. Your involvement in this child’s life could be what brings him/her and his/her family into a relationship with Christ. Isn’t that amazing that a relationship that is formed from another continent can be enough to make the difference in many lives? We may never know what the eternal impact of our involvement in these kid’s lives will be.

As a Compassion sponsor, we are not required to do more than the four things listed above, but I know that as a family, we like to send more than just a letter to our Compassion kids. On the Compassion website, they give tips for connecting with your sponsored child:

• tips for writing to your sponsored child
• tips for mailing small gifts
• answers to your questions about letter writing

Another place you can find some great letter writing ideas is on Pinterest. Compassion has a Pinterest account and the fun thing is that I am a contributor to the Compassion Pinterest account! There is a board dedicated to Letter Writing Ideas which currently has just over 100 creative ideas to include with your letters.

Source: lillightomine.com via Yvonne on Pinterest

 

One of my favorites projects that we have done so far is to trace our hands onto cardstock and write our favorite Bible verse. We sent these with extra cardstock with instructions for our sponsored kids to trace their hands and send them back to us with their favorite Bible verse written on it.

Source: blog.compassion.com via Compassion International on Pinterest

 

We have received 2 of these handprints back!

What creative item have you sent to your Compassion sponsored child lately?

Our Bucket List Date Night

Last weekend, my husband and I were able to go out for our monthly date night. Since I put the idea for each month in an envelope before Christmas, I am having a hard time remembering what is inside each envelope, which makes it a bit of surprise for me to!

On my Facebook page, I asked my friends to chime in with the favorite local restaurant. I was looking for something new and different. My friends did not disappoint us! We received some wonderful suggestions and decided to try a small family-owned Italian restaurant. So off we went with our paper and my camera to give this place a try.

We were greeted with a hug at the door! They made us feel like family!

Once we placed our order, Kev opened the envelope to see what our date task would be…create bucket lists! Time to dream! With our red pieces of paper and sharpies, we started writing down some dreams:

• trip to Europe
• drive down Highway One in a convertible Porsche
• own a BMW M3
• take a class at the Culinary Institute

As each course of our dinner came, we would eat and continue to write down some dream items on our lists.

• work for Disney
• go on a Compassion trip
• race a car in a vintage autocross race
• have all the camera equipment I would ever need

Each course was so amazing and delicious. We continued to eat our dinner and write down our dreams.

• bobsledding
• own and fly my own airplane
• own Apple stock
• have a work from home job with Compassion

We decided early on that we will be visiting this restaurant again soon!

• own original artwork from a Disney artist
• spend a couple of nights at the Ahwahnee in Yosemite

At one point during our dinner, our gracious hostess invited us back to the kitchen.

We began to wonder if they thought we were food/restaurant critics since we had been taking notes and taking pictures 🙂

• visit the Louvre
• have a vacation home by the beach

I know this is not the best picture of the two of us. The picture is a little out of focus and I only had the 50mm lens with me which is a manual focus lens. But we had a really nice time talking and dreaming and enjoying some amazing food that night.

What is on your bucket list?

Capture Your 365

Time for another week of photos!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/3.2, 1/30 sec

Day 38: Use Your Senses – homemade granola bars, fresh from the oven

ISO 400, 50mm, f/3.5, 1/4 sec

Day 39: More Than One – paper hearts hanging from the mantle for Valentine’s Day

ISO 400, 50mm, f/2.2, 1/60 sec

Day 40: Through The Looking Glass – self-portrait day, didn’t really want to take a picture of myself using the mirror in my bathroom, so out came the tri-pod! I used the self-timer on this one and thought it would be fun to capture a little bit of who I am in this one.

ISO 400, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/25 sec

Day 42: Entertain – winter time is such a great time for a cup of tea!

ISO 100, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/2500 sec

Day 43: Celebrate – so thankful that I live in California where we are able to experience an earlier spring. Which means that summer is not too far away! 🙂

What have you photographed this past week?

Share your bread with the hungry

Soon after I became an advocate with Compassion, I read 58:Fast Living: How The Church Will End Extreme Poverty by Scott Todd. It was an eye-opening book for me because as Christians, we have always heard the verse, “The poor you will always have with you” – Matthew 26:11. I love Dr. Todd’s explanation of this verse. Do you have 10 minutes? I encourage you to take time to watch this video above. Go ahead, I’ll wait 🙂

One of the challenges that is presented on the Live58 web site is to do our part to fast, pray, and give to end extreme poverty. Did you watch the video? Do you believe we can do this in our lifetime? With the help of other Christians in our nation, I know it is possible.

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” – Isaiah 58:6-7

Will you prayerfully consider sharing your bread with a hungry child today?

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You can…Change The Story!

Short Main Video from Compassion International on Vimeo.

As a Compassion sponsor, one of the things you can do at least once a year is share your love for this ministry with your local church family. Each year in the spring, Compassion gives us the materials and opportunity to share how sponsoring a child not only impacts that child’s life, but your life as well.

Right now on the Compassion Sunday website, you can view video testimonials, order a free planning guide, read facts about poverty, and many other things.

Planning a Compassion Sunday is easy:

1. Pray about your participation
2. Talk with your pastor
3. Order a free planning guide
4. Prepare your presentation

Everything you need to plan and prepare for your Compassion Sunday is available on the Compassion Sunday website.

Are you ready to help Change the Story for more children living in extreme poverty? I hope you are!

My continuing education…so to speak

“No one can get an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process.”

-Louis L’Amour

I love to read!

We have books in almost every room in our home, and I am usually reading at least three books at any given time. I have always loved to read. I was the one who would get in trouble for reading past my bedtime with a flashlight. The flashlight would be taken away, but that didn’t stop my. I would sit by window and dream of living with Laura Ingalls out on the prairie…

A few years ago, I was reading a blog post of a friend of mine where she talked about a commonplace book. In this particular blog post, Cheryl talks about the importance of investing in ourselves as wives and moms to be reading good books to encourage us to continue in this path we have chosen to follow.

I have now filled up two composition journals with quotes and Bible verses that have spoken to me over these past few years. I was just thinking today what a gift these will be for my daughter when she is old enough to become a wife and mother.

Have you read any good books lately?