Ladies' Coffee Hour

Some time ago I wrote about our morning Ladies' Coffee Hour, which is our devotional time in the morning before school starts.  We have continued with it -- hey, I'm doing good.  This is the second thing I have purposed in my heart to do consistenly this year, which I am still doing. (The other is daily exercise.)  Hooray!  The girls and I are reading through the Bible together, sort of skipping through the non-narrative portions, but summarizing them as we go along.  This morning we were in Numbers, which doesn't have a lot of action, but I try to make it thrilling.

After reading the Bible, I read aloud to them from History Stories for Children.  It is below my older girls' level, but big kids aren't too big to learn from a little kids' book.  (Especially when they are weak in history, as you will see.)  Our topic was the US flag, combined with a teeny bit of info about WWI and Armistice Day.  Today's chapter began with a young boy gazing at the flag, thinking about his father who had gone off to France in 1918.  I stopped and asked the girls, "What war was going on in 1918?" 
"...The war of 1812?"  
"Um, no, that was World War I." 
Same child: "Oh yeah.  That is the one where the king and queen of Spain got shot, and everyone got mad and started a war!" 
Now, I am not going to tell you which of my brilliant, super-achiever homeschooled children said these things.  But I WILL tell you that sometimes it is better NOT to have the older children present when trying to teach the younger ones. LOL!  *Sigh*

Next we moved on to a nice picture book by Eve Bunting, How Many Days to America?  A Thanksgiving Story, which is about a Cuban refugee family arriving in America on Thanksgiving Day, with something BIG to be thankful for -- FREEDOM.  We talked about Castro and how all the poor Cubans thought he was going to bring "Change" and prosperity, only to find that Communism was not a good change for the people, after all.

For the past year or more I have been copying and saving good blogposts and articles about femininity, homemaking, goals for girls, courting, etc.  I have been picking one or two of those items from my folder each morning also, and sharing with my daughters what a wonderful privilege and blessing it is to be what God made us to be.  Today we read about the benefits of being a strong woman -- not in the sense of being headstrong/empowered/liberated but in the sense of having strength of character and the ability to be strong and submissive at the same time. Now there's a talent. And hey! There's an idea for my next church ladies' newsletter article... 

Strength and honour are her clothing;
and she shall rejoice in time to come.
Proverbs 31:25