Is it Spring YET?!

I am so ready for Spring time and WARM weather! I am ready to be able to get the kiddos out of the house and get FRESH air. I am ready to hear the birds chirping and for light earlier in the day. I am ready for the buds to be on the trees, and the grass to be green. I am ready to open my windows and let the house air out. I am ready to spring clean my house! I am ready to put coats away and get out the jackets! I am ready for cold/flu season to be OVER!

I am very thankful that the winter season is ALMOST over! I do not enjoy the bitter cold weather, but I do appreciate that the season does not last forever! I am thankful for a home that is warm during the cold months too. I know God has a purpose for winter and I try to remember to not complain!

Eventful Weekend

On Friday Rob flew home for the weekend, and our truck was finished being worked on!! I am so thankful that only the last 2 weeks of the truck being out of commission was the only time we had no transportation!! God provided and when we really wanted it back it was done:-) Friday night we went to dinner and the mall. Hannah had birthday money to spend. She left the mall with 2 pairs of tennis shoes and a t-shirt that says I am a Brilliant Sister! HA!

Saturday we filed taxes, and grocery shopped. At 3 we went to Camby and got to help with the McKamey's concert with Conner Promotions! It was such a blessing to hear good Gospel music. The 3 oldest girls went with us. It was Rachel's first time going to a concert and she LOVED it! I love that my girls enjoy good music.

Sunday we got to go to church as a WHOLE family! What a blessing to sit with my husband in Sunday school and church! Sunday night Elizabeth followed the Lord's command and got baptized. My heart is overflowing with greatfulness to God's blessings and love to me and my family! My 3 oldest have all asked Jesus into their hearts and I am ever thankful knowing they know where they will spend eternity! Julia (5.5) has been asking a lot of questions about Salvation so I know it is a matter of time before she is ready too!

Yesterday we had to take Daddy back to the airport :-( It made me sad, but I know he is where he is supposed to be right now, and before long he won't have to be gone away from us. I am extremely greatful for the opportunity he was given by his employer.  I love my husband more than I can ever put into words! God gave me a special gift when He gave me Rob! He is my best friend, and I know I can always tell him what is bothering me! When I screw up he is always loving and forgiving:-) and YES, I screw up often!

Wednesday Check-In!

Middle of the week and all is well! On Saturday I got my bedroom totally clean and rearranged! I am amazed at the room we now have in there! Hannah rearranged her room again, and thankfully it wasn't in the middle of the night! On Sunday we were home due to the truck being fixed so we studied I Corinthians 13. The 3 older girls are now memorizing the chapter. I want them to have God's love deep in their hearts and i want them to understand WHY we treat others with charity! Our next set of verses will be Ephesians 6. I want them to KNOW how and why we need to stand against the devil. I am in the middle of week 4 with the www.goodmorninggirls.org Bible study and I am humbled by all I have learned! I am so thankful that my sister-in-law Rachel showed it to me! I have a new outlook on how I should be living for Christ.


 I started my 90 Day Health Challenge on Saturday and have already lost a pound! I am excited to continue on with this and see what happens! Right now I am working towards getting my next month for free! Please contact me if you would be interested in learning more!

 Last night the I helped the girls make a tent! After the tent was made I allowed them to stay up later and watch movies! They LOVED it. I love doing little things like that to make them happy. That is one of the joys of homeschooling! I get to do special things during the week and not worry about the time because we can adjust our day accordingly! Rachel finished her last Reading light unit today and that made her so excited. She even got a 100%!! I am very proud of my girls.

We now have 2 more sleeps until Rob flies home for the weekend!! We made a chart to mark off the days. We are using heart stickers to cover our days and Friday is marked with a heart sticker with the picture of a girl kissing a boy! I can't wait to see him and spend some time with him:-) I am so blessed with a husband that works so hard and is willing to travel to help us financially. We are not perfect, but we love each other and strive to have a good marriage. We have to work at it daily and at times overlook each others faults! I am thankful for a Godly husband!

Small Victories!

Today was the first day that I did not have to tell the 3 oldest to go do their daily Bible reading after breakfast!! This really got me excited! I know that they will be rewarded greatly and learn so much by not fussing and arguing before Bible reading! I think it has helped that they see me reading my Bible each day too. I am LOVING the Bible study I am in! There is so much to learn in the first few chapters of Luke! So thankful that God gave us His Word to read and understand!

Tomorrow I am starting my 90 day health challenge and I am so excited to get started! It is amazing to me how things come into our lives just when we need them! I am ready to begin and get this weight off of me for good! I would love to blame it on having 6 kiddos but unfortunately they are not the reason! I was already overweight before I had my first! My goal is to have my body in the shape that it should be so I can glorify my Lord even more! This is what I am doing! Check it out and see if this is something you would want to do and if it is you can contact me for more information! http://corkeylynn.bodybyvi.com/challenge I will be updating my blog each week with how much I have lost in weight and inches! 

Lastly, I am ever thankful for ALL that my Savior does for me! I have many friends facing trials that are life changing and I am blessed with my health and my family!I have a husband who LOVES me and takes very good care of us! We may not have every desire BUT all of our needs are met! I want to publicly thank the Lord for giving me the man of my dreams! He is exactly the type of man I prayed for and I forever want to give my God praise for Rob! I pray for him daily and although he is not perfect to some he is perfect to me! I love you forever and always Rob!!

Catching Up and New Year New Me

Sorry to those of you who follow me on a regular basis! I have not posted for a LONG time! I didn't realize Nov.8th was the last time I posted! Life has been very busy around the Kennedy house!

Rob was home for 2 weeks at Thanksgiving and we had someone with the flu the WHOLE time he was home!! Then he was back to TX for 3 weeks. He got home the Friday before Christmas. He has been home for about a week when he got the call that he was definitely going to FL! He left Jan. 2. He will be there until the end of July. While it is harder when he is gone, I am thankful for this opportunity that he has. He is flying home next weekend and I can't wait to see him!! He bought a bike when he got there and has been riding a ton. He said he needs suspenders to hold his pants up!!

I think we have FINALLY found a routine that fits for the girls and I during the days. I get the girls up at 9 and they have an hour to eat, dress and play. At 10 we start our school day by reading our Bibles. Our church is reading through the Bible in a year and I have my girls reading the New Testament. After they read what is scheduled for the day we read the Proverb for the day. This usually takes about an hour. Then we are ready to begin school work. Each child works at their own pace and we get done by 3 at the latest! After school the little ones watch Dora while the older ones start doing their jobs. I implemented a new thing of an hour of TV each evening. We record shows that they like to watch and each evening after ALL chores are complete they get their hour. This has been working very well for us.

As all of you know I am overweight! When Rob left I started my journey of weight loss again! I have lost 7 pounds so far just by counting my calories and MEASURING everything I eat! I no longer guestimate. I had a Pampered Chef party and literally earned a TON of FREE items! I purchased their food scale and USE it daily! I am really wanting to get slim this year. I know that I feel better just with 7 pounds gone! On Saturday I got rid of my size 16 skirts! My goal is 140 so I have about 40 more to lose. I am also working on growing closer to the Lord. I have tried several times to read my Bible in a year. I have ALWAYS failed when I get to Leviticus. I am a person who wants to totally understand something and Leviticus has ALWAYS been hard for me. I am excited because I am up to chapter 7 in Leviticus and still pressing on. I am also doing a Bible study with my sister-in-law and others using www.Goodmorninggirls.org. God is teaching me so mean things and we are only starting week 3! I want to learn more about my Lord and grow closer to Him this year. New me on the outside and new me on the inside!! I want my girls to learn to love the Lord by watching me love the Lord. Please pray as I try to conquer these things!

Scrapes and Bumps in the Night!

At about 1:30 this morning I was awakened by a loud bang. My bedroom is right above our back door in the basement. I grabbed my phone ready to call 911 if I heard something else. As I am listening for the next noise it sounded like someone was scraping the side of our house. I jumped out of bed and was looking out the side window to see if anything was out there. I saw NOTHING!! Phone still in my hand I decided to check the other windows.

As I step into the hall I noticed a light on in Hannah's room. This is not abnormal because they sometimes sleep with the light on. I opened her door to turn the light off to look out the windows and was SHOCKED to find her MOVING furniture!! I was not very happy, but relieved I hadn't made my FRANTIC 911 call yet! I calmly (as calmly as you can at 1:30 am after the SCARE of your life) told her to get in bed and GO TO SLEEP!!! I also explained that even though her room looked nice it was time to SLEEP! 

Add this as a reason I am glad we home school. My children are night owls at times, and change rooms around!

A Month of Thankfulness

Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday. It is a time for family and EATING with NO guilt!! I love everything about it! I love the colors of fall, the chill and smell in the air. Normally we spend Thanksgiving with my Mom's side of the family, but this year I am going to do our own. Rob has been gone for almost 10 weeks and I want to have special time with him and our girls before he travels back to Texas in December. I can't wait to buy my turkey, and start planning all of my sides and desserts! :-)

I am researching things about the first Thanksgiving to see what I can add to our celebration to make it educational too. I found this on Wikipedia so far and have more to find. 

In the United States

Main article: Thanksgiving (United States)

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth By Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914)

In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly traced to a 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. In later years, the tradition was continued by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.^[9][10][11] The practice of holding an annual harvest festival like this did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.^[12]

Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.^[13][14]

Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress, each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.^[15] As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".^[16]

According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.^[17]

Every year, the President of the United States will “pardon” a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.^[18]

Debate about first celebrations

The traditional representation of where the first Thanksgiving was held in the United States, and even the Americas, has often been a subject of debate, though the debate is often confused by mixing up the ideas of a Thanksgiving holiday celebration and a Thanksgiving religious service. This debate has been called a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense."^[13] There is evidence for an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598, as well as thanksgiving feasts in the Virginia Colony.^[19] The initial thanksgiving observance at Virginia in 1619 was prompted by the colonists' leaders on the anniversary of the settlement.^[20] Author and teacher Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida have argued that the earliest attested "Thanksgiving" service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565, in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.^[21][22]

Thanksgiving services were routine in Virginia as early as 1607.^[23] A day for Thanksgiving services was codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619.^[24]

Since Rob is still in TX for the next 2 weeks I am going to start doing special crafts to use for decorations for our feast. I will be perusing PINTEREST for great ideas too. We will definitely have hand turkeys, and our own place mats. I want to do formal place settings just to make it special. I would love to find special table ware too. It may just be fancy paper plates, but it will be SPECIAL!! I know the most special thing will be being together as a family again! We have missed Rob like CRAZY! We cannot wait to wrap out arms around him and kiss his face!

The thing I love MOST is reflecting on everything God has done in the last year for our family. As I look back I see all of the blessings God  has given us. I am thankful every day of my life but there is something about the month of November that brings it all to a head. Every day  life tends to wear us down and we sometimes forget to be thankful, Thanksgiving usually reminds people to be THANKFUL and remember that things aren't as bad as it seems. Over the years it seems as though Thanksgiving has been lost to Halloween, and Christmas. It is time that we put an emphasis back on THANKSGIVING and to what it means to be thankful. God has been merciful to each and everyone of us. No matter what you have been through I am sure you can find at least one thing to be thankful for! Food, shelter, job? I challenge each of my friends to find something to be thankful for during this month of thankfulness!