Holly at Seeking Faithfulness inspired me to tell about the soaps I just bought at Kansas Milkmaid's new Country Store. These are great homemade-with-healthy ingredients soaps, not detergents like grocery store 'soap'. They still have all the glycerin in them, which keeps them from drying out your skin. And they smell incredible!

I made a bar of the Loopy Limon into liquid soap so we could use it for homemade baby wipes. (Grate the bar, put in a heat-proof bowl and cover with 2 cups of boiling water. It melts quickly into liquid.) 

I feel comfortable putting this on my baby's skin, because I trust Christina who made it. But there are tons of folks who sell their homemade  soaps. I hope to sell my own one day.  The reason I wanted to support Christina in this new endeavor is because I respect her reason for starting the soap business. I respect a lot of folks reasons for selling their soaps, but this one really hit home with me. As a family who is on their way out of a mortgage (our only debt), it struck a resounding chord.

By the way, there are scents to please everyone. Mr. Visionary announced that even he would use the Loopy Limon or the Citrus bar, although I don't expect to see him touching the Prairie Rose.

Don't want to smell like a chick, you know...

Although he often does come out smelling like a rose.

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Granted, His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:9), and there are a myriad of reasons for His workings that I will never understand. It is just a given. We're dust, He's God, and that's that. I do, however wonder if sometimes His reasons are for no other purpose than just a fun blessing for us- a sweet surprise to keep us from putting Him in a "what-God-always-does" box.   Although she may one day use her hair to glorify the Lord in some way (at the very least bless her husband), the chances of my daughter becoming a circus acrobat that swings from her hair are slim. Anyway, judging from our other girls, the amount of hair at birth has little relevance to how much they will eventually have. I know this-I've mistaken their hairbrushes for small furry animals before. So the logical conclusion is that Babydoll's hair is simply a sweet present from the Lord.   For those unfamilliar with the usual hair models bald-but-beautiful babies our family has produced, a quick picture show:     The Literary Lady~ 15 months old     The Flower Child~6 months old   The Engineer~5 months old   The Dreamer~6 months old   Little Napoleon~on his first birthday   The Doodle~2 months old

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I would not have believed it if I had not experienced it first-hand today. No offense to Doug Philips, or any of the other speakers and writers I had heard expounding on the merits of the practice. I was beginning to think the whole idea was merely a product of their own optimism with no basis in fact. Over the past few months, I have been frantically searching   calmly investigating my options in finding a young lady to come to help the week after I deliver our newest baby. My rose-colored dreams involved a young lady, finished with formal schooling, who lives at home, a mature believer skilled in homemaking and childcare. I prayed for someone who would have enough margin built in to her life that she could be free to answer the Lord's call to come and serve at our house for a few days at a moments notice. Granted, it was a pipe dream   tall order, but I was hopeful. I think I am in love. This dream lady came over today and spent most of the day getting to know the children, experiencing our routine, and fellowshipping with the children and me. Miss Bekah is better by far than I even imagined-a gift to our family from the Lord. I had forgotten how thorough the Lord is when He bestows gifts. Not only was this young lady homeschooled and raised on a farm, (nothing inherently righteous there, just that she "gets" us), but her Momma was a La Leche League Leader, and she appears to know more about childbirth and nursing than the average first-time mother. Apparently they do exist. The more I know about this young lady... the more I want to sit at her Momma's feet and learn from her. The more I know about this young lady... the more I want to sit at my Lord's feet and thank Him for sending her. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights..." James 1: 17.

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Not everything is worth doing. I know this. After watching Mr. Visionary and the children perusing the Guiness Book Of World Records website and rehashing for me the idiotic stunts marvels they have witnessed, I am more confident than ever. These are people that have too much free time.

Often folks remark upon my choices with disdain. Once they ascertain that I indeed "know what causes this", they are baffled as to why one would willingly have "so many children". The stress, headache and financial burden are the only pieces they can see in the homeschool puzzle. Growing tomatoes from seed, making our own bread, milking our own cows, stump the checkers at Wal-Mart, grandparents, folks who sit near us in church average person. Although falling outside the scope of this post, our reasons for our choices are rich and numerous, but to us, they are worth doing.

We have been recently reminded of another activity that for us, is worth doing. Laziness and busyness squeezed it out of our schedule for a while, but we have rediscovered the joys of "Family Night". While we are actively engaged with our children for far more hours per week than the norm, there is still something special about dropping everything else, and just being together.

Presumably because we do not have television, watching a movie together is a fun treat. When the weather is nice,to eliminate popcorn on the carpet make it even more novel, we have "Drive-In Movie Night". We pull the cushions off the couches, grab pillows and blankets, cuddle and set up the TV out on the deck. Plenty of butter on the popcorn, homemade ice cream, and liberal use of the pause button for potty breaks make for a lighthearted diversion from the discipline, chores and ritual of our usual routine. The popcorn tricks and pillow fights are bonuses. Yeah, this is worth doing.

Drive-Ins may be extinct, but our version has a better view anyway.

Edited to add: Mr. Visionary would like to let the record show that he personally agrees with my assessment of the Guiness Book "activities", but has too much fun checking it out with the kids to cease his current practices. He promises to not tell The Mommy any more of the "what people ate" stories.

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My wonderful Husband is giggling at me.

"You really have a blog?" he asks, stiffling a snicker and trying to maintain composure.

"No, Baby, WE have a blog." Yeah!!

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