It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’m sitting here at my desk trying to get some editing done while the kids play. Outside it’s a beautiful day. After three solid months of colder weather, and even snow, the weather has turned to sunny and warm, with a gentle breeze.

The birds are in the trees out doors and the cats are lounging around. Yesterday I got out and cleaned up a couple of the garden beds and planted a few short-season, cool weather items that hopefully will grow before the weather turns hot.

Inside I have a small green house holding my tomato seedlings waiting for the cool weather to go away so I can plant them out in a few weeks.

The kids are playing on the patio right now, drawing with chalk and joking around with a friend.

Soon one or more of them will hop on a bike and take a ride around the yard.

That’s their latest thing – riding around the yard.

 Early last week, the kids dug trenches to drain the water out of the “pond” I showed you a few weeks ago, and now there’s bumps and bridges, and all the makings of a modest dirt/mountain bike track.

So they’ve been riding around on that. They won’t even go out in the cul-de-sac to ride now, because it’s so much fun to race around the yard with all the bumps and obstacles

It’s a wonderful beautiful day. And while I need to work to meet my deadlines, it’s a awesome thing to look up from my desk and see the kids playing and riding around.

In fact right now, Jazzy (Kate’s little Bichon) is chasing Kate (on her bike) around the yard.

Here is what it’s all about… enjoying a beautiful day, nature, and the companionship of family and friends.

Gotta love it!

Today, I wanted to share with you a lesson I’ve learned about getting out my kids’ way and allowing them to be creative and follow their imaginations. As you will see, my yard is a mess according to adult standards, but to my kids, it’s a bounty of creativity.

I cannot even begin to count the lessons they have learned while playing out there, and the lessons I have learned about what goes on in my kids’ minds, about their abilities & interests, and about who they are.

What do you think? Where’s that line between giving them the freedom to be creative and engage in imaginative play and keeping things neat and orderly?

…Shannon

P.S. Not even an hour after I shot this video, the other kids came out and built on what my duaghter created. Now there’s wooden bridge all the way across the pond, brick sides to the corral, and an obstacle course. Who knows what it will look like tomorrow

Complacency – it’s a dangerous thing. And I’m afraid that in my homeschooling my tendency to give the kids room to explore their interests, I may have been a little too lenient with certain children. Or maybe, it’s just that there’s a perpetual battle to over come our natural desires to do as little work as possible.

But something I know is that amazing things are possible, when we dig deep, rely on strength that comes deep within, from our faith, from our inner most reserves. Over time I’ve had to dig that deep to get through, and I’m sure it will be required again. But the question I ask myself is how to do I teach my kids this.

Well, this week, while doing the Fat Loss Quickie program, I ran into this clip from Facing the Giants, and today required my 10 and 12 year olds to watch it with me.

It’s a powerful statement on what happens when we really dig deep, and don’t let the negative self talk or our desire to do the easy or give up over take us. And it’s a powerful statement on the power of role models and leadership.

If you have tweens and teens, I encourage you to share this with them. And if not, take a few minutes to watch it yourself. It may inspire you through a challenge in the future.

P.S. For those of you who aren’t American football fans, the in zone was a 100 yards.

Christian book publisher, Thomas Nelson, recently sent me a complimentary review copy of  The LightKeeper’s Daughter by Colleen Coble as part of their BookSneeze program.

The book came right around Christmas, in perfect time for me to take some time to kickback and do some reading just for me. And this book did not disappoint.

The Lightkeeper’s Daughter is set in the early 1900s, in a small rural town of Mercy Falls, set on the North Coast of California, and revolves around Addie Sullivan, a young woman, and her journey to find out who she really is, after a stranger revealed that the parents who raised her were not actually her biological parents at all.

With the help of the stranger, she gets a job as a governess for the family from which she is supposedly related, not disclosing who she thinks she is. And from there the mystery of how she came to be separated from her biological family and why is played out. And of course during this she falls in love with her young charge’s father.

This a Christian historical romance with a bit of mystery and suspense, which is right along what I prefer for light, relaxing reading. The book is set in a place where I have actually lived (Ferndale, CA), so it was nice to see how well the author weaved truth and fiction together.

The story was interesting and flowed well for me, to the point where I didn’t put it down while my family watched a movie in the same room. Perfect for light, escape reading, it’s a book that stimulates the mind to figure out the mystery and warms the heart with a little Christian romance. 

If you like a little suspense and a little historical romance, The LightKeeper’s Daughter is a good read, one that I would share with my mom and mother-in-law in a heart beat, and would even let my daughter read.

You can find The Lightkeeper’s Daughter at Thomas Nelson, on Amazon.com, on Christianbooks.com, or possibly even your local library

Yeah! It’s clean! (or as clean as I’m going to get it).

The January Challenge over on the mastermind group I belong to was to clean our desktops/ home offices. And as you saw on the before tour, my office really needed a cleaning.

Well, here’s the result (and thank you for keeping me accountable!)