Little Okie Homestead

Husbands have it quite rough in our world today and they need prayer daily even hourly because of all the stress and temptation they have to deal with. We as wives have a very important job that has been given to us for our husbands and it is packed full of power because God is with us. "For the kingdom of God is not in Word but in power ." 1 Corinthians 4:20 Praying daily and throughout the day for our husbands can send them a peace throughout the day, can lead them in the right direction, and most importantly make God's presence visible to them throughout the day. Each day our husbands are bombarded with sexually explicit ads and girls and women that are dressed inappropriately and can temp them into unhealthy thoughts or behavior. They are tempted to work hard, to accomplish more, and let pride enter their lives with our fast paced, must be better than the next guy world! I don't know about you but I'm sure that we wives do not want our huabands to strugg...

Today I'm having a garage sale with all the baby items Goose can no longer use and his clothes he can no longer fit in. When I went through everything to prepare for this day I did ok. I was sad because I would love to have more kids and I'm just not ready to say goodbye to the baby stage yet. But today while people are looking through everything that belonged to my boys I start to have stomach aches and get nauseous about getting rid of it all. I remember last April when I had my first ever panic attack and it started out much similar and then progressed into not being able to breathe. Well I haven't reach that point thank goodness but I still feel a little ridiculous! I mean all of this is just stuff and I can't stand having no space to move around in our house, not to mention that we plan on moving soon and I really would hate to pay someone to move all this stuff that we have no use for. That would be more silly than having this panicked feeling. Does anyone ...

I don't teach the alphabet! I don't teach the ABC song! Yes I know most pre-schools and even parents do this differently. So you might be wondering why I choose to do it this way? I choose to teach Monkey the letters on sight instead of just a song or just an order. I wanted Monkey to truly know his letters! I'm proud to say that he has known all of his letters by sight no matter what order they are in since he was about 2 years old! I have heard other parents express to me, "My son/daughter knows the ABC's too" when I have shared with them how Monkey is doing. I politely encourage them by saying that it's great that they know them too and I don't judge they way they choose to teach. However, I do know that there is a difference. When you sit and think about what your child knows when they sing the ABC song it really is just a song. Can they look at a word and tell you what the letters are? Most of the time they cannot. The other benefit to t...

I have many things that I would like to accomplish this summer so I thought it would be a good idea to create a summer bucket list for myself! This way my goals are right there for me to see and to check off as I complete them. PERSONAL SUMMER BUCKET LIST Y Walk everyday Y Teach   Y Play with the Kids Y VOLUNTEER Y EAT HEALTHY MEALS Y have fun    Y Complete my first 5K Y Plan Family Activities Y weekly library trips   Y Read 5 Books Y Move Y BBQ    Y GO TO A BASEBALL GAME   Y Reach half way to weight loss goal Y Date Night with Hubby Y FAMILY GAME NIGHT  Y be in the WORD daily Do you have any personal goals that you are setting for yourself over the summer? I love to hear about them or post your link and I will stop by and read your bucket list!

Since my last attempt at working out failed miserably because of everyday life happening I haven't been doing much. Now that the warm weather is here I have been doing much better! Not with doing an intense workout video but with walking almost every day.  To add to it I found some great apps that are helping me along my way. I use My Fitness Pal  to count my calories each day and I have found that during the week I'm pretty good and stay on track but when the weekend hits that's another story. Mostly because workouts just don't seem to fit in on the weekends. Each workout earns me extra calories for the day which helps out during the week. I normally don't use them all once I've added my workout in. So far this app has been great at helping me stay on track and seeing all the calories I'm consuming that I shouldn't be.  I also use  endomondo , the free version, to help track how much I'm walking and the speed I'm walking. It has been rea...

Some days I wonder if my child is going to be anti-social.  Today is one of those days. At the library today they have a special play time and then a music class which has grown to be a very large group of kids about 6 and under. While the classes change all the kids go into the children's area to play. I watch the other kids run and play and interact with each other while my son chooses to sit and read books and during the structured activities he participates about half the time but he's so quiet compared to everyone else. Then right when I start to question if I'm doing enough with him outside of the house I think of days like yesterday when we were at a friends house. There were 4 of us moms, 7 kids and 3 babies. Monkey had a blast! He loved playing with his friends. He has some great friends that he's really close with and really enjoys spending time with. So when I start to question what I'm doing and before I start trying to plan more things into our alr...

We had a great birthday for Monkey. It's been over a month but I've shared with you how crazy we have been over the whole month of April so I'm just not getting around to sharing his train birthday. First let me share that my fears of the party being a  big fail  were a little over the top. Monkey really was excited to have they few friends and family that were able to come. I have to remember that little ones don't care about things the same way that I think they do. Then to think about the fact that we had to  move the party  to the next weekend again wasn't that big of a deal for Monkey either and it sure did bring much better weather which meant a fun day at the park instead of having to have all the kids playing in the house.  OK time to get to the party! Monkey wanted a train party so we had a few little things to make our trip to the park train related. A train hat thanks to Jude's mom  who had extras to share. A train track made out of electr...

So the other night Monkey was feeling so sick that we ended up taking him in to the hospital once again. However beforw we got out the door he threw up and went to the bathroom a few times so by the time we actually made it to our room at Children's he was almost back to normal. They kept us there to watch him for a little bit but then they sent us home and told us he just need to fight this virus off himself. Well that was two days ago and yesterday he was feeling much before and today seems to be shaping up to be a good day. I'm really hoping that he's over it and that the rest of the house stays healthy. So far so good! No one else is showing signs of being sick so hopefully we will kick this virus out of this house! Poor guy feel asleep minutes before they brought in the discharge papers.

When I first got asked to read  Changing Gears: A Family Odyssey to the End of the World by Nancy Sathre-Vogel I wasn't sure if it was my kind of book. I thought it could be interesting but then again it could have been really boring.  When I received it in the mail I opened it up and started reading right away (actually at the dinner table while waiting for Monkey to finish his never ending meal) and I was hooked! I couldn't wait to keep reading! I carried the book everywhere with me and read a paragraph here or a page there. I treasured the times that I could actually sit down and read a full chapter or two at a time. It wasn't until I finally made it to Oklahoma that I was really able to sit and read consistently and finish it up and share it with you and I'm glad that I get to! Changing Gears is about a family with twin boys that packed up all there things and bicycled from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina! Yep you read that ...