Free Coconut Oil From Tropical Traditions
Every July 4, Tropical Traditions offers a free quart of virgin coconut oil with any $19 purchase. This is a fabulous deal since the coconut oil is normally much more expensive than that on its own! It’s the highest quality coconut oil I know of.
This offer goes through July 5 and you can combine it with current sales to get the best deal.
The best deal I see is to purchase the Buy 2 Get 2 Free pure coconut oil. You'll end up with 4 quarts of pure coconut oil plus the free quart of virgin coconut oil. That's 5 quarts for the price of 2!
To get in on this deal, just go here and you’ll see the offer for the free coconut oil on the right side. Add it and at least $19 worth of other stuff to your cart and it will show up as $0 in your cart.
If you've been wanting to try coconut oil for its many health benefits, now is a GREAT time to do so!
(Here's a list of 30 different uses for coconut oil! We use it daily in our house!)
If you're not sure of the difference between the pure coconut oil and the virgin coconut, the pure is odorless and flavorless and is great for cooking so that you don't have a coconut taste.
The virgin oil retains a slight coconut taste and smell and is great for any use, but just be aware that you will smell and taste it slightly.
Hope you're having a fabulous 4th of July!
P.S. Don't forget this offer only goes through tomorrow, July 5, so order quickly as there will not be another deal like this for a long time!
Grab it here.
How I’m Building a Modest Wardobe for Cheap
Shopping for modest clothing is a never-ending hunt. I usually have the best luck at thrift stores, especially price-wise! But browsing through thrift stores has become more and more difficult since little kids and shopping don't really go very well together. For a while I simply quit buying anything new, but I honestly felt very frumpy once my clothes became well out of style! I am not saying that our primary goal should be to keep up with all the latest fashions, but at the same time I think we should do our best not to look frumpy and to keep ourselves looking nice. A couple years ago I found out about a website called Thredup, and it quickly became my favorite place to shop! They have a huge selection of gently used clothing and I don't have to leave my house and drag my poor children through the thrift store. (Read to the bottom to see how you can get $10 free to spend!) It's easy to shop for exactly what I need since you can sort by brand, size, item type, and even color. |
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The picture above is just a sampling of some of what I have purchased there. I love finding feminine and modest clothing for a fraction of what I would pay at regular price! Here's the best part — if something doesn't fit or didn't look exactly like I expected it to, I can return it free of charge! As long as I select to get my money back as a store credit, they will give me a pre-paid shipping label so I can return the item without paying shipping, plus get my money back for the item. I love shopping at ThredUp so much, and I'm sure you will too. That's why I'm sharing a free $10 credit with you! (For new ThredUp customers only.) To get your credit, follow these steps: 1. Sign up for a ThredUp account here. A couple tips for shopping: ▪ Instead of browsing for hours on end (which you very easily could do), just pick the first couple items that you like, and check out quickly. Otherwise you will end up spending forever shopping, then you won't be able to decide, and you'll end up closing down the tab without checking out – wasting time and missing out on free clothes! (I have made this mistake myself, and I've talked to NUMEROUS people who have done the same thing.) Spare yourself from the same mistake by checking out quickly without over thinking. Say for instance you like this outfit: |
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Then you could narrow your search on ThredUp to skirts – your size – navy. Search for tops the same way – try searching under both navy and white. You can even search for a red belt since they have a selection of accessories too. In this way, even those of us who are fashion challenged can come up with a cute outfit! I've been slowly building my wardrobe this way and have come up with a lot of new outfits that I don't think I would have been able to figure out on my own! A couple other tips:
Any other modest clothing tips to share? |
8 Ways to Prepare Your Little Boy to Be a Man
Little boys are wonderful, but they will not stay little forever. When they are grown they will be men – men with life responsibilities, wives, and families. What tools do our little boys need to be properly equipped to face manhood?
As the parents of these little boys, we must be actively working to provide them with the tools they need to face life as a man. As the husbands and fathers in our society become less and less able to handle the pressures of life in a Godly and responsible way, our families, our churches, and our country begins to crumble from the inside out. Let's raise up a generation of real men who will stand for God, take responsibility for their families, and and do right at all costs!
So what are some of the ways we can prepare our little boys to be men? What are the things we must be teaching them?
- Strong work ethic
My husband has been a manager at several different work places through the years, and it has been surprising to see how lazy some of the young men who have worked under him have been. Some of these guys have come from good Christian homes, but somewhere along the line their parents failed to teach them that W-O-R-K is not a dirty word.
A man's responsibility is to work hard to provide for his family's needs. He's not going to get very far with that if he's lazy. Let's teach our boys not to be lazy! When they clean their room, let's constantly be reminding them what the Bible says about doing things with all our might. Let's not accept a slip-shod job on their chores, but make them go back and do it again until it's done right. (This requires discipline on the part of the parents too, by the way!)
- Money management
A real man provides for his family, not only by working hard to pay the bills, but also by being a wise steward of his resources. We must teach our boys how to handle money wisely and how to exercise self-control over spending frivolously. (See also: The Secret to Living Debt Free)
This will look different for different families, but boys need to be taught in some way how to budget their money and then to be disciplined enough to stick to the budget.
- Courage
It seems to be a common parenting philosophy these days to “protect” our children to such an extent that they are not allowed to do anything that could even remotely be construed as “dangerous”. Play with sticks? Nope. You could poke your eye out. Ride your bike down that hill? No. It's entirely too steep. For that matter, let's just put your bike away altogether. You could break an arm. Jump off the top step of the porch? Not a chance.
We have stifled our boys' natural sense of adventure and embedded fear in its place. Is it any wonder that so many young men these days are effeminate?
I want my boys to be bold enough to look fear in the face and do what needs to be done even if it means putting his life on the line to protect his family.
- Gentleness with ladies and children
Just as I want my boy not to be effeminate, on the flip side that does not mean he needs to plow through life with unbridled crudeness. He can be a real man and still hold doors for ladies, refrain from rude noises in the presence of ladies, and treat children with gentleness and compassion. In fact, he's not a real man if he can't discipline himself to treat ladies and children properly.
(See also: 13 Things I Want My Son to Learn Before He Turns 13)
- Decision making
Someday as the head of his family, my boy will be responsible for making some hard decisions. Providing him opportunities to be independent will help him learn that skill. Micromanaging a boy's life is not doing him any favors for the future. This may require a little bit of sacrifice on our part, mamas. Perhaps we'd like him to organize his things in a different way or choose a different shirt to wear, but if it's not hurting anything we need to give our sons the freedom to make some of those choices on their own.
There's a fine line between teaching a boy to obey his mama and forcing him to relinquish all control over any decision making. Let's make sure our boys know how to grow up thinking for themselves instead of cowing to our every whim.
- Taking responsibility
A boy's mama is not his maid or personal servant. If he lives in the house he needs to help do the work. A boy can help do his laundry, clean his room, take out the trash, and even cook his own breakfast on occasion. That's not cruelty; that's life preparation. If we coddle and pamper our boys, they'll be in for a rude awakening when they find out there's nobody there to bail them out of fixing the stopped up toilet, fixing the car, or repairing the leak in the ceiling. And his wife! Oh the poor dear! He'll be expecting the same coddling and pampering out of her when he really needs to be picking out his own clothes and making sure his own dirty socks make it to the hamper.
Many husbands have an entitled, “serve me” attitude toward their wives because their mama trained them to expect to be served. Let's train our boys to be the servant rather than the served. (No, I absolutely don't think there's anything wrong with a mama serving her family and doing kind things for them. But let's be very careful to make sure our kids don't develop an attitude of entitlement. They aren't going to learn responsibility just by watching your example; they need to practice it by having responsibilities of their own.)
- Be leader; not a follower
We need men today who are leaders rather than followers — men who do right even if nobody else is doing it. Let's teach our boys that they don't have to follow the crowd. Let's encourage them when everyone is making fun of them for being so “uncool”. Let's not give in when they want to do this, that, or the other just because everyone else is doing it. Let's raise up strong men who will lead their families, their churches, and their country in righteousness.
- Personal relationship with God
A man will never possess any of the other qualities mentioned without his own personal relationship with God. He may do these things out of habit just because mama helped him develop those habits, but when the pressure rises, so will the temptation to abandon what he knows is right and take the easy way out. But if he has a strong relationship with God, first through salvation and then through spending time daily in God's Word and prayer , he will be fully equipped to handle the decisions and responsibilities that come his way and to lead his family spiritually.
(See also: How to Teach Young Children to Develop a Personal Relationship With God)
God bless you as you strive to train up a generation of young men who will grow up to serve God with all their hearts!
6 Ways Homeschooling Benefits Christian Families
I wanted to spend the month of June offering some practical advice and encouragement from homeschooling moms. I asked some ladies I knew if they would be willing to share some thoughts from their perspective. This is the first of several that I will be sharing here.
As I read Michelle's words, there were several distinct benefits of homeschooling that stood out to me. I will let you read Michelle's thoughts in her own words, then I will list the benefits of homeschooling for Christian families at the bottom of this post.
I have moved all of my homeschooling posts to christianhomeschoolfamily.com. You can go here to read this post at the new site.
Why I’m Teaching Creative Writing to My First Grader
Teaching creative writing as part of a first grade curriculum is not something I would have considered. It's not really talked about much, and if it's taught at all it just a small integrated part of a language arts curriculum.
I have moved all of my homeschooling posts to christianhomeschoolfamily.com.
You can go here to read this post at the new site.
Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover (My Thoughts on The Books I Purchased From the Bundle Sale)
The Build Your Bundle homeschool sale has ended; however, you can still purchase these products individually through their respective publisher's websites.
I got all of my products downloaded from the Build Your Own Bundle sale and took a look through them.
Let me just say – you can't judge a book by its cover! Just to be helpful, I thought I'd go through what I bought and tell you what I thought in case it will help you make your final purchase decisions. Obviously I didn't buy one of everything, but I'll tell you about all 30 of the items I got.
1. Frank Webster audio collection/Petticoat Warriors/Little Pioneers
I know my kids are going to like these. I've just got to figure out some way to get them off the computer because my kids will not want to sit in front of the computer to listen. Probably the best way to do that will be just to burn them to a CD
Found in: Boy's Bundle (Frank Webster collection), Girl's Bundle (Petticoat Warriors), 1st-3rd bundle #2 (Little Pioneers)
2. Considering God's Creation – Science curriculum
Love! This is written out purposely for use with multiple ages, which is exactly what I was hoping to do this year (combine the kids into one class.) The lessons are laid out for the teacher to know exactly what to say (which is great since I never was the best at science.) They are based on Scripture, which means there is a Scripture reading each day and a discussion of what the scripture says about the particular topics. There are the basic lessons, along with student activities, plus a number of suggestions each day for “digging deeper” – like videos to watch, books to read, or experiments to perform. Lots of learning styles are incorporated – hands-on, auditory, visual – with suggestions for activities to do that will involve all of the different learning methods. I'm VERY happy with this purchase.
Found in: Charlotte Mason Bundle
3. Growing in Wisdom and Proverbs People
I loved these so much I did an entire post about them. Read it here. In short: they're going to be just the thing my young readers need for doing their daily devotions. They make it easy for children to understand and apply the Scriptures without being watered down.
Found in: Character Bundle
4. American Wars Volume I
My kids are not old enough for it yet, but there is a WAR GAME in this package! How fun is that?!
“You are the leader of a four-member reconnaissance team. You receive your orders at headquarters at the beginning of the game. The orders—make your way to the destination and collect all intel on enemy troop positions and troop movements that you can—then make it back to headquarters with that intel.”
Found in: Boy's Bundle
5. Delightful Planning – A Unit Study planner
I actually probably won't use the planning pages from this because I work best with my own (mad scientist type) methods. But, the first half of the book is a great resource for learning about delight-directed learning, how to make it work, how to make sure you include everything you need for a well-rounded education, etc. It's a good resource in that regard.
Found in: Unit Studies Bundle
6. Elementary Foundations – Parenting Wisdom for Ages 5-8
Home Improvement: The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids
Since these are parenting books (which means lots of words and no quick skimming 🙂 ) I haven't looked at these in great detail. I really felt I didn't need to because they are from the National Center for Biblical Parenting. I've read their Motivate Your Child (review here) and Motivate Your Child Action Plan books and found them both to be top-notch. I'm not expecting anything less from these books.
Found in: 1st-3rd Bundle #2
7. Human Body Detectives
I chose the “immunity” one, but I'm considering going back for another purchase. These just look cool. The .zip file was LOADED with files when I opened it up. Enough to keep us busy for quite a while. (And I don't really know when we'll even get to it since I'm planning on the other science curriculum for the school year – this would make a fun summer study maybe.)
Found in: 1st – 3rd #1
8. Character Collection
I'm really excited about getting ALL these good books for my kids to read. My only problem is figuring out how to get them into a format where they can read them. I don't really want them sitting at the computer to read (and I doubt they want to either.) I've gotta get a little techy and figure out how to send them to some kind of cloud so I can at least put them on the Kindle or iPad.
Found in: 1st -3rd #1 and Character Bundle
9. My Journey With Jesus Christ
This is a nice little book that teaches kids about God and their relationship with Him. It helps them understand concepts like prayer, God's promises, and learning to let God speak to them through His word. I would not use this for personal devotions, but I would not mind my kids going through it to grasp these concepts. I think the strongest takeaway from the book is teaching how to pray by confessing sin, praising God for his blessings, and bringing their petitions to God. I also wish they had a King James version of this since that is what our family uses.
Found in: Character Bundle
10. Warfare by Duct Tape – beginner
I want to love this, and I know there are tons of other people out there who do love it and their boys use it regulary — but I just have to be honest with myself. As “cute” as it is (if I can use that term about little boys doing battle with swords and shields), I know that in our family we will probably never get around to getting the materials needed (PVC pipe and PVC foam — along with cardboard and duct tape of course!) I think when my boys are older and able to take their own initiative to find what they need to craft their weapons they will love it, but right now I just know I will probably never help them with this (brutal honesty here! Hey a mom can't do everything!)
Found in: Boy's Bundle and Secular Bundle
11. 28 Days to Timeliness
I actually got this because I needed a couple extra products to finish building my bundle. It looks like a great book; I'm just not sure I will have time to read it (ha!)
Found in: Mom Bundle #1
12. Creation vs. Evoluation: Learning How Science Supports the Bible
This wasn't as in-depth as I was expecting. It is scripture-based, which is good, but I was hoping for more detail than it included.
Found in: Middle School Bundle
13. Family Bible Bites
This contains a lot of fun hands-on activities to help make your family Bible time and scripture memorization more…well…memorable. I'm not sure we'll use it as we already have a good system in place, but it has lots of good ideas.
Found in : Character Bundle
14. Princess Training
There are parts I like and parts I could easily skip. If you are a mom in need of some direction with training your daughter to be a godly young lady, this could be a good resource. I don't think I will personally end up using it, but it does have some creative ideas for moms of girls.
Found in: Girls' Bundle
15. Elementary Spelling Fun: 1-3
I couldn't believe this is 3 YEARS worth of spelling! That's a great deal!
I like that the spelling words are based on scripture, and that it also contains handwriting practice with Scripture copywork. (Great for memorization too!) The daily activities for practicing the spelling words are switched up every day to keep things exciting. The only thing I'm not sure about is how well the spelling words are going to match up to the kids' phonics lessons. I like to teach things “in order” (even though I know that's not always necessary or the best way, but it drives my brain crazy to skip around.) If you're not terribly picky about the spelling words perfectly matching up with your phonics lessons, I think this is a great deal and a good curriculum.
Found in: 1st – 3rd Bundle #2
16. Your Business Math Pet Store
My kids aren't old enough for this yet, but this is going to be SO FUN! Why settle for boring exercises to learn business math, when it can be so fun?! It will probably help the kids solidify the concepts even better anyway since they are actually learning how to keep a start-up business afloat through a simulated pet store ownership.
Found in: Charlotte Mason Bundle
17. Lads and Ladies of Wisdom
This is a really good character training curriculum. It's better than I thought it would be, to be honest. I think we'll get some good use out of it.
Found in: Character Bundle
18. Teaching Science and Having Fun
This one blew my expectations out of the water. I almost didn't buy it, but I'm so glad I did! It is so much more in-depth than I expected it to be.
It gives tons of suggestions for teaching based on what style best fits your family and helps you know what you should be teaching to what age chidlren. If you like a unit study approach it gives suggestions for teaching phonics, grammar, spelling, etc. along with what you're currently studying in science. So helpful!
Found in: Mom Bundle #1
19. People of the Bible Volume 1 and 2
I could live easily without this one. If you've never done any sort of notebooking before and need some guidance, this could be helpful, but I didn't really find it necessary for us.
Found in: Notebooking Bundle and Character Bundle
20. WriteShop
This is another product that I feel like I got a really good value from! I never dreamed I could teach my 1st and 2nd grader creative writing! I also love how this is going to integrate language arts as well as penmanship. They're learning what I consider the absolute essentials (language and penmanship) as well as getting some great practice on the “extras” (creative writing.) I plan to use this curriculum this coming school year.
Found in: 1st-3rd Bundle #2
Time is running out to make your final decisions! I hope my thoughts on what I bought will help you out a little bit!
Purchase a Pre-made bundle here.
OR
Mix and Match to Build Your Own Bundle here.