[spot] light on...

Our little Angel! She is so sweet and loves to have fun! She can make us laugh and gets so silly that she laughs at herself! It's so cute! She is a very good reader and almost every morning she has quiet reading time and then reads to her little brother who is 16 months younger than her. [she is 8 & her brother is 6]. Since he is becoming more fluent in reading, she spends about 15-20 minutes reading out loud to him and then asks questions about the story, so he can dictate back to her a summary in his own words. [This is how all the children have learned to read on their own-by dictating the story in their own words] Then he chooses a story to read aloud to her [or me]. She enjoys playing housekeeping, baking bread, making cookies, sewing, embroidery and painting. One of her favorite playtime joys is to rearrange her doll house and set up the rooms in different ways. The other day we found her playing quietly, in her room making her doll house look "just right". Here is a photo of what she was doing... ...this is the twins room...see the bunk beds... ...here is the family that lives in her doll house...I think the Grandparents are visiting...She is quite the little baker! She can make a loaf of homemade bread from scratch! She starts by grinding the wheat [whole, fresh wheat grain] into fresh flour. She measures out all the ingredients and places them into a bread kneading machine. The recipe calls for fresh wheat flour, honey, oil, salt, lecithin, gluten, yeast and warm water. She has made some of the most tasty wheat loaves all by herself. After the kneading is finished, she then places the dough into a long loaf pan and allows it to rise at least 45 minutes. After is has risen to double, she places it into the oven and bakes it for 25 minutes and takes it out [with help, because it's hot] and brushes it with butter to make the crust a little soft. Here is the last loaf she made for us...actually, it's only about 1/2 of it. We will need to make more tomorrow before we go to the deli. Our family goes through about 3 loaves per week.We will eat them as toast for breakfast, with peanut butter on it or even just jelly. We use it for sandwiches, garlic bread, grilled cheeses and bread-n-butter with dinner. She loves God with all her heart and has such great faith...today, we had to pick up something at the store and it began to storm. We were stuck inside and she just prayed to the Lord..."Lord, please let it stop storming so all these people can get to their cars and not get wet." All of a sudden the rain began to slow up until it finally stopped. Now, I don't know about you, but that built my faith up. You should have seen her face. "I knew God would do it!" She said. That was all it took for her faith to be built up. So I just wanted to take a moment to share with you some of the precious experiences we have as a family. Blessings Abundantly to you! Kimi