Live Out Loud - Adventures of a mom

“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. 14  “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.   15  No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house.   16  In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.  Matthew 5:13-16 (NLT) My kids go to an English Public School in Ontario.  Tonight I attended my first school council meeting.  I have never attended one, nor did I really know what school councils were.  I attended mostly for selfish reasons (i.e. I wanted to be involved for my own kids' sake) but as I sat and heard about what school council was - that it exists as an extension of the school to serve the entire student body...

It's the time of the year for mom and dad to be busy preparing for birthdays and celebrations!  Sarah had been quite literally counting the days to her 5th birthday party.  After 5 years I have come to love theme parties - it makes it easier to plan, it has a focus, and it is actually quite fun!  The other thing we are still trying to continue as a tradition in our family is that we celebrate together (Sam at first complaint there was going to be too many girls, and was actually invited to a birthday party to which we kindly declined) and we continue to try to host it at home to keep costs down. So as we began brainstorming on themes for Sarah's party, Samuel started working on a song during his note reading section in his piano class.  We all fell in love to the song and so that is how we came up with the party theme: Samuel's First attempt at "Over the Rainbow" with teacher As the years progress I am learning to also appreciate more and more 'markers...