Counting Our Blessings // Rebekah Morris

How are you all finding this series? I've been enjoying it immensely! Reading all these blessings that y'all have been sharing has truly been an honour :) 

This week's special guest - Miss Rebekah Morris! 

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Thank you for letting me come by and visit with your readers, Blessing Counter. I love "meeting" new friends. But let me introduce myself. My name is Rebekah A. Morris and I am from the United States. I've gotten to visit Canada a few years ago (since one of my best friends married a canadian), and enjoyed my visit. I'm a homeschool graduate, author, aunt, and daughter of the King. Though I think I should have put them in a different order. I play the piano and violin, hand quilt (when I get in the mood), knit baby hats while listening to audio books, and have too many projects on my "to-do" list.

I love a good book and would spend much more time reading if I could find some extra hours. (Anyone have any they want to get rid of? ;) ) Writing and publishing my own books is still a bit unreal to me as I never dreamed that I would become a published author. If you are looking for some new books to read, you can check out my site at www.readanotherpage.com. I also offer writing tips there.

If you are a writer, just remember to always write for the glory of God and not just something that "will sell."

Some of the blessings I'm thankful for are:
• A family who is quite tolerant of my eccentric ways. :)
• NEO – How would I ever write if I had to compose on a glaring computer screen? By hand I guess. I did write a lot of my first book, Home Fires of the Great War that way, so it is possible, but NEO saves so much time. :)

• A way to self-publish my books because they wouldn't fit in the "normal" publishing houses.

I hope you'll come by and visit.

Inkling Explorations - Miss Lavender

Heidi has a monthly link up that she holds at her blog and I've finally decided to try it. It always looks so fun and this month's theme was too hard to resist! :)

This month's selection is: A description of a lady in literature 

(You can read more about the link-up here) 

I had originally planned to find a description of Anne from the Anne of Green Gables series. But there are so many descriptions of her, seems like! It was too hard trying to choose just one. And then I came across this absolutely lovely description of Miss Lavender Lewis. She is such a darling old lady and one of my favourite characters in the Anne series. This particular excerpt comes from Anne of Avonlea.

Miss Lavender's namesake! 

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She was a little lady with snow white hair beautifully wavy and thick, and carefully arranged in becoming puffs and coils. Beneath it was an almost girlish face, pink cheeked and sweet lipped, with big soft brown eyes and dimples. . . actually dimples. She wore a very dainty gown of cream muslin with pale-hued roses on it. . . a gown which would have seemed ridiculously juvenile on most women of her age, but which suited Miss Lavender so perfectly that you never thought about it at all. 

Do you like Miss Lavender? Wouldn't she be a simply amazing person to meet? 

Spring is Here! ...... I think

Aren't daffodils so pretty? They always remind me of spring! And the day we got them, the sky was blue, the spring peepers were peeping, the birds were chirping merrily, wildflowers were beginning to bloom, and the trees were budding. 

Lovely daffodils, don't you think? But then take in the big picture...

Lots of snow out the window!
I don't know.... do you think the background should be lots of white snow or lush green grass beginning to sprout? 

But this morning we woke up to 5 inches of snow. 

Poor wildflowers. 

School Time

 Lots of busy little workers this morning! Today's lesson: Phylums Anthophyta, Coniferophyta, Pterophyta, and Bryophyta. (Kudos to you if you remember what kind of plant goes in each phylum ;)

Included a little nature walk today as well, finding the different plants for drawing.

And of course, this little guy wasn't going to be left out! :D 

The three younger ones weren't the only busy ones! Spiderman was constructing some pretty awesome gliders too.

Apologia is really awesome! The books are really descriptive and colourful and the projects in them are so much fun. It really keeps everyone occupied :)

Have you tried Apologia before? Did you like it?

March Highlights

Goodbye March, helloooo April! 

How has your March gone? What kind of memories did you make this month? :) 

Here are some of the highlights from my month! 

Picture taken from Google

For Biology, I had to do this Kingdom Project where my nature pictures finally got put to use :) But since I hadn't taken any pictures on fungus, I had to go out into the forest and find some.

And then that led to a nature walk which led to a visit to the pond...

Which led to someone falling into the pond. Yep! :D 

There have also been quite a few rainstorms lately. After one really dark, cloudy day I went outside and found everything sparkling. It was so pretty! 

Ah yes! And Mr. Robin decided to show up! When I first saw him, I said "Yes! Spring is finally coming!!" 

But then two days later, this happened: 

The day after the ice storm, the sun came out and melted away all the ice. But I could hear what sounded like glass shattering all day!

Picture taken from Google

I actually did a lot more baking this month than I usually do! But I do love baking - and watching people eat my baking :) Anyway, here are the results of those ventures! 

Making these cream puffs is so much fun! And filling them up with cream...ahhh, it was just SO fun! Watching the cream puff grow while piping cream into it was so mesmerizing, but I got a little carried away and put too much inside. There were a few people who bit into it and had cream exploding in their face :P 

Two toned cupcakes! Technique taken from that handy-dandy site called Youtube. 

Tiger Lily entered a Pi Baking contest and made these yummy looking cupcakes. Buttercream frosting and piped melted chocolate, mmm!

For Easter, we had our family over for dinner. Tiger Lily and I decided to make bread rolls instead of buying them and I'm so glad we did! The recipe came out better than expected and we made another batch today! :) The bread is really light and fluffy and oh-so-good!

I like birthdays, it gives me an excuse to bake something ;) Tiger Lily and I were trying to find a new chocolate cake recipe. So after looking through AllRecipes, we found this recipe called Perfect Chocolate Cake. Let me say now, we don't judge on the title of the recipe! ;) Do you know how many "Perfect", "World Famous", "Greatest", "Best", "Most Wonderful" chocolate cakes there are?!?! The way I usually try to judge whether the recipe is good is by visualizing the directions in my head. And also looking at photos of the results if there are any. What is your method of testing recipes? 

Anyway, we decided on this "Perfect Chocolate Cake" recipe and it turned out really well. The cake was really rich and moist and I'm definitely keeping the recipe! You can find the recipe here: Perfect Chocolate Cake. 

Tiger Lily and I were a little worried over having enough whipped cream in the middle since a few cakes ago, the filling was barely visible. But I think we got a substantial amount of whipped cream, don't you?  

Picture taken from Google

School has been going pretty well lately. We just finished our Easter/March break last week and getting back into the swing of things. Been a little bit more busy juggling lots of stuff, but we're all getting through :) 

In Biology, I've been studying Kingdom Plantae. My second favourite kingdom. My absolute favourite is Kingdom Animalia because it's so diverse and I love animals! What is your favourite kingdom? 

The two major projects that I did for Kingdom Plantae was dissecting a flower and growing lima beans. Both of which were really fun! 

It's so cool watching the beans grow. God is such an amazing Creator!! 

My Kingdom Project

Picture taken from Google

You all probably know this already, but... Tiger Lily got the highest score in her vocal class! :) She was super happy, but to be honest, I think I was happier than her for some reason :P 

And a SUPER special event; Spiderman turned 12! Happy, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! :D 

We learned something really exciting this month. I'm really eager to share it with you, but right now it's being kept under wraps. I sort of feel like this emoticon here:

Picture taken from Google

Keeping it zipped but really ready to burst! :P But it's really, really exciting and I can't wait until I can tell you all what it is! 

Picture taken from Google

The books I read this month are:

1. White Fang - Jack London
2. The Call of the Wild - Jack London
3. The Sea of Adventure - Enid Blyton
4. The Hydrofoil Mystery - Eric Walters 
5. 39 Clues Book 2 - Jude Watson
6. 39 Clues Book 5 - Patrick Carman
7. 39 Clues Book 6 - Jude Watson
8. An Old Fashioned Girl - Louisa May Alcott
9. The Last Ride - Susan K. Marlow
10. The Princess Spy - Melanie Dickerson
11. The Golden Braid - Melanie Dickerson
12. The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare
13. Treasures from Grandma’s Attic - Arleta Richardson
14. Spy in the Shadows - Barbara Greenwood
15. Shiloh - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 
16. Galatians 
17. Ephesians 

My favourite from this list would have to be The Last Ride. I read it in one night and it. was. amazing! I've been bugging Tiger Lily to read it and she's finally given in. She's reading it right now while I'm typing, I do believe ;) 

While looking on Google, I found this:

Picture taken from Google

But really, do you ever have this problem? I do! Facing a bookshelf crammed with books and sometimes spending more than 15 minutes trying to find one to read! 

And that about wraps up the month of March! 

What did you enjoy reading the most? 
What are some of the highlights in your month? 

Happy Easter!

Praise the Lord! Christ is Risen!
Happy Easter everyone! :)