Have you ever met somebody with a painted-on smile? You know the kind — it involves the mouth, but doesn’t go all the way up to the eyes. A joyful smile isn’t like that. It isn’t fake or forced or only for show. A genuine smile starts from deep within the heart and spills over…
My twelve-year-old Isaac and I took a short trip this morning and had about 30 minutes in the car together to talk. We discussed all sorts of things, but during the course of that half-hour conversation, he mentioned he was considering a career in engineering, because he was interested in building a jet-powered propulsion suit…
Our family has always enjoyed a competitive round of Putt-Putt golf, although we normally save that activity for vacation. We love playing semi-challenging courses with lots of waterfalls and pirate ships and caves and bridges. Sometimes our littlest guys get to play free, but it means sporting a plastic club instead of a real one….
I had lunch with a friend last week whom I’d not seen for some time. I knew she was in the midst of some very significant trials, so as I hugged her neck in greeting, I told her our family has been been praying for her and asked how she was holding up. As she…
Four of our children are already grown and gone. One (so far) is married with children. Since his family lives in town and his kids are best friends with their littlest aunts and uncles, we see a lot of them and get to hear most of their news firsthand. The other three live several hours…
We have several volleyball enthusiasts in our family. In fact, they look forward all year to playing in the annual volleyball tournament at Family Camp each October. Although I’m usually just a spectator at these events, cheering from the sidelines with baby in arms, now that so many of our older/athletic children are grown and…
Our son Samuel decided at age 11 that he wanted to learn to play the violin. He tracked down a store that would rent him an instrument to own, found a teacher who would come to our house for lessons, then got up at 5:30 every morning in order to practice for an hour before…
My husband had the privilege of baptizing our youngest child last Sunday. It was a special time for all involved, a fact to which Doug alludes in the video: Abigail's Baptism Immediately before the baptism, the elders played a taped interview with Abigail in which they asked her about sin, about Jesus’ death on the…
My husband does not like to go to photography studios, so for the past two decades I’ve taken almost all our family portraits myself. I set my camera up on a tripod, frame the shot the way I want, and use a remote to release the shutter. In the days before remotes, I would run…
The year after we moved to Tyler, the Parks and Recreation Department built a new skate park. That was 17 years ago, back when we had a garage full of rollerblades and a house full of aspiring stuntmen (including my husband, who probably should have known better). He drove our sons to Noble E. Young…
In Hebrews 12:1, we read this admonition: “Therefore seeing we also are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily ensnare us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” One of our sons is getting married…
For years, my husband has talked about getting a drum set, but resisted the urge, because drums take up so much space. That decision suited me just fine, as the thought of having twelve kids in the same house as a set of drums didn’t appeal to me in the least! I imagined them beating…
In Psalm 72:6-7 we read a prayer of Solomon in which he asks God to bless the King and to make the King a blessing to others. He prays: “May he come down like rain upon the mown grass, like showers that water the earth. In his days may the righteous flourish, and abundance of…
Of the twelve babies I’ve mothered, a couple have sucked fingers and two or three have taken pacifiers, but the majority of them have refused to be satisfied by anything but Mama’s milk. Babies want the real deal. They long for milk. They crave it. They squawk when they don’t get it. Although fingers and…
As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been reading a lot of great books this summer. Our family goes to the pool several times a week, and my husband and I spend most of our time there reading poolside while the children swim. Unfortunately, Doug loves the sun, and I love the shade (primarily because he tans…
Our family loves going to the beach. We usually go off season, which means we avoid the crowds, but it also means the water is colder than in the height of summer. So we spend most of our time there playing in the sand instead of riding the waves. We bury one another in sand……
My husband served in the Army Medical Reserves for many years. When full-time Army docs were deployed to Iraq, medical reservists were activated stateside to fill in for them while they were overseas. That explains why our-family-of-twelve-at-the-time spent four months squeezed into a 500 sq. ft. apartment in the bachelor barracks at Fort Bliss during…
As a mother with a marvelously efficient metabolism, I have always been amazed at the amount of food my sons can pack away without gaining so much as an ounce of fat. Several years ago, I brought a carton of 2½ dozen eggs home from the grocery store at 9:00 p.m., but couldn’t find an…
My youngest child turned five last month. Earlier this year, she learned how to pedal her bike without training wheels. (You can see her in action here.) Clearly, she’s not a baby anymore. So this week, we’ve been cleaning closets, clearing out crib mobiles and baby blankets and cotton onesies, getting ready for a garage…
Several months ago, my husband brought home some new cordless phones to replace our old set whose reception had grown rather glitchy. The new phones get crystal clear reception, which means now we can actually understand what people who call us are trying to say. The only problem is that this new set does not…
I called my husband at work last week to tell him something and prefaced my comments with, “I have some great news…” To which he immediately replied, “You’re pregnant!” Sadly, that wasn’t what I’d called to tell him — and at age 50, it’s seeming less and less likely that I will ever be making…
This week’s memory verse (2 Corinthians 5:17) reminds me of spring. Don’t you love springtime? All the dead leaves of winter have been swept away, the lawn scalped, the flowerbeds cleaned out, and every day new signs of life appear. New baby birds chirp in their nests, young squirrels scamper about the yard, bulbs that…
I took tennis for a semester in high school. Although I was never very good at it, I did learn a few things about how the game is (supposed to be) played. For instance, I learned that you can only serve one ball at a time. Not only would it be against the rules for…
Today is April Fool’s Day! When you live in a house with as many children as I do, you can be sure at least some of them have some tricks up their sleeves that they’ve been saving for just such an occasion! Dollar bills on a string. Rubber bugs in the pantry. Short-sheeted beds. Meatloaf…
My mother worked outside the home during most of my growing-up years, and I remember that the first thing she liked to do when she came home every evening was to change out of her dress clothes into a house robe. She had several to choose from, but they were all soft and warm and…
While their older brother was home from medical school last week, my little ones grabbed their Scripture memory flashcards and went through the whole deck, so he could see how many Bible verses they’ve learned so far this year. And I can tell you, Samuel was pretty impressed with how easily they recalled what we’d…
We’ve been on Spring Break this week. We have two children in college, two in dental school, and one in medical school, and — for the first time ever — their various academic calendars synced, so that they were all off at the same time. They opted to spend the week camping. In the rain….
Proverbs 18:22 tells us, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” That verse is near and dear to my heart for two reasons: First, because I sincerely want it to be my husband’s testimony of me. It would make me so sad to think that my actions…
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on John the Baptist’s statement in the gospels: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) The two go hand in hand, don’t they? As with children on a see-saw, both ends can’t be up at the same time. For one to go up, the other must come down. For…
This week’s verse is a call to re-examine our priorities: “And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17) When Jesus called His disciples, we are told they left everything and followed Him. (Luke 5) Yet, a few chapters later, we see that following Jesus did…
I’ve always found today’s verse personally convicting: “I will set no worthless thing before my eyes.” – Psalm 101:3 Other versions translate it “vain,” “wicked,” “vile,” “vulgar,” “base,” or “evil.” I prefer the New American Standard translation, for although I’m not often tempted to set my eyes on evil, wicked things, I do sometimes focus…
When God rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, miraculously parting the Red Sea and leading them to the very edge of the Promised Land, they took one look at the fearsome inhabitants of Canaan and shrunk back in fear. God promised to go ahead of them, to throw their enemies into confusion, to send…
Our family embarked upon a 2 1/2 week road trip earlier this month — sort of an extended “early American history” tour of the east coast. In fact, we are still in the middle of it, even as I write this post in the wee hours of the morning from my hotel room. We’ve seen…
Here is a great verse to meditate on amid reports of terrorist attacks across the globe. To quote Haymitch Abernathy, we must “remember who the real enemy is.” “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high…
If you grew up in church as I did, you might assume everybody already knows John 3:16. But the fact that 92 million people Googled the verse after Tim Tebow wrote the reference on his eye black for a championship game back in 2009 tells me we’d be dead wrong in that assumption. John 3:16…
Have you been busy making plans for the next 12 months, like I always do about this time of year? James 4:14 does a great job of putting such plans in perspective. It reads, “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” Here Scripture reminds us that our…
Another of our family goals for the New Year is to hide more of the Word in our children’s hearts. To help in that endeavor, I’ve been working on some Scripture Memory Flashcards which I plan to share on this blog every Wednesday for the next couple of years, starting with Luke 2:10, which reads,…
Brrrr! East Texas got another cold snap today, making this the perfect time to share my new Winter Weather Word Scramble. Last week, we were painting our fence in shorts and T-shirts. This week need coats, scarfs, and mittens to keep from freezing while crossing the street for school. Our co-op even dismissed everyone an…
Since January is National Hot Tea Month, I thought this would be a great time to share my High Tea Word Find. I designed this little game to play at a tea party I helped hostess for a bunch of 10- to 14-year-old girls last fall. click to print High Tea Word Find Just like…
This Bible Prophecy Coloring Page highlights the wonderful gift God has given us in His Holy Word. click to print Bible Prophecy coloring page God’s Word is inspired, infallible, inerrant. And it will not return to Him void, but will accomplish the divine purpose for which He sent it out. (Isaiah 55:11) Part of that…
I have a different sort of scavenger hunt for you today: a free printable scripture scavenger hunt. Perfect for Easter. Or for your next Sunday school class party. Or for quizzing your children on their Bible knowledge. click to print Scripture Scavenger Hunt You can use the list as a Bible drill to see who…
For today’s Word on Wednesday post, we’re memorizing the words of our humble and homeless Savior, who — in contrast to the wild animals His Father attends to so lovingly — hadn’t even a place to lay his head. In reference to those wild animal homes, sometimes God provides those directly. Sometimes He uses people…
It always helps me in my blogging, when wrapping up the old year and setting goals for the new, to take stock of which of my posts have enjoyed the most popularity over the last twelve months. That’s my goal in tabulating these top 10 posts of 2015. Knowing what has been most helpful to…
As I mentioned last week, one of the things I enjoy most about Christmas is getting to listen to beloved old carols all month long (like “O Come, Let Us Adore Him!”. (If you’re a fan of traditional carols, too, you may want to test your knowledge with this Christmas Carol Quiz.) While I sometimes…
Today’s Word on Wednesday is 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, which centers on a gardening theme. A while back, our son Benjamin built our family a raised vegetable garden. Most of our yard is shaded, so he found the sunniest spot available and placed it there. He planted and tended it himself the first season we had…
It’s time for another Word on Wednesday post. This week, our verse is Galatians 5:13 on serving one another: Yesterday was my birthday. I turned fifty. That’s 5-0. And one of my precious daughters made me a very special surprise for my birthday — a deck of fifty cards, each with something she loves about…
Not only is the turn of a year a great time for looking ahead and setting goals, but it’s also a good time for looking back and reflecting. Which is my goal in tabulating my top 10 posts of 2014. My husband and I were looking over both our blogs this weekend. Noting trends. Discussing…
I love pretty printables! I enjoy creating them, using them, and sharing them with others. If you like printables, too, you’ve come to the right place. Our family website offers a treasure trove of pretty & practical printable resources — calendars, chore charts, coloring pages, and much, much more. Clever uses for our pretty printables:…
Over the years, I’ve tried a variety of ready-made day planners. Some I like better than others, but the one I finally settled on is completely homemade and customized to my own unique needs. If you find yourself growing frustrated with what’s readily available, I’d recommend you read this post on how to make your…
Today I’m sharing Days of Creation Printables in two different styles. Both feature a poem we used to teach the order of creation to our children. On DAY ONE: God made light when there was none. On DAY TWO: God made skies and seas of blue. On DAY THREE: God made grass, and flowers, and…
Every year in January, I take a look at my analytics to see which of my blog posts have enjoyed the most popularity in the preceding 12 months. I do this in an attempt to spot past trends and learn how better to serve my readers (that’s you!) in the future. So let’s see what…
This is National Week of the Bible, so I thought I’d kick it off by sharing this brand new free Books of the Bible Printable. click to print free Books of the Bible Printable This printable divides the 66 books of the Bible into Old and New Testaments (with 39 and 27 books, respectively), then…
My new, hand-drawn All Scripture is Given Coloring Page features 2 Timothy 3:16-17. These verses read: “All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work.” click to print All…
What follows is another yearly installment in our family’s complete history told via the 2019 Flanders Family Christmas Update. To see a full listing, see Our Christmas Letters. For tips on writing your own family history in this fashion, follow this link. In the meantime, enjoy! The Flanders Family Update: 2019 December 2018 Happenings Doug…
Tenth in my monthly series on celebration-worthy moments, below you’ll find a lengthy list of October Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable this year. You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through for ideas and resources to help…
Three of our children have birthdays in September, but there are plenty of reasons to celebrate this month that aren’t specific to our family. Below you’ll find a lengthy list of September Holidays, ninth in my monthly series of celebration-worthy moments. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable this year….
Eighth in my monthly series on celebration-worthy moments, below you’ll find a lengthy listing of August Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable all year long. You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through for ideas and resources to…
I’ve been working in my flower beds this week. Pulling weeds. Admiring blossoms. Listening to birds. And observing butterflies. Which is what prompted me to share this Every Bird and Insect coloring page. click to print Every Bird and Insect Coloring Page It features Psalm 50:11: “I know every bird in the mountains, and the…
Sixth in my monthly series on celebration-worthy moments, below you’ll find a lengthy list of June Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable this year. You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through for ideas and resources to help…
Fifth in my monthly series on celebration-worthy moments, below you’ll find a lengthy list of May Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable this year. You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through for ideas and resources to help…
Fourth in my monthly series on celebration-worthy moments, below you’ll find a lengthy list of April Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable this year. You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through for ideas and resources to help…
Third in my monthly series on celebration-worthy moments, here is a lengthy list of March Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I hope these posts will help you make every month more memorable this year. You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through for ideas and resources to help your…
In keeping with my promise to publish a wide assortment of celebration-worthy moments each month, here is a lengthy list of February Holidays and Quirky Celebrations. I want to make every month more memorable this year. Are you with me? You’ll notice that some items on this list are linked to other pages. Click through…
If years of COVID lockdowns taught us anything, it’s the value of celebrating the small things in life. Toilet paper. Grocery Pickup. Sunny days. Face time. Birds singing outside your window. That’s not a bad way to live, if you ask me. Sure, I’m ready to ditch the masks, plan a trip, and get back…
These are changing times we live in, right? This coronavirus outbreak is wreaking havoc on carefully laid plans everywhere. School’s been suspended. Travel postponed. Concerts and conferences and church services cancelled. And no idea when (or if) life will ever return to normal. Yes, the times are changing. But God is able to bring good…
Two months of the New Year have already passed and we find ourselves at the beginning of Lent this week. Easter is just around the corner! One of my brilliant readers suggested I create a Easter Scripture Countdown chain for the season of Lent like the Advent Scripture Countdown I designed a few Christmases ago….
It’s been awhile since I’ve published my Mailbag Monday column and things have really stacked up. So I’m tackling as many as I can this week — all centered around a freebie theme — in an effort to get caught up. Enjoy! Kids Eat Free First, I want to say a big THANK YOU to…
I have great memories of Thanksgiving dinners I enjoyed in the home of my grandparents. They always spread a bountiful feast I took for granted as a kid. But as an adult, I marvel at all the work that must have gone into what at the time seemed like such a simple celebration. So, now…
Today I’m sharing a free printable fishing game I made for my kids, plus several ideas for different ways to use it. To get started, you’ll need several copies of the following fish printable. I printed mine on yellow card stock to make them more durable. If you anticipate using them with lots of children…
My husband and I are often asked about cultivating friendship between siblings. That’s because one of the first things people usually notice about our children is how well they get along. Sure, they have occasional squabbles, but that is the exception rather than the rule. For the most part, they really love and admire one…
After mentioning the fact that our children are required to quote their weekly memory verses before checking out our iPad, I received some questions from readers as to whether that rule applies for other electronics, as well, and how we go about monitoring our all children’s screen time. The answer is, yes, they have to…
We’ve had a lot going on at our house and on our website this month. So I thought a quick update was in order. We’ve added a potpourri of printables, including Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (scroll to the bottom of this post to print), some Subway Art for Valentine’s Day, and children’s chore charts (now translated…
What follows is another yearly installment in our family’s complete history told via the 1994 Flanders Family Christmas Update. To see a full listing, see Our Christmas Letters. For tips on writing your own family history in this fashion, follow this link. In the meantime, enjoy! The Flanders Family Update: 1994 January 1994 Happenings This…
What follows is another yearly installment in our family’s complete history told via the 1991 Flanders Family Christmas Update. To see a full listing, see Our Christmas Letters. For tips on writing your own family history in this fashion, follow this link. In the meantime, enjoy! The Flanders Family Update: 1991 January 1991 Happenings Several…
What follows is another yearly installment in our family’s complete history told via the 1987 Flanders Family Christmas Update. To see a full listing, see Our Christmas Letters. For tips on writing your own family history in this fashion, follow this link. In the meantime, enjoy! The Flanders Family Update: 1987 January 1987 Happenings Okay,…
Want fresh ideas & free resources to make your home happier, healthier, and more harmonious? We’ve got you covered! My name is Jennifer Flanders. I’m a Christian wife and homeschooling mother of twelve and grandma to 22. Although I’m the one who does most of the writing here, this blog was really the brainchild of…
Below is a sample itinerary from a trip our family took several years ago. The longer I have to plan a trip, the more detailed my itineraries become. (For a list of the money-saving sites I normally check while planning, see this post: Favorite Websites for Vacation Planning.) I’ll admit the hourly schedule is probably…
