SR 898: Preparing for the Holidays – Keeping the Christ at the Center – Sheri Renno, Part 1

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I printed off a list of all the state objectives, and we

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were gonna, like, we were gonna be on top of those. I wanted him to

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be ahead. And then we got into homeschooling, and I realized

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I just didn’t really care about those things. Different things

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started mattering to me. Hey, everyone, this is Yvette

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Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I am so excited that

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you are with me this week because we are talking about one of my

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favorite topics, and that’s the holidays. We are

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in at the beginning. I was going to say in the middle, but we’re kind

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of at the beginning of the holiday season. And I don’t

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know, maybe we’re in the middle because if you went to Hobby Lobby back in,

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like, August, they already had Christmas stuff out, so maybe we’re in the middle

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of it. Right? I’m not exactly sure what you would call middle beginning.

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And I don’t know. We are in the holiday season, and so we’re

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going to talk about the holidays. This week, I have a new guest with me.

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Her name is Sheri Renno, and she is from Our Life

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Homeschooling. She has an amazing blog, an amazing YouTube

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channel, and she has brought so much encouragement to me, and I know she is

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going to bring great encouragement to you as well. But before we get into our

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conversation and introduce Sheri to you, I want to say thank you to our sponsor,

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BJU Press Homeschool. If you’re looking for great homeschooling curriculum

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that’s taught from a strong biblical worldview, check them

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out bjupresshomeschool.com and they’ve got something

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for every family. They. I think they even have holiday stuff.

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I maybe shouldn’t say that, but if you’re not sure, and I’m not sure, we

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should just go to the website and check them out because they’ve got

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everything there. Bjupresshomeschool.com.

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Well, Sheri, welcome to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I have had so much fun chatting

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with you before we hit that record button. You are a new guest to

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the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, and I’m so excited that I discovered

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you. It was. I don’t know, I guess a couple months ago I discovered your

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YouTube channel, and you’ve got some really fun YouTube videos

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on there, and you have an amazing blog, and you

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talk about Christmas and Thanksgiving and the holidays. And I thought, oh, this is

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perfect, because I wanted to have somebody on to talk about this topic of

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the holidays. So for those who are not yet familiar with our

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life, homeschooling and you, Sheri, introduce yourself and your family to us.

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Okay. My name is Sheri. I’m a Christian

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homeschooling moment. I’m married to my husband Nelson,

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who’s. We’ve been married for 24 years.

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We were high school sweethearts. We met in geometry class. So

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neither of us is very good at geometry.

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We have 10 kids. The oldest is 19. The youngest is

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20 months. So one

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graduated, seven that were homeschooling, and two preschoolers.

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And we’re just very thankful for them. Yeah. So

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fun. Tell us really quickly how you got started with your blog and

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your YouTube channel. Yes, I. I

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started back in 2022. We had been homeschooling

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for a while, and I just wanted a way to encourage

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other moms that were behind me. I had so many

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people when I started homeschooling, so many moms that were ahead of me

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that I really just clung to to just find

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out, how do you do this? What do I do about this? And they were

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my cheerleaders, and they really kept me going on some of those hard

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days. And I hope to be that person

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cheering on those other moms. I love seeing dads

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getting involved in homeschooling, and I love how homeschooling

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has really brought families together. But I also know,

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realistically, my heart is for moms. Cause a lot of moms are

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at home doing a lot of the academic work, and I

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just want to encourage them and cheer them on

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in the great work that they’re doing in their homes. Well,

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you’re very good at it. And I think it’s important to

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just park there for a second because we need to be encouraging one another, right?

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I mean, we talk a lot about community and the importance of community.

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And sometimes I think, because we have social media and we see

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all these other moms on social media, and we see them making videos or they’re

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reels, all these things, and we’re like, man, they have it all together.

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Why am I not able to do it as effectively as them? Why does their

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house look like it’s perfect all the time? And their kids are always doing their

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schoolwork, and they always have their. Their perfect schedule laid out and they

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stick to it. And I think it’s so important for us to just be

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real with one another and say, you know what? Sometimes our day is really

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messy. But let me help you walk through your day

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in the midst of my messy day, because I know that your day is messy

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too. And so we can just all be kind of messy together, but encourage one

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Another. It’s so important for us to encourage each other,

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even if we don’t have it all figured out. And so you’ve been doing that

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for a long time, even though you’re still in the thick of

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homeschooling. Yes, very much. Yeah.

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And it really does look messy sometimes. But I

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think remembering the why, remembering the.

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Especially just the eternal perspective of the legacy that we’re leaving

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for our kids, we have such an opportunity to

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influence them and to influence the next generation.

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And on some of my hardest

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days, yeah, it’s really. It’s easy

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to lose sight of that, and that’s why I do

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think encouragement is so important. Yeah. Yeah, it really

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is. I don’t want to park here too long because I want to get into

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talking about the holidays. But you mentioned before we hit the record button that you

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had been a public school teacher prior to having kids and prior

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to homeschooling. Talk really quickly about that transition of going from

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teaching in the classroom to all of a sudden, now you’re going to homeschool. What

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did that look like? Did that make it easier? Did it make it harder? What

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was that experience like for you? Yeah.

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When I started teaching in the public school. I’m sorry. When I started

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homeschooling, the first thing I did, it was our oldest

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son, and he was starting kindergarten, and so I printed off

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a list of all the state objectives, and we were going to, like,

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we were going to be on top of those. I wanted him to be ahead,

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and so that’s kind of where we started. And then we got into

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homeschooling, and I realized he was going

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way ahead in certain areas. And in other areas,

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I just didn’t really care about those things. That wasn’t

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what mattered to me. Different things started mattering to me,

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and so our perspective just totally

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changed. And everything we were studying in science,

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in math, I. I wanted it to be seen from

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the perspective that this is God’s design. This was his idea.

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It originated with him. We’re just seeing it for, you know, this is the

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first time we’ve seen it. But this began. It originated with him.

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And so my whole perspective changed.

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And I wanted education to come from

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that point of view. And,

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yeah, we’ve been going strong ever since. My husband has

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been my biggest encourager. There were.

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When we got into it a couple years, and especially when we had all young

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kids, there were some really hard days. And he

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would come home and I would just give him this look, like, I

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don’t know. I don’t think I can do this. And he started believing in it

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so much that he was like, you can’t quit. What can I do?

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I’ll step in. I’ll step in here. I’ll do science. What do you want me

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to do? I will step in. Because he just really believed

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in the difference we were making in our kids life. Yeah.

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He saw the value in home education, which

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for your family, I know is discipleship. And so

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that is such an exciting place to be as a couple. There are a lot

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of moms I know who really want to homeschool and their husbands are like, yeah,

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okay, you can do it. But they’re really hands off. And then there are dads

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who really want to homeschool. And the mom’s like, there’s no way you’re going to

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get me to do that. So it’s really, it’s exciting when both mom

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and dad are on the same page and they’re a team. Even though mom is

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doing the majority of the work. Having mom and dad

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together is such an important thing. So we’ve got lots to talk about. We are

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going to get into the holidays, but we’re going to take a break first. We’ll

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be right back.

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We are back with Sheri. Let’s talk about the holidays because this is so

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fun. I have fall decorations out. I don’t yet have my

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Christmas stuff out. And I know there’s always the debate of when is

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it too early to listen to Christmas music. My daughter actually asked me, so right

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now we’re recording this at the end of October and she’s like, can we start

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listening to Christmas music? I was like, not until November,

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though. In years past, we certainly have listened to it before November. But this year

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I feel like, I don’t know, last year I felt like Christmas just dragged on

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for a really long time. And so I thought, this year I want to wait

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until November to actually listen to Christmas music. Yeah.

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Because then it, I don’t know, kind of overtakes Thanksgiving anyway. Whatever.

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And it gets lost. And it gets lost. Yeah. But I love the

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holidays. I love everything about them. I love the hustle and the bustle after

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Halloween. I hate Halloween. I want nothing to do with it. I wish it wasn’t

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a thing. But after Halloween I feel like, okay, we can breathe and we can

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enjoy these holidays. And I feel like even as Christians,

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sometimes it’s hard to separate

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the Christian holiday from the secular holiday, if you know what I mean.

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Yeah. And so let’s talk about how we can live differently

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as Christian families. And really keep Christ as

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the center of the celebration of Thanksgiving, of

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Christmas, of even the new Year, and all the things that we celebrate in

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between. Yeah. I think the holidays, I know, at least for

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me, sometimes take me by surprise. It just comes up

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quickly and it’s like, oh, oh, wow, it’s Thanksgiving. We gotta get,

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like, I gotta get going. And Christmas comes. It’s like, oh, man,

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here we go. It’s here already. It happened. And before we know

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it, we just kind of get sucked into the

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commercialism, into our to do list.

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And that just kind of consumes our thoughts. And

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we don’t always pause to think, what

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kind of legacy are we leaving for our kids.

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They see everything that we do, they’re with us. And

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whether we like it or not, we’re passing. We’re transferring something to

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them. Sure. And just like that verse in

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Scripture where it talks about the disciple isn’t greater than his teacher, but when he’s

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fully trained, he’s going to be like his teacher. They are 640.

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Yes. They’re picking up on so much that we’re doing,

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and what are we handing off to them? What are we

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leaving them with, and what are they walking away with when they have their

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own families? What kind of traditions are they going to keep

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going? Because they’re following our example. So I think

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just stopping and pausing to think about that. And

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what do we as Christians want to pass

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on to them? It should look differently than the rest of the

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world. Yeah, it absolutely should. Because instead of us always

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being anxious and, you know, overwhelmed by the

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holidays, we need our kids to see that. Okay. The holidays can

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be a huge blessing. It can be a time of enjoyment and family and really

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focusing on Jesus. I know for

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our family, for Christmas especially, we have books that we

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read. The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever, of course, is our

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favorite. I love that book. I talk about it. It’s ours, too. I love it.

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I talk about it every year. I’m like, people need to get that book if

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you haven’t read it, because it is so good.

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But even for Thanksgiving, I know that there are books.

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Do you do that? Do you have specific books that you read for Thanksgiving? For

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Christmas? Yes. For the different holidays? Yeah.

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Well, for Thanksgiving, one of my favorite books, I have a couple. I have a

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couple that I have listed on the blog. But one of my favorite is one

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by Dennis Rainey. I’m sorry. Barbara Raine, her husband

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does Family Life today. Yeah. And she goes through

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the Thanksgiving story. And what I love

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about it is that there’s large print if you want to just

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large print intermingled with small print. So you can

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read the whole story. For older kids or if you have some younger kids, you

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can just read some of the large print sections and it takes you through more

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quickly. Okay. And it has just pictures

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of like, just artifacts and things

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that art prints throughout time

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of the Thanksgiving story. And it’s just. It’s very

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Christ focused. Just talking about.

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There were just some amazing stories in it of how

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the one sea. One of the sailors was

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disobedient to the captain’s orders and refused

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to take the. I think they had to take lemon juice

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or something for their vitamin C so they wouldn’t get scurvy. He was

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disobedient and he was the only one that got sick.

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And just. She brings in

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faith into the story so many times and how the Lord

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providentially brought them to the new world. And

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it’s just. It’s really neat. It also has a CD in the

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back that has a whole bunch of

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hymns that are kind of centered around the theme of

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Thanksgiving. So as soon as I get that CD out and play it for

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my kids, it’s almost the same as when they hear Christmas carols. They hear that

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CD and they’re like, oh, it’s Christmas, or it’s Thanksgiving, it’s time.

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Yeah. Does the CD have vocals on it or

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is it just the music? No, just instrumental. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

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Yeah. But it’s well done. I think it’s

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actually Barbara Rainey playing, if I’m not mistaken. What is the

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name of the book? A Time to Remember Thanksgiving. A Time

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to Remember. Okay. Okay. We’ll find that and put a link to that in the

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show notes. What are some other traditions that you and your help, you and your

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family have at Thanksgiving time? Or do you have traditions? Do you

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have. I mean, to be honest, we have Christmas traditions in our family,

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but we don’t really have Thanksgiving traditions. Like, it’s always fly by the

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seat of our pants. It’s never usually a stressful holiday,

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but Thanksgiving is always something a little bit different for our family. So

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do you have specific traditions besides reading this book? Are there other

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things that you do? Yeah, pretty much just our read alouds

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we do. But then we will take a day or

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two before Thanksgiving and we’ll do

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just the basics, reading, writing, math. And after that, we’ll spend the rest of

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the time prepping. And I just count that as part of our day of school.

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So my older girls will make some of the dishes that we’re taking to our

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different family get togethers. And it just takes

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the pressure off, I think, because we’re making our homeschool

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life fit around our family life. And some of those

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things that we have to get done, we’re just making it a part of our

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life. And so as far as traditions,

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other than getting together, my husband’s family has a very rich

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tradition of singing hymns. So before the Thanksgiving meal, we

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always sing a hymn. Oh, that’s so cool. I love that. It’s something that we

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definitely want to pass down to our kids. Yeah, that’s probably

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the biggest one I can think of. Yeah, that’s really cool. I did

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think of actually. I guess this is more just my side of the family

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that we’ve had this tradition. This is such a terrible. The tradition is

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wonderful, but this one particular memory that I’ll share is really horrible.

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So we have a tradition on my dad’s, my mom and dad’s side that we

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would always go around before we would eat. We would pray, and then we would.

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Everyone would go around say something that they were thankful for. And I

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so vividly remember I had this uncle. He was not

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a believer. He absolutely did not believe in God. And so it was.

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He didn’t get offended when we would pray, but he would just kind of roll

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his eyes and put up with it. And I remember one year it got to

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him and he said, rub a dub dub. Thanks for the grub. Yay, God.

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And I was like, I was probably, I don’t know, 10

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at the time. And I was like, I was just so deeply offended that

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he would say that. And I thought, well, I guess maybe he’s actually

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thanking God for the food. I don’t know. In his own weird way. Yeah.

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But. Oh, goodness. Well, we’ll put links

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to that book that you shared in the show notes.

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And I want to talk about Christmas, but we’re just about out of time. So

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tell us really quickly where we can find out more about you and

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your blog, Your ministry, your YouTube channel, all the things that you’ve got going

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on. Okay. You can find me on the blog

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ourlifehomeschooling.com and also on

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YouTube. I do one video a week and my tagline

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is homeschooling Encouragement for everyday Moms.

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So some of them are day in the life videos, some of them are

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just talking, giving tips. Encouragement for moms.

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Yeah. So fun. Well, you do a great job with it. I’ve

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watched several of your videos and it’s really fun to watch you with your little

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kiddos. Oftentimes you’re in the kitchen, oftentimes you’re

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baking something. Do you do a lot of baking in your home? Actually,

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my girls, my older girls do most of the baking.

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They love it. So that is a huge perk of having older

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kids. I agree completely. I tell my girls that’s the only reason I had them

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was so that they would cook for me because I don’t like to cook. Yes.

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Yeah, same here. Yeah. So fun. All right, well, we’ll put those links in

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the show notes. Thank you, Sheri, for being with us today. And thank you guys

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so much for being with us as well. I hope your holiday season is off

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to a great start and that this week will just

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encourage you to keep Christ as the center of your holidays. Stay tuned

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to the very end to hear what’s coming up next on the podcast. And if

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you have not left a review, please do so. Just go on whatever app

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you’re listening to this on or whatever platform and leave a review. Tell people

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why they should listen to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. And if you’re watching on YouTube,

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make sure you like and subscribe and share it with your friends. Have a great

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day. We’ll see you back here on Wednesday. Bye.