Elections, Holidays and Unplugging

Whew! What a night last night was! In preparation for the election we spent several weeks going over everything from the definition of each party, who the candidates were, what the issues were, the election process, and how the branches of government work. We kept things very light and unbiased on the parentals part. I wanted our kids to form their own opinions about the issues and the candidates. We don't watch a lot of news on television so it was easier to keep them censored from the negative campaign ads and such. At the end of last week we invited some homeschool friends over to our house for an election party. We over-viewed the process as a group, had a little quiz of fun facts and held a mock popular vote- voting booth included! With the exception of two write-ins, the vote was unanimous (I'll keep that part to ourselves :)). Overall, it was a fun time had by all and educational as well!
Regardless of your vote and whether or not you woke up excited, upset or indifferent this morning, I know one thing to be true....Jesus is King!
Now we can move onto holidays....Praise Jesus. 
We are looking forward to a quiet, simple, no-frills holiday season at home. We have been very blessed with visits from family over the last few months filling up our love tanks with time spent. I pray this will help get us through the holidays away from all of them and help our kids to take advantage of the quality time spent with just the six of us-fingers crossed!
I recently was encouraged by a sweet Instagram friend to look into Nature Pal Exchange. I hopped over to their website here and after a few minutes, promptly signed up! You can look at their Instagram and Pinterest boards as well....just amazing. We will be taking several walks over the next few days and weeks to work on our Christmas box for our exchange. We haven't received our pal assignment yet and the anticipation is killing me. The weather here in ND has been crazy good for being November, like actual fall weather ;)
In the spirit of simplifying....I bring up the subject of screens, social media and the like. The whole election campaigns, holiday advertising, ect has made me want to take a shower after a few minutes on Facebook or watching tv. I was sitting in a bible study this week and was overwhelmed by the desire to just unplug. John and talked about how much time we allow our kids to spend watching Netflix on their Kindles, watching shows on tv and playing video games and we realized...yikes...it's way more than we thought. I also looked at myself and how much time I spend perusing Facebook, watching Netflix and the hours we spend after the kids go to bed watching *our* shows we recorded...double yikes. 

So we made the decision to remove Kindles from our kids hands, shut off Netflix for a while and I told my husband I was considering a long break from the ol'FB. We have enjoyed the last 24 hours spending time playing games, reading more and just being together. I encouraged the kids to take the time and enjoy being together, hoping they will cultivate their relationships not only together but also in Christ. I am hoping John and I will continue to lead by example, reading our bibles everyday and taking matters to prayer before worry and anxiety set in. 
I am prayerful we will have a home full of gratitude, love and peace this holiday season!