Back Where It Belongs

So...there's been something of a blog hiatus since about Christmas over here. Part of which is that there hasn't been much going on over these parts. I could have posted about all of our families exploits sledding, skating, making snow forts, braving the Winter Weather except that....there hasn't been any. This is, by far, the mildest Winter that I can recall. Our pond is completely clear of ice...in fact, we even fed bread to fish off our dock yesterday. It's almost time to string up the fishing poles and till the garden...VERY uncharacteristic for this time of year in New England.
That sounds good and all but, the main reason that I haven't been posting anything is....well....The Patriots. Yeah...I'll blame the Patriots. Specifically, what the Patriots Playoff run brought me to do. **cue Sinister Music**...Dun Dun DUUUNNNN!!!!

We plugged in the TV.

Yup. The ole' "Time Sucker" herself.

It started with a few weeks to go in the Pats season (and right around New Years...what to watch a half-dead Dick Clark desperatly cue the ball to drop and all)
At any rate...The original plan was to only bring up the TV for game days but, after a long Monday at work...what would I rather do? Haul the ole' girl down to the basement again, or check to see if there's a new episode of "American Pickers" on?

Hours led to days, days led to weeks, weeks to a month or so. There it sat in our Sunroom. The 32' behemouth. The Monolith. Staring at me like the Eye of Sauron....beckoning...."turn me on....turn me on....turn me ON". You may think that i'm being overly dramatic but, for a family that routinely watched VERY little tv....with this thing plugged and waiting to be watched...it was like staring down Clint freaking Eastwood....the thing just kept daring me...."Do you feel lucky, punk?"...and often I did.

For the past 5 weeks or so....the tube was the central figure in our sunroom. We kept it off, for the most part, while the kids were awake but, after snack, stories, prayers, and bed....you better believe that baby came on in record time. American Pickers, Pawn Stars, Planet Earth, That show with the British lady who tells parents about the trolls their kids have become, that show with the dude with the spikey blonde hair who goes to diners and stains his shirt telling us how unreal their corned beef is...I watched it all.

Well...This past Sunday, The Patriots laid an egg (again) and....enough was enough. It was time to relegate the 32' weapon of mass distraction back to it's rightful place:



Crammed between some totes and the wall in our basement. I gotta tell ya....I love T.V. LOVE T.V. i grew up in a home where the TV was on pretty much all waking hours (with loving parents, mind you....just lots of M*A*S*H* and The People's Court as well). it certainly is a sacrifice to go without it but....after a month or so...the time that is redeemed is wonderful, especially in a home with young children.
I know that I've posted this verse here before but...one of my favorite verses in the entire Bible is Ephesians 5: 15-16:

" See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil."

It was a fun distraction, having the TV upstairs this past season...It was also stifling. In the few short days that "The Beast" has been put away, I've spent so much time growing...spending more time talking with Chrissy, reading just about everything there is to know about hunting/harvesting/field dressing deer, planning out this years garden, learning some cool Bluegrass scales and runs...it's amazing, the time that you find, when you are not tied to That Box.

i walked around my home tonight, thankful for the conviction of The Lord in putting that thing away...I was blessed with scenes like these:


My boy, sitting quietly in his room, poring over books (what you can't see is that He was also listening to The Bible on CD).


My girls making Pizza crusts.

That's the soundtrack to our home.....not some Platinum-Haired Doofus telling me how great the Shepherd's Pie is.

I gotta keep this in prayer, though...cuz...the Olympics are coming up in the Summer...and I love me some High Dive.

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under he heaven."
- Ecclesiastes 3:1

Catching Up and Calming Down

So, it's been almost a month since my last post.....something that hasn't happened in the 1 1/2 years that this blog has existed. It's been quite a crazy couple of months for our family. Since getting back from our trip to Lancaster County, PA in early October we've had: another trip for Chrissy and the kids to NJ, a cold/sickness that's been hanging around strong for almost a month, and a freak early-season snowstorm that knocked out power to us for 4 days (and others in our area for over a week). It's been challenging enough to keep our collective heads above water, never mind trying to keep a blog going....but I'm back on the train starting right now...as this Winter season comes on us...it's a time for our family to slow down, to reconnect and to prepare for the coming year.
In my last post, we talked about getting ready for our "Light The Night" family Halloween outreach....well...that never happened, because on October 30, our area was blanketed under 6 inches of the heaviest, wettest snow you have ever seen, leaving us and thousands of others without power. Thankfully we were prepared and able to stay calm, warm, and fed thanks to our wood burning stove, propane oven, and gas-powered generator. Our town had postponed trick-or-treating to almost a week later, on the following Friday....but Chrissy and the kids would be in New Jersey at that time celebrating our Niece Brenna's 16th birthday and out nephew's 5th birthday....so we gave all our candy to the local relief shelter to share with the kids who were staying there with their families to weather the storm. We did still manage to get the kids dressed in their costumes, if only to visit one of our neighborsm who we are very close with, to get a treat amidst the snowstorm:
Our Little Farmers.

Tonight's post is going to be a quick one....but I'm committing to getting back into a regular rhythm. within the next few days, posts will be up on:
- Home-made laundry soap recipe and process: I've got several requests from friends on how to make this stuff.....long story short: We've been making our own laundry soap for years based on a recipe that I found online (which I've made several changes to).. The stuff works better than Tide, is all natural, and costs less than 3% of anything you'd buy in a store.
- A Leo Family Thanksgiving (featuring another year with my wonderful 90 year old grandmother at our table:^)
- The Leo family coat drive.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving....we'll be in touch.

The Leo's


- Our backyard, 10/30/11....crazy.

Irate, Informed, and Graced

I need to be more like Jesus.

Don't we all.

Jesus taught radical truths and, as such, spend lots of time surrounded by those who didn't share his conviction...some who you may even call "ignorant". But He didn't focus so much on the ignorant attitudes of those with whom He came into contact with as much as He did His response to them.....mercy....understanding....grace.
MAN....couldn't we all use more of that.
I mean, even Peter....a guy that had been with Him since the beginning....was so content to continually screw up, doubt, and not get it....it makes you wonder "what chance do WE have?....if a disciple who SAW Jesus do this stuff and heard His words first-hand and still screwed up so royally...what chance do I stand?"

The answer is "none". It's all about Grace.

I had an opportunity this weekend to make a choice. A Proverbs-teaching, cut and dry, wisdom-or-foolishness choice. I both succeeded and failed.

Ivy got Chicken Pox. We have dozens of friends who do not subscribe to the typical unquestioned, lobbyist-influenced, health care system that totes shots and vaccinations as the be all and end all of disease prevention. Does modern medicine have some things right? sure. Do they have TONS of things that they grandstand about for their own selfish gain while putting millions of children at risk for future permanent negative consequences to their self-proclaimed "universal solutions"? ...absolutely.
So within that parameter lies the role of the informed parent, needing to make a decision.
Our decision is a simple one....Chicken Pox has been around forever....If one of our kids catches it...we'll let the others catch it, get "infected" and get it over with. We even went so far as to invite other families with young children over to contract the virus from our daughter in hopes that they could also get it "over with". We had many takers. Over this past weekend...close to dozen children circulated through our home....playing closely with Ivy...with parents in hopes of their kids catching the virus themselves....and they also "getting it over with".

I guess that I should have expected for this idea to be met with some resistance. Especially in this uninformed, Ignorant-reactionary, believe-what-you-are-told-on-the-internet culture. But I didn't.
We didn't receive TONS of resistance...but the resistance we DID get was from radically ignorant, uninformed, uneducated, sad sources. From parents who think that what WE are doing is absolutely crazy and irresponsible but yet don't spend 2 seconds researching and educating themselves on the scores of vaccines that are being injected into the bodies of THEIR children. No thought is given as to the need for these injections...their overall effectiveness, or the contents in them (if you've read this far and have a 2 year old child who has all of their vaccine shots....they've already been injected with aluminum, formaldehyde, MSG (the same stuff that's in Chinese food), human DNA (including that of aborted fetuses), Guinea Pig or Cow embryos.....shall I go on? Yet somehow....it's my wife and I who are the "irresponsible" ones for allowing our children to be exposed to a non-lethal (at least at their age) virus with which they'll be immune to for their whole lives instead of allowing modern medicine to inject their crud-laden ( and hugely controversial) "vaccine" into our child's bodies....which may or may not even work.

Here's the part where I get pissed. Here's where I fail.

Or at least it's the part where I used to get pissed. Now...I just get sad. here's the part where I grow.
I get sad at the ignorance of our culture....and not even just the secular culture. The Christian culture that we live in has become so uninformed and secularized....so many uninformed decisions are being made for Christian children. I want to scream. It's not just the vaccinations. It's the hours that parents allow their children to be influenced by Xbox or PSP....the days and days that they allow their children to be molded by a secular coach or dance instructor in the name of "building character" while, in reality, are being corrupted by worldliness. The shopping out of their parental responsibilities to train up their children. I want to claw my eyes out. But Christ showed grace....so must I. Grace that is Greater than all Our Sins. I don't nearly have the tolerance or capacity that Christ Had. But I don't need to.
I need to daily praise Him for the education and conviction that he has given me and my family....and pray for those who need it. His grace is the only reason for any vision or guidance that we receive. I'm certainly not perfect. I'm a selfish sinner in need of huge amounts of growth. In 10 years...I hope to look back on where I am now and see HUGE amounts of growth in the life of me and my family from where we are right now. It begins by understanding, and receiving His grace.

Would you this moment His Grace receive?

They Grow Up So Fast **sniff**

This blog turns one year old today. I figured...what better thing to give it for it's first birthday than a birthday post.
I had started this blog a year ago after meeting several Christian homeschooling families who also kept family blogs. After reading several of them....blogging seemed like a neat way to keep a family diary, so-to-speak, and I figured that I'd follow suit. Leading up to that, The Lord was revealing so many truths to Chrissy and I through Scripture...about Biblicaly modeled and mandated familial roles, about the need for growth and maturity in certain areas of our lives, about creating a more Christ-centered culture within our home, about training up our children and keeping their hearts pointed towards Him.....
A year later, it's cool to be able to look back and see the growth that has happened in our family, and also areas where we still (and will always) need His Direction and Wisdom. I love John chapter 15...Jesus is talking about vines and branches...and about pruning....how even branches that bear fruit are pruned...cut back...in order that they may produce more fruit. We will never "arrive" as Christians....we ought to always be growing, and our lives will always need pruning, So that as our families grow....more and more of our time, focus, words, and activity is spent glorifying Him.
I've been reading back through some of the older posts from last year. I have enjoyed rereading where we were at as a family a year ago and thinking about what this next year has in store.
Reading posts about the kids...even from 5 or 6 months ago...and seeing how much they've grown physically and in maturity has been shocking...comforting but shocking. Specifically, Ivy turning from a crawling baby to a full-on little girl.
Looking back on last years gardening posts...seeing the bounty that we were able to reap...and looking forward to this year with 3x as much room to plant and well over a dozen new crops to tend.
Watching the School Room go from gutted corpse of a basement to a beautiful classroom and praying for God's Will in potentially getting an informal co-op going.
Ivy's broken arm
Our cat, Jack, passing away
our 12 foot tall Christmas tree that had to fit in an 8 foot tall room
My new job

I'm getting cheesy, aren't I.
**insert "No Woman, No Cry" softly in the background**
or worse....
that Green Day song that was used for every video montage, graduation song, and prom song from 1997-2003. gag.

In all seriousness, though, looking back, this was a nice little year for the Leo family. We continue to delight in the little things....the "small things" that we are told, in Scripture, not to despise. The learning, the pruning, the growing, His Mercy, His Wisdom....

I can't wait until I read this post a year from now and see where He brings us from here.

Of course...I can't end without posting about something that we discovered in the yard so....without further adieu:


The Cutest Little Turtle That You Ever Did See!!

We spotted this little guy swimming around near our dock during a fishing session last week and netted him up (we let him go a few hours later). I handed Gavin the quarter to use as a size reference....which I think he pocketed afterwards.

God Bless.