Movie Review

The homeschool community was very excited to show Beyond the Mask in the theater here last spring. We had such a busy spring we didn't even attempt to attend the showing. I requested it from the library and finally had my turn last week. It was frustrating that I got it over the holidays. I squeezed in watching it one night after the Lambs went to bed.

After watching it, I think the Lambs would need to be a little older to enjoy this movie. I think the age to watch this would be high school. I didn't try to fit in the Lambs watching it before it was due and because it was in high demand I wasn't allowed to renew it.

The homeschool community had a right to be excited about this movie since two homeschool graduates made this movie. This all began with some cousins getting together and making home movies several years ago. Now they were ready to produce a big film.   It was impressive that one actor was John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings), one writer was Paul McCusker (Adventures in Odyssey), and Stephen Kendrick (Fireproof, War Room) helped with the directing. There were 750 special effects! People around the world worked and also volunteered to make this movie. I appreciated that it was PG rating.

This movie seemed to have it all-action, adventure, love, and historical setting. They did their research so it was historically accurate, but they played with events that really happened so that the characters in the movie were in those historical events. I personally thought some of the events in the movie were a little far fetched to be historically correct, but they could have happened. I am often frustrated with the historical accuracy of films. This one seemed to get it correct or at least show "what might have been".

I am also often frustrated with the theology in "Christian" movies. I was pleased that this movie seemed to get it right. Then I listened to the bonus features and as the producer talked about their motivation to make this movie they got it wrong.* 

I would recommend this movie to high school students, especially that they watch it thinking about what they know about that point in history and that they think of how the movie was made-looking at the special effects. There wouldn't be anything wrong with showing it to younger and older, but I don't think they would get as much out of it. And I would recommend that the family watches the bonus features together and talk about the theology together.

*Spoiler Alert: Quit reading here if you want to watch the movie!

Theology:
A female character in the movie says, "Neither redemption or love can be earned. They are gifts granted freely from God."

The producer talks about this part of the movie in the bonus features. He quotes Titus 3:5. Then he says, "If we accept that (Titus 3:5), turn from trusting self and trust Him, God creates a new identify in Christ Jesus."

The producer also says, "We don't have to work hard to be good enough. Jesus has already done that for us. If we accept the redemption He offers we have hope for the future."

I believe the female character got it right, but the producer did not. We say in the meaning to the Apostles' Creed in the Small Catechism-

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.

The producers statement goes beyond the female character's line and what the producer adds is not necessary. I know blogging about this is being really nit picky. That is the point. The Gospel is that Jesus did it all for us! We don't have to, nor are we able to, accept it ourselves.

History:
One part of the movie that I appreciated was it gave a broad view of what was happening all over the world during Colonial Times in America. My high school history class seemed to just focus on what was happening in England and America. But we forget that dumping the tea in the Boston Harbor was much more involved than just those two countries. I thought the movie did a great job on this, especially because people were working on this movie all over the world when they made this movie. Because it was a group effort that view came across well.

You could tell that they did their homework and it showed that the historical accuracy was pretty good. Even the parts that didn't really happen, could have happened in the movie.

First Days of Christmas

We didn't attend 2nd Christmas Eve service because Lamb 2 and 3 were grouchy and tired. The Lambs had a fit that they were missing church! After putting them to bed I sat by the fire with a cup of tea and read a book until Ram came home.

On Christmas Day we did attend church. Then we came home and had crepes and lingonberries for lunch. The Lambs received remote control cars. Ram's parents came late in the afternoon. We opened a couple of presents and then we ate Christmas dinner. Then we finished opening presents. Then we had pie. I hurried to send everyone upstairs so I could watch Call the Midwife. It was a delightful holiday special remembering barren women.

On Saturday the Lambs received stylus with Star Wars characters on them in their stocking to go with their new Boogie Boards they got from Grandpa and Grandma. Ram and his dad took the Lambs to the Star Wars movie. Ram's mom and I went shopping. We both got a couple of great After Christmas deals. We also went to Macys to get ties for the Lambs to go to Stonesetters in January. We were disappointed that the coupon that I had expired at 2pm and we were there at 3pm. I never would have gone close to the mall the day after Christmas if Ram's mom hadn't wanted to. It ended up being busy, but not terrible. We just took our time driving between stores. After the movie we all went to a BBQ restaurant.

Ram's parents joined us for church on Sunday. We came home and ate leftovers. We spent Sunday around the house. The stocking treat today was lemon coconut water.

Monday I went to the grocery store and thought I overspent my monthly budget but I came in $0.83 under budget. Plus I have a mail in rebate and I will get $3 more. I am quite proud of serving Paleo meals and buying stocking treats and still staying under budget. That afternoon Ram's mom had some shopping to do at the health food store (to take home with her) and I had a coupon. It was good to go see what they had and decide it is not worth a membership for us. I had planned on cooking supper, but everyone was a little stir crazy with the cold weather so we decided to get out and go to Sushi Boats. Lamb 2 "won" by eating 14 sushi plates.

Tuesday's stocking treat was Butterfingers that were on Christmas clearance. Ram's parents joined us to go to the Basque museum. We had been there once when we first moved here and spent a little more time there this time. Since we were downtown Boise we decided to go out to eat again to a fish restaurant. The Lambs loved their fish and chips. Then we came home and I made deviled eggs for a snack. For supper Ram and I made Broccoli Beef. It was so good we will definitely make that recipe again! Ram's parents called it an early evening because they are flying to a family wedding today. This was Ram and Ewe's 14th wedding anniversary, but we didn't do anything special.

I was surprised how quickly the few days with Ram's parents went. We hadn't planned on eating out so much, but that is what happened. We have lots of food and desserts leftover. I will try to freeze some and we will eat the rest this week. It is nice to not have to cook for a few more days of vacation.

This morning's stocking treat was $5 each with a note that we would go to the Lego store today. We had never been there before. I made clear that we were going to window shop and to possibly buy individual pieces by the cup. There wasn't a lot of selection left in the individual pieces so after a long time looking Lamb 1 asked if he could buy just one piece. The salesman asked what piece he was interested in and said if that was all he wanted, he could have it for free. We decided to come back in a couple of weeks and see if they had a better selection when it wasn't right after Christmas. Lamb 2 had a fit that he wasn't allowed to spend his own money. It ended up being a good lesson for all of the Lambs that  it is possible to window shop but not buy anything.

We are all fighting colds and sore throats here. No one is officially sick but everyone isn't feeling completely normal. I hope to catch up on laundry and paperwork at the end of the year. I also hope to send out Christmas cards and plan for school. On Saturday I am going to a scrapbook day with a friend, so I need to get organized for that. Ram is back to work visiting shut-ins this afternoon and tomorrow and writing a sermon for Sunday. The Lambs are enjoying their last few days of vacation before we are back to school and regular activities on Monday.

Almost there

Ram's mom hosted us for Thanksgiving. She said that the day before we came she thought to herself one recipe down, 4 more to go, etc. until she made all the food. She prepared all the food before we got there so she could relax while we were there. She cooked everything from scratch so it would be Paleo so everyone in the family could eat it.

It is my turn to host Ram's parents for Christmas dinner. First I have thought one room down, 11 more to go, etc. until I cleaned the whole house. I didn't want to put up the Christmas tree until the living room was cleaned. (Full disclosure here: I deep cleaned the downstairs rooms and fast cleaned the upstairs rooms. I hope to deep clean upstairs after the holidays.) It took me the entire month of December to do all the cleaning. My house was very neglected in 2014 when Lamb 2 was in all his therapy and I think I finally got caught up.

Now it is my turn to make all the food from scratch and Paleo. I began with desserts. I chose 5 desserts because they are small and Ram's parents will be visiting us several days.  I have completed 4 of the desserts and will wait to make the 5th one until this weekend. The Paleo pecan bars were more complicated than I thought they were going to be, but I had a small sample and it was worth all the work! I am hoping to have one dessert each day they are here, but if Ram's dad hears about it he will probably request to sample all of them with Christmas dinner!

I did most of the grocery shopping on Saturday and the poor Lambs have had to ask before having fresh fruit and other snacks that are usually unlimited because they are for recipes. Today I went to a couple more stores and picked up the final ingredients for Christmas dinner. I still had money in my grocery budget and there were great items on clearance so I stocked up a little on a few more items.

Tomorrow the Lambs will put our Advent calendars away and they also have a few areas of the house to clean up their toys. I will tidy up and do a fast clean the bathrooms. I will make the sides to go with our ham too.

I am looking forward to going to 4 church services in the next 4 days. I am looking forward to several days of relaxing after working hard cleaning and baking. I am halfway done with Eternal Treasures and hope to finish. I am looking forward to playing card and board games with the Lambs. I have enjoyed reading Christmas cards we have received from friends and family. I plan to send New Year's cards this year.

The things they say...

Lamb 2: Mama, may I have a licorice box for wrapping presents?

Ewe: I'm sorry, but I don't know what a licorice box is.

Lamb 2 came back in a few minutes with a liquor box!

Look what came today!

I was surprised there was Sunday delivery. I guess that happens this time of year! An envelope came from here:

 I received my complimentary copy of the book I contributed to:

I began reading it as soon as I opened it. It is so much fun to read sections from many friends. Many of the teachers I taught with at Zion in Fort Wayne contributed, including  Rev. Harrison (senior pastor while I was at Zion) wrote the forward and Rev. Brondos (headmaster while I was at Zion) has a section too. Other homeschool friends contributed too. I learned about the hymn and pelicans featured on the cover while I was teaching at Zion. In a small way I feel that this book summarizes my career teaching both at Zion and now teaching the Lambs at home.

I am featured in three different sections. I actually did not say the quote that was attributed to me on page 51. I figured out who said that and e-mailed Cheryl about it. This book is printed on demand so future copies should remove my name and attribute it to the correct person. I did say the section on page 65, that was my small contribution. I also wrote the long section on page 106, but Ram got the credit for that one!

This book is mainly written for homeschoolers or those considering homeschooling. It also has suggestions of what you can do with your children at home if they attend school.  It also has suggestions for how LCMS schools can work with homeschoolers. I highly recommend all LCMS to read this book to understand homeschooling more.

Cheryl and Rachel had a huge job organizing contributions from a lot of people all over the country. They did a fantastic job. The little bit of communicating I did for my small contribution was so much fun to work with Cheryl. When I wrote this we were taking Lamb 2 to lots of therapy and she was very encouraging about my homeschooling him. She reminded me then to keep reading quality literature to him and to keep going on this journey. Well, we have continued on this journey and he has had much improvement, but we have much more academic work to do with him yet. In the meantime we are reading quality literature to our Lambs!

You can order Eternal Treasures from Amazon.

Church Advertising

Our church is located centrally in a growing city. In fact, it has grown 139% since 2000. We have visitors at our church almost every Sunday. Several times a year I hear comments like, "I had no idea there was an LCMS church on your busy street" or "I drive by that church every day on the way to work and I had no idea it was an LCMS church."

So our church decided to send out a mass mailing to the local neighborhoods reminding them that we are located in our city and telling them what time our Christmas services will be. I haven't seen the mailing yet, but I know it has a picture of the Holy Family.

With our church doing this, I have paid attention to the junk mail recently. We received 3 advertisements for local churches this week. One had a picture of reindeer antlers, one had a picture of a forest, and one had an angel. The one with a forest was an 8x11 size so cost the most to print.

Obviously the angel one was the best of what we received. But where is Christ part of Christmas at these churches?

We are praying that our mailing goes to some people that need a church that celebrates CHRISTmas.

Financial Decisions

Due to health care costs rising, we are going to have to pay a portion of our family's health insurance beginning in January. I must stress that we were given a choice and we chose to continue with our current insurance and pay a portion of it instead of switching insurance. We really appreciate that our insurance includes medical, dental, mental, vision, and more.  We are thankful that Ram's employer is still paying a much bigger percentage than we are.

But due to paying this next year, our finances are going to be tighter than they have been. I was glad that we had several months notice before this took effect. I began by trying to figure out a family budget including this. Since I did it several months ago, I have had time to get more exact numbers and make corrections.

We rearranged payments for our life insurance and stuff like that. We used to pay the boys life insurance quarterly and now we will pay each boy's once a year. I prefer this because instead of paying 3 bills each quarter, we will pay 1 bill each quarter and get a break 1 quarter. That will save on postage and checks too as this was one that was not withdrawn from our bank account. Some of our other payments are withdrawn but we chose to not make this one automatic.

We contacted our cell phone company and changed plans. We are saving a lot of money with our new plan plus we get unlimited talk and text now.

We told the church the amount we wanted to be deducted from Ram's paychecks for our HSA. We contacted our tax lady to get an idea of what our taxes will be next year. When all this was done, my budget turned out much better than I thought it was going to be. We will need to continue being frugal, but our new budget was not impossible.

I remember my mom often saying that you have to have money to save money. What she meant by this was if there is a good sale at the grocery store you need to have enough money to stock up on that item when it is on sale. If you don't have enough money to buy it while it is on sale, if it is an item that your family needs, then you'll have to buy it later when it is more expensive. I have thought of this advice often while I was shopping the past few months. Recently when there have been good sales I have stocked up a little more than I used to. I ordered 60 lbs of chicken from Zaycon because it was a good price. Even doing this, I have been under budget on my groceries the last few months.

When Ram got the car serviced they said the battery could make it longer, but he should start thinking about replacing it. He told them to replace it immediately because we have the money now and it would be one less thing to worry about next year. We have done other stuff like this recently.

When I realized our property taxes had a slight increase I added that amount to my December mortgage payment. I don't want to get behind in monthly mortgage payment amount. We did that a couple of years ago and it was awful!

We have done our homework and planned well for this. We are ready for January 15, the first paycheck when this takes effect!