Why We're celebrating Hanukkah.

We are doing something new this year! We are celebrating Hanukkah! I know, I know we're not Jewish, but last year I saw a menorah on clearance at Target and something prompted me to buy it. I thought about what on earth I was going to do with that Menorah all year.

As I started studying Hanukkah (a holiday I knew very little about), I actually started wondering why I haven't been celebrating this holiday my entire life. The history of this holiday is an amazing testament to the work God was doing during those silent years in the Bible. There is a 400 year gap in between the Old Testament and the New Testament. I'm not a Bible scholar, so I just always assumed there wasn't anything important happening in those years...oh but there was.

You know what the Jewish faith has done well for centuries?? They have festivals and celebrations to remember what God has done for them. Even in Old Testament times they would have feasts that would last for days to remind themselves of the miracles that God did in their midst. They were able to pass down their faith from generation to generation because they were purposeful in celebrating and remembering God's work. As followers of Jesus we could do much better at remembering and celebrating the things God has done in our lives. And that's the purpose behind our own Hanukkah celebration (more on that in a minute).

Quick History Lesson:

Disclaimer: This is not a perfect recap of the history of Hanukkah. I should spend a lot more time studying this, but this is the basic gist of the story that I shared with my kids. This is from some books and internet sources. I'm just a mom, not a Jewish historian.

A Syrian/Greek King named Antichus decided that he didn't want the Jews to worship their God. So he kicked them out of their temple and desecrated the temple by slaughtering a pig on the alter and by putting a statue of Zeus in the temple.

A group of people said to their fellow Jews, “Hey, enough here! We cannot accept this impurity of putting a pagan god into the Temple, of eating non-kosher, of disobeying the Bible, of being immodest. That’s not the culture in which we were brought up. We’re not going to take this anymore — we’re going to stand up for the Jewish values and the Bible that brought us to this place.” A group called the Maccabees, led by a man named Mattathias and his brothers, revolted against King Antichus. There were five brother (just five) who stood up to a Kind and an entire army. Five guys got together, stood up for righteousness and against all odds changed history! (Whoa..there's some huge lessons there).

The first miracle is that the Maccabees were victorious over King Antichus' much stronger and bigger army! The second miracle took place when they reclaimed the temple and they started to clean the temple out. In the Temple, an eternal flame had to stay lit all the time. Walk into any synagogue today and you will see something commemorating that eternal flame, though now it’s usually a light bulb. This signifies that God’s presence is there all the time, in the same way that we light an eternal flame in memory of a president or great person to signify that their spirit never dies. But when they came into the Temple to light the eternal flame, there was only one flask of clean, pure olive oil to use, just enough to keep the flame burning for one day. Only pure oil could be used — not oil that had been touched by the pagans and used for sacrifices to the pagan gods. There would not be enough oil, as it would take eight days to go out and get more.

But they went ahead and lit the flame anyway, which sends a beautiful message of trusting in God. Some might have said, “Why bother? It will go out anyway after a day, and then we’ll have to wait for the oil.” But they trusted in God, and a miracle occurred — the lamp that was only to last for one day stayed lit for eight days until the new oil arrived. This is how Hanukkah became the “Festival of Lights.”

Major stuff to teach your kids about Hanukkah:

 1. Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, which makes sense because Jesus was Jewish. John 10:22-23 mentions it being the "Feast of Dedication" which is what we now call Hanukkah and it says that Jesus was at the temple. Jews went to the temple to remember and celebrate the miracle that God did 200 years prior to Jesus' birth.

2. Jesus didn't celebrate Christmas (**Gasp** This was shocking to my kids). Okay, so maybe Mary and Joseph celebrated Jesus' birthday...I don't really know. But no one during the time that Jesus was alive actually celebrated Christmas. The first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated on December 25th was in 336AD, during the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (he was the first Christian Roman Emperor). A few years later, Pope Julius I officially declared that the birth of Jesus would be celebrated on the 25th December.

Jesus didn't celebrate Christmas - Christmas celebrates Jesus!

How we are celebrating Hanukkah:

1. For the first night we made a craft (so they would have something to do while I told them the story of Hanukkah). There are also some decent youtube videos that we watched and NO they did not include Adam Sandler!

2. Each night (for 8 nights) we are lighting the Menorah.

3. When we light the Menorah we are choosing one story each night to tell about a miracle God has done for our family. We are celebrating and remembering the amazing things God has done for us. My kids don't have very many stories to tell. But I have stories that I can tell them of miracles that have taken place in my life and in their lives. Last night I asked them to tell me a miracle story... both Christian and McKenna were quick to tell the story of God healing Will's finger. That's the greatest miracle they've ever witnessed and it's something they both remember. The details of the night he got hurt are still fresh in their minds. Tonight I told them the miracle of Christian's birth. They had heard it before, but it's so good to remember and celebrate what God has done.

4. After we talk about the miracle God has done in our lives, we pray and thank God for working in our lives and we invite Him and ask Him to continue to work in our lives.

5. Then we open a small present! That's the celebration part!

I think I've got the Dreidel game figured out, so we're going to give that a try tomorrow!

Seriously...you should do this! It's so much fun to learn something new and try something different! Do you think you don't have any miracles to talk about or share about with your kids?? Every single time God answers a prayer, that's a miracle. It doesn't have to be some big parting of the Red Sea moment. It can be His whisper of Peace when you are going through a challenging time.

Tomorrow my story is going to be about the time a mechanic told me it was going to cost $2000 to fix my car. It turned out to be a $30 fix. I prayed and prayed that God would fix my car because I didn't have $2000. I was pregnant with Christian and I was about to quit my job and I remember second guessing my decision to be a stay-at-home mom because I was worried about how to pay that car repair bill and that was while I was working. What on earth would I do if something went wrong while I wasn't working? To this day, I think God fixed my car to increase my faith and give me the courage to quit my job.

And the next day, they're going to hear about the time I was in a head on collision and how I am CERTAIN that God protected Christian (he was a baby) and miraculously intervened in our lives so he wouldn't be in the car at that moment.

Happy Hanukkah!

"Shalom Aleikhem"

The Wonder of Salvation

Oh this girl~ Bedtime is either a disaster with her or the best moment of my day!

And last night was pretty special. We were reading THIS book and we were making some connections to the characters in the story and how she is a princess because when she asked Jesus into her heart (at age 3) she became a daughter of The King of Kings. She sat up in bed and started to cry and here's how the conversation began to unfold.

McKenna: "Mommy I'm worried because I don't remember asking Jesus into my heart. What if I didn't say the right words?"

Me: "You don't have to say the perfect words, you just have to believe in your heart that Jesus is God's son and that God raised Him from the dead. And you believe that and you told God you believed that, so he wrote your name down in his book and he doesn't erase it."

McKenna: "I just want to pray again and use my words and I don't want you to help me. I want to make sure God knows I'm really serious. I don't want to have to worry about this anymore."

Me: "Remember, God's special book has your name in it so you don't have to pray again, but if you want to tell Jesus again that you believe in him, then I'm sure he would be very happy about that. He loves you so much and he wants you to know FOR SURE that you're going to Heaven one day."

And so, on November 3rd 2014 at 8:26pm, McKenna prayed the most sincere prayer. She told Jesus that she believed that He is God's son and the she believes that Jesus rose from the dead. She asked him to forgive her of her sins and prayed that his special "Holy Spirit" power would fill her heart. And when she was done, she felt so much better. Her lack of memory of the first time she prayed was causing doubt in her mind. Probably the most important thing that I told her last night was that "doubt is okay" and when you have doubts the best thing you can do is talk to mom or dad about it.

Reggie Joiner in his book Parenting Beyond Your Capacity talks about how the most important thing you can do as a parent is create a trusting relationship with your child, so that they feel comfortable sharing their fears, doubts and worries with you! We always think that our kids should be earning our trust when really we should be working hard to earn the trust of our children!

Parenting Take-Aways:

1. Create time for conversation with your kids. Whether it's bedtime, around the table or in the car. You will not know what's really going on in their hearts if you don't make time for conversation.

2. Work at building trust. You do this by not overreacting to situations. Be predictable and consistent in how you interact with your child. They won't trust you if you're mad at them one minute and want to snuggle with them the next minute.

3. Salvation is a moment and a process. This will not be the last time that McKenna wrestles with her salvation. It's a normal part of maturing. I want her to doubt and wrestle through her belief in God because that means her salvation is her own. She doesn't just believe in Jesus because I told her that's the right thing to do...she's believing in Jesus because that's what she really believes. She's developing her own faith and that is the goal!

Remembering Stones

God realizes that we often forget what he has done for us. In Deuteronomy. 6:12 Moses issued a final warning to Israel just before they entered the promise land, “be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.…”  I know my own life is so busy, I'm usually just trying to get through the week....it's little wonder then that memorials have frequently played an important role in biblical history.

At the foot of Mt. Sinai, Moses built an altar of stones to commemorate God’s covenant with Israel (Ex. 12:14) . 

And in Joshua chapter four God command his people to erect a memorial. The Israelites had to cross over the Jordan River to get to the promised land. Normally the Jordan was a small river that could be easily crossed. However, during the Spring the melting snows in the mountains turned the river into a rushing river. It spread out over the flood plain and could be as much as a mile wide. But Joshua had seen God perform miracles (He was at the crossing of the Red Sea) and he assured the people that God was about to do something great. As the priests carried the ark of the covenant into the flooded river, the waters stopped flowing. The people crossed easily. It doesn't sound quite as dramatic as the crossing of the Red Sea when Pharaohs army was bearing down on them, but it's miraculous none the less. God once again, didn't want them to forget what He had done so he told them to take 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan River (one for every tribe) and carry them to the side of the river where Israel would camp in the land of Canaan. He wanted them to build something tangible so they would remember what He had done for them. 

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This blog is sort of my own remembering stone. My way of remembering the little years with my kids. I don't want it all to be a big blur of diapers and stomach bugs and baseball games. I want to remember not only the precious moments and things my kids say and do, but how faithful my Jesus has been to me. In our family we memorialize birthdays and holidays and we celebrate just about everything. But I didn't want August 6th to slip by without remembering what God did for us one year ago on this date. Many of you probably remember the accident Will had at the beach last year. His finger was slammed in a door and the top part of his pinky finger came off. My post from last year explaining the accident: HERE. It's the worst one of our kids has ever been hurt and for that I am so thankful. In hindsight the whole thing actually seems minor compared to what other people deal with, but for us it was major. There is nothing worse than watching your child suffer.

I can remember actually feeling like I was going to pass out when the ER doctor and orthopedic surgeon told me they couldn't reattach his finger. I almost missed the side comment from the surgeon when she said, "You know he's young enough...it could grow back."  Two days later Will's plastic surgeon said the same thing.. "You know...I've seen fingers grow back before on young children."  So that became my petition to God. "Oh Lord Jesus, please let Will's finger grow back." Many of you prayed with me. Another blog post from last year giving an update on Will: HERE and HERE.

Today there is a stubby little tip to Will's left pinky finger. It's a little shorter than his other hand. He also has a tiny little rounded finger nail. I was told more than once that he probably wouldn't have a finger nail, but YIPPEE JESUS, he has one. It doesn't grow much. I've only trimmed it twice in the last year, but it's there.

Today we remember what Jesus did for Will. And we thank Him and rejoice in His goodness. And just like Deuteronomy 6 says...We will NOT forget the Lord.

Thank you so much to each of you who prayed for healing for Will. Can you remember something the Lord has done for you?? Sit with your kids and talk about times that God has been faithful to your family. Be careful not to forget the Lord.

A Pinkie Promise

 Five years ago I made a deal with this cute first grader.

Oh how I adore this picture of her!

I made her pinkie promise that if she ever cried at school or felt like crying that she would tell me.

Girls are really awesome at keeping up their end of the deal with that pinkie promise. She always told me when she was sad.
She never had to wait for the "right moment" she just laid it out there. That's the difference between a seven yr old girl and a seven yr old boy!!!

I know that "pinkie promises" are sort of for girls...or so I'm told.

But this first grader reluctantly made the same pinkie promise with me this year.

I'm so thankful that my bedtime routine with this guy has become (for the most part) a safe time for him of talking and praying and reading and snuggling. It's when all the big stuff in his life comes up. Last night I was so glad we had made that pinkie promise. He kept his end of the deal. A series of unfortunate things happened all in a row yesterday. He handled it and there was nothing I could have done about any of it....a migraine, his brand new super cool water bottle fell out of his backpack and cracked, none of his friends were on the bus... That's some pretty bad stuff when you're seven. So he looked out the window on the bus and blinked a lot, which is code for - I am trying really hard not to cry. 

You know what's ALWAYS in the back of my mind as I sit there and listen to my precious seven year old? I think about that boy being 16 or 21 and how I pray that in his mind I will still be a safe person to talk to and get advice from. The stakes will be so much higher then and I pray that Ryan and I will still be a huge influence in his life at that point. I'm working hard now to take a deep breath and give him the time he needs so that I can build a solid relationship with him now.

I'm so thankful that we grabbed pinkies on the first day of school. He rolled his eyes as he promised to always tell me if he was sad. But that moment stuck with him and how thankful I am that he kept his promise.

Disobedience

I have a chronic disobey-er in my house. Do you have one?? I'm convinced that every family has one, but maybe that's just me trying to make myself feel better!

Anywho... I read this one line several days ago. It has stuck with me and I've been rolling it around in my brain for awhile now.

"When your children disobey remember that you disobey the Lord all the time, and he's the PERFECT parent."

Whew...I'm far from perfect no wonder my kids disobey me all the time :)

The Bible says that the Lord's kindness leads to repentance.

I think I need to show my kids more kindness when they disobey.

That doesn't mean letting them off the hook...it just means showing them grace.

A Back to School Challenge

There are 3 times through out the year that I think are great times to start something new or get into a new routine with your kids. Obviously New Years is the time we all think of to start fresh. But when you have kids the end of the school year marks another time of transition for them and the beginning of the school year to also a good time to reevaluate what you're doing in your home and set some goals and stick to them.

So let's talk about this "back to school" season of our lives.

I have a challenge for all of you moms with kids of ANY age!!!

Challenge #1: The Mommy Challenge..... Pray at least one scripture for each of your kids each day!

I've talked about Isaiah 55:10&11 before and how it talks about how when God's word is spoken God says "it will not return to me empty but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Praying scripture for your kids is a way of tapping into God's power. So praying God's word for your kids is powerful and effective!

Go HERE to print out some cards with scriptures on them that you could pray throughout the day for your kiddos. These verses are just a starting point. My favorite scriptures to pray for my kids and the ones that I pray every day are:

Romans 12:2
 " Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will."
I say; "Dear Jesus, Help McKenna not to conform to the pattern of this word, but may she be transformed by the renewing of her mind. Help her to test and approve what your will is."

Colossians 3:2

"Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things."
I say; "Jesus, Help Christian to set his mind on things above today, not on earthly things." 

Psalm 89:1
"I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations."
I say; "Dear Lord, let William sing of your great love forever. Let him make known your faithfulness through all generations."

I'll talk about Challenge #2 in a couple of days!!

Revisiting the story of Noah

It's a story Christian's heard since he was two.

He knows all about Noah, how the animals came two by two and how it rained for forty days.

But this time it took on new meaning.

As we read Genesis 6:5-9 I could tell he was thinking...

" The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

This is the part of the story we usually skip. We start right at the part where the animals start showing up because that's the fun part...but the big lesson is in those four verses above.

Wow, God was so upset with how man was acting that he wished he had never made them?? That's major!

You mean everyone in the whole world was doing the wrong thing, except for Noah???

That means that even when everyone else in your class or everyone else on the bus or everyone else on your team is doing the WRONG thing...you can still choose to do the right thing like Noah.

Then we talked about how when you choose to do the right thing God can use you to be a part of his plan. God always has a plan and it's always an AWESOME plan, but we miss out if we sin all the time. We talked about the awesome things that Noah got to do because he was blameless. Then we talked about a guy in our church that we know who's a missionary right now (making a real life connection for Christian) and how he is having an amazing adventure telling people about Jesus in Guatemala because he is choosing to do the right thing.

And Christian said, "Wow, that makes me want to be really good!"

Bingo! That's what I want...I want him to have a desire to make good choices not to please me, not because he's afraid of discipline, but because he wants to please God and doesn't want to miss out on what God has planned for him!

A great read

If you, like me, put one of your treasures on a school bus last week (or this week for some of you), you should read THIS. You should read the whole thing to really get it, but here's my favorite quote:

"My maternal feelings mislead me. There is no betrayal of a child's trust in sending him out into uncertainty: there is only opportunity to further teach him the one worthy Object of his trust---and to learn the lesson again for myself. To paraphrase a favorite author, I cannot raise my children to be safe, but I can raise them to be strong."

She's 1

This picture is from August 3rd 2011. McKenna had just asked Jesus into her heart. We had been talking about Christian's "born-again birthday" that day and she had been begging me all day to let her ask Jesus into her heart. I felt like she was too young and didn't really have an understanding of what she was doing, so I kept putting her off. Towards the end of the day when she asked me AGAIN, we sat on the floor of the dining room and prayed and she asked Jesus to come into her heart. She was so excited.

I couldn't get past the fact that she was only 3 1/2. How can you make a life changing decision about being a follower of Jesus at that age?? But the whole time of prayer kept coming back to my mind over the next couple of weeks and I realized how sincere she was and I felt like the Lord impressed upon my heart that it's not really up to me to judge her salvation. In fact I felt like the Lord said to me "You don't understand everything either." Hmm....good point.

So last week we celebrated McKenna's very first "born-again" birthday. Our cousins were in town so I felt like it wasn't as "spiritual" as I wanted it to be. I wanted to have special time with her where we could talk about the decision she made and just point her heart to Jesus but I didn't get a chance to talk through some of the things I wanted to.   I will say that this is one of the greatest traditions we have for our kids. Celebrating their "born-again birthdays" each year always gives us the opportunity to celebrate Jesus and to have some amazing conversations about their own walk with the Lord.

 Will was adorable handing her a present.

Three Part Parenting

I think we would all agree with the fact that one day we'll take our last breath. And when we do our bodies will be laid to rest and it's our souls that will live on for eternity. Right? 

Well, if that's what we actually believe then we should parent a little more with that in mind. We spend so much time parenting the "body" that we forget about the eternal part of our child.

Christian's love to throw around the term "spirit," "soul," and "body" but what are those three things? We all know what the body is, but what defines the spirit and the soul?

Emily Freeman in her book Grace for the Good Girl says; "I'm convinced that the Bible teaches that we are a three-part whole....  The soul is the emotions, the mind and the will. The soul can't function properly without the life-giving spirit. Back in the Garden, when God said that eating from the Tree of Knowledge would lead to death, he was not saying that just to scare the man and woman. Did they die physically? No, they still had bodies. Did their souls die? No, they still had emotions and thoughts and wills of their own. So what died? Their spirits died that day in the Garden, that invisible place deep inside where they were connected to their God. And so every human after that was born into Adam, into death, with a dead spirit. The only way to bring the spirit to life is to admit it is dead and receive the One who is life."

As a mom I know my days are consumed with taking care of my children's bodies. I feed them, keep them clean, hug and kiss on them, make sure they get enough sleep, give them vitamins to keep them healthy, etc. Honestly, taking care of their little bodies is exhausting enough but that's the easy part.

Parenting their soul...their emotions and their little minds and taming their will is the hard part.  And this is the area where I find myself putting the most effort. There are countless books out there that offer advice on discipline techniques and all sorts of different theories on how to train up a child.

But lets talk about the spirit of your child for a minute. Is it even something that you think about on a daily basis or are you so overwhelmed with taking care of their body and their soul that their spirit gets lost in the chaos? In reality their spirit is the most important part of them. It determines how they will spend eternity, yet we spend such little time nurturing it.

I am convinced that as you parent you should have daily routines in your life that help you parent all three parts of you child. We have bedtime routines, bath time routines, dinner plans, etc that take care of their bodies. We help them learn to control their will and manage their emotions through various discipline techniques and through positive reinforcement. And in our home we nurture their spirits in several different ways. For starters we pray and say a scripture at every meal. It's not a big deal, it's just part of the routine. Reading God's word also nurtures their spirit. And I'm a big believer in putting your child to bed instead of sending them to bed. When I put my kids to bed this is the main time of day that I connect with them and during that time I am helping them learn to connect with Jesus. This is when I teach them to pray. I ask them for prayer requests. We read Bible stories. I ask them if their is anything they need to ask Jesus forgiveness for (teaching them to confess their sins). I love that one on one time with them when the room is dark and they don't want to go to sleep yet so they stall as long as they can and talk. Sometimes letting them stall bedtime is a good thing :)  They love this time when we sing and pray and reflect on their day and talk about Jesus and talk to Jesus. For a long time I thought they loved it because it delays their bedtime, but I know now that their little spirits crave that time when it's peaceful and they can connect with Jesus. Christian is seven now and I know that he has a very real and rather mature relationship with Jesus and it's because of the time we've invested at bedtime.

I have no idea who actually reads my blog or if you'll even get this far down in a post with no pictures :)  I do know that the words of this post have been rolling around in my brain for a solid week and I felt like this was something I was supposed to write. I'm no parenting expert.  I don't have it all figured out. I just try (and lots of times fail) each day to be obedient to Jesus.

Simple yet powerful

Every night for the past two months I've been praying Psalm 89:1 for my kids. 
The actual verse says; "I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations."
But at bedtime they hear me say; "Dear Jesus, I pray that McKenna will sing of your great love forever. I pray that she will make known your faithfulness through all generations."

Simple words...powerful message.

By praying that your kids will make known God's faithfulness through all generations you are praying that:

• they will be saved
• they will walk with the Lord for the rest of their lives
• the Lord will give them a long life
• that your children's children will hear the truth about having a relationship with Jesus 
• that a Christian heritage will be established in your family

 Put this verse on an index card by your child's bed. You'll have it memorized in just a few nights and before you know it your kids will have it memorized too. One day when they're grown I am certain that they will still remember their mom praying God's word for them and I pray that they will be blessed by it.

Taming Back Talk

People...we have a problem. It's called back talk. There is nothing on earth that gets me more fired up than back talk and Christian is a real pro. 

We've got a few other behavior issues too and I have learned that it's sometimes best not to "engage" the behavior, just to firmly put an end to it.

Enter.... the green bucket.

It's working....and that's why I'm sharing, just in case some of you might need a green bucket too :)

Each morning Christian gets 7 clips (clothes pins) on this green bucket. Anytime I catch him doing something good that goes above and beyond what is expected, I put a clip in the bucket. At the end of the day if all the clips are in the bucket, he can stay up an hour late (until 9pm).

The clips can also come out of the bucket if he back talks, disrespects me or has an issue with his little sister.

I have been known to move all the clips back to the outside....it just depends on the severity of the behavior infraction.

Christian hates to go to bed early, so this is working because it is tied to something he daily cares about.

Tonight there are still 2 clips on the outside of the bucket. Looks like someone is going to bed early :)

Summer: BINGO bucket list

Let me just take a moment to say that I hope you guys aren't getting annoyed with all my summer plan sharing. I'm simply sharing what we're doing to give you some ideas for you own family. 90% of what we do in our home was a thought that someone else had that they shared with me. I'm not great at coming up with my own creative ideas, so I'm just passing along ideas that I've found to work for us and I'm hoping they might work for you too :)

 

Last years list

 For the past two years we've made a bucket list of all the fun thing we want to do over the summer. It's fun to make a to-do list that's just fun!

Source

This year I'm making the fun even more fun by turning it into a game! My kids are going to love this.

Our 2012 List

On the last day of school we made our summer BINGO game. Each circle on the board contains one activity/event that we'll be doing over the summer. 

To add to the fun, when we fill up a row (horizontal, diagonal, four corners, etc) there will be an extra surprise. There's nothing like getting rewarded for having fun. 

The other reason I LOVE this BINGO board idea is because last year we ended up with two things on our list that we didn't do. We had a newborn in the house and I just couldn't do it all. So then I felt bad and they felt like they missed out on something because we didn't accomplish everything. No worries this year...this might be cheating, but if we are getting to the end of the summer and there is something on that chart that we just aren't going to get to, I can take the circle off and replace it with something simple that we can accomplish.

"Busyness is not Godliness"

"Busyness is not Godliness. God is not impressed with your production capacity as much as He is concerned that the product of your home--your own children--be chiseled and molded and perfected to the best of your ability. You may tire of this mundane task, but the Lord admonishes you not to grow weary and promises to supply the energy and strength as needed in this all-important task (Isaiah 40:28-31). God's strength is for what He plans for you to do--not stamina for everything you might want to do."

--Dorothy Patterson

Summer: Learning Bags

I have some educational goals for both of my kids this summer, but I don't want to spend the summer doing "school." At this point I think Christian is over it. So we are going to play one educational game each day (with some days off here and there I'm sure). 

I've noticed that in our house if we start the day with the TV on, it usually stays on way longer than I planned. So we're not going to start our mornings by watching "just one show." When my kids come downstairs in the morning for breakfast, there is going to be a learning bag sitting at their place at the table. They are going to play their learning game while I'm getting breakfast ready. And they can continue playing it while they're eating.

Here's a few examples of some of the activities the kids are going to be doing. "Christian's Alphabet Mystery" will probably be easy for him, but I think it's good practice to quickly think of what letter is missing on the alphabet cards. This will help him down the road when he has to put things in alphabetical order. I don't want him to have to sit there and say the whole alphabet just so he knows what letter comes after "k."  McKenna has her own learning bag similar to this but slightly easier.

This is one of my favorite activities that I found HERE.

The white spoons have uppercase letters on them and the clear spoons have lowercase letters on them and then you match them!

The cards have numbers on them and you have to figure out what number comes next and clip the correct clothes pin on each card.

 I also created a bunch of bags out of lessons that were already created for me. All I had to do was print them. Most of these activities are for late Kindergarten or early 1st grade. Go HERE to print your own copy.

 Source HERE

Source HERE

Okay, somebody stop me! Seriously. These are just a few of the bags I've got sitting on my kitchen counter. I have at least five more done and I'm in the middle of a few more activities for McKenna and then I just emailed my mom a list of even more stuff to print for me (she has a color printer, mine broke). I think I might have resurrected the teacher in me or something and now all I can think about are learning bags. Sheesh. 

In all seriousness, I do think these should make learning fun for my kids this summer. And I think they will bring a little structure to our mornings. If I home schooled I definitely think I would start out each morning like this.

Summer: "I'm bored"

 We've all heard it: "I'm bored. What can I do?" Ugh...seriously so annoying.

I think I find it irritating because it makes me realize just how selfish my kids are. They have so much more than most of the kids in the world and yet they can't find anything to do. So this summer I have a new strategy :) They're going to love it and they're going to hate it! ha!

For the record, I take no credit for this idea. This one comes to you thanks to Pinterest!

The "What can I do Can?" is filled with little slips of paper with various activities on them. If you ask "what can I do" or whine about being bored then you pull a slip of paper out of the can. Some of the slips of paper say fun things, some of the slips of paper have chores on them, some of the slips of paper have exercises on them. The rule is...YOU MUST DO WHAT'S ON THE PAPER RIGHT AWAY.  I think it's going to be fun :)

Here's my master list with my own ideas and ideas from lots of other websites (go here to read a ton of ideas and to get some free printables):

Play with sidewalk chalk
Climb a tree
Catch some ants
Help Mommy with the laundry
Build the biggest LEGO tower you can!
Build a giant train track and show it to Will
Run around the house 4 times!
Watch TV
Build a fort with blankets
Blow bubbles
Fly a kite
Do 15 jumping jacks
Set the table for dinner (fancy)
Throw all the laundry downstairs
Make a beach in mommy’s bathroom
Make a craft out of the recycling trash can
Draw a picture for Grammy & Grampy
Read a book
Paint with water
Swing on the red swing
Play math games on the computer
Put a puzzle together
Go cloud gazing
Make a zoo with your stuffed animals
Go a million miles on your bike :)
Make 8 baskets with the basket ball
Play with play dough
Make sock puppets
Play hide & seek
Type a letter on the computer
Sweep the garage 

Build a blanket fort

Make a musical instrument

Go for a walk and collect items to use for a nature rubbing

Build a tower out of toothpicks and marshmallows

Play categories (aka: 20 questions)

Make a list of as many black and white animals as you can

Clean the playroom
Babysit Will
Do school work 3 papers
Clean up the yard
Draw a picture with your foot
Play with remote control car outside
Play the Wii
Dust your room
Put on a blindfold and draw a picture
Pillow fight
Make pudding 
Do school work 2 papers
Make up a show for mommy & Will
Set up the slip n' slide and have fun!
Ride your bike to the circle
Sing a song
Say (2) scripture verses
Call someone to say “hi”
Play air hockey
Have a balloon stomping race
Plan a surprise for the mailman
Make and plan dinner and do it by yourself
Make a treasure map &  go on a hunt
Make an obstacle course
Wash mommy’s car
Play a board game
Do something nice for someone else
Make popsicles
Bake a cake and decorate it
Create a rainbow out of food & eat it
Slide down the steps in a sleeping bag
Go to the circle on your scooter
Vacuum under the kitchen table
Make up a song & dance
Make a list of words that rhyme with “ball”
Cut out some coupons for mommy
Fill up a watering can and water some plants outside
Get the net and clean the pool
Go on a scavenger hunt (get the paper from mom)

My goal (for the most part) is to make whatever activity they're doing an independent activity. I want them to be able to do it on their own and I don't want to have to go dig around for supplies to find for them to do whatever...so I've put together a bin of all the supplies we could need and it's ready to go.

Summer: Teach them to pray

Do you see that countdown chain?? Yikes! Summer vacation is almost here!!! Yippee.

 Actually Christian only has five more days of school. 

I've been spending a LOT of time prepping for summer. I want to be really intentional with the time we have and I've made some specific goals for each of my kids academically, spiritually and in the area of character development.

 One of my main goals for both Christian & McKenna is to teach them to pray. They're great at praying for their food or praying for someone to get better, but beyond that they don't know what to say. So we're getting intentional about it by using this cute little basket on our kitchen table.

The basket is from Target! Love it!

 Inside the basket are popsicle sticks with the names of all our our extended family members, names of missionaries, names of neighbors, teachers, etc. Some of the sticks just say "give thanks" or "share a prayer request." The original plan was that each child would pick a stick when we sit down to dinner and it would be their job to pray for whoever or whatever their stick says.

We were going to get started with this when school is out but I'm not even kidding...they couldn't wait to do it. So we started this weekend and they want to pray for someone every time they sit down at the table. We've almost gone through all the sticks (in just one weekend). Yesterday I even heard them pull a stick and pray for people all on their own. Christian gave McKenna some hints about what to say and she even did it without any help. When I sat down at the table a few minutes later she wanted to repeat her prayer again so I could hear it.

I know the novelty will wear off at some point. But in the meantime I'm enjoying hearing the precious voices of my children lifted up to their heavenly father. And don't worry, I've got a plan B for later in the summer when they're tired of this prayer strategy. I'll share about that later!

Luke 11: 1

"One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

My Easter Plan

I might just have to give up on the idea of real time blogging. I just can't keep up with it.  I love, love, love blogging as a way to document our family memories. I love looking back and seeing how far the Lord has brought us. I love all of you and how you bring encouragement to me through your comments and prayers and just the fact that you silently check-in with us. If you're reading this....I love you and I mean it.

But back to the point...real time blogging is just going to have to take a back seat for awhile. I think you're just going to have to hear about our lives "after the fact" since I still have a bunch of stuff from February that I haven't blogged about. But that's okay, I'll get to it one of these days.

Today I just need to share my heart. Whew...it's been a crazy couple of days. Heavy, heavy stuff on my heart that I just can NOT let go and I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I can't let it go because the Lord doesn't want me to. This is when an audible voice from God would be helpful. But it's times like these that bring about such growth in my life. It's helped me to refocus my attention on the eternal and worth while things that I need to be accomplishing in my own life. And I feel reinvigorated to be more intentional in my parenting.

Easter is right around the corner, so I wanted to share a few things that we're going to be doing around here to prepare our hearts. I find that I'm a lot more likely to actually do something if I come up with a specific plan.  I just wanted to share in case you need a few ideas yourself.

#1. Memorize Romans 10: 9
 "That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."
At first this seems like a long verse for kids to memorize, but it's really not that hard for them. You'd be surprised. If you're a follower of Jesus it is a KEY passage to have memorized and it's perfect for Easter!!!  We're actually going to start working on this one next week (we are still working on Eph. 6:1 and James 1:19). Each of my kids have their own recipe card box that we keep on the kitchen table with their scripture cards in them. Every time we eat a meal, we pull out a card and say a verse. If it's a new verse, I say it and then they repeat after me. We work on the same verse over and over for weeks and weeks. Even if they really, really know it...we continue to practice it so that it really gets "hidden in their hearts."


#2. Resurrection Eggs

Click here to see the Amazon.com link to this product. You can find them in your local Christian book store or even at Walmart in the Easter section. We're going to do these at dinner time each night, instead of at bedtime. We're just going to try something different to see if it works better with our little one year old (he was a bit of a distraction when we did the Jesse Tree at Christmas time).  

 #3. Resurrection Rolls

I am sooooo excited to try these this year. Click the link here to see exactly how to make them and what passages of scripture to read as you're making them with your kids. I seriously can't wait to make these the Saturday before Easter morning!! Do you see how the roll is "empty" just like the empty tomb. What a great visual for kids.







#4 Some fun crafts with McKenna:

 (source)

 

(source)

#5 A Fun Family Treat:

Such a cute idea!!! I love it.  (Source)

#6: Classroom Snack:

Making these for Christian's kindergarten class next week!!


So that's my Easter plan!!! What are you doing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus???

Patience

McKenna is not very patient. Not even a little bit. It's something I need to be very purposeful in working on with her. So today when we got in the car to drive 20 minutes to Will's well visit check up, I told her we were going to practice being patient.

To start things off I asked her what she thought patience was.

McKenna's definition of patience: It's when your mom is on the phone and you're not allowed to talk!

So apparently I tell her to be patient a lot when I'm on the phone. ha! That girl is always interrupting me.

So I explained that patience is when you have to wait or take your time and you're happy and not fussy about it.

Then I whipped out a package of marshmallow peeps. Oh my word she wanted them. I promised her that I would absolutely give her one, but that she was going to have to wait AND BE PATIENT for 2 minutes. During that 2 minutes she could not ask for one or ask me if the 2 minutes was up yet. At the end of 2 minutes, if she didn't mention the peep I would give one to her.

She failed in under a minute. So we had to start over again. The second time she made it the whole 2 minutes without asking or mentioning the game and she was rewarded with her precious peep. I think this might be our new car game. She is always wanting something in the car ...a song, a toy, a snack and it's the perfect time to practice patience.

Next time I tell her to be patient, I think she'll have a better idea of what I'm expecting her to do! Let's hope.

Safety Camp Revisited....

Remember the safety camp we had this summer???
Well I wanted to mention one more thing about it just in case any of you are planning on doing something similar.
I left out one topic that I had planned to cover, but just didn't prepare well enough for ahead of time. It is definitely something we're going to cover this fall!!
I planned on talking about gun safety.
We have lots of friends who hunt and I know for a fact have guns in their homes and as my kids get older and they have more playdates without me I want to be certain that they know what to do if another kid starts to play with a gun or if they find a gun somewhere.
You never know how well other people secure their guns. You might think you're leaving your kid in the hands of the most responsible person you know, but people make mistakes. People get careless sometimes and you have got to train your child for that moment.
I'm not trying to be all dramatic, but I think it's important to think of the worst thing that your child could ever experience and prepare them for it. Pray it never happens and don't live in fear, but educate and empower them to be able to handle it.