A Truly Quick Friday 5, I Promise!

1.  The resident teenager decided last Sunday night to give her life to Jesus Christ.  There was much rejoicing!

2.  Justus slept through the night last night for the second time in his life.  There was much rejoicing!  It was bittersweet, however, because another child had me up at 3 a.m. to go potty.  Ah, well.  She's just keeping me sharp.  ;)

3.  At dinner Wednesday night I heard myself say, "Norah, take that out.  We don't put cauliflower between our toes."  I made a mental note to add that to the list of things I never thought I would say as a parent.

4.  At dinner Thursday night I heard Norah say, "Mommy, I just drank all the pea water!"  Again, I made a mental note to add that to the list of things I never thought I would hear as a parent.

5.  Today is Good Friday.  We have been anticipating Easter by opening Resurrection Eggs every day, and I am planning on doing the same rocks-in-the-Easter-baskets-the-night-before tradition that we started last year.  I am excited to celebrate this year more than ever with our newly redeemed foster daughter/sister-in-Christ for the first time ever!!!

He is Risen!

Hug a Mom today

Happy Mother's Day today to my mom, my mother-in-law, and all the wonderful Grandmas in our life.  We are so blessed by all of you, and thankful for the many many sacrifices that you have made over the years on our behalf!  Thank you.

In honor of Mother's Day I am relaying another mom's words on motherhood that blessed me today.  Actually, they made me cry.  To all you young moms out there with young kids...read, be blessed, and be thankful.  Small children are a lot of work, but they are indeed a blessing!

Visit Sit a Spell to read the original post. 

I grow increasingly convinced that God values children much, much more than we do. 

We value a clean floor more than children. We value free time more than children. We value the good dishes more than children. We value going out to eat or watching grown-up television shows more than we value children. 

All the world, including the church, tells us that children are a bother, perhaps even a mistake. If you don’t believe that, introduce a family with many babies into your church and see how long it takes for someone to say, “They know what causes that, don’t they?” 

We have let the world convince us that a large family is a curse, when the Bible clearly teaches that many children are a blessing, a sign of God’s great favor. 

If I had the choice right now, there would be more children in my family. And I think I might be brave enough to let God decide how many. 

I remember that it seemed a little frantic around my house when the children were little. I never got “it all” done, whatever “it all” is. There was not much privacy or money or free time. There was lots of laundry and garbage and stinky stuff. The boys were going to be 2 and 4 forever. It was never going to end. 

Don’t get me wrong - I enjoyed my boys. But it was all colored by that worldly, selfish, hurry-up-and-grow-up attitude. And then it was over. I woke up one morning and they were almost as tall as me. The next day, or so it seemed, they didn’t even live with us. Now there is not much garbage or laundry or stinky stuff. And there is much more privacy and money and free time. 

I’d trade it all in a heartbeat. 

I would do laundry around the clock if it meant I could have one more day with my little boys in my home. I want the piles of blue jeans back. If my family had been larger, perhaps I would have grown in wisdom and learned to treasure the tiny victories and agonies of everyday. Perhaps not, but at least it would have lasted longer. 

You think they’ll be little forever. You can’t imagine being able to handle – afford – care for another little life. But you can. And it will be over before you know it, with plenty of years left to use the good dishes. 

So today, here's to sticky fingers, dirty buns, snotty noses, night-time crying, whining mouths, floors covered with toys and crumbs, and my car that smells like the dirty diaper I forgot to take out of it last week.  Today I am embracing every aspect of being a mom...because the JOY really does overshadow the messes.  Thank you, Jesus, for these sweet little girls!

Easter 2011: a belated recap

Easter weekend came and went in a flurry.  Tim sang at 4 services at our church over the weekend, so we didn't see much of him, but thankfully the girls and I were able to spend a lot of that time with my parents, and both sets of my grandparents.  (sidenote:  Tim took the girls to see his grandma for the afternoon the weekend before, while I cleaned the house without interruptions, and then his mom was in town all last week, so in a matter of 8 days my kids got to see 5 great-grandparents and 3 grandparents!  Amazing!)

My Grandpa's face in this picture just cracks me up!!

At the last minute (like, Saturday afternoon), I decided to do Easter baskets for the girls.  I've kind of steered away from them because my kids frankly just don't need any more candy, (especially after the VEISHEA parade a few weeks ago!) and I really want to be intentional to try and focus our holidays as much as possible on the true meaning of the season.  But I came across an amazing blog post idea that got me so excited about redeeming the infamous Easter basket!

So on Saturday night the girls each put some rocks in their baskets.  Then at bedtime we talked about some of the ways that we sin, and wrote them on the rocks.  We then covered the baskets with a red cloth, to represent Jesus' blood, and put the girls to bed.  Audrey was SO curious about what was going to happen!

The next morning they woke up and uncovered the baskets, and found an extra basket with Jesus' name on it, in between their baskets, holding all of their rocks.  (And our last Resurrection Egg to open.)

Their baskets had a few spring treats in them...a butterfly net and garden shovel.  I wanted to find them each a Christ-based children's book or something about Easter too, but like I said, this happened way last minute.  Next year I'm hoping to put Benjamin's Box in one of their baskets.  Audrey understood the lesson...that Jesus' blood covered her sins and took them away.  Norah just wanted to put all her rocks back in her basket.  :)  All in all, I still love this idea, and we'll be doing it again!

The butterfly nets were a huge hit as well!

We were planning on going to my parents' church's sunrise service at the park on Easter morning, at 6:30 a.m., but Audrey woke up crying 3 times the night before and when my alarm went off at 6 it was 32 degrees outside.  So I decided to let the girls sleep and we went to my parents house for breakfast at a more reasonable hour.  I had gone to the Good Friday service at our church already, but I took the girls back on Sunday morning so they could listen to Tim's special music...and they LOVED it!

These ham-ball faces crack me up.  They were totally done with pictures at this point.

Eeek!  Unintentional belly shot.  Next time remind me to suck it in a bit for the camera.

The girls with my Dad, aka "Papa."  (He's the one who Audrey wanted me to mail my ponytail to.) :)

After we got back from church, my mom let the girls "hunt" for jelly beans, spread all over her house.  They were enthralled.

"May I eat it, peeze, Mommy?"

I just can't say 'no' to those manners!

The afternoon concluded with my mom's crazy fun new tradition, the "egg roll."  This was our second annual egg roll as a family, and Audrey really got into it this year.  Norah didn't want anyone to smash her egg, so she held onto it tight, and refused to participate!  The rules:  Hard boil eggs, dye them each a different color, give one to each family member and create a bracket...pair off and ROLL!  The first egg to lose a piece of shell is out of the game.  The last egg intact is the winner...and then gets smashed on the driveway by all the other eggs.  Great fun for little (and big!) kids alike. : )

(Stick your tongue out and CONCENTRATE!)

Holler and cheer when your egg does well!

Giggle like crazy because it's actually okay to play with your food!

"No fanks, egg roll!  Norah's egg!  No smash it!"

Friday Quick 5

1.  Sitting here listening to my sweet girls sing along with Steve Green, "A joyful heart is good medicine."  Loving it while it lasts.

2.  We have one kid sick, and I'm waiting for the other one to follow suit.  It's pretty much inevitable, considering one of their new favorite things to do together is hold hands.  They've taken to wearing plastic buckets (like sand pails for the beach) on their heads, holding hands, and running around and around the circle in our house, yelling "I'm a farmer, I'm a farmer," while laughing and giggling together.  It's quite hilarious.  And I love how much they are learning to enjoy one another (some of) these days.  

3.  We braved the cold last weekend and ventured out to the VEISHEA parade.  A good time (and a LOT of candy) was had by all.

4.  My favorite quote from Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts this week:  "The parent must always self-parent first, self-preach before child-teach, because who can bring peace unless they've held their own peace?"

5.  Resurrection Eggs are in full force around here.  At least 3 or 4 times a day the girls ask me if they can open another Easter egg.  They are SO into it this year, and I love it!  Audrey is predicting what will be in each one, and correcting me if I simplify the story too much.  (When we opened one with bread in it, and I was explaining the last supper, I said something like "when you eat this bread, remember that I gave my body for you."  Audrey said "no no no, Mommy, Jesus said 'this is my body, this is my blood, given for you for for....gev....nis of sins.'"  Thanks to this book, apparently she's retaining more than we knew!)   And Norah leaned over to me at the lunch table yesterday with a very intense look on her face and said "coth rapped!"  ???  I repeated what I thought she said, though it still made no sense to me.  "Cloth wrapped?"  "Yesh!" she replied, adamantly.  "What are you talking about Norah?"  N:  "Cloth wrapped, 'round Jesus' body!  Wow!"  The night before we had opened an egg with a white cloth in it, and talked about how they wrapped Jesus' body in the cloth, but the next morning when the women went to the tomb, all they found were the cloths, all folded up, and Jesus' body was gone.  I demonstrated the process with a teddy bear, rolled a big pillow in front of it, and without them knowing removed the bear from the blanket before we rolled the pillow away.  I wish I would have had a camera to capture the dropped jaws and whispered "wows" from two little mouths.  They were absolutely amazed.  Oh, that that amazement might continue and carry over into the understanding of the real gospel truths!  Not all of our conversations have been super-spiritual...they are, after all, just 1 & 3 years old.  :)  Last night Audrey told our friend Nicole, who was babysitting, that "they put salt and pepper and cinnamon" on Him.  Her interpretation of burial spices.  :)  Gotta love it.  

Well, that's 5 my friends.  Praying you and your family experience much joy as you remember and celebrate the fulness of Easter this weekend.  

"God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 

-1 Corinthians 5:21

He is risen!

Lent

I have to admit, we haven't done much around here in the way of Easter preparation, though it's not because I haven't wanted to.  It seems like the season of Lent just rushed right on in and I haven't stopped to gather my thoughts or figure out what would be appropriate and helpful and on the level of our kids to do together as a family this year.

Last year we looked forward to Easter by opening Resurrection Eggs, and we're for sure going to do that again this year, it was a big hit!  I'm considering adding something else...but not quite sure what that might be.

I just read a post about Lent at Sit a Spell, and she had some great links at the end to a variety of lent and Easter resources for kids.  So if you're looking for ideas, I highly recommend clicking on over to her site.  

Anyway, I'm curious.  What do you and your family do to prepare for this important season?  Please share!

An Advent Compilation

What do you and your family do to celebrate the season? 

Each year as our kids get older, I am more and more pressed to make this holiday season meaningful; to do away with Santa, decrease the hype surrounding gifts, and anticipate the coming of a Baby.  The Baby.  To make a really really big deal about Jesus' birthday. 

Over the last few weeks I've read a few blogs that are really messing with me, in a good way.  If you have just 5 minutes, please please read these:

Christmas: Thinking about Whose Birthday It Is

When I read this, it struck a chord in my heart.  What DO we get Jesus for HIS birthday?  Gift-giving is my love language, make no mistake, and the thought of giving up presents entirely is a lot for me to swallow.  I don't really care about getting gifts, but I love buying things for other people.  I especially love watching them open and (hopefully) enjoy them.  So I've been wrestling with this idea.  In my heart I know it could be so so good...but in reality I'm not ready to go there, completely, yet.  But we did cut back this year.  We didn't buy as much for our kids as we wanted to. 

Over the last few years the growing trend in my extended family has been to draw names, and then buy just one gift for one person, instead of something for everyone.  And with the money we save by not buying gifts for everyone else, we make a donation to the charity of our choice in that person's name.  It has been so cool to sit around as a family and share all the different places we've donated to.  Not once has anyone given to the same organization, and they have ranged from local, to state, to national, and international organizations.  It's amazing to see what kind of an impact one family can have.  What would happen if everyone in America began to slowly decrease our consumerism and increase our generosity towards the rest of the world?

We've been talking about this more and more.  This week Audrey and I rounded up some of our toys that she and Norah just don't really play with much, or are taking up too much space, and we sold them on Craigslist.  Then she sat on my lap at the computer and we visited the Compassion website, and talked about children in other places who don't have any toys, and don't have any food, and wouldn't that be neat if we could use the money we made from selling our toys to buy them something they need?  Like a goat?  Or a chicken?  She was totally into it!  And we're doing it this year.  And hopefully this will become a tradition in our family.  We will give "to the least of these," and in doing so, we will give gifts to Jesus for His birthday. 

Christmas Time is Here
This post was really helpful to me this season as well.  Again, if you are considering how to 'spin' Christmas, Santa, Advent, etc with your kids, this is a great post.  And it's funny; I really appreciate her writing style.  In this article she linked to the Advent devo that her family uses it, so I checked it out, and liked what I saw!  It is simple, and easy to manage.  It only involves 4 days a week, so we have time to get behind and catch back up (in this season of life I've learned that we need that flexibility!)  And each day includes a Christmas hymn.  We love to sing!  I went through this book and chose the days that would make the most sense to Audrey, then went through our Christmas ornaments to find some that would correspond, for the most part, with the theme of each devotional.  (The shepherds, the wise men, an angel, etc.)  Then I wrapped them up in Christmas paper and put them all in a "treasure chest" underneath our tree. 

So we are doing a different spin on a "Jesse" tree of sorts.  But instead of starting at the beginning of Creation and working up to the birth of Christ, we are simply retelling the Christmas story each day, with an emphasis on different parts of the story and different characters.  It looks like this:  at breakfast, we light the candles. 

We read the devotion together, or simplify it and simply tell the kids the story of the day. 

We sing the hymn (if we know the one in the book that day; if not, we do Away in a Manger or another easy one that Audrey knows.)  Then we go to the Christmas tree and look in the treasure chest for the present with that day's number on it.  (I picked this up at Hobby Lobby for 50% off!)

Audrey and Norah take turns opening an ornament, then they hang it on our tree.

 (This was a music note, to symbolize the song of Mary.)

Since we only have enough ornaments and devotionals for 4 days a week, somedays when the girls are begging to do it, we simply light the candles, sing a Christmas song, and read a Christmas book, such as this one: 

(it's one of my favorites!)

The girls love each and every part of this little routine, and slowly but surely, Audrey is really getting the details of the Christmas story down.  And we are joyfully learning to anticipate together.

A friend of mine posted the idea to make a paper chain with as many links in it as the days leading up to Christmas.  It only took me about 3 days of Audrey asking "when is Christmas coming?" to implement this new tradition in our house.  Both girls loved decorating the links, and they have so much fun tearing off a new link every day, and counting how many more days are left until Christmas!

Didn't Audrey do a good job setting up her stickers in a little scene?  Angels in the sky, shepherds in the field?

She even put the wisemen on camels!  :)

This one was her favorite though.  She very carefully lined up all the penguins in a row, and declared them to be 'buddies.'  She did NOT want to tear this link on the chain when it was time for the 'buddies' to go.  ;)

This same blogger also wrote a recent post, Invisible Gifts, will not only make you rethink Christmas, but the way you view life in general.  So. Good.  Seriously, please take the time to read this one. 

Along a similar vein, you may have heard rumblings recently about a book, Radical, by David Platt. Before we heard about his book, we came across this sermon, and were blown away:

 

The Gospel Demands Radical Giving - David Platt

This one will take you longer to listen to, but it is definitely worth your time.  Both of the bloggers who wrote these articles about Christmas have linked to David Platt and this sermon.  It is shaping the way people think about Christmas, and life, in general.  Very good, very challenging, very biblical stuff. 

And if you want to think a bit more about Santa, read Mark Driscoll's blog post on what he tells his kids about Santa.  I love his take on 'redeeming' Santa, and teaching the truth behind the person of St. Nicholas, rather than simply rejecting him or embracing him.

*     *     *

Now, I by no means want you to think that I judge you or your family if you give a bunch of gifts to one another or make a big deal about Santa Claus!  And I know it's not super helpful for me to write all of this just 5 short day until Christmas.  I myself read most of these articles after I had already purchased my gifts, and I wished I would have read them earlier.  I mostly wanted to write down this smattering of thoughts for myself, so I can look back on it next year, before the craziness of the whirlwind of this season starts up again, to get my heart in the right place.  And hopefully encourage you to think Christ-ward this season.  And to hear other ideas from you all...how do you keep the True meaning in the season? 

Please share!

And because we all know that the chances of me blogging again before Christmas are slim to none, let me take this opportunity to say,

Merry Christmas!!!

DIY Thanksgiving Advent Project

I recently alluded to my work on a new Thanksgiving project; now that I'm finally done, here are some pictures for you all.

I have been reading Noel Piper's Treasuring God in Our Traditions, and trying to come up with some ways to make the holidays more meaningful for our family.  (Click on that link and I'm pretty sure you can download her book for free!)  So this week I got online to see what I could find in the way of Thanksgiving 'advent'-type projects.  I LOVED the look of this tree, but decided to put my own spin on it, and add a little more personalization.

I decided to make something that I could hang up on our fridge.  I had the fabric on hand, and got some scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby to make my trunk and leaf background.

Next I got on the computer and created my header and footer labels for the tree.  (This turned out to be the longest step of the process, because it took me awhile to figure out how to download a new font that I really wanted to use.  Silly way to spend time, I know!) 

But finally I figured out how to make it work, and I printed a few different options onto orange scrapbook paper.  (By the way, if you decide you want to make this, let me know and I'd be happy to email you the labels I created.  I'm happy to save you this step of the process!)

Next I got my sewing machine out, (THANK YOU to my Grandma who passed it on to me a few years ago...I am finally figuring out how to work it on my own!) and hemmed up the edges of my fabric, as well as put a pocket on the bottom half.

I printed off the downloadable leaves from the website I mentioned above and cut them out, along with some other leaves off of some fall-ish scrapbook paper.  Then I Mod-Podged them to the back of some glass beads (also from Hobby Lobby,) and hot-glued some round magnets to the back of them.  (I got the strongest ones I could find, since I knew they would need to stick through fabric and 2-3 layers of scrapbook paper.) 

And here is the finished product:

The idea is that we will write down things we are thankful for every day until Thanksgiving, then stick them to the tree using the leaf-magnets.  On Thanksgiving Day we will read them together as a family. 

Total time spent was probably 4 hours.  I worked on it during naps 2 days in a row, and spent about an hour after the girls were in bed one night.  But it would have gone a LOT faster if I had the labels already made, and if I had a clue how to thread my bobbin and my sewing machine by myself, correctly, the first time.  That ate up at least an hour. :P

(The pocket at the bottom holds the rest of the magnets, and will also hold the strips of paper to write things on, once I get them cut up.)

So there you have it!  Total cost was only about $12.  WAY cheaper than the one at Pottery Barn Kids! (But theirs is way cute too, don't you think?)

Next year I will get this out November 1st so we can do it all month long, instead of just the week before. ;)  But better late than never, right?  I also think I will change my paper tree into a fabric one sometime over the next year, so this will be all one piece and a bit more durable, hopefully to last for years to come.

How about you?  Do you have any special Thanksgiving traditions to help make the holiday more meaningful for your family?  I would love to hear some more ideas!