December holds a lot of potential for fun. It has been a real treat watching the kids participate in and enjoy the festivities. We’ve also enjoyed spending time with family and as a family. Here’s just a sampling of what has led up to today – Christmas Eve….
Winter dresses made by Aunt Katie.
Painting salt dough ornaments. Ivy can sing Jingle Bells and Lance likes to say “HEY!” at the appropriate times.
Decorating the house and taking a walk to see the lights.
Reading with Gampy (Great Grandpa).
“Snow” pile.
Warming hands by the fire in-between snowballs.
Cousins!
Heritage Village Christmas candlelight celebration.
We made graham cracker houses with some friends (pics later)
Enjoying the live nativity. This is Flora’s preferred activity
Photo op with Mary and Joseph! (Ivy cried and wouldn’t participate, Lance only stood there under duress. Flora was happy)
Advent readings with Daddy – they love it!
Re-living Bethlehem….sort of….
Flora prefers an ‘under the tree’ version.
Three wise kids? Well, they can identify the holy family, know the angel says “glory to God in the Highest” and have no idea what’s coming tomorrow.
Christmas is a chance to remember who has come and look forward to who is coming again!
The kids and I spent a whole week at my parents over the Thanksgiving holidays. Here are some of the fun things we did!
Making pilgrim hats out of marshmallows and chocolate – think the kids have had enough sugar?
Crafting toilet paper roll pilgrims. A task that requires many older helpers.
Our little Thanksgiving people.
One night we played a murder mystery game. A western theme, some good cookin’ and intrigue made for a fun night.
Brian and Amy’s mom try to gain information without giving anything away themselves….
Stacie and Katie form a secret alliance. I was busy playing ref the whole night and enjoyed spreading rumors.
Kids enjoy Thanksgiving dinner! Flora liked the sweet potato fries, Lance preferred the rolls and all of them gagged on their required bite of green beans.
The day after Thanksgiving we went camping! We dressed up like the first Thanksgiving and ate semi-authentically. Ivy enjoyed the deer sausage.
Well, mostly the girls dressed up.
Later we took the kids on a nature hike:
Lance and Papa forge ahead, enjoying the sights.
Ivy poses in a bark house I put together.
Flora enjoyed the fall leaves.
The trail was long (1 1/2 miles?) and the way steep but the kids pushed through for the promise of G.O.R.P. at each bridge. They mostly ate the M&M’s, thoughtfully leaving a Thanksgiving dinner of granola for the squirrels.
The last part of the trail was a long downhill and the big kids ran most of it, laughing the whole way. We enjoyed a pleasant evening around the campfire and turned in.
The next morning we awoke to a cold front and rain so we packed up and headed back to Amy’s parents house to finish out the weekend. What a wonderful break from daily life!
Have you ever heard the saying, ‘God does not give dying grace on an undying day’? Yesterday gave me a small glimpse of that principle in action.
No, nobody died or anything but the day did contain an amazing amount of stressors: fights, kid falling out of a shopping cart, hungry whining kids in the checkout line, several cooking projects while watching another kid in addition to mine, pee on the floor, carrying two children (one asleep) in a store, bead up a nose (twice!) prepping for dinner guests, Christmas tree pulled over, major fit from a kid, another kid throwing up all over their bed, no ‘down time’ for mom – all along with laundry, dishes, meal prep and the usual ‘mom’ stuff.
Yet, when all was said and done and I was finally settling into bed, I observed to Brian that, despite the events of the day, I had felt strangely calm and cheerful the whole time. I don’t even think I lost my temper (by no merit of my own). What made this day so different than other less crazy days where I’ve lost it?
Pondering this morning I decided it was this: unmerited grace.
I was not striving to ‘be in the Lord’, I wasn’t ‘continuing in prayer’, I wasn’t meditating on scripture to get me through the day, I was just living. There was nothing I had done, or was doing to pull down extra grace for the day but God had deemed it necessary for me and reached down in love, providing what I hadn’t even asked for.
You never know when you’re going to need this kind of grace and don’t always know you’re experiencing it until you look back. I wonder if dying grace is that way, not just for big time Christians as they die a martyr’s death, but unexpected and there when you need it.
God knows just when to touch my life and He does it because He loves me, not because I’ve had my quiet time that morning.
My blonde, sweet baby who loves animals, and soft things. (Christmas dress made by Aunt Katie)
We celebrated a double party with cousin Jenny who likes puppies – hence the dog in the above photo. The girls were thrilled with their cakes the day before the party. Flora almost snagged an early sample during the photo session.
However, when it came to actually trying the cake, neither girl was ready to embarrass themselves in front of all the guests.
Flora picked at the chocolate cake but enjoyed the strawberry cake I gave her later.
Is this for me?
Siblings and cousins helped Flora open and enjoy her gifts.
The older kids played pin the tail on the dog and cat. Lance watched the big kids go first and figured he had the hang of the game. On his turn he lifted the blindfold, marched up to the poster and pinned his tail – not where it belonged, but where everyone else had put theirs!
Here’s a rundown on a few weeks of activities we did on Bible stories.
Daniel and the Lion’s Den:
Made crowns and played “King Darius says” to be like a king issuing decrees for other to follow. We started a chore chart because it was like the laws that a king could make.
Scary lion masks! We built a lion’s den out of the card table and blankets. Lance enjoyed throwing people in the lion’s den. We also learned to pray to God, just like Daniel.
Zaccheus:
Used chore charts started the previous week to let the kids earn money. Every night Brian would check their charts and hand out pennies – very exciting times!
Made banks out of peanut butter jars – decorated them with stickers which were peeled back off within 24 hrs. Lance was good at finding money in parking lots and parks to add to his bank. Somehow Ivy lost about half of hers from too much “counting.”
Later I took them to a party store to make a small purchase (piece of candy) to introduce the idea that money can be exchanged for something. The cashier was very nice, helped them count out the pennies, and rang up the 7 cent purchases, each getting their own receipt.
Worked on making the letter “Z” by making a route to trace. We start with Zaccheus at the top who went to the tree, then Jesus came along, and lastly they traveled to Zaccheus’ house.
And of course, we had to climb tress! We started with some small ones near our apartment.
Lance really enjoyed this activity and has continued ever since then. Another evening we went to a park with lots of good climbing trees and practiced some more. Fun stuff!
David and Goliath:
Collected five smooth stones out of the wading pool – this turned into an unplanned swim. Tried making slings but that didn’t work so well. Also reviewed opposites like “big and little.” After this, Lance would stand up in the recliner and say “Lance is tall!” then climb down and say “Lance is little” then lay down on the floor and say “Lance is little and little.”
Came up with this one all on my own! Wanted to make sheep (David was a shepherd) but didn’t have cotton balls. Finally thought of rice as something white they could glue and while in the kitchen decided to do different foods that were white. The kids LOVED this project.
Here we have oatmeal, grits, rice, flour, sugar, and the favorite, marshmallows! I let them eat the marshmallows off the craft the next day. Since it was hanging on the fridge it was hard to keep them from picking them off anyhow.
Had some friends over (all boys) so on the spur of the moment I made a Goliath out of blocks that we could knock down with our “rocks.” (soft balls)
We also made a 9ft drawing of goliath. Good thing we have a tall ceiling!
Then challenged the boys to hit Goliath in the head!
