Bought at a price...

Today has been one of those days.  Well, maybe not one of THOSE days...  Actually the more I think about it, today was a pretty normal, run-of-the-mill kind of day.

peaceful moments punctuated with cries and whines.
                                         teachable hearts one moment, stubborn one's the next. 
                                                                                   calm and tranquility interrupted by chaos.

Life is a roller coaster - full of ups and downs.

During my peak of feeling overwhelmed today, I started to reach for my go-to coping mechanisms.  Any of you have those?  Sadly, chocolate and cookie dough balls were out of the question. {I'm in the middle of an elimination diet to determine exactly what foods are bothering my baby girl.  So dairy, wheat/gluten, eggs, chocolate and a few other things are off limits.}  Mindlessly surfing the Internet is my next escape...

As I slipped to the front room in an attempt to escape reality, I felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit as He dropped a nugget from the Word into my heart.

"...you are not your own.  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

(I Corinthians 6:19b-20)

God reminded me that my life is not my own.  I've given it to Him.  And He's called me to be in the moment, doing what I'm supposed to be doing.  I am a mother to these four, called to embrace the glorious and messy job of raising them, showing them what it means to live in the world -but not of it and introducing them to Jesus.  At these times, I'm called to embrace the chaos and look to Him for peace.  So I turned back and thanked God for speaking to me and tackled the rest of my day.   The baby still fussed, boys bickered and my patience ran thin.  But God was faithful to continually draw me back, renewing my focus and resolve.  He showered me with his love so I could in turn love my children.  I'm so very thankful...

Truth in the Tinsel: A Review

Using holidays to point my children to Jesus is very important to me.  That's why we've made such a big deal about Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension Day and even Valentine's and St. Patricks's Day in the past.  They've all served to provide an exciting opportunity to be purposeful in drawing their attention to the Lord.

There is so much out there for celebrating Advent, but none of it ever seemed to fit my hopes for what I wanted to do with my kids.  Either they were too simplistic or too complex for my young children to understand.  I'm just a smidge particular. So I ended up spending the last several years pulling my own thing together.

With a new baby this year, I was quick to realize that my creative juices certainly weren't up to the task of dreaming something up.  Instead, I decided to keep things really simple and focus on spending time in prayer, worship and reading them some of my favorite Christmas books.  The beauty of God coming down as a man to rescue us from sin is that we can now have a rich, personal relationship with Him.  So RELATIONSHIP is our focus this year...

After I had settled that in my heart, I caught wind of a new ebook coming out: Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands.  I love Amanda over at Impress Your Kids.  We are on the same page with having a heart to impress the wonder and glory of knowing Jesus into our children.  Not only that, we both tend to approach it in a hands-on kind of way!  I just knew I would love her book.  So getting the opportunity to preview an advance copy was such a treat.

To SUM it all up, what I've been looking for all these years is nicely contained in this adorable ebook.  I wanted an easy to use resource that has substance (beyond just cute, itty-bitty baby Jesus in a manger), was easy for young children to understand and memorable.. 

S ubstance 
Amanda writes in her introduction:

"The key to this entire advent celebration is to have a daily focus and meditation on God's greatest gift. Your children will learn the ins and outs of the story because you've facilitated a time to discuss, play and create. And in those moments, God will speak to their hearts and yours. 

"The little Baby is no longer in the manger, but alive and sitting on a throne - waiting to have a relationship with you and your children. Help your children get to know Him this Christmas!."

I love how she ties the Christmas story into the big picture of God's redemptive work.  God loves us and wants to bring us back into his family.  Sending Jesus is how he accomplished this!  Truth in the Tinsel does a wonderful job at balancing the basics of the story, but also introduces so much more scriptural truth into each day.  As I read, I found myself pondering the material and seeing the Holy Spirit speak to me too.  Something that touches both my children and myself is always a good sign.

U nderstandable
This book is specifically geared to reach the hearts and minds of children in that preschool-mid elementary age range.  The book does a great job at walking you as the parent through the process of discipling your children. 

I love how it is broken down.  It is easy to navigate.  Each day is explained on one page and includes, "the clue" - which is a picture.  As we read the scripture passage  to the children, they are to be on the hunt to figure out what the clue has to do with the passage.  When they hear the word or see the connection, they are to shout it out!  This draws them in and helps them to listen and really grasp the theme for the day.  Then there is something "to read together" (the scripture passage), something "to make together" (the ornament craft - complete with detailed instructions and pictures), something "to talk about together" (scripting with questions to draw your children out and also to explain the passage) and a "do more together" section (with an extra activity).

I can see how this repetition in format from day to day will really help the kids understand and the way she words the discussion part is just perfect for helping our young children understand the deeper meanings behind various aspects of the Christmas story. 

M emorable
This is also such a wonderful memory builder.  Taking big ideas and making them concrete and hands-on lends itself to really solidifying what they are learning.  I mentioned that a bit in my last post about Christmas.  The simple ornaments do just that.  Because we will have three sets of ornaments, I think we will hang one set on our regular Christmas tree, one set on a miniature Christmas tree that I will set up in the boys room and gift another set to my parents.

It also utilizes a 'countdown' which my boys always love.  There are paper picture clues that you can place in a wooden advent drawer stand if you have one or there is the option to print off the paper clues and make a countdown paper chain (which is what we will be doing!)

Previewing the material was fun, but I really wanted to see how it would work out with my children, so we tried out 'Day 1' this morning.

 My little boys never really sit still. And that is a-ok. They still absorb so much!

They were excited to make their candle ornament to remind them of who is the light!

We all gave the first devotional and project a thumbs-up!  Now we just have to be patient and wait until December 2nd to start the next devotional!

The beauty of it is that each day can stand alone, so there is no pressure to get it all done.  Even though the entire project only took us about 30 minutes to complete (plus about 15 minutes in prep time) I'm sure there will be days that I don't get to it (Greta still makes life pretty unpredictable).  Thankfully, the devotional aspect takes 10 minutes tops and even if we just do that some days, it will still be a treat!

If you have children in the preschool-mid elementary years and are looking for an advent devotional, I highly recommend this one.  The price can't be beat. 

Anyone want to join us?

For Black Friday, you can get the ebook for only $2.99!!!!  But even if you decide to order it later it is still a steal at only $4.99! 

You can order the book here at their website.
You can also follow Truth in the Tinsel on facebook. 

Disclaimer: Truth in the Tinsel and Amanda at Impress Your Kids provided me with a free copy of her ebook to review.  The opinions shared are completely my own.  I would have been recommending it anyways after I had purchased it today.  

Cultivating Christ at Christmas

Repost from the archives...  I'll be sharing about an exciting new advent craft/devotional ebook on Friday!!!  It is perfect for the toddler/preschool/early elementary years! Be sure to check back.

Christmas is just around the corner. It's been on my mind for a while now. For us, Christmas is a wonderful time of remembering back to the anticipation of the coming Messiah and then the events leading up to God coming to earth and being born as a baby. 

I've found is that in order to have a peaceful, thoughtful experience I must:

First PRAY.

I want this to be a meaningful time for my family. In order for my hopes to become a reality, it is important to pray and ask God what He wants us to focus on at this time. There are a plethora of wonderful opportunities out there and I need His direction in what my family needs to hear, experience and do this next month.

Second - PLAN.

Without a plan, stress rises up as I dash about last minute to pull things together or I get so distracted by peripheral things, that I don't spend time doing what is really important. Times like Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, etc can serve as wonderful times to reflect, remember and worship. The excitement of these seasons lend themselves well to pulling our children into the wonder of God becoming man and redeeming a world that was lost.

But without a plan, this time can slip through our fingers before we've had a chance to reflect ourselves and instruct our children.

Things to keep in mind, especially with younger children:

Keep it concrete ~ Children need a firm grasp of concrete facts, or the narrative before they can move into understanding and appreciating the abstract.

• Read them the story. Both straight from the Bible (maybe at bedtime after they are tucked in) and utilize picture books. Here are some of our favorite Christmas books. (Over the past several years, I've wrapped up our favorite Christmas books (or coupons for Hot cocoa, evening walk around the neighborhood, etc) for them to do each night as we countdown to Christmas.)

Make it hands-on ~ Children learn best when they are moving their bodies and engaging their imaginations.

• Get a child friendly Nativity set. If they can play with one you already have, great. If not, consider investing in or creating paper dolls for them to play with. Play is a child's work. It is how they internalize what they are learning about. We love our Little People Nativity Playset (although I'm disappointed that they only have one that lights up and plays music now) and of course there are many lovely child-friendly nativities out there!

(Keegan with his 'town of Bethleham')

• Act the story out. Costumes don't have to be elaborate, or even absolutely necessary. (Although they do go along ways in 'stepping into character' and act out the story with your kids. Taking a long walk (around the block) while holding ball under your shirt and riding a stick horse will open up a wonderful dialogue on what the journey to Bethlehem must have been like.

• Make a craft.  We loved making these Joy to the World ornaments last year. 

Look Forward ~ Helping our children connect WHY Jesus came to earth as a baby is vitally important. This is no ordinary baby.  

Make it a BIG deal ~ I mentioned this when I blogged about celebrating Easter with young children, When we make something a BIG deal, they pick up on the importance of it and will place value on that. With there being such a materialist mindset at Christmas, it is easy to fixate only on that during this season, unless we as parents make a firm decision on where to draw their attention.

Advance preparation builds anticipation. Special activities and time spent reflecting and preparing for Christmas build excitement. This is a wonderful season to take stock of our priorities and enjoy special time with Jesus!

The cool thing about this is that there are so many ways to go about it. Each family will celebrate in their own unique and wonderful way.

Once they have played with the concrete facts, it can be so special and important to add in more layers to their understanding of God come to earth as man, the anticipation of His arrival, etc.

Other wonderful ideas:

Truth in the Tinsel. We are doing this delightful craft devotional this year!
Jesse Tree. There are many variations to this general devotional that follows the lineage of Jesus from Jesse on down. It utilizes daily scripture readings and a symbol (3-d or paper) that you place on a tree each day, leading up to Christmas. Here's one that includes pictures of the ornaments/symbols along with scripture reading and correlated readings in her two favorite Children's Bibles. I've also heard nothing but wonderful reviews on Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree devotional. She came out with a new edition last year. The wonderful thing about this one is that you can print the symbols which will save time and make it do-able for this year! A simple google search on Jesse Tree devotions will lead to many more variations. 
Advent Fortold ~ This devotional focuses on the Old Testament prophecy about Jesus. It is clearly laid out and has a corresponding coloring page for each day. There is also the option of making an advent calender which correlates to the devotions as well. I was very close to deciding to to this one this year, but decided to wait until my kids are just a bit older.

Mesmerizing Pilgrim Reading

Today we parked out in the front room, eating, drawing and listening...

All eyes were glued on me and the computer screen -captivated, except for the periodic cries for 'one more chapter'.

I'm not a fan of reading books off of my computer.  In fact, this is a first for us.  But it is just that good.

We've been reading an absolutely delightful pdf copy of a trio of old books about the pilgrims!  I shared a link to these trio of books on my facebook page last week, but I wanted to make sure that you all had the opportunity to snatch up this free pdf book series that Homeschool Freebie of the Day has posted on their site.  They only keep these files up for a week usually, but it is still up this week. 

These engaging books, originally published in 1910, follow the pilgrims from their time living under persecution in England to their escape to Holland and eventually the new world.  I had been at a loss on explaining what the persecution was like in England to my young boys, but this book does a great job of laying it out in a way that is easily understandable and relatable for the kids.  Oh the beauty of living books!

So snag them while you can: Book I, Book II, Book III.

Homeschool Freebie of the Day has some great resources.  I would highly encourage you to sign up for their email alerts!

Superhero Complex...

Every parent probably has things they would rather their children not get into...  My mom's aversion was barbies.  Mine is super heroes.

Anyone who has been at our home in the last couple of months would think that Treyton doesn't have any other clothes.  Much to my chagrin, this exuberant son of mine is just {slightly} obsessed with super heroes.

Call me weird, but I don't really care for superheroes.  In fact, I had gone out of my way to NOT expose my boys to super hero books, TV shows, paraphernalia, etc. Growing up in a family of all girls, my introduction to the world of superheroes has largely been with the live action movies that I've seen as an adult. I'm sorry, but most of them do not fit the bill of approved role model. {ahem. IronMan for example.} 

While we had these cute superman jammies from the get go, I figured I was safe since they didn't 'know' what they went to.  But I guess some kids are just wired with a superhero complex.  All it took was some friends talking about super heroes and then spying an Iron Man doll at another friends house.  He is hooked.

Now he sports his pj's complete with red underwear on the outside, a red playsilk cape and snowman socks for boots.  I admire his creativity.

Seriously, where does he come up with this stuff?!?!?!?!  And who dreamed up super hero costumes with underwear being worn over tights.  Ugh.

I've drawn the line at wearing this out and about, but as you will notice, most pictures taken at home will reveal him decked out and ready to save the world...or at least his sister.

I'm also learning to loosen up and smile at this {hopefully} short phase...

Pencils and Paint at the Preserve

The weather finally cooled off which is a good thing because we've all been getting a little stir crazy.  So we grabbed our colored pencils, water colors and headed over to the riparian preserve nearby!  The boys were so excited to add a nature inspired picture to their art books and visit our favorite little spot at the preserve!

It is always interesting to see your children manifest some of your own quirks.  Xander takes after me in his perfectionist tendencies.  He paced and stared at the water, waiting for inspiration to hit.  He didn't want to start until he had the perfect idea...  I kept encouraging him to just start and never mind getting it done perfectly.  I had to laugh as I've heard that so many times myself.

And of course, we couldn't leave without rock hopping, 'accidentally' falling in the creek, racing up and down the hill and climbing a few trees!

Getting outside is soothing to the soul.  It felt so good to let our bodies loose to explore and use our minds to create masterpieces.  The only thing missing was an art book for me!  I'm going to join them next time, especially during this season of baby sleeping all the time!

Thanksgiving Learning Fun

I love this time of year.  Really, I just love holidays.  They are so festive, fun and provide an excellent learning opportunity for my boys!  

In keeping with the spirit and because planning can be so helpful in preparing our children for any holiday, I thought I would post links to past Thanksgiving learning projects we've done!  As you can tell, we love hands-on learning in these parts.  Give them a costume and we're golden!  

What are you doing this month to celebrate or learn about Thanksgiving?  If you have any ideas or have blogged about anything related to Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, religious persecution, native americans, etc feel free to leave a comment and/or link!

Mayflower Nut - a tutorial

We did this child-friendly, eye appealing project last year and it was a huge hit.  The boys loved playing with them and they doubled for beautiful decorations!

Mapping the Mayflower

 Our adventure mapping the journey of the Mayflower and reviewing why they left the Old World for the New World.

Mayflower Living for Wee Folks

Two years ago we learned about what life was like on the Mayflower.  Our favorite activity was dressing up as boys on the journey over.  We ate food similar to what they ate (w/out the bugs, mold and extent of staleness) and slept in a replica we made of a family's quarters on the Mayflower.  The boys loved it.  I for one am glad we don't live at that time and that I have a nice king-sized bed!

This post also includes links to our favorite books on the Pilgrims!

 Of Measuring and Comparing

Along with learning about the Mayflower, Xander was also learning about the story of Noah in Awana's that year.  To gain perspective, we went out to our street and measured the dimensions of both the Mayflower and Noah's Ark.  It was so helpful for my boys to visualize the sizes...

Life at Plymouth

We also had a co-op day that year, learning all about pilgrim life.  Our little group loved learning about planting corn, how instrumental Squanto's help was, having a make-believe hunt, etc...

Turkey-Gratitude Countdown

Several years ago, we made our first Turkey countdown.  It was such a hit that we did it again last year.  We incorporated learning about gratitude by writing down something we were thankful for each day.  When all the feathers were filled in, we were ready to celebrate!

Here are some other fun ideas that I've seen out there.

I'm just in love with this idea over at Rhythm of the Home.  I definitely want to make a set for my kids!  Giving kids the opportunity to use pretend play really reinforces what they have learned.  The Wampanoag Indians didn't actually live in tipi's, but watu's/wigwams.  The tipi is so cute though, isn't it!?!

I love this idea of having a 'popcorn' turkey. One Charming Party has excellent directions to assemble this visually appealing Thanksgiving treat!  This would make a great addition to a Thanksgiving Feast re-enactment!

I love these Thanksgiving Story Beads idea at Little Page Turners.  It is a darling way to help kids review the basics of the Pilgrim's story...

Here is a cool Mayflower handprint project that could be fun too over at Almost Unschoolers.


Finally here are a few free digital books that you can download.  They are beautifully written and make for great read alouds.