Gratitude Tree

One of our biggest goals as parents is to teach our children gratitude.  Because our culture is focused on material things, we find this to be a battle.  One that we plan to fight. 

Out of this desire came our first gratitude tree.  On our water color (coffee filter) leaves, we brainstormed things we were thankful for.  Much to our delight, the littles listed all of their favorite people first.  Then came books, art, food, hot chocolate,"kid mail", etc. 

This tree was not just to be decoration.  For each blessing (leaf), we came up with an action...a response...to go with it. 

Our responses included things like:

~art being mailed because we are grateful for art and grandparents

~candy bars to Sunday school teachers because we are grateful for church

~canned food donated because we've been blessed with food

~treats to library workers because we are grateful for books

~"kid mail" sent to some of our favorite kids because we are grateful when we receive it

We are still working through our gratitude list, and feel certain that we have a new family Thanksgiving tradition.

 In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  ~1 Thessalonians 5:18 

Refocusing Christmas: Our Jesse Tree

The Jesse Tree is an Advent activity that our family started two years ago to refocus our Christmas.  We started with a combination of about fifteen homemade and store bought ornaments that you can see here. 

Isaiah 1:1-2 promises:
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—

Every night, we add a new ornament to a little table top tree and read the corresponding scripture, explaining the story behind it in kid friendly terms.  Each ornament represents a story from creation to the nativity. 

Though our girls are very young, they have LOVED our Jesse Tree.  It is our favorite Christmas tradition in a month filled with holiday fun.  Throughout the month that the tree is up, we'll find them pointing out their favorite ornaments and retelling their understanding of the scripture. 

Our hope is that this will help hide God's word (His story)in their hearts, and that it is a tradition that will be passed on to their children. 

In early November of this year, I was invited two Jesse Tree parties!  Though we already had ornaments that are family keepsakes, I jumped at the opportunity to complete our set and to have a set to give away. 

The hosts, Emily and Marci, each invited 27 people to participate.  At our first gatherings, we read through the list of devotionals and all got assignments.  We then went home, and made 27
(or in my crazy case, 3x27) of that same ornament.  A few weeks later, we got together to exchange, all taking home complete sets of 27 ornaments!

We blogged about our Jesse Tree, and that post has received more hits than almost any other.   I'd love to share with you the ornaments that I received.  I have two different sets of each ornament, plus those that my family made, for a total of three!   Hopefully, my crafty friends won't mind my sharing, in the hopes that somebody will make one for their family!

November 29: Stump of Jesse, Isaiah 11:1-2
November 30: Creation, Genesis 1:24-31

December 1: Adam&Eve, Genesis 3:1-21

(The 2nd ornament is a sheep skin that can be flipped over to represent Adam and Eve's need to cover their sin.)

December 2: Noah's Ark, Genesis 6:5-8

December 3: Abraham & Sarah, Genesis 12:1-7
December 4: Baby Isaac, Genesis 21:1-7
December 5: Abraham's Sacrifice (ram), Genesis 22:1-14

December 6: Jacob's Ladder, Genesis 28:10-22
December 7: Joseph's Coat of Many Colors, Genesis 37:31-33
December 8: Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy 5:1-22

December 9: Ruth, Ruth 1:1-23
December 10: Scarlet Chord/Rope, Joshua 2:2-21
December 12 (sorry, photos out of order):
King David, 2 Samuel 5:1-5

December 11: Horn of Oil/The Lord Looks on the Heart, 1 Sam 16:1-13

December 13: People once lived in darkness, now have seen a great light.  Isaiah 9:2, 6-7
December 14: Fire of God, 1 King 18-17-39

December 15: Lion/Lamb (both are reversible), Isaiah 11:1-9

December 16: "Big Fish", Jonah 3:1-4 (One of my 3!!)
December 17: Bethlehem, Micah 5:2-5
December 18: Esther "Coming to the King" (scepter and grapes from feasts), Esther 4:10-17

December 19: Watch Tower, Habakkuk 2:1
December 20: Birth of John the Baptist, Luke 1;5-25

December 21: Baptism/Jordan River, Matthew 3:1-6
December 22: God's Heart, Our Dwelling Place (Mary's Heart),
Luke 1:26-38 (wooden one is mine!)

December 23: Joseph the Builder, Matthew 1:18-25
(jar has sawdust and nails, other is a handmade wooden tool)

December 24: Journey to Bethlehem/to Jesus, Luke 2:1-5
(Felt sandals are mine!  LOVE the other one though, made of felt with a tiny star attached.)
December 25: Birth of Jesus, Luke 2:6-21

We LOVE all of our new ornaments, and can't wait to add them to our much loved family Jesse Tree.  MANY thanks to Emily and Marci, for their amazing hearts, and foe hosting these parties!

These are based on the Jesse Tree devotionals written by Ann Voskamp, which can be downloaded here.   Because our girls are little though, we just read the stories from our children's Bible. 

May your Advent be blessed, and focused on the birth of Jesus!

No Sew Blankets

We've gone crafty again. We learned how to make "no sew blankets" for Project Linus. Making these cozy blankets is super easy. All you need is fleece fabric and some good cloth scissors. With no skill at all, you can send some comfort to kids who need it. Now that we know how to make these, we have some in process for our sweet grandmothers.

Want to learn how? Check out the pattern here.

Reindeer Games

We pranced, danced, giggled and ate reindeer food today at Angela's reindeer playdate.
Angela taught the kiddos how to make reindeer food to leave out on Christmas Eve. If Santa gets cookies, shouldn't the reindeer get some munchies as well?
It wasn't long before one of the littles figured out the reindeer food was pretty yummy.

Thanks, Angela, for a fun time!

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
~Charles Dickens

Gratitude 21-30

21. support of friends at our Brighton-Kennedy Foundation Jump-a-thon

22. ability to be at home with our sick little one

23. fun times at our annual supper club Christmas party

24. Christmas music

25. hot chocolate in Santa mugs

26. plans to see family at Christmas

27. having a toddler to do Christmas crafts

28. a rare date night planned for this weekend (!!!!!)

29. books from the library

30. the lovely little wreath that adorns our garage door

Jesse Tree is Complete!

Our Jesse Tree is finally complete and ready for the start of Advent! We got seriously crafty and sewed and painted our final ornaments over Thanksgiving. What is a Jesse Tree you ask? It is an Advent celebration involving daily devotionals. Each day, we will read a Bible story and add an ornament to our tree. The idea is based on the verse:

"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit."
Isaiah 11:1

You can find lists of devotionals here or here. In order to be most kid-friendly, we used these lists to compile our own. Each story is taken from the Old Testament, and leads up to the birth of Christ.

Noah's Ark
Mary's Heart
Ruth's Wheat
Jacob's Ladder
Lion: Daniel in the Lion's Den
Watchtower: Waiting for Jesus
Angel
Sheep
Magi's Crown
Joseph's Hammer
Passover: Door with Blood
Donkey (er...kind of...) to carry Mary and Joseph
Nativity: Birth of Christ
10 Commandments
Dove: Creation
Cross: To start Advent

Joseph's Coat of Many Colors
Jonah and the Whale
Earth: Creation
Apple: Adam and Eve

We'll be using these two books for the stories each night. We hope this will be a tradition that our children will learn from, and that this will be a treasured family tradition. Mainly, we hope that this will teach them that Christmas is far greater than Santa and new toys.

I first heard about the Jesse Tree on this Rocks in My Dryer post, and have wanted to do one ever since. Another inspiration was from the Holy Experience. Most of my inspiration though came from one of my new favorite blogs, The Domestic Notebook. Many of our ornaments are total (far less perfect) knock-offs from her blog. Many thanks to these three bloggers for sharing their ideas and ornaments.

Crafty Fun

We are still having fun doing crafts and art. It is a fun creative outlet for all of us. I love finding ideas and dreaming up art projects. Marko loves to help and gush over finished masterpieces, and Picasso Jr. loves it all.

We made this cute stoplight several weeks ago (from No Time for Flash Cards), as a result of an obsession with them while we were driving!

Fun apple prints Although we love crafts, mostly we want our little artist to do open ended art. She does tons of painting, gluing and coloring!
Saw this cute apple craft on a blog, but can't remember which one to give credit to!

Bringing shells home from the beach was a big hit. We have done lots of fun things with them, including make a thank you card to the grandparents that we visited.

One of our favorite things to do is to paint with other tools.
The tiny paint roller is a favorite.

Art is not a thing; it is a way. ~Elbert Hubbard

Autumn Moon Playdate

Thanks to Angela, we had the opportunity to do an early celebration of China's Autumn Moon Festival. In honor of the holiday, several Chinese adoptive moms got together to make crafts, wear traditional dresses, and eat a great lunch.

Angela calls this S's "Clint Eastwood". (Maybe she is showing her unhappiness with the unreasonable wait?) We got a chance to wear our "Big Sister" t-shirt.


The girls made a moon collage and learned the Chinese word and symbol for moon.

Next, they made lanterns and stuck fall stickers on them.

All of the moms talked about how we want to make a real effort to expand our ability to make some authentic dishes. The traditional mooncakes from this festival though, may have to be ordered! They look very complicated.

We enjoyed quite the Chinese feast under our cute lanterns.

Our goal as a family is to honor, understand and appreciate Claire's birth country.
We hope to regularly participate in (and host) events like this.

Information about the Mid-Autumn Festival:

In China and throughout many Asian countries people celebrate the Harvest Moon on the 15th day of the eighth month of their lunar calendar. The date in the Western calendar changes yearly. This year, it falls on Saturday, October 3, 2009.


The Harvest Moon or Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie) is a day of family reunions much like a Western Thanksgiving. Chinese people believe that on that day, the moon is the roundest and brightest signaling a time of completeness and abundance. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, children are delighted to stay up past midnight, parading multi-colored lanterns into the wee hours as families take to the streets to moon-gaze.