Celebrating the Red, White and Blue

 

You Were Made For This

 

Somehow there are six of us now. 

And its life unglued.  These littles are crazy people. 

They are wild, needy and fill most of the minutes of our days. 

End of the day exhaustion is a given. 

 

But, they are fun, smart and generous with their grace.

We mess this parenting gig up daily.  They yell at us.  We yell at them. 

Not one us has any perfection to speak of. 

Sometimes I fast forward in my mind to when life might be easier, when it might be less of a four six and under crowd.

But then I know better.  We've lived enough ups and downs to know that parenting them today is a precious thing.   

 

You were made for this, Mark.

You are the dad that is needed for this wild and precious time. 

You are all in.  Silly, responsible, hardworking and selfless.  As much of a dad as I am a mom.

You've sailed us past the safe and comfortable life, and we have four goofballs to prove it. 

 

You multi-task, go to soccer practice, give baths and work two jobs. 

You arrive home from Africa and whip up pancakes. 

You navigate the medical ship and play nurse. 

You color at the kitchen table and put carrots in your ears to make them giggle. 

 

You were made for us, and we are blessed by you. 

 Happy Father's Day. 

Glittery Valentine's

Oh, Valentine's Day.  You filled us up with the love of family and friends. 

There were packages, cards and homemade drawings from grandparents and aunts. There were school parties and card exchanges.  There was chocolate, heart shaped pancakes and a special family dinner. 

 

Mostly though, we just enjoyed the opportunity to show some love. 

 

When Sophia's school asked us to make handmade cards for her class exchange, we gratefully passed on the premade boxes and pulled out the glitter, construction paper, stickers and tissue paper.  The result? 

 

A gi-normous mess, all kinds of creativity, sweet hand written notes and  two bags full of gifts for two classes of friends!

Come live in my heart, and pay no rent. 

~Samuel Lover

 

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!

Service for Littles: Operation Christmas Child

We have the world's coolest friends. 
Friends who inspire us to DO MORE and GIVE MORE. 

Friends who are always looking for ways to teach our
kids about service, gratitude, and giving. 

Friends who get downright giddy during
Operation Christmas Child
time!

Last Saturday, Angela and her kiddos invited us over to fill boxes
"for the kids".

Before our packing party, we hit the store and
let our girls shop for someone else. 

As it turns out, shopping for someone else is even more fun than shopping for yourself!

Angela did a little research and found a way for us to track where our boxes go!  So, we send these boxes away with great love,
grateful that our crazy, big world can be impacted. 

Moon Festival

We are forever connected to the beautiful culture of China. 

One tiny way we can honor this connection is through

the celebration of holidays. 

A few weeks back we had the joy of celebrating the

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.   

On this night, families gather together for a time of

thanksgiving in honor of the harvest. 

It falls at the time of year that the moon is most round and full. 

The Chinese have night picnics, light lanterns and eat round food and moon cakes.

In our very American own way,

we celebrated in high style with a tree decorated with

ornaments and Chinese trinkets from our trip. 

As it should be, it was a family affair as we celebrated with
Grandma Kathy, Aunt Jen, Uncle Mike, Ceci, Ben and Molly. 

The weather didn't cooperate for our hopes of a moon picnic,

but it was still quite the fun family event.

We prepared for the festivities by making "moon cakes"

as we talked about how people in China might have been enjoying the holiday.

We played Chinese music and read

Thanking the Moon by Grace Lin and

Lin Yi's Lantern by Brenda Williams.

We ate homemade baked crab rangoon, chicken fried rice and
Mongolian beef with chopsticks. 
The giggling littles gave it their best effort!

Inspired by this bunny lantern (next year!), we

decorated and cut out paper lanterns. 

Much to the delight of the littles,

we hung glow sticks inside them and hung them from (chop) sticks.

As the adults sipped on Mandarin orange and green tea,

the littles marched themselves around in a glowing lantern parade.

A new tradition was born on this night. 
It was truly a special occasion, and one that we're certain that the kids will carry with them in their memories. 

A Hunting We Will Go

We've been Eastering this week! 

We've had Easter egg hunts at school, church and at a playdate.
After seeing these adorable treats, we made our own for friends!

Each month an incredibly kind and crafty woman at our church does an art morning.  The littles sing, make a craft and a special snack and listen to Bible stories. 

Check out the special snack this month!  These were gobbled up in minutes.  (Ears first in case you wondered.) 

After munching and crafting, we headed out for a little hunting! 
(eggs and wild flowers)

Claire was pumped about finding eggs.  She actually looked at the camera to show them off!  #happymommarazzi

The sweetest thing about the morning was that the littles were sharing eggs with each other, happily filling each other's baskets.  Also to our surprise, when they found all the eggs that they wanted, they stopped hunting.  Eggs were left in full view!  Us mommas giggled, and probably each said silent prayers that our kiddos could stay this age forever!

Sophie's school teachers made this little fella for the kids to hunt eggs at school.  Cute-ness overload. 

Team kudos to Ms. Luanne at church and Ms. Holly and Ms. Laurie at school for making Easter such a sweet mix of Jesus, bunnies and eggs. 

Merriment

Christmas week was all about cousin time.  We hung with big cousins, little cousins, college freshman cousins,

hockey playing cousins, donating your cool old cell phone to the littles cousins,

ever so stylin' cousins,

and snuggly cousins.

Hangin' with "Grams" and "Gramps" was super special. 

When you are a hockey family, there always must be some puck time.

We drank hot chocolate, watched Christmas movies,

ooohed and aahhed over the primo gift left by Santa,

decorated sugar cookies,

left a treat for both Santa and his reindeer, 

and, as always, had a healthy dose of silliness.

We Christmased so fully this year that it has taken us a full week to recover.  It truly was a month of festivities, Nativity visits, gift giving, elf following, parties, crafts, getting spiffy for Christmas eve church, singing "Frosty the Snowman", eating, family visits, travel and just generally being holly jolly.  We loved on people and were loved on right back. 

Our girls are at just the perfect age for truly experiencing the magic of Christmas.  Every single snow flurry that fell in December led to an excited, "It's Christmas eve!"  On a daily basis, we had Mary and Joseph roaming our halls either pulling a donkey as they headed to Bethlehem or holding a baby Jesus.  Sophia awoke on Christmas morning and shared that she heard Santa's sleigh bells during the night.  After opening her much beloved music box from Santa, Soph's wanted to "wait until later" to open the rest of her gifts.  For that day, the one gift was enough (Oh, the lessons to be learned there...).  Claire?  She soaked it all in with wide eyes.  She marveled at Christmas lights, got covered in sprinkles and played in piles of wrapping paper. 

Christmas this year was good.  Very, very good. 
(Like you have to catch the flu in order to settle down and rest/recover kind of good.)

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  Luke 2:11