Easter Tradition - He Took Our Sins

I'm giddy when I find a simple, but meaningful way to teach the girls about the love of Christ, so when I saw this He Took Our Sins - Carnation Experiment I was thrilled.

To create your own all you need is:

White Carnations (Jesus the pure sacrifice)

Red food dye (our sin) About 20 drops

water and a vase.

Sitting around the table after dinner we each took turns adding drops (about 20 total) of red dye into the water and talking about ways that we sin and how none of us are perfect. Then we each trimmed our own white carnation, placing it into the vase. We added three more white carnations each day so that we had varying shades of pink. We placed the first few flowers in on Monday and by Saturday, they were tipped beautifully with red.

This simple activity lead to a meaningful discussion about the beauty of Easter and the sacrifice Jesus made because of LOVE. It's important to me that the girls know that our faith is based in scripture, so I shared these scriptures with them: 1 Peter 2:24, Isaiah 53:5 and

2 Corinthians 5:21

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." 

Thanks be to God! Happy Easter!

Coralee's 3rd Birthday {A Visit to the Fire Station}

 I'm big on tradition, if you didn't already know this. At times, keeping up with all of the traditions can be challenging, but this time it SAVED me! New Year birthdays are the worst and I really struggle with making plans to celebrate Coralee's birthday, but this year, tradition saved the day. I knew exactly what we were doing and where we were doing it. Third birthdays are spent at the fire station. See: Marin's 3rd birthday and Adalyn's 3rd birthday.

As it was with the other girls, Cora loved her day at the station. In her birthday interview I asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she held up four fingers.

Acts of Kindness {A New Christmas Tradition}

We are trying something new this Christmas season. A kindness project that I hope will develop into a meaningful tradition. Inspired by the book The Last Straw by Paula Palangi, I've challenged my little family to show secret acts of kindness to another family member each week leading up to Christmas.

Monday evening we drew names and for the coming week we'll each show acts of kindness. When we do, we get to place a piece of straw into baby Jesus' cradle. The goal is to create a soft bed for baby Jesus to sleep on Christmas eve.

The idea was met with enthusiasm and everyone has already shown loving acts of kindness. I'm excited to cultivate more love in our family with this simple tradition.

Our First Sweet Potato Harvest

Remember the crazy sweet potato idea we had back in May? Well, that one sweet potato multiplied and this week (five months later) we harvested our first batch of sweet potatoes!

 We started by cutting the vines away from the top of the soil.

Once cut, everything rolled back like a big blanket.

 Next came the digging. We decided because the area was so small, we'd dig everything up by hand.

 Once the potatoes were out they were tossed on the ground around the garden.

Some of the tubers were long and snake like. This made the girls giggle.

We came away with a wagon load. I think Steven was expecting more potatoes. But 20+ good size potatoes from one isn't bad in my opinion. Now we wait six more weeks for the potatoes to cure and the put them to the REAL test, our taste.

Blood Moon {2014 Lunar Eclipse}

 Most of my favorite memories don't involve large amounts of money or even much preparation, most often it's a simple investment of time and focused attention. I'm hoping Marin feels this way about the early morning we drug her out of bed to see the lunar eclipse of 2014. And, while it was more important that the little girls sleep, than see the blood moon, they did get to enjoy our Blood Moon pancakes. I love it when homeschooling fades into family time.

The Year for Pecans

 We have quite a few pecan trees in our yard, but this year, for whatever reason, we have a bumper crop of pecans! Autumn days, filled with cooler weather, call to us and we've spent many a morning hunting pecans. The girls love it so much we've likened it to Easter egg hunting in the fall.

Nut hunting anyone? Doesn't have quite the ring.

 Adalyn is our resident pecan cracker. Her tool of choice? A child's size hammer.

 Here is the clan hunting pecans on a Sunday afternoon. Hello autumn. 

Strawberry Girl

Growing up my mother read aloud to us daily. It's something I remember with fondness about my childhood. She's good at reading aloud and when I asked her to read Strawberry Girl (by Lois Lenski) to my girls, she enthusiastically said yes. During most of March they read a little here and a little there. When they finished and I asked Marin what was one thing she remembered about the story she said "The father was bad. He didn't give money to his wife and spent it all instead. We planted Strawberry plants after reading this story." She's right about the dad and about planting strawberries. That's my mom for you. She is more than willing to share the gift of reading with her granddaughters AND she looks for any opportunity to incorporate nature. She thought the girls would enjoy growing their own strawberries and showed up at the back door with six plants and invited the girls to plant them with her. Below are the plants (in May) with their beautiful pink blossoms and a hand full of the harvest. Thank you, Mom.

Sweet Potato Farmers

It all started when we had open spots in our square foot garden. I casually mentioned it would be fun to grow sweet potatoes and the next day Steven put a spud in a jar of water. On April 17 we had our first sign of success. We had NO CLUE what we were getting ourselves into...

It took 17 days for that little sprout to produce these slips.

Three days later the slips were broken off and placed into water to sprout their own roots.

Once we realized that we might actually have viable sweet potato slips, we decided to read about growing them. That lead to us having to build a separate box just for potatoes.

Did I say us? I meant Steven. I've started calling him my Potato Farmer.

Slips are in the ground. Now we wait until September to harvest.

Once we harvest they'll have to season for another six weeks. There's no getting in a hurry when it comes to sweet potatoes. Having lived in this old house for over 10 years, we're getting pretty good at patience.

Now to find something else to fill the empty spaces in our square foot garden.

Easter Tradition - Family Foot Washing

We began a new Easter tradition this year: A Family Foot Washing.

As the girls get older the more I realize the importance of sharing with them the beauty of Easter that lies beyond the eggs and bunnies. I want them to see the beauty of God's love for them in Jesus. What better than the story of Jesus washing his disciples feet the night he was betrayed?

We began the evening by reading "The Servant King" from the Jesus Storybook Bible.

"One by one, Jesus washed everyone's feet. 'I am doing this because I love you.' Jesus explained.

'Do this for each other.'"

So we did.

To help things go smoothly I took two cups. On one I wrote "Dirty Feet" and on the other I wrote "Washer." I placed a piece of paper with each of our names into both cups. Then we drew one name from each cup and each person had the chance to wash and be washed. It was a simple foot tub with warm water and essential oils with a towel nearby for drying.

As we washed each others feet we said these words:

"Like Jesus, we will offer humble, joyful, loving service."

There was such a beautiful and tender intimacy between all of us. I guess it was due to the focused attention to the person being served and the nature of lovingly washing someones' feet.

The girls LOVED it. 

We closed with this prayer:

O Jesus, in this Holy Week you prayed

that we would love one another

as you have loved us.

Tonight we have tried to practice what you have taught us!

Let the love, joy and humility

we have known here with our family

continue to bless us,

and let us share that blessing with world

you love and gave your life for.

May the peace we feel together in this place

Point us toward the hope of Easter.

Plastic Bag Kites - A Windy Day Activity

We've had some SUPER windy days this April with beautiful blue skies and cool weather. The perfect setting for getting outside. While looking for "windy day outdoor activities" for the girls I stumbled upon plastic bag kites. This simple, quick activity provided literally hours of fun for the girls.

All you need is a plastic shopping bag and yarn.

Schedule > Set Date and Time

Schedule > Set Date and Time. That's what did it.

Did you know you could post date blog posts? Well, you can; and when I learned that, PROCRASTINATION reared it's ugly head and eight months later....

Okay, let's not focus on the negative. Instead, let's talk about spring and sunshine and sweet little girls, all good reasons to start blogging again.

Old Truck for an Old Truck

 See that black GMC truck? That was our first purchase as an engaged couple. We loved that truck. It's the vehicle that everyone decorated when we left for our honeymoon. It was what I drove back and forth to work the years before we had children, and when Marin was born I could fit her car seat right next to me and sing songs. We've outgrown the truck and it was time to either invest money into it or...

trade the truck in for a new older truck. We made the swap and are excited about the memories that we'll make with this red beauty. I see Christmas parades, pumpkin parties, senior pictures and weekend trips to Brenham in our future.

Knock, Knock Birthday {The Party}

"Knock, Knock,"

"Who's There?"

"Abby!"

"Abby who?"

"Abby Birthday Marin!"

 We celebrated Marin's sixth birthday poolside with a knock, knock theme birthday party. It was a simple menu of chips, crackers, cake, juice and watermelon.

Since turning six Marin's favorite color has changed from pink to blue.
So, she informed me that the party colors must include blue.

We had so much fun coming up with ideas for a knock, knock birthday party. One of the first ideas was to create a cake topper from a door. I'd seen these Tooth Fairy doors and immediately thought of them as a cake topper. It also served as a table decoration before and after the cake was served.

Another idea was to decorate with "knock out roses." These beauties were from my sister-n-laws garden. A simple talk bubble tag said "Knock out Roses."

Candy bags with a knock, knock joke:

"Knock, Knock,"

"Who's There?"

"Lettuce!"

"Lettuce who?"

"Lettuce eat candy!"

A simple "knock over the cans" game was made out of empty chili cans and a beach ball.

The knock, knock joke read:

"Knock, Knock,"

"Who's There?"

"Canoe!"

"Canoe who?"

"Canoe Knock these over?" 

The kids were all given inflatable microphones as a party favor.

The tub holding the favors had a sign that said: 

"Knock, Knock,"

"Who's There?"

"Yeti!"

"Yeti who?"

"Yeti Nother Knock, Knock Joke?" 

Grab a mic and keep em coming!

We made wraps for each one that said:

"Knock, Knock,"

"Who's There?"

"Hank!"

"Hank who?"

"Hank you for coming!" 

It was a great party. Filled with lots of love and laughter.