Good morning, lovely bloghoppers! Welcome to Impress Your Kids! And just what is this blog all about?

Well, it started as an online journal. I chronicled the activities I did with my daughter to teach her about God. We memorized verses, made crafts and read books. I used all of this to point her to the Bible. To Jesus. Pretty soon I realized the web was lacking in resources I needed. And I began to think that perhaps other mamas were out there looking for the same things I was.

There are lots of homeschool blogs. This is not one of  those. Although I do believe I am my children’s most influential teacher.

There are lots of craft blogs. This is not one of those. Although we do fun crafts on a regular basis.

There are lots of parenting blogs. This is not one of those. Although we discuss parenting styles, trials and successes.

There are lots of encouraging mama blogs. This is not one of those. Although I pray you are encouraged on your journey as a mother while you are here.

This blog is none of those–but it is all of them. It’s the toolbox you didn’t know you need. It’s the place to find creative ideas that will IMPRESS God’s Word on the hearts of your kids. It’s the blog that’s full of tried and true (or at least tried!) activities from a real mom and her kids. It’s the push you need to do more with your kids and to be purposeful about leading them to Jesus.

Here are some of my favorite posts (from me and some from some of my greatest mom friends/contributors):

Glittery Promise Rings (Abraham’s Promise, that is!)

Baby Bedtime Routine

He Is More Awesome (a lesson in RESPECT!)

Christmas/Advent Ornaments

And if you do need some parenting encouragement check out When Momma Apologizes, Dear Lydia and Have a New Kid By Friday!

I’d love for you to stick around: join us on facebook, subscribe by email or feedreader, jump into our forums or even follow us on twitter!

Thanks for hopping by!

Thanks to all my regular subscribers and readers for reading yet another “why we do what we do” post! To be introduced to more fun blogs, click over to Robin’s BlogHop!

How do I start a post like this?  I guess I just need to say it: I (Leigh) am going to be stepping away from Impress Your Kids.  My heart is breaking over this, but I know it is what is best for me and my family right now…

I have been struggling with balance for a while – balancing time with my family and time with the computer, and the computer has been winning lately.  Thankfully, the Lord is merciful and good – He is opening my eyes once again to my real purpose here (how many times will it take, Lord, until I really learn?).  My purpose is to be a mom to my boys, a wife to my hubby, a keeper of my home.

I wish that I could say that Impress Your Kids works into that picture for me, but that’s one of the parts I cannot balance.  Looking at all the other crafty blogs out there puts me into hyper-mode to create fun and perfect crafts, which makes me laugh, because I have two very strong-willed boys that do not have my same vision of perfection.  I either spend all my time doing the crafts and editing pictures and posting, or feeling bad because I haven’t posted everything that we’re doing (some I can’t post, because they are not my original ideas – so then I feel bad for not having time to do what I want to for the blog.  Vicious cycle).

I don’t think I’m stepping away forever… but I do need to be obedient to the Lord, and I don’t know when He will have me being able to come back.  Amanda has told me that I can post again whenever I get the blogging itch – and you know that once you’re a blogger for any length of time, you start to think in blog posts… so chances are I’ll be back with something fun (and hopefully imperfect) that I can share with you all! And I’ll still keep up with you guys through your blogs and the BlogFrog community, too.

Here’s the best news, though – Impress Your Kids will continue on and be blessed! Amanda is absolutely fabulous (as you all know), and her love for the Lord and her kids is amazing.  I believe the Lord has used IYK and Amanda (He has definitely used them in my life – I love you, my friend!), and He will continue to use this place to impress His word on all of our hearts.

May God bless you richly…. until we meet again.

If you are a mom of a boy you need to be at the MOB Society Twitter party tonight! It’s the official launch of the MOB Society website—a site dedicated to helping moms of boys raise their sons to honor God. I’m so excited about this site and can’t wait to learn more about raising Asa for God.

The twitter party starts at 9:30ET tonight. If you use the #mobsociety you could win big prizes! If you’re not on twitter, head over to the Mob Society’s facebook page for some facebook fun! Hope to see you there!

What a fun week of Ultimate Blog Party-ing we’ve had! I loved having a theme running through the blog. In case you missed it, Leigh and I took one song from Seeds Family Worship cds and made an activity to go with it every day. We made a prayer box craft, did a “science” experiment, made a visual memory verse aid, had a dance party and even sat down to read a book.

I hope you read the posts and checked out Seeds Family Worship. They are worth a listen, I promise!

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Our three winners:

1. Mandi from ItsCome2This

2. Angie from shopannies.blogspot.com

3. Jenn Warren

Thanks so much for partying with us! I hope you got to see a little bit of what Impress Your Kids is about and how easy it is to impress your OWN kids with God’s love and Word! God set it up that way and this is why our blog exists…to make it easy for parents to follow the commandment in Deuteronomy:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (NIV)

We’d love for you to stick around, we’ve always got fun crafts, activities and conversations to share with you. Please visit the discussions in our community (it is SO fun!), become a fan on facebook, follow us on twitter or simply subscribe via email or a feedreader!

See you soon!

Disclosure: Seeds Family Worship provided CDs for giveaway and giveaway. The opinions and activities are our own.

photo by jek in the box

When I was a new mom and living far away from family and friends (well, three hours), I discovered a messageboard for moms with kids born the exact month and year of my little girl. Soon, this board became my lifeline! We discussed diapers, naps, food and all the questions I had about my new baby. But as we became friends we discussed parents, husbands, hurts, disappointments and relationships.

And as dangerous as the internet can be, it also has the amazing ability to make the world smaller and connect like-minded people who would have never found each other before. One small dream I have for Impress Your Kids is to make it that same lifeline for like-minded people. I want to help you surround yourself with others that have the same heart to impress their kids as you do. (Hey, I want to surround MYSELF with people that have the same goal!)

I’m not exactly sure how that looks but this weekend I installed a community forum on our sidebar—it’s called Blog Frog. (ha!) All you have to do is click our community and then sign up for a quick free account. Once you’re in you’ll see other people that read Impress Your Kids. You can click their blogs, read their tweets and generally connect with them. But the best part is the forum. If you’d like to ask a question to other Impress Your Kids readers, just start a topic. If you have something you’d like to share a cool new book you read, or a even a cute picture on your blog, feel free to share it in the forum! I started an easy “introduce yourself” thread in the forum, please come say hello!

Speaking of Impress Your Kids readers, I thought I’d let you know some of top referrers (that’s the sites that sent the most people our way). They obviously like us, so I figured you’d like them, too. Please go visit them and say hello!

Complete Organizing Solutions
Amys Finer Things
Homeschool Creations
Daily Dwelling
To Be Thode
A Blessed Fam

Thank you so much for visiting and interacting with Impress Your Kids. We honored to be a part of your life! If you’re new here (or just haven’t done so) you can always subscribe to our email updates or by subscribe with your feedreader. And if you’re on facebook you can always connect with us on our fanpage! It makes us happy to see your smiling face (even if it is an emoticon ) every day!

Happy Monday! Happy March!

I just got back from Blissdom, a big blogging conference last weekend. It was so amazingly fun and inspiring. (And apparently it took me an entire week to recover because this is the first post in a week! YIKES.) I’ve been blogging at my personal blog, ohAmanda for almost 3 years. I’ve been doing Impress Your Kids for about 2 1/2 years. And although I am very passionate about Impress Your Kids, I sometimes feel at a loss on what to post and feature.

At first I thought Impress Your Kids was going to be an online journal of what Lydia and I crafted. Then I felt like my children’s ministry experience would be beneficial to other readers. I was googling stuff to do with my duaghter and couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for and I figured others were doing the same.

So, while I was at Blissdom I got a revelation (oh, yes, I did!) about how Impress Your Kids is different than ohAmanda. Impress Your Kids is what you call a niche blog (is that NICH? NEESH? anywhoo…) while ohAmanda is a memoir-anything-goes blog. So, if I don’t post at ohAmanda it’s obvious that there’s nothing blog-worthy going on in my life. And I’m ok with that!

Generally, that’s what happens at Impress Your Kids, too. We get busy or sick or tired or we’re just hanging by the skin of our teeth so we don’t post. And because I want this blog to feel real and personal, that’s ok. BUT I also know that some of you are busy, sick, tired and hanging by the skin of your teeth, too. And I want Impress Your Kids to always be here. I want to be that encouraging parenting toolbox that we set out to be.

So. I’ve been thinking, talking, evaluating and praying about Impress Your Kids and it’s future. And I need your input. Would you take 3 minutes and complete this survey? I won’t share your answers, you don’t have to fill out your name and most of it is mutliple choice. It would mean so much to me!

Thank you! And thank you for honoring us at Impress Your Kids with your visits, your links and your comments.

photo of ME by mooshinindy

Congratulations to Ashley, who won our God Gave Us Christmas book giveaway!  Take a look at her crafty blog (and her adorable daughter)!  Thanks to everyone who entered!

Now, since I’ve been doing our attributes of God Advent series on a daily basis, I’ve missed being chatty and rambling in a “normal” post… so I’m going to chat your ear off for a minute.

About the Advent posts I’ve been doing – would anyone like me to make a tutorial on how to make the wooden ornaments?  It’s something that could be adapted for any number of ideas…  If there is any interest, I’ll write up a quick tutorial.

Also, I’m “behind” on my Advent crafting… I wanted to make an Advent calendar like this one here to put all my ornaments and little craft/activity slips of paper in – but I’ve only gotten as far as purchasing the fabric.  Ehem.  This will probably get done in January… so I guess I’ll have to unveil it next year.

I’m also thinking that I might have to keep adding on to the list of names and attributes of God each year – there are so many more that I didn’t think when I made my list, and I already knew I was leaving so many off.  So I’m excited to see how this could grow each year – the boys might be able to add more as they get to know God more themselves, too!

Amanda’s back from her very exciting extended weekend… be sure to watch her blog for updates about her time at Disney!

So that’s kind of what we’ve been up to… how about you guys?  How has your December been?

You know, we’ve been “up and running” again for several months, and we just wanted to check in with you guys to see how YOU are doing.  We’d love to know more about you – so if you’re a regular reader, or even a first-timer, can you leave us a comment and answer the Top Ten Questions we have for you?

1. What’s your name?
2. Where are you from?
3. How many children do you have and what are their ages?
4. Do you blog? Share a link to your blog with us if you do!
5. What do you think your biggest challenge is as a parent to impress God’s Word on your children?
6. What’s your favorite Bible verse about parenting?
7. What’s your favorite rainy day activity?
8. What’s your favorite color?
9. Where do you go when you need some peace and quiet?
10. What would you like to see from Impress Your Kids over the next several months?  Is there anything you’d like to see more/less of?

Now, here are my answers…

1. Leigh (aka Momma and My Love)
2. I’m from Atlanta, but I live in Richmond, VA now.  I love it up here!
3. I have 2 kiddos – Elias is almost 4 and Donovan is almost 2.
4. I do blog – I actually have a blogging problem.  I have 4 blogs – only one of which is active right now (Impress Your Kids).  I had to stop the other 3 so I could actually spend time with my kids.
5. My biggest challenge is scheduling time to do activities with the kids.  If I don’t schedule it, it typically doesn’t happen.  Also, it doesn’t happen naturally for me – I really have to think and plan things through.
6. “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD…” Psalm 127:3; “But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” ” Luke 18:16
7. I love to sit on the front porch with the boys and watch the rain.  This really only works when it’s warm and rainy, though… otherwise, we build forts.
8. GREEN!  My current favorite is spring green.  Nice and fresh.
9. For peace and quiet, I really don’t go anywhere yet.  I can see how it would help to have someplace special to go, but there’s not a place in the house that I can go that I can’t hear the boys.  So I guess I would have to leave the house for peace and quiet.  Leaving the boys appropriately supervised, of course.
10. I’m excited about the next several months at IYK.  I’m always looking forward to more fabulous ideas from Amanda, and I’m excited about what I have planned for the boys.  And with Christmas coming (soon! argh!), there seem to be even more opportunities to share the Word of God with the kids.

Please let us know a bit about yourself… we really want to know you better!

For more Top Ten {Tuesdays}, visit Amanda here.

The surprise is on us! We’re in the middle of our week long we-love-our-blog Surprise Party when suddenly (ok, not so suddenly, I just kinda forgot about it), Robin is hosting a big fun BlogHop for all the non-BlogHer attenders! Yay!

So now, for a little introduction…

We’re just two moms, Leigh and Amanda who blog about our kids. Big surprise, right? But THIS blog is a little bit different. We don’t blog about the cute stuff our kids do. We blog about the stuff we do TO our kids. See, our goal is to impress God’s Word on our kids’ hearts. We believe kids are little sponges open to receiving and understanding God’s love. And all we want in life is for them to know that Love.

So, this blog is that journey. We use crafts, activities, experiments, games, songs, adventures and stories to tell our kids about this Love. We blog it here to keep ourselves accountable. To learn from each other. To encourage you. So our kids will know. So your kids will know. And one day a generation of kids will grow up ALWAYS knowing that Love.

It’s what God has called us to do…not this blog (well, maybe…) but this huge adventure of parenting. God clearly tells us to talk about His laws and His ways everywhere we go and in everything we do. It might sound daunting but it’s really pretty fun. So, let’s do it together, ok? Keep up with our blog by subscribing to our email updates or RSS feed. And if you are on twitter, please follow us @impressyourkids so we can do the same!

While you’re here would you like to win a little prize-ies? Our Surprise Party is still in full force. Why don’t you meander a little and see if you find anything you like…

Day 1: Boredom Busters: Win a Handmade Kids Crayon Wallet Thingie

Day 2: Craft-a-licious Tag: Win a One Year Subscription to Family Fun Magazine

Day 3: Interview with Author Sally Lloyd Jones: Win 1 of 3 copies of The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones

{{We’re also giving this book away at the BlogHop! Wooo-hoo!}}

Day 4: Rainbow Hunting: Win a Handmade Day at the Park Backpack Tote

Day 5: Mrs. Rosey Posey 4-book Collection (post will be up at a surprise time Friday morning…aka when my kids take a nap…)

Thanks for stopping by, reading and oh, commenting!

Surprise! We’re having a party!

A big We-Love-Our-Blog Party!

We’re having so much fun at our new digs we decided to celebrate! And to celebrate we’re doing what every good party does…inviting our friends, making the place nice and pretty, sharing some of our favorite things and of course, giving stuff away! So, go ahead, grab our button…

We want everyone to share in our Surprise-Party-goodness! And here’s a little sneak peek at what you could win this week:

The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones
(Sally Lloyd Jones will also be making a guest appearance on Impress Your Kids this Wednesday! WHEEE!)

Mrs. Rosey Posey Book Collection

One Year Subscription to Family Fun Magazine

Plus lots more! So are you ready to party? The party begins NOW with YOUR TURN: Boredom Busters where you can win a handmade Crayon Wallet for your kids! Day 2 is a Craft Tag with a chance to win a subscription to Family Fun! Day 3 gets even better with an Interview with Sally Lloyd Jones, author of the Jesus Storybook Bible PLUS 3 readers will walk away with their very own copy of the book! Day 4 is another handmade goody from Leigh–a backpack tote for when you and your kids need to do some rainbow hunting! Don’t miss a day of our party!

cupcake photo by kellysue