First of all, THANK YOU for the amazing response on Truth in the Tinsel! I am absolutely overwhelmed! I literally had butterflies in my stomach all day yesterday because of your comments, shares and facebook likes. There are almost 500 likes on the Truth in the Tinsel page! Unbelievable. I saw the almost-finished-final-copy of the book today and it looks SO good! Cannot wait for Black Friday for y’all to see it!

Since the 31 Days to Impress Your Kids, my whirlwind Relevant Conference and my jet-setting adventure to New York City, I feel like I haven’t done any “normal” Impress Your Kids kinda posts. In fact, I don’t feel like I’ve done a lot of normal stuff around our house! We’re chugging away with home school but it really takes some time to insert the specific Bible activities into our day.

My main avenue of teaching God’s Word the last few months has been by copying what our church is doing. Remember our Super Sunny Day this summer? Well, now that Lydia is in the elementary department (*sniff*) she has monthly themes in her class. A few months ago was a MONSTER theme. Sound kinda weird for church? It was, in fact, one of the best things I’ve ever seen.

The big idea was self-control. The theme verse was one I’ve been wanting to teach Lydia for a long time:

Like a city whose walls are broken down is a person who lacks self-control. Proverbs 25:28

And the monster connection is that when you lose self-control you are letting a monster run wild. Wild enough to break down a city’s walls. So, the whole month was about “taming the inner monster”. I just love that visual!

The first week they sent home a talking-point card (including that cute giant paper clip). We kept it on our kitchen table and read it when we eat dinner. So, we talked about different kinds of self-control: talking too much, letting our anger run wild, eating too much, playing and not working, etc.

Then, the next week we came home with a blue cricket cage. Yeah, like you use to keep crickets in! But instead of crickets we had these little suction-cup-pop-up monsters. And each person in our family got their own monster! We were instructed to put the monsters in the cage at the beginning of the day and if anyone “let their monster out” by losing self-control, they would literally have to take the toy monster out of the cage!

Well, my kids LOVED this. If one of them would cry, whine, refuse to obey or throw a fit, at the end of it, they’d say (in contrite little sniffling voices), “I need to take my monster out of the cage, huh?” And they’d take it out so everyone could see. Usually at dinner we’d all discuss if the monsters were out of the cage. The best part of this is that my husband was on a diet then. So, he wasn’t drinking any soft drinks (which is super hard for him). If he had bought a drink that day he’d come home and say, “I have to take my monster out of the cage. I didn’t use self-control.” And it was such a beautiful picture for our kids to see how even adults have to work on self-control! (And that kids should get that “monster” under control now, so they aren’t struggling with it for 30 years!)

We had so many great conversations during this month because of those little monsters! When Lydia went to Camp Primo, she even took her monster with her to remind herself to have self-control. I was so impressed!

I wanted to do some monster-themed activities at home during that month, I even started a Monster Pinterest Board. But for whatever reason (maybe because they started a new theme the next month?) we never got around to the monster crafts. I think I might save them and then pull out some monster crafts next time we need to work on self-control! You could totally take this same idea and do it at home—find a little cage, make some funny little monsters and make an active step toward paying attention to controlling that “inner monster”. I really feel like Lydia will remember that picture the rest of her life–I know I will!

additional photos by Upstreet

Asa is three today! His Woody and Buzz birthday party went off without a hitch—well, except for the part when Lydia got a high fever and her grandparents had to take her to their house so she wouldn’t get anyone else sick and she missed the whole party!

This morning we woke Asa with presents and a song. I tried to capture his first minutes of 3 with a picture, but the silly little guy hid from me!

{yes, he’s still in a crib…}

{and he’s also quite flexible…}

Today we’re trying to finish up school super fast so we can hit one of those indoor bouncy game places. And then cupcakes for dinner!

How do you celebrate birthdays at your house?

This is a guest post by one of my amazing in-real-life turned bloggy friends, Kathy from House of Hills:

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My family is blessed to attend an amazing church with exceptional children’s programming. A hard working staff and hundreds of volunteers work each week to bring the Bible to life for our kids. Not only that, they equip us as parents to continue impressing the Word into their hearts daily.

This past Easter, we received an “Easter Art Show” kit. It was by far the BEST representation of what Christ did for us on the cross that I’ve ever seen. I was so excited to do it with my Maggie.

They sent us home with instructions, a blank canvas, and simple spackling.

Maggie was very intrigued by the spackling. I mean, a canvas she’d seen before, but she didn’t know what to do with spackling. However, she’d have to wait a few days to play with that.

On Good Friday, we were told to use a marker and write our sins on the canvas. Every member of the family was to write at least two sins on the canvas. Maggie proudly wrote her first one, “disobedience.” Yes, this is something we work on daily at the House of Hills. I think parents everywhere work on it daily.

Maggie got us started and then My Sweetie and I joined in. Soon we had the entire canvas filled with words. Words that signified our sin. It was slightly overwhelming to see our sinful nature staring us in the face. (Which is probably why I didn’t take a picture of it.) All that sin is what Christ gave His life for. All that sin is why we need a Savior.

Once we were done writing, we placed the canvas on the bookcase in the kitchen. We saw our sin every day of Easter weekend. It sat there, out in the open for all to see.

On Easter day, we came home from church to our sin glaring at us from the canvas. But we rejoiced! For Easter day was the day that Jesus rose again! His death had wiped away our sin.

We took the spackling and with our fingers covered every inch of that canvas. The canvas was white again! Our sin no longer haunted us because Jesus, our Savior had died and rose again!

My Sweetie used his fingers to form a cross with the spackling, a reminder of why this canvas was made white again. This canvas has a place of honor in our hall. Each day, we pass it. Each day, we are reminded of the grace, love, and hope we have been given through the cross. Each day, we are reminded that our sin has been wiped clean.

The Easter Art Show created amazing discussion in our house, discussion that continues on a regular basis. While Maggie loved getting her hands messy and covering the canvas with spackling, the true power of the exercise was her greater understanding of Easter. The significance of what Christ’s death meant to her personally hit home. Her sins were being washed away. Hers. Christ died for her.

What have you done to make Christ’s death personal for your children?

	Kathy can be found at the House of Hills sharing life stories, recipes and Disney tips. When not blogging, working or serving, Kathy likes to just “be” with her Sweetie and daughter, Maggie, age 8.