The letter F was an easy one: FLOWERS with cupcake liners and green pipe cleaners. And the verse was also an easy one for me to choose. It is one of my favorite verses: Psalm 103:3a. Granted it doesn’t actually begin with the letter F. But it is such a beautiful truth for us to know. God forgives ALL my sins. I want my daughter and son to be confident of this always.

The “b” part of Psalm 103:3 says “He heals all my sicknesses.” I love the equality of spiritual and physical in the same verse. God cares for every part of our being. In fact, all of Psalm 103 is a poem of God’s great love, devotion and attention to us.

This Monday morning, full of back-to-school scrambling, breakfast prep and full to-do lists be encouraged by God’s love:

PSALM 103

I will praise the Lord.
Deep down inside me, I will praise him.
I will praise him, because his name is holy.
I will praise the Lord.
I won’t forget anything he does for me.
He forgives all my sins.
He heals all my sicknesses.
He saves my life from going down into the grave.
His faithful and tender love makes me feel like a king.
He satisfies me with the good things I long for.
Then I feel young and strong again, just like an eagle.
The Lord does what is right and fair
for all who are beaten down.
He told Moses all about his plans.
He let the people of Israel see his mighty acts.
The Lord is tender and kind. He is gracious.
He is slow to get angry. He is full of love.
He won’t keep bringing charges against us.
He won’t stay angry with us forever.
He doesn’t punish us for our sins as much as we should be punished.
He doesn’t pay us back in keeping with the evil things we’ve done.
His love for those who have respect for him
is as high as the heavens are above the earth.
He has removed our lawless acts from us
as far as the east is from the west.
A father is tender and kind to his children.
In the same way, the Lord is tender and kind
to those who have respect for him.
He knows what we are made of.
He remembers that we are dust.
People’s lives are like grass.
People grow like the flowers in the field.
When the wind blows on them, they are gone.
No one can tell that they had ever been there.
But the Lord’s love
for those who have respect for him
lasts for ever and ever.
Their children’s children will know
that he always does what is right.
He always loves those who keep his covenant.
He always does what is right for those who remember to obey his commands.
The Lord has set up his throne in heaven.
His kingdom rules over all.
Praise the Lord, you angels of his.
Praise him, you mighty ones
who carry out his orders and obey his word.
Praise the Lord, all you angels in heaven.
Praise him, all you who serve him and do what he wants.
Let everything the Lord has made praise him
everywhere in his kingdom.
I will praise the Lord.

(New International Reader’s Version)
(emphasis mine)

Did you read it? I know, I ususally skip over scripture because oh-I’ve-read-that-before. If you didn’t, go back and read it. It’s worth it–and it was written lovingly for you!

Which part of that scripture do you like best?

See all of our ABC Scripture Crafts in one spot!

The past few weeks I’ve been updating some of our “back-dated” alphabet crafts—all the scriptures and crafts Lydia and I did before I started recording them on this blog. And I started out strong with the letter A, B was just ok, C was a phonics-fail and today? The letter D? Well, I’m just thankful I really didn’t start this blog until the letter N!

But in the spirit of full disclosure and I’m-a-real-mom, here is our letter D scripture and craft…if you can call it that:

I knew the verse I wanted immediately, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and DO NOT BE AFRAID!” I’ve chronicled Lydia’s battle with fear and being shy. So, this verse is the perfect one for her. It’s still one of her go-to verses when she’s frightened. I’ve always loved this verse because it says “do not let your heart…” as opposed to, “I will not let your heart…”. There is a significant personal action involved. I want Lydia to know that she has a big role to play in fear or bravery. It’s up to her in one way–to act in the power that Jesus gives.

Now, onto the crafty part. You do recognize the animal don’t you? It’s a duck. Ahem. I know, it looks like the handprint turkeys you make at Thanksgiving. I wanted to use feathers but we didn’t have any. So, we used what we had: Lydia’s hand and crayons.

I’m hoping “E” will score a little higher on the craft-a-licioius scale, but for now here’s some more letter D crafts that might get your craftiness going…and I even added some scriptures you could couple them with.

Donkey Paper Bag Puppet from Danielle’s Place {this one would be great for John 12:15!}

Light and Dark “D” Dots from DLTK {a cool craft for Genesis 1!}

D is for DoctorBag from Our Crafts N Things {maybe Matthew 9:12-13? Or even Luke 7:21-23?)

D is for Dinosaur from Homeschool Creations {plus tons of other fun “d” activities…but I couldn’t think of a scripture for this one!}

Door “d” from No Time For Flashcards {ooh, you could use Revelation 3:20 for this craft!}

And don’t forget about the rest of our “D” crafts here on Impress Your Kids—including a Make Your Own Drumset Tutorial!

Do you have a “d” craft? Especially one that has to do with a scripture? Feel free to leave a link in the comments!

Vanessa is a regular contributor to Impress Your Kids. She is a stay-at-home mom to an energetic three-year-old, Juliet. They spend their days together reading books, attempting crafts, and occasionally beating tree trunks with large sticks. You can read more about their adventures at Silly Eagle Books

Amanda asked me if I had any good camp books to share with you this week, and the only ones I could think of were these songbooks that we found a few months ago. I love using songbooks instead of story books from time to time and was thrilled to discover these Camp Song books at our library.

I spent many a summer at camp learning all those classic songs like Found a Peanut, Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee, and Make New Friends. Juliet had a blast learning these song and I had fun reliving my camp days. There’s something about songs that really bring back memories, isn’t there?

While I’m not interested in getting a real campfire going, we had some imaginary play by making our own pretend campfire in our living room. You can read more about how we made it using scraps of paper, river rocks, and twigs on Silly Eagle Books. It was fun and easy and the kitty cat LOVED it. It was the perfect place to sit next to and sing our camp songs together.

We also made some pretend paper marshmallows, but next time I think we’ll use the real ones. They’re more fun to eat!

What camps songs do you remember from your childhood?

SHRINKY DINKS!  This week we enjoyed the joys of crafting with Shrinky Dinks while making a little something sweet for Daddy.  Last year, we made a Father’s Day key ring, which my husband loved to pieces.  Literally!  He was so upset when it broke, he asked me to glue it back together (just a note: Shrinky Dinks don’t glue too well – very messy).  We decided to replace the original one with some cute-and-creative updated key chains…

Materials: Shrinky Dinks (or any shrinky-plasticy-papery-type product – available at most craft stores), markers or colored pencils or paint pens, hole punch (standard size – smaller holes shrink too much), jump rings, key rings.

Trace your shape onto the textured side of the Shrinky Dink paper, and let your little artists go crazy!  Or you could do it in reverse – let them create their masterpiece with markers, colored pencils, or paint pens first, then trace or cut out your shape.  We decided to make a little “paper man” shape for each of the boys – just remember that Shrinky Dink plastic shrinks up at least half the size of your original shape, so enlarge your original shapes accordingly.  Cut out your shapes, punch a hole where you would like the key ring to be, and, following the directions on your Shrinky Dink package, let the magic begin!

While I don’t have any pictures of the pre-shrunken little dinks, here is an “after” dink with the original template that was used for a size/shrinking comparison.  The shrinking is always the most fun part… we had some friends over to do this craft with us, and none of them (including the mother!) had ever seen Shrinky Dinks before!  It was hilarious with the 7 of us crowded around the oven trying to see the process.

Here are the finished little dinks in my hand for a size comparison.  While my paws are a bit large, these little men are pretty tiny – smaller than a house key, so they will be nice and unobtrusive on Daddy’s keychain.

Here are the ones that our friends made – there are two little boys and a girl in their family, so their daddy will get a trio of little dinks for his keychain!

And I added another bit to our keychain gift – this is a re-creation of the original one Daddy got lat year.  Last year’s was an oblong shape, which I think contributed to its breakage.  This compact circle will hopefully fare better being thrown into pockets and onto tables.

All I need to do now is purchase some jump rings in the right size, attach them into the little holes in each dink, thread them all onto a keyring, and wrap them up for Father’s Day!

What are the plans at your house for Father’s Day this year?  We promise we  won’t tell!

linked up to Somewhat Simple’s Strut Your Stuff Thursday

The Amazon links above are affiliate links – if you purchase something from Amazon through one of the links I get a referral fee depending on the item at no additional cost to you.

Recycled Canisters into Mushroom Village from Dollar Store Crafts {one day I will be crafty enough to do this!}

Menu Plan for Preschoolers at Super Healthy Kids {a whole week’s worth!}

What You Need From Your Local Yard Sales from Teach Mama {all the fun kids’ stuff to snag at yard sales this year!}

Color Puzzle Printables from 1+1+1=1 {cute color matching for preschoolers!}

see more fun links at itscome2this’ saturday stumbles

I’ve been thinking a lot about impressing my kids lately.  And this great post a while back had me thinking about the verses that this blog is based on:   Deuteronomy 6:4-9… 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)

These words are also in Deuteronomy 11:18-21 – I didn’t realize that until I started this post and I realized that the verses I referred to in the NASB were the verses from chapter 11.  How wonderful is it that God gave us these instructions twice?  How important is this to His heart that he told His people again to teach His words to our children and surround ourselves with them each day – by talking about them and by writing them in places we see every day!?

I want to be sure I memorized these verses – and to keep them always in front of my eyes, I made a tray for my “homeschooling supplies” with the verse on it.  The tray only holds our crayons, colored pencils, our 100 jar (for counting to 100), and a small box that has our flashcards, buttons, and scissors in it.  Things that we use everyday but didn’t fit into our paper box… a tray that I see everyday as I work to impress God’s words on my sons’ hearts.

It’s a tray that I picked up on clearance at a craft store – and it had some lovely-antiquey roses on the bottom… roses that don’t really go with my I-live-with-3-males decor.  And it was an easy transformation – I already loved the white-washed wood on the outside of the tray, and the rustic handles… I just needed to do something to the bottom of the tray to cover up the lovely roses.

I decoupaged a lime green sheet of card stock cut to size onto the bottom of the tray and made sure to get all the bubbles out as I pressed the paper down.  Then, as I waited for the decoupage medium to dry, I stamped Deuteronomy 11: 18-19 on the paper.  I eye-balled it as far as spacing goes, and I like how it turned out – you definitely can tell it was hand-stamped!

There were no numbers in the stamp kit I used, so I made up my own numbers out of letters from the kit.  Then I decoupaged over the top of the whole thing to seal it all, and I added some ribbons to the ends (because my paper wasn’t big enough to cover the whole bottom of the tray).

I really love my little homeschooling tray – not only does it make it easier to lug everything around, it helps me remember each time I sit down with my kids why I am homeschooling them and what my purpose is as their mother – to raise men of God who know His word because it is impressed on their hearts.

linked to these fab parties: Making the World Cuter Monday, Just Something I Whipped Up Monday, Motivate Me Monday, Market Yourself Monday, Made By You Monday, and DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land.

This past December for one of our Advent activities I made a mobile illustrating our memory verse for the month, John 3:16.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

This verse is the basis of Eternal Life, one of the songs on the Seeds of Faith CD from Seeds Family Worship.

A mobile is such a quick and easy visual aid to put together to help your kids (and you!) learn a verse… I chose to pull out some key elements in the verse to create the mobile:

• heart with God’s name on it = “For God so loved”
• world = “the world”
• baby in a manger = “the He gave His only begotten Son”
• cross = “that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

It just so happened that I had an embroidery hoop, some craft foam, and some fishing line lying around to make our mobile, but you can make a mobile with anything you have!  Seriously!

Don’t have an embroidery hoop?  Use an old wire hanger stretched out to make a circle!  Or don’t even stretch it out – hang your items all in a row from the long bottom edge of the hanger!  No wire hangers?  Use a shoebox top or even just a piece of cardboard – punch holes into the cardboard for hanging your items!

And who really has large pieces of craft foam lying around to make the exact shapes you need?  I had some larger shapes from a couple packages that I used to cut out the pieces for the heart, the world, and the manger.  I drew the world onto the green circle I cut out, and I glued some cotton from a cotton ball on it to make “clouds,” and baby Jesus is made entirely of scrap felt.  But all of this would work just as well made out of construction paper, too!  And no fishing line?  Use any yarn or string you have in the house!

I love using visual aids when my kids are learning Scripture!  I find it helps them so much in memorizing the verses, rather than just having them repeat the verse after me.  If they have something to look at that represents the verse (or even the verse itself), they learn it so much quicker!

How easy was that? Use whatever you’ve got to help your kids learn God’s Word!

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If you leave a comment on this post, you’ll be entered in our Seeds Family Worship CD giveaway. And if you do THIS activity with your kids, blog it and leave the link on our MckLinky, you’ll get FIVE additional entries! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, see our Ultimate Blog Party intro page!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone!  I have not one lick of Irish in me, but green is my favorite color, and I love the story of the real Saint Patrick, so let’s celebrate!

First of all, you need to know the story of the real Saint Patrick.  I’m sad to say I did not know a thing until I watched Lutfi’s Fanciful Flannelgraph from the VeggieTales – Sumo Of The Opera DVD.  I love Lufti and his little flannelgraph – you need to see this!  It gives you a nice synopsis of Saint Patrick’s story in about 5 entertaining minutes that you and your kids will love!

Once you see it, go grab some paint and some potatoes, because we’re going to make shamrock potato stamps that will help illustrate the Trinity for our children – the same way Saint Patrick used shamrocks to illustrate the Trinity to the Irish.

Using a pencil, outline a shamrock shape (3 leaves only for the illustration!  a 4 leaf clover won’t do!) onto half of a cut potato.  Then use a paring knife to carefully carve away the outline – I only cut about a quarter of an inch away below the design, and it was plenty.  Give the kids some paper, some paint, and let them stamp away.

Did you know that Saint Patrick used to be associated with the color blue?  Since blue’s a favorite in our house, we used it as well as the traditional green.

As the boys stamped, I sang a simple little song that I remember from way back – sung to the tune of “Are You Sleeping”/”Frere Jacques”:

By the time we finished stamping, Elias was singing along with me.  I used the shamrock to show him how God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three different things, like the leaves on the shamrock, but they are all a part of the one God, like the whole shamrock.

What a wonderful example Saint Patrick has given us – not only the illustration of the shamrock for the Trinity, but also of his heart for those who do not know the Lord!  I pray that we all might follow his example.

How about you – are you and your kids doing anything fun this Saint Patrick’s Day?

Disclaimer:  I am a part of Amazon.com’s affiliate program, so if you purchase items from Amazon.comthrough the links in this post, I will receive a small affiliate payment at no additional cost to you.

Submitted to We are THAT Family’s Work For Me Wednesday!

God wants us to be Nature Lovers, enjoying His creation. Genesis 1:25 is in the middle of the creation story, and it says, “God made all kinds of wild animals and livestock.  He made all kinds of animals that move along the ground.  And God saw that it was good.”

Of course He wants us to love nature!  And who wouldn’t be a nature lover?  His creation is amazing – full of beauty and splendor, power and mystery.  When I saw this on the Christian Characteristic Traits list that we’re working through, it seemed like a no-brainer.

Except… I have a hard time loving nature at times (late summer comes to mind).  And spring is actually my least favorite time in nature right now.  Isn’t that backwards?  The entire world is bursting forth with new life and beauty, and I prefer to drive through it with my windows up tight.  Because spring in our house = asthma.  All of that yellow pollen swirling around and… pollenating… things causes allergic reactions in my son and brings on weeks of asthma-related breathing problems.

So even setting aside my aversion to all things buggy and my intense dislike of heat, I still want to hole up in my house during the most glorious time of the year to be out in nature.  We are working on some different things that could help change that for us this year, but how do I instill a love of nature in my children when we can’t be outside?

We bring the outside in.  Meet Winnie.

A little duck-thingie purchased on rock-bottom sale in the middle of deep winter – is bringing some of the outside in… cultivating a love of growing things (I hope!)… getting us excited for a spring we may or may not be able to spend a lot of time enjoying outside.  But even if we learn about God’s creation from the “safety” of our pollen-free home, we are still learning to love it and take care of it.

You can make a little grass-seed-head yourself with some potting soil, grass seeds, and some old pantyhose.  Beak and googly eyes are optional.  Place seeds in a portion of pantyhose and cover with soil, tying the  pantyhose shut with a knot.  Leave a length of the pantyhose attached under the knot, to help wick water up into your grass-head-thingy.  The place where the seeds are will become the top of the head of your… creature. Soak the ball of dirt and seeds in a cup of water until soaked through, and place in a small cup/vase of water with the wick-end down, grass seed end up.  Cover for a week with a plastic container (helps create humidity and warmth so seeds will germinate and start to grow).  Peeking is allowed during this time, but be sure to keep it covered when the peeking is done.

In about a week, you will see your first grassy hairs poking through.  And in another week… well, you’ll get something like this:

Poor Winnie, with the sparse hair.  I think he’s the only duck out there with a uni-brow (see the single blade of grass growing up between his eyes?).  Elias and Donovan will be able to give him a hair cut soon, just to get the ends evened up, I think.  He still needs some time to grow and fill in before we do any big styling changes.

So even if weather (the never-ending winter!) or allergies won’t let you outside to enjoy nature, you can bring a bit of God’s creation in to your kids.

Please share… do you have any special ways to help your kids learn to love nature without leaving your house?

I subscribe to Family Fun magazine. And love it. I read each page with oh-my-goodness-why-didn’t-i-think-of-that and always say, “We are SO going to do that.” And then we never do. So. I have decided to challenge myself to do at least one craft or activity from Family Fun every month.

Today we made this adorable Curly Bird. I wouldn’t say it was exactly a quick craft as we had to measure each piece of paper before we rolled it. But it turned out so cute that Lydia has been making nests and food for her new little pet. She wants to make a whole flock.

Plus, our little curly bird is a good reminder that God has his eye on the tiny sparrow and each one of us, too!

“Aren’t two sparrows sold for only a penny? But not one of them falls to the ground without your Father knowing it.  He even counts every hair on your head! So don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. Matthew 10:29-31

PS: Don’t forget about our Alphabet Crafts ebook giveaway!!