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?

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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!!

We made it! We got to the final Fruit of the Spirit! I can’t believe it. Next time I do a “unit”, I’m going to try to keep it under half a year! Sheesh.

As we’ve gone through this unit, I usually picked the fruit we’d focus on based on what was going on in our lives. That’s why self-control was first, we needed that most. Goodness seemed a little similar to the other fruits (kindness, love, etc.) so it became the last fruit I looked at. Therefore, it had no choice but to be lined up with a LIME, our very last scratch-and-sniff fruit! I could find no correlation for a lime=goodness. So, we’ll leave it at that.

SCRIPTURE

I picked a verse we already partially memorized around Halloween:

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

I never want to focus on good deeds because I know it’s easy to get in the mindset that good deeds is what brings you to Jesus, or makes you worthy of His love. Jesus’ love is unconditional, He saved us because He loves us. Period.

Anyway, we’ve done lots of light crafts (including a Christian t-shirt!) so after we had read the verse I was kinda bummed that I chose it because I couldn’t think of anything cool to do with the verse. You can only draw so many sunshines and use glitter so many times.

We finally settled on a sun catcher. And suddenly this seemed brilliant to me. Here we are in the middle of winter, a normally drab and dark time. Hanging a sun catcher up in the window wouldn’t BRING us any light–only make us appreciate it and add some color to our day. What a great picture of what our GOODNESS can do for others—we are NOT The Light nor do our good deeds actually make anything happen BUT they do make others aware of  The Light. Our good deeds bring attention and color to a normally dark and drab world of sin!

I’m pretty sure Lydia didn’t get the nuances of our sun catcher craft, but it has been especially significant to me. I want Lydia and Asa to see my good deeds (cooking, cleaning, loving my husband, being patient with them) and when they do that it would make them aware of Jesus and His Light—that it would lead them to praise and follow their Father in Heaven.

CRAFT

It honestly is not as pretty as the original version that I found online (as usual), so I’ll just leave you with a few pictures and links to sun catchers.

This is actually the one we made. All you need is tissue paper and a clear plastic top (which we didn’t have, so I used a disposable plastic container). We made ours in the shape of heart and a candle. You know, obvious reference to Matthew 5:16. Oh, and we used lime green tissue paper, of course. (see complete instructions at Making Friends.)

I love this one with the pressed flowers. I guess it would be kind of hard to do in the middle of winter, but even some pinestraw and a few dried leaves might be pretty! Plus, you could do any shape as the frame! (Complete instructions at Great Ideas For Mom.)

This suncatcher from Family Fun is really the one I wanted to make. Isn’t it lovely? We just didn’t have any translucent beads in the house. Copper wire we had, but beads? Nope.

And how could we forget about my icy sun catcher? Always a crowd pleaser!

Wouldn’t it be fun to make all of these and line your winter-y windows with them?!

lime photo by darwin bell

Remember the Fruit of the Spirit series Lydia and I did? Well, you may have forgotten it because Christmas kinda took over and now I’m just turning back to it. Don’t hold it against me, ok?!

With all the discipline and behavior issues we’ve had lately, this Fruit of the Spirit really stuck out to me this week: GENTLENESS. I need it. She needs it. Our household needs it.

SCRIPTURE

The first verse that comes to mind (and was our “A” verse) is Proverbs 15: 1, “A gentle answer turns anger away.” Today would have been a perfect time for Lydia to test this verse out as I was pretty angry with her behavior most of the day. Alas, it’s me who had to practice this verse so I could set the gentle example. (Not sure if I did it…)

As I looked through the verses about gentleness, it was encouraging because most of them were referring to Jesus. Or encouraging us to be gentle like Him. Isn’t it lovely to think about Jesus as gentle? Sometimes its easy to fall into that Zeus-like god image where Jesus/God is sitting there impatient, disappointed and ready to knock our heads together. I love thinking about Jesus as the gentle Good Shepherd instead. What a model to emulate!

The verse I ended up choosing is found in 1 Peter 3:3-4. It is the perfect verse for my girly girl:

Braiding your hair doesn’t make you beautiful. Wearing gold jewelry or fine clothes doesn’t make you beautiful. Instead, your beauty comes from inside you. It is the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Beauty like that doesn’t fade away. God places great value on it.

Lydia was amazed that braids are in the Bible. And gold jewelry! She had it 90% memorized after reading it three times. I kid you not. Every time she learns a new verse I feel bad for not teaching her more—she’s a sponge!

ACTIVITY

I chose grapes to represent gentleness. Basically because a lime and grapes is all that’s left from our scratch-n-sniff fruit basket. So, we made the coolest grape craft after dinner tonight. I found it at Danielle’s Place (a great site–especially if you teach kids at church!)

All you need is a funnel, flour, one balloon and a little scrap of green craft foam. Use the funnel to fill the balloon. Then tie. Add a little leaf to the top (cut or punch a hole and pull the knot through). Now you’ve got your own fruity stressball! Isn’t it cute?

We talked about how soft and nice it was to squeeze her new “Gentle Grape”. She loves it and decided she is going to carry it “EVERYWHERE WE GO TOMORROW!” I hope she carries some gentleness, too. My heart AND hers are in need of some gentleness.

photo by lanier67

Dick and Jane Puzzle Blocks from Sun-Kissed Scholars {I used to have an old block puzzle as a kid. I’d love to make this vintage one!}

Quick Trick: Patience, Patience from Teach Mama {oh, wow. we need this at our house!}

A Very Kid Friendly New Year’s Eve Party from This Blessed Nest {I am saving this for next year1}

Crafty Math? Make a Button Board from Education.com {Cute idea even if you don’t use it for math!}

Pom Pom Polar Bear from Free Kids Crafts {It’s so cold here, I feel like a polar bear! This one is adorable!}

Day 15: Repurposed Jewelry Box Silhouette Diorama of the Stable

“She gave birth to her first baby. It was a boy. She wrapped him in large strips of cloth. Then she placed him in a manger. There was no room for them in the inn.”  Luke 2:7

Day 16: Repurposed Jewelry Box Manger with Spagetti Straw and Christmas Ball Baby Jesus (*whew*)

“She gave birth to her first baby. It was a boy. She wrapped him in large strips of cloth. Then she placed him in a manger. There was no room for them in the inn.”  Luke 2:7

Day 17: Trashbag Lamb. Inspired by DadCanDo.com

“There were shepherds living out in the fields nearby. It was night, and they were looking after their sheep.” Luke 2:8

Day 18: Stamped Scroll declaring the GOOD NEWS that Jesus is Born!

“But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy. It is for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:10-12

Day 19: Shepherd Who Praised God AND Told Others About Jesus

After the shepherds had seen him, they told everyone. They reported what the angel had said about this child…They gave glory and praise to God. Luke 2:17 & 20

Don’t forget to look at all our Advent Calendar Ornaments!

Glitter craft foam mosaic star. Inspired by Glittering Shards.

“We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.” Matthew 2:2

A recycled egg carton town of Bethlehem. Those black marks are windows. Obviously.

“…he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: ” ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’” Matthew 2:4-6

ps…for some awesome info about why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, check out Why a Manger? by Brock and Bodie Thoene!

We started with a cross, wrote “Immanuel”, “Jesus” and “God with us”…

Folded it up, taped it and it’s a box! The box metaphor is kind of a stretch, but I decided to do it because it reminded me that God isn’t just “out there”, He’s tangible and close and “with us”!

(why yes, that is a walrus decoration on the side…)

:: :: ::

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” Matthew 1:22-23