Still on the letter N, and we have nothing to show for it.  EJ is going through another stage of not wanting to do a thing except play, and I can’t figure out how to play with him and get in my “agenda.”  I know he is learning things as we play, but my controlling self is having a hard time with this stage. 

This post on one of my favorite crafting sites has helped me a lot today.

First I have to admit, my boys like to craft differently than me. And I have had to adjust my expectations accordingly in order to be able to craft together and enjoy our time.

I am so stuck in my ways and my own thoughts that I’m having a really hard time adjusting.  Can anyone share any ways I can bend on this?  I’ve mentioned this in the past, and I thought I was doing better… 

Nothing at all can ever separate us from God’s love because of what Christ Jesus our Lord has done.  Romans 8:39

On the positive side, a wonderful resource (that I’ll share about next time) gave us a great opening to teach EJ God’s Word.  We are sharing verses and other things that we want him to remember at bedtime, right before he goes to sleep.  It’s been a wonderful teaching time that’s becoming a part of our routine, and I am amazed at what he can remember after hearing it at bedtime for a couple of nights. 

And what a wonderfully sweet time it’s been, too – snuggled together, talking about God’s love and how we can show that to others… I pray that this special time will continue!

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… I have not been motivated to do anything remotely educational with EJ for several weeks.  There – now it’s out there… and I feel better just saying it.  Hopefully, I can now get over the guilt and just move on.  Hmmm… I think we’re still on the letter “N”.

I have a couple of fun things up my sleeve, and now that we’re out of another couple weeks of sickness, and it actually should be warm enough to venture out of the house starting this weekend, I hope to be back full-force.  Thanks to Amanda for keeping up the whole blog while I’ve been in a funk!!!

Here are a couple pictures of animal “noses” that EJ and I played with a while back.  They were a lot of fun – just construction paper animal noses cut out and glued onto popsicle sticks, but we were animals all evening long!

See you soon!

Yesterday my car died. It’s a completely long story and I’m so aggravated. BUT, instead of going to the puppet show like we planned*, my daughter and I went nest hunting.

When we first moved to our house, my dad found a robin’s nest. It was so cool. Robins use mud to keep their nests together. And here in Georgia, we’ve got red mud! So, the inside of robins’ nests are red. The folklore is that robins get their red breast from squishing that red mud into their nest. Isn’t that cool?

Well, we saved that nest for months. And I was hoping it might just have fallen off our porch and was some what intact below it. But no such luck.

Anyway, as we began our nest hunt, we talked about the letter N and our N verse. Then when I realized I wasn’t going to find a nest, I remembered the next best word for outdoors and the letter N: NATURE!

I yanked the camera out of my purse and we started taking pictures of all the “nature” we could find. I just told her nature was the outdoor stuff God created.

We found all sorts of fun things including an amazing spiderweb complete with mama spider and eggs. *shudder*

So, there you go, an impromptu activity to impress your kids with…the letter N!

*my mom actually did come and pick us up so we went to a puppet show
about a dinosaur that made a NEST in a little boys closet…coincidence?!

I had a few snippets of scriptures floating around in my head for N this week…

Never become tired of doing good. Galatians 8:6

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:38-39

And my own personal fave, that I found online while searching “abc bible verses”:

No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God. I Corinthians 6:10b

SERIOUSLY?

Anyway, neither of those verses actually start with N, nor are they short enough (in my opinion) for a 2 year old to master. So, we did the old slice & dice and came up with:

Nothing at all can ever separate us from God’s love… Romans 8:39b (NIrV)

It’s kinda wordy with that “at all” and “ever”, but I put a little cadence to it and I think she’ll get it quickly.

Now, onto the craft!

I wanted to do a nest. She is enthralled with nests! We found one in a tree once and every time we pass that tree–even six months later, she still wants to look for the nest.

Cute, huh?

So, I drew an amazing nest with a Sharpie. *swoon*

Then squeezed some glue out on an index card, grabbed a q-tip for applying…

Cut up some yarn. (The same yarn I’ve had ever since I learned to use a knitting nobby at camp in the 3rd grade. Seriously, I need to do some culling…)

She spread the glue out and we stuck the yarn on!

Next we grabbed some cotton balls, glued those onto the nest. They’re supposed to be eggs. (I know, it kinda looks like spaghetti & meatballs.)

Then I had a flash of brilliance!

Lydia got the best book for her birthday! It’s called The Noisy Egg. And she loves it! Well, it’s about a mama duck who makes a nest, lays some eggs and then waits for them to crack. Her favorite part is when a tiny beak pops out of the egg first.

So, we added a little orange fun foam beak to each cotton ball egg. (They were just little fun foam stickers I had in an assortment box I bought at the craft store.)

I thought our collage was beautiful! But after reading The Noisy Egg, Lydia decided we needed a mommy duck, too. So, we scrounged around for some mommy duck pieces. I found a few big shapes, a strange little pipe cleaner thingie and a couple of googly eyes–so there’s our mama duck!

On a super-spiritual note, I think the verse and the mama duck with her eggs kinda go together. God even describes himself as One that will cover us with his feathers, so we can find refuge under his wings. Just like a mama duck, God won’t let us be separated from His love!

Additional “n” or nest-y type books

Best Dad in the Sea (all about NEMO who gets caught in a NET!)
Are You My Mother? (a little birdy hops out of his nest looking for his mother)