The unmodern things I hope to teach my girls

This morning Emily (3) found a pair of scissors and cut holes in her pants, "to find her knees." They are a great pair of pants that have a very cute top and jacket that match, so out came my sewing kit and I patched them up. It was interesting to watch Emily's reaction to me sewing. She asked if I was going to throw away the pants. I told her to wait - viola - mama is a magician - no more holes, and she is back into her little pants.

As I was fixing the pants, I was thinking that I hope my girls will know how to fix a hole instead of just throwing the pants away. I thought of a whole list of very unmodern things I hope to teach my girls. Some of them, frankly, I don't even know how to do, but I want to learn. (I put a star by them)

Here is my list:

1. Darn a hole


2. Sew on a button


3. Knit - with Irish blood I think this is a must :)


4. Use a sewing machine to make something to wear*


5. Bake bread from scratch


6. Make spaghetti sauce, soup and stews from scratch


7. Grow a garden


8. Can what she grows *


9. Do embroidery work (my grandmother was amazing at this!)


10. Make a variety of dinners without a cookbook

Pretty unmodern huh? Of course I want my girls to go to college and have careers that fill their souls - but I also hope they learn the traditional things that their grandmothers and great grandmothers did before them. What about you? What traditional things are you teaching your girls - or hope to?

Family Devotion for the first week of Lent

Happy Ash Wednesday everyone. Okay I really thought about how to say that. Ash Wednesday isn't really about "happy," but personally I always am happy to start the Lenten season as it brings my family together to study the life of Christ and prepare for Easter - so that is happy, right? Below is the devotion for this week.

I still have a few sets of the bracelet and banner set, if you would like one. A few people thought I was selling them, but I am just giving them to you if you would like one. So let me know.

Note: You will need paper and pens/pencils for today's devotion.

Introduction: The Christmas tree and decorations may have been put away for a while now, but the story of Jesus' birth is something to celebrate and think about all year round. Before reading on, have one of the children in your family recount the story of Jesus' birth.

After the visit from the Magi, Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream, telling him to get up and move his family to Egypt for Jesus' safety. The family stayed in Egypt until after the death of Herod, and then they moved to Nazareth, where Jesus would grow up. There Jesus grew and learned like any other child, but he was far from being just an average little boy. In today's reading, we will read about Jesus' visit to the temple when he was 12 years old.

Reading: Luke 2: 41-52 Boy Jesus at the Temple

Discussion Questions:

1. Jesus replies to his worried mother, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house." Luke 2: 49. But nobody understood what he meant. What did Jesus mean?
   
2. Verse 52 gives us our last glimpse of Jesus as a child. The next time we see Jesus, he is a grown man. Reread verse 52. Isn't it amazing to think that the perfect son of God was taking time to grow in wisdom, and statue and in favor with God and men? What does it mean to grow in each one of these areas?
   
3. Jesus gives us a wonderful example of four areas in which we can grow. We are still at the beginning of a new year. Next December wouldn't it be great to look back and say that you have followed Christ's example and grown in the same four areas? Make a list for each family member of ways that they would like to grow in the coming year. Put your list in a place where it can be seen to serve as a reminder in the coming months.
   

   
   

   Here are some examples: I would like to grow in wisdom by joining a bible study. I would like to grow in favor with men by learning to control my temper.
   

Prayer: Close your devotional time with a prayer. For example:

Dear Heavenly Father,

We thank you for this time together. We thank you for your Word and the opportunity to learn more about Jesus' life. Help us Lord, to learn to grow as Jesus did, so that with each passing day, we learn to walk more in your ways. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Reagan is our Joy

This is the first time that I have called on all you wonderful prayer warriors out there. Tonight, I am asking each of you to join me in praying for the Glavach family. Our dearest friends Manya and Landy Glavach with their family welcomed their niece Reagan Joy Glavach to this world yesterday. Reagan had been diagnosed with Trisomy 18, several months ago.
Reagan's parents Dan and Marceline have spent the last few months celebrating Reagan's life and preparing for her time here with them. I encourage you to visit their blog- Reagan Is Our Joy - to read about their journey and see their beautiful family pictures. You can also leave Dan and Marceline a message of encouragement.
Today, shortly after her one day birthday, Reagan returned to her heavenly home. Will you join me in praying for this family tonight and in the coming days as they face celebrating the all too brief life of their precious daughter, grand daughter, niece, cousin and little sister.
In talking with Manya about this over the last few months, and reading Dan and Marceline's blog, I am just blown away by their strength, their honesty and their unwavering faith in God's love.
This was posted on thier website this evening.

If just for a day
If for just today we got to hold her, and love on her with all our might and strength and soul, then we did, and it was wonderful. She was perfect, a treasure, a little tiny joy from heaven that was ours. Thank you Reagan for spending this day with us.

36 hours of quiet

This weekend did not turn out as planned. Pete and I had plans to spend the weekend in Breckenridge to celebrate Pete’s birthday with friends from Florida. Well Thursday night (right on cue) Emily woke up throwing up. Friday morning both girls and I had high fevers, sore throats, and hacking coughs. We spent Friday on the couch watching lots of Noggin and High School Musical 3. By that afternoon, the girls had bounced back, but I was still sick. Saturday, the girls were fine. Me? Not so much.
Pete and I talked about it, and decided he should go ahead with our plans and head up to the mountains. My parents offered to still take the girls so I could get some rest. So Saturday afternoon everyone left, I looked around the house and realized that for the first time, maybe ever, I was looking at 36 hours in my house alone. Yes, I was still sick, but part of me was also pretty excited. Saturday I watched 2 girly movies that Pete would never watch. I headed to bed early. Sunday morning, I woke up with a whole empty quiet day in front of me. It was such a huge gift. I feel like my schedule has been pretty crazy lately. Between the girls, the house, Pete, and work – my normal life is full, fast paced and really really loud. It is the loud part that really gets to me. A friend once told me that she only has a certain amount of words she can say each day – then she is done. I can add to that, that there are only a certain about of words I can listen to each day, then my brain just overflows. One of my fantasy vacations is going to a monastery and taking a vow of silence for a week. Since I don’t think a monastery would take a 3 or 6 year old, I decided to grab my opportunity today.
So all day there was no TV, no radio, no talking… just quiet, lots and lots of quiet. I sat in the sun in my living room and read (a lot). I drank a whole pot of coffee (while it was still hot). I took a really long shower. I made two loafs of bread. I sewed some flower brooches. I soaked in a lot of silence. It was beautiful.
Thanks mom and dad – have I told you lately how much I appreciate you!

Crafts for Lent

Each year I pick a craft that the girls can make during Lent. They add a part each week when we do our devotion, until it is finished during Holy Week. I am trying to replace our family's secular Easter decorations of bunnies and eggs with decorations that remind us of the reason for Easter. Last year, the girls made decoupaged crosses. I intended them to be decorations that I brought out each spring, but I noticed last night that they are still hanging in the kitchen. They turned out beautiful, so they have just stayed.

This year, I wanted to create something that could hang somewhere in the house and would be a visual reminder of the stories we read. I was flipping through Oriental Trading (I would like to state that I really normally do not care for the stuff they sell) and I found these banners. I also found these bracelet kits. Happily there are 7 icons or charms to add - this will work out great as there are 7 devotions for Lent. So I have a dozen of each of these kits on their way to me.

I have 10 extra sets of each craft. Would your family like to join ours in making these during Lent? If you live near me, leave me a comment and I will happily get one to you. Please let me know which set you want - the banner or bracelet and how many you want. I think it would be so fun to have many of our kids making these same things - and wearing their new bracelets to church on Easter Sunday. I should have them next week.

Thinking about Lent ...

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the start of the season of Lent. The last two years our family has done Lenten devotions and some sort of craft during the season to mark the approach of Easter. We have done the same devotions the last two years, and I was thinking that maybe we should do different ones this year to keep it fresh. But after reading through the Old Testament for the last 40 days, I have come to see the benefit of repeating stories each year as a teaching tool especially for children. Over and over you see the command to read or tell the stories of what God has done - from freeing the Israelites from Egypt retold at Passover to reading aloud the book of Ester each year at Purim.
So this year we are going to do the same devotions again. They are devotions I wrote two years ago. I posted them last year to do with your family, and I will post them again each week this year. The devotions track the life of Jesus, from his birth to his resurrection. They are stories I want my children (and Pete and I) to not only know by heart - but to hold in our hearts. I hope they will be a blessing to your family this spring as well.

** If you attend CCPC with me, Children's Ministry will be handing out copies of the devotions this Wed at the Ash Wed service and on Sunday.

Bible in 90 Days

This winter our church is offering a bible study called The Bible in 90 days. Yes, you guessed it, you read the bible in 90 days. Straight through. Cover to cover, in 90 days. As of this week, we have reached the halfway point. It has been an amazing experience so far. I had never read the entire bible before, so this has truly been a big learning experience for me. Chapter by chapter I feel like I am putting together the pieces of a giant puzzle. The bible stories I have known since I was a child are finding their place, smushed in between stories and entire books that were completely foreign to me before this year. Suddenly the big picture of God's Word is becoming so much clearer than ever before to me.

I am not the only one being amazed by the program. Over 600 people are taking the class at our church. Yes, 600! Isn't that incredible. (In case you are wondering how big our church is - we have about 1000 members) The church is offering classes almost every day of the week, so people can do their reading at home each day and then participate in a class once a week that works best for them. The great thing about being part of such a large group of people is that every where I go, I see someone else who is reading roughly the same pages of the bible that I read that day. I find myself talking about the bible with people at the grocery store, moms at kindergarten pick up, and with members of my church who I had never met before. If you walk by the copy room at church you are more likely to hear people talking about David and Bathsheba than Survivor. It has been so much fun.

The Denver Post recently ran a very nice article about our church's experience with the class. You can read it here.

What to do with all those little Valentines

Is your house overflowing with little Valentines? My girls both brought home bags of Valentines from their classmates this week. Of course they are very special and the girls want to keep them forever. I have been wondering what I can do with them and thought I would do the same thing that I did with our Christmas cards this year.

In January, I had Emily (3) paint one of the clementine wooden boxes we have piling up from the grocery store. We put all of our Christmas cards in it and each night the girls pick one out and we pray for that family. It has been a great lesson for our girls to learn and practice praying for their friends and our extended family members. This past week the girls have selected a few Christmas cards of their school friends, and I thought why not add their Valentines to the box too. I look forward to hearing the girls pray for friends and foes alike.

(I am going to put Emily's class picture in the bottom of the box to help Emily identify her classmates.)

Do you have ways that you are helping teach your children to regularly pray for thier friends or classmates? If so please share them.

I love you mail

Last year at MOPS we made little metal mailboxes for Valentine's Day. I loved them so much, that I bought three more and made one for each member of my family. We put the boxes out for the week of Valentine's Day and surprised one another with little notes or treats throughout the week. It was so fun.

Yesterday we got out the mailboxes and the mail has started already. It is so neat to see how the girls have changed since last February. Last year, Emily was just two and did not really participate in the giving side. This weekend she has been filling our boxes with her little treasures. Pete received a yellow lipstick ring, Sarah received a jewel and I have gotten stickers. Sarah's mail has also changed, from little treasures, to actual mail. Now that she can write more than her name, it is so fun getting little letters. The girls have been checking their mail boxes constantly as well. I have a few little inexpensive surprises for them this week including pink headbands, valentine socks and funny Pez dispensers. Each of them will get letters from me each day too. I have to admit that I have never really enjoyed Valentine's Day - but I am really looking forward to a week full of I Love you mail!

I'll let you know what turns up in my mailbox - I keep telling Pete that jewelry would fit nicely! :)

February's Drawing

Okay, so it has been brought to my attention that my last several posts have been big downers. Since I have another post coming that may be seen as a downer too, I thought I would break it up by announcing a drawing for the month. Hooray free things!

My dear friend Joanne Heim has a new book titled, Misplacing God: And Finding Him Again. My copy is on its way and I just can't wait to read it. Joanne is a gifted writer, a terrific mother and wife, and an amazingly dedicated Christian women. I was so blessed by her book The Simple Wife, I just can't wait to receive this new book. I will be talking more about the book later in the month - but for now, leave me a comment. Every comment you leave this month, will get you an entry into the drawing. I will draw the lucky winner on Feb 28th. Good Luck!