Day 7: Children Know When God Is In Their Home

There is nothing so sweet as to hear a child say a prayer.  My boys love to say grace, from the biggest to the littlest, they love to take their turn.  When they say grace, they not only thank God and ask Him to bless the food but at times they are specific (e.g. "Thank you God for my pickle.")  And sometimes, it is silent for a few seconds and we simple hear an "Amen".  Either way, we feel like our goal of having them understand prayer is being met.  They are talking to God, our Creator and thanking him for the blessings he rains down upon them....but we are falling short.

Isaiah 54:13 says " And all thy children will be taught by the Lord..."

Super Heroes At the Zoo

What better way to keep up with your kids in a public place than to give them the pleasure of being super heroes all day long. 

Super Hero Cape Tutorial Here

Evan is the fastest super hero!

Little Bit just tries to keep up.

My favorite super hero's ever!

Miniature Marshmallow Roast

It all started with this...

I was asked by Evan if we had a tent.  I said, yes we do.  And you can guess by now what happened next.  I was outside on a humid Georgia morning, pitching a tent in our back yard.

So, then someone said..."do we have marshmallows???

Yes we did mini ones, we also had a candle, lighter, and toothpicks.

Carefully, mini marshmallows burn just as easy as big ones.  Which I think was their favorite part, plus they used about 50 toothpicks for some reason.

Little Boys Love Making Rain: A Terrarium Project

The last few weeks I have taken the time to do a few fun things with the boys.  One of them that I wanted to share was how we made our own terrarium.    I try to look at everything before I throw it away to see if it has a new life.  This cookie container from the grocery store looked like a perfect container for the kids to make a terrarium.

I went outside with some potting soil and asked them to bring me a cup of sand from their sandbox.  We layered the sand and then the dirt and I asked them to find a few little plants in the garden (weeds) that we could plant.  They found a random bean sprout a begonia and a weed.  : )

We added water, a few rocks and tiny Indian and closed the lid.  We noted how clear the "sky" was inside the container and then took it to our front porch to let it  sit in the sun.

We checked it and it was getting cloudy.  We talked about what might be happening and of course my oldest knew all the answers but he was still intrigued.

Even the littlest loved watching the water gather into droplets to form bigger droplets.  Then Evan started talking about clouds and how he'd seen steam coming up out of the trees across the road from our house after the last rain we had in the summer heat.  I think he got it!

This is an easy project and lesson that kids love to do.  They love to watch their plants thrive, they love to check for "rain" clouds and they love to thump the top of the container to make it rain.  I think it's been a week now and they have checked it every day. 

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Day 6: Little Ones Deserve Our Patience

When you have children, you can guarantee that your patience will be tested during your day.  It might be a little thing like hearing "Mommy, mommy" 100 times while you are trying to have a long distance conversation with a friend or it can be tested when you find that your darling angel has destroyed your freshly cleaned family room.  Disaster does strike on occasion with children (and probably husbands too).

What I personally have been wanted to work on myself is patience.  Last week my children and I stayed with my parents at their vacation home and they kept them while I drove back and forth to school during the day.  At the end of the week, my dad would randomly start shaking his head and say..."I don't know how you do it."  I say at random, but I think each time he found me tending to all three boys needs at the same time or piled up in the recliner with all three sharing a book.  What I should have said but didn't was, that I couldn't do it with God and that I was made to be their mother so patience is a must.  It's not just a virtue, it's a survival skill.

Excuse My Mess

I am having issues with my new blogger layout, please check back soon for the Winner of our giveaway and so great new features.

Cash Envelope Systems???

Recently during my marriage study, I was convicted to help my husband with our finances, but I am doing so blindly and probably not very well.  I have heard of two different programs that involve the cash envelope system and a friend of mine has done one successfully.  She fell out of it but is  going get started again.  I absolutely love this budgeting methodology but I don't understand it, in other words, I love the idea.   I feel like the first thing I need to do is run out and buy the book my friend recommended by Dave Ramsey.   The second thing I feel motivated to do is to create a system and I found some really good looking ones that I can make on my own, that will appeal to my crafty side (even thought I'm sure I can just use simple envelopes I already have).  The image above is one from Kelly Ratzlaff with a free template and tutorial HERE.  Don't you just think it's adorable?  I also found tutorials here, here, and here.

Do any of my readers out there use this system?  If so, does it work?  If not, have you considered it?  It sounds to good to be true.  Please tell me it is good!

Day 5: Good Gifts for your Children

I love my boys, I would give them the world if I could because they are such blessings in my life.  However, I think they are such blessings because that have be best gifts in the world already.  Today's scripture is as much about God's good gift as much as it is the love of a parent for a child.  It is the Godly gifts that we can give them that are SO good.  The worldly gifts maybe fun but they don't last.  So, maybe I should have said..."I would give them Heaven if I could..." 

 

Day 4: A Narrow Gate

Tonight I prayed that God open my eyes and my heart to His Word so that I could see plan for this study.  I knew he had one.  There have been two things that just keep coming up in the last week and I think they are things he wants me to share. 

The first thing that I keep running into is the narrow gate.  I have imagined gates.  I imagined the big wide gates that were on my Papaw's farm.  Many cows could run through those gates very quickly and I'm sure the same goes for sheep. There were only a few small gates on a farm, particularly those in the barn or those where they truly wanted only one animal to go through (e.g. to load and unload, to mark or pierce tags, to allow for rest, etc).  Might I also add that these smaller gates, were much easier to close, swiftly.