Passover 2011

The best time of the year. We are really trying to make HOLY WEEK so special to our kids with tradition and good memories. Passover is one of our favorites..and oh the coversations that came of it this year with Elijah. It is so amazing how I got to talk to Elijah about the perfect Passover lamb that the Isrealites were to sacrifice and then place the blood over the doorpost so that their first born children would be saved from the death angel. And in the same way Jesus was the perfect passover lamb that was sacrified for us by his death on the cross. Amazing!

Lessons in saving money.

We are so proud of Elijah. We started a chore chart rewarded with money a few months ago and he worked his way up to a bike! We had 4 canisters(banks), one for God, one for saving, one for others and one for fun. Elijah REALLLY enjoys putting money in the fun canister and he has been diligently working toward his big boy bike and today was his big day.
Kevin and Elijah got the coins together and counted them and gave him cash for all his coins. They headed to the store and elijah picked out his green and black bike, got a new helmet and picked up a milkshake to celebrate! Yay for daddy/boy moments!!

Purim 2011

So i guess i need to explain....I am not a Jew...but I love Jewish holidays and their traditions and symbolism of scripture..I think they are amazing teaching tools for us and our children as we all grow in the knowledge of God. Purim is the holiday in which the Jews celebrate God's deliverance of the Jews from the evil Haman through the heroic actions of Queen Esther and Mordecai....

My two little superheros as Mordecai veggie tale style....Purim is a time for children to dress up!

Hamanstachen- traditional Jewish cookie made at purim. It represents one of two things....Haman's 3 pointed hat or his ear.....i am going with the hat.

Tyler and his Yamaka....wanna be Jew.

Graggers(groggers) are noisemakers that children use to block out the name of Haman as the scroll of Esther is read.



"kosher" desserts

Kreplach

Lots of sparkling grape juice.....

Playtime! Love having lots of kiddos at the house!

Buddies eating their celebration candy.

One of my favorite things about Jewish Holidays is the symbolism and meaning in all the little details. Challah bread represents the rope that Haman was hung on.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Everyday talk about the Ten Commandments.

These are the kids ten commandments....which i highly recommend! Awesome conversation starters...and usually when i least expect it Elijah makes the connections without me even seeing it myself! He brings it up and then we get to talk about it.
For example he is makin the connection from the video about the golden calf and the Israelites worshipping it instead of God, and from our catechism where it says Q: Is there more than One True God? A: NO! There is only one true God! And then the other day we were reading durning BIble time about Shadrack Meshack and Abednego...and how they would ONLY worship the true God....and then i remembered the veggie tale movie about rack shack and benni and the chocolate bunny and we watched that....so I think we are getting the point across, huh!

Everyday talk about God and clouds

I love acknowledging God's creation in my "everyday talk" with my boys. I love seeing their little brains as they think about God taking a paint brush and brushing the sky with the beautiful colors at sunrise or sunset. Recently I heard a sermon, which I don't even remember the topic or the guy preaching it for that matter, but they made a reference to God and His association with clouds throughout the Bible. I loved this! What a great tangible picture of something they see EVERY DAY. For example, God lead the Israelites by a cloud in the desert(ex. 13:21). He gave Moses the ten commandments while covering himself by clouds because Moses could not be see God face to face in his Holiness(ex. 24:15). He ascended into heaven through the clouds after his resurrection(Luke 24). The Holy Spirit came like a dove throught the clouds at Jesus' baptism. Jesus is coming back through the clouds. I am sure there are more...can you think of any?
Let's use this to talk about God to our children, when we sit down, when we rise up and when we walk along the way. (Dt. 6)

Everyday talk about God and lawyers

This is my first post on my label "Everyday talk." "Everyday talk" was inspired by a few of my favorite books, Everyday Talk by John A.younts, Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tripp, Instructing a Child's heart by Tedd Tripp, A Mother's heart by Jean Flemming and best of all Dueteronomy chapter six by God.

Anyway, I was challenged by all of these authors to make the most of my everyday conversations with well...everyone, but especially my boys. So with that said, I am writing down ways we tend to talk about the Truths of Scripture and the Truths about God.

We stopped for lunch at chic-fil-a on our way back from KY and Elijah was arguing with me about something extremely insignigicant, and I told him he should be a lawyer. He asked me and kevin, "What's a lawyer." Well how do you describe a lawyer to a four year old. We fumbled for a second and then said,
"you know Elijah, how God has rules that we are to obey?"
"yes"
"Well God's rules are the most important rules there are but there are other rules we are suppose to follow too."
"the state of Ga has rules, and the whole united states has rules we have to follow or we will be disciplined if we don't, and a lawyer helps you if you get into trouble or if you are blamed for something you did not do. "

i hope this is a challenge to myself to speak of God at ever possible moment....