Winter Wonderland

Cross My Heart

Today is our Anniversary……

 

 

13 years…and counting!

 

Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Worth Waiting For....

I stumbled across this video the other day...I just had to share it...
it is a MUST see.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

 Never underestimate 
the power of prayer 
      and a pretty cup!  
(read below the Power of Saint Valentines
 Prayers in Ancient Rome .....)

        

 





(Don’t worry, even though I am sure it is 5:00 somewhere….. 
 this is just Hawaiian Punch in a crystal goblet - doesn't everybody sip it that way?) 

The punch is for the kid’s Valentines party later in the day…..but first I needed a little intervention...

     Enter... devotion time....and a little love song...



So how do I link valentines day, Randy Travis and God?  easy... 
I'm gonna love HIM forever and ever....AMEN! 

 

God wants to be your Valentine too!

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
 

We had so much fun making our valentines.  While I love the idea of the PERFECT valentines we found online (you know the ones the moms make- I'm guilty)…. This morning I let go of control and let the kids create their own version of what we found….we had to improvise with some of our materials...  but that's how you become a true master of invention....right?

That's been my plan lately, we find something on Pinterest and then the kids run with it using what ever they can find around the house…  while it makes the house a LITTLE messy and me A LITTLE crazy that it doesn’t turn out just like the picture… I know they are learning more than if I purchase every item at the store.... and more than if I stay up all night making stuff for them...  

Thomas Edison (The Wizard of Menlo Park) had an entire factory devoted to inventions and making other peoples inventions even better.....) did you know he would lock his employees in sometimes until they completed an invention!..... i would never do that...aghemmmm.....   
Here are a few of our favorite Valentine inventions and remakes…

                      Flower                              You are Super Valentine!

airplane

Butterfly

Do you like the wings of the airplane?  We didn't have any sticks of gum so we cut Dentine in half.  The wheels are round melting chocolate..  The flower is a sandwich cookie with Smarties "glued" and a smartie hooked to the bottom.  We just melt a little chocolate to use for glue we can eat.  melt slowly in microwave and hold object till dry.

SPEAKING OF THE POWER OF PRAYER....Saint Valentine was a Prayer Warrior!
We get excited about little things around here….  you know things like our holds coming in at the library!!!  Last night we stopped to pick up some holds including the Saint Valentine

book that we reserved last month and totally forgot about.   
I guess the Holy Spirit wanted us to have it today.

Saint Valentine, 
retold and illustrated
by Robert Sabuda  

It was a good story. 

             Good History. - Rome

                   Good Art Work. - mosaic   

                             Good Citizenship. - helped the poor

                                      Good Lesson. - Prayer works!

                                                Good Day!

You can find Saint Valentine the book here.








After reading John 3:16 we went around the table and shared in a thankfulness prayer all the ways God shows us his love…. You know, he shows it in the love our friends express in the valentines they give us.  He shows his love by putting special people in our lives.  Thank you God for showing us your love!   

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

 1 Corinthians 10:31

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

Please Stay Here and Watch with me....

Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. 

There he said to them, ”Sit here while I go and pray.” 

He took Peter and James and John with him. 

Then he began to get very sad.  He said to them,

“The sadness in my heart is so heavy, it’s about to kill me. 

Please stay here and watch with me.”

After going a little farther by himself, Jesus threw himself face down on the ground and prayed.  “My Father,” he said, “if it is possible, take this cup (of suffering) away from me!  But I want you to do what you want, not what I want.”

When Jesus returned to the three disciples, he found them asleep.  He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me one little hour?  You’d better watch and pray so you won’t fall into temptation.  The Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

-        Matthew 26:36-41

That is the reading we started our Ash Wednesday with. After this we read about the devil tempting Jesus in the desert.  Matthew 4:1-11

To get us in the mindset of sacrifice we had only crackers and water for breakfast.  We used our new green glasses which made it kind of special.  My 5 year old said, are we having communion?

This is a picture of our summer wreath from last year.  We took a paper sack and removed all the beautiful flowers one by one.  It made us a little sad.  We talked about the sacrifice Jesus made for us and that we would get them out again at Easter.

After we read again about the sins of the world and how scary that would look if we could see them all. I passed around a bowl of toothpicks and we each took out the amount of our age. We talked about our own sins.  We talked about how we were not there when Jesus died for our sins and if we thought we would have been sinners.  We discussed how it is easy to say we won’t sin but how hard it is not to.  Then we took turns confessing some of our sins and putting the toothpicks in the bare wreath.  We read the 10 commandments one by one and talked about how every time we break one it is like putting a thorn in the crown.  This was an excellent visual for all of us and it made us a very sad.  (I will admit, it didn’t go perfectly…  a few of us cast stones at others, before we realized that was causing us even more sin!)

At the end of this exercise some of us still had toothpicks left over.  (Not the 5 year old, he is brutally honest – and a little naughty one sometimes – he got back in the bowl for lots more toothpicks!)

Throughout Lent we will be able to remove thorns as we spend time with God and as we do good deeds around the house and community.  Our goal is that each of us will remove at least one thorn everyday.

I can not help but be reassured by the Holy Spirit…. When my kids are fidgety during something like this…. Or in our other school times….  If the disciples let Jesus down… surely my kids are not going to be perfect…. (I mean those guys were FISHERS OF MEN!)

But over next 40 days… I am going to do my best to stay here with Jesus and be on guard. 

It is the least I can do.

      

Planting Seeds

As Part of our Ash Wednesday and Lent Preparations, we started a little prayer garden.

We gathered: 

1. a disposable turkey roasting pan

     (less expensive than anything from the garden center)

2. some soil (we would have dug it up from outside…but it’s frozen

3. a few rocks from our landscape (they are buried in the bottom for drainage)

4. some moss from the Wal-mart in the fake flower and candle section.

5. sticks and rope from the yard.

6. 4 seed packets from Wal-mart 20 cents each!

We made a BIT of a mess putting this all together but it was fun. (and besides...God made dirt so dirt won't hurt!)  The kids enjoyed it!  (even though it would have been easiest to dump the bag of dirt straight in the pan…  we made the work last and go around by scooping it out one cup and two half cups at a time… it counts as math since we had to keep track of our fractions to make it fair!)

We each planted one seed today and we get to add a seed everyday after we spend time in prayer and do something good for God.

We talked about how little the seeds are and what the Bible says about faith the size of a mustard seed. 

Matthew 13:31 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 

We talked about how the seeds will need attention and water everyday and what will happen if we forget about them……. 

          And what will happen if we do or don’t pay attention to prayer everyday!

Mark 4:32 Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

The kids loved putting the crosses together and adding the big tomb stone…. And they only argued a LITTLE bit about where to place them.

We think we will be able to experience some personal growth as we witness the growth of our flowers……

….I wonder will there be weeds?

Lent

Lent should not be about proving to yourself

                        (and definitely not proving to other people)

                                  how strong your will is

                                                  and how disciplined you are.

Lent is about

                clearing away attachments

so that you can more completely

attach yourself to God!   

This quote if from a blog post of one of my favorite Priests, you can see the entire post here:  http://on-this-rock.blogspot.com/

What can I clear away today in order to make more room to pray?  This is the question we will ask ourselves every day during lent this year.  It is the poster we will put up in every room, near the TV and other distractions.