Holy Week at Our House

A couple of years ago I read a book called Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper. It is a simple book that challenges families (mom's in particular) to make the traditions in your home point to Christ. I could be doing more in this area, but here are a few of our traditions for Holy Week at our house. Two of these are straight from Noel's great book!

Every year Noah and I make a playdough tomb. I know it sounds a little silly at first, but this has been a great way to tell the story of Jesus death and resurrection every year. We make the tomb, stone, cross, and pipe cleaner people. All week we discuss the events of the crucifixion. We put our pipe cleaner Jesus on the cross on Good Friday, place him in the tomb, and cover the tomb entrance with the stone. On Sunday morning before Noah wakes up we pull Jesus out of the tomb and stand him up. He is Alive! We still do a basket for the boys in celebration of Resurrection Sunday, but our tomb has made the day much more about Jesus and I'm not sure Noah knows who the Easter bunny is...this is okay with us:) Click on the highlighted link for detailed instructions.

This year Levi got in on the action:

Noah working hard on the playdough. Levi was a BIG help. They are both still in their PJ's.

Levi would like for you to know that while the playdough isn't toxic, it doesn't taste good.

The tomb and Noah's new "natural" smile. We hadn't added the cross yet.

Also beginning last year we began using the Easter Readings available from Desiringgod.org Click on the link for a copy of the readings and complete instructions. We enjoyed this last year and are doing it again this year. It incorporates Lenten Candles as well. Noah doesn't completely understand all that we read, but he understands more this year than last year and is learning to quietly listen to scripture being read. Levi just enjoys trying to blow out the candles. Our prayer is one day they will come to understand the Gospel!

This year I stumbled upon what I think will be a new tradition. This month, Noah and I read the Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I didn't intentionally plan this for the Easter season, but it was good timing. I love reading aloud that book and Noah loved the storyline. I know he doesn't get all the parallels between Aslan and Christ, but he did enjoy the story. We finished reading the book on Saturday and watched the movie Saturday night. He loved it and I think we'll make this an annual event! (Caution: The movie is a little scary in parts.)

Also new this year. I found a fun recipe for Resurrection Rolls online. You simply dunk a marshmallow in butter, roll it in cinnamon sugar, then wrap it in two cresant rolls (canned, refrigerated dough). When you bake the rolls the marshmallow melts leaving an empty "tomb". Noah had fun making these. Levi didn't help to make them but he had fun eating them! They taste way better than the playdough! The link above gives the complete recipe. (Tips: Use two rolls instead of one for each marshmallow. Bake in greased muffin pan instead of a cookie sheet. Otherwise marshmallows tend to ooze out!)

I started these traditions for the boys' benefit originally but they have proven to be a great reminder for me as well. I find myself reflecting more on the precious gift of Christ's death, burial, and ressurection during this season.

My Children are Bilingual

On Sunday mornings I'm kind of on my own with the kids. It's a busy day of the week for Mitch...go figure. He gets up early and walks on over to church while the kids and I do breakfast and get dressed for church. Some Sunday mornings are pretty hectic, but all in all we usually do pretty well. The routine I have worked out is:

1. Get the boys fed, myself fed, and dishes rinsed (but not washed...it is the sabbath after all).

2. Get the boys dressed, shoes on, hair brushed, etc.

3. Turn on a cartoon for the boys.

4. Get myself dressed with theoretically no interruptions.

This past week I was on number 4, when Mitch came home to check on us. Which by the way is very sweet of him, because like I said Sundays are his busiest day. Mitch came into our bedroom and said, "Did you know the kids were watching a cartoon in Spanish?"

My answer of course was No. Apparently in my haste I had chosen a Spanish cartoon for them. The funny thing is they still didn't interrupt me and were quite entertained while I got dressed. Here is a picture of them watching their culturally diverse programming. I thought Babar had a British accent, but not this week!

Tigger and Frog

These two are very cherished pals at our house. Noah has slept with Tigger every night since he was seven months old and Levi found Mr. Frog in his Easter basket last year.

When Noah was 7 months old, he still liked to be swaddled. Which would not have been a problem except for he was HUGE, and it got to be pretty ridiculous to try to keep him all wrapped up. Without the swaddle he startled easily and kept waking up. Eventually I figured out that with Tigger in his arms he was snug as a bug! His affection for Tigger only grew stronger over the years. Now he is 4 and still insists on sleeping with him every night.

As you can see Tigger's head hangs rather low. Mitch says he looks despondant. He really is a happy fellow, but Noah carries him around by the neck. He isn't quite as perky as he used to be. The picture below is of "back-up Tigger" which we foolishly bought thinking if we ever lost Tigger 1, Tigger 2 would do just as well. As you can see Tigger 2 has not had as much snuggling.

Frog became Levi's favorite last spring. He sleeps with him every night and his whole face lights up when he sees Mr. Frog. Occasionally we hear great cries of desperation from Levi's room. If he is playing in his room and realizes Frog is in the crib, he tries to pull him through the slats to rescue his pal. But Frog does not fit, and mourning ensues. Levi calls Frog "buddy" or "Gog".

We don't have any pets around our house so maybe Frog and Tigger will suffice for a good long while. They are so low maintence. No mess, easy to bathe (toss in the washer), no food, very healthy (they only go to the dr. if the boys are getting shots and there is no copay for Tigger and Frog), they enduce sleep rather than waking the boys up, Dad is not allergic to them, the list goes on and on.

Levi soon after getting Frog
Levi with the two pals one year later. Boy he has changed!

Enemies of God

Tonight while I was reading the story of Rahab to Noah, we read that the people of her land were enemies of God, yet she still helped the Isrealite spies. So Noah wanted to know if she was a Philistine (David and Goliath is his favorite story).

When I explained to him that she wasn't a Philistine, he said "well Amorites are little critters that (insert crunching noise)". First of all how random a comment is that? We went from enemy of God, to Philistines, to Amorites, to critters going crunch crunch?!?!

It took me a minute to realize that he was referring to TERMITES not Amorites. Wow, I had a little bit of explaining to do at that point.

Dinosaurs at Prayer Time

During bedtime prayers last night Noah prayed a very sincere prayer that went something like this, "God please, please could you put dinosaurs back on earth and keep them safe so that I could see them". Earlier in the day, we had discussed how dinosaurs are extinct now and everything we learn about them is from fossils.

Aren't you glad that God only gives us "good gifts and perfect gifts"? I'm glad his answer to some of our prayers is NO. I've never prayed for large carnivorous beasts to roam the neighborhood, but I have prayed prayers that in hind sight I'm glad God, in his infinite wisdom, did not give me.

"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" James 1:17

The Power to Read

Noah has always loved books (imagine that....have you seen my husband's office?). Last year he learned most of his letter sounds by watching Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD. Recently he has been super interested in words. When we are going down the road, we hear a lot of "what's that sign say?" from the back seat. So I somewhat doubtfully decided I would try to teach Noah to read when he turned four.

Let me just say how terribly insecure I am about my teaching abilities. I realize that on paper I am qualified for this task (I have two degrees in elementary education), but I taught upper elementary and have never really had the privilege of teaching someone to read. What if I screw up and he is confused from this day forward about the "short a" sound?

I found the perfect book though! It's called "Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading". That's me an "Ordinary Parent"! So last week Noah and I began working on all the short vowel sounds. He was somewhat reluctant at first, but today asked if we could do a reading lesson (it takes all of 10 minutes). Everyday we settle in to "our special reading spot" and do a reading lesson together, and I read aloud a chapter from one of the Chronicles of Narnia books. We're both beginning to really enjoy this time together. As it turns out, I didn't really need either degree to snuggle up with Noah while he learns to read.

Yesterday was a big milestone. Noah read his first book! He read a book entitled "Mat". A riveting tale of Mat and Sam. Mat sat on Sam at one point in the story. It is the first phonics reader in the Bob Book Series. He was SO proud of himself and grinned the whole way through the book. He sounded out those short vowel sounds like a champ! We went out for milkshakes last night to celebrate.

What a big day for Mr. Noah. I pray that he will continue to love learning and reading!

Exercising His Manhood

We live at church. I don't mean that we spend a lot of time there (which we do), but we literally live at church. We live in the church's parsonage, right next door to the sunday school building. The parsonage is a newly rennovated beautiful blessing. I love being able to walk next door to church with the boys without having to deal with carseats. Mitch can just walk over here for lunch or let Noah ride with him to make a visit without any planning. So all that to say there are definite perks to living at church!

One downfall and an explanation of this post's title. When Noah is out playing in the yard during the week, it is not terribly unusual for him to drop his pants and pee in the yard. Mitch assured me early on this is no big deal and that Noah should be allowed to "exercise his manhood". Now I really didn't have much of a problem with this when he was 2-3 years old and church was not "in session". Newly potty trained, trouble pulling pants up and down, lazy mother, etc.

HOWEVER, I knew it would happen sooner or later and it did last Wednesday night. Noah was playing on the playground with another little boy at church and before I could stop him (you know where this is going), he dropped his pants and peed in the front yard of the church on the playground! Oh my! Fortunately it was under the cover of darkness and there were only a couple moms close by and no little girls.

It's definitely time for more training in modesty!

Levi Beans

Don't ask me why, but somehow Levi acquired the nickname, "Levi Beans" at our house. He is such an amazing little guy. He started walking kind of late (16 months old to be exact), but what he lacked in coordination he has made up for in vocabulary. He is talking up a storm at 17 months. The funny thing is I remember Noah talking early on, but I had to translate a lot of what he was saying. Not so much with Levi, his articulation is pretty great for a toddler!

So anyway, here are some of the words he is saying:

* Mommy and Daddy (of course daddy was first)
* Hello
* Cookie and Nanny (for banana)
* Good, Good, God (a song on one of his favorite cds)
* Please and Thank You
* Light
* Why (unfortunately he says this when you tell him No sometimes)
* No, No (usually said as he does something he should not be doing!)
* What's That?
* Buddy (another name he is called pretty regularly around here)
* Belly
* Peek-a-Boo

So proud of our sweet Levi!

Our Happy Noah Day

This year for Noah's 4th birthday we decided to take him to Disney World instead of throwing a big birthday party. We did the party thing last year and it was fun, but I felt like in the frenzy of the day I kind of missed out on appreciating Noah and remembering the gift that he is to us! So anyway, we decided that my parents would keep Levi for the day, and Mitch, Noah, and I would have a fun-filled Disney day.

Let me first say that my Dad works for Disney, I worked for Disney for several years in college, I basically grew up at Disney. While this really is a gift (that I didn't appreciate until just recently), the parks begin to lose some of their "magic" after a while. However, I can honestly say that it was a very.....at the risk of sounding like a tourist.....very magical day!

Some of the special memories of that day are:

* Holding Noah's hand - He's growing up so fast and is so independent it doesn't happen as often anymore. Plus I usually have a Levi and a diaper bag in my arms.

* Noah giggling all the way through Big Thunder Mountain, his first roller coaster.

* Noah wanting to stop and watch the ducks in a lake in the middle of all the "lands" that he could have been exploring.

* The way Noah calls Mickey and Minnie and the gang critters instead of characters.

* Noah playing so contentedly with his Star Wars action figures in lines (his souvenir of choice for the day). * When we asked Noah his favorite part of the day, he said, "The line for Star Tours." They have lots of characters from the movies in the line area. There was no wait so we just strolled through the cue while he and Mitch chatted it up about the "critters".

* Eating burgers with Mitch and Noah and having fun conversations with both of them.

* The way Noah loved studying the guide maps.

* Waiting for the parade and eating snacks. Noah made friends with several folks around us.

* Turning around to ask Noah what he wanted from McDonald's drive-thru on the way home and discovering he was sacked out after 5 minutes in the car.

* The way Levi squealed and ran to me when I picked him up at Mom and Dads. My kids hardly ever miss me because I'm always with them!

Both of our boys are so very special, but this was a special day to celebrate gift that Noah is to our family. Noah is such a blessing to our family and I'm so thankful to God for graciously giving him to us. We love you Noah!

Sporting the cool 3D glasses for the Toy Story Ride

The rockets were a big hit and a much shorter wait than Dumbo!

Noah and I made a cake on his actual birthday. Check out the "I" in the far right corner. That was Noah's personal touch. We are taking orders if you are interested in us catering your next event.

Lest I Forget

When I got pregnant with Noah, one of the sometimes welcome, sometimes unwelcome results was parenting advice. EVERYONE has a bit to offer. Don't get me wrong, I am very teachable and open to wise council, but we really had to pick and choose the advice we would implement!

I think one of the best pieces of advice we heard time and time again especially from seasoned parents was, "write it down". Meaning there are so many precious moments that will slip away from your memory if you do not keep a journal, scrapbook, or something of the sort. Well I did a traditional scrapbook for Noah, managed to throw together a digital scrapbook for Levi, and have since basically fallen off the scrapbooking wagon.

Noah is now 4 and Levi is 17 months and I know that it is already happening. I'm forgetting. There is so much that I want to remember, to hold on to. So here I go.....I'm going to "write it down".