Bless the Lord, O my soul

Sometimes things just happen and they're very special... I noticed this week that the magnet Zoë had chosen to attach a photo of her and her brother to the fridge was a beautiful quote from Romeo and Juliet:
"When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew." Whilst these two gorgeous children have their moments they certainly do love each other! And as their mother I want to do everything I can to preserve that love and encourage it as they grow up.

Alphabet Verses

We've been learning Psalm 103:1 this week: Bless the Lord, O my soul. It's been interesting trying to explain what our soul is to Zoë! We've enjoyed singing the Matt Redman song too - click here to have a listen!

Mummy Time

Other fun

Caleb has made a friend!

Mummy-daughter date<3

Driving to school!

As for me and my house

I'm much preferring the idea of writing once a week, rather than daily! It relieves the pressure somewhat.

On the bus to swimming lessons

So, we've come to the end of the first full week of 2015 and we've survived! Woohoo! Zoë was back at preschool and swimming, and our toddler groups restarted too. We've all been exhausted by the activity. But nights haven't been great as Zoë has been unwell and Caleb has been teething... Yawn!


As well as activities restarting we've started learning our Alphabet Bible verses.

Alphabet verses

Joshua 24:15

As expected Zoë quickly grasped the idea of learning a verse and is able to say 'As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.' and know what it means. We've also found a song with the same words which has helped her to remember it.

As for me and my house, as for me and my family,
as for me and my children, we will serve the Lord.
In this family, we're going to do things properly.
Read God's word everyday and then we'll try to pray. 

Although we get it wrong, we will still carry on, make Jesus number one. 

In this place we're going to say grace.
As for me and my house, as for me and my family, 

as for me and my children, we will serve the Lord.

I had some ideas for activities, but didn't really have time to fit it in as we had a busy week! Maybe next week...

Mummy Time

Been reading through the beginning of Matthew. It's been good to reread the Christmas story and then go straight on to the next part of the life of Jesus - it helps so much to read about Jesus' life in chronological chunks.

I've also been reading A mom after God's own heart: Chapter 3 is entitled 'Talk to your children about God'. Before I share what I've been reading I thought I'd briefly summarise the previous chapters:
Introduction: Focusing on the heart - this chapter considers the lives of some biblical mums (Hannah, David's family, Daniel's family, Timothy's family, Mary) and what the focus our our hearts should be:

"And since you want your children to love God and follow Him, set the focus of your heart on God and let them see you love Him and follow Him." p23

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Proverbs 4:23

The following 10 points were initially written as a list for Elizabeth George's daughter's baby shower and she has since written it up into this book.

Chapter 1: Take time to nurture your heart - Elizabeth George's challenge in the first chapter is to make sure that you nurture your own heart as the first way to love your children. It is important that as mothers we read the Bible every day. Deuteronomy 6:4-12 contains major instructions for us as parents:

"Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates. ...be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."

One scholar summed up Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as:

"We are to love God, think constantly about his commandments, teach his commandments to our children and live each day by the guidelines in his Word." p39

Chapter 2: Teach your children God's word - Once we're nurturing our own heart we can start to 'teach [God's word] diligently to our children' through verbal instruction (reading the Bible) and visual instruction (plaques, posters etc).

Following reading this chapter I've been thinking a lot recently about how to help Zoë understand Bible stories better - we started to explore the idea of supporting activities in our Advent series (see previous posts) and am hoping to think some more about we can do this in our normal weeks.

I'll share my thoughts on Chapter 3 in my next post. :)

Other fun

Water painting

Eating dinner with a new 'blue' bib!

Plans for 2015

Alphabetical

So, our plan for the coming few months is to look at a Bible verse a week alphabetically. I'm very aware that at 3 years old Zoë is more than capable of learning songs and film quotes, and I think memorising Bible verse will be a good habit to teach her. I'm also looking forward to learning them too! I'm also hoping to plan some songs and activities for the week to help reinforce and teach the verse.

Now, there are 26 letters in the alphabet and 52 weeks in the year... This could mean that we go through each verse twice in the year, but I think a more realistic approach would be to expect some weeks to 'not happen' due to illness or holiday or similar. So we will just work our way calmly from letter to letter and not let the 'plan' dictate to us. This will definitely be a learning experience for me!

"In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."
Proverbs 16:9

Mummy Time

I thought I'd also briefly share my aims for the year. They're not really New Year's Resolutions, just some ideas which I hope will become habits...

I'm planning on reading a chapter from the 5 Minute New Testament every morning at breakfast. This is a dated reading plan which I have tended to avoid in the past as I get behind and then feel guilty, but this year I think that dates may be the impetus I need to keep reading my Bible. I'm going to be reading in front of Zoë and Caleb so that they start to see that reading my Bible is important to me - how will they learn if they never see me reading the Bible? I'll give you a brief update each time I post.

I also have a pile of books on my bedside cabinet which I am in the process of reading (see my updated Shelfari bookcase for the definitive list!). Although I can multi-read, and frequently do, I have decided that I need to commit to finishing one book and then move onto the next. So my book for the beginning of 2015 is A Mom after God's own heart by Elizabeth George. I have been reading this book for a couple of years now as well as working through the study guide and am finding it a brilliantly challenging read.

A verse for the year

For the last 12 or so years I have selected a verse to ponder on for the year. Last year's verse was:

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe." Ephesians 1:18-19a

This morning I selected this year's verse after a friend shared it with me:

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33

That is my aim for the year: God first, and then everything else should fall into place behind...

I also want to choose verses to pray through for Zoë and Caleb, but need to pray some more for the right verse. I will then write it onto an outline of their hand and have it in my Bible. This is an idea I read on a blog last year and think is a great idea. 

Reviewing Advent

Hello and Happy New Year!

I'm finally back on my laptop after a busy Christmas and New Year period with our extended family. We enjoyed having my parents to stay for a few days over Christmas and then went and visited Steve's family in Herefordshire for New Year. Whilst we had a lovely time, it is also nice to be back home and returning to our normal rhythms and routines.

Our Advent series is now over and I'm looking forward to what we have planned next, but first I'd like to review how it went:

Jesse Tree Story (or 'From Creation to Christmas') and activities

I've loved doing a sweep of the Bible with Zoë (and Caleb) and she's really grasped the different stories and how they all point to Jesus and his birth. But, and this is a big one... if you plan a series of stories and activities with your husband make sure that he tells you exactly what he was thinking at the time, otherwise you may well be left with a verse or 'story' and no idea why it's included!! We'll spend some time over the next 11 months padding out the story section of our plan so I have a better idea of what I'm doing

Before next year I'm hoping to sort out the 'labels' to hang on the tree as Zoë lost interest in drawing and colouring these about halfway through the month. I'd much rather put her effort and interest into the activities which support the stories.

The activities seemed to work well; though as I mentioned in a previous post I need to make sure that I go with the flow and don't stress about 'following a plan'. Toddlers and babies are fickle creatures who don't follow plans, and other activities can happen at the last minute.

24 books

I loved this, as did the children. We got to read all our Christmas books at least once as they were opened rather than the favourites being the only ones read. I think next year Zoë and Caleb will have to take it in turns to open a book as he'll be much more interested! A lesson in 'taking turns'!

Lolly Sticks

Again, another idea which I enjoyed as it helped us to make more of the season. We've done Zoë's Summer List of Fun and Autumn List of Fun and I'm looking forward to writing a Winter List of Fun. These lists are more for me to make sure that we fit some fun stuff around the daily tasks of housework.

We squeezed in some of the remaining lolly stick activities into the days following Christmas. Here are some photos for you to enjoy:

What next?

Advent is over for another 11 months (or less than that now...), but we need to continue to share the Bible with our children. Steve and I have been chatting through some ideas which I'm looking forward to sharing with you in my next post.

Christmas Day

Happy Christmas!! 

Advent is over as Christmas is here... Today we celebrate the amazing event of God becoming man, not even a grown man, but a tiny baby. And this is all part of his salvation plan... If you're not a Christian make sure you take some time to consider what Christmas is all about this year - if you have any questions just ask!

Anyway, no more from me today as I'm off to spend time with my family.

Caleb enjoying his new caterpillar toy and Zoë dressed up in her new fancy dress outfit!

Advent: Christmas Eve

Grandma and Grandpa arrived today - Zoë spend a good amount of the morning standing at the back door waiting for them to drive the 3 hours from my sister's house! I managed to convince her to leave her post to do some activities but she quickly returned to wait...

Jesse Tree Activity

I had planned to make some cotton wool sheep but Zoë wasn't interested in doing anything really this morning, plus we needed to finish our handprints...

24 Books

I have photographic evidence of our Christmas Eve books! Caleb opened a Peter Rabbit book:

And Zoë opened the last Mr Men and Little Miss book which she enjoyed reading with Daddy.

Lolly Sticks

Today's activity was finishing off the handprints. I painted the basic hand shape from the impression they'd made and then Zoë decorated with red and gold sparkle paint. Unfortunately I forgot to put holes in them so I'm not sure how we'll hang them on the tree... I'm sure the grandparents won't mind!

Jesse Tree Story

Tonight's story was one that is often missed in the Christmas narrative. Anna and Simeon are two people who met Jesus when he was 8 days old and was presented at the temple. They had been waiting to meet him for many years.

Mummy Time

One of the highlights of my Christmastime is the Christmas Eve carol service, and this year was no different! Great to sing some carols with gusto!

Advent: 23 December

Our 'big' activity today was the arrival of the Tesco delivery - loads of yummy food to get put away.

Jesse Tree Activity

We didn't have a specific activity planned for today other than retelling the nativity story in play and books.

24 Books

My memory has failed me again in remembering what specific book we opened today, but the joy of another book continued!

Lolly Sticks

There's nothing quite like leaving the icing of the Christmas Cake to the last minute!! 

Jesse Tree Story

Tonight we read of the Shepherds' visit to Jesus - what fear and excitement they must have felt that night! Even a rousing rendition of 'Hark the herald angels' doesn't really touch what the choir of angels must have sounded like!

Mummy Time

I had to go and see my GP today to check that my new heart medication is working for me - although it wasn't really 'me time' as I had to take Zoë and Caleb with me too! The doctor was more than happy to check out Zoë who announced that she 'wasn't feeling better' and they discovered that there was a zebra happily living in Zoë's tummy!! The imagination of a 3 year old!!

Advent: 22 December

Our activities continued in the Christmas week but I didn't have any laptop time to write them up, so sorry for the tardiness of these posts!

Today's big adventure was moving Caleb into Zoë's room so that my parents could have the sofa bed which lives in Caleb's room/Steve's study. I had two very excited children:

Jesse Tree Activity

I had planned to do some angel activity with Zoë but the handprints took a long time so we didn't fit it in.

24 Books

No idea of today's book!

Lolly Sticks

Today we started making our handprints out of saltdough. We enjoyed this activity a lot last year, but this year was more interesting as Zoë wanted to 'help' more and I also had to try and get Caleb to unclench his fist to make his handprint.

Jesse Tree Story

What a great point of the Creation to Christmas story to get to - Jesus is born! Zoë knows this story quite well now and enjoyed retelling it with me.

Mummy Time

Steve was out speaking at a Carol Service so my evening was filled with bedtimes, tidying up and a bath. Nothing really spectacular but nicely relaxing at the same time... Oh and in other news Caleb has learnt how to empty the washing machine: