Jesus is alive!

Easter is a much harder story for preschoolers to understand than Christmas; for one the idea of death rather than birth is sadder, and coming back to life is a hard concept for them to grasp.
I had lots of great ideas for helping Zoë and Caleb to get to grips with this very special part of the Bible story, but as per usual I completely over estimated the amount of time and energy I'd have. Compared to last year I seem to be doing significantly less with Zoë, but I now have a very active 1 year old boy, medication-related fatigue and less time with Zoë as she's at pre-school. But I continue to try as it's important to teach them about God and to have fun together!

Easter Story

I had planned to spend 5 weeks looking at each stage of the story from the last supper to the ascension, but this was too slow as Zoë needed to know the end of the story and couldn't wait. I'd looked at using a book published by The Good Book Company called Play Through The Bible by Alice Buckley; this book contains lots of good ideas for activities to help preschoolers get to grips with the Bible. I'd also looked on-line and other books on my bookcase so had a huge range of ideas to pick from...

One of my favourite activities was the Easter Egg story - I filled 6 eggs with 6 items from the Easter story and then used it to tell (and recap repeatedly) the story. The items were a donkey, bread, grass, stone, nothing and cotton wool. Can you work out the main points?

We had lots of fun over the Easter weekend - here are some of the things we did...

• Visited family and did an Easter egg hunt, made Tomb biscuits and decorated a Simnel cake

• Visited Waddesdon with friends and experienced Colourscape and did another Easter egg hunt

• Visited Ashridge with friends and got Zoë's face painted and did another Easter egg hunt!

• And looked after Wispy the hedgehog who came and played in our garden

 

Mummy Time

I'm still reading through A Mom After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George and am finding it such a helpful and encouraging book. It's not easy reading, but you don't feel got at... A quote I found helpful in the last chapter I read is as follows:

On the one side, you must point them to God's way. And on the other, to enjoy any success in training your child for God and for life, you have to know your child, to know what makes him or her tick... Your children are individuals with special strengths and capabilities that should be developed.

Give us this day our daily bread

Dairy-free scotch eggs and 'cowboy pies'

I've been challenged recently about how providing food for my family is one of the main ways I can fulfil my God-given role of looking after my family. Elizabeth George, in her book A Mom After God's Own Heart, says:

Our goal as moms is to see that those in our family are not deprived of the food, nutrition, health and energy they need to handle daily life, prevent melt-downs and stay happy.

I've always thought that I've done ok, but in reality I know that I can improve in this area! I can learn more about nutrition and what Zoë and Caleb are actually eating. I can improve my meal planning to include snacks and preparation time to ensure that melt-downs are avoided as much as possible.

Enjoying his lunch!

As well as being challenged in what I'm reading, we're also going through some food issues as a family. As many of you know Caleb has been dairy-free since he was a few months old and, whilst we're slowly reintroducing milk, has a fully dairy-free diet which requires planning. Zoë was gluten-free for the first couple of years but more recently has tolerated a low-gluten diet. However recent illnesses suggest that this may no longer be the case. We are currently in a 6 week phase of high gluten consumption before a load of blood tests to see what is occurring... after that it may be that we have to be gluten-free too! And of course I'm allergic to nuts!

Cooking is great fun!

If we're a dairy-free, gluten-free and nut-free family then I need to swat up on nutrition to make sure we're not deprived of the nutrients we need, and I need to be more organised with my meal and snack planning. So, as a way of holding me accountable I thought I'd share some of my ideas here with you...
- chat with friends who are further down the line on the intolerance journey.
- include snack ideas on our meal planner
- plan meals with low preparation times and schedule in preparation in my day
- make/bake more of our own snacks
- research more ideas for df, gf and nf breakfasts and lunches to add variety and different nutrients
- consider a 4 week free course with University of Aberdeen on nutrition

I hope you'll enjoy coming on this journey with me as I explore how I can feed my family for the glory of God!