Advent 2017: 4 December

Yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent. I have been brought up as a baptist and evengelical which means that I have never really experienced Advent with candles and liturgy. After being part of a forum for Christian Mums I have grown more interested in the liturgy and am spending some time this advent taking part in a Bible study which is being run by an anglican friend. Here is my candle for yesterday and here is a special prayer from the Anglican Church liturgy which can be used every day during Advent:

Almighty God,

give us grace to cast away the works of darkness

and to put on the armour of light,

now in the time of this mortal life,

in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;

that on the last day,

when he shall come again in his glorious majesty

to judge the living and the dead,

we may rise to the life immortal;

through him who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen

Our Wrapped Book today has been one I have been very excited about. It is one of our new ones and comes from an American company via a friend at school. It is called The Miracle of the First Poinsettia: A Mexican Christmas Story. (This was going to be particularly poignant as Steve was meant to be travelling to Mexico today but the trip has now been postponed to January.) It's a lovely story looking at how 'a gift from the heart is the best gift of all'.

We didn't get to look in our Advent Adventure Tin today until dinner-time so it was too late to 'go on a wintery walk and collect pine cones' but we will definitely keep that one for the weekend, especially as we have a Forest School morning planned on Saturday!

This evening we were thinking about waiting and waiting... Generally children find waiting very hard and mine are no different! Our From Creation to Christmas story told us how God had promised Abraham and Sarah a baby son, and that they would go on and have as many children as the stars in the sky and grains of sand along the seashore. That is a lot of children! But they had to wait until Sarah was in her 90s... not sure I'd want to be starting to have children that late in life. But we were reminded that from Abraham and Sarah would come Jesus (many many years later) - again another link to the Christmas story.

After planning my Advent Readings yesterday I have found another possibility today. Recently I have been part of a community called Mummy Meditations which has been looking at women in the Bible. Last month it was Sarah (mentioned above) and this month we are looking at Mary, the mother of Jesus. This will be a fascinating study as it is very easy to assume I know all about Mary, but I suspect a lot of my 'knowledge' is based on popular culture stories and traditions, rather than on the Bible text.

Advent 2017: 3 December

"They put a big tree in the middle of the living room and say "don't touch". Didn't work in the Garden of Eden and it's not going to work here." Honest Toddler

We had another very busy day today as we go to church on Sundays. So the day started with a pain au chocolat breakfast, followed by our Real Advent Calendar: this is telling us the Christmas story sentence by sentence which is a good balance to our sweeping overview stories in the evening.

In the afternoon we headed off with some of our church to a local Care Home for the elderly and those suffering from dementia. We go once a month to take a simple church service, but this was the extra special carol service. It was so lovely to see some men and women who are really not with it come alive at the sound of a familiar carol. Our Advent Adventure Tin activity for today was to do something for someone less fortunate than yourself: I think this (as well as packing shoeboxes yesterday) fits this perfectly.

When we got home we had a fun afternoon colouring in Christmas cards for our friends. I think Steve may have coloured the most, but it was a chilled activity that everyone enjoyed.

Our From Creation to Christmas story was a sad one today as we read about how Adam and Eve were disobedient and ate the fruit that God had told them not to. We went on to talk about how we are disobedient, but more importantly how God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins. It was good to see them link the story we'd read with the reason for the celebration of Christmas!

Wrapped Books - to be updated when I find the book and remember what it was!!

Today we were given a gift of The One True Gift by Tim Chester. This book has 24 readings which I will probably use for my Advent Readings.

Advent 2017: 2 December

Watching Tom Kerridge cook

It's only the 2nd December and already everything is muddled! But that is for a very good reason...

Today I spent the day at the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC in Birmingham with my mum, aunt and one of my sisters. What an amazing day it was - loads of yummy food stalls, demonstrations and freebies, as well as good family time. I would definitely recommend going, but take a suitcase for all the stuff that you end up carrying!

Steve had the children during the day: they enjoyed a morning packing shoeboxes for disadvantaged children, youth and elderly around the world. We're not sure where these boxes were heading but the ones collected at our church are going to Romania. It's such a good idea to be teaching our children about giving to other less fortunate than themselves and widen their horizons.

The Advent Adventure Tin challenge for today was to collect items for a Christmas Eve special evening. We are going to be away with family, and at their Carol Service so we have decided to collect ideas for another night (probably Christmas Eve eve!)

Both children got to open a Wrapped Book present today: Caleb opened The Snowman and Zoë-Grace opened a collection of Little Miss and Mr Men books. The Snowman is on Zoë-Grace's school book list so we'll be encouraging her to read that one to us! It is one of my favourites which is why it was the book for 1 December.

We finished a very busy tiring day with our From Creation to Christmas story about the creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve. We talked about how they were the most wonderful part of creation and that we are just like them: we are the most wonderful thing that God has made. Psalm 100:3 says "He made us, and we belong to him." How awesomely simple!

(Still not decided about my Advent Readings!)

Advent 2017: 1 December

The 1st December always seems to come round so quickly after Zoë-Grace's birthday, but this year I am feeling pretty well prepared!

Today was an exciting day as we started the Real Advent Calendar before school - when else are you allowed to eat chocolate at breakfast!! It's also going to be a test to see how well Caleb can cope with dairy chocolate - eek!

For everything else we had to wait for Zoë-Grace to get back from school! Then we opened the Advent Box and discovered all the goodies... It was great fun and filled that awkward, tired hour (or two) between school and tea. As well as trying on new pyjamas and jumpers, and looking through all the craft and activity books, we also had a game of Hunt the Nativity. I had hidden all the characters from our Happyland Nativity set around our lounge (including Joseph behind some nail varnish). Once all the excitement was over we snuggled down with some hot chocolate (in our Christmas mugs) to watch The Polar Express which was our new film this year.

Before I tell you about our From Creation to Christmas story, I must give a massive shout-out to Teresa from King's Krafts who has made all our lovely felt ornaments - thank you. (I made the tree!) Our story today started at the very begnning of the Bible with the creation of the world. We talked about how we need lego bricks to make a lego creation, but God was able to make the world out of nothing! How amazing!

In all the excitement of the Advent Box we forgot to open one of our Wrapped Books today but that just means two for tomorrow!

We did remember to look at the first Advent Adventure Tin activity which was to put on Christmas jumpers and music and start the Christmas Party - I think we managed to do that quite well! I thought I'd use this to tell you about some of our favourite Christmas albums. First up we enjoy Colin Buchanan's King of Christmas - it has loads of great catchy songs for the children which are grounded in Biblical truth, though it is very Australian but that doesn't seem to bother my children.My favourite this year is John Rutter's Colours of Christmas - I just love the richness of the choral singing.

And as for me, for my Advent Readings, well, I've been too busy to decide today, but I have had a great day with my family!

Advent 2017

Evening readers!

Four years ago I had a great advent plan and I managed to blog about it every day. I have loved reading back over what we got up to then and thought that it'd be a good idea to do the same this year. Three years on we now have a 6 year daughter and 3 3/4 year old son, which is a completely different kettle of fish. One main difference is that Zoë-Grace is now in Year 1 and Caleb is at pre-school for 2 whole days, which leaves me with a lot less time to do various activities with them. But they are older and so their understanding is great, which is very exciting!

So, what do I have planned for this year...

With the children:

Advent Box - I love the idea of a Christmas Eve box, but it is our tradition to go to a Christmas Eve Carol Service (or Crib Service) which means there's not really any time for anything extra. So we started a new tradition of an Advent Box. This box contains all our Christmas DVDs and CDs, craft and activity books, nativity set, as well as new Christmas pyjamas, jumpers and hair bobbles/hats etc. This box requires pretty much no effort except for making sure that it all gets put away properly at the end of the Christmas season!

From Creation to Christmas (also known as a Jesse Tree) - At our evening meal we are reading a story from the Bible and hanging a felt ornament of that story on our 'tree'. The stories start with Creation and progress through the Bible always pointing at the reason for Jesus' birth. We have been developing this idea and making it our own, such as adding in the story of Joshua and Caleb to keep our own little Caleb happy. I do have loads of possible activities to do with the children relating to each story, but am expecting to not have as much time to do them as previous years. We'll see what happens! As I have said in a previous blog, I need to be "flexibly organised".

Wrapped Books - All our Christmas books have been wrapped up and we are opening one each day. I have pruned out some of the more babyish ones and introduced four new books which I am very excited about as I think they are books which will grow with us for many years.

Advent Adventure Tin (by Tinspired) - This is a new 'adventure' this year as I have no idea what it's going to be like! We have Tinspired's Date Night tin and have really enjoyed the ideas shared in there so we are looking forward to working through the creative ideas in the tin and hopefully finding some new adventures! (For more information go to https://www.facebook.com/tinspired/)

We have also been gifted with two lovely chocolate Real Advent Calendars with the Nativity story, so we will be using those in the morning (and sending the children off to school with chocolate fuel in their little bodies - mwa haha!!)

Myself:

For me the Advent season focuses on expectation and anticipation of Christ’s birth which is celebrated at Christmas. I know for friends in the Church of England it is much more and I'm hoping to explore a bit of their deeper knowledge of Advent this year.

We are obviously doing quite a bit as a family so I don't want to add much to my schedule, I have a few ideas but not settled on anything yet. Hopefully I'll decide soon!

Tuesday Mornings

Tuesday mornings are now 'me time'. Once Zoë is at school I take Caleb to his new preschool and then I have 3 hours to do what I want and need. Over the past few months I have been learning how important it is to look after myself as well as my family, and I have been inspired by this quote:

"Taking care of myself doesn't mean 'me first' it means 'me, too.'" L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses A Day 

Some mornings I have gone out and done some shopping (so much easier without a 2.5 year old helper who has recently been potty trained and wants to investigate everything we see); next week I am off to the gym to see if there is anything I can use with my heart condition (eek!). 

Today I am curled up on the sofa with my hot orange squash, blanket, Christmas music and books; I need to have a look at the huge pile of books I want to read and plan what to read and when! So, onto my pile of books... I will always have multiple books on the go as I read different books at different times! But my Tuesday mornings are special times where I get to read for a longer chunk of time without interruption...

I am currently reading two books that would qualify for my Tuesday morning reading slot: Hands Free Mama by Rachel Stafford and Ordinary Mum, Extraordinary Mission by Anna France-Williams and Joy French. But I need to read one, finish it and then move onto the next one... so I have decided to focus on Hands Free Mama which I started first. This is such a challenging book but I am excited to get back to it. (See my previous blog on #becshandsfreejourney) When I have finished it I will get back to Ordinary Mum, Extraordinary Mission.

Right, I'm off to read... See you later!

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In case you're interested the other books in the pile which are returning to the bookcase are:

• The one true story by Tim Chester - daily readings for advent from Genesis to Jesus
• Having a Martha home the Mary way by Sarah Mae - 31 day plan to get a new vision for your home
• Life Management for Busy Women by Elizabeth George - looking at making the most of time and living to God's plan
• A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George - practical, scriptural insights on pursuing God's priorities in my life
• Everyday Talk by John A. Younts - ideas for talking freely and naturally about God with your children
• The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman - looking at how different people show and receive love

Flexibly organised

Looking back (very belatedly!)

The older I get, the more of parenting that I do, the more I realise that I need to be flexibly organised! As a stay at home mum (SAHM) it's easy for days and weeks to pass, and for me to look back and think 'what have I actually done?' Now, I know that the children are alive, dressed and fed, and the house is in a semblance of tidiness, and I have taken them to swimming, ballet and toddlers, as well as days out to the zoo and parks... But, it's nice to also have some key events that we can look back on!
A year ago I posted my plans and aims for 2015... Did I manage to keep them? Mostly, though moving house half-way through the year did bring disruption as we started new activities and found new places to play and explore. So, here's an update on my three 'plans':

Alphabetical 

We had planned to teach Zoë and Caleb Bible verses from each letter of the alphabet, but I didn't plan far enough ahead and soon this fizzled out. But they did learn 4 verses which is better than none!

Mummy Time

My daily Bible reading is still hugely sporadic and something I continually strive to improve on. As well as trying the 5 minute New Testament, I have also tried reading some books and using Explore notes (from The Good Book Company).
I have been working hard to finish A Mom After God's Own Heart and am very nearly there, with just the last few study questions to finish. It has been a great book to read and I have taken away so many encouragements in how to be the best mum that I can. I definitely recommend this book, plus the extra study book to any mum's reading this!!

A verse for the year

I love this habit of choosing a verse and then learning it throughout the year. I had 4 verses; one for each member of our family and they were written onto cut outs of our hands.

Looking forward

Family

2015 was a big year of change for us as a family and 2016 promises to continue to be full of change too... I'm pleased that although everything changes around me "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." We're involved in a new church (6 months after starting at this 'new' church), Steve is planning on changing his day off which will affect us all, and Zoë will be starting full time school in September. I want to make the most of the time that I have with her

We've been getting into a good Bible reading routine with Zoë and Caleb. Steve has been reading a verse from a Psalm each day and both children have been doing really well at remembering it. We also ask each other 'what do you want to thank God for today?'. This is always a special time as we share the highlights from our day.

Time with children 1-2-1

Me time (re-named from Mummy Time)

"Taking care of myself doesn't mean 'me first' it means 'me, too.'" L.R. Knost, Two Thousand Kisses A DayBooks
- Finish A Mom After God's Own Heart
- Hands Free Mama
Friday walk

Verses for the year

Grow #oneword365

We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father,who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:9-12