Great book for Lent

My brother and sister in law gave us a great book at Christmas that I started reading this morning. It is a book written and compiled by Nancy Guthrie that is aimed at helping to prepare your heart for Easter. She has gathered writings and sermons from historic and modern day writers and pastors (Martin Luther, John Piper, Joni Eareckson Tada, John Calvin, Tim Keller, etc) to talk about different aspects of the Easter story.

In the beginning of the book she talks of how she spends more time getting ready for Mother's Day than Easter. Easter - the day we celebrate the death and resurrection of our Savior - is a time that God gives us each year to reflect and remember what need we had in our sin and what a glorious salvation had been secured for us in what Christ has done. I am really looking forward to reading through this book and contemplating these things more than I have in the past. I wanted to pass it on to you in case you want to pick up a copy too!

"How we need to have our hearts broken again by our sin that put Jesus on the cross. How we need to have our confidence grounded by what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And how we need to have our hope anchored in the promise of resurrection." Nancy Guthrie, preface.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1433501813/ref=redir_mdp_mobile

One year

Oh, the difference a year makes!! (Not sure how this precious dress fit two Valentines in a row, but I'm thankful it did!)

Four types of Ocean floors

For our Classical Conversations science sentence this week, the kids are memorizing four types of ocean floors. The questions is "What are four types of ocean floors?" To which the children reply, "Four types of ocean floors are...continental shelf, abyssal plains, mountain ranges and ridges." To help with the memory work we created an ocean floors diagram of sorts. Most days I have every step of each part of school planned out to a T. It doesn't always go as planned, but at least the plan is there as a foundation. Today I knew I wanted to do some sort if diagram - either on paper or in a box more like a diorama but had NO idea how to accomplish it. We were going to wing it, something I don't prefer.

It came together perfectly, better than I could have imagined. It was such a sweet reminder to me that God is with us during our school days! He is at work in so many ways and on so many levels. He is at work in Baxter to teach him self control and how to sit still and how to play well with Lucy while Owen and I get work done. He is at work in Lucy teaching her to be ok when mommy has to pay attention to other things and that the world will not in fact come to an end when I take the iPad away! He is at work in Owen to teach him how to use his precious brain to learn and grow even when it involves writing three sentences in response to our history reading. He is at work in me as the teacher/mother/wife/homemaker/cook/pastors wife/Bible study leader/cleaner/etc/etc that He is Lord and that He is in fact holding all things together, not me, which is actually great news.

I am so encouraged when God gives me insight to see how He is with us and He is at work and He is real - even in something as simple as a diagram of the ocean floor in an empty diaper box!

Here is the finished product - a reminder of His goodness to me! And one of our sweet Lucy who had been taking all of the books off the bookshelf so she was strapped in for a snack :). Oh dear!

Do You Have a Hat?

One website that I have frequented for art ideas is Deep Space Sparkle. Today we did one of the projects based on a really sweet book called Do You Have a Hat? (http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2012/01/21/do-you-have-a-hat/). They chose a hat to make out of construction paper and then they glued it on the paper, decorated it and drew their body below it. We just used crayons today, wasn't feeling like getting the paint out but that would be fun too.

Here are the boys finished products (Baxter's is on the left and Owen's is on the right). I love seeing what they create.

Pronouns

Owen has been learning all about nouns, pronouns and verbs this year. Today we were talking about the great love which God has for us ("But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."). As we were talking Lucy started fussing about something. The boys started singing Jesus Loves Me to her. Then Owen substituted Lucy's name in the song and ended up having to substitute a lot of pronouns, it was great practice! I love when learning and reinforcement of what we are learning are just parts of everyday life! Helps to reinforce what we are doing in our school work each day! Makes me thankful for time and space together to learn and grow. I need to remember this on the hard days!!

Prayer for our kids

This morning during my "bagel time" I was reading my yearly Bible and I read Proverbs 6:20-23. It became my prayer for my kids as they "get older" and face a life of choices - will they walk with God or turn from Him, etc.

20 My son, keep your father's commandment, and forsake not your mother's teaching.
21 Bind them on your heart always; tie them around your neck.
22 When you walk, they will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.
23 For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life.

Oh how I want this for my boys (and Lucy when she gets older). I know they are still young, but I see them chose to not keep and to forsake our teaching each day and that is a small window into their hears. They need God to work in them so that as they get older they chose to walk with God so that they chose to keep our teaching because it is (hopefully) teaching them the ways of the Gospel. Of faith and repentance. Of holy living that stems from that faith and that is anchored in God and His love for them.

Lord work! We need you. They need you.