Friday, February 24, 2012

Purity Psalm 119:9

Today we started a new verse; "How can a young man keep his way pure? By sticking closely to God's word." Psalm 119:9

We came up with a way to illustrate how if we stay close to God's word that we will stay on the right course and go God's way! However, if we don't follow God's word and deviate from God's path, then we will end up in the "slimy pit."

We set up the train track in a circle and attached a small bible to a magnetic wand. We took turns pulling the train around the track led by the Bible. 


Then we decided to not follow the Bible, but go a different way and it ended us up in "slimy pit!"

The kids had fun playing with the train track and making the train go all different directions!

We sang the song "Oh be careful little eyes what you see" to help the kids understand that what goes into our lives, comes out. When God's Word comes in, then God's Word comes out. When we say things, do things, hear things that aren't God's way, then that comes out of our lives too (like Slime!)

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Slimy Pit

Today we talked about the verse found in Psalm 40:1-2.



We made GAK to illustrate our "Slimy Pit"  using the following recipe:


What you will need:
Solution A
1 Cup water
1 Cup white glue (about 2 bottles)
2 Tbs. liquid tempera paint or 7-10 drops food coloring
Solution B
1 1/3 Cup warm water
4 tsp. borax laundry booster


How to concoct it:
1. Mix ingredients in Solution A together in a medium bowl.
2. In a second medium bowl, mix the ingredients in solution B together until the borax is completely dissolved.
3. Slowly pour solution A into solution B (Do not mix!)
4. Roll solution A around in solution B 4-5 times.
5. Lift solution A out of solution B and knead for 2-3 minutes.
6. Store "GAK" (Aka: Slimy Pit) in an airtight container or plastic zip bag.


We played the Seeds Family Worship song "Out of the Mud" (which is Psalm 40:1-2 put to song). We looped it all morning long and we compared how it is to stand in slime versus standing on the Rock of God! 







This surprisingly led to over an hours worth of play! I don't think there has been anything that has kept my kids' attention for that long in a long long while!

Friday, February 17, 2012

I'm doing a good work and I cannot come down...



Recently, I've been reading in Nehemiah. The story in a nutshell goes like this: Nehemiah is heartbroken for the state that things are in after the Jews have been in captivity in Babylonia for so many years. The Jews who remain (the remnant) are not able to protect themselves in Jerusalem because the walls of the city are torn down and burned. Nehemiah feels called by God to go and restore the walls, rebuilding them one brick at a time. It is a massive project, but he seeks the help of the remnant Israelites and they take on the project together slowly restoring the walls. They face opposition, but together undertake this massive project.


I cannot help, but see the correlation between the rebuilding of the walls by the remnant that was left and the rebuilding of the Church today. As a mother who stays home with three children (three and under), I feel as though  I am quite consistently facing distraction to my primary task - raising up these children to be followers of Christ and World-Changers for Him....one stone at a time.


It is easy to get distracted. Good things come and I want to be a part of them... all good things, but I have to remind myself: "What is most important? What does God have for me right now?"


When Nehemiah faced opposition and distraction he said "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down." (Nehemiah 6:3). This needs to be my motto. 


I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down.

As families of the remnant (the last few Christ followers that remain in today's world), let us keep focused on our true work. Let us rebuild the Church, one child at a time, one life at a time, and not get distracted. 

What's your great project (good work) that God is calling you? Are you getting distracted?


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This week as a family we have been talking about honor. Our verse is found in Romans 12:10 "Love one another deeply. Honor others more than yourselves."



How do you teach a 3 year old and a 22 month old about honor?

Well, anyone who has spent much time around our family will know that our three year old has a special liking to a particular color... PINK. When I serve the kids their meals,  I serve them on different colored plates (pink, blue, green, red). Well, as one can guess, Big Sis has to always have the pink plate. So, this week we decided to have a conversation about honor and it involved the "pink" plate. We talked about "honoring" others by putting others first and at meal time we would honor someone different by allowing them to eat off of the cherished pink plate.



We hung the pink plate on the fridge below our verse as a way to remember what it means to honor someone else (putting them first). This has proved to be a wonderful teaching technique (at least for my 3 year old). All week, she has been willing to give up the pink plate to her little brother. This would never have happened previously!

So, slowly, but surely we are showing some honor in our house this week!

Saturday, February 4, 2012

The Lee Love Week Finale....

So this week we we have talked about how love ...
REMEMBERS (Monday)
SPEAKS (Tuesday)
ACTS (Wednesday)
LISTENS (Thursday) James 1:19-20


Today was love ENJOYS! And it was all about spending time together as a family and enjoying one another. I planned a love themed evening starting at about 4 p.m.


We started the night out by reciting our weekly verse (Deuteronomy 6:5) and then we made pipe cleaner crystallized hearts: Step 1: form the pipe cleaner to the desired shape.



Step 2: We then boiled three cups of water and mixed it with 1/2 cup Borax and poured it into a Mason jar and added some food coloring. 



Step 3: Then we tied a string to the heart and attached it to a stick and put the heart in. It is suppose to crystallize over a period of time to make beautiful crystal hearts! Check out my Pinterest crafts board for details!
Makes for a beautiful display in a window as you wait for the crystals!
Here's the finished produce (takes about 12 hours)


Our theme verse for the night was 1 Corinthians 13:7 "Love BEARS all things, hopes all things, endures all thing. (NKJV)


BEARS are going to be a common theme throughout the night, as you will see. So we talked about what it meant for love to BEAR all things (love being patient, kind, and the ability to protect one another). Then we made little bear pizzas for our picnic we would have later.




We then collected blankies, pillows, flashlights, and any other lovies the kids wanted for their camp-out and we headed down to the basement where I had set up the tent for the festivities. 



The tent was to represent a bear cave. I placed two bears in the cave as a surprise for Zoe and Roman. The bears were displayed in a make-shift paper bag "den".






We then met inside the tent and talked about Love some more. How the love in our family is a love that protects...kind of like a blanket. We then had each family member sit in the middle of the tent and put a blanket over their shoulders... we then showered them with things we loved about them.

Then we talked about hibernation and how bears sleep in the winter. We looked at some pictures of bears and read some books on bears (A Teddy Bear's Picnic, It's the Bear, Every Autumn Comes the Bear). (Side note: Roman was so crazy during this time, picking on his sister and pretty much doing the opposite of love that he had to go in a crib time-out... talk about a damper on the evening. This pretty much followed Roman for the evening).

We then transitioned to our picnic.


We had  carrots, grapes, and bear pizzas. We also had panda bear punch, which consisted of white milk with a drizzle of chocolate syrup in it! Yum!


We acted out the story "Going on a bear hunt", which was a lot of fun! 

We then transitioned to craft time and did this fun little coloring craft: stand-up bear and "love bears all things" bookmark.




We then had an ice cream break and made bears out of our ice cream.

Then we headed downstairs for the start of our movie, Over the Hedge, which starts out with a bear that is hibernating.



Their snacks for the movie were popcorn in little bear brown baggies and Teddy grahams.

Well that wraps up our LOVE WEEK at the Lee's going out on a bang! I will say that what stuck with the kids the most was keeping the theme alive throughout the entire week. I saw them grasping a whole lot more of the concepts of love as we were talking about them continually.

I think next year I'll try to make a felt heart chain for each family member starting at the beginning of the week. Family members will get hearts added to their chain throughout the week as they are displaying love to each other. I think this concept would help to cement the idea in more. At the end of the week for our big camp-out bash we can all wear our [hopefully] heart filled chain necklaces!

P.S. below is my really horrible attempt to do what one mom did taking photos of her sleeping baby. This is suppose to be Samuel floating in the sky (get it? blue quilt?!:) with clouds (get it? white blankets?) and holding on to some heart shaped balloons. It is pretty bad when I have to spell it all out.




Thursday, February 2, 2012

Love week continued...

Well, LOVE week continues strong here at the Lee household. Each day has been a different emphasis. On Monday the theme was LOVE REMEMBERS and we made a point as a family to memorize Deuteronomy 6:5 "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."

The verse was placed in the kitchen, in our bedrooms, and put up in the living room written on a cord of hearts. Even Roman knows the verse and we still have two more days left in the week!





Tuesday we shared how LOVE SPEAKS. We want love to be spoken all around our house in the what we say and the way that we say it.

We made a string of hearts for each family member and then showered them with things we loved about them and wrote it on the hearts. Then we hung each family members strand of hearts on their bedroom door entryway and reminded them each time they walked through of all the ways that we love them!



Wednesday was LOVE ACTS and we shared how love is demonstrated by how we treat one another, how we reach out to those in need, and we found a way to SHOW love by baking some heart shaped cookies to give away to boost some love!



Some of the best is yet to come...I'm super excited about Friday's Love camp-out that I have planned in our basement! It is going to be so much fun retelling all that we have learned this week!!!