Handmade Spinny Speller

After seeing this Spinny Speller over at Chasing Cheerios, I thought it would be perfect for my boys (ages 4 & 6). The younger one is learning to write and likes to watch his brother take his vocabulary tests. Now with the Spinny Speller they can both work on words together. This item can be purchased at a very cool store: Let's Explore and the owner, Amy, has provided a downloadable worksheet to write the words out. Since my Dad built a garage to house all his woodworking machinery, I thought this would be the perfect project for him! So while we were there at Thanksgiving I showed him the picture and he made them in one afternoon! Way to go Dad! I used different lowercase letters for each. If you want directions on how to make this, I found them at Little Hands, Big Work. My Dad said he used a 5/16th size dowel so adjusted the whole size to fit accordingly.

On Christmas morning I nestled them in the tree. I can't say that my boys passed up their new Star Wars legos to construct 3 letter words, but they have enjoyed using it since!

Down with Santa and other ponderings

I’ve pulled it together to get another entry on my blog. During the holidays, I really have to be careful about my time and I’m afraid blogging has taken a back seat.

This week started out on a much happier note (going to a birthday party). The previous Monday, my 4 yo son stood on the side of my shopping cart (which had his sister and a cart full of groceries) and tipped it over right on the floor. Thankfully all involved only suffered a few bruises. My emotions didn’t bounce back so quickly but I am so thankful to God that there were no injuries.

We finished making our Advent calendar and have been doing various activities such as making ornaments, baking cookies, eating snowman, and my favorite: picking a family member’s name and doing something special for them until Christmas without them knowing who did it.


We have also focused sometime each day to read passages about Jesus' birth and discuss why we celebrate Christmas. It is important to my husband and I to center the excitement about Christmas on the Savior and not on what kind of gifts they get. If you would like to read a helpful article discussing a Christian's perspective about Santa you can read Thabiti Anyabwile's article entitled: "Down with Santa." I would also love to hear any suggestions you have in teaching children how to respond with grace and kindness when asked "What is Santa bringing you?"

I’ve been encouraged by the various spiritual conversations I have had with our boys recently too. The other day my 4 yo said he wished he was a grown up and the older one said “I don’t because then you die.” When I explained only God knows how long we live and that’s why it’s important to accept Jesus in your heart so you can live with Him forever, he said “Mommy, can you pray that now for us?”

I’ve also been humbled and convicted. My husband graciously offered to put away all the dishes from the dishwasher. When I reached for a glass I realized they were totally all mixed up. Now instead of being grateful for his extra act of kindness, that night as I was putting away his socks and t-shirts, I decided to mix everything up. How would he like to dig under his t-shirts for his underwear or find his socks at the bottom of the drawer? Well this lasted for about 10 minutes until I was reminded of Prov. 31:12 and realized that I am certainly not doing my husband good. So I went back and re-arranged them correctly :)

I am grateful for God’s everlasting love for us and that He is patient with us. "Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people." Luke 1:68

Head on over to Home Sanctuary for Company Girl Coffee and some great reading!

Little Helper

I love that Ready to Go (21 mo) enjoys helping me in the kitchen. Whenever I'm cooking, she grabs her little chair and brings it right next to me so she can stand and help. I was cutting up vegetables to place in the crock pot and she gently placed her hand on top of mine while I cut. Then she placed the items in the pot to cook. I had to cut a little slower but the opportunity to teach her in the moment was worth it!

Quiet play

I did two quiet activities that the kids really enjoyed.

First, I played "What's Moving" with Ready to Go. I got the idea for this at Chasing Cheerios.
I was surprised at how much she enjoyed playing this game and remembered it the next day! It's very simple- just tie a string around an object and hide it under the blanket and then slowly pull it out. She loved peaking under the blanket to see the object.

The next activity helps develop hand coordination, concentration and exploration. I had a jar of old unused beans so I let Eager to Help and Ready to Go have at them. They sat on a mat (for easy clean-up) and I gave them two small bowls with various spoons to carry the beans from the jar to their cups. They requested a large bowl to make soup in. Eager to Help was calling out measurements! They enjoyed this for at least 30 min. and then we used a fun slotted spoon to pick up the extra beans off the mat.

I hope to post more quiet activities as I find them. I love finding things for them to do that helps them focus and slow down once and a while! If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Welcome!

In an effort to spruce up our front entrance my son and I put together this pumpkin display. I was afraid the pumpkins would begin to rot before I actually had time to do this. Fortunately we had some warm weather and I finally found all the right size pumpkins. So we went to work!

The idea and tutorial came from one of my favorite blogs girltalk.

I must say the hardest thing about this project was tracking down the various pumpkins! Once I had all my material, Eager to Help and I put it together in about 20 minutes while waiting for Mr. Active to come home from school. My son really had fun helping to saw off the stem, find the little nails and help stack the pumpkins.

Here is the full picture with our friendly scarecrows. I must admit, I'm ready to say goodbye to the scarecrows but it's so fun to see my little girl bend down and say "hi" to them everytime we enter the house! (Note to self- remember to carve our extra pumpkin before doing this project so Eager to Help doesn't remove that stem too!)

Do I need to repeat myself?

How many times did I say that this week?

I've been paying a lot of attention to my words lately. Psalm 19:14 says "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." I also read a great post here and added to my list Ephesians 4:29 "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."

Some of the questions that have come to mind as a result are:

How often do I try and communicate with someone in the other room?
Ask a question while looking in the other direction?
Apologize to someone without even facing him/her?
Carry on conversations in my own mind?
Bring up a hot topic conversation at the wrong time?
Choose words that I know will hurt the other person?
Talk more than I need to?

I have been guilty of all of these not just this week, but sadly more often then I care to count.

Some examples:
I’m trying to teach my 4 yo to listen to others.
Me: Sweetie, you just interrupted me.
4 yo: MOM, that’s because I was still talking!
Me- thinking to myself- well, he never stops!

Me: I’m telling my son something I think is very important.
Son: MOM, can you please be quiet because I’m trying to think!

Now shift gears- two conversations this week with hubby, right before going to bed.
Hubby- where do we stand on our finances? Did we pay that bill? How much do we have left?
Me: what? I’m falling asleep. Can we talk about this when I’m coherent?

So the next day we reviewed the bedtime guidelines- especially the rule- NO talking finances while in bed trying to sleep! (Well, we don’t have any bedtime guidelines, but if we did this rule would be right up there!)

NEXT night while lying in bed trying to sleep
Hubby: One thing we need to get together for taxes this year are those Home Depot receipts. Do you know where they are?
Me: What? Didn’t we just agree NO talking finances?
Hubby: Yeah, but this is tax related.
Me: Ok, no talking finances or TAXES while lying in bed.

Now, I had a few of those timely conversations with him too. He calls and lets me know he's leaving work to come home and I decide this is the best time to unload the "do you know what happened today?" or "guess what our son did?" Now I don't have time to give him a full story but just enough to raise his blood pressure all the ride home. How helpful!

I’ve also noticed how much time I waste rehearsing, thinking and retelling scenarios in my mind. I play out whole conversations thinking I can predict how the other person will respond.

It's no wonder the Bible tells us to "take every thought captive" 2 Cor. 10:5. So, first we must equip ourselves with God's word and meditate on it. Then we must guard our hearts and minds on what we think and say. And, finally, be intentional about saying things that will build up and give grace.

What better way to head into Thanksgiving than by building others up, saying encouraging words, and giving thanks!

Check out Company Girl Coffee over at Rachel Anne's Home Sanctuary. Have a great weekend!

Week in Review

Hello Company Girls and good afternoon!

We had an early start this morning with Mr. Active waking up at 6 am ready to eat breakfast. He must be going through a growth spurt because he is constantly hungry! I gave him 1/2 pb sandwich to take back to his room while I finished my quiet time. Our new routines have helped out a lot with our early morning risers and reminding them when they can come for breakfast. Today was the first time that he has come out THAT early. I think he was excited to prepare his hair for "whacky hair day" at school. Hopefully I can post pictures later.

The biggest change this week has been establishing our evening routines. I love that God is faithful to answer our prayers and we can have confidence in His watchfulness over our lives. For about 4 months, little Ms. Ready to Go (19 months) has had her own way when it came to bedtime. Whenever I put her in the crib she would say "ssss" for potty. So I would take her out and she would sit, then get up & play and occasionally go. Finally I just let her sit until I finished with the boys and then addressed her issues. But it was getting later each night until it was 9:30 pm and my hubby and I said "this has got to change!" So we have implemented a much more structured evening time infused with grace :) and have seen an amazing difference. She is no longer screaming for 45 min. and goes down within 10 min. by 7:30! Hallelujah! I'm glad that even in the trivial things we serve a BIG God who cares for us!

The other exciting thing happened yesterday and you can read about here. I have not investigated whether the snake is still in the bucket this morning- we will see!

I hope you all have a great weekend. We don't celebrate Halloween but will be joining friends for fun & fellowship at Chuck E Cheese! I don't imagine it will be too busy :)