Joyfully Weary

One of the small delights of a real tree is finding all its pine cones. The boys had a great time collecting them while helping trim our tree. They also made the observation that pine cones are very similar in shape to pine trees which lead to the idea of creating our own little Christmas tree farm. close up of the trees our supplies: small styrofoam tray, pine cones (i sprayed them with primer the night before), tongs, paint brushes, and green paint (with some blue and white thrown in for a quick color mixing lesson) we used the tongs because big buddy prefers to keep his hands clean mini man is fine with messy hands but still gave the tongs a try then he remembered messy hands are what makes painting fun - you can also see that while i almost always make him wear a smock, pants are optional :)  sponge painting the tray   once dry we added the pine cones. some could be pushed through the tray, others required glue  i used the gl...

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is cutting down our own tree. Even before we had children Husbandie and I always made a trip to a local farm.  For us it is what marks the beginning of the Christmas season. Here's some pictures from this year's hunt. armed and ready little lady's not so sure about this  lucky for us a dog convinced her the trip was fun after all   mini man needed no convincing 3 other adults along & they both still insisted I carry them - how are my arms not more toned?  our tree! timber!   big buddy made sure we didn't leave any branches behind next year the tree is all his  our one hiccup of the trip was mini man having a  little accident - he's been doing so well in underwear I keep forgetting when we are out - lucky for him maca was happy to share her scarf We haven't finished adding all our ornaments yet but when we do, I'll be sure to post a picture of the fi...

A weekly reflection inspired in part by Bob Bennett's song "Small Graces". cousins  afternoon naps urgent & successful inventions - breast pump part  as breathing chamber   smitten grandparents cool whip lids apple sangria binkies & cute hats apple toys daddy's girl   black friday finds: pretty bowls for less than  a $1 

One of the Christmas traditions we want to share with our children is an Advent Calendar. We looked at several but didn't find any that were quite right: attractive, inexpensive, and Christ-centered. Finally, we decided to just create our own.  We liked the idea of a Jesse Tree so we started with our favorite children's bible.  Husbandie, who is uber talented, scanned a picture from the first 24 stories (Old Testment and Jesus's birth & baptisim) and created a sheet of "ornaments". *UPDATE* A reader kindly pointed out that we skipped one of the stories, "The Girl Know One Wanted" and instead included two ornaments for "A New Beginning". The mistake has been corrected we have also added numbers to make using the ornaments easier. We have also added a second option. Our family starts with the story The Beginning a Perfect Home and ends with Heaven Breaks Through. We do this because while the The Story and The Song is beautifull...

Several weeks ago in church our pastor shared this verse: "A word fitly spoken i s like apples of gold in a setting of silver"  Proverbs 25:11 Immediately upon hearing it I was convicted and even though I did not set out to memorize it, the words have buried themselves in my heart.  You see, far too frequently I am not cautious with my words.  I'll discipline my children out of frustration and the words I speak are not life-giving or growth-producing but hurtful and distructive. At the end of an exhausting day I'll nitpick and vent my frustrations at my husband even though all he's trying to do is serve me.   This side of me would come as a shock to many of my friends & co-workers who would describe me as slow to speak and careful with my words. That is who I desperately want to be but in the two most important roles of my life (wife & mother) I often find myself failing. The shame and sadness I feel after these moments of verbal vomit are inde...

Last week we read another silly turkey book, Gobble Gobble Crash . There's just something ridiculously funny about turkey's. :) And since we are a little obsessed with handprint crafts (see here & here ) I thought it would be fun to turn the boys' hands into turkeys and then "crash" them into barnyard scenes. Our first step was to build the barnyards.  The boys painted craft sticks white for a fence. When they were dry I trimmed them down, and also cut out barns & trees.  Then we looked closely at some pictures in the book for inspiration and glued all our pieces in to place.  both the boys are becoming a lot neater with glue mini man's gluing still requires sound effects though Once the glue the was dry we painted our hands and covered the barnyard with turkeys. After the turkeys dried we tried drawing on some feet and beaks but the color didn't show up too well.  mini man's  ...