This December has been filled with a lot of things.
A lot of questions. A lot of doubts. A lot of seeking the Lord and in His faithfulness, a lot of finding Him in all of it.

I’ve been reminded of the truth of this passage:
“If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:13

Unfortunately for me, this wholehearted seeking tends to be because I’ve hit the end of myself. I have tried and tried again to do all the things in my own strength and wisdom, and have come up short.
Energy expended, I fall at His feet, again, and He consistently and gently lifts my head.

So this December has been a lot of laying things down.
Over and over again. Because it takes a while to break a well-ingrained habit of doing.

When the knee-jerk reaction hits to grab my agenda – my plan – my wisdom and apply it to ________, the Holy Spirit is faithful to remind me that He’s got this.
I don’t need to do anything, but surrender. I don’t need to do anything, but nothing.

Who would have thought doing nothing would be so hard??!!

But I have found that it’s in the repeated and habitual surrender that new life can spring forth.

New inspiration. New joy.
Joy.

I didn’t realize how much I had missed it, how much I needed it, until He restored my joy.

He was faithful to respond to His Word:

So when my daughter came home from church singing a new song she learned, it was so fitting. It has captured what the Lord has been doing in our household this December, and it was such a poignant reminder of what He has done for all of creation over 2,000 years ago when He brought His joy into the World.

And hidden in this video and all it’s sweetness is how the Lord has been moving on our behalf – inspite of myself most days – in honoring a prayer that Jordan and I have been praying. We had desired and asked that the Lord would give our kids a special relationship, a close-knit bond as they experience these years in such tight quarters at home, schooling and doing all the things together. I love how the Lord reveals His work just when you need the reassurance.

I hope that you had a blessed Christmas season, filled with sweet and full moments of God’s love and peace and amazing grace. Because He is faithful to reveal Himself when we will ask.

As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.
Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.

 

 

This December our family is taking a break from school as we reassess how things have been going this past year and prayerfully approach 2016.  But it’s been nice to focus and enjoy our Advent season, anticipating Christ’s ultimate return and also His movement in our lives now.

It has been great to be able to pull out some stand-alone activities that we can pull out when we run across windows of time when the kid want to do something productive with their hands.

This past week, we pulled out a couple of previous month’s More Math and Literacy workbooks, just for a fun activity that would also help us to retain some of the information we’ve been learning over the past couple of months. And it was so exciting to see that Peter has really turned a corner developmentally. In the past, these workbooks have been something I’ve used solely with Natalie, since they are geared to help bridge PK kids to Kindergarten. Peter has enjoyed looking at the pictures, but I’ve reserved them for her use. But today he was a lot more interested in what she was doing and so we did a few of the exercises together while Natalie finished some of hers. It was so neat to be able to recognize how he is growing and just how incredible that see the difference in his interest-level (much like we’ve seen a change in his new found interest in coloring, whereas a few scribbles used to be perfectly fine for him and nothing else was needed).

Peterman identifying the numbers on the clouds.

The activity called for Peter to add the corresponding amount of raindrops under each cloud, so we just focused on the number four.

Peter doing a little bit of the color by letter activity while Natalie is busy cutting away at some rakes, so she can them compare their sizes.

These workbooks have always been a huge hit and a personal favorite of mine. I definitely recommend them, even for the youngers.

As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.
Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.

We’ve had some fun getting into this month’s special Christmas activity pack. We spent a whole morning exploring some of the crafts and games that were included, and it was fun to see the kids’ creativity come out. The first was a number game where we had Santa’s beard, some cotton balls, some numbered stockings, and an angry elf (who Natalie named “The Evil Boo-ba”). The object of the game was to pull stockings randomly from my hand and place a cottonball on the matching number on Santa’s beard. However, if you drew “The Evil Bee-ba”, you had to take away three of the cottonballs.

Santa and his beard


Numbered stockings

The Evil Boo-ba (dun dun dunnnnnn)

I appreciated that this game was more of a cooperative activity, with both kids trying to meet the goal together. Overall, a successful fun activity that helped reintroduce some larger numbers for Peter (11-16), and gave Natalie a chance to help encourage Peter along.

The next activity was reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas with some fun paper cut-outs. Although we’ve chosen as a family not to do the whole Santa thing ourselves, we still approach it just like any other fairytale with our kids and encourage them to enjoy the stories while acknowledging that it’s make-believe. Natalie stayed in the kitchen while I read this, while Peter took the opportunity to get into trouble in the livingroom while Mommy was otherwise occupied.

Natalie’s design

Next came the fun Santa spoons! They have since put them in their school draws and pull them out occasionally to play with them.

Peter went for the concave design, gluing the eyes to the inside of the spoon. I personally like Santa’s wind-blown beard look.

Natalie went for the concave approach, putting the face on the back of the spoon. Her beard was a little more subtle, and I think her hat turned out more like the Pope’s than Santa, although hard to tell by this picture.

The finished masterpieces

These activities were so fun that they kept the kids’ attention, so we were able to fit in quite a bit this one morning. Next came the snowman. The original design called for shaving cream, but I decided to go in a more edible direction.

I was surprised at how well Peter kept with the design and really followed through with precision. He normally likes to do things his own way (well, really both of them do), but I saw a jump in his abilities this morning with how carefully he was placing the marshmallows. It was encouraging to recognize the change in developement, and I was reminded that my baby is going to be 3 in March. Craziness.

Of course we had to partake of the supplies mid-craft. It was a must.

Natalie’s snowman is the one on the left. I helped with her arms, hat, and nose, but she completed the rest on her own, including the gluing. Peter’s is on the right. I did stifle his creative expression a little by encouraging the placement of the nose to actually be on the face (I regret that now, as an abdomen nose would have been perfectly fine). He was able to glue the arms and buttons on, although the buttons were a little tricky and wanted to stay on his fingers more so than the snowman.

And last came the playdoh trees, as I knew that all bets would be off on continuing any more organized activities after the playdoh was introduced.

Peter’s decorated tree (one and done)

Natalie’s Christmas tree farm (I think she would have continued if she had been given more green playdoh.)

Lots of Christmas fun with Mother Goose Time this month!

As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.
Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.