Mud Kitchen Birthday Party!

We went to the Asheboro Zoo this summer and my daughter loved playing in their very fun mud kitchen.  As my husband watched her play, he told me he had a great idea for her birthday this year...he would build her a mud kitchen at home!  We kept it a secret, and my husband built it while Sarah and I were away for the day shopping for school supplies.  When we got home, she was very surprised to find a mud kitchen in her backyard - just in time for her birthday party!

Celebrating Advent 2015

Advent is a special time for us to reflect upon the coming of our Lord and Savior to this broken world and taking broken us, and giving us new life in Him.  What a concept...it takes 25 days to ponder, for sure.

Bless a Homeschooler Giveaway - Dear Classical Mom

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Mother's Day is right around the corner and I've gotten together with a group of bloggers to bring you a giveaway and blog hop that we are hoping will bless your socks off!

We not only hope to bless several moms with some pretty awesome giveaway prizes, but we also hope to bless many more moms through the Letters to Moms Blog Hop (that you can find at the end of this post), where each participating blogger is writing a 'Dear Mom' letter.  These letters will be anything from a letter to our own moms, a letter to ourselves, a letter to a mother figure, or a generalized letter to a group of moms, such as weary moms, hopeless moms, expecting moms, single moms....... Maybe one of these letters will speak to you!

So please, hop around to the many other bloggers below, and of course enter to win the giveaway too - there will be 4 winners with the total prize value over $1000!

 

Blessing Friends for Easter!

Each year we try to come up with something to do that is special for Easter.  We did a hands on devotion last year, and a meaningful project the year before, so it was a year to bless someone.   This year we decided to "egg" friends with blessings for Easter.  So here's what we did, and there's still time for you to do it too!

Pi Day Celebration!

For us, celebrating Pi Day was started three years ago by happenstance.  I heard on the radio that Pi day was being celebrated by a local restaurant, offering slices of pie for $3.14 that day…mentioning it to my WW Moms, two of us ended up going and we've celebrated each year since.  This year was a special Pi Day - it won't come again for 100 years!  So we did a party this time, and it was lots of fun.  

Christmas Season Recap!

Merry Christmas!  December ran away with me.  How about you?  I almost can't believe it's gone in a few more days, along with this 2014 year!  Here is a recap of what we were consumed with this Christmas Season...

Christmas Party -Wonderful Wednesday 2014

The month of December is a busy month!  It's so hard to fit everything in you want to.  Thankfully, we were able to get together for a small celebration of God's goodness in putting together this group of women and children, that we call Wonderful Wednesdays!  My daughter has been in the middle of long and late night rehearsals for a Christmas fundraiser play and I've been helping with costuming for it, so I didn't get too elaborate this year.  However, we did eat a yummy breakfast together, do some fun games and make a neat little craft.  

10 Easy Kids Christmas Crafts! PLUS Huge Giveaway!!!

It's already that time of the year!  Hard to believe but it's true!  I am excited to be part of another fantastic giveaway - this time for the coming Holidays!  There are two prizes and 2 winners!  So don't forget to sign up at the bottom of this post!  There are also a lot of great gift ideas from a bunch of creative bloggers - so check out the link up below as well!

I always love making Christmas crafts with kids.  So I thought I would share my top ten easy crafts we made during Advent last year.  These are simple for kids to make and a great way to kick off the season!

Reformation Day!

Repost:  For those wanting to celebrate Martin Luther's Reformation Day...here is a blog post blast from the past!  

I decided the day before Halloween that I didn't really want that to be the focus of our October 31st this year.  While you all KNOW I love to have kids dress up and enjoy that aspect of childhood (and occasional adulthood too) - I wanted to "shift" the focus a little bit while still allowing dress up and fun to ensue!  So....I decided to invite just a few kids over to dress up and learn with us about the Reformation and life of Martin Luther the Reformer!

So we were able to pull out two Martin Luther's and a Pope Leo X!  That works....I thought!

Cowgirl Hoedown Birthday Party!

My daughter turned 10 this past week!  We had a good time planning her birthday party together.  It's so much fun to put our creative juices together and sew what we can bring to life.  She decided she wanted a cowgirl hoedown, so here is what we ended up doing...

Making Mops Into Stick Horses

I haven't posted for a week because we have been on break from school and I have been busy planning my daughter's 10th birthday party.  She asked me to give her a cowgirl hoedown themed party.  She is creative and had visions of what this party would entail and the first thing in her vision was a stick horse for each guest!  Speaking of horses....whoa horsey!!!!......make 9 stick horses or worse yet, spend the money to buy 9 stick horses?  I don't think so!  So....I had to get creative to make it fit within the budget, fulfill this kiddo's birthday vision and pull it together within a matter of a few weeks.  What I ended up doing took about 20 minutes per horse to make and cost me less than $4.50 a horse - total!   Here's what I did...

Blessings and Struggles of Being a "Special Needs" Mom

On Mother's Day, I reflected on the blessings of being a Mom.  I can see so many blessings that have been added to my life since I first became a Mom.  I think of all the "special" Moms out there that have extraordinary tasks on their to do list each day because they are the Mom to a child with special needs.  I hope those Moms who have special needs children, had an extra special Mother's Day!    

Creating an Eye to See Him - Bunny Discovery!

Spring is here!  I think it's official now; as the calendar's first day of spring has passed, the trees have begun to bud, not to mention the dogwood and cherry trees already in full bloom.  We had our first sighting of all things spring on Saturday...baby bunnies!  While cleaning out the garden and getting it ready for planting, four precious baby cotton tail bunnies were found among last year's overgrowth.  They jumped out as the hoeing began and gave this young gentleman helping us, a good startle!

The girls were quick to run over and want to hold them and relocate them to safe territory away from the previous weed garden!  We couldn't find the "momma" rabbit, but reassured the girls, that she would find her babies in their new safe location.

Christmas Day - 2013!!!

From my family to each of yours!  Have a blessed and very WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY - Christmas!

Advent Day 24 - The Arrival Draws Near!

Advent Day 24 - The Arrival Draws Near!

We have spent our past 24 days preparing: Jesus tree trimming, Jesse tree hanging, advent candle lighting, devotion reading, gift making, card sending, gift wrapping, Christmas crafting, party throwing, cookie baking, attending Christmas plays, the Nutcracker (my daughter's first) and now it's here...it's finally here!  All those activities, all those days of preparation; not because He needed time to prepare, but because we needed time to BE prepared.

This Month of preparation has been good.  Our hearts needed pricking, our minds needed focusing, our thoughts needed quieting, our lives needed stilling...then we were ready to see, to really receive in fullness; the Miracle wrapped in human skin -frail and breakable -yet lying in that manger, King above All, Mighty in Power - this dichotomy of God and human - this amazing Gift.  

It is my prayer that each of you are blessed to spend this Christmas Eve in final preparation - singing hymns, sharing the Story of Christmas, rejoicing in God's provisions, God's faithfulness, God's infinite love.  Enjoying family traditions, Church services and the blessing of family and friends.

Our advent for Christmas day is almost done, but our advent continues...

                               we are "advent people" as Ann Voskamp would say.

Advent Day 23 - Wonderful Wednesday Style Christmas Party!

Advent Day 23 - Wonderful Wednesday Style Christmas Party!

This was a day for me to bless our friends who participate with Wonderful Wednesday and those friends who we started the CC journey with 4 years ago!  I planned to take the crafts we have been doing for Advent and share those with them as well as a meal and some fun games!  So the crafts we did were the El Greco Snowman, Mirror Image Trees and Recycled Magazine Wreaths!  They all did great!  Each one came out beautiful!

 First we set our table and got ready for our guests to arrive.  We kept it simple today - I love snowmen - can you tell?  =)

Advent Day 22 - GIVEAWAY!! Beyond Numbers Book by Katherine Loop!

Advent Day 22 - GIVEAWAY!!! Beyond Numbers Book by Katherine Loop!

Advent Day 21 - Fine Arts Review - Christmas Trees - Mirror Images

Fine Arts Review - Christmas Trees - Mirror Images

Another fun and easy review for CC fine arts is to make mirrored images of Christmas Trees.  It's simple and fun!  

Supplies You Need:

• White Construction Paper
• Green Construction Paper
• Draw or Print a Christmas Tree Outline (Click Here to Have Printable)
• Pencil
• Glue

First take your green construction paper and cut it into strips wide enough to trace 1/2 of your Christmas Tree outline onto it.  Then trace and cut them out.  You can do bigger & smaller or just one big tree - however their imagination sees it.  Make sure when they are tracing it they use the long straight half of the image to be the edge of the green construction paper - like below...

 Then cut out the traced image of the tree.

 Next have them glue onto the white construction paper one of the cut out strips and then flip the Christmas tree half over and glue it beside - like below...

 When they are done, they should have mirror imaged Christmas Trees!

This is a great time to talk about how we are created in the "image" of Christ and we should mirror Him in all we say and do.  

Happy Advent Day 21!  Make it a blessed day!

Advent Day 20 - Recycled Magazine Wreath

Advent Day 20 - Recycled Magazine Wreath

Another Advent craft we did this week was to make a christmas wreath out of old magazine pages.  It's very easy and fun for kids!  It's also teaching them that recycling (or upcycling as it would technically be) is fun and can be become beautiful art.  It's also good for the environment!

A great talking point as you make this wreath with your child(ren) is to talk about how God "upcycles" each of us into a new creation in Christ.  Just like the magazine pages that become a beautiful wreath -we become more useable and beautiful then our original form without Christ, as well!

Supplies Needed:

• Old magazines (more colorful magazines are prettiest - ones with colorful ads work well)
• Paper plate
• Hot glue gun
• Picks from dollar store or craft store for center
• Twine (optional - to hang)

Advent Day 19 - El Greco Snowman - Cycle 1 Flashback

Advent Day 19 - El Greco Snowman - Cycle 1 Flashback

Another advent activity we worked on was to make a snowman - but not just any snowman - an El Greco snowman!  It is super easy and a great review of a Cycle 1 Great Artists.