I have way too much to type about tonight, but a person can only type for so long before fingers begin cramping and eyes begin blurring....and my eyes STINK this week anyway so I MUST be short winded if at all possible!
First of all: visit to eye doctor on Friday. A good & bad thing. Good that I finally went....bad that I can still not see far away. SOMEONE HELP ME. Sheesh. Why are there no eye doctors in this family when I need them. Anywho. Hopefully we'll get that worked out and when I go back for my re-check this Friday, I'll leave able to see road signs!
Next: We are having a SUPER wonderful holiday season in our cozy new home this year! Absolutely not taking it for granted that God has blessed us with this perfect home and that while so many people around the world have nothing tonight while it's 20 degrees outside, I have a home, a warm cozy, spirit-filled, Godly home! Thank you God!
Third: Our advent activities are sooo much fun. We are by no means doing organized daily advent ritual time. But I "borrowed" some advent activities from some other moms (see previous posts) and have been using some of those, as well as creating our own! Examples include: polar express & hot chocolate night, root beer float night, making candy cane ornaments, painting our hands red & green & making handprints (the whole family did this, which I decided was a good way to watch how the girls hands grow from year to year), I bought a stamp nativity set and we did that and made a banner in which I should totally post a picture of b/c it's sooo cute, baking, going to the zoo lights in Memphis...the list continues. I also have checked out some awesome books from the library about Christmas & baby Jesus etc. Kennedy absolutely loves to read and sometimes I forget to nurture that. What a blessing to have a 2 1/2 year old who can't read enough books! *Note to self...read more books to Kennedy!!! So yea, we've been having a blast and I really love how involved Chuck is in all of this! He is eating it all up. He is a huge part of this, and without him being on board with all of the activities, it wouldn't be the same.
The best part of what we've been doing is the advent candle lighting stuff. Once again, no hardcore routine service or anything like that going on, but we're doing our best to actually do it with the girls and have all 4 of us involved which is quite the feat. Last Sunday we prayed for Chuck's cousin Robert in Dubai. He's Uncle Robert to Kennedy...and she adores him! We're going to be sending him a package in the mail and praying for him to be safe and not be lonely during Christmas time. Simple enough & very understandable for a 2 year old. We also adopted our nursing home pal for the season ( and probably we will visit her forever if it works out b/c I'm sure we'll fall in love with her :) ) Her name is Rose Ivory and we have not got to visit or meet her yet but we will this week and I cannot wait! We are gonna make her some goodies and go be a little light in her lonely life! Next week we'll be focusing on our Compassion child. His name is Marteny and he is from Haiti. Chuck and I "adopted" him before we were even engaged and have been supporting him I guess for more than 5 years now! Sooo cool!
I wanted to share an AMMMMAZING idea from one of the same gals I mentioned in my last blog. If you like to doing more giving than receiving and are trying to teach your kids to do the same, then check our Amanda's most recent post. Maybe you've read the book The King's Christmas List, if not, I haven't either, and I'm going to do my darndest to get the book and do what she did next year with my little bebes. I just think it is the greatest idea to buy gifts for children in other countries and I know for Chuck & I, that's what we want our kids to think about at Christmas time. What are more ways to give to others?! So check it out at impressyourkids.org.
Besides all of that!! We are still doing our ABC's and for a while, I had posted what we were doing with that. I know it benefits me to see what others are doing (as I always say) so I want to continue to share what we are doing as long as people want to read about it or borrow or store for future use! We are now on letter I. I have a lot of catching up to do, but I promise that my next blog will be catching up with those. However, fun sidenote, I have chosen the word "Inn" to be our special word this week. No room in the inn. Our scripture is Luke 2:7. Lots of more fun things in store as well! Can't wait! Gonna be fun.
Busy week ahead. Lots of parties and programs at our Mother's Day Out this week. I'll tell ya this much, this mama cannot WAIT to hear her little Angel singing Jingle Bells at MDO on Thursday! I may even make myself a t-shirt to wear to rep my girl!
Hope everyone's holidays are going great! Keep Him in mind. Always.
Rach
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
New "Advent"ures of Team Van Hook
Ok...go me. I'm back again. Twice in one day... WOOP! I figured if I didn't go ahead and do this now, then I might not ever get my hands on Chuck's computer again to do it. So love it & read up!
Alright. So. I am so totally going out on a limb with this whole advent thing. I follow a couple of blogs that have been driving me crazy talking about advent this and advent that lately. Confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com and impressyourkids.org are the two main ones that I follow. I'm by no means a stalker, however, when I started working with Kennedy on doing a letter a week, these 2 mamas had some really great ideas that I sometimes use. So the past few days, and especially today, HOORAY FOR DECEMBER day, I've seen a lot of advent talk. So I decided to look into it and see what these chicks were talking about. This is the cool informative website that I found. I thought it was super cool!! I tried to remember ever having seen or done an advent wreath and then I remembered my elementary Sunday School teacher at FCC here in Jackson. Mrs. Bettye Cole! *sigh* I LOVE her! She tried her darndest to teach us young bucks about the Israelites and all their drama, but Lord knows we were much to young for all that! lol. I would get so confused! But I also remember at Christmas time, she always brought in this wreath with purple and pink candles. We had no clue! I knew that candles were cool. (Don't yall remember when candles of all sorts were so uh-mazing! lol. feel free to hate me for that link!!) But anyway. Yea. That was it in the advent world for me.
Well Chuck and I laid in bed last night talking about how we could start a family tradition that would last for years to come. I'm a crafty girl, but I'm not one to go getting fresh new traditions every year if I can have one great one that we all love. So we came up with a game plan. Here's a summary.
We will do the advent wreath. I think it's a super cool visual leading up to the single greatest birthday celebration ever! (sidenote: let your kiddo throw a huge birthday party for Jesus and invite all their friends! How fun is that :) we did it with the youth last year at the Gathering and made it a Birthday Party/Ugly Sweater Party!) We'll light one candle each Sunday leading up to Christmas and then light one on Christmas. Each will have a corresponding theme and scripture, which I got from the above informative website. So that is something that we'll do every year.
Also, on the homeschool lady's blog, she provided a link to upload the ornaments that her family used for their advent calendar. SOOOO cool! Everyone should totally check them out, use some of what she has, or maybe tweak them for your own family. I don't even feel one bit bad about copying her idea and using her stuff....if it ain't broke, don't fix it & don't reinvent the wheel...I love those phrases. So we're going to make those ornaments and hang them up! Kennedy will be so in to that stuff and it's stuff that we all will have fun doing for years to come. So we won't have to change it, unless we want to.
Lastly, my favorite idea and this one I am proud to say is 1/2 way original. Chuck & I think it's SUPER important for the girls to know that it is more important to give than receive. That is a ridiculously hard concept to teach when the world tells you that YOU NEED EVERYTHING! We decided that we would yes do Santa, but Santa will bring 3 main gifts because Jesus got 3 gifts. Those will be things that she will really love. Then we got her a few things for under the tree. Nothing huge by any means. BUT, we're making sure to go all out when it comes to giving. For every candle that we light, (which will end up being 5 including the one we light on Christmas day) we will have a person that we are giving to this year. Ex. our compassion child, the girls' angel tree friends, our nursing home buddy we adopt etc. Is this going to be easy? I DUNNO! Probably not. It's gonna take a special effort and sacrifice. But that's what it's all about. We are going to be praying for each of those special people and talking about how God allows us to give back to others, and how much it means to them. I am excited! I can't wait! As I said in my last blog, I am no perfect holy Mother Theresa type mom. Just a mom who recognizes that it is important to start early instilling Godly traits into my children (and ourselves for that matter!)
Fun story about Kennedy! I went through her room and cleared out a ton of toys that we can give away. She found the bag and said, "Hey these are my toys. I wanna play with them." I said, "No baby. We're gonna give those toys to other kids who don't have as many toys as you and sissy might." "Why?" "Because some people don't have money to have any toys and you have plenty to share. So we are going to give some away." "OH! Like my Veggie Tales movie. He gived things away." ... Little did I know, the previous night she had watched her new Saint Nicholas Veggie Tale movie in which the little boy gives all of his fish away. HELLO! She soo gets it! She's only 2! What a simple, pure, beautiful faith! So I know it's not too early, and I pray that as she gets older and all her friends talk about the ridiculously insane presents they got for Christmas, Kennedy can maybe share how her family got to give the gift of love. Christ's love. And maybe the light of Jesus in her life will shine brightly into the lives of all those around her!
I know I love to hear what other people are doing during the season. I love to talk about Christmas traditions with other families! I think it's soo cool to see how everyone celebrates Jesus' birthday :) So I thought maybe someone might like to see how we are going to start celebrating. PLLLEASE feel free to leave comments on here or facebook of favorite traditions.
A Beginner~
Rach
Alright. So. I am so totally going out on a limb with this whole advent thing. I follow a couple of blogs that have been driving me crazy talking about advent this and advent that lately. Confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com and impressyourkids.org are the two main ones that I follow. I'm by no means a stalker, however, when I started working with Kennedy on doing a letter a week, these 2 mamas had some really great ideas that I sometimes use. So the past few days, and especially today, HOORAY FOR DECEMBER day, I've seen a lot of advent talk. So I decided to look into it and see what these chicks were talking about. This is the cool informative website that I found. I thought it was super cool!! I tried to remember ever having seen or done an advent wreath and then I remembered my elementary Sunday School teacher at FCC here in Jackson. Mrs. Bettye Cole! *sigh* I LOVE her! She tried her darndest to teach us young bucks about the Israelites and all their drama, but Lord knows we were much to young for all that! lol. I would get so confused! But I also remember at Christmas time, she always brought in this wreath with purple and pink candles. We had no clue! I knew that candles were cool. (Don't yall remember when candles of all sorts were so uh-mazing! lol. feel free to hate me for that link!!) But anyway. Yea. That was it in the advent world for me.
Well Chuck and I laid in bed last night talking about how we could start a family tradition that would last for years to come. I'm a crafty girl, but I'm not one to go getting fresh new traditions every year if I can have one great one that we all love. So we came up with a game plan. Here's a summary.
We will do the advent wreath. I think it's a super cool visual leading up to the single greatest birthday celebration ever! (sidenote: let your kiddo throw a huge birthday party for Jesus and invite all their friends! How fun is that :) we did it with the youth last year at the Gathering and made it a Birthday Party/Ugly Sweater Party!) We'll light one candle each Sunday leading up to Christmas and then light one on Christmas. Each will have a corresponding theme and scripture, which I got from the above informative website. So that is something that we'll do every year.
Also, on the homeschool lady's blog, she provided a link to upload the ornaments that her family used for their advent calendar. SOOOO cool! Everyone should totally check them out, use some of what she has, or maybe tweak them for your own family. I don't even feel one bit bad about copying her idea and using her stuff....if it ain't broke, don't fix it & don't reinvent the wheel...I love those phrases. So we're going to make those ornaments and hang them up! Kennedy will be so in to that stuff and it's stuff that we all will have fun doing for years to come. So we won't have to change it, unless we want to.
Lastly, my favorite idea and this one I am proud to say is 1/2 way original. Chuck & I think it's SUPER important for the girls to know that it is more important to give than receive. That is a ridiculously hard concept to teach when the world tells you that YOU NEED EVERYTHING! We decided that we would yes do Santa, but Santa will bring 3 main gifts because Jesus got 3 gifts. Those will be things that she will really love. Then we got her a few things for under the tree. Nothing huge by any means. BUT, we're making sure to go all out when it comes to giving. For every candle that we light, (which will end up being 5 including the one we light on Christmas day) we will have a person that we are giving to this year. Ex. our compassion child, the girls' angel tree friends, our nursing home buddy we adopt etc. Is this going to be easy? I DUNNO! Probably not. It's gonna take a special effort and sacrifice. But that's what it's all about. We are going to be praying for each of those special people and talking about how God allows us to give back to others, and how much it means to them. I am excited! I can't wait! As I said in my last blog, I am no perfect holy Mother Theresa type mom. Just a mom who recognizes that it is important to start early instilling Godly traits into my children (and ourselves for that matter!)
Fun story about Kennedy! I went through her room and cleared out a ton of toys that we can give away. She found the bag and said, "Hey these are my toys. I wanna play with them." I said, "No baby. We're gonna give those toys to other kids who don't have as many toys as you and sissy might." "Why?" "Because some people don't have money to have any toys and you have plenty to share. So we are going to give some away." "OH! Like my Veggie Tales movie. He gived things away." ... Little did I know, the previous night she had watched her new Saint Nicholas Veggie Tale movie in which the little boy gives all of his fish away. HELLO! She soo gets it! She's only 2! What a simple, pure, beautiful faith! So I know it's not too early, and I pray that as she gets older and all her friends talk about the ridiculously insane presents they got for Christmas, Kennedy can maybe share how her family got to give the gift of love. Christ's love. And maybe the light of Jesus in her life will shine brightly into the lives of all those around her!
I know I love to hear what other people are doing during the season. I love to talk about Christmas traditions with other families! I think it's soo cool to see how everyone celebrates Jesus' birthday :) So I thought maybe someone might like to see how we are going to start celebrating. PLLLEASE feel free to leave comments on here or facebook of favorite traditions.
A Beginner~
Rach
Lifelong Learner for Life!
YAY! I haven't had the chance to blog in sooo long and I am so excited to get to again. As usual, I have quite a bit to say...surprise! lol. So I will get started.
First of all, Team Van Hook enjoyed a FABULOUS 12 hour long road trip to and from Chuck's hometown of Fayetteville, NC. Muchas gracias to his wonderful family. Everything was perfect, and my butt thanks you tremendously for all of the food spoiling you gave us ;) No really, we had such a good time, and the road tripping with the littles honestly wasn't terrible. (The new car seat that we got JulieAnne saved us...for REAL! She loved it!)
Next order of business...God has been revealing some awesome AWESOME things lately to me...I'd like to share.
1) Paul! Cool dude. As I've been reading through his books of the Bible, I have realized how important it is for us to know Paul. The main reason is this. His credentials. If anyone knows about Paul, which to be quite frank, I never really cared about who Paul was as an individual, I just knew his stuff in the Word was good. However, I believe that Paul made it to the "Bigs" in the Bible for a specific reason. I never realized that Paul was like Jew of all Jews. Like the main Christian persecutor EVER. Like gangsta thug nasty Jew man. Ok... I think you get my drift. So yea, God chose Paul, specifically so that people in the future (like us crazy folks today) could be confident that if God would CHOOSE Paul for such a huge ministry and purpose...then He can, will and DOES choose us as well. NO MATTER WHAT. Murderer, crack addict, prostitute, Christian hater, bible burner....WHATEVER YOU ARE....GOD LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, AND HE WANTS YOU! Yup. It's kind of one of those aha or duh moments. Anyway. Just cool watching how God used Paul so greatly....which leads to numero dos.
2) The whole Jewish thing. I won't get too much into this. However, I have learned a lot through my Journey in the word about God's people. Jews & Gentiles. Law vs freedom. etc... As Paul was instructing the people to recognize that they don't have to live by the Old Testament laws anymore, because Jesus came as the ultimate sacrifice to free us... my eyes were opened to some things that I guess if I would've paid more attention at Johnson (ug I hate myself seriously for not) then I would have already known. But anyway, reading through Galatians I turned to Chuck and said "Why don't these people get it babe? What did they not understand about Jesus coming to give us freedom from the law? How could they not have known it was the real Messiah?" and the questions continued for oh about 10 minutes...lol. Finally, I shut myself up with another aha moment. I thought back to the beginning...in Exodus when the Moses brought down the 10 Commandments. When he came down to share the laws that God had given him, the people were going buck stinkin wild down there. Worshiping idols and all sorts of junk. That's when it all began. They were hard-headed and stubborn from that moment on. So my realization was that is how it's supposed to be! The answer to my questions was because God said so!! lol. Until Jesus returns for all His believers, will they "get it!" Well...I'm sure there's a TON more to it then that...but for me... it was a bunch of new cool thoughts that I thought I could share on here. I love learning. Period.
3) Be like Jesus. This idea has been confirmed multiple times lately. A very simple and wonderful though. Especially at this time of year. But in all situations lately, instead of responding the way Rachel wants to respond I think the old school phrase WWJD. For Christmas, I really REALLY REAALLLY want one of those bracelets that I used to rock back in Middle School for me, Chuck and Kennedy even. I firmly believe that if in all things we simply attempt to be like Christ then a whole lotta problems would fix themselves! How would Jesus parent? What kind of spouse would Jesus be? Wouldn't Jesus make it more important to give than receive at Christmas time? :/ What kind of friend would He be? Would He care how clean His house was? How much money He made? ... and so on. Just some stuff to chew on this holiday season!! Some stuff I'm really searching my soul about lately!
ok...well! I have a WHOLE nother blog to do SOON about how our family is going to do an advent wreath/calendar with a twist this year. Guess I'll hafta save that one for hopefully tomorrow...or if I'm lucky after this crazy youth hang out night, I can crank that one out tonight. By the way...side-note...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't think I write all this stuff on here to be "holier than thou" or "better" or anything like that. I am not. I am sooo imperfect it's not EVEN funny! But, I know that I am encouraged when other people share, and I myself am encouraged when God shares with me, so I just want to give back and share with whoever reads this. AND...if no one reads it, I still feel better just having got it all off my chest :)
Stay tuned for my next post which I will so cleverly entitle "Advent"ures :)
Pray for us....it's crazy youth night (how bout we already have 14 kids on our youth group...Praise the Lord!)
Peace In the Middle East
~Rach
First of all, Team Van Hook enjoyed a FABULOUS 12 hour long road trip to and from Chuck's hometown of Fayetteville, NC. Muchas gracias to his wonderful family. Everything was perfect, and my butt thanks you tremendously for all of the food spoiling you gave us ;) No really, we had such a good time, and the road tripping with the littles honestly wasn't terrible. (The new car seat that we got JulieAnne saved us...for REAL! She loved it!)
Next order of business...God has been revealing some awesome AWESOME things lately to me...I'd like to share.
1) Paul! Cool dude. As I've been reading through his books of the Bible, I have realized how important it is for us to know Paul. The main reason is this. His credentials. If anyone knows about Paul, which to be quite frank, I never really cared about who Paul was as an individual, I just knew his stuff in the Word was good. However, I believe that Paul made it to the "Bigs" in the Bible for a specific reason. I never realized that Paul was like Jew of all Jews. Like the main Christian persecutor EVER. Like gangsta thug nasty Jew man. Ok... I think you get my drift. So yea, God chose Paul, specifically so that people in the future (like us crazy folks today) could be confident that if God would CHOOSE Paul for such a huge ministry and purpose...then He can, will and DOES choose us as well. NO MATTER WHAT. Murderer, crack addict, prostitute, Christian hater, bible burner....WHATEVER YOU ARE....GOD LOVES YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, AND HE WANTS YOU! Yup. It's kind of one of those aha or duh moments. Anyway. Just cool watching how God used Paul so greatly....which leads to numero dos.
2) The whole Jewish thing. I won't get too much into this. However, I have learned a lot through my Journey in the word about God's people. Jews & Gentiles. Law vs freedom. etc... As Paul was instructing the people to recognize that they don't have to live by the Old Testament laws anymore, because Jesus came as the ultimate sacrifice to free us... my eyes were opened to some things that I guess if I would've paid more attention at Johnson (ug I hate myself seriously for not) then I would have already known. But anyway, reading through Galatians I turned to Chuck and said "Why don't these people get it babe? What did they not understand about Jesus coming to give us freedom from the law? How could they not have known it was the real Messiah?" and the questions continued for oh about 10 minutes...lol. Finally, I shut myself up with another aha moment. I thought back to the beginning...in Exodus when the Moses brought down the 10 Commandments. When he came down to share the laws that God had given him, the people were going buck stinkin wild down there. Worshiping idols and all sorts of junk. That's when it all began. They were hard-headed and stubborn from that moment on. So my realization was that is how it's supposed to be! The answer to my questions was because God said so!! lol. Until Jesus returns for all His believers, will they "get it!" Well...I'm sure there's a TON more to it then that...but for me... it was a bunch of new cool thoughts that I thought I could share on here. I love learning. Period.
3) Be like Jesus. This idea has been confirmed multiple times lately. A very simple and wonderful though. Especially at this time of year. But in all situations lately, instead of responding the way Rachel wants to respond I think the old school phrase WWJD. For Christmas, I really REALLY REAALLLY want one of those bracelets that I used to rock back in Middle School for me, Chuck and Kennedy even. I firmly believe that if in all things we simply attempt to be like Christ then a whole lotta problems would fix themselves! How would Jesus parent? What kind of spouse would Jesus be? Wouldn't Jesus make it more important to give than receive at Christmas time? :/ What kind of friend would He be? Would He care how clean His house was? How much money He made? ... and so on. Just some stuff to chew on this holiday season!! Some stuff I'm really searching my soul about lately!
ok...well! I have a WHOLE nother blog to do SOON about how our family is going to do an advent wreath/calendar with a twist this year. Guess I'll hafta save that one for hopefully tomorrow...or if I'm lucky after this crazy youth hang out night, I can crank that one out tonight. By the way...side-note...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't think I write all this stuff on here to be "holier than thou" or "better" or anything like that. I am not. I am sooo imperfect it's not EVEN funny! But, I know that I am encouraged when other people share, and I myself am encouraged when God shares with me, so I just want to give back and share with whoever reads this. AND...if no one reads it, I still feel better just having got it all off my chest :)
Stay tuned for my next post which I will so cleverly entitle "Advent"ures :)
Pray for us....it's crazy youth night (how bout we already have 14 kids on our youth group...Praise the Lord!)
Peace In the Middle East
~Rach
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)