growing & learning with him
I really look forward to getting Christmas cards every year. Some come from people I haven’t heard from all year.
The photo cards display how much friends’ and family’s children have grown, the vacations they have taken, and their wonderful homes.
Other cards contain updates on what they have been doing or changes in their lives.
These wonderful cards share give me something else too. They give me the opportunity to know how to pray for these special people along with the reminder to pray for them.
At our house, we put Christmas cards in a basket that we keep in the kitchen. From time to time we reach in, take out a card, and pray for its sender during our dinnertime prayer.
Here are some of the cards we received and prayers I have for their senders:
This card came from my one paternal uncle. He lives overseas. I last saw him at my wedding five years ago.
My prayer for him is safety abroad and good health. ( I have other prayers for him too!)
This lovely card came from a friend in Northern Virginia.
My prayer for her is that she would finally get to get married. She has been praying for a long time to have a family or at least a spouse of her own. If that isn’t God’s plan, I pray that she will find contentment in her singleness.
This beautiful card with an amazing creche came from a dear friend and her husband. She lost her mom this year. She wrote in her card about all the amazing support she has received this fall.
My prayer is that she will find peace and comfort in this difficult time. I also lift up praise that she is surrounded by amazing people who love her.
This last card came from my former pew buddy. Before I got married I sat with two widowers at church. I had grown tired of sitting with the singles after a while and sat with a lovely older couple. When the wife passed away, I ended up sitting with the husband and another widower. They were my Sunday pew buddies. One of them still sends me a card every year.
My prayer for Walt is for good health (He isn’t doing well at all.) and safe travel home from his winter stay in Florida.
I hope you will take a moment today to pause and pray for the people that send you cards this year.
Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie into children’s books.
I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.
Steps:
My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:
I love both of the books from Tiger Tales books. Veronica Vasylenko has beautifully illustrated both books based on Christmas songs with pictures that jump off the page. The books have glitter and raised pictures that really make the pictures pop.
In Jingle Bells, a mouse family is traveling to see their grandparents; in Deck the Halls, the grandparents are traveling to see them.
JDaniel loved it when I read and then sang the books. After a while, he started singing too.
What did we do?
I took the book Jingle Bells to JDaniel’s preschool classes’ Christmas party to read. When we were finished we did a craft and I planned a game to play.
Craft
I passed out foam bells and foam stickers and the class decorated them. I got the bells and stickers at Dollar Tree. The whole craft was $3.
Game
We ran out of time to play the game, but I wanted to share it with you anyway.
Jingle Bell Pass
Supplies:
Two Christmas stockings
Two jingle bells
Directions:
1. Have the class sit in a circle.
2. Put a bell in each stocking.
3. Have the students pass the stockings around the circle while singing “Jingle Bells”.
4. When the song ends the two children holding the stockings, get a prize.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until many or all of the children get a prize.
Disclaimer: I was sent Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls by Tiger Tales Books to review. All opinions are my own.
I had it in my head that this week’s Muffin Tin Meal needed to be a manger scene. It was hard to wrap my brain around how to make it happen. Some weeks it is really easy to put together lunch.
If you like this manger lunch, here are some other food creations we have had at my house.
Apple Chicken Salad Bento Lunch
Minion Lunch with Blueberry Overalls
When I was little, there was a lot of joy when Sears Wishbook would arrive at our house.
My sisters and I had to take turns looking through the toy section. It filled many hours of our time. Every toy we could possibly think of was in it.
I think we were patient while the other two looked through it. It must have been hard though.
My mom would let us pick one toy out of the section to get for Christmas. We usually got a couple of other things too, but the toy from the Wishbook was the “big gift”.
Choosing a big gift was a huge decision! If you made the wrong choice, you ended up with a dud gift while the others enjoyed theirs.
JDaniel spent hours looking through catalogs and Sunday paper ads to create his wishlist.
I know he is getting some of the things on his wishlist. I am hoping and praying that many other children do too.
How this link up works:
There are so many in need during this Christmas season. I am hoping you will join me in giving to others in your community or beyond this holiday season.
Each week I will feature a way my family is giving to our community during the month of December. I am hoping each of you will take the time to not only give to your community but to write a blog post about it. If you do, I would love for you to link it up below and include a link to this post or this badge.
My posts will go on Sundays, but feel free to share your giving post any day of the week that works for you. The link-up will be available during the rest of the month of December and will appear on every Giving Others Christmas post.
What did we do?
We took some toys to the Toys for Tots bin at our local Big Lots. I really love the organization and it was on my way to JDaniel’s preschool.
Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.
Steps:
I am featuring two very special Christmas books this week about Christmas trees. I love them both.
The first is called The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown. It is an amazingly moving book about a tree that is dug up every winter just in time for Christmas to be taken to a little boy who is bedridden. When Christmas is over he is returned to the woods to grow and wait.
The tree looks forward to making this special trip be part of the celebration while the seasons come and go.
One year the man doesn’t come and the tree starts to worry and dislike the now frozen world around him. As Christmas nears the man comes with the whole family including the little boy walking on his own.
The tree gets to celebrate Christmas in his home this year bedecked with berries, apples, and cookies!
The second book is called Night Tree by Eve Bunting. One Christmas Eve as a family sets out into the woods to find a tree.
When they find the perfect tree, they decorate it with popcorn, apples, sunflower seed balls, and tangerines for the animals that live in the woods to feast on. They spread breadcrumbs beneath the tree as well as nuts and apples.
After the decorating is done the family spreads out a blanket and sings songs while sipping on hot chocolate.
When they finish, they pack up their things and leave the tree for the animals to enjoy!
Both of these books have wonderful illustrations and messages. I hope you get the opportunity to read them both during the Christmas season.
What did we do?
Decorated a JDaniel’s Tree
When JDaniel was six months, old my husband planted a tree for him. It is still small and so it is easy for JDaniel to help decorate.
I strung together a cranberry garland for his tree and JDaniel created decorated pinecones with peanut butter and bird seeds.
This post is linked to Feed Me Books Friday, Link and Learn, Let’s BEE Friends, La La Home Daycare and It’s Playtime.
This is the first year we have done a full-size tree for Christmas. In previous years we have done small tabletop trees that JDaniel couldn’t topple. I wrote about last year’s tree in a post called Maybe This Tree Will Grow Next Year.
JDaniel was super excited about selecting a tree. We visited several stores to find just the right one. He lobbied hard for a bright blue tree, but we ended up settling on a traditional green one.
After setting up the tree, we hung up some of our non-breakable ornaments along with the ones we have made while doing the Truth in the Tinsel curriculum and some homemade ornaments.
The tree was missing something. It needed something on top of the tree. We hadn’t looked for a star, dove, or angel while looking for the tree so, we had to head out again to find a tree topper.
JDaniel fell hard for a multicolored star that lit up and since I hadn’t given on the blue tree. I went with the star he picked out. When we brought it home and tried it on the tree, the top of the tree began to lean toward the floor and the star decided to not stay stationary on top of the tree.
JDaniel was so disappointed. He really loved the star, but it had to go back in the box.
I decided to create a game out of our star search by having him search for things around the house we could use on top of the tree. It was raining that afternoon and cold I really didn’t want to head out and start the tree topper search again.
He came back within ten minutes with a box loaded with things for us to try.
We tried:
What is on top of your tree?
