(And All My) Work Be Praise

Or, what happens when the eleven-days-past-due-date coincide with the two-weeks-of-Christmas-goodies gluttony. Monday, January 6, 5:15am. Eleven days past due date. I wake up to go to the bathroom like I do every morning about this time, only this time, when I lay back down, it finally happens: a contraction . Now, I've been having contractions on and off for about three days, but not of the sort that gets anyone excited about labor actually starting any time soon. Fact is, I've almost reached the point where I seriously doubt I will ever give birth to this baby. But the contractions continue, and they actually hurt a little!, and within an hour they've moved from 10 minutes apart to 4-5 minutes apart. Progress! Hooray! The necessary people are called (Grace, my midwife, and Melanie, her assistant, to start over, and Isaac's mom, to come get the three older boys), the birth tub is filled, the boys' bags are packed for a night at Oma's. Already things aren...

Books: The Snowy Day   (by Ezra Jack Keats) , Stranger in the Woods   (by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick) , Katy and the Big Snow (by Virginia Lee Burton) -- all books we own, so no library trip necessary Craft:  Shiny Silver S Food: snow ice cream Bible story: Moses and the bronze serpent Resources and printables: Read to Me & ABC  and Royal Baloo I really hadn't intended to be doing any preschool in the early weeks of January. I had, of course, expected to be having a baby at the end of December, and to take it easy (translation: dump out all the toys and watch a whole lot of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood ) for a while. But January 1 rolled around, all of our celebrating was long over with, we were all bored with being at home, and there was a big snowfall predicted for January 2. So I pulled up my "s is for snowman" packet, and the S page from our Bible curriculum, and threw together a few activities. The salvation stuff in ABCs for Godly Boys ...

As I've mentioned, one of the concerns with doing the gift-giving portion of Christmas on St. Nicholas Day is what to do with Christmas morning. The kids don't know the difference, but Isaac and I are still working out how to make the morning meaningful, in a Christ-centered way. Eating breakfast (gingerbread waffles) by the light of the Advent "wreath." After breakfast, Isaac read the whole Christmas story (from Gabriel appearing to Mary through the coming of the wise men) from the Jesus Storybook Bible . I printed off this paper nativity  and had the big boys help me move the characters towards the stable at the right time. Daddy reading. The angel appears to the shepherds in their "field." Totally  into it. Levi wanted most of the people to be facing baby Jesus.  (I love the wise man riding the camel in the front.) Isaac thought perhaps we should've let the boys color the paper before acting out the story, but I rat...

Scripture: Luke 2:1-7 Focus: manger, swaddling cloths Craft: manger, sleeping baby Jesus This was actually two days' work: first the manger, then the baby. I realized after  making the manger that next time we're doing a letter-themed preschool year, "M is for Manger" might make a good December theme! popsicle sticks, twigs, felt, small gold ornament, hot glue, Sharpie-drawn closed eyes Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12 Focus: star, sweet-smelling gifts Craft: sparkly star, cinnamon ornaments cardstock, tinsel "thread" This looks really cool when you wrap it in a logical pattern. Not quite as cool at random, but that's okay. We also made cinnamon-applesauce ornaments (1 cup of each, bake at 200 degrees for 2 hours), using star cookie cutters, but I did not get any pictures. I did manage to put an initial on three of them (one for each boy), so next year if we actually get a tree put up, I'll have personalized ornaments f...

I really wanted to do a big shebang for my husband's birthday this year. 35 just seems like a big important number somehow -- or maybe it's just that I still can hardly believe I'll be there myself in just a few years. At any rate, with his dearest friends spread far and wide, and myself rather enormous and exhausted with child, I knew a big party would be next to impossible. Instead, I stole this idea from the Dating Divas and planned a balloon-themed birthday celebration. Several weeks ago, I mailed a letter and a balloon to about 30 of Isaac's friends (the plan, of course, was to get 35 balloons, but I never even got that many sent out, so the fact that I ended up with nearly 25 seemed pretty good to me!). They each blew up the balloon, wrote a note on it in Sharpie, let the air out, and sent it back to me. I collected them in a jar, and when we celebrated, Isaac got to blow them all back up and read the messages. It was an inflatable-guitar-playing day f...

Scripture: Luke 1:5-25 Focus: Zechariah's unbelief Craft: Zechariah face Zechariah's face: yogurt lid, yarn hair, googly eyes, pasta nose, bubble-wrap mouth Scripture: Luke 1:26-38 Focus: Mary's belief Craft: clothespin Mary (picture below) Scripture: Luke 1:39-45 Focus: Mary and Elizabeth Craft: pregnant ladies Watercolors, paper doll template, pop-dot stickers (those 3D scrapbooking double-stick dots) Levi's pastel ladies. Owen's blue-green ladies.  Cracks me up how all four of them are so obviously carrying boys  (given their extremely low baby bellies). Scripture: Luke 1:57-80 Focus: Jesus as the rising sun  Craft: mosaic sun sun template, black construction paper, sticky glitter foam (cut into pieces by me) Scripture: Matthew 1:18-24 Focus: Joseph Craft: clothespin Joseph slotted clothespins, felt, hot glue . . . and then rubber band "belts", when the glue wouldn't h...

(Yes, okay, it's Monday. I didn't get to this yesterday, but it was still on my mind.) Deep in the trenches of mothering little people, I understand the concept of bending down to help those who cannot help themselves more than I ever could have pre-parenthood. This line, from Keith Getty's Holy Child , struck me in a new way yesterday: Glory kneels to mend all that is torn. Glory. King of kings, Lord of lords, robed in splendor and majesty. Kneeling, like I do every day, every hour, to change diapers and wipe tears and re-attach Duplo pieces and guide little hands full of puzzle pieces. To cleanse our sinfulness. To wipe tears and repair hearts and guide little sheep wandering far. It's quite something.