(And All My) Work Be Praise

Walk through Holy Week in Duplo and LEGO scenes, created mostly by my nine-year-old, with a little help from his big brother and some specific requests from me. Palm Sunday Jesus cleanses the temple. The Last Supper The Garden of Gethsemane: Jesus prays while Peter, James, and John sleep. Jesus sees Peter in the courtyard as the rooster crows. The soldiers cast lots for Jesus' garments. Soldiers guard the tomb. Mary gazes into the empty tomb. Thomas meets Jesus: "My Lord and my God!"

Since we're all stuck at home instead of celebrating Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday physically with the body of Christ, I thought I'd do a recap of the various Holy Week activities our family has done in the past. Most are geared towards young children, but I've found it's easy enough to include the older ones by having them read an appropriate passage of Scripture, play "stage manager" to a skit, help lead a hymn, or simply talk in more detail about what was happening and why. (As an added bonus, those of you who didn't know my big kids as preschoolers get to see old pics!) *Palm Sunday Easy-peasy "palm" branches. I saw one on Pinterest this week that was multiple hands overlapped to make a big branch, which looked fun and we might attempt on Saturday! Naturally, if you're going to make palm branches, you might as well have a parade and shout "hosanna." I have it on good authority that dads make great donkeys. ;)...

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. This one covers at least that many for me. See, this is the first time Silas has played the piano in almost four months. He's first and foremost a violinist, quite talented for seven years old, if I do say so myself. But he's also a gifted musician in general. I've shared his compositions on Facebook in the past. He taught himself to read music and understands musical patterns intuitively. For most of 2019, he'd been spending hours at the piano, figuring out music. It was amazing. Recent violin recital. But one evening four months ago, life was crazy. This is not an extraordinary event. I have six children. The boys are not quiet, especially right after dinner when they run laps around the first floor and at least one of them is playing the piano. Four months ago, Tessa was still failing to thrive, and I was spending some eight hours a day on the couch or in the rocking chair, nursing and pumping and n...

I love to read as much as the next person. Maybe more, even—after all, I was a literature major in college. (Not because I ever expected to DO anything with that degree—or my music degree, for that matter—but because I loved to read and write and it seemed worthwhile to pay gobs of tuition money to have the opportunity to do both. Or something.) The last decade, however, has not precisely been full of good books. I read a good bit of Christian romantic drivel while nursing Levi, and I have multiple Sandra Boynton board books memorized, and we’ve ventured into some classic literature read-alouds along the way. But reading for my own pleasure? A luxury at best. When I hopped on the bullet journal train at the end of 2018, I decided that this would be the year I started reading again, mostly so I could make a cute “books to read” page. I honestly didn’t expect to stick with it. At the time, I didn’t even know I was pregnant and would have time nursing a baby before 2019 was out! But...

For the first five:  Levi's birth story ,  Owen's birth story ,  Silas's birth story ,  Toby's birth story , Calvin's birth story This sixth birth story feels almost anticlimactic compared to the other five. My water didn't break during a thunderstorm (Levi and Calvin), she wasn't posterior (Owen), there were no paramedics or ambulances involved (Silas and Toby), my labor wasn't precipitous or with worries of a breech baby (Calvin). Nevertheless, every birth has a story, and this is Tessa's: Contractions began at 8:20am, one week after her due date. I had enough of them to call my midwife around 10am, which is about the same time they slowed down to every 10-15 minutes for the next FIVE HOURS. I've never been in labor for more than eight hours, so by the time that seventh hour hit with no progression, I was pretty discouraged. We shipped the boys off to my parents' house around 3pm and went for a walk, which helped a little with intensity...

I've had so many people ask me about our "national day" celebrations that I thought I'd pop back on my now-mostly-ignored blog to tell you about it. I honestly don't remember how it started; probably the idea was put in my head by advertising e-mails from various restaurants. Back in December 2018, we decided it'd be fun to celebrate as many of these national days as possible. Towards the end of every month, I pull up the next month's list and enter anything I think we could do into my planner. Then I use my planner to plan the month's meals! It takes some of the "I don't know what to cook" pressure off, and we've tried some new things besides. (The national day item is written at the top of each day in pink.) The master list I use is here:  https://nationaldaycalendar.com/calendar-at-a-glance/  As you can see, there are several options for most days! Here are the ones we've done so far: Spaghetti Whipped Cream Apri...

I have two recipes in my collection from one of my mom's long-time friends, Julie. The first is your standard corn casserole made with Jiffy mix, which ranks as one of Levi's top five favorite foods. The second is the marinade I'm about to copy down for you. Julie says it's good on any sort of meat, but I've only used it for chicken. Dump everything in a bag with some chicken thighs (my personal preference), let it sit for a while -- I've done four hours up to two days -- and throw it on the grill. De-lish. The recipe below makes enough for two bags of chicken at my family's current size, so you can make one ahead for next time or freeze the marinade on its own (or just make half the recipe). Marinade 1-1/2 cups olive oil (or oil of your choice) 3/4 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup red wine vinegar 1/3 cup lemon juice 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce 2 tablespoons dry mustard 1 tablespoon pepper 2-1/2 teaspoons salt 1/2 tablespoon parsley flakes 2 cloves crus...