Easter Songs

Danny and I agree that we need to be purposeful in the content that we teach our children.  We want to fill their hearts and minds with God's Word, songs about Him and character-building.  Because our church doesn't include the children in the worship service but has a separate one for them, we want to be sure that our children know hymns -- the classics that are the foundation for so many of us.  This season we learned "He Arose!"  What a blessing it has been to hear them sing it everywhere -- in bed, at the store, in the bathroom, while playing, etc.  Hope you enjoy this -- it is a little long, but Josiah got in on the action at the end and we HAD to get that! 

He is risen… He is risen INDEED!!!

All week we have been talking about Jesus and what the true meaning of Easter is… it was wonderful to share that as a family this morning with a loud, “HE IS RISEN!” and the echo, “HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!!!!”     Here is a small photo shoot that we took before we went to church to celebrate Jesus with our church family:

(Even with lots of bribes, we couldn’t get Hannah to consistently look at the camera AND smile!  We tried and tried!!!!!

We WILL correct that before she is in the three weddings this summer and fall!! )

Off to the Zoo!

Danny has been working a lot of hours with a special project at the church (Journey to the Cross), but he took the morning off so we could do something as a family!  We went to the ZOO… our first time there for this season! (It is hard to believe that we will be purchasing our third membership – one for each year we have been here!) The kids were SO EXCITED to get to go to the zoo today!  There were many new things to see and still more construction happening before the spring and summer crowds really start coming. 

The girls looking at the Flamingos – the birds from Florida!

The penguins were being fed when we got there… the girls loved to see the penguins get a long fish to eat!

The sea lions have a beautiful new pool to swim in… it even has an overlook area and an underwater observation station… really cool!

It was Danny’s idea to have me pose next to this sign!

Yup… they adore their daddy!

We HAD to go feed the goats and llamas!

 

Me and my girlies!

Climbing on Mr. Frog…

Climbing on the Jeep in the Tiger station…

Walking around the Zoo… I guess Danny wanted everyone to see that I can still walk and NOT waddle… I will get to that stage soon enough! (These pictures don’t need to be as big as the others!)

All the flowers were BEAUTIFUL…

Hannah may be eating the flowers… I can’t tell in the picture!

Me and my little man… he is growing up so fast.  That is a good thing since he won’t be THE BABY for much longer.  I am almost 34 weeks… 4-6 weeks to go until our other little man arrives!

Jelly Bean Graphs

I LOVE this time of year!  There are so many activities to do for school during spring and Easter… and I have felt pretty good and organized, so I am able to do them with the kids.  This week we graphed a bag of jelly beans.  I gave half of the colors to Grace and the other half to Hannah.  With CLEAN HANDS Hannah sorted them by color and put them on her graph.  Once she had sorted all of the colors and put them in the correct columns, we colored the same number of spaces as jelly beans on the graph.  I wrote the number for each on the bottom next to the color word.  She was delighted with herself and this very grown up activity.

While Hannah and I were doing our work, Grace was diligently working on her own.  I knew that there were several ways to go about the graphing process, but I didn’t want to tell her one way she had to do it.  I knew that she would pick a process that SHE liked since we have done similar activities.  She decided to pick a jelly bean out of the basket, and immediately color the space for it on her graph with a corresponding color.  She loved naming each color and coloring the space for each bean.  “Wow! I have another red!  COOL!” She did an outstanding job… I knew she would.  When she had finished, I asked her to write the number of each jelly bean at the bottom next to the color word. 

Grace is licking her lips.. in case it is hard to figure that out!

Then Grace and Hannah compared their graphs. “I had 7 orange and you had only 4!” “Well, I had 11 yellows and you only had 6.” “Did you see that we both have 4 blacks?” It was fun comparing them, but it was MORE fun eating them! I let them pick a few from their own basket and then we put the rest of them back in a baggie for later!  Daddy needs his jelly beans and Cadbury eggs this time of year!

Who says that math can’t be fun?

Constant Costumes

There are days when my kiddos are wearing costumes CONSTANTLY!  I never know who they are going to be, and they get frustrated that I refer to them by the wrong name.  “No, mommy, I am Judas!” “No, mommy, I am Cinderella!”  Yes, there is QUITE a difference between those two “characters”. but they love to play characters from books, movies, the Bible, or even animals!  They have wild imaginations!  One day as we were cleaning up to get ready for company, Hannah remarked that we were playing Mary and Martha… Grace volunteered to be Mary – to just hang out and watch Martha (Hannah) do all of the work!  HA!  What a kid!

The other morning Josiah got in on the deal and put on his own gangsta outfit… a sideways hat and his Mr. T necklaces with his pjs.  ADORABLE!  I just had to take a few dozen pictures of him!