"That's my dad!"

At the start of the summer we took the boys to their first Memphis Redbirds baseball game. They ate it up, but maybe their favorite part of the night was getting to see a little demo of their dad's college baseball days. At one point as Kennon was drilling the balls, little Luke goes, "That's my dad!" Priceless!

Caleb's PDS Fun Run

I finally put together my video clips of Caleb's Fun Run at PDS. It was really fun seeing how much fun he was having! The best part was when his favorite super hero made an appearance.

Caleb and Spiderman: Web Slingers

Jonathan sat right down next to Caleb to hear the race instructions. He always thinks he should be doing whatever either of his brothers is doing!

Goodbye School, Hello Summer

Today we were celebrating the school year and getting excited about summer over pancakes at Cracker Barrel! We recorded Caleb's favorite things about school this year, and then we all brainstormed fun things we'd like to do this summer. I brought a pen and pad, but we decided it would be a much better tradition to record it on a napkin and keep them each year. We left full of pancakes, great school memories, and excitement about this summer!

Easter 2012

Golgotha on Good Friday but Sunday is coming!

Our Seder meal remembering The Last Supper of Christ

"Passover forms the primary background for understanding the events of the Upper Room, the symbolism of the Lord's Table, and the meaning of the Messiah's death.

God commanded that Passover be observed as a memorial forever (Ex. 12:14). He also declared that it was to be kept by a service (Ex. 12:25). This service was to incorporate the lamb, matzah (unleavened bread), and bitter herbs and to raise questions in the minds of the children so that the Exodus story could be rehearsed from generation to generation (Ex 12:26-27). The ritual Passover service was called the Seder from the Hebrew word 'order.'"

(The Feasts of the Lord)

Here are a few pictures from parts of our traditional Seder meal this year with our family and some of the young people in our discipleship groups.

 The table is set

 To begin the service, the father pours the first cup of wine and asks everyone to rise as he recites the Kiddush "prayer of sanctification" to set the day apart to God. It was Christ, as the leader of the Seder service observed in the Upper Room, who said the Kiddush. "Then He took the cup, and gave thanks" (Lk. 22:17)

Bryson eating the karpas (green vegetable - parsley) dipped in salt water as a reminder of the tears of pain and suffering shed by the Jewish people in slavery. 

 Breaking and distributing the Matza or "unleavened bread"

 The boys are not too excited about tasting the bitter herbs! each person eats a piece of matzah dipped in the horseradish and haroset (apple mixture). This is a reminder of the sweetness of God's redemption in the midst of Israel's bitter slavery. God has rescued us just like the Israelites, we've been rescued from sin and death and invited to the promise land in heaven. You take a big enough bite of horseradish it will bring tears to your eyes! You can't wait to taste the sweetness of the haroset, redemption!

STORYTELLING AT ITS BEST!

Reenacting Holy Week

Another fun Easter tradition is reenacting Holy Week with chenille stick people. We start by making Golgotha, the mountain where Jesus was crucified, and then we make our people. We are finding all kinds of creative ways to teach the kids about Jesus' path to the cross through the events of Holy Week. For example, on Palm Sunday we find leaves or "palm branches," build Jerusalem out of blocks, and put our chenille Jesus on a donkey. Each year the boys and I get a little more creative! Though it's a bit unclear on what exact days some of the events of Holy Week occurred, here is a rough guide we use...

Events of Holy Week:

Palm Sunday:

Accompanied by his disciples, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, while crowds covered the streets ahead of him with palm branches and their coats shouting "Hosanna!"

Monday:

Jesus chased the money-changers out of the Temple

Tuesday and Wednesday:

Jesus preached and taught in Jerusalem

Maundy (Holy) Thursday:

Jesus celebrated the Feast of Passover, instituting the Sacrament of Holy Communion

After supper, Jesus and his disciples went to Gethsemane to pray, where he was later arrested by the Temple  guard and taken to a night session of the Jewish court, the Sanhedrin

Good Friday:

Jesus was taken into Roman courts, before Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas, who sent him back to the Jewish court.

Roman soldiers took him to Golgotha, the place of the skull, where he was crucified.

Saturday:

Jesus was dead in the tomb while his disciples observed the Sabbath.

Easter Sunday: An angel met Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" at the tomb to tell them that Jesus was risen from the dead! HE'S ALIVE!

You can read through the Gospels Accounts of Jesus' Last Days to add more detail to the above list. 

• Matthew 21-28
• Mark 11-16
• Luke 19-24
• John 11-21

Coloring Golgotha

Jesus is hung on the cross on Good Friday

 On Easter Sunday morning the boys run downstairs to find the stone has been rolled away, the linen cloth (kleenex) is empty, and the angel has told Mary that Jesus is ALIVE! He has RISEN!

*Making Golgotha (from Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper)
Ingredients:
4 c. flour
1 1/2 c. salt
1 1/2 c. water
1 Tbs. oil
Mix ingredients and knead. Add small amounts of water as needed until the texture is right.
Mountain:
1. Use two backyard sticks bound together with twine to make a cross about five or six inches tall. ( I use popsicle sticks)
2. Shape the whole lump of play dough into a mountain. The size will be determined by the volume of your play dough. Leave an opening on one side into the "cave" that will represent the tomb, using your fist or a soup can to hold the space open. (I use a soup can)
3. Press the cross into the top of the mountain to form a hole deep enough to stand the cross in. Make the hole a bit larger than the actual stick b/c the hole will get smaller as the mountain bakes. Set the cross aside.
4. Twist toothpicks into the dough or press fork tines randomly around on the hill to make "footholds" for chenille stick people.
5. Press the rock that will cover the tomb against the opening, to shape a better fit. Set the stone aside.
6. Bake at 250 degrees for 4-5 hours. When cooled, color as desired w/ paint or markers.
HAVE FUN!

Thank You 1:17 Photography!

This past weekend, the boys had a photo shoot with Julie Torregrossa of 1:17 photography, and I was amazed when she sent me a sneak peak of some of the photos she captured! You can imagine how difficult it was to get 3 little boys all smiling and looking/sitting/ walking in the same direction or even near the same direction! After our 20 minute "mini-session," I hoped she was able to get even one great shot. Well, she got more than one! This girl is GOOD! Thank you Julie for these ADORABLE photos!!

Here is a link to see the sneak peak: http://blog.117photography.com/?p=3917

Holy Week: Celebrating Passover

Well, it's been nearly 40 days of Lent, and Holy Week is almost here! It's been fun creating some special traditions for celebrating Holy Week and helping our kids follow Jesus and the days leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection. This week I'm preparing for Holy Week. One of our traditions is inviting family members over to celebrate Passover with a Seder meal! 

Most Christians are familiar with "The Last Supper" that Christ had with his disciples before going to the cross. However, I really knew nothing about a traditional Jewish Seder meal which is what Jesus was having when he ate the last supper with his disciples.
One purpose in having a Seder meal during Holy Week is to teach our kids the same things God wanted the Israelites to teach their children through perpetually celebrating Passover. Exodus 12:26-27 says, "And when your children say to you, 'What do you mean by this service?' you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.'" God gave children an inquisitive nature! And the first time we practiced Passover, our kids were full of questions just like I'm sure the Israelite children were! We want our kids to know the traditional Passover story that includes Moses, the plagues, the Red Sea, and God's mighty hand of deliverance for the Jews from Egypt, but as Christians we go a step further to discuss Passover as the foreshadowing of Christ and his atoning death for our salvation. As the angel of death "passed over" the Jewish homes covered by the blood of an unblemished lamb, so death passes over us who are covered by the blood of a perfect Christ who died on a cross for our sins. God has rescued us just like the Israelites; we’ve been rescued from sin and death and invited to the promise land in heaven. 


It was a bit overwhelming when I first started researching Passover and all the Christian parallels but this children's DVD was incredibly helpful! The boys and I learned a lot together! It's presented from a Christian perspective and shows why and how Passover is still important for us to remember.

Here are a few of our pictures from a Seder meal. I'm sure it was far from what a true Jewish Seder meal looks like, but we had FUN learning! We tasted bitter herbs and salt water to remember how bitter slavery was for the Egyptians. We had matzo and talked about how the Jews didn't have time to let the bread rise so they had to eat "unleavened" bread to be ready for a quick departure. We sang a song about crossing the Red Sea. Those are just a few examples; the Seder meal is full of hands on learning that engages all your senses!

The Feasts of the Lord is another great resource for understanding Passover, and it's an excellent read on all the other biblical feasts as well. It's written from the Hebrew Christian viewpoint, helping you see the feasts through Jewish eyes while at the same time seeing how Christ fulfilled every one of them! If you're interested in learning more about celebrating Passover, let me know and though I'm not an expert, I'm happy to share the simplified notes I have so far! 

Lent: 40 Days Preparing Our Family for Easter

Discipleship in the home is the primary focus of my life right now as a mom, and the Lord has filled me with great passion for learning how to disciple my children well during these little years. Kennon and I have shared in DownLine how the Lord has helped us create special traditions that fill our days and our year. Every tradition is established with the goal of cultivating a home of continual worship, teaching, and celebration of who God is and what He has done for us (Deut 6). Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and I have pulled out my Lent/ Easter basket for the kids and thought I would share in more detail some of our Easter traditions.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, a season of reflection on our lives and our need for a Savior.  Easter is the highest celebration of the Christian year. As believers, our hope is in the cross! Our faith is meaningless without the atoning death of Christ for our sins and His resurrection that we might have eternal life with Him! Lent helps us prepare our hearts to more fully understand Easter as truly the greatest celebration of the year! Easter morning is full of excitement because for 40 DAYS we have been talking about our need for a Savior and the hope we have in Christ! We can finally shout, HE IS RISEN!

Our Lent/ Easter basket will sit on our kitchen counter for the next 40 days. Every day during Lent (at least once and usually more, since the basket is available anytime the boys want to look through it), we read one of the Easter books, go through the Easter story with the Resurrection eggs, and do a Lent activity. During the holiday seasons, usually Lifeway puts a few of its childrens' books for that holiday on sale for $5 which is when I  have grabbed all these different little Easter books for our basket. 

I LOVE this Lent activity book! Last year I simple made copies so that I could continue using it every year. There is an activity page for each of the 40 days of Lent. This is a fun, simple activity book for young children that helps me daily talk with the boys about the meaning and purpose of Lent in preparing our hearts for Holy Week and Easter. There is a guide inside with tips for family use, and it explains Lent, Holy Week, and Easter very well in clear and simple terms.

For the next 7 weeks the boys get to watch the following dvd every Sunday. As a 3 year old last year, Caleb basically memorized the entire movie and could tell you with great detail the events of Holy Week which start with Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter) and go through the last Passover supper, the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus' betrayal, his trial before Pilate, his cruxifiction and his resurrection. 

The boys can not get enough of the Resurrection Eggs!! They play with them constantly. Here is a video of Caleb walking us through the Easter story with his resurrection eggs last year.

I look forward to sharing more things we'll be doing as a family over the next 40 days such as: 1. How and why we teach and celebrate Passover in our home and 2. Making the events of Holy Week come alive for our kids. Really fun stuff!

Jonathan's Valentine Beat

Superheroes are a big thing around our house these days, and even 15 month old Jonathan can enjoy the Spiderman theme song. Do your thing J-train!

Our Trip to Phoenix and the Boys' First Flight

We had a blast last week visiting my sister, Morgan, and her husband out in Arizona. Jonathan stayed with my mom, and Caleb and Luke eagerly ventured out west with us. A few highlights from our trip...

The boys' FIRST airplane ride!

Looking for our airplane

Luke is buckled in and ready to go

Caleb's favorite thing about the airplane ride was the snack break

They LOVED going to the Train Park which included a train ride, carousel, huge playground, western town, model train museum, and a real train to browse inside.

Riding the kid train.

Hanging out with Aunt MoMo in the train museum.

The three story Phoenix Children's Museum was amazing!

Caleb called this the "pirate ship" and it was so tall it made my stomach turn so daddy went up!

"CACTUS!" We heard this over and over and over :-)

Caleb took his picture with the tallest cactus he could find to show his teachers and friends at school.

Desert Dirt

 The boys didn't seem to mind the lack of grass. They could have dug in the dirt for hours in their aunt and uncle's backyard. There is something about little boys and dirt!

Headed to home sweet home

Why and How We're Celebrating Epiphany Today

ABOUT EPIPHANY:
I'm not an expert on the liturgical calendar, but in studying it, I've found it a helpful tool in creating intentional times throughout the year that we remember and celebrate the life and ministry of Christ. Many Protestant churches don't celebrate the various seasons of the church calendar beyond Christmas and Easter, but there is a long history of using it in the Christian faith. "When most of the people in the church were poor and had no access to education, the church festivals and the cycle of the church year provided a vehicle for teaching the story of God and his actions in human history. Even in the Old Testament, the concept of sacred time became a vehicle for teaching the faith (for example, Exodus 12-13)." (Season of Epiphany - Bratcher) Since reading Noel Piper's book "Treasuring God in Your Traditions" I've become even more intentional in creating traditions and celebrations that tell a story as a way of teaching our kids the truths of God.
Before moving into the meaning of Epiphany, let me back up because you can't talk about Epiphany without talking first about Christmas. In the church we begin the Christmas season with Advent which is marked by expectation. We are anticipating the coming of Jesus. The traditional Christmas celebration begins on Dec 25 and according to the church calendar last for 12 Days of Christmas (ever wonder about the song!). It ends with Epiphany on January 6, today! Epiphany is the climax to the Advent/ Christmas season. The term epiphany means "to show" or "to make known" or even "to reveal." It's a time of focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by "showing" Jesus as the Savior of all people. "As with most aspects of the Christian liturgical calendar, Epiphany has theological significance as a teaching tool in the church. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the child Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as "King" and so were the first to "show" or "reveal" Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. This act of worship by the Magi, which corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this child Jesus would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32), was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few." (Bratcher)

EPIPHANY DEVOTIONAL: (beautifully sums up the heart of celebrating Epiphany.)

And suddenly - You appeared among us! You could have stood afar off, but You came in vulnerable love, revealing the nature of the Father. You proved once and for all that God's love "reaches to the heavens" by reaching from heaven to us. What an extraordinary act of abounding grace! 
     Your birth seemed insignificant, even trivial, to most of the world. Yet Simeon prophesied You would be "a light to the Gentiles"... and the Magi were the first to fulfill that word. Overwhelmed by Your royal yet modest love, they tenderly laid gifts at Your feet. They knelt down and worshipped You, "revealing" You to the world as Lord and King. 
     I will observe these days by asking for a personal epiphany, a sudden revelation of who You really are. By bowing down, laying my gifts at Your feet, and worshiping You, let me "reveal" You as the Savior of all people. - The Book of Worship (John Randall Dennis)

ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS:

1. Read Matthew 2:1-12. Sing 'We Three Kings'

2. Make and decorate cardboard crowns and then act out the visit of the Magi

3. Let them pick out a special gift to give to someone that would honor that person as the Magi's brought gifts to honor Jesus

4. Pray for missionaries that are "revealing"to the nations Christ as King and Savior 

5. Make a King Cake (a Mardi Gra tradition as well)

6. Make star shaped cookies to remember the star that the Magi followed to find Jesus

These are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing!

Two of My Favorite Ladies

Beth, Me, Brandi

This picture was taken New Year's Eve and got me thinking about how thankful I am for the special friendships I have with these two ladies. I will forever be grateful that Beth and Brandi took the time to invest in my life.

You don't realize how much you have to learn as a newlywed wife about what it really means to love your husband, and Beth took me under her wing to show me the ropes of being a godly wife. I would always leave her house so excited and inspired to get home and love/ serve my husband. She was also there to shine the light of truth speaking in grace when I was blind to my own faults.

I got to know Brandi around the time I was becoming a new mom. Not only does she have a heart for young mothers but she is full of parenting insight! On several occasions, she would call me with words of wisdom and encouragement when only the Holy Spirit could have known how desperately I needed it!

My time with them wasn't a Bible study though scripture almost always was naturally in our conversations. It wasn't a how to lecture though I got lots of great practical advice. It was all about our relationship. You see they made me love being a wife and mom. Their lives and their hearts for the roles of wife and mom as God designed were contagious.  That's why it's said that discipleship is more caught than taught.

My husband and kids are probably the most thankful for Beth and Brandi! Having tangible, wise, godly women in your life is one of the most transformative things you can do. There are great female authors and speakers that have been very influential in my life as well, but if I had to choose, I'd go with Beth Bryson over a Beth Moore and Brandi Holbrook over a Stormie Omartian EVERY TIME! Praise God for discipleship and women willing to sacrifice their time and energy for the spiritual maturity of another!