Getting organized and creative

I love to organize.  So it is no surprise that I love Pinterest.  Some of my latest projects have come from this website.  I thought I would post some pictures of us getting organized and crafty.  One of my crafty projects has been making a spring wreath for our front door.  I know now why these wreaths sell for $65 and up.  Materials alone are $45 without being on sale or using a coupon.   

On pinterest I pinned a website for organizing your medicine cabinet using stuff from the dollar store.  Here is a picture of what mine looks like:

It's not prefect, but it looks a lot better.

Our last project comes from the www.Ana-White.com

My husband built this for me using the plans off of the website above.  We still need to finish painting it, but this will give you an idea of what it looks like.  We have a small laundry room that is a rectangle shape.  So there isn't a bunch of room for laundry baskets.  Now I don't have to bend over to load my washer and drier and my older kids which are 7 and 5 1/2  can still reach it.  That is a big deal since the two older children help with laundry. 

I would love to see how you get organized this spring and also see some of the craft projects you have completed. 

Breakfast Food? (Doritos)

One morning several years ago, I woke up hearing muffled talking through the baby monitor.  (Even though the kids were older, we still used them.)  Normally the kids would get up and play quitely while I struggled to get out of bed.  You see, they would wake up at the crack of dawn and I am not a morning person.  So I taught them to play quitely until I got out of bed, around 7am.  This morning however, I didn't hear playing like normal, so I decided to go check it out. 

I walked into our little girls room and didn't see them either, but did find that the closet door was closed and the light was on.  So I proceeded to open the door. 
I found both children sitting on a little play sofa eating a big bag of Doritos.  My son looks up at me and says, "Hey mom, can we have these?" 
I left the room and laughed my head off.  Midmorning my son asked if he could have a snack and I told him that he already had one at 6:30 this morning.

Kids in "Big Church"

My husband and I are trying to find a church closer to where we live and the search is getting difficult.  Every church seems to have Children's church up to 6th grade.  Some churches may not call it that, but that is in fact what it is.  I am not saying that Children's church is bad, but just not for our family. 

We believe our children should be in worship with us.  They should learn to sit still and listen to what the pastor has to say.  They should see dad and mom worshiping together and reading the bible together.  For us, children's church is another way to separate the family.  If your children go to school, then do a sport after school 3 days a week, then go to Awana's or whatever program on Wednesday night, and then go to their own Sunday School class and now their own church service; when do they have family time with their parents?  I read a book called Socialization Trap.  Rick Boyer states in this book that we outsource our children to learn team work by putting them in sports.  We outsource our children to learn by taking them to public/private school.  We outsource our children to learn about God by putting them in a separate programs at church (Awana's, Sunday School, Children's Church).  Then we wonder why as teenagers they won't listen to us.  It is because they haven't had to listen to us.   

There is something special about going to church with your children and hearing them sing the same songs you sing.  I've heard the argument that children won't like their parent's music.  Well, let me answer this argument by using my own family as an example.  Our daughter who is 5 1/2 loves Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.  Why?  Because I like it.  She knows the songs and loves to sing them because I do.  Your little kids will like what you like, for the most part.  Then there's my favorite argument about children being bored.  So let me share my thoughts on that.  They are bored, because they are entertained to death.  We can't expect 6th graders and up to like "Big church," if they have been entertained (drama, hand movements to fast songs, etc.) in children's church.

Our kids love going to church with us and opening their own bibles.  They love getting pencils and pens to write with or color.  They are young, but we are teaching them to sit still.  Our oldest just turned 7 not to long ago and we have talked to him about listening more during church instead of coloring.  This past Sunday he didn't color as much and actually paid attention more.  Now he doesn't understand everything, but we help him with the parts he didn't get on the drive home from church.

I guess I'm from the old school that thinks the Bible is interesting on it's own.  A little drama here and there is fine, but are we so media driven that we have to be entertained every Sunday with the T.V.  That's also what I'm finding in our search for a church.  The T.V. is used every Sunday.  You know I'm ok if every now and then a clip is used to emphasize a point, but not every Sunday. 

We believe that if you love church, so will your children.  If you get excited about going, so will your children.  If you love the songs, so will your children.  And if you live out what you believe every day of the week, SO WILL YOUR CHILDREN.  We aren't just teaching our children what to do on Sundays.  We are teaching our children a lifestyle.  We are teaching them reverence.  We are teaching them how to listen.  As we teach our children to sit still and pay attention to a preacher on stage that is seen, we are preparing them to be able to hear God who is unseen.

My gifts for Jesus

Do you ever relive events in your life or replay scenarios over and over?  Well I do.  These are my "Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda" moments.  I'm sure you know what I mean.  You are all alone and start thinking about an event or situation that happened in your past.  You start thinking "I wish I would've said, or if I get the opportunity I'm going to say.."  This happens to me a bunch.  Sometimes it is over something recent, but more often than not it is over something that happened months or even years ago; things I can't let go. 

Some people have memory boxes in their closets that they pull out and look through to help them remember the good times.  Well the Lord showed me that I have "Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda boxes stored in my mind that I take down, open up, and relive events/situations that have happened.

I realize that reliving these events/situations isn't helping me.  I have heard people say before, "Give it to God and let it go."  But I never understand how to do that, until now.  The Lord gave me a mental picture of what it means to “give it to Him and let it go.”  I would love to share it with you.

I put each event/situation in a box and wrapped it up with a pretty bow and labeled it with 2 tags.  One tag said what the event was (a person's name, a job, an action) and the other tag said who it was to, Jesus.  The Lord reveled to me that when you give someone a gift, you can’t take it back.  So once I give these presents to Jesus, to relive them is like taking my gift back.  Wow! What a thought!  So I mentally gave Jesus gifts of my “Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda” moments. 

Recently I was tempted to relive an event that I had already given to Jesus.  Immediately, I pictured the present that I wrapped up and gave to Him.  At that moment I stopped and thanked God that He had this event and I trusted Him to take care of it.  I realize that I cannot change what has happened by thinking about it constantly.  However, I can trust that God will deal with it in His own timing.
As a symbol of what I have done, I am going to wrap gifts and lay them down on the alter at church.  This will help me remember the gifts I gave and help me to know that I can't relive them because I am not going to take a gift away from Jesus.

The opposite of Love isn't what you think.

Growing up I was always told you shouldn't hate someone, you should love everyone. I bet most of you were told the same thing. We all believe that hate is the opposite of Love, but I beg to differ. Before we can know the opposite of love, we need to know what it is.

So what is love? Some say it is a feeling, an emotion that comes and goes. The reason is because our feeling and emotions change all the time.
As believers in Christ, most of us are taught that love isn't just a feeling, but an action. DC Talk said in one of their songs that Love is a Verb. We know from the bible that God is Love. The bible says in John 3:16 that "For God so LOVED the world that He SENT His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."  That means God's love was an action. We see that when we read the word sent in this verse. He did something to show His love.

We went to the movies to see Fireproof. Great movie, by the way. In it the father tells his son (Kirk Cameron) that he can't love his wife until He knows what love is. In the scene, Kirk Cameron is looking at a cross.

The greatest act of love is laying your life down for someone, just as Christ laid down His life for us. You see He took the penalty for our sins upon Himself. The penalty for sin was a blood sacrifice. Jesus was our blood sacrifice.

Ok, so now we know what love is by the biblical standards. It is an action, a choice. Recently, a series of events lead me to really think about love and what it means. I was told by someone I've known for a long time that they didn't like me. It was a sock to hear from this person that they didn't think our personalities went together. When questioned about it, they said that they loved me because I was a Sister in Christ and that we had a good relationship because we have never had a cross word. That is how they gauged a good relationship, by never having a cross word. So what had this person done to love me as a sister in Christ, even though they didn't like me? The answer, I don't know. I can't remember a thing that this person did to show love to me. This got me to thinking about a book I had read called Sacred Love. One of the statements in the book stuck out to me and I have never forgotten it. "The opposite of Love isn't hate, it's apathy." Apathy means doing nothing.

If love is a verb, which we have established it is, than apathy (doing nothing), is the opposite.
Matthew 25:40 “The King (Jesus) will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:45 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Hearing someone doesn't like you is never an easy thing to hear, but God is using it to remind me that He didn't just say He loved me. He demonstrated it. This is the example I should follow. Loving someone is more than just saying so, it is an action.



  
Let us remember that what we do speaks louder than what we say. So what have you done to show love for others?

Is That Poison

Our little girl is 5 years old and her new obsession is asking if something is poison.  She ask it about everything.  "Are crayons poison?"  "Is my shoe poison?" "What if you put medicine on my itch and I scratch it and then scratch my mouth; is that poison?"  "Is the silver thing on the door poison?"  Then for about 2 days the obsession became about mosquitoes.  We were staying at a place that has tons of them and every time you walked outside you got bit.  One day she said, "Mom are mosquitoes poison, because I think I swallowed one?"  I assured her that she would know if she swallowed one and no they are not.
We finally told her that if she doesn't put her hands in her mouth and she only eats food/drinks, then she doesn't have to worry if it is poison or not. We told her this after she came out of the bathroom and asked if lotion was poison.  Her dad assured her it was not, only to hear her say she ate some.  You know you always here or know about the kid in kindergarten who eats glue, but you never think it could be your child one day.
Ok, so you know the joke that goes.... I one a trash can.  Well just encase you don't, let me tell it to you.  If your children hasn't heard it, you can get them on it.
Person one says - I one a trash can and tells the other person to say I two a trash can.
So here it goes the whole joke:
Person 1- I one a trash can
Person 2- I two a trash can
Person 1- I three a trash can
Person 2- I four a trash can
etc...
Person 1- I seven a trash can
Person 2 - I eight a trash can
Person 1 - ew you ate a trash can!! 
hahahaha

Well we were all in the car and our little girls says, "The baby doesn't have any mosquitoes bites and I know why."  I jokingly said, "Is it because you ate them?  hahaha  Hey, I one a mosquito."  My little girl replies, "I two a mosquito."  You know where this is going.  So, after she said I ate a mosquito, I replied, "OHHH you ate a mosquito."   Everyone starts laughing and without missing a beat our oldest son says, Hey I one lotion.......

Teaching Scripture - The Fruit of The Spirit

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
 2 Timothy 3:16
Teaching scripture to our children is a great thing.  Teaching them how scripture applies to their lives is priceless.  It is easier to learn something if you know how it applies to life and why you need to know it. 
We were learning the Fruit of the Spirit and I got a bright idea.  How can I make the scripture verse about The Fruit of the Spirit come alive and help them apply it.

                               Light bulb

Let's make a fruit tree, but not just any fruit tree.  So we made a Fruit of the Spirit tree.  We used old oatmeal boxes for the base, because they are a cylinder shaped.  We cut a circle out of the top and shoved a paper towel roll down in it.  This was the trunk of our tree.   For branches we used throw away forks and for leaves we cut them out of green paper.  This was the start of our tree.  Now to add the Fruit of the Spirit. 

Here are some examples of what we did:
One of the fruit is Gentleness.  So we printed little pictures of the kids faces when they were babies and cut them out into circles.  We then glued them on purple paper and cut the paper to look like a cluster of grapes.   Then we hung it from the branches (forks).  Our kids were able to relate gentleness to a baby. 
You also do not have to just put fruit on your tree.  Take for example The Fruit of the Spirit, self control.  At the time we did this, our oldest was having problems keeping his hands to himself.  So we let him trace his hand and wrote on it Self Control.  We hung it from another branch.  He learned that Self Control meant he needed to control his hands and use them for good and not bad.   

With each Fruit of the Spirit we added to our tree, we told why it is important, how it applies to them, and what each meant.  Each thing we added to the tree represented a way our kids could apply this to their life or it was a way to show them the meaning/example of the Fruit of the Spirit.  Here are some pictures below.  We had so much fun doing the tree, that we invited our homeschool friends over for a craft day on learning the Fruit of the Spirit.  The kids and mothers had a great time being creative and working together. 
If you have any idea's on how to teach scripture or you have taught a verse in a unique way, I would love to hear about it.