Nathanael is Seven!

Wow, so this is LONG overdue.

Our boy had his seventh birthday! He chose to invite a friend to the zoo, and we had fun seeing the animals especially the polar bear for the first time.

 

The zoo already had Halloween decorations out, those were fun. Giant Legos:



 

Army men:

 

Princesses:

 

Huge snakes

 

Star Wars birthday cake:

 

We now have a seven-year-old!

Hannah is Five!!!

Our girl turned five!!!  We happened to be in SW Florida visiting family, so of course we had a birthday at the beach!

 

 

Matthew's first sandy beach:

 

He didn't prefer knees in the sand while crawling: 

 

Fun in the sand:

 

Brothers playing:

 

Pin the cutie-mark on the pony:

 

Hannah had so much fun visiting family for Thanksgiving.  She even got to have a sleep-over at her cousin's house.  So many fun new cousin memories!  Hannah enjoys dressing up for her Daddy-daughter dates, and she likes to get her schoolwork done as quickly as possible.  Her favorite things to play with are sparkly and princess-y.  She likes to be a helper and loves her baby brother, sometimes she "loves baby Matthew too much".  We love our big Hannah-girl, and can hardly wait to see how she will grow this year.

Little Ones in the Pew Part 2

I wrote that we needed a new way to encourage our children to pay attention without being a distraction to those around them.  Before presenting our youngest pew-dweller with her newBible, I made these church packs for all three of them.

It holds a Bible, notebook, and pencil.  There is an extra little pocket that can holdother necessary items: offering, tissues, Sunday School papers, etc.  They fasten with a loop of elastic and button.  My husband, when I presented him with the initial idea using a placemat and the contents, asked if it would close with Velcro—I could just hear it, during the silent prayer of confession of sin, “scratch, scritch, scratch” so I chose a button and loop.

Two Sundays ago was the test run.  It went well. Our daughter enjoyed “singing” along, cuddling next to me, and scribbling her “notes” in her book as Mom took notes.  The older two kept their packs waiting and brought them out at the sermon.  The little one liked putting her Bible and notebook in their pockets and buttoning up the pack too.  And yes, it was quiet J 

My prayer for them is that they enjoy worshiping God as much as I do and they are able to listen to the sermon and learn something about who God is and how to honor and obey Him while they do.

Little Ones in the Pew Part 1

I love my children.  I really love to hear their voices worshipping God with His people on Sunday mornings.  I like feeling them snuggle up to me while we listen to the pastor preach.  We have three children now that are old enough to sit with us in our church service.  Our church does a great job of being welcoming of families with little ones and providing a place for the more rambunctious ones.

Just this last week, our three-year-old joined us in the service for the first time.  She will be four in January, but the nursery moved her up a month early.  This is always a special time in our home, the first Sunday you sit with Mom and Dad in church.  This is our third child to experience this privilege, and it brought with it a new strategy for helping us to parent in the pew.

Let me back up a bit.  I had wonderful imagined thoughts of my son sitting patiently, snuggling up next to me, dutifully drawing pictures from the pastor’s sermon.  What really happened was lots of whispered reminders, wordless nudges, and several trips to the restroom for private talks.  I even tried the twisty crayons (so there would be no crayon wrappers to litter the pew) and Bible-themed coloring books when our second-born joined us.  Still, there were too many distractions for them and even for my husband and myself. 

 
This go around, I thought we needed a simpler, stream-lined approach.  Now we are out-numbered in the pew (often dramatically so, as our infant does not enjoy nursery all the time yet, so sometimes one parent is completely absent from the pew).  Our new four-year-olds each get a pocket Bible to bring with them.  We open it to the passage being read, and follow along in their Bibles, instead of our own.  Then when our children can read, we just give them a few prompts as they follow along on their own.  I also bought a few small spiral notebooks that would fit on their small laps.  To write in them, I decided a mechanical pencil would work best—no sharpening required, and no staining when the young ones use them (we had several nice dresses and shirts ruined by gel ink). 

Come back later this week to see what I came up with to replace their large church bags.