We are thankful for...

Our Thanksgiving "tablecloth" (cream bedsheet) was a place to record what we were thankful for this year. The kids were able to draw pictures and write notes about what they were thankful for right on the sheet. Mommy and Daddy had prepared notes about why we were thankful for each child and left the notes at each child's spot around the table for them to find in the morning when they first got up. The kids loved reading their notes about why we were thankful for them. We went around the table at our breakfast meal and took turns reading the notes out loud for all to enjoy. The kids then decided to hang them up for us to remember throughout the week. Their turkey handprint art and our thankful notes adorned the walls this week until we replaced them with some Christmas decorations. Fun, fun!

Sarah was thankful for her "hole" family, friends, teachers, her home and belongings, and God. She was particularly thankful for her super sweet art teacher, Ms. Kendra, from her Monart class on Tuesday nights. I'll post some of her finished pieces soon (they're so fun).
You can't read it on the wall behind Sarah but on Mommy's note apparently Noah wrote that he was thankful for Mommy's boobs! Our Daddy is soooo silly! Our family got kicks out of this but then forgot about it until after our first round of visitors left. We laughed thinking about what this couple must have thought as they read that. After that, Charlie just pointed it out to the other guests (all his guy friends!) much to my embarassment. :) Oh well!
When asked, Tommy said he was thankful for Daddy. Then after a three second pause, "And Batman." :) So both Daddy and Batman got drawn on the tablecloth. Fletcher was thankful for his family (and he drew each of us) and "nice friends" (so he drew some buddies from school).
Paris was thankful for Mrs. Appel (pronounced "apple"), her Kindergarten teacher. She drew a cute picture of her on the cloth.

"Our God is not dead, He's Alive, He's Alive!!"

I've been loving this song I found on You Tube on Easter morning by Matt Maher, "Christ is Risen!" I love singing it with the kids, and Fletcher is especially cute as he sings, "Where death is your sting? Where hell is your victory?"

Happy Resurrection Day!

Easter preparations

We had a great time today planting the wheat grass seeds my Aunt Laurie gave us as gifts this past weekend. SO fun! We found inexpensive Easter buckets to use for our plantings, and the kids had a ball filling them with soil and plenty of wheat grass seeds! We also had a great time coloring eggs. Fletcher was the champion egg yolk blower. He certainly loved poking the two holes in either end of the eggs and getting the yolks out for us. Yay, for Fletcher! Tommy also enjoyed the dippey, dippey the eggs in the dye! He was our champion wiper-upper of all drips as well! Yay, for our little boy helpers!

Happy St. Patties' Day 2010

Charlie turned 16 years old in Christ on St. Patrick's Day! Wha-who!

We followed in the Thompson tradition of dying everything green, and Paris was my most enthusiastic helper squeezing plenty of green food dye into our pancake batter and biscuits! We also created a centerpiece for our table from all things green. The kids had so much fun collecting and arranging the green items to decorate the table!

Celebrating Purim, Sunday, Feb.28th

This year we celebrated the Jewish holiday of Purim. What fun! I first learned of the holiday last year during a women's Bible study of the book of Esther. The ladies celebrated together last year, and we had so much fun that I promised myself to teach the kids about Purim and celebrate the holiday with them this year. We had a blast preparing "Haman's Pockets" (a tasty, triangular cookie filled with preserves). The cookie is supposed to resemble Haman's three cornered hat.

One of the key components of Purim is a feast with friends so we had a family over for Sunday afternoon supper. We prepared gifts of food to give away as well. We were able to share a few prepared gift baskets of the cookies we'd made, fruits, candies, and hot cocoa and teas. Surprising our friends with, "Happy Purim!" was fun for the kids because, of course, not many had even heard of the holiday. The funny thing about the Purim celebration is that there is lots of noise, dressing-up, and singing. We played the traditional Purim music during our baking session and giggled trying to sing along with the songs that were foreign to us. During the feast, we all taped Haman's name to the bottom of our foot and each person tries to stamp out the name of Haman. The Jewish people chant that cursed is the name of Haman and blessed be the name of Mordecai. Mordecai is Esther's adoptive father (her cousin who raised young, orphaned Esther). He influenced her to save her people from annihilation when Haman craftily plotted how to wipe out the entire Jewish nation.

Part of the celebration is to read "the whole Megillah," the whole book of Esther, sometimes on two separate occasions reading the complete book. One fun component is for all the listeners to loudly crack noisemakers called gragers, although we used Tommy's wooden instrument set, and to stomp their feet every time the name Haman is mentioned in the book of Esther. In case you haven't read Esther recently, Haman's name is mentioned ALOT!! The kids got a kick out of trying to "blot out" his name with their feet and their instruments! What a ruckus! Fun! Fun! I highly recommend incorporating this celebration into any family's holiday repetoire...I praise God for Esther's faith, her humility to seek God through fasting and prayer, and her willingness to risk her life for the sake of her people. May God continue to grant His children great faith and perseverance. May we continue to seek Him even as Esther so willingly did.

Valentine's Day 2010

Our family's Valentine's Day tradition for the last seven years has been to dip fruit and pretzels into chocolate. The kids absolutely love it, and we all look forward to this annual tradition. This year we not only did the "standard" dipping, but Charlie had the great idea to dip peanut butter Girl Scout cookies, too. Then, we moved on to pretzels into peanut butter before the chocolate. Yum! Yum!

The other Valentine's Day tradition is to make breakfast pink! This was something fun my mom did for Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day. We'd have colored milk and breakfast foods to match the holiday. We always loved being grossed out by the pink or green milk. Our kids have enjoyed the tradition, as well. This year the pink pancakes had cheerfully colored sprinkles also. Really healthy meal I served between all the food coloring and sugar!! Oh well. :)

The past few years I've been leaving a "trail" for the kids to follow from their room to the dining table. Last year the trail was made from tiny pink, white and red paper hearts but this year's trail was edible...red, chocolate covered (dried) cherries leading downstairs to the table. Silly.