Keeping Christ in Christmas

We haven't spent a lot of time preparing for Christmas this year.  In the past, the kids and I have gone through 4 weeks of Christmas-related Bible lessons and crafts by this time...not this year.  Something about moving half-way across the country (and perhaps the 70-degree weather) makes me feel like it couldn't possibly be the end of the year and the time to celebrate Jesus' birth.

We may not have gotten crafty and creative in our efforts to keep our kids' focus on the Lord this holiday season, but we did work hard on memorizing a scripture passage.  As a test, the kids recited their verses at the end of each week.  Here are two of our best takes.

Enjoy!

And yes, we do motivate through jelly beans around here!  :)

Building the Christmas Tree

We've never had a Christmas tree. Well, that's only partly true. I, Becca, had a tree each year as a child but I've never been the one to put it up. This year we, the Chew family, were blessed to borrow an artificial tree from some friends - thank you Morales's! It was particularly exciting because Joshua has been talking about building a tree for a few weeks.

"First we'll get a column, like this. Then we'll attach leaves to it," Joshua explained. I actually didn't know how artificial trees were assembled but soon learned that Joshua was right - I think he's on the road to becoming an engineer.

The Lord obviously knew how important this was to Joshua. I also figured it out quickly after his preschool teacher asked me one morning, "So, Joshua keeps telling me that you're building some kind of Christmas tree at your house?" That's when I actually prayed for a Christmas tree. It was one, maybe two prayers and a thought of "how nice would it be to get a tree this year", but the Lord heard and He answered.

Our dear friends, Jes and Steven, heard about Joshua's tree building idea and offered for us to borrow their tree this year. They even delivered it to our door, complete with a tree stand, lights, ornaments, and a star to top it off.

Today we built and decorated the tree. Joshua was hard at work from the beginning. He enthusiastically unpacked all of the branches, sorted them by color, and started distributing ornaments before we had even begun. He put each branch into the center column and was instrumental in making sure the ornaments were evenly distributed - otherwise we'd have two very low branches bearing the load of an entire tree's worth of decorations.

And at Family Bible Time tonight, Joshua and Hannah initiated creating a manger scene under the tree. They gathered the soft toys and dolls, even some blocks to pose for gifts, and set up the cast of characters: baby doll Jesus in a plastic manger, Mary (the lamb) and Joseph (a very large Pooh Bear), the wise men (two monkeys and a wombat) accompanied by their small but trusty camel, shepherds of various soft toy races and creeds, and - my personal favorite - a hippo dressed as a ballerina playing the part of the angel. As a writer of Bible curriculum for toddlers and preschoolers I was particularly proud of the efforts involved in this hands-on lesson.

So, without further ado, here is a video of our Christmas Tree building extravaganza as recorded by our budding photo/video-journalist, Hannah Chew. Enjoy! :)

Abby's Early Keyboard Skills

Abigail has discovered the keyboard. She walks over, stands on her tiptoes, and reaches up to play whatever keys her little fingers can hit. So, I decided to pull up her high chair and let her have a bit of "practice time". Here's a video of her early keyboard skills. I am her mom and I think she's fantastic in every way, so does it surprise you that I think she's pretty good for an 11 month old? :)

Enjoy!




P.S. After Joshua ruined Abby's piano time, he attempted to console her by singing "Abigail, Jesus loves you! Abigail, Jesus loves you!" He may have done better to kindly move her high chair back to the center of the keyboard and wait for his own turn, but the song was thoughtful.

P.P.S. Please accept my apologies for another dark video. I know...it's hard to see what's going on, but what can I say? The iPad with all its video quality goodness was with Claude at work. :)

Hannah's Head in a Pail

I don't need to say much more. Enjoy! :)

Birthday Greetings

Happy Birthday Ah Kong! This is a video for you from Joshua, Hannah and Abigail! We're coming to visit in NOVEMBER, not September like Becca said.

Our tickets are booked for November.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Claude, Rebecca, Joshua, Hannah and Abigail

Acts 1:8

There are a hundred posts that I've wanted to put up in the past several months. There just isn't time! So, instead of trying to catch up I'll just start with something recent - and hopefully I'll keep posting so that this isn't so out of date.

So, here's Hannah, who was very proud to recite the memory verse from our church nursery - Acts 1:8. I actually had no idea she could do this until she took the picto-verse from my teaching folder and started "reading" it. Good job, Hannah!

"I Have Decided..."

Hannah started singing this today. If you're wondering, the toy she is holding up is meant to be a camera - she was taking a video of herself. :)

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

We had a fun time celebrating Jesus' birth today. Due to illness, our gathering was smaller than we initially anticipated. But it was a refreshing and very joy-filled time to be together.

I am admittedly falling behind on blogging. I can think of half a dozen posts that I'd like to make, but due to time restraints I'll just post a video of Joshua and Hannah getting into the Christmas spirit - worshiping the Lord Jesus through music and dance. More updates will come soon... hopefully...

Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!

This post deserves much more space, but I think that Joshua and Hannah can say it better than I can.

Happy Father's Day, Claude! Thank you for setting an amazing Christ-like example for our children.

For Posterity

Kids always seem to come up with funny and interesting things to say. Today was a normal day for us in terms of humorous anecdotes from Joshua and Hannah, but I thought that I would put some of them down on (cyber) paper - for posterity's sake. Enjoy!

While visiting the store today, Joshua announced, "We want some TVD." I gathered that he meant that he wanted to watch some TV (there was a display television with a mother and baby walrus showing), but not fully knowing what a TV is, he decided to combine a few different media types (CD, DVD, TV...it's all the same, right?).

We also visited a grocery store today that has singing animals and other puppets displayed throughout. Sounds a bit creepy, right? Think of singing mechanical puppets on a ride at Disneyland and you have a pretty good picture. Cows are favored at this store, as they are with Hannah. And cows that are playing banjos and singing are particularly memorable. On the way home today, Hannah informed me that the cow was "singing to the Lord". It's song, which she very willingly demonstrated, went like this, "Moo moo moo!"



Also on the car ride home today, both little guys were saying, "T-t-t-t-t-t-t," repeatedly. When asked what they were doing they told me, "We're singing to the Lord."

During bath time, Joshua and I had the following conversation which accurately demonstrates his geographical grasp:
"I live at Montana."
"Where does Mommy live?"
"Mommy lives on Saturday."
"Oh, and where does Hannah live?"
"Hannah lives on Sunday."
"Okay. Where does Daddy live?"
"Daddy lives in school."

The following is one that I can't quite type but to set up the video, Joshua was looking for a specific truck of his. Today he couldn't find this truck, a paramedic truck, but it took me a long time to figure out what he was asking for. You'll understand if you watch the video!

I Love to Dig

Joshua is always making up songs as he goes about the day. This was from our trip to the beach this weekend. Enjoy!

He's 2 1/2, what more can we say?

I was working in the kitchen a few days ago and this caught my attention. Enjoy!

He's hard to hear from under that box. Here's what Joshua is proclaiming,
"El camion de bomberos!"
For those who don't understand Spanish, this means, "The fire truck!"

Theology 101...with an 18-month-old

We hope you enjoy this little video of Hannah telling us what she knows about Jesus. She never seems to be paying close attention in our Bible lessons, but apparently she's picking up a lot more than I anticipated she would.
Praise the Lord!

I can do all things...

Joshua is learning Bible verses left and right these days. Even without any focused effort on our part as parents he has committed several verses to memory. Most are learned from an excellent CD of Bible verses put to song.

If anyone is interested for your children or even just for yourself, check out:
"Hide 'Em In Your Heart" by Keith Green. This CD was given to us by some friends and has passed the three tests for being played frequently (meaning EVERYDAY) in our home. 1) The kids love it. 2) It is approved enthusiastically by Mom, the Nursery Director. 3) It is musically enjoyed by both Dad and Mom, both musicians.

This verse seems to be a favorite. He recites it to himself when he's facing a challenging situation, like putting together a complicated puzzle.

Philippians 4:13 - Enjoy and be encouraged!

Publish Post

Hot Dog!

The kids ate hot dogs for the first time a couple of weeks ago. They thought the word was hilarious to say. Once they were in bed that night all I heard from the bedroom was laughter and an occasional "Hot dog!"

Enjoy!

More memory verses

The cornerstone of our experimental homeschool is the Bible. We have spent this semester learning about the history of God's chosen people, the Israelites, as He took them out of slavery in Egypt and led them into the promised land. This week marks our last week of this unit since our lesson is about Joshua leading the people into the land and their famous battle for the city of Jericho.

In this video, Joshua is reciting the memory verse from this story. "Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore...to give to them." -Joshua 1:6.

Enjoy!

In the Beginning...

This is Joshua's first memory verse in Hebrew. "Bereshit Bara Elohim" (not sure about upper/lower case or phonetic spelling, but there you have it). Translated this is, "In the beginning God created". Joshua continues to recite the first two pages of the creation account as written in The Beginner's Bible (Zonderkidz 2005). Of what he knows, and it seems like quite a bit for a toddler, Genesis 1-3 seem to be his favorite chapters of the Bible, so we hear A LOT about creation every day! :)

This one is especially for Linda. I hope that we taught him correctly!

Enjoy!

Here's a transcript for those who don't spend all of their time with a 2 year old.

Joshua: "When you see Pastor Linda. When you see her. Bereshit Bara Elohim. In beginning world was empty. Darkness covered everywhere. God had a plan. God separated light from darkness. 'Let there be light,' He said. The light turned on. The light was called day and He called the darkness night."

Becca: "This was the end..."

Joshua: "Of the fourth day."

Becca: "Of the very..."

Joshua: "First day."

Bear

This is one of our favorite books. If you have little ones in the house and haven't found this at your local library or bookstore, you should check it out. It's a lot of fun! This is also demonstrating one of Hannah's first words: "bear".

Enjoy!

Orange Pear Apple Bear
by Emily Gravett

The Things They Know

I, Becca, had a song of the books of the Old Testament in my head yesterday morning. I began to sing it aloud and was completely shocked to hear Joshua saying the books along with me. Here's our second recording attempt. I was so distracted the first time that I lost track once we reached Jonah, which was too bad because Joshua was saying more books the first time around...oh, well.

He continued to sing along with me several times through the song and each time would say some of the same books and add others. My favorite is "Open a Daya" for Obediah. Please note that Joshua calls Claude "Daya" because he couldn't say "Daddy" until recently. So really, he was saying "Open a Daddy" as Obediah. :)

I also love to see that Joshua is really just a two year old, as demonstrated through his lack of sharing with Hannah. It just goes to show...we can know all about God's word, but when all is said and done that knowledge isn't going to bring about the life change that we need in order to be in right relationship with God and with others. Memorizing the books of the Old Testament or not, we still need Jesus.

Joshua's second memory verse!

Again Becca and I are amazed at the work that He is doing in Joshua!

His second memory verse,

"The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth." - Isaiah 40:28

Enjoy!