December Day #19

 Today our angels were sitting on another book shelf holding a star.
Stars are an integral part of the Christmas story.  The star pointed to where Jesus was.  The wise men followed it.
In Numbers 24:17 Moses prophesied "a Star shall come out of Jacob."
And that star was referring to Jesus, "I am...the Bright and Morning Star." Revelation 22:16
In Scripture it says that the purpose of the beauty of nature is to point our thinking toward the Lord. 
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.." Romans 1:20
In the following verses the writer is saying that when he views the beauty and awe of creation all around him he wonders why God would think of or care for people.  The wonderful thing is that God does; such love!  
Psalm 8:3-4 "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?"  


Today our books were opened by Crystal and Cedar.

The books are:

• The Christmas Story.  This book is illustrated by Eloise Wilkin.  Her illustrations are happy childhood memories of reading for me.  
• An Angel Just Like Me is a story about a boy with dark skin who questions why all the angel ornaments have pink skin.  I like the sentiment of the story; it makes you think.  Don't just accept things the way they are just because they are that way.  "The truth is that whenever a fence is removed it's wise to ask why it was put there in the first place." Ravi Zacharias  It is wise to question why.  It helps us to be discerning.

We made pipe cleaner/bead crosses.  The cross was the purpose of Jesus coming.

Interesting how each child's cross shows a part of their personality!
L-R: Butterfly (bright and vibrant), Blossom (methodical and purposeful), Crystal (orderly and expressive),
Arrow (blue and worked very independently), Cedar (red and purposefully ordered)

The children enjoyed the dreidel game so much we played it again today.  We used the plastic math money.

Arrow spun first and landed the entire bowl!

Great times.

A little house cleaning tip for December.  Put a few drops of peppermint oil on the bag and/or filter of your vacuum cleaner...it smells lovely after you have vacuumed!

 Arrow playing the "boat" game on the Xbox.  It makes me smile that he uses the remote like a steering wheel as well as moving the little stick thingy.  He gets a turn once a week for half an hour and he counts down the days!  

Dinner tonight.  "BLT on T".  Bacon, lettuce, tomato on toast with a fried egg, avocado and cheese.  The secret is frying the egg on a medium heat in animal fat and topping with ranch dressing.  

~Lorna

December Day #18

 It is interesting, I think, that the stuff around us and the circumstances of life often clutter our thoughts so that we are not able to see the beauty around us as easily as we ought.

These are 2 views I have from inside my house.  When I sit quietly and reflect on these photos (taken by Butterfly) I am humbled at the gift of beauty painted right outside my window just waiting for me to notice it.

Our angels are hiding in a cupboard today! Holding a candle.

When the cupboard is closed it is dark.  If you lit a candle inside the cupboard it would be filled with light.
Our hearts are like the cupboard; dark with sin.  Jesus is the light of the world; when we open our heart to Jesus, He fills us with His light.  
"The light shines in the darkness; the darkness can never put it out."  John 1:5

*{No candles were lit inside small cupboard spaces in the enacting of this lovely little devotional analogy!}*

 Butterfly and Arrow opened books today.

The books are:

• The Gift of the Magi.  I'm never too sure what to think about this story.  It is endearingly sweet that they would each sell their most precious possession in order to buy the other a gift.  But then tragically sad that the very thing they sold was the the reason the other bought the gift they did.  The love aspect is nice though.
• With Love At Christmas.  Tatty Ted pictures with greeting card phrases on each page.  I bought it because Crystal loves teddies.

Arrow and Cedar sharing popcorn while watching Veggie Tales The Toy That Saved Christmas...again!

Hanukkah Day 2, we made oil candles.  One was SCARY!  Consensus = wax candles are much safer!

Oil candle with a candle wick

A button lamp like Ma Ingalls made in the Long Winter

I read this from Derek Prince a few months ago about oil.
"Now the oil is always in Scripture a type of the Holy Spirit.  ...  The candlestick, in itself, is incapable of producing light without the oil and without the fire."

 ~Lorna

December Day #17

Our angels were found by the tv holding a picture of a bell.  The devotion was about freedom.  The freedom we have from sin that is found in Jesus.  Bells ring out a joyous sound; our freedom is a joyous thing!

Crystal and Blossom opened books today.

The books are:

• The Happiest Search.  An Arch book which has a rhyming story about the Wisemen.
• The Steadfast Tin Soldier.  Not exactly a Christmas Story, but it has a Christmas tree on the front!  Good discussion to be had about why things happened the way they did.

I just had to share our lunch.  Pumpkin and Kumara soup made by Angel...there are no words to describe how good this tastes!  Try it sometime... here is the recipes on my food blog.

Today is the beginning of Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights.  This is our first year of learning about this festival.

It is a Jewish festival which celebrates an historical event when the small Maccabean army drove out the large Syrian army and rededicated the Temple so they could once again worship God freely.  
When they cleaned up the temple they found only enough oil to light the lamps for one day; the lamps which were to burn continually.  They lit the lamps anyway and sent a rider off on an 8 day journey to get more oil.  Miraculously the one day worth of oil burned continually for 8 days and nights until the rider returned with the new oil. 
This is remembered and celebrated still, as a miracle that God performed, which shows that he can do wondrous things.

Our crafts today centered around the Hanukkah story.  
We made blue Star of David with tinsel pipe cleaners and a black paper/cellophane window menorah.

Blue stars, menorah, and a wooden tealight candle "menorah" my dad made me.

We also played with a dreidel; a spinning top.  The Hebrew people were not allowed to worship God or teach from the Torah while under the invading army rule.  So the teachers would sit with their students on the side of the road and do their lessons in the dusty ground.  When the soldiers came riding along they would rub out the writing in the dust and begin to play with the dreidel, gambling for coins.  Since the soldiers played similar games themselves they didn't think twice when they saw the teachers doing this with their students.  The probably felt they had "won" in changing the peaceful God fearing people to following Greek culture.
Here we are using the dreidel my dad made for me.  There are 4 sides each with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet - Nun, Gimel, Het, Shin. We used chocolate coins.  It was quite a lot of fun.

Arrow spinning the dreidel.

Eagle gets a good spin going.  He and Angel seem to have most of the coins!

A Butterfly spin

Cedar's spins were short.

Blossom spins and everyone has to put a coin back in the bowl!

Cedar eyeing up the coins!

Crystal spinning in hopes of being able to win all the coins in the bowl.

Everyone puts a coin back in the bowl.

We made latkes for dinner; a potato fritter fried in oil.  Because potatoes are a hideous price at the moment and I had none we used kumara, and I fried them in lamb fat as we had lamb patties for dinner too!  It was DELICIOUS!  And even my kumara fussy children liked them!!

I also made this apple challah but we were too full to eat it!  Breakfast tomorrow.


Just before bed we lit our candles.  The tall candle is called the Shamash or attendant candle.  It is used to light each of the 8 smaller candles.  Each night one more candle is lighted, until after 8 evenings all are alight. In memory of the miracle of the oil burning for 8 days.

We also read verses that tell about Jesus being the light of the world and the giver of light.

~Lorna