The Ten Commandment OUTTAKES!

The Ten Commandments

Tonight's family time should've been done last week. We decided to discuss a little more about the purpose behind the ten commandments. Why does God give us the commandments? The real answer is because He loves us. Michelle asked the kids why we don't let them run into the street. Alayna said, "So we don't die." That's right. Then I asked, "Why don't we want you to die?" They both replied, "because you love us." Exactly...we love them and want to keep them safe and want what's best for them...same as our Heavenly Father. After some more discussion we began our activity.

We laid out some 2x4's in a zig zag formation. The first thing they had to do was walk across them like a balance beam. If they did they got a prize. After they crossed we asked, "what did you have to do to succeed?" Eventually we got them to recognize that they had to concentrate on the path. We need to do the same thing to follow the will of God. If we are lazy about it we will stray and fall away. Next we asked Josiah to hop on one foot across the boards. He was allowed to make three mistakes. He made it and used all three. Then we asked, "what did you have to do each time you made a mistake?" "Get back on and try again," Josiah said. Dad played the other side by saying, "What about stopping and crying, giving up, or just forgetting about God and going wherever you want?" To each of these the kids enthusiastically said, "NO!" Alayna now was asked to walk backwards across the boards. With her back turned we changed the course. She really had to slow down and feel out the path with her feet. We asked, "Do we always know for sure what God wants us to do?" They answered no. What did Alayna have to do when she got to the turns in the path? How can we feel our way? By remembering God's commandments and reading His Word. Josiah wanted to try it backwards. I told him not to peek. He peeked. I was very disappointed. Mommy had a great idea though. She recommended that he ask for forgiveness and as stated earlier get back on the path and do it God's way. He did and he did it God's way. The result was an even greater joy.

God disciplines those He loves. He loves you. Accept His discipline and it will lead to greater joy for you! Maybe not in the moment but in the end he works all things together for the good of those who love God and have been called according to His purpose.(Rom 8:28) His purpose is in the next verse. Your marriage, kids, job, sickness, singleness, wealth, poverty, health, talent, education, everything has the same purpose. Romans 8:29 says it plain as day. To conform you to the image of His Son, Jesus. He loves you too much to let you be like anyone else. Accept His discipline! Follow the Ten Commandments.

Here is a video of the kids rehearsing the ten commandments:

Our Cuddle Bug

I was gone on Sunday night visiting a friend and her newborn baby girls (FUN!). Anyway, I got back after the kids were in bed and as usual, I like to peek at them before I get ready for bed. I went in to peek at Alayna and all looked fine...then I went to peek at the boys and I saw Josiah and I looked for Seth...not in his bed, not in Josiah's bed, not around the beds anywhere...WHERE DID HE GO? Well, it turns out he wanted to see what it would be like to sleep in his sisters bed! I didn't notice him when I just peeked in from the door, but upon further inspection, this is what I saw.....

Too precious...he crawled into bed with her after she was already asleep...it didn't last more then a few hours though b/c once he moved around and tried to resume sleeping using her head as a pillow he needed to find his own bed back, she didn't want to deal with him. :)

Last Night....

OK, so last night was Family Time....each week is a little different and some weeks go more smoothly then others. Last night was going well up until the point when Seth who was wearing a life jacket (he seems to ALWAYS have it on now when he plays in the basement...not sure why, I can't explain that goofy guy!) decided not to sit with us anymore and then he decided to go down the small slide we have in our basement...backwards....yep, he slid down backwards and b/c he had a life jacket on he landed like a turtle, on his back with his head up a bit. Seriously, how could we keep Family Time going without all laughing. He kept doing it too...not to make us laugh b/c we tried to hide it and keep Family Time going, but after the first few times we couldn't hold it in anymore. Needless to say, we didn't get to talk a whole lot about what the commandments meant. We memorized all 10 with the actions, and chatted a bit about them, but each week we plan to focus on 1 or 2 maybe next week we can chat a bit more. We shall see how it goes!!

Our New Theme....

We finished our Alphabet Verses last week and our new Family Time theme is the 10 Commandments.

Americans know Big Macs better than Ten Commandments: A survey by Kelton Research found 80 percent of 1,000 respondents could name the burger's primary ingredient -- two all-beef patties -- but less than six in 10 knew the commandment "thou shalt not kill."

Here is our new song for this theme...enjoy!

We practiced a quick and easy method of memorizing the 10 commandments. Below is a video of the first two.

We chose to focus on the first two because they are very similar. We asked the kids to think of the most important thing they would get if they could only grab one thing before the house exploded and everything still in it was destroyed. Josiah picked his Wii (then changed his mind to take his bible, but it was one of those moments when he just wanted to say the 'right' answer). Danny (the kid from down the street) picked his 55" flat screen TV. Alayna picked her Bible. Bibleman videos have really influenced her to love her "scriptures." We tried to explain to them that even if they lose those favorite things that they should be fine with it. The reason is because they love God so much more than those things. That's not the entire meaning of the first commandment but it's as much as we could get across to them at their age tonight.

Stay tuned for more of the ten commandments...

How can you not smile??

Yes, he may be a rascal...yes, he may be incredibly 'busy'....but seriously...HE IS CUTE!! He found Alayna's hat and mittens and decided he needed to wear them in the house today.

Our Little Fighter

The kids have enjoyed dressing Seth up in a variety of our dress up clothes and Seth doesn't mind a bit as long as they want to play with him. :) Here he is in football pants in his 'fight' stance. He looks tough, huh?!

I feel like our lives are taking a turn (or maybe just a small curve, but we'll take what we can get) and Seth is getting easier all the time. He still has his moments, but he has more words now, he has a better understanding of 'rules' and over all he's just getting older maybe. I don't know, but whatever it is, I'll take it!! He started out as an amazing baby who slept well and ate well and was overall content just to be a baby....then he became mobile and got BIG and life just got crazier with him....then he got stronger and even BIGGER and bit (that was the WORST)....now he's just BIG and still has his moments, but they're just more 'normal' considering he is almost 2 (is that really possible??)!!

The Letter "Z"

We completed the alphabet!!!!

"Zeal for your house will consume me." John 2:17

Tonight we started with the kids drawing pictures of their whole bodies. Then we went out to our fire pit. Next to the fire pit we discussed the verse. Zeal means passion. Dad asked the kids what they are passionate about. Josiah is passionate about friends, bikes, and scooters. Alayna is passionate about friends and loud music(who would have thought that at 4 she already likes her music LOUD, thankfully right now it's bible songs). Dad then restated the verse by saying "toys" instead of "your house." Josiah noticed that daddy made a mistake. Daddy asked what "your house" means in the verse. Josiah said the church. Alayna said heaven. Daddy explained that the passion of our lives should always be about God and His church and His family. We are to be consumed for these things. Daddy asked the kids to put the pictures into the fire. Alayna did not want to put hers in the fire pit. She wanted to keep her life. Just like all of us do. Daddy said, "Jesus says that if we want to have a great life we must be willing to lose our life. The more we hold on tight, the less we get what God wants for us." Finally, Alayna put her person into the fire pit. Once all the people were in, daddy started them on fire. They were slowly consumed. Mommy and Daddy explained that we desire that our children will let their lives be consumed for the purposes of God. Once the papers were burned, they were useless for any other purpose. Our lives should be so consumed for God's house that we are useless for any other purpose.

The Big Day!

As many of you know I had the privilege to take part in the wedding of one of my closest friends. We have been friends since nearly the first week of college and we've remained close ever since. She was there when I first met Dan and was there for my wedding day and also saw all 3 of our kids shortly after they were born. I was there during the college years, change of jobs, moving and all the days of Ryan and Siobhan and through the entire journey of their dating relationship. I look forward to seeing what God has in store for their marriage. I love you guys!

Siobhan with her mom and sister

Siobhan with the girlfriends in her wedding

Siobhan and her dad

getting ready for me to do her make-up...I also did her moms make-up, her sister Cassie's, Margeaux's and a little bit of Angie's...and of course my own. Fun!

Siobhan and I

watching the bride come down the aisle

my hubby and I

look at these handsome men!

my pretty girl and I...both in purple!

Siobhan's girlfriends in the wedding (Angie, Me and Margeaux)...we had a great time together!

Cassie, her sister was the maid of honor and I was the matron of honor

it was HOT during the dance and so Margeaux and I took an orange crush break!

It was supposed to be a rainy, cruddy day and it turned out to be sunny and warm...the perfect day for a wedding!

My Sweet Boys

These two are just too cute together. They have both grown to love sleeping next to each other each night even though we only have twin beds in their room.

*don't worry, no kids were woken up in order to take this picture. :)

The Letter "Y"

Tonight's verse was:

"Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." Psalm 119:105

After memorizing the verse, we went upstairs. Mom and dad's room has great curtains that make it very dark even during the day. Dad hid 10 black checkers on the floor in plain sight. With all the lights off we sent one kid at a time in to see how many checkers each kid could find. Round one scores were:

Alayna = 0
Josiah = 2
Danny = 4 (he's a 7 yr old boy that lives down the street)
Danni = 1 (she's a 6 yr old girl who lives across the street)

After round one, the four kids and I discussed the verse. I asked them if they thought they might find more if they used a flashlight. They all agreed that it would help. Then, I asked them if they ever were confused about what to do. They admitted that sometimes it is hard to know what the right thing to do is. God's word tells us what to do so that we are not lost in the dark. His word is the light unto our path. I shared a quick Bible verse as an example. The Bible says "Children, obey your parents for this is right." Eph 6:1 If they are confused they said they could talk to their parents about what is right.

Then we started round 2. Each kid went in with a flashlight this time. Round two scores were:

Alayna = 6
Danny = 10
Danni = 9
Josiah = 0 (Josiah cheated by looking into the room while daddy was hiding them so he did not get to do the second round)

After each turn I asked the kids three questions:

1. What helped you do better the second time? (the flashlight!)
2. What is the light unto our path? (God's word!)
3. Where can we find God's word? (The Bible!)

It was fun and challenging to include a couple neighbor kids but the lesson was understood by all and hopefully the experience is memorable.

** During the reciting and memorization of the verse, Seth kept pretending to say the verse also...he plugged his nose when we said it that way and when each kid took a turn saying it themselves he wanted to try it too. He mumbled a bit and then clapped for himself because he was so proud. Anyway, it was HILARIOUS in the moment and so we captured a quick glimpse of trying to reenact the moment. The kids were more excited for him to say the verse again so they didn't participate much during their part in the video, but they sure were excited to hear Seth try again. It's fun (and often times funny) to see him get excited and try to be a part of our family time this year! **

Guess Who's Ready for School??

Today is the first day of preschool and she couldn't be more excited! She has been waiting to go to preschool now for over a year and today is the day she finally gets to go. This morning she was up, had breakfast, was dressed and had her shoes and backpack on by about 7:15. (she didn't get out of bed until a couple minutes before 7am either)....unfortunately for her, preschool doesn't start until 9am!! It's hard to believe my little girl is old enough to start preschool, but I couldn't be more excited for her.

The Letter "X"

We had family time but did not write the post right away. Sorry for the delay.

"Exalt the name of the LORD!" Isaiah 24:15

Because of our plan for this one we did not start with dancing. We started with verse memorization. Then we discussed the meaning of the verse. God has many names. These names teach us about His character. We exalt His name by speaking truth about Him and by trusting in His character. In order to learn some of His names we went on to YouTube and selected some songs that included names of the LORD. You can enjoy them if you would like.



The final song had no YouTube clip. The Lyrics are simple and each time they are repeated the song speeds up a little. Kids love it and mom and dad get tired out. :) It's called King of Kings, I think. Here are the lyrics:

King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Glory, Hallelujah
King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Glory, Hallelujah
Jesus, Prince of Peace, Glory, Hallelujah
Jesus, Prince of Peace, Glory, Hallelujah

As we went through each song, we asked the kids to see if they could find the names of God in the song. Then we briefly discussed the meaning of the name. It was great to hear from their little minds the truth about our great God! He was exalted!

"Dad-dy"

Much to his daddy's delight....he can now say "Dad-dy".

'Scriptures'

Ok...I'm not sure why, but Alayna has been very consistently referring to the bible all the time now as 'the scriptures'. She RARELY uses the word 'bible'. It's pretty adorable if you ask me...but maybe I'm a little bias! :)

Last weekend Dan and the kids (I was out of town) went to a family fun day put on by a local church and they gave each kid a Gideon Bible. Alayna has become very attached to her 'big kid' bible and I've even found her 'reading' it a few times (she doesn't know how to read yet.) Anyway, because I don't journal I wanted to write this down. As I was putting away clothes today she came up to me and said, "Mom, can you read to me from 'the scriptures'?"...how can any mom say no to that! So, I stopped and she found the 'right page' and I read to her from 'the scriptures'. I pray that her desire to know and read God's word continues and grows all throughout her life. I love you Miss. Alayna!