Heavenly and earthly Fathers (Sunday school lesson for preschoolers)

This Sunday is Fathers Day - perfect for talking about God, our heavenly Father.

This time no story. I wanted to get the kids talking.
Today we're going to talk about God, our heavenly Father. Who here has a father? (encourage response)
Who know his father's name? (encourage response)
They are your earthly fathers. Your father here on earth. Did you know that you ALSO have a heavenly father? Who knows who that is? (encourage response)

Do your daddys know a lot? Are they smart? Can you think of something your daddy knows? For example, my daddy always knows where he's going. He can always find his way. He never gets lost. He has a good sense of direction and can always find his way home. What about your daddy's?

Wow, your daddy's are smart! We can learn a lot from our daddy's. And did you know.. God, our heavenly Father is also really smart. He knows even more than every daddy on earth. God knows everything. He even knows how many hairs you have on top of your head! And he knows all your names! He knows where you live and whether you have brothers and sisters. He knows when you're happy or sad or angry. He knows all this because He's God. God knows everything.
We can also learn a lot from our heavenly Father. For example, I am learning how to love people the way He loved us, how I can show someone I love them by being friendly to them.

Who can tell me something their daddy does really well? For example, my daddy is good at fixing bikes. What can your daddy do really well? (encourage response)

Wow, your daddy's sound amazing. We can learn so much from our fathers.
Our heavenly Father is also really amazing. He made the earth, the seas, the clouds, the sun, moon and all the stars! He made all the trees and flowers, animals, birds and fishes. He even made us! God can say to the wind 'Be still' and the wind will stop blowing. He can say to a storm 'Be quiet' and the storm will calm down. God can say to the sun 'Don't move' and it will stop moving. Wow huh! God can do anything!

Let's play a game.

Daddy says
Run around the room. You are the wind in the storm. Be wild. Be fast. But listen closely because when I say 'Still' all of you must freeze. Can you do that? Then we'll do another storm and you start running again. But when I say 'Lie down' you must all lie down as quickly as possible.
Let's play.

Prayer
Let's thank God for our fathers here on earth and that He is our Father in heaven.

Fathers Day Craft
Cut pieces of cardboard out of boxes. Punch 2 holes in the top with a hole punch. Paint it. Glue a text on top saying 'I love you Daddy' (the lego heart I used is from the brickartist). Glue a small note book on the card board as well.

Coloring Page
Illustrating today's lesson: Our father here on earth and our Father in Heaven.(Feel free to use it)

DIY dry erase sleeve

Dry erase pen uses are all over pinterest and I'm absolutely SOLD!

Picture frames

One of the most popular uses for dry erase pens for adults is on the glass of a picture frame. You can put whatever you want in the picture frame (most people put calenders or (meal / clean) planning schedules or to do lists in there). And then - just write on the glass and wipe it off when you're done. Wonderful!
Examples here, here and here.

I adapted this method a little because I wanted my calender taped on a kitchen cupboard door (has to withstand the door being banged shut). I found out that you can use dry erase pens on laminated paper as well! So all I did was print an empty calender I liked, laminate it and now it's taped to my kitchen cupboard door and works really well!

The printable calender I used is a free (meal planner) printable from Picklebum.com. I liked this version because I only have to laminate it once. I write the dates in at the beginning of each month. But if you prefer an actual calender by month she's also made a beautiful free calender you can print.

Activity books

Activity books is another really popular use for dry erase pens. Some folks put the activity pages in sheet protectors. Examples here, here and here.
The quality of our sheet protectors is actually pretty awful so that's not an option for me. Another mom laminates all her activity pages. The result is a really beautiful and practical book that can stand being used by several little hands. Example here and here.

However, I only have 2 boys so although durability is important, that's a little too durable relative to the amount of work. I found another option: dry erase sleeves that you can buy (here (US), here (NL)). But, being the person I am I figured: perhaps I can make something just as workable myself for so much less money. So I thought of the clear-laminate sleeve.

The Clear Laminate Sleeve

How to make it:
Laminate some white cardboard/ cardstock. This will be your back.
Now laminate nothing - giving you a clear but relatively durable laminated sheet. This will be the front sheet - the one your kids (or you) will write on.
Cut about 1cm off the top of the front sheet. This is to make it easier to remove the paper when you're done and want to replace it with something else. I added a black line with permanent marker.
Tape the sides and bottom of the 2 laminated sheets together and there you have it: your own laminated  sleeve.

Now just print out activity sheets, games like hangman, close the square, mazes, connect the dots, yatzee etc etc. Or let the kids go crazy and draw 100 pictures on it. Great for in the car, airplane, waiting room or even just at home! And the really great part? You can use each page again and again and again!
Have fun with it!

Quotes

Spending a lot of time walking with my baby to get him to sleep (he's teething and not enjoying the experience). While I walk, I listen to CD's or read something. Not that I don't enjoy looking around at God's beautiful world, but there aren't many paths to walk where I live so those paths are very well known to me :)

I love to read. Whenever I read a book I have a pencil ready and I mark the passages I think are well written and which speak to me. What I miss however, is a way to easily return to those great quotes and be reminded of whatever was said. Seeing how a person needs to hear a new truth at least 7-8 times before it will sink in... I just need more repetition. But I don't have time to reread every book 7-8 times so what to do?

Last year I came up with an idea that would work for me. I started making my own quotes calender to hang in the bathroom where I can be reminded of all the wisdom I come across - and hopefully become the wiser for it.

Basically I type the quote into Photoshop, make a nice layout, print and laminate. Then punch a single hole in  the top and hang all the printed quotes on a single hook in the bathroom. That way I can very easily change the quote showing AND it all stays clean.

These 4 quotes are from a CD by the Love and Logic Institute called 'Shaping Self Concept'. It's a great CD and I will be sharing more quotes from it as I have time to get the layout done.

The road to wisdom

Do you ever have times when you know something but somehow keep forgetting it anyway? The first part of the quote below comes from Love and Logic - a practical philosophy to raising children (at home and in the classroom). Being sleep deprived because our littlest one is teething I need to remember this for when I'm dealing with the elder boys. I made 3 different versions (because it gets boring to look at the same thing all the time) to hang in 3 different places. I hope it will help me take a step back when the kids do misbehave and remember that I'm happy they're making these mistakes now because that means they won't be making them when they're older and the price tags are so much higher. 

Birthday party theme Ghosts

I don't know how it happened, but one day my son (just turned 6) came home from his (very conservative christian) school and announced he really wanted his birthday party theme to be 'ghosts'. He would not be persuaded or tempted towards another (more kid-friendly?) theme, so I agreed to go with ghosts (and later regretted it, but hey, once I say 'yes' I need very good reasons to justify changing my mind).

So... ghosts. You must understand that in the Netherlands Halloween is a controversial holiday that is celebrated only by a few (mostly expats) and things like 'ghosts', 'witches' and other things are sometimes really frowned upon by other christians. So that put me in a bit of a sticky with regards to other moms and families... how to keep my word to my son but keep it fun and light hearted at the same time.

Here's what we came up with.

We did lots of decorations.
(Doing those together is really the reason I do themed birthday parties - I just love getting crafty with my kids and since they aren't very motivated towards crafty things except when they're working towards a big fun party.... you get the picture :) ).

PS Click on the photo's for a larger view...

Quite a few of these decorations can be found on my pinterest boards (Kids Crafts and Kids Crafts from Krokotak).
The house I just cut with a hobby knife free handed (crooked lines add to the weird haunted house look); The little ghost garland I cut from folded crepe paper so I could cut 10 in one go. We then stuck black crepe circles on for eyes.
The window pictures show (it's hard to see) spider webs that I drew on the windows with black paint in a clean glue tube (that worked amazingly well!). And you probably can't see the really scarey spider made from black paper (circle body, 8 strips for legs, bent in 2 places each) and red pom pom eyes with small black pupils glued on that'sitting in the window web.

We planned games.

Check out the costumes and masks! I kept it really really simple: half a bed sheet, hole cut out for the head, elastic sewn around that hole. Voila. Hang around nek. I skipped on all the hemming since (except 2 for my boys) these costumes were for one time only. (I plan to re-use the sheets for some craft ideas I have...)
The mask can be found on my pinterest board Kids Crafts.

Marshmellow ghost
We gave the kids a bowl of marshmellows, m&m's, toothpicks and chocolate icing (to use as glue) and 3 minutes to make their own little edible ghost. The most creative results earned a kid 2 points. The rest earned 1 point for trying. We did this for all the games.

Water bottle bowling
We set up 6 water bottles and used a soft baby ball (since we were indoors). The only rule was that they needed to stay behind the doormat (for distance).

Ghost hunt
I made these really cute little ghosts from a scrunched up piece of paper (for the head), wrapping a tissue wipe around the 'head' and securing with some thread. Then I drew 2 eyes and a mouth on the head with a marker. They were adorable (see decoration picture).
We hid them around the house, peeking out from behind paintings, books, toy boxes etc. And set a limit (10mins) for the search (to avoid boredom... these kids really needed to be kept busy to ensure that the peace was kept).

Ghosting daddy
We had to skip this idea because of the time, but it would have been such fun! We were planning to hand each kid a toilet roll. Daddy was willing to suffer their efforts to make him the loveliest of ghosts with toilet paper and scotch tape. Too bad we missed out on that one!

Scavenger hunt/ Quest
My wonderful husband set out this 'quest' for the kids to follow outside. We were counting on an overkill of energy to run off so he made it pretty long. He pinned little ghosts on trees for them to find and follow. They were really competitive in being the first to find and collect the ghost markers. We even had some pushing and fighting to resolve. I was absolutely amazed (and b.t.w. 'who has the most ghosts' was NOT even an objective - they made that 'game' up themselves).

The trail led through 2 small playgrounds were we had some activities for them to do (we also allowed some 'free playing' until tempers started to flare).

Bean Bag Balance Race
Put a bean bag on your head and race someone to the other side.

Hopping Ghost Race
Basically hopping to the other side on one leg.

Backtrack Race
Basically doing a small track (around play things and posts) backwards as fast as you can.

Ghost Tag
One kid is 'it'. He tries to tag someone else. When he does, he and the other kid must hold hands and together they must try to tag someone else. The more kids that are tagged, the longer the 'ghost chain' is until only one kid is left - the winner.

We made - this truly was the highlight of the day - a totally fabulous creepy tunnel out of 15 cardboard boxes varying from huge to just big enough for a 7 year old to crawl through.

They had to climb into a standing box using a ladder (a little help was needed for this manoever). Then they had to crawl through a hole into another box, through another hole into a huge box. In that box there were lots of cut up plastic garbage bag strips hanging from the ceiling to make it harder to find their way (plus it feels creepy in the dark). They crawled over bubblewrap and packing plastic foam blocks, and even had one box that went downhill (where we had steps - we put planks underneath to support the box). We'd also made holes in the sides of the boxes and taped plastic bags in these - tickle and scare holes for others to surprise the one crawling through. That was great fun!
The kids were all in agreement - this was the best part of the party!


Themed party favor bags are expensive so I generally make my own using sandwich bags and glueing a picture on them. The kids generally don't care about the packaging anyway - almost unable to wait until they're home to rip it apart to get to the contents. But still, I take some pride in the presentation :).

As you can imagine... they weren't ready to go home yet at the end of the party (mission accomplished). My son had a ball (although what he loved even more, of course, were the presents he got... o, the materialistic spirit!). Still... next year he'll have long forgotten what he got but he'll definitely still remember this party!

It was definitely worth the total exhaustion afterwards.

Religion or Relationship and marriage

Religion or Relationship - check out this post as well.

Sometimes I wish it were about Religion instead of Relationship... Religion is so much easier in a sense. It's clear, that's what it is. If you do this...  than... - garanteed.

If I read my bible and pray everyday than I'll be a good christian. 

Anybody think like that? I certainly do. 

But if I apply this same logic to my marriage for example it doesn't work as well. 

If I am slim and well dressed every day, my husband will always find me attractive.
If I cook the meals and keep the house clean, my husband will always feel loved.
If I tell my husband all the time how great he is and how much I appreciate and love him, he will always feel important.

Although all of these activities are good to do, none of them garantee the same outcome each time.

Can we earn a good marriage? 

I seriously believe we could do everything right and still there will be no garantees of a good marriage. Why? Because every relationship takes 2 people to make it work. It's not about doing everything right, it's about 2 people wanting to make it work and taking the time and making the effort to invest in the relationship. And people need different things at different times. 

We humans are complex creatures (how can we be anything less when we're created in God's image!). We often don't even understand ourselves, let alone our partner. So how can a simple bunch of rules be enough to garantee anything? 

A relationship requires more. It requires making an effort to see the other person: his needs, wants, desires, wishes, joys, trials, insecurities, accomplishments, character - warts and all. Relationship also requires us to act on what we see, to use what we see in our interaction with the other person.

Relationship doesn't have a 'one-size-fit-all'. It's custom-made. Every relationship is unique simply because every person is unique and wonderfully made. 

So, no garantees, no easy answers, no 'if you do this... than...'. We cannot earn a good relationship with Jesus any more than we can earn a good marrital relationship by doing everything right (religion). (Isn't that a pity? Now I have to actually think about my relationships, not just once, not just at the beginning, but regularly and for as long as the relationship lasts.)

Jesus stands at the door to our hearts and knocks (Revelation 3:20). He wants to be in our hearts, in the place that controls our lives, our very essense, who we are. He doesn't want a superficial, let's drink tea together in the living room relationship. He wants to be at the core of who we are (read an excellent sermon from WestHighLands on giving God control here. Also, a must-watch short sketch from OneTimeBlind callen 'The Stool'.). 

If we choose to let Him in, He will eat with us (His initiative) and we with Him (our response). Mealtimes weren't the rush jobs they often are these days. In New Testament times "mealtime was a time of doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers!" (read an article by David Black on this subject here)

Relationships are hard work sometimes and a soft cushion to fall other times. But they are also endlessly more rewarding than anything we achieve simply by following the rules.

Marbelized paper heart card craft

Making marbelized paper is so easy and so much fun! And as a bonus - it leaves the whole house smelling great :)

Instructions and other ideas of what to do with marbelized paper, check out this post.

Here's another idea:
Make a card.

I did a cut out julehjert design (because I just adore julehjerten). But you could do any design you like. 
I like the black paper on the marbelized paper - I feel like it stands out more. But feel free to experiment with what works best for your card design.

Cut out's are easy. You just need a sharp hobby knife, a wooden cutting board and a good design (because the hardest part is actually making sure you don't accidently cut where you shouldn't have!). 
Below are 2 designs you could use.

The final result:

You can see I decided to cut along the left edge of the heart so that the heart jutts out a bit. I thought this would give a nice effect. This is actually a dubble (folded) card (fold on the left also). 

Please link to your own creations - I'd love to see them!