The Light of Christmas

This has been a wonderful Christmas! This year has held many challenges and struggles for me and my family, yet through it all God has been so incredibly faithful as only He can be.

Last night we attended Christmas Eve communion at my parents' church (also our home church). It was so beautiful! There were several thousand there and yet it was very intimate. Each of us singing the Christmas carols of old, lighting each others' candles and sharing in the Lord's Supper.

It was a holy moment for me and my children. I shared in communion for the first time with my daughter. And watching my children's faces light up as they watched the entire sanctuary become illuminated solely by candlelight was precious.

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2He was in the beginning with God.

3All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

4In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

5The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

6There came a man sent from God, whose name was John.

7He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.

8He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

9There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.

10He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

11He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.

12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believed in His name,

13who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1: 1-14

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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