Easy paper bag pumpkins

I wanted to do an art activity for fall with my kids. I love to have fall decorations and I love it even more then it is their artwork that is decorating my house.

I had no desire to go to the store so I looked around and found some brown paper bags. Add some orange paint and you have paper bag pumpkins. They are really easy to make and there are directions on various websites but here is my personal favorite:

You will need:

brown paper bags, lunch bag size

orange paint

green paint

green construction paper

green pipe cleaner

black construction paper

old newspaper

1. Cut out leaf shape from the green construction paper. Cut out face shapes from the black construction paper. If your child is older they could do this themselves. I was trying to make things easy for my kids so I did the cutting beforehand.

2. Crumble up the newspaper and stuff the brown bag. You want a slightly round shape, so a few pages will be needed.

3. Close the bag and twist the top to make a stem.

4. Paint the bottom of the bag orange.

5. Paint the twisted portion of the bag green.

6. Let dry.

7. When dry wrap a green pipe cleaner just below the twist (where the orange and green paint meet up). Thread the leaf through the pipe cleaner. Then make a curly end on the pipe cleaner (like the vines) by wrapping the end of the pipe cleaner around a pen a few times in a spiral and then slipping the pen out.

8. Have your child glue the face pieces on if you want a jack o lantern. Leave it blank if you simply want a pumpkin.

Have fun!

Getting ready

Madeline will be starting school in a month. I am truly struggling with this in many ways. For one I still would love to homeschool her for at least her kindergarten year. But after many discussions with Jon he still does not feel it is right for our family. I understand his hesitations but disagree with his views. However this is not a decision I can make alone, this is something we must decide together.

As I am realizing I will not be teaching Madeline at home I became hopeful that our house would sell this summer and we would be in a better town before she started school. After 45 days on the market we have not had an offer. While I know this is not a long time to be on the market I was still hopeful that we would be in a new house before school starts, or at least soon after.

The third reason I am struggling with school this year is that kindergarten is full day in my city. I do not agree with full day kindergarten for many important reasons. However I do not have the option of half day unless Jon and I find tuition money for private school (where is that money tree in the backyard when you need it?) or we decide to go the homeschool route. Madeline enjoyed school last year but a few things happened that concern me about her in kindergarten this year. I am hopeful that the 6 months that have passed since our last conference with her teacher will have helped Madeline grow, but I still hold concerns that she did not grow as much as we had hoped.

I am amazed at how much I am struggling with the idea of Madeline going to school in one month. It has worsened my overall anxiety (and Jon has noted the increase on several occasions). It is also effecting my sleep at night. And it overall just plain makes me sad. And this concerns me. Is it normal to feel this way? To talk to several of the moms I know it is not. To feel sad about your child going to kindergarten is normal, but to the extreme that I am seems not to be. Several moms I know are actually excited to have their kids go, and mention to me how much easier things will be with only two kids at home instead of all three. However, I do not know anyone else who feels as strongly about half day kindergarten, or homeschooling, as I do which may be one reason I feel so abnormal. But I worry. I start to think I will be one of those mothers who never lets her kid grow up. The ones they like to feature on "Mom Swap." The ones who appear crazy. I don't want to be that way. But I can't let go of the anxiety I am feeling, and the overall sadness. I will miss her terribly. If I am abnormal I hope that it passes as she learns to love school, but I also worry that if she is struggling with school that my issues will come through. How can I encourage something I truly do not agree with? How do I put those feelings aside? I know I will, I have before. But right now I am struggling to find the strength to do this.

In case you haven't noticed before I tend to extremes. I worry that everything will be all horrible or am convinced that everything will be perfectly okay. In reality things tend to settle somewhere in the middle. And I need to keep reminding myself of that, and this will be one of those times hopefully. But any advice on how to handle my anxiety and sadness would be greatly appreciated.

A simple father's day gift

Today the kids and I made a simple father's day gift. I modeled it after the gift Madeline made for me at school last month.

This morning I did an interview with Madeline and with Owen about there dad, asking them questions and writing down their answers just as they said them, without correcting grammar.

Here are the interviews:

Interview with Madeline, age 5
June 17, 2011

My dad’s eyes are green.

His hair is black.

His age is 10.

His favorite food is chicken parm.

He really loves me.

My dad’s favorite tv show or movie is Martha.

My dad’s favorite clothes to wear are red, white and black.

He cooks the best chicken parm.

I love my dad because he is nice!
 
Interview with Owen, age 3
June 17, 2011

My dad’s eyes are blue.

His hair is blue.

His age is 3.

His favorite food is chicken.

My dad really loves Madeline and me.

His favorite tv show or movie is Toy Story 3.

My dad’s favorite clothes to wear are Toy Story 3 clothes.

He cooks the best chicken parm.

I love my dad because me love him!


Afterwards I had them each draw a picture of Jon. When they wake up from nap we are going to glue the interview and their pictures each onto a sheet of construction paper and then staple the construction papers together to make a small book. I would prefer to put both papers onto one sheet of construction paper, but I don't have paper that large and I didn't preplan enough to go out and buy paper in advance.

I hope Jon enjoys these gifts as much I I enjoyed mine last month. I plan to do this same interview each year, that way we can see the changes as the kids grow.

Busy Week

I haven't had time to write much in the past few days (due to my attempt to curb my computer time for Lent) but I wanted to share some photos.



This week my baby girl turned 5! The time just goes by so quickly. She doesn't like to have her photo taken (a lot like me!) and this was the best I could get. She requested purple flowers for her cupcakes. I always make the birthday cakes but this is my first time decorating a cake with a pastry bag and I think they came out okay.




And today my youngest turned 9 months. He is getting so big, just Monday he used the toy box to pull himself up and stand. I have a feeling I will he chasing him around the house before long.





And even though he didn't hit any milestones this week I can't leave out my little man. He just loves his playdough!

Snow Days- Friendly Wednesday

If you are visiting from Feeding Four's Friendly Wendesday, welcome!

It is snowing.
Again.
As it is winter in Massachusetts this should not be surprising. What is surprising is the amount of snow we are getting with each storm. In the last three weeks we have accumulated well over four feet of snow. Yesterday we got 7 inches. Last night we got another 4 inches mostly of icy stuff.
All this means that schools are closed and Jon is home from work.
Again.
I am not unhappy that he is home, but seven snow days in three weeks is a lot. June will be a long, hot month of teaching for him this year.

I have been spending time on facebook reading the post of my non stay at home mom friends. I am laughing (kindly) to myself as they ask what to do with their kids. I laugh because entertaining my kids is my life. I like to get out of the house as much as the next person, but they honestly are starting to go nuts trying to keep their kids entertained after just two days. After reading these posts and trying to help I thought to myself, what do we do all day? And this is the list I came up with (for winter, summer weather would change a few things!)
*color
*finger paint
*play with our rice box- I filled a large Rubbermaid container with 12 pounds of rice a few years ago. I store it in the playroom covered when I don't want to clean up after the kids, but it is a GREAT way to keep the occupied.
*play dough
*painting
*baking
*having an indoor picnic with play food- this is something my kids like to do and invite me to
*race cars
*indoor bowling- empty plastic bottles (soda bottles work best) and a soft ball are all that is needed
*reading
*reading
*and more reading- nothing is better on a cold day then to cuddle up with a warm blanket, cuddly kids and some good books
*set up the train tracks and make up adventures for the trains and other characters
*puzzles
*indoor obstacle course
*putting on the snow gear and heading outside
*barbies
*my little ponies
*block towers
*Lego constructions
*bead necklaces
*hide and go seek
*blanket forts
*paper bag puppets
*messy artistic creations using whatever you have lying around!
*turn on the music and have a dance party

If all else fails tell your kids it is time for them to play by themselves. This is not bad, kids need to learn how to entertain themselves and you might be surprised at what they come up with alone. Madeline and Owen can play nicely for a solid thirty minutes in their own little make believe world and I love to watch!

You'll notice none of these things involves expensive items or a lot of planning. I do keep a good store of arts and craft materials around, but other than that I am simply using the toys that my kids have. Sometimes it is simply a matter of me suggesting something to my kids, or taking the toys out of the toybox or closet, to get them started.

What do you do on a cold winter day?

Summer Bucket List

There are so many things I want to do with the kids this summer. It isn't that I feel the need to fill our days. I do like to have things planned, but since they are home with me full time summer is really no different from the school year. But during the summer there are so many opportunities that we don't have during the winter that I want to do them all. However I am going to (try to) be realistic and know that with baby #3 due in two weeks we may not get to everything. So this is my wishful bucket list, and I am starring the items that are most important to me!

* join and complete the library summer reading program

go strawberry picking (done!)

go blueberry picking

visit the sprinkler park each week

*visit Lupa Zoo

*go to Maine for a week in August

go to Santa's Village in NH (while in Maine in August)

swim at Chicopee Memorial State Park

*take Madeline to get a pedicure for a mommy and Maddy day

*take Owen to the park for an Owen and mommy day

feed the ducks

watch the fourth of july parade

*watch the fourth of july fireworks

make s'mores

*visit the Farmer's Market

*play at the park

take the kids to see Toys Story 3

go to a free movie (they are offering them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this summer)

*teach Madeline and Owen how to ride their tricycles

make homemade sidewalk chalk

lots of fun arts and crafts (no specific projects planned yet but I will think of some!)

*make homemade ice cream (done!)

visit the town carnival

*get ice cream at Westview Creamery and feed the goats

*walk to Sammy's one evening for yummy soft serve ice cream

have friends over for a fire pit


Wow, that is a big list. And notice that although somecost money, many are free or very inexpensive. It isn't about spending money, it is about time spend together! I am sure I will think of things to add to it as well. It is going to be a great (if hectic and BUSY) summer!

Fun With Shaving Cream

One can of shaving cream = two happy kids!

Mothers Day Craft

If you read this post you remember I was doing a homemade mothers day gift this year. Sadly our flower seeds did not grow so I improvised by buying some flowers last night (just some simple flats usually used for flower boxes) and planting them in the flower pots for the grandmas and great grandmas. In the end it cost an additional $6 but still a very inexpensive project that I hope nana, grandma and great grammy will treasure! The kids are very proud and excited to bring them to the mothers day brunch at my mom's house later today. I also ordered photo albums for my mom, Jon's mom and my grammy with pictures of the kids. This is another gift that I hope they wil enjoy and treasure.


Here are the pictures of the finished pots and plants:

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms!

Finally got the pictures on the computer!

I was being lazy or the days where I wans't lazy Jon happened to have the camera with him. But today I put the pictures on the computer and here are some of the crafts we have been doing lately:

These are footprint bunnies that I found on Ramblings of a Crazy Woman. I modified mine a little becuase I did not have the giant sheets of paper that she has but I think they came out cute anyway!

Owen's bunny
Madeline's bunny

These Easter chicks are a craft that I did with my first graders when I was teaching.


Madeline's chick

Owen's chick

Then we had a week of rain and a LOT of indoor crafts. We were also doing some letter reviews. The Umbrellas are from No Time For Flashcards and the fish and frogs are from AHC arts & crafts. I cannot remember where I saw the butterfly idea but I know it is an original of mine!

Owen's creations. I have been putting glue on the paper and letting him put pieces wherever with just a little guidance.

Madeline's creations.

I will try to be better with posting crafts again. We have tons of fun with them!

Friday Craft Corner (a few days early!)- Book Project

I love to do book projects that involve crafts. Well I just love to do crafts in general, but when I can tie them into a favorite book it is even better!


This week we were reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom which is a book that we love. I had seen ideas for making the tress on other websites before and I combined a few ideas that I have seen.



We are reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to review letters in the alphabet. Madeline is doing really well with her letters and we have practiced all but X, Z and Q. After reading the story we made our own trees!

We started with tracing hand and arm onto brown paper for the trunk. Then I traced their hands and cut out four handprints for the leaves. Do-a-dot markers worked perfectly for adding coconuts. And lastly we used stamps to make the letters. Madeline did a great job with stamping her letters. Owen was quite messy with them but had a great time.

Owen working with stamps

I think he was trying to make fingerprints rather than use the stamps! Madeline loves stamps!

Owen's finished tree

Madeline's finished tree (she insisted that the leaves looked better this way!)

Friday Craft Corner

So I have been really bad about posting our crafts lately. We have been doing a ton of them too, I just don't find the time to load the pictures onto the computer and sort through them. I know it is a lame excuse but it is the one I am going with!

But here is what we have been up to (minus pictures, sorry!)

My kids love to have me trace their hands so we have been doing lots of crafts using handprints. Last week we made butterflies (review on b) and this week we made sunflowers (we were doing y for yellow). I found a cute idea at Ramblings of a Crazy Woman and modified it to use handprint leaves. I try to tie the craft into the letter of the week but I am not always able. The sunflowers were a bit of a stretch but it worked!



We also made kites the week we were doing k. Madeline is getting so much better with the scissors. I was really impressed with her cutting out her own kite. I am trying to give her more independance in that area and let go of my need for things to look "right." It is a constant struggle for me (a little OCD I think) but she feels so proud to show people what she made so I am working REALLY hard!



I found this awesome idea for spray painting here and bought some spray bottles last week. I was going to do the project this week but it rained and this is definatly an outdoor project. So this weekend when it is in the 80's we may take the easel outside and see what we can create. I will definatly take pictures and share them if we get to this!



We have also been drawing for fun. And Madeline's people are actually starting to look like people. This week she drew her My little Pony and I could make out ears, head, horn, eyes and legs. this is new for her and I am so proud of her growth. I can't take any credit since I don't do drawing lessons (I think she should develop on her own in that area) but she is doing awesome. Owen scribbles saying dada or mama and I'll ask him if he is drwaing dada or mama and he will smile and say yes. So I try to label his pictures (like I used to with Madeline) so we remember what he drew at each age.



I am working on a craft of my own, a way to display the art projects my kids are making. I found some awesome inspirations and am hoping to get some work done this weekend. If all goes well I will share my own art project next week.

Guest Posting

I am a guest poster over at Make Me A Blessing today. It is the Mother's Day Craft I did with my kids a few weeks ago. If you missed it, stop by Courtney's blog and read up!

Money Saving Tuesday- crafts

I love crafts. Luckily so do my kids. Sometimes Madeline will ask "what are we making today mommy?" I love that!

Crafts can be expensive if you let them. Buying all those little kits adds up. So I try not to (even though I am tempted by the pretty illustrations on the boxes...) But where to get the ideas and supplies?

With little kids construction paper is cheap and easy. A bottle of glue, some paper, scissors and crayons (or paints if you are feeling brave)and you can make tons of things! This week in honor of Easter we are making baby chicks (I will post pics of them later), sponge painting bunnies (Ramblings of a Crazy Woman) and making an Angle Rolled Away the stone craft (www.dltk-kids.com). All are being made with things I have in my house and all will be enjoyed by kids and mama alike.

I get a lot of questions about where I get my ideas. People have told me how creative I am. HAH! I am not super creative, but I like to have fun and do creative things. So I find ideas. I used to buy books of ideas when I was teaching and had the money to do so. Now my main goal is to do things without spending money if I don't need to. So where do I go? Books at the library (my favorite place), other blogs (love you all!) and websites are a wonderful source for ideas. And when I see an idea I like but do not have the supplies for I don't run out and buy them (okay, well sometimes I do), I try to modify them. If something calls for foam and I don't have it, paper will suffice.

Another place I get ideas is Oriental trading. I LOVE their products, who can resist things that come with each project separately wrapped with all pieces included (no cutting or sorting by mom needed). But the cost adds up, plus do I honestly need 12 projects for my 2 kids? So I look through the catalogue, get ideas and often make the items myself. Or I substitute and make something similar. I saw a cute hand print butterfly idea that I simply cannot justify buying BUT I can make with things I have at home. I also saw a whale flowerpot craft that I cannot justify buying either, but can modify with a yogurt cup (tons of those lying around and free), paper I precut, googly eyes that we always have and some paint. Cute craft for a fraction of the price. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Oriental Trading, but if I were to buy their crafts I would blow my craft budget in a month instead of a year.

Some of my favorite blogs and websites are:
Kaboose
Dltk-kids
Totally Tots
The Crafty Crow
Preschool Express

And when I am looking for a craft for a specific season or holiday or letter I google it. There are so many ideas out there it is amazing!


Doing crafts with kids can be expensive and messy. But it doesn't have to be...well I can't promise anything about the messy part, that is all up to your kids but daddy's old t-shirts make GREAT free smocks! Look at some of the sites I mentioned, look around your house and see what you can do. HAVE FUN!

Friday Craft Corner

I like to have my kids make gifts for mothers’ day for their grandmothers and their great grandmother. It is fun for the kids and (I think) more meaningful for the grandma’s and great grandma’s. So this year I was looking around online for an idea. I wanted my kids to plant flowers. But more than that I want them to make or decorate the containers that the flowers will go into. After some searching I found a few ideas that I combined into one (frugal) idea.
I know it is early to get started, but if you are growing seeds and want the gift to have an actual plant then now is the time to get started!

To start I bought impatient seeds. The packet says they do well indoors as well as outdoors. Hopefully this is true! If not, at least the pot will be re-usable. I was going to buy terra cotta planters but they are breakable. And my kids are VERY good at breaking things. So we settled on some plastic containers that I found at Target for 99 cents.

All the ideas I found online suggested using acrylic paints. Those stain. Again, my kids are VERY good at staining things. So instead I came up with a compromise. We will paint with poster paints and then I alone will spray the containers with a clear acrylic, water proof coating that adheres to plastic. After looking at a few sprays I even found one that is UV protective at Michaels. That cost $6.99.

So far I have spent less than $12 dollars on the gifts. All that is left to buy is the soil which I can pick up for about $3 (and use the remainder for starting my garden!). So the total for the gifts for three wonderful women is less than $13. Not bad!

I thought about having the kids go to town with painting the pots. And while I am sure they would be masterpieces I wanted to do something a little simpler. So instead I decided to have them make handprint tulips on each pot. Two handprints per kid, and two kids= four tulips on each pot. I allowed Madeline to choose the colors for each flower pot for her hands. Then after allowing the handprints to dry I went back with green paint and added in leaves and stems. With a sharpie marker I wrote the child’s initials under each handprint and around the rim I wrote Happy Mother’s Day and the year. Jon the sprayed them with the acrylic gloss sealer to make them waterproof.

On the second day we added soil and seeds. We will water the plants and hopefully have some beautiful plants to give away on Mothers’ Day next month. My backup plan if the flowers do not grow is to go out and buy some flowers and replant them. Hopefully I won’t have to do it, but it could happen! I also plan to tie a pretty ribbon around each pot.

Come back and visit before mother’s day to see how our plants turned out!

Brithday Time

Madeline's birthday is Monday and we are having cake and ice cream tomorrow night to celebrate with her grandparents, great grandparents and one of her uncles (my brother is the only one who lives close by). She requested a princess castle cake and I LOVE to make birthday cakes so I gave it a shot. Here is what we have:

I will post more pictures of the birthday girl on Monday!

Money Saving Tuesday- Spring Fever Edition

I have spring fever. It happens every year when we get a hint of warm weather. I live in Massachusetts so any glimmer of warmth in March is wonderful! But it is also usually a tease. We have been known to have snow on Easter. And in 2002 when I graduated college in May it snowed. Even though it is March and yesterday the weather kissed 50 degrees today it snowed.

So spring fever is dangerous.

But now that I have it I have begun dreaming of my garden. I try to garden every year with varying degrees of success. One year all I managed to grow were tomatos. And we had so many I was giving them to everyone and anyone who would take them. Last year I got tons of beans and cucumbers galore. But not a single tomato ripened. Carrots and I do not get along. The best I have managed was one year I grew three as big as my pinky.

So as you can see I do not have a green thumb.

But I can dream. And for the minimal cost of a garden startup I am willing to try it every year. Last year was my most successful. We managed a lot of cucumbers, a few peppers, lots of grean beans and two SMALL cantaloupes. We at least know that the placement in the yard works. And we fenced it in so no squirrels or rabbits would eat my vegetables. So I am going to try AGAIN. Even with the startup money I still managed to save on my vegetable bills in the summertime. Although my goal is to freeze or can my vegetables and be able use them through the winter as well, which will save more money, if I can simply grow enough for the summer I will be happy.

This year Jon is going to double the size of the garden. He wants to attempt corn and knows it will take up a lot of space. Last year our garden was about 4 by 6 feet. Not big, but it was a start. This year we will have two 4 by 6 gardens. We also ran into the problem of the tomatos taking over the garden. I only had three plants but they took over the pepper plans which were then not able to grow. For those reasons we will have the second garden.

On my list of plants to grow are:
tomatos
peppers
string beans
corn
carrots (yup, trying it again!)
cucumbers (but only two plants this year, not three!)
pumpkins
watermelon
lettuce (never tried it before)

I do start my garden from seeds. I will start the indoor process in the next month. The startup usually runs less than $30. That includes an indoor greenhouse setup, seeds and soil. I watch the sales for the indoor greenhouse containers and grab them for $5 a piece, I can start about 18 plants in each one and will probably buy 3. I found seeds at my dollar store, 4 packets for $1. After about 6 weeks inside they will be ready to transfer outside.
Even if you start a garden from plants bought at your local garden store it is still cheaper in the long run than buying all vegetables at the store.

I am very excited to get started at my garden. I will share pictures of my kids helping this year and hopefully we will be more succesful in the past!

Friday Craft Corner

This week was a simple craft, we finger painted. I love fingerpainting but we don't do it very often. This is possibly due to the almost two year old in the house =) But after how well it went on Tuesday I think we will bring them out more often.

We have four colors in our basket- red, yellow, blue and green. Four is more than enough with my kids. I start out by putting small dollops of the colors directly onto the paper. Of course they each just have to start out with all four colors. For this reason four colors are plenty. Plus they mix on the paper and can make lots of different colors

When Madeline first started fingerpainting when she was about 2 1/2 I used large sheets of paper, but not the special finger painting paper. I am frugal about arts and crafts and at almost $7 a pad the finger painting paper just struck me as a waste. Well, after many paper rips, messes and crying I decided to splurge on real finger painting paper. It was SO SO worth it.

I also put both kids in smocks. What did we use for smocks? Daddy's old white t-shirts. They are huge but they work so well. They covered the kids completely and they didn't cost me a dime! How awesome is that?

Owen started out just using his index fingers. He was a little uncertain. By the end he was full out into it using hands and arms to smush it around. he kept asking for "mo" paint. I would turn his paper so he could use the paint that was splotched in different areas before adding more to help with drying time.



Madeline got into it right away. Then she started mixing colors to see what would happen. I did NOT let this learning opportunity pass me by. We talked about what would happen if we mixed red and blue, red and yellow, blue and yellow. The she tried mixing yellow and green and said "it didn't change!" So we talked about it a little. Then she lost interest and went back to her masterpiece.



All in all the rugrats spent about 20 minutes quietly painting. They each made two pictures. The clean up took me all of 7 minutes, including washing hands, and it was well worth it. We will be using finger paints again in the near future!

Friday Craft Corner on Saturday

I am a day late this week. Jon has been home on school vacation which is wonderful but it always throws my schedule off.

This week I tried another craft basket. I filled it with pompoms, different shaped scissors, glue, caryons, glitter glue pens, construction paper and foam sticker shapes. Madeline and Owen had a great time and these are the results:

Madeline's final creation

Owen's final creation

Fridat Craft Corner

I was inspired by Tired, Need Sleep and her art box activities for her son. Instead of handing my kids a project and the materials to complete it, I gave them a basket full of materials and an idea to work with. This week we worked on valentines projects.


In the basket was glue, markers, crayons, do a dot markers, construction paper, valentine colored tissue paper, stickers, heart shaped doilies and ribbon. I let them have fun and they created some masterpieces.



With Owen I put glue all over his paper and let him go to town. He had quite a few layers of hearts on his papers and he had a great time. He would put doilies and hearts on the paper and I would add another thin layer of glue and let him add more decorations. I also helped him peel stickers (which he LOVES) to add to his creations. He was very pleased and actually spent about 20 minutes working on his cards!



Madeline first chose to put stickers on some doilies which she later deemed decorations and put up on the back window. Then she took construction paper and glued tissue paper hearts on them along with doilies and ribbon. She used her own glue so it took a long time to dry. I am trying to teach her to use small dots of glue, but she prefers globs and well, glue is cheap so I don't worry about it too much. I cut out the hearts for her and Owen to glue to the paper. We are still working on scissor skills and since I wanted her to enjoy the project I did the cutting, plus tissue paper is not as easy to cut since it is flimsy. She cut up her ribbon and loved it. Madeline worked on her decorations for over half an hour.



Since both kids' attention span with crafts isn't usually this long I think I will approach more projects this way. It is easier for me, less planning involved, and it is great to see the final creations!



The cards came out super cute and if I could find my camera you could see for yourself =)

Lent

Lent is next week. I am not the best Catholic in the world, probably not even on my street. You will know that be reading my blog. I am rasing my children in my Catholic faith but it is not often that I talk about it here.

I want to be a better person and I am trying. One way I am trying is by teaching my children about their faith. Easter will be here soon, but I don't want to gloss over Ash Wednesday and Lent.

After reading Martin Family Moments, a post Colleen wrote about Lent inspired me on ways to teach my children about Lent. Owen is very young and won't really know what we are doing, but Madeline is almsot 4 and I think she can really begin to understand. I plan on taking her to church on Ash Wednesday. But I want to start talking to her about it before we go. I still remember one famous questions asked by a kindergartener at my school. When told they would be receiving ashes at mass that day the child becaem concerned and asked "will they be hot?" The teacher very quickly explained that no they would not and aslo what the ashes are made from. I don't want a loud question like that asked by my daughter in church!

Anway, after reading this post I was inspired on a way that I could teach Madeline about growing and becoming a better person. In the past I have been famous for trying to vive soemthing up. Some years I made it (though the year I gave up chocolate I almost lost a few friends) and other years I didn't even come close. But this year rather than give something up for 40 days(which is something that would be difficult for a 4 year old) I am thinking of doing several projects, giving to others, doing nice things for others. 40 is a lot, but I think if I am for one a week and do things each day to build up to the final activity it is doable. Plus it will involve all of us in giving. I plan to include Jon in these plans as well as Owen as much as he is capable.
Some ideas I have are:
*collecting books and donating them to a charity (my MOMS club is involved in this and I am now thinking of involving Madeline in the sorting of her books)
*donating food to the open pantry
*cooking a meal for a friend or family member and delivering it in time for dinner one night as a surprise
*making get well cards for children at shriner's hospital to make them smile

As you can see I have only four ideas and there are six weeks in Lent. I need a couple more ideas, but I think that doing these things will help teach our whole family about caring for those around us, both family, friends and strangers. In addition we will be reading the story of Lent from our bible and working on some craft projects to understand the story and the season. A last idea that I have is a jelly bean jar. I found this idea on several websites. Each time a child is noticed doing something nice for another person they put a jelly bean in the jar. The jelly beans are saved until Easter.

Those are my thoughts so far. I have until next Wednesday to get everything in order and would appreciate any suggetsions!