Tuesday, April 12, 2011

sacrifice of praise for Monday


Hebrews 13:15 

Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.





Photos courtesy of Peter, my son.  He wants to be a nature photographer on the side someday, supplementing his forest ranger income.




Monday Gratitude:

- Singing this song together, taken from Barney's Campfire Songs.  A kookaburra is a kingfisher bird, native to Australia.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, 
          merry, merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra,
gay a life has he.
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Eating all the gumdrops he can see.
Stop kookaburra, stop kookaburra
Leave some there for me. 

- Daffodils and other bulb flowers blooming in the front bed

- Writing letters to penpals & receiving letters from penpals

- Reading the book of Isaiah with my boys at night

- 7:15 AM visits from Paul and Mary, for morning cuddles.  Can't think of a better way to start my day.

- Homemade applesauce to cheer us up on a breezy, wet, cold, 50-degree day

- Goldfinches now visit several times daily.

- Husband starting his day with the Bible

- For the second year I'm having all the egg dyeing, egg hunting, stuffed-bunny gifting, and chocolate-bunny eating on the weekend before Easter, to help them focus on Scripture and Resurrection and church on Easter day--enjoying those along with a nice meal.   Every time Mary says Easter egg, Peter corrects her, "They're spring eggs, not Easter eggs, Mary.  We're doing fun spring things next weekend, not Easter things."  She pouts at him and says, "No! They're Easter eggs, Peter!"  (Oh, well. I try.)

Okay, that's it for today.  Miss Beth is awake!  Happy Spring!

3 comments:

Liz said...

LOVE the idea of doing eggs and such the week prior to Easter. Grace is almost 9 and I have struggled so much with Easter. I just don't get the bunny and egg thing. Yet, not wanting her to feel "deprived" or overly interested in those things if I leave them out.

We're doing the Easter "Eggspectations" devotional again. Do you have a set of these? Plastic eggs in an old egg carton, filled with scripture references and a visual item to reference the scripture. Grace loves it. To not get too caught up in the complication of a nightly devotion time (Daddy travels frequently) we're doing 3 eggs each Sunday evening during a family devotion time. We make it fun too -- one week we each had herbal tea, another week homemade ice cream, etc...

If you need the instructions to make the Eggspectations you can do a google search or drop me an email and I'll send it to you.

;)

Christine said...

Good to hear from you, Liz. I am doing a devotion this year from Ann Voskamp's site (an e-book). I will research this one also. Is it put out by Family Life Today (Resurrection Eggs)?

Thank you!

Liz said...

It's probably the same or similar to the Family Life Today set. I couldn't seem to get at the detail of that. But we made our own. These instructions are very similar to ours -- a couple of items seem different, but it gives you the idea.
http://blog.wantingwhatyouhave.com/2009/03/make-your-own-resurrection-eggs.html
The other thing we've done for the past couple of years is to make resurrection rolls.
http://savingdollarsandsense.com/2011/04/06/resurrection-rolls-recipe.html
Grace loves this activity. We usually read the scriptures and then walk through the steps and make just one. Last year I closed the blinds and made the house rather dark. We put the one roll in the oven, closed the door and left the oven light off. We sat silently and waited for it to bake. (This made it seem to take longer.) When we took it out and found the "tomb" to be empty we celebrated and shared the one roll. Then we brightened the house back up and worked together to make the rest of the batch. Grace really got into the reverence of contemplating Christ's sacrifice for us. It was a special time and I hope we can have something similar again. Plus, we loved the yummy treats!