Creating Easter Traditions

It is hard to believe that Easter is quickly approaching! I love this holiday and want it to be special to my girls and I am trying to start traditions that will keep the focus on Christ. I thought I'd share a few that I have recently found and am considering:

I absolutely LOVE this idea for celebrating Lent with the kids, although for my little ones I might shorten it to just the week before Easter. Here is the blogger's description: "We placed a styrofoam wreath on the table, to be kept during the 40 days of Lent, with a cup of toothpicks nearby. Each night at dinner, those at the table had the chance to confess sin from the day. When they did so, they placed a toothpick in the wreath, symbolizing the thorns in the crown of Jesus on the cross....on Easter morning, before the children awoke, I removed all of the thorns and replaced them with spring flowers!" She also has a delicious looking recipe for sweet potato biscuits you might want to check out!

-- A Resurrection garden -- On Good Friday, take a baking dish and fill it with dirt, rocks, sticks, etc and a hollowed out potato (as a tomb). It makes a great decoration to remind us of Christ's sacrifice. On Easter morning, remove the potato and fill the garden with flowers to demonstrate the life that Christ brought through his death. HERE is a good picture and description of what one family did.

-- Resurrection eggs -- you can easily make your own or buy them at a Christian bookstore or Amazon -- the children crack open an egg each day and a small token corresponds with a Bible passage that explains the resurrection story.

-- Here is a great download for a 12 days of Easter unit to do with little ones. It corresponds to the resurrection eggs.

Benjamin's Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs is a great resource to go along with the eggs. My girls have really enjoyed following the story of Benjamin as he learns about Jesus. He gathers the same objects that are contained in the resurrection eggs.

Rocks in the basket -- Fill Easter baskets with rocks to represent your sins... you can write specific sins on the rocks or just say them as you place the rocks in the basket. Then cover the rocks with a red cloth to represent the blood of Christ, talking about Christ's death on the cross and what it meant for us. On Sunday morning you can replace the rocks with flowers representing life or whatever gifts you might wish to give your children on Easter morning and/or place the rocks in a different basket with the name of Jesus written on it to show how Jesus took away their sins.

Color a red dot on your children's palms and write their name on it to remind them that Christ died specifically for them!

This Focus on the Family article gives a special activity for each day of the week leading up to Easter.

Easter In The Garden -- a touching retelling of Easter as seen through a child's eyes

The Legend of the Easter Egg -- teaches the deeper meaning behind the Easter eggs -- a boy learns that just as a chick breaks out of an egg, so had Jesus broken free of the tomb of death. Easter eggs remind us that Jesus conquered death and gives us eternal life.

And just for fun, here are some twists to the traditional egg hunt:

Cascarones -- I love this fun idea of filling real, empty eggs with confetti and allowing the children to race around, smashing them on each other. I suppose it could get out of hand, but I love the avoidance of ridiculous amounts of candy and I think it would make for some fun pictures!

or you could just play this fun Easter Egg Bashing Game :)

High Mineral Sports Drink and Coconut Milk Tonic

I promised that I would post the recipes that my holistic doctor gave me for Karlie. I am still collecting the ingredients for them, so I don't know yet if she likes them but I will update eventually. Also, she was just spouting off ingredients from memory and I was frantically writing them down as I tried to keep the pen away from Abbi, who was bored and strapped to my chest in the Beco. So I am hoping that she didn't forget anything and that I wrote down everything correctly and I will update as I refine the recipes :)

High Mineral Sports Drink: My doctor told me that as long as you get the best quality mineral salt (she actually recommends Redmond Real Salt over sea salt ), this drink is more effective than most mineral supplements that are super expensive. Thankfully, this drink does not cost much to make. She said that it would be good for all of us and Mark would especially like it after playing sports. It is also very healing to the gut because it contains aloe vera juice, apple cider vinegar, and a pinch of baking soda.

The first thing you have to do is make a "sole" (a super-saturated saline solution). She said that you boil water, pour it in a pint jar, and then add heaping spoonfuls of high-mineral salt, stirring and adding more and more until the water is so saturated that the salt will no longer dissolve and it starts sinking to the bottom of the jar. Even if you don't make the "high mineral sports drink," it would still be very good for anyone to make the sole and put 5 to 8 drops in a water bottle each day.

Ingredients for the HMSD:

Fill a 16 ounce jar with:

1 Tbs Apple Cider Vinegar

a pinch of baking soda

a serving of Aloe Vera Juice

a capful of Sole (super saturated saline solution)

3 oz. strong Concord grape juice (not plain, not from concentrate, not Juicy Juicy! This is the real deal and will be considerably more expensive than regular grape juice but you only need a tiny bit so it will last a while)

fill the rest of the jar with good quality filtered water (no fluoride or other chemicals!)

Coconut milk Tonic -- Here is the basic recipe for the coconut milk tonic. My doctor recommended making a simple chocolate syrup (from cacao powder, a natural sweetener, salt, and vanilla) to get Karlie to like it more. She also wants me to add in an egg yolk from a farmer I trust to increase the protein count. I would also like to add in probiotics to help heal her gut and eventually cut down on the water to give her more fat.

Ingredients:

1 can whole coconut milk

2 1/4 cups water or coconut water

2 Tbs maple syrup, a pinch of stevia, or other natural sweetener

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 tsp. dolomite powder (for calcium)

Directions: Heat on stovetop on warm and powder is dissolved. Cool before serving

Some Current Favorites

Today I am going to share some of the things that are our favorites this week at our house. This is a completely random list of what we have been enjoying this particular week and I hope you will share some of your favorites in the comments!

Music most often requested: Questions With Answers -- we have recently started doing Doorpost's children's catechism again with the girls before bed and they love the Songs for Saplings Cd's that answer most of the same questions. I actually prefer the wording of the CD's (although I really like the catechism as well) because it is simpler and often contains the scripture that goes along with the question. We recently got the 2nd volume on itunes and the girls ask to hear it all day long. The songs are quite mellow with just a guitar and the girls love that children sing the answers to the questions. It has also opened up some really good conversation with Karis as she asks questions about the theology described in the song.

(We also absolutely love Seeds Family Worship and Sovereign Grace Children's Cd's)

Favorite read-a-louds -- Betsy-Tacy, A Bear Called Paddington, and One Morning in Maine

Favorite Kid's Series -- Ladybug Girl Books -- While these are not the classic books I usually request at the library, my girls absolutely love them and I love the fact that they spark their little imaginations and they run around the house all day pretending to be Lulu or Marley :)

Favorite Book on CD (for naptime): Little Women (Karis) and Blueberries for Sal (Karlie)

Chicken Lazone -- my current favorite, super easy, fast, and absolutely delicious recipe. We eat it over quinoa.

Farmer's breakfast Hash -- My husband's current favorite breakfast... super filling and delicious!

Homemade cereal -- what my 3 year old wants to eat at every meal :)

Like-Lara Bars: My favorite snack!

My favorite book -- Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches -- I know we've mentioned it on here before, but I just got around to reading it this month and I keep reading it over and over again because it is that good and easy to read. It is such as easy read that I read it all in one evening and then decided that I wanted to actually remember all her ideas and continue to be encouraged and convicted so I then read one chapter a night before I went to bed each evening. I love the fact that she is still in the middle of mothering little ones and experiencing the exhaustion and sometimes overwhelmingness of our task. I feel like she is reading my thoughts and encouraging me and convicting me at the same time. This will be my "go-to gift" for mothers of multiple children!

Watching old home video clips with the girls -- my husband recently found some old cd's we made from when we got our dog and our first beach trip with our two littles and when Karlie was born. We showed several of them to the girls and they just had the best time watching them! I think we are going to have to start having an old family movie night once a month because it just makes them smile so much to see what they looked like so little and how much we loved them and enjoyed playing with them :)

This Melissa and Doug Play House Reusable Sticker Pad -- Nina brought this the last time she came and the girls ask to play it all day long!

Super Easy 2-Ingredient Shampoo

I've been searching for the perfect natural shampoo for quite a while now. I started out dong the simple baking soda technique and it worked fine for a while. But during the winter, my scalp got a little too dry and I decided I needed something that would do a better job of moisturizing. So I reverted back to buying a more natural shampoo and really liked Hugo Naturals Smoothing Shampoo (only $8 at vitacost). But I still wanted to be able to make my own. I saw this super easy recipe on Pinterest and knew I'd like it. Just coconut milk and castile soap, two things I use regularly anyways. I used an old dish soap bottle and poured in 1 part coconut milk (I use Native Forest brand because it is the only one I know that is BPA free) to 2 parts liquid castile soap (I use Dr. Bronner's). It took barely a minute and about 4 dollars and I have enough shampoo to last me at least 3 months and probably more.

I've been using this shampoo for about 3 weeks now and I've been really pleased with it. It is very moisturizing and I haven't even taken the time to make the recommended ACV rinse to go with it. The only downer is that I have had to wash my hair every 2 days instead of every 3 like I used to, but I think that is just my scalp getting used to the lack of chemicals and eventually I will go back to every 3 days. I've had the same issue each time I have transitioned to a natural version of a product and it usually resolves itself after my body gets used to the lack of chemicals. The fun thing about using the castile soap is that there are several scents you can choose from. I started out with peppermint because I had bought a bunch to clean with back in the summer when we had an ant problem (supposedly ants don't like peppermint smell), but I am looking forward to trying lavender the next time. I just thought I would share!

An ode to natural remedies...

You all know by now that I try to avoid the doctor's office at all costs and especially try to avoid any kind of medicine. Sometimes that is really hard and it takes longer to get over an illness because an antibiotic might bring relief in just 24 hours but it might take a week for the body to fight off an infection naturally. A lot of times, especially with a baby, I question myself and wonder whether I should just let a doctor look at her to be on the safe side. So far, however, I've never regretted keeping her home but I have indeed regretted a trip to the doctor that resulted in trauma and medicine when she could have probably gotten over it naturally. So I think I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing :)

Anyways, because I sometimes need reminding that natural remedies really do work, I thought I'd post about a recent fast success. Tuesday, I woke up with a sore throat and lots of pressure in my head. I had a busy day planned (Valentine's Day) and was just hoping it would go away. By the time I got the girls to bed that night, I knew I was coming down with the crud that Abbi had so I started to treat myself. I made myself a "lovely" concoction of super strong kombucha, elderberry syrup, apple cider vinegar, grapefruit seed extract, and astragalus tincture. I drank it before bed and woke up the next morning feeling about the same, but not at all worse. The next day I drank the same concoction and took ginger, cayenne pepper, boswellia, tumeric, and garlic after each meal. I took collodial silver in between meals. I also stayed away from sugar, white flour, and dairy for the day. All symptoms had disappeared by the following morning. I am certain that all my natural remedies halted the impending illness that had started to get me down

The best marriage advice given to me...

While a lot of people struggle the first year of marriage, Mark and I found that having children placed a lot more stress on our marriage than the craziness of our first few years together. I had been waiting my whole life to have a husband to love and serve and joyfully accepted the challenges that marriage threw my way. We were blessed to have a relatively easy and happy first year of marriage. However, once I had a baby, things changed. He was no longer the only person I was taking care of and it just wasn't the same. I was too exhausted to want to fix him a late night snack (with all the accompanying dishes) or attend his evening basketball game and hang out at a restaurant afterwards, or give him a massage at any hour of the night, or all those other fun things we did together when we were first married. We were both excited about the baby and he took it well and was a great help and never complained, but things were definitely not the same. And that is ok; there is no doubt in my mind that our precious children are worth it! But it just means that we have to work a lot harder on our marriage now than we did back then when it was just us.

So honestly, the best marriage advice I ever received actually sounds a lot like parenting advice because the two definitely go hand in hand: give the children an early bedtime! On a normal night, we try to have all the kids in bed by 7:00 so that we can have a good three hours to get ourselves organized for the next day and hang out together -- plenty of time to watch a movie together or have a date night or just chat on the couch. Usually Mark gets home sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 and we eat dinner together. Then the girls pick out a game to play with Daddy for about 20-30 minutes and then we start our bedtime routine of potty-time, pajamas, singing, Bible stories, memorizing Scripture, and prayers. And off they go to bed around 7:00. It may sound like they don't get to see him that long at night, but it is very focused, personal, quality time together -- he is not distracted by the TV, computer, cell phone, or anything else and they receive his full attention. They also get to play with him again in the morning between 8 and 9:30 before he goes to work. And he usually spends his day off with them, running my errands, taking them to story time at the library, and playing outside with them. But the evenings are for us to enjoy together.

Lest you think we are being too selfish, let me assure you that my girls actually normally sleep from 7pm to at least 7:30am and truly seem to need it. We definitely observe more grumpiness and meltdowns on the days following nights that we allow them to stay up late for one reason or another (grandparents visiting, social activity, etc). They also thrive on a routine and look forward to their Daddy playtime each evening and enjoy our bedtime ritual. On nights when we are out and about before bedtime and don't have time to do our entire routine, it is much harder to get them to bed without fussing and meltdowns. But if we stick to our routine, there is rarely a difficult evening.

Now I know that an early bedtime might not work for different families with vastly different work schedules, but my point is really to just make sure that you carve out some regular time with your spouse each day. The advice given to me was to give the children an early bedtime and it has really worked well for our family. But maybe instead of putting the kids to bed early and hanging out you might need to get up a little before them in the morning to have time together or plan regular lunch dates if your kids are up early for school. Feel free to comment and share about how you make time with your husband after having kids!

What I wish I had understood in high school...

One aspect of preparing for marriage that no one really wants to talk about is modesty. I thought that I understood the basics... My parents and I had many battles over the length of my skirts and shorts growing up! I was incredibly obedient and in fact overly modest until about 8th grade when a "cool" friend told me that I had great legs and I ought to roll up my skirt a bit to show them off. I had never even thought about it before, but that opened my eyes and began the lie in my heart that I needed to show a little skin in order to be beautiful. I was careful to cover up my cleavage and belly, but oh, did I try to get away with short skirts! I think back to what I tried to get away wearing in high school and I cringe in shame. It was pale compared to many girls in my school, but appalling by my current standards of modesty.

The truth is, I had been well instructed in modesty by my parents, but I never really understood the struggle that all men face so it was not a rule that I thought was important to follow.

I thought that all they had to do was look away if they felt tempted, just as I would look away if I saw a movie with something inappropriate in it. Not hard at all for me to do, so why should it be a big deal for them? In my mind, it was their problem, not mine. (And yes, I know how horrible that sounds; I'm just being honest. I have struggled with many sins over the years (obviously self-righteousness and pride included), but lust has never been one of them and I simply could not understand.)

By the time I met Mark, my standards had improved greatly because I knew the kind of guy I wanted to marry and I knew he wouldn't want a girl wearing short skirts! All my skirts were pretty close to my knees so I was greatly surprised (and incredibly mortified) one Sunday afternoon when he sat down and brought up this discussion. He told me that I was beautiful and that he loved to look at me but would I please make sure my legs were covered up during church because he found it hard to focus on God when I was sitting beside him with bare skin. Even though my skirts were almost to my knees, when I sat down, they rose up (of course). So that day I learned just a bit of the struggle that guys face and after getting married I understood more and more.

Disclaimer: This post is not at all about how long a skirt needs to be and I don't dress with skirts to my ankles even today. I happily dress for my husband and he helps me to know what he thinks is pretty and appropriate and what he likes to see me in around the house and out in public. What is most important is my heart's motive in dressing and I thank God that He used one of the most godly young men I had ever met to convict my heart.

I am writing this post because I am sure that there are many other young women who, like me, do not understand the battle that goes on in a man's mind. I recently saw the following video from CJ Mahaney and immediately knew that I should share it on here. Please watch it. Please watch the entire video. You might think you "get it" after the first minute, but as you continue to watch your understanding will deepen and your desire to serve your brothers will grow. It is worth your time. THIS ARTICLE by Mary Mohler is also a great resource, particularly if you are hoping to help your daughters understand modesty. And I recently listened to a great downloaded sermon from Dr. Pete Schimm from his Church's website. You have to scroll down to Sept. 4, 2011 to the one entitled "On Lust part 2." The entire sermon is good, but the conclusion is especially helpful when he directly addresses men, women, and teenagers practically. But if you don't have time to check out the other resources, please spend a few minutes watching this short video: