Kid Dates

Giving your kids the gift of your undivided attention is something they will never get spoiled on.  If you have mulitiple children , date nights with each child alone is essential.   Below are some ideas to get you on a date with your child! 

1.       Barnes and Noble- share a cookie and tea and then go into the kids section and grab all the books you can and read to them and have them read to you

2.       Go to the park and play WITH them, don’t just watch

3.       Pack a picnic and grab a blanket and find a special spot to have a picnic

4.       Lock yourselves in their room and play a game with them

5.       Go for a walk or bike ride

6.       Create and Keep a date book of ideas you create and want to do together and try to cross them off through the year

7.       Volunteer together.  Pick up trash, visit an elderly community, or call and set up some time to volunteer by calling a local organization

8.       Play miniature golf

9.       Go to a movie in your car and pop some pop corn

10.   Turn on some music and create a dance together

11.   Write  a book together and publish it on the computer, take your time creating the characters and using your imaginations

12.   Get a joke book from the library and tell jokes and LAUGH

Make sure your unplugged from your cell phone, your iphone, your computer and every other distraction.  This is their time with you, a chance for you to show them they are special and deserve your attention, unshared with anything else!  Anyone have any ideas to add and share, I would love to keep a growing list…..

Counting my blessings on Mondays

I am watching her feel crushed in spirit and defeated.   I am watching her feel judged, unloved, unworthy, and unsure.  I am watching her as she trembles with regret and uncertainy.  I am watching her fall apart and unravel   I don't know how to answer her, how to help her, but I do know how to hold on to her and hug her and love her.   All I have to offer is love.

Love is the answer.  Love is the way.  Love is God showing through us.  All I can do is love her and pray she sees Him through my love.

As I continue to count my blessings on Mondays....

Love
little kids laughing and giggling
watching preschool class learning to sound out words
the right words, when I need them
running and time alone to listen
warm touch of my husband
a warm home with lots of life (and noise )
a journal waitning to be written in
watching my oldest daughter read to her youngest sisters
more good than bad

Guiding my girls

Last night I watched the Secret Millionaire on television with my 9 year old daughter.  It was really quite a good show to watch together.   It takes millionaires and puts them into areas of peverty in the country and without anyone knowing who they are, they volunteer and live in the destitute area. After meeting the people, seeing the faces, seeing those trying to make changes in the area, the millionaires reveal who they are and write checks to people and agencies that they learned about.

  It gave my daughter a great understanding of poverty in America and also it showed different non profit agencies in that city that are trying to help these areas.   The programs they showed were non profits that had no federal funding and were started and maintained by people who were truly doing what they loved, helping those who need it.   This reality tv show was truly reality tv.

As I watched this with my daughter I got an idea.  Why not do a monthly, family,  research project about a local community agency.  Find out what their mission is, who they help, who created it, how it is funded and any other important or interesting information.  After we research it together as a family, we go to the agency and present them with a check from our family.  Each month we will pick a different agency and give.  My goal is to teach my daughters how to meet the needs of others, how to do the research , how to give, how to love, how to solve problems, and share the information with others around us.

I am hoping this turns into something we can continually do together as a family.   What about you, how do you teach your kids about helping others and showing them how to serve?


http://www.wearethatfamily.com/

Dream

As I sit and listen to this song I wonder, when did I stop dreaming?  As a little girl I had such amazing hopes and dreams.  The smallest of details would be thought of.  I could daydream for hours about what I wanted my life to be like and look like.  Everything around me was beautiful, at least thats how I perceived it.  I kind of thought of myself like Peter Pan, and I would never grow up, always have the lovely, sweet thoughts.    But I did grow up and somewhere between some unexected deaths, some dissapointments and too much responsibility, I stopped dreaming.  I don't remember where or when it happened , but it did happen.   So as I listen, I have an ache to recapture my dreams. The things and thoughts that make me smile inside, I want to think of these things.  I want to see the beauty in things around me through the eyes of the little girl I once was, who trusted God so easily.  

We are expected to grow up, but I am not convinced that letting those beautiful dreams and desires that God created with in me I was young, are way of growing up, that is a way to loose yourself.  Thats what I feel, like I have lost myself.   I grew up like the world told me to, I don't like it, I am returning to dreaming little girl and I will teach my three little girls to hold on to the lovely thoughts, make them a secret garden in their hearts, and don't stop dreaming.

I have struggled during the last three months to find my voice on this blog.  I have so much to say and write, but creating the voice that sets the tone for the blog, well, has been a journey.  Dream, by Pricilla Ahn, inspired and sparked and has really helped me to see where this voice needs to be going. Where I want it to be going.   I would love to attend the She Speaks Conference in North Carolina.  The conference encourages and teaches woman who want to speak/teach and write to serve HIM.  A Holy Experience(http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/03/how-christians-create-art-she-speaks-scholarship/), the original blog I started following years ago, that inspired my own daily walk, is giving away a scholorship,  If I could have encouragment and the abundant knowledge of this group of writers to guide me, I feel that I could not only find my voice, but my voice could help someone else grow deeper or even begin on their daily walk with Him.

Interruptions

I am taking a Pricilla Shirer bible study, Jonah.  Being a Beth Moore follower for many years, I saw Pricilla Shirer with Beth Moore during a Deeper Still event.  I was quite captivated by Pricilla's style and grace on stage and her ability to capture her audience with personal story.  I was able to relate to so much of what she said because we are in the same season of life, trying to raise children.

So as I began my homework for the course , the first few pages completely stopped me in my tracks.  God has a way of doing that to me.   As a writer and lover of books, the printed word has always been the way God has talked to me and gotten my full attention and he had done it again through Priscilla Shrirer's penmanship.  The words read, "Interruptions only become positive when we consider the person or the circumstance interrupting to be more significant than that which currently occupies our attention", (Jonah, pg 13). 

Interruptions.  Sometimes I feel that if I wrote a memoir of my life that would be a perfect title.  Interruptions.  I am interrupted a hundred times a day.  Interrupted by little ones who have made a mess as I try to teach my oldest daughter, interrupted by little girls when I try to read in my morning time, interrupted by the telephone when I need to finish this laundry pile, interrupted by the hours of the day ending and my to do list still not checked off.  I am continually interrupted.   Or that is what I would of allowed my self to believe until those words gave me a fresh perspective.

I would not consider any of the above interruptions if I "considered the person or the circumstance interrupting to be more significant than that which currently occupies my attention".    This is not the life and legacy I want to leave behind.  My children's littlest needs, the friend who calls mid day, God calling me to sleep and rest, the growing chores, they are not interruptions, I am just not considering them significant tasks at the moment and thinking of them as interruptions. What would happen to my day if I considered the interruptions to be opportunities to serve God?  

I am excited to continue this bible study and share a fresh perspective on interruptions.....

Make a communication journal for you and your girl

I am in continually trying  to guide my 9 year old daughter.   We have created a very close relationship and are able to talk about anything and everything.   At 9, she is at a very piviotal developmental stage.  She is forming many of the thoughts and ideals that she will hold for a very long time.    As she continually brings to me questions on friends, love, hurts, dreams, prayers, fears, sex, I try to answer her honestly with the information she needs at this age, with understanding and love, and with a bible verse.  

I have a found that she is constantly in thought about the world around her and sometimes she waits to ask me a question because she doesn't know how to bring it up to me.  In my own life I have found that writing to someone is easier than saying it to them (the writer in me).  So I came up with an idea to create a communication journal between me and my oldest girl blessing!

The journal is a special place for my daughter and I to write back and fourth to each other about topics that might be to hard to discuss face to face, at first.   Its a conversation starter and then find time to be alone and talk longer and more in depth.  These could include her thoughts about her body, her self image, sex, fears, a new poem she wrote, anything.   The point is to tell her this is a place for us to communicate about anything back and fourth.  This journal is in no way suppose to take the place of face to face talking time but just another creative way to keep encouraging a strong relationship.


You could have a secret place to put the journal, so if she wants to initiate a conversation about something a friend said to her that made her sad, she can write that in her journal and leave it under your pillow.   You could then write back with what you want to share with her and return it under her pillow.  Get creatvie and make it personal to your unique child and your unique relationship.  This is your opportunity to guide your girl through her struggles and thoughts in this world, not anyone else.


1. Use any notebook, I love the black and white composition notebooks
2. Sit down and introduce the concept of the communication journal and "alter" you journal together with special papers, stickers, etc.
3. Use paperclip to divide the journal into 6 sections or so and add paper tabs to label each section accordingly (ex. friends, family, fears, body, prayers, helpful scriptures, whatever is relevant to your daughter)
4. Cut a piece of pretty ribbon and use it to place as a page holder

Enjoy leading and guiding your daughter through this exceptional age and growing closer to each other during this time!

HE speaks, she speaks

As HE speaks to me and I write, the SHE SPEAKS Conference is coming up July 22-24! This conference helps women who want to speak and write and lead for HIM, learn the tools of the trade. I heard about this conferecne a year ago and thought what an ideal, to be encouraged by others pursuing the same goal of speaking and writing about The One Who Created Us All. I truly just chalked it up to a dream and kept the desire in the back of my heart. But the dream is now within reach! Proverbs 31 Ministry has a contest and the winner recieves a scholarship to the She Speaks Conference. The scholarship is possible because of Cecil Murphy. I am participating in the contest and praying that this is part of Gods plan for me and my writing!

I shared in a previous post my desire to write deep within me when I was young and finally pursuing it the past few years. I feel pulled to write about what I am passionate about and that is living a joyful life! For me, my joy comes from my hope in the Lord and sharing a bit of the joy I see in the world. I believe I should reflect God's goodness and grace and contagious joy! I want The Inspired Page to be a little bit of sunshine in this often dark world!