...Joyful Mama's Place...

Time to say goodbye.

2012-02-17T15:42:00.000+02:00

"To everything there is a season..."

Ecclesiastes 3:1

After much thinking and praying - and yes, agonizing - I have decided to bid blogging goodbye and this is, sadly, my last post here on Joyful Mama's Place. Writing here these past two years has been such a lovely experience and a very fun hobby. But being an 'all or nothing kind of girl', the blog has just been taking up too much of my time and energy, and even when I wasn't posting much, I'm afraid I had gotten into the habit of looking at too much of my life as potential blog posts! I would much rather spend that time and energy on things with more eternal value.

Thank you so much for every one of you who read my ramblings these past two years, and especially to everyone who took the time to comment and told me that you enjoyed my posts - your comments were always a treat!

I will not be deleting the blog, so feel free to return to the archives if you ever need some inspiration! And who knows, maybe in a year or so I may even try to take up the reigns again...

I continue to have fun with my sweet children daily and I delight in their development and beautiful personalities. Hopefully leaving the blog - and cutting down on computer time in general - will free up even more time to spend with them and with my darling husband!

"The Lord bless and keep you;

The Lord make His face shine upon you

and be gracious to you;

The Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace."

Numbers 6:25-26

Yours joyfully,

A Joyful Mama

Pinterest Inspired Projects Day 6: Dragon Tails

2012-02-15T06:16:00.000+02:00

Did I ever tell you about the day the doctor told me that our second child was a boy?? I was 16 weeks pregnant, and convinced it was another little girl, because....

1.) that's what the doctor said it looked like at my 12 week visit, and

2.) why on earth would God ever entrust ME with a boy?!

I am the eldest of four GIRLS.

In a family of 15 cousins, there were only 4 boys, and I never really took too much notice of them, but oh, all of us GIRLS were so close!

And my firstborn was a GIRL, and it was wonderful.

So when the doctor went a little pale and admitted that he had made a mistake on the previous scan, I broke down and bawled, sobbing: "But I can't even catch a ball! What is going to become of him????"

In love with my little guy, 7 weeks old

I am happy to say that when the shock eventually wore off, I became quite taken with the idea of having a son, and oh, then they placed that little guy in my arms...and I was smitten!! And I am not in the least bit shy about the fact he has me firmly wrapped around his little finger!

BUT....

That doesn't mean the boy-thing always comes naturally to me, and this has become quite evident in matters surrounding our dress-up box! My construction-loving, tough-as-nails little Big Man would all too often emerge from his sister's room decked out in a tutu, handbag over the shoulder, and his fireman hat! It had just never occurred to me that boys also need dress-up clothes! *blush*

Pinterest to the rescue! I've just recently started a Dress-up board and I'm glad to say that it contains roughly equal numbers of girl AND boy outfits that I hope to make for my team! And the first one I tried my hand at?

DRAGON TAILS!!

There is a fantastic step-by-step tutorial for these on Tatertots and Jello. The directions were clear and very simple to sew - I think the whole thing took me just under an hour from cutting the fabric to tying it around Arrow's hips.

(For you local ladies, I've found it really worthwhile buying a measuring tape with inches on one side and centimeters on the other - it's very handy when doing projects like this one by American bloggers. I don't even try to convert, but just simply follow their directions using inches.)

Arrow just recently discovered dinosaurs, so we called this a dinosaur tail, and he had great fun chasing his sister around the garden making deep, growly, super-scary dinosaur sounds!!

Pinterest Inspired Projects Day 5 :DIY Cloth Nappies

2012-02-12T19:37:00.001+02:00

If I told you that I recently had the joy of meeting an old friend again online, you might think I was talking about someone I found on Facebook maybe? Well, no. The 'friend' in question was actually a tutorial for making cloth nappies that I used almost four years ago when I sewed my first batch of cloth nappies for my then three month-old baby Sweetpea!

I remember really liking the idea of soft, 100% cotton nappies on that sweet little baby bum, as opposed to the paper-and-plastic variety filled with all kinds of chemicals. So one Saturday afternoon I googled 'cloth diaper tutorials', found a few, and, using an old bed sheet and and old towel, made three nappies using different tutorials. One was too narrow between the legs, and the other one had a removable soaker pad, which was just too much trouble.

But the third was just right!!

Sweetpea wore those cloth nappies until she was toilet trained. And then ArrowBoy arrived and he wore them, and they would have even seen little Baby Rosebud through, if it hadn't had been that I met a lady who had fallen on hard times and needed them more than we did.

But then one day just after Rosebud's birth, that same tutorial found its way onto my Pinterest page, and we were happily reunited!! The result was a fresh batch of cotton nappies for our sweet baby girl!

To make these I use flannel for the outside and a stretch knit for the inside (what we call 'tracksuiting' here in SA!) I buy my fabric at shops that sell large off-cuts by weight. For the soaker pads that are sewn inside, I use either old towels or old toweling nappies (ask a few friends to keep their old towels for you when they clear out their linen cupboards!) The soaker pads are basically 3 layers of towelling which I sew together using my overlocker/serger, and which then get sewn onto the inside of the nappy.

The tutorial I used, and most others you can find on the Internet, shows you how to sew on velcro to fasten the nappies with. But because we had used our nappies so much, I found that the velcro eventually got so worn that I had to replace it - a real pain!. So this time around I adjusted the pattern a bit and used toweling patches that I sewed onto the outside of the nappy, so that I could use a Snappy fastener to keep it all together! I just cut the patches from a piece of toweling, overlocked the edges, and then sewed them onto the flannel.

A nice, snug fit!

* I find that 24 nappies is a good number to have

* I buy thin, inexpensive nappy liners that I put in the nappy before putting on baby. This reduces soiling, and they can be flushed.

* Waterproof pants fit nicely over the nappy to keep baby's clothes dry.

* I have a large plastic bin with a flip-up lid next to the changing table. Soiled and wet nappies go in there until they are ready to be washed. I soak dirty nappies in hot water with a scoop of SterriNappi, and then launder as usual.

The tutorial I use can be found here.

It is featured on a website called Diaper Sewing.com - click here to visit this site, which has many, many FREE tutorials for just about any style of nappy you can imagine, including cloth menstrual pads.

There is a brilliant post called Diaper Sewing 101 on Sew, Mama, Sew. If you consider using cloth nappies at all, this will be a good place to start reading!

Pinterest Inspired Projects Day 4 : A rainbow of hearts!

2012-02-07T22:03:00.002+02:00

One of my favourite pictures on my Pinterest Valentine's Day board, is one of a 'forest' of felt hearts-on-sticks. You can see the original post here - this crafty lady sewed up a bunch of brightly coloured felt hearts, stuffed them with a little polyfill, and used a glue gun to attach then to wooden dowels. I didn't like the idea of gluing them to the sticks, as this would give them a distinct front and back. But my sweet friend Georgia from Love and Lollipops recently made heart pencil toppers where she left a little opening at the bottom of the heart to push the pencil into. So I combined the two ideas and now have a pretty rainbow of hearts brightening our dining room!

Why not whip up a batch of these to brighten your rooms during this month of love?!

You will need:

Scraps of felt in any colours you like
Needle and embroidery thread
Wooden skewers (I used kebab sticks)

1. Cut a heart shape out of card.

2. Using the pattern, cut two felt hearts of every colour you are using.

3. Starting just a little above the bottom of the heart, sew the two pieces together using blanket stitch. Do not work all the way around, but stop just a few millimeters before the bottom, thus leaving an opening for your skewer to fit through.

4. Pop onto the skewers.

5. Collect a few empty glass jars and arrange your hearts inside. You may now decide to trim some of your skewers to make them shorter, or keep them all the same length. Have fun arranging them on your windowsill...or kitchen table...or surprise your children with a bouquet of hearts on their bedside tables!!

I had such a LOVE-ly time making these hearts! It was a lazy Friday afternoon, and we worked on the living room floor where Baby Rosebud could watch us sew all the pretty colours. The older two wanted to join in, so I gave them a needle and thread and cut them a set of their own hearts to sew. They did so well!! Here is Sweetpea's version - she used an overhand stitch!

While we worked, we told stories and laughed and I delighted in their questions and comments. And every time I look at these felt hearts, I cherish the memories of the time spent making them with my sweet, precious children. Truly a heartFELT project!! :-)

Linking this to

ABC and 123's Show and Tell

It's Playtime on The Imagination Tree

Pinterest Inspired Projects Day 3: Chair Envelopes

2012-02-05T21:21:00.003+02:00

One of the most delicious joys in life for me is receiving a letter or a parcel in the mail.

And with

Valentine's Day

just around the corner,

I thought it the perfect opportunity to share this joy with my children.

But instead of letters in the mailbox, they'll be receiving little

love notes from their Mama

in cute

felt envelopes

tied to the backs of their chairs at the breakfast table!

I was smitten with this idea from the moment I spotted it on Pinterest. From the picture I had seen I thought the pin might be for instructions on how to make your own, but it turned out that the one I saw was a store-bought one. It was featured on Blonde Designs Blog where Angie Gubler, a mother of two gorgeous little girls wrote:

A few years ago, Pottery Barn Kids sold the most darling oversized felt envelopes that are meant to be affixed to a child's chair and filled with goodies on Valentine's Day. It seemed a waste to let the envelopes sit with nothing in them until February 14th. Hence, my husband and I decided last year, beginning on February 1st, to write little notes for our girls at night, leaving them in each of their envelopes.

Isn't that just the sweetest idea??

Anyway, you KNOW how I love felt, and this really didn't look too complicated, so here's a special treat for you: I came up with a tutorial for making your own.

CHAIR BACK VALENTINE ENVELOPES!!

NOTE: Please do as I say, and not as I did - I took many of the pictures after the envelopes were nearly finished, so they are just a rough guide!

You will need:

* One piece of white felt (the size will depend on the size of the chair you use. See below.)

* A small scrap of red felt for the heart-shaped 'seal'

* Red embroidery thread

* A small piece of velcro

* Two pieces of red ribbon, each approximately 80cm long.

* A fabric marker

How to:

1. Measure your chair: Using a tape measure, measure the width of the back of the chair that you will be tying the envelope to. I made mine just slightly narrower than this measurement.

2. Now measure the height you want your envelope to be.

3. Draw he pattern: Using these measurements, draw a pattern onto paper. The length of your pattern will be twice the height of the envelope, plus 3/4's of the height (for the flap, which will be just a little shorter than the height of the envelope. I really hope this makes sense to you? Hope the picture helps!) Note: My completed envelope measures 19 x 32 cm, and the flap is 14 cm.

4. Pin your pattern to the white felt and cut the envelope out.

5. Sew on the velcro: Fold your envelope in the correct way and use a fabric marker to mark where your velcro needs to go. Now sew the rough part of the velcro to the inside of the flap, and the softer part to the outside of the envelope.

6. Add the decorative stitching:. Using your fabric marker, draw a faint guide on the bottom part of the envelope and using red embroidery thread, sew the lines as shown. For the lines on the flap, measure in about 1 cm from the edge and draw a faint line with your fabric marker to guide you.

7. Attach the seal: Cut 2 red heart shapes out of red felt.Stitch together using blanket stitch. Sew the heart onto the outside of the flap. (I made a smiley face for ArrowBoy as a more boy-friendly alternative to the heart)

8. Use your fabric marker to mark the place where the ribbons should go. Sew the ribbons in place on the back of the envelope.

9. Stitch the sides of your envelope using either a straight stitch on your sewing machine, or a running stitch or even blanket stitch if you are choosing to stitch it by hand.

10. I trimmed the side edges of my envelopes with a sharp scissors. (I really, really want a pinking shears for projects like these, but for R442 I can feed my family for three days!!)

Now tie to the chairs and fill with sweet valentines! Voila! What pretty way in which to bless your little ones with affirmative and tender words!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell
and
It's Playtime on The Imagination Tree

Pinterest Inspired Projects Day 2: Kermit the Frog Apples

2012-02-02T06:26:00.000+02:00

One of my favourite 'go-to' boards on Pinterest is my Cute Food board - a quirky surprise at snack time is just the thing to make my little ones smile BIG!!

So while the children went for a swim with their dad on a hot hot hot Sunday afternoon, I quickly whipped up two of these cuties as a fun little snack for when they got home!

Get the easy-to-follow instructions for

Kermit's Green Apples with Peanut Butter Dip

here at DisneyFamily.com

and make snack-time a highlight for them today!!

Poor little guy's eyes were irritated by the chlorine
from the swimming pool, but he loved the surprise!

Pinterest Inspiration Day 1: Glitter Shoes fit for a princess!!

2012-02-01T06:48:00.000+02:00

I couldn't think of a nicer way to kick off this series of posts than by sharing a super fun little project featuring heaps of glue and glitter - two of the most loved craft materials in our home!!

It all started with a bit of prideful embarrassment on my side, to be honest. See, a while ago Sweetpea received a pair of silver/grey ballet pumps from a sweet friend of mine. They were gently-worn hand-me-downs and a size too big, so I was going to pack them away for a future winter's wearing (~~or quietly give them away)~~, but my little girl fell in love with them on the spot and no amount of persuasion could tear them from her feet. I indulged her in the end and hoped that in a day or two she would tire of walking around in slightly-too-big-shoes. Mmmmm. Well. She didn't. And she insisted on wearing them everywhere we went. If it wasn't bad enough that they were too big, I also really do not like such dull colours on my girls. But she merrily went traipsing around in colourful dresses, with these drab little pumps that made me cringe at the very sight of them...

And then one evening I spotted a tutorial on Pinterest for making

glitter shoes!

Eureka!!

There are quite a few tutorials for doing these all over the Web, so I read two or three and then rummaged through my craft drawers to see what colour glitter I could find. (It was 2 days before Christmas and I was not going to risk being trampled to death by over-zealous shoppers in a mall just for a little bottle of glitter, so we had to make do with what was in the house.) And what was in the house was P..P..P..P...PURPLE!!!

I knew that if I ruined the grey pumps my daughter's heart would break, and being a little skeptical about this project (it just seemed too simple) I decided to try it on a pair of past-their-prime Mary Janes. And here, my friends, is the result:

OK, so it's a really, really wild shade of purple, but oh boy, you cannot begin to imagine the squeals of delight from my four year-old when I presented her with these babies!! And if you want to win Mommy-of-the-Year too, here's how you go about it:

Step 1

Find a pair of scuffed-but-loved shoes.

I gave mine a quick once-over with sandpaper to give it a slightly rougher surface for the glue to cling to.

Step 2

Gather your supplies:

* Mod Podge / Deco Podge

* Glitter in a colour of your choice (you can also mix together few colours, like I did when I eventually painted the grey ballet pumps)

* A bowl for mixing (I lined mine with foil for easy clean-up)

* A paint brush

Step 3

Mix together the glitter and podge in the mixing bowl. I used about 3/4 of the bottle of glitter pictured above, and about 1/3 cup of podge.

Step 4

Apply the glitter-and-glue mix in thin layers.

The photo below shows Sweetpea's shoes after the first coat. I was still skeptical by this point, but after two more coats we were in Glitter Shoe Heaven, so just keep applying the glitter glue until you achieve the required effect.

And so how DID the once drab little ballet pumps turn out?? Glad you asked!

Here they are after the final coat was applied:

Sparkly, yes, but lacking a little pizzazz. So I added a bow and a button...

And methinks Cinderella might be green with envy!!

I was most surprised by how soft and flexible the shoes remained! And no, we have not had a single piece of glitter on the carpet. She's worn these everyday for over a month now, and if it hadn't been for the fact that she also climbs trees and kicks rocks with them, they still would have looked just as lovely!! Now, I saw some pumps in my own size at Ackermans the other day for next to nothing. What do you think of ruby red a la Dorothy?!!

Drum roll, please...

2012-01-29T21:38:00.000+02:00

I have been working up a storm behind the scenes here at Joyful Mama's Place, and I am so excited to finally tell you that I have a very special treat to share with you during the month of February.

Oh, it has been so much

fun

to put together and I just know you are going to love it, too!

So, without further ado,

I am thrilled to announce

............DRUM ROLL, PLEASE...........

Yes, from 1 to 29 February I will be sharing a veritable feast of wonderfully fun little projects that were inspired by my collection of pins on Pinterest! There is absolutely no rhyme or reason behind my choices, other than they were all projects that tickled my fancy and made me smile, so expect the unexpected: from fun recipes to lovely craft ideas, homeschool inspirations to an experiment involving sleeping with one of my husband's socks on my head (I know I have your attention now, don't I???!!!)

I will be posting two to three little projects a week and hope you will be popping in regularly!

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, here's the scoop:

Pinterest is an online pin board that makes it delightfully easy and fun to collect ideas and inspiration from around the web in one easy-to-organise place. Once you've registered an account (it's free and you can login using your existing Facebook account), you can create unlimited pin boards to which you then virtually 'pin' any image from the web. Once pinned, you can just click on the image to take you back to the original source - so it's pretty much what we used to do with bookmarking 'favourites' - but a gazillion times better and tonnes more fun, because you can then start following the boards of other, like-minded people, and so expand the collection of ideas pinned to your boards.

If you aren't on Pinterest already, I do hope that you are sufficiently curious by now! Here are three great links that you may find helpful if you'd like to join the craze:

Pinterest: What it is, how to use it, and why you'll be addicted

What is Pinterest? by Tech Talk for Moms

5 Pinterest tips for beginners by Type-a-Parent

Happy Pinning!!

Sweetpea's Fourth Birthday

2012-01-23T17:10:00.000+02:00

Her big day in pictures:

The birthday girl and her Daddy at the breakfast table.

We gave her a spiffy new house for her Sylvanian Families. Here
she is giving her dad directions on how to make the
lights work.

We visited Scratch Patch and they LOVED it!!

I was planning to treat my flower-loving daughter to a beautiful garden-themed birthday party and have been pinning ideas like crazy (see my Garden Party board on Pinterest - click here!)

BUT

when I sat her down to start planning and making a guest list, she firmly told me that she wanted a

tea party

and that she wanted only to invite her two aunts and her grandmother. I was very surprised (and a little disappointed!), but then again, with such lovely, doting aunties and a grandmother who loves her to bits, it really made good sense to me! So I called them up (and snuck in an invitation for grandpa, too!), and we decided that everyone would be wearing a hat to the party. We got a little creative - and a tad silly - but I think our official party photo, taken by my husband, came out very nice indeed!!

The birthday girl was in her element, wearing her favourite hat with a flower pin and the pink ballet outfit that was one of her gifts.

Now, you need to know that her birthday is the day after New Year's and that here in the Western Cape that's a public holiday, and that between Christmas and New Year's it is already nearly impossible to find anything decent in the supermarkets. So the tea-time treats were a limited but lovely array of nibbles we were able to make with what we had in the house.

On the menu:

A pretty pink cake with sprinkles galore,

pearly marshmallows...

and dainty sunflower sandwiches and pink sugar cookies.

And her favourite gift by far? A set of plastic princess accessories!

Please note, though, that she wasn't the only belle of the ball: Look at this little cutie pie admiring her grandmother's pretty 'Fresh-from-the-Garden' hat!!

Happy birthday, Sweetpea!!

Happy to be back!! Let's catch up...

2012-01-22T15:53:00.001+02:00

Hello dear friends!! Yes, if you are still following this blog after my very long absence, I do consider you a friend indeed!! It has been a crazy few months around here, since we moved to our new home at the beginning of December. But we are in and unpacked and rarely a day goes by in which my husband and I do not praise the Lord for the gift of this place! But I'll let the photos tell the story - here's what we got up to in the past month or so:

The very, very bestest part of the new house is the big garden! With little nooks to explore...

...and new little friends who decided this was a lovely spot for a home!

The bunny above just arrived here one morning, came and went through the garden gate for a few days, and then decided to stay. But he was very lonely, so off to the pet shop they went, and came home with two friends - my children's first pets!

And our little red wagon has been getting a regular workout down the hill!

My darling husband treated me with a dining room table the day after we moved in!! What an absolute blessing to have room to entertain!! Here are just some of the many table settings from the past month or so as we've been having precious friends over for meals.

My mother and two of her sisters and 5 of my cousins with their children came for tea one morning - we were 18 people in total and never felt crowded!

We've been on outings...

and there's been a birthday...

and a certain little pumpkin fritter turned three months old!

And I have many, many lovely photographs of the children enjoying the hot weather by jumping over the sprinkler and rolling in the mud, but I can't find a single one in which they are both decently covered up, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Ahh, and Christmas too!

We made up some cookie bags for our garbage collectors the week before Christmas...

...and on a hot Monday morning they enjoyed their cookies and cold juice and stopped the garbage lorry long enough for a picture with the children.

After church on Christmas morning we came home to put on a Birthday Party for Jesus!! I had baked a chocolate cake the night before and the children had SO much fun decorating a very special cake for our King!!

Yummy!!

We sang Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus and then enjoyed some lovely family time and delicious cake as we told the story of Jesus's birth.

It feels so good to be writing here again and I am using some stolen moments here and there to work on a few more posts, so stay tuned!

Two Months Old

2011-11-22T11:29:00.000+02:00

Just for fun!

2011-11-12T14:51:00.000+02:00

We do our weekly grocery shopping on Saturdays, and it is also the only day in the week we eat store-bought bread. (My darling husband loves to bake and he blesses us with a freshly-baked loaf on all the other days of the week!)

When I passed by the bakery section in the supermarket this morning, the sight of fresh, wholewheat hotdog rolls reminded me of something I spotted on Pinterest this week, and I decided to treat the family to some fun and yummy Banana Dogs for lunch!! Lashings of peanut butter, a peeled banana and strawberry jam!

(I really just did this on the spur of the moment, so no great photos, but mmmmmmmmm, they were delicious!!)

This totally cute idea is from The Villiage Cook. I think her Spider Web Pizzas are next on my list of fun lunches for the bambinos!!

Also, my dear friend Linnie's lovely daughter, Heidi-Mari, runs a fortnightly baking challenge on her blog, Heidi's Crafts. This week's theme is Something for a Child, and I thought Banana Dogs fit that description perfectly, so I'm linking up!

Cardboard Tree House

2011-10-30T17:22:00.002+02:00

When I first saw the instructions for making a cardboard tree house in the October 2011 edition of Family Fun Magazine, I just knew my little ones would love it. So while they were having afternoon naps last Monday, I quickly printed the templates (you can download them here) and constructed our tree house in about 45 minutes. The original had three stories, but I had enough cardboard for only two AND I was just not up for adding the paper towel chutes. I think ours came out pretty cute all the same!

The following afternoon, while the bambinos were napping, I set it up on a piece of green felt and added Sweetpea's Sylvanian Families. They woke up to find some sweet, real-life friends visiting us, and around here friends are always better than any toy, so they didn't pay too much attention at first. But when we were on our own again, some serious playing got underway!!

Sweetpea gave the whole set-up one look and declared that the tree house was on a farm and that the Sylvanian Families daddies are all farmers. I was asked to fetch the plastic farm animals from the toy closet while she went off to her brother's room for play planks, which were immediately turned into corrals and paddocks for the animals (who were neatly arranged according to breed!) She added a bridge, and one of ArrowBoy's cars became the preferred mode of transport for the Sylvanians.

Arrow waited until his sister was done playing and had packed away her 'props' before he moved his wild animals into the tree house!

My children can be quite unpredictable in what they like to play with and what not, but when Sweetpea thanked God for the lovely tree house during family devotions that evening, I was so happy to have taken the time to make it for them!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell

Drawing butterflies

2011-10-25T14:24:00.000+02:00

This morning Sweetpea wanted to make a gift for her daddy, and we decided to decorate a blank wooden key chain for his house keys. We talked about what she could draw on it, and she asked if I'd show her how to draw a butterfly. I did a simple drawing and handed her the pencil. She did a good job of the head, but when the oblong for the body came out square, she got really upset and wanted to throw in the towel straight away. (She's a bit of a perfectionist that way, and I often have to guide her gently towards taking her time and practicing something if she can't do it perfectly right from the start.)

So I showed her that I don't think a rectangular body is such a bad idea...and when she tried again, she actually did beautifully. This gave her the confidence boost she needed and she promptly flipped the paper over and began covering it in butterflies.

We chatted about how colourful butterflies are and I offered her the felt tip pens, again just gently guiding her towards using different colours for the different parts of the butterfly, as she generally tends to pick only one colour and do the whole drawing in that. She was so taken with her drawings, that the rest of the morning was spent drawing butterflies and flowers!

Here is the key chain she decorated: (the ink bled a little into the grain of the wood)

She was so proud of it, and her dad loved it!

Masking tape roads on a stay-inside-day

2011-10-24T07:31:00.000+02:00

When a rather cool spring day kept us indoors for the most part, I remembered a photo I had seen on Pinterest last week of a very clever mommy who used masking tape to map out roads for her son's Hot Wheels on their living room carpet and furniture. (I could not find a blog/site to see where the idea originated, but you can click here to view the picture I am talking about).

Sooo.... out came the roll of masking tape, and here's how Sweetpea and ArrowBoy spent the morning!

If you look closely at the photo above you can see the road going up and over the armrest of the couch!! It then turned right across the seat to connect again to one of the main roads on the carpet.

See the airport above in the bottom right hand corner? And opposite that is the site from where various (tiny) construction vehicles are dispatched to new building sites all over Carpet Town! And in case anyone is really studying the details of these pictures: Arrow is wearing a rather garishly shining nurse's outfit over his clothes - he found it in his sister's dress up box and when we were reading Nurse Nancy prior to 'building' our roads, he wanted to play the part! (Really need to order Doctor Dan for him a.s.a.p!!)

One Month Old

2011-10-21T16:02:00.001+02:00

She is Loved

2011-10-07T07:47:00.000+02:00

Is solace anywhere more comforting than in the arms of a sister? - Alice Walker

There can be no situation in life in which the conversation of my dear sister will not administer some comfort to me. - Mary Montagu

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost. - Marion C. Garretty

Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply... - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, 1814

To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time. - Clara Ortega

Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet. - Vietnamese proverb

{Photo above: A few weeks ago at his grandmother's house, my sweet boy tripped and skinned his knee...the first time ever...For days after that everyone he met had to look at the scab.

Today I placed his baby sister on a blanket on the living room floor and he went and laid down right beside her. He kissed her cheek and gently stroked her head...and then he showed her the place where the hurt used to be...made this mama gulp at the big ol' lump in my throat as he so tenderly shared his 'treasure'.

In a way it reminded me of "The Little Drummer Boy", bringing to the Baby Jesus not expensive gifts or anything tangible, but a song from his heart...}

Milk Rainbows

2011-10-06T21:29:00.000+02:00

We had SOOOO much fun making these Magic Milk Rainbows after reading about it on Our Best Bites!! Quick, easy, and oh, so pretty!!

You will need:

milk
food colouring
a toothpick
dishwashing liquid

Pour some milk into a shallow bowl or dinner plate and add a few drops of food colouring in different colours.

Now dip the tip of your toothpick in the dishwashing liquid, and then into the milk. The soap will disrupt the surface tension of the milk, making the colours explode into lovely, bright kaleidoscope-like designs!

Pretty, pretty!!

Fresh from Heaven

2011-09-24T14:24:00.000+02:00

We have a new little gift, fresh from heaven, as pink and as pretty as the most perfect rosebud that has ever been created.She is

loved

and is flourishing under the tender affections of her siblings. Oh, the wonder as sweet toddler hands gently unfurl the tiny, tiny fingers, faces awash with amazement at their perfection...gentle kisses on a downy head...standing on tiptoes for just more peek at her sweet, sleeping face.

It reminds me of this story I read years ago:

Soon after her brother was born, little Sachi began to ask her parents to leave her alone with the new baby. They worried that like most four-year-olds, she might feel jealous and want to hit or shake him, so they said no. But she showed no signs of jealousy. She treated the baby with kindness and her pleas to be left alone with him became more urgent. They decided to allow it.
Elated, she went into the baby's room and shut the door, but it opened a crack - enough for her curious parents to peek inside and listen. They saw little Sachi walk quietly up to her baby brother, put her face close to his and say quietly: "Baby, tell me what God feels like. I'm starting to forget."

Dan Millerman

From: Chicken Soup for the Soul

Meet Little Rosebud...

2011-09-20T18:11:00.000+02:00

It is my great privilege to visit Grietjie's blog and share with you the birth of her little Rosebud! The newest addition to her already beautiful family was born yesterday afternoon, she is a gorgeous, healthy, perfect little girl and we thank our Lord and Father for keeping both of them safe during the delivery.

Congratulations to both Grietjie and Mike, may God bless you and your beautiful little girl! Congrats Sweet Pea and ArrowBoy on a gorgeous new baby sister!

Loads of love
Trudie {Fun with Little Mouse}

Using what we have: Junk mail 'I Spy' Pictures

2011-09-08T20:47:00.000+02:00

Our weekly community newspaper usually arrives stuffed with ads from the major supermarkets. These are my two-year old son's favourite reading matter!! He loves to 'read' the pages with me, excitedly identifying familiar products and asking me to name the ones he doesn't know yet.

Last week's offering included two supermarket pamphlets for toy and sweets specials. After we had raided them for pictures of Lightning McQueen for Sweetpea's mini book, ArrowBoy scanned the leftovers and discovered pictures of his favourite - Mickey Mouse (or, as he says it, Meee Nouse..!) He got really excited about a teeny, tiny Mickey on the packaging of some game or puzzle, and this gave my the idea of using these minute little pictures for a simple, inexpensive I Spy page.

This was our first page:

The largest picture measures about 3cm x 2 1/2 cm, and the smallest is a mere 4 mm x 4mm!

I printed some clues for a few things to look for, laminated the sheet for durability and gave it to the children with a magnifying glass - it was a hit! So much so...

... that when I was clearing out some magazines this week, I held on to a catalog from a baby shop, and used it to create an even busier page!

Play and Learn with Mama: Trip to the Fire Station

2011-09-08T20:46:00.000+02:00

One of the mothers in a local online homeschooler's group I belong to, recently arranged a trip to our local fire station, and the Little Joyful's had a ton of fun there! Here are a few highlights from the very chilly, but super-exciting morning!!

He was fascinated by the friendly fireman demonstrating how the jaws of life work!!

If you've missed any of my previous posts, be sure to also check out the Fire Fighter Lapbook we made, and our fun Fire Truck snack!

Play and Learn with Mama: Fire Truck Snack

2011-09-07T07:49:00.000+02:00

This was such a simple, sweet little treat - way more sugar that they are ever allowed, but hence the word 'treat'!! This is our version of a Fire Engine snack I first saw here.

We used a lovely home-baked bread that my husband made the night before, as well as..

Strawberry Jam

Mini Shortbread cookies for the engine's window

Chocolate covered cookie rings for the wheels (the original used Oreos)

A glace cherry for the red light

Pretzel sticks for the ladder

I had prepared an example beforehand, and placed all the little bits and pieces on individual plates for the Little Joyfuls to build their own engines.

Delight!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Fire Fighter Lap Book

2011-09-06T11:25:00.000+02:00

I have been meaning to do a few weeks of Play and Learn activities with a community helpers theme for a while now, so when a mom in our local home schooler's group recently arranged a visit to the fire station, it was the perfect opportunity to jump right in with some fun activities!

We started with a very simple lap book:

For the cover I printed a paper doll and fire fighter outfit from Making Friends. I coloured and cut it out for Sweetpea the night before, and she then had fun 'dressing' her fire fighter in the correct sequence.

The next day we revised the order in which a fire fighter dresses for a fire emergency by discussing this picture I printed from here . I had made an extra copy, and Sweetpea then glued the pictures in the correct sequence into a mini book.

We also had lots of giggles as we practiced Stopping, Dropping and Rolling, after we had discussed this picture, also from the resource above. (Click here.)

There are some amazing free fire fighter printables available online, but since most of them are English, I designed and laminated a few of my own. Carissa over at 1+1+1=1 has a great post full of tips on how to create your own printables for lap books and tot packs. You can check it out here. Ours included:

Size Sorting:

Counting from 1 to 5:

Letter practice:

Pre-writing exercises and Matching pairs (and learning some interesting new words in the process!):

{Note: I will gladly e-mail you these printables to you if you're interested - just leave me a comment.}

I also laminated these pages I printed out from Club Fire Facts.

I cut off the top of a manila envelope and glued it to the back cover of our lap book to keep the laminated pages together.

Envelope houses

2011-09-05T19:36:00.000+02:00

A row of envelopes glued down on a strip of green cardboard 'grass' and decorated with foam stickers and oil pastels - so fun and cheerful!! We worked on this one together - I drew the road and most of the features on house number 3 - Sweetpea loves it when we do art together!!

Felt laptop

2011-08-31T08:15:00.001+02:00

When I first saw this super-cute idea on Pinterest, I just knew the Little Joyfuls would love it! You can find the tutorial here to make one of your own. I adapted mine a little in terms of colours (using what I had on hand) and by slipping in a thin piece of cardboard between the layers of felt to make it slightly more sturdy. The letters are rub-ons I found in the craft section at our Crazy Store.

The children saw me making this and Sweetpea is very excited about it, but it's actually part of a stash of little treats I am working on for when baby comes. I've cleared a small shelf in my closet where I am collecting handmade toys and homemade activity packs I can pull out as needed in case things get a little busy during those first few weeks. More about this in a future post!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell!

Mama-made Toys: Stick puppet theater

2011-08-30T07:25:00.002+02:00

Oooohhh, I am just giddy giddy glad to FINALLY have gotten around to making a puppet theater for the children!! It took some serious thinking, because I wanted something they could play with themselves, too, and since they're still a little young, they would rather be seeing the action played out, than be stuck behind the curtain putting on a show they can't watch. The solution was a table-top theater for stick puppets.

I started with two sturdy boxes, and cut a slit in the side of one. This would become the floor of our stage, through which the puppets are slipped.

For the background, I used fabric glue to glue down two pieces of felt. I chose felt so that we can later add other felt elements or 'props' to our background depending on the play we are putting on! The bottom of our stage got the same treatment, making the slit I cut in earlier, nice and smooth for the puppets to glide back and forth. I then covered the sides and back of the box in some fun polka dot gift wrap.

Next, I attached the first box (i.e. the stage) to the second box, which would serve as its stabilizing base. This also allows us some space to fit our hands in under the stage to manoeuvre the puppets.

The curtain 'rail' is just a length of ribbon strung across the top of the stage and secured on the outside with two wooden beads.

I painted the base blue, and sewed some ribbon ties to the curtains to keep them in place while the show is on.

Our first set of puppets were hand drawn and coloured by yours truly, and then popped through the laminator and glued onto popsicle sticks. The characters are from the 1970's Japanese Anime version of Heidi - this was one of the first children's shows on South African television and the first TV program I can recall watching. So last year my mother gifted my daughter with a set of DVD's of the first 25 episodes, and Heidi is now about as much part of our family as any of the actual flesh and blood members!!

Here are the characters:

And here they are on stage, with some felt props in the background!!

I also found these printable Community Helpers which we printed, coloured and laminated. Will keep you posted as our repertoire of shows grows!!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell! and All things Wonderful at My Shae Noel

Best Friends

2011-08-29T09:16:00.000+02:00

"Sometimes being a brother is better than being a superhero."

A few weeks ago my parents had to chop down a Brazilian Pepper Tree in their back garden, because the roots had begun to destroy the paving. We went over to check on their progress, and I took this picture of my sweet little ones as they were mourning the loss of a really great swinging tree... I love to watch the special bond between them - they really are best friends.

Printable Cars play set

2011-08-25T20:48:00.000+02:00

I found this very cute printable Cars play set via Pinterest on Parents24.com and the Little Joyfuls have been having a blast with it!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Disney's Cars Theme - Reward chart

2011-08-11T22:10:00.000+02:00

My three-and-a-half year old daughter is a very...umm...let's call it enthusiatic eater... Which is my euphemistic attempt at saying that the girl just really struggles with table manners!! She loves her food and has a wonderful appetite, but oh, to get her to eat with her mouth closed... to not talk with a mouth full of food... to keep those little elbows off the table!! It's giving this fairly blonde Mama some proverbial grey hairs!!

So as part of our Cars themed week I made her this reward chart. A magazine picture of Lightning McQueen was laminated and glued onto a wooden clothes peg, and for every meal that she consumed in a civilized fashion, she could move him up one mark closer to the 'Piston Cup.' The reward was going to the supermarket with her dad to pick out a Cars puzzle. It worked very well, and we are now into our second week of using it - this time the reward will be a Daddy-and-Daughter outing, probably to her favourite park. Making it fun to get things done!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Disney's Cars Theme: Kitchen fun!

2011-08-10T13:52:00.001+02:00

Another little bit of Cars inspired fun - making bread roll cars for lunch! I made an example and set out plates for the children with everything they needed to assemble their own bread roll cars.

We used:
* Carrot slices for wheels
* Red cocktail onions for headlights
* A small piece of ham for the windscreen (attached with a tiny bit of mayonnaise)
* A Rye roll for the body

Play Food!!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Disney's Cars theme - Learning activities

2011-08-08T19:32:00.000+02:00

A large part of our Cars inspired playing and learning from last week was inspired by the lovely tot book and preschool pack I downloaded from www.1plus1plus1equals1.com (You can read more about our other Cars inspired activities here, and watch this space for more posts later this week)

I laminated most of the pages for durability so that we can use them again for the younger siblings in years to come, and I keep them with all our other lap books in a file.

For this counting activity we used our Unifix cubes to practice one-to-one correspondence. I didn't want to interrupt the learning that was taking place, so no picture of that, sorry.

I turned the Cars Shapes three-part cards from the Tot Book into a file folder game which both children enjoyed playing: Arrow just matched shapes and colours, while Sweetpea also matched the names of the shapes by identifying the first letters.

We used the Cars Colours cards for a quick scavenger hunt (I was making dinner and this was a lovely little activity to keep the little ones occupied while I was busy!)

I also added some home-made activities using junk mail, a few cheap sticker sheets, and one Disney magazine I bought at the supermarket last week.

This page from a junk mail add is glued on the back of our lap book. I asked Sweetpea to colour in all the 9's she saw on the page.

Sensory matching cars. They had great fun with these and we played with them a few times during the week. I blind-folded the children, handed them a card, and they had to find its match from the ones spread out in front of them. The textures are (clockwise from top left): tulle, tin foil, sandpaper, corrugated board and polar fleece.

This was from the magazine - I laminated the page and Sweetpea had to circle the differences with her dry erase marker.

Practicing to draw straight lines - stickers, hand-drawn 'roads', laminated.

A mini book to go in the lap book. Sweetpea glued down pictures cut from junk mail and I 'interviewed' her with questions like: "If you could have a car of your own, what colour would it be?" (Red, of course!!), "Where would go in your car?" and "Who would you take with you?"

Sweetpea knows the days of the week, but we are working on sequencing and the order of events at the moment, and this Days of the Week Highway was a great tool for talking about what comes before and after, what happened two days ago, etc. This is not a great picture, sorry! Each of the cones has the name of the day of the week written on it, and every morning after breakfast the children moved the picture of Lightning McQueen (cut from the magazine and laminated) one day forward. We are now using it for a second week, since ArrowBoy is really enjoying this and sings a days-of-the-week song every time we do it!

Play and Learn with Mama: Disney's Cars theme

2011-08-07T19:51:00.000+02:00

Right-o, so by now it should be a well-known fact that we are seriously loving Lightning McQueen of Disney's Cars fame around here. So when I recently saw that Carissa from 1plus1plus1equals1 has a Cars tot book and preschool pack, I knew Sweetpea would just love learning with Mr McQueen! I also added a few activities of my own, and we ended up having a very merry week of playing and learning. I'll be sharing what we got up to in a short series of posts.

Cardboard Cars

First the little ones had to each have a car of their own, so two boxes from my recyclables stash were converted into box cars. Initially they just sat around in them making car noises, but then Sweetpea became annoyed that they couldn't move, so I cut out the bottoms, and then the race was on!

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers. - Dave Barry, comedian

ArrowBoy fetched his old vacuum hose (quite possibly his all-time favourite toy, apart from a real, noisy vacuum cleaner!), stuck one end into an empty garden pot, and used it as the nozzle of his petrol pump! It also doubled as a means of pumping up the tires!!

Life is too short for traffic.

- Dan Bellack

Giving his car a good scrub!

'Stay tuned' for some more Cars inspired fun in the next few posts!

Mini books: My Family and Mr McQueen

2011-08-04T20:16:00.000+02:00

I have mentioned in a previous post that I recently attended a morning workshop by a delightfully inspiring lady called Renee Lighton, who has some fabulous ideas for facilitating teachable moments in the home. You can visit her website here, and if you need some inspiration for helping your children with basic numeracy and literacy skills, I can recommend her book, Let's Get Ready. (Available in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa)

One of the many tools she shared with us during the workshop, was mini books made from a single piece of paper. There are thousands of how-to's all over the web for making these little folded booklets, this one being one of them and a lovely one at that!

I couldn't wait to get home and make a few of these for my children. And we haven't stopped making them yet!

Our first set was all about each member of the family.

I had folded and 'illustrated' these for Sweetpea beforehand and she had so much fun completing them. She practiced writing each person's name on the dotted lines,

coloured their eyes and hair the appropriate colour,

asked us all what our favourite colour is,

and - her favourite page - had us all print our fingerprints.

She's carried these around with her for weeks now, and shows them to everyone who walks through our front door!

Sweetpea is simply smitten with Lightning McQueen at the moment. My children also get a kick out of reading the junk mail and supermarket ads that come with the community newspaper every Wednesday. So, while paging through a pamphlet from the HyperMarket last week, she was beside herself with joy when all the TV's they were advertising had pictures of Mr McQueen on the screens. She promptly asked for a booklet to be folded and the pictures to be cut out, and she happily proceeded to glue them into her book. It is dog-eared and dirty from being loved so much!!

We've also made a mini book to be decorated with a sheet of stickers her grandmother gave her, and when I gave her a new set of mini stamps recently, those had to be tried out in a little booklet of their own!

This is such a lovely way to engage a child in a current interest, and can be used in a myriad of ways! Watch this space for more on how we use mini books here at Joyful Mama's Place!

Making it Fun to Get Things Done: Morning and Evening High Fives!

2011-07-31T16:41:00.000+02:00

With the birth of our third baby about eight weeks away, this Mama is going into overdrive to get everything ready to ensure a smooth transition to becoming a family of five. One of the most pressing things for me is to get Sweetpea and ArrowBoy a little more motivated to help with getting ready for the day, and for bedtime. They are quite capable of doing quite a bit around the house already, and thrive on routine, but I thought a little encouragement might go a long way to help me cope with things once the littlest one arrives.

I recently saw a cute idea on Pinterest for creating a morning and evening 'High Five' chart and visited the blog where it originated, called Life as a Mom. You can read about their system for getting things done, and see her High Five charts, here!

I adapted ours a little according to things my children are capable of and familiar with doing every morning and evening. Actually, mornings around here go pretty smoothly, except maybe for an occasional clash of wills between myself and Sweetpea when it comes to choice of outfit! Evening routines are also pretty set and the children are comfortable with it, but I inevitably end up exhausted from cleaning up their books and toys after they've gone to bed. That has got to change!! So, two of our evening High Five fingers will hopefully remind me to get them started on clearing away their things before supper!

I didn't glue down the fingers on our charts, as I thought it would be fun for the little ones to 'unfold' the High Fives as they get things done. I also used visual clues for my little non-readers so that they don't need to have to ask what comes next. I only included the things they do on their own. Fixing them breakfast or putting them to bed with a story, are things I do for them, so they are not part of our charts.

Our Morning High Five goes as follows:
1. Go to the Toilet
2. Get dressed and put away pyjamas
3. Make bed
4. Wash face and brush teeth
5. Brush hair

Our Evening High Five goes as follows:
1. Put away books
2. Put away toys
3. Take a bath
4. Brush teeth
5. Brush hair

And can I confess a little something here? I actually really enjoy coming up with all kinds of nifty little ways to encourage my troop. Watch this space for more ideas of how I'd like to set my children up for success, and make it fun to get things done!

Rainbow Tutu for my little princess

2011-07-28T21:18:00.000+02:00

One of the thousands of little things I just love about our daughter is the fact that she is such a contradiction of terms. For example, at the moment she spends most of her days dancing and dressing like a ballerina princess, while obsessing about all things Lightning McQueen! I so enjoy her being this age and to watch her loving things so passionately! And it gives me such a thrill to encourage her interests. So after reading Angelina Ballerina for the umpteenth time one night, I decided it was time to make the girl a tutu of her own. I found a great, very simple tutorial here and whipped up this little number in no time!

Later that week we were invited for a princess-themed play date over at Trudie's from Fun with Little Mouse, and I thought a felt crown would be a fun addition to Sweetpea's outfit. Found a sweet little tutorial here - and had so much fun sewing those darling felt flowers!

The play date was super fun, by the way!! Even the Little Prince had a great time! They decorated crowns...

...and cupcakes...

...and enjoyed every bit of it!!

Our Little Man's Second Birthday

2011-07-24T22:44:00.000+02:00

Hold him a little longer

Rock him a little more

Tell him another story

(You've only told him four)

Let him sleep on your shoulder

Rejoice in his happy smile

He's only two and a half

For such a little while

~ Authour unknown ~

Our little ArrowBoy turned two last Thursday, and although the poem above is about a two-and-a-half year old, it brought a lump to my throat, knowing that all too soon my little boy will, by the grace of God, be adding months...yes, and years...to his age. He is my pensive one, my giver of kisses and hugs, who is happiest when he can crawl onto my lap or nestle his head in my neck. He's a lover of stories and construction vehicles and Mickey Mouse and cleaning supplies; he's my diligent little dish washer, who loves to vacuum, and stir the food, and hide treasures in the bottom drawer of the freezer...or the microwave! He's a collector of little stones when we go for a walk, and a chaser of guinea fowls and ducks; he is..yes, a boy as per that cute little definition: A NOISE WITH DIRT ON!! And oh, how is it possible for one so small to have such immense brown eyes with which to render his Mama speechless and without resistance?

******

This year, instead of having a birthday party for ArrowBoy, my husband took the day off from work and we all enjoyed a lovely day together! As per usual on special days, we started the day with a merry little breakfast. Since our little guy is really into all things construction at the moment, he woke up to his bowl of oats being served on site, complete with construction vehicles and road signs!

And then we were off to the Two Oceans Aquarium for the day. We saw some pretty cute penguins there, but THIS one was so adorable, we brought him home with us!

Birthday lunch at the Spur - you've got to love family restaurants on a day like this!

While the Dad and Sweetpea were absorbed in some serious colouring in...

ArrowBoy was enjoying the view of the harbour and all those big, beautiful boats coming and going!

And JUST because it's his birthday...a yummy strawberry milkshake!

Smiles all around!

Fun with dad.

And then...the absolute, ultimate, perfect highlight to this little man's day:

Just up the road from our home there are some major construction going on as our town's sewer system is upgraded and expanded. So earlier in the week I called the civils company that is doing all the excavations there at the moment, and arranged with the engineer in charge of the site to bring ArrowBoy around for a ride in the backhoe loader - his absolute favourite of all construction machines!

The engineer - a dad to a little boy just slightly older than ArrowBoy - was super nice and went to a ton of trouble for us. On arrival at the site Arrow was given a hard hat and fluorescent vest (the latter which turned out to be way too big for him, so we ditched that idea!).

While we waited for the loader to show up, the children were fascinated by a tipper truck off-loading some sand.

The driver saw us watching and pointing, and invited us for a drive!! Let me tell you, 'twas a mission for this Preggy Belly to make it up into that cabin - I had no idea just how high it was from the ground! But in we got and the children loved it - the massive cabin, the very bumpy ride, the crackle of the two-way radio...then we watched a loader scoop some more sand onto our truck, and soon our friend the engineer showed up with Arrow's ride of choice:

And finally, our kind engineer showed us just how to use all those fascinating levers to 'dig'.

We could hardly get the boy back in the car - in fact, he stopped dead in his tracks and would not move an inch closer to the car, begging for "More hap-en-kap!" (his Afrikaans term for a backhoe loader). In the end the only thing that persuaded him to leave was...a promise of some birthday cake!

Sewing up a storm...Matryoshka style!

2011-07-13T14:36:00.001+02:00

Two years ago we had the privilege of being the host family for a lovely young lady from the Ukraine who participated in a year of spiritual equipping at our church. On her first visit to our home she surprised me with a lovely, hand-painted matryoshka key chain, and I have been in love with these sweet-faced Russian lassies ever since.

So when the pregnancy hormones recently drove me to a sewing frenzy, everything I touched smacked of matryoshka loveliness, and I thought I'd show you what I came up with:

Above: A rainbow fleece scarf. I actually made two, one for Sweetpea, and one for a dear little friend who had a birthday in June. Lesson learnt from this project: not all fleece is created equal. In fact,

only the orange fleece I used on this scarf is the really nice, non-pilling kind. What a pity that our local fabric shops do not make an effort to stock the good quality stuff!!

Above: Two hairclip holders - again, one for Sweetpea, and one for her friend. I LOVED sewing these!!

Above: A while ago I bought a whole bunch of brightly coloured shopping bags on sale at Pep (seriously - they were R2, 99 each!! I couldn't resist!!) This merry little felt lady sure spruces up this bag, don't you think?

She now accompanies us on our trips to the library and is very helpful in carrying our books back to the car!

Above: Another Pep treasure! This beanie cost me R6 (for US readers, that's not quite $1), and I just added a friendly felt lassie to dolly it up a bit! It's a hit with Miss Sweetpea, of course!

And my favourite Matryoshka-inspired piece of handiwork is a little pillow I embroidered..maybe for the new baby? I haven't quite found a spot for it yet, but it makes me smile every time I look at it!

Linking this to Tea Rose Home's Link Party!

First steps in sewing: Paper Plate Weaving

2011-07-12T11:55:00.002+02:00

One of my daughter's favourite toys for over a year now, is a lacing set where she 'sews' or laces different outfits onto a wooden doll's body. Having played with it over and over and over again over a this past year, she very quickly mastered the basic movements of hand sewing when I recently made her a 'sewing board' out of a recycled polystyrene plate. (Please click here if you missed that post).

It was soon time to move on to something a bit more challenging. First up was sweet little craft kit that required her to do some overhand stitching to complete a craft foam handbag. I think it came out really well, don't you?

And then I saw a picture for paper plate weaving on Pinterest a while ago, and it was the perfect next step!

Here's the how-to:

(I used small paper plates so as to not discourage her with a project that will take forever to complete.) Glue two paper plates together to make it a bit more sturdy, and then use scissors to cut little notches into the rim of the plate.

Now loop some wool across the plate, anchoring it in the notches. This is a picture of our first attempt, but the web was too 'dense' and chubby little toddler fingers would have struggled to weave this, so I undid it and only looped it around every second notch. (I really hope I am making sense here??)

Next, thread a plastic needle (available at shops that sell knitting supplies, or in children's craft kits) with wool or yarn of your choice. We are currently learning about pastel colours and a few skeins of soft baby colours was our palette of choice!

Knot the end of your yarn around one of the strands in the center of your 'web' and start weaving! I did about half of the light green weaving in the center first, just to get out of the denser webbing before I handed it to Sweetpea.

When you are ready to change colours, just tie the end of your new colour to the last bit of the previous colour and continue merrily along!!

When you have finished your masterpiece, cut loose the loops that formed your web and tie them together in pairs to stop your weaving from unraveling.

Note from this very proud Mama: Apart from about half of the green circle in the center, and me knotting the wool for her when she needed to change colours, Sweetpea did this project entirely on her own. I showed her how to keep the weaving nice and tight, and she did an EXCELLENT job of this - I am VERY proud of my 3 1/2 year old for her beautiful work!!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show & Tell and Beneath the Rowan Tree's Weekly Playdate

Pastel coloured egg cup wreath

2011-07-11T13:53:00.001+02:00

O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

We have been playing around with 'colour families' and are currently having fun with pastels!! Think marshmallows, cotton wool, babies and spring, and you'll get the general idea!

Spring is still a few months away and the dismal greyness and wetness of a Cape Town winter sometimes threatens this Joyful Mama's joy in a serious way...so we decided to create our own spring time cheer in anticipation of what's to come! The result: a merry little wreath made of painted egg cup flowers! (I got the inspiration for this wreath here).

We started by cutting loose the cups from some empty egg cartons...and then turned each little cup into a 'flower' by slitting the sides and pushing them open to form petals.

Next, we painted our flowers in pretty pastel colours,

...and painted a cardboard ring light green.

Then we glued pom-poms for the flowers' centers...

and stuck all the flowers onto our cardboard ring.

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!" ~Robin Williams

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring. ~Bern Williams

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show & Tell

First steps in sewing: Polystyrene plate

2011-07-10T19:50:00.001+02:00

A while ago I attended a fabulous morning workshop by a lovely lady called Renee Lighton, who encouraged us to set our children up for success by creating teachable moments in the home, using things we already have laying around. She gave us some pretty nifty ideas for using polystyrene plates (recycled from frozen pizzas or,as in our case, from a delicious milk tart some friends brought over for desert a few weeks ago!) So, I kept it aside, knowing it would come in handy for something...

I've been *trying* to get ahead with some sewing projects lately - not an easy feat with the little ones. The best time is when ArrowBoy goes down for an afternoon nap, since Sweetpea is then mostly content to sit by me on the carpet and build a puzzle.But lately she's been wanting to get in on the action and sew up something of her own. Since fabric is a bit floppy and I couldn't lay my hands on an embroidery frame just in that moment, I thought of the polystyrene plate in our recyclables box. I punched in a few holes with a plastic drinking straw, threaded a plastic needle with wool, and...TA-DAA!!

Turns out Sweetpea is a natural - I showed her the 'ins-and-outs' (literally!) of straight stitch and she completed the rest of the circles all by herself. She was a little disappointed when she came to the last hole all too soon, so she un-threaded it and started over again. Over the past few weeks she's sewed these circles with various colours and textures of wool. Perfect for mastering the basic movements of hand sewing and embroidery!

Linking this to ABC and 123's Show and Tell

Frederick - collage

2011-07-07T16:13:00.000+02:00

We are LOVING the story of Frederick by Leo Lioni ,which we currently have on loan from the library.

Since we've been sick sick sick for the past week or so, heaps of time were spent reading together in an attempt to chase away the swine flu blues!! And although this Mama was fairly limited in terms of range of intonation due to a horrible throat infection, we still really enjoyed reading this sweet story about five little field mice. We could SO relate to their misery when winter came and they were stuck in their ...in the cold stone wall, but like them, we were thrilled that Frederick had faithfully done his share of 'gathering' during the summer months, and now he cheered us all with his memories of warm sun rays, and the colours of the meadow in summer, and his beautiful poetry about the seasons!

And now that we are all over the worst of it and feeling a little stronger, I thought it would be fun to do a very simple Frederick collage. Sweetpea really likes using her scissors and glue, so I just drew the basic shapes for our picture on scraps of coloured paper and asked her to cut them out.

The raggedness of her toddler-cutting echoes the torn paper edges of the original illustrations! Good for practicing cutting, and just a fun little activity to enhance our delight with this darling book!

Adding details with a black marker.

..and a bright, yellow sun!

Her masterpiece!! :-)

The Tale of the Three Little Pigs...

2011-07-04T20:30:00.000+02:00

Hi Everyone! Just wanted to apologise for the long absence. We've spent most of last week in hospital after both the children and I (now 28 weeks pregnant!) contracted swine flu, and the rest of the week we were under semi-quarantine at home. (After ArrowBoy was admitted and we all were moved into a 'family'-sized room in the pediatrics ward, the nursing staff affectionately started referring to us as the Three Little Pigs, hence the title of this post... :-) )

The children are much better now, but since I can't really take much in terms of medicine at the moment, I seem to be taking a bit longer to shake this flu, as well as a secondary throat/ear infection which is causing me a great amount of discomfort and sleeplessness.. I have a few lovely posts lined up, but just lack the energy to finalise any of them at the moment. I hope to be back in the saddle soon, though. Lots of love to you and yours until we chat again. Xxx

Using what we have 3: MAGAZINE PICTURES - Animal Matching Cards

2011-06-14T16:24:00.000+02:00

Note: I have tried for several days to upload the photos for this post correctly, but with no success. Here's hoping none of my readers end up with a cramp in the neck after reading this!!)

Travel magazines usually contain breathtaking nature photography. I cut these out and laminated them to make sturdy, beautiful animal identification cards. I have over a 100 cards of different sizes, but here is a little sample:

For the most part, my children just love 'free playing' with these. They stare at them and talk about them and make up little stories, and ArrowBoy especially likes imitating the sounds. But they can also be used in more structured ways.

The possibilities for using these are ENDLESS...

Here are a few very basic ideas:

MATCHING:

Match the plastic animal to the picture card. (A variation for my older child is to put the chosen animals in a cloth bag and she has to then 'feel' for the one on the particular picture card!)

Match the picture to a magnetic animal from our Melissa and Doug set.

BEGINNING SOUNDS

Use alphabet flash cards to match the animal on your picture card to the beginning sounds.

SORTING:

Sort by continent on which the animals are found
Are they wild / farm animals, or pets
Mammals / birds / reptiles
Place in alphabetical order (for older children)

Or... play 'I Spy' to practice hearing beginning sounds.

This is how we celebrate - Pentecost 2011

2011-06-12T15:08:00.001+02:00

What a very special day we had as we celebrated the Birthday of the Church today!!

All week long we have been reading the story about Pentecost during family devotions. I had made a felt banner which we put up the day after Ascension Day, and we have been counting down the ten days that the disciples waited in Jerusalem after Jesus had gone to heaven. This morning we opened the last flap, to reveal a picture of people from different nationalities receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday!

And what would a birthday be without a party??

We made Tongues of Fire party hats...

and decorated yummy flame-yellow cupcakes with pretty, bright candles...

And in the living room we hung a circle of descending doves and flames to remind us of God's Holy Spirit being poured out. (You can find a tutorial for making the three-dimensional felt doves here. I made the flames out of felt too, attached it to ribbons of increasing length, and hung it all from an extra large, old embroidery hoop.).

Our guests were some lovely young people from our church who is in the middle of a Year of Spiritual Equipping through our church's Kingdom Pioneers program. This year we are blessed to have four students who are all from different nations: Malawi, Eritrea, Switzerland and South Africa.(Add to that my Australian husband...and we then had 5 different nations represented in our living room this morning!!) So they came over after church to celebrate with us...and we had such a good time that I completely forgot to take pictures!! We worshiped God together, then my husband read us the story of Pentecost from the Bible, and then each of us had a turn to say the Lord's Prayer in our own language - super special! May you and yours be blessed this week...

Using what we have 2: MAGAZINE PICTURES - Flower Girl greeting cards

2011-06-09T15:26:00.000+02:00

I've been collecting scraps from magazine pictures with interesting designs on them and keeping them in a plastic sleeve. So when I saw this cute idea on Giddy Giddy, I pulled out the scraps and a glue stick and Sweetpea and I spent a rainy afternoon crafting these pretties!

I used a sharp craft knife to cut out the areas where the girls' clothes would be, and Sweetpea had SO much fun choosing the 'outfits'. She opted for flowers every time, so we have a sweet little collection of Flower Girls just waiting to bring cheer to the happy recipients of these cards.

(We have a little friend whose birthday is coming up soon, and Sweetpea wanted to draw in the face on her friend's card herself - isn't it so sweet??)

Using what we have 1: MAGAZINE PICTURES - flowers flip-book

2011-06-08T14:22:00.000+02:00

My mother recently cleared out her magazine stash and gave me a whole box full of gardening magazines. I definitely do NOT have green fingers, but I LOVE pretty flowers, and so do my children! We like to identify trees and flowers during our walks in the neighbourhood, and Grandma's garden is the perfect place to discover new plants and enjoy the ones we already now.

I thought it would be fun to have a flip-book with pictures of flowers we may encounter on our walks, or even on trips to the botanical gardens. So many possibilities for a morning walk treasure hunt, too!! So I tore into that stack of garden magazines with my scissors and heated up the old laminator, and...TA-DAA!

I love the cheery, bright pictures of indigenous plants like these arum lilies! The flip book also has beautiful pictures of a variety of proteas, from Kings to pincushions.

One could also use these to make three part cards for Montessori activities.

I love that I did not need to spend any money on this project: the magazines came free with compliments of my mum, the green cardboard was left over from a craft we did a few months ago, and my hubby had gifted me with a pack of laminating pouches at the beginning of the year. I still have a bag full of key rings in the garage that was left over from the key rings I made as favours for our wedding guests almost five years ago (!!), so even that was on hand.

Godly Play: Ascension Day 2011

2011-06-01T14:12:00.003+02:00

I first saw this idea on Oriental Trading Company where they sell it as a craft for children to make. I've prepared this as a Godly Play prop for telling the story of Jesus' ascension.

This is so quick and basic to make:

Print and cut out one of the many free colouring pictures of Jesus ascending to heaven. (I reduced the size of mine to fit the opening of the paper cup, and glued it onto a piece of card to make it a little sturdier)

Glue some cotton wool to a blue paper cup (you can also cut out white clouds from craft foam).

Make a little hole just above Jesus' head and thread a piece of embroidery floss through it, then through a small slit in the bottom of the paper cup, and sandwich it between two white cardboard clouds.

Write an appropriate Scripture on the cloud - I used Matthew 28:20:

I will set this up as follows: Make a 'mountain' by turning a mixing bowl / shoe box / laundry basket upside down and covering it with a green cloth / sheet /towel. Place peg doll disciples in a semi-circle on the mountain. Position Jesus among them and as you tell the story of how Jesus was taken up in the cloud, pull the cloud so Jesus disappears into the paper cup 'sky'.

(This is not a great photo, but it was a little tricky holding onto the cup and trying to take a photo!!)

We will end this with singing two songs my children know about Jesus returning for us one day (For my local readers: Hy kom weer op die wolke - Oom Karolus en Lente; As Jesus kom op die wolke - Jan de Wet en die Loflaaities.) I also have the full-size colouring page ready which I used for our Jesus figure. You can get it here.

Play and Learn with Mama - Handa's Surprise Part 2

2011-05-26T15:26:00.000+02:00

The highlight of our week of activities inspired by the beautiful book Handa's Surprise, had to have been the day we made a Handa Fruit Salad!

We used the book itself as our recipe book and added the ingredients according to the order in the story.

All the fruit mentioned in the book. Guavas were the only fruit that weren't in season, so we used the tinned variety.

We practiced peeling...

...slicing...

...scooping...

...some more slicing...

...another kind of scooping...

...and more peeling. (Please notice the empty chair in the background - our littlest helper went MIA halfway through the salad making!)

And the best part was enjoying the fruit of our labour in the garden! (The kikoi they sat on is another treasure I bought during a trip to Kenya a few years ago)

The next day we used the left over fruit to make delicious smoothies for a snack time treat.

There was also...

transferring scented wooden fruit using an ice tongs...

transferring smaller fruit and veggies with another kind of tongs...

and we made beautiful 'stained glass' fruit from tissue and contact paper!

And finally...we visited the Mooiberge Strawberry Farm just outside Stellenbosch and although we were not able to pick our own berries, the children loved the bright and cheery junk sculptures and scarecrows in the play area!!

Play and Learn with Mama: Handa's Surprise Part 1

2011-05-26T14:31:00.000+02:00

We had a whole week of fun with this lovely book near the end of summer, when most of the fruit in the story were in season and still plentiful. For the first time since my children's birth, though, we are really struggling with winter colds and flu, and the past month or so has been crazy, so I apologise for only getting around to posting about this now.

Handa's Surprise (we did the Afrikaans version, Handa se Verassing) is a beautifully illustrated book set in Kenya, that tells the story of a little girl named Handa, who decides to surpise her friend Akeyo with a basket full of delicious fruit. On the way to Akeyo's villiage various mischievous animals help themselves to the fruit in the basket on Handa's head, and by the time she delivers the gift to her friend, Handa is just as surprised as Akeyo to see what is inside the basket!

Here are some fun Handa-inspired activities we enjoyed:

Making funny fruit faces courtesy of printables from Making Friends.

Practicing pre-writing skills with an apple push pin card from abc-teach. We used a piece of foam under the card and the stylus I bought from Nucleus Toys.

And one morning we had a ton of fun with apple-printing:

We printed and painted a branch from an apple tree (the sun's rays were printed using apple slices)

Apple faces stick puppets. (While the children were enjoying lunch that afternoon, I put on an impromptu puppet show using these guys and the children laughed so much they had a hard time finishing their sandwiches)

We printed and coloured paper dolls from Making Friends and dressed them in cloth dresses. I then set up a little play scape for Sweetpea to use in retelling the story. The huts were toilet paper rolls cut in half, and we glued some packaging straw onto paper roofs.

Acting out the story with the paper dolls was such a hit, that we took it one step further and 'became' the characters ourselves! I bought the fabric that is wrapped around Sweetpea during a missions trip to Kenya in 2005 (the same trip on which I met my husband!). The animal masks were printed from Sparkle Box (see * below) and they are still a favourite plaything around here! (You can also download a full-colour version, but I had fun colouring ours myself). It was the first time I'd introduced masks into our play and the children were fascinated by it. Days later we were still acting out little conversations between the animals.

* Sparkle Box has an amazing collection of free Handa's Surprise resources to download and print, including a story pack, individual story cards, page banners and play dough mats to name just a few. Click on the link to visit their Handa page.

Umbrella Rules

2011-05-25T14:45:00.000+02:00

I am in the middle of an eight week parenting course called Evergreen Parenting and loving every moment of it -and especially the fruits I see in our household since we started implementing many of the principles!

The course deals a lot with parenting your child according to their unique temperament and has been an amazing eye-opener for me. But most of us in this specific group have toddlers and we all appreciated it when, during the first session, we were given a very practical tool for dealing with discipline issues: we were encouraged to sit down with our children and create a set of Umbrella Rules for our household. At first I thought Sweetpea would be far too young to meaningfully participate, but this sweet three-and-a-half-year old knocked my socks off with her insight and contribution!

We had a lovely family meeting at the kitchen table where the Dad and I showed the little ones an umbrella and chatted to them about its use - to protect us from the elements! We then talked about how rules can also protect us, and together we came up with five basic rules that are appropriate - and necessary - for our family at this point in time. The rules are really super-simple and basically focuses on obedience and courtesy. They are:

1. There is a time for everything.
2. We talk nicely to each other.
3. We take care of our things.
4. We have good manners.
5. We help each other.

(A family with older children can use a more symbolic picture and the rules will obviously look very different from ours.)

We wrote the rules down on the five sections of an umbrella I had drawn beforehand, and added a simple picture as visual clues for the not-yet-reading members of the family. Our Umbrella Rules hang low on a prominent wall in our living room and it is a fantastic tool for guiding the tots in the way of correct behaviour! Sweetpea knows the rules by heart thanks to the little picture clues and responds beautifully when she is reminded of a certain rule.

(You can also order a ready-made Umbrella Rules via the Evergreen Parenting website - click here.)

He's Alive...in the hearts of children, too!

2011-04-25T15:00:00.000+02:00

What a blessed, blessed Holy Week I shared with our children! The Passover Seder Meal and the joy of Resurrection Sunday left me with stirring memories I will treasure in my heart forever...

Here are a glimpse of some more things we did:

On Palm Sunday we did a very simple Godly Play version of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. This was part of our evening devotion and afterwards the children placed the palm 'leaves' on the first block of our Pathway to the Cross, and we lit the first candle.

They loved making the Resurrection garden!

It looked lovely!

On Good Friday evening we read the story of Jesus' burial and wrapped a plain peg doll in white 'grave clothes'...

and placed him in the tomb.

I tried to keep things really quiet and solemn on Saturday and we read the story of Jesus' death and burial several times during the day from different children's Bibles. We didn't play any secular music that day. Instead I played beautiful old hymns with the cross as a theme. My mother blessed me with a CD with the Afrikaans versions of many of the old hymns last year, and we listened to many songs in both our home languages. Songs like The Old Rugged Cross, When I survey the Wondrous Cross, Jesus Keep me Near the Cross...

And then...that beautiful Resurrection Morning broke and we hurried to the 'grave'... to find the stone rolled away and only the grave clothes neatly folded inside! We were so happy at the news that Jesus had risen , that we 'planted' beautiful white roses in our Resurrection garden and lit all the candles on our Pathway, with a beautiful, big one on the last, white square!!

I had made the children some new praise banners as a gift for that morning (they love wielding the banners during worship at church, but those are often too big, so I made these ones just the perfect size for my littlies!) We downloaded a version of Tim Hughes' Oh Happy Day and joyfully celebrated by dancing and waving our banners all around the living room!

No use just keeping the Good News all to ourselves, now is it? So...we supported a wonderful local initiative that offered an alternative to bunnies and eggs. Leonardo is a chocolate lamb which comes packaged in a box with a piece of Scripture. (Leonardo now also has his own website with stories and more - please click here to visit)

We wrapped the chocolates up in a lively green and delivered them to two of our neighbours who are non-believers, and some more to widowed friends of ours.

I was really touched by the way my children responded to the message of Holy Week. Little ArrowBoy is still a little young to really comprehend much, but even so he approached our devotions with a sweet solemnity and quietly listened to every story while the candle light played across his darling little face. Sweetpea on the other hand, drank it all in and peppered me with questions all week long. Colouring pages about palm Sunday, the Last Supper, the empty grave, and Jesus appearing to His disciples were excellent springboards for wonderful discussions. I am confident that she now has a good understanding of the sequence of events, and with the grace and love of Father God I will continue leading her toward a deeper heart-experience of Jesus' love, too.

Our Very First Messianic Seder

2011-04-19T22:21:00.001+02:00

Come to the table of mercy

prepared with the wine and the bread.

All who are hungry and thirsty,

come and your souls will be fed.

Won't you come at the Lord's invitation

receive from His nail-scarred hands.

Eat of the bread of salvation,

drink of the blood of the Lamb.

Come to the Table

written by Claire Cloninger and Martin J. Nystrom

Just before sunset on a glorious day in the early autumn, we came to this table with hearts full of expectation. Earlier than the many, many other families who will sit down to similar nights of remembering later this week. But my husband is leaving soon to be about the King's business, and will be away on that evening when countless other fathers will take their places at the head of their tables to lead their families in this age-old Remembering.

So we light the next candle on our pathway to the Cross and a chubby little toddler hand solemnly sticks a picture of the cup-and-the bread onto our Holy Week banner. And we all grow quiet in the last glow of the day, and invite our Saviour to come join us at our table...

John 13: 3- 6: [Jesus] riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself.
After that he poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith he was girded.

And a precious young man who has become a son in our home, swallows hard as he understands a little of Peter's heart:

John 13:8-9: Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.

Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.

And then we take our first uncertain steps towards something new...that is really thousands of years old: we revisit the events of the night in Egypt, when the Lord would pass over the houses of His people who obeyed His instructions, and set them free from slavery. But every symbol on our table that reminds us of that night,

becomes even more breathtakingly meaningful as we remember its fulfillment on a night many years later, when that group of twelve reclined at the table with their Lord... We ask the ancient questions, and as we discover the answers together, our eyes fill with tears at the overpowering, fresh understanding of His words, His actions at the table that night.

And by the end of it all there is peace, such peace, and awe as the last notes of our praise hymn fade away...and we all, the littlest too, still linger, unwilling to depart from this encounter, where His Spirit ministered quiet healing in more than one way...

******

The Seder meal is a Jewish tradition based on the instructions God gave Moses in Exodus 13. But as Christians we also look beyond the first Passover to the night before Jesus was betrayed - where, at a Passover Seder with His disciples, He gave them the New Covenant, and in the days that followed, through His death and resurrection, became the fulfillment of those symbols: the Sacrificial Lamb of God who set us free from the yoke of slavery, from the bitter tears of our sins.

To read more about how Christan families with young children can have a Messianic Seder, I recommend two excellent links:

This one by Jennifer Dukes Lee,

and this wonderful, free resource by Kathryn Frazier.

But it was the answers to the four questions in this post by Ann Voskamp that brought it all together for me...

Easter Inspiration for Mothers

2011-04-18T08:04:00.000+02:00

Here are some wonderfully inspirational posts with ideas for Christian mothers to prepare a meaningful Easter for our families this year:

Impress your Kids has a post called Meaningful Easter: Tips, Ideas and Traditions
Amanda also has a Week of Easter Activities - Scripture-based, Lamb-not-bunny kind of stuff!!
The first paragraph from this post by Katy Orr had me shouting loud Amens!!
His Story to Tell has some truly inspiring ideas. Oh, to be able to hammer our sins to the cross like that!!
And Ann Voskamp, as always!! Make an Easter Tree with her free devotional and beautiful pictures to download.
Faith and Family Connections share a breathtaking diorama of Jesus praying in the garden...This one will be at the top of my list for next year.
Last year I made special scones for my family's Resurrection Sunday Breakfast by cutting out shapes from scone dough: a cross, a lamb and a circle to represent the stone that was rolled away from the tomb!

AND THEN...

In my previous post I mentioned an article I recently read on how Christian parents can encourage a meaningful Easter celebration in our homes. I promised to share just a few snippets from this beautifully written piece with you, so may you be inspired!!

(Please Note: This article appeared in the April 2011 edition of the Afrikaans Christian women's magazine LEEF met hart en siel ((I guess that will translate into LIVE with heart and soul!)) For the benefit of my many Afrikaans readers I include the original here, with the English in italics below it.)

Uit: FEES VAN DIE GENOOIDES

deur Lizette Murray

"Dis nodig dat ons tasbare klein rituele skep wat vir ons kinders heenwys na die kern van Paasfees: Christus het gesterf. Maar ook: Christus het opgestaan!"

"We need to create tangible little rituals that will point our children toward the essence of Easter: Christ had died. But also: Christ is risen!"

"Die simbole van lyding moet gestroop en eerlik wees: dit simboliseer immers intense swaarkry en Jesus se vernedering en absolute Godsverlating"

"The symbols of suffering should be stripped and honest: after all, it symbolizes intense suffering and Jesus' humiliation and utter God-forsakenness."

"Vir Ortodokse en Mesiaanse Jode is Paasfees by uitstek 'n GESINSFEES. Ons as Christen-ouers het 'n verantwoordelikheid dat Paasfees nie by ons verbygaan nie. Ons kinders moet ons diep weemoed oor die kruisiging van Jesus saam met ons beleef deur die pieteit en gebrokenheid van hart waarmee ons Jesus op sy Via Dolorosa volg. Terselfdertyd moet ons onbevange vreugde oor Sy opstanding aansteeklik op hulle inwerk deur ons sigbare hartsbelewing van die Besef: Die graf is leeg."

"For Orthodox and Messianic Jews, Passover is essentially a FAMILY festival. We as Christian parents have a responsibility to not let Easter pass us by. Our children should experience our deep sorrow at Jesus' crucifixion with us through the piety and brokenness of heart with which we follow Him on His Via Dolorosa. And so should they be able to share in our uncontained joy at His resurrection when they see our joy at the realisation that The Tomb is Empty."

The writer suggests the following ideas for visible symbols:

For remembering Jesus' suffering and death:

* A rough wooden cross

* A crown of thorns

* A wreath of red berries

* Wheat kernels in a bowl

* Family communion

* Dark throws and table cloths

* Small thorny crowns to be hung on each member of the family's door, with a verse of Scripture from Isaiah 35.

For celebrating Jesus' resurrection:

* Music from the Bauernmesse in Austria to ring in Resurrection Morn

* Candles, light

* Fresh flowers, especially white ones

* Replacing the dark cloths with pristine white.

Holy Week for families

2011-04-17T15:44:00.001+02:00

Dear Friends

This post is quite a bit longer than what I normally write, but I have such a deep desire to share with you what I have learnt recently about ways in which Christian parents can really minister the redemptive message of easter to their little ones. It is my prayer that you will be encouraged and blessed by this.

We worship at a charismatic Protestant church where the liturgical year of the church is not really observed. We do have special Christmas and Good Friday services, but that is about the extent to which the traditional seasons of the church is acknowledged.

Yet, a while ago I one day found a link on Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience, that really made me think differently about the significance that observing the liturgical year can have for Protestant Christians. It was an article by Mark Roberts called An Introduction to the Christian Year (you can read this excellent article by clicking on the link) in which he beautifully explains the Liturgical Year, the colours of the Christian year, and how being mindful of these "can enrich the variety of our worship..." and therefore "...help us to have a broader, deeper, and more vital relationship with the living God."

NOT a Biblical Demand

I believe that legalism is one of the easiest snares we as Christians can get entangled in, and therefore I want to be very clear that for us, observing the seasons of the church is not something we HAVE to do. As Mr Roberts said in his article

"Nothing in Scripture demands recognition of the church year. We do not have in the New Testament some equivalent to Leviticus 25, where God lays out for Israel the major fasts and feasts during the year. So, although the liturgical year is structured around the biblical story of Jesus, it is not commanded in Scripture in the way of the Jewish holidays for the Jews. Of course, Christians aren’t commanded to celebrate Easter or Christmas in the way we do either. The church year, therefore, is not something all Christians must observe, or must observe in exactly the same way. (In fact, Eastern Orthodox believers have a different pattern throughout the year and even celebrate Easter on a different day!)

Nevertheless, I believe that an awareness of the liturgical year can enrich our worship and therefore our relationship with God." [my emphasis]

And a little more reading...

A little while after I read this article, I was reading an excellent fictional trilogy by South African author Marzanne Leroux-Ten Boom that tells the story of a young South African man who discovers his Jewish roots and decides to visit Israel in search of some relatives. He ends up marrying a young Jewish girl and together they start carving out a life for themselves amidst the volatility of current-day Israel. It is an amazing story, but what really impacted me even more was the author's meaningful insight into Jewish tradition and how it is interpreted and applied by Messianic Jews. I loved reading about the Jewish festivals and how they make up the 'bones' of Jewish life. I was especially touched by the way Jewish families celebrate Passover, and by the beauty of the Seder meal.

And then the last straw!

In the April 2011 edition of a local Afrikaans Christian woman's magazine (LEEF met hart en siel, for my local readers) Lizette Murray wrote an article about how families can celebrate Easter in a God-honouring, Jesus-glorifying way by surrounding ourselves and our children with tangible reminders of the suffering He endured, and His glorious victory over death. It took my breath away! I read it over and over and really felt God's gentle nudge to start preparing my heart and our home for an encounter with Christ during this Holy Week. (I will do a separate post with snippets from the article to encourage you!)

So...

I asked God to show me how!! The magazine article was a great start, but the very next morning I also opened my inbox to find this post by Ann Voskamp: Why a Christian Family May celebrate Passover: A Messianic Seder. Oh, and then this one: How To Make an Easter Garden. And from there on the Lord just lead me to the most wonderful resources, many of which I will love to share with you over the next few days.

Only God can touch our children's hearts

I hope you will take time to read the prayer I posted yesterday about my surrendering this week and all that we will be doing at the feet of Jesus. I am realizing more and more that I am just an instrument in God's hand: I can do many things to teach and instruct my little ones, but only God himself can work in my children's hearts, turning my feeble attempts into something lasting and true.

A little glimpse into our week:

Again, I draw inspiration from Mrs. Voskamp! Please visit her blog to see these breathtaking Advent and Lenten rings her son makes. However, with the exchange rate between our countries being what it is, I was just not able to purchase one of them. So I borrowed from her idea and went to the garage to see what I could come up with. I found a piece of Supawood left over from a project, and painted it in squares of Lenten and Easter colours.

In case you are interested, here are the colours:

Palm Sunday: Grey (the colour associated with most donkeys :-), and to signify Jesus' sadness over Jerusalem)

Monday to Wednesday: ever-darkening hues of purple

Thursday: deep wine red, to remind us of the wine of the New Covenant

Friday: Red, for the blood that was shed for us

Saturday: Black, as we mourn His death

Sunday: White, to celebtare His glorious resurrection!

Starting on Palm Sunday we will move the figure of Jesus forward one space every evening, and a light a candle on each new square. Except for Friday and Saturday. These are days of mourning.

I made a rather rough little plate and cup out of clay for Thursday night to represent the Last Supper, and on Friday the figure of Jesus will not be on the board. A simple wooden cross will instead remind us of the Son of God who bore our sins and shame.

I got the idea for this Holy Week banner from Diary of a Sower. She made one for each of her children to hang on their doors and add an element on each of the significant days of this week. Ours will hang in a prominent place in our home, and the children will add a little felt reminder on the appropriate day.

The symbols fasten with velcro.

Sometime during the week will also plant our own easter garden. We've already gathered our supplies, and I made a clay tomb and stone. More about how we will use this later in the week...

I have also printed out beautiful colouring pages for Sweetpea to enjoy as we go through the week.

I am not sure if we will get around to this ourselves this year, but here are some amazing Christian Easter Crafts you may want to use with your own children this week: (Click on the links)

I love love LOVE this Resurrection Set from Catholic Icing!! If I can get 10 toilet rolls together by Sunday, we are definitely doing this!!

Last Supper Craft, also from Catholic Icing. This will be the first thing we do next year, when Sweetpea is just that little bit older. I will be keeping my eyes peeled for a print of the famous painting in the meantime, and use the suggestions for studying a bit of art as well!

I think making this Life of Jesus mini book from DLTK will go a long way in helping little ones see the whole picture of Jesus's time on earth.

AN EGG-FREE ZONE

I have been struggling for days about whether or not to do a post about why we do NOT buy or eat easter eggs, or use it as a symbol or in cutesy 'easter' activities. This is, however, something I feel VERY strongly about, so I have decided to provide you with some links for information about the pagan origins of these symbols. Please click here or here (this is an especially well researched article). And if you would like to learn about where hot cross buns come from, click here. (This, by the way, was not written from a Christian perspective.)

My husband is leaving for a missions outreach to Botswana later this week, so we will be celebrating our Seder meal on Monday night instead of Thursday. I am very, very excited about sharing it with you, but I still need to go sew the table cloth for this special dinner, so off I go! May you and yours be blessed this week!

I am linking this post to Impress your Kids, who is having a Meaningful Easter Link-Up. She calls it Making it about the Lamb and not the bunny!! (I love that!!)

A Mother's Prayer for Holy Week

2011-04-16T07:49:00.000+02:00

Father,

At the start of this week, that is so significant to us, so dear, I come before your throne like a pilgrim of sorts:

my travel bags for the week packed full of 'provisions' for every day of the journey - in my case, these are activities and stories and little crafts that I will 'feed' to my children this week together with passages from your Word, hoping to nourish them with Truth; hoping to show them the way to the cross... and the glory beyond it.

And my heart is also packed, full of hope and expectation, deeply desiring for a fresh anointing of your Spirit, your Presence on us this week. Oh, that you will come walk with us, that you will open our eyes and our spirits to see, really see: the magnitude of your Sacrifice, the magnitude of your Love.

Holy One, you know that I have been busy, busy, busy the past few days - a Martha, scurrying here and there to prepare, to get everything just perfect.

But now I come before you like that little boy of old with his simple lunch, and I lay it at Your feet:

Father, in the Name of your Son, Jesus Christ, please take my 'three loaves and two fish', these simple, imperfect things I have prepared for my family. This is what I have to give - take it, Jesus, like you did that day on the mountainside, take this which is so utterly lacking, so very insignificant, and multiply it in the hearts of my family.

I can teach and instruct them and tell them the age old Story, but only You can reach their hearts. They are so young, Lord, and there is so little understanding yet. But will you please minister to their spirits in a way that is far beyond anything I can do. And even though their minds may not yet comprehend it all, will you reveal to their hearts what You did for them, why they are here, and may their little souls sing out to You from that place beyond words.

Oh, Holy Spirit, take our off-key singing this week, our cracked pots and feeble attempts at bringing You anything that is of worth, and turn it into a sweet smell to fill your throne room, a beautiful sound that will bless Your ears.

And help this mother to rest in You now. Give me a Mary's heart and let me sit at Your feet that I may gaze into Your beautiful face and hear Your life-giving words, let me see Your nail-pierced Hands this week, and open my eyes to Your Love.

Amen

Our new 'neighbour'

2011-04-05T15:09:00.000+02:00

Remember the pretty little juice box village I made for Sweetpea last year?

Well, I've been having a hard time throwing away empty juice boxes ever since, so I was delighted when I stumbled upon instructions for making a felt covered version. The original was a gingerbread house, but since Sweetpea is not familiar with the story of Hansel and Gretel yet (we are avoiding stories with witches for now), ours is just a fun hearts and flowers version!

I made the doll as a cake topper for Sweetpea's third birthday cake, and just refashioned her a bit into a cheery little juice box home owner with a brood of pet baby chicks!!

The felt elements of the house are not glued down, so Sweetpea can decorate it afresh every time she plays with it - today the windows are at the side of the house, as is the bird house, but who knows where they will be placed next time. And right now the flowers are growing beside the foot path, but tomorrow they may be festooning the sides of the roof. How fun!

I am linking this up to

ABC & 123's Show and Tell blog hop

and

"Come over to play at the Childhood 101We Play link up!"

A 'FELT good' weekend!

2011-04-02T21:50:00.000+02:00

I just love all this creative energy that starts to course through my veins every time I enter my second trimester of pregnancy! And since the season is definitely changing to cooler, I have been itching to get my hands on some lovely, woolly felt. So, I spent this blissful Saturday afternoon creating all kinds of felty goodie goodness!!

I first made a fun felt flower that turned a plain striped beanie into a stylish little hat for the colder weather up ahead...

And then I tried my hand at felting a bar of soap and now I am hooked and cannot wait for the shops to open Monday morning so that I can go buy delicious smelling soaps in all shapes and sizes to turn into pretty-pretties for bath time bliss!! When you felt soap like this, you don't need to use a wash cloth - just wash with your gently exfoliating, felt-covered soap! My husband is off to Botswana on a mission outreach at the end of the month and has already asked for one of these to take along for showering with while up there.I strongly doubt his aesthetic appreciation of the whole business, but he obviously knows a good, practical solution when he sees one!

I am right in the middle of sewing up a storm to get the Joyful Little Ones all covered up for winter. I had just finished a top for Sweetpea this morning that is light pink with playful little dalmations all over, so I thought a felt hair clip with a sweet little pup on one end would look lovely with it. What do you think?

Sweetie pies and cupcakes

2011-03-30T19:41:00.000+02:00

During a previous play date, Sweetpea and my cousin's young daughter spent an entire Saturday afternoon 'baking' some felt cupcakes in her play kitchen. They would mix imaginary dough in a tiny mixing bowl, stick the cakes in the oven for a while and then decorate their creations with the most splendid, invisible frosting and sprinkles. A tea party would follow, and then 'washing' of the dishes, and then they would start all over again, delighting me with their chef-ly conversations as I listened in from the kitchen.

They had such fun that I couldn't wait to see what they would do if they had the real thing to work with, so about a week later we invited L over for some bona fide cupcake decorating!

Just after lunch and as soon as ArrowBoy was down for his nap, I set up the picnic table with everything they would need...

Bowls of yummy butter frosting in girlie colours...

...and a muffin tin full of goodies for each.

Two super-excited little chefs just itching to get started...

And then they were off!

Some of the creations...

And the very BEST part:

YUM!!

And of course I couldn't resist and had to join in...the Dad was quite happy with that when he tucked into these after work that afternoon.

As you can well imagine, Sweetpea had a fairly intense sugar rush after all this, and she and I spent the remainder of the afternoon playing running games in the garden to get it all out of her system!!!

Drum roll, please: I am back!!

2011-03-29T21:54:00.000+02:00

It feels SO good to sit here and type up a blog post again...I have really, really missed these late-night writing sessions, a cup of tea next to my keyboard and the quiet hum of the computer.

I do apologise for the sudden disappearing act, but trust that you will understand when I say that I haven't been feeling up to much of anything in the past three months, because...

Yes, God in His infinite grace has decided to bless my womb once again and I am almost 15 weeks along in this pregnancy!! Yet, delighted as we all are here in the Joyful household, the first trimester has been very hard for me, with severe nausea and exhaustion. BUT, as with my last pregnancy, all that disappeared like clockwork the day I hit 13 weeks, and I am so relieved to be 'back in the saddle', so to speak, especially for my children's sake. I still suffer from back aches and really struggle to sleep at night, but I'll take that over the nausea anytime!!

Thanks for all the caring e-mails to ask if all was well - it is good to be back!