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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Top Ten Tuesday

Okay, I am back with a Top Ten Tuesday again.

This week?

Top Ten favorite things to do with my kids!

10. Play dough. If it weren't so messy, it would be higher on the list.

9. Aly and I love to play a game where we fold a piece of paper in half and one of us draws a head of some sort with a neck that comes down just to the top of the other half. Then the other person, without seeing the head, draws some sort of body. It's a blast! We try so hard to choose a body or head that will end up looking ridiculous but we often end up drawing something similar. Imagine that. For example, when you unfold the paper you may have a Christmas tree with a duck head or an ogre's head on the body of a fish. Yeah, it's a blast!

8. Board games. This is unfortunately not something we do often. And that is Rachel's fault. But I love her anyway.

7. Taking pictures and scrapbooking them. I am not a scrapbooker. I would love to be but I'd need more time and money. However, this summer we had "Mugshot Mondays" and "Foto Page Fridays" and we had such great time with it. I bought everyone an 8x8 album and a large pack of colored 8x8 paper and each week I'd buy new stickers. The kids all had a great time designing their pages and now they each have an album of summer memories.

6. Movie nights with popcorn and junior mints. Yum!!!

7. Grocery shopping. Or not.

6. Reading. I love, love, love children's picture books. But. I was so excited when the kids were getting old enough to start reading some bigger books. We have read "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" all together but so far that's it. See, when Rachel was due we were in the habit of reading a little bit each night at bedtime and I was afraid that a new baby in the house would be the end of that. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was wrong. But when you have a new toddler in the house...bedtime reading time went out the window.

5. Being out at a forest preserve or state park. You know, where ever there are plenty of trees to climb, walking sticks to be found, trails to explore, and of course, mud, rocks, and water. These things always add up to a great adventure.

4. Scavenger hunts. There are so many ways to make a "hunt" at home and it can be quite simple or you can get really creative. My favorite was when I chose several books and put them in a pile. Their first "clue" told them which book to read and at the end of the book was a "clue" in the form of a question from the book. That answer would lead them somewhere in the house to their next book assignment and eventually it led them all out to the mailbox where they got a note that said we could go to McDonald's for dinner. It was a great way to "trick" them into reading! Not that it's all that hard to get them to read.

3. Painting! Our front room has fairly bare walls so quite awhile ago, I gave each of the kids a large piece of paper from one of the rolls at church and I taped them to the driveway and gave them paints and let them go to town on their own masterpieces for the walls. They loved it, I loved it, Gary loved the finished product but really wished we had not painted on the driveway. (Who knew craft paint wouldn't wash off the driveway?)

2. Praying. This one needs no explanation but it's a wonderful thing to teach kids how to pray by praying with them and it is so very sweet to hear what's on their hearts.

1. Devotions. I confess I am so terrible about this. I want it to be part of our routine but I fail miserably. When we do devotions together it's wonderful. I love to hear the questions they have and see them start to understand things about God. I want with all my heart to pass on to them the things that God has shown and taught me. The things that the world will not tell them, and in fact, will deny. Training children up in the way they should go is just not a passive thing. I don't want to just take them to church, sunday school, Awanas, and youth group and then hope for the best. I want to be actively teaching my children about the God we serve.

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