New Name to the Blog

Today we changed the name of the blog-- for a few reasons. One, since we are in the process of changing the name of our first book from Bible Buckaroos to Fingers and Feet: Helping Your Young Ones Interact With God's Word. Therefore of course the title of the blog wouldn't make since any more. In addition, I hope to do more posting now and create more of a resource for parents to find and share tools to teach their young children God's word. The blog title Full Hands and Ready Feet somehow emotionally resonates to this mother of 3 small ones. I am sure many of you know the feeling-- you have so many desires and dreams of things you will do with and for your children (ready feet.) However, very often the daily tasks not only take precedence, but nearly obliterate well intentions (full hands.) There is little time for pro-active parenting, and even less time for planning it. I hope we can get ideas from each other. For the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Being a Godly Girly Girl

Over Christmas I have been very interested to watch as my 4 year old Alyse is growing into such a girl. Since she is my only daughter, watching this is new. Of course she has always loved princesses and pretty things. All things pink and frilly. But I have been noticing more. For example, if we are at a playground or ballgame and she "makes a friend" with girls, she almost cannot hear anything else. Those girls are gold, and what they say is true to her. Another example happened a couple of weeks ago when Garden Ridge Pottery had all their books on sale for $1. I told each of the kids they could pick out a book. Alyse first picked up anything small. Most of these books were things like "a guide to winetasting" or "fung shua???" Any of the general kids books were not appealing to her eye. We finally settled on what is probably a tween book, since luckily she is unable to read and she said she wants to write in it. The book was black and hot pink and very "girly." These events, along with the fact that all she wanted for Christmas was make-up has really got me pondering, how can I train her to not just be girly, but to be Godly too?

We have been having such a fun time trying to do Bible stories during bath time. In fact, my 6 year old son, whom I no longer bath, now wants me to bath him so he can experience the story as well. It is working out well, but I'm not sure I should photo the bath time Bible stories :)

Scripture Memory

I have been enjoying watching/listening to the kids learning Psalm 121. Hubby ordered cute little memory verse cards titled "foundational verses" from desiringgod.org It has a bunch of cards with one verse each. On the other side is a picture to help cue you as to what the verse is. I have been so surprised at how well they are learning the verses. I think it would be fun for Von and Alyse to recite them for groups of extended family during the holidays. I want them to practice "public speaking" so they aren't as terrified as I am. We could kill two birds with one stone...

Bible in the Bath

I recently heard an idea that sounded fun. Why not teach the kids Bible truths while taking a bath? Bathtime is already regularly scheduled, what a great idea to use that time as an informal teaching time. I like scheduling a formal "Bible Time" but also having a chance to talk about the Lord throughout our day. I tried it the other day. I just started off by telling Alyse, "did you know the earth used to be all covered in water like this tub?" She looked up at me with surprise (even though she has heard the story of creation.) Because it was such a part of our normal conversation, I think it had a different affect. I was surprised how many illustrations we found while taking a bath. Talking about breathing under water before God created the air, trying to swim everywhere before God created land, etc. Of course the natural flow of conversation shows how smart God was to create the air and the land before he created the animals and people. Very cool.

Need a Title

Well if anyone has a better name for the book (other that Bible Buckaroos) I would love to hear it. We are looking for something descriptive yet fun that will appeal to boys AND girls.

Water to Wine

Well, being in and out of town for the summer has made Bible Time not too consistent. Also makes blogging not too consistent. Yesterday though we were able to do the story of Jesus' first miracle of turning the water into wine. The kids enjoyed pouring and scooping water pretending to be at the wedding. They also tried some unsweetened cranberry juice which was so very sour. I love how the stories in the Bible show us more about who God is and how we are to relate to him. However I must admit, this story is difficult to make an application for the kids. Other than of course, "Jesus can do miracles" as Von says.