Zanderism

I wasn't going to blog any more tonight...but as I put up the laptop....Zander asked when we are going to do shots.

I told him I'd forgotten again.

He said, "Huh! No shot will hurt me, I've got hair to protect me." ::snort::

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Now - the "daily recap".

The black stuff from Pennsylvania worked wonders on Arielle's finger. I'm using it today to get the last bit. WooHOO!

I got rid of gray again today. I love visiting with my young friend, Heather. She wants to keep in touch. I'll see her one more time before we move. I found her after my very nice hair dresser had destroyed my hair. Heather warned me to be sure that my hair isn't over-processed in Japan. ::snort:: She said that they use stronger stuff on their hair.

We talked about her upcoming wedding today. I loved it. I listened to her talk about her mother and her making invitations, going dress shopping, taking bride's maids out, planning menus.....

On the way home a song was playing on KLove by Third Day. “It’s the child on her wedding day…the father that gives her away….”

I remembered a friend sharing that she was overseas when her daughter was planning her wedding. What I knew in my head, hit me in my heart….I may not be an intimate part of planning the girls’ weddings…you know…shopping, trying on dresses……and I cried and I think that makes me too psycho to blog about this ::snorifft:: but I am determined to be real....and that is real for today. The woman who grew up to say goodbye with no tears....cried as I thought of what I might miss in the next 3 years...and there is no clue that I will.

I gave myself the lecture “Don’t worry about tomorrow, today has enough worries of its own”…..but it didn’t stop the tears.

We worked on our lapbook.

This made my day.....

He got off early from work and came to visit. College is cancelled tomorrow and so we're going to play games...and Mike may make it home in time to be surprised too. ::grin::

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Darshia, Debbie & Mandy Rock!

Look what arrived today...a BIG box.....




Winter Coats.... I am SO glad I did NOT order bigger. I went with the kids' measurements and the sizing chart on the web page. I was worried they'd be too small but they are all big. Check out Stacia's snow pants...proving her height is in the torso and not the legs. ::snort::

Jarrrrr-ed would not pose with us. THANK YOU to Darshia, Debbie and Mandy. Darshia, the 4 in 1 coats are awesome! Debbie, you planted the idea of finding multi-purpose coats with your comments about how your family handles the New York winters. Mandy, I was able to buy a snow pants for Jared and I at Coles....as well as Nolan and Jared's coat.

The strange thing? I ordered a coat for Jamin - forgot he wasn't coming with us. ::snort::

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Passover Lapbook

Woot! We did it! Arielle and I did a lot of this one, Nolan helped this afternoon. That's fine. I'll use it tomorrow to review the significance of Passover with the younger ones before we enjoy a Seder with friends. We've been reading a lot of library books on Passover, but none of them have brought out the Messianic significance of the celebration. We have been mostly reading NT passages in family circle, but we make the connections often.

We chose to make this lapbook into a "book," rather than a folder with extensions. Nolan likes this best and we will be able to add as many pages in the future. It closes easier too and no pieces fall upside down when the extensions are flipped over. I suppose YOURS don't do that because you plan them out better than I. ::snort:: Are you surprised that I didn't get ALL the mini-books made that we'd considered? If you are interested in making lapbooks that are "books" click here.


I did purchase Hands of a Child's Passover Lapbook. I wanted all the info I needed in one spot...and I wasn't sure how much time we'd have to work on lapbooks in March. (It turns out we weren't packing so we had plenty of time to plan our own book. LOL) We only used 6 of the 15 mini-books in the kit. The Four Seder Questions, The Seder Table, Searching for Chametz and The Haggadah on these pages are all from Hands of a Child.

I DID want to try their new "type in" kits. It was NICE to be able to use them for the vocabulary and the 4 question books. I can see where it would be good if the child was doing the keyboarding themselves or were dictating. However, I use our lapbooking for the children's handwriting, so I doubt I'll do much with this feature in the future. Arielle is learning keyboarding so it would be fine for her.


I was disappointed that this kit had no booklets integrating the Old Testament or Jesus with Passover. I really almost wonder if it is meant to be from a strictly Jewish perspective. We made The Messiah in Passover and Passover in the Bible booklets, by copying pages from A Family Guide to Biblical Holidays and folding. I was really proud of us for figuring out how to make The Messiah book work after the title was inadvertently written upside down. ::snort::


The Kadesh is from HOAC. We made the Seder Plate. There was one in the pack but I couldn't figure it out. ::snort:: I wanted to try a wheel and this seemed like a natural. I found the coloring sheet of the Seder plate at Torah Tots and enlarged it 129%. We used photos of the symbols and descriptions from HOAC to go on the bottom wheel. I attached it all the way through the folder and covered the other side with the wine cup. As you turn the wheel you see a new item from the Seder Plate. I WILL laminate the top next time - or use card stock.


The Vocabulary words come from HOAC. There are a LOT of vocab words and I was thrilled to be able to copy and paste from the activity pack into the activity. ::grin:: I wanted a booklet on the Afikoman and the 4 Cups. These weren't in the HOAC kit so we made them. We took all the clip art and the wine cup from Torah Tots. The wine cup is a pocket. I made 4 broken matzah with the names of the cups etc to go in there. The Ten Plagues booklet from HOAC was a small fan book. I wanted to be able to write the significance of each plague and how it tied in to the Egyptian worship of gods. We found darling coloring sheets at Torah Tots. I printed them at 30% and Arielle folded them into little books. Easy peasy and cute...don't you think? I have big sheets that match for Stacia to color. I did find it interesting that HOAC and the Jewish sites all list the 5th plague as "wild beasts," whereas Exodus lists it as "flies". I'll have to do some more research before next year. LOL


The front and back covers are also coloring sheets from Torah Tots.

All in all I'm happy with the kit I purchased. It WAS nice to have info in one spot....I did enjoy typing up the many vocab words. There were many booklets we didn't use....recipes, Seder menus, Seder Timeline etc...... but there were many things missing that I wanted to cover... The great thing is that I can add those other things in other years.

I had hoped to print out a page of photos from our 2008 Seder for this book, but it didn't happen. I planned to print them as wallet size photos....I saw that on a blog when I was searching for resources.

I AM happy with the way this turned out. I love the graphics from Torah Tots. I like the colors. I liked pulling in the info from A Family Guide to the Biblical Holidays (like to feel like the book is earning its spot on the shelf. ::snort::). This endeavor has given me much more confidence to plan and execute our own Lapbooks.

You can see more of our lapbooks at Our Lapbooks Page. I previously posted Passover Resources.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

PWOC Day of Prayer & Fasting....

I am fully aware that most of my readers are NOT military nor are they PWOC members.

HOWEVER..... The Army Chief of Chaplains has issued a proclamation making today a
"global day of fasting and prayer for the protection, preservation, and
peace of military families." I, personally, am making it a day of prayer for all branches of the military and thought some of you might want to add a special prayer for military families today. Isn't it appropriate this call to prayer and fasting would come on the first day of Passover?

You can read Prayer Points here and the official proclamation from the Army Chief of Chaplains here.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.