7 QT - What I hope our Children Learn from Advent

Here's my second 7 Quick Takes, and this week it is all about what I hope that our children learn about and remember from Advent as they grow up.

--- 1 ---

Jesus

I hope that our children always know and always remember that Jesus is the reason that we are celebrating Advent and Christmas.  Living in a world of Santa, snowmen, reindeer, and elves this can sometimes be difficult.  I think that living the liturgical year in our home and homeschooling has made this a little bit easier for us, as well as a fantastic homeschool co-op and church community.  I hope that through our Advent Activities that Jesus will always remain the focus.

--- 2 ---

Service

 

I hope our children learn to have hearts of service for others.  Their Daddy is an Emergency Room Physician and after his work shifts they often discuss how Daddy "helped the people".  I think it is so good for us to have these discussions as a family to learn and realize that there are a lot of people in our community and world who need our help.  We have started to do little things like Operation Christmas Child and the Giving Tree at our church and I hope that as our children grow that we can continue to add acts of service to our Advent season.

--- 3 ---

Family

 

There is always a lot that can be going on during Advent as we prepare for Christmas, and I hope our children learn how to appreciate instead of speeding up to slow down and to enjoy time together as a family.  As it says in Scott Hahn's new book Joy to the World "The family is the key to Christmas...The truth of Christmas begins with a family".  I hope that through the years we all learn to draw closer together and appreciate our time together as a family.

 



--- 4 ---

Love

I hope that our children continue to learn to love others like God loves us.  I hope that they use this time during Advent to not only learn how much God loves them, sending Jesus to this world, but also how to love others.  They really enjoy using "The Last Straw" and earning hay after doing acts of love for others to prepare the manger for Jesus.

--- 5 ---

Patience

I hope that our children learn patience and the true longing of Advent.  I think it helps when they are little that we celebrate St Nicholas's feast day in a BIG WAY at the beginning of Advent and then slow down again preparing for Jesus's birthday, instead of trying to be patient for Santa Clause/St Nicholas on Christmas as well.  Either way, I hope they continue to learn patience during this special season.

--- 6 ---

Forgiveness

I always want our children to know and appreciate the true gift of forgiveness.  I want them to understand the blessing of confession and God forgiving us, and also the importance of us offering forgiveness to those we hurt.  We have been working on discipline in our house and it has been working much better to instead just talking about what they did wrong to talk about how it makes other people feel when they do not listen, do not share, etc and how they need to offer forgiveness. 

--- 7 ---

Joy

I hope our  children know that as much that the Advent season is about patience, forgiveness, and service that it is also about Joy!  I want them to grow to love the salvation story that has brought to the birth of our Savior so they are joyful for his arrival!  We have been having a lot of fun doing our Jesse Tree, watching Holy Hero's Jesse Tree DVD and Advent Adventures and these activities are truly helping us learn to prepare and be joyful for coming of Jesus on Christmas Day!

For more Quick Takes, visit This Aint the Lyceum 

Happy Baptism Anniversary Connor

Today is the baptism anniversary for our son Connor.  I love the sacrament of baptism and seeing people being washed free from all sin and welcomed into the Church.  It is a beautiful moment and one that I love to see celebrated throughout one's life.  We have adopted the tradition that we not only celebrate our children's birthdays, but we also celebrate their baptism anniversaries and the saint feast days of who they are named after.  They love this tradition as they have special prayers said for them, re-light their baptismal candle, they get to choose the daily meals and they get a small gift! 

 

Connor's Baptism - December 11th 2011

This morning Connor chose to make pancakes with Mommy and got to eat them on our "You are Special Today" plate!  He then got to open his special gift after breakfast which was a Veggie Tales: The Little Drummer Boy Color Wonder book!  Connor loves all art projects and also loves the Veggie Tales so this was a perfect little gift for him!  

Our dear Connor has been such a wonderful living example to our family of "having faith like a child".  His love for Jesus is simply amazing.  He loves to dress up in the priest vestments that I made for him and his brothers and say his prayers and hold mass in our house.  He also loves to play with his toy church and commonly is found setting everyone up and even baptizing the little baby!  He learned all of his basic prayers (Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, Prayer before Dinner, etc) before his 3rd birthday and he is always the first to want to lead our family in prayer. 

Connor is our spunky and wild child, but my husband and I always remark that he is also who we would most likely predict to become a priest some day.  He loves to sing, and was so thrilled when his homeschool co-op class was singing "Away in a Manger"!  He practiced every day and continues to sing it as he carries our baby Jesus around from our Nativity set.  We love you Connor and hope you always grow in wisdom and grace in God's love!

 

Baptismal Anniversary Prayer

 

Remember this, Connor
You have been washed
In the saving waters of baptism
And anointed with holy oil.
Place on your head and in your heart
The sign of the cross of salvation.

 

Loving God,
You created all the people of the world,
And you know each of us by name.
We thank you for Connor
Who celebrates the anniversary of his baptism.
Bless him with your love and friendship
That he may grow in wisdom, knowledge, and grace.
May he love his family always
And be ever faithful to his friends.

Grant this through Christ our Lord.

Amen

Our Favorite Toddler/Preschool Learning Toys!

As we continue to have more children added to our family we also accumulate more things, especially toys!  As Christmas is approaching I always try to go through the things we have to organize, prioritize and find things to donate.  I also try to make sure that the toys that we do have and keep are quality toys that promote learning, imagination and fun.  Here are some of our favorite learning toys that we incorporate into our homeschooling! 

Our Favorite Toddler and Preschool Learning Toys:

My First Words:  We love this series of touch and feel flashcards.  All of our children have started using them very early (around 7-9 months) and usually are vocalizing the words between 12-18months. 



Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks:  These are wonderful for helping to teach patterns, colors, shapes and space.  Our kids love playing with these usually starting around 1 1/2 years old. 



Grimm's Extra Large Rainbow:  We love all of Grimm's beautiful wooden shapes and toys.  The colors are so vibrant and the provide so much fun and imagination!  The quality is fantastic so even the littlest ones can play with them!

Melissa and Doug See and Spell:  This is a fantastic toy to help with letter recognition, sounding out words and picture to word correlation. 


Guidecraft 3D Feel and Find:  There are so many different ways to use this toy with learning!  You can use it simply to identify colors and shapes, use it as a basic puzzle or put the shapes in the bag and use touch to search for specific pieces! 


Melissa and Doug Alphabet Express Floor Puzzle:  We are a HUGE puzzle family!  Our kids start doing puzzles at a very early age (usually around 6-8 months, starting with big chunky peg puzzles) and move up in difficulty with age.  This alphabet puzzle is one of the favorites at our house!  Our 3 year old will put this together over and over again.  It works on letter recognition, color patters of the train cars, letter sounds (there is something with each letter train in each car) and fine motor skills of putting the puzzles together!

MagnaTiles:  I know these are a bit pricy (but watch for sales and coupons) and let me tell you, they are worth the investment!  We use them for learning colors, shapes, patters and lots of building fun!  Having all boys we also use them to build a lot of car garages and airplane runways! 

Melissa and Doug Costumes:  Anyone who comes to our house knows that our boys LIVE in costumes.  The Melissa and Doug costumes are some of our favorite as they are very good quality!  They provide for wonderful imagination and great fun!

B Parum Pum Pum Drum:  A big component of our homeschooling and play time is music.  We love to sing, dance, and play music throughout the day.  It is great to learn beats, count and have fun!

GeoSafari Talking Globe Jr.:  Our almost 5 year old LOVES this globe!  It is bright and colorful and also has wonderful games that are great fun to learn about geography.  It amazes me how much we pull this out to search where a place is that we read about in a book, where a saint lived or just to play!


These are a few of our favorites right now and would be a great idea for Christmas and birthday presents for the toddler and preschooler in your life!!


**These are Amazon Affiliate links, so if you purchase one of these items through these links we get a small portion back at no extra cost to you.

Advent Saint Learning - St Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe Fun!

Happy Feast Day St Juan Diego!  We have never celebrated this feast day in our home before, but we love adding new saints to our liturgical living and celebrations and are having LOTS of fun with this one.  First, we took time to read the Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who's feast day is actually December 12th.  Because their stories intertwine we are learning about and celebrating them both throughout this week! 

 

 

Yesterday we followed the message in our Saint Mail for this month and we went for a long walk to think about how Saint Juan Diego felt when he walked 15 miles each way to mass.  We have a park 1 mi from our house that the kids love going to, but with three little kids under 5 years old I have to admit that we usually drive!  Well, yesterday we decided to be in the spirit of Juan Diego and walk to the park, even in December.  We bundled up, my sons grabbed their bike, scooter and our stroller and were on our way.  I had called my husband to see if he would meet us at the park to drive us home on his way from work since I figured after a mile walk and playing at the park the kids would all be tired.  Well, he said yes that he could meet us and then unfortunately he got held up at work. 



On our walk to the park

 

Playing at the park

I decided to take it as a moment to say "yes" to God and take it as a learning experience for me and a teaching moment for the kids and walk that mile back home.  Well our 18month old was fine riding in the stroller, about 5 blocks in our 3 year old put his scooter into the stroller and rode the rest of the way singing Christmas songs for everyone in the neighborhood to hear, but our almost 5 year old had his bike.  There was no way I was going to be able to push the stroller with all of the kids and all of their equipment so we had a talk that he was going to have to ride his bike home.  He was such a superstar!  It was getting close to dinner time, it was getting cold and dark, and he was definitely getting tired but he did it and rode his bike the entire way home!  We talked about St Juan Diego and how he (and lots of people) had to walk a long way to get anywhere and that he would walk really far just to go to mass.  Our oldest said "he must really love Jesus Mommy!" 

 

On our walk

Then today we worked on our Advent Saint Dolls from CatholicIcing.com and made St Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We have already made St Andrew, St Nicholas and St Anne for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and we are just loving them!  They are so darn cute and we are really enjoying putting them all together on our Advent tree! 

 

 

We also said our daily decade of the rosary with the Toddler Rosary Kit of Roses from Veronika's Workshop that we keep in our little Oratory.  We always enjoy using these, but it was a lot of fun today to talk about how when St Juan Diego opened his cloak that roses came out and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was revealed.  One of my husband's co-workers made home-made Tomales as a gift which we are going to have for dinner tonight to continue our celebration!

 

God you are so gracious to give us such wonderful examples such as Saint Juan Diego.  We pray that we may be as devoted to the Mass as he was.  We pray that when You ask anything of us we always say yes.  Saint Juan Diego pray for us!  Amen

 

*Prayer from Saint Mail



May it be Done According to Your Word

I have always had a deep love and respect for Mary, and that has truly grown over this past year when I completed my Marian Consecration this past year reading 33 Days to Morning Glory and as I study Mary: A Biblical Walk with the Blessed Mother with my book club.  I especially love days like today when we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and praise that she not only carried out a life without sin but that she was conceived without sin and always chosen for God's special plan. 

Mary Mother of God

I love the Gospel today from Luke 1:38:  Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.  May it be done to me according to your word."  I reflect often on that "may it be done to me according to your word".  How many times does God ask me to do something and I say "maybe" or "next week" or even doubt God thinking, "I'm not sure that is what you REALLY want me to do God!"  But, then there's Mary and her response " may it be done to me according to your word." 

What Mary was asked to do was very controversial in her times.  It was against her morals and values to be pregnant during a betrothal, and she knew that she would be ridiculed and judged.  Yet, she still said "yes"!  I know that God also asks me to do things that are out of my comfort zone, that might be controversial, but that he is still asking me to say yes!

God is asking me to disrupt my life, to trust him, and to answer his call.  As this Advent continues I want to try every day to really listen in prayer to what God is asking of me and calling me to, reflect, and then say "yes".  Not yes in 2 weeks or, as soon as I finish this activity, but yes, God I trust in you and may it be done according to your word. 

Mary and Jesus at the Cloisters

Learning to Love - 5 Love Languages

One thing that comes up a lot in conversations during this time of the year is spending time with family.  There are lots of different types of families, and lots of people coming together to blend, love and support each other.  Sometimes that brings great joy and sometimes that brings a lot of struggles!  I told my mother - in - law at Thanksgiving that this was the first holiday celebration since I got married back in 2007 that I was not kind of sad that we were not celebrating with my own family of orgin.  It certainly was not because I like my family less than I did before, because my family is a wonderful blessing in my life!  It is more that I have come to enrich my relationships with my in-laws and appreciate them as family, just like my own!  I think especially during this time of year with so many celebrations that it is a wonderful time to focus on family and strengthening our relationships.


My family at Thanksgiving

One book that has really helped me personally in my relationships with others is called The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  In his book he talks about how we all speak different love languages including: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.  Take the time to go to The 5 Love Languages website to take the quiz and learn what your love languages are!

It is not better or worse to have and use a different love language, it just makes us all different and unique.  The most important thing when interacting with others is not only knowing what your own personal love language is but also what the love language is of the other person.  So often we try to love others with the same love language that we use most for ourselves and that is often when conflict can arise.  It is not because we are not trying to love that person, it is just they may not be receiving it as the love you are intending!  Also, sometimes our love languages can change with time, so always make sure to continue examine these for yourself and continue the conversation with those you love!

Let me give you an example!  My top two love languages are words of affirmation and acts of service.  Early on in my marriage I would try to love my husband by telling him nice things and doing nice things for him.  That is how I like to receive love, so why wouldn't he want that as well, I thought!  He would appreciate when I would compliment him or make him a special dinner, but it wouldn't usually get the response that I would expect, and I would get disappointed.  Then he and I read this book and learned our love languages and things changed.  I realized that his love language is physical touch and making sure to give him a loving embrace when he gets home from work or giving him a back rub after a long day is totally the way that he feels most loved by me!  In turn he has realized that he can give me a hug (which I like), but since my first love language is not physical touch that I will feel much more loved when he does something as simply as making our bed in the morning!  Being a stay at home mom with three little kids I make a lot of beds, by him doing that act of service in the morning I know that he is thinking of me and trying to take one thing off my list for the day.  I appreciate it so much and feel SO loved!

This can definitely extend beyond a spousal relationship to relationships with your children, extended family and friends.  Gary Chapman also wrote this great book about the 5 Love Languages of Children!  One thing I have learned in having three children is that they all have very different personalities and I do best when I parent them all in ways that show kindness and empathy to their own personalities.  Our oldest son appreciates words of affirmation and loves to hear praise and know that he is doing a good job, especially when it comes to homeschooling!  Our middle son is like his daddy and his love language is physical touch.  When he gets mad or upset he isn't the child to try to rationalize with or explain a lesson right away, instead he needs to cuddle, get a back rub or kisses.  If I would try to just talk to him with words of affirmation he would probably get more upset in the moment, he doesn't want words, he just wants to cuddle!  Our youngest son is all about quality time, he doesn't mind if I'm singing to him, playing, cuddling, or reading stories as long as we are together!  When he's in a bad mood I know I need to just spend a little extra time giving him a little more of me!  It's all about understanding those love languages!

So, as you celebrate the holidays with your spouse, children, family and friends please pick up this book, or go to the website and learn about the love languages of yourself and others!  As it says in 1 Peter 4:8; "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over all."

An Imperfect Stable - An Advent Reflection

This past Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent our children were on a funny sleeping schedule (our youngest has been waking up at 4am and thus exhausted and ready for a nap again by 8am), there was no Sunday school due to Thanksgiving the previous week, and so my husband and I decided that we were just going to split up mass times to try to make the best of the situation for everyone in the family.  I don't really like doing this and will admit I made a bit of a stink.  The funny thing about that is, I know God has plans for me, for my marriage and for my family.  I also know that when I trust in those plans the results are usually better than I could have planned myself!  Because my husband and I split up mass times with different kids, my husband went to a different church than we usually go to.  When he was at this other parish church he heard that there was going to be a talk on Advent by one of our very favorite Jesuits, Father Larry Gillick from our alma mater Creighton University.  So, we called up my mom to see if she could watch the kids for an hour (thanks mom) and went on a lovely date night to Fr. Gillick's advent talk.  Maybe we missed mass together as a family that first Sunday of Advent, but I think God knew that my husband and I both needed to hear that talk!

Father Gillick's talk on Advent discussed so much but the biggest thing that I took away from it was that we are the imperfect stable, waiting for the coming of Christ.  God is already here, he is here in our community, in our lives, but it is up to us to determine if, when and how we are going to let him into our lives.  God had a plan, he always does.  God knew that Jesus would be born in a manger, not a gleaming room in the inn and that was for a reason.  We might say that manger was not fit for a King, surrounded by barn animals, cold, dirty, but honestly that is what we look like most days right?  I know that I am far from perfect, but amazingly God still chooses to come to my inn and love me.  Even with my faults and imperfections God chose to come for me and you, and chooses that again and again.  Every time I go astray he is just waiting there with open arms.  I am that imperfect stable.

We sing the song "O Come O Come Emmanuel".  This song has a lot of tradition and history, but God is already here and we should be singing "O Come O Come (insert your name!)"  We are the ones who need to come to Him.  Advent is the time to be ok with our emptiness and longing.  We live in a world where we don't have to wait for anything, we don't have to have unknown.  We have fast food, weather reports, smart phones, texting, so many things in our lives that scream "You don't have to wait!"  But God wants us to feel that longing so that we can appreciate Jesus and truly be in relationship with him come Christmas Day! 

Think about the image of the Advent wreath and how throughout Advent we take time to light the four candles but in the middle of that wreath is a hole, is emptiness.  It is not until Christmas Day when we insert the Christ Candle that the hole and emptiness is filled.  We need to take this time during Advent to let that emptiness be there, to experience that longing, and to be grateful for that longing.  When we can do that we will find that longing within ourselves to give to God what he is asking of us, which is faith.

 

So even though there has been Christmas music playing since before Halloween and even though Santa came to our community mall before Thanksgiving, let's take this Advent to experience the longing of Jesus.  We need to let there be some reality in the brokenness of where Jesus was born in that stable.  We want the stable for our King to be nice and pretty, but the stable in our own lives are not always that way.  God isn't asking us to get a housekeeper though, or to try to portray this "perfect" life.  He is asking us to come to him, to be in Eucharistic communion with him through the sacraments.  That's why he gave us the Catholic Church!  He is asking for us to come to him in reconciliation and for us to admit our own brokenness.  There are a lot of occupancies (or sins) living in the inn in our own lives that prevent Jesus from truly entering into our hearts.  Jesus will come in truth though, and the truth of each of us is that we are that imperfect stable.  Once we can let Jesus come to our truth, it is then, and only then that we come to the freedom to experience God's true gift of love within our relationships and community. 

 

The true gift of Jesus is to make us in Christ a gift to others.  Jesus is the one who takes away the shame of the stable, he makes that emptiness into the gift of the tabernacle!  The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "No one can approach God here except by kneeling before the manger and adoring him hidden in the weakness of a newborn child"  (CCC 563).  This Advent I pray that we may be humble enough to be longing for Jesus, and kneel before the manger even knowing we are an imperfect stable. 

The Nativity


Advent Link Up: Week TWO! ~ Catholic Bloggers Network