Review: the Christmas Angel Project

A group of women, held together by the love of member.  She dies, leaving behind a group devastated by her loss.   Will they stick together or will the group dissolve?


Abby, Belinda, Cassidy, Grace and Louisa were five good friends who helped each other and enjoyed each others company.   Abby called her friends her "four angels" and when she passed away she left behind Christmas gifts... one angel for each of her friends.

Her friends chose to form "The Christmas Angel Project", where they anonymously chose to help a variety of individuals... art therapy, pet care, fashion shows and more.

A simple gift... an angel with a scripture verse, changed the lives of four women forever.

It was a simple quiet read with smiles of delight as these four women reached out and learned and trusted God and grew more into the people God was calling them to be.

It's a simple feel-good book that might inspire some to try something different in their own lives and to rely on God to see them through.

Written by: Melody Carlson
Published by: Revell
Pages: 167
Type: fiction, Christian

Reviewed for: Nuts about Books

Where can you find it?

Amazon.ca: The Christmas Angel Project 

Amazon.com: The Christmas Angel Project

Now????

This word, admittedly, has me feeling a bit flummoxed.  What do I do with the word now????   So what do I do when I'm flummoxed... let the lines and thoughts flow through my head and see where they take me.

Now?

Says a lad when asked to do something

NOW?

Can it wait?

Does it have to be done at this exact moment

or can it wait?

It's a good question.

A question I've been needing to ponder.

As I recover from being ill

for so very long.

The question I need to ask is

Can it wait?

Does it have to be done NOW???

And often the answer is no.

It doesn't have to done RIGHT NOW.

but

sometimes

It does.

And then when just simply does it.

Whether it's convenient

Or exhausting

Or desired.

Sometimes

the laundry MUST be done

Sometimes

Food MUST be cooked.

Sometimes

Hugs must be given.

Sometimes

One boy child needs a DQ Blizzard for

being ever so very helpful.

Sometimes

Now is 

NOW!

And that brings me to five minutes. 

That actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  :)

Funny how that works... and it often does for these FUN five minute word prompt posts that are brought our way by Dear Miss Kate.   Today the word prompt is now.

So why not hop in and join us.   Just write for five minutes, link up and then encourage those who have gone on before.  :)

Edom is warned for their revenge

Continuing my studies in Ezekiel 25, today we do the next few verses.   Verses 1-7, and verses 8-11.

    [12] “Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Edom acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance on them, [13] therefore thus says the Lord GOD, I will stretch out my hand against Edom and cut off from it man and beast. And I will make it desolate; from Teman even to Dedan they shall fall by the sword. [14] And I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel, and they shall do in Edom according to my anger and according to my wrath, and they shall know my vengeance, declares the Lord GOD.
(Ezekiel 25:12-14 ESV)

 So far, each land/people group that God is correcting has been so for a different reason.  Edom is being disciplined because she "acted revengefully against the house of Judah and has grievously offended in taking vengeance on them."

You know that saying... Vengeance is Mine Says the Lord.

I think it holds true eh?   We shouldn't be in the business of handling vengeance.  We don't know the whole story behind things anyways.     Each situation in life has it's own subplots.  There is no way we can truly know them all. 

BUT the fact is this.  Edom acted out in vengeance against the Lord's people, therefore the Lord will stretch out his hand against them and make is a desolate place.   Its people and animals cut off.   He will do this by using the people of Israel.

I find it interesting in these verses that God doesn't add "so they will know that I am the Lord".    I wonder why they are not here.   He has the people of Israel act out his anger and wrath upon Edom because they sought vengeance on his people.   This is as far as these verses take God's discipline.
 

Field Trip: Niagara Falls

In the Summer we took our international student to see Niagara Falls.  It was one of those sites that he mentioned that he wanted to see while in Canada.  He was from France and was a nice young man.  We were quite pleased to host him.

We walked up and down and took quite a few pictures, I'll have to show you a few of them.  Here's one where I made the boys line up for a photo to show that YES we were there.  :)

As promised, our view of the falls

The day was hot, and we had seen the Hornblower go up and down a few times, one 16 year smiled and nodded yes please, and one 11 year begged to on the boat.  I wasn't keen on it, but hey... if you are there you might as well right?   It was a long walk up but off we went.

It was so much fun watching the boys.  They both went to the front of the boat and leaned over and got splashed and just filled with grins.  SO WORTH IT!!!   :)

I suspect we'll go again next summer with a student if the Lord so wills.  Depends on where we are and what we'll be doing at that time.   Perhaps we'll do the zipline (at least the boys and dad) when we go.  :)

Days of December - Decorations

When I saw this word prompt on the Homeschool Review Crew's Instagram and it made me think of my tree decorations and how I wanted to share with you some of my favourties.

Moab and Seir corrected for wrong assumption

Continuing my studies in Ezekiel 25, today we do the next few verses.

    [8] “Thus says the Lord GOD: Because Moab and Seir said, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the other nations,’ [9] therefore I will lay open the flank of Moab from the cities, from its cities on its frontier, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim. [10] I will give it along with the Ammonites to the people of the East as a possession, that the Ammonites may be remembered no more among the nations, [11] and I will execute judgments upon Moab. Then they will know that I am the LORD.
(Ezekiel 25:8-11 ESV)

Do you remember that yesterday the Ammonites were disciplined for laughing at the Israelites for beginning disciplined by God for their scandolous ways before the Lord.   The Lord wanted the Ammonites to know that he is the Lord God.

Today we find Moab and Seir the object of God's attention. Again, the Lord God wants these people to know that "I am the Lord."

Why is Moab and Seir being disciplined?   Because they didn't see that Israel was different than the other nations around them.  They said "Behold, the house of Judah is like all the other nations".   So just like Ammon was given over to the peoples of the East, so will Moab and Seir.

How does this apply to me?
Moab and Seir said things that were untrue about Israel (at least they should have been untrue.   They should have been seen as a special people of God. 

So how am I seen?   Will I cause people to make false assumptions about me or will I stand out as one of God's own?

What do you see in this passage?

Art Series: Art Lab for Kids

Welcome Wren to my blog today!!!   Yes, she is a total sweetheart to help me out with my art series.  She's going to be talking about a wonderful book called Art Lab of Kids by Susan Schwake.   You will normally find Wren (and her sister) blogging at FinchnWren.

How do you approach art in your home or homeschool? Are you a naturally talented artist yourself, for whom art creation just flows out? Or, are you someone who would love to teach art but have no ideas of where or how to start? Let me encourage you, if you fit into this last category: it’s much easier than you imagine! Even if you are not a trained artist, you really can teach the subject of art to your own children. There are so many books and resources available today to help you along in this. I’d like to share a very well-rounded book to help you in this journey: Susan Schwake’s ART LAB FOR KIDS. I refer to this book all the time for both our own homeschool art, and for the art class I teach in our local homeschool coop. What a resource!

 

ART LAB FOR KIDS is subtitled “52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media.” Practically, that means you could take one adventure per week and have a year’s worth of art to do in your homeschool! Ms. Schwake’s book contains practical, step-by-step instructions, lots of photos, and pictures of completed artworks so that the artist (or mom) understands exactly how to teach and create each project. The author also provides a great resource list of recommended media in the first section, explaining how different ones work and can be used. She is an artist and art teacher with 20 years’ experience, so she brings both the ability to clearly teach and a huge depth of art idea resources to the reader.

ART LAB FOR KIDS has sections which cover the following:

• How to use the book and how to create art with others
• Drawing (ink, scribble, pastels, crayon, and more)
• Painting (miniature, Fauvist, charcoal, watercolor, tempera, etc.)
• Printmaking (silkscreen, stencil, cardboard relief, gelatin, and more)
• Paper (stamps, tissue, torn-paper, Pop Art, vellum…)
• Mixed Media (charcoal/watercolor, photos, watercolor and pencil, portraits, batik…)

While I think that ART LAB FOR KIDS would be ideal used as a curriculum, I have personally just read through it many times and selected specific art projects to teach, based on what my students were learning or what we found most interesting. Some projects we thoroughly enjoyed completing were painting an enlarged tiny section of a painting on a small square; “Painting in the Style of...,” and “Text as Texture.” And that’s only a fraction of the projects offered in this book. We’re looking forward to painting on tiny pieces of wood; reverse landscapes; gelatin monoprinting; and many more!

 

I recommend this book for anyone who’d like to go deeper into the world of artmaking, or art teaching, in a variety of art styles. These vivid, fascinating projects will keep you busy for hours and hours, happily creating!

Enjoy!

Wren from FinchnWren.

You can find this book through my affiliate links (helping to support this blog).

Amazon.ca

Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media-For Budding Artists of All Ages

Amazon.com

Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Paper, and Mixed Media-For Budding Artists of All Ages (Lab Series)

Linked up here:

Do not mock my people

 Do you ever find it interesting how the Lord can be full of wrath for how Israel is acting and yet doesn't allow others to poke fun at his chosen people?

Today the Lord is angry with Ammon because they rejoiced over the Lord's punishment of her.

He's very clear isn't he?

"Thus says the Lord GOD, Because you said, ‘Aha!’ over my sanctuary when it was profaned, and over the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and over the house of Judah when they went into exile.....Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the malice within your soul against the land of Israel."   BECAUSE you laughed at my people.....you shall be punished.

God is not only a jealous God in how he is worshipped (he's the only one who should be worshipped).  He's also jealous for his people.  

He is indeed so angry with the Ammonites that he will cut you off from the peoples and will make you perish out of the countries; I will destroy you.   And why will he do this?

For the exact same reason he disciplines The house of Israel.

So they will know that HE IS LORD GOD.  

That's what God wants the peoples of the earth to know.  Whether they are his chosen own or just generic folks... he wants them to know that he is the LORD GOD.   Even here in Ezekiel you find God's global concern for the world.   He wants everyone to know him as Lord God.

Sunday Sermon: Christ is the Answer to Doubt

This past Sunday was the start to the third Sunday in Advent.

Today we answer the question: What happens when we doubt?
The answer: Christ is the answer to doubt.

Hymns:

O come,  o come Emmanuel

O come, all ye faithful

God rest ye merry gentlemen

Joy to the world

What child is this?

Silent night

Glory to be the father.

Recipe: Pizza Dough Apple Strudel

Pizza Dough Apple Strudel

This is the first time we ever made this and we were just playing around with what worked.

First we tried to cut small squares to fill with apple pie filling but that was a colossal fail.

Talking it through, the lad and I decided to roll it out and cut slits in it to see how that worked.

It took a couple of attempts to figure out how to fold the dough over, but it still tasted good.

Ingredients

Apple pie filling (3/4 can)
Pillsbury Pizza Dough

Directions

Divide the dough in half and roll it as thin as reasonable.   We found the dough very stretchy and that it would bounce back on us.

Cut slits along the side, we made them about an inch wide.   
Put the pie filling between the slits.
then fold the slit up and over on a diagonal.  Kinda stick them to the dough on the other side.
Criss cross your way up to the top. 

I have to admit, I wasn't quite sure how to finish off the top so we just folded it down back over the criss cross's.

It passed the muster for two boys.
Hubby and I said "hmmm.. next time we'll add some cinnamon sugar to the pie filling and sprinkle some sugar on top".   
It was good, just the added ingredients will make it better.  :)

If you try your hand at it, let me know your secrets to making it.  :)  
.

Our Christmas Tree

The Smell of Tree in the house.... isn't that just a part of Christmas?   ah.....

This year we have a lovely spruce I think....some type of needle bearing tree (short needles).

Mom brought it up for us on Saturday, we let it thaw out over night, and the boys and I put it up on Sunday afternoon while hubby dear was napping.

We had a good time.
A TV show playing in the background.
Talking about the different ornaments, when we got them, who's they are, and different little things.
It's part of what we do.  :)

Every year my son gets an ornament.  Sometimes I wrap them and put them under the tree, but as my lad is getting older I've started asking him, do you want it now or shall I wrap it?   Last year he wanted it wrapped, this year he wanted it now.

Some of our ornaments.  It's a widely varied bunch and perhaps I'll talk about them more sometime, but right now I have rabbits to feed and a lad to take off to visit a friend.  :)

Hymn Study: Joy to the World

 Did you know that Joy to the World was not written as a Christmas song?

I KNOW!!!!!   I was shocked to learn that too.

It was actually written about the second coming to the Lord.  It was written by Isaac Watts. (source)

Can you imagine how joyful the world will be when the Lord returns?   Even the mountains and the trees will clap their hands.  :)   All the sins and sorrows of this world will be gone!   Imagine it just for one moment...just imagine...no more sin, no more sorrow, just the joy of the Lord at his return.

Isaac Watts, the same boy who was fed up with lacklustre singing in the church, who was challenged by his dad to make something better, became "Father of English hymnody".  If you want to know about Isaac Watts, check here.

Lyrics

Verse 1]
Joy to the World, the Lord has come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

[Verse 2]
Joy to the World, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

[Verse 3]
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

[Verse 4]
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love

Review: This First Christmas Night

Today I have a sweet little softcover picture book to tell you about.

Entitled "This First Christmas Night" it is written by Laura Godwin and Illustrated by William Low.

A little picture book along with simple verse and delightful illustrations.

See this small gray donkey

This long, dusty road

This promising star.

 The whole book is wonderfully illustrated, and conveys well the story of Jesus's birth, the text adding to the story line.

Granted, I do struggle with the biblical inaccuracies, as the wisemen did not arrive when the shepherds did, but I have that struggle with how the Christmas Story is often told now-a-days, even Church programs have the wisemen coming up after the shepherds.  :)

I loved this last page.

 The illustration, the wonder, the centralness of the Christ child...and the hush.

Oh that hush of Christ quieting his people... Reminded me of the wonder of Christmas.  

All the senses are evoked in this 32 page book

"see this small gray donkey"

"feel the frost"'

"smell of sweet hay"

hear "the lamb bleating"

The only sense we miss is taste, but I don't think you really want to taste anything in a stable.  :)

It's a nicely written and illustrated book and it would make a fine gift for your little ones to introduce the Christmas story to them.

 This First Christmas Night

Author: Laura Godwin

Illustrator:William Low 

Published by: Feiwel & Friends
Size: 8.96 x 10.52 

32 pages
Ages 2-6 years

 Softcover is what I received.

Also available as a boardbook. 

Reviewed for Raincoast Books. 

 Amazon.ca : This First Christmas Night

Amazon.com: This First Christmas Night

My Christmas Village 2016

An Overview of my Christmas Village

One of my favourite pieces.

This was one of my first gifts when we got married.

My Village is up!   WOOT WOOT.  Admittedly the lad did most of it this year with some placement of the houses by me, but he was very much into helping his mom out this year so it was like "YES!!  Let's let him".

Some highlights.

I really like my skating rink.  I think it was gifted to me but really can't recall, adding my figures and moving them around daily makes me smile.  :)   I need to find my son's skating lego figures and add them to the mix.  :)

I made the bench area with the trees surrounding it thinking that my lad would put the old man feeding the birds on it, but he turned it into a Photos with Santa area.   I thought that was very clever don't you?  (Santa is a lego man)

So here we have some folks waiting to go on the carriage, while the cow in the background is trying to sneak some popcorn for herself.  "Do you think she'll get some and surprise the guy selling it?"  :)  Gotta have fun with the figures right?   :)

 If I could, I would find about 5-8 more sledders for my tobogganing hill.   It would be neat to have some skiers, snowboarders and sled riders, even someone on a snowmobile would be cool, don't you think?   I currently only have three pieces....I'll look on Monday for some.

I hope you enjoyed the walk through my village.   It's a lot of fun putting it up each year.  It was neat to see the fun the lad had putting it all together and giving me a hand... even if the old man is feeding squirrels this year instead, and not every building has a light, and my choir is scattered about in three different areas.... it all works..and we'll move things around and lego will show up here and there.. it's part of Christmas at our house.  :)

Reviewing our week: Dec 9

 

 This week

We managed to keep ourselves busy.  I had big plans for the week since I'm feeling much better than I have been.. .but learned that I still peter out of energy quickly and therefore lose focus and will to push onwards.

Independent learning

The Eastern Chipmunk:

Why we can't ship Nuclear Waste to the Sun.

Monday:

• Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
• Weekly visit with Gramma
• 1/2 hour reading 
• continued our reading of Cat of Bubastes.

 Tuesday: 

• Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
• 1/2 hour reading 
• Out to buy two shelves, and then to find room for them in his room.
• Organized lego

• Made decision to sell his meccano and lego action figures as well as a few other toys
• Look what we made today! (recipe coming next week)
•  

 Wednesday

• Foodbank
•  Daily smarts.
• 1/2 hour reading 
• Cleaning and organizing the lad's room (did all on his own)

Thursday

•  Daily smarts, Veritas History and Bible, and Teaching Textbooks.
• 1/2 hour reading 
• Working on his story.   
• Deciding there was more things in his room that needed cleaning and removing.

Friday

• Plans were to have an art class...but snow hit.
• So we started putting up my Christmas village.  We didn't get finished, but we got it started at least.  :)
• And we had fun watching the birds.
•   

Word Prompt Posts.

Peace.
List.
White. 
Joy.  

Reviews:

Santa Based Christmas Books.
The Art of Beatrix Potter.
The Storybook Knight.
Art Series: Designing with Pixar.

Life and Faith:

Sunday Sermon: John: A Call to Repent
Hymn Study: Thou Didst Leave thy Throne
Do Not forget the Lord God. Continued study in Ezekiel 23
Recipe: My Pineapple Ham.   A family favourite
Ezekiel is a sign.  Continue study in Ezekiel 24
The Lad's delight in tidyness.  My lad requested I put up this post. :)
Field Trip: Kitchener Symphony. 

Linking up the following places: