Lauren Clay is having a ball right now with my watercolors... my nice paints on my broken-in palate, with my nice paintbrushes on nice watercolor paper. She's been begging me to let her paint with the good stuff ever since I've had the paints out this season, but this is the first I've given in. She keeps saying, "daddy, me and mommy are painting." I've been working all day on-- what was supposed to be-- our Christmas card. Looks like it'll be a New Year's card if I use it at all. Faces are really hard to paint, and I've been struggling with LaurenClay and JohnTyler's eyes for the last couple hours. I'm almost happy with the painting at this point (which is a much more positive reaction than I had at about 7pm), so I'm going to put everything down for 12 hours and see if I can put some finishing touches on the piece that will push it into the "use it" category. I am sitting on a couple of half-finished pieces that have ended up in the "lose it" pile. Frustrating, but it's all a learning experience I guess. This is the picture similar to the Christmas painting pose:
In a couple minutes we're going to light a candle and read the Christmas story. It's become a tradition Lauren Clay looks forward to each night. My original plan was to do Advent at the beginning of December, lighting a purple, pink or white candle on Sundays and reading Scripture as we approached Christmas. As most of you know, our December has been kind of wild. Last week I resolved to start some kind of tradition, even though it wouldn't be what I'd originally planned. I made a list of about 10 fun things to do as Christmas approaches (lighting a candle and reading Scriptures about the coming Savior, calling grandparents and wishing them a Merry Christmas, reading the Christmas story, and making hot chocolate with marshmallows.) I cut the list into strips and put them in a santa cookie jar, intending to draw a strip each night. Interestingly, the first three nights Lauren Clay drew a light-a-candle-and-read-a-certain-Scripture strip... so last night before even drawing a strip, she found a Bible and said, "it's time to light a candle!" I'm glad she didn't choose the strip about hot chocolate on the first night because the second night would have been a let down no matter what she chose. Now it doesn't matter what the strip says; we are reading Scripture each night anyway. We pulled out her preschool Bible and we're now reading about the events leading up to Jesus' birth. To make this little evening ritual even more precious, she sings "Happy Birthday" to Jesus each night before blowing out the candle. (We might make a birthday cake for Jesus Christmas eve and bring it to Christmas lunch...)
I'm off to read some Scripture by candlelight with the family!
In a couple minutes we're going to light a candle and read the Christmas story. It's become a tradition Lauren Clay looks forward to each night. My original plan was to do Advent at the beginning of December, lighting a purple, pink or white candle on Sundays and reading Scripture as we approached Christmas. As most of you know, our December has been kind of wild. Last week I resolved to start some kind of tradition, even though it wouldn't be what I'd originally planned. I made a list of about 10 fun things to do as Christmas approaches (lighting a candle and reading Scriptures about the coming Savior, calling grandparents and wishing them a Merry Christmas, reading the Christmas story, and making hot chocolate with marshmallows.) I cut the list into strips and put them in a santa cookie jar, intending to draw a strip each night. Interestingly, the first three nights Lauren Clay drew a light-a-candle-and-read-a-certain-Scripture strip... so last night before even drawing a strip, she found a Bible and said, "it's time to light a candle!" I'm glad she didn't choose the strip about hot chocolate on the first night because the second night would have been a let down no matter what she chose. Now it doesn't matter what the strip says; we are reading Scripture each night anyway. We pulled out her preschool Bible and we're now reading about the events leading up to Jesus' birth. To make this little evening ritual even more precious, she sings "Happy Birthday" to Jesus each night before blowing out the candle. (We might make a birthday cake for Jesus Christmas eve and bring it to Christmas lunch...)
I'm off to read some Scripture by candlelight with the family!
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