Monday, May 21, 2012
Brody's Dedication
March 25, 2012
We promise to
...bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. making every reasonable effort with patience and love to build the word of God, the charactor of Christ, and the joy of the Lord into their lives.
...provide by God's blessing for their physical, emotional, intelectual, and spriitual needs of our children lookingto our heavenly Father for wisdom, love and strength to serve them and not use them.
...make it our regular prayer that by God's grace our children will come to trust in JEsus Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins and the fulfillment of all his promises to them even eternal life, and follow Jesus as Lord and obey his teachings.
"Thank you for Brody. I thank you for this awesome guy and I thank you Lord for his sweet spritit. I pray that you would help him to follow you and love you. God, I pray that he would recognize your voice, that he would recognize your leading. And Jesus I thank you for the plans and the purposes you have for him. Lord may he have a hunger and thirst for righteousness."
Dad's Vows:
"B, as your Dad I promise to do my best to look to my heavenly Father for guidance and advice. Brody I want to show you the way to be a real God-loving man. I promise to care for, provide, love you and discipline you. I love you so much and can't wait for this journey with you."
"Brody Davis,
Your name means "Beloved Brother." First we want you to know how loved you are. You are a blessing to us. Our family would not be the same without your sweetness, your care for others, and your playful spirit. We are so glad that you and Luke have each other. We pray that the two of you would be the best of friends. Brody, being a brother is not just who you are to Luke, its who you are called to be as a child of God. Romans 12:10 says, "Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves." We pray that you would be a person who is there for others in times of need, that you would sacrifice for others, share with others, and fight for others. And that you would become a great man of charactor and conviction.
Our greatest desire is that you would know and experience the love God has for you. Who Jesus is and his ways are the most important things you will learn in life. So we vow:
To seek God for our family and allow him to be the head of our household.
To allow God to transform us to be more like him so that we can show you who He is.
Our home will be full of conversation about who God is and who he wants us to be.
We will help you discover the gifts and passions God has given you
May God guide us and direct us and use even our imperfections to reveal himself to you."
After Party:
We had some friends over after church for lunch. It was kind of a birthday celebration as well as a dedication celebration being that it was so close to his birthday. So I made a Bob & Larry cake. He was so excited about that cake! The boys watch a lot of Veggie Tales and one of their lines in every show is "God made you special and He loves you very much!" So it was perfect for the occasion.
.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Our New School Room
As I thought about Luke turning 3, I just couldn't believe we've hit the age where we need to be looking into preschool. Preschool?! He's still my baby! They say time flies but wow.
He is ready for preschool NOW but wouldn't start until the fall. I have definitely seen a shift from self lead play to needing parent lead activities. Its like he one day stepped out of baby/toddler-hood into big boy world. I remember saying to a friend that he needs something more, he needs me to do more with him.
So...we looked into preschools, we looked into homeschool curriculum and for now we are doing preschool activities at home. AND HE LOVES IT!! It is amazing how fast he picks up on things. And he thinks its play. He always asks to play in the school room but most things in there are school work.
We converted our third bedroom to a school room. The closet is full of craft items, paints, learning games, puzzles, etc. We bought a desk so that I had a place to prepare school work. We bought a little cubby with drawers so that each 'assignment' Luke has has its own cubby drawer. He loves pulling out each drawer to see what he gets to do for the day. We have a table to work at, a reading nook, and a place for circle time.
A day at school for us looks like:
Circle Time:
We put the date on the calendar, talk about what day it is, check the weather, review our "...of the week" chart, sing songs, and read a story.
Table Time:
We review the Bible verse, the letter of the week and get started on 'assignments.' This is where Luke gets to work on his own, whether its practicing writing, matching numbers with pictures, doing a craft or a project. I try to have things for Brody to do and go back and forth between helping Luke and playing with Brody.
We try to start school about 9 and it usually takes a couple of hours. We'll do more thoughout the day but this is "school time" for us.
Each day I try to focus on different things so that we are getting a well rounded 'diet' so to speak.
Monday - Reading and Writing, Library Day
Tuesday - Math Day
Wednesday - Art
Thursday - Science
A couple of my favorite things so far:
Luke loves to write. He's usually not one to sit for long periods of time and work on something. But he loves the writing worksheets. Each week he practices the letter. He's done L, T and H now and he will sit at the table for a good portion of Brody's nap time practicing. The worksheets are in a sheet protector so that he can use a dry erase marker and just wipe it off to start over.
Brody loves school too. His favorite is circle time. All of our calendar and weather pieces have velcro on them so that we can put them up and switch them out easily and he loves to do that! As we do our calendar, the days of the week, and the weather we have a little song that helps them learn. One day as I was preparing school for the next week, Brody came in, sat in our circle area, and pretended to do circle time. He was babbling away (he's a pretty good talker but I couldn't understand anything he was saying, but he was going on and on teaching somebody!) and he was singing the songs! It was so cute to hear him sing "March, April, September, October..." He wasn't singing them in the right order or the right tune but he was saying the months! That was cool.
My favorite 'science project' we've done was our first week of school. We were learning the letter L along with the verse "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Sidenote: Cool thing was that Luke starts with L, and this is the verse I chose for him when he was born. It was hanging on the wall in his room for a long time.) We were also learning the song "This Little Light of Mine." The verses in that song talk letting your light shine, not hiding it under a bush, or letting Satan blow it out. So I got out a jar candle, turned off all the lights and showed them what it meant to let your light shine. Its just a little light but it can light a dark room. Then I showed them what happened to the light when you hide it under something and I put the lid on the jar. The candle went out. We relit the candle and talked about what happens if we let Satan blow it out. No more light! They loved this! They kept wanting to do it over and over, put the lid on, blow it out...It was awesome.
We do a lot of our activities with some friends of ours. When we go over to their house, Luke...actually I think it was Brody who noticed first...they have some of the same posters we do and they get all excited that "we have that too!" One day we got together and traced the boys bodies on big construction paper. Then we hung them up on the wall and let them color them. My boys worked on that project the whole week! They just kept adding to their posters all week long!
This month we have been learing "About Me." I can't wait til next month when we learn about Family!
He is ready for preschool NOW but wouldn't start until the fall. I have definitely seen a shift from self lead play to needing parent lead activities. Its like he one day stepped out of baby/toddler-hood into big boy world. I remember saying to a friend that he needs something more, he needs me to do more with him.
So...we looked into preschools, we looked into homeschool curriculum and for now we are doing preschool activities at home. AND HE LOVES IT!! It is amazing how fast he picks up on things. And he thinks its play. He always asks to play in the school room but most things in there are school work.
We converted our third bedroom to a school room. The closet is full of craft items, paints, learning games, puzzles, etc. We bought a desk so that I had a place to prepare school work. We bought a little cubby with drawers so that each 'assignment' Luke has has its own cubby drawer. He loves pulling out each drawer to see what he gets to do for the day. We have a table to work at, a reading nook, and a place for circle time.
A day at school for us looks like:
Circle Time:
We put the date on the calendar, talk about what day it is, check the weather, review our "...of the week" chart, sing songs, and read a story.
Table Time:
We review the Bible verse, the letter of the week and get started on 'assignments.' This is where Luke gets to work on his own, whether its practicing writing, matching numbers with pictures, doing a craft or a project. I try to have things for Brody to do and go back and forth between helping Luke and playing with Brody.
We try to start school about 9 and it usually takes a couple of hours. We'll do more thoughout the day but this is "school time" for us.
Each day I try to focus on different things so that we are getting a well rounded 'diet' so to speak.
Monday - Reading and Writing, Library Day
Tuesday - Math Day
Wednesday - Art
Thursday - Science
A couple of my favorite things so far:
Luke loves to write. He's usually not one to sit for long periods of time and work on something. But he loves the writing worksheets. Each week he practices the letter. He's done L, T and H now and he will sit at the table for a good portion of Brody's nap time practicing. The worksheets are in a sheet protector so that he can use a dry erase marker and just wipe it off to start over.
Brody loves school too. His favorite is circle time. All of our calendar and weather pieces have velcro on them so that we can put them up and switch them out easily and he loves to do that! As we do our calendar, the days of the week, and the weather we have a little song that helps them learn. One day as I was preparing school for the next week, Brody came in, sat in our circle area, and pretended to do circle time. He was babbling away (he's a pretty good talker but I couldn't understand anything he was saying, but he was going on and on teaching somebody!) and he was singing the songs! It was so cute to hear him sing "March, April, September, October..." He wasn't singing them in the right order or the right tune but he was saying the months! That was cool.
My favorite 'science project' we've done was our first week of school. We were learning the letter L along with the verse "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Sidenote: Cool thing was that Luke starts with L, and this is the verse I chose for him when he was born. It was hanging on the wall in his room for a long time.) We were also learning the song "This Little Light of Mine." The verses in that song talk letting your light shine, not hiding it under a bush, or letting Satan blow it out. So I got out a jar candle, turned off all the lights and showed them what it meant to let your light shine. Its just a little light but it can light a dark room. Then I showed them what happened to the light when you hide it under something and I put the lid on the jar. The candle went out. We relit the candle and talked about what happens if we let Satan blow it out. No more light! They loved this! They kept wanting to do it over and over, put the lid on, blow it out...It was awesome.
We do a lot of our activities with some friends of ours. When we go over to their house, Luke...actually I think it was Brody who noticed first...they have some of the same posters we do and they get all excited that "we have that too!" One day we got together and traced the boys bodies on big construction paper. Then we hung them up on the wall and let them color them. My boys worked on that project the whole week! They just kept adding to their posters all week long!
This month we have been learing "About Me." I can't wait til next month when we learn about Family!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Gymnastics
We enrolled the boys in gymnastics in January. Just something fun to do. We actually thought we'd enroll Luke in soccer but that was out of season. Gymnastics was great because Brody could do it too.
They loved it! Each week they were a little tempermental to start the class. But once they got going they were really into it.
Our first class had so many kids in it, it was hard to ask them to wait their turn so long. The teacher only got through a few activities with each child getting 2 turns. But most kids must have dropped out because every class after that only had 5 kids or less.
Teacher Noelle would begin class by having the kids run across the room, do bear walks, and stretches, then they'd get to play with the parachute. This was usually the time when Brody would be clingy, and Luke would be sitting on the side lines refusing to participate. I never figured out why. That part of the class they just would not do. Even if they were sitting in the circle, they would just stare at everyone doing stretches, they WOULD NOT do them. These photos are from the last session, I'm glad they at least participated for a photo op!
Each time she'd start with sommersaults, then started teaching backward sommersaults. They learned to do "aligator mouths" on the bars, where they hang on the bars, lift their legs out in front and open/close. They learned to "wall walk," putting their hands on the floor and walk backward up the wall. They leared the balance beam which was Brody's favorite. Everything she did was so simple but was so obviously a building block to what they'd learn if they kept at gymnastics through out their life.
I don't have a lot of photos because I took video instead. And as I look back at the video I am reminded that Brody was such a mama's boy! I had to stop my video each time it was his turn because he wanted me to help him, not the teacher! And Luke, he was so much bigger than all the kids with much more control of his body. The first few classes, the teacher expected to help him with his sommersaults and was surprised he just went for it. He physically dominated that class, it wasn't very physically challenging for him. So we worked on following directions down to the details. For instance, the kids were supposed to walk up the steps, jump off and land on their feet, all with their arms in the air. Luke could do it, but just loved to jump as high and far as he could he would not focus on landing on his feet.
They had so much fun. Its a bummer its only 6 weeks. They'd come home and show Dad all their new moves. We'd get out our mattresses and practice gymnastics if we needed something to do. And just the other day Brody saw a public bike rack, hung on it and did aligator mouths! Ha!
Definitely something we would do again.
They loved it! Each week they were a little tempermental to start the class. But once they got going they were really into it.
Our first class had so many kids in it, it was hard to ask them to wait their turn so long. The teacher only got through a few activities with each child getting 2 turns. But most kids must have dropped out because every class after that only had 5 kids or less.
Teacher Noelle would begin class by having the kids run across the room, do bear walks, and stretches, then they'd get to play with the parachute. This was usually the time when Brody would be clingy, and Luke would be sitting on the side lines refusing to participate. I never figured out why. That part of the class they just would not do. Even if they were sitting in the circle, they would just stare at everyone doing stretches, they WOULD NOT do them. These photos are from the last session, I'm glad they at least participated for a photo op!
Each time she'd start with sommersaults, then started teaching backward sommersaults. They learned to do "aligator mouths" on the bars, where they hang on the bars, lift their legs out in front and open/close. They learned to "wall walk," putting their hands on the floor and walk backward up the wall. They leared the balance beam which was Brody's favorite. Everything she did was so simple but was so obviously a building block to what they'd learn if they kept at gymnastics through out their life.
I don't have a lot of photos because I took video instead. And as I look back at the video I am reminded that Brody was such a mama's boy! I had to stop my video each time it was his turn because he wanted me to help him, not the teacher! And Luke, he was so much bigger than all the kids with much more control of his body. The first few classes, the teacher expected to help him with his sommersaults and was surprised he just went for it. He physically dominated that class, it wasn't very physically challenging for him. So we worked on following directions down to the details. For instance, the kids were supposed to walk up the steps, jump off and land on their feet, all with their arms in the air. Luke could do it, but just loved to jump as high and far as he could he would not focus on landing on his feet.
They had so much fun. Its a bummer its only 6 weeks. They'd come home and show Dad all their new moves. We'd get out our mattresses and practice gymnastics if we needed something to do. And just the other day Brody saw a public bike rack, hung on it and did aligator mouths! Ha!
Definitely something we would do again.
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