Ideas for Getting Ready for Lent

Is Lent Okay? Should I practice Lent?

There appears to be a resurgence of interest in Lent among various Protestants. I did not grow up practicing Lent and I do think this is a decision that should be considered thoughtfully. Many
people practice giving something up as a check list or a societal expectation or a game.These are not good reasons to practice Lent. We do not practice Lent to please God or make Him like us more.

But here are some resources I put together for those of us thinking about Lent and/or incorporating our families into Lent.

Here is a lovely article about the why of practicing Lent. This is geared for us adults growing in our practice of Lent or considering using it for the first time.

Here is an article about talking with your children about the season of Lent along with some of the
difficult conversations about sin and death that arise from the Lent season.

Another article about bringing your children to an Ash Wednesday service.

And here is another article with some resources for family devotions during the Lent season.

Last but certainly not least is a site with free printables that follow along with The Jesus Storybook Bible.



I hope you enjoy these resources as much I enjoyed finding them. Blessings!

How to Help Children (and Adults) Say "Thank You"

Or How to Help You be Thankful too!

It's the worst part of winter right now. The days are still short, still to cold to play outside every day, and there is no Christmas to be excited about. We are living in dreary dark days and needing graciousness for one another.

I don't think most of us enjoy haranguing our sons and  daughters to say "thank you." Repetition, groans, eye rolls, and not genuine thankfulness all go with making kids say "thank you."

But I noticed something early on with my firstborn is that I didn't have to prompt him very much to say "thank you" if I was consistently using it like I should. I also noticed when I stop, look a child in the eye and give them an unexpected encouraging word, they encourage each other in the same way.

How to Help Children Learn the Lord's Prayer

Recently, we have been helping our 5 and 3 year old memorize the Lord's Prayer. Our church says the Prayer together every week and learning it is a way to further involve our children in our church service. Don't misunderstand, I don't believe that by my children learning the Lord's Prayer, it will magically create in them awesome faith or faith at all. It won't solve all our problems or make my kids perfect. But it is a discipline, and a wonderful passage of Scripture they can fall back on.

I started working on it with our 5 year old, but did not expect the 3 year to memorize much. Wow! He surprised me, the 3 year old has the Lord's Prayer better memorized than his older brother.

My husband and I started out by incorporating the Prayer into our bedtime routine with the kids. The kids would say parts of it, but were not excited about it.

Are You Good Enough?

I had one of those once a year 2 hour phone conversations with my brother a few weeks ago. We talked about many things, but one of the topics that came up was his concerns if could be a good parent. I of course told him that no one can ever really be ready to be a parent and knowing you don't have it all together is a great first step. But I also told him what my husband and I remind ourselves all the time. "You don't have to be a perfect parent, just good enough."

Everyone feels the pressure before the first child is born. Will we be good enough? What are we not doing right? I MUST DO EVERYTHING CORRECTLY! Will non-organic cotton sheets harm my child? What if I miss something something really major that I don't even know about?

You have done things imperfectly and you will continue to not be a perfect person. You won't be perfect, but you can be good enough.

The various parenting research we have done shows that kids are resilient, and will do okay in life as long as you don't do something to horrible to them. So we aren't the perfect parents, we don't even try to be. We just try to be good enough.

Tip of the Day #2- School lunch

I have three children, one in Kindergarten and the other two are home with me. We  choose not to put our 3 year old in preschool this year for a host of reasons and he is home with me during the week. The evening before school days or the morning of when I am packing my oldest his lunch, I pack my 3 year old's luch too. If you are throwing together one luch, it's not anymore trouble to throw together two lunches and saves me time later in the day. Most of the time I go ahead and pack it in a luchbox with a spoon and napkin.

Thomas loves it! He gets so excited about his lunchbox, and can't wait to find out what he is having for lunch that day. If we are out and about that day, I bring his lunch and we are not tempted to grab fast food while running errands. If we are at home and I am involved in a project and he wants to eat lunch, I can simply hand him his lunch box and I can finish what I am involved in. Doing this simple time saving tip has made my life easier, cheaper, and my child more excited about lunch. 

What are some things that have worked for you and getting lunch for your kids?

Thanksgiving Chain in Progress

I think I need to clean my camera phone lens! Please excuse the poor picture.

I am so glad we started our thankfulness chain in October this year. If we miss a day here or there, we still have plenty of time to have a nice long chain. But it's also become part of a daily habit for us as a family. My sons are usually the first to remember that we need to fill in our links for the day and love to show it off to anyone who walks through our door. During the day my sons will mention things to be thankful of as they anticipate writing them down in the evening and stapling them to our list of thanksgiving.

Review: Land's End Pants for Boys

Note: I am not an affiliate of  Land's End or reimbursed by them in any way. I just like these products.

I have two sons ages 5 and 3. They are fairly normal little boys, actually compared to some of my friends, they are not as rough on their clothes as some, but still.... This year my oldest son started Kindergarten and his little school requires Land's End polo shirts, but you can wear any navy or khaki colored bottoms you want.

How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood

I recently finished reading this book borrowed from my local library; I picked it up at random from the shelves as I attempted to quickly get my three kids ages 5 and under out of there before we broke something. I found the concept behind the book appealing, the author tackles a different aspect of parenting in each chapter, demonstrates how another culture handles the issue, analyzes the differences in the cultures of child rearing and follows up with a vignette of how the Ms. Hopgood applies some things to her own parenting. For example,chapter 4 discusses potty training and how the Chinese potty train  much earlier than most western parents and Ms. Hopgood was able to incorporate some of the ideas in potty training her own daughter.