Advent Reading Day 3 and a Little Christmas

Scritpure reading: Genesis 6:11-22; 7:17-8:3; 9:8-17 -- The Flood
Symbol: The rainbow, sign of God's promise that He will keep the water under control from now on.
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Since John's family was here for Thanksgiving, we went ahead and did Christmas with them. We did not have any arguments from the boys for not waiting! :) The boys received a bunch of really cute long sleeved shirts, new jackets, football trading cards and this year's singing snowmen from Hallmark, a Nonna tradition!

John was especially proud of his new Ipod Touch and I love my new digital camera! Thanks Chris, Sharon and Nonna!

Our Jesse Tree

Scripture for today: Genesis 2:4-3:13 -- The Fall of Adam and Eve
Symbol: A tree with lovely-looking fruit

This year our family will be celebrating Advent with a Jesse tree.

What is a Jesse tree, you ask?

The idea of the Jesse tree comes from Isaiah 11:1-9, where God promises a discouraged nation that the glory they remember from David's time will come to them again. They will have another king from Jesse's family, in whose reign the whole earth will know God. Christians see that promise fulfilled in Jesus, and so we put up a Jesse tree and decorate it with reminders of how God prepared the world for that Kingdom. (taken from Darcy James' book Let's Make a Jesse Tree!)

There are many ways of doing this. We have a designated tree in our living room that we are calling our Advent tree. We talked with the boys before starting this that Advent means "coming" and how we are to think about Jesus' coming to the earth during this time, rather than presents, Christmas parties, shopping and everything else that has shoved Christ out of Christmas. I promise not to rant here but it gets harder and harder each year, thanks to the media and our culture, to slow down and reflect on what Christmas really is about.

So each day of Advent I will post the Scripture reading for the day that we will be doing with our boys and the symbol and its meaning of what was placed on our Advent tree for the day. We would love for you to join us in reading and thinking about Christ this Advent season!

And on Christmas day, we will post a picture of our Advent tree in all its glory with all of the ornaments representing God's love and plan for us, His children.

Praying your family will be mindful and prayerful this season as we try to do the same.

Pilgrims and Indians and Our Advent Tree

***To understand the Scripture and symbol below, see my post on Dec 2 about our Advent/Jesse Tree***

Scripture: Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 -- Creation
Symbol: The dove symbolizes God's spirit, moving over the waters at the beginning

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Pilgrims and Indians in PreK!

Burrito had a Thanksgiving Feast at school, complete with pilgrims and indians. His class were the pilgrims and the other prek class were the indians. It had me all sentimental because my parents have a video of the 5 o'clock news of when I was in kindergarten having my own Thanksgiving feast as an indian. It was fun and sweet to participate with him.

Our First Thanksgiving to Host

And we all survived! We are thankful for family, friends and food. This was my first thanksgiving without my Grandma but it was sweet to eat at her table, to use her dishes and especially to use the rooster to hold our rolls!

Our conversations lately...

Last night at bedtime:

Me: Good night, Burrito. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you and give you peace.
Burrito: Mom, when I was a little baby I had 22 firesticks (do you remember what firesticks are?) in my hand and I set Mimi's house on fire.
Me: You set Mimi's house on fire with 22 firesticks?
Burrito: Yes, but it was accidentally. (I didn't even know he knew this word!) And then I called 911.
Me: And then the firemen showed up?

Burrito: Yes, the firemen showed up and I was scared of them but then I wasn't scared of them because they're not scary.

Me: And then what happened?
Burrito: They came in the house and sprayed all the fire out. Callie (the cat) almost caught on fire but she didn't.

Me: That's good. Okay, now go to sleep.
Burrito: Okay Mom, night night.

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This morning at breakfast:

Burrito: Mom, I want hot lunch. Judge has hot lunch at school everyday. (hot lunch is catered in lunch from different places like Chick-Fil-A that has to be ordered a month ahead)

Me: I know you want hot lunch but I think the reason why Judge has hot lunch everyday is because his mom just had a baby and babies are a lot of work and she probably doesn't have time to make him a lunch everyday so she orders him a hot lunch.

Burrito: Mom, I want a baby sister!
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Here are some funny pictures of our trip to Mardel's the other day. The boys love to listen to the headphones in the music department and John and I were totally cracking up at them. Noodle was listening to the Chris Tomlin CD Hello Love which has this song called "Jesus Messiah" that we love to sing on the radio. He knows the words well and was singing loudly the words, as he could not hear just how loud he actually was with those headphones on. And Burrito was listening to the latest Third Day CD Revelation and was dancing all around. It was a funny moment but also a sweet one to us because we just love that our boys love to sing to the Lord.

What Is It Like To Be A Christian?

Burrito brought this home from school the other day and I thought it was cute....I realize it borders on being cheesy...yet I am like that nasty, gooey pumpkin that I refuse to stick my hands into! But Christ did that for me and you on the cross.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:  Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!

Philippians 1:5-8

A Shout Out to Julie

If you read my post about how I met and fell in love with John, you will remember our friend Julie. Well Julie, this post's for you. No one but you will appreciate this picture:


We were visiting friends Saturday evening and we were just a few blocks from this place, so being the spontaneous girl that I am (yeah right!), I suggested to John we stop by for old time's sake. You see, Julie, John and I met up here once and if I remember correctly, went over to John's apartment afterwards. This was way pre-love affair with John but I love going back to this area where John once lived and hearing of all the places he frequented. I have always compartmentalized John in a sense: there's the John Rutherford that was Julie's friend from home and there's the John with whom I am married. So this John Rutherford from before is always so mysterious and intriguing to me. He gets a kick out of it too!

And Julie this is a double ode to you because this was a total spontaneous act. You know, spontaneity is not exactly my middle name and for you, well it's a lifestyle! Which is something I totally love about you....so don't be so discouraged that you don't always have it all together. We went to this place at 9:00 pm, which in my time is early, but in kid time, not so much. But it was so fun! John and I had coffee and the boys ate pancakes. We were out late, but it was time change weekend, so it really was an hour earlier, right??? In fact, we had so much fun that we determined to make it a family tradition. I love these full circle experiences!