Advent Reading Day 14

Scripture reading: 1 Kings 18:17-39 -- Elijah and the Prophets of Baal

Symbol: A stone altar

Advent Reading Day 13

Scripture reading: 1 Samuel 16:1-23; 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 7:1-17 -- David

Symbol: A lyre, for the musician king

Advent Reading Day 12

Scripture reading: Judges 2:6-16, 6:1-16, 7:1-23 -- Gideon

Symbol: A water jar, like the ones that hid the torches

Advent Reading Day 11

Scripture reading: Joshua 1:1-9, 5:13 - 6:20 -- The Conquest of Jericho

Symbol: A ram's horn trumpet, which helped bring down the walls of Jericho

Advent Reading Day 10 & The End of Gymnastics and Soccer

Scripture Reading: Exodus 19:16-20 - 20:20 -- The Giving of the Law

Symbol: The stone tablets that we associate with the Ten Commandments

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This week marked the close of our gymnastics and soccer classes. We take the classes at our local recreation center and it has been great! The boys have learned some new things and it is not that expensive.

Noodle finished his "nastics" class on Monday with Mrs. Carolyn. All of the parents were invited in to watch what they had learned over the past 10 weeks. They started off with these cute stretches and then practiced somersaults and cartwheels on the gym mats. Then they moved to the beam where they walked forward, backwards, sideways, crawled like a cat and hopped like a bunny. I was quite impressed. To finish off the performance, they hung from the bar and did their legs like scissors and pulled their feet up to the bar. Only a few kids were able to do the latter and Noodle was one of them! I was very proud!

Burrito finished his soccer class last night. It was a great skills class where they learned to dribble the ball, run, stop and kick, dribble around the cones and dribble down to the goal and kick the ball. T said every week that "soccer was boring" but I didn't see him looking bored last night.

Both classes gave me good ideas of what to work with them on at home. And now with our new swingset, we can really do a lot on the trapeze bar. And we have a soccer goal and ball in the backyard too. It will be nice to take a break over the Christmas holidays and then start back after the first of the year.

Way to go boys! You made your mommy really proud!

Advent Reading Day 9

Scripture reading: Exodus 12:1-39 -- The Passover and Escape from Egypt

Symbol: A kneading bowl (when God freed the Israelites from the Egyptians, there was not even time to bake the bread, they gather up the raw dough in their kneading bowls and carry it along with them like that)

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I should make clear that I did not come up with these Advent readings on my own. They are from a book called Let's Make a Jesse Tree! by Darcy James. I have adapted some of it to our needs and liking. I referenced the author and her book on my first blog about this and don't want to give the impression that this is my own.....I am not that good! :)

And this is how we do this with our boys:

Each night after dinner, we all sit on the couch and read the bible story. We talk about the symbol and what it means and the boys take turns each night hanging the ornament on the tree. Then we pray and I have each boy pray something pertaining to the Bible story. I also try to review some of the previous stories and symbols with them to reinforce what we have talked about.

Some nights go better than others. Some nights the boys really pay attention and others not so much. Even so, it has been a sweet time together as a family and the boys really look forward to doing it.

Advent Reading Day 8

Scripture reading: Exodus 1:1-14; 3:1-12 -- Moses and the Burning Bush

Symbol: The bush that burns without burning up

I am doing a bible study at church over Exodus and this part of Scripture is so rich I can hardly soak it all in. I enjoyed reading the story of Moses, Pharoah, the plagues and the Passover with my boys tonight.