Cookie Baking Night 01/28/13

 Tonight was Cookie Baking Night. In attendance this evening: Ethan and Carissa and special guest, Diana (Ethan and Carissa's mom). Diana joined us for supper, so I invited her to stay for the whole evening. It was fun to have her with us.

In accordance with our theme this year, "the year of the cookie". Tonight we followed the plan we made last time and made Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. 

Mmmmm. Yummy.

We also read our last lesson tonight from Leading Little Ones to God by Marian Schoolland. Lesson 86 was titled "Praise to God Forever". Ethan read the Bible portion of our lesson from Revelation 21:1-7. I highly recommend this book for your family. If you don't already own it, I encourage you to consider purchasing it.

It's a systematic theology for children divided into 14 parts:

1. Looking For God
2. God is Very Great
3. All That God Does is Good
4. Sin Spoiled the World
5. God's Law
6. God Loves Us
7. What Jesus Did
8. About the Holy Spirit
9. How We Become Children of God
10. How God's Children Live and Grow
11. God Helps His Children Live for Him
12. When We Pray to God
13. About God's Church
14. Things That Are to Happen

Each part has corresponding lessons to support it, and each lesson has corresponding Scripture passages to support it, 86 lessons in all. It's well worth your time.

Another successful Cookie Baking Night has come and gone and, as usual, a fun time was had by all.

Happy Retirement Larry!

My Dad-Larry retired from his job as a custodian at a local school district (17+ years) on December 31. Today we celebrated with a little retirement party. 

Larry took on a pre-made family when he married my mom, as I was 16 and my brothers were 14 and 12 years old at the time. He has honored God by providing so faithfully for his family these many years, so today we wanted to honor him (and with a little arm twisting, he agreed to let us). It was a lovely day. 

We love you, Larry! Happy Retirement!

May God grow you in Him in this new season of life. 

Cookie Baking Night 01/14/13

Well, after a bit of a winter break, tonight was the first Cookie Baking Night of 2013. In attendance this evening: Emily, Ethan, and Carissa. Tonight was Ethan's birthday choice (in two days, Ethan will be 10 years old). As is our tradition at Cookie Baking Night, the birthday person gets to choose what we have for supper and the "cookie" we make that night. For supper, Ethan chose BBQ pizza, chicken nuggets, and oranges. For his "cookie", he chose chocolate chip brownies (which upon clarification, means brownies with chocolate chips in them).

 To make the birthday brownies extra special, we frosted them and then sprinkled them with tiny chocolate chips, a most fun activity.

Tonight was a night of fun and a night of work. We have dubbed 2013 "the year of the cookie". You may have noticed we don't usually make cookies on Cookie Baking Night. We just bake something. This year (with the exception of birthday choices and pumpkin patch brownies, which I was informed is our autumn tradition) we will be making some kind of cookie every time. So, we sat down and planned out the year. All the children wrote down a list of cookies, I pulled out the Cookie Baking Night schedule, we consolidated our lists, and we assigned a cookie to each night. Stay tuned for our cookie choices throughout the year.

Tonight we also read lesson 85 titled "If I Should Die" from Leading Little Ones to God: by Marian Schoolland. This lesson led to a lot of discussion and opportunity to reiterate the Gospel message. We have only one lesson left, and we will be finished with the book (it has taken us 4 years, but it has been well worth the journey).

As usual, a fun time was had by all.