Celebrating Forgiveness! Happy Easter!

Today, I need to talk about God's story. He tells it to me everyday. I am overwhelmed at the the lengths He goes to tell me His story over and over, longing for my attention, mine! He tells me in the light of daybreak that His love is new every morning. He tells me in the song of the Robins as they search for their breakfast... look at the birds of the air! He tells me in the moments between my children needing fed and clothed and scooted and scurried. They are His, I am His, and He loves his children more than I could ever imagine! He tells me in the changing of the season from Winter to Spring as I watch the flowers break through the earth. New life comes from death. Beauty from emptiness, and the miracle of his beautiful story is wrapped around me like a never ending circle of love and hope.
With Easter coming, more people will be open to hearing His story. For that I am so grateful, but for me, His story is always with me! I can't help but see the significance of His design everywhere I go.

One of the things I love about our daily commute home from school, is all the sweet farms we pass.  And more than that, in this season, Spring, there are new baby animals being born everywhere! Cows, horses, and little lambs! I am always pointing them out to the kids... "Look, a pure white little lamb in the grass!" They squeal and point, I slow down a bit so they can get a good look. And all of this makes me think about the excitement of Easter and our Lamb!

There is such opportunity in moments like this to show my kids what the true meaning of Easter is all about. I'm not sure how the Easter bunny and bringing candy got all mixed in with the brilliant story of the resurrected Lamb, and our family has never really went along with this idea. We have our traditions of an Easter hunt, and eating a great feast, but my boys know that Papa hides the eggs. I'm not against the Easter bunny or anything, but this year, since my little ones are getting older I want to talk more about the real meaning behind why we take time out to Celebrate this special time of year.

I came up with some practical ways to talk about our Easter story, and some activities to make it fun and special.

The Resurrection Walk

When Jesus died, he took all of our sins with him, and when he rose, that meant new life for all of us!
                                       Luke 24
Take a walk and look for things that have new life.

Flowers.

Plants.

Animals.

Trees just beginning to bud.

Bugs.

All of these things are God's little reminders that he has given us the greatest gift of all: forgiveness and New Life!

Scavenger Hunt

Read Luke 24.
Go on a scavenger hunt looking for items that symbolize the main parts of the story.
You might find a stone to symbolize the tomb.
Look for some sticks and form a cross.
Find something white (maybe a flower) to symbolize forgiveness


Light three candles.

One represents God sending Jesus as a baby.
One represents Jesus dying for our sins.
One represents Jesus resurrection from the dead.

Talk about the importance of each as you watch the flames with your kids. Say a prayer, thanking God for each part of the story, and blow the candles out.


Ask  a local farmer who has lambs if you can bring your kids for a visit.
Let them pet the lamb.
Talk about how pure and innocent it is.
Talk about Jesus being our pure and perfect Lamb!

This is my sweet son Elijah. He actually memorized the poem, but was too shy to do it without the words. Enjoy!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope Easter will continue to remind you of God's story, His grace, and overwhelming love!  That is worth celebrating!

Springtime in Paris: a Garden Table Mosaic

I have wanted to go to Paris, I think as soon as I knew about it. but my love of this romantic city has grown to almost an obsession. I have a little of Paris everywhere around my house, even on my phone case. I took French in high school, and even though the words haven't remained as well as I had hoped, the admiration for what seems a magical place has stuck with me. 

When Martin and I got married, we always said we would go to Paris for our tenth Anniversary. Well, guess what is right around the corner? We will celebrate ten years in June! However, going to Paris was pretty unlikely/ We were unable to put away money like we had hoped, and the trip seemed unpractical and impossible... until...

My mom sent me a link to a contest to win a trip to Paris!

Now, I'm not saying we won or anything, I'm just really really really hoping we will. 

The contest is through Michael's. To enter you must create a piece of art, any kind you want, with the theme "Springtime in Paris." You take a picture or video and send it in. It is judged on theme (40%) Originality (30%) Execution on skill (20%) and Inspired (10%).

The following are pictures of me creating my piece. I decided to make a mosaic garden table using ceramic plates, and tiles to make a spring like scene in front of the "Eiffel Tower."

First, I painted my table surface a lovely aqua. Then I used tile nippers to cut the shapes for the Eiffel Tower, and layed them out in the shape I liked.

Lots, of cutting and sorting colors went into this project. These blue pieces are for the sky.

I found these plates at the thrift store (on half off everything day)- awesome!

You can sort of see my set up all over the table, plastic bins for sorting colors, newspaper to protect the table a bit, and yes, I even wore safety goggles!

I layed everything out before gluing it down to the table with a tile glue similar to caulk.

Once I added the yellow flowers, I really felt it was brightening up!

Next I began working on the sky. This was time consuming to fit the pieces just where they should go.

I added green at the bottom to make it look like a nice springtime hill! This is what it looked like with everything glued down... but it's not done yet!

Now for the messy... grouting!

I took my time getting the grout into every little crack.

The next step was using a damp sponge to remove excess grout.

This is what it looked like after I removed the extra grout, but before I scrubbed it clean. The grout leaves a gritty film that you can see over the tiles. To get it clean, you take a stiff plastic bristled brush and scrub, followed by a cheesecloth or soft wash cloth to shine.

Here it is all spic and span on my front porch!

Doesn't it look so happy there?

Some close ups of the detail. I love the "flowers" that I made out of the flower patterned china!

The tile that I used to make the Eiffel Towers was really beautiful. I almost felt bad breaking it up. If you look closely you can see some of the design on the pieces.

Even if we don't win a trip to Paris, I have this lovely little table to remind me of many things. I love mosaics because they create such a parallel to life, here we are broken or misshapen, and it takes a creator to really make us into something beautiful and put us exactly where we need to be. We can't see the big picture most of the time. We might not even know that we are a flower, because we can't stop thinking that we are just a broken plate!

Win or lose, it was a wonderfully challenging project that I will cherish forever.

Thanks, mom for thinking I could do it!