Every year it is the same struggle. Will I let the busyness of the season overwhelm me or will I focus on the real gift of Christmas – the birth of Christ? Gift giving can me stressful and expensive, and as I watch my kids’ wish lists expand as quickly as my own I worry that we are drowning the joy of Christmas with our wants and desires. Gift giving is an important part of how we celebrate the holiday, so today I’m sharing ten gift ideas to help your family have a Christ centered Christmas. As a bonus, the generous folks at Zonderkidz are giving away five of the books I’m featuring to one lucky reader. Read on find out more, enter the giveaway, and then hop over here to find 75+ Gift Guides and Holiday Ideas for Kids from my favorite Kid Blogger Network friends.
Category: jesus
A Summer Mission Trip Opportunity at YoungLives Camp
For the second summer in a row, our family will be serving at YoungLives Camp this June and we would love for you to join us. I am the child care admin for our camp for teen moms in the Texas Hill Country, so Jed and the kids join me at Camp Buckner to help give pregnant and parenting teenage girls from all over Texas and surrounding states an incredible week of summer camp with their babies. YoungLives is part of Young Life, an international Christian youth outreach ministry that Jed and I have both been involved with for over 15 years. We actually met at a Young Life camp in North Carolina called Windy Gap.
We love getting to be a part of kids hearing the Gospel at camp, and would like to invite you to come and serve with us. In order to run camps for teen moms, we need LOTS of child care volunteers to help take care of the babies. Camp starts June 6, and we still need over 30 volunteers for each week at Camp Buckner. Would you consider giving a week of your time to rock a sweet baby or chase a toddler so their mama can learn that she has a Father in heaven who loves her and her baby?
Teen moms often face a lot of obstacles and have a lot of odds stacked against them. At camp we help give them the tools they need to be the mom they want to be AND share God’s love with them. Watch the video below, and consider joining us this summer. If Texas is too far, check out the other service opportunities at YoungLives camp weeks across the U.S. For more information and to apply to serve this summer, check out the YoungLives Experience here.
YoungLives Experience from lisa fiedler on Vimeo.
Kid Art: Painted Mason Jar Scented Oil Reed Diffuser DIY
If you’ve been following along on our journey through The Jesus Storybook Bible during Lent, welcome back. Today I’m sharing how the Bear painted a mason jar to create a reed diffuser diy to help us better understand the story of the sinful woman anointing Jesus, “Washed with Tears” (Mark 14/Luke 7/John 12). Read on to find out how to create your own scented oil reed diffuser with your kids. It was a fun interactive art project for the Bear, and now he gets to enjoy the essential oils diffusing in his room. Mason jar reed diffusers make a fabulous child made gift for mother’s day or grandparents.
Teaching Kids to Give
Giving our money, time, and love to others is an outpouring of God’s love for us. Teaching our kids to have giving hearts is important to us, because it will enrich their lives and help them to be people of gratitude rather than entitlement. Teaching kids to give can be a challenge, but it is worth it. We talk about giving, model service in front of them, give them opportunities to serve with us and each other, and try to lead by example. This week I got the kids involved in a giving project for my very favorite non-profit outreach ministry (YoungLives – a Christian outreach to teen moms & their babies), and tied it in to a story from The Jesus Storybook Bible.
DIY Resurrection Eggs for Toddlers and Preschool Kids
Easter is one of my favorite holidays, bringing a joyful celebration of faith to our family every year. Though the holiday itself is filled with joy, the season of Lent reminds us of the suffering of Christ and is difficult to teach to young children. While teaching about Christmas is easy, because babies are fun and easy to celebrate, the Cross and Easter are a bit of a challenge. I created a set of DIY Resurrection Eggs for toddlers and preschoolers and paired them with stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible to help us teach our kids about the real meaning of the holiday. We still celebrate with bunnies and chocolate and cute Easter outfits, but this activity is simple to create and really explains it in a way kids can understand. Be sure to check out our other fun ideas for Easter here.
Bringing the Story of King David & Samuel to Life by Anointing and Blessing Your Kids
We did something really special and fun with our kids this weekend that we’d never done before but definitely will do again – we gave them a blessing and anointed them with oil. It was simple and sweet and our whole family loved it. I felt funny about it at first and thought it might be kind of weird, but it was really the most special thing. We are trying our best to teach our kids about Jesus and bring the bible to life for them using the Jesus Storybook Bible, and this was another way to accomplish that. We simply read the story of Samuel anointing David as God chooses him as Israel’s future king and then gave our kids a blessing. I’ll share with you how we did it so you can try it with your family. Be sure to check out the entire Jesus Storybook Bible Activity Series here at My Mundane and Miraculous Life.
A Preschool Water Experiment to Teach about Moses and the Red Sea Using the Jesus Storybook Bible
This week we read the Jesus Storybook Bible version of Moses parting the Red Sea during our home preschool, and got the kids involved in a little water experiment to help bring the story to life. Our Moses and the Red Sea preschool activity is part of the Jesus Storybook Bible Activity Series. Kid Blogger Network writers are sharing a different interactive activity to go with each story and you can find them all here.
Preschool Read & Play ~ Reading The Giant Staircase to Heaven: The Tower of Babel from the Jesus Storybook Bible & Building with Blocks
We love to combine our favorite books with fun activities to enhance learning through play in our home preschool. One of our favorite books is The Jesus Storybook Bible. I’ve shared before how we use it in my post Simple Ways to Bring Jesus in to Your Child’s Daily Life. Today I’m joining in with a group of great Kid Blogger Network folks for The Jesus Storybook Bible Hands On Activities Series. Visit the main page over at My Mundane and Miraculous Life to find activities to go with every story in the book. Read on to find out how we used a block building activity with the story The Giant Staircase to Heaven: The Tower of Babel.
Advent with Kids – Reading Song of the Stars & Playing with the Nativity
The Advent season is one of my favorite times of the year, as we celebrate the awaited arrival of Jesus. My goal this year is to involve the whole family in our Advent traditions to make the joy of Christmas real and full for our kids. We will be using a Jesse Tree and the Jesus Storybook Bible each day starting November 30th, along with a fun activity each day. I’ve joined with a group of other Kid Blogger Network bloggers to bring you a special Storybook Advent series to help you incorporate books and kid activities in to your holiday celebration, as well as a Christmas Read and Play series all about our favorite holiday books. I’m sharing a quick and fun way to bring the Christmas story to life with your kids using The Song of the Stars: A Christmas Story along with a children’s nativity set and a few extra friends.