The Smith Family Adventures

We had to get caught up on our Jesse tree yesterday. We had a couple busy nights, and just never got to it. Luckily, Elias enjoys making/coloring the ornaments, and seeing our Jesse Tree fill up. As you can see from the picture, he colored more than just his ornaments…his face was decorated as well. (And his hand…and arm….)

Most of our advent activity time was spent in honor of St. Lucia, however. St. Lucia’s feast day is actually December 13th, but due to other commitments, we had to make that day’s advent activity less involved. So we learned about St. Lucia on the 14th instead. In case you don’t already know, St. Lucia was a young girl who refused to marry her betrothed because he was a pagan. The spurned man denounced her to the governor, Diocletian who then sent men to torture and kill her. There are two (and probably more) accounts of what happened to her. One was that she gouged out her own eyes to give to her betrothed (who was enamored with them) and said, “Now let me live to God.” The other is that when the torturers arrived, God made her heavy as a mountain, and she could not be moved. They then tried to burn her, but were not successful, so they gouged out her eyes with a fork. All very lovely to read about, I know….but she is celebrated for her commitment to God and her faith. She is the patron saint of the blind.

I found this prayer:

God, St. Lucy did not hide her light under a basket, but let it shine for the whole world, for all the centuries to see. We may not suffer torture in our lives the way she did, but we are still called to let the light of our Christ illumine our daily lives. Please help us to have the courage to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationships, our conversation — every corner of our day. Amen

Since we had been focusing on Jesus as the “light of the world” this advent season, I thought that this fit in nicely. We decided to make votive candle holders in honor of this idea that we must always let our lights shine.

Here is how we did it:

1. I purchased some cheap votive candle holders, some mod podge, and chose a few colors of tissue paper, which I then cut into small squares.

2. We coated the outside of the candle holders with a thin layer of mod podge…I was planning on doing this step, but Elias loves painting, and could not resist using the paint brush. This made the whole project a lot messier…but I wanted him to be involved so I let him do it.

3. Randomly stick the tissue paper around the outside of the candle holder, overlapping some.

4. We then applied one more coat of mod podge around the outside of the tissue paper, and let them dry overnight.

This evening, we had a chance to try them out for the first time. They actually turned out rather nice.

Hopefully we will be able to enjoy and use these for years to come.

Advent reminds me of that song “Light of the World.” The beginning lyrics are

Light of the world, You stepped down into darkness
Opened my eyes, let me see

My two boys proud of their work. The luminaries are ready to be displayed outside. Elias just wanted to look at what was in the bags instead of at the camera….

Though Elias is too young to really understand a metaphor, I thought it would still provide a good basis for some advent activities. Earlier today he was talking a lot about the advent candles. (He is really into talking about how many we get to light). I talked to him a bit about how one of the names of Jesus is “light of the world” and we talked about how candles bring us light when it is dark. I also used his favorite flashlight to talk about light.

Then later after dinner, and when Daddy

Our five luminaries on the balcony

was home, we made luminaries. Elias, Nathan, and I decorated paper bags with the same stickers we used for wrapping paper. We filled them with a bit of kitty litter and a lit tea light candle, then put them out on our balcony for the world to see!

It was a fun activity, and they turned out really nice. Nathan said he was reminded of one of his all time favorite

A close up of one luminary

memories…his dad’s (Grandpa Smith’s) street used to be lined with luminaries every Christmas time, and Nathan loved to see them.

We enjoyed the family time together, and Elias had a blast picking out stickers to decorate with. Day 10 of advent was a success!

I skipped a couple days writing about our advent activities…but as I say sometimes….we were busy living life instead of writing about it.

Today we made our own wrapping paper for our advent activity. We are trying to take the focus off of presents…but that doesn’t mean that we don’t want to give gifts to each other. We, after all, were given the greatest gift in Jesus. I thought it would be fun to involve Elias with the gifts a bit more. So I bought some brown paper and some fun Christmas foam stickers. We wrapped some packages for Daddy, and Elias got to decorate them…well…I did one and he did one. We plan to let him decorate many more, but we only had time for two this evening.

Elias had a lot of fun choosing how to decorate the packages, but it was also exciting to see him so enthusiastic about putting them under the tree.

Oh…and I know this is a horrible picture with the power lines and the tree limbs sticking in at odd angles…but I just have to share the colors in it. As we were decorating, I looked up and saw the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in a long time. I just had to stop and watch it. I snapped a quick picture, but mostly just wanted to watch the beauty. After this picture was taken, it turned more pinkish and then purplish before finally setting.

Elias and I are taking it easy today. We haven’t had a day just at home for a couple weeks now, and while we do have lots of errands that need to be done, I decided we’d put those off just to have some fun at home. We built Duplo houses and towers, pretended to make soup, had the dinosaur eat the Star Wars people, did laundry and dishes and swept the floors, sang the 12 days of Christmas book like 5 times, sang “Away in a Manger” about 50 times, danced and twirled to an old Bing Crosby cd I inherited from my Grandpa, and much more.

Elias coloring pregnant Mary.

We also did our advent activity for today. This evening, Elias will be going to Ama and Baba’s house for another practice sleepover. Nathan and I will be taking some more much needed time to clean out and prepare the house for another baby. So since Daddy couldn’t be there for our advent activity, we decided to make it a bit lower key today. I printed off some free advent coloring pages, and Elias got to color to his heart’s content. Mommy colored too.

We talked a lot about the advent wreath, and Elias was very interested in what each candle said.

One of the coloring pages I printed out had a picture of Mary still pregnant. Elias has gotten very good at identifying Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. He can

Elias finished with the wreath, and is working on the doves.

recognize them in any artwork, sculpture, picture, etc whether they have faces or whatever their orientation. He likes pointing them out. In the picture I printed, he only saw Mary and a baby sheep (his words). He asked me where Joseph and baby Jesus were. So I went on trying to explain that baby Jesus was still inside his Mommy in that picture…just like his baby brother is still inside me.

Elias gave me a very weird look, and said, “Mary pregnant.”

“Yes!” I said, thinking he understood.

“Joseph pregnant too,” he added. “Baby Jesus come out in two months.”

So then I had to try to explain that Joseph was like Daddy and was in fact not pregnant…and just because our baby will come out in two months does not mean that all babies will. (My due date is exactly 2 months from today….ahhhhhh!)

It was fun just having some focused conversation with my son…even if what he said was a bit humorous.

Happy St. Nicholas Day! Today for our advent activities we are celebrating St. Nicholas’ Feast Day.

Last year, Nathan and I decided that we are not going to “do” Santa Claus. Not because we think he’s a bad guy or a bad idea….we just want to shift the focus a bit. Someday when our son is asked about Christmas, we want Jesus….the incarnation….the “Love Came Down” aspect of Christmas to be what first comes to his mind. (Not presents and Santa Claus). It’s a tough feat to overcome, especially in our society and culture. Elias will likely get way more presents than he needs on Christmas from family on all sides. He doesn’t need more from a fictional character.

But I went into our reasoning and thought process a lot last year, (you can read that post here) and don’t want to repeat myself. For this year, we are just excited to continue our fledgling tradition. We celebrate St. Nicholas Feast day instead of Santa Claus. Santa Claus is based on a real person, you know…St. Nicholas of Myra.

Here is our 2nd annual celebration of St. Nicholas Feast Day:

1. Someone leaves chocolate gold coins in Elias’ shoes the night before St. Nicholas Day.

2. We read the story of the real St. Nicholas and talk about him.

3. We give a gift in honor of St. Nicholas

So here you go:

Elias’ shoe just looks so cute with the little coins in it!

1. This morning when Elias woke up, there were chocolate gold coins hidden in his shoe! It was fun because Daddy was still home due to a certification test he had to take today. (He passed. Yay!) So when Daddy went to put on his shoes and leave for the test, Elias of course followed him. They both found gold coins in their shoes. Elias was delighted.

When I asked Elias, “Who do you think put those coins in your shoe?” He simply answered, “Not the kitties.”

Well there you go….the kitties didn’t do it. He’s been talking about it all day, though. (And he’s been talking about the fact that I let him eat two of them). Here are some pictures of Elias discovering his chocolates:

Looking in his shoe.

Elias was very excited about his find!

Elias looking at his Saint Nicholas book.

2. Another activity for today was to read the real story of Saint Nicholas. I used the story Saint Nicholas: The story of the real Santa Claus retold by Mary Joslin. It was given to Elias as a gift, and it is perfect! Elias loved pointing out Saint Nicholas on each page. He likes especially pointing out the beard, and he likes the page where St. Nick is on the rooftop the best.

The story is simple, really. Saint Nicholas is trying to anonymously do a good deed for a poor family. The father of the family had spent time to help repair the church roof even though he did not have enough money to repair his own. He sends the gold coins down the chimney, and they land in the shoes and socks of the children who live there which are drying by the fire. Our conversations about the story were fun.

3. Eventually, we want Elias to choose where our gift will go. But he is still a bit young to be making decisions on charities. Maybe next year. For this year, we’ve decided on a good one….in honor of potty training! It’s something we’ve been trying off and on and after some initial success, we’ve been met mostly with resistance. But boy are we thankful for toilets! Check out Deck the Stalls. The Blood:Water Mission is a really excellent group, and I’ve supported many of their causes since I found out about them. They are concerned with providing water, and hygiene/sanitation services to people in Africa as well as projects surrounding AIDS. We are excited to be “Decking the Stalls” this year.

A letter from Daniela, and our first from Tigran!

Our family has been sponsoring children through World Vision for almost four years now. We started with just one girl from Zimbabwe. She is now a beautiful young adolescent. Then a couple years later we added a young girl from Bolivia. When Elias was born, we gave thanks by sponsoring a little boy from Honduras who was born the exact same day. And now, we have taken on a fourth child. A little boy from Armenia, in thanks for Nathan’s new job.

A letter from Ruramai, and one from Esdras

I could go on and on in support of child sponsorship. Of why I think it is a very good model for helping children around the world. I could go on about how World Vision is trustworthy, and how much each child (and their families/communities) benefit. I wrote a lot about sponsorship here if you are interested.

But beyond knowing that sponsoring children is a good and right thing to do, it has brought me so much joy through the years. Getting a letter in the mail from one of our “children” really brightens my day. I have four notebooks, one for each child, that contain all of the correspondence and pictures we’ve received. They are some of my most treasured possessions. And I want Elias to be a part of this too.

Elias making pictures for our sponsored children.

So today for our advent activity, I had him make pictures to send to our sponsored children. There is not much we can do at his age to get him involved. We pray for our “children” each night. With Elias we especially focus on Esdras from Honduras, who was born the same day, in goodnight prayers. I show him pictures when we receive them. But the concept is just too big for him yet. But he can draw pictures, and I can send them. The two girls we sponsor love hearing about Elias, and ask about him frequently. I’m excited to share his pictures with them.

As far as the Jesse Tree, thank you for the suggestions. I don’t know why I didn’t think of just telling or writing our own stories. Maybe I can blame the pregnancy brain for one more thing….Today’s story was of Noah. We decided to read Elias “Noah’s Ark” illustrated by Jan Brett. It is one of Elias’ favorite stories…he calls it “Grandpa Noah.” Things worked much better.

Observing advent with a toddler is hard. It’s been pretty good so far, I think. But I’ve been frustrated with our Jesse Tree stories. Yesterday’s story was more than a whole chapter’s worth of the Bible, and today was one chapter. He just doesn’t have the attention span for that. I think despite this, Elias is still getting some good out of doing the Jesse Tree. I just wish there was something in between a baby Bible that doesn’t even have all the stories, and a real Bible that is still a bit inaccessible to him. Today we read the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Elias was saying “good and evil.” I sometimes wonder if he is yet capable of evil. I mean…I know about original sin and all that…and he does occasionally misbehave. But evil? That seems so strong a word.

Today our advent activity was to make a paper chain decoration. The original idea came from the fact that advent is about waiting and preparing. I thought a paper chain…counting the days…waiting for the chain to get down to zero…was a good way for Elias to access that idea. But then I realized that he already has the calendar…so we’d just make a decoration. I got out the Christmas stamps and some Christmas stickers and let Elias have at it. Mommy and Daddy helped too. We all had fun, and now we have a nice Elias-made decoration proudly displayed in our home.

Here are some pictures of our craft time:

Elias decorating some strips for the chain.

Messy!

My boys with the finished paper chain.

The finished product!