TTAH Tuesday – Road Trip Tips
Easter Break and summer are coming up soon – which means many families will be headed out on long car trips. Here are some tips for keeping kids occupied and happy…
- Plan, plan, and plan some more. Know ahead of time where you can and will stop for potty breaks and to stretch legs. (How often will depend on the ages of your children and their bladder control!) Be sure to build time into the trip to run & play a little bit … rest stops with park-like areas are great. Pack a soccer ball, frisbee, or other playthings to encourage kids.
- Expect the unexpected. When it happens, go with the flow and then move on. (think a two-year-old with diarrhea and a huge diaper blowout… on the driver’s seat and all over mom’s shorts. ask me how bad that stunk – literally and figuratively. but we cleaned up as best we could and moved on.)
- Bring low sugar snacks (fruits, granola, etc.) and drinks for the trip. Portion them out at certain times that you’ve planned ahead. We like to avoid fast food (and save $$) by bringing our own breakfast / lunch items and just eating them at rest stops (see #1).
- Bring fun-to-do playthings in the car for each child. A couple of ideas… a cookie sheet, alphabet magnets, playdoh (to be used with the cookie sheet), coloring books & crayons, etc.
- Bring surprises. Before your trip, go to the dollar store and buy a few fun items for each child (preferably things that will keep them busy in the car or something they can use once you reach your destination). Put them separately in a paper lunch bag and staple it up. Mark it with the child’s name. These surprises can be given out at certain intervals during the trip. Use the excitement over the surprise (build it up!) to keep kids from getting bored.
- Before leaving, print out a map (easy to get on the internet) for each child and mark your route with a highlighter. You can keep kids interested and involved in the traveling by letting them mark “milestones” as you travel. For example, they can color each state as you leave it during a multi-state trip.
- Bring CDs with fun music that your kids’ like to sing along with.
- Familiarize yourself before leaving with road trip games (many can be easily simplified for smaller children). Try “I spy”, “who can spot a red car first” and go through the rainbow, looking for letters of the alphabet, etc.
- Don’t forget pillows and blankets so kids can get comfy for naps!
- And last, but not least, bring a portable DVD player. We always used this as a last resort… when we’d tried everything else and nothing else would cure the boredom.
If you have any more tips that have worked for your family, please share!!
Happy Traveling!
Puppy Cupcakes
Three breeds of pupcakes.
The favorite breed, a.k.a., "Molly"
For the girls’ birthdays (8th and 2nd), we had a combined party at the end of February. The party was puppy-themed and I experimented with decorating these cupcakes to go with the theme. I’ve been meaning to post these photos for a while but I kept forgetting.
It really was much easier than it looks. I used canned frosting and baggies with the corners cut off (no icing bags or tips required here!) to get all of these looks and I think they turned out just fine. I also used large marshmallows, jellybeans, mini m&ms, tootsie rolls, and starbursts to make the various ears, noses, tongues, and eyes.
I got some ideas from the web – if you’re interested in making these or other animals just google it and there are all sorts of photos & tips available.
Who knows what you could make with an adventurous spirit and a little experimentation!
TTAH Tuesday – Preparing for Easter
What a glorious day Easter is! To think that God himself became a man… and then died a horrible death to pay for my sin. But Easter is that glorious day to celebrate the fact that Jesus, although He died, was raised from the dead. The Living God.
This tip is for those of you who, like me, want to give their children a better perspective on Easter – the truth – rather than just visions of baskets, bunnies, eggs, and candy.
Try these “Resurrection Rolls”…
1 package crescent rolls
8 large marshmallows
melted butter
sugar and cinnamon mix
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Give each child a triangle of crescent roll dough. This represents the cloth that Jesus was wrapped in. Give each child a marshmallow. This represents Jesus. Dip the marshmallow in the melted butter, which represents the embalming oil. Next, dip the marshmallow into the sugar and cinnamon mixture. This represents the spices used to anoint Jesus’ body. Tightly wrap the marshmallow inside the roll and be sure to seal it shut so that there are no openings. This represents the wrapping of Jesus’ body for burial after His death. Place rolls on an ungreased cookie sheet and put into the oven. The oven represents the tomb. Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes (pretend it’s been three days!).
Remove the rolls from the oven and allow them to cool slightly. Let the children open their rolls (the burial cloth) and discover that Jesus is no longer there! He is risen! You can let the children know that the sweet taste is a reminder of His sweet sacrifice for us!
Happy Easter!
learning new patterns…
I’ll admit that I’ve been seeing a counselor over the past few months. Life felt overwhelming, and I needed to talk about it.
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you might remember me saying in this post how I probably should have seen a counselor as a teenager about having diabetes. Now I’m sure of it. I’m amazed at some of the things that came out during counseling with regard to having a chronic disease – here now 25 years after being diagnosed.
One of the things we talked about was the fact that when it comes to dealing with my diabetes, if I don’t do the right thing (take my insulin, check my blood sugar levels, eat (mostly) right, get regular physicals) I would die. The more things I do right, the longer I live. There’s a direct relationship there. Wrong actions = death. Right actions = life.
I’ve realized that I’ve applied this thinking to just about everything in my life. My counselor says I’m an “awfulist”. In other words my thinking pattern is that if I don’t do everything right, then the most awful outcome I can think of will happen.
I now recognize that I’ve subconsciously been thinking about my parenting like this. Let me give you some examples…
If I blow up at my kids… they’ll end up as adults with serious anger problems and feel like I never loved them. (They’ll also hate me and we won’t have any kind of relationship.)
If I’m not consistent with doing devotions with my kids… they’ll end up rejecting Jesus.
If I don’t keep the house clean… they’ll end up being slobs forever.
If my kids see me sin… they’ll think it’s ok and start down a wrong path.
All this over-analyzing, the super-high expectations I have of myself, the resulting guilt, and the fear of the future outcomes is exhausting. It’s also self-defeating. It makes me feel overwhelmed. And it makes me feel hopeless… because no matter how hard I try, I can’t be a perfect parent.
But I’m starting to see it’s all not true. My mind might automatically follow these patterns because of a diagnosis and because of my history… but it doesn’t mean it should. I’m leaving no room for God’s grace in my life. I’m not really in control of the future – He is. I am responsible to follow Him to the best of my ability, and ask for His forgiveness when I fail.
So I’m not sure how to change my thinking patterns. But I think just realizing that it’s happening is a start. Beyond that, I am seeking God’s help and his grace. And I’m seeking to trust Him for the future.
Romans 12:2 “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
TTAH Tuesday – Try out the Crockpot
I love to use my crockpot. My top two reasons for using the crockpot?
(1) Having a home cooked meal at suppertime without having to do the work at suppertime (around here suppertime = crazy hour. if you have ankle-biters, i’m sure you can relate)
(2) Having a homecooked meal in the middle of summer without heating up the kitchen and when you can’t stand the thought of another night of grilled anything.
So, in honor of my love of my crockpot, I’m sending you to a blog I recently found. It has some awesome crockpot recipes that I cannot wait to try out.
http://crockpot365.blogspot.com
Interesting that the author’s name is also Stephanie! And I’m sure I don’t love my crockpot as much as she does – having used it every day in 2008! Yikes.
my music
I have been trying to figure out for a while how to get music on my blog. But it doesn’t appear that wordpress supports having a playlist or anything else like it on free blogs. So I finally gave up.
But, if you are at all interested in hearing some of my favorite songs, I found a way to do it!!!
You can click here.
Or you can look on the right hand side of my blog, yeah, over there under the links – and find “My Music Playlist”. Click there and it will open up playlist.com and you can listen to your heart’s content. Since it opens up in another window, you can listen and read my blog at the same time. How cool is that?
this is stuck in my brain
On Monday someone shared with me a little phrase they’d taught kids in a vacation bible…
“There are only two choices on the shelf – pleasing God or pleasing self.”
I just cannot get this out of my brain this week! (Maybe that’s a good thing.)
I know for sure that I overanalyze things. And at first hearing I definitely agreed with the phrase. I even wrote in my journal some time ago, “I think I’m learning slowly that, in general, God is not glorified by me getting what I want.”
But then I started wondering if pleasing God and pleasing self are in fact mutually exclusive. Can I ever get to the point that I am so submitted to God’s will in my life that pleasing God and pleasing self are one in the same?
What do you think?
TTAH Tuesday – no more “pink” socks
Happy Tuesday, everyone!
We have had plenty of pink socks. And underwear. Around here. Which would be ok if these items were supposed to be pink. But pink doesn’t really work well as a background for batman underoos.
Anyways.
I learned a couple of weeks ago about Shout Color Catchers.
This is an awesome product. You stick one in the wash with your bright colors, and even if a stray white sock gets in there, it will come out of the laundry still white. Trust me – it’s happened to me already.
Here’s a link to the website if you want to see it:
http://www.shoutitout.com/preserve-colors.aspx
You can buy them at Tops.
Have a great day!
h and g, hi and goodbye
(by the way, anyone know what movie that’s from??)
Today I feel like the most horrible person.
We adopted a dog from the local shelter two weeks ago. And today we took him back.
It’s always meant a lot to me to adopt dogs from shelters rather than buy them. To give a loving home to those poor doggies no one wants. To save them from you-know-what.
Ugh.
Here’s a photo of Buddy… who really is a sweetie.
Buddy
I could have lived with the occasional accident in the house.
I could have lived with the paws on the counter or table.
I could have lived with the chewing of things.
Those are things we could have worked on.
But he growled and yipped at my kiddos one too many times. He didn’t like them near his bed when he was resting. I wasn’t sure I could trust him.
And that’s not a good feeling. So we took him back.
And now I just feel bad. Giving a dog up just goes against my grain!! But I am hoping he’ll find a home where he’ll be happy with either no kids or teenagers.
So lay it on me… am I a mean&terrible animal hater or did I do the right thing? What do you think?
a verse to think about
This verse has been on my mind since I read it Tuesday afternoon…
1 Corinthians 2:5
“…so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
It’s been making me think about what my faith rests on. And it’s been making me ask some tough questions of myself…
Do I rely on what other people tell me about myself rather than what God tells me about me?
Do I look for the solution to my problems in self-help books rather than in God’s word?
Am I believing the lies of society rather than standing on the promises of God in the bible?
Am I looking for hope in temporary things rather than in eternal things?
At times I’m sorry to say that the answer to these questions is yes. I look for affirmation from people instead of trying to see me as God sees me. I think that I can fix my own issues by reading another book. I try to satisfy the longings in my heart by buying more stuff, instead of seeking God and waiting on Him to provide what I need. I hope for kids that are well-behaved in front of other people rather than hoping for kids who know and love God. Sometimes I get distracted.
I am a firm believer that God speaks to us through His word and I think God’s speaking. He knows I need the nudging of the Holy Spirit to get me back on the right track sometimes. I truly desire that my faith rest not on things of this world, but on the creator of this world and His unlimited power.
How is God speaking to you this week?
