Many times we have challenges picking out gifts for the kids.

We’re frugal.

We don’t like clutter.

We don’t want noisy toys.

The toddler/baby product review blog Thingamababy has solved our  dilemma.

Here’s what we’re getting the kids.  Now & forever.

Our activity for today was eating a candy cane.

We began with the children sitting still for our morning devotion. We read about the birth of John the Baptist and how it foretells the coming of Jesus.

Here are the children after our morning devotion, and finally eating their greatly anticipated mini candy cane:

For years I’ve attempted various approaches to implementing a consistent daily devotional for our family. Reading randomly selected Bible passages, reading through books of the Bible, reading through “devotional” literature. And each time, the attempts have only lasted a few weeks… at most.

In addition, in the past, I’ve also tried to teach our oldest son a simplified version of the Shorter Catechism. At the time, I simply had him memorize a given question & answer pair, then proceed to the next when he had it down; with no fixed schedule. And with no fixed schedule, that too faded after a few weeks.

So when I began our latest “attempt” at holding regular family devotions, I did it with no small amount of skepticism at my own ability to maintain it. And for that reason, in spite of repeated encouragements to blog about it from Lois, I held off. Why document my own “inevitable” failure?

However, I’ve now been able to maintain a consistent morning devotional with the family for over two months. And we’ve gotten into enough of a groove that the children both expect and even occasionally remind me that we haven’t done it for the day!

So I gladly want to share how we’ve been able to do it thus far, and will continue to do so, Lord willing. We’ve been combining the catechism and Scripture readings by using the excellent book by Starr Meade titled Training Hearts, Teaching Minds. The structure of the book is as follows: Each week, for six days, we memorize a single question and answer from the Shorter Catechism. In addition, the book has a short reading (usually 1-2 paragraphs, plus Scripture references for reading) relating to the catechism question of the week. This book uses an “updated language” form of the catechism, incidentally. I have some sentimental ties to “What is the chief end of man?” vs. “What is the primary purpose of man?” so I’ve opted instead to use the text of a separate Shorter Catechism (A Baptist Version) booklet I acquired in years past.

What I’ve found as we’ve proceeded is that this approach provides three crucial elements for making it work long-term:

1. A schedule for reading, and simple readings that are thematic. This helps provide accountability to a schedule, and lessens the burdens of selecting “random” teaching each day.
2. Memorization activities that are cumulative for the children. The catechism is a tried and true way to provide a solid foundation for understanding God and His Word, and the weekly pace is “just right” for actually memorizing, not just hearing and forgetting. My oldest (5.5yo) is now able to recite from memory the first eight questions from the catechism, and his younger brother (3.5yo) has even managed to pick up the vast majority of them!
3. Flexibility to augment the material with my own ideas. On occasion, I’ve taken the children away from the breakfast table (where we do our devotion) to have an interactive demonstration of a principle in the day’s reading.Today, for example, the reading focused on the days of creation: “The work of creation is God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of His power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” So partly inspired by a suggestion in the reading, I decided to have Matthew draw along as I read through Genesis 1:1-27, “documenting” what God created along the way. This was the fruit of it, with annotations by me after the fact (click to see full-size version):

I am so thankful for the last two months. God has provided a means for leading my family daily in God’s Word, and in the meantime has even strengthened my own faith and understanding of God’s Word. I am so encouraged when I ask my oldest, “What is God?” and he just rattles off with hardly any effort:

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.

I pray that God may continue to bless us and help me to teach my children God’s truth, and that He may cause it to bear fruit in due season in saving power!

We stayed home today and played board games. Our friend Rebecca came over and enjoyed playing (hmmm. . . it was more like supervising) a game or two with the kids. Later in the evening, Daddy and the kids’ uncle joined in to play several rounds of Let’s Go Fishing. It was quite amusing watching the adults and the children play. Regardless of age, all of them get excited over playing a game together even if the game is geared towards four and five year olds.

Here are the kids playing Let’s Go Fishing. I don’t know exactly why Andrew is in an American Indian outfit, except his big brother decided to put this costume on him.

Rebecca and the kids playing a game of Chutes and Ladders:

Daddy, Uncle, and the children playing a game:

Recently I realized that I haven’t been enforcing what I tell the children. By this I mean that when I give them a command not to touch something, I should enforce this rule. Should they disobey, I need to follow up with a disciplinary action. What I failed to do from time to time, especially during a very busy season, is not follow up. By not following up, I’m essentially telling the children that I don’t mean what I say. My lack of action conveys to them that what I tell them is not serious. When I back up what I say, the children know what to expect. Should the children decide to take one course of action over the other, they know exactly what the consequence entails.

I let the children play in the porch area the other day and one of the stipulations was that they don’t go downstairs and just stay in the porch area to play. Should any of the children disobey, all of them would need to come inside. I made sure this stipulation was well understood. Several minutes into the play, three of the children had disobeyed and went down the stairs. I followed up with my command and told them they all had to come in. Even though they were very disappointed that their playtime had ended, they complied and came inside without fussing. I reminded the children that I meant what I said and they got exactly what they deserved. The reason they didn’t whine nor complain was because they knew what to expect.

“Say what you mean and do what you say” is a good reminder for me because this makes the home environment more peaceful.

We went to the San Francisco Exploratorium today on their free admission day (Every first Wednesday of the month is free).  The Exploratorium had hundreds of exhibits and it was great seeing my children being so absorbed in various exhibits.  I love building and treasuring these memories with them, even if I’m living vicariously through their childhood.  Below are pictures from today’s activity.

Daddy explaining how to make a sailboat go in relation to the direction of the wind:

Experimenting with the pulley system:

Mommy explaining the magnet and the iron exhibit:

Matthew and Emmaline trying to pull the metal rings from the two big magnets:

The children sitting in a big chair that is wide enough for all four:

Experimenting with bubbles:

Mommy is drinking water from where????

All clonked out on the way home:

We took a break today.  Grandparents took the boys out to dinner, we went out with the girls.

Tomorrow, however, will be fun-filled!  Stay tuned…