Saturday, March 23, 2013

April Family Challenge

Spring = Hope 


Spring feeds my soul. Its rain cleans the stains and mud of the last year. Its wind carries away worry, doubt and fear. Its flowers deliver optimism, smiles,and love. Its bird's put a song on all of our lips. Its sunshine pulls my body to do cartwheels and toe touches. The blossoms on the trees and the green hint in the grass mean play and memories are on their way. Birth of chicks and bunnies reminds us all of the precious gift of life. Easter reminds us all that none of this is possible without Christ. All of these emotions and feelings can be explained to a child by watching a plant grow. By taking an insignificant little seed, putting it in plain dirty dirt and watching something beautiful, almost magical and full of life emerge.

Gardening With Kids

Challenge: Plant something new with your kids. Care for it, take to it, check up on it. Bring the magic of growth into your family.

Here are a few articles that I enjoyed that discuss good kid friendly plant and ideas:  

Green Thumbs In Training sheknows.com

how to plant seeds with kids nuturestore.com

How To Garden With Kids kidsactivitiesblog.com

Choosing What To Plant communityplaythings.com

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Guest Post : The Dance of Release

First of all, I need to tell you about this amazing woman who wrote this post. She is absolutely inspiring, as is her husband. They are the proud parents to four beautiful children, one is now an angel in heaven. Thru her blog I have come to love this family, laugh with them and cry with them. Reading thru each post, watching as they slowly lost their beautiful son Gavin, http://www.gavinowens.com/p/gavins-life-death.html      and watching their beautiful daughter Madison grow into a strong young woman. The most beautiful thing happened to this family after they lost Gavin, they felt led to adopt two beautiful children who were disabled, and these beautiful kids just shine now! http://www.gavinowens.com/p/our-adoption-story.html
Please join me in reading this blog post that Karen wrote not to long ago, it touched my heart, and I know that as parents, you will appreciate this post. I am blessed that Karen has given me permission to repost it here on LDS Parenting. Please visit her blog at www.gavinowens.com you will be blessed! Without further ado, here is the post, titled : The Dance of Release


{The Dance of Release}
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Parenting is a journey like no other. You can never fully plan out your parenting journey. It always makes me chuckle listening to new parents talk and stress over their birth plan and listen to their already firmed up views on parenting and discipline -- they really have no clue about what is about to totally rock their world and ways of thinking. Once we as parents figure our children out -- perfect our skills and our ability to meet all our children's needs, they change, their needs change and what once was a full proof plan completely blows up in our face.

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I have found the most challenging part of parenting is excepting the fact that my job as a mother is not only to hold tight but also to release. So very difficult. I try to think of it as this amazing beautiful dance, a dance between parent and child. The first thing you notice in a dance between two people is they way they hold each other -- the way the move together. They glide across the floor playing off even the smallest of their partner's movements. But here the thing, what makes a dance good is not only the way they hold each other but also the way they release. Just think about it.

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This week we sent our little girl to preschool. I never thought this day would come for Angela. I remember when we first brought her home I never really was able to picture what her future would be like, what her abilities and strengths would become. She was so deeply involved in self stimulating behavior that it was hard to even imagine her interacting with the world around her.

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So yesterday as I walked her into that preschool building my mommie heart wanted to hold her so very tight but my soul knew that we have come to this time in our beautiful dance -- a time to release. It is time to trust that just like I, her mother, loves her with the deepest of human love, that God loves my little girl even deeper and is waiting to help my baby twirl in her own amazing little dance until it is time to rejoin my arms once again.

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She is ready. She has been practicing her dance moves for two amazing years -- and trust me, this girl has some sweet moves. I'm so excited for her to shine, grow and experience all that life has to offer. Sure there are risks, but without risk there is no adventure and without adventure we can only taste just a small portion of the amazing life God has for us, for our children.

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It's time to dance.

It's time to release.

It's time to watch my baby girl twirl.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Celebrate Easter Giveaway !

celebrate easter
Here at LDS Parenting we are getting excited about Easter! My kids and I have been studying the life of Christ and at Discover the Scriptures they have an amazing resource!
Here is what it’s all about :
Discover the Joy of Easter has memory verses; Easter hymns; gift ideas for teachers, friends, and neighbors; Easter journal pages; and of course...the Easter story. Read how and why Christ celebrated the Passover in Jerusalem. Learn about the Passover symbols that point to the sacrifice of Jesus, and then put on your own Christian Passover for your family (recipes and directions included)! Read about Christ's atonement and death on the cross. Find out about his mission in the spirit world before his resurrection. Walk with Mary and the disciples to the tomb on Easter morning. Read about Easter among the Nephites.
Now that sounds awesome!!!! Discover the Scriptures is great about selling resources at a low cost, and they have been amazing enough to let us give away one copy of Discover the Joy of Easter!
So hop on over ( hehehe….. get it hop? Easter ? Bunny ? !!!) and enter here with Rafflecopter!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Courageous Parenting

larry lawrence

Larry Lawrence of the Seventy

     While browsing thru LDS.ORG looking for articles to inspire me with this particular stage in my parenting, I came across this beautiful article, and I just needed to share it. It hits on so many things I’ve been worrying about and praying about for my children, at this stage in their lives.

Courageous Parenting

 

I hope you enjoy it and it blesses you as much as it did me !

Happy Parenting! Love, JL~

Make a Spring Terrarium

terrarium

A fun and easy spring activity for your family to do is to make an terrarium!

Making a terrarium helps kids to learn about ecosystems, the water cycle, even food chains and animal habitats, depending on how complicated you make your terrarium. I am going to include directions for making a simple terrarium. It would be super fun to look into making a more “fancy” terrarium!

Gather your supplies :

* You can use a mason jar, an old aquarium, or basically any glass jar

* Stones ( I think it would be fun to use aquarium stones that are colorful!)

* Soil

* Plants ( grab some plants at Walmart or Lowes- cheap!!

* Moss ( look around the shady areas of your yard…. you might be surprised how much you can find!

* Figurines ( cheap dollar tree figurines are great! )

Directions :

* Begin by placing a nice layer of stones on the bottom.

* Fill the terrarium container halfway with soil , on top of the rocks.

* Add your plants!

* Layer with more soil and add your moss and the figurines!

Ta-da! You have a cute terrarium and can teach your children more about our beautiful world!