Monarch Post

Sunday magic stones

Last month in our church's Sunday School the topic was love... how could it not be for February? (Yes, I know it's not February anymore... I'm still catching up here, but this was too sweet not to share.)

I planned a lesson using the story of the stone soup. If you're not familiar with the story it's about two hungry travellers who come to a village and have nothing to eat- and no one in the village will give them anything to eat. One traveller finds a stone and declares it a magical soup stone and throws it into a big pot of hot water... he says it will turn to soup, but also tells the villagers it would taste better with a carrot, then a potato and on and on... finally convincing the villagers to share the little they had to make soup for everyone. It's a great story of sharing, caring, and the transformative power of working together to create community. I ordered this version of it from Amazon.  The illustrations are amazing and the story reads very well. When I read the story I stressed that love is a verb also and not just a feeling, and that we can show love by sharing- even when it's only a little we have to share, it can lead others to also share and care more too, and that's one way that  love is tangibly multiplied.

I made a big pot of stock for the stone soup the night before  with broth, tomatoes, and cabbage and potatoes. Then I steamed all sorts of other veggies and put them in snack size plastic baggies for the kids to add to the soup when we read the story at church. I washed a big clean stone too, and took it to add first to the soup. (You should have seen the look on some of their faces when I started reading the story and threw the stone in the crock pot broth- ha!)

And I don't have any photos of reading the story and the kids dumping their baggies of veggies into the stone soup... because it was all I could do to keep everyone's attention and make soup and teach the lesson... even with my two adult helpers, it was a little crazy. But the kids liked the story and making the soup- I think it captured their imaginations. My favorite moment was when it was one little boy's turn to dump in his baggie of yellow squash, he said very enthusiastically, "Oh great!  I LOVE squash!"

We finished making our soup, and left it to simmer in the crock pot to serve and eat with the rest of the potluck dinner after church and then headed to our art room to make magical stones of their own to take home.

Kids are the best. I love being around this group of kids and getting to see the world through their eyes... they are fresh from God and they teach me so much... like being in the moment, not following any "art rules" and being truly, truly pure in heart. Some of them just melt me with their insights when I "teach" them... and they will never know how much they really teach me...

The colors made me think of spring and Easter eggs...

It's fun to watch how different everyone's art turns out when they are all working with the  same materials... sometimes it makes me want to be an elementary school art teacher...ummm ya,  sometimes.

Blow dryers are great to speed things up when you are on a tight schedule!

After their paint was dry they added puffy stickers from Michael's.

And then they finished their magical stones with a quote from the gospel of John:

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER"

(and that after all is the really real magic :)

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Okay, I am off to the craft room for an all day and all night long creating day...

I hope I can be kid like and live in the no-rules creative moment today.

 

Have a happy Wednesday everyone!

 

XOK!

 

sweet sunday

Wow, it's Wednesday night already...

this Christmas week is moving TOO fast!

I meant to post on Monday.

I teach Sunday school once a month to the grade-school kids at church.

I create a lesson and a craft.

(I know, perfect for me... kids and a craft!)

Every month we study a different virtue or topic.

For December, the topic has been LIGHT.

I planned a lesson based on Matthew 5:16 and shining your light

and not hiding it under a bowl...

I used the candle and the bowl above to show the kids the story.

They were into it...

I discovered that fire is a great attention-getting teaching tool ;)

We read THE FIRST CHRISTMAS while we worked.

The Amazon reviews are right:

It's message is not preachy

and the illustrations are just stunningly beautiful...

The kids did such a good job making the craft.

I gathered up a bunch of old jars I'd saved

and they made "stained glass" candle holders

with Modge Podge, tissue paper, and another Bible verse.

They went in the living room when we got home...

(We still need to make a new baby Jesus

for the little nativity the kids made

years ago...

Winston stole him last year, and he is still MIA...

Bad dog, really bad dog).

But anyway,

before we went home, we participated in a cookie walk.

Two really long tables loaded with all sorts of cookies.

(I had never done this before).

Everyone brings their favorite cookies

and then you go home with a really great assortment of cookies.

There are cookie artists here... delish.

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I think this will have to be my post for today... 

I wanted to get to bed early tonight- haha.

But I'll post one more time before Christmas.

I think (?!)

 

Are you getting there...? I'm almost done.

I still need to grocery shop and buy a couple of things

and bake on Friday...

I'm trying really hard not to stress out and have my usual Christmas freak-out moment.

So far, so good.

But I still have three more days to go ;)

+++++++++++++++++

So tonight we went carolling with our church to a hospital pediatric wing...

that put everything I could stress over in sharp perspective for me.

I wish I could always keep my perspective,

about what's really important... and what's not... 

It's so easy to get caught up in the trivial stuff, isn't it?

XOK

 

 

Sun*day on a Friday

 
I'm backtracking for a post today... last weekend we threw a wedding shower for Ainsley and her girlfriends at our home. It was a craaazy busy week and I want to do a post on it, but the cool craft/wedding idea went home with the-bride-to-be without a photo; I'll have to retrive it and photograph it before another post.

But before the kids went back to school, I helped organize a fieldtrip with our church kids to Salt Lake City. We went on a hunt to find God in places other than our own church.

 
 

It was a gorgeous sun-dappled August day and Salt Lake city was wearing its finest dark aqua-blue sky for us.

 
The Cathedral of the Madeline is a stunning old grand dame with wonderful bones; she's painted so beautifully too. Feels like I've stepped back into time and Europe when I walk through her doors. It smells really old, spicey and just polished... with Lemon Pledge.

 
Loved the baptismal font.

 

 
 
Sunlight streaming through stained glass takes my breath away.

 

 
The kids were so attentive and well-behaved.

 

 
After the tour at the Cathedral of the Madeline, we went to a sister church, St. Paul's Episcopal in SLC. The kids were given snacks prepared by St. Paul's.  After the snacks we toured this lovely old church and the grounds too.

 

 
Each child was given a disposable camera with the instructions to take pictures of where you find God today. Lots of photos of flowers and other children were taken... the kids always get it.

 
 

 

 
Oh, those doors with all the kids charging out... such joy to watch.

 

 

 
After our tour at St. Paul's, we went to The Salt Lake Peace Gardens. Various ethnic communities in the Salt Lake valley have each planted their own gardens, all of the gardens then make up the entire Peace Gardens.

 
 

 

 
We had a sack lunch picnic at the Peace Gardens (we packed sack lunches the night before for all the kids). After lunch, the kids climbed trees (more fun apparently, than the swing sets) and played freeze tag to burn off energy... the parents watched and wondered how the kids had so much energy in ninety degree weather. I said "youth is wasted on the young". We all agreed.

We made one last stop at a funky place called Gilgal Gardens. Lots of stone and scripture creations there, but this on the side of a trash can made everyone laugh

After the Peace Gardens and Gilgal Gardens, we headed back to our church for music, communion bread-making, scrapbook-making, pizza, annnnd a sleepover.

We were gluttons for punishment :)

 

 
 

 
 
The cameras were rounded up and taken in for one hour development. Scrapbook supplies were spread out and the kids snipped, glued, and colored away.

 
 

The kids were fascinated with the film negatives-- they had never seen photo negatives and wanted to know what they were for?! (Ya, really).

They asked if the negatives could go on their srapbook pages.

I told them they could do whatever they wanted to-- it's art!

And the adults felt old.

 
 

 
We finished the day with a short, lovely outdoor communion service. 

The kids each held a small lit (!) candle; there was only one slightly singed head of hair-- whew.

In the morning we were served breakfast by members of the parish; the kids rolled up their sleeping bags and got their rides home.

And the adults tried to unroll various muscles after spending the night on the floor...

I went home and slept on the couch for four hours.

 

It really was a beautiful day... all in all.