Tot School: Christmas!

I'm linking up with 1+1+1=1 today to share some of the fun Christmas activities Isaac and I did over the past few weeks!

My friend Holly shared this homemade Playdoh recipe with me.  I made red (cinnamon), green, (peppermint), and white (vanilla).  It was so cute seeing how Isaac would open the Ziplock bags where I stored the Playdoh and take a big sniff to smell the different scents.  (Warning: if you make this, you will find glitter all over your kitchen for days!)  :)

2 cups plain flour
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup salt
2 cups water
1 Tbsp oil
glitter (the more, the better!)
food coloring (I found that Wilton's coloring gel worked better than liquid food coloring)
1/2 tsp. (or more) scented oil or flavored extract 

•  Mix wet and dry ingredients separately and then mix together in medium saucepan.  

•  Cook slowly on medium-high and stir until the playdoh thickens. 

•  Dump onto wax paper and (carefully) knead until cool. Store in airtight container

These little friends all had fun playing with the peppermint Playdoh, too.  :)

Isaac also made this hand print Christmas tree.  I think any type of craft involving hand prints is so adorable.  I found the idea here, and, since I was already in such a glitter-using mood from the Playdoh, I let Isaac cover his tree in glitter after painting.  I think it's hilarious how both the paintbrush and glitter are blurred in these pictures...it shows how Isaac does everything with gusto!  :)

We also made these hand print ornaments for the grandparents. 

Lastly, what would a Tot School post be without our favorite books?  I got most of these ideas from 1+1+1=1's website here, but also had several from teaching.  Out of all of them, Isaac's favorites are Frosty the Snowman, Baby's Christmas, and The Night Before Christmas.  I think he enjoys the last two so much because of the illustrations.  And, as for Frosty the Snowman, he loves to sing along as best he can and knows a lot of the words~too fun!  

 

Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas!  We love you all!

There's Still My Joy

A sweet friend of mine shared this post from Molly Piper's blog this morning. In her post, Molly writes about grief & joy during the holidays and introduced me to the song "There's Still My Joy" by the Indigo Girls. It really is a must-listen, especially if 2011 has held unexpected pain for you or someone you love. It was exactly what I needed to hear today...and echoes the cry of my heart.

I took my tree down to the shore
The garland, and the silver star
To find my peace, and grieve no more
To heal this place inside my heart

On every branch I laid some bread
And hungry birds filled up the sky
They rang like bells around my head
They sang my spirit back to life

One tiny child can change the world
One shining light can show the way
Through all my tears, for what I’ve lost
There’s still my joy
There’s still my joy
For Christmas day

The snow comes down on empty sand
There’s tinsel moonlight on the waves
My soul was lost, but here I am
So this must be amazing grace

One tiny child can change the world
One shining light can show the way
Beyond these tears for what I’ve lost
There’s still my joy
There’s still my joy
For Christmas day
There’s still my joy for Christmas day

Some days are now beginning to feel "normal"--not that I don't still daily think of the two babies that we'd hoped to adopt, but the pain isn't always as intense as it was earlier this year. Other days, it still feels as raw as it did in April and May. Walking into Breakfast with Santa and seeing--what seemed like--babies everywhere was very, very hard. Having 3 stocking on our mantle, instead of 5, makes me wish for this Christmas as I'd dreamed it would be. And, looking at the closed door across from Isaac's room still hurts deeply.

God is showing me daily--sometimes hourly--that joy and pain can coexist. He is Emmanuel--"God with us"--and He is with me in both my joy and my pain. Slowly, He is "singing my spirit back to life."

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

See this little guy's smile?!?  I love it! 

To say that he is excited about anything and everything Christmas is an understatement! 

This is a (small) sampling of what I hear each day:

"Mommy, Christmas tree!  Mommy, more Christmas tree!  Mommy, snowman!  Mommy, big snowman!" :)

My mom taught Isaac how to build "trains" out of kitchen chairs.  A few weeks ago when I was at work, she texted me a picture of all her kitchen chairs lined up.  My old dolls, bears, and stuffed animals, and Isaac were all sitting on the chairs.  :) She taught him to give each "passenger" a ticket (aka--Post It notes).  :) 

One morning last week, I came out of my room to find that Isaac had pushed our kitchen chairs into a train, too.  It was adorable.  Santa, reindeer, a Christmas moose, and our Elf were the passengers.  Isaac even found his mitten clips, which he calls "seat belts" and had placed the "seat belts" on top of some of the passengers.  :)  My favorite part is when he stands up on the back chair, like in the picture above, and yells, "Hi people!  Hi people!"  This is one happy Christmas train!  :)

On  Sunday, Isaac and I baked sugar cookies.  I didn't have an apron for him, so I put this bib on him and then tied a white dish cloth around his waist.  As soon as I did, he started pointing at himself and saying "An angel, Mommy!  An angel, Mommy!" 

The next day, Isaac decorated them with his little friend, Ellie. 

Let's just say he spent just as much time eating as he did decorating!  :) 

I was so excited about doing Elf on the Shelf with Isaac this December, too.  Between how much I was at school this month combined with December's general busyness, I just haven't done it as much as I'd planned.  But, Isaac does get very excited on the mornings I do hide the Elf.  It's so fun to see him look and try to find him.  ;)  (Here's the Elf "hiding" on the train.)

A new tradition for our family this year is our Advent Calendar, which we've tried to after supper each night.  My sister and I grew up doing an Advent Calendar each December, and it's sweet for me to now do one with Isaac.  Each day's pocket has a short sentence from the Christmas story in it and also a character or animal that Isaac puts up in the stable.   I love hearing Isaac say the names of all the Christmas characters, but my favorite is how he says Joseph ("Jo-shesh"). 

Speaking of the Christmas characters, the other day Isaac put all his Fisher Price Nativity characters and animals in a line and told them to say "cheese!"  (Maybe I take his picture a bit too much?!?)

One more picture of this sweet boy...he truly does give David and me so much joy!

Visit to Santa!

On Saturday, we went to Breakfast with Santa at Central High School.  We've taken Isaac to this event for the past 2 years, and it's always been a hit!  It is so much cheaper than other Santa Breakfasts, plus there are a lot of fun activities to do! 

I was wondering if Isaac would sit in Santa's lap.  He easily goes to other people..but when it came to Santa, he was OUT!  Isaac walked up to him, but as soon Santa reached out to pick him up, he started crying.  That's why this year's Santa picture looks like this:

 How can it be that this is Isaac's third trip to Santa?  I really love each moment with this little boy, but time is just going by too quickly....

Here are a few more pictures from Breakfast with Santa



Decorating a gingerbread man



Doing a racing game...mostly he just tried to make

this scooter go as fast as possible

We have had so much fun with Isaac these past few weeks with everything Christmas.  A few of my favorite things that Isaac does right now...

• calls any and all Christmas lights "Christmas trees"
• sings "Jingle Bells" over and over (it sounds more like "Jing-go bells, Jing-go bells)  :)
• loves snowmen and also calls penguins "snowmen"
• calls the Christmas trees in our house "Isaac's big Christmas tree" and "Isaac's little Christmas tree"
• when we leave or come home, he sees our Christmas tree in the window and says "Hi Christmas Tree/Bye Christmas Tree!" 

Here's one more picture that I haven't posted yet...on Friday night, Dave & I went to our Community Group's Tacky Christmas party! 

Hope you all are enjoying the fun and joy of this Christmas season, too!

Thanksgiving Holiday 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!  We spent a great Thanksgiving Day at my parent's house!  My sister flew in on Wednesday night, and it was so fun to see her.  Isaac was so happy to see "EmEm" and wanted her to play trucks, trains, and airplanes with him right away.  :)  My mom made an incredible Thanksgiving dinner.  Here she is as the master hostess carving our turkey (or, as Isaac says, "dobble dobble tur-tee").  

The Macy's Parade is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving, so we had a lot of fun watching it on Thursday morning.  While Dave & I were busy baking pies for Thanksgiving dinner, Isaac kept himself busy.   At one point, we looked up & saw him watching the parade like this!  (Never mind my ironing board!)  ;) 

After a great Thanksgiving dinner, everyone hung around and either napped (us) or played games (mostly everyone else).  :)  Later that evening we all ate leftovers and watched old family movies.  After just a few scenes, my stomach hurt from laughing so, so hard.  Isaac was in awe of the home videos and stood in front of the TV like this:



On Friday morning, my sweet husband willingly offered (without coercion or even suggestion on my part) to put up the Christmas tree.  :)  Isaac thought it was a blast and wanted to help the entire time.  He helped Dave drag the boxes out of the attic and down the stairs, pull the tree branches out of the box, and set them up.  The best part was when we got out all the ornaments.  For the past 3 Christmases, we've given Isaac a special ornament.  I was surprised when he remembered his Fisher-Price airplane ornament from last year.  This year, we gave him a "dodo" ornament.  :) 

My friend Meghan gave me a sweet reminder that it's okay to have an "imperfect" tree when you have a little one.  Isaac had so much fun hanging the ornaments on the tree that morning.  For nearly an hour, Isaac hung ornament after ornament and named every one, at least as best as he could.   Granted, most of the ornaments he hung are all in one section of the tree.  :)  But, it was a sweet time together, and Meghan's right--someday I'll miss his little hands helping me decorate...so for now, I'm enjoying my tree with clumped ornaments.  :) 

On Saturday morning, we headed out to Decatur for a morning of four-wheeling.  My cousin Nate bought one this year, and then he decided Isaac needed one too.  Most recently, my dad's gotten in on the fun.  :)  I had no idea it was going to be SO cold & windy, so after one lap around, I spent most of my time in front of the heater in our car.  But, Isaac was a trooper!  I love how he's standing up on his 4-wheeler in this picture. 



See the huge star hanging from the crane in this picture?

If you're driving on 287 in Decatur this Christmas season, you can see it lit up at night from nearly a mile away! 

 Our last big family event for Thanksgiving weekend was celebrating my dad's and Nate's birthdays!

Though it isn't easy, God is showing me that it is possible to have joy even while my heart is hurting. 

A few days before Thanksgiving, I was overcome again with sadness for the babies we lost earlier this year.  But, through my tears, God was so sweet to remind me of all the things I do have to be thankful for...and,  even in the midst of my sadness, I don't want to miss those sweet blessings.  

Whether your heart is heavy or happy this Thanksgiving holiday, we hope you too had a sweet time of remembering the blessings in your life.  Love, the Rinns

Tot School: Thanksgiving

This week I'm linking up with 1+1+1=1 to share some of the Thanksgiving activities Isaac and I did recently.

  We traced Isaac's hands to make "turkeys." Then, he glued tissue paper onto his "fingers" for the feathers.  Later we glued googley eyes on, too.   

(Apparently, tracing his hands for projects has made such an impression that he even wanted his hand traced inside my cousin's birthday card that he was decorating.)  :) 

Yesterday afternoon Isaac colored 4 turkeys that I found in this Preschool Pack.  There were several other turkeys to make other colors, but for now we're working on red, blue, green, & yellow.  :)

I've noticed that Isaac uses both hands to eat with a spoon or fork, but I didn't realize he uses both hands to color until I saw these pictures.

Once he colored them all, we glued them onto construction paper and practiced counting.

Dave got in on the action of "Tot School" tonight after supper!

On one end of the bridge, I hung a rope and attached the turkeys with clothespins.  Dave and Isaac were at the other end of the bridge.  Dave told Isaac which color turkey to go grab--and Isaac was off! 

He thought this was so fun!

We've found that it helps Isaac to associate each color with something he recognizes...

yellow like a bus

blue like the sky

red like a stop sign

green like GO!  :)

I had a much harder time finding Thanksgiving books at our library. The two that Isaac liked the most were both about Biscuit.  (Have I mentioned how much he likes dogs right now?) 

We also sang "5 Fat Turkeys," "Over the River and Through the Woods" and "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come."  (Yes, I was a music teacher.)  :)

What's next?  Christmas!  There are so, so many fun ideas!  I can't wait!