Fourth of July Crafts and Our Second Family Olympics 2015 July 17, 2015

Hello dear ones, I hope you are well. Two years ago we had our first Family Olympics. You can find the link here: https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/my-family-rocks-sunday-2013-family-olympics/

This year we spent Independence Day having our second Family Olympics. I also have July 4th crafts to share with you. Here we go :).

We made 4th of July T-shirts.

 

Michael and Chris tie dyed a red, white, and blue shirt.

 

I used Leeland’s hand print and craft sticks to make this  U.S. flag onesie.

Michael did a lapbook on the U.S. flag. Link here:

 

http://www.currclick.com/product/72074/United-States-Flag–Speedy-Lapbook

Then Michael made me a red, white, and blue necklace out of beads.

We also did a state lapbook. Link here: http://www.currclick.com/product/76669/United-States-Alabama–Speedy-Lapbook

Then my mom came over for…

 

Family Olympics

 

I really love this event and I can’t wait until the next one. We should really have winter Olympics as well. We began by making our personal flags to represent us in the games.

We used index cards to keep score. Here are the events:

• Archery

Michael

My Step Dad Kim

Mom

Chris

Me

Leeland

• Foam Sword fighting

Me and Mom~ This was fun, but a word to the wise…make sure you zip up the trampoline if you use it. When Michael and I were sword fighting he actually fell through the unzipped part of the trampoline screen. Thankfully he didn’t hit his head too hard. It was scary though.

• Airplane Toss

• Egg Race

• Sac Race

Then just for fun:

• Parachute games

• Michael’s 4th grade piano recital. He played The Star Spangled Banner and Amazing Grace.

 

All of us won at least one medal, but Kim won the trophy.

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

More ideas:

 

Father’s Day Crafts & Our Trip to Jesup 2015

Hello dear ones! This past Father’s Day we visited our hometown and everyone got to meet the new baby. Leeland and Michael also made homemade crafts for Chris. It was a special Father’s Day. Here’s what we did:

I printed out a Father’s Day poem from here:

Then I put the boys’ foot prints on it. I also printed out a Darth Vader poster.

I helped the boys make Father’s Day books.

I stapled Daddy surveys to the back of the books. Here’s the link:

So we visited our hometown and saw our families. We saw Chris’ dad…

and we visited where my Dad is buried.

We visited my Granny.

My family didn’t want to let Leeland go.

Granny

My Uncle

My Aunt

My other grandparents

I loved playing with this Chess set as a kid.

Chris’ mom playing with Leeland

Chris’ older brother and Michael trying out his 3D plastic making pen.

Well, God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Lent Crafts Part Three 2015 March 28, 2015

In this post: Lent/Easter crafts and a lapbook.

Hello dear ones! Well, I’m going to keep this post short. We haven’t done a whole lot lately because we’re hoping the baby comes soon. We did manage a couple of crafts and we planted our garden.

I’m not going to repost all the craft pictures. Simply, Michael made palm branches out of his hand prints. Then he read R.C. Sproul’s “The Donkey Who Carried a King”. We made an Easter Lily that’s leaf says “He is risen!”. And for several weeks we’ve been slowly working on an indepth Easter lapbook.

Lapbook link here: http://www.currclick.com/product/7908/Easter-Lapbook

Lily printable here: http://www.freefuneaster.com/easter-crafts/paper-lily-craft/

We also did these two printables:

http://www.biblewise.com/kids/fun/crown-of-thorns.php

http://www.sundayschoolkids.com/activities-lent-easter/1-road-to-easter-activity-bible-lookup.htm

Chris prepped the garden area and me and Michael helped plant. Our gardens usually don’t produce much and especially not enough to feed us. Still, it’s nice to know we are planting something. It’s good for kids to know where food comes from (besides the grocery store!). Planting time always excites me.

Michael planted a few things by Terabithia (his clubhouse).

Planting in the garden…

Well, I hope you have a lovely Holy week and Easter.

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Easter ideas on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/doverette/easter-crafts/

Lent crafts from this year on this blog:

Ash Wednesday 2015

I AM craft, The Lord’s Prayer chapel, and band-aid prayers cross~

Lent Crafts Part One 2015

Egg study & Resurrection egg diorama~

Lent Crafts part 2: Egg Study

St. Patty’s Day 2015

In this post: St. Patty’s food, scavenger hunt, decor, lapbook, and craft. 

Hello dear ones! Here’s how we celebrated Saint Patrick’s day this year.

• As you can see from above, we brought out our usual St. Patty’s decor. I let Michael set things up because I felt like I was going into labor that day (false alarm). You can see our family leprechaun and trap. We had Lucky Charms ready for breakfast, a book about St. Patty’s story, and this year an indepth St. Patrick’s Day lapbook.

You can find the lapbook here:http://www.currclick.com/product/1055/Saint-Patricks-Day-Lapbook

It has Catholic principles in it. We are not Catholic but we had an interesting conversation about praying to saints etc and what a Biblical saint is compared to the process of becoming a Catholic saint. As protestants, we don’t believe in praying to saints or talking to them at all. Also, we believe all Christians are saints and in the process of being sanctified. Anywho, the lapbook had great info about Ireland and we even learned some Gaelic. We talked about the symbols of St. Patty’s and how it’s celebrated in different places.

Even the dogs got festive! Here’s Annabelle :).

 

• Michael made this rainbow chain with a pot of gold at the end.

 

• That morning, Michael had a St. Patty’s placemat with activities on it. I got this free printable from: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/holidays/st-patricks-day/top-of-the-morning-to-you-printable-placemats/

 

• Chris and Michael did this St. Patty’s Scavenger hunt that I got from The Dating Divas. I set up clues around the house. Each clue bag had an activity that had to be completed before they could move on to the next clue. They were simple but fun. Examples: Don’t Eat Pete (leprechaun version with Skittles), figure out your leprechaun name, and find all the gold pieces.

Scavenger hunt printables here: http://www.thedatingdivas.com/holidays/st-patricks-day/st-pattys-scavenger-hunt/

 

• Lastly, we ate our traditional Irish foods: Irish stew (beef instead of lamb) and Irish Soda Bread. Chris made the stew while Michael and I baked the bread. This has to be my favorite bread.

Recipes here: http://pocketchangegourmet.com/irish-soda-bread-recipe/

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/irish-lamb-stew/detail.aspx

And I leave you with my 36 weeks pics (I’m actually about 38 weeks prego now. We’re praying that the baby comes soon though because he’s already bigger than Michael was at birth).

God bless & remember the High King Lives! ~Amber Dover

St. Patty’s on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/doverette/st-patrick-s-day/

St. Patty’s past on my blog:

Trinity lesson/craft & big party with tons of Irish recipes~

Crafty Monday: St. Patrick’s Day Celebration with the Homeschool Group

String maze, Shamrock punch, & peg dolls~

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Leprechaun trap & t-shirt art~

Crafty Monday: Prepping for St. Patty’s & Easter & Brazil Country Study

St. Patty’s decor~

St. Patty’s Day 2014

Leprechaun hunt~

My Family Rocks! Sunday:Dates with our Son, Hunting for Leprechauns, & Pet Parade

Lent Crafts part 2: Egg Study March 21, 2015

In this post: Egg lapbook, crafts, & treat. A unique resurrection diorama. Plus Lent decor and books.

Hello dear ones! I hope you are well. We’re enjoying the spring weather and waiting for our littlest to be born. A couple weeks ago, Michael and I did an egg study. It was a great way to gear up for Easter. Here’s how we did it.

• Egg lapbook~ I used this egg study to make a lapbook: http://www.currclick.com/product/35574/Eggs–Two-Day-Study-Series

 

• We made egg treats. Our treat is a lil different from what I saw on Pinterest. You take oval crackers and put peanut butter in them. Then you dip them in white chocolate. I didn’t feel like dealing with the mess of chocolate, so we just used frosting with sprinkles. We couldn’t cover the whole cracker so they don’t exactly look like eggs. Still, the treats were yummy :). Nana helped too.

 

• We made a stained glass egg and cross craft. I drew a pattern on black construction paper. Michael cut it out and stuck it to contact paper. Then Michael tore bits of colorful tissue paper and filled in the gaps.

 

• Lastly, Michael and I put together this resurrection egg diorama. Michael mainly colored the Jesus and cut him out. We had two coloring pages. We shrunk the one for the diorama. Then Michael colored the big page for his dad. I finished the diorama. My inspiration came from a beautiful painting I saw on Pinterest. Links below & details on how we did this.

Coloring page link here: http://biblefunfactory.com/146/easter-coloring-sheet/

Painting inspiration here: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/i-am-the-resurrection-john-lautermilch.html

I found these plastic egg containers at the Dollar Tree. I used one half to make the diorama. I glued gems to the bottom to keep the egg upright. I modge podged colorful tissue paper for the sky. I used sparkly white tissue paper for the clouds. I wanted a 3d effect so I bunched it up.

 

I took the Jesus that Michael colored and glued him to a craft stick. I hot glued the stick to the gems and I added purple tissue paper for his robe.

I wanted to make Jesus look like he was in the clouds, so I used more of the sparkly white tissue paper to cover the craft stick. Chris actually helped some too. He punched out tissue paper butterflies. I glued them all around Jesus, since butterflies make me think of new life.

Lastly, I punched out white paper flowers and cut yellow stems. I rolled them up to make lilies and glued them to the rocks along with felt leaves. Then I punched out the word “resurrection” using my hole punch. I glued it to a white tissue paper banner and glued that to the top of the egg. This has to be my favorite Easter craft we’ve ever made. I like that it’s pretty original too. I had inspiration but the creation is our own.

The diorama looks brilliant when the sun shines.

Other Lent happenings:

I love the season of Lent and counting down to Easter. For our family it is a time of remembering the resurrection and taking a good look at forgiveness and grace. We have fun with decorations, special books, and crafts.

Here are the Easter books we are reading this year. I’m particulary enjoying the author R.C. Sproul. This is our first year reading his books.

We have a fun time decorating. Many of these crafts you may remember from Easters past.

The Lord’s Supper & Jesus praying in the garden

Resurrection set and new life tree (eggs and butterflies)
We actually lost the Jesus that goes to the set, but now that we have the diorama it makes it complete.

We decorate with the usual springy things: eggs, bunnies, chicks, lambs, flowers, and butterflies…whatever makes us think of new life and the resurrection. In the pic below you can see the stained glass chapel we made awhile back.

Our Easter village has grown.

Here’s the stuffed Velveteen rabbit that I made last year for our study on chocolate bunnies. Some decor is just for fun though a majority of it revolves around the resurrection of Jesus.

Many of the crafts hanging up on our armoire are from years past. We’ve got the Peep bunny chain, a Holy week chart, and a tomb craft.

We bring out old lapbooks…

We have our Lenten devotions at supper time. You can see some pom pom bunnies and resurrection eggs that we made. Usually we hang the eggs on a tree but I didn’t find one this year. Instead I have them in a bunny dish that I won at a party.

Well, I hope you have a blessed Lent and Easter! God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Easters and Lent past:

Easter Sunday

Easter Week & Jesus, Our Passover Lamb Easter Drama

The Importance of Easter

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/crafty-monday-passover-the-lords-supper-and-the-resurrection/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/crafty-monday-charlottes-web-party-gearing-up-for-easter/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/my-family-rocks-sunday-chinese-date-night-easter-passover-celebrations/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/a-late-crafty-monday-resurrection-garden-coffee-filter-easter-eggs-mini-pies/

More Easter fun 🙂

Extra crafts for you 🙂 (Easter)

Crafty Monday: Preparing for Easter & celebrating the Resurrection

The Craft Bug

Recent posts:

Ash Wednesday 2015

Lent Crafts Part One 2015

Dr. Seuss Day 2015 March 10, 2015

In this post: Dr. Seuss crafts, eats, and a lapbook.

Hello dear ones! Here’s how we celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday this year:

• We read all the Dr. Seuss books we own. Here’s Nana reading Green Eggs and Ham.

• A lapbook with Dr. Seuss’ biography, a Meet the Artist questionnaire, and a cartoon tutorial.

Links: http://readyteacher.com/learn-to-draw-dr-seuss-characters/

http://makingartfun.com/htm/f-maf-art-library/theodor-seuss-geisel-biography.htm

 

• “My Favorite Dr. Seuss Book” birthday cake writing assignment~  I was inspired by this blog:  http://meanmygang.blogspot.com/2012/02/dr-seuss-birthday-cake-craft.html   but I  found the cake printables elsewhere online. Michael colored three layers, put them together, and then added construction paper candles. I printed out the assignment with a nice font.

• Cat in the Hat hat~ I got the idea from this blog:

http://joyfullyweary.blogspot.com/2011/11/easy-seussian-hats.html?spref=pi

 

• Dr. Seuss decor~  I found the Dr. Seuss plates at Target last year. I found the quotes online. The truffela tree and Dr. Seuss sign are from our Dr. Seuss celebration 2 years ago: https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/my-family-rocks-sunday-dr-seuss-birthday/

 

• A movie~ Horton Hears a Who.

 

• Green scrambled eggs and ham with grits~ for supper.

God bless & remember the High King lives!~Amber Dover

PS: Here’s a regular pic from a school day. Michael drawing a city on his trampoline.

 

More Seuss inspiration:

Lent Crafts Part One 2015 March 9, 2015

In this post: Band-aid prayers cross, Jesus’ I am statements craft, and the Lord’s Prayer chapel craft.

Hello dear ones! I’m playing catch up again. We did these crafts a couple of weeks ago for the second week of Lent. Enjoy!

• Band-aid Prayers cross~ I saw this idea on Pinterest except they used a wooden cross with a ton of band-aids. Ours is a bit simpler. We just used cardboard, band-aids, and tissue paper. Each week Michael is supposed to write someone to pray for, on a band-aid.

• Jesus’ “I AM” statments craft~ I saw this lovely artwork with the words “I am” but it was about self esteem. I changed ours to Jesus’ statements about Himself. I figured it’d be great for Lent.

Link for inspiration:http://mewithmyheadintheclouds.blogspot.com/2014/08/a-few-things.html

 

Here’s how we did ours:
Michael painted seven different color wedges on his paper using water colors.

Michael pasted a circle in the middle of the wedges. Then he cut out 7 smaller wedges of different types of scrapbook paper and pasted it on top of the water color wedges. I printed out Jesus’ 7 “I AM” statements in different fonts and he cut and pasted them on top of the scrapbook wedges.

I liked it so much that I made something similar, in my prayer journal.

 

• The Lord’s Prayer chapel craft~  I was inspired by a pic on pinterest but when I went to look for the chapel template I couldn’t find it. So I drew out my own. I printed the Lord’s prayer in a nice font and Michael pasted it in the middle. Then he used torn tissue paper for the stained glass.

Well, God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Ash Wednesday 2015 March 1, 2015

In this post: Our Ash Wednesday craft, a sneaky squirrel, and an inside look at piano tuning.

Hello dear ones! Up above is the one craft we did for Ash Wednesday. We saved up used matches the weeks leading to Lent. Michael pasted the matches into the shape of a cross. Then he took a white crayon and wrote the verse Genesis 3:19. We also watched a video on the history of Ash Wednesday. The other picture is our chalkboard door. I’m really enjoying it.

Here’s a lesson on the meaning of Ash Wednesday:

Inspirational Wednesday: Ash Wednesday & Valentine’s Message

We have a very sneaky squirrel that dumps the bird seed out of our bird feeder. He also lives in Chris’ shed and messes up things. Michael says he’s fat enough to eat. Yep, that’s the inner redneck. He didn’t get it from me lol. Anywho, we like to watch the birds and the squirrel as we go through our homeschool day.

Apparently the cat does too…

Lastly, Michael had the neat opportunity to watch the piano tuner in action. My beloved piano of 17 years had never been tuned. Finally, we were able to call someone in. The nice man didn’t mind me taking a picture of the piano’s inner workings. He also let Michael sit and watch him tune.

Well, that’s all. God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Lent, Ash Wednesday, and Easter ideas

Mardi Gras 2015

In this post: Mardi Gras treats, crafts, parade fun, and a lapbook.

Hello dear ones! We celebrated Mardi Gras as a family for the second time. We’ve come up with our own traditions, like decorating a float for our family parade. Anywho, this is how we did Mardi Gras.

• We began with a Mardi Gras lapbook and several videos on Mardi Gras’ history. I’ll include a link at the end.

 

• Michael made a jester mask.

• Michael and I watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame because it has the Festival of Fools in it. It’s not the same holiday but the style is similar. I also like the lessons on sin and grace in the movie. Rio and The Princess and the Frog are also good for this time.

• We had a small feast for supper. We had ham which is a rare treat. We don’t give up anything during Lent, but it was a nod to the history of Fat Tuesday and how people ate all their meat before fasting during Lent. I found the centerpiece at the Dollar Tree.

 

• We made a King cake using cinnamon rolls. We put it in the oven while we had our parade.

Here’s Chris braiding his part.

 

Into the oven!

 

• Michael and I made a parade float out of Leeland’s wagon. We used tissue paper and masks. Then we filled it with beads, moon pies, and coins. Teddy played the king/jester and rode in the float.

 

• I turned up the jazz music and we had a parade. Michael and I took turns throwing things. We put on masks and beads.

 

• Lastly, we decorated and enjoyed our King cake! Mmmmm….we just used the icing that came with the cinnamon rolls and sprinkled it. I couldn’t find purple sprinkles so I used glaze.

You can find the lapbook, videos, and other ideas here:

Mardi Gras on Pinterest

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

Mardi Gras past

Mardi Gras & Dr. Seuss’ Birthday

Crafty Monday: God’s Love & Hearts Galore! Plus Mardi Gras Celebration…

Another good Disney film to watch for Mardi Gras is The Princess and the Frog. Here are some ideas to give you that New Orleans’ flavor:

Crafty Monday: Disney Countdown~Pinocchio & The Princess and the Frog

Presidents Day 2015

In this post: Presidents Day craft and fun.

Hello dear ones! I’m kind of behind on posts but I hope to catch up soon. This third trimester of pregnancy is kicking my butt. It won’t be long before I hold my second son, so I know it’s worth it. Here’s what we did for President’s Day.

•  Each day that week, Michael read about a new president.

 

• We took out our presidents place mat. Michael quizzed us daily on the presidents because of this!

 

• Michael made this Abe Lincoln mask using a paper plate and construction paper.

 

• Lastly, Michael filled out some neat president printables. You can find those here:

http://todaysfrugalmom.com/free-presidents-day-mini-unit-study-grades-k-6/

Designing a coin

If I Were President

Who would you add to Mt. Rushmore?

Quotes from George Washington and Abe Lincoln

Well, that’s all folks. God bless and remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover