This week the kids each dyed a dozen hard boiled eggs. We used traditional dye and we bought an EggMazing that comes with non-toxic markers. The EggMazing basically spins your egg around while you press markers onto the egg, creating various designs. The kids had so much fun with it and we will definitely use it again.
I am so excited to introduce you to The Giving Manger from WorthyKids! This just might be our new family advent tradition.
What's included in our box set? Our set includes the wooden manger, bundle of straw, baby Jesus, and The Giving Manger picture book written by Allison Hottinger and illustrated by Emily King. The set is built to last so you can reuse it year after year as you keep the tradition going.
Inside our box set
Another look
The purpose of The Giving Manger is to help families intentionally shift the focus of Christmas back to giving and ultimately the true meaning of Christmas. Every time a kind deed or act of service is performed a piece of straw is placed into your manger. Your family works together during the holiday season to give gifts of service and find extra purpose and joy as your celebrate. On Christmas Day, Baby Jesus is placed in the manger full of service and love!
The younger boys with our book.
Inside our book
How does it work? The picture book is a heartwarming story that presents the concept of The Giving Manger. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful. In this book a father presents a small, wooden manger to his children, Anne and Ben, on the 1st of December. He explains to his children that they will be offering gifts to Jesus by serving and helping others. Every time they do something kind for anyone (family, neighbors, strangers), they put a piece of straw in the manger. They learn that bringing joy to those around them is not only joyful in itself but it changes them. On Christmas Day with a manger filled with straw (acts of love), they place baby Jesus in the manger. This set works exactly as the story demonstrates. Encourage your family to serve others during this Holiday season and watch your wooden manger fill with acts of love.
Service Ideas
leave a kind note for someone
make dessert for a neighbor
compliment someone
clean up without being asked
donate outgrown toys
wash someone's car
babysit for free
give someone flowers
give someone a hug
hold the door for strangers
Above are just a few service ideas to get you started but the possibilities are truly endless. I'm enjoying reading our book to the kids. I cannot wait to see all the ideas the kids come up with in December to serve others, children can be so creative and I love their generous hearts.
Ready for a giveaway? I am blessed with the opportunity to host a giveaway for you! You can enter below for a chance to win The Giving Manger for yourself or you could give it as a gift. This is definitely a tradition you won't want to miss 😉. Good luck!
Want to know more? Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read more reviews of The Giving Manger from WorthyKids.
I took a lot of time of social media to enjoy this holiday season with my family! We had a fabulous Christmas and I'm so thankful for the time we had and have together. There are several family traditions that we have that we were able to do once again this year. On Christmas Eve, the kids got a new set of pajamas. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them wearing their new pj's. We went to look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve and their were so many to see!
This pink house was amazing.
We baked a cake for Jesus' birthday. F and G were in charge of decorating it this year and they did a great job.
The boys kept it simple and there had to be sprinkles!
If you know us then you know we use real socks for stockings. It has to be a sock that you have worn sometime during the year.
Our family's socks on Christmas Eve
And on Christmas! It's amazing what a sock can hold 😉
While many things have looked different this year, it was nice to be
able to continue on with so many of our Christmas traditions as usual. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas!
Some of our ice cream toppings included marshmallows, chocolate chunks, mini M&Ms, cherries, strawberries and blueberries.
Today is National Ice Cream Day!! We have a family tradition of having ice cream for dinner with tons of toppings and flavors! The kids look forward to this day every year.
We also had whipped cream, and chocolate and Reese's shell.
Cone choices included bowls, chocolate dipped and multi-colors.
G was a little confused but loved his creation.
F with his choices.
E with her choices.
D and her ice cream, look at those toppings!
C with his cone bowl full of ice cream.
B with her creation.
And A with hers!
I hope you had a great weekend. And there is still time to have ice cream if you didn't know or forgot 😉.
We are having a great Easter. The kids were up early to see what goodies they could find. We made Resurrection Rolls for breakfast (a Cummins tradition). And we attended our new church for the first time on an Easter holiday.
Our Resurrection Rolls this year
The Empty Tomb!
Getting ready to leave for church
G decided to start flossing (he is a ham!).
B with G
David with E, F and G
The younger kids brought home these Easter Story Snack Mixes.
Easter Story Snack Mix Card
I haven't seen this before but it is so fun. The pretzel sticks represent the cross, craisins represent Jesus' blood, round cracker represents the stone that was rolled away, goldfish remind us to be fishers of men, the white jellybean reminds us that our sins are washed away, and the M&Ms are a sweet treat. I love that the card includes scripture references! What a cute idea.
Easter snack
Hope you are having a great Easter too. He is Risen :).
Yesterday, we finally had E's bike party. Another family tradition of ours. To get a bike party you have to be able to start your bike, stop your bike, and ride your bike without training wheels and without assistance. The weather was great and we went to a local park to ride bikes, eat cake and celebrate E's milestone. Love this girl!
I have a fun product to tell you about, the Family Honor Plate with Table Thyme Discussion Cards. The Family Honor Plate starts as a DIY ceramics-painting project that you get to create and bake at home. After completing your plate it turns into a fun family tradition and parenting tool used to raise your kids in the fruits of the Holy Spirit as written in Galatians 5:22. The fun questions for the Table Thyme Discussion Cards take conversations to a deeper level and help teach everyone in the family how to articulate and share in special memories together. This is a fun way for children to learn speech skills that will come in handy throughout their lives.
Here is our blank Family Honor Plate right out of the box.
Also included in this set are 3 paint brushes of varies sizes, painter's palette, 8 paint pots (black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and white), a plate stand, and 7 discussion starters.
The first thing we did was apply tape to mark off areas that we wanted to remain white.
After marking off our sections we placed star stickers on the remaining sections that we were going to paint, we wanted to create white stars within these sections.
Then we began to paint each section as a family.
A went first and chose to make her section blue.
D went next creating a purple section.
E followed her by making a red section.
A closer view...
F followed her with green.
C made an orange section.
B created a yellow section.
Another view
A mixed together red and white to create pink and added a pink section. And D followed her with another purple section.
We allowed our sections to dry.
Then we removed the red tape.
One last piece of tape...
Our plate after removing all the tape.
Then we removed all the star stickers. We used a toothpick to help us remove them and clean up the edges - it worked perfectly.
Our plate after removing all the star stickers.
We decided to fill in the white section with fun designs in black paint.
Our plate drying.
Finally we baked our plate as instructed.
The Cummins Family Honor Plate
The kids and our new plate! I love how it turned out.
D right away noticed the fruits of the Spirit written on the front of the plate, she even began singing a fruits of the Spirit song that she knows. Now, David and I have a great tool to use to show the kids that we notice and appreciate when they show good character. We have even encouraged the kids to nominate each other when they see good character being displayed. I look forward to creating many memories with our Family Honor Plate.
Table Thyme Discussion Cards
Another fun product created by the same company is Table Thyme Discussion Cards. The Family Honor Plate includes 7 discussion starters or a sampler of the Table Thyme Discussion Cards. These cards are designed to help your family share about everyday and unique topics. Your family will learn how to communicate and articulate and share special memories with each other as well as how to voice their opinion. We enjoyed using our discussion starter cards tonight during dinner. I love that my kids are continuing to learn to listen to each other as well as share new things about themselves. All the questions are followed with a Why? to dig deeper into thoughts and experiences. This is easy for some of my children but much more challenging for others. I really like that this is a skill that we can continue to practice together as a family as my kids gain confidence in who they are and how to communicate with others.
You can purchase your own Family Honor Plate and Table Thyme Discussion Cards or give one as a gift at their on-line store. When you purchase 3 or more you will receive a discount! Be sure to check out the video below which walks you through the Family Honor Plate.
Disclosure: Thanks so much to FlyBy and Family Honor Plate for selecting me for this campaign. As part of this campaign my family received our own Family Honor Plate and Table Thyme Discussion Cards to facilitate this review. All opinions are 100% my own.
