Matthew 5:14-16

Grace Goes Green: Day One

I'm in MOPS (Mothers Of Preschoolers). It's awesome! Once a month, moms come together for a devotion, a speaker, food, fun, and encouragement. I'm at the green table. My table-mates are great - I'm enjoying getting to know them. They encourage me to be a better wife, mom, and follower of Jesus. My mentor mom is amazing!  I think she is the living version of "What I wanna be when I grow up..." She doesn't know that, yet! I have much to learn from her, and I know that it was no accident that I'm at her table!! She is inspiring to all of us "Green Team Mamas!"

Last month, my group was talking about being busy and frazzled. Some days are so busy that the only time for Bible reading is while doing the dishes. I hatched an idea and made my table a flip-book devotional. I've decided to share that with you ... Little by little. :-) It sits on the windowsill right about my sink. Perfect for reading and reflecting while I wash, rinse, dry, and repeat.

Day 1: A New Creation!

I'm so grateful that I'm not the same old Sarah. Jesus has transformed me to be a new creation. A new person who reflects His love and glory! Amazing that the Creator of the universe cares about me enough to make me more like Him. 

 

I'm working on memorizing these 30 verses, and I'm already working on the second edition ...  :-)

What's your favorite verse? (If you can pick just one... I can't!!)

Guest Post at "Careless in the Care of God"

Hey everyone! 

Today, I'm super excited to link to "Careless in the Care of God."  I follow this blog and love to hear the story of encouragement and healing shared there.  Every Friday, there's a guest post on Matthew 6:26.  I'm thrilled to be the guest post today!!

Check out my guest post here.

Visit http://carelessinthecareofgod.com/ to keep up with future posts, as well!

Painting with Marshmallows

I wanted to give my little one a different painting experience this week. I took a few marshmallows (not mini-size) and plastic straws from our Take and Toss sippy cups. I stuck each marshmallow with a straw. Once the marshmallow stamps were done, I put a dab of glue on a paper plate, and we painted!

I demonstrated for my son, and he picked it up very quickly. This was a great painting experience!

He dotted and brushed and stamped. He tried a few colors and painted for about 20 minutes. When he was done with the marshmallows, he fingerprinted for a couple more minutes before telling me "Ah Done."

I will definitely repeat this craft. My little one enjoyed it, and it wasn't too messy. Preparation was about 5 minutes, and it's an out-of-the-box painting activity. The only drawback is that the marshmallows break down after about 10 minutes, so we had to replace the marshmallows halfway into painting. 

Do you have any painting projects that your little ones love?

Trip to the Zoo

We have a zoo within an hour's drive from us.  A few months ago, we signed up for the annual membership.  We've been a handful of times already, and it's been worth every penny of the investment. 

 

My little guy loves animals.  This started with Go Diego Go!  Now, we play with the dinosaurs at the library every trip, check out animal books, and look for age-appropriate animal toys.  He can say many animal names and duplicate about 20 animal sounds. 

 

The very first time we went to the zoo, he learned the flamingo sound.  They make this honk/grunt sound, which surprised me since they are such graceful-looking animals.  This trip to the zoo, however, we got a little too close to the flamingos.  In this picture, they're all sleeping and looking peaceful.  One minute after the picture was taken, one flamingo decided to get closer to the water and started honking and flapping his way to the water.  This, of course, frightened my little guy, and he started shrieking!  After some comfort from Mama, he was better and we moved to another exhibit!

 

We also really like the giraffes and elephants at the zoo.  We have both of these in toy form, and my little one enjoyed seeing them up close and moving!  We watched the elephants take a walk with the zookeeper, and we saw the giraffes eating leaves way above our heads!

 

Ok, I saved the coolest part ... Our zoo just opened a kangaroo exhibit.  In this exhibit, you can actually walk around IN the exhibit.  You have to stay on the path, but you're within 10 feet of most of the kangaroos.  If they hop onto the path, you can pet them!  So... we got to pet a kangaroo!  Seriously!  How many people get to pet a kangaroo?!  That was our favorite part of the zoo trip! 

 

What's your favorite zoo animal?

 

Playing With Cars ... Painter's Tape Edition

We play with cars every day.  We have a basket full of random kid's meal cars and garage sale finds.  While my little one is content with just cars, I try to introduce some variety into playtime. 

Enter a roll of painter's tape. 

I love this stuff. I taped several boxes and lines on the carpet. 

My son is still very young (19 months), so he is still learning the wide world of imagination. I tried to show him how to drive on the lines, line the cars up in a parade, and create a "garage" for the extra cars. 

My little one?  He was content to "vroom" as usual. :-)

We left the tape on the carpet on the floor for a few days. Each day he interacted more with the taped roadways. This is probably an activity that he will appreciate more when he is a little older, but we had fun with it anyway. 

I think the best part for him was pulling up all the tape at the end. He twirled and threw tape pieces around the room for about 20 minutes before we cleaned it all up. 

One roll of painter's tape stretches a long way to create hours and hours of toddler playtime. 

What's your favorite playtime creation?

Refuge in the Storm

 

This verse is comforting to me when I am struggling.  I love to know that God has a hiding place for me.  He will give me refuge in His wings while I'm in the midst of a storm. 

 

Last week was a struggling week for me.  I was in the middle of a storm of worry and busy-ness.  I wasn't sleeping well, and I felt like I could not catch up with everything that I needed to get done. 

 

Enter Psalm 57:1.  God reminded me to slow down, to call on Him for mercy and healing, and to REST in Him during my tough week. 

 

What comfort to know that the Creator of the universe invites me to rest in the shadow of His wings when I am having a tough time.  He holds me close and gives me comfort when I feel like I can't get anything done.  He invites me to rest.

 

Resting... for a mama of a toddler, this is a precious commodity!  Nap time is too short, and my son doesn't always sleep through the night.  Feeling well-rested is something I took for granted for most of my adult life.  Now that I've been without rest, I realize how amazing a full night of solid sleep can be. 

 

When I think about resting in God, I equate peace and comfort with this term.  I'm so thankful that I can have peace and rest and calm even in a busy week with little sleep.