Preparing for the Dormition Fast

The Dormition Fast starts tomorrow for those of us on the new calendar. Here we go! My friend Jeanette sent me an awesome idea for helping kids participate in the Dormition Fast. I think it's such a great idea that I am both posting it here for all to see and making the exact same thing for my kids.


It's like a build-as-you-go icon puzzle. She made black and white prints of the Dormition icon. Then she also made color prints. She cut the color print into 15 pieces. Each day of the Dormition Fast the children will glue one piece onto the black and white icon, so that by the feast they will have a complete icon. Cool, huh? She took this picture before she took them to the store to be laminated so they can be used again and again.


So I headed out the copy store at 9:15 PM tonight to get big color copies and laminating done. We're going to do the same thing. I think maybe I'll have my kids attach the pieces with velcro which is stuck to the laminated surface and pieces. Then we can use it year after year. I know they are going to love this.

Thanks again Jeanette! I love it when friends share their great ideas! (Hint, hint to all you readers.)

Good Fast to all!!

Christmas in July!

It's really been Christmas at our house this week. Why? Well, all of our curriculum and extra books arrived. We've spent a few days unpacking things, getting them situated on our school shelves, hanging maps, packing up last year's work and just plain getting excited. It's so fun to open boxes of new books, fresh clean workbooks, art prints, science supplies, maps, CDs. Just yummy! We're so excited that we're just going to go ahead and start. So, school starts this coming Monday, August 4th for us. I had planned to wait until after the Dormition Fast, but my oldest really wants to get started. How can I tell him no? He's working a deal that if he starts now, he can get three or four weeks off at Christmas. Fine with me, since I need the time off then more than now.

The down side? I still wanted to blog about lots of the fun things we did last year. It will still probably happen, but it will need to trickle in as we get started on this year. So, here we go!

Discipline

Quote of the morning:

"Mommy, everytime my airplane breaks. But, I tell it, 'Airplane, you gonna get in time-out if you do that again!'" - my 2yo, while playing with the "airplanes" he made out of Lego Duplos

Gotta love it when they start applying discipline techniques to their toys. There is more truth in this than we even realize. He knows that's what you do to get someone/something to do something you want it to do . . .