You Can Change

We're hearing a short series of talks based on Tim Chester's book, You Can Change, at the moment. We've been working through it at Bible Study as well. I'm actually still waiting for my copy of the book to arrive, but I've been getting a lot out of the talks and studies anyway.

I was vaguely thinking about writing a post about my thinking from Tuesday's study, but then I read this one from Jean, which is actually a response to another Tim Chester book. She's captured my thinking far more elegantly than I ever could.

And I'll definitely be trying the 3 column thing. Remind me of it next time I'm getting snowed under.

 

At home

Being at home with SP has been tough this week. And we haven't really been home that much.

So this article is a good reminder of why I'm doing it: serving God & ministering to my husband and child.

Now I need to go & minister to SP by convincing him that one 45 min nap is not enough for the day... :s

 

Advent Plans

There are Christmas decorations in the shops (yikes!) and a couple of other people have started blogging about advent-type things (Molly's post here and Cathy's post here). I'm thinking about it too.

My long-term super-ambitious plan is to make a pocket wall-hanging advent calendar. Actually, I just want to make one of these:

(from http://pocketsoflearning.com/wallhangframe.html)

In my dreams, the letters on mine will be removable, and there will be numbers as well. So in December, it becomes an Advent Calendar. But as I've had this idea for a couple of years and have made no concrete steps towards it, I suspect it won't be ready by the start of December ;)
So in the last half hour or so, I've come up with this year's solution...

An Advent Book!

I'll make up a little A5 booklet with a page for each day, then during breakfast bible time, he'll get to open a special box and pull out his crayons, glue and a picture for the day. We'll "colour" it, stick it in, add some words, and have a bit more story to read endless times each day. On second thoughts, maybe not during breakfast bible time. Porridge and paper are not a good combination.

I like this idea because:
- it involves a box with a lid. SP loves boxes with lids.
- it involves a book. SP loves books.
- it involves crayons and glue. SP loves crayons and glue.
- it shouldn't cost anything. Fits my budget exactly!
- I don't have to have it all organised by December 1. Stapled pages and a vague idea of how I'm going to break up the story into 25 parts should be sufficient.
- it a simple, fun routine to do together each day. Routine and repetition are good.
- we can read the book multiple times during the day. More repetition.
- when we're done, we have a book to keep. Or toss if it's dodgy. We'll see.

We're coming...

We've booked flights to Melbourne for early next month. Sam & I will have 6 nights away, Dave 2.

Excellent!

Sign time

I'm so thankful that we've been doing some signing with SP. His expressive language may not be great at this point ('mama' is reliable and specific & he said 'gama' (grandma) and 'bub' for the first time yesterday), but with signing he can definitely get his message across. And I'm enjoying learning some Auslan too. Maybe it will come in useful someday.


His favourite signs are:

• finished
• bye bye
• plane
• car
• milk
• cheese (I think. We only started this one a couple of days ago, as cheese is his favourite food)
• cuddles
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (twinkle hands & a 'diamond')
• Away in a Manger (cuddle arms & a sleeping head)
• me (especially when we're reading his God Loves Me Bible. "God loved [insert bible character here]. And God loves 'ME'". So cute!)

 I had some photos of Twinkle Twinkle and Me to share, but I just realised they're on Aunty Rachel's camera. I'll post them soon.