Jesus is Immanuel

*this post was written Dec. 3rd...but then because I didn't have my camera attachment, I saved this post to come back and edit in the photos...but since it's January, I guess I should go ahead and post it now, huh?  Still waiting on adding pics!!!  Just ignore where it says picture...

The Bible talks about names meanings-and since this is Christmas, we have been focusing on a few of Jesus' names.  God, Messiah and Immanuel...God with us.  Our main focus verse was Isaiah 7:14.  We used a Bible lesson from here. Then we watched the animation story from the Jesus Bible Storybook, "He's Here" (scroll down and watch the movie from my post yesterday).  It was awesome as James truly grasped the concept of how Jesus is fully God, and how wonderful it is that He would come down to us as a lowly baby!  I love seeing things through the eyes of a child, and especially my own! 
PICTURE OF IMMANUEL GOD WITH US CRAFT

We have really enjoyed our Christmas Chain.  Day One we read Isaiah 7:14 and Isaiah 9:6-7 and talked about how the people were waiting for a Savior, and that Savior was Jesus.  We set up a nativity scene in the schoolroom, and crafted a nativity craftstick puppet show.  PICTURE

Yall have to check out this neat interactive nativity scene.  Your child can create, and then recreate their own nativity online by clicking and dragging the characters into the stable.  James loved it, and hit the refresh button several times before he wanted to move on to the next workbox activity.  He was so proud of each scene.  You can also press print and treasure their creation forever.
 

 We also completed another lapbook component for our Christmas symbols lapbook.  We read some history of how the celebration of nativities started...and then he told me in his own words what he remembered and I wrote it down for him.  PICTURE

Part of Bella's activities were to string noodles onto pipe cleaner.  But James saw the activity, and wanted to join in on the fun.  They were working well together and sharing the noodles.  Loved it!!!  Then I started thinking....we need something to hang our ornaments and crafts on, so we connected the pipe cleaners together...and wah-lah!  Our handmade craft hanging garland thingy!

PICTURE

We went to the library and checked out some fun books about...yep~Christmas.  How'd you guess?  Everytime we go to the library, I allow James to sign onto the computer and play the games they have there.  He loves the computer, so he is pretty much taken care of and stays put for the whole outing!  Bella on the other hand is a handful!  She's always on the move and with a trail of books behind her!  They had a cute set up for Christmas this week.  They have a mailbox for mailing letters to you know who, and Bella was kept busy for a while coloring while James wrote his THIRD letter to Santa for the year.  You would think that I would have one to keep by now, but they always end up staying in those useless mailboxes.  Hmm...maybe I will make it into a workbox activity soon, and try to remember to KEEP IT!!!  I love looking back at all his old letters from previous years. 

Then we stopped by the park...we call it the sand park, cause the ground is sand...duh!  Anyway, it was freezing~so we didn't stay long...but it was fun.  Then we came home, and it started raining, ceiling started leaking, and leaking, and leaking, plaster coming down, books/papers/desks moved out of the way...and long story short... it's official, we are getting a whole new roof!  We are all so very thankful nothing was damaged (besides the roof I mean!!!)  And thankful for our great landlord for being so timely about these types of things.  They really are amazing.  The mom was 4 months pregnant with twins, and lost the babies and had to have a Csection and within weeks the dad broke his ankle...yall pray for them.  They really are a sweet family.

The focus of day two of our Christmas unit/Chain was on angels.  We read the story of Luke 1:1-25.  (Angel tells Zechariah of John's upcoming birth)  Then we made some cute angels.   I got this pattern from a unit study I downloaded last year from Currclick called December! by Karen Sevaly.  I printed out two patterns, so that Bella could do one with James, but she was napping when we got to this workbox.  James took her's and colored it for her in the colors and glitter that she would like.  Hmm...is that sweet, or did he just want to do two crafts?  Who knows?  But they are both cute.  PICTURE   Tomorrow the focus will continue to be on angels and we will read Luke 1:26-38 (Angel tells Mary of upcoming birth)  We will be doing another angel craft tomorrow, painting a foot for the body of the angel and both hands for the wings.  And of course...GLITTER!

 This was actually suppose to be done today, but we went to my parents house and also to my sister in laws to visit... we got our basic school stuff done in the car, but didn't have a chance to do fun Christmas stuff.  That's one great thing I love about homeschooling...it doesn't have to be done at home!  We just took his binder and math books with us.  The drive is about an hour one way...so it's perfect for school time.


I have been kinda bummed about not having a tree yet to decorate...and I got a huge surprise when we got home~Mark had bought a Christmas tree!  Yeah!!!!  So for family night tomorrow night we will decorate the tree.  I can't wait!  Starting to rearrange furniture tonight.  I am the type of person that moves things about 10 times before I get it just right...and then 4 months later I am moving it again.  

Before the kids went to bed we started our Jesse Tree Devotions.  Mark does a family devotion each night, and for December we started using the devotions from our Jesse Tree book.  Each night has a felt piece to stick onto the felt tree banner.  I am not sure exactly where the one we have came from...
PICTUREBut I do have the link for the ones I used last year... you can find how to make a Jesse tree and ornaments here , and here are the devotions to go along.  Last year, James would color the picture as Mark would read the Bible passage and devotional.  There are many possibilities to do this cool concept.  



Once the kids went to bed, Mark and I were pleasantly surprised by an terrible awful movie that came on TV.  Yes, you read it right.  Let me explain!  Our very first date was almost exactly 14 years ago.  We went to the movies and watched Home for the Holidays.  It was so bad!!!  We laugh about it all the time, and what a better way to spend our 9 year and one day anniversary than to re-watch the disaster.  We pondered over whether or not it really was as bad as we remembered...I mean, how bad could it really have been...and we have been talking it up for quite some time, so maybe the story of how bad it was got exaggerated along the years.  But no folks...it really was as bad as we remembered!  It just doesn't make sense, and the family is completely disfunctional, and there really is no good thing you take away from it.  But for some reason it was fun to redo the disaster again.  Happy Anniversary and one day, Mark.  I love you more than ever!