3 Wise Men and googly eyes

This week is was Adam's turn to lead 'Super Family Bible Night' and the kids always look forward to Adam's night – they are always very clever, creative and fun! And this week's was no exception. Although it didn't start off so well (or end so well for that matter). Toby (8) has been learning piano and we'd printed off some music for him to learn how to play some Christmas Carols, however I got a little over excited and decided it was about time that I learn how to play the piano too – or at least learn how to play Silent Night. So the first 10minutes of Super Family Bible Night was with me and the kids trying to play and sing Silent Night together – completely out of tune much to the delight of us 3 and with Adam smirking and rolling his eyes at us all. Mental note – don't try and learn piano on a 'Super Family Bible Night' it will only end in singing – lol.

With piano practise aside we officially began the night. Adam's story was of the "3 wise men" a great idea to look at the stories around Christmas – I can't believe it's only a little over 3 weeks until Christmas. I do love the Christmas season. Adam read and discussed how the wise men saw the large star in the sky, and followed it to Bethlehem. What was doubly brilliant was that Kids Church this week spoke about this same story and so Toby was able to share lots about what he'd learnt in Kids Church. Toby & Lily had even been playing with our Nativity scene the day before, and so Toby had been teaching Lily about the 3 gifts that the wise men had brought for Jesus. Kids Church had even found mirth and Toby shared how disgusting it smelt – although Lily kept calling it "Perth." (I love my church!) This made it easier for Adam to talk about the story because the kids already knew lots about the story.

After the story Adam's creative side shone through again. He'd purchased some little gold boxes and he pulled out the craft box, and spent some time decorating our little gifts to remind us of the gifts that the wise men had brought to Jesus. There was pipe-cleaners, glue, stickers, sparkles and even some googly eyes (left over from our week on ladybirds ***blog insert here***) that was until the googly eyes decided they didn't want to stick onto the gift boxes and kept sliding off. Thus begins the tears... "My eyes won't stay on... sob... my eyes won't stick mum... bigger sob and the beginning of anger... why won't my eyes stick?" At first I was able to contain my amusement of how upset Toby was getting about his googly eyes and give him some thoughts on how to get his googly eyes to stick on his gift box but when he began hitting the googly eyes with his fists – my small hidden smirk – came out as a little giggle and then a good ole belly laugh. I know I shouldn't laugh at my children but sometimes they are so funny and I can't help it. So after some more tears, anger and a few camera shots Toby was able to calm down and I had to promise not to put up any photos of him having his googly eye tantrum. Of which I will keep. We then finished off our gift boxes and hung them on the Christmas tree for us to remember of the gift of Jesus.

So in summary how did the night go? The story was a fantastic idea especially leading up to Christmas – the craft idea was perfect especially since we'd just put up the Christmas tree the day before. The only downside of the night was the distraction of Silent Night piano practise and those rotten googly eyes. Mental note – consider throwing googly eyes out!