It's Christmas time...

Tonight was Lilys turn to lead, she chose the birth of Jesus & read us a couple of stories from her Bible.

She was very excited, although you wouldn't know that from her pout as I took this pic.

Boys of course did their best to enjoy the night.

Lily used the nativity scene to tell us the story & ask us some great questions about why its important that this story is in the bible.

Kids wouldn't let me take a serious photo so opted for the crazy one!

Well done Lily, we had a great night! Great way to start Advent leading up to Christmas!!

Around the walls of a nursing home

Tonight was Lily’s turn to lead ‘Super Family Bible Night’ and after last week’s episode of army men mime – I was a little concerned. Lily flicked through her bible and chose her story because she like the pictures, interesting because the story she chose was ‘A wall falls down – Jericho’.

This week was drama week,  Lily played the part of Joshua, Daddy & Toby the 2 men sent to check out Jericho, mummy was narrator/Rahab and whoever else was needed along the way. As we read the story we acted it out along the way – although Toby was quite disappointed that he was able to really hid in the roof like the 2 spies did in the story, and disappointed he had to settle for sitting on a table.

For those who don’t know we are currently house sitting a large nursing home, (for about 6 months so - with no residents) so you can imagine the fun and noise we had when it was time to walk (we ran) around the walls of Jericho. Firstly once every day (6 times), then 7 times on the 7th day. All the while shouting and playing our pretend instruments along the way. There are a lot of walls to run around in our mini city and we were exhausted by the end of it and collapsed on the ground to listen to the end of the story and pray.

This week was certainly a week to remember, we had a lot of fun and Lily especially loved being in charge and playing the part of Joshua. Mmm... think there may be a leader in the making there.

Blessings to you and your family!
For more information on bible engagement or Milk to Meat resources please go to http://www.milktomeat.com.au/

Jesus and the popping sprinkles

Tonight was Lily’s turn for ‘Super Family Bible Night’ and we also decided to incorporate a special dessert into our Family Nights. The kids have been bugging me about making a special dessert for the family for weeks, but I have been reluctant after the last dessert Toby made for us which was: strawberry jelly & ice cream mixed together with a large dollop of Nutella on the top, then on top of that was marshmallows, Milo, musk stick and sprinkles onto was Star Dust (the kind of sprinkles that pop in your mouth). It was a massive sugar overload and the kids took a LONG time to go to sleep. So as you can imagine I was a little hesitant to allow Toby back into the kitchen again to make dessert. But with some guidelines Toby headed off to make dessert.

So as we all sat around the table, with wine glasses in hand, we began to wonder just what did our 5yo have in store for us tonight? Well, she had prepared well and sent dad off to the supermarket to get some grape juice and she shared the story of how Jesus to water into wine. Dad thought he might have been able to do that miracle too, just like Jesus but he just couldn’t make it happen. But as we sat outside on a warm night we were able to share and discuss the power and miracles of Jesus and that same power is still available today.

Afterwards we all scoffed Toby’s dessert – which was still jelly & ice cream but we did have a hint of healthy food with some fruit salad.

Well done Lily and Toby on a great fun family night.

Moses and the burning craft

Bunny ears

This week was Toby’s turn to lead ‘Super Family Bible Night’ and he was very excited (although totally unprepared). After sifting through the Children’s bible stories about 6 times he finally came to the story of Moses and the burning bush (I think he like this idea because he could think of an idea for a craft activity). Oh well I guess whatever works for him hey!

I wonder if my burning
bush will burn?

So we sat and read the story of Moses and the burning bush, and Toby asked his set 3 questions that he seems to ask every time he leads 1. What is important about this story? 2. Why is this story in the bible? 3. What prayer points do you have? And the quicker he could get through those questions the quicker he could get to his activity.

His craft activity was cutting out pictures from coloured paper and re-creating a scene from the story. Toby loves being able to do anything involving art – he’s quite talented in the craft area (he doesn’t get this from his mum that’s for sure!!). Although he would have loved to have actually set his craft alight to see whether it really did “burn up” – we decided against that idea. But he loved leading this week and we now have paper craft of Moses and the burning bush hung up around our house. And as you can see from the pics we had a lot of fun too

Why not share your thoughts with us on how your family engages the Bible together we’d love to hear your thoughts & ideas.

For more information on Bible Engagement, Milk to Meat or other blogs go to www.milktomeat.com.au

Boys, boys, boys...

Moses and the parting of the bath

Tonight was Lily’s turn for Super Family Bible Night and boy was she excited! She’d been looking forward to this night all week. There were a lot of secret talks happening between daddy and Lily as they began their preparations, Toby & I weren’t allowed to venture past the lounge room until they were ready.

Suddenly there was a ring of a bell and we were all ushered into the bathroom – mmm... just what did our little girl have in store for us?

The room was dark, with candles lit all around and we were instructed to take our shoes off and sit in that bath (decided this was not a good option in clothes so opted to sit on the side of the bath J). And so in the dim light of the candles Super Family Bible Night began – we read the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Adam read the story, and Lily pointed out that the candles were the pillar of fire that led the Israelites at night, and that the bath water was the red sea. Lily tried so very hard to part the red sea (bath water) but much to her dismay it just wouldn’t stay parted. Toby was imagined himself walking along the bottom of the ocean and pictured himself reaching his hand into the side of the wall of water grabbing a shark or starfish out with his bare hands. “How awesome would that be mum, I could have my own shark!”. (mmm I’m not happy that he’s saving his pocket money for a pet Gecko so the thought of having a pet shark.... NO!)

Lily did a great job, very creative to have us all in the bath for this night – and even thinking of the candles – she’s really outdone herself this week! However,  more than once I was very worried that we’d all end up soaked from the bath water. But thankfully we all left the bath relatively dry and memories of a fun night together!

An Ark made of clay

Well what a distressing week it's been. This week has seen massive floods in Queensland, NSW & Vic and bushfires in WA. It's been a week full of disturbing images on the tv which our kids were exposed to as well, when national disasters happen it's really hard to shelter your kids from such events and so we in the evenings we prayed with them about the people, the homes and stories they'd seen. But I think it is these terrible circumstances that led to Toby's choice of bible stories for this week's 'Super Family Bible Night' – Noah's Ark.



Toby reading bible story


Toby had prepared well this week, he spent the evening before reading the bible and thinking creatively about his topic. After reading for much longer than usual, he promptly said "Mum I need clay for Super Family Bible Night". Interesting I thought, what does clay have to do with Noah's Ark but I went along with it anyway and so we spent about 2hours the next day trying to find baking clay. Thankfully, we eventually found some (I wasn't looking forward to having to make baking clay to appease an 8yo).



And so the night began, Toby read the story of Noah's Ark, asked some questions and prayed. He then produced a well constructed plan of just what we were going to do next. He had drawn the Ark, with explanation of the type of roof, the door shape, the amount of animals and how it was to be created. I was astonished as the amount of detail we were going to have to create with CLAY!!! (Maybe he's got some architecture in him??)



Toby's in depth explanation of clay Ark making



And so the creativity began... well.... the boys were extremely creative and made fabulous Ark's and animals, on the other hand... Lily & I decided to work together and make something that at least resembled a boat. It was a fun night and we had clay everywhere. Toby had done a really great job of unpacking Noah's Ark and letting us all get involved in the night.



I think Adam might be impressed with his creation



Toby's ark



On another note, you can now sign up to receive this blog via email, just fill in your email in email subscribe box to the right and you'll never miss our 'Super Family Bible Night' blog J

Enjoy your family and God this week.

You can also check out our other blog on bible engagement - tips, tools, and resources here
http://milktomeat-journal-kyliebutler.blogspot.com/

3 sauce bottles in a furnace

This week's 'Super Family Bible Night' was one to remember – a bit of pantry and video fun!

Toby with his angry men



Angry men are stuck onto 2-min noodles



It was Adam's weeks and he had a draw faces: 3 happy men, 3 angry men, 1 little king, 1 big king and an angel – and we were all interested as to what he was going to get up too. Obviously from the pic above Toby chose to draw the 3 angry men. We were even more intrigued when Adam pulled out 3 packets of 2-minute noodles, 4 sauce bottles and 2 Milo containers. Just what did he have in store?



Milo statue and Milo king



Sauce in a firery furnace



Well this week we started with the kids seeing how loud they could make their armpits burp and ended with video posts done by Toby & Lily on the story which are hilarious but unfortunately I can't upload them because a certain little 5yo refused to wear pants.

Thankfully, we were able to convince her to do it again the next day, with pants, so we could show you.

However, Lily did give an interesting retelling of the story (so please remember this is a 5yo retelling). The re-enactment goes a little bit wrong towards the end. But check out Lily's video of Super Family Bible Night, based on the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (or as Lily calls it Shadrach, Bendigo and Indigo).

Enjoy God's Word with your family this week and we'd love to hear about it! Send us a comment or email on your experiences.

Esther and a flute

We hope you had a great Christmas and New Year and during the break were able to spend time with your family and friends and especially able to connect with God during this season.

We've had a busy season, but have spent lots of time together swimming at beach, pool and enjoying BBQs with friends. One special adventure we headed to the Sand Sculptures for a picnic and family day which was great fun (although we all got burnt). The Sand Sculptures are well worth a trip if you're on the Mornington Peninsula this summer, however my kids are wondering why I can't do sand castles like them.

This week 'Super Family Bible Night' it was my turn and I decided to do one of my favourite stories in the Old Testament, 'Esther'. I did some internet searching and printed off the story with colouring pages. After reading the story together and asking a few questions about the story, we set about colouring the pages and putting it together into a book that we could put in the bookshelf to read again later. I thought it would be a good idea to have some boiled lollies on the table to be able to nibble on while drawing together but they were more interested in seeing how many lollies they could eat than on colouring.

Both Toby & Lily love making their own books and I often find my stapler missing because they've raided my stationary stash to create another book or "creative art". Being able to make a book was a great way to get them involved in the story and to understand it more.

After finishing our colouring we all prayed – Toby thanked God for his Christmas money and being able to buy a game and Lily prayed for her Auntie Jenny cause she's got a flute (flu).

So how'd the night go, well apart from the distraction of the boiled lollies, the kids really enjoyed the story and colouring in the pages of the story and putting the book together.

A wedgie from a donkey

This week it was Lily's chance to lead 'Super Family Bible Night' and being a few days before Christmas, she wanted to do 'Jesus being born'. So Lily and Adam headed off to discuss secret 'Super Family Bible Night' preparations and came out bearing sheets, angel wings and a hobby horse. And so... it was a night for dramatic interpretation.

Lily of course played the lead role of Mary, Toby was Joseph, Mum was the angel Gabriel (Lily made sure I knew that "that angel is a boy mum, but you'll be okay") and poor Dad got relegated with reading the story and being the inn keeper. The hobby horse was the donkey and Lily's dolly 'Olivia' played the part of baby Jesus. So with all parts assigned the story began...

The angel appeared to a very surprised Mary (I think Lily has some acting ability) and then Joseph took her on a donkey to Bethlehem. Toby's role was to lead the donkey while 'Mary' was riding it however the temptation was too much and he decided to give 'Mary' hobby horse wedges the whole way (Lily was not impressed). On arrival to Bethlehem, there no rooms available so we headed to the kids bedrooms (aptly named the stable). In the stable was Lily's doll cot and all kinds of stuffed animals playing parts of the stable animals.

The big moment arrived and Jesus was born, and there was a very proud mother 'Mary' who made sure Jesus was snug and warm, well fed and that Toby looked after him, although she was not impressed with Toby holding baby Jesus at all.

Lily finished the time with a shy awkward prayer – but it was prayer.

So how was this week – Lily had been preparing her story for a couple of weeks and was very excited to be able to finally lead her story. There are always some interesting and funny parts to Super Family Bible Night and tonight was no exception.

We hope you and your family have a wonderful and blessed Christmas and able to celebrate and remember the reason of Christmas – Jesus.

Merry Christmas

from our family to yours