Easter

Painting with Peeps!

Do you need some ideas for some fun Easter activities? This is a fun but a little messy idea. The kids will love it!

Materials:
Construction Paper, Vanilla Pudding, Easter Peeps®
Cut large Easter egg shapes out of the construction paper. Put dollops of vanilla pudding in a small bowl and then use the Peeps® as the paintbrush‖. The Peeps® makes a perfect grip for little hands and gives a great sponge-effect for painting. The Peep® will change the color of the pudding! Once your child is finished painting, they can eat their paintbrush.
Note: Peeps® come in the traditional blue, pink, yellow, green and lavender!

Easter

Walk thru the Holy Week with Jesus

Read daily from the Bible the events that happened in Jesus’ life each day of the week leading up to Easter Sunday. There are several good children's Bible storybooks and the ICB is a good version for little ones to understand fairly well.

Palm Sunday - Jesus enters Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-11)
Monday - Jesus clears the temple (Matthew 21:12-17
Tuesday - Jesus teaches (any passage from Matthew 21:23-24:51)
Wednesday - Jesus‘ death foretold (Scripture says nothing about what Jesus did this day. Read Isaiah 53:1-12)
Maundy Thursday - Jesus celebrates Passover (Matthew 26:17-30), Jesus is arrested and tried (Matthew 26:31-27:26)
Good Friday - Jesus is crucified (Matthew 27:27-66)
Saturday - Jesus lies in the tomb (Scripture says nothing about what Jesus did this day. Discuss what Jesus‘ followers might have thought and felt.

Resurrection Buns

Just like the tomb on Easter Sunday, these tasty buns are empty on the inside. Bake
these with your kids on Easter morning for a great lesson and a nice breakfast.

1 package Rhodes frozen rolls
24 large marshmallows
¼ cup (½ stick) melted butter
½ cup sugar mixed with ½ tsp
cinnamon

Thaw 24 rolls. Flatten each roll to about 3‖ in diameter. Place a
marshmallow in the center and pinch dough to seal it inside. Roll between your palms into
the size of a golf ball. Dip in butter and roll in cinna-mon sugar. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet and let rise 30-60 minutes, until doubled.
Bake at 350º for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Hash Brown Casserole

Ingredients
2 lb. bag of frozen hash browns
1 pint sour cream
2 cans cream of chicken soup
¼ c chopped onion or ½ tsp onion salt
12 oz. grated cheddar cheese

Directions
Mix together hash browns, sour cream, soup and onion and place in a lined 9 x 13 dish. Freeze.

On cooking day: Thaw completely. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 ½ hours. Top cheese the last half hour.


Bacon and Cheese Quiche

Ingredients
3 c. shredded Swiss cheese
12 strips bacon (cooked and crumbled)
3 T crushed French’s onion or green onions
5 eggs (beaten)
2 ¼ c half and half
salt and pepper to taste
2 T. Parmesan cheese
1- 9” unbaked pastry shell

Directions
Mix ingredients together and place in unbaked pie shell. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes just until knife is the center comes out clean.

On cooking day: Thaw completely. To reheat, bake quiche at 350-375 for approximately 20-30 minutes or until heated through.

Parenting Tips

When Children React with Anger

The child who doesn't like an instruction or limitation may reveal frustration outwardly, sometimes in a small way and other times with downright revenge. One mom said, "I can tell when my thirteen-year-old son is frustrated and upset. He becomes more abrupt in his actions and words. His roughness sends a message that says, 'I'm not happy with you.'"

It's important to remember two rules of engagement when confronted by a child's anger. First, don't be afraid of your child's emotions. Sometimes children use outbursts as a form of self-protection to prevent parents from challenging them. View the display of emotion as a smoke screen and look past it to the heart of the issue. You may not confront in the heat of emotion but don't let your child's anger prevent you from correcting him or her. Parents too often see the emotion as a personal attack and react to it, losing any real benefit that could come from the interaction. That brings us to…

Rule of engagement #2: Don't' use your own anger to overpower your child's anger. Proverbs 15:1 says, "A gentle answer turns away anger." When you begin to lose it, take a break. Come back later and work on it some more.


"I've been thinking about the way you responded to me earlier when I asked you to do your homework. I'd like to share an observation that might be helpful for you. It seems that you believe you ought to be able to wait and do your homework just before bed or in the morning before you go to school. Is that what you're saying? One of the values I'm trying to teach you is that self-discipline often means we work first and play later. That's one of the reasons I require you to do your homework early every day. I'm trying to teach you an important value. I know that you may not agree with me, but I want you to know why I'm asking you to do homework before dinner."

Allowing emotions to settle first can bring opportunities for dialogue later, instead of turning the present issue into a battleground. Realize that kids will go away thinking about what you've said, even if their initial response looks as if they haven't heard you. This is especially true for teenagers. Prepare what you're going to say and choose your timing carefully without getting caught up in the emotion of the moment.


This parenting tip comes from the book Good and Angry, Exchanging Frustration for Character In You and Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN,BSN.

Couponing

Most families are concerned about meeting budget and finding ways to save money without necessarily sacrificing quality of product or services. Couponing is a great way to do that. We had a good discussion and sharing of ideas at our last meeting. Thank you to LeeAnn for starting the discussion and sharing some about her success in the last month. If you are looking for some budget plan sheets, there are several good ones available online- a Google search should give you a good starting spot.

We are going to share coupons at our first April meeting. So if you have some coupons that you are not going to use, bring them along and share- "One person's trash is another's treasure" so to speak.

Also, one of my infamous blogs has been blogging about the art of couponing. I don't link well to other sites but here is her address.

http://www.mommysideabook.com/

If you have a few minutes, visit her site and review what she has written about couponing. It may not be anything necessarily new to you, but she may have some good ideas or reminders for you to utilize.

I also found a Continuing Education class at GCSU on June 1 and 3 from 6-8pm -Couponing 101. It is $29 and promises to help you discover the secrets of couponing. If you are interested in the class, call 478-445-5277.

Some other ideas include:

There is a warehouse grocery store in Griffin, Wilson's Warehouse that has dented can goods. I haven't been yet, but one of my frugal friends goes about once a month to shop for her canned goods and finds it worth the drive. Just for your information.

Another idea is to consider sharing a wholesale club membership with another family and split items if needed. For example, 2 boxes of Corn Pops in a package- one to each family.

Angel Food Ministries- Lakeside Baptist on Hwy. 441 is a host site. Search for Angel Food Ministries or call the church (Eatonton phone, I believe)

Join a co-op- Southern Crescent Ministries in McDonough is the source. It takes 6 families to start a group. There is a waiting list to join as a group, but you might be able to find an existing group in town that has an opening.

The Farmers Market will open soon and is a good way to buy large amounts of veggies and fruits to freeze.

There are some butchers where you can buy fresh meat in bulk- In Macon, the Meat Gallery and another one that Kym mentioned. I am sure she will be happy to share some more information about their locations.

There are lots of ways we can save a little money as we put good, nutrious and happy meals on the table for our families. If you have any other ideas, please feel free to add a comment here or share at our next meeting in April.

More than a Good Bible Study Girl

I have evidently had one of those mommy brain moments- Did you catch my boo-boo from last week? Well, if you wondered why the morning session of the Bible Study Girl study was longer than the evening one it is because I slipped into MOPS meeting mode! Yep, I was always horrible at keeping up with when church services and Bible studies started - Just ask my cute and very patient hubby! So I have tried to personally plan things for the same start times hence the 9am start and the 6pm start. Makes it simpler for my mommy brain. I just needed to adjust the ending times. The study session should be about an hour with 30 minutes extra to allow for arriving and settling kids and self in, some girl talk and prayer. We can always hang out longer afterwards if we want. Anyway, please plan on coming to this study. You will be blessed by Lysa's wisdom and her stories- I am not the only one who suffers from mommy brain moments.

Check out her blog www.lysaterkeurst.blogspot.com for a great study in Philippians. Go back to Februrary 22 post to begin. Again, you will be so blessed and encouraged by it.

Parenting Tips

Obey First and Then We'll Talk About It

When parents give an instruction but children don't want to comply or it's not convenient for them, sometimes they need to learn to "obey first and then we'll talk about it." This emphasizes obedience.

If little Brian has pulled a chair over to the counter and is climbing onto it, you may say, "Brian, we don’t climb on chairs."
"But I was just…"
"No, you need to get down. Obey first and then we'll talk about it." Once he gets down, discuss the problem and find a solution together.
"Karl, go get your pajamas on."
"I don't want to go to bed."
"No, obey first and then we'll talk about it."

To some parents this may sound like blind obedience. We've all heard stories about people who were led into cultish activity because they couldn't think for themselves. No parent wants a child to fall into a pattern of blindly following a leader's instructions, but evaluating instructions is an advanced skill.

Many parents have gone too far in the other direction ending up with children who can't follow simple instructions without a dialogue. Parents sometimes believe they have to talk their child into wanting to obey. Inadvertently, these parents teach their children that if you don't like a request then that's enough reason to resist it. These children make poor employees, develop selfish attitudes about following someone else's leadership, and have a difficult time in relationships because they haven't learned how to sacrifice their own agenda for others.

Talking is important but sometimes even we, as adults, must obey first and then understand later. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son without fully understanding and then considered it faith for him to obey. Peter didn't know why he was to go to Cornelius' house but went anyway only to discover that God wanted to bring salvation to the Gentiles. Philip was asked to leave a revival in Samaria and go out into the wilderness, not knowing why, but when he got there he led an Ethiopian man to Christ.

Evaluating instructions is an advanced skill and will become important later on but children need to learn that sometimes we all must "obey first and then we'll talk about it."

This parenting tip comes from the book Say Goodbye to Whining, Complaining, and Bad Attitudes, In You and Your Kids by Dr Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.