The Non-candy store

I don’t want my kids to miss out on the fun of getting a big bag of candy on October 31st. But I don’t want all of that candy to become part of their bodies and brains either.

^{Beatrix discovered the wonders of candy last year.}

^{And knows what she’s after this year.}

^{But how do you get those darn tootsie rolls open?!}

Maybe you just eat the paper…. hey Mom!

I guess pretzels are good too.

Acadia and Lily are not happy with only eating the pretzels. So we’ve come up with a happy solution all around…

The non-candy store.

In this store the goods are good for you and the candy is the cash!

Here’s last year’s store:

^{Strawberries, pistachios, spritzer, toys, games and art supplies}

And here’s this year’s store:

^{Organic fruit sour gummy worms and bears, peanut and almond butter squeeze packs, sparkling cider, art and school supplies, socks, hair things, cups, and the coolest thing: window climbing ninjas.}

They still had some candy left after buying all the stuff I had, (my prices weren’t high enough!) so they portioned out the rest for the next few days. But this is all the stuff I kept OUT of their tummies and off their teeth:

I know there’s other creative methods of cutting back on candy. What are your ideas?

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Celebrating Reformation Day

When I discovered that October 31st is the day protestants celebrate Reformation Day, that was the end of trying to come up with a Halloween alternative. Not only is there something else to celebrate besides the “harvest” or the “hallows”, it is something so important that it is the foundational to our faith as believers! For the last 5 years we have thrown a Reformation Day party and celebrated the important truths of Scripture that were re-discovered during the reformation. This year we focused on the truths that are found in the 5 Solas : Sola scriptura ("by Scripture alone") Sola fide ("by faith alone") Sola gratia ("by grace alone")Solus Christus or Solo Christo ("Christ alone" or "through Christ alone") and Soli Deo gloria ("glory to God alone").

Our carnival style games were centered around 5 questions and answers about these Solas:

Where can we find the good news? ~Only in the Bible

How can we be saved? ~ Only by Faith

How can we be accepted by God? ~Only by Grace

Who is our only hope? ~Only Jesus Christ

Why does God save us? ~Only for his Glory

We transformed our church building into the White Horse Inn, which was a place in Cambridge where the early reformers met to discuss the ideas of Martin Luther. His books were smuggled into England hidden in bales of cloth.

The kids had fun with our “horsey” theme this year!

After playing games to earn coins, the kids traded them for candy.

And a good time was had by all.

Stay tuned to find out what happens to the candy my kids brought home!

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Reformation Day Faire October 31, 2007

We went all out celebrating the Grace of God at our Reformation Day Faire this year. It was a lot of work but I do love to throw myself into a big creative project, and it was great to watch the kids having so much fun! They played games related to the life of Martin Luther and earned coins to trade for candy at the marketplace.
Some of us dressed up in medieval costumes, but we had some fairies and spider(men?) too. Acadia was an archer, and Lily was a princess. Unfortunately I erased the pictures I took of my girls in their costumes. Arggh! Sometimes our memories have to come from something other than pictures, right?

Celebrating Reformation Day is so much different than trying to ignore Halloween, or having a "harvest party" instead. We are not saying "Yeah, everyone else is doing something fun tonight, but were not doing anything because it would be evil". Instead we are telling our children "We have something important to celebrate tonight, and it's different from what the world is celebrating. The Grace of God is so important that people gave their lives to make sure that you could know and understand it."
The Bible and Jewish culture are full of feasts and celebrations and the Lord wants to celebrate with us! I think it is no coincidence that Reformation Day has been hidden behind Halloween for so long. October 31st was the day that Luther posted the 95 theses on the Wittenberg door. The ring of that hammer has echoed through history as the reformation was born. But as Christians we tend to focus too much on the evil we want to avoid, and not enough on the fullness of all that we have in Christ. "The just shall live by FAITH" was the simple truth that changed Luther's life and then the whole world. And it's a very good reason to PARTY! Whoohoo!






The little bumble bee was fascinated with the "fire".



























No, it's not Snow White's wicked stepmother. She doesn't have that evil white complexion. It's a medieval queen of course!


















This was the guy you were supposed to avoid. John Tetzel. He went around selling "indulgences" which were pieces of paper that said your sins were forgiven. Yep, you could pay your hard earned coins to BUY God's forgiveness. Sound kind of twisted to you? Good! Martin Luther thought so too and this was one of the things he spoke against in his 95 theses. Of course you can't BUY God's forgiveness, but many people in Luther's time did. And I'm sorry to say that many of our kids fell for it too! We had to start warning them not to buy anything from that man with the papers! ( I drilled my own kids at home later, "No Mommy, we didn't buy any!") Pin It

My kid's the one in color

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Lily's first taste of field hockey

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Leaves

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Acadia's first soccer game!

Acadia had her first soccer game today, after only one practice! It was a round-robin tournament so they actually had to play 3 games! They didn't score at all, but Acadia was such a good sport. She had fun, played hard, and was ready for another game when it was over! We are so proud of her.

Just try and get that ball past me!

What a beautiful day for a game!

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Apple Pickin'

Glorious day yesterday, so after we finished school, we headed off to the apple orchard.
One of those nice big ones, where you can actually climb the trees!
Look at these two perfect apples I found!

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