• Lift Your Eyes Up!

    3 Comments
    May 19, 2013 /  Faith

    Lift Your Eyes Up….

    I am quite a visual person and so, when I was asked to speak on this title I saw this:

    ladies day 2 001

                                                   EXASPERATION!
    But what does it mean?

    The Title means: lift up your eyes to Jesus, to God. Focus on him rather than on your feet or the path ahead. Perhaps not quite what I had come to mind!

    Now if you are a Christian, you will have some idea of what that means. In the Bible we read in Psalm 121 v.1+2:

    ‘I lift my eyes up to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth’.

    A Christian would believe that God wants him or her to do just that. Lift their eyes up to God and ask for help through difficult moments and their daily lives. Going back to my picture, this image I had every time I thought about the title I had been given, is actually something that we do as a culture rather a lot…We often feel exasperated! For example:

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                               “Mummy, I don’t like macaroni cheese”

                         “but it was your favourite yesterday” Roll eyes…or maybe: 

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    You dash into the supermarket with 5 mins to spare and… there is a huge queue at the checkout! And you roll your eyes.

    Rolling our eyes (or lifting them up into our heads) usually signifies – “give me strength” or “help!”

    People regularly say : “Give me strength!” or “God help us!” when faced with tough situations or even when joking.

    But what does it mean? What does it  look like to to lift our eyes up to heaven and get strength from God?

    Now, I am a pretty normal person (depending of course on what your definition of normal is). I have not had a major crisis that I have overcome, I have experienced 35 years of life and its ups and downs, but I am not wise with age or mind-blowingly intelligent. I am just ME. So I really just wanted to share with you about how I see this ‘lifting our eyes up’ work in the everyday. With the very normal struggles of family life, money, relationships or work, through the peaks and troughs of living in the UK in a pretty average way!

    In our culture as women we are told ‘that we can and should have it all’. We as women should be feminists, we should be strong, we should have jobs, good careers, husbands (if we feel the need) ;) . We could have children, we should have lovely picture-perfect homes, we should have political opinions, in our churches we can have roles in worship, speaking, prayer etc. We should and can have authority in all aspects of our lives.

    It’s not that I disagree with this, it’s just that as you may have noticed, it’s a bit of a tall order! Many of my friends are working full or part time, they have children, they are actively involved in their church, they manage the home and try to look glamorous whilst doing it. We laugh at the 1950’s adverts of glamorous women hoovering and waiting on their husbands, but it seems to me, that we are still doing this! Whilst also having careers and heaps of responsibility too. Maybe our attention has shifted from just pleasing our husbands, to pleasing a whole heap of other people?

    The Bible encourages us to be the women God wants us to be. There are examples of lots of different women in the Bible; some who are at home with children, there are a few Queens, women that work full-time, single women, married women, divorced etc. In the church we can sometimes get to thinking that there is an ideal, perhaps to stay at home with the kids wearing sandals? But, in Proverbs 31 God actually talks of ‘The Wife with Noble Character’  and this is a lady who works hard and does many other things. The Bible describes her as  being ‘precious’. So don’t assume that I am saying there is a perfect way to be a Female Christian in today’s society. I am not.

    What I am saying is that no wonder we worry, no wonder we are tired, no wonder some of us are on antidepressants. Maybe some of us are unsure of what our ambitions should be or how we should conduct our different and changing relationships.

    There is no easy answer. Some people think that when you become a Christian you subscribe to a perfect and happy life, devoid of hardships and nasty moments. Unfortunately that is not true, certainly not in my experience! When you become a Christian you promise to follow a God who has suffered. No other worldview has a God that has suffered. Christians believe that God chose to send his son to die on a cross, to experience and walk through suffering, so that we could be saved. Our God has experienced suffering. Jesus walked on this earth. He promises to walk with us through in our pain, he offers us a hope that we can know a future in heaven where there is no more pain or suffering.

    So as a Christian we do suffer, we do walk through very dark moments. The difference between knowing God and not, is that when you are walking through that dark time, a Christian has someone who promises to hold their hand. To go through it with them. To help them make good choices. If you choose to go it alone, it is just that, it is bound to be lonely. As Christians we are promised that we are not alone, that God will walk through life with us. In Bible in John 8 v:1-11 we hear about the woman who was going to be stoned for committing adultery. Jesus stepped into that situation and turned it around. He said “those of you who are without sin may cast the first stone”. And of course no one could throw a stone. He stepped into that cycle of pain and he stopped it, he changed the direction of her life. 

    If he can do that for a women who had done something that we would consider wrong, how much more would Jesus want to do that for you? I asked some kids at church the other day about the bible story of David and Bathsheba. I said that we can see that David has done a really bad thing. He stole another man’s wife and then killed her husband. I asked them: “Who thinks that God will forgive David for that?” Sadly, most of the kids decided that David could not be forgiven. That what he had done was too bad. I reminded the kids that God had chosen David to be King and of all the impressive good things that he had done and then I asked them again “could he be forgiven? Because essentially he was a good man, certainly in our eyes.” They still thought that he was unforgivable. The great thing is that this is not true! The Bible tells us that God sees all sin as the same. That all sin can be forgiven. There is no unforgivable sin! 

    It’s all about grace. God did not forgive David because essentially he was a ‘good’ person. Nor because he had done what God wanted the other times. He forgave David because David got down on his knees and said: “I was wrong, I just did what I wanted and it went wrong, forgive me”. David was honest with God. He admitted that he could not do this alone. That he needed God’s help. God said that David was “a man after his own heart”. Likewise Jesus knew that the women had sinned, He knew that she was sorry and desperate for forgiveness. He forgave her because in her heart she was crying out for help. 

    As a teenager I was doing Art and Sculpture at school. I decided that I was going to make (out of clay) a life size head and shoulders of a beautiful women. I drew a few preliminary sketches and then set to work. I worked the clay, made the base and started to form it. At first I thought ‘Ooh I am good at this – I think I might end up a famous sculptor.’ I imagined how beautiful and life-like my creation would be, and how the Art department would be delighted to claim me as a child prodigy.

    However as I added and worked the clay together a rather different sculpture emerged than the one that I had imagined. Unfortunately, with lump of clay after lump of clay my sculpture grew uglier and uglier! The nose was wrong, one eye was larger than the other. So, in panic I added more and more clay. What was meant to be life size was now larger than life. It was growing rapidly and becoming a colossal head and shoulders. 

    Then I had an idea!… nobody had looked at my original drawings, no one but me knew what my sculpture was meant to look like!

    So hid my sketchbook and started to exaggerate the ugliness of my sculpture. I added more and more clay, and I overplayed the chaotic look. I made one eye enormous and added hair going in all directions. I ended up with something that resembled Medusa with a headache.

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                                                         See. It’s true!

    I then went back to my sketchbook and changed the drawings to fit my creation. When finished I received bemused responses, but no criticism, as it looked as though I had achieved what I had set out to do. My Mum and Dad said, “…wow, interesting” and promptly placed it in the garage for a decade, no easy task as it took three people to lift it it!  

    The point was no one knew my disaster. I kept it quiet :)

    It struck me that this is like life. We have a plan or plans for how we want to live, we have desires and dreams and we set about trying to achieve them. Maybe to be the woman that society would like us to be. Juggling everything with superb control. Never missing a trick. The problem is that ‘life happens’ even if we work hard to control our lives, we cannot prevent other people, events or own mistakes from effecting our plans. Perhaps you had a vision of marriage that is not the reality. Or you have not yet married, but you had expected to have four children by now. Perhaps you got ill, or someone that you know got ill and you have cared for them. Maybe money is an issue, you had planned for holidays, but you are lucky to get by each month. Or maybe you lost someone close to you, that was meant to be a main part in your story? Perhaps you have made mistakes. 

    Our plans and the reality of life often do not always match up. Like my original sketches or my imagination and the sculpture. They did not match up. My photos on facebook of the fun family day out does not really match the reality that consisted of of losing one child for 40 min, taking the other to the loo 25 times and wrestling the third away from the gift shop screaming whilst yelling at my husband to get off his mobile phone. They don’t match up do they! So what do we do? We go back, we reassess our plans, we make new plans, have new dreams. Nobody knew that we wanted to be a famous actor or a nurse or super mum, so the fact that we haven’t achieved that doesn’t matter! We will just have to forget it and get a new plan, like me and my sketches.

    But what happens when you get tired of making new plans and changing your dreams?

    Maybe you talk to close friends, or choose to become cut off, going quiet. Perhaps you go to the doctors, you might get medication, counselling or read self help books. Maybe join some community group or go back to college? What are the other options?  No one wants to feel that they have lost. You don’t want to give up.

    As a Christian I believe that this cycle can look different, you can break it with God’s help. We saw that suffering happens whether you are a Christian or not. We are told that Jesus will walk through it with us and the Bible tells us we are asked to lift our eyes up to Jesus. There is a lovely saying which is ‘When I look to the sun all shadows fall behind me’.  So when my life seems to deviates from my original plan, which it does on a daily basis, what should I do? I should be honest before God. 

    I should get praying and ask God; what is his plan for my life? How can I get through this? I should ask him to lead me forward in the coming days as my plans change. And ask him to forgive me for trying to go it alone. You can do this too. 

    Ask him to remind you how special you are to him. Talk with your friends be honest, get them to pray with you. Each day when you open your eyes – pray first. Look first to Jesus and ask him to help you to walk through the day, ask him to provide new opportunities.

    Let’s be honest. We won’t get it right all of the time, we can’t possibly!

    My challenge  to you and to myself is to be honest with each other and with God. I believe we should stand tall. Not because we are proud of ourselves, filled with the pretend confidence that society gives the elite, like Maggie Thatcher, or some super model that looks as though they have it sorted.  We can stand tall, heads high, shoulders back because:  we mess up…we all mess up. But we are standing tall, honestly held up by God’s grace. We are loved however rubbish we think we are. We are unique, special and created by God. Jesus stooped down amongst the dust and rubbish and lifted us up high (just like the woman about to be stoned) so that we could stand tall in God’s grace… there is no need to prove ourselves, no need to achieve some invisible target. No need to rely on our acts of kindness or our belief that God has called us somewhere. We are completely accepted and loved for who we are. Whoever we are, however good we are.

    I’m challenging you to look at God not at your problems, to lift your eyes up and to ask for help, because he can see a future for you, even if you yourself are struggling to right now.

    So how do you go forward from now? You might be a Christian but are stuck in a lonely place where you don’t feel that God is walking with you. You might need reminding of God’s love for you. If you feel like that, let me encourage you to talk honestly to a friend, to go to church. What do you think church is there for? It’s not meant to be some club for the ‘holy’, it’s called to be a community of messy people that need encouragement and support from each other. That desire opportunities to learn and grow in their faith and understanding of God and the Bible. We all need help and support from people as well as God. God works through other people to help us!  If I am on a diet I do much better with accountability than struggling on my own!!!

    You may not be a Christian, but need help. 

    You want to be honest about the ‘stuff’ in your life. Maybe you want to have God’s help? If you pray and ask God to be a part of your journey I promise you, you will not be disappointed; God is full of Grace that he wants to give to you.  Do that (pray!) and ask God to help and then go find a Christian and tell them what you have done :) So you can get some encouragement! Email me if you like :)

    I know that some of you reading this will be thinking ‘hmm…whacky, Jen’s getting a bit heavy!’ Well no one is looking, no one knows what you think, even if you sit at the back of some church somewhere you are unlikely to be bundled into a back room and force-fed the Bible! Well not in most cases anyway. And you can pray this: ‘Dear God, I don’t get it all. I am sorry that I thought I could go it alone, I am sorry for the things that I have done that were wrong and I want to ask you to help me. I want to invite you into my life.’  You can pray that anywhere! On your own, with a friend, in a church… on the loo… although that seems slightly rude :) If it is all made up, then nothing will happen!  You can forget the whole thing and write it off as an unusual experience. However, I do believe that when you honestly ask Jesus to walk with you, you will not be alone anymore. There is a way to break the cycle of pain and help to be lifted up.   


     

     

  • Journeys and Sat Nav

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    May 9, 2013 /  adventures, Faith, Parenting

    sign journey
    I am reading the book ‘The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry’ by Rachel Joyce. It’s a good book and worth a read. It has got me thinking about journeys, particularly those that happen by accident! You can think of life as a journey or maybe even as a bunch of mini journeys that come together to make your story. Some look back at their ancestry and see how other people’s journeys have affected theirs or whether they have taken similar roads to them. Being a total nerd, I have loved tracing my family history. I thought I might discover someone that would explain the ‘crazyness’ that is me… the missing link! However, from what I found out about my ancestors, I am not certain of our genetic similarities. I have only been in a sailing boat once and am not great with authority, I have never shoe’d a horse or run a shop. I certainly have not had 12 kids (seriously?!?). I am not particularly good with a saw… and, I have never dressed my sons like little girls! What were they thinking?

    Disappointingly there were no highway robbers, reckless adventurers or inventors of cling film. Instead my search revealed families that stayed put in little villages for generations. On my mum’s side, a family stayed in a tiny village in Devon for seven generations! As someone who has lived in eight different places in 35 years, this sounded awesome. We have so many choices today, more than my ancestors would have been offered. This can leave us feeling bewildered and lost, like Harold Fry in the book. He closed doors, limited his options and, as a result, his life/journey had been a narrow one. Where he avoided pain, he also lost out on the joy that taking risks can give. As any parent will tell you, the moment you hold your newborn baby in your arms, you are overwhelmed with joy, but also a new fear. The fear of loss. In that moment you know that you are caught in the balance between those two very real journeys.

    Once, on holiday in America, we were invited to visit some new friends for dinner. We were very excited and set off in our hire car with time to spare. What we had not anticipated was that the journey which had been described as ‘easy’, was not! My husband and I are one of those unfortunate couples that are ‘navigationally challenged’ – neither of us have the faintest sense of direction. In fact for me, it is a family joke that when my parents were driving me to University for the first time, I said, ” So where is Worcester anyway?”. Even in America, Sat Nav was not widely used then, so we just had to follow written directions and the Freeway. You will never know how much you love roundabouts until you are lost in America! For the next hour, we would repeatedly turn off the freeway only to find ourselves lost in some town or other, then spend 30 minutes trying to find the freeway entrance again. We did see some interesting parts of San Diego! We would have asked for help, only we had trouble making ourselves understood asking for water in cafe’s – so we didn’t fancy our chances! Needless to say, we arrived very late. Fortunately, being Californian, our lovely hosts were very laid back about the whole thing… in fact we wondered if they had been expecting us at all? A few years later we were back in San Diego and well… let’s just say Sat Nav is a wonderful thing!

    sky journey
    Perhaps when we are faced with all these choices in life, rather than panicking or worrying endlessly we could think of God as our Sat Nav. Neil and I often pray through our choices. We ask God to open up the doors of good opportunities and close doors to bad ones. Throughout all the moves and mini journeys I have taken, I can honestly say that I have felt guided by God, that he has walked with me and I with him. They have not always been easy routes, but God has helped me get the best out of every adventure – the joy and the pain, but never alone.

     

  • On Being An Extrovert

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    April 17, 2013 /  adventures, Parenting


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    Glamorous, sophisticated, one classy lady, that was what I was aiming for. I would sweep into a room with an air of mystery and ‘togetherness’ rarely seen. People would marvel at my ability to make polite conversation and nibble gently on food. I would have made the Victorians proud. There were just a couple of hitches… I didn’t seem to be growing
    (posh ladies are always tall) and well it seemed to me that often my voice would enter the room before me. People say that it is great to be an extrovert! I am not convinced of this. I have been described as being at the extreme end of extrovert…an extra-extrovert. It is through no fault of my own that I am prone to constant talking, the need to make every tiny passing thought public and a desire to advertise my mistakes.  I am told by a friend who classes himself as an Introvert, that socially he will find himself unable to speak, whilst actively seeking out the corners of the room to hide in. He said that whilst this is happening he will be thinking ‘talk! Offer an opinion, stand with someone’. In social situations I also have a monologue running through my head, it goes like this: ‘Shut up… please stop, stop talking… look at them Jenny… stop…no, no, no don’t say that…too late, too late… leave the room now, back away from the people’.

    As a child you are blissfully unaware of what categories you fall into. You plunge head first into your mistakes and are left puzzled by the outcomes… or at least being an extrovert that is exactly what I did. People said things like Jenny is ‘enthusiastic, lively and very sociable’ not exactly what your teacher parents hope to read on your school report. It’s just teacher talk, it means ‘disruptive’. Once on a youth group trip to Alton towers I was so excited that I think I must have talked the whole way there. This meant that when we arrived I came out of the loo’s to find that everyone had gone. Being unaware of what mistake I had made, I wandered about the theme park on my own until fortunately finding my brother and his friends who let me hang out with them. Now I look back I can see that I must have been exhausting!

    My brother also suffered at the hands of his extroverted older sister. I seemed to be constantly embarrassing him. I can honestly say I wasn’t trying to! Having three kids of my own now, I get to observe the dynamics. Two are seriously verbal and one more reflective. My wonderful Archie recently started refusing to get out of the car to go into school. I could not understand what was going on, until my mum suggested that maybe he needed to walk in independently of us. She phrased it very carefully, but was thinking back to a time when my brother had decided he would rather not walk into school with me. It’s not easy (when you are cool) walking into school with a mum, brother and little sister who seem unable to do anything quietly. He goes in ahead of us now, very happily and I am on strict instructions to only kiss him goodbye at the car.

    There are good things that happen when you are extrovert too. I can help get conversations going, when we move to a new area I can talk to people easily. I have been told that I am ‘bold’ and when my kids do embarrassing things publicly, I just join in.

    I think when you see an apparently confident child and you think they are showing off or attention seeking, I would encourage you to consider that maybe it is just the way they are wired. I have been hurt and embarrassed and because of being so extrovert it’s often happened in front of others. It’s never fun to have bad stuff happen, but it has shaped me, in a good way I hope!

    I am learning to think before I speak… sometimes! In fact, you would be proud of me. Recently on holiday in Devon the 5 of us had ice creams on the beach. I sat down to enjoy mine when my Dog (aiming carefully) decided to pee all up my back! My immediate thought was to; stand up, shout in a loud voice (to the rather large group of people close by) ‘UUURGH! My dog has Pee’d all over me… will you look at that!’, but I fought the urge… Instead I said in a quiet and restrained voice to my husband “The Dog has just Pee’d all over my back, it is bad. We must leave the beach quickly and quietly” and we did just that. Stealthily we gathered our belongings and made it back up the beach like it was all under control. I think the people behind us probably witnessed the whole episode. Probably, they assumed that it happens all the time as I dealt with it so well. Probably, in Beer Harbour I am now known as the Dog Pee Lady…but, it doesn’t matter I handled it with a certain class, and of that I am proud.

  • Freedom and The Cross

    3 Comments
    March 29, 2013 /  Faith

    The cross makes me uneasy. Good Friday, it’s an important and special day for me as a Christian. We know why, it’s important because it’s a day were we stop and think about Jesus on the cross. This prophet who was crucified. This prophet that we can see in historical papers, who was a reality. This man who walked to the cross because of his beliefs. Those beliefs that humans had taken a wrong turn, this wrong turn lead to multiple bad choices, that we are now a slave too. We call it sin, this circle of bad, damaging choices and thoughts we live with and repeat.

    In the past people had brought offerings/sacrifices to God to be forgiven and wiped free of the bad they had done. Then with Jesus going to the cross we were given a break. We were told that Jesus went to the cross and took with him all humankind s past and future sin. That he was the offering/sacrifice to beat all sacrifices. We are told in the Bible that because of this act Jesus wiped away our wrong and opened a direct path to God. Sounds pretty major, right? But then we see that Jesus as predicted in the Bible comes back to life. This is why Christians believe Jesus’ teaching about being God. And I believe this, I believe that Jesus is not only a man, and a prophet, but also God… so it follows, that I believe if I ask God to forgive me and wipe away the limescale that is sin, He will.

    So why does the cross make me uneasy. I think it’s because it represents freedom and I wonder if my problem is the idea that I am already free. Now I have been a Christian a long time, so you could see that for me, I may have got used to/become complacent with the freedom God has given me. But I think it’s deeper than that. I can address my complacency, but I look at my friends who have chosen not to believe in God and they also seem free.

    So if they are feeling free why would the cross mean anything to them? Why would sharing my beliefs with my friends be of any value? Of any true value to me? I think that some answers to this lie in our idea of what freedom is. If we in western society are meant to be free then there are some things to consider.

    Why do I feel that I need to justify my existence? I am not a slave am I? I don’t have to do anything, I have choice… something not available to others. So if I have choice and freedom why do I need to justify who I am?

    I justify my looks with make up

    I justify my body by wearing different clothes

    I justify my place in the world by earning money and working

    I justify my future by trying to raise my children in a certain way.

    To be honest, each choice I make is heavily influenced by other things, what is appropriate, what demonstrates to others that I am just like them … that I fit in. Why do I want to ‘fit in’ and what do I want to fit into? It makes me think of those triangle segments in trivial pursuit and how they are many different colours but they all fit into the circle in a uniform way. I think in our society we are under the impression that we have choice, yet in reality we limit our actual choosing and end up like a segment fitting in.

    If that’s not true think about people that you know ‘that don’t fit in’ – what’s that all about? Why is Brighton an attractive area to live in if you are pro individual choice and being unique? Surely if it is easy to be unique we could ‘be’ anywhere? Why move to live near others that share your opinions? Is it safety or the security of others, does it help justify your opinions when others have the same ideas?

     If we are truly free then why do we need to justify ourselves?

    As a Christian I am taught that I am justified by God. God promises to wipe my away the wrong that I do. To completely forgive me. If I am justified by God then who do I need to prove myself to? Well to God? But, I am told I am forgiven… that God is a God of Grace not disgrace. If I cannot disgrace myself with God and am justified by him, then, I am o.k to be me. I am told that I make mistakes, I know that I do, but I am told that when Jesus took all our wrong to the cross this act made a way for our forgiveness and promised our freedom.

    And maybe if we explore what we think is freedom in our society, we will know what the cross is for.

    So today, I am thinking about the invisible walls in our society.  About how I allow myself to be defined by the culture that surrounds me and how so many years ago a man gave up something so that I could taste real freedom. Freedom from being judged by or a slave to any culture. I believe I am justified by God. I believe that Jesus was his son. If i  live honestly, aware that I do wrong.  but remember that I am promised complete forgiveness then This is freedom.
     cross and hands

  • Treasure Hunting

    1 Comment
    March 25, 2013 /  Faith, Parenting
    trh3
    Sometimes you can find yourself squished and squashed by routine, free time is shrinking away. Work is full on; the kids have needs that must be seen to RIGHT NOW! You are tired… winter seems set to carry on all through the summer and there is no spare money.I think you need a break!

    If life is always good for you then you must be very blessed (and we are all a bit jealous)! For most of us life is full of ‘ups and downs’. I love that Monty Python song ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ and oh how I wish we could. The truth is that sometimes there is no bright side. Listening to Justin Welby speak yesterday about the loss of his daughter you could see and hear the sadness in his words. There was no bright side for him. However, he did talk of a sense of peace that he felt in the middle of the despair and confusion.
    I have felt God’s peace at different times in my life. I don’t necessarily understand why something has happened, and I don’t believe the saying ‘everything happens for a reason’ but I believe that God will meet me in the worst of times and will walk with me. If I ask him he will give me the strength to carry on. That feeling of peace, is a reminder that there is a God, and that he cares, whatever the outcome. It’s like the feeling you had as child when you were scared and your mum or dad picked you up and hugged you. You feel protected and relieved that someone is in charge of what feels like chaos.

    trh5
    Something that has helped me is asking God to remind me the beauty all around. Whether it’s in one of my kid’s smiles, or a sunset or a funny moment. I have become a treasure hunter, a hoarder of special moments. Glimpses of heaven on earth! There is a lot of sadness, but there is also beauty. Breath taking beauty of the world that God created. Even in the sharp pain of loss God brings moments of joy. It’s learning to look for those moments and thanking God for them.

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    People ask why I am happy/silly/smiling all the time. It’s not that I don’t struggle a little or a lot every day. I do! It’s just that I am making it my business and asking God for his help to seek the beauty in each situation, to find the evidence that someone created us and that true goodness exists.


     

  • Books We Love!

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    March 8, 2013 /  Parenting

    I thought that since we were finishing Book Week in the U.K that it would be a good time to share a few of our favourite books with you!

    Millie is 5 and here are some books that we love to read together:

    My Big Shouting Day by Rebecca Patterson.

    my big shouting day
    This is a lovely story and perfect if you have had a bit of a ‘shouting day’ together. Millie loves it and its a good way of showing a child what their tantrums look can look like to everyone else. Its also been good therapy for me after I have had a shouting day myself!

    Vegetable Glue by Susan Chandler

    vegetable glue cover
    All my kids have enjoyed this book. It provides a healthy dose of fun and may even encourage some vegetable eating. We are all agreed that the best bit is when her bottom falls off when she makes a rude sound!

    Millie also loves: This Is My Book by Mick Inkpen

    mick inkpen
    This is a fun story where the words, illustrations and characters all get mixed up. It would be great to use in a Literacy lesson on punctuation and spelling. We have enjoyed reading it together and as in all his books, Mick Inkpen’s illustrations are superb!

     Archie (age 7) and his choices:

    Stuck by Oliver Jeffers

    stuck book
    Oliver Jeffers is a wonderful author and artist. We love his illustrations and quirky stories. This book in particular is great!  Archie laughs his way through (and so do I).
    It all starts when a shoe gets stuck up a tree!

    Captain Flinn and The Pirate Dinosaurs by Giles Andreae and Russell Ayto

    pirate book
    We have read this book and the others in the series over and over! Archie is not so enthusiastic about books, but this one really appeals… It has it all: Adventures, Dinosaurs and     Pirates!

    Ben (age 9) and his best books:

    Ben loves books so its been difficult narrowing down his choices!

    I think his all time favourite books are the Mr Gum series by Andy Stanton:

    mr gum book
    We all enjoyed reading them. They are crazy and slightly off the wall. Andy Stanton takes you by surprise with his use of language and imagination. Each night we would all end up crying with laughter at the funny parts. ‘The truth is a lemon meringue”.

    The Lion Storyteller Bible by Bob Hartman and Krisztina Nagy

    The Lion Storyteller Bible
    Ben lived on The Story Teller Bible for a year! He would listen to the CD’s and now his Bible knowledge is so good, that he had to be asked  to stop interrupting in his school assemblies! 

    At the moment Ben and I are completely smitten with the Moomins by Tove Jansson

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    We have read them all. Again we love the quirky writing and the fact that Tove paints beautiful pictures with her words. She explores some big issues but from an innocent perspective. There is real wisdom and life in her stories.
    For book week Ben and I made a shoe box scene from the Moomin book: Midsummer Madness

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    I     would love to hear if you have any favourite kids books to add to this list.

  • Exploring Arundel

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    February 20, 2013 /  adventures

    Its school Half Term and like other parents I have spent the last few weeks thinking about how we can all have fun together and survive each other! Easier said than done! Previously we have had weeks off where I have not planned enough, everyone else has gone away and we spend the week bouncing off the walls of the house… sometimes quite literally. Then there are the weeks where I have planned too much and I have dragged three exhausted children back to school the following Monday!

    However, we are halfway through and… I think it’s going well! I have quite by accident managed to book in enough fun and down time to please everyone. We have managed a healthy amount of time on computers which for the parent, involves precision timing and excellent negotiation skills:  Slightly under an hour, two mins warning, followed up by the actual removal, with these words : “If you freak out now you won’t go on it later”  or my preferred approach  “Come off calmly… you do want to see the computer again today don’t you?  Walk away from the Computer! Gently put the controller down, well done, well done. Now, hands where I can see them. That’s right, slowly now and keep backing away from the computer.” It works most of the time.

    One of the best things about half term is getting to spend time with other families! Yesterday we had such a great day, we got to have fun with two wonderful families from our original NCT group (9 years ago)! Its amazing to look back at our time as friends, walking through all the ‘firsts’ with our new babies together and then later the joys of family life ( and sometimes the pains ) :) . 

    I thought I would share it with you and also give a certain little café a  plug as a thank you! 

    We started at the WWT Arundel Wetlands Centre. We love it there, it provides a fantastic mix of nature, activity and peace. Here are some snaps, hiding in the Hide!

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    We had a brill time throwing food for the great variety of birds (so, o.k once it was a couple of stones but that was quickly stopped)! There were some calm and (fortunately) friendly wildlife photographers that were bombarded with questions from over excited junior bird spotters. They generously shared their knowledge and patiently waited for the dust to settle after the stampede of 7 children passed by.

    My fave bit was the boat ride. Originally, I was afraid that we would have children hanging over the side, falling in the water and yelling at the top of their voices at dazed Water Voles. However, the reality amazed me, they were so quiet! The sun streamed in and 7 kids sat silently listening for the whispers of wildlife in the reed beds. A truly special memory. Our boat Guide was funny and interesting, turning the boat so all of us could get a sneaky glimpse of the Water Voles washing.

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    It was only afterwards that we realised one of our little wrigglers had been stuck to the seat the whole time. The bench and life jacket had become tangled, which may have reduced our chances of having to dive into the water in life-saving stylee.

    After the ‘outdoorsy’ morning we headed into the center of Arundel and to a very lovely cafe called …


     
    Sally was our host and had planned an afternoon of craft, cake decorating, tea and cake. It all felt rather vintage and ‘Englishy’ set in the shadow of Arundel Castle. I loved it!  It was rather a tall order… Sally managed to cater for 7 children, girls and boys, three 5 year olds, one 6 year old and three 9 year olds! Here are some of them:

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    We made yummy cakes, Archie lost the butter overboard…half landed on the table, half on the…well nevermind.

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    Then onto bottle decorating:

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    Pen holders:

    phone feb 22 209    After this we were ready for tea and cake. 
        The kids each had a cup of tea and felt
        very grown up.






    Some of us were ready for cake :)

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    Plenty of giggles, mess, fun, craft, friends, sunshine and adventure. A super day.

    The website for Lulamae’s: http://www.lulamaes.co.uk



















  • The Princess or The Pauper, Superhero or Victim?

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    January 31, 2013 /  adventures

     Usually, I like to write about funny things, but occasionally something  feels so important I just have to share it. I was thinking about how kids love to dress up. They will wear anything from a Superman cape to Princess costumes. At our school the kids are sometimes asked to go dressed up like a Tudor or a Victorian child to fit in with the current topic, and the letter home always stipulates that they could wear a rich or poor version of the character. Surprisingly most children would rather not go dressed as the poor version but instead prefer to be a rich child.


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    I love kids imagination. They can take something very ordinary and imagine it into the most fantastic thing. They can put on a costume and suddenly a new world of opportunities opens up to them.

    I often wish that we as adults could do this!

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    Sometimes I am so convinced of my messiness, my failures and shortcomings that I can find life a bit of a bleak trudge. When we get into these negative thinking patterns not only do we damage ourselves but we affect the others around us. I am not just talking about our grumpiness being hard to live with, but also how we perceive others. We can fall into the trap of seeing other people in rags, we look for their weaknesses and measure them up with our own, hoping that in seeing their failures we might feel slightly better about our own. Sometimes we will even go as far as pointing out their failures to others in our community, hoping that people will turn their gaze from our problems to theirs.

    Something I love about God, the Bible and Christianity is that they teach about hope. I know that some of you have explored the Christian faith and got as far as the bit about sinners and run a mile! I don’t blame you, no one wants to be faced with the bad stuff they have done. In our culture if we do something bad we qualify it with: “…oh, I was having a bad day” or “I didn’t get enough sleep last night”. It would be unusual to hear someone say: “yes, sorry, that was horrible of me” equally, after doing something kind or generous we don’t say: “that was because I had a good sleep”. If we do something good I think we like to own it as being a part of our character.

    But if you ran screaming from the Christian or church that mentioned sin, then I am afraid you rather missed the point! It’s like hearing the introduction to a story and then leaving the room, never to learn about the plot… hearing the problem and leaving before you learn of the resolution.

    Christians accept their sin. Their ability to do and be wrong. But they are offered a way out. We are told in the Bible that there is hope. That we can have help to be better. God tells us that we were made in ‘His image’ that even though we are messed up, he sees us as superheroes and princesses. That is not just the power of wishful thinking on His part!

    If you have children, do you honestly see them as nasty little wotsits? Or do you think they are brilliant and have the potential to exceed the expectations of those around them? Is this wishful thinking? You see their mistakes on a daily basis, you saw them do a rather horrible thing the other day. So have you written them off? Of course not! You teach them, you tell them how great they are and you love them to bits.

    This is what the Bible tells us God thinks of us. He created us and thinks we are “wonderfully and fearfully” made. He sees our potential and gently offers us help to be the best.

    When one of my kids came to me and declared that they were fat and ugly the other day. I was so upset! We feel devastated when our children say these things, as we know what it is to feel unlovely and worthless.

    God did not create us to feel unlovely or worthless. In the Bible he tells us exactly how much we are worth.

    David from the Bible story has a few little stones and a catapult. Does this stop him fighting Goliath? Does he say ” actually, I’m just a kid …pretty short. In fact, I haven’t got a machine gun and none of your armour is going to fit me… So, I think I’ll just pop back to the field with my sheep, alright… o.k?” . In the story, David sees the little that he has and with the help of God he was able to believe he could defeat Goliath.

    So if you see yourself as the pauper rather than the princess or the victim instead of the superhero maybe you could pray and ask God to to show you what you could be with his help. Self-help books can be great, accountability partners are brilliant, whether it’s to help us lose weight or work through a difficulty. But Jesus offers us the whole package. Firstly he loves us for who we are, he sees our faults, he offers us a way out by being sorry, and promises to walk with us whilst we head in a new direction.

                                                                           

  • Expecting and Expectations

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    January 20, 2013 /  Parenting

    Expecting and Expectations

    I was just thinking about Prince William and Kate who are expecting a baby. I recently read an article that said:

     ‘The Royal baby will be born third in line to the throne …He or she will one day be head of the Royal armed Forces, supreme governor of the Church of England and subsequently head of state of 16 Commonwealth countries’

    Woah! That is enough to increase your morning sickness as an expectant mother!

    It started me wondering about the expectations I had of my own children and what ideas they had for their futures. So at dinner I asked them what they would like to be when they grew up. Ben said that he would like to be a Scientist or run a kennels.
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    Amelia said she would like to be a Doctor (although has been known to faint at the sight of blood) and Archie said he would like to be a Footballer, a Cricketer or a ‘Tenniser’ !!!  

    I don’t think that when I was pregnant I had any idea of what my children would be. I guess, that you think they will do similar stuff to you! At least most of us have the opportunity to wait and see what our kids are good at! I have more of an idea now! I think that Ben, who is a brilliant communicator and imaginative could do something like write a book or work in the theatre. Whereas perhaps Archie, who has a talent for arguments and an unwavering sense of right and wrong could be a Lawyer or a Politician? Amelia who is super caring and rather enjoys being in charge could be a Nurse or an MD of something. Of course there is also other evidence that I could have used to predict their future careers with… which would have Ben with rotting teeth, an inability to eat a meal opposite another human (in case they grow queasy watching food circulated around mouth) and a tendency to wander off when his mind is filled with some wonderful idea. Archie would be in trouble with police for playing football inside, stubbornly argue with people in authority and pick his nose in public. Amelia would suck her thumb in important business meetings, not bother to wipe her bottom and wear a princess ball-gown on a daily basis. Hmmm, perhaps we should keep in mind their good qualities and work on the others!

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    For the Royals there is no such freedom! If they turn out to be rather better at the bad stuff, then they will have an audience! My husband and I were really inspired by King George V in the movie ‘The Kings Speech’ who had a tough time with his stutter but overcame this to fulfill his, his country and his family’s expectations. It’s a fine line for us as parents! It’s good to have expectations/hopes for our children so that we can help them grow in confidence. However if our expectations are unreasonable then we can open them up to disappointment.

    I pray for my kids that God will open up opportunities for them and guide them in their decisions. Also that God would help me to nurture their gifts and abilities whilst giving me patience to correct their less charming habits! After all, God cares more about their hearts and character than their achievements and CV!

  • Adventures in London Town

    3 Comments
    January 9, 2013 /  adventures

    We were really excited to take the kids up to London to see the Lion King a few days ago! Mum and Dad treated us to the show, booked a hotel and came with us! It was brilliant. And I would recommend it. Even though we were way up at the top we were able to see everything really well.  The day before I went over our plans and decided that it was adventurous, but we could do it if we all got a good night’s sleep. So that night we bathed the kids, read them stories. . . perfect. Archie did not fall asleep till 10:30 pm. We found Ben playing in his room at 11:30 pm and then woke Millie up because of shouting at Ben. Ben and Millie finally fell asleep and we went to bed. This was when Neil started coughing. At 12:30 I was running out of sympathy. 1:30 am and Neil was sent to the spare bed. Sometime later after a pinch of worry and a small dose of hysteria I fell asleep. Amazingly, even after all this, we managed to get up in time. Pack a huge picnic and a tiny case, mum and dad arrived and we were off!

    Nothing of alarm happened on the train, so you could say that we all relaxed too early, a sense of calm had overtaken us a little too soon. We left the train and alighted the platform. It was then that the real fun began. It turns out that pulling suitcases is particularly attractive to young children. Archie and Ben grabbed a suitcase each and started to hurtle down the platform in a race!

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    We carried on like this: two boys racing, one girl utterly confused, one mum yelling orders, two grandparents grabbing at hands and one dad reclaiming suitcases backwards and forwards across the Thames for most of the day.

    At some point we sensibly shared out the children, one per adult. The free adult would be the `spotter`. This would have been an awesome plan, if the kids had all agreed on which adult they wanted at what time.  Grandpa was good for historical facts, walking fastest and general freedom. Nana was great for giggles, sense of adventure and a fair amount of freedom. Daddy was good when your legs failed, for a carry or ride on the suitcase. It seemed I was good for nothing. . . It may have been the screaming and shouting from behind “STAY INSIDE THE YELLOW LINES!” or the grabbing of wrists, holding onto hands too tight, or the severe telling off I was giving freely “NO YOU CANNOT RUN UP THE DOWN ESCALATOR!” Who knows?
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    Firstly we made our way to Buckingham Palace, Millie wondering aloud whether we could go to meet the Queen. We saw the changing of the guard at Horseguards Parade and Ben (who today had decided to grow up to be a photographer) took to filming it. This is when we lost him. His own enthusiasm and artistic licence had gone to his head. We did eventually find him in the crowd and have a lovely film of people’s feet, bags and and a horses bottom to prove it.
    Then onto the hotel. We found it ok but were all feeling a little tired. So we grabbed the kids and made it to the rooms for a 30min break. In that 30 minutes Ben managed to lock his DS and charger in a time-locked safe, leave the room, find a maintenance man and bring him back to the room (much to nana and grandpa’s surprise) to have a go at breaking it out. He couldn’t.

    Later we took the Tube to Covent Garden and looked for a place to eat. Pizza Express did us proud. Providing the kids with mini cappuccinos and nana and I large glasses of something red!

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    The Lion King was amazing! The kids loved it. I missed the entire first scene as I had been watching the kids faces and enjoying their reactions, I even got a bit tearful!!! :)

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    We headed back to the hotel exhausted, but happy. It only took Ben an hour to fall asleep!!!

    The next day we had a humongous breakfast and prepared for the adventurous day ahead. After the slightly stressful travelling arrangements previously, we decided to re-think our strategies. We decided to give each child our contact details to put in their pockets, to not allow the kids to pull the cases and to be united in decisions.  I stayed up In the rooms to write out the addresses then promptly forgot them, locking them in the room and having to spend 10 mins re-writing them.

    Because of the prolonged wait, Millie decided that it was her turn to pull the case. So she made a run for it to the revolving door with grandpa’s case and ignoring the united shout of  ‘Stop’ !  She almost made it through onto the street. I say `almost’ because she left her arm behind (the one pulling the suitcase) and jammed the doors up nicely. I was informed later that there was a lot of screaming, a good telling off and an offer of hospital from a now mentally scarred receptionist. Thankfully she only had a bruise and was exceptionally well behaved for the rest of the day! (…and yes it did occur occur to me to trap all my kids in revolving doors).
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    We did then make it to the Tate Modern, the Millennium Bridge, occupied the coffee shop overlooking St Paul’s and then The  Natural History Museum. So I think we all did rather well :) We all made it back to our own homes, found small dark spaces and crawled into them for 24 hours! 
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    It was the best trip ever!

     

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