Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

The Talking Papaya

Posted in Fun, Kids, tagged , , , , , , on 3 August, 2009| 1 Comment »

The Queen has learnt a story off by heart at school this term (just like her brother). Her Year 3 class had been studying Australia and the oral story-telling tradition of the Aborigine people. And so they learnt to tell a story, with actions. I’m not sure this story is Australian, though.

Read Full Post »

Books of the Bible Song

Posted in Fun, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 27 July, 2009| 4 Comments »

Since it’s the summer hols, posting is going to be a bit light. My brain is fried after nearly five months of Vicar’s Wifeing, but I’ll put up a few fun things over the coming weeks to cheer us all up as the rain reminds us we live in the Wet Midlands.

When I was posting the Seeds Family Worship kinetic typography the other week, I came across this song. It’s the best books of the bible song I’ve come across, and I’ve looked at a good few.

Please excuse the American pronunciation for various books (Isaiah, Hosea and Philemon) plus the references cited as being from ‘Psalms’. We are finding it easy to forgive them cos the kids love this song. But don’t worry, we’ll make sure they pronounce everything correctly (or at least with a Black Country accent).

Read Full Post »

Don’t Let Anyone Look Down On You

Posted in Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 13 July, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I had a wonderful time on my conference last week, thanks for asking. But I need to catch up on the laundry whilst I compose a blog post or two. There’s lots of Vicarage news and I might even manage to share a few gems that I picked up from the saints I met up with whilst I was away.

In the meantime, here’s the newest piece of kinetic typography from Seeds Family Worship.

Read Full Post »

Where the Wild Things Are – Black Country Version

Posted in Fun, Kids, tagged , , , , , , on 1 July, 2009| 11 Comments »

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is one of our favourite books to read at bedtime in the Vicarage. My mum read it to me when I was young and our children enjoy it just as much as I did. Recently the Joker came home from school and recited the whole story off by heart, complete with actions.

We thought it was wonderful, and thought you might enjoy it too. I especially love the way his accent wavers between London and the Black Country.

Of course, there are no wild things or rumpuses in the Vicarage. Ever. Honest.

Read Full Post »

crazy dodey frog – a poem

Posted in Family, Fun, Kids, tagged , , , , , , on 22 June, 2009| Leave a Comment »

crazy dodey frog

Saturday frog

The Joker wrote a poem on Saturday. After a busy morning at the Church Working party, polishing pillars and clearing tree trimmings, we’d returned to the Vicarage. The Engineer and the Joker were showing an inclination to spend the entire afternoon slouched in front of the box. I declared the next few hours to be telly free and the Joker elected to do some colouring-in.

But I’d spotted a homework sheet that seemed to have been lurking in his bag for a while. It was about frogs. But filling in the sheet didn’t seem to appeal. ‘Write a poem about a frog then’ I suggested. And this is what we got:

A great way to spend a Saturday afternoon

A great way to spend a Saturday afternoon

Grandpa, who is a fine composer of doggerel verse, needs to watch his back.

Read Full Post »

New Vicarage Garden Quiz

Posted in Garden, Kids, vicar, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , on 16 June, 2009| 2 Comments »

More blooms are appearing in the Vicarage Garden. Since this blog got tweeted yesterday, lots of new people have been visiting the Vicarage and I’m hoping that some of them are gardeners.

So, after success with the last identify-a-flower game, here are some more mysterious plants that I’d love to know the names of. Once they have a name I think they are less intimidating. Though I still only really get gardening when there are so many kids in the garden that I think there’ll be an accident unless I supervise.

Yesterday I failed to go out and my kids had a major blow out with each other cos the trampoline was full and the Queen wouldn’t let her brothers on. And there were only seven children in the garden – this is a low number for our garden. Ten is my must-supervise number.

Read Full Post »

More Fantastic Kinetic Typography

Posted in Church, Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , on 12 June, 2009| Leave a Comment »

A few weeks ago I posted up the kinetic typography YouTube clip of Psalm 55v22 from Seeds Family Worship.

A couple of nights ago I came across another one they’ve done, of Philippians 4v6-7. ‘Do not be anxious…’ A good verse to hold onto, especially when feeling rather overwhelmed by the pace of Vicarage life…

Read Full Post »

Lads Mags, Porn and WHSmith

Posted in Family, Lads mags, tagged , , , , , , , on 1 June, 2009| 5 Comments »

I’m wondering whether I should stop shopping at WHSmith. I’ve recently discovered that what I thought was a respectable family store is actually a peddler of porn.

Not as respectable as I thought

Not as respectable as I thought

On one of my first visits to my local Sainsburys, I had a discussion with a chap stacking the magazine racks. The lads mags were being placed at knee height, as usual. Sainsburys were very prompt though. The chap I spoke with went straight to his manager, who got him to move the mags immediately. And then he came and found me and told me

a) that he’d moved the mags and

b) that the shelf stacking plan came from WHSmith, who supplied the magazines.

And then this weekend, I had to go to our local newsagents for emergency milk (another bumper crop of visitors). When I asked him why he had so much porn on his shelves he told me that

a) when they took over the shop WHSmith supplied them with that amount and

b) there was a market for it.

I told my newsagents that his shop was bottom of our list, because of his porn stock but it sounds to me like WHSmith are dictating the marketing of porn and pushing it. Should I start a boycott? Will it do any good and would you join me?

Read Full Post »

DIY Holiday Club – A Great Day Out

Posted in Church, Holidays, Kids, tagged , , , , , , on 29 May, 2009| Leave a Comment »

At our previous church, the Vicar and I were involved in regular holiday clubs. We’d have around 25 kids from the church and church school attending and a team of about 10 from church leading and helping. Most of our holiday clubs lasted just a day, although we sometimes did a three day one. They were lots of fun and a great opportunity to teach kids about God and bless parents with some child-free time.

We would have around three clubs a year, depending on other church events and energy levels within the church family. You can do five days of 4 hours without Ofsted having to inspect you (oh the joys of government control). And you can do 2 hours as many times as you like.

The church here has a weekly Kids Club, but hasn’t really run Holiday Clubs before. It’s one of the things on the Vicar’s To-Do List, but not at top priority, as the church family are already really stretched by the regular activities.

But at Coffee, Cake and Chat, the coffee morning I recently started for school gate mums, there was a suggestion that we all get together with our kids in half term. People don’t have lots of space in their houses or gardens round here. If you have a few friends around it gets really squashed. And we mums like to be together as well as the kids, so the Church Hall is a perfect venue.

So I proposed a DIY Holiday Club. I volunteered the Vicar to do games and a talk type thing. We all agreed to bring food for lunch, and noone needed CRB checks as they all came with their own kids.

So yesterday, from 11am-2pm we had nine kids aged 4-9, 3 toddlers and about nine grown-ups (some came and went). It was terrific fun. We learnt a memory verse, we played relay games in the churchyard (thank you Vicar), we sang loud songs, we made bedroom door labels and those folded paper ‘fortune tellers’ (but with kind Christian sentiments…mainly), we ate a wonderful lunch and enjoyed ourselves enormously.

I think the kids were even happier than this

I think the kids were even happier than this. The mums certainly were.

I am so grateful that we’ve landed up here, with such a great and energetic group of mums. And a holiday club sorted with minimal effort. The next one is now high on the To-Do List.

Read Full Post »

Sunday Morning Viewing in the Vicarage

Posted in Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 28 May, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Our kids don’t watch much telly. In fact, we don’t even have a TV licence, though we have a whole cabinet of dvds. They watch it in the mornings at the weekends, and in the holidays (and sometimes play PS2 now instead).

On Sunday mornings, they watch something Christian before church. So far, the viewing has been mainly VeggieTales (we love those show tunes) and Colin (very funny with good music). I think we pretty much have complete sets of both of them.

The kids have watched those dvds tons, so we were pleased to find a new series of Christian dvds recently. It’s called Torchlighter ‘Heroes of the Faith’ and the dvds are cartoon stories of various Christians through the ages.

Inspiring Sunday morning viewing

Inspiring Sunday morning viewing

We bought ‘The Gladys Aylward Story‘ a couple of weeks ago. It made me weep as I watched. The kids loved it so much they watched it twice in one sitting.

We’ve ordered four more as a set, with the stories of Eric Liddell, John Bunyan, Jim Elliot and William Tyndale. I’m looking forward to seeing them, though I shall make sure the tissues are handy.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »