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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Being Organised. Or not.

Posted in Church, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 6 September, 2010| 12 Comments »

I would really really really like to be better at organising our family life. The Vicar has a real problem with organisation. In fact, he always prays for the spiritual gift of administration, valuing it very highly, but so far the Lord has not blessed him in that department. And he has just appointed an administrator, but she’s not fulltime. Yet. And I’m not sure it’s her job to organise the family as well as the parish.

One of the things I have been looking for is a calendar system that both the Vicar and I could access from our individual (but networked) computers and also (in the future, when we upgrade our rather primitive devices) mobile phones. The Vicar currently has a Palm Pilot, but obviously this technology is now rather retro.

One friend has recently recommended cozi.com to us, which looks fantastic. However, I notice that it’s only really good with the iPhone, (that’s the only one where you’re able to edit as well as read the calendar) not other smartphones, and she uses it with Outlook and we use Mozilla Firefox. So I’m not sure about it, tho’ her local computer expert tells us it should be fine. How do you organise your family/parish lives? What is the solution, and if there isn’t one, can someone please design it? Thanking you all for your kind attention in this matter…

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Beautiful Hands

Posted in Fun, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 3 September, 2010| 4 Comments »

I’m going to a wedding tomorrow. My friend StarStudent, one of my first friends from our first parish, is getting married and the whole family has been invited to attend the big hoo-haa. StarStudent’s fiance is Sikh, so the wedding will be at the Gudhwara near to our old church. Her family are Hindu, so there’ve been all the usual Asian wedding celebrations. We were invited to three events – the wedding itself, the family farewell party tonight and I was invited to the mehndi night last night.

Nice, eh?

A mehndi night is when the bride has her hands and feet decorated with henna, and celebrates with girlfriends. Although the groom didn’t attend last night, contrary to Wikipedia’s take on the celebration. He had his own do going on instead.

So I spent an excellent evening with StarStudent and her lovely family and friends. I ate samosas, wriggled to Bollywood tunes and drank strong masala chai (didn’t sleep too well last night, but it was too delicious to resist). And I had some mehndi applied too. Just one hand, and on the back, so I could drive home. You have to leave it on as long as possible to get the dye to fix well.

I love the look of it and am pleased my dress and jacket have short sleeves so I can show it off. It’s the nearest I’m going to get to a tattoo, however much I think I should get one to fit in around here…

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Why We Love Ventures

Posted in Church, Fun, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 12 August, 2010| 4 Comments »

Last week we got back from the Edgehill Pathfinder venture. We’d stayed in  a boarding school in Devon with our kids, a brilliant bunch of leaders and 65 11-14 year olds. We had loads of fun (3 wonderful beach trips, fantastic crafts, excellent games and some lively humour, which included the consumption of delights such as oven-baked tarantula). We made lots of friends (even us mummies who were caring for kids whilst the dads led activities). And we heard the gospel told afresh. The Queen, the Joker and the Engineer were old enough to attend the sessions alongside the Pathfinders for the first time this year and they (aswell as their teenage friends) were gripped by the lively and faithful teaching.

The head honcho, Tim Ambrose posted this thanksgiving prayer letter on his blog last week:

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Kids in Church – Poll Results

Posted in Family, Fun, Kids, Parenting, Polls, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 9 August, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sorry not to have posted these results before. Somehow it’s harder to find time to do things in the holidays… Anyway, here they are:

Technique Votes Percentage
Colouring/quizzes 23 21%
Books 21 19%
Other (see below) 15 14%
Extensive pre-service briefing on loving ones neighbour by not distracting them 13 12%
Breadsticks or other healthy snack 12 11%
Threats 8 7%
Cuddly toys 8 7%
Sweeties or similar 7 6%
My kids always sit nicely, I don’t know what you’re talking about 1 1%

Other Answers (all 1 vote each)

Participation

  • taking time to answer all questions about what’s going on and being said
  • Get them to play in the music group!
  • OH actually tries to get him to follow the lesson and sing the hymns!
  • cuddles, sitting on knee and talking about what is going on
  • Participation in the worship
  • Quietly talking them through what’s happening.

Training

  • Teaching and training parents in how to develop their kids’ attention level

Extreme

  • Gags
  • taser

Distraction/other

  • wandering round with them so they can focus on something ‘more interesting’;
  • Not always possible but don’t take them until they want to
  • “What’s Daddy doing now?”
  • Have child-focused services and a creative vicar
  • Just letting them be
  • i dont have kids!

So the recommended techniques seem to be a combination of activities (including participating in the service), food and working on expectations (both children’s, parents’ and congregation’s – the latter was mentioned more in the comments).

It’s a tricky area for us all I suspect and I guess we need to encourage one another to persevere. We want those kids to be real church family members now as they will be the core church family of the future, God willing.

This subject is ripe for future polls, so watch out for more once the summer hols are over and my thinking head is less distracted by screaming kids beating each other up. We like to set a good model of Christian family life here in the Vicarage.

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The Queen, Enterprise and the Back Leg of a Goat

Posted in Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 May, 2010| 2 Comments »

As regular readers will know, on this blog I refer to my 8 year old daughter as the Queen. This originated when she played the Red Queen in a school performance of Alice in Wonderland. She was particularly good at shouting:

Off with her head!

She also has bossy tendencies. Can’t think where she got those from.

Anyway, the Queen’s organising and enterprising streak appeared in force a couple of weekends ago when she and four friends appeared in a ‘fashion show’ at the end of our monthly church coffee morning. The Queen and her pals have spent the last few months dressing up every time they get together.

The Queen, the Joker and friends looking fashionable

After reading a Christian kids’ book called ‘The Back Leg of a Goat‘ by Penny Reeve, where the heroine puts on a fashion show to raise money to buy a goat for a family in Africa, the Queen decided that she and her friends would do the same. So they put together their dressing clothes and also an old duvet and some other old outfits, liberally snipped about. The Joker was recruited to play some ‘jazz’ (actually some mellow acid jazz cds from the Vicarage collection).

They recruited kind neighbour Beauty, who knows everything about makeup and nails. Beauty came and preened them all up and the event was ready. We arranged for them to put on the show at the end of the monthly church coffee morning, so they had a captive audience. The Queen had worked hard at getting her Kids Klub leaders and other adult friends to come along. They’d made posters and flyers which they’d handed out.

The Queen and her friends enjoyed themselves  enormously as they paraded around the hall, although I don’t think I’d say that the fashion was ready for showing alongside the next Valentino collection. And with the help of the coffee morning bric-a-brac stall they cajoled over £60 from their audience. We are going to send off the money to the Barnabas Fund, for their education fund. The Queen and her friends wanted the money to go towards educating ‘poor children’.

I just hope that I can now throw out all the snipped up clothing and retrieve a small part of our very messy Vicarage…

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The Joker – A self portrait

Posted in Family, Fun, tagged , , , , , , on 5 May, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sorry about the lack of posting of late. Today I thought I’d check through my recent photos to prompt some of the creativity that’s been lacking. And I found all sorts of alien shots which indicate that persons other than myself have been out and about with my Fuji FinePix.

So I offer you one of them today, cleverly taken in the mirror in the hall:

Smug or cheeky… or both?

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Resurrection eggs – the verses

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , on 31 March, 2010| 6 Comments »

Just remembered: here’s a page with the verses for the Resurrection eggs, so you don’t have to retype. Just print out and cut them up. We Vicar’s wives need all the time-saving help we can get.

Resurrection Eggs Verses

We’ll be getting our older two to find the verses in the bible – it’s good practice!

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Resurrection Eggs – All set up

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , on 31 March, 2010| 7 Comments »

My Resurrection Egg outers arrived from Baker Ross yesterday. So whilst the Vicar took the kids swimming, I assembled the egg box with bible verses and visual aids. I also managed to fit three mini-eggs into each egg which I thought might encourage the kids as they go through the box. Not in the last one, though, as it’s meant to be empty, like the tomb. I plan to have other treats on hand to celebrate the last Resurrection Egg when we get that far.

So here’s a couple of rather poor photos, taken on my phone cos I couldn’t locate my camera, so you can see what they look like. In the end, we didn’t open the first one after swimming, because the Queen stayed so long gassing in the ladies’ changing room (and the Vicar couldn’t go and fetch her, obviously) that they were very late home. She had to run straight out to the Kids’ Club Easter Party as soon as she’d eaten her tea, so the Resurrection Eggs will be a holiday activity – term finishes today – hooray!

I numbered the eggs using sticky foam pieces and a marker pen

A close up of the egg ‘fillings’

The fillings were quite straightforward – it took me about an hour to assemble the whole kit. Here’s what I actually did in the end:

Day 1: Cottonwool ball soaked in perfume (not sure how authentic Elizabeth Arden Green Tea is as a fragrance)
Day 2: 5p pieces for the silver – thankfully I had some in my purse.
Day 3: Matthew 21:1-11. Donkey or palm leaf – Playmobil pot plant pieces.
Day 4: Matthew 26:26-29. Cup or bread – a Playmobil wine glass and a piece of bread.
Day 5: Luke 22:39-46, 54a. Praying hands or pipecleaner man – I stuck together some pink foam which I cut into the shape of praying hands. A little lurid in colour.
Day 6: John 19:1-7. Purple cloth. Well the cloth is maroon, but it was the best I could find.
Day 7: John 19:16-17. Cross. I made this by snipping off the bottom of one of the kids’ palm crosses and sticking it together. Shhhh – don’t tell them.
Day 8: John 19:18. Nails. Sourced from the Vicar’s tool cupboard.
Day 9: John 19:33-35. Toothpick (for the spear). Actually I used  half a cocktail stick (no toothpicks in the Vicarage), covered in silver foil.
Day 10: Matthew 27: 57-60. Rock. Some gravel from the drive. Washed.
Day 11: Mark 16:1-3. Cinnamon/cloves/spices. Had plenty of these in the cupboard.
Day 12: John 20:1-8. And nothing in the egg! This was easy.

I’m looking forward so much to starting this tonight.

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Resurrection Eggs – a new Vicarage tradition

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , on 29 March, 2010| 12 Comments »

Inspired by Happy, the Vicar’s Apprentice, whose mother has an Easter tree, and Nicole at 168hrs, I have sent off to Baker Ross for plastic eggs and am planning a burst of Easter celebration in the Vicarage over the next few days.

The idea of Resurrection Eggs is a little like the Jesse Tree we have during Advent. A dozen plastic eggs each contain a small item to remind us of different stages in the Easter story. The plan is to read the bible verses and remember the Easter story together each day. I’ll take a photo once I have it all assembled.

Below are the passages and items I’m planning on using. I suspect our various Playmobil sets will be a good source for some of the pieces…

Day 1: Matthew 26:6-13. Jesus anointed at Bethany.
Cottonwool ball soaked in perfume.
Day 2: Matthew 26: 14-16. Judas agrees to betray Jesus.
5p pieces for the silver.
Day 3: Matthew 21:1-11. The triumphal entry.
Donkey or palm leaf.
Day 4: Matthew 26:26-29. The last supper.
Cup or bread.
Day 5: Luke 22:39-46, 54a. Gethsemane.
Praying hands or pipecleaner man.
Day 6: John 19:1-7. Jesus sentenced to death.
Purple cloth.
Day 7: John 19:16-17. Jesus carries his cross.
Cross.
Day 8: John 19:18. The crucifixion.
Nails.
Day 9: John 19:33-35. Jesus dies.
Toothpick (for the spear).
Day 10: Matthew 27: 57-60. Jesus placed in the tomb.
Rock.
Day 11: Mark 16:1-3. The women go to anoint the body.
Cinnamon/cloves/spices.
Day 12: John 20:1-8. The empty tomb.
And nothing in the egg!

I’m going to put together a pdf file of the references to pop in the eggs and the bible readings and I’ll blog those later in the week.

We’ll obviously be starting a bit later than we should if we want to open the empty egg on Easter Day, but as a two week Easter holiday is looming, I’m happy to be telling the story both before and after the big weekend. Now I just need to track down an empty egg carton and those Playmobil pieces.

Do you have any good Easter traditions?

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Sainsbury’s, society and sadness

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 24 March, 2010| 1 Comment »

I was in Sainsbury’s earlier today, stocking up on Vicarage essentials (own-brand weetabix, apples, Cif spray, pinot grigio etc). As I was queuing to pay out the surprisingly vast quantity of money, I heard two check-out assistants asking elderly couples if they were collecting schools vouchers. The vouchers are collected by schools, scout and guide groups and kids’ sports clubs and can be used to buy sports, cooking, gardening and play equipment.

Neither couple wanted them. And I was a bit far away to shout out ‘No, no, keep them for me!’ It made me sad, though – these people didn’t know anyone they could give the vouchers to. They are part of a society where the old and the young don’t know one another.

This is one thing the church does well and I am grateful that we have church family where my children know folk in their 70s and 80s. Church is where older folk come and make cups of tea for mums at the toddler group and help out in the creche and where society’s trend towards isolation and individualism is rejected.

I shouldn’t have shouted out ‘Give me the vouchers’, I should have said ‘ Get yourselves to church’ instead.

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