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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Colin, Kids and Pressing On

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 17 March, 2010| 8 Comments »

This weekend we went to see our family favourite, Colin Buchanan (not the bishop), in concert in Birmingham as a part of the Passion for Life mission that is taking place round the country over the next few weeks.

Colin with the Vicarage kids and their friend Wondergirl

The Birmingham concert was a typical Colin session – full of high energy, hilarity and gospel truths. The Queen was particularly pleased to be selected to wave a flag. It was great fun to be there and I’m already planning to ensure that the next time he’s in the Midlands we arrange a Sunday School outing to his show. It was just as entertaining for the grown-ups.

When I mentioned that I’d been to see Colin on Facebook and Twitter, two separate people quoted the first line of this Colin song to me. It’s from his grown-up album, Real Hope. His style was categorised as ‘country rock’ on one website I looked at – I love it, but wouldn’t class myself as a fan of country or rock!

Press on Mums
In all the chaos
Look to Jesus through the tears
Press on, Mums
God will guide you
Through those precious, tender years

Chorus:
And in all you do, do it for Jesus
Who won you life and free forgiveness
Yesterday, today
He is the same
All you do
Do it in Jesus’ name

Press on, Dads
Love your wife
Serve your children
Set the pace
Press on, Dads
Seize the moment
Show them Jesus
Run the race

Press on, kids
God adores you
He will hear you when you pray
Press on, kids
Love your family
Honour, serve
Forgive, obey

. . . and when all your human energy is gone
Look towards your Jesus and press on.

I’ve been singing it to myself all week. And now I’m going to see if I can locate the album, underneath the chaos somewhere.

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Getting up faster

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , , , on 28 January, 2010| 2 Comments »

Just in case you didn’t read all the comments about getting the Vicarage household up and at it, here is an excellent YouTube clip that Iconoclast shared. It shows how a Japanese mum gets her kid up, dressed, washed, toothbrushed and fed and makes a healthy lunch ready to go to school, all in the space of 4 1/2 minutes. I am wanting to put it into practice IMMEDIATELY. I just need to find a good place to hang the vests.

In other morning news, today the kids were totally speedy, induced by a new reward chart to gain additional Club Penguin and PS2 minutes. Not sure if this counts as bribery, but it was effective today. Will keep you posted.

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Advent in the Vicarage

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 1 December, 2009| 13 Comments »

Last night I suddenly realised that today would be 1st December and I was rather unprepared. So the Queen and I had to delve into our cellar to retrieve an old Celebrations chocolate tin and stomp about the garden for a good twig. Then we had to track down a suitable buckety receptacle and scrabble in our gravel to fill said receptacle. Yes, it’s Jesse Tree time in the Vicarage.

A smart and organised Jesse Tree

If you’re not familiar with the Jesse Tree tradition, I’d like to heartily commend it as a great way to keep Advent Christ centred. A good Advent calendar with bible verses is a start, but using a Jesse Tree helps us to focus as a family on the coming of the King. The tradition is to hang an ornament on our bare twig every day of Advent and have a bible reading and questions about bible passages which point to the coming of Christ. The ornament reminds us of the bible passage or a person who heralded Christ in the Old Testament. A Jesse Tree is a visual bible overview and helps us all to remember God’s great plan of salvation which led to the birth of Jesus.

Originally I used an activity book which had suggested readings and ideas for making the symbols to hang on the tree for each of the 25 days of December leading up to Christmas Day. Then I also read about the Jesse Tree in the excellent book by Kent and Barbara Hughes ‘Disciplines of a Godly Family’. And if you Google ‘Jesse Tree’ you can find a huge variety of suggestions for how to make your tree and which bible readings and symbols to use. We made our decorations over a couple of years. When the kids were very young, we only had about half of them. I fondly remember a wet weekend the first Christmas of the Vicar’s curacy when my parents joined in construction of the missing ornaments in our steamy kitchen. We also have a few ready made decorations in the tin. The simplest option is to find some images to print out, and use blutack to fix your symbols to a picture of a tree. An American magazine seems to have done this.

In the end I ended up compiling our own Jesse tree list and readings, with symbols, readings and suggested questions. I also listed out the single verse readings on a sheet of paper using the NIrV, but I’ll not post that because I suspect I might be breaching copywrite. Last year the Queen and the Joker were able to take turns in reading from the sheet of verses. This year I’m intending to get the kids to find the bible passages in their bibles (International Children’s Bible for the Joker, NIV for the Queen) and then read. The Engineer might even be able to read out a few. If not, he can read out the questions.

It’s not too late to join us in making a Jesse Tree this Advent. Or keep it up your sleeve for next year. And just for you, dear readers, here is a sneak preview of this year’s Vicarage Jesse Tree. The eagle eyed among you will spot a few doubles (spreading around the hanging-up-the-ornament joy), a triple and the absence of David’s sling. I’m sure I’ve seen it since we moved but it may take some tracking down. Or we could make a new one. In fact, maybe we should ensure that each child has a complete set to take with them when they leave home. I foresee a project for coming Advents…

If I spot a twiggier branch tomorrow I might make a swap

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Generations

Posted in Church, Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , on 10 February, 2009| Leave a Comment »

generations

The Joker was six the other Sunday. We’d already planned a party for him at a local soft play park, which happened after school on Monday. So what about celebrations on his actual birthday?

To tell the truth, we’d not completely factored in his birthday when planning our last few Sundays in this parish. So we’d invited three church members to lunch. They were an octogenarian chap and a couple who are both retired.

I hope you’re not surprised to learn that we had a delightful Sunday afternoon. The Queen, the Joker and the Engineer are used to having all sorts of folk over for lunch, so they didn’t notice that the people around the table were older than their grandparents.

Before lunch they’d enjoyed showing their baby pictures to our friends and the Joker had been demonstrating his new birthday toys in the living room. Thankfully, not the pogo stick. We all particularly enjoyed his sharing of new jokes from his Basil Brush joke book.

I can’t think of many of my friends or contemporaries who regularly share meals with those of a different generation other than grandparents or other family members. So it is one of the great joys of being part of a church family that we have friends of different generations.

I was recently told that the promotion of intergenerational relationships is a current trend in community development. The Big Lottery Fund is certainly supporting it.

I wonder if the government would just consider encouraging people to join a church family instead?

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Holidays (and strike days) – survival tips

Posted in Craft, Family, Holidays, tagged , , on 18 July, 2008| Leave a Comment »

On Wednesday, when we had an enforced day of holiday because of the public sector strike, Wonderfriend came round to play with the Queen. I was able to keep the two big girls and both my small boys occupied for a good part of the morning using a great present sent by Auntie Icklesis. I had to draw the figures but they did all the colouring.

From left to right, Wonderfriend, the Queen, the Joker, the Engineer

From left to right, Wonderfriend, the Queen, the Joker, the Engineer

So many thanks to Auntie I and to the inventors of Paint a Puzzle. Now we only have to do something similar on the other side!

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Pros and cons of clergy wives conferences

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , on 11 July, 2008| 2 Comments »

I’m just back from a Proclamation Trust‘s Clergy Wives Conference. This was my sixth year of attendance. A conference full of the wives of ministers seems a very peculiar thing, so I thought I’d list a few pros and cons of going away for four days with women whose husbands have similar jobs to mine.

Pros

  • Refreshing and challenging bible teaching (thanks to David Jackman and Giles Walter this year) – listening to six whole talks without kids interrupting or rota duties for Sunday school is brilliant
  • Wonderful opportunities to catch up with friends and hearing news of others
  • Great resourcing for ministry by nicking everyone else’s ideas
  • Food you don’t have to shop for or cook
  • Table-clearing and washing up done by others

Cons

  • Feeling very refreshed but also shattered by so much talking
  • The Queen getting hold of some scissors and chopping off her fringe in my absence ‘because my hair was in my face’. She has been telling people at school that she fell over and bumped her head and the hair rubbed off.

Have you been on anything like this? What are your pros and cons?

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Modern reports

Posted in Family, School, tagged , on 4 July, 2008| Leave a Comment »

My kids had their school reports today.

One of the comments in the Queen’s one was

The Queen has good mouse control.

My rodent capabilities were never commented on when I was at school….

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You know it must be nearly the end of term when…

Posted in Family, tagged , on 24 June, 2008| Leave a Comment »

1. The children are very grumpy and argue with each other even more than usual.

2. The Joker screams while the Queen tries to boss him around.

3. The Engineer cries all the way home when he has to walk rather than go in the buggy.

4. In the next two days, you have to prepare a Pathfinder meeting (on work and idleness), write a monthly prayer diary and bake multiple trays of flapjack for the school summer fair.

5. You’d rather spend your time blogging about the things you have to do than actually getting round to doing them.

6. You find that you have put the lettuce in the freezer instead of the fridge.

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How many bedrooms in your house?

Posted in Family, Inner city, tagged , , on 16 May, 2008| Leave a Comment »

At the toddler group yesterday I was having a nice chat with Mrs Discoman about her new house. She’s still in lots of chaos but so happy to have a spacious new home. Sitting with us was another mum, who has six kids, aged 2 to 16. She mentioned that she’d applied for one of the lovely new houses that Mrs D has moved into, but hadn’t been successful.

‘How big is your house now?’ I asked.

‘You don’t want to know.’ A period of silence.

‘Go on, tell me.’

‘You don’t want to know.’ I can see some internal seething, a biting of the tongue.

We chat a little more about local housing. Mumofsix has been on various waiting lists for housing for eight years. She thinks there is ‘discrimination’, although she doesn’t say what sort.

‘I’m in a two bedroomed house.’

‘Seven of you with two bedrooms?’ I have to check that this is really her situation. Surely people stopped living like that once Queen Victoria had died.

‘I sleep in the front room.’ she tells me.

I tell her that she’s amazing. Mrs Discoman and I begin talking about something else: we don’t want to rub any more salt in her wounds.

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And where are you living?

Posted in Family, Inner city, tagged , , on 13 May, 2008| Leave a Comment »

I was at a school reunion a couple of years ago. The typical conversation went like this:

‘Yaas, we’ve just moved to Bayswater, how about you?’

‘We’re living in a small village in Worcestershire. Where do you live VW?’

‘We’re in Wolverhampton’

Eyebrows head upwards, jaws drop and I feel I have to justify myself.

Out of that environment I am so happy to be here: in a place where people are real and I’m not goaded into competitive parenting by all the afterschool activities and academic achievements of my children’s peers.

I can work out what I really want for my family. One of the fantastic things about being in the inner city is that there’s no pressure from alpha mums. I feel I can concentrate on what’s important without feeling guilty about not signing my kids up to all the classes going.

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