Activities for Littles & Winter Sanity {Thoughtful Thursday}

Thoughtful Thursday a weekly series on asJulesisgoing.com

I know its supposed to be turning spring...really! Any day now. But if you live in Arkansas or any state with bipolar weather like AR then you know you're gonna need some tricks up your sleeve this month {and maybe next month as well} for those days when the brisk wind is more like ice daggers. Today I wanna share 3 silly things my kids love that cost little to nothing and entertained them for quite a while.

Pipe Cleaner Art

pipe cleaner art toddler activities for winter sanity

I had some construction paper, pipe cleaners, and {glitter} glue already in our craft supplies. My 4.5-year-old just went at it! Twisting and gluing. My 3-year-old was having a little more trouble. I ended up cutting lots of different colored pipe cleaners into tiny pieces. Then she told me what picture she wanted to make. I sketched the picture she described with a marker then I helped her outline the sketch with the glue, adding different colors to each part of the picture. They both really enjoyed it!

 Indoor Water Play

You may remember we recently went to an awesome indoor playground called the Wonder Place. It was filled with numerous educational centers to play in, one of which being the giant water table. My kids spent the majority of our visit there. This reassured me that my plan to make a homemade outdoor water table for this summer was definitely gonna be worth it! BUT seeing as how we are still in transition and the weather is not exactly conducive to wet outdoor play, we modified our water play.

I filled our kitchen sink with warm water and dish soap. Simply giving them a few "tool" {strainer, spoon, fork, whisk, different sized cups & bowls, grater, etc} to do "experiments" with kept them more than busy.

I wasn't quite comfortable with my 2-year-old standing on a chair, step, or sharing the bench with his sisters for a prolonged period of time...there may or may not have been shoving involved. I chose to give him his own small tray of water with soap, and some safer tools on top of a drop clothe. #winning

indoor water play toddler activities for winter sanityindoor water play toddler science activites for winter sanity

Playdough Art

My kids all three love Playdough, like most kids. They do seem to get bored with the same ol' roll, smash, etc. They haven't quite mastered the molding concept yet. Soooo, I have saved a silly amount of cardboard circles from frozen pizza and we decided to use them in our playdough-play. We made, pizzas, faces, several other meals, and lots of "imaginary" things...

playdough art toddler activities for winter santiy

feeding babies playdough dinner feeding babies playdough meals

playdough birthday cake

Once I got them going on these activities and gave general 'rules', they played interdependent very nicely. Giving them a "new game" seems to help them play well together as well as stay focused for a little longer.

Hope these help spark some ideas in these last few weeks of wacky weather and indoor boredom!

 

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Adopt a Baby – Only $10

Today I have a guest post from a sweet friend Christie, of Satisfaction Through Christ. We both run in the same circles among bloggers, both contribute to the Homemaker's Challenge and both have hearts for adoption. Many of you may think I'm crazy for always talking about how much I support adoption, seeing as how I've only birthed all 3 of my children, but don't you worry! When God gives the "GO!" we're on it!!! In the mean time, I wanna do all I can for the families who are already in that phase of life. I ask Christie to share part of their story with you all because I know you would love an opportunity to support others until its your turn as well!
A month ago we received a phone call saying that we'd been chosen by a young birth mother in Florida. Chosen for what? To adopt her baby!  A story that started on January 10 from a simple Facebook message has turned our world upside down, for the greater!  For the full story and our adoption announcement, please visit here.
A few weeks ago our adoption agency gave us 15 days to come up with the first $10,000 needed for our precious baby girl's adoption.  To say that we were not prepared for this is an understatement!  As you read in our adoption announcement, we were waiting on fertility results the day that my friend contacted me.  So, to need $10,000 in such a short amount of time was a bit overwhelming.  But, the Lord soon laid an idea on my heart -- Operation 10:10:1 {10 Days: $10: 1 Baby Girl}!
I knew that friends and family were just as overwhelmed with the cost of adoption as I was and I figured, let's just chip away $10 at a time!
In 10 days we raised $10,019....what an awesome God we serve!In addition to fundraising we've sold our own things and cut down on our spending.  We are committed to doing all that we can to bring our baby girl home.  We've almost met our next goal of $6,100 but we're fervently in prayer for the final $17,000 we will need when our little girl is born around April 6.Currently, we are doing online auctions to help raise funds and we continue to believe that the Lord will provide every bit of what we need to accomplish His will for our lives.

So, will you join us today as we seek to be obedient to the call that the Lord has on our lives?  We knew when we said, "Yes", that this was so much bigger than ourselves. But, we knew that the body of Christ was big enough to accomplish it! We are so thankful for any size donation that you'd like to give and we assure you that every bit of it will go towards loving a little baby girl for life!

My PhotoChristie is a Pastor’s wife, adoptive mom to a beautiful little girl, and an aspiring homemaker! She daily strives to keep her home tidy, but fails miserably! God’s grace continually proves enough. She and her husband, Quintell, live in North Carolina where they have been serving at a local church for 3 years! In her spare time she enjoys spending time with family, blogging, and Clemson football! After five years of marriage, she’s still getting the hang of homemaking! Follow along as she seeks to please Him in all that she does!

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Backseat Conversion

12 years old and sitting in the backseat of my mamma’s fashionable station wagon, we pulled away from the church building that Sunday morning. I don’t remember what the details of the conversation where but somehow I ended up making the statement, “Well…I’m a Christian…” Without skipping a beat my mom responded, “Says who? You haven’t ever told anyone that.” I’m pretty sure there may or may not have been a reference to the whole, “deny me I’ll deny you” passage but I can’t be certain. And thus began my journey in knowing God.

backseat conversion

You see, since the beginning of time…or at least the beginning of me, my family has always attended church. I heard all the great stories of the bible {G rated of course}, could sing the songs, and knew tons about God. I totally knew there was a God. I was too smart to think this all came about because a big mass of nothing exploded. My theory was, “I’ll just act like everyone else so they’ll see you don’t have to change anything to become a Christian.” How right and wrong that theory was all at the same time.

Yes, there is nothing you can change about your life, do better, or stop doing to earn the gift Jesus has given us but at the same time, when His spirit moves in...you are never the same again.
{that's another post for another time 😉 }

I chewed on my mom's truthful blunt statement for a while. Thinking. Seeking. Struggling. Yep...there needs to be a change in my life.

It's funny how God knows His intentions amidst your life, even before you fully commit to Him. He's just that good. I can just picture...

God's like a first time daddy holding his baby girl. She has no way of knowing the depth of love he already has for her. He enjoys rocking her. Protecting her. Guiding her heart. He dreams of what he'll teach her. The silly conversations they'll have. Watching her grow up and fall in love only to meet a guy that would love her as much as he does.

God's like a boyfriend holding an engagement ring the moment he met his love and waiting to give it to her until she finally realized they're meant to be. He dreaming about all the fun we're going to have. Deep, hard, emotional conversations that are to come. How we'll grow to be one.

God loves me so much that He wants to allow me to be a part of and used in HIS story. {swoon} Christ is my only hope and because of that, I wanted to serve Him the rest of my life.

The next year, I sat on an outside stair case reading my bible. I was falling more and more with my new daddy & the love of my life. Nothing would ever be the same. That day, I clearly felt God tell me I was gonna be a pastor's wife. I was totally cool with that. I had no idea what that meant but I was cool with that. And for some odd reason I prayed that we would be poor. LOL Maybe I thought that would keep me from being materialistic or maybe I just thought "poor" just came with being a "pastor's" wife. I digress...

Again, He knows me so well! All our relationship He seems to have given me hints of what was to come. Being the control freak that I am, I think He tries to ease my stress by letting me in on things slowly.

That backseat conversion was just the beginning of the crazy cool adventure God was planning on taking me on!

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Win aJig Points

Today... Oh today, Not unlike most days recently, was packed with...stuff to do.

Don't let my Instagram pics fool you!

To kick off the day right, guess what I had for breakfast!?! Did you say pancakes? Wrong. Did you say cinnamon rolls? Wrong. Did you say cereal? But I did have french toast sticks...by the way, not the best ideas for portable on the road while you're the one driving food according to my hair, necklace, and shirt. Woops.

While working Duck Duck Goose from 9-4ish there were a few things that would have been nice:

  1. Chapstick,  that wind's a booger!
  2. Bigger bags of M&Ms for my lunch but the mini bags & some peanuts were great. Just glad it wasn't SPAM.
  3. Stain remover or even just a simple baby wipe for some of the nasty clothes that tried to sneak their way in, I for Real washed my hands All Day Long. lol
  4. Fewer of THESE and THESE and THESE singing, I mean, that makes it really hard to hear yourself talking to yourself all day.
  5. Gum curbed the hunger {btw: my boss is not a slave driver...I'm just a task oriented person & wouldn't leave to get anything}
  6. If any day was an allergy's nasal spray kinda day...it should have been today. Hello
  7. Maybe next time I'll bring cookies...
  8. or maybe just the dough
  9. I have a wicked strong smeller. Maybe air freshener would be a good investment for the old building or
  10. maybe...for the stinky people.

After the fun of hanging out with working with sweet ladies all day, I ran home to help get ready for a family to come see our home {for the 3rd time! hopefully that's a good sign}. When I got home it was time to

  1. scarf the pizza I picked up on the way and then we were off...
  2. check to see if I needed refills for all the plug-ins already going
  3. Does anyone use these? I always thought they looks a lil nasty sitting in a window or on a counter but I guess they work well. I just through one away tonight after like at least a month.
  4. I didn't have time to do the carpets though {tear}
  5. or the windows, another day.
  6. Wiped down counters/tables
  7. I think Matt cleaned the kitchen and
  8. bathrooms and
  9. TOILETS {several times after #stomachbug2013- didn't know? Check out my twitter or Facebook}
  10. everywhere else while I was work'n 😀

Now, I'm off to upload a gazillion pics of this weekend's work in Vtow & The Valley! Woot!!!

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Wanna play a lil game called figure out what Jules linked to? You can win 2000 aJig points 😀 Click each link to find a coupon for an item. If/when you print one {or all}, it helps support us on our crazy adventure of church planting. THANKS!

the value of an aJig point is approximately 
$0 and a bunch of pride
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