Cookie Commotion

Post written by Bridget Strub.

photo courtesy of Link576

Each year around Christmas time I set some pretty lofty goals for myself that involve Christmas cards arriving in people’s homes by the third week of December, having all my gifts purchased and wrapped before Thanksgiving, and decorating the house from top to bottom on Black Friday – after I’ve spent the morning bargain hunting for the cheapest prices of the season of course. Here I sit at the end of the first weekend in December and I’ve not purchased the cards yet or even attempted to search through the attic for our Christmas decorations. I have started my shopping, but am sure the rest of it will be done with minutes to spare on the 23rd. That just seems to be the way it goes each year. Each year since I’ve been married I’ve set those ambitions for myself and each year I’m let down as the month slips by and my goals get shoved into the background. Last year we didn’t even buy a tree! There is one tradition, though, that was established my first year of marriage and I’ve cherished it ever since.

Pete’s family has a rich history of recipes passed from generation to generation. It’s not unusual to see recipe cards with handwriting from my mother-in-law’s grandmother or recipes with titles of Aunts or Uncles names in it. Each Strub family get-together is marked by a hearty main course, savory side dishes, and baked goods to die for. Christmas is no exception in the Strub household. Each year Pete and I get together with his parents and sister or sisters to make not one, not two, but six different kinds of Christmas cookies. It is an all day occasion filled with hot, hard work, but the memories I have as a result of those days with my family is priceless.

Just today Pete and I spent close to seven hours mixing, measuring and frosting cookies. In the midst of those hours though I was able to share life with people I love. I got to play hide and seek, tickle fight and some other games I didn’t really understand with my four year old nephew. I heard the incredible heart of my father-in-law as we shared a conversation about the world. I learned from the wisdom of my mother-in-law and shared laughs with my sister-in-law. All of these moments, though easily taken for granted, were priceless. I won’t get that time back.

As I left the house exhausted, arms full of sweet goodies, I realized how much I appreciate the excuse food provides to get people together. We use the excuse to catch up with old friends over coffee and a pastry. We use the excuse to get to know a significant other more intimately over a meal. We use food as an excuse, or opportunity rather, to share life, love, and community with those around us whom we hope to learn from. Food is unique in that way. It’s really one of the only things in the worlds that brings people together no matter how far apart they are.

While Christmas cookie making is not the healthiest of the holiday traditions to uphold, the company shared in that time is invaluable. I’ll sacrifice the health of my body a little in order to connect with my family every day. Now, if I could just figure out those Christmas cards and decorations…

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Disney Trip

Just standing in line here fir the Magic Kingdom bus and thought as a Tech Jock that I could be doing something techy. So I thought I would see if I could keep an ongoing article on our trip. So here goes…

I’m using the wordpress app for the iPhone which doesn’t give me ad much control over the format but I’ll do my best.

Right now we just fastpassed thunder mountain railroad to avoid the 10 minute wait and are going on splash mountain. Jake is deathly afraid of getting wet so we are doing our best to encourage him. Basically we are flat out lying…

Okay so we nearly finished our first ride – splash mountain – and it broke. We are sitting here I’m brear rabbits tunnel waiting for staff to come around and assist us to get out of the boat.

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Adventures of a Tech Jock

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

photo courtesy of bfishadow

The Golden Years When I was in Elementary and Junior High School I was your typical dorky adolescent. I remember hanging out with some of the more goofy kids (which I fit into that category perfectly) who played Dungeons & Dragons and had collections of Star Wars figures and Radio Controlled Cars. I didn’t really fit into the ‘cool group’ at that point, but as I came into High School I started excelling in sports and shedding some of that goofy and awkward layer I carried around for years. Being in a small school with a graduating class of about 65, it was actually possible to know nearly everyone in my High School. That became a goal of mine. I knew what it was like to be part of the goofy group – you know the band geeks or A/V kids in your High School. But I also enjoyed becoming part of the popular crowd. At one point I even had possibly the most attractive girl in our High School longing to date me but at the time I had my heart set on another girl in my church youth group. Thank goodness neither of those worked out.

A new term I remember at one point in my High School Years when a female friend of mine was complimenting me on my skills. I had found some loophole in the system where I was really good at computers and gadgets but didn’t fit the personality profile of most of the A/V guys. I didn’t have a pocket protector or coke bottle glasses and I was actually coordinated. So she gave me a new label – “Tech Jock”. I fit in with the coolness of the Jocks (evening earning Athlete of the Year my Senior Year) while still enjoying my passion for gadgets (and we’re not talking all the cool gadgets like we have now – we are talking gadgets like the Commodore 64 here).

For my peeps So for all those guys out there that have a passion for Audio and Visual goodness but were shunned from the cool group, being called a computer nerd or other debilitating names – this column is for you. You can enjoy A/V and still be cool. You too, can be a Tech Jock.

Of more importance So Technology is of course one of my passions, but I also have a few other roles that outrank the Tech Jock Label. Husband, Father, and a Follower of Jesus. I am absolutely blessed by my marriage to my wife Amy. She is my best friend and we have a lot of fun navigating through life together. Which brings me to our kids – Hannah and Jacob. Life is never boring in our house, and I look forward to sharing some of those adventures with you. Finally, through all of this, my love for Christ is a part of everything I’m involved in. I’m sure I’ll be sprinkling stories in which God is working in my life here in there, because that is always exciting as well.

So I hope you enjoy my weekly column here on Sundays and I want to leave you with one recent story of our 4 year old Jacob.

A Parenting Ubermoment I recently came across the iPhone app called Joost which allows me to watch old TV episodes right on my iPhone. While I was browsing through the retro animated cartoons I came across my absolute favorite: G.I.Joe. My brothers and I were such big G.I.Joe fans that between the three of us we honestly owned about 400 figures and over 100 vehicles. It’s no wonder that all three of us eventually joined the Army Reserves. I was thrilled to share these episodes with Jacob and hoped he would enjoy them as much as I. It wasn’t long before Jacob was cheering on Snake Eyes and fearing Storm Shadow. The episodes are terrific because there are no cartoons, but they do show the commercial brake. It’s kind of entertaining. At the end of an action sequence the G.I.Joe logo comes on and the narrator states “G.I.Joe will return after these messages.” The screen goes black for a second and then the narrator comes back on and continues, “And now back to G.I.Joe”. Well after watching nearly all of the 20 or so episodes and having a half dozen commercial brakes for each episode, it wasn’t long before we found Jacob repeating this. The way he shares this is adorable and a little intriguing. Jacob will recite the narrators comments word for word and then close his eyes for a second or two before coming back with the phrase, “and now back to G.I.Joe”. You gotta see it to see how cute it is…

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YouTube Direkt

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Parenting UberMoment

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

The boys admiring their amazing find

What Four Year Old Boys Admire

This past weekend we went camping with my side of the family. My wife’s idea of a vacation is finding a nice hotel with a pool and hot tub, so she gives us one day a year to actually break out the tent and go camping. Although I must say she’s enjoying it more each time we go so next year we may double our stay.

On the way back from our camping trip we stopped at a Splash Park with the rest of our family. Between my two older brothers and I we have eight kids, and only two of them are girls. Six boys between the ages of three and nine can provide all kinds of entertainment. You never know what is going to happen.

The splash park proved to be lots of fun and accomplished our goal of wearing out the kids enough for them to fall asleep during the rest of our ride home. As I was bringing Jacob to the Men’s Room to change him out of his suit and back into some dry clothes he spotted something that he felt the need to point out to me.

We walked past a woman who was sunbathing and that apparently caught Jacob’s eye. “Dad, look!! Look!!!” he said with excitement as he was trying to turn my head to look in this girl’s direction. (I’m realizing as I write this, that no matter how carefully I try to describe the girl or this situation, I will land in some level of trouble with my wife. So I hope you appreciate what I’m sharing here.)

I tried to appease Jake by offering him a, “Yeah, that’s great buddy!” not realizing that he wasn’t pointing out the sunbathing girl, but his keen eyes had noticed something entirely different, entirely more valuable, and way more exciting to him. I was a little relieved that Jake’s hormone’s weren’t kicking into overdrive prematurely, when he shared the object of his excitement, “It’s a Batman Towel, Dad!”

The story doesn’t end there. When you find something so exciting like a Batman Towel, you can’t just keep it to yourself. You gotta share that with your friends. So when we arrived back at base camp, a small tree just outside the water section of the park, Jake filled in his cousins on this amazing find. So before long, Jake brought one of his cousins, Michael, over to check out this treasure. The two walked right up to the girl as Jake pointed out the famous batman logo that covered the towel she was laying on.

As they came back to the tree again, wearing their innocent smiles, they invited a third cousin, Luke, to check out this masterpiece. At that point I quickly grabbed a camera to capture this moment. I did my best to grab a quick snapshot without looking like some stalker taking pictures of sunbathing women. I can only image the conversation going on as the three stood around the girl staring down and admiring the fine craftsmanship of the towel. “Must be at least 600 thread count,” Jake says while pointing out the towel, “Bruce Wayne would demand no less.”

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Comfortable

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

Jake in the chair at Sal’s Barber Shop

I’ve been giving our son his haircuts pretty much since he’s been born and each haircut proves to be quite an adventure. The routine is pretty much the same every time. Place a stool about four feet in front of the TV. Turn on a video or cartoon he likes. Have about four lollipops ready for him to cycle through. And then for the next hour, yes its usually about a full hour, I go to battle with Jake over his hair.

He hates the razor so I try to use the scissors on as much of his hair as possible. Anytime the razor gets close, his shoulders instantly come up to his ears protecting his neck and ears from the funny tickle it gives. I usually try to get his hair slightly damp, because its easy to cut, but if a drop of water or a clump of hair happens to fall on his lap, he screams bloody murder.

The climax of our dual is the point when I try to trim the hair on the back of his neck. I’ve tried so many bribes that if Jake actually accepted them, he’d be driving a Bentley right now and I’d be his butler. The battle usually ends with either Amy holding Jake’s head down while he screams and cries and I quickly shear as much as I can, or he walks around with a mane on the back of his head and wears collared shirts for the next month.

A few days ago I was on my way to my thrweekly (every three weeks) hair appointment and Amy said to check if Sal, my authentic Italian Barber, had an opening after me for Jake. We weren’t sure this would be worth the money if Jake gave the same resistance to Sal as he does to me. Not only would this be embarrassing, but I pictured Jake coming home with a half-shaved head, full price haircut, with me finishing the job with an even more frustrated Dad and Son. It was worth a try, we thought.

Amy arrived a little before Sal was finished with me and Jake and Hannah sat and watched as Sal so easily performed his craft, that I tried to mimic at home with Jake. I could hear Amy whispering to Jake to take note of how still Daddy was sitting as well as the other patrons. I could see Jacob’s bright little face in the mirror as I sat and we smiled back and forth. Then came time for Jacob to take the chair. This was the moment of truth.

Sal placed the booster seat on top and as Jacob sat down, he floated the cloth cape over top of him and powered the seat up another foot, giving Jacob a quick ride. Jacob must of appreciated this experience right from the beginning as this was a certain step up from the crappy stool and trash bag Dad uses at home.

For the next twenty minutes Amy and I sat in awe as Jacob was a perfect statue. He sat so still, in fact, that Sal informed me he was better behaved than I normally am. It was amazing and it was well worth any amount of money to not have to face our blood boiling battle that Jake and I face every so often. As a bonus, Jake’s hair has never looked better. No straggly hair on the back of his next and around his ears. No ‘homejob’ style haircut, but rather a nice looking style. And two proud parents.

After watching those twenty minutes of magic, I recognized something that happens very often in families. We get comfortable with each other. When we deal with other people – the people we work with, our friends at church, people around town – we give them our best. But its easy to get home and be a little too comfortable with our family. We say things we are thinking that we would never say to someone we see once a week. We forgive really quickly those at work, but hold our spouse and children to the highest of standards. In some ways, this being comfortable is a good thing. We need to be completely transparent with our spouse and family. We need to be totally open and honest. But at the same time we need to give them the same respect that we give our church friends or coworkers. We should be much quicker to forgive the person you vowed to spend the rest of your life with, than the person who sits four cubes down.

So I’m going to make an effort to get comfortable in my love and openness with my family, but become uncomfortable with my criticism and judgment. It’s no easy task – facing years of bad habits and human nature, but I owe them my best.

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Parenting UberMoment

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

Jacob’s Future Wife

Last night Amy and I were cuddling on the couch when our four-year-old, Jacob, wormed his way in between us. We have a fun game we like to play were Jake tries to steal my wife and I rough him up a little and tell him to go find his own wife.

So then we got to talking about wedding rings and what that meant. Jacob tried on my wedding ring and was thrilled to be married to Amy for a few minutes, before my finger started feeling strangely uncomfortable without the familiar feeling of my wedding band. So I roughed him up again to gain my ring back.

We then asked Jacob if he would get married someday, to which he simply stated, “Yup”. What a great teaching moment I thought. So I started asking Jake some leading questions as to the type of woman he should marry. You certainly can’t start too early planting these important seeds. After asking what his future wife will look like, or what she’ll do and finding she strangely resembled Catwoman from his description I thought I better help him out a little more.

So I told Jake that the two things he needs to remember is to marry someone who is very pretty and someone who loves God. Jakes answer was priceless…

“Mommy!!!!!!!!!!!”

Well said Jacob. Well said.

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My Father’s Day Date

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

photo courtesy of Pingu1963, very busy

I try to take each of my kids on a date as often as possible. I cherish this time and its great to spend time with them one on one. On Father’s Day, Hannah took me out on a date. This was such a special time for us and I learn so much from her during these keepsakes.

Girls getting ready together. Hannah is a pretty tough girl. With her 6 to 1 ratio of boy to girl cousins, she can hang in there with the boys no problem. In fact, most of the time, she’s running the show. Despite this toughness, she still loves to be a princess. I often stand at the bottom of the stairs and listen as words of encouragement pour out of her mother’s mouth and fill the air with compliments of her beauty and grace. There is something magical happening during this time. I believe these are small moments in which my daughter is turning into a lady.

The princess and the queen. We were talking with friends recently about the best way to show our daughter where she falls. You don’t want to put your kids before your spouse, but of course you want to shower them with all the love you can give them. So my daughter understands that she is my princess – an extremely high ranking position in my life, which falls slightly under the ranking of the queen, my wife, which of course falls under the king of my life, Christ.

A big deal. From the many books I’ve read on raising a daughter, I’ve often come across the heavy but inspiring words that I am my daughter’s first love. This date is a big deal for her. After I realized that I was my daughter’s first love, it was amazing how obvious it was in the way she looked at me. This is a big deal for me too. For now I know that in this my daughter is learning how she should be treated. I need to be the man I want my daughter to marry. For the way I act, is the type of man my daughter will look for. That is a heavy burden to carry, but such a privilege.

The unveiling on the stairs. After the girls have done their magic in front of the mirror and Mom has imparted something that can’t be put into words, Hannah arrives at the top of the stairs. My captivation is expected, but freely given. I allow my pride as a Dad and adoration and love for my daughter to freely flow as I take her hand when she reaches the bottom of the stairs. From here we climb into the car and I continue to share all of the incredible character qualities I admire in her, that I all to often fall short of expressing in our normal daily routine.

Her treat. As we arrive at the coffee shop, we put in our order that we planned in the car and add to that an over-sized chocolate muffin with chocolate chips on top. Hannah removes the furry bear purse from her wrist and pulls out a ten dollar bill she’s been saving. She hands it to the cashier and twinkles her eyes to me after the cashier expresses her surprise of this impressive gesture offered from such a little lady. We find a nice quiet table for two and sit down to one of those moments in which I wish I had the ability to freeze time.

Discovering her heart. We talk about anything and everything. I delight in her carefree spirit and listen as she shares her heart with me. Between bites of chocolate muffin and sips of chai, she gives me insight into what she enjoys doing most. Her eyes light up as she describes what she calls fun, but I realize are her passions, and I catch glimpses of the kind of woman she’ll become. There’s a long way between seven and twenty something, but then again it seems like just yesterday that I held her in my arms for the first time. I try to file away these precious gifts she is giving me. My hope is to understand what her passion is and how she is wired. It’s easy as a parent to try to create a mini version of you, but I know my daughter will be at her best when she becomes what God has made her for. I know I am truly blessed, and as a Dad I face the awesome privilege of being entrusted with such a wonderful gift from God.

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Dinner: From Chaos to Calm

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

If your children are anything like ours, then your time around the dinner table is not just dinner…it’s dinner and a show. Family dinner time is very important to my wife and I, but it does come at a price. For some reason our children seem to have a secret mission to see if they can make Mom or Dad spontaneously combust.

Here are some experiences we have learned around our dinner table.

Comedy Hour. Somehow along the line our children got the idea that dinner time was not dinner. But more of a comedy show in which you resort to any level of chaos to make the table laugh. This is probably our own doing as we unknowingly encouraged humor by laughing at the many funny moments that happen with little ones. Now its not uncommon to see my wife or I turning away to hide our tears of laughter, so as not to promote open mic night, as Jacob shares his rendition of singing twinkle twinkle little star, while drumming with spoons on his bare chest. In this we are a team. While one of us buckles in laughter, the other can usually conjure up enough sternness to explain that ‘privates’ are ‘privates’ for a reason and its inappropriate to drum on them with spoons.

The Window Seat. We have a large window in our dining room with a great view of the back yard. However, the kids quickly found that they can see their reflection in the mirror so they can not only be the star of the show, but also their own #1 fan. They are content to ignore their food and create every sort of funny face you can imagine. This personal feedback can also be found on the side of a large pot, which makes it all the more amusing for them to see their face distorted by the curvature of the pot. Other discoveries are their reflection in spoons, their distorted hand when viewed from behind a glass of water or in the glass of water, and their reflection in the brushed steel of the light fixture hanging from above our table, which of course can only be seen while standing on the table.

Resorting to Prison Tactics. When one of our two kids gets really out of hand I’ve been known to pick up that child, while still in their chair, and relocate them to the kitchen, just behind the counter, which puts an abrupt stop to their comedy show. This isolation method, of putting them in ‘the box’ lays a lovely blanket of serenity over our house.

The Welcome Home Attempt. Occasionally my wife will work a later shift and I make it my goal to have dinner ready when she arrives with the kids sitting calmly and nicely in their chairs. My first attempt to achieve calmness was to entice my kids to become the wait staff. Hannah would bring the plates, once my wife was seated, and Jacob would be waiting at the door, towel folded over his left arm, and show my wife to her seat. So after rehearsing this process 16 times – no less, no more – my wife arrived home. As she opened the door and her and Jake made eye contact, Jacob threw the towel in the air, screamed at the top of his lungs and ran into the other room as if being chased by his worst nightmare.

The Welcome Home Attempt #2. The second attempt to surprise my wife with amazingly calm children waiting for her presence at the dinner table, birthed the idea of the Statue Game. This game works amazing well anywhere. I simply tell the kids to do their best statue pose as my wife enters and the goal is to be such a good statue that we fool Mom into thinking they really are statues. This is the only way I have been able to successfully pull of having my wife enter a room of complete silence.

A Statue Game Evolved. This one I cannot take any credit for. My kids came up with it entirely on their own and it cracks me up every time. They call it the dead fish game. So apparently they lay on the floor and they are fish. They pretend to be dead fish and cannot move, otherwise I, the fisherman, will spot their slightest movement and reel them in – to endure endless tickling. It’s a crazy game, but I will do anything to enjoy several seconds of quietness in our home.

A suitable solution. Finally I come to one solution that is at least not embarrassing for when we have guests over. When we were shopping in a small unique toy shop in Saratoga Springs following a wedding the night before, we came across a small tin box titled Family Time Beginner Dinner Games. The sales lady raved about the product when I asked her, and though $16 seemed a little pricey at the time, it is worth its weight in gold. The box includes about 50 cards with different games on them – all of which can easily be played at the dinner table – that promotes heavenly ideas like finishing your food, being quiet, family unity, healthy eating, listening skills and much more. I thought if even just a few of them were good, it would be worth it, but the majority of them are amazingly simple, fun, and effective. What’s even better is that the kids want to play them over and over. It’s not as if once you play a game then its old hat. We have trouble going through the games, because they want to replay the few games they’ve already learned.

So if you are having to resort to prison tactics, dead fish or statues, or the like to have a calm dinner, this may be just the gift for you. And as a side note – it works great in restaurants too.

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Plan a Power Outage

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

photo courtesy of aussiegall

I love thunderstorms. We seem to get a fantastic storm about every two years. I’m talking about a thunderstorm where lighting lights up the sky so much it’s almost like you turned on that strobe light you used to have in your college dorm room (or still do). The lightning is beautiful, but the thunder is what really makes you respect the storm. Especially when it’s close. There are a few different types of thunder. One roll of thunder seems to build as it bounces off the corners of the sky, but I love the rolls of thunder that deliver a huge crack. It’s the same sound you hear at a rodeo when the big burly guy with the horseshoe mustache backs down an angry bull.

Another part I love about thunderstorms is when they are severe enough to disable an entire town from any use of electric. Perhaps this joy comes from childhood wishes that the power wouldn’t return for school to start the next day, or as I grew older, that work would somehow remain closed without any power. Although my particular company would find some way to keep their employees busy despite a lack of power even if it meant us taking turns running on a human size hamster wheel to power our computers.

As a kid, when we lost power, we would all huddle into one room – especially if it was in the winter time, and would fill the house with oil lamps that my Mom collected. She no longer collects them because she received so many of them for birthday and Christmas presents, as they happened to be priced perfectly for a teenagers budget and still look like an expensive gift. So it’s a popular gift from a Mother of four. Once the lamps and all the candles we could possibly find were lit, we dusted off games that haven’t been played since the last power outage. The playing cards were the first to come out and as we’d try to make out our cards by a flickering light, we’d catch up on life. And that was where the magic came in. Sitting there together as a family with no noise. No television that was left on because, well, tv’s are meant to be on. No phone calls. No hum from the computer fan. Not even the occasional sound of the fridge kicking on.

Instead those sounds were replaced with a relaxed chatting. Time was no longer an issue. In fact time became non-existent. Rather than our schedule being dictated by the clock, our actions were now based on how we felt. We’d stay up talking and sharing until slowly, one by one, we would drift off to sleep. But during that time of connection, we would gain back a little ground on what technology seems to slowly take away from us each day. We would look at each other face to face, rather than receive brief updates as the tv stole our eyes. Our conversations would go much deeper because there was no agenda, no what’s next, no where-to-now’s. Just the hope that this pause in time would last as long as possible.

As a kid those are my memories of thunderstorms. And now as a husband and a parent, I find they don’t occur nearly enough. However, I can catch a glimpse of that special time together as a family by creating my own power outage. I’m reminded of a time a while back, when my wife I and planned a power outage as we got back home from an outing. It actually just sort of happened as we were messing with our kid’s heads, as good parents should do, and trying to convince them that we lost power. When we walked into the house from our garage, we failed to reach for any light switches. “Oh no kids, the power’s out!” we told them as they clung tightly to our legs for fear of the dark. Despite the eerie green glow from the digital clock on the microwave, they were buying it. But before long they would catch onto our scheme if I didn’t take precautions. So I quickly made my way down to the old gray panel in our basement and reached for the breaker labeled main. You could almost hear the house itself shut down as every electronic unit powered down simultaneously.

photo courtesy of bardgabbard

For the next several hours we went through the familiar process. Gathering all of our candles. Trying to remember where the matches or lighters were at, and wishing we had put them in a more prominent place when we did have light. And then grabbing pillows and blankets and snuggling up in front of a wood fire in our living room. And just as sure as the sunset, the magic happened. We connected. We connected much deeper than our normally busy schedules allowed. We looked at each others eyes as we caught up on life, rather than getting our updates by scanning our eyes across the words in an email or facebook status or twitter, ummm, tweet. We talked and played until we were tired instead of when the clock told us to go to bed. And as the kid’s eyes became heavy and they snuggled into their warm beds, my wife and I continued this deep connection over some wine and another log on the fire. This was surely family at its best and I look forward to our next power outage, either planned or unplanned.

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Our 5 Family Values

Post written by Steve Otto. Follow me on Twitter.

photo courtesy of photon ℽ

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about being more proactive in what we do as a family rather than simply reacting to whatever is going on in our lives at the moment. So one of the things we did as a family was come up with our five Family Values. I mentioned them in the article 29 Gifts I Want to Leave My Children but here they are again:

• Courage
• Family
• Giving
• Fun
• Purpose

Little Fingers. It was tough finding words that represented what we valued, but were still easy to understand for our kids – especially our three year old, Jacob. The funny thing is I originally was thinking of having just four values, but we couldn’t narrow them down and decided on five.

So our first step was to keep sharing our five values and to see what our kids remembered. At bed time I started asking the kids what our family values were, and to my surprise Jacob popped his little hand up and started naming them on each of his fingers. So five values seems to just make sense now.

At the Well. Our kids were doing well remembering them, but I wondered how well they understood them and could apply them. I was curious if these values would make a difference in their lives or just remain words. But we began seeing our kids start applying these values. As the word water clicked with Helen Keller at the well, I’m beginning to see our kids truly understand our values as they ask, “Was I showing courage, Dad?” after facing a fear. Or overhearing Hannah share with Jake about how they can Give some of their toys to other kids.

Crazy = Memorable. Some of the best advice I received was from my mentor, Jeff, on how to make it easy for our kids to remember these values. He shared with me to come up with very memorable phrases for each value. And the more off-the-wall or silly, the more they would remember it. Some of the silly phrases come right to mind, but some are proving more difficult. I don’t want to force a funny phrase for each of these – I think they will develop naturally. But I think it is key to keep your ears open for something that sticks. Our kids will probably be the best resource for finding a fun way to remember them. For example, with Jake’s fingers, we save ‘Fun’ for the last word. When we get to the thumb and say ‘Fun’ – I drive it into his side as we have an all out tickle war.

Gifts that Keep on Giving. As Mark Batterson shares on his blog – a great way to reinforce these values is with the gifts you give your children for their birthday. Jake’s birthday is coming up at the end of June and I hope to come up with five separate gifts to give to him. One for each value.

Not just for the Kids. It’s easy to think these are just for kids, but these are making a difference in my life as well. First of all, the best way for my kids to learn these is for me to model them. I can’t exactly go around being afraid to try something new, or not putting my family first and expect my kids to do the opposite. Secondly, by teaching these words to my kids over and over I’ve found its more at the forefront of my mind and I’m looking for ways to express these values. And even better, for ways to include our kids when we express these values.

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The Peasant Princess Pt 2: Sweet To My Taste

This is the second in sermon series that Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill church is doing on the book of Song of Solomon in the Bible. The sermon series explores what the Bible says about Dating, Sex, Romance and Intimacy. Pastor Mark does an incredible job of diving into the text and his words will certainly help encourage you on how to wait for and experience an amazing marriage.

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The Peasant Princess Pt 1: Let Him Kiss Me

This is the first in sermon series that Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill church is doing on the book of Song of Solomon in the Bible. The sermon series explores what the Bible says about Dating, Sex, Romance and Intimacy. Pastor Mark does an incredible job of diving into the text and his words will certainly help encourage you on how to wait for and experience an amazing marriage.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!