Continuing the Tradition....

After church, we made our annual trip to Crown Center, ate at Fritz's and went ice skating. The girls did great...I took turns skating them around the rink for several hours...it was quite the work-out. My arms were so sore the next day! They were determined to "keep going until I get it good". We started a new tradition this year and although Eva is still a bit young and ran around the majority of the time we were doing devotions, the girls really began to grasp the Christmas story on a deeper level...not just the birth of Jesus but the events leading up to WHY Jesus had to be born. We did a Jesse tree...we made ornaments (24 of them), each a symbol of the theme of the scipture passage we were reading. And of course, we had an advent calendar filled with chocolates that they got to open AFTER the scripture. Why yes, we used a little bribery positive reinforcement to help them sit quietly through our nightly devotions...