E-Bear's First Day of Preschool!

Hip, hip hooray, 

E-Bear's first day of preschool was today!

E-Bear's first day of preschool 2012

It's that time again!  The day after Labor Day so often marks the beginning of a new school year in Minnesota.  Today, we are celebrating E-Bear's first day of his new preschool!  Today was a real treat for us in many ways.

We are all so excited for E-Bear.

 Papa and MoMo came over to join in the send-off festivities and the obligatory front step photo shoot.

E-Bear and Papa

Then we all jumped in the car to drop our superman off at school.  Just like his sister before him, E-Bear raced to the front door.  We were left in his dust.  Even his sister could barely keep up!

E-Bear racing with G-Bear to his first day of school.

 E-Bear wasted no time getting into the routine.  G-Bear helped E-Bear find his backpack hook,

 he hunted down his hoot owl name badge,

 and made sure to give us all hugs goodbye before heading off to play.

The verdict at the end of the day?  "Great!"

Happy first day of preschool, E-Bear.  We are so proud of the little gentleman you have become, your enthusiasm and delight in learning and life.  May God bless us with a great school year!

Cousins at the Cabin

Oh, did we have a wild time up at the cabin!

Seven cousins under five years makes for tons of fun and energy and several tired parents.

What a blessing that we had grandparents, grandaunts and granduncles along to make fantastic food and inspire the fun!

For instance, check out the front yard bubble blowing:

The cousins, catching bubbles in the front yard.

 No one does bubbles like Aunty Cindy.  She is a pro.  There were bubbles for everyone to catch!

Plus, she had all six kids out of the kitchen, having a ball, and running around before dinner time.  Perfect!  Like I said, we have the super grandaunts, granduncles and grandparents to thank for a wonderful weekend together.

Welcome, September!

Peek-a-boo, we see you!

Our Red Pepper

"Mommy," G-Bear said,

"I have some joyful news for you.  One of our peppers has turned red!"

After lots of TLC, daily watering and a cross country move, we finally have our first ripe red pepper.  We enjoyed it for lunch today with our sandwiches.  

It was amazing how quickly we gobbled up the fruit of weeks of attention and energy.  Oh, how it makes me thankful for the farmers who are growing the rest of our food everyday!  

New Home Firsts

One of the best parts about a new home are the first moments.

Today the bears and I watered our first lawn.  We were up early!

G-Bear held the sprinkler, E-Bear carried the hose, Buddy Bear toddled around in the showering water.

~

This afternoon we enjoyed our first playtime in our new playroom.

It isn't up to my standards quite yet, but it holds great potential.

Buddy Bear was especially grateful to find a room with familiar favorites.

He has been missing our toys.

~

Tonight we officially opened the kitchen up for dinner.

It wasn't a home cooked meal, but it was close. 

The best part was sharing peaches and ice cream with the whole family on the patio,

a sweet blessing of making our home in Minnesota.

Moving the Johnsons is like moving the Titanic: it's slow going at first, but then we really settle in.  

 Soon, we'll be hitting our stride. 

Boxes, boxes everywhere....

....but at least they're off the truck!

Our moving truck came yesterday, and we are now swimming in boxes to unpack.  The movers make moving look so easy!  After doing it ourselves five times, I know how hard their work really is.  We were so thankful for their help and expertise this time around.  After only three hours, the truck was unpacked!

Now it is our turn to do the heavy lifting.  Our first job was to make up the kids's room, so that E-Bear and G-Bear would feel right at home for their first night in our new house.  And wouldn't you know, there are plenty of closets big enough for Buddy Bear's bed.  He'll feel right at home!

There are more pictures and tales from our journey to come.  For now, it's back to unpacking these boxes!

Let the Wild Rumpus Start!

The Wild Things have nothing on us.

The Bears are delighting in MN visits from their Boston and Seattle cousins.

We have seven kids, five years and under, to keep busy around here.

Hopefully the Cabin can hold all of us for the weekend, and its walls will still be standing on Monday!

We'll keep you posted :)

We Made It to Minnesota!

Safe and sound, we are here in Minnesota!

We made it

crossing six states,

five Johnsons in tow

four plants stowed

(shuttled to the car roof for each pit stop!)

three days of driving,

two nights of resting,

(one in Louisville and one in Wisconsin Dells!)

and 

one jam-packed car of fun!

Hallelujah!

Fruits of the Spirit Summer Project

This time of year, the hard work of summer begins to pay off.  Summer's bounty is at it's peak.

Yummy tomatoes at the North Carolina Farmer's Market

Here in Happily Ever Johnson Land, we've been hard at work too, and we're excited about our bounty.
We're celebrating a different kind of garden harvest, though.

 Behold, our Fruits of the Spirit Garden!

Our Fruits of the Spirit Garden

Our Fruits of the Spirit Garden has been a summer-long project for us.  I am really excited to be able to share our progress over the summer.  The inspiration for our project centered around Mandy Groce's free, online "Fruits of the Spirit" coloring book, found at Ministry to Children.  Ministry to Children is a wonderful, free children't ministry resource website.  We love their coloring pages, Bible story lessons and craft ideas.  I was also inspired by the fun learning lapbooks that Jessica of Shower of Roses makes with her children.  Finally, thanks to our little herb garden for inspiring us to create another out of the "spiritual fruits."

Part I.

After Pentecost last June, we started talking about the Fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  Against these there is no law."

We talked about how, just like soil, water and sunlight help tiny seeds turn in to a garden of beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables, the Holy Spirit helps the seeds of faith in our hearts turn into visible "fruits" in our daily actions and interactions.  These visible, spiritual fruits don't appear as cherries and bananas and apples, but instead show up as things like love and joy and goodness and kindness in our daily lives.

Our conversations were a great way to personalize the meaning of Pentecost and the visible work of the Spirit in our family life.  I used Mandy Groce's Fruits of the Spirit coloring page as a visual aid for E-Bear and G-Bear.  

G-Bear's Fruit of the Spirit folder

After the kids colored their pages, we used them to make covers for our Fruits of the Spirit folders. 

E-Bear's Fruit of the Spirit folder

Part II.

For the second part of our project, we took a few weeks to focus only on the first fruit of the spirit.  To help us do this, we made "Love Charts."  I printed off Mandy Groce's "Love" coloring page for each of the kids.  As they colored, we spent an afternoon talking about ways that the Holy Spirit can help us be more loving people.  We made a list of examples of things that the kids could do that would be loving.  Then, we hung the Love Charts on our wall along with a bag of special stickers.  For the next several weeks, every time the kids made a choice or did something that was loving, I tried hard to recognize it by thanking them and asking them to put a sticker on their Love Chart.  Pretty soon, the kids were recognizing loving behaviors both for themselves and for each other.  Before we knew it, their charts were full, and we added them to our folders. 

G-Bear and E-Bear's Love Charts

Part III.

Next, it was time to give attention to the other eight fruits.  Thanks to Nana, we found a great song to help us memorize them: Fruit of the Spirit by Brentwood Kids   My kids love this song!

To help us cultivate all these fruits, we painted an empty egg carton to represent our "garden."  We had work to do.  It looked pretty barren!  I carefully sliced holes into the top of each egg basket.

Our Fruit of the Spirit Garden

Then, I helped the kids assemble little "fruits" that I had cut out of construction paper.  They got to glue the pieces together, decorate them with leaves, and decide which spiritual fruit each stick would represent.

We wrote the name of the spiritual fruit on the fruit sticks and inserted them into slits that I had cut into their folder pockets.

Over the next several weeks, when the kids did something that represented one of the spiritual fruits, they were allowed to get their fruit stick out of their folder and put it in the garden.   This was a great way for me to reinforce examples of each of the spiritual fruits in their actions.  They were also able to look at our garden at the end of the day, recognize the fruits they had "grown," and focus on the fruits they had yet to display.  On our harder days, I could point to our barren garden and show them a visual example of how we needed to 'grow' more spiritual fruit for our family.

Part IV

To reinforce our ongoing gardening project, we made mini Fruits of the Spirit "Gardener Coloring Books" out of Mandy Groce's online coloring book.  We spent several afternoons coloring in the coloring books, talking about the pictures and how they represented particular spiritual fruits.  Then, we added them to our folders.

I also gave the kids a new page of special stickers, so that if they displayed a fruit of the Spirit during the day, and had already put the fruit stick in their "garden," then they could add a sticker to the corresponding fruit page in their coloring book.  

This brings us to the end of our summer and the completion of our Fruits of the Spirit project.  

Our finished Fruits of the Spirit folders

Overall, I am happy with the things we have learned and the ways we have grown together.  In focusing on the Fruits of the Spirit, I grew just as much as my kids, if not more.

I can't wait to get to our new home and set up our garden in another prominent spot.  After all, you can never have too much spiritual fruit!

Moving Day

Tomorrow is moving day.
The truck has been packed.  It left us yesterday.

Our home here in North Carolina is barren and quiet.

It is strange that a place which has been so full of life can look so empty.

Our living room the evening before the movers arrived

As we say our goodbyes with misty eyes,

I am finding great comfort in the things the movers haven't packed, can't take away.

The heart of a home is not the couches, the toys, the dishes, the chairs.

The heart of the home is something we make ourselves, together.

Our apartment mantel

 No many how many moves, 

to the ends of the earth,

He is with us,

and I'm coming with you.

I love you, T.

Thank you, Lord, for our year in Winston Salem.