Raising Rock Stars-The Jesse Tree

Last year around the holidays I attended a wonderful Women's Ministry Event at our church. It was an all day event for women of all ages and there were various classes available that were all focused on the holidays. I went to one about holiday entertaining and easy holiday desserts among others. One of the classes I went to was all about the Jesse tree. I had never heard of a Jesse tree, so I was interested to learn more about it. Basically, it is a special tree that may be set up during the Advent Season. Each day you read a Bible Story from the old testament and add a new ornament to the tree. The tree is name after David's Father, Jesse, and is based on the verse "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots," Basically it is a family tree for Jesus. I thought it was such a good idea and something I would love to do with our family. Last year the boys were a little young, but this year I decided to go ahead and start this new tradition.
I searched the internet and found a lot of resources. You can order ornaments, devotions, etc. What I discovered is that there is really no wrong way to do it. I saw beautiful homemade ornaments and at first I was quite intimidated. I am not crafty at all and really don't have the time to make elaborate ornaments. I almost chose to just skip it, but then it hit me that the look of the tree is not what matters. What matters is that I am teaching my children about what this season is truly about. I am so excited to teach them about the family of Jesse and all the people through history who helped prepare the world for the coming of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

We decided to do our Jesse tree every night before the boys go to bed. Last night we read about creation. We actually didn't read the first 2 chapters of Genesis. We pretty much looked at a story in their children's Bible and discussed creation. The boys are pretty familiar with the story, so they helped tell it. I was surprised at how much Jax got into this part. He kept saying, "God made clouds. God made animals. God made trees."

Next, I let Jax put the first ornament on the tree. I just bought a little tree at Hobby Lobby, but you can do any kind of tree or branch. Sawyer colored a creation picture. I decided that every night we will alternate with one boy coloring and the other hanging the ornament.

Here is our tree with one little ornament. I just printed these little pictures of an earth for our first ornament. Tonight I will let them hang the picture of Adam and Eve that they color. There really is no uniform idea as to how we will do our ornaments. We are just going to do the best we can to make it personal and special for the boys.

Sawyer asked me today why our tree only had one ornament and I told him that we will add one every night until Christmas. I told him that tonight we would learn about Adam and Eve. He said, "Adam and Eve didn't listen. We shouldn't learn about them, because they made bad choices." I told him that we can learn from people's bad choices so it will be ok. He is too funny sometimes.
For some reason I am having trouble posting the raising rock stars icon, but you can go here to see more Raising Rock Stars posts.

Raising Rock Stars: Noah's Ark

This week Sawyer's cubbies verse is "All your words are true.." Psalm 119:160. We read a story about Noah's ark and God sending a rainbow as a promise never to flood the earth again.

We made rainbows to help us remember the verse. I had lots of leftover skittles from Halloween, so I let the boys use these to make the rainbows. I had Sawyer sort the colors and then both boys glued them to their rainbows. I would have let Jax sort, but he kept eating them, so I had to take them away.

I put the Noah's Arc and animals on one of the tot trays. They loved this!

They also had fun with the Noah's Arc Tot Pack.

We made this a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think I shared it. Sawyer's verse was "Through Him all things were made.." so I had him look through a magazine to find pictures of things God made. He had a blast with this. Then he glued them to a poster and we hung it in his room.

He can't wait to learn a new verse each week, which makes me very happy! Go here to see more Raising Rock Stars posts.

Tot School: Food, Farms, and Turkeys

Sawyer-43 months
Jaxon- 25 months

Sawyer really enjoyed this farm tot book. This was the first complete tot book I printed out. I don't know why it took me so long to do one. Sawyer really loved it and Jax did some of the activities. I can't wait to do more.

We were out of town for a few days, so I didn't do much planning for this week. One day I didn't have any trays out and the boys asked for them. Sawyer wanted me to put play food on one of the trays. I wasn't sure what they would do with it, but I complied. Both boys ended up playing grocery store with the food.

We talked about the letter F and food this week. I also mixed in a few thanksgiving activities. They made this cornucopia. I wanted to put a link, but I can't remember where I found this. When I asked Sawyer what he was thankful for he said, "my brother named Jax, mommy and daddy, and my toys." The only thing Jax would say was "my brother".

Sawyer really enjoys coloring these days. For the longest time he didn't want to color at all or he would put a couple of marks ad say he was done. Now he colors really dark and uses just about every color in the box.

I got this cute indian corn idea from Ramblings from a Crazy Woman. She used paint to color the popcorn, but I decided to try food coloring, because I was afraid my kids might try to eat it. I am glad I did this!

Sawyer took his time putting the popcorn on his corn. Jax just wanted to eat the popcorn. I finally just got him a bowl to snack on while I finished his craft.

I thought they came out really cute.


We also made potato print turkeys. This craft was so fast and messy that I didn't get any pictures of the process, but here is Sawyer's finished turkey.


I drew leaves on a paper sack for the boys to paint. As I was looking for something for them to paint with Jax decided to finger paint, so that's what we did. I am going to cut them out and make this Thanksgiving garland. We made one last year, but there is no telling what happened to it in the move.
My Favorite Pictures from the week:
I don't think I will ever get tired of seeing my boys play together. Sawyer was playing 'This Little Piggy" with Jax's toes.


Go on over to Carissa's blog to see what other tots did in tot school this week.

Open Ended Art: Feathers

This weeks theme for open ended art over at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms is feathers. This was perfect for us since we are talking about the letter F this week. I decided that I would let the boys glue or paint with feathers, but I couldn't find my feathers. The boys were helping me look for them when Sawyer said, "Mommy, we could paint feathers." So I got out the paint and construction paper and that's what we did.

I drew feathers and let the boys paint them. I haven't cut them out yet, but will when they get up from their nap.

Then I had them make potato print turkeys. This wasn't very open-ended, but they had fun. They made the feathers with potatoes and then I helped them glue on a turkey.

The first one is Sawyer's and the second one is Jax's.

Tot School: Halloween

Jax:25 months
Sawyer: 43 months

This was a pretty random week of tot school. We had a really busy weekend and week. My husband was out of town, so I tried to just keep the boys busy, so I didn't do much planning. When we had free time we did tot school, but it wasn't extremely organized and neither is this post.

We made little spiders one day. I found these spray painted foam balls in my craft stuff and thought they would be great for making spiders. I helped the boys count 8 legs for each spider. Sawyer wanted his spider to have lots of eyes. I thought they turned out pretty cute.

Sawyer's friend, Aidyn had a birthday this week. Here he is making her a card. He drew an A and then covered it in butterflies and dragonflies.

Jax did some fishing with his Melissa and Doug magnetic puzzle.

They put this skeleton puzzle together. Then I told them to lie down and see who was the tallest.

We talked about the letter P and pumpkins quite a bit. One night we had pepperoni pizza and named everything that we could think of that started with a p. They did pretty good with this.

Then when we finished we painted pumpkins.

It was a fun little open ended art project.

We also talked about the letter P in my 3 year old class. I set up this little produce stand. They had so much fun with this that I decided to make one at home. Jax helped me decorate the sign.

I gave them coins and set out fruit. They had fun shopping for produce.

For more tot school posts go here.

Open Ended Art: Pumpkins

The theme of open ended art this week at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms is pumpkins. This is our first time to participate. The only type of art the boys are into these days is open ended, so this is perfect for us.

I put out pumpkins, paint, pom poms, googly eyes, glue, and stickers. I told the boys to decorate the pumpkins however they wanted.

Sawyer put star stickers all over his pumpkin. He said he was making a roller coaster.

Jax had fun painting and putting googly eyes on his pumpkins.

Sawyer said this one was a "diniosaurus." Gotta love these little imaginations.

Here are the finished pumpkins. Beautiful!

Raising Rock Stars: God made the Great Lights

Last week I helped Sawyer memorize two verses for Cubbies. The first one was "He...made everything beautiful" Ecclesiastes 3:11

I helped the boys make an apple tree with apple prints. I wrote the verse on it and hung it in their bedroom. That way it reminded me to say it every time I saw it or I would ask Sawyer what it said. We have been talking a lot about all of the beautiful things God made.

The next verse or verses he learned was "Give thanks to the Lord...who made the great lights...sun...moon and stars..." Psalm 136:7-9 We made these fun puffy paint moons that I found on No Time For Flash cards.

The boys loved exploring and painting with this fun paint. I kept asking them "who made the moon?" Jax was so cute because he would yell "God!" at the top of his lungs.

Next, Jax painted some stars on a piece of poster board.

When everything was dry I cut out the moon and glued it the poster board. I wrote the Bible verse on the poster and hung it in the boys room. I put it down low, so they can constantly see it and feel the soft, puffy moon they made.

The next day we made suns. Sawyer was able to recite both verses for his teachers, so I think all of the review is really helping him remember.