Celebrating Sukkot

This was taken the first night of Sukkot or the Feast of Booths. 
We moved a few months ago, and the lady who lived here before us left the enclosed porch a disgusting mess.  It took me three and a half hours to clean it up, even with my mom here to hold the baby and keep the other kids occupied.  But I got it done just in time for Sukkot!  Now the enclosed porch is serving as a Sukkah.

  

Rosh Chodesh: Head of the Month

I decided to start being more intentional about observing Rosh Chodesh (first day or "head" of the month), since it often flies by without me even noticing.  I made a calendar page for the kids that has the Gregorian calendar and the Biblical calendar overlapping for this month.  We also made a moon out of construction paper and colored a tiny sliver that indicates what we can see of the new moon.  I'm late on it for this month, which is Shevat.  It started on the evening of January 25th. 

While I was searching for things for us to do to celebrate, I found a few interesting things and I wanted to share them. 

I don't know anything about this website, and I don't agree with his use of "Gentile believers," but this page seems to sum it up nicely.  It gives all the Bible verses that speak of Rosh Chodesh.     

For us ladies, I thought this page about women and Rosh Chodesh was interesting, given our biology and inherent connection with the moon. 

I also found this worship dance to a song called Rosh Chodesh.  It's a really easy one, great for beginners and kids!

The Wikipedia page for each month has a list of things that happened, from the Bible and other historical sources, on each day of the month.  This month is Shevat

Most of the dates it gives to observe mark the death of various Rabbi's, but a few Biblical things stuck out to me: 

Moses began the review of the Torah on the first day of Shevat.
On Shevat 23 was the war on the tribe of Benjamin in Judges 19-21
On Shevat 24 Zachariah gave his prophecy. 

Hannukah, reading, hamster, playing..........

I haven't posted in a long time.... hhhhmmm where to start? So much has been going on.

I'll start with Happy Hanukkah! This is the first year that I have celebrated the Biblical holidays, and so it's my first time celebrating Hanukkah. Hanukkah isn't actually in the canonized Bible, but it is in the Apocrypha and Yeshua celebrated it. I wanted to get a Hanukiah, but didn't find one that would fit my budget in time. So, all I've really done is a little reading here and then about the holiday and I made challah bread before Shabbot which is SO good and makes great french toast. On Sunday, we're going to a Hanukkah party, and between now and then, I'm going to do some more reading and learning.

E is getting closer and closer to reading. She always asks me to help her sound out words in whatever book we are reading and sometimes on signs and other things. She's got the concept down, but is still learning all the sounds of the letters. She liked the movie The Tale of Desperoux, so I got her the graphic novel. She likes to read the "big words" which are the ones in big enough font that we can point to each letter as we sound it out. So, I read the story and then she reads Oh! Bang! Thump! and the other big comic book words. I'm going to find her some other graphic novels.

She has gotten bored of the kid's anatomy books since we have checked out all the ones our library has. Now we are on to the adult anatomy books and youtube videos of things like brain dissection and angioplasty.

She's really enjoying her hamster and keeps naming it different things. First it was Arala and then Kadias and now she just makes up a new name every day. Poor hamster is going to get some kind of complex not knowing what her name is! lol

I've been strewing in a new way lately. Whenever we are at the library, I randomly pick out a few books without saying anything to E. Then when we get home, I show them to her and sometimes she likes them and sometimes not. When she's interested, we end up reading about all sorts of new things. I got one about faces in art, and it showed everything from stick figures to DaVinci.

L is saying quite a few words now and really coming into her own personality. She's very mischievous and playful! She's always into something, but I find that I am enjoying this age so much more than I did with E. This was the age that I started thinking about "discipline" with E, which really wasn't discipline at all, it was punishment. With L, I can just laugh and pick her up off the table or out of the cupboard or away from the tv or whatever and find her something else to do. Someone commented today on the pen marks on her feet. I remembered that with E, I had made a big deal about "teaching" her to keep the pen on the paper. With L, I've just shrugged my shoulders- she has paper available, she's not hurting anything, she'll outgrow it, it washes off. Not an "issue" that we need to "work on." It frees up so much energy to just enjoy being with them.

And it's great to see E's reaction to her sister- "I know you're little and don't know yet" or "It's ok mom, L will learn. She's a baby." So precious! Not always of course. They fight plenty too! But the better I am about staying calm and working *with* them to figure out solutions, the better E is about asking me for help with her sister and finding solutions on her own.

It's late, my brain is mush, and I can't remember anything that has happened over the last few weeks. I'll try to keep up on posting more often so that I write things down as they happen!