Family Weekend

This weekend we spent time with David's sister, Julie, and her two kids, Luke and Katie. We began talking about their visit last Monday. Asher gets so excited when he knows that we are going to have visiters, especially family.
During the day on Friday, Julie, myself and our kids went to the downtown library for a free marionette show for Cinderella. David joined us during his lunch hour and was as impressed with the show as we were. I highly recommend it if you get the chance. For more details, you can visit here.


Friday night, David's entire family came to our house for dinner and we celebrated Julie's birthday (a week prior). The kids all sat together at the kids' table(except for Jonas and Skylar), but by the time I managed to get a picture of all the cousins, only these three remained....Meadow, Katie, and Asher. As Asher would say these days, "Oh well!"

We couldn't end the night without a cake! I tried a new technique this time using sprinkles for the "J" initial. I need to figure out a way to keep the sprinkles from spilling outside the stencil.

Looking forward to the next time we all get together!

Easy Summer Salad

I don't have a name for this bean salad but I am sharing this healthy and easy recipe below. The last time we met at my friend Alma's house for playgroup she made this salad. It was so good that I made it for myself the next day and ate it all week for lunch! Enjoy!

1 can black beans, drained
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 can sweet corn, drained OR 1 1/2 cups fresh corn
1 can pineapple tidbits, drained OR fresh pineapple, cut into bite-size pieces
1 tomato, diced
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
lime juice from one lime
salt to taste

Preschool Beginnings

August marks the beginning of a new school year for most kids. There are many great preschools that we could send Asher to, but we have decided that we would rather keep him home a little longer and enjoy watching his little mind soak up all the new things he is learning. My friend Rebecca who lives in our neighborhood and also has two boys has joined me in the venture of starting our own preschool with our two older boys. School will be in session two days a week for 2 1/2 hours. Today was our first day! We had so much fun and the boys did too. :)

We make up our own curriculum but have had help from books, websites, both of Asher's nanas, and it helps that Rebecca used to teach. We are going to have a theme for each month. The month of August is all about WATER! Some of our activities today included learning the properties of water (by making their own colored ice cubes and then melting them in boiling water), learning what things sink or float, eating "water"melon for our snack, and reading and singing songs about rain and water. To top things off, we got to play outside in the misty rain and jump in puddles! I made the string collage above to help the boys see different types of bodies of water and learn the letters of water.

Let me know if you have any fun ideas for our water lessions--books, songs, crafts, etc.

Tent City

A Night for Tent City - Ministry Moment Video from David Woodard on Vimeo.

I am looking forward to a special evening tomorrow night when our church welcomes Phil Keaggy in concert along with a tribute to some of the residents of "Tent City" and special guests from The Temple. It's not every evening that Christians and Jews welcome homeless men and women to a concert. We're hoping that this is just a small glimpse into what the Kingdom should truly look like and how love is to be expressed here on earth. Today there was an interesting article from The Wall Street Journal about Tent City in our city and how the rest of the nation is responding to their homeless neighbors.

Summer Craft Ideas

How beautiful are these sunprints! You can see how this came together and directions on The Light Garden blog. I have been trying to find new and exciting craft ideas from different blogs and books. I recently flipped through the book, The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule. She has some amazing ideas with imagination and nature in mind. It's definitely on my wish list. She also has a recent release called The Homemade Home that I would like to get my hands on soon! We have been doing a lot of painting around our house as well as collages with paper and glue. Any favorite craft ideas you would like to share?

Double Jogging Stroller

I am searching for a double jogging stroller that will work for my 2 y/o and 10 month old. My current double stroller is just not working out and I would like to start exercising in the mornings, which means taking the kids with me. Does anyone have any advice in this area or have one that you would rave about?
Picture from Amazon.